This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on November 21, 2013.
Sometimes you’ll hear law enforcement and the judicial system say things like “Medical Marijuana is just a cheap shield for legal marijuana use”. While its a sexy sell, this simply just isn’t true.
Let me explain… Study after study by the global scientific community, including here in the United States and patient testimonials across the globe indicate more than enough evidence that medical marijuana is an important and legitimate answer to a variety of chronic and debilitating illnesses.
Relief is sought through cannabis everywhere –by patients of illnesses ranging from PTSD to AIDS. Chrohns Disease, cancer, MS, rheumatoid arthritis, just some of a wealth of conditions ALL alleviated and made livable by medical marijuana. Epilepsy is often retarded or even reversed with some therapies. So to say these people just want to get high is disingenuous, and disrespectful. In fact many treatments of this super food plant have no intoxicating or HIGH effect whatsoever.
Whats really happening is an educational thing. When you start to have this conversation politically, people get educated with the truth about cannabis. And that displaces the 70 plus year propaganda war message of fear. And when people get the truth and its not scary,they tend to lean toward legalization because marijuana has never been a threat to public safety. And so why spend all the money on the ensuing war on our own citizens? Medical marijuana states are more educated and therefore tend to modify their stances on marijuana’s criminality.
In an age of shrinking government budgets and doing more with less, this kind of decriminalization or legalization makes a lot of common sense. THATS why some low information thinkers are quick to make a connection that somehow medical marijuana is a pathway to legalization. They are right that there is a trend. But the trend just followed the truth once it was revealed. It’s not as if the medical people were trying to legalize. It’s just a byproduct of knowledge.