I posted Monday on legislation that would legalize so-called “medical marijuana,” saying that
In a humane world, medical marijuana — i.e., the use of pot to mitigate certain debilitating conditions — would be accepted as a matter of course, a normal part of treatment.
It’s nice to see The Star-Ledger, in an editorial today, come to the same conclusion.
This is a good bill, one with stringent safeguards to ensure that the use of marijuana is restricted to legitimate medical patients. Every applicant for a permit would have to prove a bona fide relationship with a physician who can provide documentation of the medical condition at issue.
The paper adds that the “tangled issue” suffers from a willingness of both sides to cherry-pick scientific arguments, but that the Bush administration — and its allies among antidrug crusaders — have been using a “heavy-handed approach (that) hasn’t been popular in a lot of states” and that has turned the Office of National Drug Control Policy into “a sort of campaign office for the anti-legalization crusade.”
One handout, for example, questions whether marijuana is an effective medication, yet concedes that “smoking marijuana may allow patients to temporarily feel better.”
Isn’t that the purpose of an analgesic? If the feds know of any pain reliever that makes people feel better permanently, they should put this miracle drug on the market. In the interim, that argument supports the use of medicinal marijuana.
The other main objection from the Office of National Drug Control Policy is that smoking marijuana “increases the risk for respiratory diseases similar to those associated with nicotine cigarettes.” This argument would make sense if the federal government banned cigarettes. But it’s absurd to argue that a healthy citizen may fill his lungs freely with cigarette smoke until he develops cancer, yet be precluded from a few puffs that deliver a drug to soften the side effects of chemotherapy.
The hypocrisy would be maddening if it weren’t the kind of thing that we see all the time in public debates over controversial issues.
I am an advocate of harm reduction and legalization of drugs — heavily regulate them from their very beginnings as seeds or in the manufacturing process, through packaging and distribution and tax them heavily to generate cash to offset any negative impacts they may have on society.
That said, I also know the political will is not there and that legalization remains a long way off. Denying a drug that has the potential to alleviate pain and suffering among the sick is just cruel. By passing this legislation, we can take a step toward rectifying this injustice.
Hank Kalet 