OUR LAWS ALSO APPLY TO SUPES

It's apparent to anyone with eyes to see and ears to listen that the
members of the San Diego County Board of Supervisors have no
intention of obeying the law if they disagree with it.

It's an odd position for folks charged with enforcing the law to take.

And yet we the voters have only ourselves to blame, as we continue to
re-elect Bill Horn, Dianne Jacob, Ron Roberts and Pam Slater-Price to
office every four years, despite their proven track record of
refusing to abide by the voter-approved medical marijuana law.

Only Greg Cox has, however tepidly, shown any willingness to defer to
the voters of this county, a majority of whom voted for Prop. 215
back in 1996, legalizing medical marijuana in California.

The rest of the supes continue to thumb their noses at the law, and
at the very voters who put them into office.

The latest act of defiance from these four came last week when they
approved new restrictions on medical marijuana dispensaries in the
county's unincorporated areas. Cox cast the lone "no" vote, saying,
"I think we're violating the spirit of the law."

Not to mention the letter.

The fact that the same voters who continue to elect these four also
overwhelmingly approved term limits earlier this month says something
about the public's patience with insubordinate public officials. The
further fact that enough voters signed petitions to put another
measure on November's ballot to legalize marijuana for personal use
says something further about the philosophical divide between San
Diego's elected help and those of us who hire them and pay their fat salaries.

Look, I voted against Prop. 215. The supposed benefits of "medical"
marijuana are almost entirely anecdotal. And any doctors who advise
their patients to smoke cannabis - with all the carcinogenic and
cardiovascular risks that entails - rather than ingesting it probably
ought to lose their license to practice on scientific grounds.

But most of the voters in the state disagreed with me, and now
medical marijuana is the law of the land, at least in California. For
elected officials to still be fighting this law 14 years on is ridiculous.

And with California voters poised to legalize marijuana in general
come November, this entire bout of political petulance will have
proven fruitless.

Not that anyone should believe for a second that San Diego County's
elected officials will feel themselves bound by the new ballot
measure, should it pass.

Fourteen years from now, we may well be having the same conversation
about legalized pot.