Pubdate: Sun, 7 Mar 1999 Source: Orange County Register (CA) Copyright: 1999 The Orange County Register Contact: http://www.ocregister.com/ Section: Commentary,page 4 Author: Ken Williams-Dr.Williams is a family physician praticing in Santa Ana and a trustee of the Orange County Department of Education. He is responding to a Register editorial,"Snail's pace on Prop. 215," published on Feb. 22. MARIJUANA:A'PATCH ADAMS' DRUG POLICY One of the more emotionally gripping performances in a movie in 1998 was Robin Williams in "Patch Adams." Williams played a misguided, well-intentioned, cyclothymic medical student who reveals the inadequacies of modern medicine, and medical doctors in particular who fail to listen to and demonstrate empathy towards their patients.Notwithstanding the positive message and reminding physicians of their primary duties to patient care, the cheerless parts of the movie were Adams' passion to advance socialized medicine and his revulsion at all conventional medical thought and empirical medicinal therapies. In like manner, marijuana advocates ["Snail's pace on Prop. 215, Editorial, Feb. 22] are advancing a type of "Patch Adams" policy for medicinal marijuana. Utilizing a poorly written, unclear state proposition and under the guise of promoting compassion for the ill, the often stated and ultimate goal of those who support medical marijuana is the eventual decriminalization of the drug. Similar to the charlatan claims of Laetrile as compassionate therapy for cancer patients in the 1970s, the reality is marijuana has very limited therapeutic applications in modern medicine and potentially is an unsafe drug. For example, marijuana advocates promote marijuana-smoking for the treatment of hypertension, nausea, glaucoma, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and epilepsy. They conveniently omit the fact that 3,600 or more tar-laden marijuana cigarettes each year would have to be smoked to adequately treat their diseases. Marijuana advocates also dismiss the long-term social and respiratory diseases of marijuana smoke inhalation, negative sedative properties, and the psychological and physical dependency that accompanies marijuana use. Recent data shows a dramatic increase in adolescent marijuana consumption and the fact that teen-age marijuana users are 85 times more likely to use other addictive drugs like cocaine (Columbia University Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse). It is not good public policy to promote a drug with limited medicinal application and a high potential for abuse and misuse. Our drug policies require consistent and clear messages to our nation's youth. That policy needs to spell out that a drug with a very limited medicinal application and high abuse potential is the wrong prescription for our society. Our children need to observe that we govern our lives by objective, rational principle, rather than uninformed popular sentiment, public opinion polls or a "Patch Adams" mentality. In other words, let scientific thought and validation rather than emotions set the standard. - --- MAP posted-by: Don Beck