Pubdate: Wed, 23 May 2012
Source: Concord Monitor (NH)
Copyright: 2012 Monitor Publishing Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/WbpFSdHB
Website: http://www.concordmonitor.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/767

LEGALIZE THE MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA

Writing in The New York Times last week, Gustin Reichbach, 62, made a
passionate plea to legalize the medical use of the marijuana that
allows him to sleep and combat the nausea caused by chemotherapy for
pancreatic cancer. Reichbach's story was similar to those heard by New
Hampshire lawmakers, who will soon vote on Senate Bill 409,
legislation that would make New Hampshire the 17th state to legalize
medical marijuana. The difference is, Reichbach is a sitting justice
on the New York state Supreme Court.

Earlier this year, by a veto-proof margin, the New Hampshire House
passed a bill that under tightly controlled conditions would
decriminalize the production, possession and use of small quantities
of marijuana by patients with physician approval and qualifying
illnesses like cancer, glaucoma and AIDS. The bill passed the Senate
as well, but by a margin three votes short of the ability to override
a promised veto by Gov. John Lynch.

Lynch vetoed a medical marijuana bill in 2009 over fears that its
passage would provoke widespread illegal use of the drug. SB 409,
however, contains more than ample protections against that occurring.
We urge him to let compassion triumph over fear and allow the bill to
become law.

Failing that, we urge Sens. Andy Sanborn, Bob Odell, Jeb Bradley,
Peter Bragdon, Chuck Morse and others who voted against the bill to
change their vote. Plenty of evidence exists, albeit much of it
anecdotal, to prove that a significant number of people unable to
achieve relief by any other means have benefited from smoking small
amounts of marijuana.

Many of those opposed to the bill cite opposition by members of law
enforcement, but the case they make is weak. The bill allows a patient
registered with the state to grow no more than four plants in a locked
room whose location is known by the police. That person's caregiver
would also be protected from prosecution but would be charged with a
felony if he or she sold or gave marijuana to anyone other than the
registered patient. Legalizing medical marijuana would have little or
no impact on the supply of the drug on the street. The legal use of
marijuana by someone who is terminally ill neither promotes or
glamorizes drug use. It recognizes that marijuana is a drug that like
many infinitely more dangerous drugs can in some cases be justified.

Patients now being helped by the drug must purchase it illegally or
get it through friends who are committing criminal acts by helping.
Law enforcement at the highest level - U.S. Attorney General Eric
Holder - has said the federal government won't prosecute medical
marijuana cases. The same goes for local law enforcement.

Enfield Police Chief Richard Crate, though a fervent opponent of the
bill, publicly stated that "law enforcement isn't going to the people
who are dying and suffering and arresting people because they're using
marijuana." Good. They shouldn't and don't because it would be cruel
to do so.

Recently in these pages, Concord Dr. Seddon Savage, president of the
American Pain Society, argued against the bill on medical grounds. Her
arguments, too, were unpersuasive. Medical marijuana dosages aren't
precise, at least yet, but they are controlled by how much the
sufferer needs to take to achieve relief and overdosing is virtually
impossible. Smoking marijuana would increase the risk of lung cancer
and other maladies, but the people who would use are already either
dying or living in misery.

Savage called a patient's ability to "manage the complex condition of
chronic pain" themselves the most troubling aspect of the bill. But
that is actually one of its attributes, for who better to know when
relief has been achieved than the patient herself? Nor is it likely
that permission to use marijuana medically means that a patient would
stop receiving regular care by a physician. Allowing people whose
suffering qualifies them to try achieve relief with marijuana is
humane and the right thing to do.
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