HEALTH CARE SCIENCE IS NEEDED

Before those seeking to legalize marijuana get too carried away spreading
the message that pot is a miracle drug, it is worth noting that the
Institute of Medicine report being hailed as proof of marijuana's medicinal
properties falls far short of proving anything.

The active ingredients in marijuana may help fight pain and nausea and
therefore deserve to be tested in scientific trials, an advisory panel to
the federal government said after reviewing available evidence.

That's only what the nation's doctors and others have said for some time.

But the parts of the report that got slighted also were of interest.

The panel warned that smoking marijuana can cause respiratory disease and
lung cancer.

"Marijuana has potential as medicine, but it is undermined by the fact that
patients must inhale harmful smoke," said Stanley Watson of the Mental
Health Research Institute at the University of Michigan, one of the study's
principal investigators.

Of course, in the case of terminally ill patients, that would be of little
concern, if it had other benefits.

While it also has been promoted as a treatment for glaucoma, the panel said
smoked marijuana only temporarily reduces some of the eye pressure
associated with that disease.

Some of those seeking to legalize marijuana callously are using the plight
of the terminally ill as a ruse. They want to make it available to everyone,
on demand.

That has been the effect of "medical marijuana" laws passed in other states.

In the past few years, voters in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado,
Nevada, Oregon and Washington have approved measures in support of medical
marijuana.

Head shops have sprung up all over California. Anyone can walk in with a
slip of paper that says they need pot, and get it. Little, if any, policing
is done to determine whether the slip was signed by a physician. Actual
prescriptions are not required.

The proposal being formulated for the ballot in Florida is much the same. It
is far too broad.

The most reasonable course at this point:

Do the scientific research. Confirm that marijuana is of greater benefit to
cancer and AIDS patients than other drugs now available. Develop a way to
develop the medicine in a form that does not require smoking. Then make it
available to them by prescription from a licensed physician.