This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on August 22, 2012.
Most marijuana patients cringe at the prospect of Mitt Romney controlling federal medical marijuana policy in the United States. Many would assume he is the big bad Republican looking to steal your rights and medicine? Would he really be that bad as president, or more specifically, would he even have a negative impact on medical marijuana?
As you likely know, Mr. Romney is a devout Mormon. His religion was formed more than 150 years ago in this country, during the same time that marijuana grew in popularity as a mainstream medicine. While marijuana as a medicine can be traced back thousands of years, it was not until the mid 1800’s that companies packaged and marketed marijuana to consumers.
Marijuana patients have been criticized, attacked, and prosecuted for a far less time than Mormons have. In fact it was not until the 1930’s that literally overnight, did society or rather (William Randolph Hurst) deem marijuana unacceptable, beginning our persecution. Mormonism, especially polygamist, have never been supported fully in this country. Their struggle has been far worse and dates back to their founding, our’s has been escalating over the past 80 years.
Despite attacks on Romney and his vocal stance against medical marijuana, does he really believe it? While Mitt wants you to think he’s no politician, rather “I’m a business man”, remember he is a politician running for the highest political office behind God herself. No politician, or God, wants to go on the record supporting medical marijuana and tick off the 30% of Americans that oppose us (largely Mitt’s voting base). The truth is most Americans don’t care about marijuana or Mormons.
States Rights
Polygamy, the taking of multiple wives,a part of The Mormon faith, survives through the concept that State’s (the people) have the right to say what their people can and cannot do. Utah has afforded more protection to Mormons that practice polygamy than the rest of the Country. Similar to the different State medical marijuana laws across the Country. Some States say yes, while several say no.
The Mormon church, in fact all churches were given the biggest lift when the US Government decided it was getting out of the Church Business and agreed to a separation between church and state. Remember when we used to pray in school? If the government cannot meddle with how we pray and think, why can they care so much about a plant that has never killed one person.
Much like the Mormon Church, this simple medicine needs Big Brother to just back off. Will Romney sympathize with our persecution? Today, people that have invested their lives in medical marijuana facilities, spent all their savings to cultivate the product or in some cases, those that simply use it as medicine, are experiencing raids and attacks by the Federal Government, despite State laws that should protect them. Do we flee to Mexico like Romney’s grandparents to avoid beatings, arrest and the same kind of branding that Mormons face(d)?
On the bright side, polling suggests Americans favor marijuana patients more than Mormons, it is quite possible for our next president to be a medical marijuana patient. While my vote for President has yet to be decided, given Mr Obama’s track record with medical marijuana policy, is Romney really all that bad?