Delaware Senate Committee Approves MMJ Bill
June 8th, 2009 by Rick
Who is going to be the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana? Delaware is a state that just may be in the running.
A medical marijuana bill for patients with “debilitating medical conditions” passed the Delaware Senate health and social services committee last Wednesday, during a 90-minute hearing where no member spoke against the bill.
The main sponsor, Sen. Margaret Rose Henry commented that the bill would need to be “revised and clarified” before having it move to the Senate.
Garden State May Become Greener
June 5th, 2009 by Rick
New Jersey may just become the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana for chronically ill patients. On Thursday, the Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee approved the medical marijuana bill that the senate had passed, with an overwhelming eight to one (with two abstentions) vote.
The bill already has the backing of State Attorney General Anne Milgram saying “it’s workable” and Governor Jon Corzine has already said that he would sign the bill into a law.
If passed into a law it would allow patients whose doctors have determined them to be chronically ill to be issued an identification card that lets them grow six plants or obtain the medical marijuana at an “alternative medicine center.”
Middlesex Police Chief James Benson, representing the State Association of Chiefs of Police, said:
It will lead to increased marijuana use, increased crime, and an increased threat to public safety.
A co-sponsor of the bill, State Senator Fred Scutari, said:
It will be the most restrictive law in the U.S. … with the most safeguards in terms of abuse.
Per usual, law enforcement officials at a local level continue to repeat the rhetoric that has been whispered into their ears by drug warriors. It doesn’t matter if a state declares medical marijuana legal, city officials and their law enforcement can seemingly do whatever they want when it comes to circumventing a law.
LA Loophole Within Moratorium to Be Plugged
June 4th, 2009 by Rick
Back in 2005 there were only four medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, one each in the areas of Hancock Park, Van Nuys, Rancho Park and Cheviot Hills. Police say now 600 have popped up, with more perhaps out there that they don’t know about.
The rise came about after a moratorium was passed in 2007, that was actually supposed to stop future dispensaries from opening. The 186 that were already registered with the city and operating were allowed to remain open for business.
The moratorium contains a standard provision of a hardship exemption that allows City Council to listen to appeals from the dispensaries to legally operate. Because of typical red tape and city officials not having a clue on how to regulate the dispensaries, none of the 508 hardships applications have been processed (or let alone looked at) but by the dispensaries filing for a hardship application it prevented the city attorney’s office from engaging in prosecution.
Next Tuesday, the City Council’s planning committee intends to send a motion to the council designed to take the hardship exemption clause out of the moratorium, that will essentially close the loophole.
Ed Reyes, Chairman of the committee, said:
I don’t think anyone could have predicted how that clause was going to be used. [...] We’ve got abusive folks who are just gaming the system.
After the motion becomes a law, it is planned to have the city attorney shut down any dispensaries that attempt to open afterwards, allowing the hundreds of dispensaries already operating to be exempt. After the motion is filed it may still take a couple of weeks for it to become a law.
Frank Bush, assistant chief for the Code Enforcement Bureau noted:
Technically, they are not open legally. [...] Before we can take any further enforcement action, the City Council has to review them and take any action.
The concern apparently comes from the 200 complaints filed by citizens to the Department of Building and Safety who in turn sent out 80 orders to those dispensaries citizens complained about to comply with the moratorium. Obviously there is a much bigger agenda at a local city level trying to stifle the medical marijuana community, more than likely taking secret directives from the state, while they in turn are discreetly influenced at a federal level.
Iowa Says No to Medical Marijuana
June 2nd, 2009 by Rick
On the orders of a Polk County Judge in Iowa, the Iowa Board of Pharmacy was to discuss whether or not marijuana had any medicinal value to offer. The answer was an emphatic no.
The fact that a Judge asks a board that is somehow involved with the pharmaceutical industry, to decide this issue, is a farce. It’s obvious what their answer will be, after all, marijuana threatens the pharmaceutical industry — just as hemp threatens multiple industries of business. It was clear from their whole two minute discussion and their canned Twilight Zone responses that an impartial, unbiased review board is needed.
One Iowa pharmacy board member, Susan Frey had the audacity to say:
We need science-based evidence that there are acceptable uses and that those uses are within the realm of safety for the public.
Bizzaro world. There are numerous sources out there circulating that support marijuana having a medicinal value. Thankfully decisions of this magnitude aren’t just left up to one entity within the government and the plaintiff from the case and ACLU plan on continuing the fight.
LAPD Ignoring Medical Marijuana Law
June 1st, 2009 by Rick
Apparently the LAPD is the new DEA. According to Americans for Safe Access, via Opposing Views, Detective Supervisor Holcomb from the LAPD has been shutting down Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensaries — some as recent as the past few days.
Holcomb told one of the clinic’s lawyers:
The City Council’s ongoing effort to regulate these facilities is irrelevant because the associations violate state law.
Sounding more like a DA rather than a cop, Holcomb cited a few flawed examples that he felt covered his ass when it came to raiding state sanctioned cannabis clubs. Outgoing Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo, had the same philosophy when he wrote a draft ordinance designed to close all storefront patients’ associations in Los Angeles.
That was last year, the same year that California Attorney General Jerry Brown published guidelines stating:
A properly organized and operated collective or cooperative that dispenses medical marijuana through a storefront may be lawful under California law.
The Obama Administration and U.S. Attorney Eric Holder even said that the federal government would stop the raiding of medical marijuana dispensaries. The only time they said that they would raid these collectives was when they were violating state law as well. If these co-ops raided by Holcomb and his henchmen in blue, are indeed running a state sanctioned dispansary without criminal element, then the LAPD has a lot of explaining to do, considering this is in direct contradiction of the statements from the White House.
CDC Chief Endorses Cannabinoids
June 1st, 2009 by Russ
Center for Disease Control heir-apparent, Thomas Frieden, voiced his support for THC in his last budget meeting as New York City Health Commissioner. When asked about treating chemotherapy patients with persistent nausea, Frieden noted that smoking weed provided relief a great deal faster than a Marinol pill, the synthetic and regulated equivalent.
Frieden implied that a spray form of Marinol might be a benefit to patients, as it’s still inferior to its natural cousin. Perhaps he had had Sativex on the brain. A new and as yet unapproved THC spray, Sativex hopes to enter into the medical marijuana debate upon FDA approval.
In the meantime, one wonders whether medical weed will be brought to bare on Swine Flu or Ebola during the tenure of the new CDC chief.
Medical Marijuana Patient Robbed Twice
May 29th, 2009 by RickMark Spohn, a medical marijuana patient in Seattle had his home invaded by some men, pretending to be FBI agents. After they told him to get down on the floor, the proceeded to rob him of his medical marijuana.
To make matters worse, when the Seattle police arrived there they learned that there were entirely too many plants at the residence, so they robbed confiscated dozens of the plants. Under the Washington medical marijuana law, patients are allowed to have 15 plants and 24 ounces.
Spohn informed the police that several patients were growing their medical marijuana there as well, but the police merely stated that they were enforcing the law. Detectives declined to speak on camera, but neighbors had said that the home had been subjected to attempted break-ins before.
As the Seattle police carried out the medical marijuana, the actual FBI arrived on the scene and began looking into the home invasion and a possible impersonation of a federal officer.
Under the terms of the Washington law, patients that qualify for medical marijuana have either a terminal illness or a debilitating condition. Spohn is devastated and from this point on, doesn’t know what he will do.
Big Pharma Developing Ersatz Weed Treatment
May 29th, 2009 by Russ
Large conglomerates and multinational corporations seem to be intent on sucking the fun out of just about everything. It seems that they’ve now set their sights on doing this to weed. English Pharma Behemoth, GW Pharmaceuticals, is now seeking approval of Sativex, a marijuana-based nasal spray.
GW Pharma has assured investors that they have meticulously extracted only the finest, most potent cannabanoids from “proprietary” strains of gourmet marijuana grown in the richest most fertile soil, lovingly drawn from the moist nether regions of mother Earth. The company is very quick to congratulate itself on creating a drug that provides all of the benefits of weed with few of the undesirable ’side effects.’ In other words, GW claims to have developed a medicinal form of weed that doesn’t get you high.
As with the pharmaceutical industry at large, this medicine wasn’t developed with any societal good in mind. This is merely an attempt to seize as much market share as possible from a medical marijuana gold rush that appears to be in full frenzy. As we have learned from an industry that spends two-thirds of its research budget on copycat drugs, Big Pharma isn’t out to help anyone other than its own investors.
Unfortunately for GW, a cold corporate mindset can’t accurately wrap itself around weed culture. No self-respecting weed connoisseur will spend 10 to 20 times the price of natural herb for a product that is peddled as ‘refined.’ There is already a whole spectrum of refined greenery.
For instance, anyone with a passing familiarity with weed already knows that vaporization allows the ingestion of THC without inhaling particulate matter and allows for a much more mellow high. Sounds a lot more pleasant than shoving a dispenser up one’s nose.
