While Mendocino is more progressive on this issue than most regions, it's not alone. Eight states now have laws making marijuana legally available for people using it to curb disease-related nausea, pain, or muscle spasms and to increase appetite. More state ballot initiatives are on their way, and Canada plans to implement medical-use laws this summer. That's a stricter classification than even cocaine and methamphetamine, yet there is great resistance to easing the sanctions. If we go down the path of legalizing marijuana, drug use will go into orbit.
Medical marijuana is just about buying sympathy and eroding the public stance on changing the laws.
As a result of the fear of appearing soft on drugs, many states, even those with medical marijuana laws, still maintain harsh potential penalties for offenders. The result is that state and local law enforcement is increasingly torn between the punitive federal position and the increasingly progressive will of the community. Since only about 1 in 100 marijuana arrests is made by federal agents, local authorities are playing a larger and larger part in shaping the actual patterns of marijuana use in the country. These circumstances result in large part from the AIDS crisis in San Francisco a decade ago. Public sympathy for such suffering persuaded most city officials to look the other way, and soon San Franciscans made it official, with 80 percent voting for a proposition urging the city not to penalize doctors or patients using or prescribing marijuana.