Pubdate: Sun, 16 Aug 2015
Source: Wyoming Tribune-Eagle (WY)
Copyright: 2015 The Wyoming Tribune-Eagle
Contact:  http://www.wyomingnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1217

MAKE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LEGAL IN WYOMING

THE ISSUE: Medical marijuana is in the news as Wyoming law officers 
have launched a campaign to fight a petition seeking its legalization.

WE BELIEVE: While we remain opposed to recreational marijuana, we 
believe medical marijuana should be available in the state.

TELL US WHAT YOU THINK: Contact us via email at Wyoming's law enforcement community has every right to speak its 
opinions on such issues as the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana.

But as law officers, they should focus on truth-telling and supplying 
credible information rather than trying to mislead the people of this state.

Unfortunately, the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of 
Police is purposefully entangling the issue of recreational 
marijuana, like in Colorado, with the allowance of the medical forms 
of the drug. The law officers group should refocus its approach 
before it makes a fool of itself.

Clearly, the law officers' group is opposed to all marijuana use. But 
the petition being circulated now in the state by Wyoming NORML is 
not about an "everything goes" approach to marijuana or even the more 
controlled legalization now seen in Colorado.

Rather, petition supporters are seeking to provide access to 
residents for medical marijuana as prescribed by their physicians. To 
imply that recreational and medicinal use are the same thing - as the 
police group is doing - is bad business.

It has taken us a while to come around to supporting medical 
marijuana, but with this editorial we are changing our position on it.

We previously have favored decriminalization for small amounts of the 
drug but not any form of legalization. Yet there is enough anecdotal 
evidence that we have come to believe medical marijuana can - in 
certain and controlled circumstances - be beneficial to people in Wyoming.

Indeed, a recently released study by the American Medical Association 
finds that while some claims about medical marijuana are overblown, 
there are circumstances where it can be helpful. Those include nausea 
and vomiting due to chemotherapy as well as the reduction of pain.

For us, it comes down to whether the state should be interfering with 
the relationship between doctors and their patients. We have opposed 
Wyoming government's efforts to try to step into that intimate bond 
on past issues, such as efforts to burden women's right to abortion, 
and we are against it in this instance as well.

No doubt, the Wyoming Association of Sheriffs and Chiefs of Police 
and its local representatives will cry out that medical marijuana is 
the camel's nose under the tent. They surely will argue that if 
Wyoming legalizes the drug for medical use, it only will be a short 
time before supporters will be back seeking full-blown legalization.

That might be true; it certainly has happened in other states. But 
that still is no reason to forbid a substance that doctors might 
prescribe to their patients in certain cases.

Rather, we would prefer to see the law officers fighting for a system 
of tight controls on medical marijuana's availability. That should 
include stiff penalties for those doctors who prescribe it 
indiscriminately, including the loss of their licenses.

Yes, one can point to the abuse of such legal drugs as oxycodone as 
proof that some doctors might try to dispense marijuana like candy. 
Yet we have heard no one call for a ban on the sale of the 
pain-killer. Rather, law enforcement tightens the availability. The 
same can be done with medical marijuana.

One good thing is that if medical marijuana is approved by the voters 
- - polls show residents favor it - Wyoming would have plenty of other 
states to serve as examples of the right way to do it. Perhaps 
surprisingly, Colorado has one of the tightest systems in the nation 
to control access to medical marijuana. And Connecticut, the most 
recent state to legalize the drug for medical uses, also is a sound 
example of a tightly regulated system.

Here's hoping that the NORML petition succeeds and that patients in 
Wyoming who need access to medical marijuana will get it.

Meanwhile, law officers who oppose the drug should not continue to 
try to confuse the people of this state. Recreational marijuana is 
not medical marijuana. To imply they are the same is disinformation 
at best, a downright lie at worst.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom