The Maryland General Assembly passed and the Governor signed into law a bill that is a first step in the de-criminalization of the medical uses of marijuana. This bill allows a person charged with possession or use of marijuana or related paraphernalia to introduce evidence related to medical necessity and, if the person is convicted and the court finds there was medical necessity, limits the maximum punishment to a fine of $100.

Marijuana has been advocated as a treatment for mulitple sclerosis, the pain, muscle spasm, nausea, vomiting, and weight loss in cancer patients, as well as the wasting syndrome associated with HIV infection. The..."analgesia produced by cannabinoids and opioids involves similar brainstem circuitry and...cannabinoids are indeed centrally acting analgesics with a new mechanism of action." Marijuana can also have immunosuppressive effects, and, as such, has the potential in the treatment of organ transplant patients and autoimmune disease.

Recently, a federal appeals court ruled (Conant v. McCaffrey; October, 2002: Case #: 00-17222) for the first time that the government cannot revoke doctors' prescription licenses for recommending marijuana to sick patients. A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously found that the Justice Department's policy interferes with the free-speech rights of doctors and patients. The opinion, by Chief Circuit Judge Mary Schroeder, stated:

• "This is an appeal from a permanent injunction entered to protect First Amendment rights. The order enjoins the federal government from either revoking a physician’s license to prescribe controlled substances or conducting an investigation of a physician that might lead to such revocation, where the basis for the government’s action is solely the physician’s professional “recommendation” of the use of medical marijuana. The district court’s order and accompanying opinion are at Conant v. McCaffrey, 2000 WL 1281174 (N.D. Cal. Sept. 7, 2000). The history of the litigation demonstrates that the injunction is not intended to limit the government’s ability to investigate doctors who aid and abet the actual distribution and possession of marijuana. 21 U.S.C. § 841(a). The govern-ment has not provided any empirical evidence to demonstrate that this injunction interferes with or threatens to interfere with any legitimate law enforcement activities. Nor is there any evidence that the similarly phrased preliminary injunction that preceded this injunction, Conant v. McCaffrey, 172 F.R.D. 681 (N.D. Cal. 1997), which the government did not appeal, interfered with law enforcement. The district court, on the other hand, explained convincingly when it entered both the earlier preliminary injunction and this permanent injunction, how the government’s professed enforcement policy threatens to interfere with expression protected by the First Amendment. We therefore affirm."

The decision as to a recommended, appropriate, and efficacious treatment strategy for a disease is one to be made by a Physican NOT the Federal Government. Thus, State Legislatures should enact statutes that remove the invidious and largely political pall, unsupported by Science, from the Medical use of this drug. Marijuana should be available, legally, to a Physican as a therapeutic strategy in the treatment of patients. ..more information on this topic