By Damon Lowney
Daily Titan Online Editor
Published: December 02, 2009
Categorized in | Local News
By Damon Lowney
Daily Titan Asst. News Editor
The pungent-smelling green plant known as marijuana is edging its way toward social acceptance. The Schedule I drug – grouped with other drugs such as heroin, LSD and ecstasy – was legalized by California for medical use under Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Anyone with a doctor’s recommendation is eligible for a medical marijuana license, which allows patients to exchange money for the drug at dispensaries.
But as the drug becomes more mainstream in Calif. and new laws are imposed, dispensaries as they operate currently could be phased out, said Matt (who asked that his last name be withheld), president of the Medical Marijuana Patients Choice Collective, a dispensary in Santa Ana.
An Oct. 20 memorandum from David W. Ogden, deputy attorney general, said state government, “Should not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”
If cannabis is here to stay, patients can expect their cities to start setting up ordinances to regulate the drug, possibly taking a cue from the Los Angeles City Council, which said on Nov. 24 that it backs the sale of marijuana for medical purposes. It will discuss placing an ordinance to limit the number of dispensaries allowed in the city to between 70 and 200, according to the LA Times.
“Here in Orange County it’s starting to look like LA,” said Matt. He also said that dispensaries haven’t been bothered too much. His dispensary is located in Santa Ana, where the sale of medical marijuana is banned but the city hasn’t yet complained about it.
“The important part is that (a dispensary) is a safe place to get (marijuana),” he said. “We all have to follow state regulations.” He also said that dispensaries take the sale of the drug off the streets, which reduces crime.
The big question now is whether marijuana should be legalized for recreational (as well as medical) use, or if it should be restricted purely for medical purposes and made into a prescription medication. Currently, medical marijuana licenses are granted on the basis of a doctor’s recommendation, which is different from prescription medications. Those are regulated at the federal level.
Matt said that complete legalization is the way to go so anybody who wants the drug can get it. “I would love to operate it as a business and pay taxes,” he said.
If marijuana was made into a prescription drug, “I think (dispensaries) would get phased out,” Matt said. It would take awhile before that happened because the FDA would have to approve the drug for medical use, he said.
FDA approval of marijuana may be closer than expected, however.
On Nov. 8, the American Medical Association recommended that the government reconsider cannabis’ current Schedule I drug status, “With the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines,” according to a report by the AMA.
Drugs are classified as Schedule I if there is generally an unaccepted level of safety with no accepted medical use, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Web site. Drugs are classified as Schedule II substances if they have an accepted medical use. Both PCP and cocaine are Schedule II drugs, states the Web site.
Andrew Yale, a student at Cal State Fullerton, said he thinks marijuana is “perfectly fine in society.” He said he is OK with how dispensaries currently operate.
“I would like to see it as a medication,” he said, because if it were legalized for recreational use it would be much easier to abuse.
Hayley Evans, a child adolescent studies major at CSUF, said, “I wouldn’t say I approve (of marijuana) but I don’t care (if it is legalized).”
She said she would also rather it be legalized for medical purposes. “I think it will be abused more,” if marijuana is legalized for recreational purposes, Evans said.
Evans believes the states should remain as decision makers in the matter of legalization. “I think if the state votes as a whole, it’s OK,” she said.
Currently, “No marijuana (is allowed) on campus, period,” said Lt. Don Landers of CSUF police.
Regardless of Calif. law, “The ultimate power that is over the campuses is the chancellor and board of trustees, and they said no marijuana,” he said.
PHOTO: Jackson County Sheriff Mike Byrd holds a piece of undried marijuana, August 13, 2009, that was seized from two alleged grow houses in St. Martin, Mississippi. (Amanda McCoy/Biloxi Sun Herald/MCT)
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The marijuana discussion is not just about medicine. It’s time to drive a wedge between the criminal drug dealers and our kids. Licensing, taxing, and regulating marijuana will put the drug dealers out of business and protect our children. Regulate the marijuana business, medical or otherwise. While we’re at it, let’s implement a personal cultivation permit. Limit the number of plants, and put a fee on it, something like a fishing license, with maybe a little extra for education or fixing the roads.
How about $100 per year for a permit to cultivate a dozen plants for personal use or to give away the product? It’s a win-win.
We need to keep marijuana banned as long as possible. It has much further reaches in our economony than one thinks. The cotton industry would be heavily effected since cotton is inferior to hemp and costs more to extract. Steel… rope… all would be effected. Along with ethanol… those poor corn farmers… hemp has so much more ethanol to extract. And let us NOT FORGET FERTILIZER companies… those guys would surely go out of business since marijuana is a great crop rotation (absorbs the used secretions from plants we eat while secreting healthy nutrients back into the soil). Pharmaceutical companies would be dramatically impacted, thus raising our health care rates since marijuana can replace so many prescriptions.
These are some of the very few manufacturing industries the U.S. has left… and we must hold onto them. If we do legalize it, we must be sure to only legalize female plants and restrict it ONLY to medicine for very few select disorders. Oh… and don’t forget the kids and all that stuff since the State obviously does a better job raising our kids than our own parents do.
While Sam’s assessment of the miraculous powers of cannabis is definitely inaccurate, ending prohibition is clearly the most beneficial and principled path.
Liberty requires a certain tolerance for the behaviors of others. Prohibition requires perpetual fanaticism and fear tactics based on wildly exaggerated claims of social harm. Prohibition and liberty are mutually exclusive. If one exists, the other cannot. An individual cannot accurately claim to be free if the powers that be declare that he cannot knowingly, and willingly consume a given substance. Its time that we rethink what the role of government ought to be, as it most certainly is not to regulate the appetites and health of a population in a society that claims to represent the pinnacle of liberty.
We live the majority of our years as adults, so it seems inappropriate to enact legislation that deprives adults of liberty in the name of protecting our children. Nobody is suggesting that currently illegal drugs become available to minors (they already are on the street, by the way). The “think of the children” and “it is harmful to health” arguments prey on our innate concern for the well being of our children and our fear of disease and death. They insult the intelligence of the free individual because they are founded on the axiom that the promoters of such arguments posses a superior judgment that entitles them to impose their will upon other individuals through state power, whether the other individuals consent or not. The anti-prohibitionist recognizes the competence of the individual to exercise self-ownership, and that liberty is the most ethical condition for human existence.
Certainly some individuals damage their health through the use of drugs. These people should be helped by family members, churches, neighbors, and voluntary treatment. It is morally reprehensible and inconsistent with liberty to punished them or force them into treatment using state power and the criminal justice system.
The government is not our mother or father, and we are not its children or its property. Self-ownership is essential to liberty, and liberty is the essential American value. Please err on the side of liberty.
I think MJ should be made fully legal. Why is it ok to use as medicine but not for recreational use ? If it is legal ONLY as medicine, the government will have ABSOLUTE control over it. The people fight to make it legal, only to have it taken away from us ? No way ! Also the effects of full legalization are similar to those Sam stated, but in a positive way.The U.S could grow MJ here,and department stores could incorporate a hemp clothing line,the AMA could suggest it as an alternative medicine,the same for fuel and paper industries. As for the children, it’s just another topic parents need to deal with like alcohol,cigarettes, and hard core drugs.Times change and people must change too.
Just legalize marijuana so the drug dealers and sham dispensaries are put out of business. I just hope that doctors, public safety personnel, and any person with lives in their hands are not affected by marjuana use!
Nobody ever touches on operating machines at work, driving on the roads and highways in bad weather, and child care! Face it people, a mood altering drug is somethinmg that is appropriartely controlled and legal in California. I am happy that it is useful in Medical Facilities. The question here is Do you want to accept the social consequences and unknowns?????
In plain English, Your child care provider uses it…That okay?
That girl texting next to you on the ‘high’way is stoned. Okay for you and your mini-van full of kids at 60 mph???
Stopping DWI may be hard, but this would be unenforceable.