Bill would OK medicinal use of marijuana (in Illinois)

[Ediacara]

Bill would OK medicinal use of marijuana
By RYAN KEITH
The Associated Press
03/02/2004


Illinois Rep. Larry McKeon
(Seth Perlman/AP)

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. - For 10 years, Ronald Shaw has smoked marijuana to help him overcome severe nausea caused by the medicine that battles the AIDS virus threatening to shorten his life. Each time he lights a joint, he knows he's breaking the law.

The 38-year-old Chicagoan and other advocates asked Illinois legislators Tuesday to approve legislation that would legalize marijuana for medical purposes, saying people fighting serious illnesses aren't looking for a "cheap high."

"All I'm asking is that you don't make me a criminal in order to keep myself eating and at a weight that I can maintain and allow me to keep taking the AIDS drugs that are keeping me alive," Shaw said at a Statehouse news conference.

More at the Saint Louis Post-Dispatch

[Fovea]

1. I find it curious

that the Opus Dei and other strict constructionalists are willing to abandon medical necessity to suppress Medical Marijuana, thus abandoning a key common law concept that pre dates the Magna Charta.

It is inconsistant, and breathtakingly hypocritical.