Publicola Reports: The Department of Health is investigating two medical marijuana workers after a Seattle Times reporter wrote about his groovy experience obtaining a medical marijuana prescription at Hempfest.
The investigation was self-initiated by the Department of Health (DOH) on Thursday based on an Aug. 21 story in The Seattle Times, which described a reporter’s ability to get a medical-marijuana authorization based on complaints of back pain.
Tim Church, a DOH spokesman, declined to name the two health-care professionals, but said the state’s naturopathic advisory committee had opened a complaint. “It was opened as a result of media reports,” he said.
After an initial investigation into the two individuals, DOH will decide whether to close the case or proceed with a fuller probe and possibly to a disciplinary hearing, Church said. “Anytime we see something that could be outside the scope of a medical professional’s license, we take a look at it,” he said.
The hypocrisy here is equal handed. No one I know of in medicine thinks that “medical marijuana” makes much sense. While marijuana is likely harmless, it s also not a very effective drug. Other than helping restore appetite in cancer patients and having some use in glaucoma, most of the diseases “treated” by marijuana are suspect as based more in the patient’s mind then anywhere else. Objective evidence for the diseases themselves is ahrd to find, much less evidence that marijuana is a good drug,’
Of course, a lot of behavior does not make sense. That is not a good reason to criminalize marijuana. Still, we do have very good reasons to control real drugs so using “illnesses” used to justify over ruling the federal law also makes no sense. I think the “make pot legal” crowd would be a lot MORE effective if it stopped using the irresponsible “poor pot patient abused by cops” strategy.
If anyone here cares, there is plenty of this silliness about MM victims touted by Lee over at HorsesAss. or follow the marijuana tag for this post.