The Editor's Desk

When reading our report about Assessor Bill Postmus’s alleged addiction to meth, I couldn’t help but notice the explanation that he reportedly ended up on meth trying to deal with pain caused by scoliosis.

I thought to myself, “Pain? Isn’t that one of the arguments of allowing medical marijuana? That it helps deal with chronic pain?”

Sure enough, I did an online check and discovered that marijuana is a possible medical treatment for scoliosis pain.

Now this is interesting because San Bernardino is one of only two counties in the state that has resisted following California law and allowing prescriptions of medical marijuana within our county, arguing a conflict between the state law and federal drug laws. They keep losing their suits, but they keep trying.

So the county’s own resistance to medical marijuana use helped drive Postmus into the arms of meth. I wonder if anybody notes the irony.

Although to be fair to the county, a man operating a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay that is perfectly legal under our state law was just convicted in a federal trial and could face years in prison. But now that I think about it, I find it highly unlikely the county is concerned that individual practitioners would face federal sanctions. They’re probably more concerned about federal subsidies county agencies and organizations receive to help fight this stupid drug war.

Oh, and by the way, here’s a great Huffington Post piece about the drug war. Postmus might feel better to note that the current Democratic presidential candidate and the wife of the Republican candidate have used drugs in the past. And of course, both our current Republican president and previous Democratic president are widely believed to have also done drugs in their youth.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.