Personally, I hope the MMJ fad dies out.
Don't get me wrong, I am glad to know that many people have been able to easily find a variety of quality buds and bud-based products. I am all for patients having the best and easiest possible access to marijuana, as well as the freedom to grow their own.
Only now I see what a waste of time and energy it is. What a distraction it actually is.
So much energy and time has to be invested in each state, just so that a few of that states' marijuana users can have semi-legal access to marijuana.
Semi-legal access that is constantly under threat from both the federal government, and revisions and additional restrictions imposed by local governments.
Dispensaries set up shop, begin supplying patients, and Wham!, one day the dispensary is shut down because for some reason or another, it has become illegal again. They change the rules mid-stream, making it nearly impossible to actually plan for having a stable business or consistent and safe access to medicine.
Many people are rightfully wary of involving themselves in these programs, even though their situation or condition may make them eligible to 'get their card'. Who wants to be on a list or registered somehow as being a user of a most hated and federally illegal drug? I understand those who remain anonymous and continue to procure their weed only on the black market.
There are those who genuinely believe that cannabis should only be available for those who use it medicinally and officially. In my opinion they can get fucked. They're just prohibitionists. No matter how compassionate they may be towards those who they feel are deserving of cannabis access, they can get fucked.
It makes much more sense to work towards winning freedom for everyone, and winning it once, instead of winning a little bit of freedom for some of us, 50 freakin times. And then having to watch those 'freedoms' be eroded and usurped and limited, state after state. Makes me sick.
And perpetuating the idea that one must needs have a doctor recommend the use of marijuana to make it acceptable is no longer palatable to me.
Medical marijuana programs do not help the industrial hemp side of the issue at all, either.
tl?;dr? I think that MMJ programs are a time-wasting distraction from the actual issues. Make it legal for everyone and patients will have no problem with safe access.