This article was written by Gayle Ruzicka.
In November Utah voters will be asked to vote on Proposition 2, a 28 page initiative to legalize marijuana in the name of medicine, but most of the initiative is about recreational marijuana. You should not vote on Prop 2 without first reading the initiative and making sure you understand what you have read. We would be very upset with our legislators if they were to vote for a bill without reading it first. Why would we the people vote for a law we haven’t read? Please do not cast your vote based on a few sound bites that you see in a television commercial or you hear on the radio.
If Prop 2 passes it will forever change Utah culture and will be devastating to our children. Do we want to be like Colorado, no longer known for their beautiful mountains and lakes, but instead known as the “Pot State?”
Here are 15 reasons why Proposition 2 is more about recreational use than medical purposes, as they would have you believe. These 15 reasons are all documented from the initiative, including code and page numbers.
On page 23 of the initiative it says “cannabis means marijuana.” 53-37-3.6b(1)(a)
- If the initiative passes in November individuals will be able to use, possess and manufacture marijuana legally for 19 months. They can do this by just saying they are sure that they will qualify for a medical cannabis card when they are available July 1, 2020. Page 24, 58-37-3.7(1) Affirmative Defense. There will not be a place to buy marijuana in Utah during this time except on the “Black Market,” or they might just grow their own.
- The marijuana CANNOT be prescribed by a doctor. Instead a doctor or others will recommend to the state that the patient receive a card issued by the state allowing them to shop at the marijuana dispensary. Page 14; 26-60b-201(3)
- The marijuana is NOT sold in a pharmacy. It is sold in a marijuana dispensary that sells a variety of marijuana products, whole plant, THC, candy, cookies, oils, syrups, etc. Page 10; 26-60b-102(3)(a)(b)(c)
- The marijuana is NOT dosed. Instead the marijuana cardholder can shop in the dispensary and purchase any products they want, including whole plant marijuana. Page 20; 26-60b-502(1)(a)(b)(c)(d). There is no limit on THC potency of any products available to people of any age. New genetically modified marijuana can contain nearly 40% THC, which is 10 times the potency of the 1960s.
- There is NOT a pharmacist involved. People who shop at the dispensary are advised by a non-medically qualified employee, called a budtender. Page 18; 26-60b-401(1)(2)(3)(a)(b).
- There is NOT a requirement for warnings about any side effects or danger associated with the marijuana products. Real medicine is required by law to include warnings of all side effects. Federal Law
- NO ONE, including doctors, is held responsible for patient’s harm. The initiative states that a physician who recommends cannabis to an individual may not be subject to civil or criminal liability or licensure sanctions. Page 13; 26-60b-108
- The products in the marijuana dispensary are NOT required to be scientifically researched. Even if there are scientific studies that cause concern about safety, the initiative says, “Guidelines…may not limit the availability of cannabis (or) cannabis products.” Page 10, Title 4 Chapter 41b.
- The state of Utah, NOT a doctor, dictates who can buy marijuana. The initiative states that the Utah Department of Health will issue a valid cannabis card to an individual who may purchase, possess, use and transport cannabis. It is good for up to six months. Doctors may only recommend. Page 14; 26-60b201(1)
- Parents can buy marijuana for their children at any age. Page 14; 26-60b-201(2)(b)
- The initiative requires the dispensaries to destroy ALL records 60 days after the sale of the marijuana. Page 11; 26-60b-103(2)(c) In contrast, pharmacies must keep records for 10 years.
- Some products sold in the dispensaries may be smoked. The initiative says, smoking does not include a means of administration that involves cannabis combustion at a temperature that is not greater than 750 degrees Fahrenheit and does not involve a flame. Page 24; 58-37-3.6b(4)
Marijuana can ignite under 750 degrees and may be lit with a battery lighter without a flame. - If marijuana card holders live more than 100 miles from a dispensary they may grow up to six marijuana plants at a time. Page 15; 26-60b-202(2)(d) Most of rural Utah will be a hundred miles from a dispensary. What other psychotropic medicine can be grown at home, and how can that be enforced?
- The initiative does NOT require that the patient be under a doctor’s care while using marijuana. You will hear that patients will be under a doctor’s supervision. That is not possible because doctors are not legally permitted to prescribe amounts or types of marijuana. Federal Law.
- If the initiative were to pass it could repeal all of Utah’s medical marijuana laws. The Utah legislature has passed several medical marijuana laws including a law that allows CBD oil to be legally sold in Utah. According to Scott Ericson, Director of the Utah Depart of Agriculture, if the initiative were to pass CBD would no longer be sold in stores where all people could buy it, but could only be purchased in marijuana dispensaries by people who receive a medical marijuana card from the State for qualifying illnesses. Parents of children, who suffer with seizures, can currently get CBD, the cannabis product that has been known to help their children, at their local drug or health food store. That will end if Prop 2 passes. All of the good things that are already legal to help people could be gone just because the initiative passed. The initiative uses language that includes overrides, replaces , takes precedent over. Page 28; Section 68. Override clause.If this initiative passes it sends a message to the youth that marijuana is safe and good for you, which is not true; it is a dangerous Schedule 1drug. Marijuana is destructive to the developing brain of children through age 25. We must protect our children by voting NO on Proposition 2.
RogerAugust 28, 2018
The facts --- the Utah Medical Association has produced an outstanding position paper on the Utah Medical Marijuana Initiative. The physicians are clearly NOT against any sound, well researched, and approved marijuana derived medicines that might be another substance that might help a the small group of people that might benefit from it in a controlled amount and controlled for purity. The LDS Church retained legal counsel to research the legal aspects of the pending Medical Marijuana Initiative and the objective opinion of the legal profession was well reasoned and presented. One person posted that 'marijuana has known medicinal properties such as treating nausea for cancer patients'. Well, it is also know that marijuana also interferes direction with the chemo therapy medications thus making those compounds less effective. It is also known that in Colorado there has been a rise in suicide rates among teens since marijuana was legalized. The rate of completed suicides vs. attempted ones has risen significantly. Autopsies have shown that many of the completed youth suicides had marijuana in their system (urine tests) and it is believed that the marijuana reduced the nausea so that the other substances were allowed to remain in the system resulting in the death of the child. Without the marijuana, the child's natural body response would have been to vomit out the toxic substances consumed to commit suicide. It is also known that marijuana (dispensary grown or home grown) increases the risk of psychotic events developing in persons under the age of 25. These psychotic events can be a one time event, or they can can become a permanent reoccurring life time event last weeks or months at a time. I know of one mother whose son turned to marijuana to treat his sports injury, developed psychosis from the marijuana, and finally killed himself because he could no longer cope with the reoccurring psychosis. He left behind a wife and a toddler. Research has also shown a link between marijuana consumption to an increase in asthma; head, neck, and throat cancers; marijuana consumption increases the frequency of infants born with life time birth defects; marijuana interferes with anesthesia so that the medical staff need to go to greater efforts to use different medications and to worry throughout the surgery that the anesthesia isn't so disrupted by the pot that the patient doesn't die from his own pot consumption; post operative pain is negative impacted by marijuana consumption and there isn't any pharma meds available to address this type of post operative pain so the marijuana consumer gets to endure the post surgical pain because of their marijuana consumption. There is no 'free lunch' in this world -- there is no 'perfect' safe all natural substance that is a magical elixir to be the be-all and end-all substance to fix the human condition. To those who believe that 'medical marijuana from a dispensary or home grown' has helped with your medical condition -- good for you. You are also exposed to molds, mildew, fungus, and possible heavy metals and pesticides. How about standing up to protect the majority of your neighbors and the kids from the marijuana industry? Request more police protection, support more funding for law enforcement, report known black/gray market sellers, report illegal grows, demand that growers be courtesy to everyone --- control the noxious odors, stop polluting the environment, stop making false medical claims of cures for everything, support the efforts of the majority of society that is weary of the spill over into the community of the crime, the environmental damage, and children using and/or getting addicted to pot because it is ' legal'. I support true scientifically based and research medicine for conditions --- I do not support snake oil sales pitches. Utah ...don't fall for the propaganda that Colorado fell for in the liberal cities that marijuana grown commercially ($$$$$) or homegrown is 'medicine' --- don't accept the effort to make you feel guilty for being unkind, lack of compassion, lack of empathy for the plight of ill people who want to dabble in using marijuana from this source as medicine ----weigh the costs that Colorado has paid for being the first in line for the 'snake oil sales pitch'. Colorado is not swimming in marijuana tax revenue -- we are paying with hospitals closing entire wings of medical services, sky rocketing emergency room visits from marijuana consumers, children in need -- of basically everything (shelter, special ed teachers, bathed by school staff before school because they reek of pot and need fresh clothing as well, even need to GET to school because parent doesn't bother to get their kid to school), law enforcement and SWAT teams increased but still cannot keep up with the crime wave, etc. etc. If someone needs what are known as an 'Orphan Drug" then let's work together to make that happen with a controlled substance for dose and purity; and where its access does not destroy the rest of the community.
MikeAugust 28, 2018
I live in Colorado. We are known as the 'human marijuana experiment state' and I would like to point out to the folks in Utah that the experimentation is a failure. The few controls that have been slapped together to control the marijuana craze has been poorly (ie rarely) enforced. For example in Colorado is it illegal to advertise things related to marijuana where minors can access it -- but the agency charged with enforcing this has done nothing so we have print and radio ads that are uncontrolled. We have had a significant increase in children grade school - high school trying, as well as using, marijuana on a regular basis (regular being at least once per week). We have an increase in the number of psychotic patients because of the consumption of marijuana (both recreational and medical). Colorado law requires that marijuana grows must be at least 1000 feet from a dwelling, school, church, or park. By contrast Utah's Medical Marijuana Initiative which was written by those with a vested interest in more marijuana the requirement is a mere 300 feet from residential property or a mere 600 feet from schools, churches, or parks. 1000 feet in Colorado is inadequate to keep quality communities and Utah is looking at a mere 300 - 600 feet! Wisdom is to learn from the mistakes of others!!! Colorado requires that 'medical marijuana' consumers obtain a recommendation from a medical professional in which they have an established relationship with. Ha! Colorado does not enforce this requirement -- basically one goes to a physician who is willing to recommend medical marijuana for a hefty price (ie money) and will likely never see the 'patient' again. I have physician friends who have told me that the majority of the 'medical marijuana' patients don't even know the name of their 'medical marijuana recommending physician'. Given that many of these Colorado MDs are writing not dozens, not hundreds, but THOUSANDS of 'recommendations' it does not surprise anyone with common sense that these are recommendation mill operations and have nothing to do with any sincere medical concerns. For those who are wavering that 'I don't want to deny someone medicine, if they need medical marijuana..." PLEASE do your homework before buying into the marijuana industry hype. There are pharma available marijuana products for the RARE types of medical conditions where marijuana MIGHT help. Balance this with the known facts that medical research is showing 'marijuana' negatively interferes with over 400 pharma medications, medical marijuana is NOT useful in most 'pain management' and even for the rare type of pain it can cause adverse reactions for some consumers and/or not be effective at all -- it it can be addictive, the FDA just approved Epidiolex a marijuana based medication developed in England for managing SOME rare forms of seizures (know the facts not propaganda -- marijuana to treat seizures --- might help SOME patients, it does NOTHING for the majority of them, and in the remain population it increases seizures. Then there is the concern with hepatic disorders that is documented in the research with marijuana consumption in research with marijuana as a 'medicine' for seizures.') Denver's public health department requires that CBD products that are consumed orally must be refrigerated --- why? Do your homework --- anyone who does home canning will be familiar with this deadly concern. Dispensary / homegrown marijuana -- anyone tell you about the mold, mildew and fungus that can grow on these 'all natural plants"? Well tell that to the young man in California who used medical marijuana while undergoing chemo for cancer. He died. No, not from cancer but from his pot -- he contracted a deadly fungus from his 'medical' marijuana. A small town in Colorado voted to have medical marijuana dispensaries and a marijuana club. For those who claim that marijuana has increased businesses they should take an honest look at the destruction of this town. Crime has increased 4 fold. Non-pot consumers no longer stop in the town for gasoline nor groceries but prefer to shop in safer communities on their family vacations. The same has happened in the town of Trinidad, Colorado. Local businesses are hurting because tourists no longer want to be accosted with marijuana smoke ever where and the local box store that once catered to the RV vacationers -- those travelers take a look at the number of drugged people in the parking lot and drive on to the next town. Utah voters would be wise to vote "NO" on the so-called "Medical Marijuana Initiative" don't fall for the beguiling claims of medical compassion -- THERE ARE other means to get TRUE medical marijuana. Marijuana is being marketed like snake oil -- as a cure all for everything. Think....does it make sense that ONE substance can treat / cure everything from acne to nail fungus to cancers (all forms) to anxiety (it actually increases anxieties) to seizures to pain to diabetes etc.