[420 Girl]

In a stroke of common sense, the Obama administration last week told federal prosecutors to disregard the medically prescribed use of marijuana where state law allows.

Although the directive of Attorney General Eric Holder is carefully couched in the language of the rational allocation of scarce law enforcement resources, the effect should benefit patients.

It’s a shame it took so long. U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Hurley, deserves credit for his long advocacy on behalf of the legalization of medical marijuana.

Proponents of medical marijuana assert it can reduce chronic pain, nausea and other symptoms associated with serious illnesses, such as cancer and multiple sclerosis. There is anecdotal evidence to support that claim, but the medical value of marijuana has not been subjected to rigorous scientific investigation.

Now, why is that?

In a system that depends on pharmaceutical firms to develop and prove the value of drugs that they hope will make a ton of money as a patented product, how likely is it that any such investigation would be adequately funded for a naturally occurring drug that cannot be patented?

Well, let’s put it this way: If you think it’s likely, you must be high.

While the medical efficacy of marijuana remains an open question, it has never made sense to make medical use of the drug a federal crime. Accordingly, some 14 states have legalized the medical use of marijuana with a doctor’s prescription, making marijuana just one more off-label drug at the disposal of physicians and their patients. This, of course, assumes a measure of informed consent, which should include an honest appraisal of the lack of clinical evidence. In the end, however, this is matter best parsed between physician and patient without the intervention of the Drug Enforcement Agency.

Care must now be taken that illegal drug traffickers do not profit from medical marijuana. This means it’s going to be up to the individual states that have legalized medical use to determine how best to secure a source of marijuana that does not directly or indirectly profit the illegal trade.

As noted by the Department of Justice in the memo that directed prosecutors to back off patients and physicians, “Marijuana distribution in the United States remains the single largest source of revenue for the Mexican cartels.” Those cartels are increasingly endangering not just lives on both sides of the Mexican-US border, but also democratic rule in Mexico.


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