Cannabis patients demand reopening of pot shops
Michael Hawkins, an Army veteran stricken with a double-fist-sized brain tumor, pleaded with the City Council to reconsider its stance toward the medical marijuana dispensaries that operated in Lake ForestObama's henchmen are making good on their threats to close down dispensaries up and down California.
"The tumor decimated my marriage and what I spent my life building," the 60-year-old said, adding that marijuana reduced his pain. "Look into the eyes of the people who need medical cannabis, If that day ever comes for you, I'll stand with you. Please stand with me."
Unfortunately, the city of Lake Forest can't be lamed or what is going on and these people need to take their fight to the White House.
Federal agents Saturday delivered asset-forfeiture summonses to some of the dispensaries, including the Independent Collective of Orange County and Cannabis Permanente...
For the record, medical marijuana dispensaries in California operate on a non-profit basis, and pay millions in taxes.
I know that much of the fear concerning legalised pot is that non-sick people will use suspect doctor's prescriptions just to get high legally. And it happens all the time. The pot-heads probably get the most benefit, I'll admit that. Tell how that justifies forcing sick people to suffer?
The Bush administration did what I think was an effective job in this area. Yeah, the law says one thing, and we can't have a lawless society but part of maintaining respect for the law is the ability to show some discretion in it's enforcement.
The Bush administration did a lot of huffing and puffing, closed down or prosecuted a few dealers, but for the most part let Medical Marijuana serve it's rightful place.
The message I got from them was: keep it on the down low and we'll forget what's going on.
Nobody legitimate was denied access through Bush policies.
This current administration is different. Obama seems determined to let everybody know who's the boss and doesn't give a shit about cancer patients.
Maybe that's why he sold those guns to the drug lords? To help them in their business just like he is helping to expand the illicit pot trade right now.
Whatever is driving the administration, it cant be righteousness.
3 comments:
I'd be more outraged if I weren't so busy being baffled.
I mean, Obama certainly didn't campaign as a MJ reformer--anyone who thought that he did is deluded-- and as a presidential candidate he actively avoided the topic as much as he could. But he's on the record many times before he was a presidential candidate as quite critical of the drug war, and explicitly did say that he would not have the DOJ going after patients and providers in states where medical cannabis was legal.
I didn't expect him to be a substantial improvement on this front, but I certainly didn't expect him to be worse.
It's particularly bizarre when you consider that his "evolving" views on MJ are running exactly opposite to the trends in the country at large, so it's difficult to attribute to even a cynical political calculation.
I wish one interviewer had the balls to point this out to him, one-on-one. I'd really like to know what animates him, here.
and what interviewer will that be?
there seems to be a disconect when it comes to the poeples' gripes and bitches and what the katie couracs(et al) think they are.
the only solution is massive disobedience.
this issue didnt really animate me very much in the past, but the last three yrs after what i've been through and what some dear to me have been through (even worse) makes it personal in a way.
anyone of us will/may need the Rx option someday. this shit really does matter.
and what interviewer will that be?
Someone who's willing to risk their all-important "access" to actually ask the president of the United States a challenging question for once in their career.
Might as well be a unicorn.
the only solution is massive disobedience.
Somewhere between 12 and 50 million people have reached the same conclusion, depending on whose numbers you believe.
Not to get too deep here, but I actually think that part of the disconnect in this country particularly is that Americans as a group aren't particularly oriented towards palliative care, hospice, or anything else less than "exhausting any and all possible heroic measures to prolong life, damn the cost" type of care. (This also goes to a good chunk of why our health care costs are so high...an awful lot of it is spent in the last weeks and months of life.)
"Marijuana isn't medicine" is an easy mantra to sell when most people think that "medicine" is something that cures you. Marijuana doesn't cure anything, as far as we know. But it is a pretty gentle pain killer (particularly for neuropathic pain) that doesn't have all of the unpleasant side-effects of opioids (especially dependence), a sleep aid with a lot less abuse potential than benzos, and an antiemetic that is much more pleasant than antipsychotics (a lot of people don't realize that compazine is in the same class of drugs as some of the nastier antipsychotic meds).
As you might imagine, I could go on...
I do think we're at a tipping point. And unfortunately, I think that tipping point is coming in part because a lot of us are about to watch our parents and other loved ones die, many in prolonged and very undignified manners. Heart attacks and strokes just don't kill as many people as they used to, and the population is getting older.
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