Smoking out a law’s hypocrisy (April 29)
By Chuck Doud
The Madera Tribune
There is a school in Oakland (Oaksterdam University) that teaches its students how to become vendors of marijuana in this age of legalized medical pot and the Obama administration’s apparent lack of desire to enforce federal marijuana laws in the face of some Americans’ determination to smoke grass regardless of what the law is.
Californians voted to legalize so-called medical marijuana by passing Proposition 215 in 1996, “to insure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes …”
The act goes on to say that physicians must recommend pot use.
The diseases which the act says marijuana is useful for treating include cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine “or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.”
That last phrase has been stretched a bit, to mean just about anything, such as getting up in the morning, going to work or going home at night, all of which can cause stress, and all of which apparently can be relieved by drawing on a toke.
Those who smoke dope merely to get high, and not to relieve a medical condition, will face a misdemeanor charge and $100 fine if they are caught.
No doubt there are people for whom marijuana is indeed a medical palliative, but one wonders whether most of the users of medical marijuana aren’t just getting high with it. In fact, one doesn’t just wonder. One knows.
Even though the medical marijuana law is about as hypocritical as a law can be, there is no movement to repeal it.
Now that the U.S. attorney general seems to be winking at that hypocrisy, it will only be a matter of time before marijuana is allowed everywhere.
Maybe we should be thinking about how to control and tax it, as we do alcohol and tobacco — which would be a lot less hypocritical
