SentLTE-Digest Thursday, October 9 2014 Volume 14 : Number 048
001 LTE: 'JUST SAY NO TO AMENDMENTS (#2)
From: John Chase <>
002 LTE: 'Survey: Pot Law Just First Step' 08 October
From: John Chase <>
003 LTE: Amendment 2 and recent ads
From: John Chase <>
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Subj: 001 LTE: 'JUST SAY NO TO AMENDMENTS (#2)
From: John Chase <>
Date: Mon, 6 Oct 2014 04:50:49 -0700
Editors, Tampa Bay Times -
Although true that medical pot does not belong in the Constitution, we
must play the hand we were dealt, and that hand does not allow citizens'
initiatives to revise Florida statutes, a far easier task. Americans are
fortunate that the first five states to legalize medical pot had
constitutions that allowed citizens’ initiatives to revise state
statutes. Only then (in 2000) did legislatures begin to initiate the
legalization.
I cannot believe the Times thinks the Department of Health and
Legislature are powerless to fix openings intentionally put into the
Amendment for that purpose:
o "fails to set strict limits on caregivers' qualifications."
o "civil and criminal immunity to qualifying patients, caregivers, etc"
o "zoning concerns related to [....] location of dispensaries, etc."
o "opens the door for abuse by caregivers with dishonest intentions."
The open-ended list of treatable conditions is needed because it is
inefficient to amend the Constitution every time a new treatable
condition is discovered. That open-endedness might allow some leakage to
persons who would smoke pot only because it makes them feel good. Would
the Times prefer they use BigPharma’s painkillers or buy pot from some
other drug cartel?
My basic disagreement with the Times editorial is that it puts purity of
process above the lives of about one million patients who will risk
their property and their freedom if voters heed the Times’
recommendation. I will vote Yes On 2.
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Subj: 002 LTE: 'Survey: Pot Law Just First Step' 08 October
From: John Chase <>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2014 00:10:14 -0700
Editors, Tampa Trib -
I want patients and their caregivers to have legal medical pot. The
question of legal recreational pot will depend on our experience with
legal medical pot. If Amendment 2 passes and then backfires, as
opponents say it will, recreational pot won't happen. But it has not
backfired in the first dozen states to have lived with it long enough to
know, and two of them, CO and WA, now have legal recreational pot. Will
Florida follow their path? Probably. But the only way to know is to let
medical pot stand on its own merits by passing Amendment 2. Then
patients and their caregivers won't have to hide, and we'll know how to
vote if recreational pot ever makes it to the ballot.
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Subj: 003 LTE: Amendment 2 and recent ads
From: John Chase <>
Date: Thu, 9 Oct 2014 07:18:43 -0700
Editors, Tampa Bay Times -
The ads running lately against Amendment2 remind me of the Anti-Saloon
League's anti-alcohol ads early in the 20th Century. The Anti-Saloon
League won in 1920, but lost in 1933. It had been only 13 years, so
Americans could remember that life before 1920 was safer than life after
1920. Most Americans today cannot remember life before the drug war. But
we know the experience of the first 12 states to legalize medical pot,
and it is all good. Patients finally have a legal supply of a non-lethal
drug that works for them. Equally important, compared to the other 38
states, opiate overdose death rate is down 25%, homicide rate is down
40%, traffic fatality rate is down 10%, and there is no significant
change in adolescents' use of pot. This data comes not from opinions or
surveys; it comes from meticulous, peer-reviewed research by
criminologists, economists and medical professionals, whose only agenda
is to enhance their academic standing among their peers. They do not
advertize.
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End of SentLTE-Digest V14 #48
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