Search Results: gregoire (76)

Photo: Seattle Hempfest
Vivian McPeak: “Patients and providers have already shown we are evenhanded and responsible. Now all we want is to be protected by law.”

​Marijuana activist Vivian McPeak, founder of Seattle Hempfest, has said that patients in the state of Washington are still unprotected by the state’s medical cannabis law, approved by voters in 1998.

“The law does not protect legal patients from home invasion and arrest by police,” McPeak wrote in a letter to the editor published in the March 30 edition of The Seattle Times.
“Flaws in the law make medical marijuana producers criminals,” McPeak said. “If the grower reports theft to police, that grower often gets treated as a criminal.”

Graphic: Emerald Herb

​A bill to expand Washington State’s medical marijuana law cleared the Legislature Thursday, and is headed to the governor’s desk.

Gov. Christine Gregoire is expected to sign SB 5798, which allows naturopathic doctors, nurse practitioners, and advanced physicians’ assistants to recommend the medical use of cannabis to their patients.
The new law will increase patient access to health care professionals willing to authorize medical cannabis.
Because of the conflict between state and federal pot laws, many doctors fear retribution from the federal government and are reluctant to sign medical cannabis paperwork. To comply with the law, many qualifying patients are forced to travel to the city and pay $200 to see a doctor willing to sign a medical marijuana authorization form.

Graphic: A Greener Country

​Washington state patients who qualify for medical marijuana will be able to get legal recommendations for it from a wider range of health care professionals under a bill that appears headed to Governor Christine Gregoire’s desk.

Under Senate Bill 5798, it won’t be just doctors who can get sick people access to pot, reports Mark Rahner at The Seattle Times.
The bill widens the list of licensed medical professionals who can recommend marijuana to include physicians’ assistants, nurse practitioners and naturopathic physicians, according to one of its sponsors, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle).
“The reason is that, especially in rural areas of the state and away from Puget Sound, because of long distances, many people do not see M.D.’s,” Kohl-Welles said. “They see nurse practitioners and physicians’ assistants who have prescriptive authority.”

Graphic: Cannabis Defense Coalition

​Growing marijuana, as challenging as it can be, is the easy part. Figuring out the state law that allows sick people to use pot is a lot harder for Washington patients.

Since Washington voters passed a law in 1998 legalizing medical marijuana for seriously ill patients with their doctor’s recommendation, patients have been frustrated over how to legally get cannabis while following the rules, reports Diana Hefley at the Everett Herald Net.
Police officers, on the other hand, say they are faced with balancing the rights of medical marijuana patients and their duty to enforce the law, which makes pot illegal for everyone else.
The legal haze was evident in the criminal trial of a medical marijuana patient in Snohomish County, Washington in February.

Graphic: thefreshscent.com
OK, quick: You’re head of the Department of Corrections. Officers under you misbehave and improperly arrest a medical marijuana patient. What do you do? Lie and cover up for them, if you’re Eldon Vail of the Washington DOC.

​The head of the Washington Department of Corrections (DOC), Eldon Vail, seems to put a lot more effort into covering up the lousy job his subordinates are doing, than in actually doing his own job.

The Washington DOC, following the example of the not-cool Attorney General Rob McKenna, is already notorious for its extremely hard line against the use of medical marijuana for individuals on probation.
Now, newly revealed documents show that Vail and the DOC have been involved in misconduct, cover-ups, and possibly outright law-breaking, reports Lee Rosenberg at the highly recommended Seattle political blog, Horses Ass.

Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection
Scenes like this — a 1,700-pound bust in Sumas, Washington in 2009 — may become things of the past in the state if a move to legalize marijuana comes to fruition.

​Washington State lawmakers on Wednesday heard, for the first time ever, testimony in support of legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana for adults.

Members of the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness, in a heavily attended, two-hour hearing, heard arguments in favor of House Bill 2401.
HB 2401 would “remove all existing criminal and civil penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana.”
The hearing marked the first time in history that Washington lawmakers had ever debated the merits of legalizing and regulating the sale and use of cannabis.
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