SLACKIN'

SLACKIN': We were already to post a piece that would have blow this town wide open but instead we pissed away the whole day reading one of the world's most side-splitting web sites- one that Ian Lind pointed to today called "Shit My Students Write."

Actually, on first glace we thought it was actually "Shit!," My Student Wrote.

Many are simple malaprops and there are some doozies derivative of filling the usual "1000 words or more" requirement and the titles are almost as good as the content.

So as long as we're simply referring readers for their weekend reading pleasure, check out the back and forth at Tiffany Edwards Hunt's blog at the Big Island Chronicle’s web site between Senator Josh Green- the moron we wrote about a couple of weeks ago who killed off the medical marijuana dispensaries bill- and the rest of the community, including one of the doctors "recommending" pot for simple pain and to people under 30, all spurred by a nurse's letter to Green.

The central issue is, of course, the reefer madness mentality perpetuated by addled law enforcement people like the Department of Public Safety's drug enforcement honcho Keith Kamita resulting in the presumption that marijuana should only be used for super-debilitating or terminal cases like cancer and AIDS.

As we wrote among the comments

The problem here is Dr. Green’s- and others’- fallacious presumption that MJ should only be used under the most severe of medical circumstances and not be recommended for less serious maladies. The “reefer madness” mentality of the law enforcement community has permeated the debate and allowed proponents who are not medical professionals- much less have a grasp of the relative harmlessness and effectiveness of adult use of MJ- to make contentions that are based on hysteria, not science.

MJ has a wide variety of uses including for conditions that are not life threatening or even chronically debilitating. Until we separate the mania- mania which Dr. Green is perpetuating despite his use of other medications for relatively minor conditions- we will continue to deprive patients of medicine they need and for which they have a right- under state law (see Pain Patients Bill of Rights) to have access.

We're pretty sure it won't make a difference since Green will still be chairing the Senate Heath committee where any medical marijuana bills will have to go again next year and... of course, under our perpetually broken legislative system one poorly positioned pol can perpetuate anachronistic ideas for years on end.