Bad Medicine

Last week, IRS and DEA agents raided one of the three medicinal cannabis dispensaries a few blocks from where I live.

According to the DoJ, the "Alameda County Compassionate Collective" (these places have the best names!) generated sales of more than $74,000 in 2004, $1.3 million in 2005, $21.5 million in 2006 and $26.3 million through June 2007.

The facility was permitted by Alameda county and California state laws, but U.S. federal drug laws trump both local and state laws, and the owners apparently weren't reporting all their millions of income, which is where the IRS entered the picture.

I'll admit that I've always been a little uncomfortable having marijuana dispensaries in my neighborhood. I did vote for Prop 215 to make medicinal marijuana legal in the treatment of cancer, glaucoma, or "other illness for which marijuana provides relief", and I do think that federal drug laws are outdated and draconian, but I'm a little NIMBY with having the "goods" being distributed in my backyard.

The dispensaries are all concentrated in a few blocks of downtown Hayward, and have armed guards protecting the "merchandise". And most of the "patients" that frequent the dispensaries (which all have holistic-sounding names like "Patients Resource Center" and "Alameda County Compassionate Collective") don't look like people with serious illnesses. They look like healthy Twentysomething potheads trying to score some righteous bud.

Two of the patients interviewed in last week's newspaper story were 21 year olds who require marijuana for "back pain" and "severe headaches". If I were feeling cynical, I'd say that California's medicinal marijuana initiative was being abused for non-medicinal purposes. This quote by the dude with "severe headaches" deserves its own blockquote..

"This is the best pharmacy around. It has the highest-quality medicine at the most compassionate prices."

I haven't bought any medicine in a long time, but it must take a lot of volume sales at "compassionate prices" to generate $50M in sales in two years.

Gov. Arnold recently got into hot water for telling an interviewer that "Marijuana is not a drug. it's a leaf". If it is a drug with legitimate medical uses, it should be treated like one, and allowed to be distributed by regular pharmacies instead of backdoor "buyers clubs". And if it's not a drug, then it shouldn't be illegal.

To quote Dr. Winston Hubert McIntosh,"legalize it, don't criticize it".