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LA Times columnist Steve Lopez teased us Monday about his adventure of getting recommendation approved for medical marijuana by a gynecologist and today his experience was told in full. An excerpt:
I stood to show him where my back hurts. He asked me to bend down, and I demonstrated that I couldn't touch my toes, but I don't think he could see that. He hadn't moved from his seat.I pointed again to my lower back and asked if there were a disc that low.
He said he knew nothing about back problems.
"I'm a gynecologist," he said.
After shelling out $150 for the visit, Lopez walked out with the legal right to purchase marijuana. Sunday he plans on publishing the next part of his journey.
Related: Assembly Committee to Hold Hearing Today on Legalizing Marijuana
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America needs to legalize weed. Period.
There are 11,000 deaths each year due to people driving drunk in this country:
http://www.madd.org/about-us/about-us/statistics.aspx
How many deaths are caused by people driving high on weed? To my knowledge none.
Drinking is far more harmful then weed. The only thing that will happen is weed is legalized is that less money will be spent in arresting people, the stock price of Doritos and your local 7-11 will not be able to keep snack foods in stock.
America has far more serious issues with people that want to smoke plants and everyone but the political leaders know it.
Lets get serious and focus on creating jobs and stabilizing this country before we all become broke and unable to get decent health care.
I'm glad he took the time to clarify that he's for medicinal marijuana, but not for the fiasco and dubious legality of the system City Council + City Attorney has fostered, since I think it sums up quite well how the majority of citizens feel about the situation, something often overlooked by other media reports regarding the situation. *glances at east coast based media*
Didn't Sandy Banks do the same column last year? She wasn't quite as snarky as was Lopez but I guess I'll have to wait for Chris Erskine to do the same column next year.
How's this for an original idea? Instead of merely visiting two or three dispensaries and giving us a humorous take on what he saw there, maybe Steve Lopez could actually do some research to see if the purported 800 dispensaries that the Times shows on its interactive map with a dangerous looking red leaf(ooh, scary) are truly in operation or are they only locations that potential owners have merely submitted applications to start business. I realize that this effort might entail a true investigation requiring hours of hard work reflecting the sort of journalistic diligence which is rarely shown on the pages of the Times nowadays but it would provide good fodder for conversation the next time Steve decides to huff a stogie with our cigar chomping civic crusader, Mr. Trutanich.
Careful what you wish for
There's simply no need for a city to have 500+ medical pot dispensaries.
The "patients" I see frequenting the one in my neighborhood are a joke. They're all in their 20's with shaved heads, tattoos, baggy pants...your basic wannabe's & gangbangers.
The criminal element associated with all of this is extremely worrisome.
What do gangbangers and medical pot dispensaries have in common? Nothing.
If prohibition came back or we outlawed television you would still have gangbangers and basic/complex wannabes.
Poverty/Lack of Education/High Cost of living/Too much unsupervised time create the conditions that make gang life appealing.
Back in the 80s' gangs were completely out of control in Los Angeles but there wasnt a single medical pot dispensary. Not a one.
Maybe you're "wishing" there was a correlation between the two?
Um,The Ugly American's point is clearly that the 'patients' (note quotes) don't appear to be chronically ill, but young recreational users.
TUA, I have to say that the youtube you link is extremely misleading. Who ever filmed and produced that did so to create false outrage, and journalistic sensationalisim.
The narrator is trying to say that that area Arcata, Humboldt, ect. has gotten bad ever since medical marijuana became legal, but the fact is, I've been hearing about weed that comes from that area since I moved to L.A. here back in the early 80's. That was way before I ever heard the words, "medical" and "marijuana" uttered in the same breath.
As for the 1000 or so med mj dispensaries in L.A.. Yep, it's way too many. But who's fault is that? And this 4th ordinance that is going to be proposed to City Council by Cooley and Trutanich is callous, unthinking, and will punish the patients. It is going to be challenged in court again and again and again if it passes. It's going to cost a lot of taxpayer dollars, and I doubt it will close even one dispensary.
The City Council needs to do what they should have done 13 years ago and give this some thought, come up with some realistic guidelines, give the dispensaries that are operating now time to comply, and then set about closing any that don't.
Trutanich's talk about, "putting the genie back in the bottle" aint gonna happen if they try and over step their authority, and Trutanich seems to be real good at over stepping his authority.