HEALTHY QUESTIONING

The Nevada Legislature has approved marijuana for medical use just a
month after the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a federal law banning just
that. This shows that the responsible movement to re-examine notions
promoted by the drug war continues unabated.

Nevada lawmakers are not a bunch of drugged-up former flower
children, but a responsible and often quite a conservative bunch with
an intellectual maturity that exceeds that of the anti-drug warriors
whose careers, perks and emoluments are tied up with the thriving
drug war.

What these lawmakers have concluded, like legislators in Hawaii and
voters in several states, is that government has little business
second-guessing those who find marijuana therapeutic for alleviating
nausea and other ravages of conventional cancer treatments.

The feds, however, are dead set against this trend. They fear it
could erode public support for the drug war and the many benefits
this conflict has brought for totalitarian-minded bureaucrats who
have found anti-drug activity an efficacious vehicle to wean citizens
away from constitutional protections they enjoyed in the past.

Nevada lawmakers' decision is important not only because it continues
a trend, but because it comes after the high court decision seemingly
wrote finis to state efforts to decriminalize medical use of
marijuana. The high court may have stood pat foursquare in favor of
drug-war attitudes about marijuana, but the genie is out of the
bottle.

People are increasingly taking seriously the idea that marijuana may
be helpful for some patients dealing with the ravages of a terrible
disease. These people are taking action directly, or indirectly
through the legislators who represent them, to make legal provision
allowing its use.

Americans are right to question inflexible, seemingly fixed-in-stone
attitudes spawned by the war on drugs, and it is encouraging that
they are less willing to second-guess the medical decisions of others.