Browsing: Medical
| Moderate in the Middle |
Four new medical conditions could eventually qualify patients to participate in Arizona’s medical marijuana program.
The state health department is considering whether it should add depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and migraines as “debilitating conditions,” which would allow patients suffering from those conditions to legally use medicinal cannabis under Arizona law, reports Yvonne Wingett Sanchez at The Arizona Republic.
If the new conditions are approved, Arizona would be the only state in the nation to specifically allow medical marijuana for anxiety and depression, according to Will Humble, director of the state Department of Health Services, which oversees Arizona’s medical marijuana program. However, California’s broadly written medicinal cannabis law basically allows physicians to recommend marijuana for any condition that, in their medical opinion, it could help.
| Rebels With Just Cause Award |
By Steph Sherer
Executive Director
Americans for Safe Access
Ten years ago today, I stood below the biggest free-standing billboard in San Francisco and watched volunteers drop a huge banner that said “Defend Medical Marijuana” right next to one of the busiest freeways in the city.
It was the beginning of a series of actions and media work in response to former Drug Czar Asa Hutchinson’s visit to the Bay Area. He was coming to town to gloat about raids at medical cannabis dispensaries and gardens, and we were determined to tell a different story. That’s how the nation’s largest medical cannabis patients’ advocacy organization got its name – Americans for Safe Access v. Asa Hutchison or “ASA v. Asa.”
| CSPARC |
Sacramento County, California voters will have an opportunity to get it right on medical cannabis in November. A voter initiative to regulate the medical cannabis industry in the county is halfway to its goal of 80,000-plus signatures, and organizers say they are confident it will qualify for the November ballot.
The Patients Access to Regulated Medical Cannabis Act of 2012 (PARMCA2012) is a voter initiative that will allow for a limited and tightly regulated medical cannabis market that will bring in an estimated $2 million in revenue for Sacramento County.
The Act will allow for one dispensary for every 25,000 residents in the unincorporated County that will be divided amongst Board of Supervisor districts to avoid clustering. The program will tax the businesses at a rate of 4 percent of gross sales on top of normal sales taxes that are paid by dispensaries.
| National Patients Rights Association |
The National Patients Rights Association (NPRA), a Michigan-based alliance of leading medical marijuana advocates working to protect patient rights, on Wednesday announced strong opposition to proposed legislative changes to the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act it they said would would directly violate patients’ and caregivers’ civil and constitutional rights, privileges and protections.
Specifically, it opposes Michigan House Bill’s 4851, 4853, and 4856. The NPRA also strongly opposes HB 4834, which is sponsored by Gail Haines.
Under the proposed legislation, the most troubling, HB 4834, will allow officers or security personnel to easily gain access to the registry without a warrant, as is currently required. Patient and caregiver information would no longer be strictly confidential, and their private medical treatment choice will be available to a “near endless” list of authorized officials, according to the group, including security personnel or recreation officers hired by the state or local townships.
| Darren Stone/The Victoria Times Colonist |
| Owen Smith (center) was the head baker for the Cannabis Buyers’ Club of Canada. He will still have to stand trial on charges of possession for the purpose of trafficking and unlawful possession of marijuana. |
In a huge victory for Canada’s medical marijuana patients, people authorized to use medicinal cannabis can use it in infused edibles and drink it in tea — not just smoke the dried flowers — the B.C. Supreme Court ruled on Friday.
Justice Robert Johnston said the restriction to dried cannabis only in Health Canada’s Medical Access Regulations is unconstitutional, violating Section 7 of the Charter of Rights, reports Louise Dickinson at The Victoria Times Colonist.
“The remedy for this breach is to remove the word ‘dried’ where it appears in the Marijuana Medical Access Regulations and I so order,” Justice Johnston said.
| Ganja Gourmet |
By Bob Starrett
This is scary. “Wrapped in ‘Tootsie Roll’ style wrappers, these powerful chewables consist of the most active ingredient in marijuana — THC — and their taffystyle packaging is conspicuously attractive to kids.”
That’s Heidi Heilman, guest columnist, writing in the Milford Daily News this week. Ms. Heilman is speaking of a January incident in which a car of teenagers was pulled over for speeding. The Cheeba Chews were found inside.
Powerful chewables with THC. From California and Colorado, no less, and under “the guise of medicine.” I think that the packaging is rather conservative. But who knows what those out-of- staters are cooking up for Massachusetts? This is probably the first wave of the assault, apparently by “deep pocket outsiders to target Massachusetts to become the next ‘medical’ marijuana haven.”
I get it about invading Massachusetts, maybe they should be left alone. Several invasions are already underway or coming up including Gamers, the Undead and Asian Longhorn Beetles.
| The Weed Blog |
San Francisco United for Safe Access campaign compels statement from Mayor Lee and others
A coalition of medical marijuana patients, activists, dispensing centers, and concerned citizens has compelled public officials to stand up to recent federal attacks. Last week, the coalition “San Francisco United for Safe Access” held a press conference with several city supervisors and state officials, decrying the Obama Administration’s aggressive tactics before a crowd of more than 500 supporters.
By Friday, San Francisco United had secured a statement from Mayor Lee, expressing his opposition to “recent federal actions targeting duly permitted Medicinal Cannabis Dispensaries…that aim to limit our citizens’ ability to have safe access to the medicine they need.”
| Northern Express |
A Michigan cancer patient whose eviction from her federally subsidized apartment — for using medical marijuana — was halted after an outcry in 2009 now faces homelessness again.
Lori Montroy, 52, of Elk Rapids, got another eviction notice last month at the apartment where she has lived since 2008, reports Patrick Sullivan at Northern Express.
“It’s just draining the life out of me, these people,” Montroy said. “Why can’t they just leave me be?”
Montroy thought she was safe in her apartment after the last attempted eviction around Christmas 2009. The company that at that time managed the apartment complex called off the eviction in early 2010 after a storm of bad publicity and a plea from attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union. The attorneys argued that under federal law, landlords are not required to evict tenants for drug use under the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act.
| Patrick Whittemore/Boston Herald |
| U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz: “While this office does not intend to focus its limited resources on seriously ill individuals who use marijuana as part of a medically recommended treatment program in compliance with state law, individuals and organizations who are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities, will be in violation of federal law and be subject to federal enforcement.” |
Medical marijuana advocates in Massachusetts say they’ll take their cause to the ballot if the Legislature won’t pass it, but the usual objections are being raised by law enforcement officials, who say that legalizing medicine cannabis could put the state at odds with the federal government.
The Humanitarian Medical Use of Marijuana bill would protect registered patients, doctors, caregivers and dispensers from local and state marijuana laws, but not from the federal law enforcement like the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). If the Legislature rejects or fails to act on the measure by May 2, certified signatures of 11,485 Massachusetts voters are needed to place a binding question on November’s general election ballot.
Seriously ill patients don’t have to fear a knock on the door from gun-toting feds, according to White House and U.S. Department of Justice officials, but those same officials told the Boston Herald they won’t turn a blind eye to others who break federal laws, including doctors and state-licensed dispensaries, reports Laurel J. Sweet.