Pubdate: Sun, 02 May 2010 Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA) Copyright: 2010 Chico Enterprise-Record Contact: http://www.chicoer.com/feedback Website: http://www.chicoer.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861 Note: Letters from newspaper's circulation area receive publishing priority Cited: http://www.chico.ca.us/government/ Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/opinion.htm (Opinion) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Proposition+215 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis - California) Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - U.S.) DON'T MAKE A HAZY LAW WORSE Our view: As Chico grapples with the question of what to do about medical marijuana, the only certainty is that current laws aren't working. Ever since Proposition 215 was passed by state voters 14 years ago, the vague wording in the law has left a lot open to interpretation. E-R reporter Toni Scott has spent several weeks researching the legalities and the realities. In her five-part series that concludes today, there are several eye-opening revelations. The most stunning is this: Selling marijuana is illegal, but there are as many as eight dispensaries in the Chico area that do it. And they get away with it. Marijuana isn't a high priority for an understaffed police department, the police chief says. If that's the case, it makes one wonder if the marijuana threat to public safety is overblown. People can argue about that question all day. This much is clear to us: The laws on the books are not working. Some believe the answer is to just legalize marijuana. Not us. We think Proposition 215 was a ruse, the first step toward legalization. It focused on getting medicine for sick people. That's a noble cause, and few can argue with that. Most voters pictured elderly cancer patients with nausea, not 20-somethings with anxiety or headaches. Medical marijuana recommendations from doctors are simple to get for people who just want to smoke pot legally -- and those are the people most often taking advantage of the law. Proposition 215 never stated how much patients could grow or how they could get their medicine, only that they were entitled to have it. Legalization proponents are using the failure of that proposition to argue that simple legalization would eliminate the confusion. Legalization is not the answer. Fixing Proposition 215 is the answer. The state or federal government needs to establish laws that regulate who can grow it, in what quantities, and who can dispense it. The laws should be the same in every city and county, rather than the hodgepodge that exists now, creating counties that are permissive toward pot, like Humboldt and Mendocino. More than anything, we'd like to see a better way of differentiating between severely ill patients who really could benefit from the herb and users who invent a malady just so they can legally get high. Doctors who freely prescribe the drug -- every community has a "Dr. Feelgood" who will give a medical marijuana recommendation to just about anyone for a fee -- are doing society no favors. Fourteen years into this political experiment, cancer patients and others suffering chronic pain have trouble finding marijuana for medicine. The solution isn't to give everyone access to marijuana anymore than you would give everyone access to Vicodin. The solution is regulating it correctly on a statewide or national level so unprepared cities don't have to decide on their own. The way the current laws are working -- or aren't working -- the Chico City Council would be unwise to allow legal marijuana dispensaries. That would only add to the haze. - --- MAP posted-by: Richard Lake