{news} Connecticut editorial--medicinal marijuana in today's Norwich Bulletin

[clifford thornton]

http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070609/OPINION01/706090321/1014/OPINION<http://www.norwichbulletin.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070609/OPINION01/706090321/1014/OPINION>

NORWICH BULLETIN (CT)
June 9, 2007

Our view: Feds should settle debate regarding medical marijuana

A bill allowing terminally and chronically ill people with certain conditions to grow and use
marijuana for medical purposes is making its way to the governor's desk, where it is anyone's
guess whether it will get a veto or a signature.
It may seem like a radical bill for Connecticut, but it is not. Connecticut has allowed doctors
to prescribe marijuana to treat glaucoma and cancer patients since 1981. Not one doctor in the
state has ever written a prescription. Federally, marijuana is not an acceptable treatment,
even though 46 states have a law of some kind acknowledging its use for medicinal purposes or
granting patients the legal right to possess and use it.

Numerous high-profile medical groups have come out in support of the use of medical marijuana
and the bill. Almost as many groups have withheld comment on the issue.

More of the same?

We wonder if this new law is different enough to change anything. Under the 1981 law, doctors
had to register with the Department of Consumer Protection to prescribe marijuana. No one did.
The new law requires physicians to certify patients who can use medical marijuana, and the
patient then registers with Consumer Protection. Patients can then grow four 4-foot plants of
marijuana and use them for their treatment. Nowhere in the bill does it explain where patients
will get the seeds to grow the marijuana, nor does it establish a legal way of selling them.

The bill is a more conservative version of a Rhode Island law that passed last year as a
one-year experiment and has now been made permanent. More than 250 patients have used the
program and the response was overwhelmingly positive.

But this issue will never be settled until it is dealt with on the federal level. It cannot be
an issue that is political or centered on the nation's battle with drug use. There is no
evidence that allowing medicinal use of marijuana promotes recreational drug use in any way.

Gov. M Jodi Rell should sign the bill if she wants to make it clear this is an issue she
believes needs broader debate. Only as states challenge the federal law will Congress be forced
to evaluate the issue.

Efficacy
PO Box 1234
860 657 8438
Hartford, CT 06143
efficacy at msn.com<mailto:efficacy at msn.com>
www.Efficacy-online.org<http://www.efficacy-online.org/>
 
"THE DRUG WAR IS MEANT TO BE WAGED NOT WON"

Working to end race and class drug war injustice, Efficacy is a non profit
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deductible


 

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