While Oklahoma now has more than 200,000 licensed medical cannabis patients, much of last century’s stigma still remains attached to its use. Despite their defeat at the polls last June, the forces behind the 788 Is Not Medical campaign have used their positions of influence to help deny cannabis users full participation in society. Whether impaired or not, cannabis users cannot legally drive (in virtue of our DUI laws). Employers can designate nearly any job as “safety-sensitive” and purge cannabis users from their employ. Public housing authorities and their landlords almost uniformly deny benefits to cannabis users (despite the discretion that the federal government gives to local authorities). Physicians, including most pain management doctors and oncologists, refuse cannabis users medical treatment. And the list goes on. Even though there are numerous studies that not only establish its medical benefits but also link many autoimmune and neuropathic conditions to endocannabinoid deficiencies; employers, physicians, schools and a host of other entities in our state choose instead to regard cannabis use as a moral failing or perhaps a sign of one’s political leanings rather than a treatment for physiological disorders, a treatment that was, long before cannabis was ever associated with “race mixing” in the 1930s or “hippies” in the 1960s, perfectly acceptable to the medical profession. | Lawrence Pasternack, Ph.D. is a patient advocate and one of the founders of Oklahoma Cannabis Liberty Alliance (okcla.org). He is also among the world’s leading specialists in Immanuel Kant’s philosophy of religion. Dr. Pasternack is a professor of philosophy and the director of the religious studies program at Oklahoma State University. |
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Sooner Politics
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