| Photo: Limor Edrey |
| Bags and joints of Israeli medical cannabis |
Patients who use marijuana for medical purposes must wait six hours after smoking it to drive a car, the Israeli Health Ministry is set to announce soon.
Until now, the issue of driving and medical marijuana had not been clarified formally in Israel, causing several police-related incidents, reports Dan Even at Haaretz.com.
In one incident in November 2010, scriptwriter Ran Sarig, a medical marijuana patient, was investigated after he was seen on a TV program driving with a joint in his mouth.
Drivers of public or commercial vehicles will be completely barred from using medical marijuana under the new regulations.
| Photo: Hollywood Collectibles |
| Dan Marijuano? “All those pictures of him and his old hair, I wouldn’t pass it by him.” ~ Kyle Turley |
If you’re inclined to believe locker room rumors, one of them has it that legendary National Football League quarterback Dan Marino was known to smoke marijuana before games.
Former NFL offensive lineman Kyle Turley claimed this week on the Dan LeBatard Show that while he doesn’t know for sure, stories of Miami Dolphins legend Marino sparking up before games is the stuff of common locker room lore, reports Michael J. Mooney at our sister Village Voice Media blog, Broward Palm Beach New Times.
Turley, ostensibly on LeBatard’s show to promote a Super Bowl party he’s hosting, started bragging about how he drinks whiskey straight out of the bottle and smokes medical marijuana. The former New Orleans Saint, Los Angeles Ram and Kansas City Chief claimed he smoked pot during his 1998-2007 NFL career, but never before games — which he heard was Marino’s practice.
| Photo: Idaho Secretary of State |
| Dude won’t be winning any high-IQ tests anytime soon: Clueless Idaho Sen. Denton “Dense” Darrington believes blunt wraps are a threat to civilization in Idaho. |
Let’s be “blunt” about this: With all the real issues facing the Potato State, the Idaho Legislature has some mighty strange priorities.
A bill introduced Monday in the Senate Judiciary and Rules Committee would make it unlawful to sell, manufacture or distribute roll-your-own cigar blunt wraps in the state. This is because blunt wraps, made from tobacco leaves, are widely used by marijuana smokers to consume weed.
The incredibly pinheaded proposal, sponsored by Republican Senator Denton “Dense” Darrington, would give blunt wraps the same status as other supposed “drug paraphernalia,” opening sellers, manufacturers and owners of the products to potential criminal charges, reports Ben Botkin at the Magic Valley Times-News.
The bill comes — you guessed it! — at the urging of Big Tobacco, who would really hate to see Americans switch from smoking their cancer-causing product — which causes 440,000 deaths every year in the U.S. alone — to marijuana, for which nobody seems to be able to find a single substantiated fatality.
The Cigar Association of America claims the wraps “have no legitimate use” and are primarily used to make “marijuana cigarettes.” The horror…. The horror!
| Photo: MikeCann.net |
| This man — the great Lou Lang — is your best friend in the Illinois Legislature. |
Legislation that would legalize the physician-approved use of medical marijuana has been reintroduced in the Illinois Legislature.
House Bill 30, the Compassionate Use of Medical Cannabis Pilot Program Act, would allow qualified patients to possess and grow marijuana for medical reasons.
Similar legislation was approved by the Senate, but narrowly defeated by the House in the previous session (it lost by only four votes).
“What we have to do now is wait for the new session to start, introduce a new piece of legislation and start over,” bill sponsor Rep. Lou Lang had said after the previous bill was defeated.
| Montana Medical Grower’s Association |
The Montana House Judiciary Committee will meet Wednesday to discuss DUI legislation, House Bill 33, sponsored by Republican Ken Peterson, which provides that any amount of a “dangerous drug” in a driver’s body results in the conclusion that the person is impaired.
While the bill stipulates that if the drug has been prescribed by a licensed physician and taken as prescribed, the driver is not guilty of violating the law, it fails to include physician recommendations for medical marijuana.
The bill thus fails to provide appropriate protection for patients, according to Jim Gingery, executive director of the Montana Medical Grower’s Association.
“To exclude those drivers who are taking prescribed pharmaceuticals while omitting patients who are using a recommended alternative treatment is not in the best interest of the public nor is the assumption of impairment without proper testing,” Gingery said.
| Graphic: Michigan Medical Marijuana Association |
A registered medical marijuana patient in Michigan is suing the Lyon Township and Oakland County because they’re trying to take his growing cannabis plants away from him.
Steven J. Greene got a notice from the township attorney on December 20 telling him he had 30 days to get rid of the marijuana plants growing inside his mobile home — on threat of seizure and prosecution under the township ordinance, reports Mike Martindale at The Detroit News.
A copy of the letter was also sent to the Oakland County Sheriff’s Office, which discovered the plants last year after both a storm and an attempted break-in set off burglar alarms at Green’s residence in separate incidents, according to Greene’s attorney, Thomas Loeb.
Greene, who is HIV positive, is on medical disability and uses marijuana to combat nausea from drugs used to treat his health condition, Loeb said.
| Graphic: PRWeb |
Gus Escamilla, the founder and CEO of Greenway University in Denver, plans to offer fledgling Arizona dispensaries an education in the business of medicinal cannabis.
His team helped open more than 225 dispensaries in California, Colorado and the western United States, according to Escamilla, reports John Yantis at The Arizona Republic.
“The demographic that we recognized, it’s not the 21- to 28-year-olds,” Escamilla said of prospective dispensary owners. “It’s the 35- to 65-year-olds, the displaced professionals, the people that want to get into this industry in total and complete compliance with the state laws or jurisdiction that they live in.”
Later this month, Greenway University, which says its curriculum is provisionally approved by a division of the Colorado Department of Higher Education, plans a two-day, $295 seminar in Scottsdale. Students can learn about the political and legal issues surrounding marijuana, as well as how to grow the herb and prepare it in a snack form called edibles.
Medical marijuana patients in Washington could have protection from arrest if the Legislature passes a bill reforming the 1998 voter-approved law authorizing use of cannabis for some terminal and debilitating illnesses.
I know what you’re thinking. “Shouldn’t they ALREADY have arrest protection if medical marijuana is legal for them to use?”
Yes. Yes, they should.
Although the law has been in place for more than 12 years, many patients complain they are still harassed by police, said Sen. Jerome Delvin (R-Richland), a co-sponsor of the Senate of the Senate version of the bill, reports Michelle Dupler at the Tri-City Herald.
Delvin pushed for the bill to include a voluntary patient registry that would provide medical marijuana patients a card they can show to police rather than submitting to searches of their homes or property.
“It allows us to know what’s going on out there,” said Delvin, a former Richland police officer who retired in 2006. “It gives law enforcement an easier tool. They can have confidence in the registry. If someone has a card — case closed.”
| Photo: Ocala.com |
| Don’t laugh, man. I *almost* got to meet a stripper! |
If you smuggle marijuana into this county jail, you get a roast beef sub and an expensive bottle of tequila. Make it into lock-up with a cell phone and you’ll be introduced to a stripper.
That may sound like some new weird reality TV show, but Florida authorities said a Marion County corrections officer actuallyaccepted all of the above.
The officer and four other people — two inmates and their girlfriends — have now been arrested, reports Austin L. Miller at the Ocala Star-Banner.
Joseph Jones, 31, a master corrections officer, was charged with principal to introducing contraband into a detention facility, introduction of contraband into a detention facility, and possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana.
Jones was booked into Marion County Jail at 9:55 p.m. Wednesday, and released about an hour and a half later, at 11:30 p.m. He was suspended without pay from his job, and an Internal Affairs investigation has been launched.
A jail inmate, Travis Cottrell, 28, told officers that the scheme worked like this: Two women would go to a sandwich shop not far from the jail and order two sandwiches. They’d remove the meat and other contents from one sub and place the marijuana inside the bread.
| Graphic: Patient & Caregiver Rights Litigation Project |
Medical marijuana advocates Wednesday evening called for the full legalization of marijuana in Colorado, saying that until cannabis is fully legal, it will always be stigmatized and patients will be subject to harassment.
“No patient is really safe until it is legalized for everyone,” attorney Robert J. Corry told the patients and advocates at a meeting in Denver, reports Scot Kersgaard at The Colorado Independent.
Corry and other attorneys said law enforcement officials, lawmakers and other officials will never really act as if anyone has a right to use marijuana until it is made legal for all.
“They are treating patients like criminals instead of the sick people we are,” said Laura Kriho of the Cannabis Therapy Institute.
Advocates said patient access is in jeopardy in Colorado because of rules that allow cities and counties to ban dispensaries, and because of patient fears that their medical marijuana records are not really confidential.