(Bloomington Pantagraph) Detractors argue that the risks of legalizing marijuana use outweigh the benefits.
“Are we going to open a Pandora’s box?” asked state Rep. Dan Brady, R-Bloomington.
The metaphor of Pandora’s Box is that Pandora’s curiosity caused her to open the box that released all the evils, illnesses, and diseases onto mankind, followed at last by hope. It is a false metaphor because the evil Rep. Brady implies (unleashing illicit drug use upon the population) already exists – that box was opened around 10,000 BCE. The only parallel is that opening the box for medical marijuana releases the evils of reefer madness among politicians and law enforcement, but may eventually bring some hope to suffering Illinoisans.
Brady opposes the legislation because — though well-intentioned — the law would be difficult to enforce. If marijuana became legal for medical reasons but remained illegal for non-medical reasons, how would police enforce the law?
I suppose the same way they already bust people using Oxycontin for non-medical reasons.
Why is it that marijuana makes police stupid? Somehow a police officer can detect intoxication through subtle observations of a person’s pupils, but they can’t tell the difference between a 12′ thin reedy hemp plant and a 6′ bushy cannabis plant? Cops can identify fraudulent prescriptions for Vicodin, but they won’t be able to police recommendations for medical marijuana? Law enforcement can accurately weigh illegal marijuana to the tenth of a gram if it means a greater mandatory minimum sentence, but they won’t be able to identify whether a legal patient is under a 12-plant, 2.5 ounce medical marijuana threshhold?
“People would abuse it,” Brady contended. “Some people would get the drug legally and use it for illegal means or would take it from someone using it for medical reasons.”
If that’s your criteria for making drugs 100% illegal, even for medical purposes, there won’t be a single pharmaceutical left on the pharmacist’s shelf. And pardon me, but if you gotten medical marijuana for yourself legally, how can you possibly “use it for illegal means”? “You’re Honor, on May 5 at 10:30am, the suspect who claims to be using marijuana medicinally smoked a joint, even though he claimed his pain was, quote, not that bad, end-quote, at the time!”
State Sen. Bill Brady, R-Bloomington, also opposes the bill, saying “Illinois is not equipped to monitor medical marijuana.”
Is there some special medical marijuana monitoring equipment I’m unaware of? How does monitoring medical marijuana differ from any other state government program monitoring, say, child support payments or medical assistance eligibility or liquor control?
Dr. Ramsin Benyamin, medical director of Millennium Pain Center in Bloomington, treats chronic pain patients for whom conservative treatments have not worked. Most of his patients have chronic back pain. Some of his patients are on opioid medicines delivered by pill, patch or pumps implanted into a patient’s body. For most patients, those medicines provide some relief, Benyamin said.
“As far as the benefit (of medical marijuana), there is no good scientific evidence to prove a major advantage of marijuana over currently prescribed and legally used pain medicines,” Benyamin said.
How about not having to have an artificial pump implanted in my body to feed me timed doses of addictive opioids with nasty side effects? Would that be considered “a major advantage”?
Any benefit would be outweighed by the risk of the marijuana being abused, he said. In addition, many patients would smoke the marijuana after the medical community has been successful in getting people to quit smoking cigarettes.
Just curious, how did the medical community manage to cut the rates of cigarette smoking smoked nicotine addiction to below 20% of the population for the first time ever? Did it involve making the buying, selling, growing, and trafficking of tobacco illegal? Did we arrest 20,000,000 people for tobacco and only 11% of them for farming or selling it vs. 89% of arrests for just smoking cigarettes? Did we imprison and fine tobacco smokers, give them criminal records, take their drivers licenses, cancel their student loans and grants, kick them out of federal housing, remove their children from the home, and occasionally shoot them and their family pets?
“My opinion is the risk outweighs the possible benefit,” Benyamin said.
Yes, we can’t risk terminal cancer patients with weeks to live developing some sort of persistent cough that takes years to develop.
Dr. Robert Sawicki, medical director of OSF Home Care Services, said 95 percent of symptoms for patients seeking pain relief are managed with available therapies, such as medicines, implantable pumps and surgeries.
“In the studies I have read, the evidence in favor of medical marijuana is not very compelling,” Sawicki said. “If it would be no better or worse than what is already out there, why bring it to market?”
Yes, why give people alternatives to addictive medicines with awful side effects, mechanical artificial pumps implanted in their bodies, and costly dangerous surgeries, assuming they have the income and insurance to pay for such things? Especially if you can grow those alternatives at a fraction of the cost in your own back yard.
Medical marijuana is threatening to these doctors not because of its medical or non-medical uses. Medical marijuana is threatening to the entire paradigm of Western Medicine. In the sense that Western Medicine involves a patient seeking a doctor who acts as gatekeeper to the healing, medical marijuana is as threatening to the current medical order as Martin Luther’s protest nailed to the cathedral door was a threat to the Catholic Church in the 17th century.
Luther argued that mankind didn’t need a priest to act as the intermediary for God/Jesus; mankind could commune with God/Jesus directly. Medical marijuana argues that mankind doesn’t need a doctor/pharmacist as an intermediary for healing; mankind can heal itself with cannabis directly. People treating themselves rather than visiting a doctor, people using safe effective herbal remedies instead of addictive pharmaceuticals, people becoming closer to nature and living in sustainable ways — that’s the Pandora’s Box they don’t want opened.
I confess… I use zyrtec, and there the pharm list ends.
An excellent analogy, followed by an very well-written closing paragraph:
“…medical marijuana is as threatening to the current medical order as Martin Luther’s protest nailed to the cathedral door was a threat to the Catholic Church in the 17th century.”
You make me chuckle sometimes, Russ:
“You’re Honor, on May 5 at 10:30am, the suspect who claims to be using marijuana medicinally smoked a joint, even though he claimed his pain was, quote, not that bad, end-quote, at the time!”
people in this country a stupid. We are not free. freedom of choice. but hey lets have an abortion, drink some booze get in a car and kill some people thats okay.
Great job refuting all the reefer madness being spued in this article. I am calling Brady’s office and going to use your rebuttals. Thanx. Lets get this legalized in the Land of Lincoln.
I hear you. Aside from cannabis, the only medication I ever take with any regularity are mentholyptus cough drops. No aspirin, no ibuprofen, no naproxen, or any other OTC painkiller I see others pop like Tic Tacs. I don’t even use cold remedies when I have a cold, except for nasal spray… nasal spray and cough drops, kinda necessary to do a radio show with a cold! Oh, wait, don’t forget calcium Tums on occasion…
I used to think about that all the time when I dwelt in cubicle world. Every office has the “dealer’s cube” – that person, sometimes a receptionist, sometimes office manager, who has all the Tylenols and Advils and Theraflus etc. My office’s “dealer”, ironically enough, was also the person in charge of formulating our “drug-free workplace policy”.
Nobody thinks twice about the side effects of those prescribed meds. A vast majority if not all of the time they’re worse than what they’re treating. They tried to put me on (not a pain med) Zoloft due to depression. I actually read the side effects and told them “No I don’t think so.” They looked at me like I was insane.
Great Martin Luther comparison, Russ. Before this post, I had always assumed that a majority of doctors were [quietly] in favor of MMJ legalization but were too engulfed in the strangleholds of Big Pharma and our health care system to grow a pair and speak up for it. It never dawned on me that MMJ could be viewed as a threat to their gatekeeper status. Good argument.