Pubdate: Thu, 28 Jan 2010
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2010 Summit Daily News
Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587
Author: Rob Pudim
Note: Rob Pudim is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service 
of High Country News (hcn.org). He writes in Boulder, Colorado.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?420 (Cannabis - Popular)

MARIJUANA STORES GET NO RESPECT

Cimarron, a ranching town of 1,000 in New Mexico, says it does not 
want a marijuana store. Residents cite the seaside town of Arcata in 
California where the Arcata Eye says people have finally had it 
because over 1,000 homes there have turned into "grow houses." Crime 
has spiked, newcomers are protecting their stash with pit bulls and 
guns, and some of those grow houses in Arcata have caught fire 
because of inadequate wiring.

Meanwhile, Whitefish, an upscale Montana town, is being sued because 
it refuses to allow a pot store. Then there's Ophir, a tiny Colorado 
town that wants to pump up its economy by using old greenhouses to 
produce enough marijuana to supply all of Colorado. Windsor, on the 
Colorado Front Range, has applications for five stores, Nederland, in 
the mountains west of Boulder, has six stores open and already doing 
business, and liberal Boulder has about 30, at least. Pot, it seems, 
is having a heyday - especially if you include Los Angeles, which 
reportedly has more marijuana outlets than it has Starbucks franchises.

I, for one, have supported legalizing marijuana for decades on the 
grounds that it is not a Schedule 1 drug like heroin or cocaine, and 
its illegal sales fuel the cartels that corrupt and kill elected 
officials, judges, the police and innocent people in Mexico.

But the problem marijuana has presented all along is that it is both 
a recreational drug and a source of medicine, and cities in the West 
can't decide how to treat it. One bunch says stores should not be 
within 1,000 feet of a school or a church. Another bunch wants it to 
be handled by pharmacies. All of them agree that they want the money 
that would come from selling it to go to city or state coffers.

Cannabis sativa is a complicated plant. There are at least 66 
different cannabinoids found in it along with a grab bag of other 
substances. Only a few are known for what they do to us. THC 
(delta9-tetrahydrocannabinol) gives you a buzz, while CBD 
(cannabidiol) takes that buzz away but does good things for 
convulsions and nausea. Some of the cannabinoids cause the munchies, 
some reduce the pressure in your eyeballs, and others act like 
aspirin and reduce inflammation.

As a recreational drug, marijuana is much safer than alcohol. An 
overdose causes the user to fall asleep, there is no fatal dose, 
being high does not lead to violent behavior and withdrawal does not 
provoke lethal convulsions. Of course, the plant packs as many tars 
and other nasty chemicals as a tobacco plant, and holding its 
unfiltered smoke in the lungs might be as carcinogenic as cigarette 
smoke. We won't know the consequences of widespread regular use of 
pot until enough human guinea pigs do it long enough for lung 
complications to manifest themselves.

In any case, in January of 2000, 54 percent of Colorado's voters 
approved Amendment 20 to the state Constitution authorizing the use 
of medical marijuana in small amounts for medically sick people. In 
Colorado, at least, it is clear that it is to be used medically, not 
recreationally. It strikes me that if this is the voter's intent, 
then it should be connected with a pharmacy rather than a ganja cafe 
or a massage parlor. There is still, however, the problem that a 
marijuana bust by a federal law enforcement agent can lead to a 
felony conviction.

So there are three things you can do with marijuana: legalize it, 
decriminalize it or ignore it. Colorado decriminalized weed so having 
less than a half-ounce was a misdemeanor and got you a ticket. Very 
few people ever got tickets so I guess it means the law was ignored. 
What's causing the uproar now is having marijuana sold publicly.

Here's my take on tokes: I have no problem with marijuana being used 
as a recreational drug so long as nobody drives while under the 
influence. I also have no problem with it being considered a 
medicine. People are already gobbling up huge amounts of dietary 
supplements, and there's no guarantee these supplements contain what 
they say they do or can fix what they claim to fix. And I have no 
problem with cities, states or proprietors of marijuana stores making 
some money selling it.

Pot is a fact of life and we might as well tax it to death.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom