Smoking the Pain Away.

Should marijuana be legal for medical use?

YES

A year ago, a government-commissioned panel of experts reported that the chemicals in marijuana can fight the nausea induced by chemotherapy, boost the appetites of AIDS patients, and lessen some symptoms of multiple sclerosis. The report was no news to me. I had reached the same conclusions as a cancer patient seven years before.

In 1992, I was found to have testicular cancer. My chemotherapy put me in the hospital for five days at a time, once a month, for four months. But midway through my treatment I could tell that Zofran, then a hot new drug prescribed to combat nausea, was losing its effect. For the remainder of my chemotherapy I turned to marijuana to keep my head out of the toilet.

Federal laws still ban marijuana as stringently as heroin. And polemicists in the war on drugs fear that acknowledging marijuana's medical efficacy would set a bad example. Then why don't we take the morphine out of hospital medicine cabinets?

In almost every case when the medical use of marijuana has been put on a ballot, voters have approved it. Supporters have been as diverse as the rainwater liberals of Oregon and the cowboy libertarians of Arizona.

My chemotherapy worked, and I haven't smoked during the entire Clinton administration. But should I ever need to turn to marijuana again, I'd like to be able to do so without the added burden of breaking the law.

--RICHARD BROOKHISER Senior Editor National Review Times Op-Ed page

NO

Imagine going to your doctor for headaches or persistent nausea. He tells you to use a "medicine" that is not FDA-approved, is not subject to any product-liability or quality-control standards, is of unknown strength, is made up of hundreds of different chemicals, has no controlled daily dose, and is ingested by smoking. There is little proof that the drug will work, and its known harmful effects include apathy, memory loss, mental disorders, immune-system deficiencies, and reproductive difficulties. Would you take it?

Marijuana is such a drug, and it is a mistake to legalize it--even for medical purposes. The campaign to make medical marijuana legal has contributed to a growing feeling among teens that the drug is harmless. That's dangerous, because it isn't.

Not one major medical or health organization has accepted marijuana as a safe or effective medicine. And a report in March 1999 by the Institute of Medicine found "there is little future in smoked marijuana as a medically approved medication."

The harmful effects of smoking marijuana far outweigh its moderate beneficial effects on pain and nausea. Experience has shown that drug use increases when society reinforces its acceptability. We must not let the advocates of drug legalization treat marijuana as medicine as a means of gaining its widespread acceptance.

--MICHAEL J. CHITWOOD Chief of Police Portland, Maine