Traverse City Record-Eagle

Opinion

February 3, 2010

Editorial: Don't gut ballot issues

Voters who remember the multi-million dollar campaign against embryonic stem-cell research in 2008 can be excused for not believing for a moment the claims of those promoting legislation to "tweak" the ballot proposal.

State lawmakers behind the new effort -- mostly conservative Republicans -- deny their proposed regulations will curb voter-approved embryonic stem-cell research.

But one of the measures defines which embryos would be unsuitable for implantation and eligible for donation -- a direct reversal of the wording and intention of Proposal 2; researchers say the new wording would prevent the donation of embryos with known genetic defects that scientists most want to study. That's just the kind of double-talk opponents of the effort used in 2008.

The battle over Proposal 2 was widely recognized as one of the most disingenuous -- and expensive -- ever conducted in Michigan. Through e-mails and Internet postings opponents of the ballot proposal persistently circulated misinformation, including claims that stem-cell research would lead to human cloning or even human/animal cloning, that embryos not specifically donated for research would be destroyed and that the stem-cell effort was somehow linked to medical experiments in the '50s in which doctors did not treat people infected with syphilis.

Now, many of the same players want to do an end run around voters -- who approved Proposal 2, a constitutional amendment, 53 percent to 47 percent -- and the proposal itself, which said no laws can be passed that would restrict or discourage the research.

Sens. Jason Allen, R-Traverse City, and Michelle McManus, R-Lake Leelanau, need to openly oppose any such effort in the Senate, where hearings are being held on the proposed "tweaking," to undo the will of the people.

Senate Republicans are also working to amend Michigan's medical marijuana law, which was passed by a whopping 63 percent of voters in 2008.

Under the new bills, patients authorized to use marijuana would no longer be allowed to grow their own supply. The state would license up to 10 facilities to grow marijuana and the drug would be distributed through pharmacists and doctors, much like a prescription medicine.

But that's the same argument roundly rejected in 2008. Medical marijuana supporters say that because federal law doesn't authorize marijuana for medical purposes, doctors won't write prescriptions and pharmacies won't fill them, thus cutting off the supply.

While there's no doubt enforcement of the marijuana law has been bumpy, those problems can't be used as a Trojan horse to essentially gut the law after the fact.

Perhaps the lawmakers in question think the rest of us are too wrapped up in budget worries to notice; perhaps they simply don't care what the voters said.

In the end, that doesn't matter. What counts is that the people have spoken, like it or not. Any efforts to reverse their will must be stopped in their tracks.

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Editorial: Don't gut ballot issues
by Anonymous , , Wed Feb 03, 2010, 08:07 AM EST

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