MARIJUANA AS A PRESCRIPTION DRUG IS 'YES' OR 'NO' QUESTION

That fact that President Bush's administration has focused on raiding
clinics and arresting terminally ill patients in an ill-conceived and
patently cruel attempt to end the use of medically prescribed marijuana has
enraged so many people that they want to make it an issue in the upcoming
presidential election.

We believe it is appropriate for voters to know how those who are seeking
the highest elected office in the land feel about these efforts and about
the use of marijuana - a controlled drug - to relieve the pain and nausea
often associated with current cancer treatments, ease the discomfort of
those dying from various diseases and treat several other ailments. It
could well be a measure of a candidate's compassion and his or her
willingness to rethink existing laws based on the latest medical information.

Several states, the most prominent being California, have allowed
physicians to prescribe marijuana when alternative drugs either could have
devastating side effects or are deemed less effective in treating the
ailment. However, the federal government's ongoing, financially
indefensible and failing war on drugs continues to group marijuana in the
same league as heroin or crack cocaine.

Bush and his attorney general, John Ashcroft, continue to prosecute both
those who use the substance as well as those who prescribe it, in spite of
numerous studies that show marijuana to be of medical benefit, thousands of
patients who advocate its use and practically no indication that the common
weed is dangerous when administered in a medical context.

Here in New Hampshire, several state legislators, including Portsmouth's
own Jim Splaine, have signed their names to letters that are being mailed
to residents urging them to question potential Democratic presidential
nominees on this issue. Because of the state's first-in-the-nation primary
- - and the national press coverage this brings - putting medical marijuana
on the discussion agenda here makes it a national issue.

That is just what supporters want, and they seem to be getting it. CNN's
Larry King recently brought up the issue with U.S. Sen. John Kerry of
Massachusetts - an indication that the polls are right and the majority of
Americans feel that relaxing the penalties for marijuana possession when
it' s prescribed by a physician is simply the right thing to do.

Is this the most important issue the candidates will be questioned on?
Certainly not.

There are more pressing problems facing this country than whether to allow
the use of pot for medical purposes. There is the Social Security issue,
the Medicare issue, the war issue and, of course, the economy.

But the answers we are getting from the current crop of contenders are
nebulous at best and meaningless at worst when we consider that they'll
have to convince a largely Republican Congress to agree with them.

In contrast, support for medical marijuana is a yes-or-no situation; a
candidate is either supportive of it or not - and willing to take the
political heat for supporting it or not. And that could tell us more about
a given candidate than all the questions about rebuilding Iraq or saving
Social Security normally asked by the media and political pundits.