People suffering from AIDS, cancer, glaucoma and other serious or terminal illnesses sometimes turn to marijuana on the advice of their doctors when other treatments fail. The District of Columbia's Initiative 57 would protect these patients, their doctors and immediate caregivers from criminal prosecution in the use of marijuana in medical treatment.
The tightly worded measure requires that medical marijuana be restricted to use under the supervision and care of a licensed physician. Initiative 57, proposed by the local AIDS activist group ACT UP Washington, firmly established that medical decisions are best determined within the doctor-patient relationship, not by politicians or prosecutors. Volunteers have until December to gather approximately 16,700 signatures of D.C. registered voters to place Initiative 57 on the D.C. ballot.
Under current law, the seriously ill who turn to marijuana for its possible therapeutic effects are subject to arrest, criminal prosecution and incarceration. Politicians use this issue to look tough on drugs, jailing sick and dying patients in the name of public safety.
Caregivers have no other option but to enter dangerous open-air drug markets to purchase the marijuana that might provide some comfort to loved ones in their final days. Physicians who even discuss the possible benefits of marijuana with their patients have been targeted by federal prosecutors.
Many AIDS patients have found that marijuana eases severe nausea and vomiting and helps counter the loss of appetite and weight loss of deadly AIDS wasting syndrome. Expensive new triple- combination therapies hold little promise for those AIDS sufferers who are unable to hold their pills down.
Cancer patients enduring the side effects of radiation and chemotherapy sometimes find relief in marijuana. Some people with glaucoma, one of the leading causes of blindness among Americans, have been successfully treated with marijuana for over 20 years.
For those sick and dying patients who use marijuana to ease their suffering, marijuana is hardly a recreational drug. Initiative 57 simply provides legal protection to these patients, their physicians and caregivers from prosecution under D.C.'s
Uniformed Controlled Substances Act. The D.C. initiative is much tighter than measures passed by voters in California and Arizona.
Under the provisions of Initiative 57, nonmedical use of marijuana is explicitly prohibited. Use of medical marijuana, like other prescription medicines, cannot defend against any other crime, such as driving while intoxicated. Authors have included a parent consent clause, Section 9, which prohibits the distribution of medical marijuana to any person under the age of 18 for the treatment of a minor's medical condition without the informed, written consent of a parent or legal guardian for the use of marijuana.
The marijuana sold by drug dealers on the streets is sometimes laced with drugs or other contaminates. Initiative 57 would allow legal, nonprofit corporations or cooperatives to ensure a safe supply of marijuana to patients, taking drug dealers out of the equation. Patients are limited under Initiative 57 in the quantities they are permitted to possess.
The local petition effort is drawing national attention from those who have shown little interest in the well-being of the people of D.C. The campaign for Initiative 57 is turning into the first Republican primary of the 2000 presidential election. Billionaire publisher and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes has loudly launched a big-money media campaign against Initiative 57, calling the AIDS activists sponsoring the measure "twisted drug predators." William Bennett, the failed drug czar under President Bush, is directing opposition to Initiative 57 through his group Empower America. Representatives from the Family Research Council, headed by Reagan administration domestic policy adviser Gary Bauer, tried to block Initiative 57 at the D.C. Board of Elections and Ethics, but they were unable to find a D.C. voter to oppose the initiative.
Reacting to pressure, drug czar Gen. Barry McCaffrey has weighted in, opposing the petition drive in a letter sent to D.C. officials. Gen. McCaffrey's office says they have not yet reviewed the legislative text of Initiative 57.
Meanwhile, amid the grandstanding of presidential aspirants, open-air drug markets and crack houses in Washington continue to flourish. The Drug Detox Center at D.C. General Hospital is overflowing. Waiting lists for drug treatment slots grow as funding for these lifesaving programs has been eliminated. Drug kingpins continue to import crack cocaine for sale in our city and at the Lorton prison complex. Yet these pressing problems, so apparent to Washington residents, have failed to grab the attention of political grandstanders, much like Nero fiddling while Rome burned.
By supporting D.C. Initiative 57, the people of the District can free those suffering from AIDS, cancer and other serious illnesses from the threat of prosecution and imprisonment if their doctor recommends marijuana as a medication of last resort.
Steve Michael and Wayne Turner are founders of ACT UP, the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, in Washington. Mr. Michael, who is HIV-positive, is the proposer of Initiative 57
(© Copyright 1997 WashingtonTimes-8/7/97)
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