About three years ago, I first became aware of the District of Columbia's 1998 vote to legalize medicinal marijuana and the subsequent (and very successful) effort lead by then Republican, Bob Barr to prevent the District from implementing Initiative 59, which received 69% voter support. After quelling my initial anger that misguided Drug War politics(hey, there's nothing like government by the people, for the people is there?) had prevented sick patients from obtaining medication they so desperately needed and outrage that the Jonathan Magbie incident could have been avoided, I began to ask some questions. Question like, how did the vast majority of my fellow Washingtonians seem to have no knowledge that the vote had occurred, much less that the Initaitve had received overwhelming support and was on the books (in an unofficial and highly circumspect manner), but was prevented from implementation thanks to the omnibus spending bill rider The Barr Amendment. Over the last three years, I attempted to discuss these events with as many people as possible, in an attempt to spread information and hopefully public interest as to what was going on with this important legislation.
You can only imagine my surprise when several months ago, I learned that Bob Barr, having become an Independent made the very enlightened decision to lead the fight against the very amendment he had sponsored. Anyways, long story short, the amendment was pulled from the Omnibus Spending Bill and the District's Health officials were left to grapple with how exactly to implement Initiative 59.
David Catania and the DC City Council have decided that rather than listening to the views expressed by the voters 10 years ago they want to implement all kinds of restrictions that place unnecessary burdens on legitimate medical patients. While I understand the governmental desire to keep cannabis out of the hands of those who do not have "legitimate" need for it, I would claim that this is beyond the role of the Federal Government. However, seeing as our personal freedoms and civil liberties have already been heinously encroached upon by the governmental War on Drugs, I understand that the underlying logic and libertarian principles will not be seen as valid by many. To those individuals, I pose the following question: For what other medicinal substance do we restrict patient access based on fears that non-patients will use or abuse the substance? The answer is none, and while that could potentially be seen as the reason that prescription pills are so widely accessible, cannabis is nowhere near as dangerous as any of those prescription pills.
While no one has come out and said it, with every passing news article, it becomes more and more apparent that whatever medicinal marijuana laws the District chooses to adopt, it will not follow the text of Initiative 59. What is most troubling to me is not that the government is choosing to ignore the will of the voters nor the fact that Initiative 59 was drafted having taken into account the needs of both patients and the city, but the fact that no one has come out and said that Initiative 59 is in the process of being scrapped. Whatever happened to governmental transparency? We are the people, we are the society, these civil servants exist to carry out our collective will, yet here is a blatant example of that will being manipulated behind closed doors. I can't say I'm surprised, but that in no way lessens my disgust.
The following passage is selected text of Initiative 59 in plain text, with my thoughts on each section in bold directly following it. The sections chosen were those that governmental officials have contradicted in their recent statements. Sam Jeweler's medical marijuana article for TIME contains many of the city council's viewpoints…aaand away we go;
Sec. 1. All seriously ill individuals have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes when a licensed physician has found the use of marijuana to be medically necessary and has recommended the use of marijuana for the treatment (or to mitigate the side effects of other treatments such as chemotherapy, including the use of AZT, protease inhibitors, etc., radiotherapy, etc.) or diseases and conditions associated with HIV and AIDS, glaucoma, muscle spasm, cancer and other serious or chronic illnesses for which the recommending physician reasonably believes that marijuana has demonstrated utility.
Catania has stated that there will be an attempt to limit the diseases for which medicinal marijuana will be considered a valid treatment in an attempt to curb recreational users from trying to use medical ailments as a cover. While this attempt is admirable, chronic pain IS a legitimate condition that, unfortunately, provides cover for recreational users. However, this in no way diminishes the claim by those who are actually suffering from chronic pain that cannabis is their best option for pain management. This is a decision that MUST be left up to healthcare professionals, as it is a matter of public health and NOT a governmental issue. Additionally, the above text indicates that it will be the physician's call, the first indication that the city council is not planning on following the guidelines set forth in Initiative 59.
Sec. 5 (a) Any District law prohibiting the possession of marijuana or cultivation of marijuana shall not apply to a medical patient, or to a medical patient's primary caregivers, when a medical or primary caregiver possesses or cultivates marijuana for the medical purposes of the patient upon the written or oral recommendation of a licensed physician. The exemption for cultivation shall apply only to marijuana specifically grown to provide a medical supply for a patient, and not to any marijuana grown for any other purpose. In determining a quantity of marijuana that constitutes a medical supply, this act shall be interpreted to assure that any medical patient protected by the act shall have access to a sufficient quantity of marijuana to assure that they can maintain their medical supply without any interruption in their treatment or depletion of their medical supply of marijuana.
(b) The prohibition in the Controlled Substances Act against the manufacture, distribution, cultivation, or possession with intent to manufacture, distribute, or cultivate, or against possession, of marijuana shall not apply to a nonprofit corporation organized pursuant to this act.
Sec 6. A medical patient may designate or appoint a licensed health care practitioner, parent, sibling, child, or other close relative, domestic partner, case manager/worker, or best friend to serve as a primary caregiver for the purposes of this act. A designation under this act need not
be in writing; however, any written designation or appointment shall be prima facie evidence that a person has been so designated.
A patient may designate not more than four persons at any one time to serve as a primary caregiver for the purposes of this act. For the purposes of this subsection, the term 'best friend' means a close friend who is feeding, nursing, bathing, or otherwise caring for the medical patient while the medical patient is in a weakened condition.
Here we have the two sections that, to my mind, will become irrelevant with any law that the City Council finally chooses to pass. These two sections clearly allow for personal cultivation or cultivation by a "best friend". Currently, there are two major points that stand out with regards to this. First, the District has already decided that there will be five city-run cannabis dispensaries and that no one with misdemeanors or felonies related to cannabis or other drugs will be allowed to work in them. While that may seem reasonable on the surface, bear in mind that it does not consider the fact that at least some of the people who were arrested for possession of marijuana were self-medicating for valid medical reasons and should not be prohibited, as such. Additionally, these dispensaries have been regulated so that they will be unable to operate within 1000 feet of school zones. Again, while I find nothing wrong with this legislation, I would like to point out that fairly recently the city ruled that gun stores must operate outside 300 feet of school zones. Are gun stores really that much safer than medical cannabis dispensaries, or is this more of the same nonsensical Drug War shenanigans we've been subjected to since the passage of the Controlled Substance Act?
However, the most troubling aspect of the murmurs that have been coming from the city council is the fact that it appears that the council will attempt to restrict growing solely to those medicinal marijuana dispensaries. That is, despite the allowance for it in Initiative 59, it is becoming increasingly more unlikely that patients will be allowed to grow for themselves or hire a caretaker to grow for them. THIS IS TRULY OUTRAGEOUS. I mean, first of all, it's a fucking plant, it doesn't need humans to grow it, it grows wherever it can find favorable conditions, IT IS A WEED, for crying out loud! The sheer absurdity of allowing patients to purchase directly from the government but being prohibited from growing it in their own homes is laughable. Even in states where the state governments run Alcoholic Beverage Commission (ABC) stores for purchasing liquor people are not disallowed from brewing their own beer at home. Why should cannabis be treated any differently, especially given that it's not being grown by any recreational user, only patients and caretakers.
Sec. 7 Residents of the District of Columbia may organize and operate not-for-profit corporations for the purpose of cultivating, purchasing, and distributing marijuana exclusively for the medical use of medical patients who are authorized by this act to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes. Such corporations shall comply with the District's nonprofit corporation laws. Fees and licenses shall be collected by the Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs ("DCRA") in the same manner as other not-for-profit corporations operating in the District of Columbia. The Director of DCRA shall issues such corporations exemptions from the sales tax, use tax, income tax, and other taxes of the District of Columbia in the same manner as other nonprofit corporations.
The same problems arise here as with the previous sections. The council and Catania's desire to keep cultivation and distribution entirely in the hands of the city government will prevent another viable and cost-effective distribution method from being explored. While the city talks about providing reduced price cannabis for those who cannot afford typical dispensary prices, I highly doubt they will be able to compete with what an efficiently managed and well run co-op could produce, especially if low-income patients were allowed to provide some sort of services to help the co-op in exchange for even greater discounts on a product that would already be cheaper than the cheapest government grown cannabis.
Above, I mentioned the discrepancies between whatever the legislation is that is currently being discussed and Initiative 59. To my mind, these discrepancies are a cause for concern because they will prevent patients who have a legitimate medical need from being able to receive appropriate treatment. Here are my fears as to the problems that arise from these inconsistencies:
- There will not be a consistent source of properly priced medicinal-grade cannabis available to DC residents due to the city's determination to keep the cultivation process out of the hands of the public. New Mexico has already tried this and numerous problems have been documented within their system. There have been numerous shortages as well as an inability on the part of the dispensaries to adequately provide their patients with medicine. There is no reason that we should expect people to be able to use this medicine responsibly, but not grow it just as responsibly.
- Those individuals who have drug-charges will be prohibited from working in the city's dispensaries. This is an issue of concern because in other states where medicinal cannabis has been allowed, these individuals tend to make up a significant part of the workforce. I mean, come on, who else has the hands-on experience aside from other individuals who have engaged in the same activities but avoided legal prosecution?
- Patients would be, to my understanding, locked in to a particular dispensary once they designate it as such, with no way to change it. How does this make any sense or contribute to the patients' accessibility to their medicine?
- It seems as though the council is reacting to medical marijuana as a recreational drug under the guise of medicine. While cultural attitudes certainly explain why they may be doing so, it does not excuse it. The first concern of the DC government should be allowing sick people to get their hands on medication that can ease their suffering. Frankly, it shouldn't matter what substance it is, as the whole war on drugs should be a public health and not a criminal issue. However, this is clearly not the mindset that exists and thus rather than acting in a manner that would allow the greatest benefit to the greatest number of ill patients, the City Council instead appears to be trying to cover its own ass while making medicinal cannabis available to those who need it most rather than simply to those who need it at all. Is a person with cancer really that much more deserving of their personal health and comfort than an individual suffering from chronic pain due to migraines?
In short, it will be quite interesting to see exactly what comes all of this. I can only hope that our council-men and -women will make the right calls and allow unrestricted access to this medicine for legitimate patients. The decision was supposed to come later today, but will be postponed due to the several feet of snow that Washington is currently chillin' under. I'll be back with more opinions when they publish the text.
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