Scott Schlaufman

Oh, medical marijuana, what a fun little debate you are.
In the coming weeks, voters in cities throughout this wonderful state will be voting on whether they want dispensaries in their town. A debate, largely based on morals, has broken out in regards to how, where, and if these pot shops should even be open in different communities.
My view? Let’s shut them down and take medical marijuana laws with them.
As a warning, I realize that in much of this column, I’m speaking in heavy generalities. I’m sure that among all the people who have obtained medicinal marijuana, there are many with ailments who receive plenty of benefit from the drug. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.
My main problem with the law is that the restrictions for getting the card have way too much leeway. While the check boxes on the application also account for serious disorders such as HIV, cancer, and seizures, they also have a spot for the undeniably general “severe pain.”
Is there a good test for diagnosing severe pain? With cancer or HIV or other medical conditions, you can walk in, take some tests and have a doctor diagnose your condition. With “severe pain,” you can walk in to some sketchy doctor and say  “I broke my arm a few years ago” and there’s your card. A few tears never hurt either.
Defenders of the system can pretend that crap like this doesn’t happen, but you’re dealing with a recreational drug that many people have used illegally for years. Marijuana is not new to the culture of this country and several people have gone on record saying that while the drugs helped a medical condition they also wanted to quit smoking illegally, so they got a card. I’ve met people on campus who were healthier than I am, yet still would spend entire days “medicating.” What were they treating? I don’t know, but it sure made their Xbox sessions more entertaining for them. And these people on campus do exist.
It’s people like that who turn what should be a legitimate system into a joke. Instead of giving people actually suffering from diseases a chance to get a useful substance, people treat it as a backdoor approach to legalization of the drug.
While many people take advantage of the loose laws as patients, it’s so offensive seeing advertisements for doctors (especially on the Front Range) that specialize in giving medical marijuana cards. If that wasn’t the first sign that the system is flawed, I don’t know what is. “Doctors” should be focused on health, not making money by parading around their pro-pot agendas.
While these backdoor approaches were subtle a few years ago, detractors have started to take notice. Hell, a few days ago the Colorado Health Board decided to waive registration fees for indigent patients, a.k.a. the same people who are on food stamps. Ha. It’s for those reasons that people are starting to look at medical marijuana with a more serious perspective.
Amidst this, the one thing I favor about the laws is the benefit that marijuana can bring financially. Both Colorado Springs and Boulder have been able to help make up for shrinking budgets by offsetting lost funds with sales tax revenue from medical marijuana. Could you do better if you legalized it, regulated it and taxed the hell out of it as a recreation substance similar to alcohol and cigarettes? Absolutely, but given its limited reach right now, the system is a growing industry in a tough financial time, that cities really could tap into, as opposed to mandatory furlough days for hard working employees or cuts elsewhere in the budget.
If we are going to claim that pot has the same medical value as an over-the-counter or prescription drug, lets treat it as such. Make the requirements for both patients and physicians much more rigorous.  Throw out the idea of individual cities and counties being able to ban dispensaries and instead shoot for regulation.
Have certain standards so that you keep out the pothead who “hurt” his arm playing football in high school but can retain the people who actually need the drug. As the system stands, there is too much wiggle room and detractors of it have too much ammo against those in favor.
I applaud cities like Boulder who are making opening dispensaries a difficult task. With lots of background checks, regulation and restrictions, it hopefully will weed out the abusers of the system. Only with tough standards will the industry become legitimate, and unless the cities and dispensaries take action to make themselves more medically legitimate, I’m sure that a higher power will. And that higher power won’t favor the “medicine.”
While voters may have approved the medical marijuana system many years ago, nobody would have predicted it to be the joke that it is today. It is too easy for healthy people to get a card just so they can get high. That’s not “medicating,” rather, it’s just blowing smoke.