VOTERS WANT MEDICAL MARIJUANA ACCESSIBLE

Medical marijuana is legal in Colorado, but where do you get it? This
is a question that Mabel (not her real name), a 64-year-old
silver-haired grandmother, deals with every day. Mabel suffers from
debilitating arthritis and chronic back pain. When her conditions
flare up, she is barely able to turn the pages of a children's book
with her 4- and 2-year-old grandchildren sitting on her lap. After
years of trying dozens of prescription medications, and screaming out
in pain as she developed a tolerance to each of them, and vomiting up
dozens of pills as her stomach, liver and kidneys were overtaxed,
Mabel tried medical marijuana for the first time in her life at age 60.

It worked. It helped her pain. She had her life back. She consulted
with her doctor, who agreed that medical marijuana benefited Mabel,
and recommended that she use it. In the 2000 election, Colorado
voters decided that Mabel and others should have a safe and legal
source for medical marijuana.

For Mabel, access was far from easy. She couldn't go to the corner
pharmacy for it. She didn't know any dealers. She has found herself
alone, in bad neighborhoods, after dark, with wads of cash, trying to
purchase low-quality street-grade marijuana.

She has no idea of even how to start growing it herself, and cannot
afford the high cost of indoor cultivation equipment. She lives in an
apartment, so has no yard for outdoor cultivation.

A year ago, Mabel found someone she calls her "lifesaver," a medical
marijuana grower who has a strong passion to help suffering people.
Mabel's caregiver consistently supplies her with high-quality
medical-grade marijuana at a price below market rate.

In July 2007, Mabel's "lifesaver" was helping more than five
patients. In doing so, both he and Mabel risked arrest and
prosecution because of a state health department policy arbitrarily
limiting caregivers to five patients each.

The Rocky Mountain News got it right in its editorial of Nov. 26,
"Regulating caregivers/State should closely monitor those who assist
medical pot patients," when it condemned this illegal backroom
limitation, enacted in secret without any input from voters,
scientists, physicians, experts, patients, caregivers and others.

Court testimony from the Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment established that the number "five" was picked randomly by
federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents looming over the state
agency. It's not like Granny Mabel had lots of choices of caregivers.
How many medical marijuana cultivators do you know personally? They
aren't exactly in the Yellow Pages, mainly because of the climate of
fear created by prosecutors.

The state's illegal DEA-spawned limit had a devastating effect on the
health of sick people following their doctors' advice. A government
that operates in secret will inevitably do evil, and hurt innocent
people for no legal or scientific reason. This is why, in response to
a lawsuit brought by medical marijuana patients and caregivers, Chief
Denver District Court Judge Larry Naves enjoined this damaging policy
in July, and threw it out permanently in November.

The Rocky, however, missed the mark when it advocated increased
government regulation of medical marijuana caregivers. The editorial
ignored basic laws of logic, economics, science, and the Colorado
Constitution itself. Patients should be allowed select their
caregivers without government interference. If six patients select a
particular caregiver, government should not stand in the way of this
important relationship.

Caregivers with multiple patients can provide the best medicine at a
lower cost and more efficiently. They can develop plants with
superior genetics.

They benefit from economies of scale. Nobody advocates that the
corner pharmacy - which carries far more addictive and dangerous
substances than marijuana - be prohibited from providing medicine to
more than five patients. And Colorado voters, in overwhelmingly
legalizing medical marijuana, enacted no restrictions on the number
of patients per caregiver, preferring patient choice.

The voters wanted sick people like Mabel to obtain the highest
quality medicine in the most efficient, safest way possible, instead
of banishing them to wander alone on dark and dangerous streets.