Ballot Initiative powerful tool, voice of the people

Most people have at one time or another felt, or feel regularly, that their voice is not heard in the political process – and even worse, that there’s nothing they can do about it.

Ballot initiatives are a powerful tool for citizens to force important matters onto the political stage. Ballot initiative 182, which will reinstate a functioning, regulated marijuana program, is a good example. The initiative will rectify the situation some 12,000 Montanans now find themselves in. These people, myself included, are medical marijuana patients who in many cases have exhausted standard treatment options for debilitating conditions. Simply put, we want some quality back in our lives and that seems reasonable to me.

Back in 2004, Montanans felt that medical marijuana should be available regardless of federal law. That initiative passed with 62 percent of the vote. In 2011 Montana politicians decided that we didn’t really know what we were voting for and chose to repeal the initiative, disguising it as reform and leaving thousands of sick people with bad options or no options.

Well, here we are. It’s 2016 and the voters of Montana are, for a second time, putting forth a voter-approved initiative on medical marijuana. Already we’re being told we don’t know what we’re voting for.

Opponents of the initiative, like Steve Zabawa, founder of Safe Montana, claim Montanans are being deceived and “the general public is not qualified to make medical decisions.” Mr. Zabawa may be right that we’re not qualified to make medical decisions - I guess in the same sense that he’s not qualified to sit on a medical advisory board for Montanans. You can thank Ryan Zinke for that. What we are qualified to do however, is to initiate change by exercising our right to invoke it. We’re not making actual medical decisions; we are making it possible for our doctors to. Zabawa’s attempt at making cannabis illegal in Montana through initiative 176, did not garner the required signatures to make the ballot.

Zabawa would have you believe that medical marijuana is a mostly made up kind of thing - just an excuse for people to get high – and that voters are too dumb to know the difference. If that were the case, why would the federal government own patent no. 6630507, which asserts that cannabinoids are antioxidants and neuro-protectants? If that were the case, why have half of the states in our country implemented medical marijuana programs in the face of federal law?

You see Zabawa, we are not deceived. We are educated. And we are fed up.

We are done living with the double standard that cannabis is a schedule one drug with no medical value when the government has patents on it and pharmaceutical companies are making medicine with it.

Zabawa states that medical marijuana is already available in prescription form through drugs like Sativix and Marinol. These medicines are based off of cannabis science/research. The problem is they only isolated one or two of the 80-some cannabinoids. When a synthetic version of cannabis is made and placed in a pill, it all of a sudden becomes medicine. But if you or I take that same plant and use it in its natural form, as whole-plant medicine, that’s not okay? There’s something wrong with that logic sir.

The growing knowledge and acceptance that cannabis is real medicine will not be stifled by this 1930’s era “reefer madness” propaganda. When I talk about medical marijuana with people, and I talk to a fair amount of them, the response is overwhelmingly positive. They don’t much buy into that old ideology. Many have a family member or friend who has received the benefits of cannabis therapy. They see it more as an alternative to ineffective pharmaceutical medication and are interested in seeing their loved ones find relief.

In just a few short weeks, voters will take to the polls and have the option to vote yes on medical marijuana through Initiative 182. If you ever wanted to send a message to guys like Steve Zabawa, or the elected officials that participated in the overreach of 2011, now is the time.

Let’s beat that 62 percent voter approval from 2004.

Let’s draw a line in the sand and say “not one step backward from here.”

Please vote yes on I-182.