Next year the Tennessee state legislature may take up the controversial topic of medical marijuana.  14 other states have passed or are considering legislation legalizing cannabis for medical use only, despite federal law prohibiting use for any reason.  The House Health and Human Resources Committee have decided to conduct an extensive collaborative study by state agriculture, health, and law enforcement officials to be delivered to them no later than February 15th of next year.

The issue came out when state Representative Jeanne Richardson, a Democrat from Memphis, proposed a bill that allows people suffering from serious illnesses to apply for and receive prescriptions for the plant.  

An estimated 25,000 Tennesseans already use cannabis illegally to relieve pain and symptoms of their chronic diseases, so the bill would legalize and regulate that usage. Licensed farmers and pharmacies would make the usage safer for everyone involved, as these chronically ill patients would no longer have to turn to the black market for what they honestly consider to be medicine.  

Two weeks of debate resolved with the decision to conduct an extensive study before making a final decision. Many in the legislature are hesitant to enact such legislation. Representative Joey Hensley, a Republican from Hohenwald, is a doctor concerned that we don’t know enough about dosage levels or how to prescribe it, one reason why a study needs to be done.  It’s status as an illegal drug has prevented doctors from knowing anything about dosage.

Others are simply skittish because cannabis has been used for so long in the United States as a purely recreational drug.  No one wants to look heartless in the face of chronically ill patients asking for legal relief, but the plant has been embedded into the cultural consciousness for a long time as something bad and harmful.  

That kind of cultural programming is hard to disengage, despite mountains of evidence that the plant has been safely used for literally thousands of years by cultures around the world as a pain reliever. It is very difficult if not impossible to find any verifiable proof of a death directly linked to cannabis use in any records, and with such a long history of use, (over 5,000 years) you would think you would find something.

The only reports of "death by cannabis" were found, upon further examination, to really be caused by other drugs, like heroin, used in conjunction with cannabis. This is a safety record that even medicine cabinet staples like Aspirin (causing approximately 7,000 deaths a year in the United States alone) cannot match.  

Using “it’s bad because it’s illegal” as a justification for keeping a product illegal is a form of circular reasoning destructive to the collective good.   

Most laws are intended to protect and help individuals and society, but sometimes laws are enacted that do not serve such purposes.  The confusion between Hemp and Marijuana and the subsequent ban on Hemp is a great example.   

Though the two plants are members of the same species, they have been bred to achieve different ends, and industrial hemp does not contain enough tetrahydrocannabinol to make it a psychoactive substance. Simply put, it is impossible to get a “high” from Hemp, yet it is still illegal.  

Hemp has some of the strongest natural fibers known to man and was used by our forefathers for rope, canvas, shoes, paper, and countless other products.  It is simply a wonderful industrial material that for some reason is banned in most of the United States.  It’s like banning cotton, it simply doesn’t make any sense.  

It will always be difficult for elected officials to legalize something that some of their constituents still believe is harmful because they risk losing votes. The public needs unbiased education free from propagandistic viewpoints about the plant. Public opinion will have to change before representatives will have the courage to change legislation.