Politicians Across the US Are Pushing Medical Marijuana Smoking Bans -- Here's Why They Are Dead Wro

[Panich52]

Politicians Across the US Are Pushing Medical Marijuana Smoking Bans -- Here's Why They Are Dead Wrong

Another knee-jerk bad idea.
By Paul Armentano / AlterNet

State lawmakers are moving ahead with legislative efforts to allow for the limited use of medical ‘cannabis’ while simultaneously forbidding anyone from either inhaling the herb or possessing its flowers

Many medical marijuana advocates cheered the news this week that members of the Utah Senate gave preliminary approval to legislation to permit the use of medical cannabis preparations for qualified patients. No doubt the vote marked a significant change in attitude for lawmakers in the heavily Mormon state. But while the vote marked a ‘first’ for Utah, lawmakers’ decision to prohibit patients from legally possessing, inhaling, or vaporizing actual cannabis is part of a growing, and problematic, national trend.

While no state legislature has approved a law permitting medi-pot patients to grow their own medicine since New Jersey lawmakers banned the practice in 2012, few if any politicians sought to altogether prohibit patients from accessing cannabis flowers (where the majority of pot’s therapeutically active constituents are located) until Minnesota lawmakers addressed the issue last year. In a legislative compromise to appease the state’s Governor, House and Senate lawmakers agreed to amended legislation that, for the first time, mandated patients only be permitted to possess cannabis in non-smoked preparations such as pills or extracted oils (the latter of which could arguably still be vaporized). One month later, New York lawmakers enacted similar legislation restricting the dispensing of medical cannabis only to non-smokeable formulations. And so the trend began.

This legislative session, lawmakers in several states – including Florida, Iowa, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, and Utah are contemplating similar bans on patients’ access to whole plant cannabis and/or their ability to inhale cannabinoid preparations. ...

Setting aside the practical matter of whether the enforcement of these proposed smoking bans are even feasible, the larger question remains. Is banning flowers in lieu of orally ingested cannabis preparations in the best interest of patients? Here is why it is not.

Oral preparations not fast acting
...
Ingestible preparations are harder to self-regulate
...
Oral pot preparations possess significant bioavailability
...
But isn’t inhaling cannabis smoke as dangerous as exposure to tobacco smoke?
...
Banning vaporization is irrational
...
Science, Not False Assumptions, Should Guide Medi-Pot Policy
...

Details
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/why-medical-marijuana-smoking-bans-bad-patients?akid=12863.1924881.l_rfMl&rd=1&src=newsletter1032908&t=7

[Thinkingabout]

1. By changing cannabis from a class 1 to a class 2 gives an opening to research

on the many uses of which it can be used. This would be good.

[Tsiyu]

2. See, these legislators get a lot of money from bigPharm,

big beer and for-profit prisons. They have no moral objection to people getting high, since most of them are drinkers themselves.

But if people can get real relief from cannabis, they won't need those high-dollar pharmco products.

If they can get a safe buzz off cannabis, they won't buy the dangerous, addictive product known as beer.

If they smoke it, it smells, so how are cops going to know who's a medical patient and who is getting happy illegally, so how can they continue to keep those 90% quotas in those for-profit prisons?

These legislators are all greedy assholes, make no mistake. But someday, they will have a dear loved one - or their own evil selves - who can only have their agony relieved by cannabis, and then perhaps their hearts will change.

More likely, they'll have it flown in and be criminals in their own states, without going to jail like the people they oppress over this plant.

[msongs]

3. jobs welfare for the benevolent brotherhood of criminals in blue unions nt

[Nay]

4. "Science, not false assumptions..." Actually, we should add "Science, not the love of

drug war money" should be used to decide.

[deek]

5. Growing

"While no state legislature has approved a law permitting medi-pot patients to grow their own medicine since New Jersey lawmakers banned the practice in 2012,..."

It is legal in CA, I believe.

[Comrade Grumpy]

6. Yes, it is. But that's because of a 1996 voter initiative.

[deek]

7. aha

thank you