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Lit_Match

Political climate favors medical pot
2-03-08|McClatchy Newspapers

A few years ago, politicians who dared to suggest anything other than jail time for marijuana users were considered pro-drug fringe candidates.

Not anymore. Now all the major Democratic presidential candidates are offering more lenient stands on medical marijuana, and White House hopeful Ron Paul, a Texas Republican, has made ending the federal drug war a centerpiece of his campaign.

"There has definitely been a change in the political climate for liberalization," said Tim Lynch, a criminal-justice expert at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based think tank. "I think the people are ahead of the politicians, especially of the Washington, D.C., politicians, on this issue."

Polls have consistently shown that Americans support marijuana for medicinal purposes: a whopping 80 percent said so in a 2002 Time/CNN survey. In the same poll, about a third approved total legalization, but 72 percent said recreational users should be fined, not incarcerated.

Even in Texas, where medical marijuana legislation has never gotten off the ground, the Legislature recently passed a law that allows prosecutors to bypass the jail booking process for certain marijuana offenses. It doesn't change the penalty, but the legislation marks Texas' first lenient approach to marijuana in years.

Experts say the more tolerant approach has its origins in California, where in 1996 voters made it legal for people to smoke marijuana with a doctor's recommendation. More than a decade later, 12 states permit some use of medical marijuana, and several others, including Michigan, Arizona, New York and Illinois, are likely to consider initiatives in 2008, said Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project. A ballot initiative in Massachusetts aims to go further by decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana, making it similar to a traffic ticket.

"I think in 10 years, people will look back at the laws that prevented people from using marijuana as a medicine and say, 'What the hell were they thinking?' " Mirken said.

Of course, not everybody is leaping on the bandwagon. All of the top Republican presidential candidates have expressed opposition to the use of medical marijuana, and the White House drug czar continues to sound the alarm about making it legal under any circumstance, much as it was before California voters approved the landmark referendum.

Research has shown that teen drug use has declined steeply nationwide. A study released in December showed that illicit teen drug use has dropped sharply from levels a decade earlier, with marijuana use in particular showing steep declines.

In testimony before Congress last summer, Dr. David Murray, chief scientist in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, hailed the positive trends among teens but said medical marijuana had sparked violence and robberies in California. He also warned about the negative health effects from inhaling smoked marijuana.

Murray described marijuana as "a substance without medical utility" and expressed concern about the wave of state referenda allowing its use.

"The medical marijuana movement is at best a mistake, at worst, a deception," Murray said. "The people pushing for this are cynically manipulating tragic tales of suffering."

Don't tell that to Tim Timmons. The Garland, Texas, resident, who has multiple sclerosis, says politicians are the ones manipulating the marijuana issue to appear tough on crime.

Though he takes $3,000 worth of prescription drugs a month — between 18 and 23 pills a day — he says marijuana is the only thing that calms the debilitating spasms in his legs and lets him sleep at night.

Timmons has sent scores of letters to state lawmakers, inviting them to see for themselves how marijuana visibly calms his spasms.

Otherwise, he has repeatedly issued this public challenge to state lawmakers who oppose medical marijuana: Take him to jail themselves if they think what he's doing is wrong.

"Come arrest me. I'm here waiting for you," Timmons said, after smoking marijuana from a pipe at his home. "You can put the handcuffs on me."

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Donation links to NORML (The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) | MPP (Marijuana Policy Project)

 

MasterCylinder

On the GOP side, its a dead issue. On the Dem side, its an issue they'd prefer not to talk about.

eltone

Dr. David Murray is obviously working for the federal government and they are only interested in any negative aspects of using marijuana. In the latter 80's that's exactly what the Feds told the DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis Young when he reported that, "Marijuana and its use does not constitute a threat to the health and well being of the USA and its citizens, and the laws prohibiting its use should be changed, for it is a non violent crime to use marijuana. The only thing that makes marijuana a violent crime/danger are the laws keeping it illegal and forcing the citizens to deal with the black market, which can be fatal." When his report was buried and kept from the light of truth and the knowledge kept from the public by the higher ups, he was told only to look for negative aspects of marijuana use. Knowing that the government, through its ad campaigns and any other information they show the general public, is biased and inaccurate Francis Young quit the DEA. In keeping up with their "Reefer Madness" approach the federal government has lost all respect from a majority of its citizens. Simply because the citizens know that the information the DEA and any other federal government research or branch tells the general public is a lie and the public knows it. Over 75% of the population age 45 and up want people to have legal access to medical marijuana. The fear that it is all a front to legalize the use of marijuana is irrelavent, for if marijuana were legalized even for recreational use it would only be better for the country and its population, mainly because it would eliminate the black market and the murders that go with it and the ill will be able to freely use marijuana to control the symptoms of their terminal and life long diseases, and its use would be more efficiently restricted from the underage teens. For a government to limit its citizens to use only recreational drugs that are feircely addictive, fatal and spawn a myriad of other fatal diseases while prohibiting the use of marijuana, a non fatal non addictive drug that spawns no other ill affects is evil, cruel and sadistically insane. Politicians worry about what long term use of marijuana will do to the brain? One thing we know for sure, we know the use of marijuana does not kill brain cells like alcohol which is permanent, every aspect of marijuana use, including the famed psychoactive effect, is temporary. Marijuana use will be legal for recreational and medical use eventually in the USA. For to keep it in a schedule 1 drug catagory flies directly in the face of proven medical and sceintific fact. From my interaction with today's teens, which is fueled by the fact that I am the father of an 18 year old son, the majority of teens today still want to experiment with drugs, especially marijuana because they know it is safe. Why do they know it is safe? Because their government has lied to them in regards to the effects of THC on the human body and they know it, just like they were doing 40 years ago when I was a teenager and we knew about the lies then. Peace...

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