Pubdate: Sun, 22 Jan 2012
Source: News Tribune, The (Tacoma, WA)
Copyright: 2012 Tacoma News, Inc.
Contact: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/submit/
Website: http://www.thenewstribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/442

DRAW THE LINE BETWEEN LEGAL POT AND BOGUS MEDICINE

Initiative 502 Has Given the Legislature a Big Fat Opening to 
Separate Medical Cannabis From the Legalization of Recreational Marijuana.

Initiative 502 has given the Legislature a big fat opening to 
separate medical cannabis from the legalization of recreational marijuana.

I-502 proposes to authorize and regulate the use and sale of 
marijuana in Washington. It's an initiative to the Legislature, which 
means that lawmakers have three options: They can adopt it as is, 
ignore it and let it go to the ballot, or come up with an alternative 
measure to put on the ballot alongside it.

The issue belongs to the voters, though legislators may well be able 
to improve on the initiative as written.

With the legalization option out in the open  and cleanly contained 
in its own bill  lawmakers ought to be able to craft a medical 
marijuana policy that doesn't amount to sneaky, corrupt pseudo-legalization.

They could get two-thirds of the way there with one simple step: 
explicitly outlawing clinics and medical practices that do virtually 
nothing but hand out so-called green cards to almost anyone who walks 
in the door.

The proliferation of pot docs and retailers in this state over the 
last few years has made a mockery of the 1998 initiative that 
carefully authorized the therapeutic use of marijuana for the 
genuinely ill within a doctor-patient relationship.

The law forbade sales of the drug and restricted its use to suffering 
patients who couldn't be helped by ordinary treatments.

Those restrictions remain in force but are routinely flouted. 
Potheads and partiers claiming "intractable pain" can easily find 
practitioners who will legalize their habits for $100 or $200  often 
promising them the money back if they don't get authorization papers. 
In Tacoma, the situation is such a sham that police say they're 
running into gang members who've been "medically" authorized to smoke dope.

A new bill introduced by state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, 
purports to clarify the legal status of the marijuana stores. 
Actually, their legal status is already clear: They are illegal. But 
many of their operators have proved that they will ignore the law so 
long as there's fast money to be made and local officials  the Tacoma 
City Council among them  willing to enable them.

Tinkering with definitions and labels won't change that. What will is 
a crackdown on providers who write green cards for common 
drug-seekers. Shut off the flood of bogus authorizations, and the 
rest of the industry will automatically get cleaner  if poorer.

Some lawmakers proposed last year to outlaw operations that 
"primarily" authorized marijuana. The sneaky-legalization people 
amended that to "exclusively"  a term of art broad enough to cover 
someone who sells lava lamps on the side. Getting "primarily" into 
law would fix some of what's broken with medical marijuana in this state.

Outright legalization is a separate discussion with a different set 
of issues; it's not quackery and it doesn't use sick people as 
camouflage for recreational or compulsive users.

There are respectable libertarian arguments for legalization. Let 
those honest arguments ride on I-502, and yank the dishonesty off the 
back of medical marijuana.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom