Drug Policy

MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL FACES HAZY OUTLOOK

Although eight states have laws protecting users of medical marijuana
from arrest or jail, Vermont isn't one of them. For several years now,
pretty much the only thing standing between AIDS patients and legal
pot was the veto threat of then-Governor Howard Dean, who probably
didn't want something as crunchy and controversial as medical
marijuana on his record while he was considering a presidential run.
Civil unions, after all, would be enough to explain.

But compassion for the seriously ill, too? Surely, it would be his
downfall.

This year, with medical marijuana bills up for consideration in five
states -- Rhode Island, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, and Vermont
- -- Krissy Oechsl of the Marijuana Policy Project says chances are good
that laws will pass in at least several states.

But local supporters of medical marijuana probably shouldn't hold
their breath.

Dr. David Lewis, founder of the Brown University Center for Alcohol
and Addiction Studies and project director of the Physician Leadership
on National Drug Policy, pegs the bill's chances of passing at
practically zero. Based on historical precedent alone, that seems a
pretty fair estimate. Of the 32 states where medical marijuana
legislation has been introduced since 1978, only two -- Hawaii and
Maryland -- have seen those bills passed.

The rest were enacted through citizen-inspired ballot initiatives,
rather than the state legislative process.

Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for
the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), acknowledges that a "political
hot potato" like medical marijuana is "in some ways . . . not well
equipped to be discussed in the legislature at all," thanks to the
"reefer madness" so entrenched in the minds of many politicians. Well,
that, and the fact that support for medical marijuana doesn't have
anything like a consensus in the medical community.

Although studies show that smoked marijuana can alleviate the pain,
nausea, and lack of appetite associated with illnesses like AIDS, it
also carried the same cancer-causing chemicals as cigarettes and other
unknown possible risks -- as well as what medical marijuana advocates
delicately term "side effects," also known by most people as "getting
high."

State Senator Rhode Perry (D-Providence), lead sponsor of this year's
Senate bill, introduced a medical marijuana bill last year, but the
bill never received a hearing, mostly, Perry says, because she didn't
push for it. The legislator plans to be more aggressive this year,
with a bill that limits to three the number of diseases marijuana is
available to treat.

It also addresses distribution issues more specifically than the
previous bill -- basically, trying to spell out, in big red letters,
"MEDICAL USE ONLY," to get past lawmakers who inevitably equate
medical marijuana with evil drug dealers corrupting the nation's youth.

Still, Rhode Island isn't nearly as close to getting the kind of
widespread support for Medical Marijuana as Vermont. Currently, the
biggest supports of H7588 -- introduced in the Rhode Island House on
February 5 as the Rhode Island Medical Marijuana Act -- are the local
affiliate of the American Civil Liberties Union, and chapters at Brown
and URI of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy.

College students for pot? Who would have guessed?