Medical marijuana activist commits suicide

The blog Outside the Beltway offers some commentary on the recent suicide of a well-known medical marijuana activist, Robin Prosser, who suffered from an autoimmune disease that left her allergic to most painkillers. Unfortunately, as she turned to medical marijuana, the DEA snagged her for possession of a relatively trivial amount, and although no charges were pressed, her case still sent paranoia through her network of medical marijuana distributors. An article in the Missoulian is very sympathetic to Prosser's story; Outside the Beltway offers a more balanced look:

Let’s be clear here: Despite the sensationalism of this slanted story (”Without the relief that marijuana delivered to her, Robin Prosser killed herself”) Prosser did not kill herself because the government wouldn’t let her have marijuana; she did so because her disease robbed her of her livelihood and had her in indescribable pain for the last quarter century. We know this because she was using marijuana to relieve the pain at the time of her first suicide attempt (the police found it in her home, remember) and she was still using the drug at late as July (she couldn’t pass a drug test, despite THC being undetectable in urine a month or less after use). So, please, spare me the hysterics.

That said, it’s absolutely unconscionable that it’s against the law for people like Prosser to seek what relief they can from marijuana....

Even though I think, for a variety of reasons, that we should fight against drug abuse via education and treatment rather than criminalization, I support the goal of a sober, functional citizenry. But, aside from the probability that some number of people will find a way to abuse medical marijuana laws to get the drug for recreational use, it’s hard to make a case for denying 50-year-old chemotherapy patients a means of alleviating pain.

That really gets right down to the crux of it. The fear that some certain percentage of people will divert medical marijuana toward a recreational aim shouldn't be the limiting factor in preventing its medical use; we can't and don't take that approach with existing prescription drugs that we know are used recreationally, since otherwise we'd be depriving ourselves of useful medicine. But when the DEA feels it knows best - intervening in situations like these under the rubric of “protecting people from their own state laws” - it becomes a maze of politics and prejudice to even truly establish marijuana's medical value.