Medical Marijuana: Overwhelming Support at San Francisco Hearing

In November 1991, almost 80 percent of San Francisco voters supported a
ballot proposition to make marijuana legally available when medically
necessary for patients with cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, and other serious
diseases. But San Francisco cannot overrule state and federal laws, and
recently new restrictions by the Bush administration prevented legal
use of marijuana by all except 12 patients in the United States (one
of them a person with AIDS); for the first time ever, an FDA
compassionate-access program was stopped by higher officials for
political reasons. (See "Anti-Drug Politics Impede Medical Use of
Marijuana, AIDS TREATMENT NEWS #148, April 3, 1992.) Recently the San
Francisco Board of Supervisors held hearings on a proposal to implement
the ballot proposition by asking the Police Commission and the
district attorney not to arrest or prosecute persons using marijuana
for medical purposes. Of the 26 speakers who addressed the August 4
hearing, all supported the proposal.
Speakers included a former San Francisco Police Commissioner, who had
survived colon cancer and said that without marijuana, she would not be
alive today. A member of the Board of Supervisors said that her husband
had been allowed to use marijuana when he was dying of cancer, but
"Then they took it away, and that is reprehensible."
For more information about medical use of marijuana, contact the
Alliance for Cannabis Therapeutics, P.O. Box 21210, Kalorama Station,
Washington, DC 20009, 202/483-8595.
Comment
The trip to Amsterdam for the international conference illustrated a
striking contrast in government attitudes. Not only is medical access
to marijuana not a problem, even recreational use, while technically
illegal, is tolerated in coffeeshops. [Caution: Marijuana should be
sterilized before use by persons with immune deficiencies, to avoid
risk of aspergillus infection.] Yet there is no underclass in
Amsterdam, and much less violence than in U.S. cities.
One American who was taking care of a person with AIDS at the
conference asked a Dutch physician how to dispose of needles used for
infusion equipment, so that the Americans would not risk arrest. The
answer was that there was no law against possessing the needles, so
there was no need to conceal them. In another instance, this writer was
initially reluctant to talk to a Dutch journalist about leading-edge
"underground" treatment work in Amsterdam, since in the U.S. such
publicity would generate pressures to shut the work down -- a serious
matter which inhibits discussion of important AIDS treatment
developments here. In Amsterdam that was not a problem.
What we glimpsed on this trip was the price that is paid when
government makes war on its citizens over how they live their lives.
Lightening up is not only an issue of respect and consideration for
individuals; it would also improve the quality and effectiveness of
public life in many other ways.