Supreme Court Ruling on Medical Marijuana
July 2nd 2005

The Supreme Court came out recently and said that in the case of Medical Marijuana federal law trumps state law, so even if you have a prescription for the pot, you can get busted by the feds.  Why, though, should I need a prescription in the first place?

In this country, most of the really good drugs require a prescription, supposedly so that only a doctor, who knows what is and isn’t good for you, can give you the permission and prescription necessary to take it.  That sounds pretty good, in theory, but in practice it’s a load of manure.

If your doctor is the one that should determine which medications you need, who are all of these ads I see EVERY day geared towards?  I can’t figure out what half the ads are about.  If you like purple, there’s a pill that’ll make standing on coastal basalt more appealing.  If you’re old and like to swing the old fashioned way, there’s something for you, too.  These commercials I see, except for the boner pills – if your erection lasts more than 24 hours, consult a physician, preferably the one that got you into this mess -- , are about as straightforward as a mid 90’s perfume ad.

Oops, looks like I’ve gone off the topic of medical marijuana.

 This is a country of the self-medicated living in some quasi-fantasy world that some drugs are good, some drugs are bad, and some are really fun and shouldn’t be allowed in our puritanical culture.  Where does pot fit into this?  Like most drugs, if you listen to the media, it can be any of the three, and instead of re-hashing it here, you should do a nice Google search on the subject.  If you’re like most Americans, you’ve already made up your mind on the topic and nothing that I say is going to change it.

Should we need a prescription for pot?  Should we need a prescription for anything?  Part of me thinks yes, another part says “absolutely not, I can make up my own mind,” with the latter probably winning out.  Hey, you really shouldn’t pop antibiotics for every little sniffle you get; if it’s viral, it’s not going to help out and will just help to increase the number of bacteria that’s resistant to the antibiotics.  Perhaps someone should inform the doctor of that, because most of the ones I’ve visited will write a script for an antibiotic just to give the patient that psychological edge, that it’ll help him or her even if the patient doesn’t know any better.  We probably need a good pseudo antibiotic placebo, but how long would it really be before the general public found out?  Wouldn’t they have to inform you about the “drug” in all that literature they give you for each prescription?  You know, the ones you never read?  Does anyone?

Back to the medical marijuana topic…

Many other countries allow their populations to make more decisions about which drugs they can take without a prescription.  In Canada you can get Tylenol 3 with Codeine over the counter, and have you seen what you can get in a Mexican pharmacy?   Are their citizens better able to decide which drugs to take than we are?

Do the drug companies really care?  Wouldn’t they sell more drugs?  I guess the doctors and the AMA wouldn’t like it as it could hurt their business.  After all, by my age I know that when I get that lovely sore throat that I’ve had so many times, that I’m going to need an antibiotic to get rid of it.  But to get the medicine, I’m going to have to go visit with the doctor of my choice, or actually not the doctor of my choice as he doesn’t have walk-ins and I’ve never got an appointment less than two weeks from when I called to make it.  So, I’ll have to spend a few hours at the Urgent Care, hoping I won’t catch Hepatitis 9 while waiting, all so the physician’s assistant can ask me which antibiotic works best for me.

It would seem that the government and drug companies in this country would say yes, since they don’t want us to have that power, but if that were the case, would I have all these drug commercials on TV and in magazines geared towards ME?  If it helps with my cold, my allergies, my stomach, my pain, or my erection, shouldn’t I be able to try’em out and see if they help me or not?  Maybe I’m the only one that doesn’t like having to go through the hassle of making an appointment to see my doctor, or hanging out for hours at the Urgent Care with the usual sick and infirm, just to get a prescription for my sore throat that’s the SAME as every other prescription I got previously.

Not all medicines should be available for self-medicating, or medicating your children or your parents, both of which sound appealing to me.  It’s probably good that I can’t go and buy blood pressure medication without a prescription.  I guess it’s also possible that, in this litigious society, the drug companies prefer to have some of their meds off limits without a script, having a bit of a buffer provided by the doctor.  If someone would sue for spilling their hot coffee, surely someone would sue for an adverse reaction they got from self-medicating.  We probably could enact some legislation to protect these drug companies from unscrupulous lawsuits, especially with this administration, but we’d probably want some mechanism to allow rebuke against those companies that truly are negligent in their products.

What was the topic again?

By John Conrad
Mr. Conrad is a writer based in Southern California