A critic of State Representative Clel Baudler’s decision to get a prescription for medical marijuana from the State of California has filed an ethics complaint against Baudler.
Baudler, a Republican from Greenfield, claimed he needed to smoke marijuana for treatment of hemorrhoids. Baudler calls it a fact-finding mission and he dismisses the idea he did anything wrong.
“To investigate something, to do research?” Baudler says. “Why would you not think that was possible?”
Baudler plans to go back to California to see how the state’s medical marijuana system works and he’s not ruling out another attempt to get a prescription for medical marijuana.
“If I can think of something stupider than hemorrhoids, I might try it, but I will go back and it’s my understanding that on Redondo Beach in certain restaurants you can smoke marijuana. Can’t smoke cigarettes or a cigar or a pipe,” Baudler says. “And on the beach you can smoke marijuana, and if that’s true, it’s even stupider than I thought it was, but I’ll find out.”
Baudler says his intent was to expose the “drug dealing doctors” who are handing out the prescriptions in California.
“Everyone in (the Iowa legislature) should go to a state that has medical marijuana and see the effects of what is going on. When the Mexican drug cartel is taking over California’s distribution centers, I mean, it’s asinine,” Baudler says. “…It’s the stupidest thing that Iowans could even be thinking about, going to medical marijuana. It’s just the first step for legalizing marijuana for recreational use.”
Baudler did not fill his prescription for the marijuana, by the way. “I wouldn’t buy that crap with your money,” Baudler told reporters last week. “Absolutely not.”
Two bills which essentially would close the door on the idea of allowing marijuana to be dispensed in Iowa for medicinal purposes cleared a House committee this afternoon.
Baudler has 10 days to respond to the ethics complaint filed against him.