Overkill in the war on pot
Lost in this fray is the fact that marijuana is medicine.
According to Marijuana Policy Project estimates, there are more than 1 million medical marijuana patients in the U.S. An attack on state-approved dispensaries is an attack on patients. We would consider it inhumane to take away anti-nausea or pain medicine from a cancer patient. But when the administration raids dispensaries and destroys plants, that is exactly what it is doing.
So what is the lesson here? Smoke marijuana illegally, and you can become president. Try to provide a safe, consistent product that keeps the trade out of domestic and foreign drug cartels and brings in tax revenue, and face 15 years jail time.
Marie Myung-Ok Lee is a novelist who teaches at Columbia and Brown universities.
