Are we still arguing about this?

“The smoking of cannabis, even long term, is not harmful to health. . . . Sooner or later politicians will have to stop running scared and address the evidence: cannabis per se is not a hazard to society but driving it further underground may well be. ” — The Lancet, the journal of the British Medical Association, November 1995

It’s hard for me to take the debate about medical marijuana seriously. It’s hard for me to believe that we’re actually still arguing about the stuff.

No doubt some of the people who support the use of medical marijuana are disingenuous—what they really want is to be able to grow and smoke their own. And personally I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that—marijuana is a relatively benign substance compared to what most of us put in our bodies. It’s less harmful than tobacco or alcohol, and it’s no more addictive than Angry Birds.

While personally I have never been much of a fan—yes, I inhaled and I’d be suspicious of any member of my cohort who claims to have entirely avoided the stuff, which was ubiquitous during my school days— the only thing that’s wrong with marijuana is that it’s illegal. Almost all the problems associated with the drug are due to its having been criminalized in the early 20th Century.

Still, a lot of the people who are supporting the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act are people some of us fondly acknowledge as “dopeheads,” and I’m sure some of these dopeheads are friends of mine. Some of them are probably friends of yours too—if all the dopeheads came out of the closet, then we’d all understand that they’re just people like everybody else. Some of them are so honest you could (were it legal) play Texas Hold ’Em with them over the phone. Some of them might steal your amp.

They like to smoke dope for the same reason you might like to have a glass of wine. They like the way it makes them feel.

I don’t know who most of these dope fiends are, and I don’t care to guess. I almost never speculate on who might use marijuana and who might not. It’s not my business. It has nothing to do with me.

And I don’t know how good a medicine marijuana really is—it doesn’t seem to save many lives. My dad smoked it while he was dying of lymphoma yet he still died; my uncle smoked it when he was dying of AIDS yet he still died. But I still want people who are sick and dying and in pain to have the option to use marijuana if they or their doctors think it might help them feel a little better.

I am amazed that any thinking person would prohibit them from seeking that sort of relief. I am disgusted that anyone would threaten sick people and their doctors for taking palliative measures.

Personally, I am for decriminalization of the stuff. I believe that the only reason that marijuana has been demonized by our society is because many of the people who are inclined to take the sort of risks involved with obtaining and using the drug are the same sort of people who are prone to psychotic breaks and talking back to their parents. This country has real problems with prescription drugs and alcoholism and teenagers are in general miserable creatures prone to lamentable decisions. They probably shouldn’t be able to buy pot over the counter at the EZ Mart or via vending machine. (They probably shouldn’t be allowed to drive either. And they certainly shouldn’t be allowed on my lawn.).

But no one is saying that they should. If you actually read Issue 5, the “Arkansas Medical Marijuana Act,” you’ll see that it simply establishes a framework through which sick people can gain access to the drug. It doesn’t affect existing state or federal laws about possession of marijuana—it certainly does not decriminalize marijuana. Anyone who says—or implies—otherwise is lying.

And it doesn’t make it particularly easy for a “sick” person to obtain marijuana. Section 102 of the act lists the “15 debilitating conditions” that may qualify a person to receive the drug—if they are suffering from, say, multiple sclerosis or cancer or AIDS, they may get a letter from their doctor that will allow them to apply for status as a medical marijuana patient. Then the state will issue a card that will allow them to purchase marijuana from a state-regulated, nonprofit dispensary. And those cards must be renewed periodically—most of them every year.

The act also rather severely limits the number of these dispensaries—that will exist only to provide marijuana—to one for every 25 pharmacies that operate in the state. (If a patient meets the criteria and lives more than five miles away from a dispensary, he may grown up to six cannabis plants for personal use.)

Under these rules, it sounds like scoring pot would be about as exciting as renewing your driver’s license.

Now granted, none of this seems likely to me to put a serious dent in any illegal drug trade. A few hurting people will probably stop breaking the law and obtain their weed through legal means and no doubt some pot smokers will try to convince their doctors to write them a note. Some doctors probably will.

Because there are people who see this initiative as a foot in the door. Because they—like me—believe that marijuana ought to be legal and available, not just to people in pain but to anyone (any adult) who wants it. So what? If anything, the deglamorization of marijuana is likely to decrease its recreational use among young people and the would-be hipsters. If marijuana were hauled into the light and revealed as a relatively benign palliative agent that anyone could grow at home, I imagine some thrill-seekers would switch to absinthe. It’s only cool because it’s forbidden, and it’s only forbidden because some people—for whatever reason—find it politically expedient to pretend it is the devil’s weed.

To scare you.