By Maria Cortes
Staff Writer
The crackdown on medical marijuana laws and dispensaries has recently been escalating. Many medical marijuana businesses have shut down, while others are getting notices that they have 45 days to shut down or risk prosecution. There have been a number of protests and demonstrations orchestrated by The Marijuana Policy Project and numerous advocacy groups to stop these attacks.
My question is: does this really come as a shock to anybody? Is anyone really all that surprised that marijuana businesses are being attacked?
Let’s face it, these businesses aren’t all that harmless as people like to think that they are. Not everyone who goes to visit them are in serious need of medical marijuana. I became aware of a 16 year old boy with asthma who was given the green light to buy medical marijuana. If this doesn’t send up a red flag, I don’t know what will.
These businesses have been distributing the herb to many people who don’t actually need it. That is why these crackdowns are happening. Citizens have been abusing the stores, just like the people who were against the legal distribution in the first place thought they would.
Patients who are suffering through severe pain and other serious illnesses are the ones who actually need those nifty little medical marijuana cards. Now, because people are doing exactly what others thought they would, they won’t be able to get to it as efficiently as they used to.
I agree that these crackdowns are a horrible thing for those who actually use medical marijuana for its rightful purpose. But I am not surprised that they are happening. It was about time that humans started acting like their old selves and abused the rights that they were given.
