From the time we can understand anything, we are taught to trust doctors. The vast majority of people in the United States carry an innate trust of medical professionals. They are experts and they are there to help us. We trust them with our secrets and our very lives.
Yet, when it comes to medical marijuana, that trust seems to get suspended for some. It’s not enough for your doctor to think you should use medical cannabis; there has to be a law to allow him/her to do so.
And for that, in many states, you need the permission of lawmakers. Lawmakers who have had no reason to look into the issue of medical cannabis and clearly haven’t done so.
For example, in Nebraska, Governor Pete Ricketts doesn’t think anyone should have the option of using medical marijuana legally until the FDA has said it’s okay. “I’ve sat down with the families and they’re very sympathetic and I certainly understand where they’re coming from with regard to a child,” Governor Ricketts told News Channel Nebraska. “But we also have to remember we have to protect the entire public…to protect the public safety you really have to make sure it goes through the FDA process….And I know it’s a long process but that is what’s happening and we are getting those drugs.”
The NCN reporter pressed the Governor more in regards to his own children and whether or not them needing medical marijuana would sway his position, to which he responded, “[a]gain we have to think about the broader issue of public safety here with regard to how we have drugs in our country. To make sure they’re safe and effective and what dosage for what ailments, what side effects and that’s what the FDA process does.”
Despite the fact that FDA-approved drugs kill tens of thousands of people every year in this country and marijuana kills no one – although Gov. Ricketts did assert that “every few days someone in Colorado dies in a marijuana-related car accident” – some people really believe that the only safe and effective medicines on Earth cannot be medicines until they have gone through the FDA approval process.
So if the parents and doctor of a child feel that child could benefit from medical cannabis, in the eyes of the Governor of Nebraska, they shouldn’t be allowed to do that until the FDA says it’s okay – no matter how long that takes and no matter what the reason.
This is the ignorance that condemns so many people to criminality every day simply for choosing a better way to live.
