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| De La Fuente's Marijuana Law Will Cause Hardship |
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Posted by FoM on August 02, 2001 at 09:44:38 PT By L. Campbell Source: Oakland Tribune 
This is in regard to the recent City Council meeting in which Ignacio De La Fuente quite possibly cost hundreds of Oakland's cannabis-using medical patients their lives. In 1998, the council passed the most scientifically based limit for plants for people who need to grow their own medical cannabis. The numbers used were arrived at after many meetings of a working group of various experts in the cannabis field -- law enforcement, doctors, patients and members of the public. It is based on the federal medical program in which eight patients are given a half-pound a month or more of government-grown cannabis. De La Fuente pushed through a compromise reducing the numbers of plants a sick patient can grow by half, down to 72 total. This is a total outrage. As a person who needs medical cannabis and grows her own, I can tell you this is in no way a sufficient amount. I have an average need of three pounds a year. The 72 plants is about a third of my total needed, if you include crop losses and incompetency. I am an experienced grower and 72 plants isn't enough for me. The vast majority of Oakland's patients have not anywhere near the expertise I do and would find the 72-plant limit even more of a burden. The information used by De La Fuente to arrive at the new 72-plant number was incorrect and politically motivated. Sure, 72 plants sounds like a lot to those who've never grown it, but since medical plants are grown small, coming in at about a quarter ounce each (not a half ounce like claimed), by doing a simple math calculation one can see that this is in no way sufficient. I sat through the entire council meeting. The cannabis issue was delayed until the end so that all the other citizens of the city who attended would have finished their business and not be present to witness our being railroaded. De la Fuente clearly doesn't like us dying patients, as he cut all of our speakers off at the exact time limit, even though he allowed every other speaker for every other issue -- even ones not as urgent as ours -- to speak as long as they liked, and even encouraged them. One group of activists, he allowed to cheer and clap as long as they wanted and congratulated them on their presence, courage and hard work. To us, he was curt, rude, refused to let us have our say and pushed through an untenable compromise. As president of the council, he owes every citizen of Oakland the same courtesy. It seems to me, a medical necessity patient with AIDS, that De La Fuente just wants me to go away and die quietly in a corner somewhere. Not gonna happen, Ignacio. The president of the council has a hidden agenda. He does not care about the dying AIDS and cancer patients of Oakland, the mothers and fathers with arthritis, the sisters and brothers with MS and CP, the grandfathers and grandmothers with glaucoma. Two incidents were laid before the City Council in the Public Health and Safety Committee meeting preceding this City Council meeting to illustrate the fact that the 12,000 members of the Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative were flouting the law. Neither of the incidents dealt with bona fide cannabis patients, and one really occurred in Berkeley. These were the most flimsy of excuses. The reality is that Ignacio just doesn't like cannabis. He kept insisting that he thought he had a compromise on this issue. He compromised with two directors of local cannabis organizations, but not with me or the other patients. I don't agree with this number, and neither does anyone else it directly affects. There should be another reading of the new guidelines before they are voted on by the council. Please, if you live in Oakland, and know anyone who has been helped by cannabis, call your Council person (especially Ignacio) and tell him or her that the greater community doesn't have a problem with cannabis or the current growing guidelines and that reducing the numbers of plants a patient can grow would be cruel and inhumane. AS a grower, as a person who would not be alive and writing this letter right now if it weren't for cannabis, I am telling you, the uninformed public, that 72 plants isn't enough. Please support the 12,000 members of the Oakland Cannabis Buyer's Cooperative by supporting the current Oakland guideline of 144 plants. There is absolutely no public health issue. They just want you to think there is, so that sick and dying people have to start to worry for the first time in years where their medicine is going to come from. Complete Title: De La Fuente's Marijuana Law Will Cause Hardship, Loss of Lives. L. Campbell is a medicinal marijuana user who lives in Oakland. Source: Oakland Tribune (CA) Related Articles & Web Site: Medicinal Cannabis Research Links Oakland Council To Prune Medical Marijuana Oakland May Tighten Up on Medical Pot Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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