Editor’s note: This commentary is by Michael J. Badamo, of Montpelier, who was editor and publisher of The Watchman. He has been in and out of Vermont politics since 1976; in 2002 ran for governor as a Progressive.
[R]ecently I received in the mail my Vermont Marijuana Registry card. I was very reluctant to apply for it although I have easily qualified for a long time. My next task was to go down to the Vermont Patients Alliance, our local dispensary, nestled against the Winooski River, for an initial appointment and interview.
I had hoped to find some compassionate and understanding people who could provide some expertise in managing my chronic condition. Instead, to my despair, I found a place as cold and sterile as an icebox, an establishment that was cranking a money machine as fast as they could turn the wheels. I found, I think, Montpelier’s newest drug dealing cartel, sanctioned by an ignorant Legislature, protected by the police, and mostly concerned with collecting cash and getting bigger.
I was greeted by the front man, call him Ed. I think he was the manager. He towered over me and handed me a clipboard with a long form on it. He said, “You have to fill this out before you can buy anything.” I said I’m not signing any forms until somebody answers some questions. He said OK and he sat down next to me.
My first question was “I want to know if my privacy is protected here. Do you accept any liability for protecting my medical privacy from disclosure to anyone?” Well, he hedged, said he wasn’t a lawyer, and blah, blah, blah, trying to lead me to believe there was at least some kind of privacy protection.
I knew he was hedging but I set the question aside for the moment and went on, telling him my whole sad story while carefully questioning him. A half an hour later, when I got around to looking at that form I quickly discovered he had lied to me on that very first question. At the end of the form I was required to sign a release of liability for anything and everything they might do to me or say about me. Intolerable. I had already signed away too many constitutional rights just to get that card from the state. I handed him back his form and walked. I don’t think I will ever darken their door again and was deeply regretting I had ever gone through the hassles of getting the card.
The biggest difference I see is that their weed is more than twice the price of weed one can pick up readily on the streets of Montpelier.
During that half hour of questions I watched the paying customers shuffling in and out, all suffering some sort of painful or terminal illness. They buy their small bit of expensive relief, drop big bucks into the wheelbarrow in the back room, and shuffle out again. I felt their sadness. It appears that that outfit schedules people at 10-minute intervals and moves them through as quickly as possible.
My friend, Ed, with the appearance of a dour and failed used car salesman, continued to try and evade my questions all while nodding his head in an attempt at personality and pretending to agree with everything I said.
He did let a few things slip through. I asked about the labels on their products. How accurate were they? Who does the testing? He puffed proudly about how they do their own testing on the latest equipment. He showed disdain when I brought up a recent study comparing several West Coast lab certified labels on cannabis products that varied wildly when tested on reliable equipment. I asked what method they used. He told me and I knew it was not the best. I imagined some half trained technician laboring in a back room over a marginal piece of secondhand equipment. Clearly, their labels are questionable and no one checks them.
I asked about what they grow and how. Of course, he wouldn’t tell me much about that. They have to protect their proprietary secrets, their privacy being so much more important than mine. I think another reason, though, is because I don’t think he really knew very much about the plant itself, this most beneficial of all human companions. It was he who asked me questions then.
I am mostly interested in the CBD/THC proportions in any cannabis product because that is the information that I need for my condition. He asked me about the possible CBD content of cannabis seed or pressed oil. It was an ignorant novice question. Of course there are no cannabinoids in seed. Then, he asked, then how do they get the CBD out of hemp? There are a number of mostly European companies that sell CBD oil extracted from hemp at very high prices. I told him they get it from the stalks mostly and it takes a very large volume of hemp to make a very small quantity of CBD oil. Lots of processing required.
Moving on, I asked if they had any kind of patient support group, some forum where fellow patients could talk and support each other. After all, this was supposed to be the Vermont Patients Alliance. No, he said flatly, there is no such group. I suppose they have good reason for inhibiting their customers from talking to each other.
And then the last nail in their coffin in my book. I asked if they had any kind of professional person on staff or on call who had experience with the treatment of epilepsy with cannabis or any kind of seizure disorder available for consultation. He looked a bit confused about that even though seizures had been a qualifying condition for the program since the law was changed to also allow his business to operate.
He said, we have a doctor on call. I’ll call him and ask. He did and was gone for a couple of minutes. Their pot doctor must be readily available. Ed returned and said, no, he knows nothing about epilepsy or seizures. So, there you go. What good could these people possibly be to me?
The only thing they appear to have is weed for sale, like any other dope dealer. The biggest difference I see is that their weed is more than twice the price of weed one can pick up readily on the streets of Montpelier.
I walked. I want nothing to do with them.
I do not believe there is a single legislator in the Statehouse, liberal, progressive or conservative Republican, who has the slightest clue as to what actually goes on down at the local pot shop. Maybe their opinions would not improve even if they did know. They all seem so proud that their “well regulated and controlled” cannabis distribution system works so well. I have little confidence that their knowledge and compassion will improve with the next crop that washes in. Tears fall.
