Courier Post Editorial endorses Medical Marijuana

by: Jason Springer

Sun Apr 26, 2009 at 01:32:56 PM EDT

The government shouldn't bar patients from using a substance that greatly reduces their pain.

There are tens of thousands of Americans -- not drug abusers, but people suffering real pain from life-threatening diseases -- who swear by marijuana as the best, sometimes the only, medicine that takes away their pain and nausea or restores their vision.

We don't think the government has the right to tell these people what substances they can or cannot use to take away their pain. Americans who are suffering from terminal diseases should have the freedom to use whatever works best for their symptoms and specific pains. If marijuana is what works, so be it.

Heavy lobbying from several multibillion-dollar industries, including beer and liquor producers and pharmaceutical firms, has long kept marijuana classified as a Schedule I drug by the federal government. That puts it off limits for government research into its medical qualities and makes it illegal to possess in all forms and quantities.

But state governments have shown they can see things more clearly and that there can be ways to balance patients' needs with society's needs. Thirteen states have some version of a medical marijuana exception to the federal law.

We're confident such an exception can happen in New Jersey, and it should. The Assembly ought to approve this bill. Let those New Jerseyans already using marijuana to get through each day without unbearable pain stop having to hide what they do for fear of pointless prosecution.