There is great sympathy for anyone who suffers from painful disease or disability.
But sympathy for the sick ought not to be used as a lure to trick the federal government or individual states into legalizing so-called “medical marijuana” — which would be used not only by a few seeking pain relief but by many who just want to “get high.” Experience shows harmful consequences in places where the sick were used as pawns in a bait-and-switch scheme to get “medical marijuana” legalized.
Legalized pot operations in Colorado, Washington state and California have been targeted for repeated armed robberies resulting in shoot-outs and multiple slayings. Some of those “legal” operations also have been found growing far more “medical marijuana” than permitted by law.
Los Angeles has become home to about 1,000 dispensaries of “medical marijuana.” Sixty percent of those cropped up in just the past year or so — often near schools, parks and other locations where children gather. It is highly doubtful that all those shops are merely helping the sick. Some store owners even seek customers on the streets. Do those customers sound like “patients”? Now, Los Angeles is scrambling to rein in the widespread abuses that California invited by legalizing marijuana as “medicine.”
Marijuana also impairs its users — another reason government has no business promoting use of the dangerous drug through legalization.
The worthy goal of helping the sick ought to be pursued in ways that do not endanger the public.