MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA JUST A SMOKE SCREEN

The Pennsylvania Legislature is considering legalizing
marijuana.

Well, not really.

Last week, the House Health and Human Services Committee held a
hearing on a bill that would allow the use of marijuana for medical
reasons.

The hearing on the bill, sponsored by Rep. Mark Cohen, a Philadelphia
Democrat, was probably the last time you'll see any action on H.B.
1393. With only seven co-sponsors the bill seems doomed.

Even if, by some miraculous chance, it would see the floor of the
House, it wouldn't pass. And if the inconceivable happens, the bill
would die in the GOP-controlled Senate.

Why? Are Pennsylvania lawmakers really that uncool? Unhip? Uptight?
Yes, all of the above. But that has nothing to do with why this
proposal is headed for legislative limbo.

The medical marijuana bill is a flawed idea that even our lawmakers
won't buy into.

The bill, which cites only one medical journal article, claims ganja
is useful for anybody with a very long list of diseases, conditions
and symptoms.

Trouble is, no medical authority recognizes marijuana as being an
effective treatment for any condition.

There are some very ill people who believe marijuana eases their
symptoms. But those who would benefit most from legalization are
people who want to get high without getting busted.

Advocates say the bill would benefit government financially. It would
require the places that sell medical pot, called compassion centers,
to collect state sales tax. The problem with that is that
prescription medications are exempt from the sales tax.

So, ipso facto, if it's taxed, pot isn't medicine.

But the big problem is with federal drug laws that list marijuana as
a Schedule I drug, meaning it has no legitimate medical use.

The conflict between states and the feds over regulation rights has
been fought several times over several issues, including drugs. The
feds won.

Thirteen states now have some sort of medical marijuana law. But the
legal status of pot is fuzzy in all of them and some "patients" end
up as jailed inmates.

Medical marijuana is a ruse. If lawmakers believe it can do more good
than harm, there's only one thing to do:

Legalize it.