MASSACHUSETTS NEEDS REASONABLE MARIJUANA LAWS

In 1991 the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts ruled that Joe
Hutchins, a Navy veteran with life-threatening scleroderma, could not
use medical necessity as a defense to a marijuana cultivation charge,
even if his marijuana use kept him alive.

Within months the Legislature, led by members whose families faced
similar health emergencies, became a national leader in trying to
protect patients for whom cannabis has therapeutic value. That law
unfortunately provides no comfort to patients.

It requires the state Department of Public Health (DPH) to provide
the medicine to patients from a source approved by the federal
government. The Clinton and Bush administrations refuse DPH's
requests for a supply.

Inspired by Massachusetts' example, 11 states, including three in
New England, adopted laws that protect patients, whatever the source
of their medicine, from state and local arrest and prosecution.

Last spring the U.S. Supreme Court decided the federal power to
regulate interstate commerce includes the power to interfere with the
local and noncommercial activities of people like Angel Raich and
Diane Monson, whose conduct is legal under California law. As a
result, patients and their caregivers in all 50 states risk federal
prosecution for using a plant that first appeared in medical
literature more than 5,000 years ago. In the 11 states that protect
patient use of marijuana with a doctor's recommendation, however,
patients no longer fear their local police.

Have opponents read the bill that would make Massachusetts the 12th
state? The bill requires physicians to certify that the patient
benefits from medical use. DPH must approve of a patient's
participation in the program before patients may, in limited
quantities, legally possess medicine obtained at the black market or
cultivated inside a locked facility. Opponents thunder about the
dangers of marijuana use and claim there are better pharmaceuticals.
Their concern for the recreational use of cannabis impairs their
judgment about the legitimacy of their neighbors' health care. All
medicines powerful enough to treat serious illness have potential bad
side effects, most far worse and frequent than the never-deadly
cannabis. The cost of patented pharmaceuticals continues to explode.

Cannabis, even on the black market, is relatively inexpensive. It
also is safe and effective according to patients and their doctors in
treating a wide range of symptoms and side effects from other drugs
and treatments. For example, the side effects of chemotherapy may be
treated by spending the night at the hospital at a cost
of thousands, with a patented pharmaceutical for hundreds, or by
ingesting less than $5 of cannabis.

None of these treatments works for everyone, but nobody should be
arrested for choosing any one of them with their physician's
approval. Since the 2000 state election, voters in 34 Massachusetts
cities and towns have voted for legislation allowing "seriously ill
patients with their doctor's written recommendation, to possess and
grow small amounts of marijuana for their personal medical use." In
2004, 63 percent of the voters approved and only 27 percent opposed
state-approved medical access.

Sharing this view, all but one member of the Massachusetts
congressional delegation support limiting federal power to protect
patients in states that permit doctor-approved cannabis use from
federal interference with their health care. In the same elections,
voters in 80 cities and towns said marijuana possession should be a
civil violation and not a crime.

Clearly, few voters want to arrest and prosecute adults for
marijuana possession, and even fewer want to punish patients trying
to live with cancer, AIDS, MS or chronic pain. The voters recognize
that prohibition is the weakest control available to government over
an easily grown plant.

They understand prohibition creates irresistible profits to those
willing to risk prosecution. The best policy for cannabis is to
legalize, tax and regulate this easily grown plant, used in the past
month by about 10 percent of Massachusetts' adult population, while
prohibiting it to children as we do tobacco and alcohol. Allowing the
ill and infirm to use cannabis, as provided by the pending
legislation, is humane and sensible.

To arrest and prosecute them is simply wicked. Steven Epstein, an
attorney, is a founder of the Massachusetts Cannabis Reform Coalition
and has long been active in the effort to loosen the laws regarding
marijuana use. He is the parent of two teenagers and a preteen.