Oct 20 2009
Strange Bedfellows
NPR reports yesterday and today that the Obama administration will not prosecute medical marijuana uses that are compliant with state laws. It is one of a number of instances where the healthcare policy debate has created strange bedfellows. Conservatives accustomed to arguing for states’ rights were forced to align themselves with federal policy against medical marijuana during the Bush years, as several states liberalized their medical marijuana rules. The devotion of conservatives to states’ rights would be even more severely tested were medical malpractice reform to emerge at the federal level. Elsewhere we witness labor unions joining with insurers to oppose the public option, the latter for obvious reasons and the former presumably to maintain their hold on the last vestige of compensation/ benefits for which they can negotiate on behalf of their members. Last year we saw Wal-Mart’s Lee Scott and Andy Stern of the Service Employees International Union sharing platforms to call for single-payor insurance so that US companies might compete more effectively with those in countries in which employers do not bear the cost of health insurance. This year Wal-Mart and the SEIU appear to have agreed to support the employer mandate. Is this the lion lying down with the lamb, or merely a short-term alliance of the terminally self-interested?
there was major push back from local law enforcement and the LA prosecuters office. There are hundreds of ” Medical Marijuana shoppes” and Police officials beleive they are all profit making institutions and are illegally selling to anyone with a prescription, intimating Drs. are just giving these out to anyone who asks.
They resent the new Federal guidelines and will do all they can ,locally, to shut the shops down.
As to the shop owners, a spokesperson opined that the Federal easing of restrictions shows we are maturing as a society. With all the domestic and international headaches, nay, nightmares,why can’t we just put this issue deep in the trash bin. Meanwhile, I’ll just meander(literally) over to the wine and spirit shop and load up for the winter………