Lawmakers finally show a bit of common sense
Coda • GREG BEAN
My father died a hard death from lung cancer in 1983. From the first diagnosis, about six months before he passed, there was never any real hope, since his type of cancer is nearly always fatal.

Still, he tried to beat it with ever-more aggressive chemotherapy treatments that took his hair and his body and his energy.

Toward the end, he weighed about 120 pounds, in large part because he had no appetite and didn't eat.

I had a solution. I offered to get him some marijuana to stimulate his appetite, but he refused on the grounds that even if it worked and made him more comfortable, it was still illegal and he didn't want to spend his last days in jail.

I know his experience was not unique, and I've heard dozens of versions of it over the years, stories of people who might have been comforted by the medicinal use of marijuana, and were denied that comfort. But I've always been angry about that, about the fact that our government was so stubborn it would refuse a small comfort to a terminal patient. And they refused it on the grounds that marijuana is a socalled "gateway" drug that can lead to the use of more destructive chemicals, like heroin or cocaine. Not all marijuana users graduate to heroin, they opined, but all heroin users started with marijuana, so we can't allow its use in any circumstance.

As if a terminal patient had the time to graduate to heroin use.

Successive federal governments have held the line on the medical use of marijuana for cancer patients and glaucoma patients, even though 13 individual states passed laws legalizing it for that purpose. The fed's intransigence resulted in some weird news footage as federal drug agents raided medical marijuana outlets permitted by local law.

We all knew it was only a matter of time before common sense prevailed, and it looks like that sea change may finally be taking place. Among the other positive changes being made by the Obama administration is its decision to stop prosecutions for medical marijuana use.

Perhaps they are just bowing to public opinion. The majority of Americans support the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes, and almost 50 percent support the decriminalization of small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

But perhaps they've just decided that keeping marijuana out of the hands of terminal patients and patients suffering from diseases like glaucoma is another institutionalized cruelty that we can simply do without.

Like waterboarding, for example.

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In the years I've been writing this column, I've written at least a half-dozen times about the predatory practices of the credit card industry. At one point, I even added up all the offers for credit I received in a month — over $100,000 — and noted that if I had a more nefarious nature, I'd just take those cards, max them out for cash advances and retire to Bora Bora under an assumed name.

In the last few months, the practices have become even more predatory. Almost every company I've done business with in the past has sent notices about increased interest rates. And in another letter, they've sent word that my credit limit has been increased and included checks with the exhortation to "write

check now, and pay it off later." I've torn those checks up and pitched them in the trash, but in this lousy economy, I'm sure lots of people who couldn't afford it have taken the card companies up on their offers.

In the old days, people who charged such insane interest rates hired leg-breakers to collect every week and went to prison for usury if they were caught. These days, we consider giving them a federal bailout. That's obviously got to stop. Yes, I understand that everyone who uses credit cards to buy things they don't need and can't afford bears some of the blame. There are lots of us who could use a refresher course in personal responsibility.

But I applaud the Obama administration and Congress for the package of credit card reformlegislation our new president wants on his desk posthaste.

Among other things, the reform legislation would ban companies from increasing interest rates on existing balances, make sure consumers are given at least 45 days' notice before their interest rates are increased and make it more difficult to issue credit cards to minors.

The American Bankers Association, of course, opposes the reform legislation, using scare tactics that it would restrict credit at a time when consumers need it the most. But that's just garbage, and it's wise to remember that this is the same industry that gave us subprime loans and put us in this miserable economic jackpot to begin with.

Last month, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan credit card reform bill, and the Senate could pass its own version as early as this week. That means a bill could land on Obama's desk this summer. Most of the reforms wouldn't begin until 2010, which may be too late for many, but it would be a good start.

• • •

And while we're passing out kudos, we probably ought to give one to the Bush administration which, in helping to wreck our economy, was also instituting a clever plan to reduce illegal immigration from Mexico.

While many Americans have scratched Mexico off their vacation lists because of the disease formerly known as swine flu and the climate of violence, many Mexicans have scratched America off their lists of countries to emigrate to in search of a better life.

In large part because our economy is so bad, The New York Times reported last week that for the first time in decades, there was an extraordinary decline in the number of Mexicans emigrating to America — legally and illegally. As a matter of fact, the number declined by 25 percent in 2008 alone.

In other words, by wrecking the economy and getting rid of so many jobs, the people who ran our country for eight long years may have inadvertently reduced the tide of illegal immigration across our borders. If there are no jobs in America, there's no reason to come here.

So thanks, George. Thanks a lot.

Gregory Bean is the former executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.