AMERICANS WANT MEDICAL MARIJUANA

When there is a big gap between the views of ordinary Americans on a
public issue and the voting record of their elected representatives
in Congress, something is wrong. In the current debate over the use
of marijuana for medical purposes, Americans and their
representatives seem to be living on different planets.

Poll after poll shows Americans, by a huge majority, want their
doctors, not lawmakers, to decide whether or not marijuana should be
used as a medicine. Today, however, federal laws prohibit physicians
from prescribing marijuana for pain relief even where state and local
laws say it is OK to do so. This has not always been the case.

"For most of American history, growing and using marijuana was legal
under both federal law and the laws of individual states," according
to a recent report by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of
the U.S. Congress.

The report goes on to say, "From 1850 to the early 1940s cannabis was
included in the U.S. Pharmacopoeia as a recognized medicinal. [But]
its decline in medicine was hastened by the development of aspirin,
morphine, and other opium-derived drugs, all of which helped to
replace marijuana in the treatment of pain."

In a 1999 Gallup poll, 73 percent of Americans said they would vote
for making marijuana legally available for doctors to prescribe in
order to reduce pain and suffering. Similar polls in 2003 and 2005
found 75 percent and 78 percent support, respectively.

Apparently members of Congress don't read the polls these days, nor
do they care much about state laws. In 12 states -- Alaska, Arizona,
California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode
Island, Vermont and Washington -- laws already give doctors the power
to decide whether to use marijuana to treat patients in pain.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, on May 4, 2005, Rep. Barney
Frank, D-Mass., introduced H.R. 2087, a bill "to provide for the
medical use of marijuana in accordance with the laws of the various
states," and to prohibit the federal government from stopping "an
individual from obtaining and using marijuana from a prescription or
recommendation by a physician for medical use." It remains stuck in
the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Since a federal bill allowing states to regulate the medical use of
marijuana can't make it to the House floor for an up or down vote, an
alternative strategy is to attach a medical marijuana amendment to a
spending bill that will reach the House floor. On June 15, 2005, Rep.
Maurice D. Hinchey, D-N.Y., did just that and offered Amendment 272
to H.R. 2862. The amendment would have prohibited federal agencies
from preventing the implementation of state laws that authorize the
use of medical marijuana. It was rejected on a 264-to-161 vote.

In other words, while 78 percent of Americans favor letting doctors
and states decide this issue, only 38 percent of House members
favored a law supporting that policy. Nationally, a whopping 40
percent medical marijuana gap separates what the American people want
and what their hard-of-hearing elected representatives deliver.

The gap is even larger in Virginia, where eight of the 11 House
members from Virginia voted against Amendment 272 and the will of
three out of four Americans. Assuming the national polls fairly
reflect the opinions of Virginia voters, eight members from Virginia
ought to have supported the amendment instead of only three. Roanoke
area Reps. Virgil Goode and Bob Goodlatte, both Republicans, voted
against the amendment while Rick Boucher, a Democrat, voted for it.

American democracy calls on lawmakers to be responsive to the common
sense wisdom of ordinary citizens. Elected officials from Virginia
need to start listening to the people who want their physicians, not
politicians, to decide whether marijuana should be used to ease
suffering in sick patients. If Virginia's current members of Congress
don't improve their hearing, voters might consider replacing them in
November with people who have better listening skills.