buckaroo bonzai
Well-Known Member
[h=6]A law enforcement officer holds a marijuana leaf captured in a raid / Associated Press file photo[/h]
[h=5]By Gretchen Whitmer[/h]
It was a pivotal election year in Michigan in 2008.
Voters emphatically put the need for cures and treatments above outdated dogma, conservative-fueled stigma and political scare tactics. I spent much of the year working in support of the ballot initiative to expand stem cell research, which passed, but another proposal to offer hope and relief to Michigans sick and suffering passed with even greater support: Proposal 1 to legalize medical marijuana.
I proudly voted in support of legalizing medical marijuana in 2008. It was in line with many of the same principles I was championing in the stem cell campaign, namely, offering hope to those in need.
But it resonated even closer to home for me than that.
That is because, like the many frustrated people who came before the Michigan Government Operations Committee last week to testify against Senate Bill 660 to regulate marijuana as a prescription drug, I cared for a mother dying of brain cancer.
I would have given anything to help ease her pain, soothe her nausea and stimulate her appetite.
Sadly, there are many more Michiganders still suffering who would benefit greatly from medical marijuana. But medical marijuana is only effective if it is accessible, and unfortunately, Michigan Republicans continue to avoid true reforms and opt for political grandstanding instead.
Senate Bill 660 is the latest marijuana legislation to focus on phantom problems that completely miss the point and offer no relief or clarity for those in need.
And that is why, instead of voting to support that legislation, I moved for the outright decriminalization of marijuana during the debate on the bill this past week.
Since medical marijuana was legalized in 2008, the Michigan Legislature has tried and failed to regulate the industry in a way that accommodates patients while appeasing social conservatives.
The result has been constant confusion, legal ambiguity and an array of red tape that has impeded Michigans sick from getting the treatment they need.
This is not what the voters intended in 2008, and based on polling numbers and local election results, this not what the voters want now.
The public sentiment regarding legal recreational use of marijuana has shifted dramatically the last few years.
Just last week, three more Michigan communities Ferndale, Jackson and my own Capital City passed local ordinances to legalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana for private, personal use.
In fact, the votes were not even close, passing with>> 69% in support in Ferndale, >>61% in Jackson and >>63% in Lansing.
Most Michigan politicians certainly dont have that kind of approval rating.
Similar measures have been passed in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint and Ypsilanti, and Kalamazoo and Ann Arbor have also lessened the penalties for personal marijuana use.
The times most certainly are changing, and its long past time for those of us entrusted with changing our outdated laws to keep pace.
The choice on marijuana regulation in Michigan is clear.
We can either continue to have ambiguous and ineffective laws that waste the resources of our legal system or we can evolve, read the writing on the wall, and take steps to simplify all of Michigans marijuana laws by eliminating much of the need for them.
As public servants, my colleagues and I are supposed to be representatives of the people, and it is becoming abundantly clear that the decriminalization of marijuana is something that the people of Michigan want.
I, for one, agree with them.
Gretchen Whitmer is an East Lansing Democrat and the Michigan Senate minority leader.
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