When Jason Nemes, a Republican legislator in deeply conservative Kentucky, proposed a bill allowing the sale of medicinal marijuana this year, he included strict conditions to prevent doctors from rampantly prescribing the drug.
After all, Nemes has no interest in actually legalizing pot: He hasn’t smoked, he’s decidedly anti-drug and, until recently, he was even skeptical of marijuana’s effectiveness for treating conditions like cancer or epilepsy.
“We’re not interested in allowing people to go and smoke marijuana just for the heck of it.” Nemes told POLITICO.
He has good reason to be worried. With nine states, and the District of Columbia, now allowing the recreational use of cannabis — and more in the pipeline — advocates on both sides of the issue say that medical cannabis programs are increasingly functioning as a Trojan horse for de facto legalization in the 40 states where the politics of legalization aren’t quite ripe yet. And that’s rapidly changing the political and policy dynamics surrounding the emerging industry.
