That’s Rude
The Tribune had a piece this weekend on a rift that is developing between various leaders of the medical marijuana movement.
Mike Smith, a ‘caregiver,’ commenting on the fact that the Tribune carried photos of two girls smoking a bowl in a park, and another fellow smoking a bowl on the steps of the Civic Center, stated that public use is “rude.” Actually, it’s not rude, it’s illegal. The girls violated the law by smoking in a public park, and the gentleman by smoking within 20 feet of the entrance to a public building.
The article goes on to discuss the fellow’s interpretation of the law, suggesting “that under the Montana Medical Marijuana Act, patients can obtain the drug from other registered patients, or from a caregiver other than their own registered caregiver.” The Tribune calls this a “gray area.” Interesting.
The act states: “A qualifying patient may have only one caregiver at any one time.” I’m not sure, then, how one can legally purchase marijuana from someon other than his or her registered caregiver.
Of even more interest is the photo that accompanied the Tribune’s piece that shows a certain Paul Schmidt in a “grow room” that quite clearly has more than 6 marijuana plants in it; in fact the caption says it contains enough marijuana for 60 patients. How do we square that with this language: “A qualifying patient and that qualifying patient’s caregiver may not possess more than six marijuana plants and 1 ounce of usable marijuana each.” The Act does not say that a patient’s caregiver is allowed to have an ounce and six plants for each patient.
Gray areas? Hardly. How about some law enforcement.
Look, I’ve said it before: I don’t really have a beef with medical marijuana. The people of this State, though, agreed to a fairly limited and well-defined administration scheme. Here we are a couple years later than the envelope is apparently being pushed, big time. If we had told the voters of the state that drug sellers would interpret the law to allow patients to get pot from other patients, or that we would have legal “grow rooms” housing hundreds of pot plants for distribution in Montana, it might not have passed.
Where is the enforcement?
Today’s Trib has a photo of a “medical” marijuana “saloon” located in Portland, OR. I find this curious because the laws of the State of Oregon specifically restrict tobacco smoking from “retail and wholesale” businesses, yet apparently marijuana smoke is OK. Since there are known carcinogens in marijuana smoke, wouldn’t the same secondhand smoke issues exist for the worker in a marijuana saloon as those in a business that allowed tobacco smoke?
A wild guess tells me that police probably have better things to do.
Or … it might have passed. You really don’t know. Nor do I.
You can call anything “medicinal.” Marijuana as medicine, defies all logic. Just look at the route of administration. Inhaling burning, particulate matter, with a tar content at roughly three times that of a cigarette and many known carcinogens combined with the fact that marijuana use depresses the immune system further makes about as much sense as putting windshield wipers on a duck’s butt. Then the issue of quality control comes in. Can the dose of THC be measured and is there a consistent amount? What about purity?
A just cause would have been to press the pharmaceutical companies that produce Marinol and Cannabinol (synthetic THC), to drop the price of these drugs, making them affordable to a broad cross-section.
Twenty three years as a licensed addictions counselor has shown me that people are willing to go to great lengths to achieve their goal. The pro-marijuana crowd found a backdoor and were able to dupe enough people to buy into this farce. Now we will reap the rewards of the misinformed.
What does not make sense is that Marinol is cheaper than the marijuana.
You are incorrect in your assessment that the law means a patient and a caregiver can only possess 6 plants each. A patient can have his 6 plants because he’s taking care of only himself. A caregiver is allowed 6 plants per patient that he cares for.
As far as marijuana not being medicinal because of how it enters the body, does that mean that everyone in the respiratory technician field, who help patients INHALE their medication, are not real medical personnel and/or their medicine isn’t real because it isn’t taken via a pill or shot into their arm? Does that mean that anyone who shoots up with illicit drugs IS doing the right thing because their “medicine” is going into their vein.
Think about it.
Anyone who is doubtful of marijuana as medicine, I hope you don’t need it one day.
actually your interpretation of the wording and especially how the word each is used in that sentence is incorrect….each is used , in this case,to define the relationship btwn caregiver and “each” patient…there is no ambiguaty
j foster, I don’ t know if you’re agreeing with me or not.
Here’s one way to read it: The word “each” means that the limitation applies to “each” of the two parties listed in the conjunctive sentence: “a qualifying patient and that qualifying patient’s caregiver.” Thus, if I am a patient’s caregiver, I “may not possess more than six marijuana plants and 1 ounce of usable marijuana.”
That’s all it says. It does not clearly say, as snowflake argues, that a “caregiver is allowed 6 plants per patient that he cares for.” That does not mean that it might not be interpreted that way, but that is not what it says.
Well, I’m glad you both clarified that issue because NORML is reporting on their newsletter that the way I interpreted it, is the way you are meaning it and folks were alittle up in arms over it.
Snowflake, when you say the way you interpreted it is the way we are meaning it, I don’t know what you are trying to say. Could you be more specific?