FIVE STATES' MARIJUANA APPROVAL ILLUSTRATES GULLIBILITY OF VOTERS

Voters in five states allowed themselves to be used as pawns of a movement
to decriminalize the use of marijuana. They voted Tuesday in favor of
letting the drug be prescribed as a painkiller in certain instances.

They thus delivered victories to a crusade to legalize marijuana for
everyone - a crusade that has cynically appropriated the suffering of
terminally ill people as campaign fodder.

Voters were told that smoking marijuana can help ease pain and nausea,
particularly the nausea associated with chemotherapy. It has been used
against the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and glaucoma. However, any
evidence of a beneficial effect is anecdotal, not scientific.

The Food and Drug Administration is studying the issue, with a report due
out next year. Research is also being conducted by the National Institutes
of Health.

Voters in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska and Washington state did not wait
for the results. The pro-marijuana campaigns in those states were conducted
and funded not by medical experts clamoring for the drug. They were
financed by groups associated with pro-marijuana forces that favor its
recreational use, and by George Soros, a billionaire who has made it a
personal campaign to get the substance legalized.

The crusade logged previous successes in California and Arizona. Arizona
officials until now have refused to implement the law. However, the drug
continues to make inroads. Janet Napolitano, the newly-elected attorney
general, said she would follow the law even though she opposed it.

It's easy to see why drug enforcers have been concerned. Activists in the
legalization crusade said they plan to take their case to Massachusetts,
Florida, Michigan and Ohio next. If the voters of those states are as
gullible as the voters of the four states where the measure was approved
Tuesday, hospitals and nursing homes may soon reek with the odor of
marijuana. Use of the substance will spread even more widely in the general
population.

Certainly doctors already prescribe controlled substances - morphine, among
other addictive drugs - as pain killers. If the FDA and the National
Institutes of Health found a similar benefit in marijuana, it would be one
thing. But such judgments belong in the scientific and medical community,
not on the ballot. The fact that a majority of the voters can be bamboozled
by the everybody-must-get-stoned crowd is all too evident after Tuesday.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski