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Mainers
for Medical Rights
44 Exchange Street
Suite 201
Portland, ME 04101
800.846.1039
207.780.0704
info@mainers.org
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October 7, 1999
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Will those who
inhaled step forward? |
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I expect the referendum on the medical use of marijuana to pass not because of logic but because of personal experience. Can there be anyone younger than 60, except for those employed by the war on drugs, who really believes in their hearts that prescribing marijuana for pain relief is a danger to society?
I grew up in the generation when the film Reefer Madness was viewed with great seriousness, not as high camp. It was meant to keep us from smoking the evil weed that most of us had never heard of before we saw the movie -- but its message was about as effective as the warning about incipient blindness from doing something else.
Despite the claim in Reefer Madness that there were evil people lurking out there, ready to turn me on to this abomination, I never made contact with them. I missed the drug revolution in college and was past 30 when someone let me in on the secret.
Yes, I inhaled. Did I ever inhale.
I was never enticed to try anything stronger; like most of today's teenagers, I know there's a vast difference between marijuana and crack cocaine or heroin. Even marijuana, I have only smoked a few times and I have never bought any except once in Amsterdam -- and the kids in the coffeehouse selling it legally thought I was a hilarious old duffer.
Assuming there has been an overall increase in the use of marijuana in the United States, it has clearly come in the face of stepped up anti-drug campaigns that lose much of their credibility because kids don't believe what they say about the dangers of marijuana. They know there's a critical difference between weed and crack.
The anti-drug campaigns now running in local papers, ostensibly in reaction to the upcoming referendum, maintain that research shows people who smoke marijuana before age 15 are seven times more likely to use other drugs. Or I could interpret that research another way: People who have the personality and behavioral traits that make them take hard drugs are seven times more likely to have smoked marijuana before age 15.
Of course, all this is irrelevant in a debate over the medical use of marijuana, since it would be as regulated as the use of legally prescribed addictive drugs. Some doctors may believe marijuana is medically ineffective, even in lessening side effects of Aids. But recent studies have also concluded that many people suffering from depression show as much improvement with placebos as they do from highly touted drugs doctors prescribe with alacrity.
In other cases, patients have been poorly served by our drug paranoia. For years, doctors have been afraid to prescribe enough pain medication to the terminally ill. I fail to understand the danger to society if a terminal patient becomes addicted before he dies. Even if he experiences a miraculous recovery, what is the danger to society that an 80-year-old is addicted to pain killers the last few years of his life?
The drug war's own rhetoric backfires. In the current ad campaign, it argues that "illegal drugs are estimated to cost America over $110 billion each year in treatment, enforcement, incarceration and social damage." Now that figure might be inflated for political purposes, but the irony is that the higher the cost, the more doubt it casts on current policies. When the ad goes on to mention how much that money could buy in public benefits, my only reaction is that we should be spending it elsewhere. Even Bill Bradley's new proposal for universal health care would cost only $65 billion.
But I don't think this referendum question is going to be decided on logic. If opponents thought it was just about medical use of marijuana, they would be few. Instead, the opposition warns this is a foot in the door to legalizing drugs. But that puts them in the same difficult position as those who equate marijuana with hard drugs. The audience they are trying to reach -- kids or voters -- already makes the distinction by itself.
Indeed, the drug warriors should declare victory because so many people who smoke marijuana never go on to anything stronger. And therein lies what I think will be the determining factor in the election. If everyone between 21 and 60 who has smoked marijuana -- and inhaled -- votes in favor of the medical use of marijuana, opponents don't have a chance.
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| C 1999 Maine Times Publishing Company |
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