Rives, altho we are on the same side of many debates, especially the Prop 19 Fiasco...I have to strongly disagree with you on this one--
The first 6 words, do not negate, nor do they conflict with the last 9--
It is a fact that cannabis helps with a wide variety of issues...some of them, ppl don't even realize they are "Medicating"!!
kmk, legislation is written with what is considered to be the most important, specific information first, and then is followed up with the broad strokes. At the time that the prop was presented, conservative voters who feared opening the floodgates to the demon weed were told that the last nine words were to avoid a laundry list of ailments for which it might help, or be found to help in the future. Do you really believe that it would have passed at the time if the voting majority had envisioned what would happen a decade and a half later? People on our side of the equation certainly hoped that it would lead to a loosening of regulation, and hopefully at some point in the dim and distant future, perhaps legalization, but I don't think that anyone dreamed the current situation would develop.
Regardless of your analysis of the support level amongst the American public, people are currently losing access at a phenomenal rate. Virtually every county in California has reeled back the limits on where cultivation can take place, plant numbers, canopy size, etc, etc. They have almost universally slammed the doors shut on dispensaries. If I recall your stance correctly from the Prop 19 debates, we both predicted this would happen as a result of the inevitable swing of the pendulum. As I have stated throughout, I don't give a damn about anyone using mj - the more the merrier as far as I am concerned. What I do find troubling is that the very people for whom the law was really intended are the ones who are being impacted the most by this tightening of the regulations.