IT'S TIME WE JOIN MAINSTREAM AND SCRAP DRUG LAWS MIRED IN FAILURE

Jeffrey A. Singer, M.D.
Arizona Republic
Sunday, 25 August, 2002

This November, Arizonans have the opportunity to help advance the nation into what is now mainstream thinking on drug policy. Proposition 203 will bring Arizona up to date with virtually all of the developed world in its policy toward marijuana use.

Most of Western Europe has come to the conclusion that they have more important jobs for their law enforcement personnel than arresting people who smoke pot - jobs like combating terrorism and arresting thieves, murderers and rapists.

They have decided that arresting pot smokers is a poor use of valuable law enforcement resources. So they no longer do it.

Prop. 203 prohibits incarceration for possession of small amounts of marijuana and puts teeth in Arizona's "medical marijuana" law. And it would free up our jails, and our police, for the real threats to our freedom and safety.

A 2001 Arizona Supreme Court report showed that referral to treatment rather than incarceration, the law since 1998, was yielding positive results, with an annual savings to Arizona's treasury of at least $6.7 million.

Prop. 203 builds on this success.

Most of the developed world by now also recognizes that marijuana has legitimate medicinal uses, especially for cancer patients suffering under chemotherapy, AIDS patients wasting away from their disease, and others with debilitating pain and neurological syndromes.

Yet, even though nine states have passed laws allowing doctors to prescribe marijuana to severely and terminally ill patients, the federal government, still stuck in the mentality of the 1950s, continues to obstruct the public's will. It is as if the drug war bureaucrats, protective of their jobs, have an irrational fear of an inanimate object. That's called "voodoo."

The federal government, with its voodoo drug policy, has threatened doctors with loss of their narcotics licenses and banishment from Medicare and Medicaid if they are caught prescribing marijuana. This has cast a chilling effect on all of the states that have passed medical marijuana laws.

Prop. 203 gets around this problem by taking the doctors off the hook. It would allow patients to apply directly to the state Department of Health Services for a medical marijuana permit. A doctor would be asked to verify the patient's diagnosis on the application, and that marijuana has been shown to be useful for the problem. If approved, the patient would be given marijuana at authorized distribution sites, supervised by the Department of Public Safety. The DPS would use marijuana confiscated from drug dealers, after screening for safety.

And having the DPS handle the distribution makes good sense. This means patients don't have to go to drug dealers in back alleys to get their federally prohibited medicine. It means the DPS ensures its safety. And takes business away from those who deal in harder and more dangerous drugs.

The opponents of rational, humane drug policy reform have lost all credibility with the public. The people know that marijuana can help ease pain and suffering at times that other drugs don't work.

Prop. 203 can impact the nation by charting a new course for drug policy - a course that leads away from the stale, failed approach in which we remain mired, and into the new mainstream.