home>>>

To Benedict Arnold of MMJ, Governor Schwarzenegger

Sept 9, 2004

Dear Governor Schwarzenegger,

I’ve been watching your movies since I was a kid. Now that you are my governor I wanted to take a moment and write to you about a subject that is sensitive to me. During the recall campaign, you expressed your support for medical marijuana, which has been legal in California since being approved by voter initiative in 1996. In recent light of several DEA raids on the medical marijuana community we urge you to act now on your campaign promise. The DEA's cruelty is shocking! In one case Federal agents recently descended on Capitol Compassionate Care in the town of Roseville to raid one of the Sacramento areas only licensed medical marijuana dispensaries. A woman in a wheelchair told the DEA agents she was dying of cancer and begged them to stop. She was crying, and the agents just laughed at her. This is an example of the shameful behavior Federal agents have applied in the handling of our societies most fragile. Now I want you to think about it, if that was your mother or grandmother, how would that make you feel, her crying and them just laughing at her? I pressure you to step up and act, please.

California voters approved the medical use of marijuana in 1996, and the state legislature expanded on that with a bill passed in 2003. Currently 10 states have laws permitting medical use, and a federal appellate court ruling last December established that most state-legal medical marijuana patients and caregivers are exempt from the federal prohibition. So with all this progress why did you terminate a bill which would have removed quantity limits on medical marijuana patients in the state and which the California Medical Association and the California Nurses Association supported? Why don’t you think that terminally ill patients should be allowed to possess any quantity of marijuana deemed necessary to meet their medical needs? I know you say it would make marijuana law enforcement more difficult, but don’t you think that it would be much better to focus on making sure these sick and dying patients get the amount of medicine they need instead of making it more difficult on them.

If you are a true supporter of medical marijuana why are you not more vocal? We need you to speak out now more than ever, don’t wait while people are being made to suffer. Or do you not think this issue is important enough? I see you on the television and read about you in the news mostly speaking about the economy and re-electing Bush, who’s administration doesn’t support medical marijuana, in fact it vehemently rejects it and is mostly to blame for this situation that I write to you about here in this letter. The Bush administration has actively targeted and prosecuted medicinal marijuana patients, caregivers, dispensaries and doctors in this state, and is going after other states that have passed favorable medical marijuana ballot initiatives as well.

I hope you see the necessity in taking a strong stance and demanding an immediate end to this war on patients now, and not in being a girly man when it comes to defending the sick and dying.

Respectfully yours,

Tony Bowles
CA Marijuana Party President