GOVERNMENT HOLDS MONOPOLY ON MARIJUANA RESEARCH

While researching past attempts at passing legislation legalizing marijuana
for medical use in Wisconsin, I came across your editorial of April 12,
2001, "Put the UW to work on the medicinal pot debate."

Yes, on first glance, that suggestion seems like a wonderful idea.
Unfortunately, it is extremely naive to believe the solution is that
simple, though logic says it must be.

Why? Well logic doesn't count when you consider the federal government's
position on medical marijuana. Wisconsin passed a law in 1982, which set up
a research program not unlike the one you suggest.

Back then, a lot of states were considering such legislation, and Wisconsin
joined the others after a couple failed attempts.

But, in setting up the research program criteria, state legislators
operated under the assumption that the federal government would cooperate
by rescheduling marijuana so physicians could prescribe it.

Unfortunately that never occurred.

Despite a couple rescheduling petitions and extended litigation spread out
over nearly three decades, federal bureaucrats have steadfastly refused to
reschedule, even overruling the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's
(DEA) own Administrative Law Judge, who found in 1988 that "Marijuana, in
its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances
known. In strict medical terms, marijuana is safer than many foods we
commonly consume."

In fact the UW could easily and quickly gain approval to study the
potential medicinal benefits of almost any substance other than marijuana.
But the federal government not only has to approve such research, they also
hold a monopoly on the marijuana supplies needed for such studies.

It's a complicated process, involving not only the Food & Drug
Administration (FDA), but also the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA),
the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA) which controls the supply, and
since the process was supposedly streamlined in 1999, also the Public
Health Service.

Basically how it works is all four agencies cooperate to suppress any
research into marijuana's medical uses, but gladly approve studies that
attempt to find marijuana harmful.

And the fact is, marijuana is about the most studied substance known to
man, but instead of finding harm, the studies have shown it is very safe.

But this does not matter to federal bureaucrats who are willing to withhold
this medicine from sick and dying Americans for strictly political purposes.

The science is irrelevant to them.

The recent Supreme Court ruling overlooked 30 years of medical evidence and
patient reports that marijuana has a wide range of medical uses, including
the Institute of Medicine Report, commissioned by former drug czar Barry
McCaffrey, which called for single-patient access to marijuana as well as
the streamlined research guidelines referenced above.

History records at least 5000 years of medical use of marijuana by humans.
By contrast there is extremely limited data on the safety of most of the
"conventional" prescription and over the counter drugs available today.
While even aspirin causes 1,000-2,000 deaths each year, marijuana has never
been shown to cause a single death by overdose.

Setting up a research program was a good idea 20-plus years ago when the
legislature first began exploring this idea in 1979.

In the intervening years, generations of patients have suffered and died
waiting for the government to recognize the fact that marijuana is medicine.

Patients need medicine today! Some may not live to see tomorrow.

Until Congress acts to change the law and allow marijuana's use as
medicine, (and they could do that by passing HR 1344, States' Rights to
Medical Marijuana Act of which Rep. Tammy Baldwin D-Madison is a
co-sponsor.) this is a state issue.

Polls consistently show that 75% or more of Americans support giving
patients legal access to this therapy.

Since the Supreme Court has effectively ignored the science with its
ruling, and with Congress slow to act with compassion, the state
legislature should move forward with legislation that re-legalizes this
therapeutic option for our state's sick and dying.

And if the federal government ever comes to its senses and stops
suppressing research into the medicinal effects of marijuana, then by all
means let the UW conduct some research.

But it is time to end the long cruel stall.

Good health is a blessing, we never know when illness or accident may
strike, and when it does, every therapeutic option must be available, not
every option but one.

Gary Storck is director of communications for the Madison-based group, Is
My Medicine Legal Yet? You can email him at gstorck@immly.org. The group's
website is www.immly.org.