REEFER-ENDUM

Prescription Pot Is Priority

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments regarding medicinal
marijuana and the role of the federal ban on marijuana in those cases.
Whichever way the court decides, the decision will directly affect
thousands of seriously ill individuals in 11 states where medicinal
marijuana is legal. Whether these individuals will be able to live in
a state of lessened pain and suffering as they do now will be up to
the justices.

Marijuana prohibition has enough negative consequences, like the
prosecution of thousands with drug-related charges and the consumption
of billions of tax-payers' dollars. It was President Jimmy Carter who
said, "Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more
damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is
this more clear to me than in the laws against possession of marijuana
in private for personal use." The most tragic consequence of the U.S.
war on drugs is denying seriously ill patients the benefits that
marijuana can provide.

The symptoms that marijuana cures are not simply discomfort from
headaches and sprained ankles. Furthermore, medicinal marijuana is not
solely an excuse for people to get high. Instead, marijuana relieves
the terrible symptoms of life-threatening and terminal illnesses like
AIDS, cancer and multiple sclerosis. Often these illnesses are
accompanied by extreme pain, and because of the overwhelming nausea
some cause, swallowing a pain pill is not an option for many patients.

Forcing patients to adhere to a federal marijuana ban is hypocritical
and heartless. Other narcotics, like morphine, are at a high risk for
abuse. However, because of their medicinal properties, these drugs are
legally prescribed. The blame for why marijuana is exempt of the same
categorization of these narcotics lies within the U.S. government. And
that fault has increased the suffering of thousands in the United States.

Written references of medicinal marijuana date back 5,000 years. It
wasn't until the Marijuana Tax Act of 1941 that physicians had trouble
prescribing marijuana. Paul Clement, the Bush administration's top
court lawyer, said "Smoking marijuana really doesn't have any future
in medicine."

Perhaps Mr. Clement and the Supreme Court justices should ask the
opinion of more than 60 U.S. and international health organizations -
including the American Public Health Association and the Federation of
American scientists - who support medicinal marijuana under a
physician's supervision.

More than 60 health organizations, over 5,000 years of medical use and
thousands of U.S. citizens using medicinal marijuana can't be wrong.