The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat urges tighter regulation of medipot in this editorial, but its proposed solutions are every bit as vague as the law itself. Strangely absent is any mention of legalization, perhaps the most useful tool available to cure what ails the medipot industry. Guess I’ll have to write my own editorial…
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Anecdotal evidence of marijuana’s medicinal value is nothing new.
People with debilitating diseases including AIDS, cancer, glaucoma have long said that marijuana relieves pain and eases other symptoms in ways that conventional drugs don’t. Their stories moved voters in 1996 when California became the first state to legalize marijuana as medicine.
What’s largely been missing is scientific evidence to back them up. Until now.
University of California researchers conducted the first clinical trials in more than 20 years and reported that marijuana relieves neuropathic pain caused by diabetes, infections, injuries, strokes and other conditions that affect the nervous system. Researchers also found that pot offers at least short-term relief for symptoms of multiple sclerosis.
These findings are important, not only because they confirm what many people already believe, but because they can help tailor California’s notoriously hazy medical marijuana law. If marijuana is going to be treated as medicine — and we think it should be — there should be science-based guidelines for when it’s used and what is an appropriate dose.
When a marijuana dispensary in Sebastopol has more members than Sebastopol has residents, and San Francisco and Los Angeles have more dispensaries than Starbucks outlets, it’s obvious that there’s little or no real medical scrutiny of users. Clinic Web sites prominently display lists of possible ailments. Newspaper ads and freeway billboards promise physician recommendations with a wink and a nod.
Mendocino County residents have suffered the side effects of Proposition 215 as large-scale growers moved in to take advantage of California permissive marijuana laws. The county and state both tried to set limits on marijuana farming, but courts ruled that any changes to Proposition 215 must be approved by the voters. The same ruling eventually could doom efforts to regulate dispensaries.
With research like the work being done by UC researchers, legislators have an opportunity to draft guidelines for doctors and users that can be submitted to the voters, along with reasonable limits on where and how much marijuana people can grow for medicinal purposes.
That, in turn, may put pressure on Congress to revisit the federal government’s outdated and overly strict restrictions on the medicinal use of marijuana.
New Jersey recently became the 14th state to allow medical marijuana use, and its law may provide a model for California and other states. Under New Jersey’s law, doctors can prescribe marijuana for specific serious, chronic illnesses and distribution is carefully regulated.
A vague complaint of back pain or anxiety won’t score a pot card in the Garden State. It shouldn’t be enough in the Golden State either.
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