Pubdate: Thu, 09 Jun 2005
Source: Providence Journal, The (RI)
Copyright: 2005 The Providence Journal Company
Contact:  http://www.projo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/352
Author: M. Charles Bakst
Note: M. Charles Bakst is The Journal's political columnist
Cited: Gonzales v. Raich ( www.angeljustice.org/ )
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topics/Raich (Raich v. Gonzales)

SUPREME COURT, LEGISLATORS, AND MARIJUANA

The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the federal government can prosecute
sick people for using marijuana even though their doctors prescribe it
and their states allow it.

An unfortunate ruling.

I've never tried marijuana. I don't romanticize it or want it to be
widely available. But I do seek relief for people suffering from
cancer, MS and other insidious diseases. In reading about the court
decision, I'm dismayed that the legal debate focuses so much on things
like the Interstate Commerce Clause. What about compassion for human
beings?

Congress should take a hint from the court and pass a law that
supports medical use of marijuana. Last year, Rep. Patrick Kennedy
voted for a proposal to bar use of federal funds to prosecute medical
marijuana use in states that permit it. The measure failed. He is
poised to vote for it again.

Kennedy says in a statement, "People who can benefit from the
medicinal qualities of marijuana in a controlled manner should be able
to access it. The challenge is for state health departments and
doctors to decide what is a medicinal purpose."

But Rep. Jim Langevin voted against the proposal and remains
unpersuaded. He wants to see a consensus in the medical community. So
far, he says, "The benefit of using marijuana for medical purposes,
according to many experts, does not outweigh the risks."

Prospects that the Senate will approve legislation in support of
medical use of marijuana are even more remote. Aides to Senators Jack
Reed and Lincoln Chafee portray them as, respectively, opposed and
reluctant.

The state Senate on Tuesday passed a bill that would make Rhode Island
the 11th state to provide for medical use of marijuana. If support for
such legislation in the House is as strong as in the Senate, Governor
Carcieri's veto threat might be academic; he could be overridden.

I'd hate to be known as the governor who vetoed a bill to ease
suffering. I'd prefer to sit down with lawmakers to try to rewrite the
measure, minimize problems and come up with something decent. Sen.
Rhoda Perry and Rep. Thomas Slater, chief sponsors, say they are
willing to work with Carcieri.

The governor said yesterday, "Nobody wants to see anybody suffering
needlessly, including me." One thing on his mind is the awkwardness of
the state approving pot-smoking when federal law prohibits it. But he
seems more troubled by practical questions about where the marijuana
would come from and how to control it.

He said several other authorities, including law-enforcement
officials, are down on the bill. "It's not like I'm the only one." He
said he wants information about how such laws work in other states.
"I'll just have to see where it goes," he said.

Government and society must address the desperation of this situation,
something that pols, like anyone else, encounter.

Slater says, "My father died of cancer. My brother died of cancer. My
uncle died of cancer." Slater says marijuana might have eased the pain
of his brother, Joseph, who died at age 45 in 1985. "He withered down
to nothing," Slater says.

Indeed, Slater himself has cancer; maybe, down the road, marijuana
could help him.

Perry told the Senate of the suffering of her nephew, Edward Hawkins,
who had AIDS and died last year at 41.

She told me, "We wanted him to try marijuana. We would have gotten it
for him. He refused. He was gay and he had had some negative
encounters with police. . . . He was scared to death to try anything
that was illegal that could put him into some kind of jeopardy."

There has to be a way to deal with this problem. 
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