HAZY STANCES

I personally believe that there should be a requirement that every
politician who runs for public office must have smoked pot at some
point. Even if that experience doesn't make the politician want to
legalize it, he or she will at least realize how dangerous it isn't.

My position on this issue was only strengthened this week after
watching a CNN video of Mitt Romney, in typical 2008 Republican
front-runner style, dismiss a multiple sclerosis sufferer advocating
that medical marijuana arrests be stopped. The MS sufferer caught
Romney on camera and explained to him that, although he is against
legalizing marijuana, the smoked form of the drug is the only pain
reliever for his lifelong illness that he can use without getting sick.

His question, then, was "Will you arrest me and my doctors if I get
medical marijuana prescribed to me?"

Romney dodged the question, answering, "I'm not in favor of medical
marijuana being legal." After that, he returned to his mission of
shaking hands with as many rally attendees as possible, ignoring
journalists who pressed him to answer the man's question.

Romney's attitude toward the MS patient exemplifies the 2008
Republican front-running presidential candidates' chronic dodging of
the issue of medical marijuana arrests and raids on medical
marijuana dispensaries, which have been common since the U.S.
Supreme Court decided Raich v. Vernon in 2005. The verdict
allowed federal officers to arrest sellers and users of
medical marijuana, regardless of individual state laws.

Determined to at least appear concerned for everyone's well-being,
the candidates have tried to make their anti-medical marijuana
stance appear justified through pointing out the drug's safety
issues, health risks and its potential to proliferate recreational drug use.

But that appearance falls apart when someone brings up the topic of
medical marijuana arrests and dispensary raids. Standing firm in the
belief that cancer patients and well-meaning doctors should be
tossed in the slammer doesn't exude that same sense of
compassion about public health.

So to avoid the hypocrisy, the candidates draw attention away from
the arrests and toward the drug's risks.

When a woman at a New Hampshire conference last week asked John
McCain whether he would legally allow her use of medical marijuana,
he replied:

"You may be one of the unique cases in America that only medical
marijuana can relieve pain from ... Every medical expert I know of,
including the (American Medical Association), says there are much
more effective and much more, uh, better treatments for pain."

And last week at another conference, when a woman asked Rudy
Giuliani about his position on the raids, he, too, avoided the topic
and talked about the FDA's evaluation of cannabis alternatives.

The health and safety issues medical marijuana presents are
important topics for political discussion. But the discussion that
needs to come first is the one about people who are getting arrested
for trying to put themselves out of agony while hurting no one else
aE" and how to stop those arrests.