Why does White House’ Anti-Drug Office want Medical Cannabis Patient Records?
The Deputy Director of the National Marijuana Initiative, Dan Quigley recently sent a request to Massachusetts Health Officials petitioning for bundles of information on their 40,000+ registered medical marijuana patients.
For those of you who don’t know what the NMI is, it’s a subset of the National Drug Control Policy or in other words, people who are responsible for our reprehensible cannabis laws on a national level. Massachusetts wasn’t the only state targeted, according to the Boston Globe many other marijuana-friendly states received the same petition.
Cannabis activists on the other hand smell something fishy.
What’s Fishy about the Petition?
Firstly, we need to understand who Dan Quigley is. Quigley is a former Colorado Cop who has been outspoken against cannabis legalization for quite some time now. Meaning, that in all likeliness, a character leaning towards the prohibition side of life is not going to be looking at data objectively, especially since there are no research teams established at the time of the request.
Secondly, Jeff Sessions is still the AG and we know his outlook on cannabis. This sparked a legitimate fear for cannabis activists thinking that the government might use the information to breach the privacy of registered medical marijuana patients or worse yet, use the information to find a way to use the Federal government to crack down on the legal cannabis industry.
Thirdly, as mentioned…currently there is no purpose for the data. There are no studies on the books, there are no research teams affiliated with the request…it’s just some prohibitionist asking the States to give them data because…he wants it?
According to Quigley, the data will not be used to identify medical cannabis card holders or fuel enforcement incentives from the Federal government. He claims that activists worry too much about a “routine research project”.
Furthermore, while Quigley gives no indication on “how he’ll use the data” we do know about his incentives as he has stated; “I’ve not seen much good come out of legalization,” Quigley readily told reporters from The Globe. “When you make something that has no sense of risk or harm attached to it widely available, use rates are going to go up.”
As you can see, the ideological prevalence of his anti-cannabis stance would undoubtedly sway the data to the “negative side” as opposed to providing an objective viewpoint on the research.
This is a person who is “trying to find the negatives” in legalization to create a case to undermine the legal movement. What’s worse is that he’s asking cannabis friendly states to assist him on this endeavor.
What Massachusetts is doing about it
The Department of Health in MA decided to comply (sort of) with the request by providing the government with ages and gender, but nothing else. They also blurred out some information to ensure that the privacy of the patients is being taken care of.
I applaud MA for their approach as this is “complying” with the request but still looking out for the patients who depend on the medical marijuana program.
I don’t know if any of the other states have complied as of yet, but there is a stark resistance from the cannabis community in relation to the request from Quigley.
Why we need Cannabis-Neutral people in positions of power
If you take a close look at the people running drug policy in the US, most of them are on the “anti-drug side” of the argument. The problem with this is that the people who make and enforce these laws are looking at the problem through a filter of ideological bias.
They always try to find the negative within any legalization effort and always cite the same washed out arguments to support their stance. This is why it’s important that we need “neutral” leaders. People who don’t have an incentive to merely outlaw something because it doesn’t fit in their ideological viewpoint but who can objectively look at information and make a rational decision based on facts as opposed to opinions.
Sadly, there are very few people who fall into this category on capitol hill. This is partly the reason why the drug laws have only gotten stricter over the years, despite the fact that there is plenty of science to back up more sensible drug policies, similar to how they run their program in Portugal.
Unless we start voting out these old dinosaurs (where applicable), we’ll continue to face an uphill battle in the grand scope of legalizing cannabis nationally. The United States is already behind many other countries when it comes to their federal cannabis policies, and if we don’t change the leadership soon…we could be missing out on a highly lucrative international market that could change the very fabric of the global society.
We can change it, if we change the leadership.
OTHER STORIES YOU MAY ENJOY...
HEALTH INSURANCE AND CANNABIS, READ THIS...
OR...
