LEGISLATORS DON'T UNDERSTAND BOARD RECOMMENDATION

The article (Dec. 1,Times-Republican) on local legislators opposing
the legislative recommendations of the Iowa Pharmacy Board shows that
people, including our legislators, do not understand what the board
has actually recommended.

The Pharmacy Board has asked that language that authorized it to make
regulations to permit medical marijuana be removed from the code.
This is not a step toward legalization.

The Board is also recommending marijuana be removed from Schedule I
where it was placed by politicians decades ago and placed in Schedule
II along with substances like opium.

According to the legislature's own scheduling criteria, marijuana
belongs in schedule II which is reserved for substances and drugs
that do have some recognized medical utility, but which may have a
high potential for abuse. This intellectually honest change in
scheduling may facilitate research into some of marijuana's amazing
medical properties but it does not make marijuana legal any more than
placement in schedule II made opium legal. In fact, more medical
research on marijuana's medicinal properties could result in drugs
that reduce the perceived need for marijuana in medical treatment.

Ironically, because we have not actively developed medicines from the
cannabinoids found in marijuana our society is today much more
dependent on more addictive and harsher drugs developed from opiates
in order to alleviate the same medical problems that drive
chronically ill and dying patients to use marijuana. Law enforcement
experts would tell you that the bigger problem today is the abuse of
prescription drugs developed from opiates and other addictive substitutes.

It is time to hold even our local legislators accountable when they
attempt to legislate bad science based on knee jerk reactions. The
expertise of the Iowa Pharmacy Board should at least entitle its
proposals to a proper understanding and a fair hearing before the legislature.

Randall C. Wilson, Des Moines