MEDICAL MARIJUANA: DELEGATES ACT WITH COMPASSION

It's heartening when leaders do the right thing -- as the Maryland House of
Delegates did by approving legislation that allows prescription use of
marijuana for people battling cancer, AIDS and other ravaging diseases.

The values of our society have shifted in recent years to a more sympathetic
understanding of suffering people and a more sympathetic acceptance of their
wishes in preparing their departure from life.

Unfortunately, our policy toward medical marijuana remains bollixed up in
slogans, politics and our massively expensive and ineffective "war on
drugs."

It's ridiculous enough to siphon so many tax dollars and human resources in
prosecuting hundreds of thousands of people annually for marijuana. It's
equally depressing to watch the courts chop away at civil liberties, as the
Supreme Court may soon do if it requires urine tests for students as a
condition of participating in after-school activities.

Let's not compound our mistakes by denying some relief -- and, perhaps,
restored appetite -- to people with pain both from diseases and debilitating
treatments.

The bill in Annapolis is called the Darrell Putman Compassionate Use Act. It
would make Maryland the ninth state to remove criminal penalties for
seriously ill people who take pot for pain. It was named for Darrell Putman,
a Howard County horse farmer and retired Army lieutenant colonel who died
from cancer in 1999. Until a friend suggested marijuana, Putman had lost 40
pounds while undergoing chemotherapy in his final months.

The origin of the legislation puts to rest any suggestion that it is part of
some liberal conspiracy. The sponsor is Del. Donald Murphy of Baltimore
County, a self-described law-and-order Republican who saw the wisdom of
medical marijuana while watching the suffering of Putman, his friend and a
fellow Republican.

Murphy declared that House passage of the bill was a victory for cancer and
AIDS patients "because it will keep them out of jail."

Murphy and like-minded delegates should be praised for standing up to the
demagoguery and misinformation that surfaces whenever the topic of marijuana
rolls around. Del. Theodore Sophocleus, an Anne Arundel Democrat,
demonstrated both when he argued that the bill would amount to "the camel's
nose under the tent" -- meaning that it would lead to full-blown
legalization.

Another camel analogy applies to Sophocleus and the other 55 delegates who
voted against the bill: They look to us like camels who've buried their
heads in the sand.