Marijuana Policy Project

CROSBY, N.D. — It’s about time! President Barack Obama released a policy statement Monday "that it’s not a good use of time to go after users and distributors of medical marijuana in the 14 states that allow such usage, while encouraging that illegal pot operations involving violence, firearms and sale to minors still be pursued."

Each year, there are more states that show their compassion for patients by allowing the use of cannabis for medical purposes. That number has risen since 1997, and this time, the president has chimed in, as well. Politicians are finally falling in line with what science has been saying since 1974, when the first reports were published that cannabis reduced cancer without damage to living cells. Since then, there have been more and more studies showing cannabis to be one of the most useful substances of all time in the medical field.

In a day and age when the Food and Drug Administration allows legal drugs to kill people and make them unstable enough to kill others "to help them sleep" or "help them get an erection," it’s about time to stop jailing patients who use cannabis for medical purposes. Cannabis is shown to be one of the safest "drugs" (if not the safest) on the planet. The use of which is less harmful than the legal ramifications from the government. Do we really need to keep spending our tax dollars to jail multiple sclerosis, cancer, chronic pain and other patients, so that we can say we are "hard on drugs"? I don’t think so.

It’s time to make the medical use of cannabis legal in North Dakota and show that we are compassionate, intelligent people, as well, not stuck in the ’60s with "reefer madness." Let’s acquire the tax revenue from legal medicinal cannabis and stop spending our tax dollars by prosecuting and jailing medical cannabis users. It’s about time!