May 22, 2015      4:44 PM
Smith: Medical Marijuana and a Lesson in Political Morality and Courage
From the Left: QR’s liberal columnist Glenn W. Smith argues that lawmakers too often treat real people as bureaucratic abstractions and recalls a lesson in political courage from 35 years ago that should give us pause.
The
Texas
Legislature – yes, that legislature – passed a limited medical
marijuana bill that will give epilepsy sufferers access to cannabis oil. It is
a small but important progressive step forward.
The
passage of this bill reminded me of a 1980 story of judicial compassion and
political courage I was lucky enough to break as a reporter for the Houston
Chronicle.
Moved
by the suffering of a cancer patient in Trinity, Texas, State District Judge Erwin “Ernie” Ernst ordered the Walker
County sheriff to retrieve confiscated marijuana from the sheriff’s vault and
give it to the cancer sufferer. Marijuana was known to relieve the extreme
nausea of chemotherapy – but it’s use for even that
purpose remained outlawed.
Before
ascending to the bench, Ernst had been a tough prosecutor in Houston. Let’s
just say he wasn’t known for coddling criminals. And the cancer patient he
moved to help was certainly no criminal. He was a middle-aged East Texan who
wouldn’t have known a marijuana plant if he’d stepped on one.
To read the complete column
from Glenn W. Smith, click on the R&D Department.
By Glenn W. Smith
|