An interesting interlude regarding the proposed pot legalization measure.
I was doing a little bulk shopping in Sioux Falls yesterday at Sams Club with my wife, and happened to run into a Republican State Representative (who I won’t name, as I didn’t ask if I could go public with the conversation) who was doing a little shopping as well. He noted that he read with interest the post I had on Attorney General Marty Jackley releasing his explanation for the initiated measure relating to pot.
We both agreed that more often than not, the people proposing these types of measures were often their own worst enemies, and that they often go too far with what they’re asking for, such as the ballot measure that’s soon going to be introduced for circulation.
Are they simply trying to legalize certain derivative oils for children that physicians can prescribe in the absence of other drugs to reduce the incidence of seizures? Well, no. I think both he and I (and this may surprise you) thought there could be a pathway to allowing that very limited kind of treatment, if it was prescribed and or administered by physician. The problem gets to be with the awful measures that keep getting thrown at us, and defeated by the voters, and the people out representing them.
The measure that’s set to currently be circulated allows sick minors to obtain pot, but really doesn’t limit the manner of application. So, a 4 year old could smoke it as soon as he can learn how to hold it in his little hand. As the South Dakota Secretary of Health once quipped in legislative committee “We don’t smoke our medicines in South Dakota.” Not that the people proposing them ever take the hint.
Anyone under the act can designate “a caregiver” who can assist their use of pot. And guess what? They’ll be able to grow it at home as well. The act provides for cultivation in “enclosed, locked facilities,” to store or grow pot including “any closet….. that is equipped with locks.” And who can prescribe the pot being grown in a locked closet? Not a specific type of physician, but a “Practitioner,” which is simply defined as “a person who is licensed with authority to prescribe drugs to humans.” That could be a doctor.. or some counselors. Or more.
If you have non-smoking apartments, guess what landlord? You might ban tobacco, but you can’t ban pot smokers if they have their pot smoking card. Despite it being as bad for them if not worse than tobacco smoking.
The act being proposed as usual is filled with wide open loopholes, and takes away the ability of property owners to regulate the use of their property. All despite the fact that pot is still illegal at the federal level.
When you have measures in front of you as loose as this, most reasonable people are going to say no. In this instance, the legislator I was speaking with had a bill in front of him just like this during a recent legislative session. Expressing some of the same reservations, the reply wasn’t that the group asking him to sponsor it was going to work on it, or instead propose a much more limited version.
He was hysterically told that he was killing people, and the pot advocates started calling his house and otherwise haranguing him for the next couple of weeks. Really?
Unreasonable advocates who want to throw the door open for people to grow it in their closets and harass people who say no are not the kind of people you want writing & proposing legislation.
And you certainly don’t want them writing wide-open ballot measures that they want people to vote yes on.