"Shrill, uncompromising, ideological, and personally unpleasant."
Wisconsin lawmaker Leah Vukmir (R-Gilles Custard Stand), who is by her own admission smarter than U.S. Supreme Court Justices David Souter and Sonia Sotomayor combined, opposes efforts to make cannabis available to terminal cancer patients because it's "a ruse":
I think what I resent most is this facade that you are putting forth, using people who are dying of cancer or who have other illnesses as your shield. I think it's nothing more than a ruse for you to move towards full legalization of marihuana.The bill, said the legislator, "is part of a secret plot to legalize recreational marihuana." Which she personally resents. The most.
Of course this is exactly the sort of nonsense one expects from conservative Republicans, but Vukmir is also a registered nurse.
In a letter to the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, the Commander of the Waukesha County Metropolitan Drug Unit agreed with Rep. Vukmir, and claimed the devil weed "is a marginal painkiller at best."
Remove all the unsubstantiated qualifiers and you're left with "painkiller," which is what Nurse Vukmir prefers to deny terminal cancer patients, based on her own personal resentments.
'Sanction not this palliative, on account of these idiosyncratic political phantasies that I harbor,' Vukmir is in essence saying.
Last night I happened across a teevee commercial for Cymbalta, a drug for clinical depression, which is debilitating for many people, but is not quite terminal cancer.
Severe liver problems, sometimes fatal, have been reported.So there is one legal pharmaceutical that can kill you — even in prescribed doses — whereas the main side effect of marijuana is said to be a heightened awareness of the Ren & Stimpy soundtrack.
And now the paranoiac ravings of Leah Vukmir, who has scheduled no hearings on the hepatic mortifications of Cymbalta nor any other considerably more dangerous yet currently legally available drugs.
On the other hand, Rep. Vukmir believes terminal cancer patients have a constitutional right to keep and bear submachine guns and surface-to-air missiles up and down the Avenues of Manhattan.
But they must not be allowed to smoke a joint to help alleviate their suffering. Who said compassionate conservatism went out with Bush.
Or that elected Republicans are devoted to liberty.
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