North Dakota MMJ Bill is "Bad Public Policy" Says Legislative Blogger

Rob Port is one of the leading political bloggers in the the Peace Garden State.  He  wrote recently about the medical marijuana bill introduced this year in Bismarck.   Hearings were held on the bipartisan bill this week. 

Mr. Port's take on the bill is interesting, and highlights the division in the legalization movement between the hardcore medical marijuana crowd and the general legalization enthusiasts.  He's in favor of legalization, he writes, but against this bill:

    The problem is that the manner in which HB1430 legalizes marijuana use is objectionable. The legislation is chock-full of regulations for how much marijuana an individual can have. When and where they can have it. And, perhaps most disturbingly, the legislation details specifics on which maladies marijuana can be prescribed for.

    While many support this legislation as “baby steps” toward broader legalization, and the myriad regulations and requirements as so much appeasement for the drug warriors, I worry when the government begins codifying how doctors can prescribe a drug like marijuana.

    The case for medicinal marijuana is dubious, at best, and little more than a cover for a broader legalization for recreational use. So why not have that debate?

From one perspective, this is certainly correct.  For a great many MMJ proponents, medical weed is just the first step toward full recreational legalization, and if that's the goal, why not go for it outright?  I'm a full-legalization guy (at the capitalist end of the spectrum), and recreational legalization would certainly help the MMJ folks. 

But it's possible to favor MMJ without being in favor of outright recreational legalization.  That strikes me as a perfectly reasonable position.  (It's what we do with morphine, after all -- it's legal but it has to be prescribed.)  Under that view, the bill makes perfect sense.

I've heard some legalization proponents hold out against this kind of MMJ legislation because it takes the most appealing poster children for marijuana reform (i.e., dying kids and pain-ravaged veterans) out of the picture.  When kids with MS or cancer can get their marijuana through a controlled and regulated scheme, the pressure for reform goes down.

I have no reason to believe that's what Mr. Port is suggesting.  But I don't think it's fair to say that MMJ is "nothing more than a cover" for full legalization.  In my view it's better to help people who are in pain now than to hold them hostage until we get full legalization.