Pubdate: Sat, 8 May 2010
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2010 The Denver Post Corp
Contact:  http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Vincent Carroll
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion)

TIME TO GET REAL, PRO-POT ACTIVISTS

Pro-pot activists were self-righteous, dishonest and boorish, but in 
the end even their antics couldn't discredit legislation to legalize 
medical-marijuana dispensaries in this statea tribute to lawmakers 
such as Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, and Rep. Tom Massey, R-Poncha 
Springs, who kept their eyes on the ball.

"This has been a long, strange trip," Romer said of the nearly 
finished effort to offer patients in severe, chronic pain with 
another option for possible relief. House Bill 1284 will also drive 
bad actors out of the business, closely monitor the source of the 
plants, and preserve the right of local communities to ban 
dispensaries altogether.

Barring a major surprise, this imperfect but worthwhile bill should 
soon be signed into law.

Not that most activists who showed up at hearings, debates and 
protests are likely to display any gratitude for the extraordinary 
birth of state-sanctioned clinics selling marijuana. They're too busy 
heaping abuse on the lawmakers who engineered the feat.

"The amount of crap Massey and I have taken is unbelievable," Romer 
told me, in terms of nasty e-mails, for example, and face-to-face 
denunciations. And he means from people on the dispensaries' side. 
 From supposed allies -- allies who in fact believe in a 
medical-marijuana marketplace without meaningful constraints.

Nor was nastiness the worst offense committed by Pot Nation. The 
self-righteous dishonesty was far more galling.

For example, it has become an official article of faith among those 
seeking a Wild West marketplace for dispensaries that the retail sale 
of marijuana is a constitutional right, thanks to Amendment 20. But 
of course no one was making such a claim a year ago, before 
dispensaries appeared on the scene. Nor did anyone argue during or 
after the campaign for the amendment a decade ago that the measure 
legalized commercial dispensaries. Most proponents surely know this, 
and yet have apparently concluded that anything goes in the holy 
quest to broker the backdoor legalization of pot.

After all, isn't the struggle to legalize marijuana analogous to the 
Civil Rights movement of the mid-20th century? What, you weren't 
aware of this delusional comparison? Neither was I, until an activist 
attorney put the case to me in an e-mail, even citing Rosa Parks.

Pot Nation can't even bring itself to admit that marijuana has any 
worrisome side effects related to addiction, health, safety or state 
of mind. The product is entirely benign, many claim, even beneficial. 
"Let's teach our kids that marijuana has huge benefits," declared 
professor Bob Melamede of the University of Colorado at Colorado 
Springs in one of many recent over-the-top expressions of this conviction.

Not that it's easy to quantify marijuana's dangers, given the thicket 
of apparently conflicting studies. If you read only the footnoted 
literature from NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of 
Marijuana Laws, you would come away mostly reassured. At the opposite 
pole are documents from the White House Office of National Drug 
Control Policy, which connect marijuana abuse to "respiratory 
illnesses, problems with learning and memory, increased heart rate, 
and impaired coordination," not to mention "increased rates of 
anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and schizophrenia" and "addiction."

Both NORML and the White House have reason to cherry-pick evidence 
and exaggerate their case. But what about those in the field who 
treat drug dependency, such as Christian Thurstone, a Denver 
psychiatrist who told Westword, "In the scientific community, there's 
no debate about whether or not marijuana is an addictive substance. 
We know that marijuana triggers the same parts of the brain as all 
other addictive substances, like nicotine, cocaine and heroin."

Are these experts all deluded by personal motivation as well?

Pot activists seem to believe they can rest their case if marijuana 
is less dangerous in some ways than alcohol. It so happens, however, 
that most of us who appreciate the legal status of booze have never 
denied that it ruins many lives. We simply don't believe in outlawing 
every activity that carries a social cost or personal risk. That's 
not what a free society should do.

Maybe it's time marijuana advocates adopted a similar degree of 
honesty regarding their own drug of choice. 
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