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You’d think that, after performing 36,000 autopsies over his storied career, former Allegheny County Coroner Cyril Wecht would have seen it all. But there’s at least one medical outcome he has yet to see: death due to marijuana use.
“It makes no sense at all to withhold this drug,” Wecht told state Rep. John Myers (D-Philadelphia) and Jake Wheatley (D-Hill District) at an Aug. 19 hearing at the University of Pittsburgh’s Graduate School of Public Health, on a bill to legalize marijuana for medical use.
House Bill 1393 would allow patients with medical conditions such as cancer, glaucoma and HIV/AIDS to possess up to six marijuana plants and carry one ounce of usable pot. Patients would be required to have an identification card issued by a physician, who could issue such cards for patients with ailments “treatable with marijuana in a manner that is superior to treatment without marijuana.”
Based on Wecht’s testimony, there are many treatments that marijuana might end up supplanting. While he’d never seen a death from marijuana, Wecht said he’d seen plenty caused by abuse of alcohol and other legal drugs. And when Wheatley asked whether legalizing pot would create a “slippery slope” for non-patients, Wecht said the problem already exists with prescription painkillers. When addicts end up on that slope, he testified, “They slide all the way down to the realm of Hades.”
But opponents like Ronald Owen testified about fears of a different kind of slope.
“I’m here mostly as a father,” said Owen, who told the legislators that he’d lost a daughter to drugs. His daughter’s drug use began with marijuana, he said, and led to more dangerous substances.
“I don’t think legislators are responsible enough to legislate medicine,” he said, adding that the FDA, which does not currently recognize the medical benefits of marijuana, should remain the authority on the issue.
A similar bill is also before the state Senate, which is expected to begin holding public hearings on it in the fall. Patrick Nightingale, a criminal-defense attorney who serves as the executive director of Pittsburgh NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), says the likelihood of passing legislation is “closer than I ever thought it would be at this point in 2010.”
A bill to legalize pot would seem to have broad popular support: According to a recent poll from Washington & Jefferson College, 80 percent of Pennsylvanians support legalization.
But despite the “unprecedented” public support reflected in polls, Nightingale says, there are still “myths” that need to be cracked before a bill passes. “We’re not talking about giving kids medical marijuana.” (Under the House bill, patients younger than 18 would need a parent’s or guardian’s written consent to use the drug.)
And for former narcotics officer Jack Cole, the hearing was just the beginning of a long haul.
“This is a great start, but only a start,” Cole testified, calling the criminalization of marijuana possession a costly and fruitless endeavor.
“This bill will actually reduce marijuana use in Pennsylvania,” he said. “Maybe it’s just not as cool to smoke a joint when that’s what grandma does for her glaucoma.”
This article appears in Aug 26 – Sep 1, 2010.
All the polls consistently show that even more than 80% of the electorate (at least in Phila. area) support Medicinal Cannabis legalization. In addition to helping in a wide variety of medical conditions, Medicinal Cannabis is much safer than many commonly used dangerous and physically addictive prescription drugs. It is prescription drugs such as opiates and benzodiazepines that we should worry about the most, not Medicinal Cannabis. I worked with opiate and “benzo” addicts for years, and these drugs to have serious addiction liability and overdose potential as opposed to Medicinal Cannabis that is not physically addictive and does not have one single case of a fatal overdose.
Washington DC, which is a Federal Territory was just allowed by Congress to keep its own Medicinal Cannabis law, and even VA Administration now relaxed its rules with regard to medicinal Cannabis. Both the Americal Medical Association and the Institute of Medicine are in favor of Medicinal Cannabis, and Canadian Government even pays for this natural remedy for their Veterans. The so-called “gateway” drug theory has by now been completely discredited by the science of addiction medicine, so as deeply as I sympathize with Mr. Owens about his daughter’s death from an overdose, I must say that Cannabis had nothing to do with it, even if she used it prior to dangerous drug(s) that caused her overdose death. Recent addiction medicine research even shows that Cannabis may actually serve as an “exit” substance and can help keep alcoholics and hard drug users off alcohol and hard drugs. Let’s side with the science and Reason, instead of ignorance and fear, and Legalize the Medicinal Cannabis in the State of PA, where 80%+ of the electorate is in favor of using this very valuable natural remedy, that will make the drug abuse problem BETTER and not worse!
Just couple more points. As opposed to what Mr. Owens said, Marinol is NOT Medicinal Cannabis. Marinol is a synthetic THC “analogue”, whereas Cannabis plant has over 70 active compounds interacting with one another and together comprising that which actually constitutes what we call Medicinal Cannabis. In addition, Cannabis use suppresses violent behavior, and this is a very important fact that should not be overlooked. As Substance Abuse: A Comprehensive Textbook, 4-th Edition indicates on page 267, by inducing a calm, relaxed state, Cannabis is just not “conducive” to violence, as opposed to alcohol or hard drugs, and only the “unsophisticated” think otherwise. As Dr. David Bearman observed during a recent scientific Conference in L.A., Cannabis was considered “medicine” for at least 5000 years, and the only time that it was not considered medicine was between 1942, when it was removed from the US Pharmacopoea, and 1996 when California voters approved the re-Legalization of this valuable remedy as a viable therapeutic option.