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View Full Version : 2012 Debate: Medical Marijuana in Mass?




Massachusetts
04-12-2012, 09:31 AM
There's a little debate going on in my area of Massachusetts right now about medical marijuana. The question that is scheduled to appear on the ballot in November is..should medical marijuana be legal to use and administer in Massachusetts for those patients who need it? Now that this is issue has come to the state level, I'd like to get a little debate going about which side of the coin you are on. We all are in favor of states rights, but I'd like you to read these op-ed two articles and let me know what you think.

I just posted the first paragraph of each piece, but I'd like you to check them both out and post your opinions either here or on the articles themselves.

Heilman: Say no to medical cannabis

Back in January, a Wayland Police officer stopped a carful of teenagers for speeding. In the car he found something called “Cheeba Chews;” marijuana-based candies sold in California and Colorado under the guise of medicine. Wrapped in “Tootsie Roll” style wrappers, these powerful chewables consist of the most active ingredient in marijuana — THC — and their taffystyle packaging is conspicuously attractive to kids. This incident is not unique to Wayland — in the past six months, Cheeba Chews in the possession of teenagers have surfaced in several other Massachusetts communities, often times shipped or transported by students from the Commonwealth attending college in a state where marijuana has been legalized as medicine.
Full piece: MetroWest Daily News (http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x777662435/Heilman-Say-no-to-medical-cannabis)

vs.

Casey: Say yes to medical cannabis

Last Monday, the MetroWest Daily News published an opinion piece by Heidi Heilman, voicing her opposition to medical cannabis being allowed in Massachusetts. While she did present a few good things to remember when attempting to regulate a medical cannabis industry, she largely ignored the real issue at hand here: helping those who truly need cannabis as medicine.
Full piece: MetroWest Daily News (http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/opinion/x1157746620/Casey-Say-yes-to-medical-cannabis)

LibertyRevolution
04-12-2012, 02:30 PM
The libertarian view:
You should have every right to put whatever you want into your body, without the need for government consent or control.

Think of it like this.
Do you own your body? Yes right? If not you would be a slave right?
Ok, so your body is your property. As owner of the property, you have the right to what you wish with your own property.
So thus you should be able to do whatever you want to your own body, with only one limitation.
You cannot do something to your property that would violate the property of others.

Does smoking Pot violate the rights of another persons property? No.
So there is no victim, so there should be no crime.

At that point it becomes the government trying to control your bad choices.
Now who is to say the government is better at making choices for you than you would be?
This is the same government that lets you buy addictive and destructive alcohol and cigarettes.
Then they add a sin tax to it to make sure they get paid off your addiction.
And now the drug company lobbyist got them pushing pills on you for just about everything...
And now you need insurance to pay for all these pills they want to give you...
If you wanna choose to smoke some pot alleviate some stress instead of the pills.. they arrest you and lock you up..

Anyways... Yes I feel the same about heroin....

tommyrp12
04-14-2012, 10:26 AM
im not sure about this legislation,people who want to grow their own and supply themselves are still out of luck.there will still be a black market too,so people will still be put in jails and that to me is the point of leaglization.i do beleive patients can make use of this law as it does grant them and them only safe access,but in a freemarket wouldnt their just be a demand for this MMJ quality anyway? and finally the prices they charge people while it does have to take care of their bills and have some profit left over,kinda screws the sick person in paying a higher price do to taxes and expenses of testing.
also i wonder if there will be harsher punishments for the black market dealers or people who dont have cards? and is it a admision of guilt if the fed's decide to raid these places and obtain your info,im sure this state with all its federal funding will choose just to hand you over,instead of fighting them.
welp im gonna vote for it,in hopes that some people may benifit, if this fails i hope it will not prevent people from fully leaglizing as it should be.

talkingpointes
04-14-2012, 10:56 AM
How could a place as "liberal" as Mass not have this yet? Even as backwards as Arizona is, we finally have it. It works just like you would think...

There is a guy sign flipping no more than a one-hundred feet from my house advertising for a pot Dr., for 75$ where you can get a license. (Cant eat, can't sleep?) There is a handful of dispensaries here you can get whatever you want: edibles, drinks, hash, and of course phenomenal chronic. (sensimillia) In just a short time it has transformed the market here, although their legitimate products come at a higher premium. People no longer have to go through shady ass dealers ripping people off and mostly putting them in a dangerous situation. The mass hysteria created by the fear peddling limp noodles has died to all but a chirp. Crime hasn't increased and kids are still just stealing pot from their parents drawers or getting it from friends like the rest of us did. (except for the spice craze) It didn't create some out of control situation where people are walking down the street with quarter pound joints blowing it in peoples faces and in general acting like hooligans.

I would say for all it's a net benefit, after all we still have Americas most tyrannical and and least empathetic sheriff JOE!