DECRIMINALIZE MARIJUANA

The War on Drugs Has Caused Too Much Collateral Damage: Even the Ill
Face Stigmatization by Using an Alternative to Harsh Pharmaceuticals.

I'm on the phone getting a recipe for hashish butter. Not from my
dealer but from Lester Grinspoon, a physician and emeritus professor
of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. And not for a party but for
my 9-year-old son, who has autism, anxiety and digestive problems, all
of which are helped by the analgesic and psychoactive properties of
marijuana. I wouldn't be giving it to my child if I didn't think it
was safe.

I came to marijuana while searching for a safer alternative to the
powerful antipsychotic drugs, such as Risperdal, that are typically
prescribed for children with autism and other behavioral disorders.
There have been few studies on the long-term effects of these drugs on
a growing child's brain, and in particular autism, a disorder whose
biochemical mechanisms are poorly understood. But there is much
documentation of the risks, which has caused the Food and Drug
Administration to require the highest-level "black box" warnings of
possible side effects that include permanent Parkinson's disease-like
tremors, metabolic disorders and death. A panel of federal drug
experts in 2008 urged physicians to use caution when prescribing these
medicines to children, as they are the most susceptible to side effects.

We live in Rhode Island, one of more than a dozen states -- including
California -- with medical marijuana laws. That makes giving our son
cannabis for a medical condition legal. But we are limited in its use.
We cannot take it on a plane on a visit to his grandmother in Minnesota.

Even though we are not breaking the law, I still wonder what my
neighbors would think if they knew we were giving our son what most
people only think of as an illegal "recreational" drug. Marijuana has
always carried that illicit tang of danger -- "reefer madness" and
foreign drug cartels. But in 1988, Drug Enforcement Administration
Judge Francis L. Young, after two years of hearings, deemed marijuana
"one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. ..
In strict medical terms, marijuana is far safer than many foods we
commonly consume."

Beyond helping people like my son, the reasons to legalize cannabis on
a federal level are manifold. Anecdotal evidence from patients already
attests to its pain-relieving properties, and the benefits in quelling
chemotherapy-induced nausea and wasting syndrome are well documented.
Future studies may find even more important medical uses.

Including marijuana in the war on drugs has only proved foolhardy --
and costly. By keeping marijuana illegal and prices high, illicit drug
money from the U.S. sustains the murderous narco-traffickers in Mexico
and elsewhere. In fact, after seeing how proximity to marijuana
growers affected the small Mexican village of Alamos, where my husband
spent much of his childhood, I was adamant about never entering into
that economy of violence.

Because Rhode Island has no California-like medical marijuana
dispensaries, the patient must apply for a medical marijuana license
and then find a way to procure the cannabis. We floundered on our own
until we finally connected with a local horticultural school graduate
who agreed to provide our son's organic marijuana. But given the seedy
underbelly of the illegal drug trade, combined with the current
economic collapse, even our grower has to be mindful of not exposing
himself to robbery.

Legalizing marijuana not only removes the incentives for this
underground economy, it would allow for regulation and taxation of the
product, just like cigarettes and alcohol. The potential for abuse is
there, as it is with any substance, but toxicology studies have not
even been able to establish a lethal dose at typical-use levels. In
fact, in 1988, Young of the DEA further stated that "it is estimated
that ... a smoker would theoretically have to consume ... nearly 1,500
pounds of marijuana within about 15 minutes to induce a lethal
response." Nor is it physically addicting, unlike your daily
Starbucks, as anyone who has suffered from a caffeine withdrawal
headache can attest.

Although it has been demonized for years, marijuana hasn't been
illegal in the U.S. for that long. The cannabis plant became
criminalized on a federal level in 1937, largely because of the
efforts of one man, Harry Anslinger, commissioner of the then newly
formed Bureau of Narcotics, largely through sensationalistic stories
of murder and mayhem conducted supposedly under the influence of
cannabis. Cannabis was still listed in the U.S. Pharmacopeia, or USP,
until 1941 as a household drug useful for treating headaches,
depression, menstrual cramps and toothaches, and drug companies worked
to develop a stronger strain.

In 1938, a skeptical Fiorello LaGuardia, mayor of New York, appointed
a committee to conduct the first in-depth study of marijuana's actual
effects. It found that, despite the government's fervent claims,
marijuana did not cause insanity or act as a gateway drug. It also
found no scientific reason for its criminalization. In 1972, President
Nixon's Shafer Commission similarly concluded that cannabis should be
re-legalized.

Both recommendations were ignored, and since then billions of dollars
have been spent enforcing the ban. Public policy analyst Jon Gettman,
author of the 2007 report, "Lost Revenues and Other Costs of Marijuana
Laws," estimated marijuana-related annual costs of law enforcement at
$10.7 billion.

I was heartened to hear California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's recent
call for the U.S. to at least look at other nations' experiences with
legalizing marijuana -- and to open a debate. And given the real
security threats the nation faces, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder
Jr.'s announcement that the federal government would no longer conduct
raids on legal medicinal marijuana dispensaries was a prudent move.
Decriminalizing marijuana is the logical next step.