As
a rule, political disputes feature conflicting positions that are obviously
or at least arguably rational. There are, however, exceptions.
A particularly
striking illustration of an exception to the rule is provided by the dispute
about medical marijuana laws. Currently eight states feature such laws,
which allow physicians to authorize the dispensing of marijuana to patients
to relieve pain from conditions ranging from glaucoma to cancer to AIDS.
The
federal government in general, and the Bush administration in particular,
has taken the position that, since there is no federal law permitting doctors
to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes, people who supply or possess
marijuana legally under state law for medical purposes should be prosecuted
under federal law. This is not a rationally defensible position.
Under
federal law, marijuana is categorized as a Schedule I drug, which means
that, according to federal government, it is both highly dangerous and
has no recognized medical use. Both of these claims are obviously false,
and the federal officials who are charged with carrying out the laws that
flow from this indefensible categorization of the drug are well aware of
that fact.
The
argument that marijuana is both so dangerous and of so little medical value
that - unlike, say, morphine - it is something that doctors should not
have the professional discretion to administer to their patients is beneath
contempt. It is, in short, the kind of argument that fails what lawyers
refer to as "the red-face test."
Marijuana
is far less dangerous than the literally hundreds of prescription drugs
that can be ingested in fatal quantities (there has never been a recorded
case of someone dying from an overdose of marijuana, and indeed, as a practical
matter, such a thing is physiologically impossible), and that are far more
addictive than cannabis. Furthermore, despite the strenuous efforts of
the federal government to block scientific research regarding the potential
medical uses of marijuana, a great deal of evidence has accumulated in
recent years that marijuana is an effective - indeed, sometimes the most
effective and least problematic - pain killer for people suffering from
a wide variety of serious and often excruciatingly painful conditions.
Given
all this, it isn't surprising that several states have enacted laws designed
to offset the effects of the federal government's profoundly irrational
policies regarding the medical use of marijuana. What is rather surprising
is the hypocrisy of the Bush administration's response.
Now,
of course, only the terminally naive are surprised when politicians deal
with drug questions hypocritically. Even so, the depth of the current administration's
hypocrisy should perturb even the most cynical observer.
Even
if we leave aside the utter irrationality of the federal government's attitude
toward medical marijuana use, the fact remains that federal prosecutions
of people who are acting perfectly legally under state law when they use
marijuana for medical purposes violates every principle of states' rights
that George W. Bush has repeatedly pledged to uphold. Indeed, when he was
a presidential candidate, Bush announced that he opposed the precise policy
that his own Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Agency are now carrying
out.
There
is, needless to say, a rational explanation for all this.
Although
the federal government's marijuana policy isn't rationally defensible,
politicians from the president on down are terrified of the accusation
that they are soft on drugs. As absurd as that accusation is in the land
of Budweiser and Percodan and mandatory prison sentences for millions of
drug offenders, it still carries enormous political power. The Bush administration's
policy on medical marijuana use seems clear: If values such as democracy
and federalism and common human decency happen to conflict with the administration's
policy, so much the worse for them.
top
| home | next
