Search Results: patients for repeal not reform (29)

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Let me grow.

The movement to reform our failed cannabis policies has grown tremendously in recent years and months. It’s not slowing down anytime soon. Cannabis reform is a mainstream issue, and frankly, there’s no denying it. A majority in the county support legalizing cannabis, and 81% support its legalization for medical purposes.
On top of this, a majority of states in our country (27 in total) have either decriminalized cannabis possession (14), or legalized it for medical and/or recreational purposes (18). The remaining states are hard at work towards reform, and advocates in the states mentioned above are vehemently trying to improve their situation. For those who have been on the line about getting involved in helping bring cannabis law change, now is absolutely the time to jump in.
Below is a breakdown of efforts going on around the country:

Montanafesto
It looks like the rough and tumble of politics is too much for Senator Essmann

Thin-Skinned Senator Files Complaint Over Campaign Rhetoric
Just 2 Weeks Ago, Essmann Staged Bogus Lawsuit Threat Against Attorney General
 
Not satisfied to have decimated patients’ rights, Montana state Senator Jeff Essmann is now attacking his critics with a formal complaint to the Commissioner of Political Practices.
 
The charge? Essman didn’t like a radio spot that mentioned his name.
 
“It looks like the rough and tumble of politics is too much for Senator Essmann,” said Bob Brigham, campaign manager for Patients for Reform, Not Repeal. “Maybe he should find a new career. His complaint against a radio spot of ours is untimely, wrong and desperate.”
 
“The fact is, the Montana Republican Party platform rejects his bill, SB 423, and calls for new medical marijuana legislation that is both workable and realistic,” Brigham added. “The writing is on the wall. SB 423 will either be rejected by the voters or rewritten in the next legislature. Senator Essmann is in denial over the fact that his handiwork is deeply flawed and won’t be law for much longer.”

Cannabis Now Magazine

Losing Legal Status and Providers, Suffering Patients Plead for Voters to Oppose IR-124
As Montana fully implements Senate Bill 423 after a June 2011 injunction was lifted by the state Supreme Court on Wednesday, the vast majority of currently legal patients are losing their rights. The state’s data show that 5,598 patients will now lose their status as registered, legal medical users of marijuana. 

Montana Department of Justice
Montana Attorney General Steve Bullock on Tuesday said he’d vote against IR-124

Attorney General Bullock Says He’ll Vote Against IR-124
No poll shows IR-124 with majority support, and the new law — which repeals a voter initiative which legalized medical marijuana in the state back in 2004, with the support of 62 percent of state voters — now faces two new hurdles to approval by the voters this year.
 
Patients for Reform, Not Repeal has begun its second radio advertising campaign with a new spot, entitled “Running Away,” which points to the measure’s weak voter support and even opposition from the Montana Republican Party. The spot notes that Sen. Jeff Essman, sponsor of SB 423 – the subject of the referendum – has conceded that his work will be changed next year.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Following the Montana Supreme Court’s September 11 ruling overturning an injunction on parts of the current medical marijuana law, the Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services (DPHHS) is now ordering a majority of the state’s providers to decide which patients they will cancel from their rolls.
The directive is intended to bring the providers into conformity with the current requirements of the state’s medical marijuana law without the injunction in effect. Today, DPHHS is mailing letters to 267 providers, leaving more than 5,400 patients without safe access to a medical marijuana provider.
 
“I spoke with my provider last week,” said Doug Shaw, a 61-year-old patient in Libby, Montana. “He says I’m on my own now, and he doesn’t know anyone sticking with the program.”
“Where I am I supposed to go for medical marijuana?” Shaw asked. “Maybe the Legislature will provide it to me.”

Americans For Cannabis

Ready for real cannabis legalization? Dissatisfied with the half-measures — some would say “decrim on steroids” — of Washington state “tax and regulate” Initiative 502, Sensible Washington has announced plans to launch a third marijuana law reform initiative to repeal criminal and civil penalties from the state code.
Unlike the group’s previous two attempts, the 2013 effort is intended to appeal to a broader voter base, by making the legal age 21 and over, rather than 18 and over — with an added caveat — extending the juvenile code to 21 for cannabis-related offenses.
This would allow for marijuana convictions to be expunged from adult records, alleviating the life-altering harms of a conviction, such as denial of future employment and educational funding opportunities.

Norman Yatooma & Associates
Former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox: “I am not for it mostly because I don’t know how you regulate common, everyday things such as driving while impaired … That being said, philosophically I am not against it.” Political much?

​​Former Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox admitted on Friday that he smoked marijuana in high school during the 1970s. (Hey, what a coincidence, so did I!) But during a symposium on marijuana reform, Cox said there are problems with legalizing cannabis, and he wouldn’t support moves to do that in the state.

“I am not for it mostly because I don’t know how you regulate common, everyday things such as driving while impaired,” the Republican former attorney general said, reports Kim Kozlowski at The Detroit News. “If it becomes legal, I don’t think I’ll ever use it again. That being said, philosophically I am not against it. They haven’t come up with a good way to regulate in the workplace or driving to measure it and deal with it.”

KTVQ

​A study on the effects of Montana’s tough new medical marijuana law, adopted by the Republican-controlled state Legislature last year, shows the number of patients and providers has dropped since the makeover of the law passed by voters in 2000.

But the new law has also created a lack of access and forced many patients to return to the black market, according to Kate Cholewa, policy director for the Montana Cannabis Industry, reports Ryan Whalen at Beartooth NBC. Cholewa who said patients were scared they won’t be protected from the federal government by the new Senate Bill 423.
“This doesn’t necessarily end up with fewer people using cannabis,” Cholewa said, reports Charles S. Johnson of the Helena Independent Record. “It just ends up with more people you can put in jail for it.”

Graphic: Medical Marijuana Blog

​Medical marijuana is still legal in Montana.

Governor Brian Schweitzer has vetoed a Republican bill that would have repealed the state’s medical marijuana law, approved by an overwhelming 62 percent of state voters in 2004.
Schweitzer vetoed the bill on Wednesday, along with several others he called “frivolous, unconstitutional or in direct contradiction to the expressed will of the people of Montana, “reports The Associated Press.
Montana now has more than 28,000 registered medical marijuana patients.

Graphic: KFBB

​With the next session just months away, Republican legislators are getting ready for a battle to ban medical marijuana in Montana, spurred by an explosion in the number of patients in the state.

At least two GOP lawmakers plan to introduce bills in the 2011 Legislature — which begins in January — to repeal the medical marijuana law altogether, reports Daniel Person at the Bozeman Daily Chronicle.
This spring, the Montana GOP added to its platform the belief that the state’s medical marijuana law should be either “amended or repealed,” with several Republican lawmakers putting forward repeal bills. The state Democratic Party platform does not address the issue of medical marijuana.
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