Today's Downsizer-Dispatch . . .

Please forward to caring friends . . .

Someone you love has cancer or HIV or chronic pain. They vomit constantly. Their medications won't stay down. They face death, and constant misery on the way to death. How can you sit idly by and watch them suffer and decline?

You must act! You must do something! But what?

Doctors everywhere are scared. They're afraid to prescribe sufficient pain medication for fear of provoking the wrath of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). It could ruin their practice. Destroy their lives. And land them in jail.

But you must do something! You must find help somewhere!

You think of calling the son of a friend. The son attends college. College students know where to get marijuana, right? That could be the solution. It could ease the pain, prevent the nausea, and allow the medications to do their life saving work.

But can you really make that call? And expose your friend's son to legal danger? And yourself as well? And what will happen to the rest of your family if you go to jail? Is it right to spread the risk of wreckage and ruin to others?

What will you do?

More-and-more Americans face these moral dilemmas everyday. These horrible choices have changed public opinion. Polls are consistently showing that Americans favor legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes under a doctor's care and supervision. This is reflected in the 8 states that have passed referendums providing for medical marijuana. And legislatures in 3 other states have done the same.

It matters not that the 10th Amendment reserves such decisions to state governments. Both Congress and the Supreme Court have ignored the Constitution and given the DEA license to ruin lives, regardless of state law, Constitutional limits, or the will of the people.

But not everyone in Congress is content to let this lawless federal thuggery continue. The Hinchey-Rohrbacher Amendment would shield doctors and patients in states with medical marijuana laws from federal harassment and arrest. Last year this amendment was defeated, 161 to 264, but it will be offered again this year and support is growing. Now is the time to begin urging Congress to pass the Hinchey-Rohrbacher Amendment!

Will you someday be faced with the dire choices described above? Do you care about those who already face these choices? How would you want to be treated? What do you want for yourself and your loved ones? What will you do to ease the suffering of the afflicted? You can do something right now. Send a message to Congress urging them to pass the Hinchey-Rohrbacher Amendment. You can do so here.

Thank you for being a DC Downsizer!

Perry Willis Communications Director DownsizeDC.org, Inc.