LEGALIZE MEDICAL-USE MARIJUANA

For more than two decades, Connecticut lawmakers have sought a way to legalize marijuana use by patients suffering from cancer, AIDS and other severe illnesses.

Last week, the House voted 75 to 71 to follow the lead of a few other states that permit sufferers to grow marijuana indoors as long as they first obtain a physician's certificate.  The Senate has yet to vote.

At best, this is a stopgap that pits the federal ban on all marijuana use against state laws intended to provide pain relief when a doctor certifies that smoking pot would be effective.  Although some legislatures are saying it is legal to inhale marijuana for medical purposes under state law, it remains illegal to buy the substance under federal law.  That means patients, even those who have a doctor's certificate, still have no legal way to obtain marijuana or the seeds from which it grows.

Only Congress can resolve the conflict.  One pending bill would authorize states to grow marijuana and distribute it to patients with doctors' certificates.  That's a sensible approach provided there is a consensus among health care providers that the treatment provides relief from some pain and suffering experienced by seriously ill patients.

The proposed Connecticut measure would require that patients register with the state, a necessary safeguard.  In Oregon, which has a similar law, about 9,000 patients have state-issued cards allowing them to smoke pot.

But patients, often terminally ill, still face arrest under federal law if convicted of smoking physician-certified marijuana.  Congress ought to resolve this legal discrepancy so that medical users need not live in fear.