Search Results: medical-cannabis/ (10)

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock

Denver Mayor Michael Hancock (D)  blames legal weed for the “urban travelers” who have caused violent episodes on Denver’s 16th Street Mall, the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare. Recently, a 32-year old Indiana man was arrested after video showed him attacking pedestrians with lengths of PVC pipe. It’s not clear whether he was high at the time.

Other recent incidents, also caught on video, have seen arrests after attacks and aggressive panhandling. New research shows that legal states have seen a drop in Medicare prescriptions for anti-depressants and opiods, and a corresponding reduction in Medicare costs.

Prescriptions did not drop for drugs like blood-thinners that can’t plausibly be replaced with MED. (Read that study here.) If California legalizes REC in November, it could influence federal policy on banking and other issues. Regulators in the state said they will start inspecting dispensary scales  to ensure that customers are getting their money’s worth.

Massachusetts’ REC initiative will be on the ballot in November. Gov. Charlie Baker (R), Boston Mayor Marty Walsh (D) and Speaker of the House Robert DeLeo (D) have banded together to oppose it. Arkansas voters will decide on a MED initiative. Fortune sees signs of a backlash in Colorado. Murders in California’s Lake County, a center of growing, reached a 10-year high of eight last year. Donna Weinholtz, wife of Utah gubernatorial candidate Mike Weinholtz (D), is under federal investigation related to her MED use.

The rules for Alaska’s pot café’s are under review. Voters in the state’s Matanuska-Susitna Borough will decide on a commercial ban in the fall. Former Liberal Party deputy prime minister Anne McLellan will lead Canada’s nine-member legalization task force. McLellan is a former law professor at the University of Alberta. Canada’s legal purchasing age may vary across provinces, but the government wants a consistent national law on DUI. Both LSU and Southern University are exercising their option to grow Louisiana’s MED supply.

This article also appeared in the the pot-focused weekly newsletter WeedWeek. Get your free and confidential subscription at WeedWeek.net.

Students for Sensible Drug Policy

Following the Montana Supreme Court’s September 11 ruling overturning an injunction on parts of the current medical marijuana law, the Montana Department of Public Health & Human Services (DPHHS) is now ordering a majority of the state’s providers to decide which patients they will cancel from their rolls.
The directive is intended to bring the providers into conformity with the current requirements of the state’s medical marijuana law without the injunction in effect. Today, DPHHS is mailing letters to 267 providers, leaving more than 5,400 patients without safe access to a medical marijuana provider.
 
“I spoke with my provider last week,” said Doug Shaw, a 61-year-old patient in Libby, Montana. “He says I’m on my own now, and he doesn’t know anyone sticking with the program.”
“Where I am I supposed to go for medical marijuana?” Shaw asked. “Maybe the Legislature will provide it to me.”

Medical Marijuana Hut

​The U.S. federal government’s Department of Health and Human Services seems about ready to award exclusive rights to apply marijuana as a medical therapeutic. You read that correctly: “exclusive rights.”

Now, I don’t think of myself as a conspiracy theorist. But when the federal government keeps taking actions that, even when considered separately but especially when viewed together, all seem to be part of a bigger plan to pave the way for the pharmaceutical industry to bulldoze the cottage medical marijuana industry, I start getting antsy.
“We find it hypocritical and incredible that on the one hand, the U.S. Department of Justice is persecuting cannabis patient associations, asserting that the federal government regards marijuana as having absolutely no medical value, despite overwhelming clinical evidence,” said Union of Medical Marijuana Patients director James Shaw. “On the other hand, the Department of Health and Human Services is planning to grant patent rights with possible worldwide application to develop medicine based on cannabis.”
“Though UMMP welcomes any potential new research that could come from KannaLife Sciences’ federal endorsement, it is highly disconcerting that the contemplated grant is an exclusive one,” the organization posted on its website.

Luke Thomas/Fog City Journal
Founder/president Kevin Reed of The Green Cross: “The Green Cross will act no differently today or tomorrow, than we did a month ago”

​The founder and president of The Green Cross, a medical marijuana delivery service in San Francisco, responded on Monday to the recently announced federal crackdown on cannabis dispensaries, saying the collective “will act no differently today or tomorrow, than we did a month ago.”

“Following the release of the Cole Memo earlier this summer, the United States Department of Justice announced their intention to ‘crack down’ on medical cannabis dispensaries across the state of California,” Reed told members of The Green Cross collective in a Monday email. “At a press conference last Friday in Sacramento, US Attorneys reminded us that federal law prohibits the use and distribution of cannabis for any purpose regardless of state law, and, outlined heightened enforcement techniques tailored for each of California’s US Attorney districts.

Photo: The Green Cross
From the menu at The Green Cross: SF Ice, an indica cross of Afghan, Northern Lights, Skunk and Shiva. Tested at 18.4 percent THC.

​The Green Cross, first incorporated as a California public benefit nonprofit medical marijuana patient collective in July 2004, is celebrating seven years in San Francisco.

“Since then, The Green Cross has become well known for our safe and discreet delivery service, commitment to social and environmental responsibility, absolute compliance with state and local laws, and generosity to local and national charitable organizations,” said founder and president Kevin Reed.
“In seven years since we first incorporated with the State of California, The Green Cross has experienced its share of ups and downs,” Reed said. “But, with the help of your support, we are proud to be among the city’s best licensed medical cannabis dispensaries.”

Photo: DEA
DEA Director Michelle Leonhart claims marijuana has no medical uses, and that it belongs on Schedule I with heroin.

​The U.S. federal government on Friday reiterated the same policy towards medical marijuana it has had for years, claiming the herb has “no accepted medical use” and that it has a high potential for abuse and addiction. The judgment came in response to a 2002 petition by medical marijuana advocates calling on the government to reclassify cannabis, currently a Schedule I drug with heroin, illegal for all uses.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ruled that marijuana has “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States,” has a “high potential for abuse,” and “lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.”
Robotically mouthing meaningless platitudes, DEA Director Michelle Leonhart, without apparent irony, embarrassingly repeated the same unscientific nonsense that for years now has served as the federal government’s position on medical marijuana.

Graphic: Arkansans For Medical Cannabis

​​An Arkansas state senator who previously said he expected to file a bill this year to legalize medical marijuana in Arkansas now says the bill should be filed in the state House, not the Senate.

“My thinking at this point is that the bill should probably start at the House end,” said Sen. Randy Laverty (D-Jasper) in the Capitol rotunda, where the group Arkansans for Medical Cannabis was launching a two-day program to promote legalizing marijuana for medicinal uses.
“I think perhaps the bigger challenge will be on the House end,” Laverty said. “Do we [in the Senate]want to devote a lot of time and enter into the fray that will come about naturally because of this kind of controversial legislation if we can’t get it out of House committee?”
Laverty said he’d talked to some House members about the issue, but would not name names, reports John Lyon of the Arkansas News Bureau. The chances of a medical marijuana bill getting through a House committee may vary, depending upon the committee to which it is assigned by the House speaker, according to Laverty.
“My guess would be Public Health” would be the committee most favorably inclined toward it, Laverty said.