WHY IS MARIJUANA FOR THE SUFFERING STILL ILLEGAL?

WE ARE A GREAT NATION, dedicated to freedom, roaming the planet to
bring justice to the oppressed, comfort to the suffering, democracy to
all. And yet, we remain unspeakably cruel to our fellow citizens.

No other word exists to describe the federal government's steadfast
refusal to allow the medical use of marijuana. It is cruel _
heartless, sadistic, mean-spirited.

I have a friend with a chronic disease of the nervous system.
Marijuana is the only thing that alleviates the symptoms. The medical
establishment knows this. Others with the disease know it. The
government knows it. And yet, she cannot get relief from excruciating
pain because to do so would be to risk everything _ her career, her
good name, her freedom.

People dying of full-blown AIDS can find some respite from nausea and
pain by smoking marijuana. It's a small thing, something to make a
terrible disease in its final stages a bit easier to bear. The
marijuana allows them to eat, to maintain strength. Every day, we
push feeding tubes down the throats of people who are comatose or
all-but-dead to keep them alive _ sometimes against their wills. But
to give someone something he or she wants and needs to make the final
months, weeks, days, hours, and minutes easier is a crime.

The symptoms of multiple sclerosis, particularly spasmodic episodes,
are relieved by marijuana. This is not a theory. It is a fact, backed
up by the medical establishment, which has no shortage of pills and
nostrums and serums with which to dose the public.

But possessing or smoking marijuana is a crime, punishable in some
states by mandatory prison terms, and illegal in all. Voters in two
dozen states _ including the bastion of conservatism, Arizona _ have
passed referenda supporting the medical use of marijuana. One third
of adults in the nation have actually smoked marijuana _ inhaled, too
_ and have gone on to law-abiding lives in government, industry,
medicine, law, and even journalism, I'm told. Still, it remains illegal.

This is what a 1997 article in the New England Journal of Medicine
said on the subject:

"Doctors are not the enemy in the `war' on drugs; ignorance and
hypocrisy are. Research should go on, and while it does, marijuana
should be available to all patients who need it to help them undergo
treatment for life-threatening illnesses. ... As long as therapy is
safe and has not been proven ineffective, seriously ill patients {and
their physicians} should have access to whatever they need to fight
for their lives."

"To fight for their lives..." "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness..." Aren't these the values we say we stand for? We
prescribe codeine and morphine, ladle out Valium and antidepressants,
hand out painkillers of every type and description. We have laws that
make it a criminal act to attempt to help someone leave an agonizing
life of chronic disease and debilitation.

And then we make it another criminal act to try to ease the suffering
of those same people with a simple joint of marijuana.

What's happened to us, America? What happened to our ideals, our
empathy, our dedication to making life better? Why do we leap to help
the victims of disaster and war and the orphans of catastrophe, and
ignore the pain next door? Let my friend have her relief. Let the
dying enjoy a moment free of agony. Listen to the doctors, for once.
Legalize the medical use of marijuana.