Andrew Cuomo: Medical Marijuana Dangers Outweigh Benefits

In yet another case of political hypocrisy: another former pot-smoker (like Obama, or former cocaine user Bush) has decided to criminalize behavior they themselves took part in. For medical marijuana patients, people who may be dying or suffering and seek a release from the pain, Andrew Cuomo will deny them the right to use the drug. Andrew Cuomo said, “The dangers of medical marijuana outweigh the benefits”. The statement contradicts itself: after all he used the word “medical”. After all, doctors have decided for the patient that the dangers do not outweigh the benefits, so they wrote a prescription. Marijuana has been consistently studied to have less negative effects than alcohol, but prohibition by former-pot smoking elite continues. For the elite, simple possession is an easy to fight charge with lawyers: they never serve time, only doing community service; but the law continues to disproportionately put African-American youth in prison and perpetuate a cycle of poverty and criminality in America’s inner cities.

Andrew Cuomo is the son of Mario Cuomo, the former governor, and intends to inherit his father’s throne. America has a tradition of political dynasties: there has always been a Clinton or Bush in the white house for the past 30 years (albeit now as the top cabinet minister: Secretary of State), and before that, the entirely assassinated or “unfortunate accidents” of one political dynasty: the Kennedy family, occurred precisely since they were viewed as a threat because of the ability of the Kennedy brothers to inherit each other’s power despite not taking orders from the political elite. Numerous bullets and plane crashes, however, stopped anyone of the Kennedy family from inheriting the throne. This is not different from the Roman Republic the USA is modeled on, where the three great houses of Rome: the Scipii, Julii, and Brutii, battled for power, even resorting to assassinations blamed on “scapegoats” or had “unfortunate accidents” to remove their political opponents.

The best example of this may be Lisa Murkowski, who was appointed by her father to his seat, she lost the nomination of the party and is mounting an angry write-in campaign: one ad in Alaska makes fun of her acting like the seat was a gift from her “daddy” (which it was, any way you look at it), and it highlights this as if it were some medieval story of a princess inheriting land. But in this off-year, it may be establishment dynasties such as hers that are out, and outsider dynasties, like the Pauls, that are in. As for the Cuomo seat, it looks like despite denying the medical marijuana community, Andrew Cuomo is likely to win the election and inherit the seat from his father.