WHAT ARE THEY SMOKING?

It may seem like nitpicking to single out a $4-million item amidst a
$2-billion package of federal spending cuts, but the Harper
government's proposed rollback of Health Canada funding for medical
marijuana research is worth noting as another sign of deep (one might
say chronic) conservative confusion over drug issues.

Legalization advocates arguing the cannabis issue are often greeted by
complaints from the anti-drug set, and from jittery physicians, that
the medical benefits and hazards of marijuana are too poorly
researched to permit widespread use. This is a remarkable claim in
many different ways. Where, for instance, was this shining
precautionary principle when Vioxx was being handed out like Halloween
candy to patients at risk of cardiac complications? A PubMed search
for "marijuana" reveals more than 10,000 published, peer-reviewed
articles on the subject; surely some of these discuss the effects and
risks of pot? The defenders of medical integrity who don't want to
dole out reefers generally overlook the fact that its seekers are
mostly those who have been served poorly by the scientific
pharmacopoeia: cancer patients, nausea sufferers, multiple-sclerosis
victims and those with nebulous, inexplicable neuralgic syndromes like
fibromyalgia.

But even setting this all aside, one is still left with an intractable
question: How can a government ban a humane, cost-effective medical
therapy on the grounds of insufficient research and then, with the
other hand, suppress that same research in good conscience?

Or, in other words: What kind of risk is worth forbidding but not
worth quantifying?