| CBD-rich oil from Colorado’s Kind Love dispensary. |
A bill legalizing just CBD and only for seizure disorders was unanimously sent to the Georgia state House this week, advancing what would arguably be the country’s most restrictive medical cannabis laws to date.
The bill, sponsored by Georgia Republican state Rep. Allen Peake, is aimed at helping the families of children suffering from rare disorders. Peake says he wrote the bill after meeting several sick Georgia children.
| United we stand, divided we fall my arse. |
Medical marijuana supporters in Kentucky are celebrating a small victory this week, as a compassionate medical cannabis bill made it’s way out of a Democrat-controlled Health and Human Services Committee meeting. The bill will now go before the House for consideration.
Sadly, that might be about as far as House Bill 350 will move in the otherwise conservative House and Senate.
It’s been nearly five years since New Jersey passed medical marijuana laws in their state, but so far few dispensaries have opened and others have dragged their heels to the point where patients have had enough.
Yesterday, the state Assembly Regulatory Oversight Committee took an hour to listen to testimony from patients and dispensary owners fed up with the current system. Among their gripes: dispensaries have taken more than three years to open, patients in parts of the state have little access to legal meds and doctors should be able to write pot recommendations without having to sign up themselves up with a onerous physician registration system.
The hearing came after more than 16,000 emails and calls were made to the state health department from frustrated cannabis patients.
Kern County, which stretches from the California Coast Ranges, east over the Sierra Nevada mountain range and into the Mojave Desert, has been a key battleground in the war on medical marijuana over the past two years in Southern California.
In June of 2012, a 69% majority of voters approved Measure G, which enacted a de facto ban on all storefront dispensaries in the county, as a reaction to a rapid addition of pot shops in the relatively small high desert towns. Bakersfield, the county seat, was exempt as it had its own regulations in place, but the rest of the county saw restrictions so tight, that all existing weed shops found themselves out of compliance almost overnight.
Local cannabis advocates have spent the past year and a half arguing against Measure G, calling it a farce and political stunt, to no avail. Their latest attempt, however, used an idea you almost have to be baked to come up with – and it worked.
An Iowa state senator has introduced a medical marijuana bill to the state legislature, but says advancing the bill any further would be a long shot.
Sen. Joe Bolkcom of Iowa City says he doesn’t have the bipartisan support in both the state House and Senate whatsoever for Senate File 79, which would allow for qualifying patients to cultivate and possess up to 2.5 ounces of herb at a time as well as create state-regulated medical cannabis dispensaries.
Missouri Rep. Chris Kelly has filed language that would legalize medical and recreational cannabis in Missouri, using language that closely follows another proposed ballot initiative.
In addition to legalizing taxed and regulated sales of ganja, House Bill 1659 would regulate recreational cannabis like alcohol, with a 21-and-up age limit. Missourians would be able to cultivate up to eight plants in their home and keep up to 16 ounces of herb, 16 ounces of edibles and 72 ounces of tinctures and other liquid-infused cannabis products.
State Rep. Stanley Cox says he wants to improve Missouri’s criminal code, as long as those improvements don’t include more lenient marijuana laws.
| StanCox.net |
| Rep. Stan Cox is hard on drugs. |
And if there’s anybody who knows how harsh Missouri’s drug laws are, it’s Cox — he was one of the attorneys involved in the case of Jeff Mizanskey, Missouri’s only inmate serving life without parole for marijuana charges.
The Republican from Sedalia is upset that within a 1,000-page bill is a little piece of legislation that would reduce the penalty for possessing less than 35 grams of marijuana for nonviolent, first-time offenders. Under the proposed legislation, the maximum penalty one would receive is a $500 fine. Under current law, offenders face one year in prison.
For a more in-depth look at the evil that is Rep. Cox, click over to the Riverfront Times where Ray Downs has all the details.
“Joe is a freshman legislator in a Republican-controlled house, so he’s got zero juice to get anything done.” So says John Morgan, an Orlando-based attorney and cannabis reform advocate.
The “Joe” he is referring to is Florida state congressman Joe Saunders (D- Orlando), who recently filed House Bill 859, which if passed, would skip right past the voters in Florida, making legal medical marijuana the law of the land.
Morgan, who has personally raised $4,000,000 in an effort to get a similar piece of legislation before Florida voters this November, calls Saunders’ plan nothing more than a publicity stunt.
Last month, the Connecticut state Department of Consumer Protection granted the first four licenses for marijuana producers, and they plan to award up to five additional licenses for marijuana sellers by the end of next month. With cannabis already decriminalized in the state, and a heavy liberal bias in the region politically, one may wonder what is taking medical marijuana so long.
| Neeta Lind/Flickr |
The grow facilities will be considered “pharmaceutical manufacturers” by the state, with all medication produced being put through a mandatory testing process before it gets to the dispensaries. Once on the shelves, sellers will be subject to incredibly strict regulations aimed directly at preventing diversion of medical marijuana to the black market in the state.
Still, with some of the nation’s most strict regulations in place, the usual suspects are screaming from the rooftops that allowing any medical marijuana in Connecticut is going to pose a huge risk for…wait for it…”the kids”.
When Colorado passed Amendment 64 in 2012, cities across the state were given until October 1st, 2013, to have their own individual rules put in place to regulate the inevitable wave of recreational retail pot shops.
Aurora, Colorado, the third largest city in the state, has no legal medical marijuana storefronts, and feeling the pressure of the impending deadline for recreational stores, enacted a moratorium of up to one year on the opening of any retail outlets either. That was in May of last year.
Since then, the spitballing City Council and the Ad Hoc A64 Committee have made some rather far-fetched proposals to get in on the lucrative legal weed market, even proposing that the city grow and sell its own! But their latest proposal may be the most ludicrous one to date.