Should Medical Marijuana be Federally Legalized?

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The Marijuana Policy Project would like to thank Eric Voth for laying out in detail the moral and factual bankruptcy of the arguments coming from opponents of medical marijuana. One is almost at a loss to know where to begin, but let's start with the obvious: If medical marijuana is a scam propagated by the "pro-marijuana lobby," then this sinister cabal of drug legalizers includes:

AIDS Action Council

American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry

American Academy of HIV Medicine

American College of Physicians

American Medical Students Association

American Nurses Association

American Public Health Association

California Medical Association

California Pharmacists Association

Doctors of the World -- USA

HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America

Leukemia and Lymphoma Society

Lymphoma Foundation of America

Medical Society of the State of New York

National Women's Health Network

New York State Association of County Health Officials

Rhode Island Medical Society

... and many, many more. Quite a "legalization" conspiracy, isn't it? To quote a U.S. Supreme Court brief filed by the HIV Medicine Association of the Infectious Diseases Society of America, Lymphoma Foundation of America and others:

"These studies have consistently found (1) that marijuana is an effective antiinflammatory, analgesic, appetite-stimulating, antiemetic, and antispasmodic agent; (2) that its side effects are often less debilitating than those of drugs currently approved for treating the same ailments; and (3) that for some individuals it is the only meaningful option. For certain persons the medical use of marijuana can literally mean the difference between life and death."

This is what Voth would have you believe is "medical-excuse" marijuana.

Voth's claim that a single marijuana plant produces one to five pounds of useable marijuana is laughable. The real number, according to U.S. government studies, is three or four ounces at most -- if the plant is female (male plants don't flower and produce no medically useable marijuana), healthy and survives to full maturity.

He makes much of the fact that advocates have sought to increase the often-inadequate amounts of marijuana that patients are allowed to possess under state laws. But he neglects to mention that the U.S. government supplies medical marijuana to four surviving patients from an old program that was closed to new enrollment in 1992. Each of those patients receives a 10-ounce tin containing 300 pre-rolled marijuana cigarettes every month. That's the U.S. government's idea of an adequate supply to meet legitimate patient needs, and more than is allowed patients in most states with medical marijuana laws.

Finally, it's worth noting that legal medical use of cocaine, morphine and methamphetamine -- yes, methampetamine is a legal medicine in the U.S. -- has produced precisely no movement toward legalizing these drugs for non-medical use. Voth would like you to believe that somehow marijuana would be magically different, with medical use leading inevitably to full legalization. But 12 states have medical marijuana laws and not one has legalized marijuana for medical use. Indeed, in most of them, including California (from which most allegations of abuse arise, due to its loosely-written medical marijuana law), marijuana arrests have gone up overall since their medical marijuana laws were enacted. If this is a trojan horse for legalization, it's a spectacular failure.

The unpleasant truth is that some people are so reluctant to let go of drug-war dogma that they are willing to ignore, facts, scientific data, compassion, and simple common sense.

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