Medical Marijuana in Illinois

Jacob Sullum | March 7, 2007

A medical marijuana bill is advancing in Illinois, today winning a 6-to-4 vote in the state Senate's public health committee. Under the bill, the Illinois Department of Human Services would issue ID cards to patients whose doctors recommended marijuana as a medicine. The cards would allow patients and their caregivers to grow and possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana and up to 12 plants. Illinois would be the 12th state to allow medical use of marijuana.

Comments

|3.7.07 @ 3:16PM|#

Medical marijuana only reinforces the notion that drugs are bad and need to be controlled. I think they do a disservice to the fight against the drug war. I no longer support medical marijuana initiatives.

VM|3.7.07 @ 3:16PM|#

Dunno. Am against it wholeheartedly.

You got teh Kancer, n shit, right? So you toke up, but, like, you can't have Foie Gras if you get the munchies.

that sux! Fight to get the Foie. Then we can talk :)

|3.7.07 @ 3:20PM|#

MP, while I'd prefer that drugs be fully legalized, I don't think that medical marijuana reinforces the belief that drugs are bad. On the one hand, it shows a more nuanced approach that drugs can be good, and on the other, the lack of cancer patients running amok shows that legalizing drugs isn't that bad.

|3.7.07 @ 3:24PM|#

FFF,

To me, it reinforces the notion that drugs are only good if they have some sort of socially accepted positive redeeming value. Since these initiatives have the potential to help somebody, they're not all bad. But from a liberty perspective, they're not worth expending limited resources supporting.

|3.7.07 @ 3:26PM|#

I wonder of Frm. Deputy Drug Czar Andrea Barthwell is going to attempt to block this again, especially now that she is pimping Sativex for GW Pharma.

|3.7.07 @ 3:28PM|#

I see things that increase liberty in certain socially accepted areas as good because they offer a point for the possibility of a break out in terms of accepting a more open acceptance of whatever activity.

For example, divorce once was pretty much totally illegal. Then it was legal for limited reasons. Now it is legal in nearly all circumstances.

I think that it wouldn't have been possible to move from no divorce to permissive divorce without the intervening step.

As such, I think the legalization of drugs would go from:

1. totally illegal
2. medical marijuana is legal
3. marijuana is legal
4. other stuff is legal
5. McHeroin!

|3.7.07 @ 3:30PM|#

I support MMJ, but I agree with MP that it is not really advancing liberty. The only reason I support MMJ is the exposure that it can present to non-drug users. Perhaps when somebody sees that Grandpa can puff on a joint and not go all crazy and kill off the white women it will allow them to think of drugs in a more rounded way, not just Good or Bad, mmkay?

|3.7.07 @ 3:32PM|#

"accepting a more open acceptance"

Me fail English is not unpossible.

|3.7.07 @ 3:35PM|#

I support medical marijuana, like, a lot.
Get the medicine that will make these sick people feel better to them right away. That's the most important issue.
That and I get these really killer headaches and stuff, especially after I drink, and I, um, think I need a prescription, please.

Seriously, from what I understand, medical marijuana does tend to open the door to decriminalization. That's the impression I've been given by friends who have lived out west recently.

|3.7.07 @ 3:45PM|#

As a Californian, I can vouch for it to leading to decriminilization. It's a $100 fine for possession.

I remember during the recall election gubenatirial debates, a question was posed to the candidates on their opinions of federal enforcement of drug laws to arrest medicinal users. Every single candidate, from hard left to hard right, said that this was our business and the feds need to stay out of it.

|3.7.07 @ 3:50PM|#

Bear in mind that there's a substantial body of argument (and documentation) that the death blow to prohibition came as a result of permitting a perscrption for alcohol from a Dr, and thus permission to legally possess the formerly illegal substance.
Different times, and all that, but I cannot see being opposed to anything which advances individual freedom.
There will ALWAYS (pending the withering away, preferably on a sharp spike, of the state) be unacceptable limits imposed. And we can always battle the limits. To claim that we cannot advance liberty because some other liberty is constrained, is to give in to the authoritarian impulse.

no hugs for thugs,
Shirley Knott

|3.7.07 @ 4:03PM|#

Every single candidate, from hard left to hard right, said that this was our business and the feds need to stay out of it.

Talk is cheap. Where are the lawsuits against the feds? Where are the cops guarding, not breaking into, MMJ clinics?

|3.7.07 @ 4:12PM|#

OK The state of IL will let you have the MMJ you need, just enter your name, age, and address into this database so the Feds will be able to find you.

Russ 2000|3.7.07 @ 4:21PM|#

Perhaps when somebody sees that Grandpa can puff on a joint and not go all crazy and kill off the white women

More like Grandpa finally wakes the fuck up when his doctor prescribes him grass.

Cerro|3.7.07 @ 6:00PM|#

Here's my take on the issue of small advances in individual liberty:

1.In a political realism sense, you're never going to see more than incremental change, so there's not much good in just waiting for the government to be abolished before you support any smaller initiative.

2.If I was high, I'd put it like this: "liberty is like water, the more it runs, the faster it erodes the barriers". If that makes sense at all.

|3.7.07 @ 6:13PM|#

OK The state of IL will let you have the MMJ you need, just enter your name, age, and address into this database so the Feds will be able to find you.

So it'll be no different than buying DayQuil.

In a perfect world, these substances would be legal and uncontrolled, but Ill take these kind of baby steps. Anything that makes drugs more "mainstream" and gives the drug a redeeming context can't be bad PR in the long run. Medical MJ initiatives do help help get rid of the stigma that these types of things are for degenerates and criminals.

As a practical matter even if it were to become legalized (rather than decriminalized) it would be regulated like tobacco and cigs -- for the children -- so I don't think an uncontrolled "ideal" situation would ever materialize.

Also I might have a family member that would qualify for medical MJ despite the fact that they wouldn't use it...so I might get a hookup :)

|3.7.07 @ 6:57PM|#

As a Californian, I can vouch for it to leading to decriminilization. It's a $100 fine for possession.

Yeah, but it's been a $100 fine for under an ounce in California since sometime in the 1970's. I could be mistaken, but I think that pre-dates the legalization of medical marijuana, so I'm not sure these are related developments.

Fun annectdote: When I was living in California in the 1970's, I got busted for possesion of alcohol by a minor. Got me a $200 fine, a night in the Orange County jail, and a year of probation.

Would have been better off if I'd have been busted for an ounce of pot instead of a bottle of Baccardi rum.

|3.7.07 @ 7:07PM|#

If I ever run for office, part of my platform is going to be "anything you can grow in your back yard is legit."

|3.7.07 @ 7:14PM|#

grumpy,
I wouldn't vote for you unless there was an "indoor" clause in that statement. It stays too cold for too long here to grow anything "fun" in the backyard.

|3.7.07 @ 7:59PM|#

The perfect is the enemy of the good. This is the good, let's not wait for the perfect.

Bears lol|3.8.07 @ 8:20AM|#

I read both Chicago papers pretty much every day and I don't recall a mention of this. Chicago Tom, did you know about this?

|3.8.07 @ 11:11AM|#

I read both Chicago papers pretty much every day and I don't recall a mention of this. Chicago Tom, did you know about this?

Nope...I was just as surprised. I read the Sun-Times every M-F and I don't remember hearing about this.

|3.8.07 @ 12:19PM|#

Me too, and me neither.

Guy Montag|3.8.07 @ 2:08PM|#

So, this is going to be another place where people can smoke pot but not tobacco?