SUPREME COURT IGNORES PAIN OF CANCER PATIENTS

Too bad about the medical use of marijuana to ease the suffering of cancer,
AIDS and multiple sclerosis patients.

In an 8-to-0 decision, the Supreme Court ruled that Congress'
classification of marijuana as a Schedule I drug ­ like heroin ­ mandates
that marijuana "has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the
United States."

As a lawyer, I can understand the reasoning: Congress has spoken in the
Controlled Substances Act, and the Supreme Court merely is interpreting the
30-year-old statute.

But I don't practice as a lawyer, and even if I did, I couldn't read this
decision on a bloodless, professional level. I see it from the more
immediate and personal perspective of a former cancer patient who has many
friends who also are cancer survivors. During the past year, I saw two of
them die.

Let me tell you about one of them. She was a friend from my breast-cancer
support group, and I was at her home the day she died. She was bunched up
in agony ­ in a separate, incoherent world of pain. When the two of us who
were with her tried to ask what she needed, it took long, agonizing minutes
before she could understand what we were saying. Most of the time, we sat
silently with her, holding her hand and telling her we loved her.

This friend died, sooner than she might have, because ­ after a few
treatments ­ she refused further chemotherapy for her liver and lung
metastases. The chemotherapy made her violently ill and weak, she told us.
She didn't want to live that way.

Could marijuana have eased her life or given her more time ­ helping her to
tolerate the nausea, fatigue, depression, mouth sores and other side
effects of chemotherapy? A 1999 review of the literature on marijuana by
scientists commissioned by the Institute of Medicine says yes; studies
indicate marijuana can ease the effects of chemotherapy on cancer patients,
as well as ameliorate the symptoms of AIDS and multiple sclerosis patients.

But my friend didn't have that choice. She could have gotten marijuana
illegally, I suppose, but she wasn't that kind of person. She was the kind
of person who lived, suffered and died within the letter of the law.

I am not that kind of person. If there were a chance that marijuana could
ease my pain or prolong my life, or that of a friend or family member, I
would find it, somehow. I wouldn't care what the law said. Would you, in
the end? Would Clarence Thomas, author of this most recent decision?

Maybe the Supreme Court's ruling is, as I have read, extremely limited.
Maybe it is largely symbolic. But in the meantime, how outrageous that sick
and desperate people are being punished by antiquated laws that are devoid
of human compassion, good science or common sense.

The court opinions multiply, spinning legal rationales and splitting legal
hairs. If there is anything a cancer patient doesn't have, it is the luxury
of time or energy to wage legislative and court battles. Just try splitting
hairs, legal or otherwise, when chemotherapy has swept your scalp clean.

But the Supreme Court defers to Congress. Congress prefers to ignore the
issue ­ the same way it ignores studies showing the medicinal usefulness of
marijuana. And the states that have directly addressed and approved the
medical use of marijuana now find their efforts in limbo. In the midst of
all this paralysis, people continue to suffer and die.

Why? Because politicians are panicked by the thought they might be
considered soft on drugs. Especially marijuana.

Like many of those politicians, I tried marijuana when I was younger. I
inhaled it, but I didn't like it, particularly.

But judging from my own experiences, I don't think marijuana's effects on
the body and brain are nearly as potent and overpowering as the rampant
fear of honest discussions about the drug. This is a fear that sends grown
presidential candidates scampering for cover and that turns lawmakers'
spines into Jell-O and minds into a gyrating mush of T-shirt slogans like
"Just say no." With all the nonmarijuana medical research going on these
days, you would think someone would try to come up with a little Viagra for
the backbone.

But anything is better, it seems, than running the risk of being called
soft on drugs. How much better and easier it is to be hard on cancer patients.

Ruth Pennebaker of Austin is a regular contributor to Viewpoints. Her
e-mail address is pennebak@aol.com.