A Proposed Law Would Allow Medical Marijuana In North Carolina. Should It Be Legal?

All drugs should be legal and taxed. Dumb folks that take currently illegal drugs should not spend years in jail, and drug cartels should not thrive on profits from these poor people.

http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2009%20%20&BillID=h1380
http://www.ncleg.net/gascripts/BillLookUp/BillLookUp.pl?Session=2009%20%20&BillID=h1383

Here are two useful links for anyone interested in reading the text of the bills for themselves, or to easily share with others.

I hope that my fellow North Carolinians join with me in celebrating the introduction of these two bills. Please, if you feel so inclined, call, write, or visit your representatives and let them know you support House Bills 1380 & 1383.

I can understand possible arguments against total cannabis legalization, but there are no arguments against its legal, medical use that I can understand or agree with. When these bills pass, my ailing mother will have a natural, non-toxic alternative to her pain management, and I will benefit from a natural medicine to aid my anxiety from post traumatic stress disorder. To this day I have refused all chemical medications, and self-medicated with Carolina-home grown. For that to become legal, protected, and legitimate will mean that I will be a completely law-abiding citizen, no longer breaking one law to access the medicine I need.

Please, see this for the compassionate relief that is needed for your fellow North Carolina citizens. Contact your representatives, and help them see the compassionate side of it too.

If cocaine, morphine & methamphetamine are legal for medical use (they're Schedule 2 drugs), why not allow non-deadly, relatively non-toxic marijuana (currently a Schedule 1 drug alongside heroin)? It makes no sense. Right now, anyone who wants to get high has no problem getting some, but if my grandmother's doctor advises her to take a small puff to help with her chemotherapy, she risks going to jail (if she could even find any!). Seems like the current law only benefits the criminals and stoners while depriving the sick of effective medicine and interfering with doctors' decisions.

And I thought conservatives were for small government. Butting into medical practices seems like anything but.

people in pain should have what helps .its a plant God Created .Bible says a plant can cure 7 different illiness

In a time of astronomic medical costs and suffering, medical marijuana should be legal. Consider the following:

1. Marijuana is not chemically addictive.
2. It is not therefore a gateway drug as often falsely claimed. When only illegal drug dealers sell it, of course they will try to sell any pot buyer other drugs. This social proximity of pot to other illicit drugs makes marijuana appear to be a gateway drug. If tobacco was illegal and only sold by illegal drug dealers, it too would appear to be a gateway drug.
3. It is dirt cheap (it's a plant!). Lots of poor people need some inexpensive relief.
4. It has few side effects, some of which may be desirable, like increased appetite.
5. I personally don't need M.M. but one day I or a loved one might be chronically ill and in pain. Why should the government deny anyone relief from pain with an inexpensive drug that is, quite honestly, in itself harmless, especially when used under medical supervision? A chief reason MM hasn't been more accepted is because it would not make anybody any big profits.
6. The only people who don't want MM are those who will not profit from it. Who are they? Think about it. Think hard.

As an individual who would directly benefit from approval for medical purposes I am very hopeful that these bills will pass. I have been suffering from Crohn’s Disease for 21 years and have been prescribed drugs with horrible side-effects, had to go through painful surgery and just having to deal with day to day pain and embarassment caused by the symptoms of Crohn’s. Finally the NC legislature is taking this issue seriously! To deprive ill patients of an effective treatment with very few negative side effects (certainly none life threatening)is abhorent. I find it interesting that whenever the issue of legalizing cannabis for medicinal use come up, everyone who is concerned or opposed says that they are concerned for the children...huh? This will NOT make it easier for “children” to access. It will require a recommendation from a physician for a qualifying condition. Any minor would require parental permission. And frankly...cannabis is much safer and less harmful than any drug that minors are currently stuffed full of at their parents request for ADD and clinical depression.
Why anyone would oppose this legislation is questionable; Cannabis is NOT addictive, NOT a gateway drug, IS a safe, natural alternative treatment for many illnesses, does NOT have to be smoked (in fact smoking it is the least effective method of benefitting from the 60 or more constituents of cannabis) and HAS been THE most villified and demonized naturally ocurring substance on the face of the earth. It was prohibited by propoganda and apparently from some of the comments I’ve read it continues to be prohibited due to ignorance that has been ingrained in the American psyche. If you disagree...do some research and you will find that you have been the victim of many years of propoganda and outright lying. Marijuana (cannabis) is much safer than alcohol, tobacco and 99% of the manmade pharmaceuticals on the market today...it does not cause cancer, it has been proven to kill it, it does not cause psychosis...it helps fight it. God put it on earth for a purpose. Let us use a natural substance to treat illness. I’d rather put something in my body that was created by God than trust something created in a lab by man.

Follow this link http://capwiz.com/norml2/issues/alert/?alertid=13116251 to submit a form to encourage your lawmakers to support these bills and also support patients in NC that could benefit from the legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes. Lets go NC!!!

One of the reasons marijuana is illegal today because cotton growers in the 30s lobbied against hemp farmers -- they saw it as competition. It is not chemically addictive as is nicotine, alcohol, or caffeine.

Legalized AND regulated. Decriminalization of possession of cannabis is not enough! Infact, it would be very irresponsible to simply decriminalize it and leave this drug in the control of gangs and dealers. With the Mexican drug wars taking place because of America's high dollar appetite for pot, the cost is just TOO high.

And all the while, this is over a plant we could be growing in our backyards. I understand that law makers probably want to approach this matter slowly and with caution, but the ever growing number of victims of the drug wars should be prompting swift re-writing of our marijuana laws! Please hurry congress, so we'll be good to grow.

The legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes would be a move that would benefit so many people as well as the state that it would probably make too much sense for our government to do. With that said, I am the eternal optimist and hope that it does get legalized. It would allow those with illnesses to stop taking so many stupid drugs and go with this natural alternative. I for one could stop paying through the nose for class A narcotics. Suffering from MS pain, fibromyalgia, 4 herniated discs, Celiac disease, arthritis just to name a few. I am now on methadone which is not something I care to be taking but it is not by choice. I pray for this to pass so that I can stop taking the mind numbing drugs and do something that would not be illegal. Otherwise, I will have to leave this beloved state and move to Canada! I'm not sure what we can do to help this cause but if there is anything we can do, I wish we could be told.

Tax dollar$= alot

Even the Federal Gov of the United States has marijuana patients! Here is 2006 testimony from Irv Rosenfeld to the State of Michigan re his then 25yr experience as a medical marijuana patient of the United States of America.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvzX8aNwxgM

Thank you Mississippi U! Seriously though, how come this kind of information is not public knowledge and when will the politicians be pinned down to tell the truth? Especially in NC. where so much pride is taken in our medical institutions, medical education, and science.

db

Please tell me what I can do to help this long overdue cause!!! I have placed legalizing medical marijuana in NC at the top of my " THINGS THAT MUST GET DONE" list

i'm new resident to this beautiful state of nc and i have been following the marijuana bill of california closely i did not know that there was a bill here in nc but if anyone can point me in the right direction to get more involved i would appreciate it very much i for one am sick and tired of watching drug dealers profit from marijuana and taxpayers having to spend on ( THE WAR ON "MARIJUANA") cause i believe on the "WAR ON DRUGS". especially in a time where we surely dont know if this "Health Care" issue is going to be resolved any time soon people who suffer with chronic pain, depression, terminal illnesses, ect. who dont have health insurance and cant get pain medicine should be able to grow it in their own backyards the government should really be a bit more responsible on this issue than it has been and should start hearing the american constituence on this issue its no longer just hippies and long haired freaky people who believe in this we have LAWYERS, DOCTORS, SENATORS, STATE ECONOMIST, ect.