I recently received this comment, probably meant for my rants against the poor Minnesota medical marijuana bill vetoed by Gov. Pawlenty and my further commentary that subsequent bills in NH, NY, NJ and an initiative in AZ are making a huge mistake by trading away the patient’s right to grow at home:
Russ, It wasn’t that long ago that The Stash seemed to support the idea that the push for MMJ might be hindering the efforts for legalization. You’ve got to pick your soapbox. I personally feel the medical access issue is vastly more urgent, and if it delays legalization, that’s unfortunate but compassion demands the sick, disabled, and dying be taken care of first. You nearly applauded Gov. Pawlenty’s veto which denied access for terminally ill people. True, the law didn’t go far enough, but what do you say to those terminally ill who will suffer unnecessarily until they die? Prohibition is costly, silly, ineffective, and illogical, but denial of medicine is cruel and inhumane.
Currently in Minnesota, marijuana is illegal for sick and healthy alike. But if me and a terminally ill cancer patient go to different dealers and pick up a couple of ounces of weed, and we’re both caught by police, who do you think is more likely to be prosecuted for the felony and incarcerated for five years? Who do you think is more likely to have the cop exercise some “personal discretion” and just confiscate the bag and send on their way? Do you really think any Minnesota DA wants the bad media of taking a frail dying balding gaunt wheelchair-ridden patient to court? Besides, in Minnesota, possession of 42.5 grams (1½ ounce) or less is only a $200 fine and no jail time, so I’m not convinced anyone has to suffer unnecessarily but for want of a connection, not lack of a medical marijuana law.
Personally, I’m getting a little bit tired of the “I’m a patient, you’re a criminal” crowd telling me locking them up for marijuana possession is “cruel and inhumane”, but because I’m healthy, locking me up for marijuana possession is merely “silly, ineffective, and illogical”. My freedom is not worth any less just because I’m cancer-free, and we can all die at any time. Rachel Hoffman and Theresa Anthony didn’t have cancer, but they are just as dead from “silly, ineffective, and illogical” prohibition as anyone who’s succumbed to cancer.
We all agree that nobody should be busted for marijuana, and the 95% who are not medical users have been more than supportive of medical marijuana legislation that tells us to get in the back of the bus for a while so we may exercise compassion for the least among us. We get it: our high can wait so cancer patients can merely live without pain.
But at what point does medical marijuana stop serving the cause of opening people’s minds, educating them about cannabis, easing public fears, and furthering the cause of legalization for all? For me, it is at the point where medical marijuana laws forbid home growing.
Part of what I revere about medical marijuana is that it shatters the paradigm of intermediaries and pharmaceuticals between me and my health care. Laws that pharmaceuticalize and monopolize marijuana production and distribution make medical marijuana more like the dysfunctional health care / pharmaceutical / health insurance debacle the United States currently needs to escape from.
Maybe that line is different for you. Maybe you’re cool with the idea of only terminal patients can have marijuana, and only if they don’t grow their own (or if they do, not outside, and only with an ID card with their name, address, and photo on it, plus a “clear designation” that they’re a grower), and only if they’re locked into black-market-price dispensary gouging, and only if they’re fingerprinted and registered with the FBI, and only if their transactions are recorded in a database searchable by law enforcement, and only if they’ve never had a marijuana felony, and only if they medicate alone in a locked room more than 1000′ from a school on odd-numbered Tuesdays in months with an “R” in them… so long as the terminally ill don’t suffer, right?
Well, how far does that slippery slope slide? What if the next bill/initiative mandates monthly home inspections by law enforcement to ensure no home growing? What if it requires that patients receive dispensary marijuana in powder form encased in gelcaps so it can’t be smoked? What if it only allows just cancer patients and AIDS patients – nobody else — to use and only if they are two months from death? What if the law expressly allows employers, landlords, and government to discriminate against medical marijuana patients in hiring, housing, and benefits? What will legislators/activists have to give away in a medical bill/initiative before the excuse of “compassion demands the sick, disabled, and dying be taken care of first” no longer works for you?
Medical marijuana has existed for twelve years, is working successfully in thirteen states, has seen teen use go down in every state that can measure it, has not led to abuses or safety issues in those states, is contributing tax revenues in some states, and enjoys 70%-80% support in public opinion polls, including winning in a midwestern state (Michigan) with more votes than Obama and sweeping 83 out of 83 counties, even the John McCain counties. So why the hell do some activists feel the need to pre-emptively compromise with law enforcement lobbies and reefer-mad prohibitionists by watering down these newest bills/initiatives?
After a dozen years, medical marijuana laws should be more inclusive, covering more conditions, with fewer restrictions, not the opposite.
Finally, “what do you say to those terminally ill who will suffer unnecessarily until they die?” Take the risks and get someone to buy you an illegal baggie like I did for fifteen years or move to Oregon (or any of the other dozen medical states that will let you grow your own.) And quit extorting me with “compassion” for a lousy bill/initiative that will help you in the short term, but could negatively affect 95% of us in the long term, long after you’re dead. Have some compassion for the rest of us.
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Brian Kerr, I would be as frustrated as I am now, but I would also be happy if access was granted for some of those who need it. I’m not in agreement with the “all or nothing” attitude.
@The Bluzguy
What if a law is passed but you condition did not qualify ?
High East:
>I certainly don’t want to be roped into the discussion of poor sick people or debate sad stories. Everyone has one of those.
You might think that’s a clever way of implying that I am lying without having the guts to say it outright, but it’s transparent. I don’t need anyone to cosign my stories because they’ve been documented so when someone libels me I can simply file litigation if it adversely impacts my reputation. So I’m not worried about your mediocre attempt to subvert my credibility. I assure you, it has been established.
I’m writing under my real name. All you have to do is google it or google “Smoking Your Meds”. I am a known journalist and I do not lie about things like this.
Your missing the point I’m trying to make, again, and again.
I blame myself. I must not be articulating it well enough. I certainly don’t want to be roped into the discussion of poor sick people or debate sad stories. Everyone has one of those. The topic is dangerous medical laws and their long term effect on prohibition.
“Also, please stop referring to medical marijuana as holistic medicine.”
Hmmm, No.
Holistic herbal remedy is pretty right on with what natural marijuana as medicine is. Perhaps not the truest sense of the origines of holism, or the way the ancient Chinees viewed herbal cures, but in our pop culture “Holistic herbal remedey” is synonymous with “ Natural herbal remedy”.
If you want “real medicine” in our pop culture you’ll have to have the compounds synthesized and turned into pills or serums. Looking at a couple of the bills proposed right now I suspect the end around coming at you is that they will keep control of the plant, allow you use of it for the next couple of years and then take it away in lue of compounds and pills that they will force on you. The FDA will deem the plant bad and, ultimately, bring us full circle to where we are right now.
Granted this is just speculation and I have no evidence of this being a planned conspiracy or anything. I just think that the chain of events happening, with some language I see in the newer proposals, combined with the known ideology of the DEA, could lead to an outcome similar to this. I‘ll also grant you that I see many other events happening in other states that lead me to other conclusions. A few states have me throwing my hands into the air and cheering.
The point is (again) that just because a medical marijuana bill is out there in your state doesn’t mean it represents progress and very likely could benifit the prohibitionists more than anyone else in this fight. Caution and scrutiny is what I am saying. You cant just hop on and hope for the best. We have an enemy in this fight and they are clever and ruthless. If not supervised, they will use these bills against us. If we are not steadfast enough they will trick us inot siging away all our hard work.
Just so there’s no confusion, my last comment was a reply to High East’s last comment.
I think that’s kind of a stretch. While the law may be unfair, the caged human made the choice to break it. I doubt there are many terminally ill folk out there dying out of choice. At least you can avoid incarceration by obeying the (however unreasonable) laws with hope they change. Are there mothers out there putting their kids at risk in order to enjoy a little buzz? If so, their priorities are way out of whack. The sick, disabled, and dying didn’t choose to be that way. You make the decision to break the law because you want to. Patients break the law because, for many, it’s the only way to live a more normal life. For you, pot is fun, and I believe you should have the freedom to enjoy it, but for many, pot is a lifeline. Are the laws poorly constructed? Well, that’s why we’re all here trying to change that. Every time one more person has access, even if for medical reasons only, isn’t that one of the small steps you’re talking about?
>Who suffers more? Someone with back pain or someone who’s life is destroyed by a law?
Um the person in pain who also gets his or her life destroyed by a law, since without medical marijuana laws they are unprotected too. Thank you for illustrating the exact reason WHY medical marijuana has taken priority over legislation for all-out legalization.
Who suffers more? Those effected by glaucoma or the mother who has her baby taken away because of the content of her pee?
The person with glaucoma who also loses their child for the same reason because she is not protected by medical marijuana laws. Thanks for yet another brilliant illustration.
The persecuted ARE the sick and not sick alike, their bodies just can’t handle the persecution as well as yours so they’re given priority.
The more I think about it the more I realize, I would take any medical marijuana bill here in GA even though I would hate restrictive measures with a passion. Precedence is only valid when it comes to prosecutions, not new legislation or amendments to existing legislation. Surely you know which one is relevant when it comes to changing the laws? I’ll give you a hint: It isn’t prosecutions. I can think of at least one person who wouldn’t be in prison if it was, or at least a law that wouldn’t have been passed. One that benefits us, btw.
Yeah we do need to fight restrictive measures as best we can but sometimes we must concede because something is better than nothing.
Also, please stop referring to medical marijuana as holistic medicine.
Definition: an alternative treatment system that focuses on the whole person rather than on specific diseases or disorders, and considers physical, emotional, social, environmental and spiritual factors. homeopathy
aids.hallym.ac.kr/dict/h.html
By wording it like that YOU help give credence to claims made by prohibitionists claiming that marijuana is not a medication. While I am sure that your own anti-medical patient agenda may be relevant to your apparent desire to discredit the idea of marijuana as a medicine, let me remind you once again that there are many medicines that are completely organic so the notion that pot can’t be a medicine because it is a plant that gets you high is absurd. It is a real medicine with very real medical value. It is also a remarkably non-toxic intoxicant. Both uses are valid but one is more urgent than the other.
Perhaps I am biased but I supported medical marijuana long before I became sick. I never truly understood that marijuana was really a medicine but I sympathized with the dieing and I totally believed that if anyone should be able to get high legally, a dying person should. Imagine living your day to day life just waiting around for your disease to kill you. I didn’t realize that it wasn’t just about getting high until I actually became sick years later. Pleasant side-effects are just a bonus but I can really say with a straight face and without batting an eye that the primary reason that I use marijuana is because it has had astronomical medicinal benefits for me. My reasoning is so compelling, and it impassioned me so much that if I were ever arrested and convicted I think I would really pick up and throw everything that isn’t nailed down at the judge. They would have tp make me unconscious to get me out of that court room. Such is the power of my indignation and my unadulterated rage at the current state of affairs. No matter who these people are, what right do they have to do this to me? Who picks on someone who lives quietly and peacefully, who is sick and dying, taking away their relief, kidnapping and imprisoning them? That’s what they’re doing. They should be ashamed of themselves. If there is a hell, they will surely burn there for eternity. There are no words harsh enough to express it.
Who suffers more? The terminally ill or the caged human?
Who suffers more? Someone with back pain or someone who’s life is destroyed by a law?
Who suffers more? Those effected by glaucoma or the mother who has her baby taken away because of the content of her pee?
I am not going to make a judgment on these things. I will say that the persecuted outnumber the sick, though, and let you contemplate on that.
The point I want to drive home is that everyone needs to be careful about the language in a bill. Everyone needs to be a little more willing to stand their ground when a prohibitionist makes an ultimatum about language in a bill. Tell them NO and Demand they remove their heads from the sand. If they veto they can answer to the voters in the next election.
We are both on the same side. We both want the government to let go and allow us to have this wonderful plant for our holistic needs. Yet, the bills we see are evident that one group has been forgotten in the process. Most of the bills we see benefit almost no one and give long lasting control to the prohibitionist groups. Wastes of time and effort that only does one thing – Sets precedent that marijuana will be controlled like morphine.
Nothing you can say will motivate me to give vocal support for bills that don’t move in the direction of complete surrender of this plant to the people. I’ll take the small steps but they must be in the right direction.
Russ, I appreciate your willingness to continue this discussion. It’s obvious the issue is a hot topic which deserves the space.
After reading the numerous posts and thinking a bit more, I must admit much of my contribution to the debate comes from my own personal need for cannabis as a medicine.
Like so many others, I’ve been prescribed dozens of pharmaceuticals which proved ineffective or produced side effects I could not tolerate. Pain is a 24/7 part of my life, and cannabis is the only thing which has lessened my suffering.
I live in Louisiana, which will probably be the 54th state to enact marijuana reform of any kind (yeah, by that time, there will be at least 4 or 5 more states). Stiff penalties pertaining to pot are commonplace, and pain clinics refuse treatment if you test positive for cannabis use.
I’ve been disabled for a few years, Social Security disability barely keeps a roof over my head, and relocation to an MMJ state is simply not an option. I’ve considered an indoor grow, but that takes money not available with a fixed income, not to mention the thought of getting busted and sharing a cell with a guy that likes cripples is not something I want to experience.
The worst part of all is I am not alone. There are countless more in much worse shape than I.
When illness, injury, or disability rules every minute of every day, it’s difficult to watch the focus of marijuana law reform fade, if even just a bit, from medical access in favor of what many perceive will take much longer to achieve in re-legalization. It is so very sad to know there are terminally ill patients who will die without the benefit of cannabis therapy, and I can’t help but think that because the opposition has been successful in weakening some MMJ laws, powerful folks like you choose to focus on re-legalization, and worry that too much focus on MMJ will hinder your efforts.
So my viewpoint might be a selfish one.
It should be treated the same as acetaminophen.
As for driving it should contain no stronger warning than: medication may impair your ability to drive or operate machinery. Use care until you become familiar with effects.
Law enforcement should have to prove that the person is ability impaired.
So should people be denied other widely accepted medications such as morphine and other mind-altering non-schedule I substances until you can use them just to get high too? Because that’s exactly what you’re saying so why don’t you tell me where you draw the line.
Sorry, I’m not willing to prolong my suffering and reduce my lifespan just because you can’t get high legally. Right now we both smoke pot illegally. The difference between you and I is that by the sound of it (you aren’t advocating medical marijuana) you’re healthy enough that your body can handle a stay in jail and mine can’t. I know because I was in jail for a week last year around the time I first got sick for a citation for disorderly conduct. I was denied medical treatment for 5 days while they held me in medical segregation (my disease had not yet been diagnosed) and I developed a staph infection on the top of my head. It was so bad that I’d wake up in the mornings and my hair was literally soaked in puss. Those are the kinds of conditions I was forced to live in and my body can’t take them anymore.
Anybody who opposes medical marijuana (not talking about just restrictive bills, but MMJ in general) is a douche, whether it is because they’re opposed to marijuana in general or because they see an imaginary rift between all med-users and non-med users and they resent med users for being allowed to use legally.
FACT: Marijuana is medication. This fact is widely accepted in the medical community. Doctors such as Lester Grinspoon (he’s on the NORML board of directors BTW) of Harvard Medical school have reiterated this time and again.
FACT: There is a difference between wanting and needing marijuana.
You want to smoke pot legally right now? If it bothers you that much then get AIDS or something. You’ll find that people like me are actually the ones with the short end of the stick, not you. So I don’t feel sorry for you at all. Not with that attitude. Your righteous indignation and blind resentment of medical patients is not justified at all. If you want to get mad at somebody then get mad at the government. They’re the ones who have wrongs both of us. And FYI if people blindly followed precedence then even MMJ would never have become illegal anywhere. Over here in reality, the majority of the people actually have the power even though takes the politicians awhile to play catch-up. That is how I know that legalization is coming no matter what. Pot is too widely accepted and loved for it to be any other way. Christ, sometimes I wonder about people….
I’m not pulling any of my punches. I read blogs from snooty medical caregivers all the time claiming non patients are the reason they cant get their “medicine” and siding with the DEA that we should all be jailed.
I’ve looked at a lot of the language in these medical bills and I’ve seen the way they are amended. I know how the prohibitionists operate and I know they will try and use these bills as leverage against us.
In law, precedence is power. Once you have set it we tend to follow it blindly. Voting a law through without carefully understanding the long term outcome of why language is included is foolish. Saying you will support any medical bill no matter what is foolish. There are thousands of possible reasons one might (or should) vote no on a medi bill.
Consider the philophy of bill and how the language can be dangerous to a citizen.
I would like to think that people would have a little more spine and stand up for the bills they write. Don’t allow them to be amended to become back door laws that allow the DEA to continue to jail people they don’t like. Some of these bills basically make a patient a “tolerated criminal” in the eyes of the federal government. I mean, come on people! How many years of law school?
I also find it strange that in a whole nation of lawyers we don’t see more intelligent bills being written or more wild complaints about amendments.
Yes, maybe some bills can be pushed through in hopes of changing them later but I’ve seen a lot of language in a a couple of states that is scary laughable. Best to nip that stuff in the bud before it gains momentum. Even if it ruffles the feathers of the medical folks.
The right to grow your own, that needs to be part of every medical bill. Agree 100% Russ.
It is time to take a stance against the restrictive medical bills. Life and death or not, I can’t afford wasting medication at 15 bucks a gram. I realize that maybe some protection for us whether it’s decrim or just partial protection for med patients is better than nothing at all but I have been kinda outraged at some of the more restrictive bills.
Thanks for the reply, and let me apologize first for responding to you in general terms to things I’ve heard from many others, but not necessarily from you.
I wouldn’t tell you not to support any medical marijuana law. I would just ask you to think about how many of OUR rights you are willing to trade away so YOU can not be arrested.
Absolutely nobody on the healthy side of the debate has said, “If they let me get high, you’ll get your medicine.” No “legalization” organization has opposed a medical marijuana law because it doesn’t address the 95% of healthy cannabis users. In fact, we’ve accepted our continued arrest and prosecution even as we’ve donated, petitioned, marched, and voted to keep you from being arrested and prosecuted.
You speak of the division, and I agree, we should be united. My problem is that “united” always means “do whatever patients need or else you’re not compassionate”. Never is there concession from the patients’ side that says, “no, we cannot cross that line, for it will endanger the possibility of legalization for our healthy brethren.” It always seems to be “so long as patients get theirs, screw the healthy.”
I also don’t buy the notion that lack of a medical marijuana law means patients are necessarily doing without. 14 million people smoked marijuana in the US this month; we’re not all perfectly healthy. Patients in Kansas are getting it just like non-patients in North Dakota are getting it – illegally.
The moral imperative here seems to be, well, the Kansas patient MUST get marijuana illegally, whereas the North Dakota non-patient CHOOSES to get marijuana illegally, and that is a fair evaluation, to a point. But that then enters into the murky realm of what constitutes a “choice”. Maybe that North Dakotan MUST get marijuana for his insomnia, but in every state but California, even the medical ones, that’s a “choice”. If we go down that route, we’re looking at evaluating whether or not anyone can live without marijuana, and soon only wasting patients can qualify (you can “live with” pain, nausea, spasms, seizures, PTSD, insomnia, etc.)
Again, I’m just sounding an alarm and trying to get people to think about this. Maybe the restrictive measures in MN, NY, NH, NJ, and AZ are the only possible workable solution. Maybe I’m paranoid and legalization is inevitable no matter what crappy medical bill gets passed.
Just consider – how much can they pare down a medical marijuana bill and still earn your vote? Mandatory monthly home inspections? Requirements that you try all legal pharmaceutical remedies first and have a doctor verify that none work as well as cannabis? Restrictions on you medicating in any building where there are minors? Absolute right for employers to fire/not hire patients? Bans on being a teacher, policeman, firefighter, or elected official if you use cannabis? These aren’t my fevered paranoid legalizer imagination at work; these are actual proposals that were contained in various bills here in Oregon and other states to clamp down on medical marijuana laws.
What I am trying to say is that we really need to be more solution oriented because nobody wins the blame game.
If you look below at Russ’ comment you’ll see that he isn’t minimizing the medicinal value of cannabis. He isn’t insulting medical patients, acting like we’re a bunch of leeches benefiting from the hard work of others. He just said he is concerned that compassionate use will impede efforts to legalize marijuana. It will inevitably slow it down but you need to consider for a moment that people who are suffering from severe nausea from chemo or antiretroviral medications, wasting, severe arthritis, glaucoma, and numerous other conditions have a much more urgent need of the substance which in many cases is the ONLY known safe and effective means for treating debilitating symptoms of these diseases. Marinol, or synthetic THC, doesn’t work. This is a widely known fact.
I realize that NORML members are good, law abiding citizens interested in legalizing because they don’t want to be labeled as criminals and we’re all tired of living in fear but this process is incredibly complex and time-consuming. We have enough enemies to fight without fighting amongst ourselves.
Usually I see these types of comments and I don’t bother responding at all. I say nothing, but when is enough, enough?
That is an unfair generalization. People like you are the exact reason why I feel less and less comfortable talking about medical marijuana. Snooty stoners who turn their noses up at other stoners when the bottom line is WE’RE ALL STONERS. We all want the same thing so don’t blame OUR misfortunes on other people who are fighting alongside you.
There is no fallout from the medical movement. Yeah, some people abandon the cause after they have gotten what they want but legalization is closer than ever before. If you’re going to claim that we’ve set the movement back 20 years then post some corroborating evidence instead of this drivel. There is a growing rift between perceived medicalizers and legalizers and you aren’t helping it any by continually fussing about compassionate use and attacking the credibility of compassionate use by making ridiculous assertions that it is mere holistic remedy. You’re talking to an AIDS patient, someone who knows first hand just how incredibly beneficial marijuana is as a medication. You impede your own political agenda when you talk like that, casting doubt on arguments that noble activists have worked to establish for decades before you OR I became involved.
Yeah there are some med patients who feel that pot should only be a medicine. Get over it, it happens. People will never agree on everything but it doesn’t make sense to turn to this sort of self-destructive finger-pointing as though it is some sort of solution. Let’s move on and work together instead of bickering like this. It’s just stupid. I’ve been seeing more and more of this anti-medical patient sentiment here on the stash and this resentment is neither founded nor is it productive. In the end, the people have to make the decision whether or not marijuana should be legal and it looks like we’re headed in that direction. Moving on….
First of all, I’d like to thank you for responding to my comment. The number of responses indicate this is quite a growing debate. Unfortunately, such division amid the ranks of cannabis activists are a handy convenience to the opposition. Since President Obama’s town hall laugh, we’ve heard less about re-legalization, and almost nothing about medical cannabis.
My initial reaction to your post is to say I may have not been clear when I said prohibition is silly, ineffective, and illogical. My intent was to label prohibition, not the methods used to enforce it. Any prosecution for violating antiquated marijuana laws is tragic and obscene in my opinion.
Let me make sure I understand you. You would rather tell me to move to an MMJ state (something financially impossible for me and countless others), or simply break the law in order to get the medicine I need?
If you lived in a non-MMJ state, you could probably afford to move. You may even have the resources to protect yourself in the event you get busted. You surely have as much protection as possible from your NORML contacts. That must make it easy to advise others to break the law.
Yes, re-legalization would solve both medical and recreational issues but, while 13 states have MMJ, that’s a long, long way from 50. Patting ourselves on the back while 37 states won’t even allow medical access is a bit premature.
You’re tired of the, “I’m a patient, you’re a criminal.” Did I call you that?
Well, I’m getting tired of, “If they let me get high, you’ll get your medicine.”
Believe me, I’m happy to be the first in line to proclaim your right to enjoy marijuana legally, but if we have to tell patients to wait for comprehensive re-legalization before they get their medicine, we’re doing something wrong.
You talk about your support of regulation. How long do you think it will take [whomever would be in charge of such matters] to determine what constitutes driving under the influence of marijuana? If you smoke a joint, will you have to wait weeks before getting behind the wheel? Just one point which will face scrutiny before laws change.
We’ve already proven that MMJ laws can be successfully implemented. I’m sure complete re-legalization can be worked out, but there are lots of details which will have to be addressed before that can happen.
In the meantime, let’s get the medicine available to those who need it. NORML will not give up the fight for re-legalization, and neither will I.
How I see it:
Medical rides on the back of the recreational users voice. Then they get what they want and hop off leaving us to contend with the fallout from the medical movement that puts us back 2 generations of effort for legalization.
Medical only works if it is treated like a home grown holistic remedy.
If it remains a controlled substance we all lose.
Okay, I agree with this. And the ability to grow is definitely important for medical and non-medical users alike in order to keep prices fair and quality high. I use in a state where I am a criminal for using, no matter if it’s medical or not.
I’m actually about to make a move to Washington state here very soon just because I am so tired of living in fear over here. But I’ll be fighting for legalization from there too. I smoked pot before I got sick, just not nearly as much. I’ll always believe that our current system is hypocritical and that cannabis is far less harmful than even alcohol.
You make a lot of very valid points. What is the solution though? I wish I could think of one. On the upside I don’t think there is much public support for making pharmaceuticals such as morphine, fentanyl, percocet, dilaudid, or desoxyn (methamphetamine) available for recreational use whereas there is FAR more support for making marijuana available to everyone and the number of supporters is and will continue to grow exponentially. The politicians can’t fight the people forever so I’m convinced that while marijuana may go through a stage where it is a pharmaceutical, that will be temporary.
FYI, I chose Washington state because it is a state that allows for cultivation because buying pot is pretty expensive, especially when you need to use it 2-3 times a day to experience the medicinal benefits. Right now, I can buy crappy low-grade “Mid” pot (alot of folks think this is good but they obviously haven’t tried strains like Blue Cheese or White Widow, huge difference) for 30 bucks a quarter per week on the street from mostly-unsavory characters with guns whom I’d rather not associate with in most cases. In contrast, being able to grow up to a pound and a half for medicinal use would be FAR cheaper, and much safer as well. I mean, I don’t even need a pound and a half. I could grow a frigging quarter pound of a high quality strain every 3-4 months and I would still struggle to consume all of it in 60 days!!
Prohibition will never work. It didn’t work with alcohol and it won’t work with other intoxicants. There will always be demand for substances with mind-altering qualities and let’s face it, pot is pretty frigging safe compared to most of what’s out there including a lot of legal substances.
In a nutshell, I think you and I are actually in agreement on these issues. We shouldn’t fold for politicians and settle just for medical use. I understand your concern about that completely but it really doesn’t look like that is where this country is heading. Perhaps I am just naive. I hope not though as I have family, friends, people that I idolize and respect all over the country who consume cannabis for recreational purposes. My heart goes out to them whenever one is busted. They’re good people and they’re suffering. This is a civil war. It’s being waged in secrecy, shrouded in propaganda cranked out by the government through biased studies and various organizations that receive funding from the federal government but the people are becoming increasingly aware of this deception. To me, that’s promising. It means we’re winning!!
Exactly. Until we can all use marijuana, medical users will be subject to unnecessary restrictions, pathetic limits, overpriced medicine, and crime.
In the 1990s and 2000s, I understand the political need to focus on medical use. Too many people still hated pot and hippies to legalize for everyone, but nobody could say no to a cancer or AIDS patient. It made political sense.
I’m saying as we approach the 2010s, it doesn’t make as much political sense anymore and actually hamstrings us politically. There have been a dozen years of quasi-legal marijuana and nothing awful happened. Legalization support is inching toward 50%. Economic realities are turning prohibition into an unaffordable luxury. The prison explosion has become too big to ignore.
Strike while the iron is hot, they say. This is no time to be conceding rights and compromising with the political losers on this issue.
You haven’t much choice but to support the medical marijuana bill, get it into law, then lobby like hell to get it amended to allow home growing. NJ doesn’t have initiative, so this is all you’ve got. The die is already cast and nobody expects “legalizers” to impede any access to medical marijuana for the desperate.
My opinions here are a shot across the bow to organizations who believe in horse-trading patients’ rights solely to achieve a “win”. I believe that surrendering the right to grow for anyone is a huge mistake in the long term.
Don’t get me wrong, by the way. I love dispensaries and I love capitalism. By god, if you’ve got cancer and $10,000 and you want to buy bud at black market prices in a dispensary and make some middleman rich, it’s your American right.
What I don’t like is being unnecessarily forced into capitalism, especially regarding products required to live where you have no choice not to buy.
Think of bottled water. You can spend $1.49 on water at a convenience store or you can drink water just as tasty out of a city tap. The bottled water is convenient, it may be a bit tastier, you can take it on the go, you don’t have to find a cup, etc. But if you’re shy $1.49 and extremely thirsty, you can grab a glass and turn on a faucet.
Now imagine that cities no longer provided potable water from the tap and you were forced to pay ridiculous prices for bottled water the rest of your life. You’d scream bloody murder over that, wouldn’t you?
That’s how I feel about dispensaries. No way in hell am I paying $1.49 for tap water (most bottled water is) or $15 for a gram of weed. So long as I can pour water from a tap and grow my own plant, I don’t care what other people pay for them.
What I fear is that if the medical/dispensary model becomes entrenched, the only kind of legalization we will ever see will be what California has now – medical marijuana that damn near anyone can qualify for. That’s OK, even though I don’t like paying a doctor’s fee, because Californians can grow their own if they don’t like dispensaries. But if these new bills without home grow become the norm, then the eventual legalization will be “OK, hippie, go pay a doctor for a card and go pay an entrepreneur for overpriced weed, and if we catch you growing at home, you’re going to jail.”
Or shorter:
“Are you really saying that people like me should not be allowed to treat our conditions with marijuana until you can smoke it legally for fun?”
No. I’m saying efforts to allow you to use marijuana for medicine should not derail the effort to eventually allow me to use marijuana for fun.
If we social users are expected to support medical marijuana, the medical users should be expected to at least not impede legalization… especially since without full legalization for all, patients will always be subject to onerous restrictions to combat and exorbitant prices due to the parallel black market.
Not at all. What I’m asking is just how much are we expecting non-patients to sacrifice so patients can access marijuana? How much do we give to the prohibitionists before they’ve turned the tables on us and are using the compassion for sick folks as a weapon to stymie full legalization?
When you first began smoking pot medically, were you doing so legally under a state program, or illegally under prohibition? If the latter, then you illustrate my point perfectly – prohibition doesn’t stop anyone from using pot if they really need it, it just forces sick people to undergo the same criminal risk as the rest of us.
I am a huge medical marijuana supporter. I’ve fought and testified and petitioned here in Oregon on behalf of patients, even though I’m not one. I’ve been told my use must remain criminal (even though I consider it medical for depression and anxiety and insomnia, but I live in Oreogn, not California, so I’m a criminal), just a while longer, while we care for the neediest, and I’m cool with that.
What I’m not cool with is what I perceive to be onerous restrictions and limitations in the new bills that take medical marijuana on a detour that leads away from full legalization. Bills that take us from “legalize for patients now and eventually that will lead to legalization for you” to “legalize for patients only and eventually that will lead to cannabis as a pharmaceutical”.
The big deal breaker for me is taking away the right for a patient to grow for oneself. To me, that says, “OK, suffering people, you can have your weed, but only if you’re locked into paying $15/gram to help a middleman entrepreneur get rich.” Now, of course, if you have wasting syndrome, no price is too high and no restriction too strict, but doesn’t that feel like blackmail to you? “Let us get rich, sick person, and hurry, or you’ll just suffer and die as a criminal.”
I might be able to stomach even this if it could be shown that there is no possibility of passage without it, but I haven’t seen that. Medical marijuana is more popular than ever and Michigan passed it with huge margins, even containing the right to grow, even with massive law enforcement opposition and lobbying. So why are people on our side making these gross concessions to law enforcement? (Jesus, this is like the Democrats with a popular president, a huge House majority, and a filibuster-proof 60-seat Senate making concessions to the lowest-approval-rated Republican party of my lifetime in the name of “bipartisanship”.)
Without the right to grow, patients become locked into dispensaries, dispensaries become moneyed interests lobbying to protect their turf, the public believes the marijuana issue is solved and begin conceiving of cannabis as a pharmaceutical, people like me go from “criminal” to “prescription drug abuser”, people like you have “got yours” and have less incentive to help me “get mine”, and legalization is as far away as ever.
Again, where does the slippery slope end? Maybe I’m wrong about all this and that’s why I provoke the discussion. But what if the bill mandated monthly home inspections? Should I support it because you’re OK with that breach of privacy, because you’re desperate and will give up anything for medicine? How about a requirement that you can only possess medicine and medicate at home? How about requiring a fingerprint every time you pick up medicine at the dispensary? How about your name and address and photo posted on a state website so the public knows you’re not a criminal?
I agree we’re a force to be reckoned with when united. The problem is that I don’t see the patient community working with the non-patients; I see the patients expecting us non-patients to go along with any and every proposal and being considered lacking in compassion if we don’t.
Firstly, don’t get me wrong here, I like you Russ and I totally support all-out legalization but as a medical patient who supposedly (if my doctors are to be believed) doesn’t have 5-10 years to wait for legalization to kick in, I can honestly say that there is some more urgency when it comes to MMJ. Your freedom is just as valuable as mine but I’m sorry, treating the dieing is a little bit more important than legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes and it should be put first, as it has been in many cases.
People say cannabis treats wasting syndrome, a condition prevalent among AIDS and cancer patients. The problem is I don’t think many people REALLY understand what that means. When I first began smoking pot to treat wasting, I was visiting the ER on a regular basis. The results were almost always the same. Surgeries, and/or a bunch of tests, and usually an injection of dilaudid before they sent me home. I am 5 feet 11 inches tall and I weighed 138 pounds approximately. I looked like a stick figure.
Within months I gained about 30 pounds. By 4/28 I weighed a whopping 176 pounds and today, I haven’t visited the ER in since March of this year despite a failing immune system. That is a really huge deal. Marijuana can and will extend my life significantly. Nutrition is absolutely vital for keeping my immune system functional. Not only that but I have pretty severe lower abdominal pain that is pretty damn consistent and marijuana also effectively treats that pain without the use of addictive opioid pain medications.
Are you really saying that people like me should not be allowed to treat our conditions with marijuana until you can smoke it legally for fun? I can’t imagine that you’d say or mean that but that’s what it sounds like and that’s a pretty callous stance to take IMO. Chances are, you’ll still be here when marijuana is legalized and I won’t. Not only that but you don’t have to suffer health problems that stem directly from wasting, drastically reducing your lifespan in the meantime if you’re forced to go without. I do though and I am not alone.
I completely agree that marijuana is a remarkable, non-toxic substance. It’s effects are pleasant and it doesn’t come with the same social problems that come with alcohol. I also believe that prohibition is a fallacy. It is inherently flawed and it directly results in the vast majority of social problems that are associated with drugs. Good Americans are being taken from their homes, families ripped apart, lives ruined and lost. I believe all of these things with all my heart and in an ideal world we wouldn’t even be talking about this issue because prohibition wouldn’t exist. But it does exist and compassionate use is a much more urgent issue than all-out legalization. No matter what, we should be fighting for both.
I don’t think that I am any better than you because I’m sick. Let’s stop dividing ourselves and just work together towards a resolution for both related problems to the best of our ability. We’re a force to be reckoned with when we’re united.
Ok Russ I agree with you 100% but here in NJ we are on the cusp of getting medical marijuana passed a804 should go for full assembly vote in the fall session and than corzine will sign it. If it does not make it for assembly vote before Nov.it may be a long time before we have any marijuana reform in the garden state Christy is leading Corzine 65-39% and he says No Way to MM.So as a activst in NJ tell me what we should be doing ?
On a side note.. The medicalizers would not be anywhere close to where they are at if it wasn’t for us legalizers. Do you think prop 215 passed because medical users voted for it? No cause the medical side is just a small fraction of the using populous. So don’t go abandoning us because you got YOUR get out of jail free card. Without us, you’d still be going to jail, directly to jail.
Hell yeah Russ! You are absolutely right that the medicalization of marijuana is starting to hinder the legalization effort, and while I don’t agree that someone should go to jail for treating themselves medically with cannabis, I just as much don’t agree that ANYONE should go to jail.
I take the exact opposite stance. I’m sorry if you are sick and you need marijuana but straight forward legalization needs to be at the forefront of our efforts. When it is legal anyone can medicate as necessary. Until then JOIN THE FIGHT!
FUCKING RIGHT ON!