Electing Medicinal Marijuana

by admin

The debate continues on legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes. I am a big proponent of providing patients with the means to curb symptoms when there is an option to do so; especially when that option is so readily available and easy to use. The issue I have though is the massive amount of people glomming on to the “for medicinal purposes” bandwagon when what they really want is general legalization; know it or not.

Let’s call it what it really is people, you want to get high and not fear going to jail. And why not? The arguments for are too many to cite in this article but in general, I can go to a bar to enjoy a beverage any time I choose. Let’s say it was a really good day and I have a few too many. Jump in the car, off I go. Nothing prevents me from doing that not even the countless commercials on anti-drunk driving, photos of a dead high school student wrapped around a phone pole, statistics on reflex times being less when drunk and behind the wheel, whining religious groups intent on telling me alcohol is an instrument of the devil, etc.

What prevents me from doing that is my own internal sense of responsibility. My internal meter that says, “STOP! Something is amiss”. I am perfectly capable of governing my own actions based on an inherent sense of what is right and wrong. To this end, why can’t I smoke a joint in lieu of that drink?

Recently I went to a outdoor concert. Not surprising there was no shortage of smoking pot. Funny enough though out of the thousands of people I saw enjoying the show, the only one who really irked me was the guy passed out in a small puddle of his lunch in the grass. Not only was it disgusting but we all know from an experience in the past that the behavior of someone in this current state of being is not enjoyable. Loud, clumsy, incoherent, the list goes on. Why not smoke instead?

While we won’t argue each point for and against in this post what I did want to mention was trends. As of 2006, there were 10 states who had already legalized medicinal marijuana. At the time of publishing this post, an additional 13 had bills in government to legalize it. That is nearly half of our country people. That is significant no matter how you phrase it. We appear to be trending towards making it legal for medicinal use. Keep in mind all of these states have been mostly since 1999 which means in 10 years we have gone from zero to where we are now. No small feat to be sure.

Let’s look at this a few new ways too…

Let’s assume that the 13 states with bills on the floor all pass. Add them to the 10 that already have legislature in place. First, as mentioned earlier, that is 23 out of 50 states. Not quite, but very close to half. Turn that around one more time and let’s say medicinal marijuana is running for president. The electoral votes in those 23 states add up to 269. While this would still be a loss, one short of the required 270, that would be an incredible race would it not? Again, while still a loss, if this topic measures that high on a scale we use to elect our president, it should be incredibly indicative of where we are as a nation on this topic. Or said one last way, we are all perfectly ok with people getting high for “medicinal” purposes.

Here is one more for you; what about kids? One huge argument has been that legalization at the medicinal level will make access easier for our teens. Take a look at this study:

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID=001557

This was a graph made by ProCon.org which compared data from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse (NHSDA) on teen drug use in states with, and without, laws legalizing the practice. Guess what? In their own words…

“The lack of an increase in teen marijuana use in states that legalized medical marijuana appears to disprove the argument that legalizing medical marijuana would lead to increased teen use of marijuana for recreational purposes. The cause of the decrease in teen use, however, cannot be determined without additional information and statistical analysis. ”

I highly recommend reading it for yourself. The study concludes by citing a common argument to studies like this one:

“They point to the 1999 National Household Survey on Drug Abuse (NHSDA), which ‘reveals that those states which have passed medical marijuana laws have among the highest levels of past-month marijuana use, of past-month other drug use, of drug addiction, and of drug and alcohol addiction.’ [...] It is at least possible, however, that this analysis confuses cause with effect…It is logical to assume that the states with the highest prevalence of marijuana usage would be more likely to approve medical marijuana programs, because the populations of those states would be more knowledgeable of marijuana’s effects and more tolerant of its use.”

No kidding? While it does not take a theoretical physicist to come to this conclusion the argument should only further illustrate the overall point: we as a nation appear to be more and more ready to “tolerate” this. Fighting something based on old rationale and dated information is almost always a loosing proposition. This is a primary defect with many extremist groups; the inability to grow with the world around you. While it appears that we seem to be growing more and more each year with regards to this topic, we still have a lot of work to do. (we especially need that one last vote you know).

July 6th, 2009  |   2:00 pm