Medical marijuana: Law enforcement caught in a lie?

You forgot the part where Tony Cornish, wearing a yellow “Police Line, do not cross” necktie for dramatic effect offered up his opinion of who was most credible in deciding if patients should have safe access to medical marijuana. “Police are to be trusted before medical professionals.” Do you really need to hear any more “expert” testimony? My goodness. It is sad to see law enforcement so adamantly opposed to this measure. Helping people is supposed to be what a police officer does. Enforcing the law, not deciding what becomes law, is their job. After seeing Mr. Cornish’s antics in the House committee yesterday, its clear that a sitting sheriff should NOT also hold public office. Talk about a conflict of interest! THAT should be illegal. Let’s get a bill drafted to that effect.
Bravo to Rep. Rukivina yesterday! He called out law enforcement on their lies. I hope law enforcement realizes people are losing respect for them when they come to these committee hearings and spread absolute lies at the expense of sick people. There were MULTIPLE amendments made yesterday making this one of, if not THE most restrictive medical marijuana legislation in the country. There is no excuse now, Governor Pawlenty. You can side with the lying special interests that are the police unions, or you can read the law before you and decide on its merits that the majority of Minnesotans agree with. Enough is enough! Stop wasting time that some sick and dying people don’t have and allow this to become law! This is NOT an issue to play political games over.

Well articulated crohnsguy!

“This is NOT an issue to play political games over.”

Are not these the same people a few years back screaming the sky would fall if law abiding people had the right to carry a concealed hand gun, crime would double over night with people shooting everyone that wore sunglasses in doors. After the law was passed in favor of conceal and carry the only case I remember was an undercover cop road rage shooting at a driver who shot back.

Wow, police lying!? NO WAY!!!!!!!!!!

Pawlenty is getting paid by the people to serve their interests. Americans are catching on to the fact that the private sector has figured out how to legally pay him off. If you own stock in the prison and or pharmacetical industry, then medical marijuana will drain away your profit. Pawlenty is an AIG type, he demands to be paid twice for a job poorly done. The first side to issue him a $750,000 bonus wins. The police know how to play this game too, in fact they can do it exactly as well as the best crook. If this doesn’t make you sick to your stomach, then you must be high.

For the above commenter; Greg. I believe conceal and carry was overturned right away as it was passed unconstitutionally.
And true, medical marijuana is nothing but bad for the pharmaceutical companies.

[...] the Statewide Gang and Drug Task Force, called proponents of legal medical marijuana liars. Then, reports MnIndy Rep. Tom Rukavina, sponsor of the bill got up and challenged him: “No member of your coalition [...]

That wasn’t the only lie spread by cops at the hearing. One of the boys in blue piled what he said was 6.5 pounds of pot on the table and claimed that it represented half of what the 12 plants allowed under the bill would produce in a year. I’m sure a lot of growers in Minnesota would love to have that yield.

Gotta love how that idiot with the police-tape tie spoke of Rukavina “disrespecting” officers. What a great way to “respect” cops– by wearing a moronic police-tape tie to a legislative hearing. What was HE on anyway?

We need reality-based government. No more of the Bush lies about Iraq, no more “reefer madness” nonsense from law enforcement, no more “Heckova Job Brownie” delusion.

It is troubling that a law enforcement officer would lie about meeting with someone in the hearing room, right in front of his face. If law enforcement has legitimate beefs about the law, the action of this officer completely undercuts law enforcement’s credibility.

In the 10 years since medical marijuana was passed in Oregon, teen use has declined every year. The program has a 99.9% compliance rate based on police arrest records. The program had generated over $1.3 million for State coffers.

I weighed 92 pounds when I joined the program. I was taking 25-35 pills a day to cope with advanced cancer and radiation poisoning. I was seeing my doctor every month and Specialists several times a year. I was also fighting for my life in the Emergency Room about 10 times a year.

Within 6 months of joining the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, I was down to 2 pills a day. In the last 10 years, I have gained 25 pounds. I have not been to the ER in 9 years. I hardly see my doctor at all anymore. I have reduced my overall Healthcare costs by about 85%.

Lara,

Great information! So glad to hear you are doing so well! God bless!
The information that debunks law enforcements’ objections is available. It’s common sense. If you don’t force medical patients to buy off the street, that takes potentially thousands of people off the street and lessens profits that could go TO CRIMINALS. (Wow, what a concept!)
It’s no wonder crime tends to go down in states that have passed these laws. Also, as Norm Stamper, former Seattle Police Chief testified, the “mystique” of marijuana with young people tends to go away when it is considered medicine, and declines in teen use have occurred as a result of these laws. It’s a win-win. Patients get safe access to the medicine they need, and the black market is reduced slightly all in one swoop. Given the medical conditions are very serious that would make patients eligible to get a recommendation from their health care provider under the proposed MN law, the impact on public safety is going to be negligible, if not undetectable to Minnesota citizens. Reduction in crime rates and teen use would be a huge bonus. The governor has nothing to lose in allowing this to become law, given that a two year sunset provision has been added to the proposed law. If it doesn’t work, and there is data and public opinion to support or repeal the law, then so be it and at least it was given a chance, and sick and dying people didn’t have to worry about being prosecuted for a couple years. No state has repealed these laws since they were passed, so I think that says a lot about the success of the programs and that they indeed do not cause public safety issues. Please contact Tim Pawlenty and tell him that the people of Minnesota support helping the sick and dying!
tim.pawlenty@state.mn.us

Even the former Deputy Director of the Drug Free America Foundation supports the use of medical marijuana!

http://www.opposingviews.com/articles/opinion-former-drug-free-america-director-endorses-medical-marijuana

By David E. Krahl, Ph.D.

Ushering in a new level of optimism in Washington, DC and around the country, the Obama Administration recently signaled a sea change in drug enforcement policy. Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder affirmed an earlier commitment by the President to end federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries. Despite the country’s woes, from a worsening economy to a war on several fronts, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) has found the time, energy, and resources to continue its nonsensical effort to undermine the duly enacted medical marijuana laws of California and other states. That was, until the Attorney General announced a new approach to the failed war on medical marijuana.

Contrary to scientific opinion, the U.S. government still posits that marijuana has no medical value. Not only has the government used this position to harmfully intrude in the lives of our most vulnerable citizens, it has done so with scorn for the voters and legislatures that enacted state medical marijuana laws. Even though the White House had earlier indicated its intent to end federal raids in medical marijuana states, the yet still-seated Bush Administration officials continued a policy of rabid enforcement based on expediency. For example, even after President Obama took office on January 20, six licensed medical marijuana dispensaries were raided by the DEA.

There was a point in my professional career as Deputy Director of the Drug Free America Foundation when I supported the prohibition of marijuana as medicine. But then, I experienced a change of heart, if you will; a moment of clarity, an epiphany. After seriously investigating the issue, and getting beyond the rhetorical arguments of both sides, I began to realize that the prohibitionist viewpoint against the use of marijuana as medicine largely ignored three things, which are so embedded in the fabric of American society and reflective of our cultural values that their truth is almost self-evident.

First and foremost, the issue of marijuana as medicine is largely a states’ rights issue. From a purely Constitutional point of view, individual states are empowered to chart their own legislative courses, and act as autonomous, self-determining governing entities that are best suited to adopt laws regarding the health and welfare of their citizens. At the latest count, thirteen states have enacted medical marijuana laws either by ballot initiative or legislation. Unfortunately, the federal government up to now has selectively used the federalist tenet of states’ rights only when it’s politically convenient to do so.

Second, it’s an issue of the relationship between physician and patient. Based on long-standing tradition, custom, and practice, the relationship between doctor and patient is sacrosanct. Fundamentally, the treatment regimen prescribed or recommended by the physician is a private matter. The government simply has no business intruding on a patient’s prescribed or recommended course of treatment.

Third, it’s an issue regarding the greater domain of a citizen’s right to privacy. As Justice Louis Brandeis so eloquently opined in 1928, we as citizens of the United States have “the right to be let alone.” And, as Erwin Griswold, the former dean of the Harvard Law School remarked in 1960, “the right to be let alone is the underlying principle of the Constitution’s Bill of Rights.” So fundamental is this right to privacy is that it has been applied to a panoply of situations that have undergone and withstood judicial scrutiny, and clearly substantiated in a host of Supreme Court decisions dating back nearly one hundred years.

Now, given the new Administration’s apparent willingness to change an outdated policy with regard to medical marijuana, what more is needed? A good place to start would be to reverse the indefensible position by the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) made in 2006 that “marijuana has no currently accepted medical use.” In fact, not only has the FDA approved several studies that highlighted the medical efficacy of marijuana, but many other studies conducted abroad have also come to the same conclusion: marijuana, indeed, has therapeutic value.

Advocates like Americans for Safe Access continue to call for a different approach to medical marijuana, away from the tired rhetoric of the past toward a more fact- and science-based vision of the future. Quite simply, their policy recommendations for the Obama Administration rightly called for an end to DEA raids, but also encouraged an expansion of research into medical marijuana, and the development of a comprehensive federal policy that ensures protection for any American that might benefit from this medicine.

Let’s hope that the new White House policy position means a new thoughtful, more deliberate, compassionate, and rational approach to the issue of medical marijuana. Thus far, we’re off to a good start! But, it’s up to us to demand not only changes to the government’s enforcement approach, but also increased research and access to this promising medicine.

David E. Krahl, is the former Deputy Director of Drug Free America Foundation and lives in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Maybe law enforcement heros were too busy shadowing Sara Jane Olson to meet with Ruckavina. First things first..

two hits of marijuana, not sensimilla, just old fashion pot and the running nose, watering eye allergies i used to have disappear. how would big pharma fight that knowledge if it became publically accepted.
how many over the counter drugs sold for allergies disappear? what else is the weed good for?

Law enforcement officials should be eternally ashamed for their actions in this case. Shame on them!!

[...] all, it was only a few weeks ago when state lawmakers and the local media ‘outed’ law enforcement for continually lying about the bills during their public [...]

Of course law enforcement has concerns. Busting sick people constitutes a major portion of their funding.

cops dont want pot legal because they make tons of money arresting pot smokers. Its all about job security. the old gateway bullcrap and save the children propaganda dont work. cops are slimey and self serving. they dont care about sick folks or anyone else for that matter. all cops are slime bags

I wonder how these policemen and legislators voting against this bill would feel if their medicine was being stolen from them or medicine that their friends and relatives needed to live comfortable lives or even live at all was taken from them..

It really disgusts me that people are willing to do this, make people suffer in terrible pain and possibly die for who knows what reason, maybe they were paid off by some lobbyist; I can’t really imagine any other reason…… Because no decent human being just wants people to suffer.

Meanwhile, much more harmful drugs like alcohol and cigarettes are able to be bought over the counter without even a doctor’s prescription.

Just a follow up, I can somewhat understand people wanting marijuana to be illegal for recreational use, even though that flies in the face of freedom that our country was founded on. To advocate marijuana being illegal while wanting alcohol and tobacco to be legal though is just really bad hyprocisy.

However, to be against medical marijuana is like being against chemotherapy for cancer patients. It just doesn’t make sense and only results in people suffering and dying.

I take back what I said 2 posts up; I really don’t think lobbyists are paying people off or anything. It would take a real cynic to think that. While I’m sure it happens sometimes, I think here it’s just people protecting self-interest (like police officers wanting to keep their jobs; if marijuana was legal, a lot of them wouldn’t be needed) and also ignorance or political pandering.

Well so much for “paying people off” did you hear about the district Judges, a pair, pleading guilty to receiving 2.5 Million dollars from newly constructed prison owners, to steer the young drug offenders to these prisons. Plead guilty to purposely wasting these youthful offenders lives. As if they did’nt already have enough power. It is their jobs they are really worried about. Or at least a move across the hall at police headquarters. It happens often. We just don’t always catch-em.

..And then it turns out hemp oil not only cures cancer, it does so incredibly quickly.

Many in law enforcement do much worse than lie, on an ongoing basis. Police departments object to anything that that might reduce their power. Their main concern here is that this might result in reduced funding, and they are hopelessly addicted to drug money. Law enforcement is part of a failed national drug policy which guarantees and protects access to dangerous drugs by the youth of this nation. This policy has also wasted more than a trillion dollars, violated the Constitutional rights of American citizens and destabilized the domestic tranquility of several allied nations. This disasterous policy also directly funds terrorism and gang violence. For the immense damage they have done to this nation and its citizens, those who continue to support this insanity should be convicted and locked up for crimes against humanity. When enough citizens of this country wake up, and that day is coming relatively soon, police will have to limit their crime fighting to violations of the law where there are actually victims. Part of law enforcements legitimate job is to protect us from each other, not protect us from ourselves. The authors of the Constitution made this clear, and all in law enforcement should carefully review this document.

[...] all, it was only a few weeks ago when state lawmakers and the local media ‘outed’ law enforcement for continually lying about the bills during their public [...]

I’m bi-polar. have disk damage from military. neck injury and back cause suicidal pain. morphine doesn’t work. cannabis works better on the pain that accrues on the right side of my skull a burning hideous pain that lasts for months, compiled with bi-polar disorder its maddening. cannabis helps with my mental illness, and pharmaceutical psychotropics are worthless and you would think that after a million years in the running someone would come up with something its so disgusting. i have known people with aides, watched my uncle die from cancer was told of their pain and sit in the same category. cannabis helps with pain and that in term makes me less depressed. i know the drug lords (pharmaceutical co.s) don’t want to here this I take a pill called seroquel and the side effects are possible sugar diabetes disease. Most of the drugs have hideous side effects but that’s OK for the police and Plenty. the narrow mindedness of these diminutive Neanderthals will go down in history. Point of interest, the Katrina flood in New Orleans what happened to the confiscated moneys and the drugs, and why did the chief of police retire there after. I’m not saying birds of a feather but oh well there goes the fun money. Every cop in every city knows that cannabis is harmless but if you threaten their plans look out its an embarrassment to the citizens of the great state of Minnesota to have their best acting like you just impounded their vehicle, but that’s life. I’ve been around for 60 years and never seen this country so lame as to hire someone because of looks and a fat wallet, the bad part is you think its OK. cannabis helps with many ailments and that’s the only way to cut down on medical costs. You still have to realize that the middle class would rather pay 75 to 100 dollars for medication than take the peasants medicine. I smoke it and I d don’t wake up with a colorful tee shirt on a matching hand knitted stocking cape with a bag of potato chips on my head please. I have things to say and they will be said. I’ve had senators ask for my opinion, lawyers and the military. the federal government doesn’t run this country the people do and should start exercising their right before they don’t have one. One sect runs this country one sect runs Russia one sect runs China one sect runs many countries, one day Americans will hear a pop sound and that will be the sound of their heads coming out of their rectums. I love this country and the people however you scare the ba Jesus out of me from tine to time.

by by baby blue

Good discussion. I’d like to point out that not all law enforcement folks are prohibitionists. For example, take a look at Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) http://www.leap.cc/

As a Minneapolis criminal defense lawyer who defends numerous marijuana cases, I know that many police officers either view marijuana as a less serious drug, or favor legalization. Many of them seem to feel a peer pressure to remain publicly slient. LEAP is a light in that darkness, otherwise.

My comments on medical marijuana are here: http://www.liberty-lawyer.com/drugcrimecharges/medicalmarijuanamn.html

My argument for legalization and durg crimes home page are here: http://www.liberty-lawyer.com/drugcrimecharges.html

My blog is: http://minneapoliscriminallawyer.liberty-lawyer.com/

Bottom line: harm reduction is the way to not only reduce the harms caused by prohibition laws, and black market self-help, but also reduces the usage rate. Legalize now.

kohls: don’t be a jagoff.