AG Kane opposes legal weed

HARRISBURG, Pa. - Attorney General Kathleen Kane told a gathering of newspaper editors yesterday that she opposes legislation to legalize marijuana because users often move on to harder drugs.

"It's a gateway drug," Kane said in a luncheon speech during the annual conference of the Pennsylvania Associated Press Managing Editors.

"When you don't get your high from marijuana you're going to turn to something else. It's going to be oxycodone and then it's going to be heroin. It doesn't stop just at marijuana," she said. "I oppose it for criminal justice reasons."

Kane, a Democrat who previously spent more than a decade as a Lackawanna County prosecutor, did not totally close the door on medical marijuana bills but said more information is needed about what qualifies as a medical use.

"Who can get it? What are going to be the safeguards to make sure that these scripts or letters from your doctor aren't given out willy-nilly? And also ... it creates a market for selling these things and we want to make sure that that doesn't happen," she said.

- Associated Press