LET US BE COMPASSIONATE WITH MEDICAL MARIJUANA

IT just might be that we're approaching critical mass in allowing the use of
medicinal marijuana without putting people in jail over it.

two years after California voters approved Proposition 215 to allow the use
of marijuana as a medicine, much of the rest of the world seems to be
getting the idea that marijuana may have medical value.

The notable exception is the feds.

It's about time they came on board - with recent studies and editorials in
prestigious scientific journals that support the idea, with Britain and
Israel who recently provisionally sanctioned the compassionate use of
marijuana, and voters in five other states have passed ballot initiatives
along the lines of Prop. 215.

It was Gen. Barry McCaffrey, director of the Office for National Drug
Control Policy, who barred the way by insisting on the strict application of
federal law that left Prop. 215 in limbo.

At the same time, McCaffrey commissioned the Institute of Medicine at the Na
tional Academy of Sciences to conduct a full review of the science
surrounding medical marijuana.

That study is expected to be released next month and might lead to calls for
further research.

But why go on stalling medical marijuana, while allowing physicians to
prescribe protease inhibitors and other AIDS medications before clinical
trials are completed?

Contradiction aside, the feds should extend the Food and Drug
Administration's flexibility on emerging AIDS-related drugs for HIV and AIDS
patients to marijuana without further delay.

This will clear the way for thousands of Americans with a variety of
conditions, including terminally ill patients and those with HIV or AIDS, to
use marijuana for the relief it gives without the added anxiety of
prosecution and exposure to contaminated products.

In their wisdom, California voters decided that compassion as much as law
should figure in medical treatment when they passed Prop. 215, exempting
from criminal prosecution patients and defined care givers who possess or
cultivate marijuana for medical treatment recommended by a physician.

The concern, of course, is that if change occurs it should not present "an
open door to recreational use," as state Attorney Gen. Bill Lockyer put it
recently while discussing a task force he's organized to plug the gaps left
by Prop. 215.

There is such concern, no doubt, that Lockyer is sensible to acknowledge it.
But that doesn't mean the feds should go on stubbornly insisting that
medical marijuana should be held to a higher standard when more and more
experts accept that it's not dangerous.

It's sensible to play safe and pursue additional research, but it could be
years before it proves beyond doubt what the anecdotal evidence of
terminally ill patients has already shown.

They shouldn't be asked to wait, or, if they don't, to die as criminals.