Pubdate: Sun, 15 Dec 2013
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2013 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: David McKinney
Note: David McKinney is on the executive Board of Florida Cannabis 
Action Network.
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v13/n552/a03.html

PROVIDE REASONABLE CANNABIS LAWS

The response to the People United for Medical Marijuana petition from 
the Florida Sheriffs Association president Sheriff Grady Judd is 
carefully crafted, with cherry-picked facts that tell a half-baked story.

I first challenge that those debilitated by serious illnesses will 
not be truly helped by this initiative. The sick who need medical 
cannabis are directly harmed by resorting to the black market for 
medicine. They risk arrest. They risk losing access. They are faced 
with inconsistent or contaminated product-with no legal recourse when 
something goes wrong. Passing the initiative changes this situation.

The "loophole" in this petition is a way for doctors to practice 
medicine. That the benefit of a substance-drug, herb or food-likely 
outweighs the potential health risks of its use is a common standard 
familiar to doctors, and it should be no different for cannabis. 
There are many rare diseases that can be helped by cannabis, and to 
list diseases inclusively would be to ignore the discretion of doctors.

Doctors (not lawyers) and patients have decided collectively in 20 
states and many nations that cannabis is medicine. The latest trend 
we see is that snowbirds from legal states like Michigan, 
Massachusetts and Colorado are faced with the dilemma of not using 
cannabis, not coming to Florida, or breaking the law in a place like 
Florida, where 20 grams is a felony.

Next, I challenge the sheriff's statement about the experience that 
officers have with "tragedies associated with marijuana abuse." What 
tragedies? The details matter, and problems attributed to marijuana 
can often be more realistically attributed to other factors, 
including personal failures, poly-drug use and the prohibition of 
marijuana itself. Claims of increased crime and accidents in legal 
states are unsubstantiated and controvertible.

Addiction requires treatment, and it often fails when drug courts 
mandate it. Abuse and addiction are actually more problematic under 
prohibition because the beds required for treatment on demand are 
taken by those forced into treatment by the courts.

Despite the government's patent on medical cannabis, it is a Schedule 
I drug. The Schedule is being challenged in earnest at both the state 
and national level. Not only is cannabis effective, long-term 
cannabis use has been found in several studies to have no negative 
effect on either lung health or cognition.

Cannabis laws are changing nationally, and sooner or later, 
reasonable policy on cannabis will be the norm, including proper 
zoning for dispensaries and growers, and business permitting as 
determined by local councils. We should learn from what happens in 
other states and make our policy better.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom