There’s a way to be compassionate to patients who would benefit from medical marijuana without providing a loophole allowing others to get high. At last, the federal government is making this distinction.
Last week, Attorney General Eric Holder instructed federal prosecutors not to go after people who use marijuana for relief of pain and other symptoms in the 14 states where medicinal use is permitted. His memo reverses longstanding federal policy and marks a step toward separating those who could be helped by marijuana’s therapeutic properties from those who criminally distribute or use it.
Medical science is gathering evidence that ingredients in marijuana can ease chronic pain, help some cancer patients and control chronic nausea, vomiting and glaucoma. Even the once-skeptical American Medical Association supports research into marijuana’s medical benefits and backs efforts to develop a smoke-free inhaled delivery system.
A Zogby poll found that here in Rhode Island, 69 percent of respondents supported allowing seriously-ill patients “to use and grow their own marijuana for medical purposes, so long as their physician approves.”
In Rhode Island we are well on the way to setting up medical marijuana dispensaries. It seems that the opponents of medical marijuana in Rhode Island are hoping that their audience will take their statements at face value, instead of checking the bill itself, or thinking critically about the ways we usually prevent crime at other high-inventory businesses and health service locations.
In the end, it is clear that the federal government should not be harassing sick people and their caregivers. Attorney General Eric Holder has made the right decision, calling off the prosecution of patients who use marijuana for medical purposes, or those who distribute it to them, as long as they comply with state laws like they would be here in Rhode Island.
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States that allow the medicinal use of marijuana: Alaska |
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