Pubdate: Sat, 07 Sep 2013
Source: Register-Guard, The (OR)
Copyright: 2013 The Register-Guard
Contact: http://www.registerguard.com/web/opinion/#contribute-a-letter
Website: http://www.registerguard.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/362
Author: Jim Greig

FINALLY, RECOGNITION OF CANNABIS' MEDICAL VALUE

Recently, with little fanfare, Gov. John Kitzhaber signed House Bill
3460 into law, creating a regulated supply system for medical
marijuana. Finally, patients will have legal and safe businesses from
which to procure their medicine.

The Oregon Health Authority will establish the regulatory framework
for a working system. Marijuana dispensaries will operate only in
commercially zoned areas, and will be at least 1,000 yards from schools.

Were it not for the tireless efforts of state Sen. Floyd Prozanski and
state Rep. Peter Buckley shepherding the bill through both chambers of
the Legislature, this bill would never have gotten to our governor's
desk.

In the House, the bill was passed almost entirely along party lines,
with no Republicans voting for it and two Democrats joining the
Republicans. In the Senate, four Republicans crossed the aisle to vote
yes and two Democrats voted no.

Although Kitzhaber has my thanks for signing HB 3460, I'm still
troubled by his reluctance towards cannabis. In his signing letter
Kitzhaber wrote, "I understand the concerns the opponents of HB 3460
have expressed, and share those concerns to a certain extent."

As a medical doctor, and as governor, Kitzhaber needs to be better
educated on the science and medicine of cannabis as it exists today.
The late Francis Young, an administrative law judge for the federal
Drug Enforcement Agency, called cannabis "one of the safest
therapeutic substances known to man."

We've traveled a long way since 1974, when the Nixon administration
buried the results of a study conducted by the National Institutes of
Health showing that marijuana had positive results in fighting cancer.
That study lay dormant for 25 years until its results were echoed in a
study led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University in Spain.

As both an activist and a medical cannabis consumer, it appalls me
that so few are outraged by such horrendous deceit by our government -
a deceit foisted upon the nation not with good intent, but propelled
by individual prejudice and cultural bigotry.

This decades-long struggle to return legitimacy to the cannabis plant
has been painted by opponents as being led by stoners looking to "get
high." But the opponents to prohibition are a vast and growing group,
including many medical professionals who are finally grasping that at
worst, marijuana proponents were guilty of occasional hyperbole.

The media medical star Dr. Sanjay Gupta declared in a recent CNN
special that he was abandoning his opposition to cannabis after
conducting his own research:

"I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose
symptoms improved on cannabis. ... I mistakenly believed the Drug
Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because
of sound scientific proof. ... They didn't have the science to support
that claim," Gupta said. "We have been terribly and systematically
misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for
my own role in that."

As a medically efficacious substance that has been used for thousands
of years, there has never been a recorded fatal overdose from cannabis
- - a claim that can't be made even for water, and a claim that doctors,
police, politicians and even governors can no longer ignore.

As Gupta states, the government has been lying for a very long time:
"The movement to correct the egregious errors of cannabis prohibition
and its displacement in the Controlled Substance Act is an act of - if
I may be so bold - (as yet unrecognized) patriotism."

Oregon's new law establishing a medical marijuana dispensary system is
a sign of how far our state has come, as is the addition of
post-traumatic stress disorder as an allowable condition under the
Oregon Medical Marijuana Program. Thank you, Oregon. Now, can we
please move on to dismantling the federal prohibition juggernaut?

Jim Greig of Eugene is a member of the board of directors of the Voter
Power Foundation and an organizer for Americans for Safe Access.
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MAP posted-by: Matt