I do agree with you that some people will doctor shop or fake their symptoms in order to get a medical card. However, marijuana is still considered a valid treatment for pain/sleep disorders/mood disorders and there are people who legitimately suffer from these which do benefit greatly from MM. It’s not their fault that diagnosing these things tend to rely on self reported symptoms rather than medical tests like cancer or HIV do. It seems to me that if we want to try to curb those gaming the system we also risk cutting off or making it unnecessarily complicated for those who are actually suffering to access the medication they need. Although the system is obviously far from imperfect, I’d rather have a system like this than something like NJ has where MM is legal but is so bogged down in red tape that no one can actually get it. At least some people really are medically benefiting from the way it is in Berkley.

Now as for welfare recipients getting it for free, you have to keep in mind that in this context we’re still talking about MEDICAL marijuana. So in theory this program is allowing people access to their medication who couldn’t otherwise afford it. Now you can argue that these people aren’t using their marijuana for that purpose but that’s still not arguing the actual policy. It also seemed like you were kind of equating someone who chooses to smoke all day recreationally with someone who may for instance eat a small edible before bed to get to sleep doesn’t seem totally fair.

Finally you say that marijuana (and other drugs) should be illegal because they are harmful. You go onto claim that there will be a slippery slope of even worse drugs becoming legal of marijuana is. Well what about other things that are harmful like alcohol, cigarettes, sugar, fats, cholesterol, etc. And what about the slippery slope which happens when we start banning things just because they are “harmful”? We’ve already seen this start to happen with the NYC soda ban and bans on trans fats. As a proponent of small government like yourself I’d much rather air on the side of freedom and letting people do what they want with their bodies than using legislation to control their personal lives.