Pubdate: Sun, 18 May 2014
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2014 Star Tribune
Contact: http://www.startribunecompany.com/143
Website: http://www.startribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266
Author: Oliver Steinberg

MEDICAL CANNABIS COMPROMISE IS A SHAM

A PR gimmick, it's cluttered with absurd rules and involves police in
medical care.

Publicity about the so-called "medical marijuana" bill calls it a
compromise, but that's not what it is. It is a false step to reform,
not a first step. Predicated more on residual "reefer madness"
attitudes about people smoking cannabis for fun, instead of seriously
seeking relief for suffering Minnesotans, this law repeats the
mistakes of its predecessor, the 1980 THC Therapeutic Research Act,
which was a dead letter as soon as it was passed.

The new law will actually discredit the reform it purports to achieve.
That sabotage is intentional, not on the part of the sponsors but
certainly on the part of the obstructionists like the law enforcement
lobby and their stooge, Gov. Mark Dayton. All they actually want is a
public relations gimmick to counteract the negative publicity
generated by desperate parents with suffering children.

This pretend compromise picks and chooses which medical conditions may
be treated - as if legislators and cops were qualified to practice
medicine - thereby denying equal protection of the laws. It involves
the police directly in making decisions about medical care; no other
diseases can be added without approval by a committee that is weighted
with "law enforcement" members. It requires patients to buy a license
for the privilege of obtaining medication. It attaches more criminal
penalties to cannabis when public opinion favors ending prohibition.
It intrudes state bureaucracy between doctors and patients with
burdensome monitoring and reporting requirements. It denies patients
the most convenient, inexpensive, and efficacious methods of
administration and self-titration of dosage amounts and frequency.

The bill promises to supply therapeutic cannabis extracts, oils and
other "nonsmokable" compounds, in forms and calibrated doses not
necessarily even available or producible yet. It will require
expensive testing and research, the outcome of which isn't assured,
before patients can, in theory, receive the preparations.

Why do this when 20 other states already allow patients to receive and
use natural herbal cannabis and its tinctures and extracts, with
proven safety? Patients who need cannabis need it now, not a year or
two or three from now.

These are some but not all of the problems with this bill. Its purpose
is to provide political cover for Dayton and to discredit the
therapeutic use of cannabis by cluttering it with absurd restrictions;
and in doing so, to dissipate the public interest in and public demand
for reform.

In good faith, patients and their allies have sought legal permission
for medicinal use of cannabis since 1991 in Minnesota. In bad faith,
prohibitionist special interests and cowardly politicians have
defeated all of the bills since 1991. This year when - because of
public outcry - they could not sidetrack it and bury it in the maze of
the legislative process, they cynically perpetrated this fraudulent
bill and hope the news media won't expose the deception.

The only good thing about the bill was the decision to use the
designation "cannabis" instead of the demonized neologism "marijuana"
in the text of the statute. But this small fact won't be respected or
even reported by the media, so it was a wasted gesture.
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MAP posted-by: Matt