DRUG CZAR BLOWS IN, WEEDS OUT MEDICAL MARIJUANA SUPPORT

Opening Shot

Medicine was once ruled by tradition. Doctors resisted for years the
radical notion that they should wash their hands before examining
patients or operating. They found the suggestion insulting; it implied
they were dirty.

We like to think we're more open to new ideas nowadays, and we are.
But not as much as we like to think. A mass of scientific evidence and
overwhelming professional approval, for instance, mean nothing when it
comes to the issue of medical marijuana, not to the government, not
compared to the long-held notion that pot is a drug and all drugs are
bad.

The Bush administration is fanatical on this subject, a passion
dramatically demonstrated Thursday in Springfield when onlookers were
surprised to see drug czar John Walters blow into a hearing the
Illinois House of Representatives Human Services Committee was having
on a bill to set up a program for legal medical marijuana in this
state. Ten other states already have such a program.

Walters, who is in Bush's Cabinet, came in with a large Secret Service
presence, testified for an hour, and then left. Apparently his usual
farrago of distortions and fabrications was convincing, because two
Democrats flipped -- Michelle Chavez of Cicero and, to the shock of
many in her liberal district, Naomi Jakobsson of Champaign -- and the
bill was voted down.

I'm not sure why I care about this -- I was never one for pot, and
nobody I know is dying of cancer, not anymore. I guess, for me, the
repression of medical marijuana represents the hidebound,
head-in-the-sand, politicized approach the Bush administration takes
to all things scientific, whether quashing stem cell research,
ignoring global warming or slavering to rip up the Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge to draw out a few months worth of oil.