Pubdate: Wed, 02 Dec 1998 Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA) Contact: http://www.uniontrib.com/ Copyright: 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co. Author: Lionel Van Deerlin Note: Van Deerlin represented a San Diego County district in Congress for 18 years. Note: When originally posted this item was identified as an editorial. It is an OPED item, authored as above. Thanks to the reader and newshawk that called the error to our attention. SO MUCH FOR 'THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE' It went almost unnoticed in the larger scheme of things in this election season. But on Nov. 3, three more states -- Washington, Nevada and Alaska - -- voted to legalize marijuana for medicinal use. And in two other states plus the District of Columbia, voters faced down government officials who questioned the right of citizens to decide this issue for themselves. Arizona voters found medical marijuana on their ballot in a second successive election. They had given approval only two years ago (along with California) to legalize the drug upon a doctor's prescription. So why this second statewide proposition? It was to bar the state Legislature from voiding that prior vote. A similar challenge faced people in Oregon. They resoundingly rejected a legislative move to restore criminal penalties for possessing marijuana -- even as prescribed to ease suffering. For District of Columbia residents, who are still wards of the federal government, the conflict with authority was drawn even more sharply. Under orders from Congress, District officials were barred from tabulating the votes in a local referendum empowering physicians to recommend pot smoking for patients with certain illnesses. We are all aware of the fear shared by many conservatives -- that marijuana usage is not only unwise but a first step along the path to perdition. Yet what ever became of an earlier concern among conservatives? As I recall, this was to get government off the backs of the American people. The mantra went like this: On matters like abortion, gun control or school prayer, faceless bureaucrats and liberal judges think they know better than the rest of us. The convictions of ordinary folk are disregarded. It remained for Ronald Reagan, no less, to enshrine that aphorism about removing government from our backs. So why can't we let the medical profession prescribe freely to ease the unpleasantness of illnesses ranging from epilepsy and multiple sclerosis to several forms of cancer? Though it finds backing in respectable medical circles, this approach runs afoul of a national drug enforcement policy that has remained in place through successive administrations of both parties. The policy persists despite its demonstrated failure to quell the public appetite for a range of drugs far more devastating than pot. A trio of public servants starting with William Bennett have accepted the oddly un-American designation, "drug czar." These otherwise fine men all have been longer on rhetoric than on the sort of results expected of czars. Their only comparison with Ivan the Terrible has been the vast number of U.S. citizens who continue to jam our prisons -- nearly half of them on drug-related offenses. Marijuana as medicine? Our incumbent czar, Barry McCaffrey, has responded pretty much as we'd expect of a czar -- or as the retired Army general, which he is, in defense of a discredited battle plan. When voters in California enacted Proposition 215 two years ago, McCaffrey's reaction was to threaten federal prosecution of any doctors who might feel emboldened thereafter to recommend marijuana as a palliative. Although quickly overruled in court, McCaffrey has persisted in his campaign to keep federal law supreme. He dismisses clinical evidence that pot smoking in certain cases could constitute good medicine. His uncertain trumpet continues to be sounded in the face of favorable reports from a number of professional sources and an outright endorsement of the drug's efficacy by the New England Journal of Medicine. Czar McCaffrey laces his public utterances with dire warnings that even a limited use of marijuana for health purposes sends the wrong message to the nation's youth. We are left to wonder what success he attaches to earlier messages that have failed to deter the spread of pot smoking among school kids as early as the elementary level. Numerous lesser officials have fallen in line. In moving to close a Bay Area center where marijuana was being dispensed as medicine, state Attorney General Dan Lungren may have earned credit with conservatives, but it obviously made no points in his failed campaign for governor. The arrogance of state officials out West was topped only by the congressional action against D.C. residents. Exit polling disclosed that possibly 80 percent of them had voted in support of medical marijuana. But their views on this may remain an official secret. Why? On motion of Rep. Bob Barr, R-Ga., a member of the House Judiciary subcommittee on crime, Congress had inserted a proviso in its catchall pre-election appropriations bill asserting that no funds therein could be expended "to carry out any ballot initiative that would legalize drugs or reduce penalties for drug use, possession or sale." A word to the wise. The D.C. Board of Elections & Ethics ordered that votes on the marijuana proposition be set aside, uncounted. Last time anything like this was visited on Congressman Barr's Atlanta-area populace, it was by Northern carpetbaggers swarming in behind Gen. Sherman. The bottom line: Doctors today are free to prescribe highly addictive morphine, but not a milder drug that conservatives appear to fear most. And never mind what a majority of Americans say every time the issue is put to a vote. Get government off our backs? Ha. - --- Checked-by: Richard Lake