Ryan ChartrandIn a time when the “war on drugs” can be considered a huge waste of time and resources and smoking pot is considered mainstream, how does the owner of a community-welcomed medicinal marijuana dispensary get arrested and convicted of multiple felonies?
As the Mustang Daily reports on the front page today, Central Coast resident Charles Lynch was found guilty last week on all federal counts for selling medical marijuana from his dispensary in Morro Bay.
This case could prove to be the precedent case when it comes to medical marijuana laws in California and states’ rights. Federally, selling marijuana is illegal in any way, shape or form. Under state law, selling it for medical purposes is legal. But of course, federal law trumps.
Yet, we believe that the issue at stake in the Lynch case is not federal law versus state law, but personal liberty versus government regulation. This case is about so much more than the legalization of medical marijuana. It’s about legalization of whatever substances people freely choose to consume and for whatever reasons they choose to do so.
In criminalizing the use and sale of marijuana, the government has assumed the role of an overbearing parent, telling consenting adults exactly what they’re allowed to do with their own bodies.
In a free society an adult should have the right to make his own decisions about his personal health and happiness. He may choose to drink alcohol or not. He may choose to smoke cigarettes or not. Some people choose to consume vast amounts of caffeine (aspiring young journalists who work until all hours of the night to put out newspapers like this come to mind). Is drinking coffee a personal choice? Yes. A health hazard? Perhaps. Illegal, or infringing on anybody else’s rights? Certainly not.
So why is marijuana any different?
The federal government has apparently decided that it knows better than individuals themselves how they should treat their bodies, and it invests billions of dollars annually in that belief. According to the FBI’s Web site, a record 829,625 people were arrested for marijuana violation in 2006; of those, 89 percent were arrested for possession only. Just this year, the United States has spent over $31 billion in taxpayer money fighting this victimless “war on drugs.”
While there are only a handful of dispensaries in the tri-county area, mostly in Santa Barbara according to www.medicalmarijuana.com, their existence is protected under state law. In fact, Lynch and his facility were welcomed into the Morro Bay community with open arms and as a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Not quite the behavior of a sneaky drug trafficker.
Despite Prop 215, the Drug Enforcement Agency, a federal agency, still investigates and raids dispensaries, which begs the question: what’s the point of a state law if it doesn’t protect anyone?
If dispensaries are technically legal, why are they facing such harsh consequences? Just recently, Santa Barbara passed a city ordinance to allow them, but the two dispensaries face being shut down because of their locations. With the closing of Central Coast Compassionate Caregivers, there are no available medical marijuana facilities in SLO County, though there is a delivery service.
At Lynch’s trial, the prosecution did its best to paint him as a seedy, hardened drug dealer, selling his crime-inducing substance to derelict addicts.
Yet, the San Luis Obispo New Times reported the former software engineer as “generally unimposing, and unfussy, even in a suit,” and someone who doesn’t seem like “the kind of man who will do well in prison.” The Morro Bay mayor and city attorney have both testified to his upstanding character.
One of Lynch’s clients was a young man recovering from bone cancer who finally turned to marijuana to relieve his pain, after numerous other medications did nothing. He visited Lynch’s facility with his parents, after a Stanford oncologist prescribed cannabis for pain relief. Instead of helping Lynch’s case, the 19-year-old witness’ experience only helped land him a charge of trafficking drugs to minors.
The young witness was kicked from the stand and his testimony struck from the record after he used the words “medical marijuana”: a phrase not recognized by the federal court. This is despite California’s well-known Proposition 215: the Compassionate Use Act which legalized medicinal marijuana. There are dozens of dispensaries all over the state serving those whom physicians have decided would benefit from marijuana, including cancer patients and chronic pain patients.
Lynch faces sentencing that could result in up to 85 years behind bars, and for what? Who has Lynch wronged? Not the patients, who report a better quality of life after getting access to medicinal marijuana; not the general public or his community, which welcomed him and never complained during his two years of operation.
There have been no reports of an army of pot-addled crazies roaming the Central Coast or an outbreak of drug wars or gang violence since Compassionate Caregivers opened its doors.
It comes down to harm, and smoking marijuana is a victimless crime. Time and resources would be much better spent attempting to put real criminals behind bars, such as drunk drivers and child molesters.
We have never smoked pot and have yet to find a compelling reason to do so. But we respect the fact that any other person’s decision to light up is exactly that – a personal decision, and one that in no way infringes on our lives or causes harm to any other.
Charles Lynch attempted to operate his business as a legal and licensed business, providing his product to the customers who sought it. Whether or not those customers all enjoyed marijuana for purely medicinal purposes is beyond our speculation, and not relevant to the issue at stake.
What is relevant and important is that legalizing marijuana is about granting people the right to make their own decisions regarding the substances they use in their own bodies.
Every free nation is always in a constant battle to preserve freedom, from oppressors both near and far. In this case, the story of a Morro Bay man convicted for selling a drug that shouldn’t be illegal in the first place hits awfully close to home.
Marlize van Romburgh is the editor in chief and Giana Magnoli is the managing editor of the Mustang Daily.