By David Shapiro

I've avoided using marijuana all my life, not easy in a generation where it's been a primary cultural currency.

It wasn't from moral reservations; smoking pot just wasn't to my taste. On the rare occasions when I felt a need to alter my consciousness, I preferred to get drunk or take a nap.

I finally indulged recently when an alternative pastry chef I know baked me some special brownies to help relieve the God-awful nausea from chemotherapy I'm taking for my multiple sclerosis.

The baker's mother swore marijuana got her through chemotherapy for cancer.

I felt a bit naughty and knew I was on the edge of Hawai'i's medical marijuana law, which requires that you get a license to use pot and grow your own.

I looked at it as an experiment to see if it was worth the trouble of obtaining a permit and planting a crop.

My doctors were unenthusiastic, but said it wouldn't likely hurt me.

I'm comfortable that I was a responsible adult making a reasonable personal choice that harmed nobody else.

The jury's still out on whether the brownies did me enough good to warrant using pot for my next treatment.

The experience left me offended by the Bush administration's heavy-handed assaults on states that legalize marijuana for medical use.

With our country and Hawai'i in crisis over the abuse of truly dangerous drugs such as crystal methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin, our national drug czar's main concern this election season is battling marijuana, the gnat of illicit drugs.

Drug policy chief John Walters is furiously campaigning against ballot measures in Montana, Oregon and Alaska to loosen restraints on marijuana for medical purposes, and in the case of Alaska, for all private uses.

And the Justice Department continues to threaten oppressive federal criminal prosecutions of doctors and patients who prescribe and use marijuana legally under state laws.

Such misplaced priorities explain why our nation's war on drugs has gained little ground since the Reagan years.

It's further manifestation of the Bush administration's determination to force its own conservative morality on us all, even when it conflicts with the traditional Republican gospel of individual and states' rights.

There are legitimate public health and law enforcement arguments for moving slowly on legalizing marijuana. It has never faced the rigorous testing of prescription drugs, profit motives of some advocates are suspect, and as with alcohol and tobacco, pot can cause serious problems for habitual abusers — although not nearly to the extent of the hard drugs.

But state medical societies and local prosecutors are quite capable of voicing these concerns without the overbearing presence of a federal government that has far more important drug problems to worry about.

The ballot initiatives give voters a chance to listen to both sides and fairly decide what makes the most sense for their states.

The Bush administration's claim that medical marijuana is a "Trojan horse" that will lead to legalization of all drugs hasn't held up in Hawai'i and the eight other states that have legalized pot for health purposes since 1996.

We've seen no credible efforts to legalize other drugs, and there have been few serious problems of any kind here or in other states with marijuana programs.

Medical studies are increasingly persuasive that there's a place for safe use of marijuana in treating pain, nausea, stiffness and other symptoms associated with cancer, joint disease, eye problems and neurological disorders.

When there's no agreement on compelling government interest, matters of personal morality are best left to individual judgment — like the choice I made for myself when conventional solutions failed me.

David Shapiro, a veteran Hawai'i journalist, can be reached by e-mail at dave@volcanicash.net.