SHOULD MEDICAL MARIJUANA BE LEGALIZED?

Doctors Should Be Free To Prescribe Pain Medication That Works

Conservatives' defense of states' rights over the Goliath of federal
government intervention verges on the pathological. So it seems a teeny bit
hypocritical for Republicans in Congress to suddenly support the recent
Supreme Court ruling that federally outlaws medical marijuana in the 10
states that had legalized it for medicinal purposes.

But perhaps I shouldn't be surprised. Enlightened conservative discourse on
the topic of marijuana harkens back at least to 1937, when Harry Anslinger,
U.S. commissioner of narcotics, testified: "marijuana causes white women to
seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

Now, I'm not arguing that conservatives today would still champion
Anslinger's view, but our perceptions of marijuana remain laden with
prejudice that should not be allowed to hinder medical progress. There's a
dark side to every medical issue.

But conservatives are so overly concerned with the "slippery slope" that
they assume complex issues are unmanageable and that evil will undoubtedly
triumph. That may be true in the pages of the Old Testament, but much of
medical history is based on risk and experimentation. If it weren't, we
wouldn't have vaccinations, heart transplants or any number of routine
medical procedures we benefit from today.

Administered under a doctor's care, marijuana alleviates pain and the
nausea experienced by cancer and AIDS patients, according to Institute of
Medicine research. Admittedly, research on the therapeutic benefits of
marijuana is still thin. Richard Cohen, director of the National
Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, says that marijuana research
is "blocked at every turn" and adds that renowned AIDS doctor Donald Abrams
couldn't obtain approval for research on marijuana as an appetite stimulant
in AIDS patients for five years.

While some argue that medical marijuana can be addictive, few would contend
it has the same dependency risk as the medications hospitals routinely
administer for debilitating pain. Conservatives aren't clamoring for
hospitals to turn off the morphine drip for dying cancer patients because
there's a heroin problem in the world. But they want to draw a line in the
sand over medical marijuana? Please. Show me the logic.