REGULATING MEDICAL POT IS A JOKE

When the Sacramento County Board of Supervisors rolled out plans to
regulate medical marijuana on Tuesday, pot people laughed
hysterically.

The overflow area outside the board's chambers downtown was filled
with weed smokers sporting mohawks, tattoos, nose rings, porkpie hats
and even one older gentleman dressed in what appeared to be a toga.

I had to laugh myself. Regulating medical marijuana? What a
joke.

After a day of deliberations, county supervisors delayed action for
later because these poor people were in way over their heads.

The supervisors were actually trying to set limits on how and where
medical marijuana could be grown and sold as medicine.

Instead, their daylong hearing opened up a rabbit hole. It was the
Sacramento County Supervisors in Wonderland. I didn't see a Cheshire
cat, but I did hear some mighty weird things. County zoning ordinances
do not permit marijuana dispensaries, but they are there in Sac County
maybe 50, maybe more.

Technically, medical pot isn't even supposed to be present in the
unincorporated areas of the county. But those in attendance wanted to
be treated as if they had the same legal clearance as a drugstore.

For many, it's clear that pot is their whole life.

The hearing drove home again why last year's campaign to legalize pot
for recreational use was reckless and unnecessary.

To do so would have put California in direct conflict with federal
law.

But with the medical marijuana charade that voters approved in 1996,
recreational pot can be artfully and lucratively concealed under the
guise of medicine.

As long as the hypocrisy of medical marijuana is maintained, the feds
look the other way provided that medicinal growers don't get too
greedy and start growing hippie lettuce at Mexican cartel levels.

The dispensaries clearly want even more money and therefore view
paying taxes as a small price for big margins to dispense their "medicine."

That's the biggest problem I have with medical marijuana. The issue is
a beard for potheads. The idea of medical marijuana was sold to us
under the guise of "compassion," but it's not driven by that now.

There are very ill people out there who need medical pot, and some
were in attendance Tuesday.

Their stories were poignant and heartbreaking.

But after years of living with this issue, I think the truly sick are
in the minority. With doctors making righteous money by selling
medical marijuana cards to whomever they choose, medical pot has
become de facto legal pot.

And woe to the poor politicians who try to regulate it.