Nearly 40 percent of the nearly 9,090 medical marijuana patients in New Mexico are on the registry for post-traumatic stress disorder.
That means nearly 3,700 percent of the New Mexico is relieved today after the Department of Health ruled that PTSD will remain a qualifying condition for the state medical marijuana registry.
The Arizona House yesterday passed a bill removing academic research from a 2012 law that banned any and all marijuana on college campuses.
According to one researcher, this could open the doors for studies on things like post-traumatic stress disorder for returning veterans at the state level and provide much-needed peer-reviewed studies as to the plant’s efficacy.
Against their own policy, the Department of Veteran Affairs would rather treat veterans diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder with addictive benzodiazepines tranquilizers such as Valium and Xanax – instead of using prohibited medical marijuana, despite studies showing cannabis to be a safer alternative.
Current Department of Defense and Department of Veterans Affairs guidelines caution providers from using benzodiazepines tranquilizers as a treatment for combat related PTSD. “Once initiated, benzodiazepines can be very difficult, if not impossible, to discontinue due to significant withdrawal symptoms compounded by the underlying PTSD symptoms,” the VA/Department of Defense guidelines state.
| San Diego mayor Bob Filner. |
On Monday afternoon at a City Council meeting, San Diego resident Ken Cole spoke out as a business owner and a citizen in favor of Mayor Filner’s proposed new medical marijuana dispensary ordinance. Both he and the Mayor’s office watched in dismay as the City Council voted to essentially ignore them.
Tuesday morning, Cole’s downtown San Diego cannabis collective, One on One, was raided by federal DEA agents and local authorities with the Sheriff’s office who literally broke down the front door and carried out cash, crops, and computers past a crowd of angry protesters.
| Flickr.com |
The Washington Post in a video segment yesterday detailed two sets of parents using cannabis to control seizures in their children – specifically the cannabinoid CBD.
In the cannabis community, this is common knowledge and the reason why many patients seek marijuana as their therapy. Nevertheless, it’s a powerful video to watch as these two kids — like dozens if not hundreds of others — find relief from their painful affliction with cannabis.
| Jack Daniel. |
In 1996, California voters legalized medical marijuana for qualified patients and caregivers. Nearly two decades have passed, and the city of San Diego has yet to enact an ordinance which would regulate medical marijuana dispensaries, and provide the guidelines by which they could legally open.
In nearly four hours of testimonies given by dozens of San Diego citizens on Monday, the eight sitting City Council members heard arguments given both in favor of, and against, Mayor Bob Filner’s new proposed ordinance to allow for the legal and regulated re-opening of medical marijuana dispensaries in America’s Finest City.
| slatercenter.com |
For the second time this month: Congrats, Rhode Island. Your medical marijuana patients now have somewhere to purchase medical marijuana if you they grow their own.
The Thomas C. Slater Compassion Center opened Friday, just in time for the 4/20 weekends that celebrates – among other aspects of cannabis culture – medical marijuana. According to store employees, there was a constant flow of patients.
San Diego City Council is considering allowing medical marijuana dispensaries in the city again, and will take up the topic today at their Monday council meeting.
After ordinances allowing dispensaries – albeit with very strict regulations – were nullified in 2011, the city has been without medical marijuana laws. The existing shops were deemed illegal and the city shut down the roughly 100 or so in town.
The Illinois House approved medical marijuana proposal House Bill 1 yesterday evening. The bill still has to go through the Senate and be signed by the governor, but supporters say House biggest hurdle the law would face.
If passed, House Bill 1 would allow registered patients to possess up to two and a half ounces. Patients would not be allowed to grow their own, but would rely on one of 22 grow facilities to stock their nearby dispensary. There would be as many as 60 medical marijuana dispensaries licensed by the state.
“Licensed medical practitioners should not be punished for recommending the medical use of marijuana to seriously ill people, and seriously ill people should not be subject to criminal sanctions for using marijuana if their medical professionals have told them that such use is likely to be beneficial.”
That was the message Tuesday of nearly 250 Illinois doctors to legislators considering passing House Bill 1, which would allow for medical marijuana use in the Land of Lincoln.