Pubdate: Mon, 22 Jan 2007
Source: Whittier Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2007 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.whittierdailynews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.whittierdailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/497
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

ENFORCE MEDICAL MARIJUANA LAWS

IT'S not pretty to see federal agents swooping across Los Angeles, 
raiding medical-marijuana dispensaries.

Legalizing pot's medicinal use was a compassionate decision 
California voters made 10 years ago, a decision that's never been 
appreciated in Washington, but one that the feds ought to respect 
just the same.

And yet it's hard to blame the federal government for cracking down, 
given how badly the state has failed to regulate the pot clubs.

Medical marijuana was supposed to be for the truly ill - cancer 
victims and AIDS patients who could use the drug to relieve pain or 
restore their appetites. Yet the number of dispensaries has 
skyrocketed from five in 2005 to 143 by the end of 2006. In North 
Hollywood alone, there are more pot clinics than Starbucks. Hacienda 
Heights was one of the first communities to get one in our area.

So either there's been an unreported, massive outbreak in terminal 
illnesses, or a rampant abuse in the distribution of "medical" 
marijuana. Now which one seems more likely?

Any doubt on that score was laid to rest earlier this week, when one 
pot club distributed fliers at a high school in Van Nuys - not 
exactly a cancer ward.

This problem is not new.

Local officials have been scrambling to regulate these seedy 
businesses or rein in the abuses. Hacienda Heights has a dispensary 
and Diamond Bar allows one. Whittier has said OK, too. Pasadena has 
enacted a ban and El Monte, Glendora and Monterey Park have 
moratoriums. Proponents of medical marijuana insisted that 
Proposition 215 was not, in fact, backdoor legalization.

So now Washington is stepping in where some state and local officials 
have failed, and that's a shame. Whether or not you believe marijuana 
helps sick people, Californians voted to give very ill people that 
option, and that ought to be how the law is administered.
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MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman