So What Is Their Argument Anyway?
As much as I try to find policy justification for our government's medical policy towards sick people, I am unable to locate it. Others are coming to the same conclusion. Take a look at this snippet in yesterday's Cleveland Plain Dealer:
[Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation] said the decision was a "victory for the future of our children and our families." Medical marijuana, she said, would cover "anything and everything people want to use as an excuse to smoke pot."

But she had another comment, too. Feeling good is not medical treatment, she said. "We don't want truly sick and dying people to be scammed into thinking they are being medically treated by smoking pot."

And it raises the question of why dying people shouldn't be able to do what they want.I have known a few people who died of lung-related illnesses and smoked cigarettes to the end. You probably do, too. It's a terrible thing. But I was always baffled by the expressions of shock and horror about stories that somebody was smoking on one lung, on oxygen or on his or her deathbed. What's the difference at that point? If there is one place somebody ought to be free to smoke without being hassled, a deathbed should be it.

"Where do you draw the line?" Fay asked in one interview. "Is crack cocaine a medicine?" No, it's not. But if it gave relief to a dying patient who wanted it, what's the harm? Who's the victim?