Yesterday dozens of medical marijuana supporters rallied outside of the Oklahoma State Capitol building. Oklahoma State Senator Connie Johnson joined them. Connie Johnson has been trying to get medical marijuana legislation off the ground in Oklahoma for 8 years now, but her efforts have not gone very far unfortunately.
“Policy-makers are behind the people when it comes to understanding the value of treatments from medical marijuana,” she said, according to OKC Fox. According to a SoonerPoll, “Oklahomans are ready to consider marijuana for medicinal purposes and decriminalization. The poll had support for medical marijuana at 71% and support for decriminalization at 57%. The poll did not ask about legalization.”
I often dream of a day when I live in a country where the will of the people is respected when it comes to marijuana. For being a democracy, America does a poor job of letting the people decide it’s marijuana laws. If 71% of Oklahoma’s citizens were in support of any other policy change, it would happen overnight because politicians would jump on the bandwagon and claim the idea was there’s. Why is this not happening with medical marijuana?
Under current Oklahoma law, if you get caught once with any amount of marijuana you are looking at 1 year in jail. If you get caught again, with any amount, you could be looking at up to 10 years in prison. No one should ever have to look at a penalty like that for marijuana, especially patients. If you live in Oklahoma, contact your legislators and tell them to have some compassion!
