It has been more than ten years since the people of California, for all their quirks, wisely voted for the legalization of medically prescribed marijuana. Now, the city of San Francisco is still struggling with where to put the state-sanctioned, medicinal marijuana clubs. Recently booted from residential areas, many of these clubs are now also being booted from commerical areas that are too ‘touristy.’ Locals fear that the presence of “cannabis houses” in these areas “sends the wrong message” to tourists.

Mayor Newsome is sympathetic to these concerns–which were expressed by a neighborhood planning commission vote that somehow overrode city ordinances allowing marjiuana clinics meeting a particular list of criteria and paying a 10,000 permit application fee to operate in places just like Fisherman’s Wharf–but fears that they are rooted in the classic “Not in My Backyard” policy of American liberals and conservatives alike (assuming that the latter, of course, are not of the “Not at All” variety when it comes to this particular social issue).

Newsome (who appears to be in a rather unenviable position) has the right instincts here, but fails to point out that the NIMBY feelings of his constituency are especially irrational in this case. The bottom-line is that medicinal marijuna clinics are not analogous to rehab centers or prisons, or even low-income housing developments, which are cited as being often hot-beds for crime. There really isn’t an identifiable reason to “not want these users around.” These people are in no respect different from any other patients, using any other prescription drug.

Complaints amount to things like “they use it outside.” So what? Your votes have sanctioned its medical usage; you’ve said it’s ok. The only reason you still see smoking marijuana as different from taking regular pills is some deep-rooted irrational fear of a particular drug that is, if anything, LESS harmful and LESS habit-forming then the prescription drugs taken by millions every day.

Another complaint is that these places attract crime. Hello! Have you seen the signs in every major drug store chain that indicates the lack of oxy-contin on the premises? Or have you tried to buy Sudafed lately? Drug-store robbery is a major problem. But its funny how no one wants to kick CVS out of the neighborhood.

Say what you want about NIMBY, it doesn’t even make sense in this case.

See the full story here.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 28th, 2006 at 3:13 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.