Pubdate: Sat, 19 May 2001
Source: Topeka Capital-Journal (KS)
Copyright: 2001 The Topeka Capital-Journal
Contact:  http://cjonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/455

SMOKE SCREEN

In recent months we've seen what happens when the war on drugs reaches 
fever pitch and gets out of control: An American missionary and her baby 
were shot to death while riding in a plane that Peruvian officials wrongly 
suspected of being involved in the drug trade.

Still, we can go too far toward leniency as well. Law enforcement officers 
will tell you that the vast majority of crime they see -- in excess of 70 
or 80 percent, according to some -- is drug-related.

Thus, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling this week finding no loophole in federal 
law for medical marijuana is a good thing.

The pro-marijuana crowd will argue that it's a question of compassion. And 
they will trot out terminally ill patients who claim that they have no 
other source of pain relief and comfort than lighting up a joint.

Spare us. There are dozens of medical alternatives -- choices that are a 
heck of a lot more healthful than passing toxic smoke through one's lungs. 
Even if marijuana contained the only pain relief available, its delivery 
system is fatally flawed. No medical doctor worth his or her medical degree 
should be advising patients to take up smoking anything, terminal or not.

Let's be honest about this, too: Medical marijuana is a great front for 
those pushing the recreational use of the drug. It's cynical, shameless and 
more than a little disingenuous for the pot pushers to hide behind 
terminally ill patients.

Yet, voters in Arizona, Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon 
and Washington have bought into the pro-pot propaganda. The Supreme Court 
ruling doesn't exactly clear up the discrepancy among federal law and the 
various state initiatives.

But the feds' hand is forced when people brazenly flaunt the manufacture 
and distribution of marijuana, which is still illegal for nonmedical use in 
all 50 states. Homegrown pot in those states that allow it is one thing -- 
although even that may not be kosher under the court's ruling. But allowing 
widespread manufacture and distribution -- and "cooperatives" such as the 
one in Oakland that triggered the recent ruling -- only invites abuse of 
the misguided medical marijuana exceptions.

In effect, the medical marijuana industry is giving rise to a "gray market" 
of drug growers and dealers.

The use of marijuana is bad medicine and it's bad public policy.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager