Extra, Extra

"The bill to create licensed medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state is headed toward the Governor. Fingers crossed that she won't veto."

I have to tell you, this is getting really frustrating trying to explain this very complicated bill to people who can't, or refuse, to READ it.

Let's just hope that Gregoire vetoes the ENTIRE bill. Unfortunately, that's not likely to happen. Everything that law enforcement has ever wanted, short of killing medical marijuana entirely in Washington, is IN that bill.

The only things remaining in the bill that law enforcement DOESN'T like are the provisions for dispensaries and licensed grows. I suspect that Gregoire will use her Section veto power to eliminate those sections and then sign the bill.

This bill has NOTHING good left in it for patients. If you think their is, please read the bill before you try to slam me on that, and be prepared to debate it....and lose. No one in this state has analyzed this bill, and the fiscal note attached to the bill more than I have. I've analyzed all 37 amendments to the bill. I've testified at all the hearings but one, which was the one that Senator Kohl-Welles personally blocked me from testifying at.

If I'm wrong, and Gregoire keeps her promise to veto the bill, we can, at least, go back to the drawing board and write up a REAL patient protection bill...written by patients. This one was never salvagable from the very beginning. I told everyone, whether they'd listen or not, that it would get consistently worse as it proceded through the legislative process. And it did. And the "getting worse" part may not be over yet. We'll know very soon when we see what the governor decides to do next.

If you'd really like to debate this issue, please come up with a list of things in this current bill that will actually HELP patients and make them more safe. Warning! If you are even THINKING about arguing that patients will be safer if they give all of their confidential medical information and contact information to the state, including all the drug task forces, don't bother. Registering patients is no better than registering Jews and homosexuals. What's the difference? We should NOT have to give up our civil rights so that we might get some vague (at best) protections from the Gestapo coming to raid our homes. The state should do this to cancer patients and watch the legislators run, en masse, from the issue. But many of us are Jews, or homosexuals, or cancer patients. We don't deserve to be treated like sex offenders.

If this bill passes, you'll see even more aggressive responses against patients. Anyone want to make a wager on that?

So much of this bill in unconstitutional (under either state or Federal law) that much of the bill will be stricken in the courts....and I'm ready to do that. Doctors can't have a specialty practice? Doctor's can't advertise? But you can have pages of ads in The Stranger for out-call prostitute services and no one raises a fuss? (No offense to the adult industry....everyone has 1st Amendment rights...which was my only point).

Prediction....law enforcement will start closing down dispensaries within the next week. Patients of those dispensaries will have to go elsewhere....until they manage to close down all dispensaries and then patients can go back to the black market for their medication....like they used to a few short years ago. Tell me how that's a "WIN" for medical marijuana patients. If you're twenty, it's no big deal. If you're 85 and have cancer, it's total disaster because you don't know any street dealers. If you did, you wouldn't want to do business with them or be safe in doing that.

Thanks Washington State Legislature! You, the ACLU and Jeanne Kohl-Welles, and a few stupid dispensary owners, have managed to screw us patients yet again. I hope you're all proud of yourselves.

Steve Sarich
CannaCare

I have to tell you, this is getting really frustrating trying to explain this very complicated bill to people who can't, or refuse, to the rest of the website, where we already read and digested the bill: http://seattlest.com/2011/04/1...