'Become a criminal or watch our children suffer': Despite pleas for sick kids, bill to legalize...

[Omaha Steve]

Source: Omaha World Herald

By Joe Duggan

LINCOLN — Parents desperate to help their severely ill children walked away angry and in tears Tuesday night after Nebraska lawmakers did not advance a bill that would have legalized medical marijuana.

“We learned our kids have a price, and obviously they’re not worth it,” said Shelley Gillen of Bellevue, whose son, Will, suffers dozens of seizures every day.

After four hours of debate that was at times passionate and at times clinical, supporters of Legislative Bill 643 came up three votes short of what they needed to break a filibuster. Senators voted 30-15 to cut off debate, which means the bill is dead for the year.

Some senators predicted supporters of medical cannabis will now try to launch a voter petition drive. But they will face the challenge of raising the roughly $1 million dollars it costs to collect enough signatures in time to get the issue on the November ballot.

FULL story at link.

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Full title didn't fit: 'Become a criminal or watch our children suffer': Despite pleas for sick kids, bill to legalize medical marijuana narrowly fails in face of filibuster

Read more: http://www.livewellnebraska.com/health/become-a-criminal-or-watch-our-children-suffer-despite-pleas/article_232d250a-fbfc-11e5-82f8-c32733b334d4.html

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I talked to my State Senator Crawford about this and the death with dignity bill a couple weeks ago. Glad she voted for it.

How they voted
Yes, 30; Baker, Bloomfield, Bolz, Campbell, Chambers, Coash, Cook, Craighead, Crawford, Ebke, Garrett, Haar K., Hadley, Hansen, Harr B., Hilkemann, Howard, Kolowski, Krist, Larson, Lindstrom, McCollister, Mello, Morfeld, Murante, Pansing Brooks, Schilz, Schumacher, Smith, Sullivan

No, 15; Brasch, Fox, Friesen, Groene, Hughes, Johnson, Kintner, Kolterman, Kuehn, McCoy, Riepe, Seiler, Stinner, Watermeier, Williams

[Roy Rolling]

1. Like parents have a choice

Of course they choose to become criminals. Some of us have faced that decision. Either continue with three or four hospitalizations every year for a cannabis-treatable disease their children are victims, or become a criminal and not hospitalize a son/daughter ever again.

My son has not been this good in years, that's what parents do---they take risks for their children.

[Locrian]

2. willful ignorant brainwashed idiots

Fuck every one of these ignorant assholes. Anyone claiming "danger" at this point is willfully ignorant and not arguing "from the head" but from a biased brainwashed point of view. Someone needs to investigate if any of these idiots has ties to business or organizations benefiting form maintaining the current drug war madness.





“I hate to say this colleagues, but some of you are just stuck on stupid,” Garrett said of those he characterized as unwilling to consider arguments for the bill.

Indeed.

[mnhtnbb]

3. We lived in Nebraska for 6 years.

When we left the state, I said they should make "Ignorant and Proud of It" their State Motto.

Damn, but there are some really, really, stupid people in that state and they are determined to remain stupid, too.

Omaha Steve is not included!

[jwirr]

4. I am very sorry to hear this. When I lived in NE in the 70s

they were far ahead of a lot of other states in their attitude toward disabled children. They were already working to move them out of the institutions and into the communities. I wish that they would have cared enough to pass this bill.

Does NE still have the 10 day fine for using MJ as a recreational drug? At that time they were one of the most reasonable states when it came to sentencing.

[mrmpa]

5. They make up a lie.....

"marijuana leads to heroin addiction" & people believe this crap. A big repeater of this lie are those that run rehab facilities. They make a fortune from illegal drug use & they don't want anything to be legal.

[bearssoapbox]

6. "Stuck on Stupid"

That would describe most of the Teabaggers/reTHUGliCONS.

[Scuba]

7. Why would it cost $1M to collect signatures for a petition? We got over 1M signatures to recall ...

... Scott Walker without spending a cent.

[Omaha Steve]

8. If it was just numbers it would be easy

Nebraska is mostly rural. To get enough signatures in rural counties means paying circulators.

http://www.sos.ne.gov/elec/pdf/init_ref.pdf

The law states: In addition, signatures must be collected from 5% of the registered
voters in 38 of the 93 Nebraska counties. This distribution
requirement applies to both initiative and referendum efforts.

[Scuba]

9. OK, we had 30,000 volunteer circulators. If you gotta pay circulators I guess there's a cost.

Wisconsin is mostly rural too.

[potone]

10. I feel very sorry for those parents...

and for anybody else who needs cannabis for a medical condition. I have used it for pain following a spine injury and it helped enormously. Ironically for those who still believe that it leads to the use of stronger drugs, I chose to use it because my pain doctor wanted to put me on an opiate, and I refused to take it. I am lucky that I live in a state where it is legal.

The only consolation that I can offer is that the tide has turned against the prohibitionists, and it is only a matter of time before it is legal in all 50 states, at least for medical use.

I grew up in Nebraska, many years ago, so I know what the mindset is like there. It will just take public education to change people's minds, and thus to force the government to legalize it. The good thing is that the people there, while conservative, have a strong libertarian streak, so it should be possible to get them to see that this is a governmental over-reach that harms sick people.