Cannabis Should Be Allowed To Serve Americans

By Wayne Whitmarsh
Source: Lincoln Journal Star

Nebraska -- Home grown or community, area dispensary grown cannabis affects interstate commerce, so says the Supreme Court. How so? One way is that pharmaceutical companies will lose money on the sale of synthetic drugs. Another way is that some patients who, reluctantly, go to the street to find a dealer wouldn't have to do that. Therefore, the poor drug lords and dealers could only buy a Ford, not a BMW.

Drug companies pump big money into politics today. It will be a cold day when our Congress goes against their benefactors and allows the public legal access to medicinal cannabis again. Drug companies would have to search dark corners of old vaults for old drug formulas. By the 1930s, Eli Lilly, Parke-Davis, Tildens, and Brothers Smith and Squibb were selling top quality cannabis products.

Then again, new formulas are a possibility, perhaps like Sativex, recently developed in England. It is a cannabis spray applied under the tongue or in the cheek to help the pain and other symptoms of multiple sclerosis. Canada has approved its use for 50,000 MS patients. Unfortunately the 400,000 MS patients in the U.S. won't have access to Sativex.

Patients say, unlike many prescribed, synthetic drugs, marijuana provides them relief from ailments' harsh symptoms without potential damage to their bodies and allows them to function more normally.

Presently, seven patients legally use cannabis in the U.S. Under a "compassionate use program of 1976" our government provides each a canister with up to 300 marijuana cigarettes each month. One of the seven is a glaucoma patient, a resident of Nebraska.

Another, less spoken element in the issue of rescheduling cannabis for medicinal use relates to its big brother "hemp." Although allowing its growth would help solve some U.S. environmental problems, it will not be a plus for our balance of trade with other countries. Presently tons of hemp are imported to support the needs of several industries.

Cannabis has served America(ns) well for over 300 years. It should be allowed to do so again. A few items to ponder:

Thomas Jefferson said "If people let government decide what foods they eat and medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny."

"God makes the Earth yield healing herbs, which the prudent man should not neglect" (from the book of Sirach 38:4 in the Catholic Bible).

"Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; that which cometh out of the mouth defileth man" (Jesus as quoted in the book of Matthew 15:11, Revised Standard Version).

Complete Title: Local View: Cannabis Should Be Allowed To Serve Americans, Patients

Wayne Whitmarsh lives in Lincoln.

Source: Lincoln Journal Star (NE)
Author: Wayne Whitmarsh
Published: June 27, 2005
Copyright: 2005 Lincoln Journal Star
Contact: oped@journalstar.com
Website: http://www.journalstar.com/
Link to article: http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread20907.shtml