Federal Penalties for Doctors Prescribing Pot

Re “U.S. Threatens Penalties if Doctors Prescribe Pot,� Dec. 31:

Supporters of the California and Arizona propositions are half-right and half-wrong when they criticize the Clinton administration for threatening to prosecute physicians who prescribe marijuana. They are right that marijuana probably is not a dangerous drug, that it probably is beneficial for certain patients and that the administration’s policy is founded more on political calculations than on medical science. Nonetheless, the president has Article VI of the Constitution squarely on his side.

For a quarter of a century, marijuana has been regulated as a Schedule I drug under federal law. Article VI is quite unequivocal: The Constitution and U.S. laws made in accordance with it are “the Supreme Law of the Land,� taking precedence over state laws. The people of California and Arizona simply do not have the authority to change federal law with their ballot initiatives.

BRUCE BIMBER

Assistant Professor

Dept. of Political Science

UC Santa Barbara

* Your Dec. 31 editorial, “Legal and a Crime Too,� buttresses our commitment to a drug policy that is based on science, not ideology. A central tenet of our national drug control strategy is to protect the integrity of the American medical system and the factual process on which it is based. None of us in government is opposed to the therapeutic use of any substance that passes scientific scrutiny.

In December, the Office of National Drug Control Policy committed $1 million to fund a comprehensive public review--by the National Academy of Science’s Institute of Medicine--of all scientific evidence on marijuana. Our policy toward marijuana is objective and free from political posturing. Should this medical review indicate that smoked pot has any effective therapeutic use, we would act on this scientific evidence.

We cannot use the metaphor of “war� to describe our effort to reduce drug use and its consequences. The 3.6 million addicted Americans who are the victims of drug abuse are our children, classmates, neighbors and work mates, not the “enemy.� Our policies must be compassionate, our purpose to overcome drug addiction.

BARRY R. McCAFFREY

Director, Office of National

Drug Control Policy, Washington

* In your Dec. 27 article on the desire of federal officials to prosecute doctors who prescribe marijuana for medicinal purposes, federal officials “scoff at the arguments . . . that the drug is physically beneficial.� I scoff right back at them. It’s a contemptible law that gives the cops control over my medical treatment.

Thomas Constantine, DEA administrator, asks, “Why should we allow a few individuals, who write checks in the comfort of their upper-class homes, to dictate policies which we know are harmful?� Isn’t that a description of the way multinational corporations “donate� to politicians to allow poisoning of our air and water?

RICHARD A. HEIN

Fullerton

* Perhaps these “stick to the letter of the law� proponents would soften up if suffering cancer and AIDS patients were to march en masse to the White House and promise President Clinton that they wouldn’t inhale either.

ROSEMARIE JITNER

Los Angeles