HARTFORD, Conn. -- A bill legalizing marijuana for medical purposes has passed the Connecticut Senate. The state joins 16 others and the District of Columbia in enacting such legislation.
State senators voted 21-to-13 in favor of the measure early Saturday, after nearly 10 hours of debate dominated by bill opponent Republican Sen. Toni Boucher.
Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who has said he supports the measure, is expected to sign the legislation into law.
The bill moves away from the largely criticized precedent set in California, proposing a complex regulated system of cultivation, dispensing and licensing.
The Connecticut bill outlines specific diseases that would be treated under the drug. It requires a recommendation from an individual's physician and establishes a system of licensing for patients, caregivers and growers.
Below, a look at other states' stances on medical marijuana:
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Those Democrats are pushing the social agenda into the 21st Century and dragging America away from old reactionary thinking that sees politicians handing out lobbyinggraftI mean checks from the tobacco industry on the floor of congress, courtesy of paymaster Boehner, the purveyor of lung cancer and emphysema incarnate.
Medical Marijuana is a first step in the fight back for Read More... taking back our rights from vested interests in the prison industrial complex, big pharma and the heavy investment in armaments and surveillance equipment from the likes of the DEA.
America is the biggest legal and illegal drug usage culture in the World per head of population and ironically, the legal drugs including tobacco and alcohol add up to ¼ of our national healthcare bill while the combination of all legal drugs sees 10’s of thousands of people lose their lives, through over dosage, side effects and allergic reactions.
On the contrary, there has never been a single life lost due to marijuana use recorded and scientific research puts the lethal dosage at 500lb consumed in a half hour sitting.
Even if marijuana is a feel good placebo, it is one that definitely works as you sure feel good and in times of illness and stress, who can begrudge somebody of the right to feel good but marijuana is so much more.
For a start, evolution has created thc specific receptors in the brain that only the thc molecule can fit, (kind of like each house key fits a specific lock). The receptors are there for a reason and there is no flaw in our genetic design and predisposition to this substance.
Marijuana has shown that when it is ingested, it can slow the rate, spread and strength of several forms cancer.
It aids in the severity control of MS and creates a state of well being.
Now to the but which is a big but indeed.
Why stop at medical Marijuana? Shouldn’t everybody be allowed to feel a dose of euphoria without the side effects and cost of healthcare, destruction to family and society that perfectly legal alcohol has?
If we claim to value personal liberty over all things and saving on the national and family budget as priorities, why do we spend billions of dollars in the pretext of protecting people from themselves and billions more in heath costs for far more dangerous legal substance abuse and why are we driving our citizens into the sphere of drug cartels and our money into the pockets of the cartel bosses?
I hope the Democrat states prove to be the precursor to full legalization and it becomes as much a war for sanity and liberty as the Republican war on women has become their cause.
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By By SHANNON YOUNG 05/05/12 02:42 AM ET