At the Presidential Debates, we ask, #YNotMMJ?

Posted by on October 02, 2012

Tomorrow the two leading candidates for President will meet for the first of three debates. The event, at the University of Denver, will be the only Presidential debate focused exclusively on domestic policy. The debate will take place from 9 to 10:30pm Eastern Time, and will be aired on all of the major networks as well as most of the cable news networks, so you can watch on your favorite channel.

Even if ASA member Lanny Swerdlow's petition does not result in a question about medical cannabis, patients can still be part of the debate. Twitter is a great medium for joining a broad discussion about national events, and by using a hashtag (a searchable term preceded by a hash mark, #) we can create our own conversation. For these debates, whenever the candidates dodge the issue of cannabis while discussing law enforcement, states rights, healthcare or another topic, please tweet about the omission using the hashtag #ynotmmj.

An example would be the candidates discussing health care access for all. When they discuss access to medication or beneficial treatments, if they don’t talk about safe access to medical cannabis for patients, one could tweet, “The candidates talk about access to health care, but #ynotmmj?”

We will be following the discussion on Twitter - be sure to follow us back @SafeAccess! And for other discussions about medical marijuana, try to use the hashtag #mmot - Medical Marijuana On Twitter.

See you in the Twitterverse!

Jonathan Bair is ASA's Social Media Director