I also subscribe to Russ’ feeling that ALL mj use after age 40 is medicinal. It helps with my aches and pains. It doesn’t fix my arthritis but it makes the pain more tolerable. As a mood stabilizer, it is invaluable to me. I’d have to go the wacky rainbow of pharmaceuticals route otherwise and with side effects ranging from bleeding from your butt to DEATH, I’ll stick to the kind, thank you!

I’ll mince no words: I smoke marijuana recreationally because I like to get high. I want to see marijuana legalized in my lifetime so I can enjoy my vice the same as cigarette smokers and alcohol drinkers. That said, if I could make medical marijuana legal today for people like Stephanie at the price of another 40 year wait for me to have ‘fun’, I wouldn’t hesitate.

But it’s two totally different, separate issues. (Industrial hemp is a third.)

With regard to recreational marijuana, it might be helpful to point out that the police will never be able to track down every plant growing in a closet, a basement, a back yard or even a secluded window sill. Given the sheer amount of commerce we have, they’ll never infiltrate it all.

Let’s reduce the harm. Concentrate on Meth, PCP, and ecstasy. That fake shit is nasty.

The stoners are here to stay.

We can make peace and even take up a common cause by keeping it out of the hands of under-18s.

Peace is cheaper, more fun, and more practical than war. Other advantages: less destruction, violence, and death.

Maybe once they live with pain for years and years and years and they find this plant that when vaporized OR cooked correctly into foods takes away the pains and helps you get through the day by lessening the pain, then they will see why these millions and millions of people willingly break the law to try to live without pain..