Thinking Clearly

Medical marijuana and our 'asymmetric' power to decide what's legal in Michigan

 full article at: Brad Flory | brad@lifeinplaid.com at Mlive

 

 JACKSON, MI – The absurd state of Michigan’s medical marijuana law might be amusing except for one point that should bother everyone.

Absurdity, in this case, runs counter to lessons taught in high-school civics classes.

Crackdowns on medical marijuana dispensaries began last week in Jackson County, as elsewhere, because a Michigan Supreme Court ruling declared dispensaries illegal.

 Here’s the absurd part: Patients can buy marijuana — it’s their right — but no one can sell it to them.
It’s like saying we have free speech but no one can listen. The court described the legal right to trade in medical marijuana as “asymmetric.”

.....

 Unless the 2008 vote is reversed at the polls, medical marijuana is legal. It is legal because the people of Michigan said so. They didn’t say partway legal or asymmetrically legal.

Voters did not know exactly how it would work, but they expected patients would be able to buy medical marijuana under some system allowed by law. That’s what it means to legalize something.

Four years later, sales of medical marijuana are illegal in Michigan. This situation, created by legislators and upheld by judges, rather blatantly repudiates popular rule.

High-school civics lessons must still describe rule of the people as a very big deal in our land. No one who supports democracy in practice, as well as in textbooks, can enjoy this absurdity.