Federal Govt Pro-Suffering

This from the Associated Press:

By AUDREY McAVOY, Associated Press Writer
Friday, July 29, 2005

(07-29) 19:47 PDT Honolulu (AP) --

The White House drug czar said Friday that medical marijuana is "dying out" after the Supreme Court ruled earlier this year that federal authorities may prosecute sick people whose doctors prescribe pot to ease pain.

GOI: I don't think that going after sick people who use pot to ease pain is a good use of tax payer money. I think there are more pressing issues that need our attention such as health care in general in this country. Nor do I think that it is humane to throw these (usually) chronically ill people in prisons and jails.

As for the pot itself? We pump people full of heavy opiods but allowing them to smoke a plant with lighter effects then morphine and oxycontin is too much?? It's times like this that I see our society as backwards.

"I think it's dying out," Walters told reporters after a meeting with Hawaii drug treatment counselors and law enforcement officials. "The real issue here is, is it the safe and best way for medical treatment? We don't think the best thing for people who are really sick is to make them high and send them away."

GOI: This kind of logic is so close-minded I wonder how this Walters guy learns a damn thing. Safe medical treatment? Since when do we worry about safe treatment?? Most drug treatments have harmful effects that come with the healing benefits such as chemo therapy. Chemo therapy is basically poison which happens to sometimes help kill cancers. I take 5 heavy psychotropic medications to treat my schizoaffective disorder and they aren't exactly good for my liver but the benefits far outway the negatives. So, medical marijuana is obviously not good for your lungs but it helps some chronically sick patients avoid pain and stimulate appetite. Certainly it's not for everyone but why take the option away from doctors and their patients? That just doesn't make any sense.

As for "make them high and send them away" this is just silly. ALL drugs which seek to alleviate pain will make someone "high." Medical marijuana treatment plans have had doctors advising and closely monitoring their patients. Besides, doctors do not shoot people up with morphine and then just "send them away" never to be monitored and medical marijuana would be no different. Sure medical marijuana can be abused but so can oxycontin, vicodin, percocet and other pain pills and these latter pain drugs cause nasuea where as marijuana alleviates nasuea often incured with cancer treatments and other serious illnesses.

Steve Kubby, national director of the American Medical Marijuana Association, objected to Walters' remark, saying there are "hundreds" of peer-reviewed scientific studies showing clear medical benefits from cannabis.

"The drug czar has blood on his hands for blocking the humane and medical use of cannabis for sick, disabled and dying people," Kubby said.

Kubby, a force behind the passage of a California proposition that legalized pot clubs, said marijuana can help treat nausea, pain, arthritis and cancer.

GOI: This is not about the "safety" of marijuana or concerns about getting people too "high." Rather it is about the lobbying power of the major drug manufacturers on our federal drug agency and on countless Senators and Representatives. The big drug companies do not want to have to compete with a plant that can be grown anywhere.

Set our people free.

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