Thursday, January 02, 2020

C'mon, Florida, You're Behind the Times

Yesterday, Illinois became the tenth US state with legal sales of marijuana for not-necessarily-medical use. The state's governor, JB Pritzker, also pardoned more than 11,000 drug war POWs whose convictions were marijuana-related.

But Florida is still screwing around -- CBD extracts for epilepsy patients were legalized in 2014, a broader medical marijuana regime in 2017, the licensing and opening of dispensaries went pretty slowly until recently, and getting a prescription/medical buyer card costs a couple of hundred dollars a year and has to be done through specific physicians. In other words, a pain in the ass that I won't bother with.

Fortunately, marijuana seems to be a very low law enforcement priority in my neck of the woods. It's not unusual to smell burning weed, or even to see someone light up in public, so I'm guessing the cops aren't on the hunt for users. If I want it, I can get it without much trouble or worry.

But it should just be formally legal by now.

I've never been a huge pot fan. Smoking it makes me cough far worse than tobacco, and the high isn't usually much to speak of (there have been exceptions). But if it was legal for me to just walk into a store, browse the goods, and buy whatever struck my fancy, I'd probably take a bigger interest in its apparent impact on things like blood glucose levels, chronic pain, etc.

I guess we'll get legal recreational cannabis in Florida when Disney gets around to launching its own line of products.

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