Search Results: compassionate-care (10)

Facebook.com/Compassionate-Care-NY
Anna Conte passed away July 17.


New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sent a letter to acting Commissioner of Health Howard Zucker on Tuesday asking Zucker to consider expediting the medical marijuana legalization specifically for epileptic children in New York.
Cuomo’s letter comes after two children, nine-year-old Anna Conte and three-year-old Olivia Marie Newton, died this month. In June, state legislators passed the Compassionate Care Act, legalizing marijuana for patients with conditions including epilepsy, but legalization will not be implemented in the state for at least 18 months.

A proposed New York medical marijuana bill saw huge support in a Assembly Committee on Health meeting on Wednesday, with dozens of supporters turning out to speak in favor of legalizing the plant for sick New Yorkers according to Long Island Newsday.
The Compassionate Care Act would legalize the possession of up to 2.5 ounces of pot for people with debilitating conditions including cancer, aids and multiple sclerosis. The state Health Department would monitor the program.

Photo: Ron Crumpton
Alabama marijuana activist Loretta Nall, left, and patient Michael Lapihuska, who faces 10 years in prison for one gram of medical cannabis.

​A former Alabama resident who was back home for the holidays last December — and who is a legal medical marijuana patient in California — is facing 10 years in prison for one gram of cannabis.

Michael Lapihuska, who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depression, grew up in Alabama, but left the state after serving 13 months for possessing five grams of marijuana in 2003, reports Phillip Smith at Stop The Drug War. He was arrested on marijuana possession charges again on December 15, 2009 in Anniston, Alabama, as he visited his family for Christmas.

Photo: Michael Lapihuska
In happier days: Michael Lapihuska was arrested for taking his doctor-recommended medical marijuana on a trip back home to Alabama

​A former Alabama resident is facing a jail sentence for bringing his doctor-recommended medical marijuana with him from California to Alabama when he came home for the holidays last December.

Michael Lapihuska, a former resident of Anniston, Ala., was arrested December 15, 2009, when a police officer stopped him for hitchhiking, reports Laura Camper at The Anniston Star. The cop searched him, found a prescription bottle of marijuana in his pocket, and asked Lapihuska to take it out.
When the man complied, he was arrested for marijuana possession despite the doctor’s recommendation he presented to the officer.

Photo: Loretta Nall
Loretta Nall: “We plan to keep fighting our way through the process”

​An Alabama House committee approved a bill Wednesday that would legalize marijuana for medicinal purposes in the Heart of Dixie.

This is the first time in Alabama history that a medical marijuana bill has advanced out of committee to the House floor.

Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham), who sponsors the bill, said it had no real chance of being approved by both the House and the Senate before this legislative session ends in five days, reports Scott Johnson of the Montgomery Advertiser.
The bill, known as the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act, is named after a medical marijuana patient with a brain tumor who fought to make the herb legal for medicine in Alabama. Phillips died in 2007 at the age of 38.
Marijuana was the only thing that allowed Phillips to function normally, according to his mother, Jackie Phillips. Without it, she said, Michael had seven or eight seizures a day.
“I could see the difference in him when he smoked and when he didn’t,” Phillips said.

Photo: Loretta Nall
Loretta Nall: “We plan to keep fighting”

​Alabama is the last state many would expect to legalize medical marijuana; after all, the Heart of Dixie isn’t exactly known for its liberal ways.

But one determined group of Southerners there exemplifies the rebel stubbornness for which the state is famous — by refusing to give up their fight for the safe, legal, medicinal use of cannabis.
The brave efforts of Alabamians for Compassionate Care (ACC), ably led by legendary libertarian and former gubernatorial candidate Loretta Nall, have arguably made the state a good bet to be the first former member of the Confederacy to get a medical marijuana law.
For the past several years in a row, ACC has, against all odds, gotten a bill onto the floor of the Alabama Legislature, and 2010 is no exception. House Bill 642, the Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act is expected to come before the House Judiciary Committee later this month.
Toke of the Town got a chance to chat with Nall about the state of medical marijuana in Alabama.

Photo: Penny Ingram Vaughan
Members of Alabamians for Compassionate Care rally for medical marijuana in Birmingham, Saturday, February 13

​About two dozen members of Alabamians for Compassionate Care, a medical marijuana advocacy group, staged a march and rally in Birmingham Saturday afternoon.

The group is urging people to support a bill before the Alabama Legislature which would legalize the medical use of cannabis by seriously ill patients with the recommendation of their doctor, reports Roy L. Williams of The Birmingham News.
“Patients in Alabama should not be locked in prison for trying to ease their pain and suffering,” said Loretta Nall, executive director of Alabamians for Compassionate Care.

Graphic: Alabamians for Compassionate Care

​A bill which would legalize marijuana for medical purposes in Alabama is coming back before the Legislature in 2010.

State Rep. Patricia Todd (D-Birmingham) in mid-February is introducing an as-yet unnumbered 13-page bill that outlines ways cannabis could be used for medical purposes in the state, according to spokesperson Loretta Nall of Alabamians for Compassionate Care.
The bill distinguishes between medical and non-medical uses of marijuana, according to Todd.
It lists debilitating medical conditions under which marijuana could be used. These include cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, chronic arthritis, cachexia, chronic pain, fibromyalgia, migraine, AIDS, anorexia, seizures, severe nausea and other symptoms that substantially limit the ability of a person to conduct major life activities.