vol2 - Page 281

 21 m
 -"-._. 67. In any medical settings physicians must make
 practical determinations about what forms of care are appro-
 priate to use in the treatment of a particular patient.
 Physicians may prefer one form of therapy over others, or may
 disagree with each other over the most app::opriate mode of
 treatment. Under our system of medical treatments we respect
 these professional differences because the_z are the essence of
 medical practice. If Dr. $paeth feels marijuana is inappro-
 priate to use in therapy, reclassification of the drug would
 not compel him to prescribe marijuana° Xf Dr. _ep!er decides
 °marijuana has an accepted medical use and that he would
 "prescribe the drug . . _ if it were legally available_" then
 changes, his opinion a decade later_ it is not my place as a
 physician to question his motivai_ons or challense his shifting
 judgments° Xnstead, I respect his right to adjust his opinions
 to suit the demands of the moments
 68. In a similar fashion, however_ DrSo $paeth,
 Hepler and Green have no right to impose their personal bias or
 treatment judgments on other physicians who, confronted with
 the same facts, reach very different conclusions° To suppress
 differing points of view only serves to politicize the practice
 of medicine and artifica!ly imposes a dangerously suffocating
 form of intellectual conformity which is enforced_ not by
 reason and facts, but by fiat and dogma.