Recently, the author of the only grass roots effort to legalize cannabis in Missouri, Mark Pedersen, put up a video on YouTube about some of the reasons he wrote the act. The video is about 25 minutes long, and the one criticism I have is that Mark doesn’t draw enough focus onto the myriad of issues concerning the medical only access to cannabis. I’ll be writing an article regarding these problems fairly soon. However, I can’t resist doing a mini diatribe on it right now! So if you want to skip the next paragraph and get straight to the video, you just need to scroll down a bit.
If you think that tightly controlled medical cannabis is the only way to go, then it follows that you have inherent faith in the medical industrial complex. While I will say that if I have a trauma, like a bad car wreck, or if I fall out of tree and break many bones, I want to go the hospital! However, if I have a chronic condition, like arthritis, or cancer, or irritable bowel, or Chron’s Disease, or PTSD, or migraines, or fibromyalgia, or psoriasis, or epilepsy, or about 60 other conditions, I want to take my health issues into my own hands and use supplementation, diet and-if I deem it necessary- cannabis. And I don’t need a doctor to give me pharmaceutical chemicals that have a myriad of side effects to deal with my health. Most doctors only get one class for one semester on nutrition. Yet Hippocrates said, “Let your food be your medicine and your medicine be your food.”
Here is the video I mentioned at the outset:
Truth Farmer 
Nov 12, 2015 @ 14:46:58
I love you Doreen, but I must take exception to any argument that is based upon anything other than claiming our rights. Why should one have to make a logical arguement to exercise a right? Do we beg the people, and the legislature that we should be granted the permission to have children, and base that argument on practicalities and not rights? i.e. “I need to be allowed to have children because…..”
I am convinced that most of our rights are being trampled precisely because we are trained to go about ending our oppression in such a myopic and ineffective manner.
I do feel for those that make the ” give me a permission because” arguement . We are surrounded by the dumbed down products of government schools, that would not know a right if it hit them in the head. It will be challenging.
One can choose the correct path or one can choose expediency. The latter many win the battle but the former will win the war.
Nov 12, 2015 @ 16:00:50
InalienableWrights- I agree the people have been dumbed down for going on 70 plus years with the prohibition of Cannabis & Hemp. All the Reefer Madness crap that has been handed down for so many years & sadly it still continues to this very day. One must sometimes make a choice between helping the sick & needy now or just waiting for the rest of the pack to catch up for the big battle some years down the road. The people from the USA have been waiting for 70 plus years for the removal of the Prohibition from Cannabis. The majority of the people polled now support removing the prohibition altogether. Many people can benefit from Cannabis & Hemp right now so I’m all for making a stand with what we have in hand & getting it done ASAP. The Missouri Cannabis Restoration and Protection Act is by far the best petition offered in any state including Missouri to date. The Quasi Medical only petitions are so loaded down with restrictions & deceiving wording that will make criminals of of most of the people that might be able to get a medical card & yet they the sheeple have no clue what they are in for if one of these Medical only bill were to pass.
Doreen does a wonderful job of letting the people know that what walks like a Duck, Quacks like a Duck & Looks like a Duck is without a doubt a frigging Duck. This is in itself is something to behold in this time when 99.9 % of what the media forces down the throats of the people in the USA comes from some blood sucking Billionaire that in all honesty could care less if you live or die.
My hats off to Doreen for her honest, well researched & always very well written post.
Nov 12, 2015 @ 17:28:54
I can see the incremental and practical approach Duncan, HOWEVER, if we compromise, we are likely to have that system embedded, like the alcohol legalization cartel, is embedded, in our society for the next 100 years. That would be very unfortunate, to lose liberty from the get go.
The fact is that sick people can use Hemp and the risks are minimal to do so IMHO — considering the alternative.
I am not sure I would want to be the order follower that makes the dumb decision to arrest and condemn to death someone that has nothing to lose. From a moral sense stopping the order follower in his crime would be self defense, And I repeat, the person being arrested would have nothing to lose. I don’t like violence but when you run from defending your rights you end up being slaves as we have been for at least 150 years….. begging the slave master is not always (if ever) the correct course of action.
If Americans could ever rise above the government orchestrated divide and conquer, we could have many of our freedoms back in days, rather than the generations, that I envision would happen with compromise.
We need to keep that in mind and to preemptively mitigate the damage if possible from the unfortunate compromises. I will leave how to do that up in the air for now. Anyone have any ideas?