Those Wacky West-Coasters

September 23, 2002

Before my brother left, he told me that the main step in maintaining Thudfactor was to look at the news and see what made you say, “Eeeww….”

So this morning, I found two stories about those wacky Californians defying federal law for the good of the people. Kind of a modern Boston Tea party kind of thing - only not.

The first comes from an op-ed piece about a recent raid on a hospice co-op facility in Santa Cruz, CA, where the sick and elderly have access to medicinal marijuana. Federal agents reportedly stormed the premises and handcuffed elderly cancer and polio victims in their quest to control the mild psychotropic drug beig taken in a controlled, medical environment. It’s important to remember, of course, that Santa Cruz is one of the relatively few places in the United States where local law allows medical marijuana.

“So you have dying patients who are pitied by their city and state and outlawed by their country. Maybe that’s why they call it dope.”

The second is a more unbiased account of a new bill just signed into law in California that legalizes stem cell research. This in spite of the federal limits on stem cell research.

As a young man, I was raised to believe that the law is the law - no matter how wrong-headed it may be. I can disagree all that I want to, but when it comes to the law I should still follow it - or be willing to take the consequences for my actions. Honestly, however, I have trouble faulting California for taking these stands.

First, let’s address stem cell research - a research that could produce untold good in many branches of medicine that is limited because of its link to abortion. It seems that the stem cells are not available without the option of abortion - existing lines of stem cells are considered too unstable for quality research, and have a tendency to peter out without warning or hope of salvage.

The fact is, however, that abortion is not illegal - yet. The attempt to ban stem cell research is a round-about way of banning abortion in the long run. Remove stem cell research, and you remove one of the arguments on the side of Choice.

In allowing stem cell research, California is killing two birds with one stone - they both allow the research that may give us important medical solutions, and they effectively place their bets on the pro-choice lobby. Stem cell research, after all, depends in part on the right to choose. There are other sources of stem cell research (discarded embryos from in vitro fertilization, etc), but even those are currently limited by the federal government.

And in terms of medical marijuana, most Americans actually seem to support the idea. This is because most people seem to realize what the Warmongerers on Drugs seem to have ignored - medicinal marijuana is not an excuse for people to get high. This isn’t about pot parties in the old folks’ home and it’s not about geriatric dealers driving BMW’s up to the supermarket to pick up a 40 of Ensure. It’s about relieving suffering.

Medicinal marijuana is considered in those cases where the patient suffers from terminal disease and/or extreme pain. In some cases, it’s considered for diseases that cannabis has been shown to have a positive effect on (glaucoma, for instance - George Bush the Elder take notice). The medical marijuana allows an inexpensive way to ease the pain and suffering, and can be used in some cases to control symptoms.

Interesting enough. California, it seems, has decided to play the revolutionary. Parallels could be drawn between California and the Boston revolutionaries who boarded English ships and threw shipments of tea overboard - if one ignores the fact that the Boston revolutionaries (”Sons of Liberty”) destroyed personal property to protest their inability to govern themselves, while California is exercising its option to govern itself in order to protest the higher laws it disagrees with.

Come to think of it, it’s nothing like the Boston Tea Party. It’s a completely different revolution.

Never mind.

Posted in Archived Unsorted