Browsing: Medical

Photo: Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana
Plant limits may become a thing of the past in California.

​A California court of appeals in San Diego has ruled that the amount of marijuana a medical user can legally possess is a question jurors should decide, and using limits defined in state law is improper.

The unanimous ruling could change the way many medical pot cases are handled at the trial stage, according to legal experts. A ruling is expected soon from the California Supreme Court that deals with a similar issue, SignOnSanDiego reports.
Medical marijuana patient Nathaniel Archer of San Diego was arrested by San Diego police with 98 pot plants in his home, along with 1.72 pounds of dried marijuana. He was convicted in 2007 for cultivating and possessing marijuana and sentenced to probation.

Photo: Matt Wright, Wikimedia Commons
Denver is now collecting 3.9 percent tax on medical marijuana sales.

​The Mile High City started collecting sales tax on medical marijuana today.

The City of Denver expects every medical marijuana dispensary in the city to pay 3.6 percent sales tax starting Dec. 1, reports Patricia Calhoun in Westword.
“Tax revenue agents will be meeting with all dispensaries, giving them the information,” said City Attorney David Fine.

Photo: Coaster420
Nugs like this Purple Kush beauty could be legal for medical use if Pennsylvania legislators show some leadership.

​A public hearing on legalizing medical marijuana is scheduled for Wednesday, Dec. 2, in Harrisburg, Pa., before the House Health and Human Services committee.

Discussed will be House Bill 1393, introduced in April by State Rep. Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia. According to Cohen, the bill aims to ease the lives of suffering patients, take money away from the illegal drug trade and create about $25 million a year in tax revenue from the sale of marijuana.
“The bill has a 1-in-4 chance of becoming law, but I think that health care groups will lean toward it,” Cohen told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Artwork by Jim Wheeler
Medical marijuana patients win another battle in San Diego

​The manager of a San Diego medical marijuana dispensary was acquitted today of five charges of possessing and selling marijuana for profit.

Jovan Jackson, 31, was convicted, however, of possession of ecstasy and Xanax, according to SignOnSanDiego News Services.
Jackson, who was arrested after a pair of raids at Answerdam Alternative Care in Kearny Mesa last year, began to weep quietly as the verdicts were read in the courtroom of Judge Cynthia Bashant.
The verdicts ended a weeklong trial in San Diego Superior Court. According to SignOnSanDiego, the jury foreman said afterward that the lack of clarity in California’s medical marijuana law was a major reason for the acquittals.
Medical marijuana advocates said the verdicts were a rebuke to San Diego District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis and local law enforcement. Aggressive medical marijuana enforcement has been a priority for Dumanis’ office.

Wikimedia Commons
Maine is one of only three states — along with Rhode Island and New Mexico — authorizing state-run marijuana dispensaries.

​A new task force is studying how, when and where medical marijuana will be distributed in Maine, WABI TV 5 reports.

The 14-member committee, assigned by Gov. John E. Baldacci after voters approved marijuana dispensaries in last month’s election, will advise the governor on how to implement the law with safeguards to protect public health and safety.
The rules are supposed to be in effect in 120 days. According to task force member Attorney General Janet Mills said “this time period is unrealistic.”

Photo: Westword
Attorneys Bob Hoban (left) and Rob Corry, joined by patients, speak at a news conference today about the CannaMart lawsuit.

​Four medical marijuana patients and two caregivers in Centennial, Colo., have announced a lawsuit against the city for forcing the closure of CannaMart, a pot dispensary, Westword reports.

The plaintiffs will argue that cities like Centennial “are prohibited from imposing land use restrictions on local businesses when such restrictions infringe upon the rights upheld by the state Constitution as ‘matters of statewide concern’.”
The group says it’s the first time in Colorado history that a coalition of patients and caregivers will sue a municipal government to reopen a dispensary.
According to Bob Hoban, one of the attorneys representing the patients and caregivers bringing the suit, a ruling in the case could turn out to be precedent-setting. “This isn’t something we’re looking at as a test case, something to throw against the wall to see if it sticks,” he told Westword. “It’s something where we believe the court is almost compelled to come down on our side because of the Constitutional issues at stake.”

Photo: Coaster420, Wikimedia Commons
Wisconsin medical marijuana users are closer than they’ve ever been to that first legal bowl.

​​Lawmakers and marijuana advocacy groups are pushing for Wisconsin to join the 13 other states where medical marijuana is legal. Bills to do so were introduced last week in the Senate and Assembly.

“The time for Wisconsin to become the 15th state to allow patients to use pot to make their lives a bit more comfortable is long past due,” Dave Zweifel, editor emeritus of The Capital Times, editorializes.

Gary Storck of Madison, a prominent leader in the movement to legalize medical marijuana and co-founder (along with Jacki Rickert) of Is My Medicine Legal Yet?, told the Wisconsin Rapids Tribune he vaporizes pot to treat glaucoma and a heart condition. Storck said there is a groundswell of public support and Democrats, who control the Legislature, have been friendlier to past efforts to legalize the herb.
Storck has been pushing for decades to get the Wisconsin Legislature to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, according to the Capital Times. “We’re not criminals; we’re just trying to get on with our lives,” Storck said.

Graphic: Reality Catcher
Mendocino County’s regulations on collective medical marijuana grow-ops and dispensaries are being hammered out Monday.

​Historically weed-friendly Mendocino County’s debate over regulating medical marijuana dispensaries continues Monday at 3 p.m., when the Human Services Advisory Committee of the County Board of Supervisors meets. The committee has been working since spring to hash out the county’s marijuana cultivation rules.

Supervisor John McCowen, who along with Supervisor Kendall Smith sits on the committee for monthly meetings, said the process has been delayed by numerous speakers opposed to the county regulating dispensaries.
“People are opposed to what the committee is doing, and they’re doing everything they can to impede our work,” McCowen told the Ukiah Daily Journal. “I suspect the real intent is that they are not in favor of any regulation that might actually apply to them,” he said.
“Interfering with the ability of the committee to make a decision would prevent regulation,” he said.

Photo: Coaster420, Wikimedia Commons
Dispensary grade Purple Goo.

​Despite District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis’ recent dispensary crackdown, there are towns in the San Diego area that aren’t so pot-unfriendly. In Fallbrook, California, the newest member of the Chamber of Commerce is a medical marijuana dispensary.

Dispensary co-founder Bob Riedel said he joined the chamber for the regular reasopns: getting involved in the community and networking, according to the North County Times. The dispensary will even be one of the sponsors for Fallbrook’s Dec. 5 Christmas parade, having kicked $500 into the chamber’s parade fund.

Photo: Chmee2, Wikimedia Commons

​According to an assistant prosecutor in Michigan, the new medical marijuana laws there, passed by voters last year, are starting to create some unforeseen problems.

I know what you’re thinking. “Just another cop speaking fluent whinese.” There’s undeniably a little of that going on, but the talk that the prosecutor gave before the Northwest Zero Tolerance Coalition (that’s a forbidding name for an anti-drug group, if there ever was one!) took an unexpected turn towards the end.
Assistant Prosecutor Bill Dailey, chief of Macomb County’s drug unit, said that the medical marijuana laws are causing a “strain on my personnel because they are out there now, they are recovering marijuana on their traffic stops … It is very, very difficult for them or for us to find out if these folks have a medical marijuana card.”
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