NOTHING CRIMINAL IN HEALING HERBS

Should patients suffering from severe ailments -- AIDS, cancer, glaucoma --
have access to medical marijuana which, often alone among available
medicines, can alleviate their suffering? Or should they be liable to
arrest and prosecution like any other drug user?

Few issues cut so wide a gulf between the federal government and the
states. The feds are anti-pot, period. Alaska, California, Colorado,
Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have passed laws exempting the
very ill, often terminally ill, from facing jail. Now Illinois may join
them. A medical marijuana bill introduced into the General Assembly would
exempt patients who have a doctor's prescription from prosecution. It
deserves full debate and then swift passage.

Use of medical marijuana is only controversial to the feds -- responsible
medical organizations such as the American Academy of Family Physicians,
the American Academy of HIV Medicine, the New England Journal of Medicine
and the American Nurses Association support it, as do countless doctors.
"It is pointless and cruel," said one Chicago physician, "to threaten the
sick with arrest and jail simply for trying to feel better." The sufferings
of thousands of sick Illinois citizens demand that we cast off punitive and
wrong-headed notions about marijuana and pass this bill without delay.