MADISON: Chris Rickert wrote a column about the Dane County MMJ Referendum that was printed in Sunday’s Wisconsin State Journal. In it, Chris Rickert urges a no vote. I’m quoted in the article and made clear to him while being interviewed that one argument I unilaterally reject is “there are other medicines available, so cannabis isn’t needed for most patients.” Thus, I was surprised to find that same argument presented as the number one reason to vote no in the published version.

I urge a “no” vote, not because marijuana doesn’t have medicinal effects, but because so much of the medical marijuana debate misses the point.

First, some disclosure. I am not related to Jacki Rickert, a Mondovi woman who suffers from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and is the namesake of a medical marijuana bill that failed to pass the state Legislature earlier this year. I am, however, fairly well acquainted with marijuana, having spent a good chunk of my teens giggling and eating Cool Ranch Doritos through a cloud of smoke.

So what’s wrong with the medical marijuana debate?

For starters, doctors already have the ability to prescribe a range of medications to treat anxiety, nausea, glaucoma and other conditions medical marijuana users most often complain of. And they won’t impair your decision-making abilities, make you want to eat an entire gallon of butter pecan ice cream or ruin your lungs.

Further, the chemical in marijuana has long been legally available in a capsule called Marinol for the treatment of nausea. Another marijuana-derived drug, called Sativex, has been approved for treating neuropathic pain in Canada and Great Britain and is under review in this country by the Federal Drug Administration. — “Marijuana vote not about medical value,” Chris Rickert, Oct. 31, 2010, Wisconsin State Journal.

(Chris) Rickert’s mind must have been elsewhere when I told him about all the other cannabinoids in whole cannabis. Marinol is a synthetic form of THC, just one of the 60 plus cannabinoids found in whole cannabis. And since Marinol comes in capsules, it must be swallowed and absorbed to be effective. That may be very difficult for someone with nausea. And Marinol is not for everybody. As she relates in the video posted alongside this article, the aforementioned Jacki Rickert’s tongue and throat swelled up when she tried Marinol, something that has never happened with natural cannabis.

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