Santa Maria doesn’t like weed. Guadalupe doesn’t like weed. Arroyo Grande doesn’t like weed. Nobody likes weed. Everyone’s typecasting him as the guy that just likes to get people high.
But he’s trying to get society to view him differently, and it’s so hard. I feel sorry for the guy. I mean all he wants to do is help those who truly need him to take care of their epileptic seizures, stimulate their appetite while they’re enduring chemotherapy, and placate muscle aches, among so many other things.
I mean, how do you think medical marijuana feels about all this? Not great, let me tell you. I wonder what’s going to happen when all these cities make their ordinances official: banning commercial cultivation, personal cultivation, brick-and-mortar dispensaries, and mobile dispensaries. They’re all pointing at him and laughing as he stands at the city limits looking forlornly at all the people he could be helping.
What’s the point of having STATE laws that legalize medical marijuana and establish a regulatory framework for the industry if all these punk-ass cities think they know better? You folks who depend on the sticky green, or any of its oils, to help alleviate chronic medical problems are better off moving out of the city.
But that lands you in the county! Which unfortunately can also be run by numb-nuts. So basically, you’re screwed. Unless, of course, you want to move to Colorado or Washington (and some people have—specifically, to get their epileptic children legal access to the only thing that helps curb the seizures). Those states made the ever-progressive California look bad by legalizing marijuana, and now they’re making state-taxed revenue off that stuff.
I know—I’m getting a little rant-y. But it can be hard for me to understand government bodies and the decisions they make, sometimes. There’s a lot of things happening at all levels of government with regard to medical marijuana (and non-medical marijuana) at the moment, and outright bans seem to me to be like grandma not wanting a cell phone.
Get with the times, Grandma! Sometimes I want to call you when you’re in the backyard with your daisies.
The push at the federal level is, cross your fingers, to enable federal dollars to be put toward funding medical marijuana research. Even our esteemed and very long running (I’m not going to call her old!) Sen. Dianne Feinstein changed her mind on the issue. The anti-pot champion, who also happens to chair the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control, penned a letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Sylvia Burwell urging the agencies to determine whether cannabidiol (CBD), a “non-psychoactive” component of marijuana, should be rescheduled.
Because marijuana is a Schedule I drug, Feinstein said that scheduling could have the “unintended consequences” of hampering research that could be done on the substance, and she urged the agencies to “determine ways to remove any unnecessary barriers that stand in the way of research into the potential medical benefits of marijuana and CBD.”
If marijuana was rescheduled, would that put city minds at ease? I’m not so sure. It would seem the stereotypes are pretty well ensconced. People still see marijuana as a gateway drug that entices kids—who, by the way, will get their hands on whatever they want to if they really want to. I would also keep in mind the fact that marijuana is currently sold on the streets, and not in a regulated establishment that would require ID and medical card for purchase.
I guess these cities would like to see it continue to be sold on the street without any government oversight, because the only oversight cities want to put in place right now is to forbid it.
Ahhh, that vivacious spirit of NIMBYism is alive and well in places like Santa Maria—which is leaning toward banning commercial and private cultivation within city limits and already bans brick-and-mortar dispensaries. But, to be “compassionate” (in the words of City Councilmember Teri Zuniga), the city will allow mobile dispensaries to drive up to someone’s door and deliver the product from the street into the home. Where would we be without compassion?
The Canary is sick of the wrong kind of compassion. Send comments to canary@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Dec 10-17, 2015.
