Soap Box

This is a two-fer today ;). I just heard a story on the radio about a subject that really gets to me – medical marijuana bans. California and 10 other states have laws on the books permitting the use of marijuana for medical purposes. The Federal government however, in its desire to be not only in our bedrooms but have the power of life and death over normal non criminals has decided that they have the right to prosecute medical marijuana users, claiming Federal Interstate Commerce Law trumps State law.

Now, we are talking the GOP administration here – the gang that says they believe in States’ rights, but I guess that only applies to the rights they want states to have. This is supposedly the smaller government party, the party that supposedly supports freedoms so much so they want to bestow it on other nations whether they want it or not, and for sure they support corporate freedom! We have seen what they think of our privacy concerns while they guard theirs even when doing government business examples include but are not limited to: Cheney’s energy task force – who attended and what was decided; Bush’s youthful or other probable drug use; Bush’s military AWOL records; etc.

Today’s debacle is a woman in California who is suffering, perhaps dying, from Brain cancer and other ills. Her doctor has testified that without marijuana every couple of hours to help stimulate her appetite and manage her pain, she would die. The Federal government prosecuted her saying marijuana is against the law, even with a prescription and even when used in compliance with the law of the state in which she lives! She won in state court and lost in Federal on the government’s appeal. This case will go on but in the meantime she has to live in fear of being sent to jail, or not live at all without the drug.

There are so many issues and questions here so I will only start with a few that occur to me immediately (feel free to add your own):

1. What business is it of the Federal government to get between a doctor’s advice and his/her patient’s treatment? (I am not going to touch the issue of choice this time.)
2. If Merck or Pfizer or {insert drug company of your choice} were marketing this for profit, do you think the Federal government would be prosecuting this and other cases?
3. Why is marijuana more dangerous than say morphine, or Vicadin, or Fentanyl, or Oxycodone, among others? For that matter how is it more dangerous than some of the drugs approved by the FDA that are supposedly non narcotic like Vioxx?
4. What gives the Federal government the right to say a patient should not be treated in any way possible to save their life by licensed practitioners – heck by any practitioner if the patient chooses it?

The answer to the first question is obvious – they are control freaks who think they have the market cornered on morality and right vs. wrong. Their beliefs and their convictions are the only things that matter. It’s like the old joke about being a Christian Scientist with appendicitis – only in this case the patient wants treatment and is being denied it by a repressive conservative ill informed government.

The answer the second question is also obvious – if a major drug manufacturer (major donor to the campaign funds dontcha know) were selling marijuana, it would be FDA approved and used without issue. But alas, it’s a plant that anyone can grow successfully. We are talking a free market solution here – open source treatment if you will! No corporate profit then it must be stopped! The answer to question three goes hand in glove with question two. (In this same vein [sic] think about the attitude toward herbal and holistic treatments – I can grow my own Echinacea thank you very much, I don’t need a drug company to compound a chemical and make it into pill form.)

And the answer to question four is also obvious – we are dealing with fanatics. Yes ladies and gentlemen, they are jihadists just not of the Muslim faith. Fanatics have commonality regardless of their fanatical basis – to make others knuckle under and conform to the rules and world as they dictate it. This government is not stoning people in the street for not obeying, but rather they are preventing people from getting humane treatment for illness. They are making this country regressive. And we are the losers, the sufferers, the victims!