Thursday, October 18, 2007

Medical marijuana not a law enforcement problem in Vermont

I'm happy to see a top law enforcement official in Vermont acknowledge that after three years the state has simply not experienced the law enforcement problems with medical maarijuana that cops said they anticipaated. Still, the story about this acknowledgment contains a few myths. It is simply not the case in California that there's a lot of doctors handing out phony recommendations. One of the biggest problems is that most doctors still won't even talk about medical marijuana with their patients (which might not be entirely bad because most know nothing, or believe things that aren't true), so patients tend to flock to the few who will. Viewed from a certain perspective, that can make those few look like "Dr. Feelgoods" who simply hand out recommendations like caandy. There may be a few of those, but they are rare.

For casual users, the street is still a better alternative than dispensaries. Dispensaary prices tend to be higher than street prices, largely because the standards are higher. Maybe a phony recommendation and a dispensary work for a few rich people, but hardly any of the dispensary customes I've run into -- and my experiences mean I've run into quite a few -- hardly fit that description. The struggle for safe access continues.

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