STATE'S POLITICAL PRIORITIES GO TO POT

In another example of the Legislature's inability to focus on the
most pressing issues of the day, a new dispute has flared up between
lawmakers and Gov. Linda Lingle over medical marijuana.

Legislators led by 'Ewa Beach Sen. Will Espero and Rep. Joe Bertram
III of Maui are squawking about Lingle's refusal to convene a task
force lawmakers authorized over her veto to study the obstacles
patients encounter when trying to obtain pot for medical use.

Lingle, who has the power to manage state resources in the current
budget shortfall, determined that the task force is of too little
priority to be bothered with while core state programs are in crisis.
Bertram and Espero plan to form their own working group to study the
matter, which only proves Lingle's point that a task force wasn't needed.

The medical value of marijuana is a matter of dispute among doctors,
but some patients swear by it for relieving the symptoms of diseases
including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, chronic pain, severe nausea and seizures.

Hawai'i law allows medical use of marijuana, but only if patients get
a prescription from a doctor and grow it themselves. Some bills
introduced by legislators in the past would have the government all
but grow the reefer for them and roll their joints.

This is an issue affecting relatively few people who are capable of
seeing to their own needs by either growing their pot or acquiring it
on the market. Neither local nor federal authorities are prosecuting
medical marijuana at this point.

I had no trouble getting it that way when friends persuaded me over
the skepticism of my doctor that marijuana might alleviate the nausea
from a treatment I was taking for my multiple sclerosis, and possibly
help with the underlying disease.

My doctor turned out to be right. The pot did me no harm, but I found
the buzz to be of zero medicinal value.

It's difficult to take marijuana seriously as a medical substance. It
hasn't been rigorously studied like other drugs or vetted by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration.

It's a weed that's pulled out of the ground and taken in uneven doses
by a variety of decidedly nonmedical means, including smoking it and
eating it in brownies. There's no control over the purity of the pot
or the concentration of its THC, the active ingredient.

It's kind of like getting your penicillin by chewing mold. How much
infection would that fend off?

That said, marijuana is a relatively benign substance, and people
with debilitating diseases who find comfort in it should be allowed
to use it if they wish.

But there's a difference between the government allowing its use and
promoting its use, as Bertram and Espero seem to want. And there's a
limit to the service patients can expect from government in terms of
holding their roach clips for them.

Critics are suspicious that the push for medical marijuana is an
attempt to get a foot in the door for full legalization of commercial
production and sales.

If that's the issue, let's have the discussion up front instead of
trying to sneak in the back door. It might even be a relevant topic
in these times, with its potential to generate economic activity and
tax revenue.

But on the narrow matter of medical marijuana, there's no way this
fringe issue deserves to jump to the front of the line at a time of
shrinking government services and far more compelling needs to attend
to - like the people threatened with losing life-saving chemo-therapy
and dialysis.