Pubdate: Fri, 06 Feb 2015
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: John Kingsbury
Note: John Kingsbury is a medical-marijuana advocate, patient and is 
now reluctant activist.

TAILOR LEGAL MARKET TO MEDICAL POT

THE implementation of Initiative 502 is floundering. Its largest 
obstacle is not medical marijuana, as state lawmakers suggest, but 
its haphazard construction, an emerging marijuana market in Oregon 
and a group of I-502 advocates who have decided to scapegoat medical 
marijuana rather than fix a flawed initiative.

Legislators must recognize that I-502 is based on an untenable 
regulatory model. It doesn't help that the state Liquor Control Board 
has an abysmal record of understanding how business functions.

If it is to succeed, I-502 must be reworked to meet the needs of 
medical-marijuana patients as well as recreational purchasers. 
Denying the obvious threatens to derail the initiative and roll back 
the 1998 Medical Use of Marijuana Act, which first gave 
Washingtonians legal access to marijuana.

Legislators must recognize that the No. 1 obstacle keeping 
medical-marijuana patients out of the state-licensed shops is price. 
A reworked I-502 must lower those costs for patients. The way to do 
that would be to follow Colorado's low 3 percent tax on sales to 
qualified patients. Making that patient registration process easy, 
not burdensome, is equally essential to keep patients out of the black market.

After I-502 was approved in 2012, rather than pursue their "pass it, 
then fix it" sales pitch, initiative backers chose to go after 
medical marijuana. Legislators responded with confused proposals 
about an unfamiliar subject. Meanwhile, the so-called green-rush 
marijuana entrepreneurs are trying to make us forget that I-502 was 
supposed to be as much about decriminalization as generating profits 
and tax revenue.

Sadly, few voices are speaking for legitimate medical-marijuana 
patients. Even Alison Holcomb, who has been called the architect of 
marijuana legalization in Washington state, has offered no solutions 
for the estimated 180,000 legitimate patients in this state - 
including those living with multiple sclerosis, cancer, epilepsy and 
chronic pain.

Instead, those opposing medical marijuana have resorted to four 
fallacies to try to force patients into a defective system.

Medical-marijuana don't really exist:

Even this fallacy is fading away because so many people know 
legitimate medical-marijuana patients. People understand that 
believing patients to be frauds is to believe that hundreds of 
doctors, including those practicing at Providence, Group Health and 
other major health providers, including the Department of Veterans 
Affairs, are writing bogus medical-marijuana authorizations.

Licensed stores will make home growing and medical-marijuana outlets obsolete:

This falsehood suggests that chronically ill people, who usually 
suffer financial difficulties as a result of their illness, will be 
well-served by licensed stores. Even with a tax break, I-502 
threatens to force patients to spend hundreds of dollars a month for 
marijuana on top of their existing health-care expenses.

Price and availability of state-approved marijuana will become 
affordable and abundant:

The problem is that I-502 was written not on the idea that cannabis 
is agriculture, but on a myth that it can be a golden cash crop the 
state can tax and regulate without consequence. Eliminate normal tax 
deductions, add an estimated 45 percent tax, add unprecedented layers 
of regulations, remove reliable access to banking and you begin to 
understand the financial pressures on state-licensed businesses 
growing marijuana for retail outlets.

Medical and recreational markets are essentially the same:

They could not be more different. While there are different product 
needs, recreational buyers have the choice to purchase or not, while 
patients must purchase it to avoid daily suffering. In most cases, 
patients' choices are between cannabis or narcotics or anti-seizure 
medications.

Today, accessing higher priced, state-licensed stores is out of the 
question for most patients.

If left uncorrected, I-502 will force patients back on to more 
harmful drugs or parking-lot drug deals. This is a return to 
prohibition for the poor and contrary to the basic postulates of public health.

The reality is that medical and recreational marijuana cannot be 
reconciled without rewriting I-502. Making this work means basing 
policy on expert opinion and focusing on patients instead of putting 
tax dollars first. Wiping out medical marijuana would cause immense 
collateral damage in the lives of people, but it would not by itself 
rescue I-502.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom