A VICTORY FOR SENSIBLE DRUG POLICY

Despite Canadians exhibiting a collective clear-mindedness on contemporary
society's most emotive issue, drug policy reform has passed without
appropriate interest from policy-makers. No longer.

On July 31, the argument that doctors may prescribe marijuana as a medical
treatment for seriously or terminally ill patients (so-called "medical
marijuana") received support in a seminal judicial decision. The Ontario
Court of Appeal, the province's highest court, upheld a 1997 Ontario
Superior Court ruling that the prohibition against medical marijuana
infringed the rights of Mr. Terry Parker, an epileptic under Section 7 of
the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The court declared the marijuana possession section of this country's
Controlled Drugs and Substances Act to be unconstitutional as it fails to
recognize that marijuana can be used for medicinal pruposes. The court has
instructed the federal government that it has 12 months to rewrite the law
to allow for medical marijuana or marijuana possession will be effectively
decriminalized.

The court's judgement reflected what's been conclusively and repeatedly
demonstrated: marijuana serves as a tremendously helpful appetite stimulant
or pain reliever to patients afflicted with epilepsy, AIDS, cancer,
glaucoma, or multiple sclerosis. Prior to yesterday's ruling, only 50
Canadians were legally entitled to smoke marijuana. Now, an estimated 150,
000 people in Ontario alone could benefit from the medical use of marijuana.

Opposition stems from a combination of ignorance and well-intentioned, if
misplaced, moralism which argues that medical marijuana promotes drug
experimentation and abuse. Suffice it to say, both the historical and
scientific evidence demonstrate otherwise.

The standard government line remains that there's no official evidence
marijuana helps ease patients' symptoms. After all, as US deputy drug czar
Dr. Don Vereen noted, "Smoked marijuana has not been tested (by the
government)." Fortunately, judicial wisdom and medical expertise is
overcoming such political intransigence north and south of the border.

As Dr. Jerome Kassirer, editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, has
written, "Thousands of patients with cancer, AIDS, and other diseases
report they have obtained striking relief from these devastating symptoms
by smoking marijuana." He suggested that, "The argument that it would be a
signal to the young that "marjuana is OK" is specious."

This view reflects a medical history dating to 2727 BC - the first recorded
listing, in Chinese pharmocopoeia, of cannabis as medicine. Revealingly,
North America's prohibition against marijuana occurred against the advice
of the medical community. More recently, in 1988 Judge Francis Young, the
US Drug Enforcement Agency's own administrative-law judge, determined that
marijuana had a clearly established medical use and, therefore, should be
reclassified as a prescriptive drug. Taking a page out of the Canadian
playbook, the US government took no action.

The therapeutic benefits of smoking mrijuana are numerous, hence a 1991
Harvard University survey's finding that 44 percent of oncologists
recommended marijuana to patients suffering from chemotherapy-induced
nausea. A 1997 National Institutes of Health panel concluded that smoking
marijuana may help treat a number of conditions, including nausea and pain.
The so-called "wasting syndrome" that afflicts those in the latter stages
of AIDS may be arrested through marijuana's ability to stimulate the
appetite. There's also considerable anecdotal evidence the marijuana
relieves some of the painful symptoms of multiple sclerosis and spinal cord
injuries.

Yes, there's the potential for harm from smoking marijuana, especially
respiratory damage. These long-term effects are irrelevant, however, to a
person who's suffering a slow, terribly painful death.

What's missing here isn't public opinion. Most people agree that
marijuana-smoking sick people should be treated as patients, rather than as
criminals. According to a recent COMPAS poll, 92 percent of Canadians
believe medical marijuana use should not be a criminal offense.

Despite popular approval and judicial progress, our legislation remains
both anachronistic and cruel. To continue to process, charge and convict
people for medicinal use of marijuana is a blatant waste of limited
resources. The law must be changed.

Patrick Basham is Director of The Social Affairs Centre at The Fraser
Institute, a Vancouver-based economic research organization.