If you don’t think about it for too long – any more than the 152 seconds it takes to read it – the April 15 editorial by the Tacoma News Tribune Editorial Board (TNTEB) might initially appear somewhat reasonable.
“Legalize home delivery of marijuana.”
After all, think of the “frail, sick or immunocompromised” the TNTEB opines, who cannot access cannabis during the coronavirus but what they must jeopardize their already tenuous existence by having to drag themselves out of their homes in order to get their drugs.
A drug – marijuana – proven to worsen symptoms related to COVID-19.
And then what?
“With a very real shortage we are facing with ventilators, hospital beds, and other medical supplies,” writes Dr. Kevin Sabet, president of Smart Approaches to Marijuana, “we must do all that is within our power to lessen the stress this will place on our healthcare system.”
So, lets deliver it to the door?
Delivering marijuana to the door with the chance the consumer may then darken the door of an emergency room, exacerbates an already compounding problem.
But, of course, “the frail, sick or immunocompromised” is, for the TNTEB, just an intentionally misrepresented proposition.
It’s the money to be made.
Despite the misery that is caused.
Like the “hackers and foreign adversaries capitalizing on the chaos” of the coronavirus, for the TNTEB to use the panic to perpetuate and promote a product known to impair mental abilities and dispositions “with a whole host of effects on learning and cognition that other drugs don’t have” according to Jodi Gilman, a Harvard Medical School researcher, is at best irresponsible and reprehensible and despicable and unbelievable, it is at worst criminal.
In a not even thinly veiled postulate, the TNTEB writes, “Washington lawmakers should finally get serious about home-delivery legislation. Medical marijuana would be a natural place to start; there should be no hurry to extend it to able-bodied recreational users.”
Did you read what I just read?
“Start” with those on meds, but “no hurry” with the rest of the potheads?
Home-delivery legislation that would put medical marijuana at the threshold of the home is, by extension and in time – to use the TNTEB’s own words – to cross that threshold into the smoke-filled, able-bodied recreational users’ homes as well.
Likened to a door-to-door salesperson literally sticking their foot in the doorway, the TNTEB’s position on pushing marijuana is just that: a foot in the door.
And then what?
Researcher Yasmin Hurd wanted to know if marijuana could be passed on to the next generation even if the offspring had never been exposed to the drug.
In an interesting experiment which you can read about here, “rats with drug-using parents pushed the lever more than twice as much.”
For what?
“They wanted the heroin more.”
‘Yes, by all means, let’s get pot placed on the porch,’ said no sane mind ever.
Even the rats get this.
Image source: New York Post “More parents are smoking weed”
Mr. Anderson,
Do you realize the year 2020, is a special year for you and me? That’s right. We have been disagreeing for 30 years now. Twenty of those years have been recorded for posterity in this newspaper, The Suburban Times.
We deserve a compliment in that with 30 years of disagreements, never did either of us throw the first punch of violence or meanness. There was that time back in 1998 when you wanted to punch me in the face, but you didn’t. We have always kept our disagreements civilized.
Once again, I am emphatically disagreeing with you. Your article today is narrow and one-sided. It is unconscionable that you refuse to include the positive virtues for allowing home delivery of marijuana. A well-written article should always include the pro and the con. Yours is strickly a con article.
To help your readers understand both sides of this issue I am going to present the Top Five reasons for allowing home delivery of marijuana.
Reason #1:
Reason #2:
Reason #3:
Reason #4:
Reason #5:
David, I guess you win on this argument. I cannot think of a single reason for allowing home delivery of weed.
I can add to your con list though.
Con #1: Allowing home delivery of dope will expose weed customers and their neighborhoods to “returnable rats ripping them off because they know there are money and dope inside. Having been a police officer, I know better. I do not ever use even food delivery to my home.
Con #2: If the delivery person gets into a car wreck causing the car to flip over and catch fire, all that burning weed intended for home delivery will make the firemen, police officers, and neighbors high.
Con #3: Once an individual lands a job as a home delivery weed driver, they can add a side business by delivering their own inventory of heroin, meth…you name it.
Con #4: A weed customer could suffer the consequences of a shoot out as armed robbers rip off the weed delivery driver and then go for the home owner’s money they know is inside the house.
You win this argument, David. I too am against home delivery of marijuana.
I wonder if the members of the TNTEB were high on marijuana as they made the decision to promote pushing society down this slippery dope slope?
Joseph Boyle
Thank you, Joe, for mixing the truth with humor. Here is more of the same.
“There are a lot of people stuck in their houses right now,” said Ryan Moran, operations manager for the Flower Co. which provides next day pot-to-the-porch delivery in San Francisco.
In the article for the Los Angeles Times by Susanne Rust, Carolyn Cole, April 18, 2020 the authors said “Next Day LA” is next up for expansion of Moran’s booming business.
Theorizing about the growth in sales (up 100 percent according to Moran), he said, “So, what are they going to do? They stream Netflix … and get high. Or watch movies on Amazon … and get high. Or play board games … and get high. There’s not much else to do.”
Now that’s so inspiring.
Then there’s John Casali, owner/operator of a cannabis growing farm in Garberville.
Did he himself consume cannabis, reporters from the LA Times wanted to know?
Heck no. How would he get anything done?
“It makes me too relaxed. I’d never keep this farm going if I smoked it,” he said.
Ain’t that the truth.
I think the author David Anderson is totally out of touch with reality.
People don’t want it delivered for Covid-19. They need it delivered for other conditions they already have like cancer, pain or mental health. Delivering it would keep people from congregating in lines in stores.
Either way, this may a good reminder to some medical card holders that they can and should grow their own. Many patients are self-sufficient and don’t need to spend money in the state stores anymore, anyway.