CHOICE UP TO THE INDIVIDUAL

Aug. 17, 2000 - I don't believe in recreational drug use, and I don't believe in medical drug use for minor pain.

In accordance with my beliefs, I've never had a sip of alcohol, never puffed on a cigarette or used any other recreational drugs. When I have a serious medical condition or treatment - e.g., having my wisdom teeth removed - I certainly welcome pain medication before, during and after the surgery. But I don't take aspirin for headaches, backaches or stubbed toes.

Ever since I was a preteen, I've had an aversion to drugs. I don't like the idea of putting a substance or chemical into my body for the purpose of altering my mood, and I don't like using every little ache and bruise as an excuse to medicate myself.

But that's just me.

I don't impose my beliefs on anyone else. I don't condemn adults who make different choices. Some people might like to pop down a couple of ibuprofin every day to avoid even the possibility of minor pain. Other people have a few beers at the end of the day. I wouldn't choose that for myself, but it's fine for other people to choose it.

That's why I didn't want to go to a meeting for a group called Coloradoans Against Legalizing Marijuana. A friend of mine who is a doctor called to invite me to this meeting. I told him that I wasn't interested, that I couldn't get involved in lobbying against people who wanted to smoke marijuana. But he insisted, so I agreed to go to the meeting.

In attendance were doctors, law enforcement agents, politicians, lobbyists, media personalities and other concerned citizens who were opposed to Amendment 20, an initiative that will appear on the Nov. 7 ballot. If passed, the law would allow seriously ill patients to legally smoke marijuana with their doctor's approval. I listened as the various speakers took the podium, but the more I heard the more I opposed their cause.

Pass or fail, no one in the room would be affected by this law. A patient who believes that smoking marijuana will help him could ask his doctor for approval. If his doctor agrees, then he'll give permission to smoke marijuana. No patient would be compelled to smoke marijuana against his will and no doctor would be required to give approval if he doesn't believe marijuana is a good therapy.

Why would that decision be my business or anyone else's business? Here's a case in which people who choose not to smoke marijuana aren't content to maintain a prohibition in their own lives, so they reach out to extend that prohibition to others.

But if I'd stood up in that meeting to call for support for an initiative called "The Reggie Rivers Personal View of Recreational and Medicinal Drug Use," I don't think I'd have gotten much agreement. No one wants to give up their alcohol, cigarettes or painkillers just because I think they should.

Imagine life after my policy was enacted: I can see a SWAT team crashing through the front door of Joe Fan's house during the third quarter of a Broncos game. The cops are screaming for everyone to get on the ground and keep their hands visible.

Party guests are panicked, swallowing their cigarettes and tossing their beer out the window and into the bushes, praying the soil will soak up the alcohol. Meanwhile, Joe is on his hands and knees, scrambling out of the living room, desperate to get to the bathroom to flush his supply of over-the-counter pain medications.

Why the panic? Because someone like me decided that it wasn't enough to decide my own personal drug policy. I needed the force of law to make Joe agree with me.

I'll vote yes on the medicinal marijuana bill not because I'm a proponent of marijuana use, but because I'm a believer in individual choice.