Medical Use of Marijuana: Humane, Sensible



Legalizing the medical use of marijuana is not really a liberal issue or a conservative issue. It's an issue about injecting some compassion - and rationality - into the nation's emotionally and politically charged war on drugs.
The fact that two state legislators, one from the left and one the right, have joined forces to support legalizing medical marijuana in New Jersey underscores that fact.

Both have been touched by personal experiences involving friends or relatives who died painfully from cancer. And both rightly believe that the government should not come between a doctor and a patient, nor make criminals out of terminally ill people seeking relief.

Marijuana has a legitimate medical use in easing pain and, particularly, in easing the nausea and loss of appetite that comes from cancer treatments.

Assemblymen Michael Patrick Carroll, R-Morris, and Reed Gusciora, D-Princeton, plan to introduce a bill this fall that would set up a registry of patients whose doctors recommend marijuana to ease the symptoms of certain specific medical conditions - such as cancer and multiple sclerosis. Those people would not be prosecuted for using marijuana for that condition.

New Jersey would be wise to join the nine other states that have passed similar laws.

Of course, these state laws can only shield patients from state prosecution. The medical use of marijuana is still illegal under federal law. But the vast majority of arrests come under state law.

Moreover, states are sending out the message to the federal government that the war on drugs can not be blind to the legitimate use of drugs in easing suffering. The federal law should be changed as well - and if enough states pass their own laws, perhaps federal lawmakers will gather the courage to take up the issue.

"There is no such thing as an evil plant," Carroll said.

Of course there isn't. Consider the poppy - which can be used to make codeine and morphine, both used for medicinal purposes, but can also be used to make heroin.

Our war on drugs has, at times, blinded us to the fact that drugs can be used as well as abused. And that it is not only wrongheaded but cruel to deny people in pain the drugs that might help because we fear abuse. Those kinds of efforts become downright irrational in the cases of terminally ill patients.

We urge local legislators to support the Carroll/Gusciora bill. It's a sensible, compassionate measure. And it sets up a mechanism that ensures that marijuana willbe used only by those with specific medical conditions with a doctor's recommendation.

"Physicians should be allowed to prescribe drugs as they see fit," Carroll said. "The less time we spend telling people what to do, the better."

Spoken like a true conservative.

Source: Press of Atlantic City, The (NJ)
Published: September 9, 2004
Copyright: 2004 South Jersey Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@pressofac.com
Website: https://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/

[flyingBIMBO]

Having cancer does not guarantee an exemption even here in Canada. I had surgery for Stage three kidney cancer and my prognosis is poor. At this time I still remain cancer free and I attriibute this to my medicinal marijuanna consumption and smoking. It has been almost two years that I have remained in remission. I also have a dozen other ailments, that make me poster child for medicinal mairjuanna. I have a neurological problem, for example, for which I must take anti-parkinsons type drugs and they stimulate the vomiting centre in my brain. I have not been able to obtain the necessary signature! So, I have to get it illegally, but that is just the first hurdle. I am on a small disability pension and cannot even afford compassion club prices. It is a crime that sick and dying people are treated this way in this society. I live in a small apartment that is subsidized, so I cannot grow what I need. Poverty sucks.

[Harry Gypsna]

"Sick people?? Fuck sick people, were gonna lose fucking billions if they get tjheir medicine, to grow 4 themselves"

U can just see that being what they the agencies behind the oppression of our herb were saying. It stinks, I wonder if wea ll donated 10 dollars coud we buy an island in the pacific somewhere, not subject to america's laws(which lest face it may as well be the worlds laws, coz the us gov thinks its the world police) and then we can say balls to the lot of em.

[pseudochile]

it' is such a profound disgrace that our country as remained such a fraud. I love my country, Usa, but I hate what it's become. What's worse, as a christian, I have to see so many poeple who supposedly worship a god of love and freedom, put sick people in jail so that rapists, robbers, murderers, and molesters get out of the street to destroy their OWN families. NIIIIIIIICE...

[Paranoid-Watcha]

Originally Posted by Harry Gypsna

"Sick people?? Fuck sick people, were gonna lose fucking billions if they get tjheir medicine, to grow 4 themselves"

U can just see that being what they the agencies behind the oppression of our herb were saying. It stinks, I wonder if wea ll donated 10 dollars coud we buy an island in the pacific somewhere, not subject to america's laws(which lest face it may as well be the worlds laws, coz the us gov thinks its the world police) and then we can say balls to the lot of em.

i got 10 on it

pseu- thats why i'm glad to not be a part of any religeon, i don't wanna be connected to those people in anyway i don't have to be. it's pathetic the way bush uses his religeon as a tool to gain approval. what's even worse is the people that buy into it....

like sheep to a slaughter