DON'T RUSH APPROVAL OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

This week our Legislature will again be asked to consider legalizing
marijuana, but only for medicinal use. To do so, the lawmakers would have
to ignore federal law, which prohibits the sale or use of marijuana.

If the state legalized marijuana, it would essentially be acting in lieu of
the scientists and physicians at the Food and Drug Administration who are
capable of evaluating the health risks and benefits of a proposed drug.

In every area of the law, federal statute trumps state law. So even if
lawmakers in Hawaii or any other state were to pass such legislation, the
sale, distribution and use of marijuana would still be illegal.

Doctors would risk losing their licenses and being thrown in jail for
prescribing marijuana. And patients would not get the relief they feel
marijuana would bring.

In fact, there are several states that have passed this legislation, only
to find that doctors who are bound by federal drug laws will not prescribe
it. Moreover, without FDA approval, patients would have to buy marijuana
from street drug dealers rather than from pharmacists.

Are there potential therapeutic uses for marijuana? We don't really know.
The few studies that have been conducted to determine whether marijuana is
useful in relieving pain are decades old and inconclusive.

These studies do not begin to meet the scientific standard required to
approve a new drug, which is why the National Institutes of Health and the
American Medical Association have called for more studies to determine the
effect smoking marijuana might have in relieving pain from specific
diseases and to develop an alternative delivery system to smoking, such as
an inhaler or patch.

As a physician, I can tell you that we have many effective drugs to ease
the suffering of patients with chronic pain. We know how these drugs
interact with other treatments, and we know the benefits and the risks of
taking them. That's the beauty of our drug-approval system: It is in place
to protect patients. No drug is rushed to market without vigorous
scientific review.

If our lawmakers wish to legalize marijuana for medicinal use, then let's
support the studies at NIH by encouraging patients to join clinical trials.
By all means, let's not attempt to circumvent federal law and pre-empt the
FDA by giving patients a drug that has not yet been found to be safe or
effective for them.