LEGALIZE IT

The Health Benefits Of Marijuana Outweigh Concerns Over Misuse

IMAGINE you or someone you love is suffering from a chronic, painful
illness. When the pain becomes intolerable, you head to your doctor,
begging for something to ease your suffering and restore your quality
of life, something to make you feel like your old self again.

Your doctor offers you two options: a synthetic, potentially
addictive narcotic, or a natural remedy derived from a plant.

The choice seems pretty simple -- until you realize that the first
option is the popular painkiller Vicodin, and the second is the
illegal drug marijuana.

Though the federal government has consistently opposed a law to make
medical marijuana a legal option for patients suffering from specific
conditions, this month Massachusetts and Michigan became the
thirteenth and fourteenth states to legalize the use of marijuana for
medical purposes.

Research has consistently shown that cannabis is safe and effective
in reducing pain and relieving nausea, even where more conventional
remedies have consistently failed.

Yet marijuana is still currently classified under the federal
government as a Schedule 1 drug, meaning that it has a high potential
for abuse and has no acceptable medical use -- a definition
fundamentally in conflict with state laws already in place that
validate the medical benefits of marijuana. It's time the government
recognized what over a dozen states already know: The ongoing fight
to keep marijuana illegal ignores proven medical benefits and is a
waste of valuable time and resources.

Many studies have proven marijuana is an effective painkiller in
cases where conventional medications have been ineffective or their
ill effects have rendered their positive qualities useless.

Recently, studies have suggested that cannabis is highly effective at
reducing neuropathic pain, which is common in HIV/AIDS patients as
well as those suffering from multiple sclerosis.

Other medications, including highly addictive opiates, have proven
useless against these types of suffering. Marijuana also helps ease
nausea and vomiting, common complaints of those undergoing
chemotherapy, without the unpleasant side effects of synthetic
anti-nausea medication. Relative to other painkillers available on
the prescription market, like OxyContin and Vicodin, marijuana is a
tame option for pain relief.

Mankind has been safely ingesting marijuana, both for leisure and for
healing, for thousands of years, dating back to ancient civilizations
in Egypt and India. In fact, I could go down to Wal-Mart right now
and pick half a dozen legal items off the shelf with more lethal
potential than marijuana: cough syrup, aspirin or acetaminophen, to
name just a handful. So why the hesitation to make marijuana a viable
medical option for the thousands of patients who could potentially
benefit from it?

For one thing, many worry that legalizing marijuana, even
medicinally, is a step towards broader legalization of other, more
dangerous drugs like cocaine or heroin, but the slippery slope
argument is inherently flawed.

The legality of alcohol and tobacco, mood-altering substances that
alter brain chemistry, hasn't led to the legalization of other, more
psychoactive drugs.

Far more harmful drugs like heroin, a highly addictive opiate, share
almost nothing in common with marijuana, a mild sedative; the only
reason we even think to lump the two together is because both are
currently illegal.

Clear and explicit legislation would remedy any concern that the law
could be misinterpreted to include other drugs.

The government has already legalized dozens of other medications with
a high potential for illegal abuse -- like morphine, Vicodin and
Percocet -- that are associated with far more serious effects than marijuana.

In fact, marijuana itself is less dangerous than its two very common
and very legal alternatives: alcohol and tobacco.

It isn't associated with cancer, like cigarettes are, and there's no
risk of a fatal overdose, though hundreds of people die each year
from alcohol poisoning. The misconception of marijuana as a
dangerous, addictive drug began decades ago with propaganda
predicting a "reefer madness" that never materialized. While
marijuana is by no means a perfect panacea, it offers hope to many
who have found no relief in conventional treatment, and any
potentially negative effects associated with its use are well within
the range tolerated for other drugs. Modern science has proven that
adults can safely use marijuana in moderation with no ill effects to
themselves or to society.

If I can walk into my local drugstore and medicate myself with
dangerous, potentially deadly medications with overdose potential
like aspirin and cough syrup, I should be able to get a prescription
for the safe, effective pain relief of marijuana.

I applaud Michigan and Massachusetts and the 12 other states where
medical marijuana is legal for recognizing the value of this largely
untapped natural resource as an alterative to harsh synthetic drugs,
and I hope that the federal government will follow in their footsteps.