Allen St. Pierre on Medical Marijuana CelebStoner / Allen St Pierre / 1,5,2011 Defending the "medical" cannabis industry is so yesterday. Why not acknowledge the political and legal farce it is and focus on the real problem at hand: ending cannabis prohibition? The law and court precedents are fairly clear here. Self-preservation (yes), large-scale cultivation and sales (no). It's just this simple. The numerous actions by the Feds and state governments over the last few months make this abundantly clear: • ATF memo (no Second Amendment rights for patients) • Feds crackdown on banks doing business with CBCs (cannabis buyers' clubs) • Feds send forfeiture notices to CBC landlords • Feds send warnings to local CBCs that they must move or shut because they’re within 1,000 feet of a federally subsidized school • IRS 280E decision against Harborside Health Center • Feds send shutdown notices to 25% of the CBCs in San Diego And what more re-assertion of primacy will we get from the Feds today? If this were the 1920s, advocacy of today's "medical" cannabis industry would sound like a lawyer back then fronting for the legal sellers of "prescription" alcohol during Prohibition. The med-pot industry, of course, opposes actual legalization, such as last year’s Prop 19, which was also opposed by the profiteering communities in the state’s northern "grow" counties. Prescriptive alcohol was a sham then, and the "medical" cannabis industry (not medical cannabis itself) is largely a sham now. Is this news? NORML, and lawyers like Bill Panzer, have been warning ganjapreneurs and their legal counsel at our seminars and conferences about this political and legal box canyon since at least 2002. Cannabis consumers, who NORML represents, want good, affordable cannabis products without having to go through the insult and expense of "qualifying" as a "medical" patient by paying physicians and/or the state for some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card. How intellectually honest is all of this? NORML prefers to take a more transparent approach, advocating that cannabis should be legal for all adult consumers, including healthy ones. This has gone viral at advocacy sites because the mmj industry is posting this about it: NORML calls Medical Marijuana a 'Sham' & 'Fraud'! BOYCOTT NORML Today, please. NORML's Allen St. Pierre Calls Medical-Cannabis Industry a 'Farce' and a 'Sham' - CelebStoner.com. Divide and conquer,,working once more. The man never called mmj a sham,just the people making exorbitant profits and voting against legalization to protect their profits.
Honestly mmj has turned into somewhat of a sham. I know that there are real patients and people who greatly benefit from it, but probably 80% of the patients are just recreational users and some of the dispensaries look more like headshops than legitimate pharmacies. mmj was good to get things moving, improve public relations and raise public awareness. Now it's time to get it legal period. I get incredibly irritated by stuff like prop 19 where all the dispensary owners/growers/etc voted against it. IMO they're the worst kind of hypocrites. Basically they're people within an illegal industry voting to keep it illegal to ward off competition and protect their profits.
I wish i didnt have to say this, but Allen is correct on this issue. After watching Weed wars and listening to people i know who have lived in MMJ areas, yeah, its been turned into a sham. When i hear a teenager/young adult, whos got a gf, wealthy family, paid for education, bright happy smile, say "i've got a prescription for my depression," i cant help but think how this is slowing down our movement. If you wanna help those that need buds for medical reasons, legalize marijuana for all purposes, not just medical. Most people dont understand that marijuana has medical benefits, most people consider it a recreational drug. They don't make the same connect with oxycodone and heroin, because oxy is packaged in nice pharmaceutical containers and FBA approved. I agree that its a superficial way of thinking, but thats just how the majority of the world thinks. I think Allen is simply experimenting with a new way of going about things. The MMJ seems to be stalling with is momentum. The idea of MMJ seems to be conflicting with how the MMJ in reality is turning out. Allen is probably thinking that the best way to go is to directly address the status quo of marjuana - that its only used for lazy young adults who accept welfare handouts, that your never going anywhere in life if you use marijuana ect. Most people dont think that marijuan is "EVIL," they just feel that it leads your life down a bland, uneventful, unsuccessful live. We here at GC know thats untrue, but its different for most of america. EDIT: Because i'm drunk i totally forgot to add that i know that some people really need marijuana to live. I'm not discrediting them. But I feel they wont be helped until marijuana can be used recreationally also.
It is an exercise in futility to spend more money,time and effort trying to placate prohibs and our government. No matter how many times you meet their demands they will throw more regs at you. I do not want our government to even think we are as stupid or insane as they are.(see Einstien's quote about doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different results)
I agree with your main points, however I think we need to be careful not to fall into the mindset that many prohibitionists have; that we can "tell" a person's need for medicinal marijuana by their appearance or socioeconomic status. Teenagers or young adults who have girlfriends, wealthy families, paid-for educations, and even "bright happy smiles" may still suffer from depression and may still benefit from medicinal marijuana. Opponents of medicinal marijuana will often use the claim that the people they see frequenting medical cannabis dispensaries "don't look sick". This is a fallacious argument because people can be sick without appearing sick. You don't have to be elderly and using a walker to be suffering from chronic pain. You don't have to be poor, old, or struggling through life to be depressed.
Let's be honest though. Probably 99.9% of people can benefit medicinally from this plant in one way or another. Even if it's simply to eliminate stress after work that can be beneficial to your health. The real question is just how much people should have to NEED it to get a card. Of course none of this even matters if we can just somehow get it legalized already. Then we bypass this MMJ mess entirely. I'm pretty confident that some states like cali/oregon etc could easily legalize it statewide at least if people would simply all quite being so damn selfish/confrontational and just vote for the right thing. Instead prop 19 got bogged down by all the dispensaries/growers/dealers and even people who want legalization, but simply didn't like all of the conditions. I'm willing to bet that at least 10-15% of the opposition was people who had greed fueled motivations or simply stubborn people who didn't like certain parts of the proposition. I mean seriously....I would kill for people to just come together long enough to get this crucial first step done. Instead you get guys saying "screw this! I'd be limited to only growing 5 plants and I'd have to pay for a permit!!! Screw that I'm voting NO! I'd rather keep things how they are than compromise!!!"
I have said it before also,if marijuana makes you think you feel more relaxed and happier,then that too is a healing process,as opposed to being tense and depressed.
Like i always say, if it enhances your way of life safely, and isnt causing issues in your day to day life, it may as well be considered a form of medicine whether it is "technically" classified as one or not.... hell, people drink chai tea like its a medication and im not going to go laugh them off saying "yea right you dirty hippie" if it helps you get through the day safely, whats the issue????? sigh... people suck lol