Letter to the Editor: November 18, 2009

How can these (medical marijuana) dispensaries be popping up like weeds and be so readily accepted just because they have a business license? It is time that city councils exercise good judgment in reviewing these dispensaries.

In your Sept. 8 article, you quoted the Assistant Director of Resource Management for Shasta County as saying, "Until directed by the Board of Supervisors, we treat it (dispensaries) like a pharmacy."

As a trained and licensed pharmacist currently practicing in Redding, I am not certain if that is intended as a direct insult or just some shallow thinking. With comments like that, within a few years, we ought to have at least 100 of these medicinal marijuana dispensaries in Shasta County.

Before moving on, it might be helpful to review the pharmacological status of marijuana. Marijuana is a drug because it affects the functions of the body and the mind. As stated, it is a Class II Controlled Substance, which is a restricted class of drugs with the highest potential for abuse.

Current acceptable medical indications are for weight gain in AIDS patients and to help stem the nausea and vomiting experienced by cancer chemotherapy patients. The active ingredient in marijuana, THC, stays in the body for days and interacts with alcohol and benzodiazepines such as Xanax, Valium, etc.

Major side effects can include low blood pressure, increased heart rate, headache, hallucinations and memory lapse. The drug impairs coordination and judgment such as might be required in driving. Commercial preparations do not list the percentage of THC, so that is a concern for the potency of the medicinal part of marijuana available in the dispensaries. How would that be regulated?

At this time, there is clearly a need for a higher authority to step in and set a precedent on this dispensary issue. The use of marijuana for medicinal purposes is way too loose. There needs to be uniform regulations on usage, dispensing and even growing. Why doesn't the state take action to legalize the drug. It needs to be taxed and dispensed like hard liquor is in some states where you have to go to a state store to purchase it.

This would decrease some of the criminal element, stop pot garden rip-offs and end this nonsense of marijuana for medicinal purposes. This would also help the state raise tax revenues and quit wasting millions of dollars on pot eradication programs. Instead, the drug should be regulated and grown under government supervision so that the issues of quality control could be addressed.

As a legal drug, the availability of marijuana would be controlled. Marijuana is a drug. Treating it like a harmless crop in a food co-op is what feeds into the medical marijuana dispensary debacle. The government owes the people a better solution than lightly regulated dispensaries for those who feel they need the drug. End the madness as marijuana is not going to go away.

Joe Kuschell, MS, Pharm D

Pharmacist, Redding