IT'S RIGHT AND ETHICAL TO OK MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE

The Bush Administration's Drug Czar Is Off Base In His Criticism Of Oregon's
Voter-Approved Medical Marijuana Law.

The Bush administration apparently has some real problems with the way
Oregonians choose to govern themselves.

First, Attorney General John Ashcroft wages a campaign to overturn Oregon's
physician-assisted suicide law that was twice approved by voters.

And now the White House drug czar, John Walters, has been pounding the Portland
pavement denouncing the state's medical marijuana law.

``What's really going on is that sick and dying people are being used as a
political prop to legalize marijuana,' Walters said last week during his visit
to Oregon. Walter's assertion is absurd.

We agree with Walters that marijuana, like other mind-altering drugs, creates
many problems. Marijuana use can lead to lives being destroyed.

And that's why we believe the federal government - as well as state and local
law-enforcement agencies - must continue to take action to stop the illegal
distribution and use of marijuana as well as other drugs.

But we strongly believe, as do the voters of Oregon (and seven other states
including Washington), that marijuana should be legal for legitimate medical
purposes. There is evidence marijuana has medical benefits for many diseases,
including helping cancer patients control their suffering. Clear scientific
proof has not been found, but that's mostly because the government has not
allowed any substantive study.

Walters said the Bush administration is currently conducting research to find
out if any ingredients in marijuana have medical benefit and can be put into
prescription drugs. That's where the Bush administration should be putting its
energy.

But Walters isn't optimistic - some might say he's downright cynical - about
the prospects of finding a way to turn the ingredients from marijuana into an
acceptable prescription drug.

``It's not about feeling better,' Walters added. ``It's about what is ethical
and efficacious medical practice.'

Actually, it is about feeling better. It's about controlling pain and nausea.
It's about making a person's last days of life tolerable. Many people who were
suffering have said that marijuana has reduced it.

But Walters is right that it is about ethical medical practices. Medical
providers have an ethical obligation to ease suffering. Drugs such as codeine,
morphine or other medicines - that, by the way, are illegal on the streets -
are administered by prescription.

In the meantime, the approach taken in Oregon (and Washington) to make
marijuana available to the sick is an ethical one.