Pubdate: Thu, 18 Dec 2003
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2003 The Baltimore Sun, a Times Mirror Newspaper.
Contact:  http://www.sunspot.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

HOLIDAY GIFTS

MAYBE IT'S something in the air, or in the eggnog; with any luck it's
contagious. Common sense seems to be busting out all over during this
pre-holiday week.

A series of unrelated decisions on environmental and health matters by
both federal courts and regulatory agencies should combine to make the
season a bit brighter - for most, though probably not all, involved.

Most surprising - and thus especially welcome - comes President Bush's
decision to abandon plans to strip millions of acres of wetlands of
federal protection, which would have left them prey to development.
The reversal was credited to a storm of public protest, convincing the
administration that Americans care deeply about these shoreline areas
that play a critical role in water quality and wildlife habitat, and
don't want them filled in to become housing projects.

However obvious the politics, the decision lends hope to the notion
that new EPA Administrator Michael O. Leavitt will now enforce the
administration's "no net loss" of wetlands commitment
enthusiastically.

Meanwhile, another victory for the environment came from federal
District Judge Emmet Sullivan, who thwarted Bush administration plans
to allow up to 950 snowmobiles a day in Yellowstone and Grand Teton
National Parks. Instead, Judge Sullivan reinstated a Clinton
administration policy of phasing out and banning use of the noisy,
polluting, bison-disrupting machines. He was appropriately unimpressed
by claims from snowmobile makers that cleaner, quieter models would
reduce damage to the park and its workers to a level that should be
acceptable.

Sweet reason also seems likely to prevail at the Food and Drug
Administration on the question of making morning-after contraceptive
pills readily available, after an advisory panel overwhelmingly
recommended sale of the drug without a prescription. Abortion
opponents found reason to complain because in some cases the pill may
interfere with the implanting of a fertilized embryo. But for those
who care most about reducing unwanted pregnancies - and thereby the
chief motivation for abortion - ready access to Plan B pills is a no-brainer.

And in another recent sign of this trend toward sanity, a federal
appeals court in San Francisco said Attorney General John Ashcroft
can't prosecute people who use marijuana for medical purposes in
states that have approved the practice.

Oh, sure, this decision comes from the "Left Coast," and is certain to
be appealed. But the medical marijuana movement has already won one
battle in the U.S. Supreme Court, protecting doctors who recommend the
drug to their patients from ideologically driven federal prosecutors.
There's good reason to believe it could - as it should - go two for
two.

It's far too soon to know whether these scattered reports of
rationality could become epidemic. But they provide an uplifting note
on which to enter the new year. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake