Dueling marijuana opeds Scanning across the top headlines at MAP, we see two opinion pieces in two different newspapers looking at marijuna policy.
The first comes from William T. Breault, chairman of the Main South Alliance for Public Safety in Worcester, Mass. He argues Marijuana should not be reclassified, even for medical users. His almagamation of legal theory and bureacratic boot-licking takes no consideration of the people involved:
We believe, for a number of reasons, the intrastate, noncommercial use of crude herbal cannabis for medical purposes does, indeed, affect interstate commerce and in a very negative way.
There are a multitude of reasons why the court of appeals' ruling will have a ripple effect that can eviscerate the intricate fabric of the Controlled Substances Act and the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. Over the last century, our federal regulatory system, rather than state law, has been the primary source of regulation of prescription medicine and the protection of patients.
Indeed, the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act has become the international gold standard for determining the quality, safety and efficacy of medical products.
I'd hate to see the bronze standard. I say that as someone who inhaled Serevent for two years before switching to another asthma medicine. When I needed more and more Serevent for less and less effect, I figured I would move on, with no help or advice from the FDA. Now I read this sort of thing:
"We have had cases of people dying clutching their Serevent inhalers," Dr Graham told a US Senate inquiry last week.
Servent still has FDA approval, though it has been pegged with a few other drugs as the next Vioxx in recent media reports.
On the other hand, instead of trying to paint the status quo as the best of all possible worlds, J.B. Paradis in the North Shore News sticks with the facts to show the policy of prohibition is a failure.
I was appointed to the provincial court of British Columbia on Feb. 15, 1975.
I retired on Aug. 13, 2003.
During those 28 years, I presided over at least 1,000 cases, some big, most small, involving the possession or sale of illegal drugs.
Bail hearings, trials, guilty pleas, applications to forfeit property - I took notes on each one.
And a scan of those notes makes it clear that nothing much has changed: the same number of people are still choosing to ingest mood-altering substances, the same proportion are addicted and there is the same persistent, but increasingly lucrative and efficient system of supply.
One of these viewpoints seems a bit more in touch with reality than the other.
1:55:58 AM | permalink |
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