November 22, 1998
Editorial
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PRO BONO

When Sonny’s Widow Revealed His Prescription-Drug Dependence, A Window Was Opened On A Hidden Epidemic In This Country

Millions of Americans are hooked on legal drugs such as Valium and Percodan - two of the pharmaceuticals that may have done in Sonny Bono - while the government bares its knuckles against dying cancer patients who try to ease their pain a bit by smoking marijuana.

The immediate cause of Sonny Bono’s death was that he skied into a tree last January at Heavenly Valley. But his widow - who replaced him as the Republican member of Congress from Palm Springs - believes his judgment was crippled by the 20 prescription pills he popped every day for a bad back.

This level of medication made him part of a huge, silent epidemic that neither Gen. Barry McCaffrey nor DARE nor conservative politicians spend much time bemoaning, let alone fighting. But legal mood drugs and painkillers are abused more widely in this country than heroin, cocaine or just about any other illegal drug you can name. Statistics are hard to come by, but one study this year estimated that 2.8 million American women over age 59 were addicted to prescription drugs.

Instead of combating this real peril, the federal goverment is filing suit to stop AIDS sufferers from enjoying a joint, and pouring billions of dollars into the eradication of coca fields in South America.

Symbolism builds. The "war on drugs" is headed by a real general, McCaffrey. Two-thirds of the nation’s $16 billion drug-war budget is eaten by military maunuevers and police action, while only a third goes to education, prevention and treatment. The ratios are the reverse of what they should be. President Clinton says preventing teenage drug use is his top priority, but Congress can’t even get around to mild measures to reduce teen smoking.
(Marijuananews note: They don’t quite get it. We would not need to spend anything to prohibit the importation of regulated products. In fact, it is likely that the US will be a net exporter of cannabis products of all sorts.)

Loonier is the government’s obsession with shutting down marijuana dispensaries for the crticially ill. Since California voters passed Proposition 215 in June 1997, the feds have been on jihad to wipe medical marijuana from the face of the earth. Doctors are under threat of criminal prosecution if they prescribe it, and narcs have shuttered marijuana clubs.

This is occurring even as voters this month in five more Western states - Arizona, Alaska, Washington, Oregon and Nevada - joined California in attempting to legalize medical marijuana. Federal judges are compelled to follow federal drug statutes when cases are brought to court, but the U.S. attorney general has discretion in whether to prosecute. She doesn’t have to subscribe to "reefer madness." The real culprit, however, is Congress. In a show of political cowardice, it refuses to rationally consider changing inhumane and outmoded laws that deny comfort to sick and suffering citizens. Dying for a joint? Yes, some of these people literally are.

Sonny Bono was a product of the flower power era. Whether or not he smoked dope, everyone assumed he was higher than a satellite. Now, according to his widow, he’s killed by perfectly legal drugs. The additional irony is no one would have known the true nature of his addiction except that Mary Bono had the courage to speak out.

We hope her colleagues in Congress listen to her - really listen - and then take steps to reel in the "war on drugs." In its psychoactive appetites, this nation has been on a bad trip too long. We can either continue to pour billions into high-tech drug-fighting weaponry and shutting down marijuana clubs, or else we can face our real problems and search for real solutions.