Stimulate & Focus

From the NJ Lawyer Daily Briefing
SENATE PASSES MEDICINAL MARIJUANA BILL
The state Senate on Monday passed a bill that would allow medicinal marijuana use by patients suffering from cancer and other chronic or terminal illnesses. The Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act, S-119, passed by a mostly partisan 22-16 vote and now goes to the Assembly for consideration. If enacted, the measure would make N.J. the 14th state to allow medicinal use of the drug. It would authorize the Department of Health and Senior Services to issue photo-identification cards to qualifying patients who have been diagnosed by a physician, with whom they have an existing, bona fide relationship, to use marijuana for medical purposes. The cards would allow patients to purchase marijuana at alternative medical centers and to keep on hand up to six marijuana plants and one ounce for personal use.

So...this leaves me with the following checklist....
1. Research medical uses for marijuana.
2. Figure out which one I could actually convince a doctor I have.
3. Read the proposed law & see if it has any other hoops to jump through.
4. Figure out if any of my current docs (yes, I have a number of current docs whom I see somewhat regularly and no, I am not a hypochondric) would "diagnose" me and approve of my "medical use" of MJ
5. If not, find a doctor who would do that and start a "bona fide relationship" with him or her.
6. Make sure there are plenty of snacks in the house.

In all seriousness though -- it's about fucking time these types of laws get passed everywhere. NJ would be 14th and that is not nearly enough places. I mean, COME. ON. It makes no fucking sense whatsoever that a doctor can give me morphine for pain but not marijuana for nausea. Or barbirtuates to help me sleep, but not marijuana to restore my appetite. Everyone who has really looked into the issue knows that the only reason the ban on medical use exists is because pharma companies don't want people to be able to grow their own drugs. They want you to have to buy their chemically laden, side effect riddled drugs. Those are perfectly OK. But oh no - not marijuana. You don't need drug companies to get marijuana. And it might make you eat some more doritos. Which makes me wonder -- do you think anyone has approached Frito-Lay about backing these types of laws? Because everyone knows legalization for medical use is a first step toward eventual full legalization, or at the very least decriminalization.

Not to mention the ability of farmers to grow hemp in this country. Which isn't even a fucking drug for fucks sake. You could smoke a whole fucking field of it and all you'd do is give yourself a fucking headache and waste a very valuable crop. It is absolutely disgusting that we can import hemp products made elsewhere but aren't allowed to create those very same products here. You want a fucking economic stimulus -- legalize hemp. Watch how fast little cottage industries spring up all over this nation. We pay farmers to leave their fields fallow. If they could grow hemp, we wouldn't need to pay them anything. They could grow crop after crop after crop. We could stop chopping down trees for fucking paper and cardboard. We could have earth-friendly building materials and cloth and more products then most people even realize. But again, no......just like medical maryjane would put a dent in pharma profits, hemp would put a dent in the profits of major corporations that have grown fat and lazy and resistant to change. Well I think this country has shown it can usher in change when it focuses. So focus people focus. (and put down the J -- you know you can't focus on that shit). And let's, in the words of Peter Tosh, Legalize It!

NOTE (as a matter of fairness): There are some who think hemp & maryjane are illegal because of racism, and not because of any corporate action against it. I understand their point and will even concede that is possible racism had a hand in some parts of the anti-marijuana movement. But racism doesn't explain the non-drug hemp issue. What exactly does racism have to do with a farmer being able to grow a non-drug plant that can be used as food, or to make cloth, or even plastic (yeah, that's right, plastic!)? And more importantly, why can't the two theories survive side by side? The people who were racists back in the day were also the people who ran the corporations, right?