Marijuana Should Not Be Legalized for Medical Purposes

by Charles Krauthammer
About the author: Charles Krauthammer is a syndicated columnist. Take any morally dubious propositionlike assisting a suicideand pretend it is merely help for the terminally ill, and you are well on your way to legitimacy and a large public following. That is how assisted suicide is sold. That is how the legalization of marijuana is sold. Indeed, that is precisely how Proposition 215, legalizing marijuana for medical use, passed in November 1996 in California. The Prop 215 ad campaign dwelt on the medicinal uses of marijuana for AIDS and cancer, neatly skirting the clause in the referendum that legalizes it for any other illness. And now the New England Journal of Medicine has taken up the refrain, with its editor-in-chief, Dr. Jerome Kassirer, editorializing passionately in favor of giving marijuana to those at deaths door who want it.

Treatment for Potheads

The problem with Dr. Kassirers argument is that people who are toking up at the many cannabis buyers clubs that immediately opened as a result of Prop 215 are not at all at deaths door. As Hanna Rosin reports in the New Republic, the clubs are peopled not by the desperate terminally ill but by a classic cross section of California potheads, all conveniently citing some diagnosis or othermigraines, insomnia, stressas their ticket to Letheland. Marijuana gives them a buzz, all right. But medical effects? Be serious. The medical effects of marijuana for these conditions are nil. They are, as everyone involved in the enterprise knowsand as many behind Prop 215 intendeda fig leaf for legalization. Even for the truly seriously ill, the medical claims for marijuana are dubi-

Excerpted from Pot as Medicine, by Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, February 7, 1997. Copyright 1997 by The Washington Post Writers Group. Reprinted with permission.

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ous. Which is, I suspect, why Dr. Kassirer is so dismissive and defensive about having real clinical trials that test whether marijuana does anything more than a placebo. Glaucoma? It borders on malpractice to give marijuana for glaucoma. While it can reduce intraocular pressure (with huge doses of pot), it also can Even for the truly seriously constrict blood supply to the optic ill, the medical claims for nerve, exacerbating vision problems. marijuana are dubious. There are far safer and better drugs. Cancer and AIDS? Marijuana may reduce nausea and anorexiathe familiar munchies that many will remember from the 1960sbut there are effective drugs on the market that do an equal or better job. What marijuana uniquely offers the seriously ill is not medical effects which are either nonexistent or easily duplicated by other drugsbut a high and good feeling. That doesnt alarm me. Who can begrudge the terminally ill temporary escape from their terror and misery? I dont. But I do object to the pretense about medical effects. Marijuana is not particularly good medicine. It is recreation and relief.

The Slippery Slope

Not surprisingly the disingenuousness is contagious. The presidents drug czar pretends that the reason he opposes marijuana for terminal patients is, to quote his public affairs person on Nightline, to make sure that you provide the best medicine. But that is surely not the real reason. The administration would hardly launch a huge public relations and enforcement campaign against patients who were popping, say, an inferior anti-nausea pill. The real reason is the slippery slope. The administration is involved because once you start with marijuana for the ill, you end up with marijuana for anybody who can claim to be ill, which, as the cannabis clubs demonstrate, opens the door to anyone. And that societal nod and wink sends a message to kids that pot is okay. Children are extraordinarily sensitive to signals coming from the culture. In the 80s, when marijuana wasnt cool, when it was denounced and derided, its use went into decline. In the 90s, with no message coming from the political authoritiesread: grownupsand a revival of marijuana cool in music and mass media, its use among teens has risen dramatically. Anyone who has worked with drug abusers knows the havoc that marijuana particularly marijuana as a gateway drug to harder stuff such as cocaine and heroincan wreak in the lives of kids. Why, even George Soros, sugar daddy of the legalization movement, admits that marijuana can be harmful to the mental and emotional development of youngsters.

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What to do? Start with honesty. For the truly terminally ill, let them take marijuanaor LSD or heroin or whatever else they want. But only the terminally ill. And only in supervised medical settings, say, a room in a hospital. (The No Smoking signs would have to be taken down.) As for the restno go. The cannabis clubs are a sham, an invitation to every teenager with a hangnail to come in and zone out. Close them. You object? Want to legalize pot for everyone? Fine. Make your case. But no more hiding behind the terminally ill.

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