Search Results: parental rights (8)

Colorado Supreme Court courtroom.


A group of Colorado activists have filed a request with the Colorado Supreme Court to consider the rights of patients when they review — once-and-for-all — whether or not medical marijuana patients have a right to use cannabis and whether or not the federal controlled substances act supersedes state medical marijuana laws.
It’s a complicated matter that has arisen several times, though most recently it stems from the 2012 drug-test-failure firing of a paraplegic DISH Network employee who was licensed by the state of Colorado to use medical cannabis.

Moms for Marijuana International
Billy Fisher and daughter.

to various press releases, Billy Fisher was in the middle of a custody battle with the child’s biological mother who Billy Fisher argues was creating n unsafe environment for his daughter.
The story isn’t entirely clear, but based on Mom’s for Marijuana International reports, it sounds like the baby and mother are in contact with a man who allegedly sexually abused the mother when she was a teenager. Understandable then whey a father would want to remove his daughter from that type of situation. But because Billy Fisher is a registered medical marijuana patient and cannabis activist in Washington, he has been denied custody and can only see his daughter during supervised visits.

Photo: Online Athens
Hen-hearted Washington Governor Christine Gregoire: “I cannot take the chance that state employees will be prosecuted”

​Citing supposed concerns about arrest of state employees (which has never happened in any medical marijuana state), Washington Governor Christine Gregoire on Friday vetoed almost all the significant portions of a bill which would have expanded safe access to cannabis and arrest protection for patients in the state.

“We cannot provide protection to one group of people — patients and providers — by subjecting another group of people — state employees — to arrest and prosecution,” Governor Gregoire told reporters at a 2:30 p.m. news conference on Friday.
“As governor whose number one priority is the well being of this state, I cannot take the chance that state employees would be prosecuted,” she said, even as she made sure that seriously ill patients would continue to be prosecuted. “What would you tell them if they are?”

Photo: Jane Meets Jane
The Washington Legislature is on the verge of gutting the state’s medical marijuana law, approved by voters in 1998. It’s time to make a phone call.

​Here’s What You Can Do
The Washington Legislature started this session with a very good medical marijuana dispensary bill which would have finally provided safe access and arrest protection for patients, 13 years after voters legalized the medicinal use of cannabis in the state.
You’ll notice I said “started this session,” because the bill is no longer a good thing. In fact, as currently amended, the bill has sadly turned into an enormous negative for the medical marijuana community. 
“In its current state, the bill is set to gut our voter-approved medical cannabis law,” said Ben Livingston of the Seattle-based patient advocacy group Cannabis Defense Coalition.

Graphic: THC Finder

​A coalition of lawmakers in the Washington House and Senate has introduced legislation seeking to expand the state’s 12-year-old medical marijuana law and create greater legal protections for authorized patients, providers, and caregivers.

Senate Bill 5073 and House Bill 1100 seek to provide state licensing to medical marijuana producers and dispensaries in order to assure that qualified patients “will have access to an adequate, safe, consistent, and secure source of medical quality cannabis.”
The proposed laws do not in any way alter or amend patients’ existing rights to possess up to 24 ounces of marijuana for medical purposes, and cultivate up to 15 cannabis plants.

Photo: freepress.net
Washington State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles: “Creating a statutory and regulatory structure for licensing growers and dispensaries will allow us to provide for an adequate, safe, consistent, and secure source of the medicine for qualifying patients”

​New legislation to provide clarity and a stronger legal framework for Washington’s existing medical marijuana laws was introduced in the Legislature on Tuesday.

Senate Bill 5073 and House Bill 1100, introduced by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle and Rep. Jim Moeller (D-Vancouver), would establish a regulatory system for the sale and purchase of medical marijuana by qualifying patients. Current law, established under voter-approved I-692 in 1998, permits patients with specified terminal or debilitating medical conditions to grow medical marijuana for personal use or designate a provider to grow on their behalf.
Under the new bill, the Department of Agriculture would develop regulations through a public rule-making process for growing medical marijuana. Patients would be permitted to buy medical marijuana products from dispensers licensed by the Department of Health or by taking part in a regulated patient collective.

Graphic: Working World

​Should companies be able to fire employees for using medical marijuana — at home, with no effects on job performance — even in states where the medicinal use of cannabis is legal?

Washington judges and lawmakers will be wrestling with that question next month as the state Supreme Court hears the case of a woman fired for legally using pot medicinally, and the Legislature looks at a bill to expand patient protections in the state’s 12-year-old medical marijuana law, reports Vanessa Ho of the Seattle P.I.
The case before the high court involves a woman suing her former employer after she failed a drug test and was fired from a customer-service job in Bremerton. The woman, using “Jane Roe” as a pseudonym in court records, was using marijuana authorized by her doctor for debilitating migraines.