Medical marijuana supporters taking cause to Legislature, not voters
By Peter Hecht, Sacramento Bee
Medical marijuana advocates are dropping efforts to qualify a November ballot initiative to regulate California’s dispensary industry and instead plan a media campaign to lobby the Legislature to tackle the issue.
Cannabis industry groups including dispensaries, medical marijuana growers and a powerful union drafted the proposed measure in the face of an ongoing federal crackdown on California’s $1.5 billion medicinal pot trade.
But a top campaign director said today initiative planners instead have decided to run television and radio ads to urge lawmakers and Gov. Jerry Brown to enact rules governing how medical marijuana outlets operate in the state.
“We’re not doing the initiative. We’re pulling the plug on it,” said Dan Rush, director of the Medical Cannabis and Hemp Division for the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has been organizing California pot workers for the past two years.
I’m a huge proponent for the legalization of mj, but am really starting to believe that trying to do this by pushing the medical mj issue is doing nothing more than shooting ourselves in the foot. From my viewpoint this is creating an Achilles heel to the pro legalization movement by giving those with an anti pot sentiments more and more ammunition to fight it. Let’s call a spade a spade! I would guess that close to 90% of those holding a medical mj prescriptions in all actuality have no real medical issues warranting the need for one (they, like me, enjoy getting stoned, absolutely no difference from those that drink alcohol to get some level of inebriation, cigarette smokers getting a nicotine fix, coffee drinkers getting a caffeine buzz). I also believe that there are those with real medical conditions that do in fact require mj for medical purposes, and if this issue is overused in the push for legalization could backfire and aid in these folks losing the right to have it as a medicine. It’s time to fight for legalization head on without having to use a backdoor to achieve that goal!
Why is growing hemp still illegal?…. same as it always was…follow the 1%ers money. Hemp is a miracle plant that would benefit our country in so many different ways. I think that California leading the way in hemp’s cultivation and processing, coupled with our status in the cannabis grow and distribution world is a way to produce jobs and revenue for our state.