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.
Not a cure so much as a mild sedative.
IMHO, a lot of people, government or average joes and janes alike, don’t see the plurality of potential uses any given substance can have. Hemp fibers can be used to make rope, hemp oil can be used to cook. You can even make tea using leaves of the stuff. Think marijuana tea is bad, well, then ask why we even have sodas or coffee anyways. Even if we were to discuss tobacco, nicotine solution makes for a good pesticide. The problem is that people often don’t think about the many uses for a given substance when they legalize/illegalize it. Even if someone didn’t smoke weed, the same plant could still have some other uses besides inhaling smoke.
Those in war on drugs often ignore the effects of numerous prescription drugs. Many of which are extremely dangerous when taken outside the proper dosage. In fact, the danger from legal painkillers is statistically far greater than heroin or cocaine.
Exactly, those who try to sell it in large quantities will be the ones to get taxed. But then again, I guess there’s some weed equivalent of moonshining.
Easy there, kid.
Not everyone buys the 'reefer madness' bullshit.
You could always move to a country that exerts complete control over every detail of their citizens' lives, such as Saudi Arabia or North Korea.
It’s a good thing FDR, that constitutional champion, ended prohibition because our country has been getting better ever since.
And, it was so much worse before the Volstead Act and the 18th Amendment were enacted.
Three cheers for your heroes, Henry J. Anslinger and William Randolph Hurst for opening our eyes to the evils of Marihuana.
Hurray for Richard Nixon and the creation of the DEA. They are as conscientious about protecting civil rights as the BATFE, TSA and DHS. (The last two created by another of your heroes, George W. Bush who put us into Afghanistan to protect opium growing operations)
You know, we could emphasize the richness of Cannabis for the sake of making rope or cooking oil. Those are legit uses. We could also emphasize using nicotine solution as a natural pesticide, how people could get so narrow-minded, I have no idea.
Weren’t Jefferson and Washington inveterate potheads? Smoking the rope?
I’ll take all those men over Barney Frank, Obama, Woody Harrelson, and Eric Holder.
demshateGod is for keeping marijuana illegal, therefore demshateGod is for the government exerting control over every detail of a person’s life. This is a great example of a false syllogism. In fact, all of your retorts (if you can call them that) are likewise classic cases.
Would America be better or worse, if everything stayed the same except the status of marijuana?
Smoking tobacco was totally fashionable in the 18th and 19th centuries, and it was learned from the Native American tribes who used it for that purpose. Nicotine, in decent concentrations as a solution is a strong and effective pesticide. But now they’ve illegalized nicotine in favor of other synthetics, in fact, had we used nicotine solution instead of DDT, we would have seen a vastly different world. But here’s the problem, all that plenty of people can see in tobacco is smoking the cigarette, very narrow minded. With hemp, which is similar but not even identical to marijuana, people did derive clothing and rope fibers from it, people derived cooking oil from hemp as well. Yes, it was grown for fiber and cooking oil (hemp, anyways, by George Washington on his plantation. Even with marijuana, well, you can also derive fibers from the stuff, make some tea with it, make cooking oil with it, and so on. But the DEA is so narrow-minded as to figure, hey, let’s illegalize it to protect people from smoking it, when the real practical solution for a substance is to actually make note of the substance, note the side effects, and leave people to it, and the consequences of what they do with it. But that’s the real problem, no one wants to take the consequences of foolishness either. I’m all for ending the narrowmindedness, bring back nicotine as an organic pesticide, and just redo all the drug laws entirely.
As are yours.
You don't know when marijuana was banned or who lead the movement.
You just know it's bad. Why? Because the government says so.
Stuff your accusations where the sun doesn't shine, and pound sand in after them.
If it needs to be under federal authority then we need to get an amendment. If they think we can abuse the Commerce Clause without unintended consequences they're pissing into the wind.
16 posted on 3/26/2014 10:15:02 AM by tacticalogic
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To: tacticalogic
Remember that abortion and gay marriage in the military and for federal employees, and in immigration, and homosexuals in the military, are all federal.
We need to select candidates who are against liberalism at all levels, from city hall to the state, to the Senate and Presidency, whether negotiating with a County union, or state legislation on gay marriage or abortion, or marriage recognition and abortion in the military, and not let them exist as leaders who support the left’s causes, by pretending that they are forced to support the left’s agenda.
27 posted on 3/26/2014 10:29:15 AM by ansel12
if you want to keep your CCW in commierado you don’t buy it or even hang out with any who does pot, medicinal or otherwise.
You going to spam the thread now?
Actually, my replies are really good because they cut through all the theory and abstractions. I want to live in a good country. Legalization will make it worse.
It’s quite possible I know more about the destructive nature of pot than you think. My knowledge was certainly gained independent of government. I don’t know what that has to do with my question though. Has your argument evolved from a liberty question to a question of pot’s goodness? Are you saying it’s not bad so it shouldn’t be banned?
Would you be fore legalizing all drugs? If so, the question about the goodness or badness of pot is irrelevant because we know meth and crack are bad. You then have an position based on personal liberty. Purely abstract, not based on America’s livability. If not, someone who you respect could convince you that pot should stay illegal. Is that correct?
Here’s a good example of theoretical position I hold based on personal liberty. I believe ex cons should not be denied their second amendment rights. If they’re a danger to society, they shouldn’t be out of prison and getting a gun won’t be difficult for them anyway. If they’re not a danger, they’ve payed their debt, why can’t they protect themselves. However, I would accept the argument that reinstating excons 2A rights, given our current legal system, would have horrible consequences. I would put the issue to the back of the line.
Spam it with what?
You need to review Article V. Presidents have nothing to do with constitutional amendments.
The same thing, over and over again. That's why they call it "spam".
It's the "dog in the manger tactic". If I won't let someone change the subject, then they crap all over the thread until it gets moved to the Smokey Backroom. If they can't have it, then nobody is going to.
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