[Vision2020] Trail Offers the Dying a Compassionate Choice

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (April 2, 2011) Lewiston Tribune.

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Trail offers the dying a compassionate choice

The leading pain medications brought to you by your friendly neighborhood
pharmaceutical industry have much in common:

They are highly addictive.

They have killed people.

They have crippling side effects. Those include seizures, blackouts,
depression, insomnia, stomach cramps, swelling, sweating, mental clouding,
constipation, dizziness and a reduced sex drive.

They are prescribed by Idaho doctors.

Then we have marijuana. It's not physically addictive. Nobody in human
history has overdosed from smoking too much or consuming too many
marijuana-laced brownies. And, naturally, no doctor in Idaho can legally
prescribe marijuana, though its medicinal qualities have been understood
and employed for centuries.

House Bill 19, sponsored by Moscow Republican Tom Trail, would
decriminalize small amounts of marijuana for a few unlucky Idahoans: folks
with a year or less to live, and those suffering from a number of diseases
or maladies.

These folks can turn to a pill containing the ingredient in marijuana that
helps alleviate pain. But many say the pill is far less effective than the
real deal. And seriously, if smoking marijuana gives a dying cancer
patient some relief, who are we to tell him he can't do it?

Fourteen states have legalized medical marijuana.

These laws don't supersede the federal prohibition of marijuana, as
evidenced by the recent raid on cannabis shops in Montana. But neither is
Idaho compelled to enforce that federal law. We can set our own rules and
hope the Drug Enforcement Agency leaves our sick and dying to their own
devices.

Trail's bill is far more restrictive than laws in California, for
instance, where anxiety over a hangnail will get you a medical marijuana
card, or Montana, which had buses going from city to city to enroll eager
residents.

HB 19, which is scheduled for a hearing before the House Health and
Welfare Committee today, details who can grow and distribute marijuana. It
limits how much patients can have and for how long. It specifies which
maladies and diseases qualify. These protections are meaningful and
appropriate.

So, will HB 19 become law? Probably not, but we applaud Health and Welfare
Chairwoman Janice McGeachin, R-Idaho Falls, for allowing a hearing on this
issue. Perhaps the education of Idaho's residents and politicians begins
here.

The cynics, fueled by outdated information that lumps marijuana in with
dangerous and addictive drugs, such as illegal methamphetamine and legal
oxycodone, argue that this is the first step in allowing for recreational
pot smoking. That's simply not true.

The effort to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana in isolated cases
is about providing relief to the sick and dying that won't rip their guts
out, leave them hopelessly addicted or kill them.

Why on earth would anybody oppose that?

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho

"The Pessimist complains about the wind, the Optimist expects it to change
and the Realist adjusts his sails."

- Unknown