REEFER SANITY VS. PURITANS IN THE WHITE HOUSE

TAKOMA PARK, MD. -- The Bard of Baltimore, H.L. Mencken, once defined
Puritanism as "the haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy." He
would have found quite a few of them in his home state in recent days,
trying to keep demon weed away from the seriously ill.

Shrugging off their pressures, Maryland's Republican Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich
signed a bill Thursday that, although it does not quite legalize the
medicinal use of marijuana, does the next best thing. It reduces the
maximum penalty for possession from a year in state prison and a $1,000
fine to a $100 fine in cases of "medical necessity," such as to relieve
suffering from cancer treatment and other illnesses.

That's one small step for the governor and one giant leap toward reefer
sanity, a rational and compassionate national drug policy in which states
can make their own decisions about drugs without ideology-driven
interference from Washington.

Hawaii, Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Colorado, Nevada and Maine
have legalized medical marijuana. All but Hawaii did it by referendum.

Watching his brother-in-law die of cancer two years ago helped shape
Ehrlich's view, he has said. As a congressman, he co-sponsored a bill that
would have freed states to make their own laws on the medicinal marijuana
issue.

"I think most people can discern a clear difference between legalizing
substances that wreck lives," he reportedly said during a Capitol Hill
visit in April, "as opposed to a life situation where someone is doing
something because of severe pain."

But, not everyone does. John P. Walters, the White House drug policy
coordinator, strongly opposed the measure and denounced the notion of
marijuana as "a proven, efficacious medicine" as making no more sense than
"an argument for medicinal crack."

Funny he should say that. Marijuana is listed along with heroin and LSD as
a "Schedule I" drug, the category for drugs with "no acceptable medical
benefits" under the federal Controlled Substances Act. Cocaine is listed in
Schedule II for drugs that have "a currently accepted medical use in
treatment in the United States."

Categorizing marijuana as more dangerous than cocaine is one of many
examples of how far our federal drug policy is removed from the real world.

Perhaps now Maryland can avoid bizarre cases like that of Kitty Tucker, a
lawyer I wrote about four years ago in the Washington suburb of Takoma
Park. When she and her husband had a dispute over their teen-aged
daughter's dating, the youngster got even by telling police about the
marijuana plants that Tucker was growing in their basement for relief from
her severe migraines and chronic muscle pain disorder.

The charges eventually were dropped, but only after Tucker's husband lost
his federal job and the family was put through a legal and emotional wringer.

If states were left to make their own marijuana laws, we also might avoid
cases like that of Ed Rosenthal, who was convicted under federal law of
growing and distributing cannabis, even though he was licensed by the city
of Oakland to do so under California's medical marijuana statute.

The judge in his case prevented several attempts by Rosenthal's attorney to
inform the jury that Rosenthal's actions were legal under state law. After
his conviction, seven jurors took the extraordinary step of publicly
repudiating their own verdict and apologizing to Rosenthal.

A House bill would allow defendants from states with legalized medical
marijuana to use "medical necessity" as a defense against federal drug
charges. It has pulled together co-sponsors as diverse as liberal Rep.
Barney Frank (D., Mass.) and libertarian Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.)

I wish them luck. The die-hard prohibitionists on the other side recently
introduced a bill to authorize the drug czar to use taxpayer money in
political campaigns, as long as it is "to oppose an attempt to legalize the
use" of any currently illegal drug.

Let's hope that bill dies a quick death. Those who want to keep medicine
away from the sick are entitled to promote their opinion. I shouldn't have
to subsidize them.