Count on Supervisors to get fired up over medical pot

By JOHN MICHAEL FLINT
columns@modbee.com

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So we're expecting some sort of marijuana ID system to come before the Stanislaus County Board of Supervisors ("Marijuana ID reviewed by county, Jan. 12, Page B-1) "sometime in the next few months?" Something that's been in the works for 2½ years?

Oh, spare us. Please.

Spare us the posturing, the preening, the "Reefer Madness" rhetoric. We understand that these things are required of both elected and appointed officials in Stanislaus County, but that doesn't mean we have to like hearing or seeing it.

Actually, we've seen and heard it all before not quite four years ago. Certainly the supervisors were aware (and probably were watching) as a long parade of wretched, suffering humanity appealed to the Modesto City Council not to close the medical marijuana dispensary that provided them with relief from their misery. Council members clucked and nodded sympathetically, and several reassured the audience that all that was being considered was a limitation on new dispensaries, not the closure of one.

This was an outright lie, as the city attorney had already been directed -- by the council -- to prepare an ordinance that would outlaw the sale of medical marijuana.

No member of the council had the intestinal fortitude to look these people in the eye and say, "We are going to screw you."

You think the supervisors want any part of this?

Last September, they considered a program to furnish clean needles to addicts as a measure to cut down on the spread of diseases. County health officials and the grand jury recommended the idea; law enforcement officials opposed it. Guess who prevailed (by a 4-0 vote, Tom Mayfield being absent)? Supervisor Bill O'Brien summed it up wonderfully, saying "Illegal drug use has a risk, and making it safer promotes it." No safety net for you, pal. You play, you pay.

The Modesto City Council has set the local gold standard for pandering on this subject, and it's fair to expect the supervisors to follow suit, at least as far as California law will let them. Then again, California law didn't seem to faze our council one little bit.

At the council meeting where all the suffering people were offering testimony and pleading for understanding, I ran into an acquaintance outside the chambers. His take on the proceedings seemed to sum up Modesto's: "These people just want to get high," he said with a dismissive snort.

Yep. Go away. Suffer without complaint and die quietly, out of sight. Don't make us feel uncomfortable, and for God's sake, stop with all the marijuana talk.

Actually, the ID card concept is pretty innocuous, but it could be seen as "legitimizing" the possession of medicinal pot, though it's legal. Even here.

Which is why it seems safe to expect some drug-warrior histrionics when the supervisors finally have to address this issue.

Flint is a Modesto resident. E-mail him at columns@modbee.com.