California medical marijuana supreme court ruling undermines everything everybody wants.
I found myself enraged today. How could 7 of our most highly esteemed justices be so ignorant of reality? How can 7 highly intelligent individuals completely ignore peer reviewed science, compelling logic and reasonable deduction?
When the California Supreme court asserted that local governments can ban the distribution, sale, and storage of medical marijuana they asserted certain facts I find genuinely confusing.
1. Marijuana is prohibited by the federal government via the Controlled Substance Act.
2. The state of California has the right, via the ballot initiative process, to refuse to enforce the Controlled Substance Act for individuals who have a recommendation from their doctor to use marijuana.
3. Local governments can prohibit all aspects of the production (this includes storefront collectives, delivery services, and private co-operatives) of medical marijuana should they deem those operations to be a nuisance without providing any criteria for what constitutes a nuisance.
Now reality steps in:
4. People who severely need marijuana will get marijuana from other sources.
5. People who moderately need marijuana will get marijuana from other sources.
6. People who want marijuana will get marijuana from other sources.
And who will they all get their marijuana from now? Drug dealers! Drug dealers have cocaine, meth, ecstasy, and really could care less how old you are, where their drugs came from (cartels and gangs), and most likely encourage users onto their harder products where their profit margins are much higher.
See, prohibitionists and reform activists like myself share a common goal: let’s reduce the harm caused by these drugs. Let’s prevent them from getting into the hands of our children and let’s take every effective step at reducing the violence associated with the illegal drug trade. Today’s ruling, does the exact opposite of all of our goals. It makes our communities less safe, empowers violent criminals, and exposes our children because of our society’s inability to deal with itself.
Let’s let science, reason, and compassion dictate our drug policy. We learned our lesson with alcohol prohibition. This was a bad decision.
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