MEDICAL INJUSTICE

What if there were a natural medicine that could help reduce pain,
relieve nausea, increase appetite and decrease stress, all with
minimal side effects?

What if it could help cancer patients deal with the impacts of
chemotherapy, help glaucoma patients retain their sight by relieving
pressure around the eyes, help AIDS sufferers maintain their strength
by stimulating their appetites, and ease the effects of multiple sclerosis.

What if research of the drug, say by the prestigious Scripps Research
Institute, demonstrated it slowed the progression of Alzheimer's Disease?

Not only does that medicine exist, it is abundant and affordable,
even for those who lack health insurance. So why don't more people
take it (or at least admit publicly to doing so)? Because the federal
government won't let them.

Marijuana has been outlawed since the 1930s when the Federal Bureau
of Narcotics designated it a narcotic, putting it on par with
cocaine, heroin and morphine.

Yet, 11 states - including Rhode Island, Maine, Vermont and most
notably California - have legalized the use of marijuana as a
treatment for disease. But the federal government refuses to
acknowledge the state laws, instead specifically targeting
law-abiding citizens providing the medicine for patients. Especially
in California, the Drug Enforcement Agency is shutting down "grow
houses" and medicinal marijuana dispensaries, and charging their
operators with federal felonies.

Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) is trying to stop that injustice. He
says the decision whether to allow the use of marijuana should be up
to the states, not a federal mandate. Frank plans this week to file
legislation decriminalizing on the federal level the possession of
small amounts of marijuana. That would leave states like Rhode Island
and California to allow patients to receive treatment without
worrying about ending up in jail for following their doctors' orders.

"I don't think smoking marijuana should be a federal case. There's no
federal law against mugging," Frank said. "It does not appear to me
to be a law that society is serious about. It's one area where the
public is ahead of the elected officials."

Not only is the federal government behind the times, it's hypocritical.

The Food and Drug Administration approves use of Marinol, which is a
synthetic version of THC, the active ingredient in marijuana. Marinol
is prescribed to treat nausea and vomiting for cancer patients and to
stimulate the appetites of AIDS patients, according to the drug's Web
site. But patients report it is not as effective as natural THC.

Marinol lacks several therapeutic benefits of natural cannabis and
costs significantly more - upwards of $800 a month, compared with
less than $100 a month for marijuana. Legalizing medicinal marijuana,
which can be grown easily and inexpensively, would undoubtedly hurt
the pharmaceutical companies that produce synthetic THC for profit,
perhaps betraying the federal government's true motives behind the ban.

It is unfair for the federal government to continue prosecuting sick
people whose states tell them they are legally treating the symptoms
of their diseases. Granted, there are a myriad of issues involved in
legalizing, or even decriminalizing, marijuana. But, those are issues
that are more easily and appropriately hammered out at the state level.