By Teri Ong
“Medical” marijuana has been a great deal in the news lately. In our recent election, several towns in Colorado were considering whether or not they should allow marijuana dispensaries within their city limits. And on a national level, even President Obama has issued an edict that the federal government is to turn a blind eye to marijuana infractions. Some have rightfully pointed out that our president’s action in this matter sets a very dangerous precedent of the nation’s chief executive officer declaring openly that there are certain laws of the land that he will not enforce, even though he swore to uphold them all. It used to be that our presidents promoted “Drug-free America”; sadly, we now have a president promoting “Free drug America.”
Nonetheless, interest groups on both sides have been more outspoken of late. I heard an interview with a person who runs a “medical” dispensary which not only sells marijuana in its familiar smoke-able state, but also marijuana cheerios, marijuana brownies, and marijuana hard candies. I guess that really puts the “hard” in hard!
I don’t dispute that marijuana may actually have some legitimate medical benefits. Some very unlikely things have been found to assuage certain medical problems – like nitroglycerin, digitalis, and even arsenic. Some of our most powerful pain relievers are opiates. But we have also learned that indiscriminate and unsupervised use of these things can be dangerous, and even deadly. For that reason, they are highly regulated. They can be prescribed only by qualified medical doctors and dispensed only by qualified pharmacists.
Why, then, are we having such a problem regulating “medical” marijuana?
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter recently said that the reason the state is having trouble getting their act together on regulating marijuana is because “the business has just grown too fast.” That is ridiculous! When has the state ever had trouble regulating a fast-growing industry when it meant an enhanced revenue stream for the state? And especially now, when the state has a multi-billion dollar budget shortfall!
So why the problem? Because everyone knows that “medical” marijuana laws are a ruse for getting the “fuzz” off the backs of recreational users. If it were not so, there would be no such thing as a “marijuana dispensary.” Marijuana would be produced in the same tightly regulated way that all other legitimate drugs are produced and would be prescribed by doctors and sold by pharmacies in the same way as other legitimate drugs.
One Colorado legislator has proposed something along these lines. He has proposed that all of the marijuana for medical use be grown at a facility connected with our agricultural university and sold as honest medicine. It would be taxed and regulated by the state and the proceeds would go to higher education.
Some might look on this as being like profits from gambling funding gambling recovery centers. You know– money from “pot” funding the education of “pot heads.” But in principle I agree with that legislator. Let’s call the bluff of the recreational users whose money and lobbying power have been behind the medical marijuana initiatives in numerous states. Let’s make medicine be medicine.
The main loophole in the existing Colorado law is a clause stating that “chronic pain” is one of the conditions that may be “treated” with marijuana. When the law first passed, only about 400 permits were issued. That number has swelled to over 20,000 in the last year. (Remember, until a year ago President George Bush encouraged prosecution of drug offenders!) At the present time, requests for permits come in to the appropriate state agency at a rate of about 500 per week. Many of the permit holders have gotten their medical marijuana cards from doctors who have never even examined them as patients. And, surprise! The largest increase in card holders is among 20-something males.
I would not have intuitively guessed that there was such an enormous problem of “chronic pain” in that particular population demographic. But maybe the college booze-up crowd is using marijuana to get rid of the pain of hang-overs. From time immemorial, alcohol itself was the drug of choice for treating their type of “chronic pain.”
George MacDonald described men who work “both to deaden the stings of conscience and memory, and to procure the means of deadening them still further.” (Sir Gibbie, pg. 10) MacDonald was referring to alcohol, but his words apply equally to all reality-deadening drugs. He also understood that “the thirst of the drunkard is even more of the soul than of the body.” (Sir Gibbie, pg. 11)
I believe that the same is true of many of those seeking medical marijuana permits on the basis of chronic pain. Their pain is pain more of the soul than of the body. And an old saw says, “Misery loves company.” I guess that is why there has been a swelling in the ranks of permit holders.
In describing the tavern crowd surrounding the miserable drunken character George Galbraith in Sir Gibbie, MacDonald wrote:
I believe their company was necessary as well as the drink to enable him to elude his conscience and feast with his imagination. Was it that he knew they also fought misery by investments in her bonds– that they also were of those who by Beelzebub would cast out Beelzebub– therefore felt at home, and with his own? (P. 11)
Those who are attempting to treat chronic pain of the soul with marijuana will likewise be unable to cast out Beelzebub with Beelzebub. The pain of emptiness, purposelessness, and the accompanying reduction in human motivation cannot be treated with soul-deadening drugs – legal or otherwise.
King Solomon, in his God-given wisdom, wrote about the real answer to the chronic pain of being alive:
Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and turn away from evil. It will be healing to your body, and refreshment to your bones. (Proverbs 3:7-8)
The best dispensary for that kind of medicine is called CHURCH!
Reference:
MacDonald, George. Sir Gibbie. London: Hurst and Blackett, Limited, 1891.
