JUST SAY 'NO' TO MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Arizona's medical-marijuana initiative is a bad idea wrapped in a
cloak of compassion.

The sales pitch is that pot should be legally available to relieve the
suffering of severely ill patients. But the medical argument, whatever
its merits, is a smokescreen.

Proposition 203 is written to allow widespread use of marijuana. It's
a backdoor route to legalization without any consideration of the
repercussions.

Under the initiative, patients with debilitating medical conditions
would be allowed to use a limited amount of marijuana obtained from a
non-profit dispensary (or, if the distance is 25 miles or more, grown
at home). The qualifying conditions include severe and chronic pain -
which cannot be tested and is based on a patient's
self-reporting.

The experience of other states that have approved similar measures is
instructive.

In Montana, it took a reporter eight minutes to get a doctor's
recommendation for medical marijuana. With a population of 975,000,
the state has 23,500 people who have been authorized to use medical
marijuana. The vast majority cited pain.

The medical argument doesn't wash with the Arizona Department of
Health Services, which points out that the Food and Drug
Administration hasn't tested marijuana for safety or
effectiveness.

Even though more than a dozen other states have legalized medical
marijuana, it is poor public policy to set up a system for prescribing
and using a substance that is still illegal under federal law, with no
standards for dosage or use.

Proposition 203 would also wreak havoc with efforts to promote
drug-free workplaces because employers would be prohibited from taking
action against an employee who tested positive for medical marijuana.

Law-enforcement officials from around Arizona oppose the initiative,
fearing the kind of cottage industry of cannabis that sprang up in
California. The allowance of 2.5 ounces every two weeks, they note, is
enough for 200 joints.

Are we really talking about medication or recreation?

The prime sponsor of the Arizona initiative is the Washington, D.C.-
based Marijuana Policy Project, whose vision is "a nation where
marijuana is legally regulated similarly to alcohol." The group is
pushing California's current initiative to legalize pot outright.

Maybe Arizonans want to have that discussion. If so, it should be
forthright and open. Not disguised. Voters should reject medical marijuana.