Marijuana, demon weed or medical miracle?
by Elizabeth Margerum, Outpost Contributor
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"Getting pot in Reno is as easy as getting a Whopper at Burger King," Scott Brian, a University of Nevada, Reno student said. "It takes five to 15 minutes depending on who you know and how much money you have."
Brian, 21, has been a pot smoker for five years. Is Brian the extreme or has marijuana become as normal as alcohol?
A recent study by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America shows drug use is increasing among children. The study also shows that baby boomers are seriously underestimating drug usage in their children's lives. Twenty one percent of parents surveyed said they believed their child had tried marijuana. Forty four percent of the teens surveryed said they have tried the drug.
University of Nevada Police Department statistics confirm the national trend. Statistics show drug arrests are increasing. In 1994 there were 41 arrests on campus and in 1996 there were 50.
But Police Sgt. Mark Covington attributes the on campus rise to something different. Covington says the rise in arrests is not from more people smoking marijuana but because there are more officers.
"We have had an increase in officers and training," he said. This increased awareness helps officers to identify potential use.
Marijuana continues to be a subject of debate between the government and even between doctors in the medical profession. It's clear no one agrees.
One of the major controversies is that marijuana has been found to be beneficial. It helps ease the pain of cancer, migraines and a myriad of illnesses. These benefits are prompting people to push for legalization.
Dr. Lester Grinspoon, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, gave testimony before a House subcommittee last October.
Grinspoon is one of the doctors that is pushing for the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. He testified cannabis is remarkably safe.
"Despite its use by millions of people over thousands of years, cannabis has never caused an overdose death," Grinspoon said. "The most serious concern is respiratory system damage from smoking."
He listed many diseases where marijuana could be beneficial.
"Cannabis has several uses in the treatment of cancer and AIDS," Grinspoon said. "As an appetite stimulant, it can help to slow weight loss and also help in reducing the nausea and vomiting of chemotherapy for cancer patients and the drug cocktails AIDS patients take.
"Marijuana reduces pain from surgery, migraines, menstrual cramps and glaucoma."
Grinspoon said that marijuana works better and is less addictive than standard pain killers like baclofen and diazepam.
But the government does not share this view.
Within weeks after voters in Arizona and California approved propositions allowing physicians in their states to prescribe marijuana for medical problems, Attorney General Janet Reno announced that physicians in any state who prescribed the drug could lose the privilege of writing prescriptions, be excluded from Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement and even be prosecuted for a federal crime.
In an editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine, Dr. Jerome Kassirer argues against the government action.
"Some physicians will have the courage to challenge the continued proscription of marijuana for the sick," he said. "Eventually, their actions will force the courts to adjudicate between the rights of those at death's door and the absolute power of bureaucrats whose decisions are based more on reflexive ideology and political correctness than on compassion."
But most resistance to medicinal marijuana comes from no definitive study on the effects of usage. Facts vary depending on the study.
In August 1997 California's Attorney general, Dan Lungren, announced his support for a Senate bill to establish a three-year study on the effects of marijuana.
"I want to make a special point to California's youth,"
Lungren said. "We are calling for a study of marijuana for
medical purposes. We are not condoning the use of marijuana
or any other illegal drug."
He added, "I hope that this legislation will clearly define the medicinal value of marijuana, if any is to be found."
Scott Brian, the UNR student who has been smoking pot for five years, grew up in Sacramento, Calif. He was offered marijuana repeatedly. He went to the family doctor and asked about the drawbacks and the physical effects of pot.
"I was very up front with him about how I wanted to try and see what it was like," Brian said. "I weighted the pros and the cons and decided it would be a good thing to try and since then I've been an avid pot smoker."
Even though possession of a controlled substance is a felony in Nevada, that doesn't bother Brian.
"The people that do it don't really give a shit because they know they can smoke pot in their house and the cops won't break down the door for a bowl of weed," Brian said. "They [the cops] are more concerned about people drinking under age."
Brian likes being high more than being drunk.
"I equate smoking pot and getting high to going to a therapist and getting a massage," he said.
But it is more than just a quick high to Brian.
"At times it can be an almost spiritual thing," he said. "You are together with a group of friends that you care about that you have known a long time. You smoke something together that makes you all feel the exact same way and for the next couple of hours you meditate and philosophize about life and your problems or whatever reality is brought down on you."
The view that smoking pot leads to harder drugs doesn't fly with Brian.
"I know a lot of people that do harder drugs and smoke pot," Brian said. "But I know a lot of people who smoke pot and don't do harder drugs. It leads to a crowd of people who do harder drugs because people who smoke pot have maybe tried other things, mushrooms, maybe acid, maybe cocaine."
Brian wants pot legalized. In the end he wants to be able to smoke in peace.
"When is the last time you heard about a guy who smoked a joint and went and killed five people?" he asks. "A lot of people think pot-heads are just a bunch of angry people who are out to change society.
"That's not what we're about. We're just about having fun. Being one with the universe and trying to figure it all out."
copyright 04/17/98 Nevada Outpost http://www.jour.unr.edu/outpost