Madison NORML

Source: The Capital Times
Pubdate: Monday, November 30, 2009
Author: Dave Zweifel

PLAIN TALK: TIME TO END THE WAR ON POT - PERIOD

Momentum is building to legalize medical marijuana in Wisconsin. State Rep. Mark Pocan, a Madison Democrat, and state Sen. Jon Erpenbach, a Waunakee Democrat, have authored a bill that would make it legal for doctors to prescribe marijuana as a pain reliever for various injuries or illnesses. Gov. Jim Doyle has said he would sign the bill into law.

The time for Wisconsin to become the 15th state to allow patients to use pot to make their lives a bit more comfortable is long past due. My own father, who was suffering mightily from the pains of pancreatic cancer, found some relief from marijuana I was able to illegally purchase for him in the last weeks of his life.

That was more than 30 years ago and politicians still balk at allowing sick people the relief that marijuana can provide some of them. The Bush administration had a policy to arrest and prosecute folks using medical marijuana even in the states that have legalized it. Fortunately, the Obama administration has said it will cease doing that.

Madison's Gary Storck, who has been pushing for decades to get the Legislature to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, put it bluntly the other day: "We're not criminals, we're just trying to get on with our lives."

Storck says he has been using marijuana since 1972 to treat his glaucoma and arthritis.

In the latest edition of the Hightower Lowdown, editor Jim Hightower, the Texas gadfly, proclaimed that America's drug war is doing far more harm than marijuana itself ever will. He suggests that the nation would be better off legalizing all marijuana use.

Hightower insists that even the most conservative estimates say the outlay from taxpayers now tops $10 billion a year in direct spending just to catch, prosecute and incarcerate marijuana users and sellers. And that doesn't include the costs of militarizing the border with Mexico to stop pot imports. Even the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources this year asked deer hunters to look for pot growing in the woods so, presumably, wardens could go out and nab some farmers.

Some 41,000 Americans are in federal or state prisons right now on marijuana charges and that doesn't count the thousands more in city and county jails.

Plus thousands of law enforcement people are diverted from serious crimes to pursue someone smoking pot. That includes agents from the FBI, the Secret Service, Customs, and the Drug Enforcement Agency. Yet Congress refuses to change the long-outdated laws that cover the use of marijuana.

Hopefully, the Wisconsin Legislature will act quickly to legalize medical marijuana at the very least. Meanwhile the time has come for Congress to end the war on pot - period. We've got far better uses for all the money and resources.

Dave Zweifel is editor emeritus of The Capital Times. dzweifel@madison.com