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Handling medical pot on campus

September 22, 2011
	<p>Laimbeer</p>

Laimbeer

Read any newspaper in Michigan and you will see stories about the use and distribution of medical marijuana fill the pages almost every day. Eastern Michigan University’s ban of medical marijuana on its campus on Tuesday is the latest headline in this trend.

Although medical marijuana is allowed in the state of Michigan, federal law still lists it as illegal, and Eastern Michigan University, the University of Michigan and Oakland University follow federal law. MSU and Eastern Michigan’s medical marijuana policies on campus are slightly different from other the other universities’ policies.

If any MSU or Eastern Michigan students are registered medical marijuana users, their schools will help accommodate their needs by waiving their requirement to live on campus or by ending their housing contract so they are able to move off campus without penalty.

Some universities’ decisions to ban medical marijuana from the campus completely is a terrible way to handle the situation. It puts medical marijuana patients in the category of people who illegally use marijuana. It is better to acknowledge the fact there are and will be medical marijuana student-users at any college or university. And it is important for higher education institutions to help them out by not trying to categorize them.

I think there is no problem with people who attend college and are prescribed to use medical marijuana.

The real problems are with what patients do with the drug once a doctor gives them a medical marijuana card and what approach doctors should use when dealing with a medical marijuana patient.

Colleges in Michigan should be cautious about medical marijuana because it would ruin their reputations if they had a drug business in their dormitories or in one of their classroom buildings.

According to the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, there are about 80,829 Michigan residents who are certified to receive medical marijuana. Out of the 80,829 Michigan residents who receive medical marijuana. The real number people want to know is how many of those thousands of prescribed users are abusing the drug.Those statistics, unfortunately, are difficult to compile, but they possibly could be cut down by the doctors who prescribe the drug.

If a doctor feels a patient requires the use of medical marijuana for his or her illness, then that is perfectly fine. But for patients to keep their medical marijuana card, they should have to come back for check-ups every so often to make sure the drug is helping them with their illness.

It is questionable when patients comes in to get their illness checked out and they are prescribed a medical marijuana card and then never bother to make another appointment for the next eight months.

That action leads people to think patients are abusing their medical marijuana card use, which is why doctors need to step up and stop some patients’ medical marijuana use. Some doctors and their office staff need to take part of the blame if a medical marijuana user gets arrested for selling the drug or abusing the use of it.

Not all people take responsibility for their actions, but with certain drugs like medical marijuana, morphine and Vicodin, someone else has to step in and make decisions for the drug users, even if that means having to make a decision to take them off the drug.
The problem with doctors trying to keep a tab on their medical marijuana patients is that patients could schedule a monthly checkup and still be cleared to use the drug if it is helping their illness, but these registered users still could be selling it or abusing the use of it. The real answer to this problem won’t be resolved until doctors have some type of test for chronic pain to determine whether or not medical marijuana is helping the patient.

I understand that drugs used to relieve bodily pains can be addicting because no person wants to feel pain constantly, but there have to be some rules or decisions made by doctors to cut their patients off from these drugs if they feel the patients are abusing it, especially the patients who don’t have chronic pain.
Pain after having surgery is not a good reason for a person to need medical marijuana, and even people with Crohn’s disease are not supposed to smoke cigarettes or marijuana, depending on what form of Crohn’s they have.

The use of medical marijuana will always be a concern in society. The best way to deal with medical marijuana is to accept it because whether universities ban it completely from their campuses or provide accommodations for users, it is now a part of our society and it is not going away.

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