PUNISHING THE SICK WASTES MONEY

SAN FRANCISCO - Much that the U.S. government does makes no sense.
Jailing the sick and dying for using marijuana is one of the most senseless.

The United States faces manifold challenges which consume much
manpower and money: the Iraq war, terrorism, illicit immigration,
transnational crime. Uncle Sam should clear the decks, so to speak.
It is time to conduct policy triage, dropping government tasks that
offer little benefit.

But officials in Washington prefer to maintain their power.

A few House members recently proposed an amendment to the Justice
Department appropriation bill, barring federal officials from using
any funds to prevent states "from implementing state laws authorizing
the use of medical marijuana in those states."

The measure didn't legalize drugs. All it did was say that Uncle Sam
wouldn't interfere with states that allowed sick people to smoke
marijuana. The bill failed, even though Congress is controlled by a
political party claiming to believe in limited government, individual
liberty and federalism.

A dozen states, including California, have lifted restrictions on
patients suffering from such diseases as AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and
multiple sclerosis and using marijuana for relief from nausea and pain.

Yet Uncle Sam continues to toss these people in jail.

Much ink has been spilled on the value of pot as medication, with the
Food and Drug Administration recently weighing on the negative side.
But The Economist magazine noted that "another reason the FDA
statement is odd is that it seems to lack common sense. Cannabis has
been used as a medicinal plant for millennia."

Large majorities of American and British oncologists have said they
would recommend use of pot if it were legal.

Health Canada, the Canadian medical system, has approved the medical
use of marijuana.

The American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs
reported that "anecdotal, survey, and clinical data" demonstrate
marijuana's medical efficacy. Numerous health and patient
organizations, such as the Lymphoma Foundation of America, back
access to or at least research on medicinal marijuana.

But forget the debate over pot's value as medicine (or the broader
assault on individual liberty). America is, or at least is supposed
to be, a federal system. Thus, the efficacy debate should be left to states.

If they decide to allow limited medical use, Washington should
respect that decision. (Increased medicinal consumption has had no
impact on overall marijuana use.) In fact, candidate George W. Bush
urged respect for federalism on this subject: "I believe each state
can choose that decision as they so choose."

There's another important issue today, however: good stewardship of
limited resources.

Assume that recreational drug users should go do jail. The government
still has to choose which drugs and trafficking operations to target.
Washington can't hope to interdict everything flooding in, and
arresting cancer patients who smoke pot is a huge waste of time.

But the resource waste becomes particularly grotesque when compared
to the federal government's other priorities.

Washington faces a particularly daunting task in attempting to secure
the nation against terrorism, as the recent airport scare illustrates.

In a world of limited resources, notes Veronique de Rugy of the
American Enterprise Institute: "Congress should direct homeland
security funding to programs that provide the greatest return in the
most crucial security missions.

Since the number of possible attacks is effectively unlimited and the
resources we can devote to the fight against terror are limited,
spending should not occur without a careful cost-benefit analysis."

Even more so, the government should stop devoting resources to other
peripheral tasks, which reduce the personnel and cash available to
respond to terrorism and other basic tasks. The resources devoted to
cracking down on medical pot may be relatively small, but they
exemplify a loss of perspective in Washington. The federal government
can't (and shouldn't) do it all.

It's time for Uncle Sam to set priorities, and hunting down AIDS
patients who smoke marijuana shouldn't be one of them.