Subject: February Editorial
From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 20 Jan 1997 22:27:41 -0500 (EST)

From the February issue of The Letter, Kentucky's gay and lesbian newspaper.
 Due out January 31.

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LETTERTORIAL

MEDICINAL MARIJUANA MUST BE LEGALIZED

by David Williams, Editor

At first I thought it was a joke.

In late December, after nearly four years, the Clinton administration finally
unveiled its national program to fight AIDS.  With 343,000 deaths and
counting, I hoped we'd finally get something bold and decisive to put an end
to the epidemic.

But no, there it was in black and white:  six innocuous platitudes that could
have been written by a high school sophomore for his English 201 class.  What
we needed was a Marshall Plan.  What we got was National Lampoon's Christmas
turkey:  shiny skin on the outside, nothing but smoke and bones within.

Why isn't the government pursuing the use of marijuana to relieve pain?  What
about all those reports showing the effectiveness of needle exchange programs
in reducing new infections?  We need to allow condoms in prisons:  another
national tragedy waiting in the wings.  And why are we still withholding
information from millions of high schoolers about how to use a condom?
 That's like handing them the keys to the car but refusing to show them how
to use the brake.

I certainly don't doubt Clinton's personal compassion for people with AIDS.
 He's done more in this gordion situation--particularly in the area of
funding--than Reagan or Bush ever yawned about.  He and his wife have lost
friends to AIDS.  He's the only president to visit the Quilt.

But does he know what's being done in his name by his subordinates?  Yes or
no, it's cause for considerable worry.  Four years ago we thought we elected
Kennedy's successor.  Could it be, all we got was Bush's?

If Clinton is to be remembered at all, he needs to provide much bolder
leadership than he's done of late, not just for AIDS but many other issues.
 He could begin by directing his administration to actively pursue the
legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes--for the terminally ill, if
no one else--and consider implementing such programs as needle exchange,
which numerous studies have shown to save lives.

I know for a fact how marijuana helped my lover in his final months.  Pot was
much more effective for inducing appetite and staving off pain than the drug
companies' expensive substitute, marinol, or anything else short of morphine
tablets.  Even his doctor suggested he smoke weed if he felt it helped:  in
careful language and off the record.

The main problem, of course, is economics.  The drug companies have always
looked askance at natural herb and plant therapies.  The bottom line:  they
can't make any money off of them.  Good weed can be grown for pennies a day.
 Marinol costs $5 a tablet.  It's business as usual.

President Clinton needs to look beyond all that.  He needs to take charge of
this crisis like Reagan and Bush should have done, but didn't.  If he's
worried these days about his place in history, he should be.  We don't need
any more ho-hum leadership, on AIDS or any other social issue.

Americans are suffering needlessly.  To watch and do nothing is not only
inhumane, but cruel.