It seems drug enforcement officers such as Mr. Covarrubias seem to have an outline for these articles. I’d like to respond to several of their ‘talking points’ about the evils of medical marijuana.
Big Cannabis has duped the voters
A common theme used by those with a vested interest in the ‘War on Drugs’ is that there is a hidden hand at work – Big Cannabis. Big Cannabis is a ‘tool’ of the drug cartels and a danger to truth, justice and the American Way. They talk about the ‘intent’ of the voters to help terminal patients. They talk about marijuana financing heroin and cocaine.
The truth is voters are not as stupid as they would like us to believe. They knew EXACTLY what they were voting for. My 75-year-old mother wanted to help cancer patients AND those with chronic pain when she voted for the Act. I suspect many others did as well. As for financing drug cartels, marijuana does not do that. The fact that marijuana is illegal and people are forced to buy it from criminals does. Fortunately, we have medical marijuana in this state, so people can grow it themselves or buy it from their licensed caregivers.
Marijuana Patients are Poor Parents
All this nonsense about children being kicked out of their bedrooms so people can grow marijuana is designed not to show the danger to children, but to show their marijuana smoking parents are incapable of caring for them properly.
Good parents would never do such a thing, so ‘weed’ smoking parents must by definition be bad. We see this angle constantly being exploited by CPS, vindictive ex-spouses, and the courts, despite the protections built right into the Act to prevent such assumptions. Sen Rick Jones is even attempting to ram through a bill forcing parents to choose between children and medicine to formalize the mindset.
Children and College Kids
A common theme is to associate marijuana use with children. Actual state statistics show that of 130,000 medical marijuana patients in this state, only 44 are minors. Having certified about 1/3 of them, I can assure you that most will not live long enough to be majors and all are gravely ill. They are exactly the ‘terminally ill’ patients the voters were ‘duped’ by ‘Big Cannabis’ about, yet because the image of a toddler with a bong is what you are trying to project, you conveniently leave out the ‘duped voter’ angle. In my practice the average age is 51 with well documented medical conditions. Fewer than 17 percent are under the age of 30.
Cannabis is different now… and dangerous
Your study suggests that there is THC on the surfaces of homes of medical marijuana patients, and that somehow this is so dangerous that you need to wear protective gear as if you were cleaning up a meth lab (note the association of cannabis with meth to control the mindset of the reader). Yet THC is harmless, and in fact there are literally thousands of studies showing medical benefit. Meth is not. Unlike cannabis, cocaine is legal, far more dangerous and addictive, and is schedule 2 and available for medical use. I wonder what the risk of even nanogram levels of marijuana on a coffee table will have any adverse effect with transdermal absorption. But if you are worried, please feel free to wear your bunny suit.
Cannabis hurts performance and makes you stupid
Last I checked, cannabis was not used as a performance enhancing drug. We all know how it hurts athletic performance in people like Michael Phelps. You would be amazed at how many very smart people at companies like Microsoft or Google actually use cannabis yet still manage to muddle along and turn their companies into Fortune 500 operations.
Cannabis is a Gateway Drug
Mr. Covarrubias discussed his interviews with college students and how they claimed cannabis was the cause of their woes. Let’s get this clear. He wasn’t interviewing them for a term paper, or a newspaper story. He was ARRESTING them. They were sitting there, in handcuffs, facing a charge that likely would ruin their lives- impacting their employment, student loans, even military service. I am sure they told the authority figure with the badge anything he wanted to hear.
The gateway drug for heroin is prescription pain killers- more than 51 percent started their habit at the doctor’s office. The vast majority of people get their first exposure to ‘illegal’ drugs with alcohol and underage drinking.
In closing, as a citizen, a voter and a member of the medical community, I wish to personally thank Mr. Covarrubias and his brother law-enforcement officers for the job they do keeping us safe from dangerous drugs. I just want to very clearly tell him that Marijuana is NOT one of them. The major adverse side effect of marijuana is exposure to the criminal justice system.
Dr. Robert Townsend is president of Denali Healthcare in Mt. Pleasant, a pain management clinic. He uses cannabis certifications as a tool to reduce the use of more dangerous narcotic pain medicine. He is not a card holder and has never personally used marijuana.
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