From: 34AEJ7D@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Bill Gorman)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Medical Marijuana - Libertarian Position Paper (long)
Date: 6 Oct 92 20:15:14 GMT
Reply-To: 34AEJ7D@cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu (Bill Gorman)
Organization: Olivetti AFD
X-Fidonet: Split
Originator: wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com

Index Number: 24617

The attached is forwarded from elsewhere for those on
misc.handicap, L-HCAP, and the various echoes who have been, or are
currently, concerned with Bush's politikking with medical matters.

W. K. Gorman
-------------------------------ATTACHMENT (long)------------------------
|Newsgroups: nptn.campaign92.morrou-lord
|Path: cmuvm.csv.cmich.edu!americast.com!nptn.org!tmg
|from: tmg@nptn.org (Tom Grundner)
|subject: MARIJUANA BAN: News Release - 3/11/92
|Message-ID: <1992Sep16.150011.18178@nptn.org>
|Organization: National Public Telecomputing Network
|Date: Wed, 16 Sep 1992 15:00:11 GMT
|Approved: xx001@nptn.org
|
|
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|| LIBERTARIAN PARTY                                       Libertarian Party |
|| Defenders of Liberty           NEWS              1528 Pennsylvania Ave SE |
||                                ----                  Washington, DC 20003 |
||                                                              202-543-1988 |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
|
|
|For immediate release.                             FOR ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
|11 March 1992                  Gary Johnson, LP Media Relations: 512-441-6378
|                                           Marrou/Lord Campaign: 702-434-6362
|
|
|  LIBERTARIAN DOCTOR WARNS: BAN ON MEDICAL USE OF MARIJUANA HARMS PATIENTS
|
|
|     PHILADELPHIA -- Libertarian Party Vice Presidential candidate Dr. Nancy
|Lord said Wednesday (March 11) while campaigning in Pennsylvania that the
|Bush Administration's decision to halt distribution of marijuana for medical
|purposes was "cruel grandstanding."
|
|     Referring to Tim Braun, a 44-year-old AIDS patient in Minneapolis who
|smokes marijuana to reduce his nausea and vomiting, Dr. Lord said, "The
|decision to cut off marijuana is a decision to inflict unnecessary pain and
|suffering -- needless torture -- on Tim Braun."  Mr. Braun's situation was
|detailed in a March 10 Associated Press dispatch.
|
|     "The Bush administration's decision is cruel, because people suffering
|from AIDS, cancer, or glaucoma, and their doctors, should be able to choose
|the therapy they think is best," said Dr. Lord, a medical doctor who has
|conducted policy research for the Drug Policy Foundation in Washington, D.C.
|
|     Dr. Lord said that, based on the scientific literature on medical uses
|of smoked marijuana, "In some cases, marijuana is the best alternative as
|therapy. It is merciless medievalism to bar that alternative."
|
|     Dr. Louis W. Sullivan, Secretary of Health and Human Services, decided
|last week to bar marijuana for any additional patients. "Dr. Sullivan is a
|Bush appointee. He must carry out the drug-scapegoating political agenda of
|the Bush administration or be fired," Dr. Lord pointed out.
|
|     "The political anti-drug crusade of both the Republicans and the
|Democrats has trampled medical common sense. For example, the Food and Drug
|Administration has refused to allow doctors to prescribe marijuana although
|the FDA's own administrative law judge recommended allowing such
|prescriptions," Dr. Lord observed.
|
|     "I am a Libertarian who favors private enterprise. So, I am against the
|Public Health Service providing marijuana to patients.  Marijuana should be
|something you can buy at your pharmacy or liquor store. It should not be a
|political football of socialized medicine," she added.
|
|     Dr. Lord, 40, a medical doctor and an attorney, lives in Atlanta,
|Georgia. She and her Presidential running mate, former Alaska State
|Representative Andre Marrou, 53, expect to be on the ballot in November in
|all 50 states and the District of Columbia. America's third largest party,
|the Libertarian Party stands for a deregulated economy, civil liberties, and
|a foreign policy of nonintervention. Libertarians believe "That government
|is best which governs least."
|
|
|                                  [END]
|
|