MARIJUANA MIX-UP

Confrontational rhetoric is not uncommon in an election year, but curiously
in California, the Clinton administration has joined issue with the
Californian state government over the use of marijuana as medicine. Some
say cannabis or ganja impairs vision and clouds perspective. That's equally
true when people debate its medicinal use. Many are yet to overcome their
visceral dislike of the dum maaro dum generation and its rebellion against
the establishment and family values in favour of permissiveness. This time,
the ball for the needless `pot war' was set rolling, when California's
lawmakers sanctioned a grant of dollars three million to San Diego and San
Francisco universities to establish a centre for research in medicinal
cannabis in San Diego. Rumblings began four years ago, when the California
legislature enacted a law to make cannabis use legal for medical purposes.

California isn't the only state legislature to do so. Laws permitting
medical marijuana were adopted in six other states. "It is a tribute to the
vision of the California legislature", claim the supporters, that "the
politics of marijuana is behind us. The issue is now properly in the hands
of physicians and research technicians". But even the supporters realise
the potential for abuse discernible in the many ad hoc cannabis buyers'
clubs which have sprung up. Many doctors say that marijuana should be
shifted from its unfortunate placement in Schedule 1 drugs along with
heroin to a schedule 2 drug (with potentially addictive drugs like morphine
and cocaine). The tocsin for the pot war was heard in the U.S. district
judge's proposal that doctors who prescribe marijuana (for medicinal cures)
be stripped of their registration licenses.

President Clinton famously confessed that he had smoked but never inhaled
cannabis.

And in election year 2000, the Clinton administration is clearly reluctant
to be seen as sanctioning even medicinal use of a drug that many voters
associate with the drug abuses of the 1960s. The Clinton administration
claims that between 1993 and 1998 there has been a 155 per cent spurt among
patients being treated for cannabis addiction.