WHAT HAVE OUR FEDS BEEN SMOKIN'?

Tuesday, August 28, 2001 - The long-running battle against medical
marijuana makes me want to smoke two joints and go lie down. Alas, I don't
smoke the stuff.

But plenty of people who do, purely for recreation, aren't about to stop
just because it's against the law. Sadly, those most often deterred by the
law - or forced to break it - are people who truly need marijuana to
alleviate horrendous suffering.

New drug czar Asa Hutchinson showed extraordinary ignorance last month when
he said medical marijuana is harmful and rife with "many potential
dangers." He also insisted the scientific community doesn't support the
drug's medical use.

Au contraire, Asa. Use of medical marijuana is supported not only by the
scientific and medical communities, but also by a former administrative law
judge of the Drug Enforcement Administration who spent two years studying
such use.

The U.S. Department of Justice had referred the matter to Judge Francis L.
Young, who released his findings in September 1988: Medical marijuana has
"accepted medical use" for treatment of chemotherapy- induced nausea,
spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis and other conditions, and
hyperparathyroidism.

Young also found that a person would have to smoke 20,000 to 40,000
marijuana cigarettes to induce death. By contrast, just 40 aspirin can kill
a person, and aspirin does kill hundreds every year.

Yet the DEA administrator rejected Young's findings, saying the oncological
community doesn't consider marijuana acceptable for chemotherapy patients.

Au contraire again, DEA. In a survey of the American Society of Clinical
Oncology in 1990, more than 44 percent of respondents said they had
recommended marijuana to at least one chemotherapy patient, and 48 percent
said they would prescribe marijuana if it were legal.

Even the conservative American Medical Association conceded in December
1997 that well-controlled studies suggest marijuana's possible efficacy
with AIDS wasting syndrome, emesis induced by chemotherapy, MS, spinal cord
injury, dystonia and neuropathic pain.

The Institute of Medicine - asked by the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy to review the latest scientific evidence - reported in
1999 that remarkable consensus supports the potential of medical marijuana.

Although the government has approved use of Marinol for cancer and AIDS
patients, that capsule contains only THC and takes effect slowly with
variable results. By contrast, smoking delivers a combination of drugs with
rapid effect, the IOM found.

However, because smoking causes lung cancer and other problems, the IOM
recommends development of a rapid-onset delivery system such as an inhaler.

Great Britain's House of Lords concluded in 1998 that doctors should
immediately be allowed to prescribe cannabis for certain patients. And
Canada enacted a law on July 30, allowing possession and production of pot
to ease patients' suffering.

Plenty of AIDS and cancer patients have found relief by eating
marijuana-laden cookies, says U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr., who
volunteered at two hospices in 1996 and 1997.

One cancer patient who had dropped from 160 pounds to less than 100 started
regaining weight and strength after munching the cookies. Although he
ultimately died of cancer, at least he did so with dignity, Kane recalls.

Other hospice residents found Marinol ineffective, though marijuana did help.

Yet despite a vast array of scientific, medical and anecdotal evidence -
despite even the IOM's assurance that medical marijuana wouldn't increase
non-patient pot use - the U.S. government continues to equate medical
marijuana with a back-door push to legalize drugs.

Colorado officials exhibit the same paranoia. The June threat by Attorney
General Ken Salazar and Gov. Bill Owens - that physicians who recommend
medical marijuana risk federal prosecution - was underscored by a letter
asking interim U.S. Attorney Richard Spriggs to "enforce federal law."
(Spriggs retorted that if they don't like the state medical marijuana law
approved by voters last year, they shouldn't look to federal authorities to
solve their problem.)

This threat didn't only infringe on doctors' First Amendment rights. It
also was an inexcusable intrusion into medical care. Even the AMA has said
discussion of such alternatives by physicians and patients shouldn't be
subject to criminal sanctions.

But this is what the U.S. government is doing on a grand scale -
unjustifiably blocking effective medical care while ignoring even the
scientific findings it commissioned.

For a multitude of cancer, AIDS and other patients, the real criminal is
the federal government - not the sufferer who needs to smoke two joints and
go lie down.