SpiralArchitect

Weeding out the issue
10/9/2008|The State News|Kelly House

As Election Day nears, students, officials debate use of medical marijuana.

Public administration and public policy junior and co-founder of Spartans for Medical Marijuana Kelsey Maniez lays inside of the group’s float while waiting for the Homecoming parade to start Friday.

Michigan Medical Marijuana Initiative

• The initiative would allow adult patients with a doctor’s approval to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and grow up to 12 plants for personal use.
  
• The marijuana would have to be kept in a locked area.
  
• Opponents of the proposal have said that existing pharmaceuticals, such as the synthetic Marinol, contain the same therapeutic properties of marijuana without the negative side effects.

When Josh Sattler gets the munchies, he views it as a medicinal property of smoking marijuana, not a fattening side effect of getting high. The hospitality business junior has Crohn’s disease, a chronic inflammatory ailment of the digestive system that causes ulcers in the bowels and can lead to drastic weight loss.

“Marijuana helps you eat,” he said. “When you have Crohn’s disease, you should be eating a lot of food because your body is not able to take in the nutrition that it needs.”

Sattler said smoking marijuana also eases the “crunching” abdominal pain associated with Crohn’s.

Now a state proposal is on the ballot that would protect individuals such as Sattler from being arrested for using the drug to alleviate their symptoms. Sattler said he plans to vote in favor of Proposal 1, which would legalize marijuana use for medicinal purposes.

The initiative would allow adult patients with a doctor’s approval to possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and grow up to 12 plants for personal use. The marijuana would have to be kept in a locked area.

Proponents of the initiative say it would offer relief for individuals suffering from diseases that don’t respond to other medications, whereas opponents say the proposal could have unintended consequences such as promoting recreational drug use.

Twelve other states, Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington, possess similar laws.

Dianne Byrum, spokeswoman for the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, the group sponsoring the proposal, said medicinal marijuana would offer relief to thousands of Michigan residents who suffer from serious illnesses.

“It gives protection … from the fear of prosecution in jail for using medical marijuana,” she said. “These are people that have cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis.”

But opponents of the proposal say existing pharmaceuticals, such as the synthetic Marinol, contain the same therapeutic properties of marijuana without the negative side effects. The Michigan State Medical Society is among the proposal’s opponents.

“My personal plea would be that if anyone is in pain and not getting enough attention or satisfaction, to ask their physician about being referred to a pain specialist,” said David Fox, the society’s spokesman.

Fox said the society supports further research into marijuana’s effectiveness before clearing it for medical use. The fact that there are no standardized dosages and the drug is administered through smoking also are issues, he said.

“We’re so opposed to smoking in every other form that it would seem inconsistent to support smoking marijuana when it has a more harmful effect than cigarettes,” Fox said.

Other arguments against the proposal include the concern that it could lead to problems for law enforcement if recreational users get a hold of marijuana that was intended for medical use.

East Lansing police Chief Tom Wibert said he does not oppose medicinal marijuana, but he has concerns with allowing patients to grow their own plants.

“It’s going to be hard to enforce,” he said. “I think it should be done like any other prescription drug, where you go to the pharmacy.”

Backers of the proposal also would like the drug to be distributed by pharmacists, but federal law prohibits licensing it as a pharmaceutical, Byrum said.

Aside from the issue of patients growing the plants, Wibert said the medicinal marijuana would not affect the way his department deals with related offenses.

“Unless you have a serious illness, the law wouldn’t change,” he said.

A September poll by the Lansing-based Michigan Resource Group showed that 67 percent of respondents supported the initiative.

Byrum said she hopes that support translates into the proposal’s passage Nov. 4. If the proposal does pass, it would be up to each doctor in the Ingham County Health Department to decide whether to prescribe marijuana, Assistant Deputy Health Officer Marcus Cheatham said.

“We hire good doctors and we trust their judgment, so if there were good clinical indications … they would prescribe it,” he said.