Pubdate: Sun, 10 Sep 2000
Source: Denver Rocky Mountain News (CO)
Copyright: 2000 Denver Publishing Co.
Contact:  400 W. Colfax, Denver, CO 80204
Website: http://www.denver-rmn.com/
Author: Vincent Carroll, editorial page editor

MARIJUANA BACKERS DON'T MAKE IT EASY

There are roughly 10,000 doctors practicing medicine in Colorado, yet not 
one is riding into battle beside sponsors of the medical marijuana 
initiative. Not one.

There were no doctors publicly allied with Coloradans for Medical Rights in 
1998, when Amendment 20 initially made the ballot (and was illegally thrown 
off by the secretary of state), and there were still no doctors on board 
last week when I checked with the sponsors again.

What gives? You can find maverick doctors willing to put in a good word for 
virtually any exotic nostrum on the market. We've seen them plugging 
unorthodox diet books that ought to be plastered with consumer warning 
labels. And yet when it comes to Amendment 20, the mavericks have fled the 
scene. No one rises to contradict the medical establishment. No one steps 
forward, links arms with the initiative's sponsors, and tells us why we 
need to decriminalize marijuana for use by patients in pain.

If there were a groundswell of Coloradans demanding marijuana as the only 
way to relieve their agony, wouldn't you think some doctors would rally to 
their cause? It makes you wonder whose agenda this amendment is meant to 
serve: doctors' and patients', or the wealthy supporters of drug 
legalization who've bankrolled this and similar ballot measures across the 
land.

Another worry: the amendment's definition of who would qualify to use 
marijuana. No, not just those afflicted with AIDS, cancer or other 
specific, devastating conditions, but anyone claiming to suffer from severe 
and chronic pain.

Now, I'm someone who does believe that doctors and desperate patients 
should be able to choose the pain and nausea treatment they like, however 
outside mainstream medical practice. That's why deciding how to vote on 
Amendment 20 will be such a challenge for me. There's no question that the 
''cannabinoid drugs'' in marijuana (THC is the best known, but there are 
others) can relieve pain, stimulate appetite and suppress nausea. And there 
is also no question that at least a few patients insist that marijuana 
gives them more effective, immediate relief than the legal synthetic 
alternatives that work best for everyone else.

Even a 1999 study by the Institute for Medicine conducted at the request of 
the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy acknowledged that 
''until a nonsmoked, rapid-onset cannabinoid drug delivery system becomes 
available," there "is no clear alternative" to marijuana use in some instances.

To be sure, the researchers who conducted that study went to great pains to 
stress ''the future of cannabinoid drugs lies not in smoked marijuana but 
in chemically-defined drugs'' and that ''because of the health risk 
associated with smoking, smoked marijuana should generally not be 
recommended for long-term medical use.''

Yet under Amendment 20, a patient could smoke marijuana as a long-term 
treatment through repeated renewals of a one-year registry card.

With broader professional support and a better crafted amendment, 
Coloradans for Medical Rights could have made voting easy for those of us 
who sympathize with the principle behind their cause. Instead, they chose 
to make it hard.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens