In the year 2000, Colorado
voters approved Amendment 20 which legalized medical use of marijuana for
persons suffering from debilitating medical conditions. In response to this
amendment, Colorado Marijuana clinic and many dispensaries that facilitate
procurement of the drug to prescribed patients opened up all over the state.
The amendment also authorizes patients or their primary caretakers to possess
an identification card from the Medical Marijuana Registry to be able to use
these dispensaries. However, no patient or caregiver can possess more than two
ounces of usable marijuana with them. In addition, they cannot possess more
than six marijuana plants, only three or lesser, with flowers mature enough to
produce a usable form of the drug.
How the Colorado Marijuana Clinic manages to function,
without any issue of abuse or unlawful access to drugs cropping up is something
that needs to be seen to be believed. The dispensaries cannot be used by anyone
walking in with a wallet bulging with cash. Only patients or their caregivers
with prescriptions are allowed to enter the manually guarded area where the
vending machines are placed. Does this mean that you can steal a prescription
and get cannabis from the vending machine? No, absolutely not. There is a process set in place, to prevent
any abuse from taking place. As a patient, you would be fingerprinted and
photographed. Your identification card, which contains your profile information
is then checked and then you are issued your couple ounces of weed which
again, you can't buy more than your weekly limit!
Even though this seems like a perfectly
reasonable venture to prevent patients ailing from serious medical conditions
from going through harassment and inconvenience while buying their drugs, there
have been security lapses and thefts in the past. Given that, why then opt to
open a drug clinic? The answer is simply that drug use is not a problem rather
society as a whole does dread drug abuse and the resultant socially
dysfunctional lives. The Colorado Marijuana Clinic has been in existence for a
full nine years, and has managed to provide the much needed pain relief for
patients suffering from the throes of cancer, HIV/AIDS, epilepsy, and so on.
