While El Paso County deals with a lawsuit over a ballot measure to ban medical marijuana businesses, the city of Colorado Springs is laughing all the way to the bank.
The August sales of medical marijuana and marijuana-infused products generated $56,991 in sales tax revenue for the city, a record high and a nearly 12 percent increase from July.
So far this year, the city has collected nearly $325,000 in sales tax revenue from the medical marijuana industry – almost three times the amount collected all of last year.
“I think this provides a little more evidence to us that we should let the industry continue and see how it works in our community and not shut it down prematurely,” Mayor Lionel Rivera said Thursday of the latest sales tax numbers.
At the same time, he said, the Police Department and other city agencies involved in regulating the industry need to compile information to ensure the costs, “both from just a people standpoint and the social impacts,” don’t outweigh the financial benefits.
“I think that’s one good reason why we, the city, did not put something on the ballot in November,” Rivera said.
County commissioners opted otherwise and referred a question to the Nov. 2 ballot asking voters whether medical marijuana businesses should be prohibited in the unincorporated areas of the county.
Now, commissioners are staring at a lawsuit filed by a pro-medical marijuana group seeking a preliminary injunction to have the measure removed from the ballot.
Rivera said City Council members considered the possibility of a lawsuit if they placed a similar question on the ballot, which some residents urged them to do.
“We knew that municipalities or county governments would put things on the ballot that may be challenged in court (and) that we’d rather have them do that and spend the money to test the court rather than us do that,” he said.
“We believe, at least six out of the nine of us believe, that we’re following what the state constitution allows,” he added. “We’ll wait and see how the court cases fall out from other cities and counties.”
A man charged in the execution-style killing of a worker at a Los Angeles medical marijuana dispensary pleaded not guilty Monday as police continued to search for a second suspect in the case.
Daniel Deshawn Hinton, 31, is being held without bail while awaiting trial in the June 26 shooting death of 27-year-old Matthew Butcher at the Higher Path Holistic Care Collective on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park.
A group of men entered the dispensary, holding Butcher and a security guard face-down at gunpoint while they ransacked the store for cash and marijuana, police said. Although the two did not resist, they were shot, according to an account given to police by the security guard, who survived.
Hinton, who was arrested July 21, also has been charged with attempted murder in the shooting of the guard.
The Los Angeles Police Department is searching for Raymond Lemone Easter, 27, who was identified last week as one of the attackers and so far has eluded detectives. He, too, has been charged with murder and attempted murder.
A $50,000 reward for information leading to Easter's arrest was issued by the Los Angeles City Council last week. As is often the case, police have struggled to persuade people who might have useful information to cooperate because of fears of retaliation.
LAPD Lt. Gregg Strenk, who is overseeing the investigation, said detectives are working to identify at least one more person they believe was with Easter and Hinton at the time of the shooting.
Easter and Hinton are known gang members, but Strenk said there is no evidence to support widespread speculation that the dispensary was cutting into illegal street drug sales controlled by area gangs and that the shooting was meant to send a message or as retaliation.
Hours after Butcher was killed, a worker at a dispensary five miles away in Hollywood was discovered dead. Ila Ali Packman, 39, was found dead from an apparent stabbing inside Hollywood Holistic 2 on North El Centro Avenue.
Police have found no indication that the two killings are linked. They have not made an arrest in the second case and indicated that they do not have any strong leads.
A Texas asthma sufferer who went to California for a medical marijuana recommendation and then got busted in June on a Texas highway with small amounts of marijuana and hashish is facing up to life in prison after being indicted by a Brown County grand jury.
He is charged with possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver, a first-degree felony in the Lone Star State.
Chris Diaz, 20, has been jailed on $40,000 bond since the June 27 arrest. He was busted with 14 grams of weed and hash.
Under Texas law, possession of less than two ounces of marijuana is a Class B misdemeanor punishable by up to six months in jail, while possession of hashish is either a state jail felony punishable by up to two years for less than a gram, or a second-class felony punishable by up to 20 years if less than four grams, although probation is also possible. It is unclear exactly how much hash Diaz had.
Diaz was pulled over for an expired license tag while en route from California to Austin, and according to the DPS trooper's report, could not produce a drivers' license or proof of insurance. He was then arrested for failure to identify, and during a subsequent search, police found a small amount of hashish on his person. A search of the vehicle then turned up more hash and marijuana in pill bottle from a California medical marijuana provider.
The DPS report said the search also turned up a cell phone "containing text messages referring to drug sales" and a notebook with "drug and law writings." Those are apparently the basis, legitimate or otherwise, for the drug distribution charge.
Texas does not have a medical marijuana law, and its authorities do not recognize having a recommendation from another state as a defense against prosecution.
Diaz has attracted supporters both inside Texas and nationally. The Texas Coalition for Compassionate Care and a group called I Am Sovereign are publicizing the case and pressuring Brown County officialdom. And the asthmatic Diaz sits in jail in Central Texas awaiting trial, without his medicine.
This Article Is Written By Jeremiah Vandermeer, Cannabis Culture - Wednesday, August 4 2010
"This time they were a lot more polite and didn't punch anyone in the face," C.A.L.M.'s attorney Ron Marzel told Cannabis Culture, referring to violent police actions during the first raid reported on by Cannabis Culture and picked up by the mainstream press. "They used fake ID cards again. Once they were in they identified themselves immediately and said 'get on the ground!
Marzel said police confiscated about 200 grams of hash and some shake. Staff members were arrested, but Marzel said they were all released without charges. C.A.L.M.'s owner Neev Tapiero, who is currently fighting trafficking charges stemming from the first raid, was arrested at his house a few blocks from the dispensary. His bail hearing is scheduled for tomorrow, meaning he will be forced to stay the night in jail.
Less than 10 officers from Toronto's 51 Division were involved in the raid according to Marzel. 51 Division officers did not return phone calls from Cannabis Culture at the time of publication of this article.
"The detective indicated that the only reason he got the warrant was because he continued to get complaints about the smell of smoke," Marzel said. "This is completely unnecessary, and Neev wasn't even on site when they raided the facility."
Marzel said Tapiero's case from the first raid was moving along swiftly, with Tapiero already electing to have it proceed by indictment.
"We've been moving the process along fairly quickly because we want to get this resolved before the courts sooner rather than later," Marzel said. "Neev has nothing to hide. He's upfront about the fact that he's selling cannabis to people who have a legitimate medical need. He wants to have his day in court. He wants to be tried. We've already elected. We're waiting for a judicial pretrial next month. I got an application scheduled to be heard on August 25th to get the medicine back in the hands of patients. So everything was moving along quite well. This is, again, coming out of left field."
Back in March, police also said the raid was due to "community complaints."
The first raid sparked protests from cannabis activists, leading to more arrests.
Marzel said police were still inside C.A.L.M.'s building at the time of his interview (5:15pm).
C.A.L.M. is one of the oldest medical cannabis clubs in Canada, established in 1996. C.A.L.M.'s website states that the organization is a "peer-run organization that provides almost 2,000 Canadians living with severe or chronic illnesses with safe and continuous access to medicinal cannabis in a safe empowering environment."
The raid is a continuation of a series of police actions against medical marijuana dispensaries in recent months after a long period of peace.
No one should be too poor to buy pot if they live in Washington, at least if the marijuana is for a medical condition. That's the conclusion of a new medical marijuana law enacted in the nation's capital.
The District of Columbia passed a law earlier this year that allows residents to legally obtain the drug for medical reasons. But it also includes a provision unlike the 14 other states with medical marijuana laws, requiring the drug to be provided at a discount to poor residents who qualify. Who will get the reduced-price marijuana and how much it will cost, however, is still being worked out.
"Obviously because there's no roadmap on how to do this, it may require some tweaking over time," said David Catania, a D.C. councilman and the chairman of the city health committee that drafted the law. "We may, in fact, set an example for other states."
The first round of regulations implementing the law is expected to be released Friday. It may answer some questions about how low-income residents will be treated, but the regulations will also be revised over several months, and patients aren't expected to be able to purchase medical marijuana in the city until 2011.
Right now the law says that patients "unable to afford a sufficient supply of medical marijuana" will be able to purchase it "on a sliding scale." Low-income patients will also get a discount on a required city registration fee. Dispensaries, meanwhile, will have to devote some revenue to providing marijuana to needy patients.
The range of what the drug will ultimately cost low-income residents is anyone's guess. On the illegal market, an ounce of marijuana can range from about $100-$140, according recent police estimates. City officials have estimated that an ounce from a dispensary will cost about $350 and that the average user will purchase about that much a month, though up to two ounces would be permitted. While one city report suggests 300 people would buy marijuana in the first year - a number some consider low - no one knows yet how many would qualify for a reduced rate. One guess is 30 percent, about the same as the percentage of the district's population that is on Medicaid.
Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, a Washington-based nonprofit that advocates for the legalization of marijuana, said the city will have to be careful that dispensary prices aren't too different from what it costs to buy marijuana illegally, a price he estimated ranges from $200 to $500 an ounce. If buying marijuana at a dispensary costs more, some people - poor patients in particular - may just keep buying illegally.
No other states require dispensaries to provide the drug at a discount, though in November residents in Berkeley, Calif., will vote on a ballot measure that could require dispensaries there to provide free marijuana to poor patients. A number of California dispensaries already voluntarily do that for patients who can prove hardship.
"I think that ethic of taking care of people who can't take care of themselves has been part of the medical cannabis movement from the beginning," said Steve DeAngelo, the executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif., which until recently had a program that gave out free weekly "care packages" to about 600 patients on unemployment or pensions.
For Washington residents, qualifying for a reduced rate may also be tied to the federal poverty level. The city has among the highest poverty rates in the nation - only Mississippi is substantially higher - and more than 1 in 3 residents get some form of health care assistance.
Teresa Skipper, an HIV-positive resident who uses marijuana to stop frequent nausea and help her eat, said she hopes the new law will make getting the drug easier for her since she is a Medicaid patient. She would like to get the drug legally, but she says she can't and won't pay more than the $50 an ounce she pays on the illegal market.
"People under the poverty level and below shouldn't have to pay anything," said Skipper, who uses about an ounce a week. She's waiting to see what officials will decide, but she said it may not change much for her.
"Marijuana is like gas and food to me. It's in the budget," she said.
Oakland rushed last week to raise medical cannabis business taxes and to be the first city in the nation to legitimize industrial-sized pot production. The cash-starved city is hoping to reap millions of dollars in tax revenues from medical cannabis businesses while positioning itself to capitalize on the explosion of recreational pot sales should state voters go that way in November.
But is it just a pipe dream? No one really knows whether Oakland will find that pot of gold in the cannabis industry. Growers and dispensaries are making money, to be sure, and the city wants its share. But competition, legal risks and the unknown economic effects from potential legalization make the sure bet anything but.
California voters in 1996 overwhelmingly passed Proposition 215, the so-called Compassionate Use Act, which decriminalized medicinal use of marijuana. Dispensaries popped up almost overnight, supplied by a cottage industry of growers selling pounds of pot for $2,500 to $3,500, tax-free. Retail prices are double that, but not enough to stop the flood of patients willing to spend more than $300 an ounce for high-grade marijuana.
The estimated value of California's pot crop is $13.8 billion, according to an analysis for California NORML, a nonprofit organization devoted to marijuana reform. About 3 million people in the state use marijuana, medical and recreational, and consume an estimated 1 million pounds a year.
Oakland's four medical marijuana dispensaries do their share, supplying patients with 6,000 pounds of pot worth $28 million last year. The city is asking voters to raise business taxes on medical marijuana sales to 5 percent, a rate that dispensaries, patients and small growers warn will drive them out of Oakland and into neighboring communities with lower tax rates or no taxes at all.
The four new industrial-sized farms the city plans to license in January should do well, given the growing demand for medical marijuana across the state. But the ventures are not without risk. State law allows medical marijuana cultivation by collectives of patients and caregivers, with no profiteering.
Although the Obama administration has pledged a hands-off approach to honor states' laws, several experts warn that the federal government may not be able to ignore commercial-sized growing and manufacturing plants, which are not allowed under current state law.
That is a concern expressed by Oakland Councilmember Nancy Nadel, who sees pros and cons in the plan and worries about excluding small growers. "I was willing to go along with some large growers, but is this an invitation to federal attention? It puts a lot of product in one space, so if there is a fire, or theft, or mold, you could impact the availability of product to the patients," Nadel said.
New tax revenue
Still, it's easy to see why the City Council majority backs the concept of large indoor farms. Regulating medical marijuana production in modern facilities located in industrial areas should ensure a reliable, consistent supply of high-grade marijuana. It conceivably should cut down on the hundreds of dangerous, illegal grow houses spread around Oakland, especially if the huge growers can offer lower wholesale prices. It also makes it easier for the city to track the money.
Perhaps the most convincing argument arrived in a report commissioned by Jeff Wilcox, a retired contractor who first approached city leaders about the commercial grow idea. His proposal for a 100,000-square-foot AgraMed cultivation facility would produce 21,000 pounds of pot with a wholesale value of $60 million. That translates into $3 million in new tax revenue for the city and 300 to 400 jobs for Bay Area residents — from just one business.
That's on top of the revenue the city will get from its four dispensaries. If sales remain static, the city stands to gain another $1.4 million.
Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, says Oakland is smart to get ahead of the curve, and it could gain millions in new tax revenue if the city's sales and production estimates pan out. But setting too high of a tax rate could backfire initially, and he thinks that establishing the large-scale production facilities will be neither quick nor problem-free.
"I think there is a risk here on jumping ahead on this tax on medical marijuana," Gieringer said. "San Francisco doesn't have a tax. At 5 percent, this gives other places an advantage. Oakland could be in danger of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Patients will not go to Oakland if they can go to San Francisco and get it cheaper."
Oakland might have been the first to realize the revenue benefits of taxing medical marijuana businesses, but several other economically strapped municipalities are following its lead. San Jose, Richmond and others are scrambling to place similar tax measures on the November ballot. Berkeley is asking voters to raise cannabis tax rates as well as allow up to six commercial cultivation facilities.
Oakland's four proposed cultivation permits are intended for medicinal production only — for now. The proposal also lays the framework should Proposition 19 pass in November, legalizing recreational use of pot for adults 21 and older. The city is asking voters in November to set the business tax rate for recreational sales at a whopping 10 percent.
But will it be a bonanza or bust?
Legalized pot
According to a RAND Corp. study released this month, legalization could boost the number of pot smokers and drive down the pretax price of an ounce of pot by as much as 80 percent. The authors warn that it potentially could fuel problems with smuggling as dealers from other states rush to buy low-cost cannabis in California.
"Legalization would drive the price so low that even if taxes are high, marijuana coming from California would still be cheaper than a lot of places in the country," said Beau Kilmer, lead author of the study and co-director of the Drug Policy Research Center. "If dealers come here to buy several pounds, pay the taxes and then smuggle it out, they would still make money."
Even with hefty state or local taxes added on, consumers likely would pay hundreds of dollars less than they do now. That's good news for patients who rely on the herb to ease their pain, control their nausea or boost their appetite, but it could put a huge dent in the amount of tax revenue the city collects from its medical marijuana dispensaries.
If the wholesale price of medical marijuana drops to $800 a pound, a scenario Wilcox said could happen, the city's cut would drop to $1.35 million.
"Right now there's an 85 percent profit margin (enjoyed by the growers and dispensaries), and that's too high, in ?my opinion," Wilcox said. "If you can grow for $400 and sell it $800 wholesale, people will be doing just hunky-dory."
Oakland Councilmember Desley Brooks said she's not pinning all her expectations on legalization, especially when there is plenty of revenue to be had from the medical cannabis industry.
"There's a lot of money in that industry and not a lot of regulation," she said.
Kilmer said his work focused on what might happen if marijuana were legalized in California. The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act 2010 ballot initiative would allow people 21 and older to possess, grow or transport small amounts of pot for personal use. Cities and counties could choose whether to regulate and tax the commercial cultivation and sales of marijuana or to keep such activities illegal.
"The impacts of legalization on medical marijuana is unknown," Kilmer said. "But it will be interesting to see what happens in Oakland because it's unclear what the feds will do" about the commercial growers.
Mark Kleiman, a UCLA professor of public policy who has written extensively on the topic, believes cities such as Oakland that are hoping to cash in on medical marijuana, and legalization if it happens, should try to see through the dollar signs to the possible pitfalls.
"Yes, (Oakland is) in for a big letdown," he said. "Competition among growers and among jurisdictions would drive legal prices through the floor, leaving California with a large (illegal) export trade to the rest of the country and not much revenue. The feds wouldn't hold still for it and would crack down."
Pending approval this fall, people with Tourette’s Syndrome may be able under state law to use medical marijuana to help quell symptoms of the disorder.
If so, it’ll be thanks to a patient who approached the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment in March armed with research that suggests Tourette’s patients may find relief with marijuana.
A formal request, as required by law, by the health department to add the disorder to the list of treatable ailments was submitted Tuesday to the Department of Regulatory Services, which has the authority to approve or deny the request. Tourette’s is a neurological disorder that causes involuntary motor or vocal “tics” that are repetitive and rapid such as blinking, twitching, or grunts. Symptoms range from moderate to severe, and treatments vary.
The health department found the information submitted to department staff last March to be credible.
“Based upon both the information supplied by the petitioner and a review of the medical literature which shows some scientific evidence of efficacy in humans and no evidence of harm, the department is bringing this rulemaking action to add Tourette’s syndrome as a debilitating medical condition for which an individual could apply to the Medical Marijuana Program for a registry identification card,” read the request.
Colorado voters approved a citizens initiative in 2000 allowing the using of medical marijuana to treat a variety of ailments. State regulators wield the authority to fine-tune the list of allowable uses of medical marijuana.
However, policy makers in state and local government have been trying to rein in the proliferation over the last year of medical-marijuana dispensaries that have popped up in larger cities. Marijuana is still illegal under federal law.
Two measures passed by the legislature curbing the herb’s use were signed into law this year by Gov. Bill Ritter after rigorous debate and considerable wrangling over the details. House Bill 1284, sponsored by House members Tom Massey, R-Poncha Springs, and Ken Summers, R-Lakewood, along with Senate members Chris Romer, D- Denver, and Nancy Spence, R-Centennial, put in place guidelines for medical marijuana dispensaries in the name of weeding out illegitimate dispensaries. Senate Bill 109 fine-tuned the doctor-patient relationship when medical marijuana is recommended, and was sponsored by Romer, Spence, Massey and Rep. Beth McCann, D-Denver.
Spence said that she supports the addition of Tourette’s if the evidence points to the effectiveness of medical marijuana in treating the disorder.
“I don’t have a problem with Tourette’s being added to the list,” said Spence. “I would defer to the experts though in making that determination, and I trust that the department will look at the research.”
A hearing is set for 10 a.m. on Sept. 15 at the health department and is open to the public.
Medical marijuana is now legal in the District after the Democrat-controlled Congress declined to overrule a D.C Council bill that allows the city to set up as many as eight dispensaries where chronically ill patients can purchase the drug.
Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D) said in a statement the bill become law after Congress finished its business Monday night because neither the House nor Senate opted to intervene.
The council approved the bill in May, and under Home Rule Congress had 30 legislative days to review it.
"We have faced repeated attempts to re-impose the prohibition on medical marijuana in D.C. throughout the layover period," said Norton. "Yet, it is D.C.'s business alone to decide how to help patients who live in our city and suffer from chronic pain and incurable illnesses."
Although the bill has now cleared Congress, patients will likely have to wait at least several months before they can obtain the drug from a city-sanctioned dispensary.
Mayor Adrian M. Fenty and the Department of Health now have to establish regulations outlining who can bid for a license to open a dispensary.
(See how different states handle medical marijuana.)
The law allows patients with cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS and other chronic ailments can possess up to four ounces of the drug.
Patients will not be allowed to grow their own marijuana, but licensed companies will be able to sell the drug to people who first obtain a doctor's prescription.
The council also approved a provision in the 2011 budget that calls for medical marijuana to be subject to the city's 6 percent sales tax. Underprivileged residents who qualify will be eligible to purchase their drugs free or at reduced cost.
Under the legislation, sponsored by council members David A. Catania (I-At large) and Phil Mendelson (D-At large), both non-profit and for-profit organizations will be eligible to operate the dispensaries.
Even after the Department of Health licenses the dispensaries and cultivation centers, they could be delayed by a zoning process in which residents could protest where the dispensaries will be located. The legislation states the dispensaries will not be allowed to be located within 300 feet of a school.
Distributors also will be limited to growing no more than 95 marijuana plants at a given location, an apparent effort to keep dispensers within federal law that heightens penalties on anyone arrested with at least 100 plants.
The law caps a years-long struggle to act on a 1998 referendum in which 69 percent of District residents voted for to allow medical marijuana. Until last year, Congress blocked the city from enacting the referendum.
City leaders, hoping to avoid the quasi-legalization of the drug, say the District will have one of the most restrictive medical marijuana laws in the country. They fear a future Congress could reverse the law if it is abused.
The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years.
A department directive, expected to take effect next week, resolves the conflict in veterans facilities between federal law, which outlaws marijuana, and the 14 states that allow medicinal use of the drug, effectively deferring to the states.
The policy will not permit department doctors to prescribe marijuana. But it will address the concern of many patients who use the drug that they could lose access to their prescription pain medication if caught.
Under department rules, veterans can be denied pain medications if they are found to be using illegal drugs. Until now, the department had no written exception for medical marijuana.
This has led many patients to distrust their doctors, veterans say. With doctors and patients pressing the veterans department for formal guidance, agency officials began drafting a policy last fall.
“When states start legalizing marijuana we are put in a bit of a unique position because as a federal agency, we are beholden to federal law,” said Dr. Robert Jesse, the principal deputy under secretary for health in the veterans department.
At the same time, Dr. Jesse said, “We didn’t want patients who were legally using marijuana to be administratively denied access to pain management programs.”
The new, written policy applies only to veterans using medical marijuana in states where it is legal. Doctors may still modify a veteran’s treatment plan if the veteran is using marijuana, or decide not to prescribe pain medicine altogether if there is a risk of a drug interaction. But that decision will be made on a case-by-case basis, not as blanket policy, Dr. Jesse said.
Though veterans of the Vietnam War were the first group to use marijuana widely for medical purposes, the population of veterans using it now spans generations, said Michael Krawitz, executive director of Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, which worked with the department on formulating a policy.
Veterans, some of whom have been at the forefront of the medical marijuana movement, praised the department’s decision. They say cannabis helps soothe physical and psychological pain and can alleviate the side effects of some treatments.
“By creating a directive on medical marijuana, the V.A. ensures that throughout its vast hospital network, it will be well understood that legal medical marijuana use will not be the basis for the denial of services,” Mr. Krawitz said.
Although the Obama administration has not embraced medical marijuana, last October, in a policy shift, the Justice Department announced that it would not prosecute people who used or distributed it in states where it was legal.
Laura Sweeney, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, would not comment spefically on the veterans department policy. “What we have said in the past, and what we have said for a while, is that we are going to focus our federal resources on large scale drug traffickers,” she said. “We are not going to focus on individual cancer patients or something of the like.”
Many clinicians already prescribe pain medication to veterans who use medical marijuana, as there was no rule explicitly prohibiting them from doing so, despite the federal marijuana laws.
Advocates of medical marijuana use say that in the past, the patchwork of veterans hospitals and clinics around the country were sometimes unclear how to deal with veterans who needed pain medications and were legally using medical marijuana. The department’s emphasis on keeping patients off illegal drugs and from abusing their medication “gave many practitioners the feeling that they are supposed to police marijuana out of the system,” Mr. Krawitz said.
“Many medical-marijuana-using veterans have just abandoned the V.A. hospital system completely for this reason,” he said, “and others that stay in the system feel that they are not able to trust that their doctor will be working in their best interests.”
In rare cases, veterans have been told that they need to stop using marijuana, even if it is legal, or risk losing their prescription medicine, Mr. Krawitz said.
David Fox, 58, an Army veteran from Pompey’s Pillar, Mont., uses medical marijuana legally to help quiet the pain he experiences from neuropathy, a nerve disorder. But he said he was told this year by a doctor at a veterans’ clinic in Billings that if he did not stop using marijuana, he would no longer get the pain medication he was also prescribed.
A letter written to Mr. Fox in April from Robin Korogi, the director of the veterans health care system in Montana, explained that the department did not want to prescribe pain medicine in combination with marijuana because there was no evidence that marijuana worked for noncancer patients and because the combination was unsafe.
“In those states where medical marijuana is legal, the patient will need to make a choice as to which medication they choose to use for their chronic pain,” Ms. Korogi wrote. “However, it is not medically appropriate to expect that a V.A. physician will prescribe narcotics while the patient is taking marijuana.”
Mr. Fox was shocked by the decision, he said.
“I felt literally abandoned,” he said. “I still needed my pain meds. I thought they were supposed to treat you. It was devastating for me.”
Mr. Fox, who said that at one point he was weaning himself off his pain medication for fear of running out, has held one-man protests in front of the clinic, carrying signs that read “Abandoned by V.A., Refused Treatment.”
Veterans officials would not comment on specific cases, citing medical privacy laws.
This month, Dr. Robert A. Petzel, the under secretary for health for the veterans department, sent a letter to Mr. Krawitz laying out the department’s policy. If a veteran obtains and uses medical marijuana in accordance with state law, Dr. Petzel wrote, he should not be precluded from receiving opioids for pain management at a veterans facility.
Dr. Petzel also said that pain management agreements between clinicians and patients, which are used as guidelines for courses of treatment, “should draw a clear distinction between the use of illegal drugs, and legal medical marijuana.”
Dr. Jesse, the veterans department official, said that formalizing rules on medical marijuana would eliminate any future confusion and keep patients from being squeezed between state and federal law.
Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project, which favors the legal regulation of the drug, called the decision historic. “We now have a branch of the federal government accepting marijuana as a legal medicine,” he said.
But Mr. Fox said he wished the policy had been extended to veterans who lived in states where medical marijuana was not legal.
He said it was critical that the veterans department make its guidelines clear to patients and medical staff members, something officials said they planned on doing in coming weeks.
Said Dr. Jesse, “The whole goal of issuing a national policy is to make sure we have uniformity across the system.”
The book goes into detail about cannabis terpines and their interactions with the human brain. Many charts and graphs are provided that I had never seen before. I am very impressed with the detail of this new information. Ed covers the three types of cannabis in such detail that I can't wait to finish this review and actually read this book from front to back.
Other highlights include the dedication to the Late, Great Jack Herer, a forward by Tommy Chong, and a preface by NORML founder Keith Stroup - so you know you have a serious grow book in your hands from the get-go.
Federal agents raided at least three San Diego-area medical marijuana dispensaries today in the early morning hours.
Sources say that Green Kross, Unified Collective and Kush Lounge were all served federal search warrants and were subjected to aggressive SWAT-style raids which resulted in the arrest of as many as 12 people and the seizure of money, medical marijuana and patient records. These raids come as the City of San Diego is deliberating an ordinance to regulate the local distribution of medical marijuana.
"The patient community is outraged by these actions and demands answers," said Eugene Davidovich of the local San Diego chapter of Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the country's leading medical marijuana advocacy group. "Why is the federal government attempting to undermine our local efforts to regulate?" A recent San Diego Gran Jury encouraged local governments to follow through on implementing state law by regulating medical marijuana distribution facilities that provide needed medicine to patients throughout the county. Both the City and County of San Diego are on the verge of approving regulatory ordinances.
Several federal raids have occurred in San Diego over the past few years, typically with the cooperation of local law enforcement and District Attorney Bonnie Dumanis. The latest raids happened in September 2009 under a multi-agency law enforcement operation. Despite the confidence of Dumanis in prosecuting state cases against local dispensary operators, one of them being Davidovich, they have only resulted in jury acquittals. "Despite a failure to win convictions in state court, Dumanis continues to aggressively enforce and prosecute groundless medical marijuana cases," continued Davidovich.
In October 2009, one month after raids were conducted on more than a dozen medical marijuana dispensaries in San Diego, the Justice Department issued a new policy aimed at deemphasizing federal enforcement in medical marijuana states. Nonetheless, the Justice Department has continued to take action in California and other medical marijuana states, with San Diego dispensaries being the latest targets. In addition, the first federal trial of a medical marijuana provider under the Obama Administration is due to take place in the next few weeks. San Diego dispensary operator James Stacy was raided in the same September 2009 raid, but is being federally prosecuted. He is currently trying to mount an entrapment and medical use defense, something routinely denied federal medical marijuana defendants due to court rules that favor the prosecution.
"These raids underscore the importance of developing a comprehensive federal policy on medical marijuana, which will also allow states to care for the health and welfare of their people without unnecessary federal interference," said ASA Government Affairs Director Caren Woodson. "It is not the purview of the federal government to enforce local or state laws."
The Oregon Court of Appeals says law permits out of state patients to register in the state.
In State v. Berringer, (online here: http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A137186.htm) the Oregon Court of Appeals held that Oregon was not required to give a California patient’s status as a patient ‘full faith and credit’ (reasoning that that status created an affirmative defense within CA only) and that the California patient’s federal constitutional right to travel did not protect this patient from being prosecuted and convicted under Oregon Law.
Although not a part of the holding, the Court also concluded that the application requirements of the law was ambiguous, and resolved that ambiguity by concluding that the law permits out of state patients to register here.
Initially, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP), acting on advice of its counsel, the Oregon Attorney General, refused to process out of state patient applications. But, on June 14, 2010, the Oregon Attorney general issued an opinion (online here: http://www.doj.state.or.us/agoffice/agopinions/op_2010_2.pdf) concluding that: “(1) The OMMA contains no Oregon residency requirement for obtaining an Oregon registry identification card; and, (2) the Oregon legislature could limit eligibility for Oregon registry identification cards to Oregon residents without violating the federal constitutional right to travel.”
Out of state patients who register with the OMMP will still have to have written documentation from an Oregon attending physician (MD or DO) and will have to designate an Oregon location as their grow site (as with Oregon patients, whether they have one or not).
A marijuana activist group on Friday protested a federal law enforcement raid on a Mendocino County pot farm, saying it was protected by the county’s new medical marijuana cultivation ordinance.
The federal Drug Enforcement Administration confirmed the Wednesday raid in Covelo, but a spokeswoman declined to comment on the details.
“We did conduct an enforcement operation, but everything is under court seal,” said Casey McEnry, a spokeswoman for the DEA in San Francisco.
Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a group pushing to ease marijuana laws, said, “This raid is clear evidence that the DEA is out of control.”
The Covelo farm owned by Joy Greenfield, 68, was registered with Mendocino County authorities under an ordinance that allows medical marijuana collectives to grow up to 99 plants. The plants were being grown for a collective in San Diego called Light the Way, NORML said.
She paid a county application fee and the garden had been inspected by Mendocino sheriff’s deputies, the group said. Greenfield was the county’s first such applicant, NORML said.
Federal agents removed 99 plants and took a computer and cash, the group said. Greenfield wasn’t there at the time.
Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman confirmed Friday that the property owner had the proper paperwork and the marijuana was legal in the eyes of the county.
“This was a federal operation and had nothing to do with local law enforcement,” he said. “The federal government made a decision to go ahead and eradicate it.”
He said conflicting county, state and federal marijuana laws create a problem for law enforcement. “They’ve created a huge gray area,” Allman said.
He said federal drug investigators may have information about the Covelo operation that isn’t known to local law enforcement.
MPP Insider: revisits a story brought to you weeks ago about Walmart discriminating against a medical marijuana patient in Michigan, MPP Insider's got coverage of happenings in New York, Oregon, and Washington, and will look at both victims of marijuana prohibition as well as marijuana prohibition by the numbers!
Investigators and pundits alike are fond of calling for ‘more research’ into the safety and efficacy of marijuana and its active compounds. Ironically, when such calls are heeded and new research is published, nobody wants to talk about it.
For example, researchers at the State University of New York (SUNY), Upstate Medical University in Syracuse publisheddata in the June issue of the journalPharmacology concluding that the administration of the plant cannabinoids delta-8-THC and delta-9-THC halted cellular respiration and tumor growth in human oral cancer cells. Specifically, investigators reported that cannabinoids were a “potent inhibitor” of Tu183 human cancer cells, a notoriously difficult to treat type of oral cancer.
Of course, this is hardly the first time that pot’s compounds have been demonstrated to possess anti-cancer properties. As has been widely reported here and elsewhere, US government researchers were first aware of this finding over 35 years ago, and today there exist published scientific studies demonstrating that cannabinoids can inhibit the proliferation of a wide range of cancers — including brain cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer, biliary tract cancer, and lymphoma. Nonetheless, abstract prohibitionist concerns regarding marijuana’s supposed cancer risk continue to dominate the headlines while actual scientific studies debunking these allegations tend to go unnoticed.
Similarly, preclinical data published online last week in the journal Cell Communication and Signaling reported that the administration of the non-psychoactive cannabinoid cannabidiol (CBD) increases adult neurogenesis (the active production of new neurons) in laboratory animals. Authors speculated that cannabis’ pro-neurogenic effects may explain why the plant appears to be useful in the treatment of certain neurodegenerative disorders like Alzheimer’s disease or ALS.
As I wrote last week, to date there are now over 20,000 published studies or reviews in the scientific literature pertaining to marijuana and its active compounds — making marijuana the most studied plant on Earth. But what’s the point in further research if nobody even bothers to pay attention to the research that’s already been done?
- Article from NORML on July 6, 2010. By Paul Armentano, NORML
The medical marijuana patient and caretaker who organized a protest outside the Saginaw County Courthouse last week, says investigators raided his home Tuesday.
Thomas Township resident John Roberts organized the protest, accusing The Saginaw County Sheriff of raiding patients and caretakers. Protesters came from around the state, some holding signs reading, “Learn the Law.”
Roberts, who is vice president of the Tri-City Compassion Club, said at the protest, "Our patients had to suffer because they don't believe in it. I don't give a rat's {expletive} what they believe in."
Wednesday Roberts told NBC25 he believes investigators raided his home in retaliation. He says now he has patients who will suffer.
Saginaw County Sheriff William Federspiel says his department had nothing to do with the raid, and that it was part of a federal investigation.
Cannabis advocates on Wednesday filed a petition to include post-traumatic stress disorder on the state's list of medical-marijuana-approved conditions.
The petition argues that medical marijuana can help with PTSD — especially in veterans — by easing depression, anxiety and nightmares. The petition was formally filed at the state health department by Kevin Grimsinger, an Army veteran and double amputee who said he lost his legs after stepping on a land mine in 2001 in Afghanistan.
"People who have served our country or other people who were injured and have PTSD should be able to have access to medicine that helps them," said Brian Vicente, executive director of Sensible Colorado, an advocacy group backing the petition.
Colorado voters in 2000 approved a constitutional amendment allowing for the use of medical marijuana for eight conditions. The amendment also creates a petition process by which more conditions can be approved.
Grimsinger's petition will be reviewed by Ned Calonge, the state's chief medical officer, who will determine within 180 days whether it warrants a public hearing before the state Board of Health. If the board gives the OK, doctors would be able to write marijuana recommendations for PTSD.
Four previous petitions — for Parkinson's disease, anxiety, asthma and bipolar disorder — were denied for lack of a scientific basis. The PTSD petition cites multiple studies that suggest marijuana can be beneficial to PTSD patients.
State Rep. Joe Miklosi, a Denver Democrat who supports the petition, said that should be enough to prompt a public hearing.
"All we're asking for is a fair shot, a fair hearing and review process," he said.
Grimsinger, who uses a wheelchair, works as a veterans outreach coordinator for a medical-marijuana dispensary. He said marijuana has helped ease his pain, both physical and emotional.
