Censoring Medical Marijuana Information Helps No One

[Urdedpal]

Recently, local news outlets have reported that Rawlins-area radio stations KIQZ-FM and KRAL-AM banned public service announcements dealing with medical marijuana from their airwaves after complaints from, among others, Rawlins Chief of Police Mike Reed. Censorship of information about medical marijuana helps no one.

The three PSAs were produced by my organization, the Marijuana Policy Project. They do not advocate use of marijuana or any drug. They simply offer information, and present three individuals talking about personal experiences with medical marijuana: Talk show host Montel Williams, who suffers from multiple sclerosis; recent U.S. Supreme Court plaintiff Angel Raich, who suffers from a brain tumor and several other painful conditions; and novelist Tom Robbins, whose mother went blind from glaucoma.

In one of the spots, Montel Williams tells listeners, "Like many of the 1 million people living with multiple sclerosis, I'm in pain every day. Sometimes my nerves are so raw that if you brush up against me in an elevator, I want to scream....

"I've tried the strongest prescription painkillers available and they didn't help. In fact, they left me in a stupor. It was difficult to work and play with my kids.

"Desperate, I tried medical marijuana. It helped me when other drugs failed."

This is reality. It's what we hear every day from patients all across America -- patients far less famous than Montel Williams. So just what was it that the police chief and two radio stations found so threatening?

Chief Reed told one newspaper reporter, "this [marijuana] is a gateway drug into harder drugs." This is precisely the sort of misinformation that our PSAs were designed to clear up. As Williams so eloquently explains, medical marijuana often allows patients to reduce or eliminate their use of narcotics that are far more toxic and addictive than marijuana. And numerous independent scientists -- including the prestigious Institute of Medicine, in a White House-commissioned report -- have verified that there is no evidence that marijuana causes users to turn to hard drugs.

The Associated Press story quotes Scott Freeman, an ad salesman for the stations, as saying, "it was not the practice of this station to promote that type of thing because it was illegal." Putting aside the oddness of an ad salesman speaking for the station about broadcast policies, Freeman's statement is puzzling.

Does he really mean that his stations refuse to broadcast any discussion of whether a current law is right or wrong? That it's somehow wrong to ask whether our present laws make sense or need to be changed? How on earth would our democracy function if such questions can't be aired and discussed openly?

In any case, he is clearly in a minority in the world of radio. Our PSAs have aired over 11,000 times on radio stations all over the country, from Washington, D.C. and Honolulu to Lubbock, Texas and Durango, Colorado.

Freeman and Reed seem to regard medical marijuana as a fringe issue, but it's not. In November 2004, 62% of Montana voters endorsed that state's medical marijuana initiative, which is now law. A total of 11 states now protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and jail, and a November 2005 Gallup poll put national support for such measures at an astounding 78 percent.

That support comes from the medical community as well as the general public. A long list of medical and public health organizations, including the American Public Health Association, the American Nurses Association, the American Academy of HIV Medicine and many others, have endorsed laws to permit medical use of marijuana under physician supervision.

This is an important discussion. KIQZ-FM and KRAL-AM have done their listeners a disservice by banning it from their airwaves.

Bruce Mirken is director of communications for the Washington, D.C.- based Marijuana Policy Project, Marijuana Policy Project - Home.

Source: Casper Star-Tribune (WY)
Copyright: 2006 Casper Star-Tribune
Contact: letters@casperstartribune.net
Website: Casper Star-Tribune