daily nebraskan
tuesday, february 19, 1980
Freedom, of choice sometimes ignored
The Legislature's Judiciary Com
mittee hears testimony today on a
bill that would permit therapeutic
use of marijuana in Nebraska.
Provisions in the bill would permit
doctors to prescribe the drug to
patients suffering from side-effects
of chemotherapy treatment or from
glaucoma. The measure would strict
ly regulate and monitor the drug's
proposed legal use, and propose re
search to further study the effects of
marijuana - both in a general and
medical sense.
.The most important result of the
bill would be that passage would give
cancer and glaucoma patients the
choice to use a drug that has been
proven to benefit such patients. The
bill does not mandate that a doctor
prescribe the drug, nor does it re
quire that a patient use the drug in
voluntarily. The Therapeutic Research Act is a
freedom of choice measure, based
soundly on medical studies from a
variety of sources.
Ironically, the strongest oppon
ents of the bill can be expected to be
the same senators who argued for the
legalization of Laetrile on the basis
of freedom of choice.
It is strange, and in fact inexplic
able, that those senators can argue
for freedom of choice if it is helpful
in getting their bill passed, and then
deny the issue when a bill is intro
duced that they do not like.
Such a mentality sadly compli
cates the effort of Neligh Sen. John
DeCamp and other supporters of the
Therapeutic Research Act to pass a
humane bill,
Omaha Sen. Patrick Venditte, who
sponsored the Laetrile bill and
argued for its passage on the basis of
freedom of choice in cancer treat
ment, is one such confused senator,
Venditte apparently thinks that
passage of DeCamp's bill will some
how put marijuana into the hands,
lungs and minds of junior high and
grade school students.
Increased gasoline prices
are seeds of social change
Most people take the price of gasoline
as a personal insult. Paying $1.10 and more
per gallon sets more teeth on edge than
The Gong Show and blows the winds of
discontent over our fair land. Beneath the
demagoguery public relations and just plain
bitching, there lie the seeds of social
change.
The widely accepted and most likely
explanation for the high prices is the
world-wide petroleum shortage. There are
two explanations for this. One is that the in
dustrial nations of the world have greedily
overexpanded the earth's ability to supply
all of its demands, The other is a belief that
OPEC, the major oil companies or "some
one else" is withholding supplies from the
market to drive up prices.
There is support for both theories. Oil
exploration is going on in the most unlike
ly places. No place on earth is safe from a
derrick. On the other hand, OPEC follows
monopolistic oil-pricing policies and the
major oil companies are making more pro
fit than at any time in history,
"Someone else"
The solutions proposed to the "some
one else" theory include nationalizing
American oil companies, windfall profit
taxation and imperialistic war. None has
much chance of finding a majority of
champions but the second, and that idea is
floundering in a flood of lobbying in
Congress. So the only way out for the
government and the people seem to be act
ing on the "greed" theory, whether it is
reality or not,
The ideas proposed for conserving
energy are all somewhat radical. The most
publicized is a heavy tax on gasoline, 50
cents a gallon being the number currently
thrown around.
If and when such a levy is imposed, the
consumption of gasoline will amost certain
ly plummet like a Messcrschmitt in a WWII
ncwsreel. Refineries can be geared toward
producing heating oil, diesel fuel and other
products less quickly consumed than gasol
ine. And the howling will be deafening.
The poor man's alternative is gas ration
ing. Besides the money, time and effort
needed to set up the necessary structure
for handing out the coupons, the market in
counterfeit and stolen coupon will be
another headache for whoever is unfortun
ate enough to be stuck with enforcing the
rules. The gas rationing laws will be as
effective and have the same repute as the
marijuana statutes. : '
Utility consumption
Utilities are another area where savings
can be effected. However, several years ago
the citizens of Oregon led the Union and
cut their utility consumption by 0 per
cent. The utility companies of that state
.then applied for a rate increase because of;
a loss in revenues.
The rising cost of petroleum products is
a hot issue because it is a threat to an
economic state the majority of Americans
have become accustomed to since the end
of -World War II. The major thought in
economics has been, until the latter half of
the 20th Century, based on the assumption
that the majority was poor and always
would be, and the best a society could
hope-for was avoiding mass starvation.
Then came Keynes and the end of the
gold standard. Wealth became more avail
able and the trade unions made sure the
workers got a share. The creation of a
"bourgeois proletariat" got the auto
industry flying, spawned an impressive
array of consumer goods and advertising
for them, and put the Democrats firmly in
control of Congress. Now, one of the
supports of that affluence-cheap energy
is threatening to collapse and take the
structure with it.
If this is true, we all face learning how
to gather acorns and hunt deer, Or, we can
muddle through with whatever fills the
breach. Despite the rantings of the funda
mentalists and other apocalype-mongers,
the latter choice is the future.
Venditte, quite justifiably, fights
efforts to reduce penalties for posses
sion of marijuana on the premise
that lax laws will lead to more
corruption of youth.
However, DeCamp's bill is not, oy
any stretch of the imagination, an
attempt to reduce, relax or even
change the state's criminal and non
criminal penalties for recreational
possession of marijuana.
It is an attempt to provide people
such as Alma Emry the dignity of
living comfortably in adverse circum
stances Mrs. Emry was a chemotherapy
patient. She wanted to try mari
juana, because she heard that it
would reduce her nausea, her body
pain and enable her to eat and sleep
comfortably. She contacted
DeCamp's office last spring, asking
that the. state permit her to use mari
juana. DeCamp had planned to introduce
an amendment to Venditte's Laetrile
bill, but Venditte would not hear of
it, and Mrs. Emry did not get her
wish. Her husband of 30 years even
bought some marijuana illegally, so
strong was the Emry's belief that the
drug would help.
Mrs. Emry never used the drug.
She died shortly after her husband
bought it.
Her last months would have been
less painful and degrading had the
Legislature passed DeCamp's amend
ment, Laetrile supporters found their
martyr in Chad Green, whose parents
had to go to Mexico "to get the
apricot derivative for their son.
Hopefully, after two sad deaths,
the Legislature will realize that it has
an obligation to future Alva Emrys
and Chad Greens. Hopefully, indivi
duals like Sen. Venditte will practice
what they preach, and permit free
dom of choice when it is reasonable.
Certainly, it is the least that can
be done for terminal cancer patients.
Randy Essex
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Nebraskan, Room 34, Nebraska
Union, Lincoln, Neb. 68588.
What was a very nice reception and cere
mony for the upgrade of KUCV-FM's
power (12 watts to over 18,000 watts), at
Governor Thone's office was marred by the
governor's emphatic statement that "the
National Public Radio will receive a re
sounding veto", if it ever crosses his desk.
The governor added that "there is already
adequate radio service for' citizens of Nebraska."
. I don't think that the governor realizes
that many of the supporters of KUCV-FM,
a non-profit station controlled by a religi
ous institution, are heartily in support of
allowing National public Radio a listening
in Nebraska. The governor's choice of
timing of reminding us of his hard stand
against public radio left a bad taste in my
mouth.
I am very much a supporter of KUCV
Fine Arts Radio and have proved that by
adopting an hour of broadcast per day for
a year, which is a donation of $12 per
hour. Yet I continue as a supporter of the
public radio bill and in support of citizens
who are fighting for it.
As I write this letter, KUCV-FM never
went on the air this morning. The station's
short flight with higher power was nice and
quite adequate for Lincoln and the sur
rounding area. I am extremely happy about
the increased power, because we can now
receive KUCV anywhere around town on
our car radios.
The KUCV station's increased power
, was due to the gift of local Lincoln radio
station KFOR's Dick Chapin, Indeed Mr.
Chapin got a real handsome tax write-off
for the equipment that is the shedded
KFOR transmitter. An interesting twist is
that the commercial broadcaster, Chapin is
a militant anti-National Public Radio buff
who thought he was diluting the blend of
interest in NPR by donating his gift. As an
extra "bonus", he got a good tax write-off
for his disgraded junk.
Mr, Dick Chapin has attended legislative
hearings on NPR as full force against Public
Radio, as he is the owner of quite a few
commercial stations. He is on record at one
of the hearings-replying to a question of
whether he had ever listened to a NPR
broadcast. He replied that he had not,
A lot of us are real happy with KUCV
FM and are grateful to ie Seventh Day
Adventist Church for helping to make that
possible. Since "the devil works in mysteri
ous ways", we're thankful to Dick Chapin.
However, there are still" other com
munities that remain unserved by good
stations like KUCV-FM. Just because I am
pleased and fortunate to get this fine
station on my radio dial, I am not for
getting the many people in this state who
are, as yet, unserved.
Continued on Page 5
