SCHOOLS, GROWS JUST DON'T MIX

I am a drug and alcohol counselor and I have some strong suspicions
that most of the people using "medical marijuana" are - gasp - just
paying for the "recommendation" in order to get high without suffering
consequences of the court or the probation system. This is not a
prescription because if it was my local pharmacy would dispense it.
They do dispense Marinol, a marijuana derivative that doesn't get you
high. I do have friends who are very ill and have a valid need for
marijuana, and my husband who just passed after fighting cancer for a
year was, in the end, considering getting marijuana for some of his
side effects.

But this is not why I am writing today. As I was driving my daughter
to her elementary/middle school in Shasta Lake, for a full two blocks
right there at the school we had to smell the obviously
ready-to-harvest crop of marijuana. This is not the first time. For
those of us who live near these grows, it is something we struggle
with several times a year thanks to indoor grows - but really? Across
from my child's school? Would it be OK to have a meth lab across from
a school? Come on, there have to be laws about this somewhere.

I don't know what the answer to the problem is, but I can tell you
this: If it were legalized, we could get back to the business of it
being a mind-altering substance that is regulated - like alcohol - and
I'm pretty sure the average dope smoker wouldn't find the need to fork
out the $250 for the recommendation any more either.

Pamela Smith

Shasta Lake