REWRITE LAW ON MARIJUANA

It is a sad commentary on the compassion of political leaders that in two
jurisdictions in Canada and the United States, the courts have shown mercy
to the terminally and chronically ill where their political representatives
have not. In Canada this week, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled that the
law prohibiting the possession of marijuana was unconstitutional and gave
the federal government 12 months to amend the law. The judgment cleared the
way for Terry Parker, a 44-year-old epileptic, to continue to use
marijuana, the drug which has all but eliminated the 15 to 80 seizures he
might suffer weekly.

Last month, a Federal District Court in California ruled that seriously ill
patients with no alternative but marijuana to alleviate their conditions
are allowed to obtain the drug legally. Judge Charles Breyer ruled that the
U.S. government had failed to prove why seriously ill patients should not
have legal access to the drug.

Proof was introduced at trial that marijuana could help curb weight loss in
AIDS patients, alleviate nausea induced by chemotherapy in cancer patients,
treat glaucoma and ease chronic pain associated with multiple sclerosis.

In both countries, marijuana has been popularly viewed by political and
legal authorities as the gateway to the use of harder drugs. Although no
scientific evidence has been put forward to buttress this contention, last
year 11 independent American experts with the U.S. National Academy of
Sciences found that marijuana smoke was more toxic than tobacco smoke and
could cause cancer, lung damage and pregnancy complications. The experts
said these findings mean that the only patients allowed to consume
marijuana for medicinal purposes are those for whom long-term health should
not be an issue, such as with the terminally ill.

There is no convincing reason for Canada not to draft legislation
permitting the medicinal use of marijuana. (Currently, it makes exceptions
for only a handful of people.) There is evidence that tight controls need
to be part of the legislation, but its over-all intent should nonetheless
be to reduce the suffering among people who have no other effective
medication available to them. Allowing people to suffer needlessly while a
substance exists that could alleviate that suffering is scarcely the mark
of a civilized and caring society.

Following Monday's decision, the federal government has three possible
choices. It can appeal the decision. It can allow the law to lapse 12
months from now, leaving a legal void which would effectively legalize
marijuana. But the third and only attractive option would be to accept the
decision and rewrite the law to provide for medicinal uses.

It is a fallacy to assume that allowing the door to open for marijuana to
be used for good means leaving it open for "bad" or recreational use. The
whole point of legislation is to draw up the conditions of its use. Those
conditions should be strained with not just with kindness but medical sanity.