Texans Still Hope for Legalization of Medical Marijuana
Marijuana isn't legal in Texas, of course, but Timmons did what he thought he had to do. He began self-medicating with pot. Because he doesn't want the green getting him in trouble with the boys in blue, Timmons is now pushing for its legalization, he told WFAA-TV in Dallas.
"I have to support black market crime, but they're the ones forcing me to do it," he told the station. "I don't want to support organized crime more than anyone would."
If you're trying to self-medicate under the radar, Texas isn’t the easiest place to get away with it. State authorities seized a record 62,000 plants this year, including on a farm, in a plane, in a school bus, and in an underwater car.
A medical marijuana amendment is expected to be on the ballot in 2011, but the last three bills to allow it have all been voted down, despite the medicinal properties of marijuana having been recognized. Some pharmacists advocate the use of Marinol, a synthetic, legal form of THC. Timmons doesn't like it.
"Marinol just plain doesn't work, or causes worse situations than you had starting off," he said.
Not much has changed in Texas since 2007, when House Bill 2391 declared that cops had the choice of hauling smokers into jail or just writing them tickets. “Maybe you’ll get arrested, maybe you won’t” isn’t a very encouraging proposition.
Austinites may have an awesome lawyer on their side, but Timmons still might have better luck heading to the Northeast of the West. Fourteen states allow the sale of medical marijuana: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. The president even seems to support medical marijuana — at least in states where it's already legal. The federal memo said using police to do something other than locking people up was an “efficient and rational” use of resources. At this point, it’s hard to tell if he’s just making noise or actually making plans for legalization legislation.
But the White House is the “last place to look for leadership on this,” says Ethan Nadelmann, a Princeton prof turned drug policy reformer. Instead, change will be a grassroots movement starting with people like Timmons. In fact, Nadelmann is taking a page from another hot-button political issue.
“It’s starting to cascade,” he said. “Our model is the gay rights movement and their recent string of successes with gay marriage.”
But even California, heathen den of iniquity that it is, has seen a backlash—some towns and counties have banned medicinal marijuana or capped how much can be prescribed. Maybe it’s because news got out that some clinics were prescribing pot to 14-year-olds with ADHD.
And the enforcement of marijuana laws are notoriously inconsistent, even in California. Because it’s still illegal under federal law, g-men could (and do) raid ‘legal’ dispensaries.
Medical marijuana has been legal in the Golden State since 1996, but as its budget gap widens, Gov. Schwarzenegger has reportedly been considering legalizing the stuff completely in order to raise revenue.
So maybe what Tim Timmons should be praying for is that Texas goes bankrupt.
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