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The Federal Government and Medicinal Marijuana

 
The American Medical Association's Council on Scientific Affairs should be commended for its report, "Marijuana: Its HealthHazards and Therapeutic Potential." Not only does the report outline evidence of marijuana's potential harms, but it distinguishes this concern from the legitimate issue of marijuana's important medical benefits. All too often the hysteria that attends public debate over marijuana's social abuse compromises a clear appreciation for this critical distinction.

Since 1978, 32 states have abandoned the federal prohibition to recognize legislatively marijuana's important medical properties. Federal law, however, continues to define marijuana as a drug "with no accepted medical use," and federal agencies continue to prohibit physician-patient access to marijuana. This outdated federal prohibition is corrupting the intent of the state laws and depriving thousands of glaucoma and cancer patients of the medical care promised them by their state legislatures.

This is an excerpt from a letter written in 1982 to the editor of the Journal of the American Medical Association. Its author was a citizen concerned about the complete lack of rationality exhibited time and time again in the Federal Government's attempts to justify its ban on the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. It was no burnt-out ex-hippie who penned the letter. The concerned citizen was none other than the current Speaker of the House of Representatives, Newt Gingrich. He was co-sponsoring a bill intended to end the Federal prohibition on marijuana as medicine. He has since abandoned support for such initiatives and begun to deal in the sort of hypocrisy and misinformation that is typical of the federal government's policy toward medicinal marijuana.

Gingrich's bill failed despite overwhelming support from both the public and the facts. Legislators, pandering to a vocal minority, struck it down. Fourteen years later, the silent majority spoke. In a move that must have had Nixon spinning in his gr ave, the silent majority, it turns out, supports this drug use. In the Fall of 1996, two states passed referendums legalizing marijuana. Both California's "Compassionate Use Act" and Arizona's "Drug Medicalization, Prevention and Control Act" passed wit h convincing margins despite well-funded opposition. Support for medical marijuana extends far beyond the traditionally libertarian Southwest. A recent survey of the American public by the American Civil Liberties Union showed that 85% of the American p ublic favors making marijuana legally available to the seriously ill.

Unwilling to let the people have the final say, the Clinton Administration quickly moved to impose a de facto veto on these referendums. The five-part plan announced in December by President Clinton and Secretary of Health and Human Services Don na Shalala, both former pot smokers, includes threats to strip doctors of their licenses if they prescribed the drug and to deny federal housing to those using the drug for medical reasons on a compassionate "one strike and you're out" basis. Many had ho ped that the Clinton Administration would be the long-awaited voice of reason on this issue but the President has turned tail and run after his public relations "inhalation" debacle. (For the record, he did not smoke the weed because of his asthma, not, ostensibly, from lack of desire.)

The Administration's attempt to justify its stymieing of the vox populi sounded hauntingly familiar. Donna Shalala reaffirmed the federal position that marijuana has a "high potential for abuse" and "no currently accepted medical use." Most Ame rican citizens have come to accept that the federal government can do pretty much whatever it wants despite the apparently superfluous constraints placed upon it as a government of enumerated powers limited by the Bill of Rights. However, the Federal Gov ernment should at least attempt to not use outright falsehoods to justify its position. It has long been proven that marijuana is non-addictive and no one has ever died of an overdose. (Notice that you do not see Campus sending five people to the infirma ry the night of initiations.) Any attempt to continue the prohibition, even on the recreational use of marijuana, is hypocritical especially in light of the continued legality of alcohol and the world's most addictive drug, nicotine. Additionally, a cur sory examination of the legislative history of the 1937 ban on marijuana clearly shows that it was actually passed because of the financial backing of a textile industry wary of the blossoming of the use of industrial hemp. A rational person may distrust these facts and even deem history irrelevant, but the statistics, research and evidence in support of the salutary effects (and few side effects) of marijuana for medicinal purposes are overwhelming.

Donna Shalala, from her clear and unclouded view of the world atop Capital Hill, admonished the foolish citizens of California and Arizona that "it is the Food and Drug Administration and not the voting public that approves medicines." The FDA is currently testing marijuana on a number of subjects. That number is eight. Eight people. However, several pesky state legislatures including Colorado and Hawaii, probably with some bizarre idea about "police powers" to protect the health safety and mo rals of their people in their role as governments of general jurisdiction, have commissioned their own studies. Many others have drawn up similar legalization bills or have similar referendums on the ballot. Several, including Texas, are in a state of l imbo having passed laws taxing marijuana while it was illegal. The courts in these states, probably with some bizarre idea about "double jeopardy," have struck down attempts to arrest those who had responsibly paid their pot taxes. While the nation has c ome to an impasse, the federal stance faces opposition even from within. The Drug Enforcement Administration's own administrative judge ruled against it in Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics vs. US DEA. In his decision, Judge Young said: "One must reaso nably conclude that there is accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision. To conclude otherwise . . . would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious . . ." His decision was based on the testimony of expert witnesses, primarily doctors and medical researchers, who were simply restating what the medical community has known for years: marijuana is an effective and relatively safe way to treat many of the symptoms associated with AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and c hronic pain. The case of AIDS is particularly frustrating. Many AIDS patients who claimed that smoking marijuana was the only way to bring their appetite back after taking medication that induced bouts of uncontrollable vomiting have starved to death aft er having been denied the drug. The article "Marijuana and AIDS" by Peter Gorman in a recent NORML newsletter contains the chilling testimony of the partner of one man who died of this "wasting syndrome." "He was down to 87 pounds when he died. He couldn 't eat. Nausea . . . well, you know that story. When he had regular marijuana, we got him up to 156 pounds at one point. But he had no marijuana available at the end. Anything we could have gotten for him we simply couldn't afford. So he, thanks to the g overnment, actually died of starvation. If you can imagine a five-foot eight-inch skeleton, that was Jim at the end." This man had been receiving marijuana through a government program designed to help the seriously ill and increase the general knowledge of the medical effects of marijuana. This program was ended by the Bush Administration. There are two important things to say on this issue. The first is that it could hardly be said that this man died to stubbornly prove a point about drug legalizati on. The second is that even if these effects of marijuana are mainly psychosomatic, or if the drug acts primarily as a placebo, its minimal side effects and non-addictiveness should justify its FDA approval. Any other drug with similar benefits and sid e effects would have flown through the "objective" approval process.

Aside from noting the irony that a drug that was once a mandatory crop in the State of Virginia is now singled out as anathema by the Federal Government, this duplicity is deeply disturbing. That political expediency would cause the President and his toadying Secretary of Health and Human Services to turn people who want to use a harmless drug to ease the suffering of their last miserable years into criminals is unsurprising but profoundly disheartening. But the tide is turning. We need not rely on the President to be the advocate of the people against the monied interests. But we can rely on him to turn on a dime if the political winds blow the other way. And with the initiatives to legalize marijuana for medicinal use on ballots in many States across the country, that turning may be sooner rather than later. And the farseeing prophet of the millennium, Newt Gingrich, will be proven to have been right all along . . . until he changed his mind.

Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known. No one has ever died of an overdose. It is also extremely versatile.

Four of its general therapeutic applications include:

1) relief from nausea and increase of appetite;

2) reduction of intraocular ("within the eye") pressure;

3) reduction of muscle spasms;

4) relief from mild to moderate chronic pain.

Marijuana is often useful in the treatment of the following conditions:

Cancer: Marijuana alleviates the nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by chemotherapy treatment.

AIDS: Marijuana alleviates the nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by the disease itself and by treatment with AZT and other drugs.

Glaucoma: Marijuana, by reducing intraocular pressure, alleviates the pain and slows or halts the progress of the disease. Glaucoma, which damages vision by gradually increasing eye pressure over time, is the leading cause of blindness in the United Sta tes.

Multiple Sclerosis: Marijuana reduces the muscle pain and spasticity caused by the disease. It may also relieve tremor and unsteadiness of gait, and it helps some patients with bladder control. Multiple sclerosis is the leading cause of neurological dis ability among young and middle-aged adults in the United States.

Epilepsy: Marijuana prevents epileptic seizures in some patients.

Chronic Pain: Marijuana reduces the chronic, often debilitating pain caused by a variety of injuries and disorders.

Each of these uses has been recognized as legitimate at least once by various courts, legislatures, government, or scientific agencies throughout the United States. Currently, such well-respected organizations as the National Academy of Sciences (1982), the California Medical Association (1993), the Federation of American Scientists (1994), the Australian Commonwealth Department of Human Services and Health (1994), the American Public Health Association (1995), the San Francisco Medical Society (1996), t he California Academy of Family Physicians (1996), as well as several state nursing associations have supported the use of marijuana as a medicine.

Source: "About Medicinal Marijuana" http://www.norml.org/