Pubdate: Wed, 06 Nov 2013
Source: Seattle Weekly (WA)
Column: Toke Signals
Copyright: 2013 Village Voice Media
Contact: 
http://www.seattleweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.seattleweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/410
Author: Steve Elliott

LET MARIJUANA PATIENTS GROW THEIR OWN

The current power grab in Washington state politics-in which the 
Liquor Control Board, having effectively been fired by voters from 
selling alcohol, was then put in charge of recreational marijuana 
under legalization measure I-502-is a fascinating study in the 
difference between political promises and political reality.

A complete ban on home growing by medical-marijuana patients is one 
of the proposed new rules unveiled by the Board on October 21. Along 
with a proposed ban on collective gardens-which would effectively 
take out medical-marijuana dispensaries-the growing ban would give 
patients no other option than the recreational pot stores established 
under I-502.

The promise, of course, was that I-502 "wouldn't negatively impact" 
patients by compromising their safe access to cannabis. The reality, 
as is becoming more and more apparent, is that patients and the 
collectives that supply them are seen as impediments to 
recreational-marijuana profits, and the fat tax proceeds expected to 
follow. Simply put, the LCB is attempting to "fold in" the 
medical-marijuana market, primarily over concern that untaxed 
dispensaries would prove too much competition for state-licensed 
recreational-pot stores.

While state officials began a few months ago on a more honest 
note-admitting that the specter of competition is the reason they 
found it necessary to gut the state's 15-year-old medical-marijuana 
law-their talking points quickly shifted to being "in compliance" 
with "federal guidelines," with the threat of Drug Enforcement 
Administration raids always a reality.

While such factors could conceivably be a source of legitimate 
concern for dispensaries, individual patients growing medicine at 
home are under no such threat. The federal government has shown no 
interest in raiding individual patients growing their own-in fact, it 
has specifically expressed a disinclination to do so, from President 
Obama down through the chain of command.

So why did it suddenly become so crucial to force patients-many of 
them on fixed incomes, and economically marginal-to stop growing 
their own medicine, when that's the only way so many of them can 
afford any cannabis at all? You guessed it-because the Liquor Control 
Board wants even patients to have to go to their licensed 
recreational-marijuana stores (and pay those high taxes, you 
betcha!), because growing their own would be "bad for profits."

With absolutely no credible threat of federal raids on individual 
patient grows, even to suggest that "federal guidelines" are any 
excuse for taking away the established right of medical-marijuana 
patients to grow their own is beyond absurd, it is cruel and 
capricious-especially since many patients cultivate very specialized 
strains crafted to address their specific symptoms. Many of these 
strains are, for example, high in CBD, which doesn't get you high at 
all, but is effective against pain and inflammation. Do you really 
expect to find those strains in a recreational-marijuana store?

Lending an air of Kafkaesque unreality to the idea of patients having 
to access their medicine through recreational-marijuana stores is the 
fact that these staffers, unlike dispensary employees, will likely 
know nothing about cannabis' medicinal uses-and even if they do, 
under LCB rules they are forbidden to discuss it.

Simply put: If home-growing is taken away from patients, some of the 
sickest and most vulnerable will no longer have medicine. Do we 
really want to do that in the name of profits?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom