MEDICAL MARIJUANA: A CURE FOR ALL ILLS?

Marijuana is a very useful and effective medicine: it is one of the least toxic substances, it is highly versatile, and it is very inexpensive. In fact, according to Lester Dr. Grinspoon, Associate professor of Psychiatry at the Harvard Medical School and author of Marihuana: The Forbidden Medicine, the question is not "is it useful?" but rather, "why is the government so resistant to making it available to people who need the medicine?"

There are strong players on both sides of the medical marijuana debate. In addition to governmental, pharmaceutical, and economic concerns, many people feel that the message that decriminalization would send to our kids is a powerful deterrent to the legalization of medical marijuana. In the 1970s and 1980s, at the peak of the movement to decriminalize marijuana, the parents' movement was extremely strong. Yale University's Dr. David Musto, who studied the history of U.S. drug policies and authored The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic Control, stated in an interview for PBS's "Frontline" that the parents reviewed the publications of the National Institute on Drug Abuse and were able to stop publications which waffled on attitudes towards drugs. Parents wanted a very clear no-tolerance position presented in any government publication. Politicians realized that it would be very bad for them in the elections to be seen as "soft on drugs"; therefore, they re-imposed mandatory minimum sentences for drug convictions and refused to even entertain discussions about legalization of marijuana. Now, when we confront the fact that marijuana may be a new "wonderdrug" with widespread medicinal purposes, we must deal with the problems produced by the strong parental push for complete prohibition and by the desire to show mercy and relief to those who are in pain.

  Perhaps the most persuasive argument is that marijuana should be made available only on a medical basis. Although it is a drug that can be abused - like aspirin or penicillin - potential for abuse is not a reason for complete prohibition of marijuana. For example, the ordinary use of over-the-counter painkillers can be more harmful than marijuana use: marijuana is neither physically addictive nor can one overdose on the drug. Opponents to medicinal marijuana fear any legalization may act as a catalyst, making the movement a wedge for change and a vehicle for the outright legalization of marijuana. However, it is a known fact that what adults do - and what medicine adults take - are not always okay for kids. For example, we allow adults to look at pornographic pictures, drink beer, and swear without believing that kids should be allowed to do the same. In fact, there are many things that are legal that we don't like and would not allow our children to do. It does not follow, however, that the means of prevention should be to impose the stamp of illegality. If the true goal of the drug war is the protection of our children, then why not focus the laws to reflect that intent? Making marijuana available to adults who are in pain should not influence drug policies with respect to children.

In fact, even if marijuana were completely legalized for adults, it does not follow that marijuana is therefore advocated and sanctioned for use by children. Just as alcohol and tobacco are recreational drugs available to adults but not to children, it is possible to construct a legal regime whereby age restrictions keep children away from marijuana but adults are allowed to make their own choices. We should continue to warn our children about the dangers of drugs, both legal and illegal, but it does not follow that just because a drug could be abused, it should be declared illegal. Rather than categorical declarations of marijuana's harms or its benefits, real studies and analyses should be performed so that we can have a better understanding of all aspects of marijuana use.

But what about respect for the law? The idea that laws should be obeyed is a powerful message that we want to impart to our children. However, many children feel that they have been lied to about the risks and adverse effects of drugs. Specifically, kids have expressed that they feel it is wrong to lump marijuana together with other "hard" drugs, like cocaine and heroin. In fact, many kids today simply get bored with school and look for distractions: marijuana is often there, it seems like an interesting diversion, and so they try it. When kids find out that marijuana is not as bad as everyone wants them to believe, they feel that prohibiting its use is wrong, and thus, they start to get cynical about the law. If kids come to feel that they are lied to by adults, and they feel that it is all right to break the law and use marijuana anyway, we are teaching kids to disrespect the power and the value of our laws. Furthermore, if we just leave the laws in place but stop enforcing them we reinforce the idea that breaking the law is okay - as long as one feels that they can get away with it.

Instead, what we should do is actually analyze and study marijuana and its effects. The stigma surrounding this plant is great and needs to be dispelled; only then can marijuana be studied and its true effects and benefits properly analyzed. The low factual content, low logical content, and high emotional content of this issue are undermining the seriousness of the debate over marijuana use and are frustrating attempts to make a rational drug policy. Unfortunately, the limited use of medically prescribed marijuana does not supply a large enough sample for a true study of the social and medical effects of marijuana. If we can find hard facts on the effects of marijuana, as we have for tobacco, alcohol, and other drugs, then we can teach our children the real reasons why they should say no to drugs - or even admit to ourselves that the problem is not as large as we fear.

Some people, however, feel that kids will always seek out something illegal to do. Under this logic, they argue that perhaps marijuana should remain illegal so that kids would choose to do marijuana rather than more harmful drugs. The perversity of this logic becomes clear when one realizes that those who support this view feel that marijuana is not harmful. It is an avocation of lying and deceit that certainly does not solve the problem of disrespect of the laws. Under a similar strain, we could declare soda or chewing gum illegal with the knowledge and approval that our kids would break the law and use them anyway. Such an argument for keeping marijuana illegal actually takes away from another popular claim that marijuana is a "gateway" to the use of other drugs. If in fact the use of marijuana, although minimally harmful in itself, leads to the use of other "harder drugs" such as heroin, LSD, and cocaine, it would be ridiculous to advocate keeping marijuana illegal in the hope that kids would choose to use marijuana. Opponents cannot argue both ways. Although some studies have shown a correlation between marijuana use and experimentation with harder drugs, scientists have not been able to prove a causal link between the two. This revelation both debunks the gateway theory and takes the wind out of the argument that kids are indifferent to which drugs they abuse. Therefore, prohibition on marijuana would not keep kids away from the "bad" drugs.

What if we legalized marijuana for medicinal purposes and nothing happened? Proposition 215, that allowed doctors to prescribe marijuana to the terminally and chronically ill, was passed in 1996. Consequently, we can compare the findings from the 1997-98 California Student Substance Use Survey, which polled 11,155 public and private school children in grades 7,9, and 11, with the findings from the 1995-1996 study.

Marijuana use in the last six months:

• 11.2% of 7^th graders reported use (from 10.9% in 1995-1996)
• 32.5% of 9^th graders reported use (from 34.2% in 1995-1996)
• 41.6% of 11^th graders reported use (from 42.8% in 1995-1996)

Marijuana use weekly in the last six months (an indicator of heavy use):

• 2.1% of 7^th graders reported use (from 1.9% in 1995-1996)
• 9.3% of 9^th graders reported use (from 12.3% in 1995-1996)
• 14.1% of 11^th graders reported use (from 16.5% in 1995-1996)

These figures undercut the claims of those who oppose measures like Proposition 215 that approval of medical marijuana will lead to an explosion of teen marijuana use. In fact, except for the small increase in use by 7^th graders, there were statistically significant reductions in use by 9^th and 11^th graders. Furthermore, comparison studies with Holland, where citizens over 18 are allowed to buy and consume marijuana in government-regulated coffee shops, show that it does not necessarily follow that there is a correlation between criminalization and use. The findings of a study published by the Center for Drug Research (CEDRO) at the University of Amsterdam show that 15.6% of Dutch persons aged 12 or over had tried marijuana. Of these, 4.5% reported using marijuana in the past year, and 2.5% said that they used the drug during the past month. By contrast, 32.9% of Americans admitted that they had tried marijuana, 9% reported using the drug in the past year, and slightly more than 5% said that they used the drug monthly.