Pubdate: Fri, 02 Nov 2012
Source: Wayland Town Crier (MA)
Copyright: 2012 GateHouse Media, Inc.
Contact:  http://www.wickedlocal.com/wayland/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5214
Author: Heidi Heilman

VOTE 'NO' ON QUESTION NO. 3

"Millions of Massachusetts residents would potentially be eligible for
medical marijuana under Question 3," boasts a Colorado attorney who's
opened a new office here in Boston looking to profit from November's
vote.

His website states the catchall phrase in the proposed law "other
conditions" allows for maladies including "chronic pain and mental
conditions - such as anxiety and depression."

Coming from Colorado, he would know. Currently there are over 100,000
medical marijuana cardholders in Colorado. Ninety-four percent of them
were issued for a malady in the "other condition" category - pain.
Less than 3 percent were issued for cancer.

While medical marijuana in other states has helped attorneys like this
generate huge profits, citizens are experiencing buyers' remorse. Just
this summer, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously voted to shut
down all pot dispensaries in the city because of increased crime,
violence, addiction and neighborhood decay they are causing.

A co-author of the original medical marijuana ballot measure in
California now says, "Most of the dispensaries =C2=85 are little more tha
n
dope dealers with storefronts."

Proponents say if passed, Ballot Question No. 3 would be the tightest,
safest medical marijuana law in the country, but a look at the
six-page bill proves otherwise. The proposal would allow 35 marijuana
retail stores in the first year and more would be allowed in future
years - there is no limit to the number of stores in the law.

In 1996, Los Angeles began with a few dozen too, but ballooned to over
900 in a decade. In Denver, pot shops outnumber McDonald's and
Starbucks combined!

In the law, marijuana cards will have no expiration date, undefined
dosing limits, no minimum age, and no requirement for parental
consent. Put this all together and it means any child could get a
medical marijuana card for a self-diagnosed pain, and have a lifetime
membership to a pot store without his or her parents knowing.

Cardholders will be able to have an undefined two-month supply of
marijuana on their person or transport it in their vehicle. An ounce
of marijuana is roughly 40 joints. A 60-day supply in the state of
Washington defined by their Public Health Department is 24 ounces plus
15 marijuana plants. If these numbers set precedent, Ballot Question
No. 3 would allow a person to carry over 960 joints at a time.

Given the black market value of the drug and the current economic
times, that amount practically begs an individual to sell it for
personal, illicit profit. And this is what we're seeing in Colorado.

In Denver this year, 74 percent of teens in treatment for addiction
report getting their marijuana supply from a medical marijuana card
holder an average of 50 times. Further, Colorado public schools have
seen a 45 percent increase in drug-related suspensions in the last
four years.

Research shows those who become marijuana dependent during adolescence
and continue to adulthood have an 8-point drop in IQ. For context,
that puts a person of average intelligence into the lowest third of
the IQ range. This cognitive damage is irreversible.

Marijuana accounts for 67 percent of youth in substance abuse
treatment programs nationwide, and it is the No. 1 drug that puts
Massachusetts teens in treatment above all other drugs combined. One
big reason for this is that our kids are using "21st century pot." THC
levels in medical marijuana are upwards of 20 percent potency (some as
high as 30 percent), making it much more addictive than the weed of
the '80s and '90s where THC levels were at a modest 4 percent.

It is no wonder current research shows links between pot use and
psychosis, schizophrenia and a host of other mental health issues.

Question No. 3 allows anyone over the age of 21 with no special
training or medical qualifications to own and operate a pot store.
Under Question No. 3, these nonprofit dispensaries would not be
subject to property or sales tax no matter how much money they bring
in, even if their operators are making hundreds of thousands of
dollars per year. In California, one pot store can bring in over $20
million annually in cash sales.

Ballot Question No. 3 would also allow anyone over the age of 21, even
those with drug felony convictions, to grow marijuana in their home.
Co-ops would be allowed to grow marijuana in large-scale grow operations.

These grow houses could be sited in residential neighborhoods. It is
this provision in California and Colorado laws that has caused a
booming business of "home grows" where people turn their home into a
pot greenhouse that can be smelled a block away by its skunky odor.
These homes are guarded by people with guns and are magnets for
violence and crime because it is cash business only. Illegal under
federal law, banks will not touch medical marijuana money.

The Department of Public Health would be mandated to create and manage
the mini-Drug Enforcement Agency needed to regulate this big business
industry - the very agency that cost taxpayers millions with their
recent drug lab debacle. While Question No. 3 claims registration fees
will offset costs, the actual costs of properly enforcing the law will
be in the millions of dollars.

The City Council in Boulder, Colo., is now working to recraft its
marijuana dispensary regulation because the public health department
loses hundreds of thousands of dollars annually in administrative
costs to oversee and regulate it. Though our state Department of
Public Health has remained silent on this issue, Arkansas, also facing
a Nov. 6 medical marijuana ballot, has estimated their public costs to
responsibly regulate such a system would be over $3 million in the
first year - and Arkansas has half the population of
Massachusetts.

We know what is happening in other medical marijuana states and Ballot
Question No. 3 is the most unrestrictive law this side of California.
Massachusetts would be the only state other than California that gives
a single physician the sole discretion to determine what conditions
should be treated with medical marijuana. And there's no limit on the
number of recommendations a single physician can make. It is this
leniency that has drawn out the worst in doctors in other states. In
one case in Oregon, a single doctor signed 35 percent of all medical
marijuana card recommendations in one year, amounting to an average of
29 per day at $200 per signature.

Some people say, let's pass this law and then fix it if it doesn't
work. What they don't know is that the severability clause included in
Section 17 makes it virtually impossible to repeal if it does not work
out well for the commonwealth. Using the advantage of severability
language, the newly enriched medical marijuana trade makes it
expensive and difficult to amend passed ballot referendums. We've
learned this from other states, including neighboring Rhode Island,
where an attempt by their Department of Public Health to tighten up
their medical marijuana law was met by a lawsuit filed by the American
Civil Liberties Union, a group funded by drug legalization interest
groups.

On Nov. 6, 2012, by voting "no" on Question No. 3, we are not closing
the door to our chronically ill in Massachusetts. Instead we are
saying this is not the right law for what we would like to accomplish
with compassionate care.

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Heidi Heilman of Wayland is the president of the Massachusetts
Prevention Alliance.
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MAP posted-by: Matt