Decision to smoke pot shouldn't involve doctor
By Jeffrey A. Schaler

THE ATTEMPT by drug policy reformers in Maryland to legalize marijuana for
medicinal purposes is bad medicine masquerading as harm reduction.

Marijuana is no more a medicine than is water. It is neither safe nor
dangerous, good nor bad. Marijuana is a plant that people have a right to
grow, purchase, sell, own and ingest as they see fit.

Anything can be labeled a medicine, just as anything can be diagnosed as a
disease - provided the people applying the label and diagnosis have the
authority to do so. It all depends on who says something is medicine, who is
using it and for what purposes it is being used. Is water a medicine? Yes
and no. If a person is dehydrated, water becomes a life-saving medicine.

Most of the time water is not medicine, despite the fact it is essential to
our survival and consumed regularly. Is water safe or dangerous? People can
safely drink and swim in it. When people consume too much water they may
suffer from electrolyte imbalance. A person can drown in water. Does that
make it dangerous? No. It all depends on how you use it.

Is water good or bad? The question is meaningless. Just as dangerous and
safe are not properties we can detect through water analysis, there is no
goodness or badness we can detect in water. Water is just water. A priest
sees "holy" water. An atheist sees "plain" water. Doctors and scientists
cannot tell the difference, only priests and theologians can. How can they
tell the difference between holy water and secular water? By who uses the
water, by the ways in which they use it, by the way it has been blessed and
consecrated.

The same is true for marijuana. Medical marijuana advocates argue that
marijuana is a panacea. Prohibitionists argue that marijuana is a
panapathogen (something that causes illness). Who is right? Neither. It all
depends on how you use it. Marijuana is no more medicine than water is
medicine. And marijuana is just as dangerous as water.

So why all the fuss about marijuana as medicine? The Maryland General
Assembly passed a bill legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. Could it
be because those who hold that marijuana is medicine, safe and a panacea are
not far away from those who think marijuana is bad, dangerous and a
panapathogen? Both sides attribute nonexistent qualities to marijuana.

Is the fuss because people who want to smoke marijuana need it to treat any
number of diseases such as glaucoma or multiple sclerosis or the nausea that
often accompanies chemotherapy? Of course not. Plenty of effective drugs are
available for these diseases and conditions.

Medical marijuana advocates hide behind sick people in order to get
marijuana without penalty in order to get high. They believe the laws
against marijuana possession and use are inhumane - and the laws are
inhumane, but not for the reasons they state. The medical marijuana pushers
lie about the drug just as much as the prohibitionists do.

The medicinal marijuana argument is as red a herring as they come. People
have a right to use marijuana or any drug in any way they see fit - as
medicine, as religious ritual, or simply to make themselves feel good, as
long as they don't hurt anyone else in the process.

However, the medical marijuana peddlers are not satisfied with such an
honest and principled stand. They trust doctors to make lifestyle decisions
for them. They want doctors in charge of who gives them their recreational
drugs. Medicinal marijuana peddlers fear autonomy and embrace the
paternalism of the therapeutic state.

Medicalizing marijuana, like medicalizing behavior, is bad medicine. Two
wrongs don't make a right. The best solution to the harm created by drug
prohibition is repeal of drug prohibition in its entirety. And that is a
federal issue, not a state one.

Jeffrey A. Schaler teaches psychology at Johns Hopkins University and is the
author of Addiction Is a Choice (Open Court Publishers, 2001).

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