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Feds Should Settle Debate Regarding Marijuana
06-09-07|Norwich Bulletin

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.

 

nerphroll

Though kind of lame, she can take the passive aggressive role and not do anything with it. As I understand the bill automatically becomes a law if she doesn't act on it ten days after it reached her desk.

Buzzby

Every other state with a medical marijuana law requires a doctor's recommendation, not a prescription. The prescription is a Catch-22. Only drugs listed on the US Pharmacopeia can be prescribed and marijuana is not one of them. If a doctor did write such a prescription, it couldn't be filled and the doctor might well lose his (federally granted) license to write prescriptions.

See above.

The original concept of a federal system is that the states can serve as laboratories for trying out new ideas. That's exactly what's happening. When a large majority of states have liberalized medical marijuana and recreational marijuana laws, it is hoped that the federal government will stop being terrified of changing them at the national level.

But it is highly political and politicians will continue to back up their refusal to pass medical marijuana laws with the irrational argument "we'd be sending the wrong message to young people about the dangers of using illicit drugs". It seems that the biggest change among politicians is that those who have had family members suffer from problems that could be alleviated by medical marijuana are beginning to come around.

I agree 100%. Currently 80% of those surveyed favor medical marijuana. That sounds like a slam dunk, but federal representatives still continue to drag their feet.

I hope to see one or more states legalize recreational marijuana in the next few years. There are only 300,000 medical marijuana users in this country but there are 24,000,000 recreational users. If we could get ourselves organized, we'd be a force to be reckoned with. There are only 3,000,000 NRA members and the NRA has managed to block most legislation that limits our Second Amendment rights. Think about what 24,000,000 marijuana users could do if they would only make the effort.

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