The Marijuana Debate

In the last ten years there's been significant debate - usually flaring up around presidential elections and Supreme Court confirmation hearings - over whether the U.S. should legalize marijuana for medical purposes. There's research that suggests that the drug can be a powerful pain reliever for people who suffer from cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, and a host of other diseases and disorders. At this time a dozen states have decriminalized marijuana possession and use for those who can produde a doctor's note - although, since all marijuana possession and use remains illegal under U.S. federal law, removing state penalties is largely a symbolic gesture. As in most debates that have taken place in recent years, supporters of medical marijuana cast their opponents as a lot of coldhearted folks who don't care how cancer and AIDS patients suffer. In an already emotionally-charged debate, those who oppose legalizing marijuana for medical purposes must be a bunch of angry Puritans who don't care how anyone suffers, right?

This story hit the Dallas Morning News this morning:
"A rare but expensive drug sometimes absorbed through lollipops contributed to the death of a 20-year-old Southern Methodist University student in early December.

"The drug is used as a painkiller, but in any form fentanyl can be lethal if taken outside a prescription."

I've read the obituary round-ups for the kid who died - Jake Stiles - and by all accounts he was a really good kid. The picture that accompanies the article is of his crowning as Southern Methodist's "Mr. University." And the drug found in his body that was the most likely cause of his death?

Is a drug meant to help cancer patients manage their pain.

Fentanyl is supposed to be nearly impossible to get ahold of. It's tightly controlled and rarely presecribed. It is estimated to be one hundred times more powerful than heroin or morphine. A few weeks ago, two workers at a Dallas-area physician's office forged prescription for $40,000 worth of the drug - known commercially as Actiq and sold as lozenges on sticks for patients who have difficulty swallowing. The insurance company that processed the prescription alerted Dallas police. Is the drug found in Jake Stiles' body part of this batch, or is there another batch of fentanyl on the streets of Dallas? Despite its dangerous potency, use of the drug is on the rise among people with more money than brains.

So what does all this mean for the medical marijuana crowd? The paralells shouldn't be difficult to draw. The only differences that I see are those that can only exacerbate the problem. Marijuana is less expensive than fentanyl and has a much larger pool of potential abusers. SInce it is less potent, it will probably be less tightly-controlled. Legalizing marijuana for medical purposes can only make it easier for those who want it for decidedly non-medical purposes to get their hands on it. The way to win the drug war is not to make it vastly easier for would-be abusers to get ahold of thier drug of choice. Fentanyl is supposed to be nearly impossible to get ahold of. Tonight a college kid in Texas - a kid at one of the best and most conservative schools in the country - is dead and his corpse is full of the drug that is supposed to be so difficult to get ahold of. This is why medical marijuana has the potential to be a disaster.