I will keep saying it: The proper way—and a principled way—to allow marijuana to be used as medicine without the chaos unleashed by state MM legalization—is to amend the Controlled Substances Act so it can be properly controlled and prescribed, but not sold on the streets. Instead, we have the chaos of California. Case in point: A physician and her husband decided to get in on the supply side of the business. From the story:
A federal appeals court has upheld the drug convictions and five-year prison sentences of two Northern California medical marijuana activists who grew pot for themselves and their fellow patients. Attorney Dale Schafer began growing marijuana for his wife, physician Marion “Mollie” Fry, on their property in the town of Cool (El Dorado County) in 1998. She had secured a doctor’s recommendation for the drug to ease the effects of chemotherapy after breast cancer surgery. Schafer later started using medical marijuana for back pain and other ailments. The couple began distributing the drug to other patients in 1999 and contacted sheriff’s deputies, who let them continue under California’s medical marijuana law.
Apparently their motives might not have been altogether altruistic:
Schafer said the couple ran a humanitarian enterprise that served more than 10,000 patients from 1999 to 2005. But prosecutors said the couple collected between $750,000 and $1 million in fees for marijuana recommendations during the two years and two months covered by the charges.
The way out of situations such as this is to amend the CSA to permit proper prescribing for marijuana—not casual doctor’s, “Joe needs marijuana letters,” that are then taken to the local “collective.” Until and unless that happens, the dual jurisdiction will keep bringing people down and discredit the medical marijuana movement.
