MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAW NEEDS SOME WORK

New wrinkles in the law often need a little tweaking to straighten out
snags, and Montana's voter-initiated medical marijuana measure is no
exception.

Members of the medical marijuana advocacy group Patients and Families
United met with the IR Editorial Board last week to explain why the
tweaking is necessary. One bill would benefit patients living in rural
areas far from a doctor by allowing nurse practitioners and physician
assistants as well as physicians to prescribe medical marijuana. It
also would let people with incurable illnesses renew their
medical-marijuana registry every three years instead of every year.

A yet-to-be-introduced bill would increase the amount of marijuana
patents may have on hand so they aren't constantly on the verge of
running out.

These are sensible measures that shouldn't be controversial, although
they probably will be among people who can't get used to the idea that
marijuana should be legal for sufferers to use.

But the 62 percent of Montana voters who approved medical marijuana in
2004 knew what they were doing.

Marijuana, which is safer than many other medicines prescribed to
patients all the time, is a proven help for everything from arthritis
to multiple sclerosis. Its active ingredients help cancer patients by
preventing nausea, vomiting and pain and by stimulating appetite.

It is advocated by a variety of medical groups including the American
College of Physicians, the American Nurses Association and the
American Public Health Association.

At last count there were 1,577 Montana patients registered to use medical
marijuana. These are people who need help, and it would be wrong to fail to
fix a few regulations that only make their lives even tougher.