Q-zone: Medical Use of Marijuana

Medical Use of Marijuana

by Richard N. Gottfried, Member of the New York State Assembly, and chair of the Assembly Health Committee. Mr. Gottfried has recently proposed legislation in New York State to allow for the medical use of marijuana. If you wish to read the bill click here. To contact Mr. Gottfried call (518) 455 4941 or write 822 Legislative Office Bldg. Albany, NY 12248

Thousands of New Yorkers have serious or life-threatening medical conditions that can be improved by medically-approved use of marijuana. The law should not stand between them and life-sustaining treatment under physician supervision.

Many physicians now recognize that marjuana has important medical uses. Cancer patients on chemotherapy often suffer severe nausea. Marijuana can control it and make their therapy tolerable. Many people with HIV have massive weight loss or"wasting" that can be fatal.. Marijuana can restore their ability to eat. It can improve muscle control for people with multiple sclerosis.

An illegal drug can have a legitimate, legal, medical use. We have laws against steroid abuse, but steroids are also properly prescribed by doctors every day. Morphine, an illegal drug made from opium, is a major drug used by doctors in pain control. People take Valium by prescription, even though it is a crime to have it without a prescription.

Just as the law recognizes that these and many other controlled substances have legitimate medical uses, it is time to recognise this for marijuana. I'm not saying it should be legalized or that marijuana isn't a problem; only that it can have legal medical uses.

Therefore, I am proposing state legislation that would allow physician-supervised use of marijuana to treat a patient with a serious illness. As with many other controlled substances, it will provide State monitoring of the physician certifications, to prevent abuse. There will also be state-monitored non- profit providers of marijuana solely for medical use. The Health Department will review, analyze and periodically report on the whole process.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has recognized THC (the active ingredient in marijuana) as a legal, safe and effective medicine (in capsule form) for more than a decade. But a recent editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine noted that using the natural form of marijuana is "more likely to be therapeutic" than the capsules. Both have intoxicating effects. The choice should be a medical, not a legal, issue.

New York's message on illegal drugs is clear: using them is wrong and against the law. That message is not undermined by the fact that drugs like steroids, morphine and Valium are used medically thousands of times a day, even though non-medical use is a serious crime.

Allowing physician-approved use of marijuana for treatment of serious medical conditions should strengthen -- not weaken -- our message that non-medical use of drugs is wrong.

If we want young people to believe what we and the law tell them about drugs, our message must be intelligent and honest. If a controlled substance like marijuana has medical uses, we must acknowledge it.

Most families have a loved one struggling to live with cancer, HIV, or multiple sclerosis. If your family member's physician believed marijuana could make that person's life longer or more tolerable, I want that person to have that choice.

The New England Journal of Medicine editorial strongly endorsed allowing medical use of marijuana and concluded that we must choose "between the rights of those at death's door and the absolute power of bureaucrats whose decisions are based more on reflexive ideology and political correctness than on compassion."