Editor:
Apparently there aren't enough criminals in the City of Anderson, Redding and Shasta County. Why else are police more interested in creating criminals out of medical marijuana users rather than focusing on the crime problems that already exist?
City and county government officials would rather create ordinances that create criminals out of sick, qualified medical patients who otherwise are hard-working, tax-paying and voting citizens.
With a properly designed ordinance, only criminals will violate the ordinance. The way the local governments are limiting access to and cultivation of cannabis, it will, in effect, create criminals of sick people who are simply trying to produce enough medical marijuana for their own needs.
Instead, these restrictions could force these same sick people to buy their medicine in the same dark alleys or shady street corners that benefit the Mexican cartels and organized crime.
What "expert" input did these officials consult when considering the effects their ordinances will create? One can only determine that the Governments consider themselves "experts" in growing medicinal grade cannabis. Apparently they have grown enough medicinal cannabis to determine that a 10-foot by 12-foot area is enough room to grow enough medicinal cannabis to last a year.
Apparently, every plant they ever grew was a female plant and finished up as medicinal grade. No seeds. No male plants. No deer, gophers, rabbits or other pests damaging their plants.
I guess all of my years of growing plants (not just cannabis) make me ignorant and all their years of growing have made them "experts."
Is medical marijuana really this big of a problem?
If it is, then where are the local facts?
All I see in their reports are statements that "other communities have reported" issues, but these reports are never available. Are all of the other communities really just Los Angeles?
What's more accurate is that the moral minority is offended by the compassionate use law. And it is a law. Has been since 1996.
Local governing bodies are supposed to enforce the laws equally for everybody, including qualified medical cannabis patients. Would the government officials be acting the same way if we were growing our own insulin, estrogen or other pharmaceutical?
Rodney Jones,
Anderson
Scripps Interactive Newspapers Group
Comments » 2
just_an_observer writes:
This makes too much sense for our elected leaders to listen to!
KimW writes:
"Local governing bodies are supposed to enforce the laws equally for everybody, including qualified medical cannabis patients. Would the government officials be acting the same way if we were growing our own insulin, estrogen or other pharmaceutical?"
I certainly agree with you in nearly all respects, although I might quibble with the one quoted above.
Estrogen and insulin are hardly analogies - and probably deliberately chosen for that reason - concerning government control of personal and private production of pharmaceuticals, as neither lends itself much to abuse or resale for profit to unqualified users. Perhaps a better analogy might be the opium poppy, the traditional and original source for any number of perfectly legitimate and widely prescribed pain medications, among other uses. One may obtain a prescription created by a physician, for example, for codeine or morphine based pharmaceuticals and use them (supposedly) according to recommendations by the physician, and so long as the person who uses it possesses a valid prescription, and is not driving, the use is legal. However, in no case may this person cultivate opium poppies, even if the opium produced might provide similar pharmaceutical effects.
Why? Probably because the home grown opium and possible derivatives might be seen as lending themselves to to likely abuse and possible diversion to others not legitimately qualified to use them.
But that said, The compassionate use law concerning cannabis specifically *permits* cultivation for use by medically qualified persons, and it is somewhat disturbing to see Anderson and numerous other cities attempting to circumvent this law in such a flagrant manner. I most certainly did not vote for local officials in order to empower them to decide which laws *they* like, and then find ways to get around them.
Excellent letter sir. No argument with you was intended. My point simply concerned what I believe was a faulty analogy, and one easily shot down.
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