Cruel Hoaxes

A bill to allow medical marijuana was killed in the Connecticut House yesterday.

A freshman legislator, Penny Bacchiochi of Somers, brought the 151-member House chamber to silence when she said that no anti-nausea medications would help her husband when he was suffering from terminal bone cancer. After an operation, he became a paraplegic and suffered intense pain.

"A courageous doctor took us aside, and he told us that my husband needed to try marijuana," said Bacchiochi, 41. "It was obtained at great legal risk to my family, but it worked, and it worked wonders. And it gave him back some quality of life. I will always remember how my husband suffered, and I will always remember if this legislature had passed a bill like this, he would have suffered less."

But the bill went down by a vote of 79-64. "I consider this a cruel hoax," said a leading opponent of the measure on the House floor, parroting the famous words of former Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey on the subject.

It looks like federal anti-drug propaganda already works pretty well at the state level, even without this.