Jacob Bell
New Member
Is medical marijuana legal or illegal in Kern County? If you don't know, we don't blame you. While technically it's legal under state law, in Kern County the issue is like an ongoing pingpong match, with limited operations OK one year and banned the next.
In the latest turn of events, the Kern County Board of Supervisors this week passed an ordinance that prohibits the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes through a storefront or delivery service. Cannabis advocates say this will relegate patients to making purchases from back-alley dealers, invigorating the illicit drug trade and setting up otherwise law-abiding patients for trouble.
This week's move follows a board-imposed moratorium on new marijuana operations issued last year, which came after the repeal of a previous ordinance that allowed dispensaries to operate under a licensing system overseen by the Sheriff's Department. The city of Bakersfield has barred marijuana operations through its zoning code, but the measure goes unenforced.
In other communities across California, it's much the same: a melange of ordinances and enforcement standards that vary, to different extents, according to city and correspond (or don't correspond) with state and federal laws.
It's time for this patchwork to be shredded and for one unifying set of laws relative to the growth, distribution and regulation of medical marijuana to be instituted. Medical marijuana clearly has value as a pain reliever and mild sedative, and, like other drugs fitting that description, it clearly has the potential for misuse, abuse and misapplication.
To address those issues, the Food and Drug Administration should reverse its outdated position that marijuana "has no accepted medical use" and provide clear guidelines on the conditions under which it can be prescribed. Evidence suggests marijuana aids patients suffered from advanced cancer and certain other painful and debilitating diseases. Should it also be prescribed more casually? That's less justifiable. But the failure of the FDA, the U.S. surgeon general and other agencies to act keeps the issue languishing in a cloud of inconsistency and uncertainty.
The federal government must address other disconnected policies. On the one hand, it considers marijuana a controlled substance that's illegal to possess or distribute. But in 2009, the U.S. attorney general issued guidelines discouraging the prosecution of patients who use medical cannabis products according to state laws. Federal law needs to be more clear-cut than that: It must develop a more unified policy that recognizes exceptions for medical marijuana in states that approve its medical use. This would go a long way in helping to address the problems facing Kern County as well as the states that have decriminalized marijuana for medical purposes.
Part of the solution must be guidance on an appropriate way to distribute medical marijuana. The drug should be accessible to appropriately screened and diagnosed patients in ways that don't involve delivery services and mechanisms that are easily abused by the illicit drug trade.
Action needs to be taken soon. As we've seen, marijuana laws are subject to change at the federal level, too, depending on who's in power. Patients, physicians and law enforcement agencies, among others, deserve to have reliably set laws on which to operate.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: bakersfield.com
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: The Bakersfield Californian
Website: Our View: Time for FDA to settle cannabis inconsistencies
In the latest turn of events, the Kern County Board of Supervisors this week passed an ordinance that prohibits the distribution of marijuana for medical purposes through a storefront or delivery service. Cannabis advocates say this will relegate patients to making purchases from back-alley dealers, invigorating the illicit drug trade and setting up otherwise law-abiding patients for trouble.
This week's move follows a board-imposed moratorium on new marijuana operations issued last year, which came after the repeal of a previous ordinance that allowed dispensaries to operate under a licensing system overseen by the Sheriff's Department. The city of Bakersfield has barred marijuana operations through its zoning code, but the measure goes unenforced.
In other communities across California, it's much the same: a melange of ordinances and enforcement standards that vary, to different extents, according to city and correspond (or don't correspond) with state and federal laws.
It's time for this patchwork to be shredded and for one unifying set of laws relative to the growth, distribution and regulation of medical marijuana to be instituted. Medical marijuana clearly has value as a pain reliever and mild sedative, and, like other drugs fitting that description, it clearly has the potential for misuse, abuse and misapplication.
To address those issues, the Food and Drug Administration should reverse its outdated position that marijuana "has no accepted medical use" and provide clear guidelines on the conditions under which it can be prescribed. Evidence suggests marijuana aids patients suffered from advanced cancer and certain other painful and debilitating diseases. Should it also be prescribed more casually? That's less justifiable. But the failure of the FDA, the U.S. surgeon general and other agencies to act keeps the issue languishing in a cloud of inconsistency and uncertainty.
The federal government must address other disconnected policies. On the one hand, it considers marijuana a controlled substance that's illegal to possess or distribute. But in 2009, the U.S. attorney general issued guidelines discouraging the prosecution of patients who use medical cannabis products according to state laws. Federal law needs to be more clear-cut than that: It must develop a more unified policy that recognizes exceptions for medical marijuana in states that approve its medical use. This would go a long way in helping to address the problems facing Kern County as well as the states that have decriminalized marijuana for medical purposes.
Part of the solution must be guidance on an appropriate way to distribute medical marijuana. The drug should be accessible to appropriately screened and diagnosed patients in ways that don't involve delivery services and mechanisms that are easily abused by the illicit drug trade.
Action needs to be taken soon. As we've seen, marijuana laws are subject to change at the federal level, too, depending on who's in power. Patients, physicians and law enforcement agencies, among others, deserve to have reliably set laws on which to operate.
News Hawk- Jacob Ebel 420 MAGAZINE
Source: bakersfield.com
Contact: Contact Us
Copyright: The Bakersfield Californian
Website: Our View: Time for FDA to settle cannabis inconsistencies
