Editorial

The Mandate for Medical Marijuana

One year ago, the Mass. Medical Society (MMS) was busy lobbying against a ballot question that proposed to legalize marijuana in the Commonwealth for medicinal purposes.
Its leaders argued that marijuana has never been subjected to clinical trials like every other prescription. That its benefits are unproven on a large scale. That doctors are concerned about violating federal law.
All valid arguments. But after voters overwhelmingly approved medical marijuana at the polls, the MMS didn’t just rehash the same complaints. Rather, over the next several months, doctors found a seat at the table with the state Department of Public Health (DPH), contributing to the regulations being hammered out.
For example, when the state laid out certain conditions for which marijuana would be an acceptable treatment, the society argued for language that the condition must be ‘debilitating.’ And it insisted that physicians certifying patients for the drug must have a real, established relationship with those individuals.
In short, despite its concerns — and the MMS remains vocal about the lack of clinical trials — it recognized that, like in 19 other states and the District of Columbia, the ship of public opinion had sailed. Marijuana was now legal for medicinal purposes. At that point, the goal was simply to craft as solid a set of rules as possible to govern its use.
It’s an example worth noting by the many Commonwealth residents and municipal officials who retain serious qualms about introducing pot into their neighborhoods. But arguing against medical marijuana now is as ineffectual as arguing against casinos. They’re both definitely coming to this area.
That said, communities like Springfield and dozens of others in Western Mass. are right to establish temporary moratoriums on any economic activity related to marijuana. Why? Because the DPH’s guidelines — it will award up to 35 licenses across the state to sell the drug — don’t address every issue that cities and towns might have.
Questions abound. Are there public-safety concerns arising from new drug use in neighborhoods, even if it’s legally prescribed? What if a patient certified by a doctor to use marijuana lives in federally subsidized housing? Will marijuana be sold, as Springfield’s top health official posed, near unlicensed day-care centers? How will marijuana dispensaries be regulated on the local level? What privacy and security issues might arise?
But anyone who thinks medical marijuana is still a question of if, not when, might as well get elected to Congress and try to repeal Obamacare, to name another controversial piece of legislation that’s not going anywhere. The states that have legalized the drug for medicinal purposes have not imploded in a hazy stupor, and polls show that most people feel the benefits far outweigh the drawbacks.
Those drawbacks should be considered, though, and cities have the right to do so. But at the end of the day, like casinos, this is one bet the state — and a majority of its voters — are willing to make, and that mandate should be respected.