Author Topic: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin  (Read 841 times)

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Offline massadvj

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My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« on: March 28, 2014, 07:38:04 pm »
My trip to the pot shop
by Michelle Malkin

PUEBLO WEST, Colo. — It’s 9 a.m. on a weekday, and I’m at the Marisol Therapeutics pot shop. This is serious business. Security is tight. ID checks are frequent. Merchandise is strictly regulated, labeled, wrapped and controlled. The store is clean, bright and safe. The staffers are courteous and professional. Customers of all ages are here.

There’s a middle-aged woman at the counter nearby who could be your school librarian. On the opposite end of the dispensary, a slender young soldier in a wheelchair with close-cropped hair, dressed in his fatigues, consults with a clerk. There’s a gregarious cowboy and an inquisitive pair of baby boomers looking at edibles. A dude in a hoodie walks in with his backpack.

And then there’s my husband and me.

The dispensary is split in two: “recreational” on one side, “medical” on the other. Medical customers must have state-issued cards and doctor’s approval. The inventory is not taxed, so prices are lower on that side. On the recreational side, where I’m peering at mysterious jars of prickly green goods, “Smoke on the Water” is thumping from stereo speakers. Yes, there’s a massive banner advertising a Tommy Chong appearance, and issues of “High Times” are on display. But the many imposing signs posted on the wall emphatically warn: No smoking, no open drug consumption, and absolutely no entry allowed into the locked lab where the cannabis plants sit under bright lights.
Before I tell you how and why my hubby and I ended up at Marisol Therapeutics, some background about my longtime support of medical marijuana: More than 15 years ago in Seattle, while working at The Seattle Times, I met an extraordinary man who changed my mind about the issue. Ralph Seeley was a Navy nuclear submarine officer, pilot, cellist and lawyer suffering from chordoma, a rare form of bone cancer that starts in the spine. He had undergone several surgeries, including removal of one lung and partial removal of the other, and was confined to a wheelchair.

Chronically nauseous from chemotherapy and radiation, weak from a suppressed appetite, and suffering excruciating pain, Seeley turned to marijuana cigarettes for relief.
Contrary to cultural stereotype, Seeley was far from “wasted.” While smoking the drug to reduce his pain, he finished law school — something he couldn’t have done while on far more powerful “mainstream” narcotics, which left him zonked out and vomiting uncontrollably in his hospital bed after chemo. Seeley had the backing of his orthopedic doctor and University of Washington School of Medicine oncologist Dr. Ernest Conrad. He took his plight to the Washington state supreme court, where he asserted a constitutionally protected liberty interest in having his doctor issue a medical pot prescription.

The court rejected Seeley’s case for physician-prescribed marijuana, arguing that the government’s interest in preserving an “interlocking trellis” of costly and ineffective War on Drug laws trumped his right to individual autonomy and physician treatment. After a decade-long battle with cancer, Seeley died in 1998. But his spirit persevered. Seeley bravely paved the way for medical marijuana laws in nearly two dozen states, including Washington’s Initiative 692, approved by voters 10 months after he died, and Colorado’s Amendment 20, passed by popular referendum in 2000.

Support for these ballot measures and similar efforts (like the newly enacted Charlee’s Law in Utah legalizing medical cannabis oil) transcends political lines. Why? Because cancer, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and other chronic and terminal diseases have no partisan affiliations.

This brings us back to Pueblo. For the past three months, my mother-in-law, Carole, whom I love with all my heart, has battled metastatic melanoma. After a harrowing week of hospitalization and radiation, she’s at home now. A miraculous new combination of oral cancer drugs seems to have helped enormously with pain and possibly contained the disease’s spread. But Carole’s loss of appetite and nausea persist.

A month ago, with encouragement from all of her doctors here in Colorado, she applied for a state-issued medical marijuana card. It still hasn’t come through. As a clerk at Marisol Therapeutics told us, there’s a huge backlog. But thanks to Amendment 64, the marijuana drug legalization act approved by voters in 2012, we were able to legally and safely circumvent the bureaucratic holdup. “A lot of people are in your same situation,” the pot shop staffer told us. “We see it all the time, and we’re glad we can help.”
Our stash included 10 pre-rolled joints, a “vape pen” and two containers of cheddar cheese-flavored marijuana crackers (they were out of brownies). So far, just one cracker a day is yielding health benefits. Carole is eating better than she has in three months. For us, there’s no greater joy than sharing the simple pleasure of gathering in the kitchen for a meal, with Grandma Carole at the head of the table.

Do I worry about the negative costs, abuses and cultural consequences of unbridled recreational pot use? Of course I do. But when you get past all the “Rocky Mountain High” jokes and look past all the cable-news caricatures, the legalized marijuana entrepreneurs here in my adopted home state are just like any other entrepreneurs: securing capital, paying taxes, complying with a thicket of regulations, taking risks and providing goods and services that ordinary people want and need. Including our grateful family.

http://michellemalkin.com/?p=154804

Offline massadvj

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #1 on: March 28, 2014, 07:40:03 pm »
There's very little I disagree with MM on, including this.  Most of you know I have a wife on chemotherapy.  We have considered pot as a way to boost her appetite, but it seems for now her appetite has returned.

Offline alicewonders

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #2 on: March 28, 2014, 08:10:30 pm »
There's very little I disagree with MM on, including this.  Most of you know I have a wife on chemotherapy.  We have considered pot as a way to boost her appetite, but it seems for now her appetite has returned.

Good news that your wife has regained her appetite!  I'm keeping her and you in my prayers for healing and strength. 
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Offline truth_seeker

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #3 on: March 28, 2014, 08:13:13 pm »
I wonder what Ronald and Nancy Reagan would have to say about this?

And Richard Nixon, too?

And Barry Goldwater, the father of the modern conservative movement?

"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #4 on: March 28, 2014, 08:17:04 pm »
I wonder what Ronald and Nancy Reagan would have to say about this?

And Richard Nixon, too?

And Barry Goldwater, the father of the modern conservative movement?



I can hazard a guess at Nancy's initial public response; however, I fail to see why the right to make a dope of yourself (pun intended) isn't at the very heart of the American values of freedom and individual liberty.

Offline massadvj

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #5 on: March 28, 2014, 08:19:02 pm »
I wonder what Ronald and Nancy Reagan would have to say about this?

And Richard Nixon, too?

And Barry Goldwater, the father of the modern conservative movement?

Not much, I don't imagine.  They're all dead. 

Seriously, I think Goldwater had quite a libertarian streak and would likely have approved of marijuana decriminalization.  Reagan and Nixon were both early architects of the modern day War on Drugs.

Offline EC

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #6 on: March 28, 2014, 08:22:01 pm »
There's very little I disagree with MM on, including this.  Most of you know I have a wife on chemotherapy.  We have considered pot as a way to boost her appetite, but it seems for now her appetite has returned.

So pleased for her!  :laugh:

Pot can help some people on chemo (not everyone - my aunt had no effect at all, Mom could function virtually normally). It is wonderful as an anti nausea treatment, and way less stressing on the body than opiates for controlling pain. If she needs it and it works for her, buy it. Just find an honest supplier if you are in a non medical use state.
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Offline massadvj

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #7 on: March 28, 2014, 08:23:22 pm »
Good news that your wife has regained her appetite!  I'm keeping her and you in my prayers for healing and strength.

 :bighug:

Offline truth_seeker

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #8 on: March 28, 2014, 08:38:23 pm »
Not much, I don't imagine.  They're all dead. 

Seriously, I think Goldwater had quite a libertarian streak and would likely have approved of marijuana decriminalization.  Reagan and Nixon were both early architects of the modern day War on Drugs.
I know what they said during their terms.

But now is later, new information. Would Goldwater, Nixon, Ron and Nancy Reagan be able to "grow" and see these topics in a libertarian manner?

I know Ron said libertarianism (classical liberalism) was at the heart of conservatism.
"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline massadvj

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #9 on: March 28, 2014, 09:27:38 pm »
I know what they said during their terms.

But now is later, new information. Would Goldwater, Nixon, Ron and Nancy Reagan be able to "grow" and see these topics in a libertarian manner?

I know Ron said libertarianism (classical liberalism) was at the heart of conservatism.

Nixon was establishment law-and-order all the way.  I doubt very much he would have "evolved."  Reagan was too close to the religious right to have changed his public posture on the issue, though he might have held a more libertarian view in private.


Offline truth_seeker

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #10 on: March 28, 2014, 09:52:33 pm »
Too bad Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan couldn't have lived to be 100 yrs. old with their mental faculties fully okay. Eisenhower, too.

We kept marijuana illegal all of that time. Did it prevent very many from using it? Did keeping it illegal, lend credibility to legal, law enforcement, religious and parental forces?

How many lives were harmed more than helped, by criminalizing marijuana?

"God must love the common man, he made so many of them.�  Abe Lincoln

Offline 240B

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #11 on: March 28, 2014, 10:09:54 pm »
The cannabis plant has many more uses far beyond nausea and other medical benefits. It is perfect for paper and other products. It has a thousand uses. Hippies have been making clothes and shoes out of cannabis for decades. The industrial billionaires, the super rich drug lords, the alcohol producers, they are all buying every Congressman in Congress to keep this illegal. Like my papy used to say, "America has the best politicians money can buy."
 
My father told me that the stuff grew wild. It was a 'weed'. Governmet people were paid to spray 'America' with' Paraquat' which was designed to kill 'cannibis' but 'supposedly' nothing else. They saturated America with it. We have been eating paraquat for decades. There was an obsession on the part of paid politicians to eliminate cannibis from the face of the globe.
 
The "Marijuana" debate is much more than 'medicine' or helping people. It is much more about what cannabis can do industrially that has all their skirts blown up.
You cannot "COEXIST" with people who want to kill you.
If they kill their own with no conscience, there is nothing to stop them from killing you.
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Offline 240B

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #12 on: March 28, 2014, 10:29:42 pm »
All of them. Every founding father in America grew Cannabis. It has a thousand uses. That is why they farmed it. Forget about 'getting high'. That is the canard.
 
Getting high has nothing whatsoever to do with why Cannabis is illegal. It is all about 'money', and who is getting it.
You cannot "COEXIST" with people who want to kill you.
If they kill their own with no conscience, there is nothing to stop them from killing you.
Rational fear and anger at vicious murderous Islamic terrorists is the same as irrational antisemitism, according to the Leftists.

Offline jmyrlefuller

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #13 on: March 29, 2014, 12:10:55 am »
All of them. Every founding father in America grew Cannabis. It has a thousand uses. That is why they farmed it. Forget about 'getting high'. That is the canard.
 
Getting high has nothing whatsoever to do with why Cannabis is illegal. It is all about 'money', and who is getting it.
Clarification: they grew hemp, which doesn't have the concentration of psychoactive chemicals that marijuana does because it was grown for height (more height, more fiber) and not for drug use. Hemp is legal to grow pretty much everywhere in the world EXCEPT the United States (where the laws still consider hemp and marijuana the same thing), although even those laws aren't particularly heavily enforced as of late.

Yes, both are considered members of the "cannabis" genus. But they're not the same plant and, in many cases, not even the same species.
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Offline aligncare

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #14 on: March 29, 2014, 01:07:40 am »
I wonder what Ronald and Nancy Reagan would have to say about this?

And Barry Goldwater, the father of the modern conservative movement?
Richard Branson
George Schulz
Paul Volcker
William F Buckley Jr
Milton Friedman
Sen. Dennis DeConcini

Many conservatives have supported drug legalization. Yes, even Barry Goldwater was for the legalization of medicinal marijuana, and was endorsed by Ayn Rand, Ronald Reagan, Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon for his presidential bid in '64.

This interview with William F Buckley was recorded 1996:
Richard Heffner's The Open Mind, On Drug Legalization with William F Buckley

The prohibition of marijuana has led to billions in enforcement costs, and hundreds of thousands of arrests each year, in a fruitless attempt to control a mostly benign drug.
 – National Review

You can just feel a shift in national mood on everything from decriminalization to legalization for recreational or medicinal use.

Offline massadvj

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Re: My trip to the pot shop by Michelle Malkin
« Reply #15 on: March 29, 2014, 01:14:28 am »
Too bad Goldwater, Nixon and Reagan couldn't have lived to be 100 yrs. old with their mental faculties fully okay. Eisenhower, too.

We kept marijuana illegal all of that time. Did it prevent very many from using it? Did keeping it illegal, lend credibility to legal, law enforcement, religious and parental forces?

How many lives were harmed more than helped, by criminalizing marijuana?

Don't forget it represents a lot of patronage jobs for Republicans.  That may have been the primary motivation for the drug war to begin with.