MINOT, N.D. — Last week we got news that a group was forming to formally oppose Measure 2, which would legalize recreational marijuana in North Dakota.
It intrigued me that the effort is being led by an addiction counselor.
“Fargo addiction counselor Kristie Spooner filed paperwork on Wednesday, Oct. 5, to create a committee called Healthy and Productive North Dakota that will publicly oppose Measure 2,”
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I don’t know Spooner. I can’t speak to her personal motivations. But her status as an addiction counselor fighting to keep marijuana prohibition in place strikes an odd note.
Do you suppose that the status quo prohibition of recreational marijuana makes treating marijuana addiction harder or easier? We know that prohibition isn’t stopping anyone from getting marijuana, since it’s everywhere, but it does keep the use of marijuana underground.
It’s hard enough to confront addictions. All the more so when said addiction is a criminal act. Do addiction counselors want people in jail, or in treatment?
And then there’s the pecuniary considerations.
In North Dakota, getting convicted of a marijuana-related crime almost always earns you a regime of addiction treatment ordered by a judge. Our state’s lawmakers have been lobbied for years to make this the law, and among the loudest voices in that debate were addiction counselors.
And the counselors see a not-small amount of…
