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January 12, 2010

Good News, Bad News, and an Interesting Future Confrontation

The good news is that New Jersey appears about to become the fourteenth state with a medical marijuana law; the bad news is that its sponsors have promised it will be restrictive enough to avoid the “excesses” of California’s Proposition 215, all of which begs a few questions: do they really think they would have succeeded if 215 had been rejected by California voters? Haven’t 12 other states around the nation been passing similar laws at the rate of about one a year since 1996? What is it about “momentum” that they don’t understand? How does one put toothpaste back in the tube?

Just how Jersey’s restrictive law will evolve under a hostile governor will be interesting. The match-up will be between the market for a safe, effective anxiolytic drug with a well-established, albeit illegal, infrastructure; one that grows by appealing to troubled adolescents in an age of anxiety. It will be opposed by clueless bureaucrats, still relying on the powers of arrest and prosecution in an era of diminishing tax revenues.

My money is on the safe therapeutic agent.

Doctor Tom

Posted by tjeffo at January 12, 2010 06:26 PM

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