Support for medical marijuana may finally have reached critical mass in Wisconsin. On Jan. 14, Reps. Frank Boyle, D-Superior, and Mark Pocan, D-Madison, formally introduced a medical marijuana bill in the Wisconsin State Assembly.
Since the legislation was unveiled in December, eight more representatives, both Republican and Democratic, have signed on to the bill as co-sponsors, indicating a surge of support for medical marijuana. Newspapers across the state have run editorials and letters-to-the-editor calling for passage of the bill.
Assembly Bill 715 is modeled after one passed by the Hawaii legislature in 2000; if passed, Wisconsin would become only the second state in the nation to pass such a law through the legislature instead of the ballot initiative process. Seven other states'Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington'currently have laws protecting medical marijuana patients from arrest.
A spokesman for Assembly Speaker Scott Jensen called the bill a \perennial loser,"" but the real losers are the people with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and a host of other medical conditions, who now face arrest simply for using a medicine that brings them relief. Hundreds of Wisconsin residents turn to marijuana to ease the nausea of chemotherapy and AIDS medications, the muscle spasticity of multiple sclerosis and the seizures of epilepsy. These people are not threats to society, yet they face criminal sanctions.
The threat of arrest is real. Sherrie Wilkie, a 65-year-old disabled woman with arthritis, faces eviction from her federally subsidized apartment for distributing marijuana, at cost, to patients who needed it. Though she lives in New York, her case is not unique. Jeanne Horton, a bedridden Indiana woman with multiple sclerosis, faces years in jail for using the medicine that makes her life slightly more bearable. Do the people of Wisconsin really want to follow these examples?
An arrest for marijuana possession or distribution can result not only in a criminal record and possible imprisonment, but in loss of welfare benefits, termination of employment, denial of student financial aid, drivers' license suspension and expulsion from school or public housing, regardless of whether the marijuana was for medical use. Is society better served by punishing the ill and disabled?
Some claim medical marijuana sends the wrong message to children'that if we allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes, children will get the ""wrong idea"" that marijuana is beneficial to all and therefore harmless. This could not be farther from the truth. California passed the first effective state medical marijuana law in 1996. From 1989 to 1996, marijuana use among California teens rose steadily. After 1996, however, marijuana use dropped among all age groups in that state, and in fact the percentage of ninth graders who had ever used marijuana dropped by one third from 1996 to 2000. Washington, whose medical marijuana law passed in 1998, reports a similar trend of increasing use up until the year the initiative was passed, then decreasing use in the years after. Looking past the numbers, though, is allowing sick people to suffer needlessly the ""right"" message to send to kids?
The State Assembly faces a choice: Protect patients from arrest, or treat them as common criminals. If you believe that medical marijuana users should have the right to effective medical treatment, please make your voice heard. You can send e-mails to your state representatives and senators from http://www.mpp.org/WI. The ill and disabled should have unrestricted access to the medicines that can help them, even if one such medicine is marijuana. Ask your elected officials this simple question: Which is worse for seriously ill people, marijuana or prison?
