Pubdate: Wed, 02 Jul 2003
Source: Frederick News Post (MD)
Copyright: 2003 Great Southern Printing and Manufacturing Company
Contact: 
http://www.fredericknewspost.com/contact/contactfinalnew.cfm?contact=letters
Website: http://www.fredericknewspost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/814
Author: Reagan Haynes, News-Post Staff
Cited: Marijuana Policy Project ( www.mpp.org )
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

LEGAL DRUG USE SLOWED

Medical marijuana advocates say there are two key reasons the drug is so 
difficult to legalize for sick people at the federal level: Money and politics.

Maryland recently became the ninth state to pass a law that would relax 
punishment of people caught with marijuana, provided they can prove they 
are using it for medical reasons.

"As more and more states get on board, the feds are going to have to do 
something. They just can't arrest everyone in every state," said Donald 
Murphy, chairman of the Baltimore County Republican party. As a state 
delegate, he championed legislation that would have legalized medical 
marijuana.

The financial issue is tied in with pharmaceuticals, advocates said.

"The medical community has Marinol, which has synthetic THC, and it costs 
$10 to $20 to take it in pill form," Mr. Murphy said.

"Pharmaceuticals, they don't want to try and re-create marijuana because 
there's no money in it," Mr. Murphy said. "Even if you had a pill to do the 
same thing, how much would people pay for it? If you could pay $10 for two 
months' worth, would you spend the same thing for one afternoon?"

"The problem is, there's no financial interest to use millions of dollars 
to test it, because you're talking about a plant people can grow in their 
back yard. There's no financial incentive," said Bruce Mirken of the 
Marijuana Policy Project.

Mr. Mirken said some argue the Food and Drug Administration should approve 
marijuana as it would for another medicine.

Kathleen Quinn, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, 
said drugs are approved only after a company submits an application. 
Companies do their own testing; the FDA might ask questions, but the agency 
does not initiate approval.

There are so many variations of opiates and opioids approved by the FDA 
because they're lucrative for pharmaceutical companies, Mr. Mirken said.

Dr. Tony Tommasello is director of the office of substance abuse studies at 
University of Maryland School of Pharmacy. At one time he supported Marinol 
over medical marijuana.

"The idea that we're going to give people crude products instead of a 
certified product, that would be a question for a pharmacist," he said.

Without quality control, patients wouldn't know the percentage of active 
ingredients.

"The rebuttal is, people with HIV are already nauseated with medications, 
and they don't want to take another oral product," Dr. Tommasello said. 
"That's a valid argument."

"The whole mission behind cancer treatment is to poison you," state Sen. 
David Brinkley, R-Frederick, who helped push the legislation through the 
Senate. "Treatment can make you sicker than the disease" and make 
swallowing a pill next to impossible, he said.

But Dr. Tommasello still believes there are potential dangers to 
prescribing marijuana. There is more tar than in cigarette smoke, Dr. 
Tommasello said, touching a debate.

"The challenge for medical marijuana is to develop an alternative way of 
inhaling," he said. "It could be aerosolized, like nicotine."

Or it can be vaporized, Mr. Mirken said, which would eliminate the risks 
associated with smoking. A device would heat up the leaves, enabling the 
patient to inhale the drug without lighting it on fire.

The New York State Association of County Health Officials recently 
recommended legalizing traditional marijuana for medical purposes, 
contending that "the legalization of medical marijuana would be a step 
forward for the health of all New Yorkers."

"I think if the market was bigger then pharmaceuticals would respond," Dr. 
Tommasello said. "But it's a relatively small market, because people can 
get it so easily through the black market. I think that's what the bill 
corrects, or at least addresses."

Mr. Mirken rejects the traditional argument: Marijuana is the gateway drug 
that will lead people to become addicts.

"Physicians prescribe thousands of medications every day that are much more 
dangerous than this is," Mr. Mirken said. "Ask any heroin addict on the 
street what they tried first, and they probably did smoke marijuana at one 
time. But ask them what they started with, and it's probably alcohol or 
cigarettes, so marijuana is not the gateway drug."

"One of the big objections is, that it still is illegal at the federal 
level," Mr. Brinkley said. "So the law we have goes with federal laws, but 
they need to change that."

"It's pure politics," Mr. Murphy agreed. "Most of this comes from the 
federal level, and drugs are placed into certain schedules. Marijuana is a 
schedule one drug, so it's considered highly addictive, subject to abuse 
and is seen to have no medical value."

Mr. Murphy said schedule two drugs, such as morphine and cocaine, are the 
same but are deemed to have medical merit.

In 1998, Rep. Roscoe Bartlett was one of the congressmen who voted against 
changing marijuana's schedule. First, a spokeswoman for Mr. Bartlett said 
the Republican congressman had never voted on the issue and would not comment.

However, after uncovering the 1998 medical marijuana bill that Mr. Bartlett 
voted unfavorably on, spokeswoman Lisa Wright cited two reasons for the 
vote: Marinol and National Institutes of Health studies.

The NIH has said that smoking marijuana could cause harmful effects on the 
lungs, and Ms. Wright contends that Marinol can deliver the same benefits 
of marijuana.

"Democrats should know better, their base certainly approves of this," Mr. 
Murphy said. Mr. Murphy launched an organization called Republicans for 
Compassionate Access, which is dedicated to convincing representatives that 
"this is not political suicide, and that it is consistent with everything 
they have championed with votes in Annapolis," Mr. Murphy said.
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager