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.
My take as well. States should be free to do this sort of experimentation. Vermont, for example, with single-payer (it isn't, I hear, going all that well), Colorado with pot. If it works out well enough and other states want to follow suit, so be it; if not, then that's fine too. There are still a number of dry counties down South, to cite another example, and they have every right to be.
That isn't how political activists think, though. For them the federal route offers the most power over the most people, and never mind experimentation because they know they're right. Which is precisely where a weak federal government has its advantages.
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.”
There are the taxes they are exempted from.
Can I get it for sleep apnea? Loss of appetite? Nerves? As a substitute for evil alcohol? Barn door is wide open to pay the lower rate and they are trying to fast track exemptions.
There were all kinds of quacks writing prescriptions for teachers to cut class when the union wanted a strike.
I enjoy her commentary but haven’t seen Michelle on “Fox and Friends” on Thursday mornings recently. Maybe she’s on with a different host or no longer has a Fox contract. Anyone know?
Bingo.
They want exemption from DUI laws. Pot stays in their bloodstream but is “inactive”, don’t you know? Besides stoners only “drive too slow” they claim.
Never mind that the deadly accidents aren’t from 0.08 drunk drivers (being pushed downward to 0.03 and it’s 0.01 in Sweden).
Since the standard for alcohol use is headed towards “any measurable amount in your blood”, why not go ahead and keep pot at that threshold? They were fine with demonizing alcohol and tobacco.
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.
And that's a fact for better or worse.
You can't even get a majority of Republicans to oppose its legalization.
The highest concentration of opposers are in politics and Law Enforcement...who directly benefit from its illegal status.
Exactly. And unlike alcohol and tobacco which are hard to “manufacture” for personal use, marijuana is easy to grow. We found a 4 foot plant growing on the roof on our dorm once. I’m glad Colorado did this so we can watch what happens. My guess is that use will go way up but tax revenues will be weak.
If the deer won’t eat it and it was legal, I’d grow it here....to help with my anorexia.
Yep. The libertarians will get to see this one and only state’s rights issue prevail. All our other rights will be handed down from Big DC. All because the immoral, cultural destructive left will agree with them on this one. They’ll rattle on about states rights, personal freedom, and liberty while guns rights, personal property, religious liberty, etc will continue to be defeated by the Libertarian’s pot allies. At the same time, Commoncore, rec pot, and welfare will give us a generation imbeciles the likes of which we could never imagine.
Why not punish the drivers who have accidents rather than roadblocks to snare anyone who doesn’t comply with a series of carnival stunts?
And meanwhile the cellphone driver who nearly paralyzed me is free to chat morning noon and night while she drives about distracted.
DWI tickets are about largely about revenue (MADD, insurance, states, services, courts) and punitive damages against some in the society (those suspected of being from Mexico are cut free to drive home).
Stupid, lazy syllogism.
Explain how any of that changes the original intent of the Constitution, and I'll consider it relevant to this issue.
True, and as even more of the propaganda-addled oldsters get just as dead, legalization will spread.
Legalize pot and the number of guards selling it to those in prison will skyrocket. In Houston, they banned tobacco in the jails because they knew that the guards would sell contraband and by letting them traffic in tobacco rather than pot, they kept the guards from crimes that would send them to prison as well.
Currently employers can prohibit tobacco use among employees (even in off hours). When they try this in a legal pot state, expect there to be claims of “discrimination” against their alternative lifestyle choices.
That's not a problem I'm concerned with.
I'm concerned about every little town in American having their own SWAT team funded by pot prohibition.
Feel free to disagree, but again, it is NONE of the government’s business WHAT I do on my time, in my home, unless is directly, intentionally harms others.
My argument was as logical as his sarcastic “we want more DUI’s.”
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.