Collegiate Times

During the 11th annual Students for Sensible Drug Policy International Conference in San Francisco, I had the unique opportunity to take a tour of the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, California. A non-profit medical cannabis dispensary, Harborside prides itself on its ability to develop interpersonal relationships with its patients in order to meet their specific health needs.

The dispensary provides high-quality cannabis that is checked for pesticides and dangerous chemicals, and it employs trained professionals who know which strains are the most useful for the different afflictions experienced by its patients. Aside from the sale of cannabis, the dispensary offers holistic health services to patients such as massage therapy, yoga lessons and acupuncture. While Harborside makes money on the sale of medical cannabis, that money is used to provide low-income patients with free or subsidized medicine and the remainder is given back to the community.

Harborside represents a paradigm for dispensaries, which has started to become increasingly common in California. While for-profit dispensaries have generated skepticism both from patients and the public, non-profit “compassion centers,” as they are sometimes called, seek to provide patients with health care services that simply cannot be met by conventional medicine. Because of a lack of standards and central regulation in the medical cannabis industry, many dispensaries do not have quality standards, adequate customer service for patients, or knowledgeable staff. In fact, many for-profit dispensaries are run by former pot dealers who entered into the medical industry simply for legal protection. However, as industry standards have started to develop, so has the quality of care provided to patients.

 Let me give some background on medical cannabis. Studies have shown that the THC content in the cannabis plant is effective at treating various medical conditions such as glaucoma, spasticity, multiple sclerosis, depression and intense pain. Moreover, it can be used as an appetite stimulant for patients who have undergone chemotherapy, and it is an effective muscle relaxant.

Unlike many FDA-approved prescription drugs used to treat these afflictions, medical cannabis is non-habit forming and does not produce many of the harmful side effects and allergic reactions that are common with conventional medications. Cannabis can also be used to make skin ointments to treat various dermatological afflictions. It can be consumed in many different ways including being smoked, vaporized, cooked in food, and extracted into pills. Vaporizing and eating cannabis are preferred methods because smoking can be damaging to throats and lungs.

Medical cannabis was legalized in California with the passage of Proposition 215 in 1996. Currently, 15 states have some sort of medical cannabis law, as well as the District of Columbia (although its implementation was blocked by congress until very recently). In California, licensed patients are allowed to grow medical cannabis for personal use, obtain it from a private caregiver (grower), or to buy it from distribution centers called dispensaries. The dispensaries in turn grow their own cannabis or obtain it from collectives or cooperatives of medical patients.

Unfortunately, the right of patients to adequately obtain their medicine has historically not been respected by the federal government. The Drug Enforcement Agency conducted numerous raids of the homes of patients, dispensaries and collective grow operations between 1996 and 2008 (especially during the time of the Bush administration).

The 2005 Supreme Court case, Gonzales v. Raich, upheld the right of the federal government to prosecute licensed medical marijuana patients under federal law. In order to combat federal raids, patient advocacy groups such as Americans for Safe Access have formed in order to ensure that patients are able to get access to their medications without fear of being prosecuted by the federal government.

ASA lobbies governments and provides legal support for medical patients. Thankfully in 2009, the Obama administration ordered the DEA to no longer pursue patients in states where medical marijuana has been legalized. Nonetheless, there has been much unwarranted federal opposition to medical marijuana, and DEA raids have occurred since then.

The intervention by the federal government is largely responsible for the lack of standards and central regulation, which I talked about above. For fear of arrest by federal authorities, medical marijuana collectives operated largely underground. Patients and caregivers were forced to work under the radar of the DEA in unsavory neighborhoods under high security. Luckily, the election of Obama has represented a new era for cannabis patients. The openness of the Obama administration has allowed the industry to grow and create regulations and norms.

The fact that our federal government is not allowing patients safe access to the medicine that can provide them with the greatest relief with the least amount of harm is simply immoral. The reality that patients and caregivers are actually imprisoned simply for the possession of their medication is nothing short of appalling. I cannot envision any other scenario where people in need of help are treated like common criminals for seeking
that help.

The fact is that it is a moral imperative not only that medical cannabis is allowed to function on the state level, but legalized on the federal level as well. Medical cannabis should be legal everywhere in the United States and centrally regulated. Unfortunately, the war on drugs has consistently blinded our law enforcement officials and policy makers from making compassionate, reasonable and moral decisions.

A version of this article appeared in the Mar 17 issue of the Collegiate Times.