MEDICAL CANNABIS FENCE SITTERS NOT IN THE PINK

I was mildly irritated as my State Rep. walked away from my driveway,
but I didn't get really mad until I read the pink paper handout he left.

The pink paper congratulated the State Rep. (who has been a member of
the Illinois House for about 5 years) for his efforts to force
insurance companies to pay for breast cancer screenings. I'm not at
all opposed to breast cancer screenings, but after the conversation I
just had with the State Rep., I felt he was exploiting cancer victims
more than he was willing to help them.

Since his ignorance did not seem totally calculated, I won't name him
here. However, followers of Illinois politics may recognize him as
the only Democrat in the House of Representatives who, less than a
year ago, served as a Republican in that same Illinois House.

I was shovelling my driveway and ready to take a little break when a
perky, bright-faced woman walked up and introduced herself as a
member of the Illinois House of Representatives. She said she was out
talking to people about why they should support the incumbent State
Rep. in my district, and that he would be along in a moment if I had
any questions for him.

I asked the perky State Representative from another district if she
was a Republican or Democrat. She said she was a Democrat and that
the Democratic Party in Illinois was so glad to have a forward
thinker like my State Rep. joining their ranks, so the Democratic
Party can continue to strive for change to make Illinois a better place.

I asked how she voted on medical marijuana. That never got out of
committee, she said. It took me a moment to remember, but it did get
out of committee in the Illinois Senate, but then the Senate
(Democrat-controlled, like most branches of state government in
Illinois) voted it down. So she didn't get to vote on the bill
herself. However, she said, as a former prosecutor she believed that
the state should be supporting more treatment and less incarceration
for non-violent drug offenders.

I said that wasn't a terrible idea, and I would have asked why her
party doesn't do something about it, but since I have two friends who
are dealing with the toxic side effects of cancer treatments right
now, the medical cannabis issue was actually more important to me.

"How would you vote on medical marijuana?" I asked.

She was hemming and hawing about seeing details when my own State
Rep. caught up with her.

"This is Steve and he has a question, I think, about medical
marijuana," she told my State Rep. as he reached out to shake my hand.

My State Rep. said he would support the right of doctors to prescribe
medical marijuana, without explaining how patients would get it.

I laughed a little and said that it was great of him to support the
free speech rights already granted to citizens by the U.S.
Constitution. I told him I had friends going to cancer treatments,
and that many people going through such treatments report bad side
effects being alleviated by cannabis.

I said that the medical marijuana bill rejected by his colleagues in
the Illinois Senate last year wasn't even all that great, since it
doesn't really have a quick supply mechanism, and people don't really
plan in advance enough to grow plants in time for sudden chemotherapy.

But beyond that, I asked, don't you think people who are very sick
should have every option? He didn't disagree, but he said he was
concerned those who weren't really sick might get the opportunity to
legally use cannabis. So he would have to carefully consider the
details before committing one way or the other.

Likely sensing he had nothing more to gain from the conversation, he
quickly changed gears, handed me a small stack of papers, and asked
if he could count on my support in the upcoming primary.

I waved the papers and said I'd have to carefully consider the
details before committing one way or another.

After he walked away, when I saw the pink paper, I got mad,
particularly as I reviewed the conversation in my mind.

At this point, I should make it clear that I do not wish to suggest
Illinois Democrats are worse on the issue of medical marijuana than
Illinois Republicans. Indeed, there has been much more support from
the Democrats. But, the Democrats control state politics right now,
and they claim they want positive change that helps people. They
could have settled the medical cannabis issue years ago, as it is not
controversial with voters, but instead they pretend it's too controversial.

And then they play the pink card ( particularly ironic in light of
recent research that showed some cannabinoids shrinking breast cancer
tumors - see http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/abstract/95/14/8375 ).

This guy was touting his credentials as a cancer fighter, but he's
wishy-washy about legally allowing people who are really suffering
from cancer treatment to use something that has worked for many. And
his concerns about people healthy people having a legal path to
cannabis are ridiculous for two reasons.

First, right now, the cannabis control system in Illinois doesn't
work. There's not a high school in the state where many kids don't
know where to get it. To suggest that allowing sick people to use
will somehow throw a very sound system out of whack is not only
absurd, it is offensive. It seemed to me as if the State Rep. was
placing the legislature's own failures on the backs of the sick,
instead of simply acknowledging that the system of cannabis
prohibition that they reinforce with new laws each year is a failure
and a sham.

Second, it also sounded to me that the legislators thought it was
more important to punish non-sick users that to help sick users. This
shows traditional moral sensibility turned upside down.

Just as the legislators pretend marijuana prohibition works in
Illinois, they seem determined to pretend that there is no medical
marijuana in the state. It is the non-sick cannabis users and
growers who are helping the sick users get through their ordeals,
while the legislators stand as roadblocks to legal, effective
medicine. In this story, the legislators are villains, not heroes.

Maybe my State Rep. thought he was showing how much he cared by
passing out those little pink pieces of paper, but to me the whole
episode showed precisely the contrary.