To most the proposition of "dying for a toke" of marijuana seems preposterous. How can medical cannabis be a medical necessity? Don’t we already have a vast range of prescription medicines for the sick, disabled, and dying? What is this nonsense that patients claim they must have their cannabis?

Ask the patient with AIDS wasting disease who tries each day to keep vital medication from being vomited up. Ask the chronic pain patient who wants to remain functional and not lose their acuity to the constant use of narcotics. Ask the MS patient in the wheelchair whose dozen medications each day fail to relieve their terrible muscle spasms. These are but a few examples of hundreds of thousands of patients who have discovered that cannabis provides relief from disabling symptoms better and with less adverse reactions than anything else their doctor can recommend.

For these patients, medical cannabis is indeed a medical necessity every bit as much as insulin for the diabetic. Under voter approved State Laws these patients have finally found a medicine that really works where other didn’t or worked only with terrible side effects. Voters in eight States have spoken clearly that cannabis should be available to patients upon their physician’s recommendations.

Yet, just this month, another medical cannabis patient, acting responsibly under State Law, was convicted in Federal Court of "conspiracy to manufacture". The charges carry a ten year minimum prison term. No mention of medical necessity was allowed in Court. The Jury was hidden from public protesters. Witnesses were barred from testifying. On the chance that jurors might have gathered that the defendant was only trying to save his and others lives with cannabis, they were directly instructed by the Judge to ignore the truth.

Most folks just assume that the purpose of any trial is to find and expose the truth. How sad it is and how frightening it is to discover that the truth is not allowed in our Federal Courts. The Federal government in its mad rush to stamp out drug abuse has committed the ultimate sin. The Federal government has adopted a formal policy of excluding key facts in trials in order to imprison the sick. No jury of twelve peers would ever convict a truly sick person from having and using a medicine vital to their very survival. Knowing this, the Federal government simply tossed truth out of the courtroom.

Imagine driving your pregnant and hemorrhaging wife to the hospital with your lights flashing and horn blowing. Pulled over by the police you are not provided with an escort but instead arrested for reckless driving. At trial you are not allowed to even mention your wife’s pregnancy or bleeding or why you were driving the way you were. Who, including the Supreme Court, is qualified to rule that not only was there no medical necessity but that even if there was such necessity it could not be introduced at trial?

There is much ridicule in this nation of ours over "dying for a toke". Yet, when the truth is explained, reasonable people understand and overwhelmingly approve of the legitimate use of medical cannabis. Americans are so compassionate. Such truth, common sense, and compassion have been banned from the Court. Juries might not agree with the insanity of the drug war so they must be kept in the dark. This is Un-American. This is the death of truth and, indeed, the death of Justice.

The patient convicted in Federal Court this month is named Brian Epis. Like Todd McCormick he will spend the next few years in a Federal prison along with murderers, arsonists, kidnappers, and child pornographers. Neither Todd nor Brian was allowed to speak the truth in Court. Their juries were not allowed to consider the truth in determining sentence. These are but two sick patients joining hundreds of others who languish in Federal dungeons for trying to help themselves and fellow patients. Others, like Peter McWilliams, died when the Federal Court banned their use of cannabis.

No one has been charged with the wrongful imprisonment of Todd McCormick or Brian Epis. No one has been charged or convicted nor imprisoned for the judicial murder of Peter McWilliams. Worst yet, no one has been indicted for the hateful killing of truth in the courtroom. We have taken a road into the heart of darkness. It is time to light a candle and pray.

           

 © 2002