Pubdate: Sun, 27 Jun 2010
Source: North County Times (Escondido, CA)
Copyright: 2010 North County Times
Contact: http://www.nctimes.com/app/forms/letters/index.php
Website: http://www.nctimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1080
Author: Jim Trageser

OUR LAWS ALSO APPLY TO SUPES

It's apparent to anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen that the 
members of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors have no 
intention of obeying the law if they disagree with it.

It's an odd position for folks charged with enforcing the law to take.

And yet we the voters have only ourselves to blame, as we continue to 
re-elect Bill Horn, Dianne Jacob, Ron Roberts and Pam Slater-Price to 
office every four years, despite their proven track record of 
refusing to abide by the voter-approved medical marijuana law.

Only Greg Cox has, however tepidly, shown any willingness to defer to 
the voters of this county, a majority of whom voted for Prop. 215 
back in 1996, legalizing medical marijuana in California.

The rest of the supes continue to thumb their noses at the law, and 
at the very voters who put them into office.

The latest act of defiance from these four came last week when they 
approved new restrictions on medical marijuana dispensaries in the 
county's unincorporated areas. Cox cast the lone "no" vote, saying, 
"I think we're violating the spirit of the law."

Not to mention the letter.

The fact that the same voters who continue to elect these four also 
overwhelmingly approved term limits earlier this month says something 
about the public's patience with insubordinate public officials. The 
further fact that enough voters signed petitions to put another 
measure on November's ballot to legalize marijuana for personal use 
says something further about the philosophical divide between San 
Diego's elected help and those of us who hire them and pay their fat salaries.

Look, I voted against Prop. 215. The supposed benefits of "medical" 
marijuana are almost entirely anecdotal. And any doctors who advise 
their patients to smoke cannabis - with all the carcinogenic and 
cardiovascular risks that entails - rather than ingesting it probably 
ought to lose their license to practice on scientific grounds.

But most of the voters in the state disagreed with me, and now 
medical marijuana is the law of the land, at least in California. For 
elected officials to still be fighting this law 14 years on is ridiculous.

And with California voters poised to legalize marijuana in general 
come November, this entire bout of political petulance will have 
proven fruitless.

Not that anyone should believe for a second that San Diego County's 
elected officials will feel themselves bound by the new ballot 
measure, should it pass.

Fourteen years from now, we may well be having the same conversation 
about legalized pot. 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake