“If you look at alcohol prohibition as a model, the federal government did not, on its own, decide to abolish alcohol prohibition,” said Paul Armentano, deputy director of NORML. “It only did so after a number of states opted out of it.”

Armentano argued that the Drug Enforcement Administration should downgrade its classification of cannabis from a Schedule I drug, which “defines it as having no accepted medical utility and places it in the same category of harm as heroin.”

DUPED BY THE DOPE LAW?

Opponents of the initiative are quick to point out that the federal government’s classification of cannabis, although potentially flawed, means that Massachusetts should not legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes.

“Medicinal is the word we have a difficulty with because marijuana is a Schedule I drug under the DEA, Drug Enforcement Agency, and the FDA has not recognized it as it being medicinal,” said Dr. Richard V. Aghababian ’70, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, an organization of more than 24,000 physicians and medical students in Massachusetts.

The Medical Society opposes the ballot measure primarily because the organization does not believe that scientific research has conclusively proven that marijuana use has health benefits.

“If it were Schedule II, it could be subjected to rigorous scientific study to prove its efficacy over currently available drugs on things like nausea, chemotherapy, cancer, and the like,” Aghababian continued.

John S. Scheft ’81, an attorney who represented the Mass. Prevention Alliance before the Supreme Court of Massachusetts on issues related to Question 3, argues that the text of the proposed law is poorly constructed and contains several loopholes. Scheft, who has given legal advice to anti-medical marijuana groups, believes that the law which would be enacted by Question 3 will allow unbridled access to marijuana without the presence of a “debilitating condition.” The law, he pointed out, contains a clause granting medical marijuana use for “other conditions as determined in writing by a qualifying patient’s physician.”

According to Scheft, a majority of medical marijuana users in California and Colorado, states which have already legalized medical marijuana, are people with a history of addiction and fake diagnoses for conditions like anxiety and chronic pain.

“I really think a lot of voters are getting ‘doped’ because they’ll say that they think marijuana is really important for very sick people and I say I agree, but read the law, that’s not who’s going to get access to it,” he said.

HASHING OUT THE ISSUE

For many Harvard students, the legalization of medical marijuana is a clear cut issue: it should be legalized, they say.

“I support it,” said Donny R. Yung ’16. “If the doctors think it is a good treatment, it shouldn’t be off the table.”

Kate R. Carlow ’15, a resident of Connecticut, which last month became the 16th state in the nation to legalize medical marijuana, echoed Yung’s statements.

“I do believe that medical marijuana should be legalized,” said Carlow, adding, “I have friends who have benefited [from medical marijuana]”.