The Georgia Senate last night approved a limited medical cannabis bill that will allow for CBD-based oils for children with severe seizure disorders at the very last minute, saving the measure from dying out for the session. But the controversial addition of a completely unrelated measure requiring health insurers to cover behavioral therapy for children under six who have autism ended up killing the bill outright.
Like any politician these days, Senator Claire McCaskill wants to talk about jobs, the economy, and how she can create more jobs and a better economy. But during her town-hall meetings across Missouri this week, McCaskill was bombarded with questions about marijuana legalization — and she’s really surprised about that.
Fortunately, that didn’t stop people from asking McCaskill about marijuana reform, including whether rape survivors and war veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder should be allowed to medicate with marijuana instead of powerful pharmaceutical painkillers.
| Geert Kuipers/Flickr. |
Update: Patients will soon be able to access medicine at dispensaries in the city of Las Vegas as well as in unincorporated parts of Clark County, Nevada.
The Clark County Board of Commissioners last night approved licensing rules and say they could begin accepting applications for dispensaries by mid-April. Clark County commission Chairman Steve Sisolak called the move “monumental”.
| John Morgan from XXXX.com |
Florida attorney John Morgan has been the voice and wallet of the (so far) very successful campaign to legalize medical cannabis in his state. And while getting patients access to medical cannabis is the mission right now, the 63-year-old says his generation is ready to outright legalize it.
“We are at a tipping point with marijuana in this country and usually when things start to tip, it turns into an avalanche,” Morgan tells the Tampa Bay Times in an extended Q&A session. “I know for a fact that someday when we look back on all the money spent on making it a crime and sending people to jail and all the people whose careers were over because they got arrested for it and then couldn’t get into med school or law school, we’re going to say, ‘What were we doing?'”
April 1, 2014 could mark the end of home cultivation for Canadian medical marijuana patients, as new regulations that force MMJ users into a state-run dispensary system are set to begin that day.
But patients upset over having to destroy their gardens have petitioned to have the rule blocked and potentially overturned, arguing that they have the right to freely cultivate their medicine instead of being priced out of a consumer market.
Poll numbers about how many Floridians support legalizing medical marijuana seem to be all over the place — well, except below the 60 percent necessary it would need to pass. A new University of North Florida poll shows that 74 percent of Floridians intend to vote to legalize medicinal pot in November. That’s down from 82 percent in a poll from November, but again, unless there’s some dramatic shift, all signs continue to point to this thing passing.
People needlessly suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder in Michigan now have an alternative, effective way to help manage their condition as the state’s medical cannabis program was expanded this week to include the condition.
Not that the powers-that-be wanted it to happen, mind you. Steve Arwood, director of the state Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs, signed the order into law, but says it’s starting the state down a slippery slope to outright legalization.
There’s an old High Times video of legendary pot grower Jorge Cervantes that opens with “the Ganja Guy” behind the wheel of an old rusty tractor. Cervantes — wearing his iconic disguise of black sunglasses and black dreadlocks — tells viewers he’s taking them on a tour of marijuana gardens throughout his native Spain. “Well, enough talk,” Cervantes says. “I have a field to plant.”
That video intro alone is enough to make anyone say, “Hell yeah! Let’s grow marijuana!”
It’s the same feeling many entrepreneurial Floridians are experiencing as the days count down for the historic November vote to legalize medical marijuana. Almost 150 of them packed into a hotel conference room this weekend to learn about how to make money off the coming weed revolution.
Read the rest over at the Miami New Times.
Medical marijuana in Maryland has been a mess ever since they passed their highly restrictive “pilot program” last year. See, the program would only allow state university medical programs to dole out the ganja, and even then it had to be part of a larger clinical trial. In theory, that might have worked. But the reality is that none of the universities want anything to do with it. Basically, medical marijuana didn’t exist in Maryland.
But a new bill approved by the state House yesterday would allow physicians to recommend medical cannabis to patients with certain conditions. Patients would get their herb from a licensed grower.
Since the beginning of Arizona’s medical marijuana program, people have petitioned the state health department to add post-traumatic stress disorder as a qualifying condition for medical pot. However, PTSD and other conditions aren’t added to the list, due to a lack of scientific research on the risks and benefits of using marijuana to treat those conditions. But that might change.