Search Results: federal medical marijuana (1274)


A measure to legalize cannabis for medical reasons in Colombia got a big endorsement yesterday when President Juan Manuel Santos told a drug policy committee that he would like to see the law passed.
Of the law, he says it is “a practical, compassionate measure to reduce the pain, anxiety of patients with terminal illnesses, but also a way of beginning to strip from the hands of criminals the role of intermediary between the patient and the substance that allows them to relieve their suffering.”

San Diego mayor Bob Filner.

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner is a friend of medical marijuana patients. Not only has the guy apologized for federal raids on dispensaries in his city, he’s now urging jurors in a local medical marijuana case to ignore federal marijuana laws and find a defendant not guilty for operating a medical marijuana dispensary.
Ronnie Chang was arrested by federal agents in 2009 and faces trial this fall. His attorneys argue that he was following California law allowing him to operate a medical marijuana center. But federal courts won’t allow those arguments to be heard since they don’t recognize medical marijuana at all.

Congress.org
Irv Rosenfeld smokes 10 to 12 federal medical marijuana cigarettes a day — and he has for 30 years

On Tuesday, November 20, Florida stockbroker Irvin Rosenfeld will celebrate 30 years of receiving 10-12 marijuana cigarettes a day from the United States federal government. Irv, 60, has now received and smoked more than 120,000 joints from the feds.
Rosenfeld — the longest surviving of the final four federal medical cannabis patients from a program that was started in 1978 and stopped under President H. W. Bush — and 13 others were “grandfathered” in what is called a “Compassionate Care Investigational New Drug” [IND] protocol.
“Even though I have a severe bone tumor disorder, I am in great health because of my cannabis use,” Rosenfeld said. “The sad part is that the federal government either doesn’t care or does not want to know how well I am.”

Americans for Safe Access

Advocates challenge marijuana’s classification, present scientific evidence for first time in nearly 20 years
For the first time in nearly 20 years, advocates will use scientific evidence of marijuana’s medical efficacy to try to force a change in the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical value.
Medical marijuana advocates will participate in oral arguments Tuesday before the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in the landmark case Americans for Safe Access v. Drug Enforcement Administration. Advocates contend that the government has arbitrarily and capriciously kept marijuana classified as a Schedule I substance and out of reach for millions of Americans by ignoring overwhelming research on the therapeutic value of marijuana

House of 420

Oakland Lawsuit in U.S. District Court to Stop Seizure of Property of Oakland Dispensary
Oakland City Attorney Barbara Parker and San Francisco law firm Morrison & Foerster have announced that the City of Oakland filed a complaint Wednesday in United States District Court to stop the federal government from seizing an Oakland building used by a medical marijuana dispensary.
“This is a great day for medical marijuana patients and for the residents of Oakland,” said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, a medical marijuana patients’ advocacy organization. “City Attorney Parker is ray of sunshine for all patients who have been watching the federal government jeopardize their access to medical marijuana.”

Irv Rosenfeld
Federal medical marijuana patient Irv Rosenfeld with a tin of federal U.S. government joints. He receives 300 joints a month from the federal government.

​Whenever you hear anyone in the federal government, from the President to the Drug Czar down to the most insignificant bureaucrat, saying that cannabis has no medicinal value, remember that the federal government has been giving out free medical marijuana for almost 30 years.

Irvin Rosenfeld is the longest surviving of the four remaining federal medical marijuana patients in the United States. The Compassionate Investigative New Drug program hasn’t accepted any new patients since the first Bush administration, due to political pressure.

A native of Portsmouth, Virginia who now lives in Florida, Rosenfeld has been smoking 10 to 12 joints of cannabis a day for more than 28 years — a total of more than 123,000 joints.
Rosenfeld uses medical marijuana to treat a severe bone disorder called multiple congenital cartilaginous exostosis and a variant of the syndrome pseudo pseudo hypothyroidism. Irv has bone tumors on the ends of most long bones of his body.

Paul Wellman
Federal medical marijuana patient Elvy Musikka holds a tin of joints send to her each month by the U.S. federal government

​Elvy Musikka, one of four surviving patients in the federal medical marijuana program, was detained by Oregon State Police early Thursday morning following a town hall meeting on medical marijuana.

Musikka was detained along with other registered Oregon medical marijuana patients after a state trooper staked out the co-op 45th Parallel and harassed cardholders as they left the building, reports Russ Belville in the Examiner.
Several members of the patient cooperative were detained by the trooper, who issued citations including a $1,000 ticket to a grower for “residue” left behind on an empty pipe by a patient.
Musikka was in town for the 45th Parallel’s Town Hall Meeting, which had occurred earlier Wednesday at the Clarion Hotel. At the hotel, an Oregon State Trooper parked just down the street from the public entrance to the parking lot.

Photo: KREM.com
Charles Wright was one of the five men federally indicted Wednesday in a federal crackdown on medical marijuana in Spokane, Washington

​A federal grand jury has indicted five medical marijuana dispensary owners in and near Spokane, Washington. On Wednesday, a laundry list of federal marijuana charges, including distributing and selling near an elementary school, were announced in the indictments.

Four of those indicted consist of two two-man owner teams from two separate Spokane dispensaries, while the fifth person indicted was allegedly cultivating more than 100 marijuana plants in Loon Lake, Washington.

Photo: Roger Goodman for Congress
Roger Goodman: “Sorry, DOJ. Please give it another try.”

​Last week’s Department of Justice memo, supposedly meant to “clarify” the DOJ’s position on medical marijuana, doesn’t reflect any real changes in policy from prior administrations.

This latest “clarification” was seemingly needed after a prior “clarification” in 2009 gave many the impression that the DOJ would not prosecute medical marijuana patients and providers in states that had authorized such programs.
That 2009 document, called the “Ogden Memo,” did not actually provide for a hard change in policy, but rather directed U.S. Attorneys to be careful in how they use their limited department resources, suggesting that prosecuting medical marijuana patients is not a good use of government funds.

Photo: DEA
DEA Director Michelle Leonhart claims marijuana has no medical uses, and that it belongs on Schedule I with heroin.

​The U.S. federal government on Friday reiterated the same policy towards medical marijuana it has had for years, claiming the herb has “no accepted medical use” and that it has a high potential for abuse and addiction. The judgment came in response to a 2002 petition by medical marijuana advocates calling on the government to reclassify cannabis, currently a Schedule I drug with heroin, illegal for all uses.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ruled that marijuana has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” has a “high potential for abuse,” and “lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.”
Robotically mouthing meaningless platitudes, DEA Director Michelle Leonhart, without apparent irony, embarrassingly repeated the same unscientific nonsense that for years now has served as the federal government’s position on medical marijuana.
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