No on Question 2

Do you want to allow patients with specific illnesses to grow and use small amounts of marijuana for treatment, as long as such use is approved by a doctor?

The arguments in favor of medical use of marijuana are well laid out in a 1997 New England Journal of Medicine editorial included in the information packets provided by Mainers for Medical Rights, the group that initiated this referendum: The advanced stages of many illnesses and their treatments are often accompanied by nausea, vomiting, pain and loss of appetite; thousands of cancer and AIDS patients have found striking relief from these symptoms by smoking marijuana; many of these patients and their families have risked jail to obtain the drug.

The title of the editorial is “Federal Foolishness and Marijuana.” If the problem is federal foolishness — stubborn, even paranoid, drug policies — the solution is not Question 2.

In attempting to skirt the federal prohibition on physician-prescribed marijuana, the law that would take affect with the passage of this referendum question will allow these patients and designated caregivers to possess up to 1.25 ounces of marijuana. This marijuana can be obtained only two ways — by dealing with illegal drug traffickers or by growing it. The first unwisely legitimizes criminal activity, the second is far more difficult than the acquisition of medicine should ever be. Both methods, and the “designated caregiver” provision, will create confusion and inequity in law enforcement.

Further, this approach to making a drug, any drug, available for medicinal use sets a terrible precedent. Drugs are approved for the marketplace through a thorough regimen of testing, research and review, not by popular vote. Although “slippery slope” arguments can be tiresome and often mere obstructionism, in this case the argument, raised by many in the medical community, is valid. It is not hard to imagine the manufacturers of dubious cancer cures and harmful weight-loss potions evading scientific assessment and the FDA approval process merely by getting their product on the ballot.

The active compounds in marijuana are available in pill form. Many who use Marinol say it is slow to take effect and sometimes only increases nausea. It is important that alternate delivery methods, such as inhalers, be developed. It is also important, though, that any pharmaceutical be delivered in measured doses and that sufficient steps are taken to prevent illicit use. Marijuana bought on the street or grown on a window sill provides neither of those protections.

Mainers for Medical Rights have conducted an informative campaign and have performed a valuable public service in bringing this issue of the therapeutic use of marijuana by the terminally ill to the forefront. Other such groups in other states are doing the same. The remedy for federal foolishness, however, will be found in Congress, not on a state ballot.