Reporter issued marijuana card, despite healthy record

ARTICLE CONFIRMS POT CONCERNS

Editor, The Times:

The article "No records? No problem. Got pot card" [page one, Aug. 21]
confirms what I have long suspected about the medical-marijuana
movement that many nonqualifying people (who just want to get high)
are obtaining easy authorizations at clinics whose main motive is not
humanitarian but profit-driven.

These places, and the medical providers who work there and dole out
authorizations, are making lots of money when they do this, at $150 to
$200 a pop.

Reporter Jonathan Martin clearly does not qualify under the
"intractable pain" category, yet he received an authorization with a
brief interview and cursory examination, and even without any medical
records. If this isn't an example of abuse of the 1998 law, I don't
know what is, and it happens all too frequently.

The medical-marijuana law is well-intentioned, and no doubt genuinely
helps some legitimate patients, but it is being badly subverted by
dishonest individuals and by certain unscrupulous marijuana clinics.
The state Legislature needs to act to close the loopholes.

- - Bob Knudson, Seattle