Connecticut is on its way to becoming the thirteenth state to allow the medical use of marijuana. Legislation permitting the non-toxic herb moved easily out of the Judiciary Committee on Wednesday and has a good chance of passing the House and Senate. Patients would be allowed one caregiver to assist them in treating cancer, glaucoma, HIV, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, spinal-cord injuries, epilepsy and other medical problems.

On Friday, lawmakers began hearing testimony on the efficacy of medicinal marijuana. A teary-eyed Montel Williams addressed the legislature. Mr. Williams manages pain from multiple sclerosis using marijuana.

“I have to pray that the local law enforcement gives me a right of passage back to my state. Because when I walk out of here, I will smoke pot,” said the New York resident. “I have to stay ahead of the pain.”

At the hearing, lawmakers from both parties expressed recent shifts in their own beliefs about medical marijuana.

“I feel legislators are finally at the place where they want to act compassionately with this law,” said Rep. Penny Bacchiochi, R-Somers, who said she risked arrest more than 20 years ago to get marijuana for her husband. He eventually died of bone cancer.

Rep. Marie Kirkley-Bey, D-Hartford, said she has become a convert after two of her cousins were diagnosed cancer. She watched both die in agonizing pain.

“It took a life-changing experience to realize I was being small-minded on this issue,” Kirkley-Bey said.

For others who testified, life-changing experiences have become a cover from behind which they can attack things they know little about with virtual impunity.

Steven Steiner, founder of Americans for a Drug Free Youth, testified against allowing marijuana to the chronically ill.

“These people come here to this legislature talking about pain. You don’t know what pain is until you’ve lost a son,” he said.

Steiner’s son died from prescription drug overdose when he was 19 and Mr. Steiner believes marijuana was responsible.

Steiner may deserve condolences for his loss, but he deserves no respect whatsoever as an expert. If Steiner wishes to use his tragedy for the greater good, perhaps he could start by educating parents on the dangers of prescription drugs and the need to keep them responsibly.

Instead, Steiner deals with his grief by placing blame. The organization that was supposedly motivated by his son’s prescription overdose has done nothing but crusade against marijuana and issues press releases complaining about soft drink branding. He is a sad, broken man, but he is not an expert on marijuana or marijuana policy.

Other dissenters merely seemed resistant to change.

Rep. Lawrence Miller, R-Stratford, said he decided against “smoking some kind of a weed” after being diagnosed eight years ago with cancer.

“Medical marijuana, it’s still marijuana — put any name in front of it that you want,” Miller said. “I think we should just stick with the doctors.”

And that is what we are trying to do. Every year, more and more doctors are discovering what people in pain have known for 5,000 years. Cannabis is a phenomenal painkiller that has never caused an overdose. For some medical patients, it doesn’t even get them stoned.

“I don’t get the buzz, I don’t get the high,” Montel Williams said. “Right now, all it does for me is stop the pain.”

Whether other residents will be allowed to stop the pain will be decided soon.

I want to learn more about the Montel Williams Multiple Scerlosis Foundation.