http://capitalwatchpa.com/node/6935 In a rare

http://capitalwatchpa.com/node/6935

In a rare moment, political analysts Tony May and Charlie Gerow actually agree on this month's topic. Read their opinions below. By the way, the two can be seen on Sundays at 11:30 a.m. on Channel 21's "Face the State."

YES

By Charlie Gerow

It's hard to imagine agreeing with Sen. Daylin Leach. So, I'll have to re-think my position. But in the meantime I will stick with my instinct and ask: why not legalize medical marijuana? In the absence of compelling reasons not to, I will part with some of my conservative brethren.

I suffer with glaucoma. I've already lost a frightening percentage of my eyesight. My condition is currently controlled with daily dosages of eye drops. If that should fail, I sure as heck would want every known therapy available to me, including marijuana.

Of course there are many illnesses much more debilitating than glaucoma that can be treated with marijuana, from Alzheimer's to fibromyalgia to HIV/AIDS to cancer. Many people with conditions far worse than mine are asking for the right to use marijuana legally.

So are many in the medical community. Years ago, a National Institutes of Health panel concluded that smoking marijuana could help treat a number of chronic conditions including pain and nausea. It could also help people who failed to respond to other remedies the study said.

In one survey more than 70 percent of U.S. cancer specialists said they would prescribe marijuana if it were legal. Nearly half of those interviewed said they had already recommended that their patients break the law to use marijuana.

Sanjay Gupta, CNN's medical guru and a well-renowned neurosurgeon, once spoke out against legalization of marijuana for medical purposes. But this summer he wrote a piece entitled "Why I changed my mind on weed," in which he apologized for his earlier stand. His further research, he said, had convinced him that he was simply wrong. He discussed the anti-cancer effects of marijuana and cited another study in which 76 percent of the physicians surveyed said they would approve the use of marijuana to help ease the pain of a woman suffering from breast cancer.

Medical marijuana is legal in nearly half the states. The largest state in the Union, California, made it legal by popular vote nearly two decades ago. In the intervening years none of the "scare" issues raised during the referendum has manifest themselves. As the New York Times reported last week, "Warnings against partial legalization--of civil disorder, increased lawlessness and a drastic rise in other use--have proved unfounded."

William F. Buckley, the godfather of modern conservatism and the founder of the National Review argued for the legalization of medical marijuana (and marijuana in general for that matter). Another National Review icon, Richard Brookhiser, used marijuana (not legally at the time) when he battled cancer.

His testimony in favor of medical usage of marijuana before the House Judiciary Committee sums up my own thoughts: "My support for medical marijuana is not a contradiction of my principles, but an extension of them. I am for law and order. But crime has to be fought intelligently and the law disgraces itself when it harasses the sick. I am for traditional virtues, but carrying your beliefs to unjust ends is not moral, it is philistine. Most importantly, I believe in getting government off people's backs. We should include the backs of sick people trying to help themselves."

Guess we are both stuck agreeing with Sen. Leach on this one.

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YES

By Tony May

If you live in Pennsylvania don’t ask your doctor to prescribe marijuana for any medical purposes even though there is a growing body of research showing its usefulness as a pain reliever and even a tumor-inhibiting substance.  In fact, research published in Lancet , the journal of the British Medical Society, in 2006 premised that use of cannabis is less dangerous than tobacco, prescription drugs, and alcohol in terms of social harms, physical harm, and addiction.

The Pennsylvania General Assembly should follow the lead of 21 other states and approve the prescribing of marijuana for medical purposes.  While they are at it, they should give serious consideration to legalizing marijuana possession in small quantities of recreational use.  Pennsylvania needs to join other states in putting pressure on the federal government to rationalize its approach to marijuana – pretty much in the same way the federal government was persuaded that its 14-year experiment in attempting to ban the manufacture and consumption of beer, wine and whiskey was counter-productive.

The United States ended up repealing the 18 ^th Amendment (Prohibition) in 1933 pretty much because it was an abject failure.  Rather than leading to a decline in crime and alcohol abuse, it made lawbreakers out of millions of ordinary Americans and increased drunkenness.  It made organized crime a major growth industry.  Now, almost 80 years later, history has repeated.  Our jails are overcrowded, in no small part because of the trillion-dollar War on Drugs launched in the 1970s by Richard Nixon and carried on enthusiastically ever since by his successors in the oval office.

We’ve even been forced to ban the planting and harvesting of marijuana-related hemp plants for agricultural and industrial purposes, even though modern agri-science has created strains of hemp plants that are extremely low in cannabinoids. This in an era in which “natural fiber” is a major selling point for a host of consumer products.  Because we have been so afraid of marijuana in the U.S., we’ve blacklisted a plant which can produce a host of materials ranging from paper , textiles , clothing and biodegradable plastics to construction materials, body and cosmetic oils, health food and bio-fuels.  Hemp was once such a common agricultural product – used mainly for making rope and paper – that four Pennsylvania townships have Hempfield in their name.

Declaring a truce in the long war against marijuana will save taxpayer dollars at the federal, state and local levels – something that  should please taxpayers of every political inclination.  It should lead to a clearing of our jails and prisons of hundreds of not thousands of Pennsylvanians jailed for marijuana-related prosecutions.  Legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing the possession and use of marijuana for recreational purposes would lead to the structuring of a scheme of regulation and taxation, not unlike that used for alcoholic beverages.  In other words, it would create a new revenue source for the state.

Would there be or could there be a downside?  Certainly there is risk involved in the use of any product – but there is no indication that use of a regulated marijuana product would be less safe that use of illegal pot.  In fact, it should be safer, just like licensed alcohol slowly drove out the problems created by the consumption of bathtub gin and rotgut whiskeys produced in stills constructed of hazardous metals.

But, if you can accept the premise of British doctors that marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol, tobacco and prescription drug abuse – or, perhaps, no more dangerous – then the downside risk is minimal if non-existent.