FEAR AND PAIN

A bill that would have made marijuana a legal medicine to treat pain,
nausea and other debilitating problems associated with cancer, AIDS, MS and
other serious diseases has again failed in the General Assembly. We think
the reasons it failed are worth taking a look at.

First, marijuana carries as much emotional baggage in the public mind as
issues like abortion, religion in schools and the death penalty. Its
decriminalization and legalization have been subjects of debate for
decades. Its use is linked in people's minds - including a sizable
percentage of medical community professionals - with a whole range of
physical, emotional and mental problems.

But had there never been such a thing as marijuana, and had a large drug
company recently synthesized THC, marijuana's active ingredient, we believe
it would have been hailed as a highly effective analgesic and appetite
stimulant that also had far fewer and less-severe side effects than
morphine and other opiates currently is use to treat these conditions. And
we think it would have been made available quickly because of its
effectiveness and relatively innocuous side effects.

We see another reason for the failure of this legislation. The bill would
have allowed patients and their caregivers to grow and supply themselves
with their own marijuana. Why, we wonder, would this predictably
provocative method of supply be suggested in this legislation? Why didn't
the bill's creators specify that it had to be supplied to patients like any
other drug categorized as a dangerous, controlled substance? The
grow-your-own provision has only tended to inflame an already skeptical
public's fears that the drug would become more available to others,
including kids, if handled this way. We think so too. This is a serious
flaw in the way this legislation was written.

We are not advocating the general legalization of marijuana. However, we
believe the thousands of testimonials provided by cancer, AIDS and other
seriously ill patients that marijuana provides needed relief without
turning them into zombies as opiates often do. We think it should be
available - strictly controlled and distributed - to those sufferers who
want it. These desperate, unfortunate people don't deserve either to suffer
needless pain and wasting away or to become lawbreakers in trying to find a
little relief.