Prescriptions going to pot

Hoosiers suffering from chronic pain, cancerous deterioration and the wasting away associated with HIV/AIDS have no state or federal right to smoke or otherwise ingest marijuana for medical purposes under the advice and care of Indiana doctors as prescribed by most local, statewide and national laws.\nBloomington students, residents and guests living within the campus community do not have the current choice to choose marijuana as a decriminalized method of medicine despite increasing waves of health, science, academic and popular beliefs about the effectiveness of medicinal marijuana dating back three decades in America and tens of thousands of years across the globe. Ten states have legislated medicinal marijuana and about half a dozen more are considering like-minded policies this legislative season, despite Congressional refusal to consider the implications of "the Drug War" relating to otherwise law-abiding and patriotic citizens possessing small amounts of marijuana for medicinal purposes established in the House of Representatives Resolution 2087.\n"As a police officer and a police agency, I think I speak for all of us individuals who have to do law enforcement," said Lt. Jerry Minger of the Indiana University Police Department. "We are extremely sympathetic to those individuals who would have to use marijuana for chronic pain. The unfortunate aspect is that we have to rely on state laws -- laws we have to enforce."\nThough the Drug Enforcement Agency has the authority to regulate marijuana laws for states, Congress can regulate their policy.\n"The federal government usually involves itself in cases involving a threshold of 1,000 pounds of marijuana or the growing of more than 1,000 plants," said Allen St. Pierre, director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. "The other 98 percentile is usually left to local and state officials. HR 2087 would reduce marijuana from a Schedule I substance to either a Schedule II or a Schedule III narcotic, which means it could prescribed by a doctor or sold from the government's own crop grown at the University of Mississippi at Oxford." \nNORML does not advocate youth drug use, nor do they necessarily prescribe to full-legalization of marijuana other than small possession and the non-sale transfer of small amounts. The National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse commissioned by President Richard Nixon in 1972 also recommended states have "no need for criminal sanctions against possession for personal use or casual transfers" and provided additional suggestions for how to keep marijuana use within the confines of the home environment.\n"The first point is that even marihuana (sic.) possessed for personal use is subject to summary seizure and forfeiture if it is found in public. In our view, the contraband feature symbolizes the discouragement policy and will exert a major force in keeping use private," the NCMDA recommended. "Essentially, possession of marihuana would be the equivalent of a traffic offense in those jurisdictions where such an offense is not criminal … The civil fine would not be reflected in a police record, nor would it be considered a criminal act for purposes of future job consideration, either in the private sector or for government service … Indeed, the time consumed in arresting Possessors is inefficiently used when contrasted with the same amount of time invested in apprehending major dealers. Although a credible effort to eliminate supply requires prohibitions of importation, sale and possession with intent-to-sell, the enforcement of a proscription of possession for personal use is minimally effective."\nMinger said he remembers walking to class through Dunn Meadow on campus in the early 1970s to the sight, smell and sounds of Vietnam War protesters and hippies smoking marijuana for recreational purposes. Despite the national social perception of a delinquent youth movement connected to marijuana use, Minger said a compassionate campus community reduced marijuana possession of less than 30 grams from incarceration to a "common nuisance" misdemeanor.\n"With any substance, even caffeine, you find users as well as abusers," he said. "I don't have the answer. I adhere to my own ethical standards and I look to the state to provide me with guidelines. The state makes laws based on the population they represent -- we create laws to govern ourselves. " \nSt. Pierre said he believes Congress has created the current criminalized marijuana "debacle," and he said he hopes Congressional leaders can fix it by making medicinal marijuana legal to needy ill patients.\n"Two private citizens preemptively sued the federal government. States themselves are beginning to take steps toward possibly suing the federal government as well," St. Pierre said. "If a state came forward and said 'we want to do this and you can't stop us' the government would be forced to listen. The free market should determine the decriminalization and medicinal applications of marijuana, not the pharmaceutical companies and other vested interests."\nMinger said the current national climate of criminalized marijuana possession, cultivation and distribution results in otherwise law-abiding medicinal marijuana users who in effect support drug dealers and their organized crime operations.\n"Marijuana is illegal because the population of Indiana says it's illegal," he said. "The minute they say it's not illegal -- that's when we stop enforcing it. One must weigh possible punishments against alleviating the pain and do it in a fashion as to not encroach on someone's space. It's a very unfortunate circumstance to be in for that small percentage of the population -- if you use marijuana do you grow your own, buy from someone else?"\nThe United Nations claims an estimated 141 million people worldwide ingest marijuana -- making it the most widely abused drug in all parts of the world. Human Rights Watch often criticizes the American "War on Drugs," specifically related to marijuana arrests dealing with small possession and the criminalized nature of personal marijuana use. \n"Many factors -- the transformation of crime and punishment into key issues in electoral debates, the persistence of drug abuse, the desire to 'send a message' and communicate social opprobrium, ignorance about drug pharmacology, and concern about crime among others -- have encouraged politicians and public officials to champion harsh prison sentences for drug offenders and to turn a blind eye to the extraordinary human, social, and economic costs of such policies," Human Rights Watch reported. "They have also turned a blind eye to the war on drugs' staggering racial impact … When asked to close their eyes and envision a drug user, Americans overwhelmingly picture a black person"