Although the "victims" of the Supreme Court's recent decision, to anyone with rational thinking skills, are obviously old hippies and young stoners, they are always portrayed as pathetic, tortured figures in the media's three-minute (or less) "in depth" reports on the subject. The now-weezened hippie is practically curled up in the corner in a quivering ball of wrinkled flesh due to the pain of whatever malady they are afflicted with. In one of these little vignettes, the "victim" was a six-foot-five, 300-lb 18-year-old with a Mohawk and a nose ring who managed to grunt out "I need it for pain". Whatever, dude. Needless to say, clean-cut Montel Williams types are few and far between in the world of "medical marijuana", but he makes a good poster child for the cause.

Young or old, aged hippie or modern-day punk, the answer to all of these folks' maladies -- the ultimate elixir -- is a toke on a joint or pipe or better yet, a hit (or two, or three, or four) from a big ole' bong. No mention is ever made of alternatives to the wacky tobaccy: These folks need to smoke some dope and they need to smoke it now. Nothing else will do. The government is trying to deprive these poor folks of the ONLY remedy that will solve their, glaucoma, nausea, appetite, and non-specific pain issues. Whatever are they to do?

A couple of questions come immediately to mind when you hear these wild claims about the magical properties of smoking dope.

First of all, why is it necessary to smoke a joint or toke a bong to experience the effects of marijuana? From what I've been able to gather, it's just because people prefer getting stoned to taking a pill. One report that was a round-up of several state-sponsored studies from the 80s only included one study that even bothered to give a true comparison between smoking dope and taking synthesized THC (Tetrahydrocannabinol), the active ingredient in marijuana) in pill form. And because THC component of this survey had participants as young as five years old in it while the marijuana component only included participants 15 years old and older who were all "experienced marijuana users" it's not hard to see the clear bias for pot smoking and against the THC pills here. Nearly all of the studies contained superlatives like this about smoking dope:

In 1981 the California Research Advisory Panel reported: "Over 74 percent of the cancer patients treated in the program have reported that marijuana is more effective in relieving their nausea and vomiting than any other drug they have tried." In 1982, a 78.9 percent effectiveness rate was found for smoked marijuana.

Without ever providing the corresponding numbers for synthesized THC in pill form. No bias here, dude.

One study came to this definitive conclusion about marijuana vs. THC:

The 1984 report concluded . . . the data accumulated over all five years of the program's operation do show that marijuana smoked resulted in a higher percentage of success than does THC ingested."

Now there's some hard scientific data for you! Was it a 100% higher percentage, a 2% higher percentage, a 53.596% higher percentage or perhaps only a 5.78935% higher percentage? No way to tell because they aren't telling, dude.

Then there's the little question of whether or not it makes sense to provide some type of non-specific medicinal benefit while frying your lungs at the same time. Even the proponents of medical marijuana say that frying your lungs for some perceived health BENEFIT doesn't make a hell of a lot of sense:

In the Institute of Medicine's report on medical marijuana, the researchers examined the physiological risks of using marijuana and cautioned, "Marijuana is not a completely benign substance. It is a powerful drug with a variety of effects. However, except for the harms associated with smoking, the adverse effects of marijuana use are within the range of effects tolerated for other medications."

So besides the fact that it fries your lungs with far more toxic substances that the average filtered cigarette, it's cool. This probably makes sense after you've smoked a couple joints.

And despite the fact that the issue of medical marijuana has been studied for literally decades, the best that could be said for the potential of the use of marijuana for "medicinal purposes" even as recently as six years ago was this:

The Institute of Medicine's 1999 report on medical marijuana stated, "The accumulated data indicate a potential therapeutic value for cannabinoid drugs, particularly for symptoms such as pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation."

So pot might be valuable as a "therapeutic drug" because it gives you the munchies and makes you disinclined to barf. Now that's a ringing endorsement of the therapeutic use of pot! As far as the "pain relief" aspect goes, any former regular dope smoker can tell you that you can get better pain relief by popping a couple aspirin.

So what's the agenda here, dude? It's pretty simple, actually. As with any liberal issue, incrementalism is what it's all about. The legalized pot folks made great strides back in the 70s and as a former regular dope smoker, I was all for it. In Alaska in the 70s, where I lived and was aware of the laws, it was legal to walk around with as much as an ounce of pot on you. I know that's the way it was in a few other states as well. In the 80s and early 90s, things changed a little bit -- liberal pot laws were tightened up. With this backslide, the pro-pot groups had to regroup and the strategy changed from legalization of pot to legalization for "medicinal uses". The idea is to get their foot in the door (as they have in 13 states) with the "medicinal uses" strategy and expand from there to a push for full legalization.

Now one could argue that there are far worse things than smoking a joint or taking a couple hits off a pipe or bong. But with all the troubles we have in our society these days with the vices that are legal -- booze and gambling, etc -- the last thing we need to do is add legalized pot to the mix. And that's where we're headed when we head down the bogus "medicinal marijuana" road. Don't buy it, dude.

Sources: DrugWarFacts.org, medmjscience.org