Um, one doesn’t need a life debilitating disease or illness to use marijuana for medical purposes. Pot is also effective medication for various ailments like asthma, migraines and (for 50% of the population) menstrual cramps etc. Just because someone looks/acts like Spicoli doesn’t mean he doesn’t get a healthful impact from pot. Judge not a book by it’s cover. For some people, simply chilling out and de-stressing with a puff could be beneficial to their long term health. By insisting that it must be GLAUCOMA or nothing, you undermine your thesis and demonstrate an inability to parse the vast middle ground. Stress is one of the leading life-shorteners – and *everyone* (as you say) knows pot helps in de-stressing.

By your argument, people like Rush Limbaugh who fraudulently obtain/use prescription drugs like Oxy Contin “harm those with legitimate medical conditions”. Um, no.

Finally, it is ludicrous to think that stoners can’t get pot if the clinics are closed. This is LA! Perhaps an ignorant right-wing politician pandering for votes might propose this, but most intelligent people know that stoners can get pot in LA regardless whether its from a clinic or a dealer. (They’ll just pay more for worse quality, lose half an hour of their life listening to stories in their dealer’s apt. and more innocent people will die as a result of drug wars.)

Now don’t bogart that joint and let’s all chill out.

No one is suggesting that there is a finite amount of medical marijuana, or that those who obtain fraudulent prescriptions are taking medicine from legitimate patients who need it. There’s plenty of weed for everyone.

The point is that recreational smokers who obtain prescriptions without medical necessity do, in fact, harm actual med pot patients because they (fraudulent prescriptions) are the ones that politicians are trying to stop by outlawing the dispensaries. No one wanted to stop my grandmother from feeling better as she was dying. They want to stop the stoners from getting high, and they recognize that the stoners are exploiting a questionable loop-hole in the law to get their weed.

Argue all you want about anyone’s “God-given right” to smoke marijuana. In this country, God doesn’t give the rights; federal, state and local legislatures make the laws. I encourage you to work to change the law. I think everyone (of legal age) who wants to smoke pot should be allowed to. The problem is that isn’t allowed as the law is currently written.

*Everyone* knows that vast numbers medical marijuana “patients” are not actually afflicted with glaucoma at 22, or suffering from debilitating anxiety. Politicians can’t determine who does or doesn’t have a medical necessity, so instead they just try to shut the entire system down. By circumventing the current law and obtaining fraudulent prescriptions, recreational users who *want* the marijuana do, in fact, harm those with legitimate medical conditions who *need* the marijuana.

People obtaining med pot scrips do not harm actual med pot patients – they are not taking limited supplies from people who need them. Unlike handicapped parking spaces, there is plenty of med pot to go around.

Again, the reason people obtain med pot scrips is because they are unable to get pot legally. Re parking, people ARE able to park legally.

Big difference.

And I do. But I also believe that the number of people who obtain bogus prescriptions claiming medical need, when there is no medical need, and then cry foul when clinics are being shut down because of said abuses is pretty lame. It reminds me of people fraudulenty obtaining handicapped parking placards, frankly (and then complaining there aren’t enought handicapped spots).

“If the argument is to allow marijuana clinics for people who actually medically need marijuana, then there should be OUTRAGE against (those) who illegally obtain prescriptions…”

Mr. Markland-

The first part of your statement lacks connection with the second half of your statement.

One can both support the delivery of medical marijuana to patients AND support the recreational use of pot.

There is no OUTRAGE against people who smoke cigarettes and drink alcohol. Why? because it is legal. Unfortunately, even as most commentators here have a laissez-faire attitude about their friends smoking pot, marijuana is illogically illegal and so those who wish to pursue their God-given right to smoke pot MUST go through a ridiculous charade to obtain it. Your friends are not “boasting” about how easy it is, they are expressing joy and relief at the fact they don’t have to go underground to score some pot.

It’s one thing if you honestly feel it is a demon weed that must be outlawed, but if you feel – as most of my generation do – that it’s not a big deal to smoke at parties and during Netflix rentals, then why such antagonism against people obtaining “medical marijuana for personal use. It’s bizarre.

The bigger issue is: there are many good reasons to decriminalize marijuana. In the face of legal alcohol, cigarettes and prescription drugs (abused by many!), there is little reason to keep pot restricted and underground when it is NOT as dangerous as any of those three.

It’s time this country got real about pot and stop framing it in some outdated 1950′s Eisenhower mentality.

I doubt very much that Mr. Markland and Ms. Michele harass people who might be smoking pot on the patio during a friend’s barbecue with the same venom they choose to do so here.

Clearly, Markland/Michele are drinkers and not smokers. :)