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Brian Sorgatz
(rhymes with “cats”)
Arcata, Humboldt County, California, United States
What sort of man blogs about Playboy? I flatter myself to think that Kendra Wilkinson might call this blog intellectual pimping.
ISFP “Composer Artisan.” Socially and economically libertarian for reasons having nothing to do with Ayn Rand. Favorite activities: reading, writing, moviegoing, television (and proud of it), piano, didgeridoo, foreign languages (currently Spanish), light hiking, spiritual practice, friendship, sex.
Hollywood, California, is my spiritual hometown. I actually grew up in three other communities in California, but it hardly seems to matter which three. How could my heart take root anywhere under the tyranny of American public schooling?
I don’t have to work for a living. After my father died in December 1997, my family and I won a legal settlement.
The Supreme Court has upheld the DEA’s right to go after dispensaries, no matter what state law might say. And even one of the key proponents of medical marijuana says things have gotten out of hand.Regrettably, Safer doesn’t see through the phony scandal of adult citizens purchasing an amazingly safe herb for the difficult to explain but very real benefits of getting high. I credit Imler with intellectual humility when he says, “We weren’t doctors. We weren’t scientists.” I wish he would take that reasoning a little further. Why doesn’t Imler notice the alarming discrepancy between the scientific and political processes? Why doesn’t he then apply the same standard of intellectual humility to politicians (and the health care workers they have forcefully deputized) that he does to himself?
“It’s just ridiculous the amount of money that’s going through these cannabis clubs. It’s absolutely ridiculous,” says Scott Imler, a minister in the United Methodist Church who has long been active in promoting medical marijuana.
Eleven years ago, he was working to pass proposition 215, the [statewide] ballot measure that legalized it. Today, Imler has second thoughts.
“The purpose of proposition 215 was not to create a new industry. It was to protect legitimate patients from criminal prosecution,” Imler says.
The aim back then, reflected in television spots, was for a highly regulated system in which licensed pharmacies would dispense medical marijuana to the seriously ill. Proposition 215’s backers had people with AIDS, cancer, and glaucoma in mind.
“What happened when we were writing it was, as you can imagine, every patient group in the state and they all have their lobbies. You know, the kidney patients and the heart patient. Every patient group wanted to be included in the list,” Imler recalls. “And so we didn’t wanna get in the position of deciding what it could be used for and what it couldn’t be used for. We weren’t doctors. We weren’t scientists. We weren’t researchers. We were just patients with a problem.”
Imler says they were forced to make the proposition vague.
So the law voters passed mentioned not only cancer and AIDS but “...any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.” A decade later, if you’ve got a note from a doctor, you can buy medical pot for just about any imaginable condition.
“Let me just ask you plain and simple. Is there this proliferation because people are simply using, quote, unquote, medical marijuana, to get high?” Safer asks.
“I think there’s a lot of that. And I think you know, a lot of what we have now is basically pot dealers in storefronts,” Imler says.
Many businesses calling themselves dispensaries or cannabis clubs advertise in alternative papers, as do doctors around the state who will give you a quick once-over and, for a price, a permit to buy.
“Most of these cannabis centers are buying their marijuana off the black market. They’re dumping millions of dollars into the criminal black market,” Imler says.Those are the last words of the 60 Minutes story. For some reason, what Imler calls chaos is supposed to be scary, like a movie presented by Count Floyd. Unless Imler can justify his fear of that kind of chaos without regurgitating hoaxes about marijuana, his newfound hypocrisy ought to diminish his reputation in the medical marijuana community.
“Marijuana—what? Coming in from Mexico or wherever?” Safer asks.
“Some of it is,” Imler says. “Some of these places sell hashish, which comes in from the Becca Valley in Lebanon.”
“What you’re suggesting is that the traditional black market or part of the traditional black market is now legal?” Safer asks.
“Yeah. That’s essentially what’s happened,” Imler agrees.
....
And looking back on a decade of controversy, Rev. Scott Imler concedes that good Samaritans with good intentions weren’t enough. He argues it’s time for the federal government to step in and legalize and properly control medical marijuana.
“Until that happens, we’re gonna have what we have now, which is chaos,” he says.
Labels: DruPo, Lib, Lit, MorPa, RS, UCL
Posted by Brian Sorgatz at 6:16 AM
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