The University of Arizona isn’t saying much about the firing of medical-marijuana researcher Sue Sisley, but officials deny any political motivations. In an email sent to our sister blog, the Phoenix New Times, in response to our questions this morning, a U of A representative also notes that the university has “championed” medical-marijuana.
Sisley, an outspoken MD who’s been pushing to study how marijuana affects post-traumatic stress disorder patients, was told last month her contract with the U of A’s Telemedicine Program wouldn’t be renewed. She claims that Joe “Skip” Garcia, the University of Arizona’s senior vice president for health sciences, told her that Senate President Andy Biggs had questioned Sisley’s activism, and soon after she received the letter announcing her contract would not be renewed.
The Phoenix New Times has more on this story, including the U of A response.

Press releases don’t typically stir passions. But cannabis activist Wanda James was incensed after receiving a missive from Mayor Michael Hancock (see it below) in which he thanked the Denver City Council for passing his $3.35 million marijuana budget proposal but offered no kudos to the pot industry that generated all that extra cash.
James says that’s nothing new. In her view, the way Hancock and Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper have treated the cannabis industry to date is “beyond insulting.” Denver Westword has more.

Ohioans looking to legally use medical cannabis will have to wait at least another year (or move) as activists collecting signatures for the November ballot failed to reach their goal.
While Ohio Rights Group managed to collect around 100,000 signatures – a commendable figure – they failed to get the necessary 385,000 signatures.
The biggest obstacle: money. The reality of today’s political landscape is that you need paid signature gatherers or it is hard to get anything on the ballot today. John Pardee, ORG President said their campaign never had the funding to accomplish that.

An Eastside dispensary is planning on hosting a marijuana farmers market during this upcoming 4th of July weekend. What could be more patriotic?
The West Coast Collective dispensary plans to hold the California Heritage Market outdoors on its property, says the organizer of the farmers market, Paizley Bradbury, who’s also director of the medical retailer. Bradbury told LA Weekly that “growers, edible bakers, concentrate companies” and even competing dispensaries have been invited to sell their wares on-site.

The Massachusetts Department of Health are going after caregivers who are selling cannabis to more than one medical marijuana patient. According to officials, some 1,300 patients and 17 caregivers were sent letters last week gently reminding them that it is illegal under state law to do things like, say, post extra meds for sale on Cragislist.
But patients say that it is the only way they can legally access meds while the state drags their heels trying to get dispensaries up and open, likely not until the Fall.

Congressman Jared Polis is among the majority of U.S. House representatives who voted in favor of defunding DEA raids on medical marijuana businesses in states where MMJ is legal. But even though that effort is currently stalled in the Senate, Polis is trying to push ahead on other cannabis-related fronts.
Case in point: Polis is among thirty Congressional signatories of a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell. The missive asks that Burwell take steps toward ending what Polis describes as the federal government’s “monopoly on marijuana research.”