FEDS SHOULD SETTLE DEBATE REGARDING MEDICAL MARIJUANA

A bill allowing terminally and chronically ill people with certain
conditions to grow and use marijuana for medical purposes is making
its way to the governor's desk, where it is anyone's guess whether it
will get a veto or a signature.

It may seem like a radical bill for Connecticut, but it is not.
Connecticut has allowed doctors to prescribe marijuana to treat
glaucoma and cancer patients since 1981. Not one doctor in the state
has ever written a prescription. Federally, marijuana is not an
acceptable treatment, even though 46 states have a law of some kind
acknowledging its use for medicinal purposes or granting patients the
legal right to possess and use it.

Numerous high-profile medical groups have come out in support of the
use of medical marijuana and the bill. Almost as many groups have
withheld comment on the issue.

More of the Same?

We wonder if this new law is different enough to change anything.
Under the 1981 law, doctors had to register with the Department of
Consumer Protection to prescribe marijuana. No one did. The new law
requires physicians to certify patients who can use medical
marijuana, and the patient then registers with Consumer Protection.
Patients can then grow four 4-foot plants of marijuana and use them
for their treatment. Nowhere in the bill does it explain where
patients will get the seeds to grow the marijuana, nor does it
establish a legal way of selling them.

The bill is a more conservative version of a Rhode Island law that
passed last year as a one-year experiment and has now been made
permanent. More than 250 patients have used the program and the
response was overwhelmingly positive.

But this issue will never be settled until it is dealt with on the
federal level. It cannot be an issue that is political or centered on
the nation's battle with drug use. There is no evidence that allowing
medicinal use of marijuana promotes recreational drug use in any way.

Gov. M Jodi Rell should sign the bill if she wants to make it clear
this is an issue she believes needs broader debate. Only as states
challenge the federal law will Congress be forced to evaluate the issue.