MedicalNeed
New Member
For more than a year now, I’ve managed to stay out of the medical marijuana debate, at least personally.
Of course, that doesn’t mean the paper has ignored it. We’ve covered it as carefully, if not more so, than anyone else in the city. We’ve also offered editorial opinion on the issue, and I’ll admit to having a little bit to do with that.
But I’ve never laid out how I personally feel about the issue. Well, I feel compelled today to come clean, if you’ll pardon the pun.
The impetus for the spasm of unburdening comes from a story that ran on the front page of last week’s Uptown Gazette about a couple of marijuana dispensaries in Bixby Knolls. Actually, it wasn’t the story itself, in which Leslie Smith pro-vided a nicely balanced look at the struggles of the city to regulate versus the cooperatives attempting to stay in business.
We’ve done similar stories about cooperatives on the east side of town. Some operators are willing, even anxious, to cooperate (pardon that pun, too) and get their story out while others — not so much. I’ve watched hours and hours of public debate and comment at City Council meetings exploring all sides of the issue, all without feeling compelled to talk pot in this column.
What really got me going was the debate the Bixby Knolls story spurred in the comment section of our website. Someone who I’m fairly certain would be proud to be called a staunch conservative took on a medical marijuana advocate who says he is a doctor and who believes the coops provide an important service.
I don’t get into the middle of those comment debates — that’s a readers’ forum. But it did convince me it was about time for me to come out from behind my shield of journalistic objectivity.
I’ll start by saying that I’m of an age. I was in high school in the era of the Beatles, and missed going to Woodstock by about a year. I was in college in the love child days of the early 1970s.
I was a straight arrow in high school. Oh, I did the beer thing with my jock buddies after the games, but I stayed away from the demon weed.
Did I mention I was in college in the ’70s? It was different, much different, than high school. And yes, I inhaled.
I survived that period somehow, with my brain mostly intact (feel free to disagree). I quit when I decided short-term memory was an attribute I needed to maintain to function. That was a few decades ago.
I was bemused when the idea of marijuana as medicine gained credence. I certainly could see how it would benefit appetite and I had no problem believing it helped in other ways.
But it was clear to me that the medical marijuana dispensaries that proliferated in California had only a passing concern with providing medicine. The sheer number of outlets made it clear this was an easy way to get something that was nominally illegal in a sort-of-legal way. And the “nonprofit” component of the deal clearly is a joke, at least in most cases.
So I should be coming down on the side trying to regulate them out of existence, right? Until the country decides the weed should be legal, then it is illegal by definition, right?
But. And it is a big but for me. Let me take you to the Bible. Wait — don’t stop reading. This is a story, not a religious lesson.
In Genesis 18, Abraham argues with God over the fate of Sodom. God wants to destroy the city because of the great evil there. But Abraham argues it should be saved for the sake of the few righteous people there. He bargains God down from 50 righteous people to just 10 righteous men.
Sadly, Sodom was still destroyed — there weren’t even 10 righteous men. But I have to say that I believe Abraham’s principle holds true for medical marijuana. Regulate if you must, but if it helps, truly helps, even one person handle pernicious diseases like cancer and AIDS, we have to continue to make it available.
Medical marijuana has a place in this world, and we have a duty to allow it to keep its place. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.
NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: gazettes.com
Author: Harry Saltzgaver Executive Editor
Contact: gazettes.com: Contact
Copyright:2010, gazettes.com
Website:A Pinch Of Salt - gazettes.com: Opinion
Of course, that doesn’t mean the paper has ignored it. We’ve covered it as carefully, if not more so, than anyone else in the city. We’ve also offered editorial opinion on the issue, and I’ll admit to having a little bit to do with that.
But I’ve never laid out how I personally feel about the issue. Well, I feel compelled today to come clean, if you’ll pardon the pun.
The impetus for the spasm of unburdening comes from a story that ran on the front page of last week’s Uptown Gazette about a couple of marijuana dispensaries in Bixby Knolls. Actually, it wasn’t the story itself, in which Leslie Smith pro-vided a nicely balanced look at the struggles of the city to regulate versus the cooperatives attempting to stay in business.
We’ve done similar stories about cooperatives on the east side of town. Some operators are willing, even anxious, to cooperate (pardon that pun, too) and get their story out while others — not so much. I’ve watched hours and hours of public debate and comment at City Council meetings exploring all sides of the issue, all without feeling compelled to talk pot in this column.
What really got me going was the debate the Bixby Knolls story spurred in the comment section of our website. Someone who I’m fairly certain would be proud to be called a staunch conservative took on a medical marijuana advocate who says he is a doctor and who believes the coops provide an important service.
I don’t get into the middle of those comment debates — that’s a readers’ forum. But it did convince me it was about time for me to come out from behind my shield of journalistic objectivity.
I’ll start by saying that I’m of an age. I was in high school in the era of the Beatles, and missed going to Woodstock by about a year. I was in college in the love child days of the early 1970s.
I was a straight arrow in high school. Oh, I did the beer thing with my jock buddies after the games, but I stayed away from the demon weed.
Did I mention I was in college in the ’70s? It was different, much different, than high school. And yes, I inhaled.
I survived that period somehow, with my brain mostly intact (feel free to disagree). I quit when I decided short-term memory was an attribute I needed to maintain to function. That was a few decades ago.
I was bemused when the idea of marijuana as medicine gained credence. I certainly could see how it would benefit appetite and I had no problem believing it helped in other ways.
But it was clear to me that the medical marijuana dispensaries that proliferated in California had only a passing concern with providing medicine. The sheer number of outlets made it clear this was an easy way to get something that was nominally illegal in a sort-of-legal way. And the “nonprofit” component of the deal clearly is a joke, at least in most cases.
So I should be coming down on the side trying to regulate them out of existence, right? Until the country decides the weed should be legal, then it is illegal by definition, right?
But. And it is a big but for me. Let me take you to the Bible. Wait — don’t stop reading. This is a story, not a religious lesson.
In Genesis 18, Abraham argues with God over the fate of Sodom. God wants to destroy the city because of the great evil there. But Abraham argues it should be saved for the sake of the few righteous people there. He bargains God down from 50 righteous people to just 10 righteous men.
Sadly, Sodom was still destroyed — there weren’t even 10 righteous men. But I have to say that I believe Abraham’s principle holds true for medical marijuana. Regulate if you must, but if it helps, truly helps, even one person handle pernicious diseases like cancer and AIDS, we have to continue to make it available.
Medical marijuana has a place in this world, and we have a duty to allow it to keep its place. Why? Because it is the right thing to do.
NewsHawk: MedicalNeed: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: gazettes.com
Author: Harry Saltzgaver Executive Editor
Contact: gazettes.com: Contact
Copyright:2010, gazettes.com
Website:A Pinch Of Salt - gazettes.com: Opinion
