Summary: Embattled Cathedral City mayor Kathleen DeRosa’s hurling an F-bomb at a constituent certainly has the community all a-twitter (to say nothing of Facebook as well), but perhaps the most disturbing bit of information to come out of Monday night’s candidate forum was that DeRosa’s closest incumbent council ally, Charles “Bud” England, has no apparent problem denying medical marijuana to sick and suffering constituents living with such diseases as HIV/AIDS and cancer. Apparently, upholding discredited drug war ideology is more important than relieving suffering and enhancing quality of life.
By: Paul S. Marchand
When Cathedral City mayor Kathleen DeRosa hurled an F-bomb at one of her constituents, restauranteur Mark Carnevale, after Monday night’s candidate forum at DiGS, a local gay bar, many in the community were shocked, but not surprised. Nor has anybody been surprised at the efforts of DeRosa, her fellow slate candidates, and her supporters to try to fabricate a damage control narrative in which DeRosa appears as the victim. Such tactics are old hat for her.
Though the discussion over the last roughly 36 hours has been about DeRosa’s un-mayoral conduct, one of the more troubling substantive exchanges of the evening involved the way in which DeRosa and her slate responded to a question concerning Cathedral City’s ban on marijuana dispensaries.
At the same time the Los Angeles city Council voted to do away with that city’s ban on medical marijuana dispensaries, the so-called DeRosa Dream Team, consisting of herself, former police chief Stan Henry, and incumbent councilmember Charles “Bud” England, either hemmed and hawed on the issue, or in England’s case, chose to echo the thoroughly debunked federal position that medical marijuana has no therapeutic value of any kind.
As I noted in my previous post on the subject, spending scores or even hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to shut down a single marijuana dispensary makes no sense at all. Given Cathedral City’s dire financial condition, such expenditures are even worse than foolish, they are inexcusable. If Sacramento or the feds want to spend their money taking up the cudgels, they are free to knock themselves out, but --as I noted last time-- we should not be carrying water for either.
(Full disclosure: as a councilmember, I did vote for an initial moratorium, based on my view that we needed some time to develop a considerate and compassionate policy on medical marijuana. My agreement to the moratorium was subject to the caveat that it be short and have a closed end, as required by California law. I did not agree then, and I do not agree now, to the city’s efforts to use ongoing, back-to-back moratoria and statutory bans to prevent Cathedral City residents from ever having legitimate and safe access to medical marijuana, as guaranteed under Proposition 215.)
What disturbed me ---and, I expect, many if not most of Monday night’s heavily LGBT debate audience--- was Mr. England’s apparent ignorance of or indifference to the overwhelming body of both anecdotal and scientific evidence that medical marijuana really does have legitimate therapeutic value, particularly for people living with cancer or HIV/AIDS. By speaking as he did, Mr. England undercut his own claims to be “gay friendly,” and also demonstrated how sadly out of touch he is with the constituency he wants to represent for another four years. It was hardly surprising that Mr. England’s position was not well received.
Perhaps Mr. England has not known enough people living with HIV/AIDS to have any experience with how medical marijuana can alleviate suffering, particularly among those with HIV wasting syndrome. Perhaps Mr. England has been insulated from the reality of cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy and experiencing nausea so awful that they cannot even eat, but who benefit from the nausea-suppressing an appetite-stimulating properties of medical marijuana. To deprive the sick and suffering of reasonable access to a natural product that can alleviate such suffering is uncompassionate at best and downright hardhearted at worst.
We cannot afford to elect officials who believe in a grimly reductionist “you’re on your own” approach to governance. Democratic bodies politic survive only as and to the extent that "we all are in this together"; both sound policy and basic decency demand that we not turn our back on the sick and suffering among us. As the English priest and poet John Donne wrote, nearly four centuries ago, “[a]ny man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind.”
Inasmuch as we are indeed involved in one another, no holder or seeker of public office should ever sacrifice the sick and the suffering on the altar of a foolish drug policy conceived in folly and executed in meanness.
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Paul S. Marchand is an attorney who lives and works in Cathedral City, California. He served two terms on the city Council, and is running again for a seat on that body. Having worked with HIV/AIDS and cancer patients, he has seen at first hand how medical marijuana can help relieve suffering in such patients. The views expressed herein are his own, and are not necessarily the views of any organization with which he may be associated, and they are not intended to constitute, and should not be construed as constituting, legal advice.
To learn more about Mr. Marchand’s campaign, please visit www.PaulMarchand2012.com.
