(Politico 44) Something to look out for in Wednesday’s health care town hall: the White House will be choosing the online questions …
… for the president, rather than letting web users vote to select them.
In March, the White House designated questions through an online voting process. When users flooded the site with support for questions about marijuana legalization, it put White House aides in an awkward position. In the end, a drug-related [question] was asked and Obama laughed it off.
Yeah, because if we’re going to talk about this nation’s health care crisis, the last thing we want to do is bring up marijuana. Thirteen states have come up with a novel method of improving their health care by allowing citizens to treat themselves with non-toxic marijuana that is safer than every other drug and more effective than most. Wouldn’t want to bring that up in light of the FDA calling for bans on Vicodin and Percocet, would we?
In this time of economic crisis where states are being forced to trim public health services, we wouldn’t want to mention that these medical marijuana programs in the thirteen states are, by-and-large, self-funded programs that don’t cost the taxpayer a cent. In the case of my home state of Oregon, our program was actually made over $1,000,000 for the taxpayers by using medical marijuana fee money to balance other health and human services budgets.
When the greatest cause of hospital deaths are bacterial infections like MRSA, which cost nearly $10 billion a year, and they are evolving to become resistant to most anti-bacterials, we wouldn’t want to bring up the fact that recent studies show cannabinoids to be a superior anti-bacterial agent against super-bugs like MRSA.
I mean, we wouldn’t want to make anyone feel awkward, would we?
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I think you may have posted your comment to the wrong story, but I will respond anyway.
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 an eighth of weed, and we’re both caught by police, who do you think is more likely to be cuffed, stuffed, booked, fingerprinted, prosecuted, and incarcerated? Who do you think is more likely to have the cop exercise some “personal discretion” toward and just confiscate the bag and send on their way? Do you really think any Minnesota DA wants the PR of taking a frail dying balding gaunt wheelchair-ridden patient to court?
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, 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 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, has not led to terrific abuses 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 buy 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.
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.
I really hope progress is made with today’s town hall. I will be all ears. If you’re going to be at work during the town hall, the app I always use on my iPhone for White House updates will be streaming it, so you can listen to it conveniently here: http://www.iheartradio.com/whblive. Hoping for the best today.