Posted on 03/26/2014 9:58:12 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
Our great friend and Boss Emeritus, Michelle Malkin, offers a powerful testimony today in her column on marijuana legalization — and a surprisingly personal perspective. Sure, we all have fun with jokes at Colorado’s experiment with recreational approval, but the access it creates does more than just serve as easy access to intoxication. Michelle found herself in one of the pot shops that have opened to serve demand that comes from more than just fun and games, hoping to find help for her mother-in-law:
It’s 9 a.m. on a weekday, and I’m at the Marisol Therapeutics pot shop. This is serious business. Security is tight. ID checks are frequent. Merchandise is strictly regulated, labeled, wrapped and controlled. The store is clean, bright and safe. The staffers are courteous and professional. Customers of all ages are here.
There’s a middle-aged woman at the counter nearby who could be your school librarian. On the opposite end of the dispensary, a slender young soldier in a wheelchair with close-cropped hair, dressed in his fatigues, consults with a clerk. There’s a gregarious cowboy and an inquisitive pair of baby boomers looking at edibles. A dude in a hoodie walks in with his backpack.
And then there’s my husband and me. …
For the past three months, my mother-in-law, Carole, whom I love with all my heart, has battled metastatic melanoma. After a harrowing week of hospitalization and radiation, she’s at home now. A miraculous new combination of oral cancer drugs seems to have helped enormously with pain and possibly contained the disease’s spread. But Carole’s loss of appetite and nausea persist.
A month ago, with encouragement from all of her doctors here in Colorado, she applied for a state-issued medical marijuana card. It still hasn’t come through. As a clerk at Marisol Therapeutics told us, there’s a huge backlog.
In states where only medicinal use is permitted, Carole would still be out of luck. However, in Colorado, access for recreational use also allows people to get around the permitting process temporarily, although the prices go up for non-medicinal use:
But thanks to Amendment 64, the marijuana drug legalization act approved by voters in 2012, we were able to legally and safely circumvent the bureaucratic holdup. “A lot of people are in your same situation,” the pot shop staffer told us. “We see it all the time, and we’re glad we can help.”
Be sure to read it all. Michelle makes a good point about the entrepreneurial aspects of Colorado’s legalization, as well as the improved ability for citizens to exercise their own choice on both recreational intoxicants and medical treatments. The marijuana is grown on site and/or locally, so it involves no issues that would normally invoke federal jurisdiction.
That leaves the question, though, of whether marijuana actually does provide an effective therapeutic treatment. Unfortunately, this is another area in which the federal government obstructs rather than clarifies, as the Washington Post reported last week:
While 20 states and the District have made medical marijuana legal — in Colorado and Washington state the drug is also legal for recreational use — it remains among the most tightly controlled substances under federal law. For scientists, that means extra steps to obtain, transport and secure the drug — delays they say can slow down their research by months or even years.
The barriers exist despite the fact that the number of people using marijuana legally for medical reasons is estimated at more than 1 million.
Stalled for decades because of the stigma associated with the drug, lack of funding and legal issues, research into marijuana’s potential for treating diseases is drawing renewed interest. Recent studies and anecdotal stories have provided hope that marijuana, or some components of the plant, may have diverse applications, such as treating cancer, HIV and Alzheimer’s disease.
But scientists say they are frustrated that the federal government has not made any efforts to speed the process of research. Over the years, the Drug Enforcement Administration has turned down several petitions to reclassify cannabis, reiterating its position that marijuana has no accepted medical use and remains a dangerous drug. The DEA has said that there is a lack of safety data and that the drug has a high potential for abuse.
It’s a typical bureaucratic catch-22. The government has declared marijuana to be among the most dangerous of controlled substances so few can access it for studies to determine its value, and the federal government uses the lack of established evidence of its value to justify its classification. Meanwhile, several states have had years of experience in medicinal legalization with apparently few ill effects, which is at least indirect evidence that the DEA has misclassified marijuana, but no one wants to take the politically risky step of reducing control over weed. Meanwhile, people like Carole have to live in states like Colorado in order to make their own decisions over access and effectiveness.
I’m not a fan of marijuana, and I do worry about the moral signal that legalizing recreational use sends, but at least so far it hasn’t had any worse impact than alcohol. We should at least study the impact of marijuana so that we can have an informed debate.
Some of them do seem to work very hard at not having that conversation.
LOL, OK, so as lame as it is, that is the best you can do to avoid coming out against abortion and gay marriage, and for not supporting pro-life, pro-marriage politics.
The CDC says marijuana has more carcinogens than tobacco. It also causes brain damage.
It won’t be long until the lawsuits start against the marijuana suppliers and retailers as users start turning up more frequently in auto and work accidents.
Not sure who this disembodied "they" are, I have yet to see anyone on the anti alcohol and anti tobacco bandwagon who isn't real big in the anti legal weed bandwagon, too. I know it's a wacky idea totally devoid of the required hypocrisy and desire force others to live the way you want them to live, but if you want to stop the anti alcohol and anti tobacco nazis, you may find allies in the pro legal weed crowd.
I see plenty of pot advocates on FR who are antialcohol and antitobacco.
And we sure want more people out there driving DUI.
It’s either because some are substituting pot for alcohol (and are better drivers stoned than drunk) or because pot smokers tend to do it at home, while drinkers are more likely to be at bars and restaurants.
For me, I’d prefer a few more annoying stoners and give up the police state war on drugs that infringes liberties of everyone.
Malkin is off my reading list
DWI tickets are about largely about revenue (MADD, insurance, states, services, courts)
Malkin is off my reading list
Or maybe I will just stop reading crap
Yep, my accidental omission on the lawyers, the treatment was what I meant by services...
Illegal immigrants don't make good cash cows and their arrest can open a whole can of worms (immigration status, publicly paid defenders, incarceration costs...)
When was it banned, and who lead the movement?
Prohibitionists, and their arguments, never change.
Although the temperance movement claimed Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745/46-1813) as one of its primary inspirations, he actually promoted moderation rather than prohibition. The temperance movement often had difficulty getting facts right.
Early temperance writers often insisted that because of their high blood alcohol content, "habitual drunkards" could spontaneously combust and burn to death from inside.
A temperance publication wrote of drinking parents who gave birth to small children with a "yen for alcohol so strong that the mere sight of a bottle shaped like a whiskey flask brought them whining for a nip."
One temperance "scientific authority" implied that inhaling alcohol vapors might lead to defective offspring for at least three generations.
Because the temperance movement taught that alcohol was a poison, it insisted that school books never mention the contradictory fact that alcohol was commonly prescribed by physicians for medicinal and health purposes.
Temperance Leader Lucius Manlius Sargent tried to get secondary schools, colleges and universities to eleminate all references to alcoholic beverages in ancient Greek and Latin texts.
Because the temperance movement taught that drinking alcohol was sinful, it was forced to confront the contrary fact that Jesus drank wine. Its solution was to insist that Jesus drank grape juice rather than wine.
During Prohibition, temperance activists hired a scholar to rewrite the Bible by removing all references to alcohol beverage.
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) strongly supported Prohibition and its strict enforcement.
The Bible says to "use a little wine for thy stomach's sake" (1 Timothy 5:23). This admonition caused serioius problems for temperance writers, who argued that alcohol was a poison and that drinking it was a sin. So they insisted that the Bible was actually advising people to rub alcohol on their abdomens.
Prohibitionists often advocated strong measures against those who did not comply with Prohibition (1920-1933). One suggested that the government distribute poisoned alcohol beverages through bootleggers (sellers of illegal alcohol) and acknowledged that several hundred thousand Americans would die as a result, but thought the cost well worth the enforcement of Prohibition. Others suggested that those who drank should be:
A major prohibitionist group, the Women's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) taught as "scientific fact" that the majority of beer drinkers die from dropsie.
The WCTU suggested that school teachers put half of a calf's brain in an empty jar into which alcohol should be poured. As the color of the brain turned from pink to gray, pupils were to be warned that a drink of alcohol would do the same to their brains. executed, as well as their progeny to the fourth generation.
The problem is that anybody can grow it in their back yards. It's a weed. So if you try taxing it beyond a nominal amount, people will just grow their own.
I’m aware of that but the tax revenuers at the ATF will come knocking...
A stoned nation is a loser nation that Putin types will take apart piece by piece. Just give them time. Same goes for the Muslims.
A wealthy stoned nation will become enslaved Elois. Just give it time. Honest legitimate medical marijuana...OK by me. But most such programs are backdoor marijuana legalization
America is becoming an unlivable cesspool. You really think this is going to help? Why put so much energy into this?
It’s a good thing FDR, that constitutional champion, ended prohibition because our country has been getting better ever since. Today, we have great orginalists like Barney Frank fighting for a better America through pot legalization. Obama, the constitutional scholar, has told the DOJ to ignore the law when it comes to pot. The dope smoking, knockout game “teens” will cease stop attacking random white people when their drugs become legal. People are returning to God’s word in droves, applying His command to use all seed bearing plants and herbs. It’s a constitutional, cultural, and religious revival.
I don’t know, but if it was before 1992, it was a better time, in a better America.
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