The battle over marijuana legalization has reached the end.
It’s over. There are no more compelling arguments to make. There are no more studies needed. The medical research isn’t necessary anymore.
The legalization movement has won.
Oh, marijuana is no closer to being legalized in this state than it was 10 or 20 years ago, but that doesn’t change the fact that the argument to legalize it has clearly triumphed.
There’s nowhere left for the anti-weed folks to turn at this point. They’ve lost the doctors, the scientists, most law enforcement and the general public. And now, they’ve started to lose fellow colleagues, as more and more people begin to realize the medicinal benefits and few dangers of the drug.
Just this week, Republican state Sen. Paul Sanford announced his support for a bill that would legalize a marijuana-derived oil that has been found to offer relief to some illnesses. Sanford was swayed by the story of a Madison resident whose daughter suffers from a rare form of epilepsy, and the oil would offer relief.
Another bill would legalize marijuana in all forms for medicinal use, since doctors across the country have come to learn that marijuana is unrivaled in some instances as a pain killer and in treating some illnesses.
Polls from one end of the country to the other, and from one end of this state to the other, have found broad, nearly unanimous support for medicinal legalization and strong support for recreational legalization.
These days, you have to look rather hard to find anyone opposed.
Or you have to look in Alabama’s governor’s mansion.
Gov. Robert Bentley, a doctor who is so proud of his medical license that he once legally changed his first name to Doctor, again last week stated his strong and unwavering opposition to the legalization of marijuana for any use.
Bentley did say, however, that he would be perfectly fine with “someone” (read: a big pharmaceutical company) using the chemicals found in marijuana to create a drug that would do the same thing as marijuana, assuming it was tested and approved by the FDA.
It’s the dumbest thing I’ve heard this week.
If marijuana works, and we have thousands of doctors out there saying it does, then why wouldn’t we just use the natural plant? And who needs the FDA? I can find you hundreds of local human guinea pigs who will attest to marijuana’s safety, and who will gladly demonstrate the effects of prolonged weed use.
The fact is that the only real danger from marijuana is to a bag of Cheetos.
Alcohol, tobacco and a whole slew of over-the-counter and prescription drugs are far, far more dangerous than marijuana.
Have you ever heard a TV ad for one of those FDA-approved drugs, like Celebrex, and listened as the guy rattles off the potential side effects? It’s everything from diarrhea to death. And yet that little pill somehow passed the rigorous FDA inspection. The same inspection passed by Vioxx and Fen-Phen before they killed thousands.
But then, people dying from FDA approved drugs isn’t rare. More than 100,000 people do every year, even when those drugs are prescribed correctly. And that’s to say nothing of the millions who are addicted to prescription pain killers or who die from mixing over-the-counter meds. Drug overdoses of prescription drugs killed more people last year than car wrecks in 29 states.
Care to guess how many have died from marijuana in the last year? Zero. Not one overdose or other marijuana-related death.
But the safety of the drug isn’t even the best part. It’s also a source of tax revenue.
Colorado, which has legalized marijuana for medicinal and recreational use, expects to bring in millions of extra dollars in taxes from it.
I don’t know if anyone’s looked over the state budgets lately, but that’s cash we could use. All for doing something that helps people and that an overwhelming majority of voters support.
The arguments over this are finished. All that’s left now are for those on the other side to admit defeat and get out of the way.
Argument to Legalize Marijuana has Triumphed
Article by Josh Moon for the Montgomery Advertiser