Thursday, July 23, 2009

MEDICAL MARIJUANA

(The following was published in the Newsleader on August 14, 2009)

On Tuesday of this week Oakland, California passed by an eighty per cent majority a new tax on the retail sales of their four medical marijuana dispensaries. A bit of research on this matter has revealed some amazing facts.
According to Oakland's City Auditor sales from these four dispensaries is $17,500,000.00 per year. Oakland should realize $294,000.00 per year from the new tax. The measure ran unopposed. This column is not about taxes or the plight Californians finds themselves in concerning their budget woes however. No this is about something totally different. Read on.

Some further information regarding the legal selling of marijuana. California currently has eight hundred medical marijuana dispensaries, or pot clubs as they are called, operating today. If they all were doing the same business as the Oakland clubs, they would be generating $35,000,000,000.00 worth of business each year. That, folks is a lot of dope. More importantly, that's a lot of sick people. After all isn't this supposed to be prescribed medicine for sick people? Thirty five billion dollars represents 1,633,333,332 doses of medical marijuana. As I understand the law passed in 1996 to legalize medical use of this drug, one would have to have a prescription in order to buy it legally. That is a lot of prescriptions.

One would not have to be too skeptical to believe that the law was being slightly circumvented would they? The other amazing thing to consider is that this is just the numbers on the so-called legal sales of marijuana. Most of the users are doing so illegally. It does explain a couple of things though. The reason Californians are so strange is probably because they are all stoned. The second fact appears to be that the hippies have gotten older and are now in charge of California government and politics.

I personally am not a user of the magic weed. I tried it a couple of times when I was a kid, but frankly I find I prefer martinis. They taste better, they don't make you cough, and besides you get an olive. I don't even care if California decides to legalize the drug. That is their business. I do believe however that it is silly to call what they are doing now a medical procedure. We should call it what it is, pot heads getting stoned with the authorities looking the other way.

Legalization of this drug has been introduced in the Minnesota Legislature several times and will continue to be introduced until they win, I suppose. It would be interesting however to see what happens on the left coast before too many others step into the fray. If, like me, you have seen a person who was stoned, you would realize that they are pretty much harmless. The problem is that they are also helpless. It would be frightening to consider airline pilots, semi truck drivers, police officers, firemen, EMT personnel and doctors under the influence trying to do their jobs, let alone everyone else.

These are just some ramblings of one who is still trying to understand what it is about life in our world that is so problematic, so difficult that individuals need to medicate themselves to escape reality. I hope I never have to find out.

Ron Scarbro July 22, 2009

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let he who is stoned throw the first? I think I got that wrong. I can't remember.

Anonymous said...

If it is for medical purposes you should only be able to get it with a prescription and then from a licensed pharmacist.

I don't like seeing people suffer but there is too much room for abuse with legalized street dope.
Tommie

Anonymous said...

Ron - You stated a preference for alcohol which leaves people even more helpless than pot. Statistics show alcohol to be more dangerous than pot. Airline pilots, police officers, firefighters, EMT personnel, and doctors have all been found under the influence of alcohol while on the job. That is more scary to me.
And, is not having a martini self- medicating? I believe we are a country of self-medicators using alcohol and prescription drugs. These legal drugs are often more dangerous than pot, yet they are acceptable in our culture. I would much rather face a stoned driver on the road than a drunk driver. Check the statistics and think about it.

Ron Scarbro said...

To Anonymous,
I don't disagree. I also believe the abuse of anything is not good.

Ron

Anonymous said...

And that is the point. We have a love hate relationship with drugs and alcohol. We seem to love the legal stuff and hate the illegal when thay are not much different in effect. Abusing anything is bad. But we are driving people towards alcohol if we don't accept pot as a milder (safer)alternative. We have to face it, people are going to self-medicate for whatever reason with legal or illegal substances whether we agree with it or not. I'm just astounded at the dangers in culturally accepted alcohol use and the cost to society it causes.