Medical Marijuana Gasping for Air? from SeattlePI Tonight is the last public hearing regarding proposed changes in Washington law permitting medical qualified marijuana patients to grow and possess marijuana for medical purposes, and allowing patients to mount a defense in court should they be charged with producing and/or possessing more “medicine” than the law allows. The hearing will be at Worthington Center, Saint Martin’s University, 5300 Pacific Ave., Lacey, WA 98503. The event takes place from 6 PM – 9 PM. The entire statewide medical marijuana community is extremely concerned about the recent recommendations by the Medical Marijuana Work Group convened by the Washington State Legislature. Comprised of representatives from the Washington State Dept. of Revenue, Washington State Liquor Control Board, and Governor Inslee’s senior policy adviser, the group claimed exemption to public disclosure laws and worked in secret. The work group produced a four-page document that, in essence, suggested gutting almost everything in 1998′s successful citizen’s initiative 692 that legalized medical marijuana in Washington state. If enacted, the WSLCB work group recommendations would roll back a medical patient’s right to home grow marijuana for medicinal purposes, further restrict the amount of pot a patient could possess, eliminate the affirmative medical defense for patients found to be in excess of the currently allotted amount of medical marijuana under I-692, and effectively render any and all current doctor’s recommendations null and void, requiting current patients to be re-evaluated (which for many will mean being rejected by a new, much more stringent, selective authorization process). Understandably, the statewide medical marijuana community is stunned by the breadth and depth of the recommendations. Almost everyone agrees that most people who voted for I-502 thought they were voting to expand legal access to marijuana for Washington citizens, not restrict access. Furthermore, one is safe to assume that most people who voted for I-502 did not think that passage of the bill would end up stripping home cultivation rights from legally qualified patients. Of course, the fact that the architects of I-502 (and the initiative’s media proponents) promised that I-502 would not negatively effect medical marijuana patients played a role in the initiative’s passage, as there was a very public discussion about such potential blow-back should the initiative win in 2012. Now we see those may have been promises unable to keep. Some folks are very concerned that these recommendations could be enacted under the assumption that medical patients could just go to the expected marijuana retail stores that have been decreed under I-502, even though it is at this time uncertain whether the stores will exist at all, and if so, when they will appear. Once the stores are opened, it is unknown exactly what the pricing structure will be, how well they will compete with current entrenched black market availability, and how well the mandated tax structures will work taking into account supply and demand forces. Also, those retail stores could in no way provide the degree of community support afforded by current medical marijuana establishments, cooperatives, and collectives, which would almost all be eviscerated by the WSLCB work-group recommendations. Those entrepreneurs that have invested deeply into medical marijuana access points are very concerned that their entire industry could be gutted, with many of them investing their life’s fortunes into their access points across the state. Of course, most medical marijuana patients have already been the victims of our current mainstream healthcare system which is top heavy with bureaucracy, bloated pricing and spotty availability, and which is predominantly pill-based in terms of treatment (which invariably transfers into cost-prohibitive for many uninsured and low-income patients). Should these extreme recommendations be implemented as they have been presented it would constitute a vile reformation of laws and policies that were democratically instituted just like I-502, and would, I believe, be an anathema to the will of the voters who approved both I-692, in 1998, and I-502, in 2012. There has to be a way to honor both initiatives and preserve the bulk of protections afforded patients under I-692 while instituting a legal retail framework mandated by I-502. If the patients get thrown under the bus because of I-502 one can assume that that the post-I-502 retail model will be marketed all over America as the reform package offered to the citizens and legislatures of other prohibition states. Medical marijuana patients and reform activists all across the globe should be watching what takes place in Washington and Colorado so that they know what to expect, and to be prepared for in their communities should reform take hold and should they experience similar trends in their own states. In that sense, Washington State may be the real front-line in the struggle to gain some form of reasonable, sensible, science based law protecting citizens from the injustices of cannabis prohibition. After being treated like terrorists for nearly a century, Americans who use cannabis have taken enough abuse. We are ready for a fundamental change. The questions is what form that change will take when the issue ends up being victorious in the various state polling booths. I-502 has brought some really good reforms to our state (like being able to possess an ounce of pot free from prosecution). Now we all sit by with baited breath hoping to learn what the real price-tag will be for those changes. Politics is ugly business, and often it is the most powerful interests that get their way at the expense of everybody else. The people with the most to lose in this case are those patients with chronic and debilitating illnesses who are simply too sick or disabled to speak up for themselves. They are the ones suffering now, and they will be the ones suffering the most if these draconian recommendations take hold. Read here: blog.seattlepi/vivianmcpeak/2013/11/13/medical-marijuana-gasping-for-air/
Posted on: Thu, 14 Nov 2013 02:19:11 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015