Pubdate: 9 Nov 1998 Source: Omaha World-Herald Author: Editorial Website: http://www.omaha.com/ Email: FIVE STATES' MARIJUANA APPROVAL ILLUSTRATES GULLIBILITY OF VOTERS Voters in five states allowed themselves to be used as pawns of a movement to decriminalize the use of marijuana. They voted Tuesday in favor of letting the drug be prescribed as a painkiller in certain instances. They thus delivered victories to a crusade to legalize marijuana for everyone - a crusade that has cynically appropriated the suffering of terminally ill people as campaign fodder. Voters were told that smoking marijuana can help ease pain and nausea, particularly the nausea associated with chemotherapy. It has been used against the symptoms of multiple sclerosis and glaucoma. However, any evidence of a beneficial effect is anecdotal, not scientific. The Food and Drug Administration is studying the issue, with a report due out next year. Research is also being conducted by the National Institutes of Health. Voters in Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Alaska and Washington state did not wait for the results. The pro-marijuana campaigns in those states were conducted and funded not by medical experts clamoring for the drug. They were financed by groups associated with pro-marijuana forces that favor its recreational use, and by George Soros, a billionaire who has made it a personal campaign to get the substance legalized. The crusade logged previous successes in California and Arizona. Arizona officials until now have refused to implement the law. However, the drug continues to make inroads. Janet Napolitano, the newly-elected attorney general, said she would follow the law even though she opposed it. It's easy to see why drug enforcers have been concerned. Activists in the legalization crusade said they plan to take their case to Massachusetts, Florida, Michigan and Ohio next. If the voters of those states are as gullible as the voters of the four states where the measure was approved Tuesday, hospitals and nursing homes may soon reek with the odor of marijuana. Use of the substance will spread even more widely in the general population. Certainly doctors already prescribe controlled substances - morphine, among other addictive drugs - as pain killers. If the FDA and the National Institutes of Health found a similar benefit in marijuana, it would be one thing. But such judgments belong in the scientific and medical community, not on the ballot. The fact that a majority of the voters can be bamboozled by the everybody-must-get-stoned crowd is all too evident after Tuesday. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski