A TRAGIC CASUALTY IN FEDERAL WAR ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

The nation's Drug Enforcement Administration agents can sleep a little
easier tonight. They now have one less medical-marijuana patient to
worry about policing.

That's because Montana's leading medical marijuana patient-activist
took her own life two weeks ago, a direct result of DEA actions
earlier this year. Every patient in the state and all their relatives
and friends grieve the loss of Robin Prosser.

It's time for our federal government to end its anti-scientific and
brutal war - a war not on drugs, but on sick people like Robin.

For 22 years, Robin suffered the ravages of systemic lupus, a chronic
condition that causes the autoimmune system to attack one's own organs
and tissues. For Robin, lupus meant a life of unrelenting pain and
diverse, horrific side effects. She was allergic to most of the
prescription drugs her physicians tried. Only medical marijuana
brought her the relief and comfort that made living bearable.

In 2002, Robin made national news by conducting a hunger strike to
protest her inability to acquire and use marijuana legally. In 2004,
she played an active role in Montana's medical marijuana initiative
campaign, appearing in TV and radio ads and writing letters to
newspapers about the initiative's importance.

Also in 2004, she attempted suicide. She had run out of medical
marijuana and couldn't find any. Plunged again to the depths of her
body's medical misery, Robin preferred death to the nightmare of
ceaseless pain. Amazingly, Missoula police at the time helped her
doctor save her life - and then promptly charged her with the "crime"
of possessing a pipe with some marijuana residue staining its insides.

Montana Initiative

Several months later, 62 percent of Montanans - the highest percentage
ever obtained in a public vote on the subject - made medical marijuana
legal for patients like Robin. Today, people from more than half the
state's counties are legally registered patients in the program, based
on recommendations from 130 physicians.

But the overpowering strength of Montana's vote - more than voted for
Bush, for our governor, for our congressman - wasn't enough to resolve
Robin Prosser's predicament. While physician recommendations are
confidential and fully protected by law and by court decisions, the
federal government persists in its persecution of patients. Earlier
this year, the DEA intercepted a shipment of legal medicine that was
on its way to Robin. Since then, the living hell of her body's
condition reawakened, as many registered caregivers in Montana became
too afraid of the government to supply her with medicine. Several
began growing the strain of medical marijuana that worked best for
her, but it takes months of careful work to produce it - time that
Robin, in the end, couldn't endure.

This is a states' rights issue, and Montana voters deserve to have
their policy honored. This is also a science issue, and Americans
deserve a federal government that is intellectually honest enough to
acknowledge the existence of hundreds of scientific research reports
published in peer-reviewed professional journals over the last several
decades, documenting the remarkable medicinal effects of marijuana.

The Missoula Study

And we in Montana have a special ax to grind, even without Robin
Prosser's passing. That's because the only serious study of long-term
medicinal use of marijuana is commonly called "The Missoula Study,"
because its lead author happened to live in Missoula at the time it
was conducted.

Dr. Ethan Russo is widely regarded as one of the world's leading
experts on cannabis and its use as medicine. His "Missoula Study,"
published in 2002, reported on the experience of patients who had
received and used eight ounces of medical marijuana every month since
the 1980s. The patients got (and still get) their monthly marijuana
from -are you ready for this? - the federal government, the same
government that seized Robin Prosser's medicine. Dr. Russo's research
documented that medical marijuana relieved all the patients' suffering
better than "traditional" alternatives, and allowed sharp reductions
in their need for more expensive, riskier drugs at the same time.

It's progress, at least, that all the Democratic presidential
candidates and two of the Republicans have gone on record promising to
end federal attacks on medical marijuana patients. And it's important
progress that Montana's Rep. Denny Rehberg has supported this same
position ever since his constituents adopted a compassionate state
policy.

But we've had enough tragedies. Let Robin Prosser be the last casualty
of the federal war on medical marijuana.