On November 10 the City Council took up the question of medical marijuana once again. Like so many other communities in California, Long Beach has necessarily been struggling with the minutiae of this challenge… trying to balance the medical needs of legitimate patients as defined by Prop 215 – as well as other legislation and case law – with the legitimate concerns of the rest of the community while trying to remain within the confines of other relevant laws concerning marijuana cultivation, possession, transfer and use.
If you have the patience, and about 3 1/2 hours, I encourage our readers to view the Council’s most recent deliberations and related public comment here, (scroll down to and click on Agenda Item 10, which commences at time stamp: 00:40:10 on the video).
Our Council and many others, including yours truly, have been debating, both here and elsewhere, everything from what a legitimate (in full compliance with all applicable laws) medical marijuana operation should be called to how many feet they should be located from schools, residential areas and even from one another.
We’ve talked about the appropriate amount of medicine such operations should keep on-hand and whether it should be grown only on-site or can be cultivated elsewhere for use by the members of the operation.
There are many details to consider… many individual preferences to be balanced, one against the other. It’s so very easy to get, if you’ll pardon the expression, “lost in the weeds” of this particular public policy challenge.
In this column, however, I’d like to try to take a step or two back and try to focus a little bit more on the bigger picture… that of an individual’s right to choose his or her own destiny and to pursue happiness, however one might define that, while remaining, as we certainly must, answerable and responsible to the rule of law… the primary means by which a society asserts its collective values and principles.
Many involved in this debate ask why anyone should care one way or another whether anyone else chooses to use marijuana, for any reason. They can cite for us study after study from organizations and credible research institutions with which they agree and that play up the blessings of marijuana while playing down its curses.
These arguments, while seemingly sterile and academic, often fall far short of being fully convincing because other studies by other organizations and institutions, equally credible, reach different, though equally academic, conclusions.
The lack of definitive clinical consensus either way only serves to fuel the fires of debate on, and from, both sides of the issue.
To a certain degree I am in full agreement with marijuana advocates. Not, like so many of them, because I use marijuana, like it and want to be able to do so without fear of criminal sanction but, rather, because I believe adults should be considered to be the owners of their own bodies and, as such, should be able to do whatever they like with them so long as it doesn’t harm or adversely effect others. For the same reason that adults should be permitted to commit suicide if that is truly their wish, adults should be permitted to ingest whatever substance they like so long as they are willing to accept the full and personal consequences of doing so and are not harming or otherwise adversely impacting others.
This is the essence of personal liberty, after all; that a free people in a well ordered and civil society should have both the right to make personal choices about their own lives and the responsibility to accept and deal with the consequences of their choices.
The adage: “Your right to swing your fist stops at someone else’s nose” is applicable here. Because: “Your right to smoke marijuana, medical or otherwise, should stop when someone else is harmed or adversely impacted by your doing so”. Even our State’s own “Compassionate Use Act”, or CUA, agrees on that score.
Unfortunately many in our society are very long on “rights” and very short on “responsibilities”, hence our system of criminal and civil laws, that are intended to provide incentive for some to be responsible – to others if not to themselves – where they otherwise cannot seem to be and to punish them when they fail of that responsibility.
Marijuana advocates rightly argue that alcohol can be far more damaging to a person or to a society, yet it is legal to produce, possess, use, transport, buy and sell. Beyond being lawful, alcohol is a legitimate multi-billion dollar annual industry. Many people support themselves and their families working in the alcohol industry and many nations, states, counties and cities rely heavily upon the taxes and fees received from the production, sale and even the consumption of alcohol.
So why the difference?
Simple: Marijuana still exists on the federal drug “Schedule 1” wherein all drugs reside that Congress has deemed have no legitimate medicinal value or application. Alcohol, of course, does not exist on “Schedule 1” nor, indeed, on any federal drug Schedule.
We can argue all day, all night and into tomorrow about why this is and why marijuana perhaps should not be on Schedule 1 but unless and until Congress approves transferring marijuana to any other drug schedule, marijuana will never be able to be prescribed by physicians like many, many other drugs that seem, at least to me, far more dangerous and prone to abuse.
It’s precisely for this reason that the true and best solution to this public policy challenge lies at the federal level, rather than at the State and local levels where places like California pass laws like the CUA that, in truth, can only “encourage” where the Fed is concerned; and places like Long Beach where we struggle so as we currently are on this issue.
In summary, then: People have a right to pursue happiness, however they might define it, so long as they are not harming or adversely affecting others in doing so and are otherwise following the law.
In my opinion, smoking marijuana is no more potentially harmful than drinking alcohol. Although they are different types of drugs both are, indeed, psychoactive, if in different ways and, in any case, the true concern is – or should be – abuse, and public impairment, not use. So perhaps we should be concerning ourselves more with those than with some of the minutiae previously mentioned.
However, in a well-ordered and civil society we must also endeavor, always, to follow the law, else our laws become entirely meaningless. When our laws prove no longer reflective of our values and principles we must amend or abolish them. Either that or do away with laws altogether and descend into complete and total anarchy.
But selective enforcement of our federal drug laws, as is the practice by the Justice Department under our current Chief Executive, is I believe, inappropriate and undermines the very laws we, as a nation, once saw fit to enact on this matter. Turning a blind eye to these laws on a selective basis is, in my opinion, tantamount to public policy cowardice. I would much prefer our elected and appointed federal officials demonstrate the courage of their alleged convictions and work to change these federal laws so that they might be administered in all states equally, as is right and proper.
In the meantime, however, Long Beach must navigate its way through this maze of federal, state and case law and establish local regulations for legitimate medical marijuana operations in our city that the majority of the electorate can, if not be fully pleased with, at least be able to live and work with.
I’ve shared my thoughts with our Council on how this might best be done. I hope you will also!
I very much welcome your questions and your comments.