This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on January 22, 2012.
This is what they warned us would happen, isn’t it?
With the latest news that a group of individuals are trying to get a marijuana legalization question on the ballot in November, the familiar critics have come out to deride the current medical marijuana law as a trojan horse for legalization. While many may think this is exactly what all patients and caregivers want, it is actually the actions of our own state government, specifically Attorney General Bill Schuette that have forced the hand of proponents of safe access to marijuana for medical uses in the State of Michigan.
Currently we have a situation where an adult with a qualifying condition and state card, obtained by supplying medical records as well as the recommendation of a physician with which you have a relationship, can legally obtain marijuana for medicinal purposes. Apparently this bar isn’t high enough for Mr. Schuette even though marijuana is the only example of a drug that you would need to possess a special card from the state rather than a simple prescription. It’s as if Mr. Schuette keeps setting the bar so high, because he doesn’t really want it to be attainable.
When the goal is unattainable and they feel they are being manipulated, people tend to cut corners which is exactly what the move for legalization is predicated upon. The problem with this approach is that completely legalizing marijuana for recreational use by adults is not the solution to the problem of an overzealous attorney general who aggressively seeks to restrict access to marijuana by those who truly benefit from it. We can however avoid the perils of outright legalization and protect the rights of patients at the same time by enacting new legislation that clearly outlines these rights and that is written so clearly that it is unassailable by the Attorney General.
Rather than turn marijuana into a common commodity like alcohol or tobacco, a more explicitly written law would go a long way to ensure that supply is restricted to the legitmately ill and those that are charged with their care. Outright legalization would create an unacceptably high risk of the drug coming into the possession of children and teens much in the way that other more available substances easily do. The path that the Attorney General is forcing advocates down will result in either a much too restrictive or unregulated situation. If the initative fails, he will have the ammunition to hack away at the existing law, and if it iniative succeeds, Michigan will become a state of “Budtenders”, a common title in Amsterdam, rather than a state of caregivers.
How about we shore up the existing law rather than abandon it entirely for one extreme or another?