Pubdate: Wed, 16 May 2001
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2001 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact:  http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82
Author: Clarence Page

ANTI-POT POLITICS A DISSERVICE TO THE ILL

The U.S. Supreme Court has spoken. Federal anti-drug laws trump state laws 
that allow patients to have marijuana when their doctors recommend it.

That's sad news to Kathleen Marie "Kitty" Tucker. The 57-year-old lawyer 
and mother favors the legalization of marijuana for medicinal use.

She could use some.

Since 1987 she has suffered from migraines and fibromyalgia, a chronic 
muscle pain disorder. Both aliments are so severe she cannot work outside 
her suburban Maryland home.

She looked with great hope to the nearby District of Columbia and to the 
eight states where marijuana for medicinal purposes has been legalized.

She's been using such legal drugs as Marinol, a synthetic version of the 
active ingredient in marijuana. But none relieve her symptoms as well--and 
with as few side effects--as smoking marijuana used to, she says.

She knows because she used to grow her own marijuana in the basement of her 
family home in Takoma Park, Md.

Then, in 1999, her then-16-year-old daughter, in an apparent burst of teen 
rage, told the local police about mommy's indoor garden.

Weeks later, the charges were dropped. But, by then, Tucker's husband, 
Robert Alvarez, had lost his job as a senior policy adviser at the U.S. 
Energy Department, and the family had been put through an emotional and 
legal ringer.

Tucker's hopes for legal pot evaporated, along with those of numerous other 
sufferers, on Monday when the Supreme Court ruled 8-0 against 
marijuana-supplying co-ops in California. Federal law does not allow the 
distribution of marijuana, even to people whose doctors recommend it to 
alleviate symptoms of serious illness, the court ruled.

That ruling dealt a setback, if not a definitive blow, to the movement.

Sure, you can legalize medicinal marijuana all you want, the high court 
told the voters and legislators, but that doesn't mean Washington has to 
let it happen.

"It is very disappointing to see our democracy kicked away," Tucker said in 
a voice that sounded wracked with pain.

Yes, "kicked away" is a good way to describe the way marijuana, even for 
legitimate relief of illness, has become a political football. Poll after 
poll tends to show that most people support doctor-approved medicinal use 
of marijuana.

Yet the issue has failed to catch on with most Washington politicians and 
most state legislatures, except for Hawaii. It is as if the issue has 
nothing to do with real science or even real people anymore, just politics 
and posturing.

Nobody ever lost an election by promising to be "tough" on drugs, even when 
it means being unnecessarily tough on the sick.

Justice Clarence Thomas, author of the high court's ruling, offered a good 
example. When he cited the federal statute that says marijuana has "no 
currently accepted medical use," he was expressing a political view, not a 
scientific one.

Lawmakers could simply look at 1999 report by the Institute of Medicine, a 
branch of the National Academy of Sciences. It confirmed the effectiveness 
of marijuana's active components in treating pain, nausea and the 
anorexic-wasting syndrome associated with AIDS.

The report did caution against smoking marijuana for more than six months. 
After all, smoking anything is hazardous to your health. Unfortunately, the 
study did not discuss vaporizers, a popular non-smoking alternative in the 
California marijuana clubs that were parties in the Supreme Court case.

So more research needs to be done. Both sides of the debate can agree on 
that. Yet, Washington politicians have been extremely reluctant to grant 
government-approved marijuana for research. So, new research gets stuck in 
a Catch-22: the politicians say we can't legalize marijuana because there's 
not enough research; then they don't fund the research. How convenient.

Opponents of legalization say that prosecutors probably won't spend much 
time or money going after sick patients. They're probably right. It 
wouldn't be worth it. Juries would be reluctant to convict, especially in a 
state or town that voted overwhelmingly for legalization.

But, as Kitty Tucker's case shows, you don't have to be prosecuted after a 
drug arrest to be punished by it.

First the punishment, then--guess what? No trial. That's what happens when 
politicians care less about people than they do about posturing.

During his presidential campaign, President Bush said he opposed legalizing 
medical marijuana in Texas but thought the federal government should leave 
the question up to the states.

That's a campaign promise he should keep.
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens