Friday, March 30, 2007

Sick

38-year old Jack Branson has been fighting HIV for 20 years. His doctor recommended that he smoke marijuana in order to keep his medications down. "That or pick out a hospice which you'd like to die in," Branson alleges the doctor told him. She couldn't put her recommendation in writing because she works at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center. Medical marijuana is legal in Colorado, but the university is federally-funded, and so she could lose her job.

Long story short, Branson grows the pot and is arrested. Next week, he will go to court, and the jury will decide if he goes to jail for growing marijuana for medical purposes in a state in which medical marijuana is legal. He plans to commit suicide rather than go to jail. Ever vigilant, the nation-state defends our collective responsibility to suffer and die in order to maintain the authority of the nation-state.

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