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| Canada Sheds The Cold Light of Logic on Marijuana |
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Posted by FoM on August 03, 2001 at 10:19:55 PT By Ellen Goodman Source: San Jose Mercury News 
And now from our northern neighbors, the allegedly staid Canadians, a new antidote to our reefer madness. The Canadian government has just increased the number of its people who can use marijuana as medicine. As of this month, the terminally ill and those with chronic diseases from cancer to AIDS to MS can turn their back yards into their medicine cabinets.With the approval of a doctor, they can either grow it or get it free from the government, which is paying a company to nurture the plants in an abandoned copper mine in Flin Flon, Manitoba. Where does that leave us? U.S. citizens, who routinely cross the border for cheap prescription drugs, won't be allowed access to the Manitoba mother lode. But if Canadians can't export their medical marijuana, it's time for us to import their policy. The northern light on the subject comes in the wake of a Canadian Supreme Court ruling that any patient suffering terminal or painful illness should be allowed access to marijuana when a doctor says it may help. Our own Supreme Court has moved in exactly the opposite direction. In May, our Supremes ruled on narrow grounds that federal drug law allows no exception for medical marijuana. Marijuana has a medical history that goes way back beyond the time when the strait-laced Queen Victoria took it for menstrual cramps. Today, thousands of patients from paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould to your neighbor's grandmother have reported on pot's value in relieving the nausea of chemotherapy or improving the appetite of an AIDS patient. Many doctors still wait for scientific proof, the double-blind studies that have become the gold standard of research. But no such studies existed when penicillin or even aspirin were accepted. Marijuana, like most drugs, has side effects, although worrying about the effects of smoking on the lungs of a terminally ill patient seems a bit absurd. One of the other side effects is what medical researchers label ``euphoria.'' But as Leonard Glantz, a Boston University professor of health law asks, ``If someone is terminally ill, and they can eat and be euphoric, why is that bad?'' Here we get to the heart of the matter: the drug war in which marijuana has played a starring role with 700,000 arrests in 1998. There is a fear that if grandma can smoke it legally for her health, granddaughter will smoke it to get high. ``We're seeing America's war on drugs being taken to an extreme that begins to make no sense,'' says Glantz. Politicians are so afraid of appearing soft on drugs they can't draw any distinctions. Compare this to morphine. We don't allow morphine on the street but we permit it in the doctor's arsenal for the treatment of pain. Imagine the uproar if we made morphine illegal. There is no logic in treating marijuana differently. The feds aren't likely to crack down on the terminally ill, nor are law enforcers eager to rip joints out of the hands of AIDS patients. Asa Hutchinson, the Bush pick to head the Drug Enforcement Administration, said prosecuting the medical marijuana dealers wasn't ``a priority.'' But meanwhile, patients are using drug dealers as doctors. And a treatment for suffering is a crime. Is that a whiff of sanity from cross the border? Or just a contact high? Ellen Goodman is a columnist for the Boston Globe. Source: San Jose Mercury News (CA) Related Articles & Web Site: Canadian Links Time for Discussion on Easing Canada's Drug Laws Deep In The Ground Lies The Marijuana Farm CannabisNews Articles - Canada Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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