Pubdate: Sat, 21 Apr 2007
Source: Contra Costa Times (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Knight Ridder
Contact:  http://www.contracostatimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/96
Author: P.J. Huffstutter, Los Angeles Times
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Marijuana - Medicinal)

PASTORS UNITE IN FAVOR OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

Illinois Church Leaders Urge State Lawmakers to Approve Bill That 
Would Legalize Appropriate Use

CHICAGO -- Arguing that Illinois lawmakers have a moral duty to 
legalize medical use of marijuana, dozens of pastors and church 
leaders are urging them to allow doctors to recommend the drug for 
seriously ill patients.

The religious leaders say they feel compelled to support doctors who 
want to use whatever tools necessary to ease the pain of the extremely sick.

A petition was e-mailed to state senators late last month. The state 
Senate was expected to vote on the bill this week, said Sen. John 
Cullerton, the bill's author. If passed and signed into law, Illinois 
would become the 13th state to allow the use of medical marijuana.

"This is about compassion for people," Cullerton said. "Many patients 
are not having trouble finding it. They just don't want to be 
criminals for using it."

Countered Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America 
Foundation, a national drug policy group critical of such measures: 
"People can't just call anything medicine. Just because they're 
religious leaders does not mean they can judge the merits of 
something like this."

The letter - which asked that neither medical practitioners face 
criminal sanctions for recommending the drug, nor patients for using 
it if their doctors have told them it could help - reflects the 
recent trend among religious leaders toward taking a firmer stand on 
policy issues with which they normally are not identified. The 
signers included representatives of Protestant, Jewish, Unitarian and 
other Advertisement faiths.

In recent years, a growing number of religious denominations have 
spoken in favor of marijuana's medicinal value. Though most 
faith-based groups oppose recreational use of the drug, some have 
started to ask state and federal government agencies to intervene on 
behalf of patients who struggle with glaucoma, cancer or AIDS.

"I've been a pastor for more than 30 years, and I know some of my 
parishioners, and their doctors have thought that they need this tool 
for better pain management," said the Rev. Bob Hillenbrand, pastor of 
the First Presbyterian Church in Rockford, Ill. Hillenbrand, along 
with 49 other religious figures in Illinois, signed the petition that 
had been pulled together by the Interfaith Drug Policy Initiative, a 
Washington area group that lobbies religious leaders on drug policy issues.

"For me, the question is, 'Should it be the government deciding out 
of hand that something is medically wrong to use? Or should it be 
decided by research and the medical industry itself?'" Hillenbrand said.

Illinois has a law on its books, dating to 1978, that allows doctors 
to dispense the drug for cancer and glaucoma patients, and other 
procedures "certified to be medically necessary." The bill was signed 
into law by then-Gov. James Thompson. But political debate over the 
issue at the time, as well as some restrictions that were tied to it, 
essentially nullified the law, Cullerton said.

The current national fight over legalizing medical uses of the drug 
can be traced to 1996, when a California referendum opened the door 
to medical marijuana use in that state. In its wake, a number of 
other states - Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, 
Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington - have enacted similar 
laws that legally allow certain patients to use the drug, regardless 
of federal restrictions.

Last year, however, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal laws 
that ban marijuana sales take precedence over state measures.