Voters Should OK Medical Use Of Marijuana
by Michael Zuzel, for the editorial board

October 07, 1998 - The Columbian - editors@columbian.com

Marijuana is no different than morphine. If used properly, both can have therapeutic benefits for people with severe health conditions. If used improperly, both can have health-threatening side effects.

But if a doctor prescribes morphine, he's a healer. If he provides marijuana, he's a felon.

Initiative 692 doesn't legalize drugs or turn drug dealers loose or allow kids to trade joints on the school playground. All it does is treat marijuana like any other medicinal chemical: tightly controlled, but available for patients who truly need it.

There is ample research and overwhelming anecdotal evidence that marijuana can, in certain cases, provide relief from pain, nausea and seizures more effectively than any other substance. The latest is a federal study that finds cannabidiol, a component of marijuana, can help the survival rate of stroke victims by blocking the compounds caused by a restricted blood supply to the brain.

Likewise, marijuana has proved effective in fending off the nausea caused by chemotherapy in cancer patients; in stimulating the appetites of those stricken by AIDS; and in controlling or reducing the spasticity in those afflicted by multiple sclerosis.

This isn't just the opinion of a few stoner doctors. Ten years ago, an administrative law judge for the federal Drug Enforcement Administration concluded: "The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision."

Unlike last year's medicinal marijuana initiative, which The Columbian opposed, I-692 is narrowly drawn and provides ample safeguards. Only qualifying patients, as defined by the state Medical Quality Assurance Board, would be eligible to use marijuana. Only certified physicians, conducting themselves under the strict licensing and oversight rules of the state, would be allowed to prescribe marijuana.

Our society has long outgrown the goofy notion of marijuana as "devil weed." It's a drug, with capacity to help or hurt, and should be treated as such.

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