The State Legislature is looking into medical marijuana. Not an unreasonable thing for our public servants to be up to. However, when the good citizens of Colorado voted to legalize marijuana for legitimate medical use, apparently some legislators figured no one would actually use it.

The public servants say, “the will of the people” is not being followed. Yet, the very numbers of permits the state’s issuing indicates the will of a great many citizens is that they want to use marijuana for their medical needs.

The legislators championing revisions to the law act as if this is a zero sum game. That is, if people can’t have access to legal medical marijuana, then no one will use any marijuana. Apparently they dont have kids in high school. Illegal marijuana is on every street corner and in every school.

They use the “gateway drug” argument. While it may be true in some cases, it isnt germane here, because folks who want illegal drugs have no problem finding them….everywhere….now. The “war on drugs” has been a boon to illegal drug gangs and prison administrators. Immigrant gangs import cheap marijuana and have a firm footing in our state and a huge source of income.

Is it so remarkable that honest, tax-paying folk would prefer to not deal with thugs and felons for relief of their pain? Could that be “the will of the people?”

Our legislature has often been willing to protect various immigrant groups. Do they really believe that immigrant drug gangs are under economic assault from middle class yuppies and that gang control of the marijuana trade must be protected from the vagaries of the marketplace? Because if you severely limit the legal medical marijuana trade, illegal drug gangs are surely the beneficiaries.

Legalized medical marijuana has become an overnight cottage industry with all sorts of folks trying to help their friends and families. Legal dispensaries and caregivers pay taxes, provide jobs, and don’t deal drugs to our children. There is no reason. The whole point is to behave legally and show that there are alternatives to the insanity that has gone on for so long.

Are there some bad people involved with medical marijuana? Sure….some. Those who deal drugs to unlicensed folks should be stopped and there are laws on the books already to deal with them. That’s different than changing the intent of the law and eliminating the ability of honest citizens who want to legally use the medicine of their choice. The “Will of the people” is clear. A rapidly growing number of the people want to continue making their own decisions about how they manager their bodies.

-Your Neighbor

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© 2010, AntiSoccermom. All rights reserved to the original author unless stated otherwise.

According to a study from NORML, Marijuana has been smoked by 95 million Americans. And an estimated 8,120,045 people use marijuana habitually with over 100 uses per year. Since 1965 20 million arrests have been made in the name of marijuana, and it has cost taxpayers an almost countless mountain of money. The government has spent billions of our dollars, fighting the very thing that Americans gladly pay for, each and every day. Marijuana has proven and substantial health benefits and it has been shown to ease tension, relieve stress, treat PTSD and help countless other disorders. Marijuana isn’t a cure all, not by a long shot, but this antiquated sentiment that marijuana is poisoning the minds of our youth is about as outdated as the notion that alcohol is harmless.

Here are some things you might not know, and the answer to the longstanding question, Should we push for marijuana reform?

*Marijuana costs us, Joe Taxpayer, Billions. That’s with a B. We chase, prosecute, and house millions for marijuana related offenses and continue to do so, despite the overwhelming marijuana movement. One person being jailed for a victimless crime is one too many, and our jails are filled with them. Prison systems are full and private prisons have been sprouting up across the country to keep up with the demand to house marijuana related offenders while people who do truly stupid things are let out of jail to make more room for the kid caught growing a plant in his basement closet. (Paris Hilton, drunk driving?) *Crime only pays criminals because we allow it to. Taxing marijuana could reroute billions of dollars back into our struggling economy, end a failed war on drugs, and provide priceless relief for millions of struggling and disabled citizens. It will also put the drug cartels of foreign countries on the run, because let’s face it, no one would be smoking brick weed if the plant was available in your own backyard. The black market drug trade (akin to alcohol prohibition’s organized crime movement) flourishes in place of a legalized, taxed and regulated market. *Marijuana is the intelligent choice for pain control. The government has offered marijuana in pill form, so that they can profit from this anti-inflammatory analgesic pain relieving plant while refusing to admit that the medicinal benefits are valid, proven, and logical. What they cannot deny is that it helps millions every single day, despite the social stigma and legal status.Marijuana can provide regulated pain control without obscurring your ability to function. You can parent your children, love your spouse and fight your pain, can you say that about opiates? *It remains illegal in (far too) many states and the war on drugs has failed to slow, let alone stop the use and distribution of Marijuana anywhere in the United States. 90% of the money allocated for the war on drugs is used to prosecute marijuana related crimes, leaving 10% for all other drugs including heroin, methamphetamines, cocain and the tsunami of crimes related to prescription medications. More people die from prescription medications in one day, than people who have EVER died from overdosing on marijuana, the number of marijuana overdoses has been ZERO for thousands of years. More people have died from alcohol in the time it has taken you to read this post, than have ever died from marijuana. *To allow marijuana prohibition we are telling the government that we would like them to regulate what we can put in our own bodies, a basic human right of choice. I do not care what you do with your body, and I’d appreciate it if you didn’t care what I did with mine.

Keep your laws off of my body

End Marijuana Prohibition today.

© 2009, AntiSoccermom. All rights reserved to the original author unless stated otherwise.