CANADA, MARYLAND GOING TO POT

Maryland Gov. Robert Ehrlich recently signed legislation into law allowing
patients using medical marijuana, if taken to trial, to raise an
"affirmative defense of medical necessity."

Now, as long as the patient successfully shows that his or her use of
marijuana is for medical purposes, the maximum fine allowed would be a mere
$100. Canada has also changed its marijuana policy, with the courts
allowing "medical" use, the government's creating an Office of Cannabis
Medical Access and punishing possession of small amounts of marijuana with
a lesser fine, similar to a traffic ticket.

Since 1996, eight states preceded Maryland in liberalizing or outright
legalizing medical use of marijuana or even the so-called harder drugs for
medicinal purposes: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine,
Oregon and Washington.

Let's look at the truth here. Legislation permitting the use of medical
marijuana is a wedge for those who support drug legalization, undeniably
because they desire the high. California found that very few people going
to medical marijuana clinics were terminally ill; the vast majority were
simply potheads who wanted dope.

It is ironic that advocates for legalizing marijuana to help poor,
suffering and pain-stricken individuals do not support the drug in other
forms such as patches, suppositories, aerosols, or pill form. They only
push for the smoked form of marijuana.

Legalization advocates argue that marijuana helps cure severe headaches,
glaucoma and even Parkinson's disease, and say it prevents nausea, reduces
pain, sparks the appetite, reduces muscle spasms and decreases eye fluid
pressure in glaucoma cases. However, glaucoma treatment is actually just
delayed by marijuana, not helped. Medical marijuana is no better than
medical gin -- taking a shot of it blurs the pain and makes you hungry,
too. Marijuana is not a miracle drug. It does not cure anything.

Science, not politics, and not "high hopes," should determine what is safe
and effective medicine. Certainly, hot, burning smoke in someone's throat
is not it. In comparison to tobacco, Dr. Zuo-Feng Zhang of UCLA's Jonsson
Cancer Center points out that "the carcinogens in marijuana are much
stronger than those in tobacco." At the same time, smoking marijuana can
lead to tachycardia, a serious increase in heart rate, often accompanied by
an increase in blood pressure. Concentration, motor coordination, memory,
lungs and reproductive and immune systems are all adversely impacted by
marijuana use, according to the National Institutes of Health.

In 1996, the California ballot initiative passed, making the state the
first to remove criminal penalties for qualifying patients who grow,
possess and use medical marijuana. But such initiatives are funded by
people like George Soros, who has contributed more than $15 million to
initiatives and propositions pushing for drug legalization (currently,
federal and most state campaign laws do not limit personal contributions
for initiatives, only candidate races).

The answer to the war on drugs does not lie in decriminalizing marijuana.
Doing so could very well mean heading down a dangerous path that will
likely require societal and legislative corrections in the future. Do we
really want to reproduce problems of the '70s and '80s, when drug use and
crime were at their highest?

An annual survey of 100,000 students shows, surprising to legalization
advocates, that marijuana is disproportionately involved in crime and
violence. Marijuana is also the most used drug for which teens seek
treatment, surpassing alcohol. In fact, more teens seek treatment
nationally for marijuana than all other drugs combined.

Today, drug use in our country is half of what it was in the late '70s and
early '80s; cocaine use is down by 70 percent, and crime is at all-time
lows. Legalization of medical marijuana will immediately lead to increased
availability of the drug and deflated attitudes about its dangers. This, in
turn, will bring increased usage. Is this what our country wants? More
people using and even becoming dependent on marijuana, especially if they
start taking the drug compulsively, as would most likely be the case for
medicinal purposes? Making drugs more available is not a solution, but an
aggravation of the problem.

Marijuana does not meet the scientific requirements for efficacy, quality,
purity and safety necessary to be considered medicine. How can anyone
consider it compassionate or medically responsible to prescribe harmful
substances to ill people and delude them into thinking they are improving
their health? The American Medical Association, the Federal Drug
Enforcement Administration, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the
American Glaucoma Society, the American Academy of Ophthalmology and the
American Cancer Society have all rejected the use of smoked marijuana as
medicine. The rest of America should do the same.