Medical

Canada Announces New Medical Marijuana Rules

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 18, 2012 Global, Legislation, Medical

New Plan Kowtows To Law Enforcement; Ignores Patients

Canada is changing the way citizens there can access marijuana for medical purposes, it was announced Sunday. The changes were made at the suggestion law enforcement officials, and seemingly without consulting medical professionals or patients at all.

“Current medical marihuana regulations have left the system open to abuse,” claimed Minister of Health Leona Aglukkaq. “We have heard real concerns from law enforcement, fire officials, and municipalities about how people are hiding behind these rules to conduct illegal activity, and putting health and safety of Canadians at risk.

“These changes will make it far more difficult for people to game the system,” Aglukkaq claimed.

Cali Court Rules In Favor Of Parent Who Uses Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 12, 2012 Medical, News

San Diego Law Firm

Defense Prevails In Court Case Setting Limits On Laws Separating Children From Their Parents Who Are Medical Marijuana Patients

A hard-fought appeals court victory has been won in Irvine, California.

In the case of Drake A., the California Court of Appeal ruled on December 5 that while parents who abuse drugs can lose custody of their children, a parent who uses marijuana for medical reasons, with a doctor’s approval, isn’t automatically defined as a “drug abuser.”

Being hailed as precedent-setting, the ruling from Division Three of the Second Appellate District further clarifies child welfare law as applied in such cases, and represents a “very significant” victory, according to defense attorney Lauren K. Johnson.

Czech Parliament Approves Medical Marijuana

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 7, 2012 Global, Legislation, Medical

The Weed Blog

The Czech Republic’s lower house of Parliament has approved legislation to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. The bill still needs to be approved by the upper house to become law.

Politicians agreed that marijuana would initially be imported, and later grown locally by registered farms, reports RT.com.

Patients would need a doctor’s prescription to get cannabis at pharmacies, reports The Associated Press. Marijuana will not be covered by health insurance, and patients will not be allowed to grow it at home.

“The point of the proposal is to make medical marijuana accessible to patients that need it and that already use it today, even when it is against the law,” Pavel Bern, one of a group of deputies who wrote the bill, told Reuters.

Fox News Caught Faking Again: Drivers On Cannabis

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 7, 2012 Legislation, Medical, News

Fox News, for whatever reason, just can’t be trusted to report accurately on marijuana issues.

In the latest example of this truism, Fox News in Colorado was caught cheating by a participant in a driving simulator test for medical marijuana patients.

This participant went in undercover with a camera to expose the truth about “driving high” and the fact that Fox News designed the test to fail.

Medical Marijuana Patients Can Get Booted From Public Housing

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 7, 2012 Medical, News

SF Weekly

Medical marijuana patients in California enjoy protection from criminal prosecution under state law, but that’s about it.

Patients can be fired at any time for legally using cannabis as authorized by a physician, and patients living in public housing can be evicted at any time, reports Chris Roberts at SF Weekly. The likelihood of actually becoming homeless due to being a medicinal cannabis patient depends on exactly where you live, according to activists and tenants.

Municipal government units such as the San Francisco Housing Authority hire private companies to manage, as well as to build, some of the units, Roberts reports.

Got Terpenes? From Marijuana To Memory

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 6, 2012 Culture, Medical

Sharon Letts

Anyone who has ever used a vaporizer has tasted the sweet green of good bud

Cannabis, Terpenes, and the Limbic System

By Sharon Letts

The first green I smoked was probably rag weed – 70s shake rolled into a pinner, and handed to me in the bathroom of a 76 gas station in Redondo Beach. It was probably around 7:30 in the morning and I was 16 and on my way to high school.

I don’t make this stuff up.

More than 30 years have passed, but if someone hands me some cheap weed, with one whiff I can see my three friends jammed into that small space. I can smell the motor oil, see the smudges on the walls, and nearly hear the traffic outside.

I can also remember how uplifted I felt, opening that bathroom door and feeling the crisp, cool air on my face. The world was crisp and new through canna-eyes and it felt right. I didn’t know it at the time, but cannabis would become my medicine for life, hands down.

First New Jersey Medical Marijuana Center Opens

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 6, 2012 Dispensaries, Medical, News

Adam Anik/NorthJersey.com

The Greenleaf Compassion Center on Bloomfield Avenue in Montclair, New Jersey

Patients and Advocates Overjoyed to Have Safe and Legal Access to Medical Marijuana

New Jersey’s first Alternative Treatment Center is scheduled to open Thursday, December 6 in Montclair. Greenleaf Compassion Center will see patients by appointment only, beginning at 10 a.m.

At the moment, the center has scheduled about 20 patients in the order of their initial registration for the program. To date, several hundred state residents are successfully registered.

Marijuana Advocates Urge County To Fight Federal Subpoena

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on December 4, 2012 Dispensaries, Medical, News

Jean Hamamoto/Jean’s Artworks

Mendocino County Board of Supervisors and County Counsel hold closed-door meeting Tuesday after 9 a.m. public comment period

The Mendocino Board of Supervisors and County Counsel Thomas Parker met in a closed-door session Tuesday to discuss a pending federal subpoena for records held by the Sheriff’s now-defunct medical marijuana cultivation program, County Code 9.31, in which registrants were allowed to grow collectively up to 99 plants and were sold zip ties for $25 per plant to show they were being cultivated in compliance with state law.

NORML’s St. Pierre Calls Marijuana Dispensaries ‘Moonshiners’

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 28, 2012 Dispensaries, Medical, News

Cheeba!

Allen St. Pierre, NORML: “They’re moonshiners. It’s a tiny group of people who don’t comport”

Medical marijuana patients in Washington state are offended after Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), called medicinal cannabis dispensaries “moonshiners” in a Huffington Post interview.

“They’re moonshiners,” St. Pierre said of the dispensaries which opposed Initiative 502, passed by 54 percent of Washington voters. “It’s a tiny group of people who don’t comport.”

Of course, painting all Washington patient collectives with this broad brush — especially when St. Pierre is 2,600 miles away and doesn’t know what the FUCK he’s talking about — is the height of irresponsibility. I’ve been in close to 90 medical marijuana access points in Washington state, and I can personally tell you that the vast majority are not profiteers, and definitely not “moonshiners.”

“Now patients that grow in collective gardens are ‘moonshiners’ according to the head of NORML!” responded patient advocate Steve Sarich of Cannacare on Facebook Wednesday morning. “Only state-run marijuana is acceptable to NORML?”

The Cannabis Conspiracy and the Abdication of Medicine

By Steve Elliott ~alapoet~ on November 28, 2012 Medical

THC Finder

By Al Byrne

Patients Out of Time

It’s true enough what the federal wordsmiths of spin roll out about there being a conspiracy to make cannabis available to the sick in the United States. There is such a cabal of cannabis crusaders working to undermine the U.S. government’s role in determining what medicine(s) patients can use, and when, and how.

I know most of these people and let me assure you that they are serious about their goal (1). I’m one of the conspirators.

Some, like Libertarians and the Tea Party stalwarts, are half crazy about the wide reach of all governments into their lives — negative, as they see it. Many are politically active, seeing the election of selected politicians the key to a change in the rules of cannabis prohibition regardless of whether they sport a red or blue tie. The politically oriented see a goal of 21 states with legal cannabis as

a jump off for a Constitutional Amendment process — a move that places

decisions best made by health care professionals in the hands of non-medical citizens.

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