MEDICAL MARIJUANA VOTE ABOUT LEGALIZING POT, TOO

This happens. Then that happens. Can we conclude that this caused
that?

Of course not. Does killing turkeys cause it to snow? One event
following another is no proof that the first caused the second.

Women won the right to vote in 1920. Since then we have had six wars,
a Great Depression and the invention of the cell phone. Oh Lord! See
what this suffrage hath wrought. Or not.

Did women vote for war or economic distress? Aside for a tendency to
be more progressive, women vote pretty much the same as men in their
community.

The backers of an initiative to legalize medical marijuana cited a
California study last week that amounted to another claim that
slaughtering turkeys creates blizzards.

The state of California reported that the number of ninth-graders
using marijuana has dropped 45 percent since the state adopted its
medical marijuana law eight years ago. Pro pot activists say this is
proof that legalization of medical marijuana does not encourage
youngsters to smoke pot.

It's no such thing.

The decline in juvenile pot smoking in the Golden State may have been
due to any number of causes, including a rise in the price of weed,
availability of other drugs or an anti-drug campaign conducted by the
Left Coast Baptist Convention.

Paul Befumo, treasurer of the Marijuana Policy Project of Montana,
says young people in California are seeing that marijuana is for sick
people and not something that should be used lightly.

Befumo's logic is befuddled. We might wonder what he's
smoking.

Medical marijuana use might persuade kids that weed is for the sick.
It might also suggest that it's just what the doctor ordered. More
likely, kids don't think about medical use of marijuana at all.

Opponents of the initiative are not above spinning the truth. A
National Center for Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia
University study has become the opposition's gospel. The center
reports that children and teens are three times likelier to be in
treatment for marijuana use than for alcohol use.

Sounds impressive. The study proves nothing but strongly suggests that
our society is more alarmed by some drugs than others. Kids caught
smoking pot are sent to treatment. Those busted for drinking beer are
sent to their rooms.

Most kids in treatment are there because the legal system put them
there. Judges, like most adults, are more alarmed by pot smoking than
by the boozing.

A judge may have a liquor cabinet in his home, or even in his
chambers, but woe to a perp caught with a half-ounce of weed. Never
mind that alcohol (a legal narcotic) kills more people than all the
street drugs combined.

A study commissioned by the White House and Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey
verified that marijuana does have medical benefits and argues that it
should be made available to patients who could benefit from its use
now.

The list of those advocating the legalization of medical marijuana
continues to grow and includes two committees of the American Medical
Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, a raft of local and
state medical associations, the Governator, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and
the stuffy old codgers from England's House of Lords.

Opponents argue that marijuana has harmful side effects, leads teens
to harder drugs and that the attempt to legalize marijuana is just
another step in the assault on laws outlawing pot. The drug warriors'
shotgun defense of the status quo has its problems.

Marijuana use may lead to heavier drugs, including coke, crack and
Jack Daniels. But if pot is a "bridge drug," so are alcohol and
cigarettes. Hang out with the people who use these over-the-counter
drugs and they'll introduce you to lots of stuff.

No one is currently calling for a ban on booze or butts.
(Incidentally, cigarettes kill more people than all the street drugs
AND alcohol combined.)

The notion that a marijuana smoking might cause cancer is laughable --
except to someone dying of AIDs or forced to vomit several times a day
by effects of chemotherapy.

However, the claim that medical marijuana advocates are bent on
legalizing pot for all has merit. Pro pot groups have fought to lift
the ban on marijuana use for nearly four decades.

In the beginning, they fought Draconian laws that earned users 20
years in prison for the possession of tiny amounts of marijuana.

"Decriminalization" of marijuana progressed to legalization of
marijuana for personal use in Alaska, a police chief's decision not to
use limited resources arresting pot smokers, and the legalization of
medical marijuana in 13 states.

NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) has led
the battle. More recently NORML created the national Medical Marijuana
Project, which has donated $170,000 to the Montana Medical Marijuana
Project.

Is the drive to legalize medical marijuana about the suffering of AIDS
and cancer victims?

Yes.

Is it also part of a push to legalize all marijuana
use?

Of course.