As a registered Florida medical marijuana (MMJ) patient, I can tell you, the laws as written (at least in FL), have nothing to do with the "compassion," many of these state MMJ bills are named after.

It is all about the power of the government to control the only part of "legalization" they are interested in...the amount of money that can be made by pleasing all the top lobbyists, including Pharma, Tobacco, Alcohol, Agriculture, Physicians, to name a few, and of course the regulators themselves, with the tangled webs of regulatory burden they weave.

It's all about big contracts granted, and a top-heavy regulatory system that tremendously increases production costs which are handed down to patients. Those who write the regulations, and the connected, those who benefit from those regulations, are all in on the take.

The end result is that it corruptly keeps the medical relief provided by MMJ out of the hands of the poor and anyone else unable to maintain the high costs of repetitive doctors visits, registration costs, in addition to the cost of purchasing MMJ.

I'm with you Drutter, decriminalize it and allow us to grow our own cannabis for whatever purpose we want to use it for, medicine, meditation, or just chuckles and giggles.