|
|
Monday, May 1st, 2006
|
1:01p
What determines how you vote?
Currently, in this state, we have a patchwork of legalization regarding marijuana: It is legal for persons such as myself to possess a certain amount. It is legal for me to grow a certain amount. It is legal for me to smoke at home. In the city of Denver, it is legal for everyone to possess a small amount for personal use. It is illegal for non-medical users to possess any amount under state law. It is also illegal - for everyone, medical users included - to buy or sell marijuana and to possess it in amounts required to sell it. All levels are illegal under federal law.
If I do not have access to marijuana, I die. There is no other way to say it. I found an anti-nausea agent that works for me - sometimes. But when I go through more difficult attacks, I can and have been placed on IVs to rehydrate; my esophagus tears from vomiting; I am at extreme risk of fatal seizures and serious strokes. All of this is from not eating. All of this is, for the most part, eradicated by marijuana use. You fail to vote for increased legalization of the selling of marijuana, you are, in effect, saying that it is right that I should die from the lack of it. You enforce the status quo. And I cannot help but be offended at the fact that there are people out there who believe the world would be a better place without me in it. I do not get to choose the cause for which I would die, because it has been chosen for me by the DEA, by people who do not believe in legalization.
( And... le snip. )
I do not believe that we can, or should, create a society free of all risk and injury to all persons, or that freedom from always outweighs freedom to. Freedom to must necessarily be paramount over freedom from - and the more we restrict freedom to, freedom from must make a very compelling case. Sometimes it does. Sometimes it doesn't. And whether a case is compelling or not can change.
(comment on this)
|
|
|
|