Pubdate: Thu, 12 Jan 2006
Source: Taunton Daily Gazette (MA)
Copyright: 2006 Taunton Daily Gazette
Contact:  http://www.zwire.com/site/news.asp?brd=1711
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2750
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?232 (Chronic Pain)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

POT FINDS A PLACE IN THE MEDICINE CABINET

Nearby Rhode Island has legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes,
although how the process will work has to be determined by the
Department of  Health.

This vote by the Legislature will be either a medical milestone or a
disaster. There is no middle ground.

Use of marijuana to ease the pain from debilitating illnesses such as
cancer is simply common sense.

Prescribed by a physician and regulated with  care, "pot" can,
according to medical studies, bring relief from those gripped  in the
anguish of unrelenting pain. The challenge is how to control the way
marijuana is grown and obtained, otherwise the legislation may see
patients driven to dark alleys to seek out a product without knowledge
of its purity or content.

This possible uncontrolled access to marijuana worries even the
advocates of the Rhode Island medical marijuana law. As written, the
law empowers patients certified as possibly benefiting from the
medical use of marijuana, or their caregivers, to acquire marijuana
from illegal sources or to grow it from seeds acquired illegally.

The Rhode Island Medical Society said the benefits outweigh the risks.
The Health Department will be expected to establish rules that will
provide a regulated source for the marijuana while limiting access
only to those with debilitating illnesses.

The result conceivably could put Rhode Island in a position of
maintaining pot-growing gardens. The department will issue cards to
those who qualify and have documentation from a physician or nurse
practitioner attesting to their need. The cards would  free possessors
and users of marijuana from prosecution, although this provision
conflicts with federal law that holds either practice a crime. Rhode
Island has legalized the drug as a medicine for people who can't get
relief from any other source, but it obviously will be some time
before there is  a place on the medicine shelf for marijuana.

Difficult hurdles must be addressed  and challenges to the new law can
be expected. The reason for the law, easing unbearable pain, is obvious.

How to make it work, however, is the challenge that Rhode Island has
accepted.