(Ed. note: This editorial demonstrates why
medical marijuana is a no-win proposition for prohibitionists. If they lie and lobby
against it, as have organized "law-enforcement" in Oregon – and elsewhere,
they undermine their credibility with intelligent opinion leaders like this editor.If
it passes, direct knowledge derived from reality will prove that they have been lying all
along about marijuana in general. This is why prohibitionists usually try to suppress any
discussion of medical marijuana by claiming that even talking about it encourages
"drug abuse." Having it on state initiatives makes it very difficult to keep the
subject off of the public agenda. After its likely passage, when the police arrest medical
marijuana users
See
A Letter
From Oregon Shows What the Medical Marijuana Movement Is Really All About
and
Elderly
Oregon Medical Marijuana User More Severely Punished Than Child Molester
and
Oregon
Initiative A Reaction To Draconian Laws -- Doctors Should Be Able To Prescribe Marijuana,
Says the Doctor
it will then be a public policy and law enforcement issue.
There are also obvious parallels with the hemp issue.)
From the Albany Democrat-Herald
albanydh@proaxis.com
http://www2.mvonline.com/MV/
September 28, 1998
By Hasso Hering, Editor, Albany Democrat-Herald
OPINION - MEDICAL EFFECTIVENESS OUTSIDE LAW’S PURVIEW
If the sheriff of Multnomah County had a medical degree and had acquired experience
treating patients as a doctor, what he says about the medical marijuana initiative would
have some weight.
Since he does not and has not, he has no standing to declare, as
he did last week before the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, that marijuana would be
"the least effective and most risky" medication to give to someone.
See
The Party Line On
Medical Marijuana In Oregon From A Sheriff And An "Addiction Specialist"
On the subject of the effectiveness of various substances in treating people for
illnesses, you would think sheriffs would disqualify themselves.
Sheriff Dan Noelle and other sheriffs think that the medical marijuana initiative
should not be approved. They believe that it would weaken the notion of marijuana as an
illegal drug, that it would lead to more use of marijuana among the young, and that it
would lead to more lawlessness and suffering. These are legitimate worries for law
enforcement people and anybody else.
Some doctors, though, among them initiative sponsor Dr. Rick Bayer of Portland, see the
initiative strictly as a medical issue. They make the case that smoking marijuana does
have some benefits for some patients in some situations, and they want to be able to
advise patients to get it and use it without breaking the law.
Logic is on their side. Morphine is addictive and dangerous. Yet doctors are able to
prescribe it as needed. The same is true of other powerful pain relievers that make the
patient feel wonderfully woozy for a while. (Remember getting high on the stuff the
dentist gave you after your last oral surgery?) Nobody says doctors should not be able to
prescribe them on the chance that their use could become epidemic among the young.
Doctors could legally prescribe marijuana if the federal government reclassified it and
put it in the same category as various opiates. It is instructive that in the 1930s, when
marijuana was made completely off limits, the American Medical Association opposed the
action.
Like most sheriffs, the editor of the D-H has no professional
knowledge of the effectiveness of marijuana as a medication. But at least some doctors,
who should know, say it is effective. It should be legal to use if and when it can help
somebody who is sick.
(hh)
Supported