medstudent
06-16-2007, 01:00 PM
June 16, 2007
NYT Editorial
Prescription for Pain
A dozen states are already bucking the federal government and giving the chronically ill access to medical marijuana. Now residents of New York and Connecticut who are ill or dying may soon have that chance to find relief from their pain or nausea.
Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell has a bill awaiting her signature — one she should sign quickly to allow those with “debilitating medical conditions” to obtain marijuana for “palliative use.” And earlier this week, Gov. Eliot Spitzer suddenly gave the issue a boost when he said that he has changed his mind about the usefulness of marijuana for relief of chronic illnesses. Before he was thinking as a prosecutor, he explained. Now he says he is open to signing a bill “if it is properly structured.”
Fellow Democrats in New York’s Assembly quickly passed a bill similar to laws already in place in other states. Assemblyman Richard Gottfried of Manhattan, the bill’s key sponsor, acknowledges the whole concept is not perfect. For one thing, the federal government views marijuana as an illegal substance and presumably could prosecute any official or even unofficial trafficking of the drug. Like other states, the legislation in New York and Connecticut would seek to make it legal for a doctor to prescribe — and for a patient to smoke or ingest — a limited amount of marijuana to ease pain or nausea or other chronic conditions like glaucoma. How the patient or caregiver manages to fill that prescription falls in an unfortunate gray zone.
Although there are other prescriptions that are designed to relieve pain and nausea and there is concern about the health effects of smoking marijuana, there are some truly ill people who find peace only that way. This is not about rampaging abuse of narcotics; this is about a humane way to relieve pain. As one sufferer told The Daily News, “If they can prescribe a morphine drip, why not marijuana?” That is a good question for the states, and someday, if they are ever brave enough, the Congress.
NYT Editorial
Prescription for Pain
A dozen states are already bucking the federal government and giving the chronically ill access to medical marijuana. Now residents of New York and Connecticut who are ill or dying may soon have that chance to find relief from their pain or nausea.
Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell has a bill awaiting her signature — one she should sign quickly to allow those with “debilitating medical conditions” to obtain marijuana for “palliative use.” And earlier this week, Gov. Eliot Spitzer suddenly gave the issue a boost when he said that he has changed his mind about the usefulness of marijuana for relief of chronic illnesses. Before he was thinking as a prosecutor, he explained. Now he says he is open to signing a bill “if it is properly structured.”
Fellow Democrats in New York’s Assembly quickly passed a bill similar to laws already in place in other states. Assemblyman Richard Gottfried of Manhattan, the bill’s key sponsor, acknowledges the whole concept is not perfect. For one thing, the federal government views marijuana as an illegal substance and presumably could prosecute any official or even unofficial trafficking of the drug. Like other states, the legislation in New York and Connecticut would seek to make it legal for a doctor to prescribe — and for a patient to smoke or ingest — a limited amount of marijuana to ease pain or nausea or other chronic conditions like glaucoma. How the patient or caregiver manages to fill that prescription falls in an unfortunate gray zone.
Although there are other prescriptions that are designed to relieve pain and nausea and there is concern about the health effects of smoking marijuana, there are some truly ill people who find peace only that way. This is not about rampaging abuse of narcotics; this is about a humane way to relieve pain. As one sufferer told The Daily News, “If they can prescribe a morphine drip, why not marijuana?” That is a good question for the states, and someday, if they are ever brave enough, the Congress.