I-692 A PROPER USE FOR MARIJUANA

There are two simple motives for voting yes on Initiative 692 Nov. 3.
They are compassion and common sense, two solid virtues possessed by
the majority of Washington voters.

Initiative 692 would decriminalize the medically approved use of
marijuana by people with terminal or debilitating diseases. Its
passage would mean that people who pursue this widely recognized
surcease from pain and suffering would no longer be criminals in the
eyes of the state. Its passage would require the state to see them in
the same way most of us do: as people who deserve to be helped, not
prosecuted.

It's important that voters not make the mistake of confusing this
initiative with the vastly different one that Washingtonians so
soundly - and correctly - trounced at the polls in 1996. The
opposition campaign has in fact adopted the slogan "We said No!" in
reference to the former effort. That is too clever by half.

The new initiative, I-692, is narrowly and specifically drawn. It
applies to those who have medical need and physician's approval for
possessing, producing and consuming marijuana, the physician who gives
that approval and to those who help the patients.

Under I-692, no physician is required to authorize the use of
marijuana. Health insurance providers aren't required to pay for it.
Employers aren't required to accommodate marijuana use at work.
Driving under the influence of marijuana is not exempted from
prosecution. Public consumption is not permitted. Those who use fraud
to take advantage of the new law would face felony
prosecution.

The case for medical use of marijuana is compelling. In 1988 the
federal Drug Enforcement Agency commissioned Administrative Law Judge
Francis Young to review the medical efficacy of marijuana. Young ruled
that marijuana did not meet Schedule I criteria. That is, it did not
belong in the same category as heroin and cocaine. Young wrote: "The
evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted
as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill
people and doing so with safety under medical supervision. . . . "

In January of last year, The New England Journal of Medicine
editorialized in favor of allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana for
medical purposes, calling the threat of federal government sanctions
against patients and physicians in states that had legalized medical
marijuana "misguided, heavy-handed and inhumane. . . . Whatever their
reasons, federal officials are out of step with the public," wrote Dr.
Jerome Kassirer, the journal's editor.

The medical community is, or course, hardly unanimous on the efficacy
or risks of marijuana. Critics of the initiative in the medical
community argue that it contains no controls or safeguards over the
dosage, potency or purity of the drug patients might consume. They
point out that marijuana has not has not passed FDA evaluation and
would not be issued by prescription but by "authorization" by the
physician, with no liability. While possession and consumption of
marijuana would be decriminalized under state law, sale would still be
illegal, and the federal laws against sale, possession and consumption
would remain in place.

But the fact is that some patients and physicians have found help for
nausea, loss of appetite, glaucoma and intractable pain in the use of
a substance that has been legally and politically demonized.

Removal of marijuana from the DEA's Schedule 1 list would be sensible
federal policy. In the meantime, decriminalizing the medical use of
marijuana is sensible policy for Washington state. Decisions involving
personal health and private suffering are best made by patient and
physician, not police, politicians and prosecutors.

I-692 would help put those decisions where they belong.

Checked-by: Patrick Henry