I am not going to debate whether or not medicinal marijuana should be
legal or not but I do need to correct Mr. Halfhill's assertion about
council members Goodman and Johnson.
Their opposition to the "referendum" (which was actually a charter
proposal and not a referendum!) was not based on opposition to medicinal
marihuana as such, but to amending the city charter to allow activity
which is forbidden by state law. And, both agreed that if state law did
allow cities to regulate the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes, it
should be done properly by ordinance and not by charter amendment.
Council Member Goodman said quite emphatically that she believes use of
marijuana for medicinal purposes should be lawful and fully supports
efforts to make it so!
Currently, the sale and distribution of marijuana is illegal in the
state of Minnesota. The Minneapolis City Charter cannot permit what
state law forbids!
Jim Bernstein
Fulton
Chair, Minneapolis Charter Commission
-----Original Message-----
I won't have time to dig out the data until tomorrow, but the
Stonewall DFL Caucus' endorsement of such people as Barbara Johnson and
Lisa Goodman are absurd, given their refusal to put the medicinal
marijuana referendum on the Minneapolis ballot. It was through my
activism in ACT-UP that I became familiar with the many medicinal
benefits of marijuana, including its benefits to both cancer
chemotherapy and AIDS patients in combatting nausea AND stimulating
appetite. They pled that medicinal marijuana was not a city issue in
spite of the PRACTICAL situation of the state legislature being
unwilling to even let medicinal marijuana bills out of committee and the
FACT that the passage of a medicinal marijuana referendum in Minnesota's
largest city would have told legislators that there was voter support
for such a measure.
Given marijuana's medicinal uses in combatting the nausea, vomiting
and poor appetite associated with AIDS, this IS a Gay issue and the
Stonewall Committee's endorsement of Council Members who voted against
putting this on the ballot is deplorable!
In the early 1980's, the Gay Survival fund ran me for City Council
two times and both times my candidacy threw the election to the
Republican. I had been reluctant to do this to Lisa Goodman in the past
since I was on friendly terms with her and knew her from her being the
local head of the National Abortion Rights Action Council and her
contacts with ACT-UP. But because of her vote against medicinal
marijuana, I may just run against her in the next City Council
elections.
Robert Halfhill [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://halfhillviews.greatnow.com
http://www.thepen.us/e-fraud.html
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you think a member is in violation, contact the list manager at [EMAIL
PROTECTED] before continuing it on the list.
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For state and national discussions see: http://e-democracy.org/discuss.html
For external forums, see: http://e-democracy.org/mninteract
________________________________
Minneapolis Issues Forum - A Civil City-focused Civic Discussion - Mn
E-Democracy
Post messages to: mailto:[email protected]
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