Link Between Medical Marijuana Dispensaries and Crime DIsputed

Link Between Medical Marijuana Dispensaries and Crime Disputed by Denver Post

An article in the Denver Post illustrates how medical marijuana dispensaries do not pose a risk to neighborhoods.

The much-ballyhooed link between crime and medical marijuana dispensaries is being disputed in an excellent article in the Denver Post. While the press has seized upon every dispensary robbery as if it were an indication that dispensaries bring nothing but crime to the neighborhoods they occupy, the article points out that robberies of medical marijuana dispensaries are so infrequent relative to other crimes committed against other, less controversial business, as to represent a vanishingly small portion of overall robberies.

Indeed, banks are robbed far more frequently than medical marijuana dispensaries, yet there is no one clamoring to shut them down. When crimes against other businesses such as shops and pharmacies are factored in, the number of medical marijuana dispensary robberies is negligible. Still, this has not stopped well-funded activists opposed to medical marijuana from hectoring city councils and the state legislature to ban medical marijuana dispensaries.

It is important to remember that medical marijuana is a medicine like any other. Because its legalization is relatively new, it remains a novelty. The proliferation of dispensaries in recent months has drawn the ire of those who do not understand the issue fully.

Cannabis has been used for thousands of years as a palliative for pain. Indeed, it is no less effective for its age and today countless patients across the country suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, and chronic pain find relief thanks to medical marijuana. We are fortunate to live in a state where the right to use medical marijuana is enshrined in our constitution, thanks to the passage of Amendment 20 in 2000. Yet for this right to mean anything, an effective distribution system must remain in place.

Expecting patients or caregivers in the patients' immediate families to effectively cultivate medical-grade marijuana is short-sighted. As mentioned in other blog posts on this site, the cultivation of medical marijuana is an exacting science best left to experts. That's why Pain Management of Colorado entrusts its grow operations only to master growers who use the latest organic cultivation methods to ensure quality medicine.

To have operations such as ours besmirched by an alarmist press only serves to push medical marijuana patients further to the margins. Medical marijuana is not shameful or even medically suspect. For many, it is the only effective relief they receive, allowing them a modicum of comfort as they grapple with the effects of their illnesses.