BillLindau

Legalizing medical marijuana

Here, There & Everywhere with Bill
Anti-hippie bias vs. patient interests:
Why not legalize medical marijuana?
Originally this was a column written for, but never printed by, The Post, Troy, N.C.
By Bill Lindau
Cannabis doesn’t do any damage to the liver or lead to any kind of chemical dependency. Physicians and other scientists have credited it with effective treatment of glaucoma, relieving nausea, improving appetite and certain other afflictions such as multiple sclerosis. We have so many drugs that are perfectly legal with a doctor’s prescriptions but with much more dangerous side effects.
So why do so many lawmakers and other people not want to legalize marijuana for medical uses?
I can’t think of a single valid explanation except that Congress and the state legislatures have turned this into a political issue. So many right-wingers don’t see marijuana is not a potentially useful source of medicine, but as a symbol of the now-vilified hippies. Amazing what they blame the old 1960s counterculture for now that they don’t have communism to kick around any more: Everything from people wearing warmup suits to church to the spread of AIDS and international terrorism.
Thankfully, 10 states have gone beyond all that and, indeed, made marijuana legal with a doctor’s prescription.
So many people who are so against it would have us believe there’ll have people smoking reefer on the streets and buying it in stores if marijuana were legal. Or even if marijuana were only legal with a doctor’s prescription, any pothead who wanted it could just tell his family physician he has a pain somewhere and the doc will just write out a prescription and say, “Here, get yourself an oh-zee, dude.“
Puh-leeze! Give our nation’s healers more credit than that.
First of all, this is not about “reefer” or “pot”, but cannabis. Reefer and pot is what you use for fun. Medically recommended marijuana is something you take strictly for health reasons. I have read testimonials from patients of all political persuasions. A few of them voted for Reagan and both Bushes and wouldn’t be caught dead toking on a doobie at a party. Yet they say smoking marijuana has really been a good treatment for their afflictions and they hate the idea of the state turning these law-abiding people into criminals.
Talk-show host Montel Williams is one of those patients; he says he smokes marijuana because he suffers from multiple sclerosis.
“Someone suggested that smoking marijuana before going to bed might help me sleep,” he wrote in a recent article that showed up on the Internet. “Skeptical but desperate, I tried it. Three puffs and within minutes, the excruciating pain in my legs subsided. I had my first restful sleep in months.”
“When you see me on TV, you can't see the mind-numbing pain searing through my legs like hot pokers,” Williams said. “The strongest painkillers available -- Percocet, Vicodin, OxyContin and even morphine -- brought me no relief. I couldn't sleep, my legs kicked involuntarily in bed and the pain was so bad I found myself crying in the middle of the night. All these heavy-duty narcotics made me nearly incoherent, turning me into a zombie. And all are highly addictive.”
Before he tried smoking marijuana to alleviate his excruciating pain, “I spiraled deeper into a black hole of depression. It was so bad that I twice attempted to end my life,” Williams further writes.
This brings up one area: the term “addiction”. People who talk about drug abuse need to get their terminology straight before uttering this word.
Addiction refers to a physical dependency, a chemical dependency, not just a psychological dependency. Alcohol, opium and its derivatives such as heroin and morphine, are truly addictive. So are certain sedatives and tranquilizers. But while you can become psychologically dependent on marijuana when you use it recreationally, you don’t have a physical dependence. You’re not truly addicted. You just like it too much. Find something else to do that turns you on just as much, and you can quit smoking it without going through intensive therapy. Alcoholics, heroin addicts and others with physical dependence on certain substances need much more than will power to cure themselves.
The medicinal use of marijuana with a physician’s prescription is now legal in Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont and Washington state. In all of these states, recreational use of pot (using it just to get high) is still illegal, and even people who have prescriptions can still get busted if the police find a lot of it in their homes. On the other hand, states where medically prescribed cannabis is still illegal can choose not to prosecute people they see are using it medically, recent reports say.
Here is what a 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine said about medical marijuana. This report appears on a Web site titled www.drugwarfacts.org.:
In "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr., of Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine of Washington, DC (National Academy Press, 1999) state: "The accumulated data indicate a potential therapeutic value for cannabinoid drugs, particularly for symptoms such as pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation."
The Web site further says: “The Institute of Medicine's 1999 report on medical marijuana examined the question whether the medical use of marijuana would lead to an increase of marijuana use in the general population and concluded that, ‘At this point there are no convincing data to support this concern. The existing data are consistent with the idea that this would not be a problem if the medical use of marijuana were as closely regulated as other medications with abuse potential." The report also noted that, "this question is beyond the issues normally considered for medical uses of drugs, and should not be a factor in evaluating the therapeutic potential of marijuana or cannabinoids.’”
Legally prescribed cannabis can not only make patients feel better, but it can also be good for a state’s economy. Oregon seems to have found that out; a recent report says that state has enjoyed a hefty surplus since it legalized medical marijuana six years ago. “Now, there are more than ten-thousand-400 registered patients who have produced a surplus of one-point-one (m) million dollars,” The Associated Press reported.
Now the Oregon state legislature is debating a question we wish North Carolina would be faced with: What to do with all that money.
Here’s another thing I have a huge problem with: Seeing so many potentially abusable drugs plugged on TV.
People who blame hippies and rock stars for glamorizing drugs ought to pay a bit more attention to their own boob tubes. You have people not getting to sleep because they’re so worried about everything, or somebody walking around with his/her head between the shoulders. Then they pop a single pill in their mouths and presto: No more fretting about the kids, the bills and the job and you’re playing with a computerized Luna moth in slumber land, you’re having a good laugh over lunch, playing touch football in the park and walking on the beach with your dog or your sweetie. Better than a circus magician, eh?
But wait: Before the commercial’s out, the announcer tells you about all sorts of side effects, such as nausea, loss of appetite, a warning against driving or drinking booze while taking this medication and the possibility of physical dependency.
Oh, that’s just great, especially with medicines for psychiatric purposes. Start popping those happy pills and you’ve got a whole other batch of things to worry about. It might even keep you awake at night.
Then, notice these other news reports in the mix: Somebody with a prescription for Zoloft commits suicide. Viagra has not only been linked to blindness. Plus, Viagra and other male-potency drugs have been available on Medicaid to sex offenders. This last item has all the logic of giving free bullets to a Mafia hit man. (Or maybe that’s another way of punishing convicted sex offenders -- making them blind).
People have known about the abuse of legally prescribed drugs for years. The Rolling Stones’ classic hit “Mother’s Little Helper” is about that every thing. Still, the pharmacies are full of FDA-approved substances that, while they can do some good, can also do some really horrible things.
Now somebody explain to me what makes cannabis any worse than some of these drugs?
As I said before, legalizing recreational pot smoking has nothing to do with this issue. The state could impose penalties on people caught possessing cannabis without a medical prescription, just as it does for people caught with Valium (diazepam), barbiturates or other legally prescribed drugs. Substance abuse counselors could still point out the alleged drawbacks of recreational use of marijuana (as well as medical marijuana when it’s improperly used) (such as it can make you paranoid, lazy, mess up your lungs and just plain dry up your bank account). I’m all for that.
But as Montel Williams, a New York resident, says, “It does society no good to treat patients like me - simply trying to live well and be productive citizens in the face of terrible illness - as criminals. And threatening sick people with jail does not make New York a better place.”
New York, by the way, might be answering his prayers. He says the state legislature is considering legalizing cannabis. Identical bills in the State Senate and Assembly have been debated, and they have the approval of Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morganthau. It also has support from such health organizations as the American Public Health Association, American Nurses Association, the Medical Society of the State of New York and the New York State Association of County Health Officials.
“I am still alive and living a productive, fruitful life because of medical marijuana,” Williams says. “I'm not alone.”

posted by Bill Lindau @ 9:00 PM