Pubdate: Fri, 15 Nov 2013 Source: Boston Herald (MA) Copyright: 2013 The Boston Herald, Inc Contact: http://news.bostonherald.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53 Note: Prints only very short LTEs. Note: The following editorial was excerpted from the Arizona Republic: LESSONS FROM ARIZONA ON POT LAW Keeping an inherently dishonest program honest is no easy task. The Arizona Department of Health Services got that job in 2010 when voters bought into one of the biggest cons around and narrowly approved "medical" marijuana. So-called medical-marijuana laws are more about normalizing a recreational drug than getting medical treatment to sick people. It is true that marijuana appears to provide relief from symptoms of some ailments or side effects from other medical treatment. But Arizona's medical-marijuana law did not produce a time tested way for those patients to access a dose-controlled, legitimate pharmaceutical product. It opened the door to abuse. If you doubt that, just ask yourself what other medically prescribed pharmaceutical is sold through special "dispensaries" instead of at the drug store. A law that authorizes those who claim chronic pain - a subjective and unprovable assertion - to buy generous doses of an otherwise illegal recreational drug is a farce. In fact, 73 percent of Arizonans who got approved to use pot between July 2012 and June 2013 cited severe and chronic pain as the sole reason they needed the drug, according to DHS' second annual medical marijuana report issued this month. None but the chronically gullible will be surprised. Seventy-two percent of qualifying patients were male, and 30 percent of those men were between the ages of 18 and 30. This age group listed pain as a debilitating condition at a higher rate than any other group. Man, that hurts! We're not saying the young don't suffer. But you have to wonder why Arizona is seeing so much pain among people who are in their prime recreational drug-using years. The report suggests collecting "more nuanced data" to help better understand "how medical marijuana may influence pain management." Good idea - and tactfully stated. Voters were right to feel compassion for sick people, those who might legitimately benefit from access to marijuana. But this law patches together patients with a remedy that has more in common with a street drug than standardized medicine. As a result, pot patients are stigmatized by a system that invites abuse. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom