This article was originally published on the Marijuana Patients Organization site on December 15, 2012.
Yesterday was not a very good day for our Country, 26 murdered in a Connecticut elementary, mainly children. To further the disappointment, wee in the morning hours, our Michigan legislators agreed to restrict and strip patients from their rights regarding medical marijuana. Rights that voters outlined in 2008.
Today the big talk in the media is gun control laws. Really? Why is it every time a bunch of children die we start up this conversation, yet we do nothing? Consider the hypocrisy, yesterday Michigan legislators said that one cannot leave control of their marijuana to any one, at any point. One cannot drive with marijuana, only when in the trunk secured in a box. In a sense putting the responsibility on the owner, should it fall in the wrong hands.
In addition, growers need Fort Knox style access to their gardens or pay dire consequences. They even said that guns and marijuana fall in the same category and that any one with a felony cannot own either.
Can you imagine asking a gun holder to submit to the same high standard? Guns are stolen all the time, usually from the easiest of hiding spots and then used to kill people. Do we prosecute owners as well? By enforcing some of the existing gun laws instead of focusing resources on medical marijuana, we may curb some of this senseless violence.
If my medical marijuana made its way in a school, wonder if I would be the subject of a manhunt in my county? You think I am kidding, I can assure you I am not.
Guns found at the gruesome scene in Connecticut belonged to the slain teacher (the mother of the killer). She had left access to the weapons with her, we presume, mentally-ill or disturbed son. Had she survived, would she have faced any charges? What would Michigan legislators do to curve her carelessness?
This world and it’s leadership are the biggest problems we face as a society, not the random psychopath who has walked among us since the beginning of time. Not much any one can do with crazy.
Last year marijuana killed ZERO people, guns were responsible for 3/4th of all murders in the United States.
Clearly gun law has done little to curb violence in the world, if prohibition and restriction do not generally work in a society, then why then do we restrict non-harmful substances like medical marijuana and vow to fight it to the bitter end? Maybe it’s because those same folks who do not want marijuana, welcome more guns.
Either way you look at this debate, your feelings about guns or marijuana, yesterday was a lesson in how evil and misaligned the world can be and how legislators in Michigan appear more concerned with the redistribution of medical marijuana than they do of controlling guns and their access to children.
In an ironic twist, one of the bills passed in this lame duck session, lawmakers agreed to legislation allowing for guns in elementary schools. Governor Snyder said he would wait a few days before signing into law, out of respect of course.
[box style=””green rounded”” ]Not a great memory for our State, and a record we hope is never broken, Michigan boasts the largest school massacre in history. In 1927 a school board member in Bath Township, MI murdered 45.[/box]