Surprisingly, politics does sometimes make really strange bedfellows. When Dana Rohrbacher of California gets onboard any legislation with a Democrat that is not likely to be a winner, there must be (gasp) principles involved. It seems that there are actually some republicans out there who believe all their party's 'states rights' dogma, even when it's not election season. A recent vote on allowing Medical Marijuana was voted down, but lost by a slightly smaller margin than the last time it came up in the House.
A surprisingly strong bid to shield medicinal pot smokers in California and nine other states from federal prosecution was defeated in the House on Wednesday after a spirited debate that centered on states' rights and even reached back to the pre-Civil War "nullification" debate.
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"It is a travesty for the federal government to send agents into my state and throw people in a cage for doing something that people in my state say is legal," Rohrabacher, a self-described libertarian Republican, told the House as it debated the measure late Tuesday night.
He choked up as he told colleagues that he wished legal pot had been available when his mother was dying from cancer.
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California voters easily passed Proposition 215 in 1996 by 56 percent to 44 percent to allow patients to get marijuana with a doctor's recommendation to treat the pain of such ailments as cancer, AIDS or glaucoma.
But then, why bother to use medicine to ease the suffering of real live humans? Here's the christo-fascist take on the whole situation:
But Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., has a different view. "This is a cultural issue, " he said. "It's about taking the culture in the wrong direction. Medical marijuana laws send the wrong message to our youth."
Got it? It's all about rockin' the gange...not medicine according to Rep. Wolf. No one ever got high or addicted to any controlled substance as the result of a prescription (why, I can come up with the names of at least three family members of prominent republicans, with no effort). I suspect that many of those afflicted with any of the things that they might use safe, legal, medical marijuana for wish that that they might be around long enough to get a monkey on their back...getting stoned is sort of the least of their concerns, I think.
posted by Jo Fish on 07.24.03 at 11:04 PM
Comments:
surprising it may sound i learnt from a NORMAL person recently that a serious consrvative support exists for them on these grounds. perhaps if some proper medium / communication can be realised it may become possible to make principled alliance between left ( and i mean left not this lot of weasly liberals) and libertarian conservatives and some conservatives
posted by: badri on 07.24.03 at 11:36 PM [permalink]
I wish I knew more about the "medical" benefits of marijuana. Is getting high the pain relief? Do traditional pain relievers not work for these patients? I'm honestly asking here because I don't know.
CJ - I believe it's said that cannabis does more than dull the pain receptors, which of course "regular" opiates and pain relievers can do, with varying degrees of efficacy. My understanding is that cannabis has some other effect as well. It's supposed to aid in support of glaucoma and cancers, for two of the diseases.
I have a problem about drug use. (There is none so avid as the reformed sinner, after all.) Drugs are too easily available, and therefore, all to often overused in our society. Whether a "legal" drug like alocohol and nicotine, or an "illegal" one like cannabis and the opiates and narcotics, there is a personal and societal penalty to be paid for use and overuse. Families are torn asunder, lives destroyed, and society all too often has to pick up the pieces.
But I also have a problem with people denying any sort of comfort to the dying based solely upon religious or ideological grounds. Death is not proud, nor is it noble. It is all too often painful, messy, terrifying and catastrophic to next of kin because of the emotional shock of the loss coupled with the pain of the dying loved one. To insist that the "patient" suffer in agony because of *your* (not really you, CJ - the editorial 'you') religious beliefs and prejudices is barbaric.
I'm not certain that the quoted Representative Wolf is being completely acuurate. OK, actually I think he's a lying sack of crap. This isn't about a cultural issue. It's about forcibly applying adonther's beliefs on helpless victims in order to make the one with the power feel good about his 'nobility.'
I also find it ironic that the Fascist Party, which dishonestly styles itself the 'Republican Party' claims to strongly support states' rights, as long as states rights involves repression of racial,ethnic, social, sexual or religious minorities. But as soon as states rights comes into conflict with the hidden agenda of producing a cristo-fascist theocracy, the vicious Federalist inner self rises to the occasion.
I acknowledge that you firmly accept the Fascists as your chosen political party, and seem to feel that anything they do is good and must be acceded to. I'm not even trying to get you to see the error of accepting another's values from whole cloth. Just try to understand this: diversity is advantageous.
Just try to image if everyone was exactly the same - a cookie cutter world, with no yellows, no reds, no blues. Everything gray. Everyone looks exactly alike, dresses in the same dull drab utilitarian coverall. Worse than everyone in Army green. :)
OK - I've gone off topic again.
The problem with any mood altering substance is that if it feels good, it gets overdone. But it doesn't hurt me if someone goes off into the deep dark eternal night in comfort rather than agonizing pain. Maybe that's part of the phenomenon. I'm a Liberal. I don't care what you do as long as you only hurt yourself. I just don't want your actions to impinge on someone else unless they're willing participants.
Consensuality is the key to the political commonweal.
posted by: Lurch on 07.25.03 at 05:49 AM [permalink]
CJ - one of the things that the advocates cite is the fact that for some reason (I don't know the actual explanation/pharmacology of this) marijuana (smoked, not in the pill form, Marinol) controls the nausea associated with Chemotherapy very well, thus allowing cancer patients tolerate it (chemo) better and keep their food down. It has the same effect for AIDS patients who cannot otherwise eat (no appetite/nausea). The glaucoma thing has been known for years, and is, I believe right now the only 'approved' use for the drug in an 'investigational' setting (like 30 years worth of investigation). It has some effect on the intra-occular pressure of the eye, providing specific relief to glaucoma suffers, and has been shown to be very effective.
I guess because it's not impossible to obtain Marijuana illictly, either by purchase or do-it-yourself means, it just seems silly (to me) to be so caught up in making this illegal for medical use. I would rather see it sold, taxed and used, and the resources from its sale and savings from arrest/prosecution/incarceration either used elsewhere, or returned to me (when the deficits are gone).
Thanks, Jo, for explaining the topic far better than I did, and with a much more sraight forward presentation. I wasn't aware of the anti-nausea effect.
posted by: Lurch on 07.25.03 at 10:29 AM [permalink]
This is one of those barriers I think are pretty much destined to fall. No one is suggesting that joints should be handed out to first graders with their primers, just that seriously ill patients with one or more of a range of conditions for which marijuana appears to have some efficacy in scientific studies be allowed to obtain and use marijuana in pill, liquid, or dried leaf (smokable) form without being subject to legal penalties, upon prescription by a licensed medical professional.
My grandmother, aunt, and father-in-law all died of cancer and all suffered terrible pain and nausea that might have been mitigated by judicious use of medical marijuana. We'll never know.
Now my cousin has cancer, in addition to two potentially fatal autoimmune disorders. Will she have access to medical marijuana? There's no telling.
A friend of mine has long (over 30 years) suffered from kidney disease, has had multiple hospitalizations for kidney stones, and urinary tract cysts. She suffers from terrible nausea and cannot take phenergan because of a bizarre neuro-muscular reaction to it. Will she ever be allowed medical marijuana for her nausea? This matters less, as she uses it for her nausea regardless of its legal status, but the others would never use it except under the advice of a physician.
One of the probs that cancer patients have after all that nasty chemo is a loss of appetite, and if ya don't eat you die. Of all the benefits that pot purports to give the seriously ill, getting the munchies is definately one of least debatable....
