It’s time to get real about marijuana laws in the state of Minnesota. Passing a medical marijuana law will, in all likelihood, be the first step in total legalization of the drug for recreational use, just as it has proved to be in Colorado and Washington and soon will in California and other states.
Why not go there now? Most Americans think marijuana is a tightly controlled substance in DEA Schedule I, the most addictive class of drugs, they believe, based on good scientific and medical evidence. That couldn’t be further from the truth.
Whether the use of a drug is considered abuse or not is determined by society, not by health care professionals. Why else would tobacco and alcohol use be legal in the United States when these are both known to be harmful? In fact, the World Health Organization considers alcohol to be the most dangerous drug in the world, yet it and tobacco are completely legal to use by anyone over the ages of 21 and 18, respectively. However, go to an Islamic country and you’ll find that consumption of alcohol is considered drug abuse because society has deemed it so.
From our own country’s past we have learned tha. . . . . READ MORE
Legislators are disagreeing on a lot of big issues, but they found a bit of common ground Thursday — medical marijuana.
It’s too late to push a bill through this session, but about 40 legislators in both parties, including more than a dozen committee chairmen, sent a strong signal that they want to add Minnesota to the 18 states where marijuana can be legally prescribed.
Legislators passed the legalization of medical marijuana in 2009, but were stopped by Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty, who vetoed the bill.
Now they’re ready to try again, in part because of such Minnesotans as Joni Whiting, of Jordan. Whiting watched as her 26-year-old daughter, Stephanie Whiting Stradinger, endured surgeries for malignant melanoma that ate away her face and ultimately took her life. There was just one thing, Whiting said, that eased her daughter’s suffering, and getting it meant her entire family had to break state law.
“They cut her face off, one inch at a time, until there was nothing left to cut,” Whiting said at a Thursday news conference, holding up a picture of Stradinger, smiling and lovely. She then covered it with a later photo of her daughter, . . . . . READ MORE