Medical Marijuana: Getting Some Play in Peoria

Radley Balko | May 27, 2009

The Illinois senate narrowly approved a medical marijuana bill today. From the Marijuana Policy Project's press release:

The Illinois Senate passed a bill today, 30-28, that would allow seriously ill patients with certain debilitating conditions to use marijuana for medical purposes if their physician has recommended it.

Okay, so it's not exactly a ringing endorsement of individual freedom. But that a heartland state's senate could muster the votes to get even this through seems pretty significant.

Comments

Fist of Etiquette|5.27.09 @ 7:43PM|#

Paging DEA, you have another state to slap down.

Jose|5.27.09 @ 8:25PM|#

New song at peso.com

Let Grandma smoke marijuana
Happy alone in her garden.
Let Grandma smoke marijuana
Peacefully live in the jungle.

She's happy and free
Living in her means.
Don't need your medicare candy.

Like Prozac(R) and Lexaprol(R)
Turn Grandma into a zombie.
Some Zoloft(R)and Rapiflux(R)
Pushed by the medicare lobby.

Get liver disease
For enourmous medical fees.
Instead of smoking a weed.

The Cartels in Mexico
Want Grandma to pay to be happy.
With violence and gun control
Profits go out of the country.

She's happy and free
Living in her means.
Don't need your medicare candy.

Oh Grandma
Oh Grandma

She's happy and free

Let Grandma smoke marijuana
Happy alone in her garden.
Let Grandma smoke marijuana
Peacefully live in the jungle.

She's happy and free
Living in her means.
Don't need your medicare candy.

Oh Grandma
Oh Grandma
Grandma

AB390|5.27.09 @ 8:57PM|#

If you live in California and favor legalizing marijuana, YOU can make it happen. Tell your representatives to support California Assembly Bill 390. It's easy. Visit yes390.org

|5.27.09 @ 9:10PM|#

We here in Peoria never get sick of that line about what 'plays in Peoria.'

But seriously, everyone in Illinois should be able to use marijuana in order to process what our wonderful politicians say and to do in this state.

|5.27.09 @ 9:13PM|#

So called medical marijuana -- putting prescriptive authority in the hands of physicians -- has no more relationship to individual freedom than does any other drug use authorized by prescription drug laws. Physicians control the usage of opioids, yet we have a grave problem with pain undertreatment (See: Jacob Sullum) Apparently the lessons about the therapeutic state taught by Thomas Szasz have been lost on Radley Balko.

|5.27.09 @ 9:30PM|#

Nicolas, It's called getting a foot in the door, the slippery slope.

There was a good post here today about the drug warrior's crappy arguments.

If you're waiting for a Heroin machine at the local Quick Trip before anything else can happen, you've got a long wait.

Steel Drivin\' Man|5.27.09 @ 9:39PM|#

If you're waiting for a Heroin machine at the local Quick Trip before anything else can happen, you've got a long wait.

If QT prices smack like they do beer I'll stick with the black market.

|5.27.09 @ 10:33PM|#

@catMoses. The foot-in-door argument is supported by nothing. Physicians are licensed agents of the the state who are obedient to and often collaborate with the DEA. They have the power to prescribe opioids, but, as Reason has often reported, do so at great risk since the government takes a dim view of any opioid use. In fact, the federal government has recently become even more restrictive about which physicians can prescribe opioids, and looks to tighten controls on other drugs, like benzodiazepines. Rather than leading to more freedom, the prescription drug laws have made Americans more obsequious and dependent upon government. Adding marijuana to the list of drugs controlled by physicians liberates no one. The slippery slope of medical marijuana leads to consolidated state power, not to a restoration of the right to self-medicate.

Hugh Akston|5.27.09 @ 11:19PM|#

Radley, the IL state senate also passed a bill reinstating Pluto's full planetary status.

I expect that this bill was similarly motivated and will be equally effective.

DJP|5.27.09 @ 11:55PM|#

steel drivin' man: "If you're waiting for a Heroin machine at the local Quick Trip before anything else can happen, you've got a long wait. If QT prices smack like they do beer I'll stick with the black market."

That is stupid.

Even with high alcohol taxes, a hardcore drunk can stay fully saturated for $20 a day. A hardcore heroin user currently spends hundreds of dollars a day for his habit. There are countless other reasons why you'd be an utter idiot to choose illegal street heroin over legal and clean heroin.

|5.28.09 @ 2:55AM|#

Even with high alcohol taxes, a hardcore drunk can stay fully saturated for $20 a day. A hardcore heroin user currently spends hundreds of dollars a day for his habit.

Sorry no, but thanks for playing. Junkies move from Oxy or other narcotics to heroin because it's more economical. Twenty bucks is probably close to what it costs to "stay well" on street junk.

|5.28.09 @ 3:05AM|#

It should be pointed out that the bill that passed isn't exactly very friendly. It allows 3 plants for people registering with the state PILOT program that have one of the few listed conditions. And they have to give up their driver's license. And the pilot program automatically ends in 3 years. And they INCREASED the penalties for possession and cultivation for everyone else along with allowing a few dozen Illinois patients willing to give up their driver's license a get out jail card.

And the Obama Democrats of Illinois did NOT need a sinlge Republican vote to pass that piece of crap medical marijuana bill. Obama's Illinois Democrats haven't needed a single Republican vote to pass any medical marijuana legislation since 2002. They don't need 1 Republican vote and this is the best they can come up with? This bill will do more to expand the drug war than to reduce it, sorry to say.

As if Obama's endorsed dictator for 30 years Michael Madigan would ever let this pass in HIS House anyway. This is only significant if you realize the bill is a piece of crap that expands the drug war and doesn't need a single Republican vote.

Obama voters are complete idiots that are responsible for locking millions of human beings in cages simply because they like cannabis.

|5.28.09 @ 9:54AM|#

And the Obama Democrats of Illinois did NOT need a sinlge Republican vote to pass that piece of crap medical marijuana bill. Obama's Illinois Democrats haven't needed a single Republican vote to pass any medical marijuana legislation since 2002.

Not to mention that there isn't a single goddam thing the DC Republicans can do to stop federal marijuana reform. Of course, "legalization" isn't in Obama's vocabulary, so it

Ain't. Gonna. Happen.

|5.28.09 @ 10:48PM|#

Nicolas:

In most states it is illegal to possess marijuana even if you are using it to treat a legitimate health problem. In a few now people can get a recommendation from a doctor and possess a little marijuana, grow their own, and use it to treat their afflictions. Clearly people would be more free if they could have it without a doctor's recommendation, but people do have more freedom when it comes to marijuana in a state like California where it's easy to get a medical marijuana card that gives you the right to grow your own, buy it at a shop, possess it, use it, etc., than they are in a state like mine in the Bible Belt where we have no law allowing medical marijuana and where people are still arrested and booked into the jail for simple possession of a small amount of marijuana. I think it ought to be completely legal, but I'd take California's marijuana laws over the marijuana laws in my state any day. They enjoy a lot more freedom when it comes to marijuana than we do.

I don't know anything about these proposed laws in Illinois. If their proposed laws really call for medical marijuana users to lose their drivers licenses that is ridiculous. People prescribed heavy duty pain meds, muscle relaxers and drugs like Xanax don't have to give up their drivers licenses, and all of those drugs can cause far more impairment than marijuana.