| Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton. |
During a WCCO radio appearance yesterday, Gov. Mark Dayton characterized the likelihood of any medical marijuana legislation being signed into law this year as between “slim and none.” He lamented that “the advocates who want to be able to smoke leaf marijuana… are not interested in carrying [a medical pot bill]forward on a more limited basis … We’ll work on it next session.”
Well, what a difference 24 hours makes.
This past fall and winter there was a push to get medical marijuana recognized as a legitimate treatment for players in the NFL suffering from concussions. And now, with Spring Training wrapping up and opening day just three days away, it is time to shift our attention to Major League Baseball.
ESPN got the conversation started this week, asking an anonymous poll of MLB players whether they would use medical marijuana for pain if it were legal in all 50 states. Just under half (49 percent) said they would. Check out the graphic over at ESPN the magazine.
Access to medical marijuana is one step closer in Maryland as the state Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee approSved a measure allowing doctors to recommend medical cannabis in that state as well as allowing licensed growers to produce the plant at licensed treatment centers.
Medical marijuana dispensaries in Oregon are nothing new, but for the first time they are opening under new state regulations that require state licenses of the shops before they can sell even a gram of herb.
That’s good news for patients, but it’s also bad news for some dispensary owners as the new laws also allows communities to ban marijuana centers outright by May 1. The Oregonian reports that at least one dispensary has a state license to operate, but might not be able to open their doors for at least a year.
Backers of the California Cannabis Hemp Initiative have been given the go-ahead from the state to begin collecting the required 504,760 signatures needed to get their legalization bill before voters this fall.
If approved, the measure – dubbed the Jack Herer Initiative — would legalize cannabis use for adults 21 and up, allow for licensed and taxed cannabis retail sales, loosen restrictions on doctors recommending medical cannabis for minors, restrict drug testing for pot by employers and forbid any state funds from going toward enforcement of federal marijuana laws. But that’s a big “if”. The signatures must be collected by Aug. 18, and that’s not going to be cheap or easy to achieve.
| Bernard Gagnon. |
Utah parents of children suffering from severe seizure disorders can now obtain CBD-based medicines for their children thanks to a bill signed into law yesterday by Gov. Gary Herbert.
The only catch: the parents can’t purchase the oil anywhere in Utah, nor can they grow plants to make the oil themselves. Instead, Utah lawmakers are forcing the families to travel out of state, purchase the oil, then break federal and local laws bringing it back home with them.
| Coleen Danger. |
Gov. Mark Dayton took to the radio yesterday morning to say that his proposal to research medical marijuana hasn’t gotten any love from the advocates of broader legalization. He put the prospects of passing it between “slim and none.”
However, those same advocates plan to add part of the Dayton proposal as an amendment and are open to compromising on some points. They contend that the governor’s version of a medical marijuana program — despite his assertions — would help no one in the immediate future.
The Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Colorado attorneys can advise medical and recreational marijuana shops to follow state laws, even though such laws are in complete contradiction to federal laws that Colorado attorneys all vow to uphold. Back in December, the Colorado Bar Association had released a formal opinion that attorneys were not allowed to counsel dispensary owners “in structuring or implementing transactions which by themselves violate federal law.” Basically, that meant attorneys couldn’t help draft contracts or advise their clients how to run a legal medical or recreational dispensary.
All that changed Monday.
More photos below.Could marijuana have played a role in fixing one of the most important American boxing matches in history? Probably not, but we’ve uncovered at least one harebrained scheme reported in a Colorado newspaper in1889 that says it could be plausible.
| Jacqueline Patterson from YouTube. |
When Jacqueline Patterson took her first toke of marijuana at the age of fourteen, she experienced what it was like to be without pain for the first time in her life. It’s also why she eventually had to leave Missouri. Patterson was born with cerebral palsy. The muscles on the right side of her body are significantly weaker and less developed than her left, and she speaks with a severe stutter, or as she prefers to call it, a “speech spasm.” Medical marijuana, Patterson says, has helped her deal with the pain her medical condition causes every day of her life, and it also helps with her speech. When she smokes, her brain doesn’t feel as rushed, and she’s able to get the words out easier, she says.
Although using marijuana to treat cerebral palsy is not unheard of these days, it wasn’t an accepted notion roughly twenty years ago when Patterson first tried it and noticed a remarkable difference it made on her body.