MEDICAL MARIJUANA COULD BE RELIEF FOR PAIN AND FINANCES IN DETROIT

Detroit residents soon will have the opportunity to amend the city charter
to make possession of marijuana for medical use the city's lowest law
enforcement priority, and eliminate funding for such prosecutions from the
city budget.

August 2002 will be the first time in nearly a century that any Michigan
citizens have had an opportunity to vote directly on a question relating to
substance prohibition. It's about time.

The notion that the mere possession of plants and their by-products can be
effectively proscribed is ill-conceived. As best-selling author Peter
McWilliams pithily observed: "Alcohol prohibition was called the 'Noble
Experiment' -- you wouldn't think an experiment with such clear-cut results
would need to be repeated."

Although the prohibition of heroin and cocaine is equally futile, the
inherent danger of those drugs at least provides some rationale for the
effort. That justification cannot be made with marijuana. According to the
special report of the 1972 National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse,
marijuana hadn't caused a single fatality in the United States. Nor has any
been reported since.

Meanwhile, the potential medicinal value of marijuana, especially as an
anti-nausea agent for chemotherapy patients, has been recognized by
mainstream medical institutions such as the New England Journal of Medicine,
the California Medical Association, the American Academy of Family
Physicians and the National Institute of Medicine.

Opponents argue that synthetic substitutes can provide the same benefits.
But attempting to treat nausea with medication in pill form can be a
Catch-22. Many such patients can't keep the pills down long enough to
realize the therapeutic benefit. Plus it's expensive. Marinol, the only FDA
approved synthetic, costs $17.25 per 10-milligram dose. Those with chronic
conditions such as AIDS will typically require three doses per day. This
would mean a cost of more than $1,500 a month -- in a city where one-quarter
of the population has no health insurance.

The active ingredient in marijuana has also proven efficacious in the
treatment of some chronic illnesses such as glaucoma and multiple sclerosis,
and patients with these afflictions might likewise benefit from the new law.

Some opponents have attacked the proposal because it does not list the
diseases and symptoms for which medical marijuana may be used. Advocates
say, however, that's one of the proposal's strengths, believing that such
decisions should be left to individual doctors and their patients. "We are
in no better a position to make case-by-case diagnoses than is John
Ashcroft," said organizer Tim Beck, referring to the U.S. Attorney General
who recently invoked federal authority to raid so-called medical marijuana
"Buyer's Clubs" after they were legalized by California voters under state
law.

A city charter amendment cannot affect state or federal marijuana
prohibitions. But if those higher branches of government chose to zealously
enforce the marijuana laws themselves, it would require a reallocation of
their resources since responsibility for the prosecution of routine
marijuana possession cases has always fallen to local law enforcement.

Although politicians have stubbornly resisted every proposal to make drug
laws less draconian, voters have proven to be more tolerant. Medical
exceptions to marijuana prohibition have already appeared in one form or
another on ballots in eight states and the District of Columbia. All nine
have passed.

In fact, Michigan voters may well be ready to declare a more general
cease-fire in the War on Drugs. A California-based group called the Campaign
for New Drug Policies has already begun circulating a petition proposing to
amend the Michigan Constitution to require medical treatment rather than
incarceration for all first and second offense substance possession charges,
regardless of the substance involved. If that petition drive is also
successful, the statewide proposal would be on the November general election
ballot.

We might just be seeing the beginning of the end of the second "Noble
Experiment."

Maybe this time we'll actually accept the results and never again put
ourselves through this quixotic quest to save people from the consequences
of their own vices -- while in the process denying medicine to people who
desperately need it.