BENEFITS OF MEDICINAL POT

The recent report of the Institute of Medicine that marijuana be made
available for short periods to help cancer and AIDS patients otherwise
bereft of relief from severe pain and nausea represents simple common sense.

Naturally, bureaucrats with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services
responded forthwith by saying they would never dispense marijuana to
individual patients until more clinical research showed it was safe.

Obviously, the richly endowed but mostly ineffectual war on drugs, along
with several generations of demonization of marijuana, figure in all this,
even though it was the Office of National Drug Control Policy that ponied up
the $900,000 for the Institute of Medicine study.

The study's recommendations confirm common sense knowledge and the
experiences of many cancer patients and others who have found marijuana
therapeutic in relieving some of the side effects of chemotherapy.

This value has been known for some years. That is why several states --
California, Arizona, Alaska, Oregon, Nevada and Washington -- have legalized
its medicinal use. Some mainstream medical organizations also have endorsed
its medical use.

However, anti-drug warriors, both political and bureaucratic, largely are
resistant. Congress last fall approved a resolution condemning the medical
use of marijuana and the federal government has threatened doctors if they
have the temerity to prescribe it in states where this is legal.

Most of those who benefit from its use have terminal illnesses. The
chemotherapy in most cases is not aimed at a reversal or cure of cancer, but
to postpone death.

If a marijuana cigarette provides someone in this situation some solace from
the pain and nausea associated with chemotherapy, who should object? A
government that spends millions and employs thousands to make sure people
are kept safe from the vicissitudes of life? It seems strangely
disproportionate, perhaps more hypocritical.

In times past, others generally felt it their duty to help and provide as
much comfort as they could for those with serious and terminal illnesses.

The Institute of Medicine's recommendations add to what is becoming a
preponderance of evidence that some patients can benefit from marijuana and
that government has no more right withholding it than it would to refuse
penicillin to someone who could benefit from it.