New Times / Letter To The Editor

Are we safer?

Bruce Mirken - Director of Communications - Marijuana Policy Project

Well, the DEA seems to have succeeded in ridding the Santa Barbara area of medical marijuana dispensaries (“No more medical marijuana on the Central Coast,” Oct. 9). So what, precisely have the Feds achieved?

Some patients who need medical marijuana will now have to do without, suffering untreated pain, nausea, vomiting, or other symptoms. But many, no doubt, will manage to obtain marijuana from drug dealers. That puts the patients at increased risk while adding to the profits of criminal gangs that control much of the large-scale, illicit marijuana production and distribution in California. And it guarantees that cash-starved state and local governments will receive no tax revenues from any local medical marijuana transactions.

Good move, guys. Californians feel safer already.