For a small number of patients, even aggressive opiate therapies are not sufficient. Unless alternative pain treatments are found for such patients, they will continue to suffer. For those individuals, their daily lives are often tortuous. As a physician, I am acutely aware of the disturbing connection between intractable pain, overwhelming despair, and suicide.

I can state confidently, as a physician with an extensive practice and specialized expertise in pain management, that marijuana can prove (and has proven) medically useful to at least some chronic pain patients. Accordingly, I believe that physicians should be able to recommend and/or prescribe marijuana to patients for whom it is medically appropriate. Absent that authority, my ability to treat my patients and provide relief from horrific pain is undermined, as is the trust essential to therapeutic relationship.

Dr. Gracer is Director of Orthopedic Medicine for ChiroView. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Family Physicians and a Diplomate of the American Academy of Pain Management.

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