Most Americans rightly object when the government attempts to meddle in their medical decisions. And that’s one reason that voters in more than a dozen states have already approved measures to permit doctors to prescribe marijuana for medical purposes.

Rep. Tom Rukavina, DFL-Pike, has introduced legislation that would do the same thing here in Minnesota. The measure deserves to become law.

For far too long, critics of medical marijuana have suggested that allowing doctors to prescribe an herbal medicine used for centuries would send an inconsistent message to young people, or provide new opportunities for young people to obtain pot.

Such arguments aren’t well-founded. For one thing, young people who want marijuana have no trouble obtaining it right now, and that’s not going to change regardless of the Legislature’s action on Rukavina’s bill.

As for conflicting messages, young people deal with those all the time. Besides, thousands of drugs, many far more potent than marijuana, are routinely prescribed by doctors. Should morphine, methadone, Oxycontin, Percocet or Vicodin, all powerful mind-altering chemicals, be prohibited because some people abuse these drugs? If not, shouldn’t a milder drug, like marijuana, also be allowed to help patients relieve pain, reduce stress, or improve appetites during chemotherapy?

Supporters of medical marijuana aren’t a bunch of drug abusers looking for a loophole. As we reported in our Ely edition last week, they include people like former professional photographer K.K. Forss, an Ely resident, who recently testified in favor of Rukavina’s bill. Forss, who describes himself as a conservative Christian, has used marijuana to bring relief from severe and chronic pain he continues to suffer due to a ruptured disc, subsequent surgeries and other related complications. Forss, who is now on full disability benefits, also takes a long list of other prescribed, and often debilitating, medications, which have further ravaged his body. With marijuana, he has found a drug that, for him, has proven an effective pain reliever, one that allows him to sleep several hours at a time, and does so without the harmful side effects of many other pharmaceuticals. Use of marijuana has also allowed him to reduce his use of other harmful prescribed medications— which means less damage to his body and less expense to taxpayers.

Yet, as it stands today, the state of Minnesota could send Forss to jail, or impose fines, for the mere act of seeking relief from his suffering.

That shouldn’t be the role of government. Medical decisions should be made by patients, in consultation with their doctors. While government should surely oversee the effectiveness of the drugs doctors prescribe, a long list of recent studies have shown that marijuana does provide real benefits to certain patients.

Unfortunately, federal studies have been limited or colored by the same anti-drug bias that has kept marijuana criminalized in the U.S. for decades. As a candidate, President Obama promised a more thoughtful and open-minded approach to the issue. Minnesotans are ready for the same.