FORBIDDEN MEDICINE

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.

Eleven 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-Newton, 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 to file legislation
repealing the federal law prohibiting the possession of small amounts
of marijuana.

"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."

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.