Make room for medical marijuana
As printed in the St. Paul Pioneer Press on February 25th, 2009 as a Letter to the Editor from Oliver Steinberg, St. Paul.

Make room for medical marijuana
In 1988, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s chief administrative law judge, after lengthy litigation and hearings, emphatically concluded that herbal cannabis is safe and that doctors should be able to prescribe it for patients.
The DEA rejected its own judge’s ruling and has blocked all attempted federal reform ever since. Â So reforms have proceeded state-by-state. Â Voters passed medical marijuana ballot measures 12 out of 13 times, even out polling Clinton in California, Bush in Montana and Obama in Michigan. Â Four legislators have also acted favorably.
Minnesota’s existing law is harsh. Â Anyone arrested for using cannabis medicinally cannot even defend himself in court with a doctor’s testimony of therapeutic need. Â Minnesota’s county attorneys, parroting the DEA line, have strenuously opposed legislative reforms. Â Yet many claim, privately, that they wouldn’t prosecute patients acting without criminal intent, who use cannabis only to protect their own well being.
This year’s tightly restrictive medical cannabis bill gives our lawmakers the chance to provide what is lacking – a statutory justification for officers’ discretion in declining to arrest in cases of medical necessity. Â It deserves to pass.
Oliver Steinberg, St.Paul
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