Utah about to legalize medical marijuana

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t first, the debate over medical marijuana in Utah played out as you might expect: The Republican governor declared the issue shouldn’t be on the ballot. Once it was, the state medical association steered the opposition. By August, a senior official in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was warning that residents of some states that had legalized marijuana were seeing serious “health and safety consequences.”

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But, then, something curious happened: Key opponents negotiated an agreement with the measure’s backers and other state leaders. Now, no matter what happens on Election Day, state lawmakers will be called into a special legislative session and plan to enact an alternate medical marijuana program. Unless the pact falls apart, Utah, one of the most conservative states in the country, will join the more than 30 other states that have already sanctioned some form of medical marijuana

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There remains plenty of opposition to ballot measures over medical marijuana in some quarters, including from the American Medical Association. But 22 years after California started the country’s first state-backed dispensaries, calls to make medical marijuana available to patients struggling with pain, anxiety, and other conditions have become more politically potent than ever, even in states once resistant to the idea.

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