Government's fear of marijuana causes shortage even when legal

Government's fear of marijuana causes shortage even when legal

Can government approval make one individual thing good while another identical thing, only lacking this approval, is "so bad" it is worth committing murder over? No. But government's tools, fools, and cheerleaders believe their approval has this power. Immigration, the War on (some) Drugs, "gun control"... the list of examples crosses every human activity.

This is my 420th Albuquerque Libertarian Examiner column, so, appropriately enough, it deals with marijuana. Medical marijuana in particular.

Because the state of New Mexico is so hesitant to license medical marijuana growers, the supply can't meet the demand. Even for those few people (2000 in the entire state) that the state decides "legally" deserve the medical benefits of using marijuana. That's evil.

The state medicine rationers are afraid of letting "too much" be grown, for fear some might find its way into the hands of people who are without the "proper" permits. Yet, the people with the permits can't get the amount they need, so they are forced to do without or go to providers who are not government-approved; risking false "arrest" or worse. This ridiculous keystone cops melodrama would be funny if the same government that licenses patients and providers didn't, on a regular basis, murder people who use or provide marijuana without the proper permission slips. Drug prohibition kills. All prohibition kills.

A marijuana plant doesn't know if it is state-approved or not, and the paperwork makes no difference in the medicinal properties- except in cases where government-bred strains are too weak to work. A license or a permit doesn't change the right or wrong of anything, ever. And, although it is not relevant to the discussion at hand, neither does medical need or recreational desire. You own your own body and life, and can determine what goes into it, or you own nothing and are the property of another. Who owns you?