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.
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.