INITIATIVE AIMS ONLY AT HELPING THE SICK

Approval Would Show Compassion, Not Support For Legalization.

Maine voters will decide on Tuesday whether or not reason prevails over
fear. I chose to support the medical marijuana referendum question because
I believe people are fundamentally good and any effort to relieve suffering
adds to the nobility of a community.

Voters in seven other states -- Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado,
Nevada, Oregon and Washington -- have approved initiatives intended to make
marijuana legal for medicinal purposes. These citizens have concluded that
those who suffer should have access to any medicine, that would enhance
their quality of life.

Question 2 will not legalize recreational marijuana but requires a
supporting medical diagnosis and the participation of a physician in its
use. It prohibits commercial cultivation or public consumption.

My stance is not about being soft on drugs or furthering a radical
political agenda. I speak to our need to comfort those we love as they face
debilitating, physical decline.

Opponents suggest, in a contemporary version of reefer madness, that
approval of medicinal marijuana would send a wrong message to our children.
What is this message?

That adults are committed to a drug-control policy that defines our lives
in black and white? That we forfeit our ability to make rational,
discriminating decisions based on objective evidence and ethical values
when faced with drug-control dogma?

Our children are faced with daunting challenges. The availability of
illegal drugs in their universe is more prevalent today than parents or the
most dedicated drug enforcement agent would care to admit.

What saves one youth over another is the ability to make good decisions. If
the floodgate of potential abuse is as open as opponents claim, do we
continue to pound the table with the solitary idea that water is bad or do
we teach our kids the ability to swim in the fast-moving currents of an
increasingly complex society?

Question 2 is silent on how the afflicted individual will obtain the
initial amount of marijuana. I am confident that when the people of Maine
approve this measure a working group comprised of police, doctors and
lawmakers can draft a process that will allow restricted, regulated access
for an approved patient.

Ironically, this mandate would act to place some proactive regulatory
oversight on a substance that today remains outside government control.

There are voices suggesting that law enforcement will be handcuffed by this
proposal. But police will still gather the facts of each case as it
unfolds. And they will afford the prosecutor all the available facts, even
those that might lead to a decision to suspend sanctions. Good cops will
continue to do good police work.

I could offer studies to support my position. Those who would advocate
otherwise offer an array of opposing conclusions. Theirs is a position of
law carved in stone; honorable yes, traditional yes, but not necessarily
right.

I ask that you search your heart for an answer, not a legal index.

Contraband is a lawyer's word; compassion is a moral imperative. Each of us
can choose how we live our lives. When we linger in our old age what would
be said of us.

Did we accept a drug war that knew of no mercy, no trust and no compassion?

Or was ours a story that inspired our grandchildren to remember that we
each found the courage to stand up and free medicine to do her work.

You choose. I have.