Back in 2009 both the state house and the senate passed the “compassion” bill that would allow seriously ill people to legally smoke marijuana to ease their pain. Many other states were dealing with the same issue, and a number of them passed it. But here in New Hampshire, our Governor John Lynch vetoed the bill. The House vote was strong enough to override it, but the vote in the Senate was two voices short, and it failed.
This year the House again passed the bill with a vote of 221-96. The bill went to the Senate in August 2011 and they decided to table the vote, which means that it is still alive but it will have to wait to be brought up at a later meeting, which means that it probably won’t make it onto the docket anytime this year. Some say that it was the threat of a veto from the same Governor John Lynch that made the senators afraid to take the vote.
The problem seems to be that most politicians do not vote according to their thoughts or their convictions, but rather according to what they think will help them to keep their jobs. It’s a sad fact that public opinion is everything.
But it could also be true that some of the Senator aren’t so sure about whether this is a good idea for New Hampshire. It’s all well and good to say that it’s a compassionate thing to do, but there are a lot of questions that have not even been answered in the states who have already legalized medical marijuana. Questions such as: who is allowed to grow it and who is allowed to sell it? How much? Who is allowed to use it? For which reasons? How do we convince them not to drive while using it? What do employers do – are they still able to do drug testing? Do they have to allow employees to work while under the influence of marijuana, or do the “patients” have to wait until after work to smoke it? Over in Michigan a man is fighting to keep custody of his 10 year old daughter because he tested positive – and he is using medical marijuana to help control his seizures. Are we ready to determine how to handle those questions here?
And should the preparation and sale be taxed? And who should do the quality control to make sure that it’s the better marijuana and not the bad stuff that we occasionally read about in the news?
Maybe it’s all about politics and not wanting to lose the older vote or the conservative vote or some other vote. But maybe it’s because not all of the ducks are in order yet. Perhaps during the next few months the proponents can work all of that through.
