ARNOLD INTERVIEW MAY BE VULGAR, BUT HAS THE RIGHT IDEA ON POT

Friday, September 05, 2003 - ARNOLD Schwarzenegger's 1977 interview
with the now-defunct pornographic magazine Oui is not recommended
reading for anyone without a strong stomach for vulgarity. But the
interview helps explain the soundness of one of the actor's
public-policy positions.

Schwarzenegger smoked marijuana, enjoyed it and still managed to
become an ambitious, intelligent actor and businessman who built a
sterling career for himself. This must give him a healthy skepticism
for the unthinking hostility toward marijuana that infects our
political culture and drives the federal government's lunatic campaign
against the drug, as if anyone who ever tries it is doomed to become a
stoner.

The flash point in the marijuana wars at the moment is the fight over
the medical use of the drug. Schwarzenegger is in favor of legalizing
it, as are most Californians. The state passed a ballot initiative
permitting the medical use of marijuana with 55 percent of the vote in
1996. Eight other states have legalized it as well, creating friction
with the feds, who don't want grievously ill patients to get relief if
it means taking the untoward expedient of lighting a joint.

Of course, if the congressmen who maintain the federal prohibition on
medical marijuana had to put their heads in toilet bowls several times
a day to vomit from the effects of chemotherapy, they might be less
categorical in condemning what some patients do to relieve their
nausea. But the federal government has never been famous for its
common sense or flexibility, so the war against medical marijuana
lumbers on, even in the states that have legalized it.

Since the feds systematically suppress attempts to study the potential
medical benefits of marijuana, the most important datum in the debate
is simply this: Some patients say smoking marijuana is the best way
that they can get relief from the nausea associated with chemotherapy
and the wasting illness associated with HIV/AIDS. Smoking the drug
works better for some patients than Marinol pills, which contain pure
THC and have more side effects.

The New England Journal of Medicine has advocated the legalization of
medical marijuana. In May, the journal Lancet Neurology reported that
marijuana's active components alleviate pain in almost every lab test,
and called it potentially "the aspirin of the 21st century." Earlier
this year, the New York State Association of County Health Officials
came out in favor of medical marijuana.

The ill health effects of marijuana come from inhaling the smoke into
the lungs. This isn't a problem if the use is only short-term, or if
the user has a terminal disease. Consumer Reports (no less) writes
"that for patients with advanced AIDS and terminal cancer, the
apparent benefits some derive from smoking marijuana outweigh any
substantiated or even suspected risks."

Drug warriors worry that permitting medical marijuana "sends the wrong
message" to teenagers. But the popularity of various drugs among youth
moves in broad patterns that are not readily influenced by what
federal "drug czar" John Walters says or does. And the fact is that -
God bless them - cancer and AIDS patients aren't glamorous, and are
unlikely to prompt an epidemic of youth pot smoking.

Might medical marijuana be abused? Of course. That's also true of a
host of prescription drugs. But don't tell Walters. Next he will be
trying to deny patients the use of morphine and OxyContin.

What drug warriors really fear is that if medical marijuana is
permitted, it will harm their effort to depict marijuana as utterly
nefarious and create the opening for a more rational debate about the
legal status of the drug. The drug warriors are already losing ground.
The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws recently
celebrated a vote in Congress that had 152 members voting to ease the
federal crackdown on medical marijuana.

That's progress, although the cause still needs a high-profile
spokesman. If it happens to be a formerly swinging California
bodybuilder who enjoyed the 1970s a little too much, so be it.