Red-Blue America: Is America ready for medical marijuana?

Medical marijuana can help, but our pot laws are a joke
Medical marijuana should be a serious matter of public policy. Our medical marijuana laws, however, are a joke. In 1996, Californians passed the Compassionate Use Act, the first state medical marijuana law in the nation. Proponents sold the measure as a matter of offering relief to patients with terminal illnesses. The week before the November election that year, ads featuring a nurse describing her husband’s struggle with cancer and her efforts to ease his suffering with cannabis blanketed the airwaves. “God forbid someone you love may need it,” Anna Boyce said. Such emotional appeals tugged heartstrings and moved voters - the ballot measure passed with a solid 55 percent of the vote. Although it took several years for state and local officials to construct a rough approximation of a regulatory scheme, California eventually came to lead the nation in moving public opinion to favor medicinal marijuana. But what became clear very quickly was just how expansive the definition of “medical necessity” can be when it comes to cannabis. Yes, marijuana really can help AIDS and cancer patients, as well as people with glaucoma. And depending on whom you ask, marijuana can help with every other ailment known to man, from depression and anxiety to chronic migraines and frigidity. Marijuana is such a miraculous drug that it can even remedy maladies unknown until just recently. Comedian Seth Rogen joked on the Conan O’Brien show a few years ago that he got his prescription for a specific ailment: “It’s called ‘I ain’t got no weed on me right now.’ ” Rogen Syndrome may be the fastest spreading disease in America today. Legislators and policymakers should recognize medical marijuana for what it is, not what its supporters want to pretend it is. Path-breaking laws in California, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii and 19 other states and the District of Columbia have made it easier for gravely ill people to have some relief. But those laws have also led to a kind of de facto legalization. It was a very small step for voters Colorado and Washington to embrace legalization without the patina of medical respectability. Set aside the heart-wrenching appeals and genuflections to medical science. The debate we should be having is about the costs and consequences of legalization. Ben Boychuk (bboychuk@city-journal.org) is associate editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.Medical marijuana can help, but our pot laws are a joke
Medical marijuana should be a serious matter of public policy. Our medical marijuana laws, however, are a joke.In 1996, Californians passed the Compassionate Use Act, the first state medical marijuana law in the nation. Proponents sold the measure as a matter of offering relief to patients with terminal illnesses. The week before the November election that year, ads featuring a nurse describing her husband’s struggle with cancer and her efforts to ease his suffering with cannabis blanketed the airwaves. “God forbid someone you love may need it,” Anna Boyce said.Such emotional appeals tugged heartstrings and moved voters - the ballot measure passed with a solid 55 percent of the vote. Although it took several years for state and local officials to construct a rough approximation of a regulatory scheme, California eventually came to lead the nation in moving public opinion to favor medicinal marijuana.But what became clear very quickly was just how expansive the definition of “medical necessity” can be when it comes to cannabis.Yes, marijuana really can help AIDS and cancer patients, as well as people with glaucoma. And depending on whom you ask, marijuana can help with every other ailment known to man, from depression and anxiety to chronic migraines and frigidity.Marijuana is such a miraculous drug that it can even remedy maladies unknown until just recently. Comedian Seth Rogen joked on the Conan O’Brien show a few years ago that he got his prescription for a specific ailment: “It’s called ‘I ain’t got no weed on me right now.’ ”Rogen Syndrome may be the fastest spreading disease in America today.Legislators and policymakers should recognize medical marijuana for what it is, not what its supporters want to pretend it is. Path-breaking laws in California, Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii and 19 other states and the District of Columbia have made it easier for gravely ill people to have some relief.But those laws have also led to a kind of de facto legalization. It was a very small step for voters Colorado and Washington to embrace legalization without the patina of medical respectability.Set aside the heart-wrenching appeals and genuflections to medical science. The debate we should be having is about the costs and consequences of legalization.Ben Boychuk (bboychuk@city-journal.org) is associate editor of the Manhattan Institute’s City Journal.