PROHIBITING MEDICAL MARIJUANA USE IS IRRATIONAL AND INHUMANE
By Charles W. Moore
© 1998 Charles W. Moore
Multiple sclerosis victim Grant Krieger, 44, was recently fined $500 for possession
of marijuana for the purposes of trafficking. He was arrested last year for smoking
pot outside a Calgary courthouse to protest what he considers unjust laws against
medicinal use of marijuana. Krieger also gave another man marijuana, resulting in
the trafficking charge.
"Society doesn't have the right to tell anybody how to heal their bodies or what they
can use in the healing process," said Krieger, who claims that smoking and eating
marijuana attenuates his MS symptoms, and self-medicating with pot since 1994, has
restored his ability to walk without canes, jog and resume many other activities
once denied to him by his illness.
Mr. Krieger's claims are corroborated by some, albeit limited, medical research. A
1985 study published in the Journal of Neurology (236 (1989): 120-122) concluded
that therapeutic effects of marijuana on MS symptoms were quantitatively assessable
and reproducible in a laboratory testing. The researchers suggested that cannabinoids
in the marijuana stimulate serotonin production and modify other brain chemicals
with therapeutic effect.
Claims of marijuana's medicinal efficacy are not limited to MS. It is asserted that
glaucoma, nausea from anti-cancer chemotherapy, epilepsy, asthma, migraines, peptic
ulcer, clinical depression, pain, anorexia, alcoholism, inflammation, hypertension,
some cancer tumors, and AIDS, all respond favourably to marijuana therapy. Medicinal
marijuana advocates argue that development of nonirritating purified natural cannabinoid
aerosol preparations should be a top priority, because the smoked route causes throat
and lung irritation that technology could prevent. Grant Krieger wants to see a safe
supply of marijuana distributed by the federal government to those who need it for
medical purposes.
An FDA approved New Mexico study from 1978 to 1986 treated some 250 cancer patients
with either marijuana or its derivative, THC, after conventional medications failed
to control their nausea and vomiting. Both marijuana and THC were found effective,
but marijuana was superior. More than 90 percent reported significant or total relief
from nausea and vomiting. No serious side-effects were recorded. Other similar studies
substantiate these findings.
A British Medical Association (BMA) report concludes that individual cannabinoids
have therapeutic potential in several conditions for which other treatments are not
fully adequate, and that they are safe drugs with a side effect profile better than
that of many conventional drugs used for similar indications. The BMA recommends
that the British government allow cannabinoids to be prescribed in a range of medical
conditions, and calls for the setting up of controlled clinical trials.
Phillip Robson, senior clinical lecturer at Warneford Hospital in Oxford, U.K., maintains
that while "the role of cannabinoids in modern therapeutics remains uncertain, but
the evidence in [the BMA] report shows that it would be irrational not to explore
it. The active components of a plant which has been prized as a medicine for thousands
of years should not be discarded lightly, and certainly not through political expediency
or as a casualty of the war on drugs."
Unfortunately, many people in our society, including lawmakers, bureaucrats, and law
enforcement personnel, harbour an irrational fear and loathing of the alleged "demon
weed" that is nothing short of hysterical.
Even the liberal Clinton administration has undertaken a public-relations offensive
"which will include a campaign to discredit the notion that smoking marijuana has
medicinal benefits," even though testing of the drug had nearly completed the requirements
for FDA new drug approval for the medical use of marijuana in 1992.
In the eyes of the anti-marijuana zealots, approving medicinal use of marijuana amounts
to a smokescreen for circumventing prohibitions on recreational use of pot, and claims
for the weed's medical efficacy are quackery. Barry McCaffrey, Bill Clinton's "drug
czar," has claimed publicly that "no clinical evidence demonstrates that smoked marijuana
is good medicine."
That sort of rhetoric and the perspective behind it are willfully ignorant at best,
not to mention callously inhumane in instances where people suffering from horrible
illnesses like MS or cancer are being arbitrarily denied access to a natural substance
that at the barest minimum would ease their distress, and which is safer in terms
of side-effects than virtually all standard prescription pharmaceuticals.
Happily, reason and logic may at last be starting to gain a foothold in the medicinal
marijuana debate, at least in Canada. Judge Robert Davie imposed a modest fine on
Grant Krieger rather than the jail sentence customary for even first offence trafficking
convictions. "The judge realized there's an issue there and that's why I received
a fine - I was supposed to receive jail time," Krieger commented.
Terry Parker of Ontario was granted a constitutional exemption last
year permitting him to smoke marijuana to help control his epileptic seizures. Unfortunately,
that ruling is being appealed.
Perhaps most importantly, both Health Minister Allan Rock and Federal Justice Minister
Anne McLellan have said that the issue merits careful review. The two ministers'
departments have formed a committee to
research measures to accommodate people using marijuana for medical reasons.
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