MidsMagazine

Seven Loveland medical marijuana dispensaries have joined to form the Loveland Association of Wellness and recently drafted a resolution outlining the group’s efforts to ensure their businesses are more acceptable to the community.

Additionally, the businesses plan to host open house events from 11 a.m. to noon Tuesday and Aug. 24.

Anthony Freitag, co-owner of Paradise City Caregivers, said he hopes the open houses bring residents into the dispensaries, allowing them to see what the businesses do.

The group’s resolution includes regulations that limit signs on and around medical marijuana centers and eliminates advertising that promotes the businesses and/or their products.

Loveland Association of Wellness, or LAW, members also promise to prohibit consumption of marijuana in retail space or common areas, limit medical marijuana sales to 2 ounces per person per 96 hours and attempt to confirm the legitimacy of incoming patients’ documents, according to the resolution.

This month, the Loveland City Council finalized ballot language to allow residents a final vote on whether medical marijuana dispensaries should operate in the community.
Source:http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20100815/NEWS01/8150326/Loveland-dispensaries-join-forces

THOMAS TWP. — On Friday, a neon-green sign that said “Tri-City Compassion Club, park here” in stenciled block letters was posted in front of the lot and Thomas Township home owned by John F. Roberts.

Roberts, 49, whose home — where he lives with his fiancée Stephanie Whisman, 38 — was raided by DEA agents July 6, is the new location of the Tri-City Compassion Club.

Roberts, a state-registered grower, patient and a former leader of the Bay City-based compassion club — now the newly named Mid-Michigan Tri-City Compassion Club, which has more 300 members, according group President Kim M. Zimmer — left the Bay City group and was allowed to use its old name to begin a separate club.

Roberts said the purpose of the club is to educate prospective patients about getting started legally and to inform current patients about growing and processing methods.

Members also bring baked goods, oils and dried marijuana to sample, purchase and trade — provided they are certified medical marijuana patients, Roberts said.

He said the clubs offer a comfortable alternative for patients who don’t wish to purchase their medical marijuana on the black market.

None of the meeting attendees wished to speak publicly about their involvement with medical marijuana or reasons for attending the club meeting.

Zimmer said her club parted ways with Roberts after his home was raided in July. She declined to speak about specifics of the separation.

“There is no conflict,” Roberts said. “The person who owned the building wanted to go in a different direction than I wanted and that I could afford.”

He wouldn’t disclose the owner or location of the building the club calls home but said he had been paying the club’s building lease until he left and could no longer afford to.

Roberts’ club is in his backyard among wooded trails and fire pits.

Cars parked on the grass at the outskirts of Roberts’ property Friday.

About 15 medical marijuana patients, two children, caretakers and others who were curious exited their vehicles and crossed a length of freshly cut grass, walking toward a brownish-red wooden storage shed with two open doors.

Inside about four medical marijuana patients sat in chairs around a coffee table, upon which lay brownies and muffins baked with cannabis butter — they were donated by one of the group members — and on another table were two jars full of marijuana buds — each containing about an ounce of marijuana, Roberts said.

An empty container on the table said “donations for baby girl.”

The anticipated donation was marijuana, not money, Roberts said.

Roberts said he and others provide medicine, what he calls “Rick Simpson hemp oil,” to a state-registered 6-year-old girl suffering from a brain tumor — free of charge — and it takes 2 to 3 ounces of marijuana to make enough of the dark, tar-like extract, which he said lasts two weeks.

Mixed with peanut butter for ingestion, the oil helps the child to sleep and to eat regularly, Roberts said.

Roberts said he’ll continue to conduct compassion club meetings at his home each Friday and Monday from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

A company based in Washington state wants to open a medical marijuana facility in Trenton, according to the News-Herald.

Trenton city officials have placed a six-month moratorium on medical marijuana businesses while they consider ordinances to help regulate the industry within city limits, according to the paper. City Attorney Wallace Long said the city isn’t trying to ban the production facility from coming to town.

Communities around metro Detroit are dealing with medical marijuana facility proposals that have been growing since a 2008 ballot proposal legalized the use of medical marijuana in Michigan.

The Royal Oak City Commission voted unanimously last week against a local businessman that wanted to turn his vacant warehouse into the state’s largest medical marijuana growth facility. More than 20 other marijuana-related businesses have expressed interest in setting up shop in the city.
Source:http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2010/08/trenton_considers_proposal_for.html

Weed Wars: Walnut Creek builders see green in household marijuana rooms
Posted at 09:37 AM on Monday, Aug. 16, 2010
By Peter Hecht – phecht@sacbee.com

* Pot poll finds weed has grown on California
Pot poll finds weed has grown on California

John Wade, 43, a San Francisco commercial lighting specialist, takes a quick hit from a marijuana cigarette on the golf course to steady himself before putting.

Sarika Simmons, 35, of San Diego County, sometimes unwinds after the kids are asleep with tokes from a fruit-flavored cigar filled with pot.

And retiree Robert Girvetz, 78, of San Juan Capistrano, recently started anew — replacing his occasional martini with marijuana.
* Medical pot sellers cash in with direct deliveries
Medical pot sellers cash in with direct deliveries

Undeterred by laws that have closed storefront dispensaries, medical marijuana sellers across the state are flourishing — by delivering pot directly to homes and offices.

Hundreds of these unregulated delivery businesses have sprung up in recent months — a sign of how quickly California’s fabled pot industry is moving from the shadows and into uncharted legal territory.

In Fresno, some dispensaries have moved to unincorporated areas since the city began forcing storefronts to close. Some of them deliver marijuana to Fresno residents, and the city attorney concedes the city has little authority to stop them.
* Prop. 19 raises thorny pot issue, drug czar says
Prop. 19 raises thorny pot issue, drug czar says

Proposition 19, a November ballot initiative, would legalize recreational marijuana use for California residents over 21 and allow small residential cultivation — but also would put the state in conflict with federal law that says the drug is illegal.

“The [Obama] administration opposes legalization of any drugs, including marijuana,” Gil Kerlikowske, director of the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, said in an interview Thursday.

Kerlikowske was in Fresno to announce the results of an ongoing crackdown on marijuana-growing operations known as Operation Trident. It is focused on pot farms on public lands in the foothills and mountain areas of Tulare, Fresno and Madera counties.
* Calif Chamber: Pot law would allow smoking at work
Calif Chamber: Pot law would allow smoking at work

Supporters and opponents of a ballot measure to legalize marijuana in California are dueling over the law’s possible effects on employers and the workplace.

The California Chamber of Commerce claimed in a legal analysis released Thursday that Proposition 19 would lead to more workplace accidents by forcing employers to let workers smoke pot on the job.

The analysis also contends the law would make California companies ineligible for federal contracts because employers could not guarantee a drug-free workplace.
* Calif Chamber: Pot law would allow smoking at work
Calif Chamber: Pot law would allow smoking at work

Supporters and opponents of a ballot measure to legalize marijuana in California are dueling over the law’s possible effects on employers and the workplace.

The California Chamber of Commerce claimed in a legal analysis released Thursday that Proposition 19 would lead to more workplace accidents by forcing employers to let workers smoke pot on the job.

The analysis also contends the law would make California companies ineligible for federal contracts because employers could not guarantee a drug-free workplace.

construction[1].JPGThe glossy brochure for the Good Green Builders Construction brims with photographs of home growing rooms featuring tomatoes, bell peppers and lettuce in a spectrum of leafy colors.

“We love what we do. And we are discrete,” says the leaflet for the Walnut Creek firm founded by Brett McCormick, 25, and William McKenzie, 26, two agribusiness graduates from Cal Poly San Luis Obispo.

The discretion the duo is promising isn’t for home-grown arugula. McCormick and McKenzie have built a successful general contracting firm by working with Californians wanting to set up safe – and discreet – residential grow rooms for cultivating pot.

McCormick says Good Green Builders works only with certified medical marijuana users and checks their physician’s recommendations to ensure they have have a legal right to grow for themselves or others.

California law permits people with physician’s recommendations for marijuana to cultivate up to 6 mature or 12 immature plants. Growers can legally cultivate for multiple medical users. And some cities and counties allow substantially higher growing limits – 72 plants, for example, in Oakland or 100-square feet in Humboldt County.

“We basically make sure they’re legal,” McCormick says. “We check their recommendations and don’t set them up with something outside of their limits.”

But Good Green Builders – and like-minded builders – may be poised for a boom if California voters in November approve Proposition 19 to legalize recreational marijuana use for adults over 21. The initiative would permit all California households to maintain a 25-square foot – or 5 by 5 – growing space for pot.

“Typically, we’re doing bigger (growing) settings than 5 by 5,” McCormick says. “We can definitely cater to that. There are going to be a lot of people who can grow their own.”

With stories of at-home growing causing house fires from faulty wiring or otherwise overwhelming household infrastructure, Good Green Builders says it subcontracts with licensed electricians, plumbers, heating and ventilation specialists and other professionals depending on the job demands.

McCormick say the firm’s specialty is doing “custom build-outs” of garages as people covert indoor parking to pot cultivation. The firm has also built basement grow-rooms with subterranean retaining walls and moisture barriers, created bedroom growing systems and a range of residential green houses.

“A lot of our customers are first-time growers,” he says. “We cater to that. We definitely make it as easy as possible.”

Pictured: McCormick with Good Green Builders residential designs for at-home cultivation. Peter Hecht/phecht@sacbee.com

Read more: http://www.fresnobee.com/2010/08/16/2043141/weed-wars-walnut-creek-builders.html#ixzz0wrzr8c4U

Michigan – There’s a budding attraction in Genesee County: a Medical Marijuana University.

Patients in need of medical marijuana can now learn more about the new law that just went into effect this year and their options at Oaksterdam University.

University officials say this weekend people from all across the country will be learning how to grow and handle medical marijuana.

The Genesee County Compassion Club, a medical marijuana advocates group, is setting up for their fifth weekend operating Oaksterdam University in Genesee Township.

This is the first and only Oaksterdam campus outside of California to host seminars on medical marijuana.

“It’s truly fantastic to finally be able to educate people freely, openly, about this as a medicine,” said Jeremy Rupinski, director of the Genesee County Compassion Club.

Classes are given to patients, caregivers and the general public on the medical law and how to grow the plant efficiently indoors.

“We don’t limit it to just cardholders,” Rupinski said. “We have people from out of state coming. In fact about 40 percent of our students are out-of-state students.”

Dispelling ignorance about medical marijuana is what class facilitators say is one of the best parts of the seminar.

This weekend’s Oaksterdam University seminar costs $250 to attend.

Source: http://abclocal.go.com/wjrt/story?section=news/local&id=7584315

R.I. – Boston man plans to start a medical marijuana school in Rhode Island that he said will be the first of its kind in New England.

“It will teach folks items such as safety, legal compliance, as well as of course medical marijuana cultivation,” Luis Hernandez told NBC 10 IN a phone interview.

Hernandez said the first class will be held on Sept. 25 and Sept. 26 in Barrington. He estimated that it will cost about $200 for two days of training.

“Depending on what our costs are, that will be adjusted. So that’s not a number that’s written in stone,” Hernandez said.

Several groups in Rhode Island already offer free medical marijuana training.

“We take care of whatever a patient needs. If a patient needs to learn how to grow, we’ll teach them how to grow. If a patient needs a caregiver, we’ll provide them with a caregiver,” said George DesRoches of Help Is On The Way.

DesRoches founded Help Is On The Way, a Providence-based charity that works with marijuana patients. He’s also a licensed marijuana patient himself.

“Patients shouldn’t have to go pay to learn how to grow. There are services provided by organizations in the state of Rhode Island,” he said.

“Over half the patients who have licenses are on SSI or SSDI. That means they’re living on about $700 a month,” said JoAnne Leppanen of the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Center.

RIPAC also runs seminars for patients and caregivers free of charge.

“If someone’s going to teach you how to grow, what are their credentials? Are they licensed?” Leppanen said.

Hernandez said his class won’t use any actual marijuana because he’s not licensed in Rhode Island. But he said he’s passionate about teaching the class.

“I think that there’s a whole range of options of how to learn, and there’s a place for all of them. As well as for what we offer to the market.”

Hernandez said he’ll check to make sure people who take the class have marijuana licenses.

He said two people have confirmed they’ll attend, but he said he expects more to sign up.

Source: http://www2.turnto10.com/news/2010/jul/30/pot-101-man-teach-marijuana-class-ri-ar-171990/

As an increasing number of states enact, or are considering enacting, medical-marijuana legislation, employers are being forced to ponder what responsibilities they may have with respect to medical-marijuana users in their workforces, and the individuals who work side-by-side with them.

The confusion among employers in these states increased last fall when the U.S. Department of Justice issued guidelines announcing that the Justice Department, for the time being, will not enforce the Controlled Substances Act that classifies marijuana as a Schedule I substance and criminalizes its use.

The DOJ’s guidelines were immediately hailed by medical-marijuana users, activists and civil libertarians as a welcome relief from the Bush administration’s policy of zero tolerance for medical use of marijuana. Despite the federal government’s change in policy, however, employers in states with medical-marijuana laws must continue to exercise caution in addressing employment issues that arise in connection with medical-marijuana users in the workforce.

The DOJ’s decision to refrain from criminal prosecution of such use does not necessarily relieve employers from their obligations to address the potential dangers that may be associated with use of medical marijuana by their employees.

First, it must be understood that rather than granting medical-marijuana users, including those in the workforce, carte blanche to engage in the medical use of marijuana, the DOJ guidelines can be read as simply aimed at addressing the shortfall of resources that are available to the federal government in its War on Drugs.

The guidelines provide that the DOJ “should not focus federal resources … on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.” According to the guidelines, “prosecution of individuals … who use marijuana as part of a recommended treatment regimen consistent with applicable state law … is unlikely to be an efficient use of limited federal resources.”

However, despite advising that medical-marijuana users in states that have legalized marijuana’s medical use will not be sought out for prosecution, the DOJ guidelines do not go so far as to decriminalize its use under federal law.

To the contrary, the guidelines emphasize that they do “not alter in any way the Department’s authority to enforce federal law, including laws prohibiting the manufacture, production, distribution, possession, or use of marijuana on federal property.”

Further, the DOJ guidance explicitly states that it “does not ‘legalize’ marijuana or provide a legal defense to a violation of federal law, nor is it intended to create any privileges, benefits, or rights … enforceable by any individual … in any administrative, civil, or criminal matter.”

The guidance further warns that even “clear and unambiguous compliance with state law” does not “create a legal defense to a violation of the Controlled Substances Act.” Instead, the guideline “is intended solely as a guide to the exercise of investigative and prosecutorial discretion.”

Accordingly, there is nothing in the DOJ’s recent policy pronouncement that requires employers to turn a blind eye to medical-marijuana use by members of their workforce. Indeed, despite what some might consider a softening of the federal government’s position toward medical-marijuana use, a number of federal laws and regulations limiting the unchecked use of marijuana in the workplace are still on the books and should be carefully considered by employers in states that have enacted medical-marijuana laws.

For example, U.S. Department of Transportation regulations, pursuant to the Omnibus Transportation Employee Testing Act of 1991, require transportation-industry employers that have employees in “safety-sensitive” positions, such as pilots, school-bus drivers, truck drivers, train engineers, subway operators, aircraft-maintenance personnel, armed transit-security personnel and others, to have drug-free workplace programs that include both drug and alcohol testing.

These regulations are unaffected by the DOJ guidelines.

Indeed, the DOT issued its own policy statement on Oct. 22, 2009, regarding medical use of marijuana in response to numerous inquiries it received following the DOJ’s guidelines on criminal federal prosecutions. In the DOT’s statement , the agency made it abundantly “clear that the DOJ guidelines will have no bearing on the Department of Transportation’s regulated drug testing program.”

According to the DOT’s policy statement, DOT regulations do “not authorize ‘medical-marijuana’ under a state law to be a valid medical explanation for a transportation employee’s positive drug-test result.” The DOT further emphasized that “[i]t remains unacceptable for any safety-sensitive employee subject to drug testing under the Department of Transportation’s drug testing regulations to use marijuana.”

Employers must also consider their obligations under the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act, which imposes a general duty to maintain a safe workplace. This duty, which is set forth in what is commonly referred to as the Act’s General Duty Clause, provides that each employer covered by the Act must “furnish to each of his employees employment and a place of employment which are free from recognized hazards that are causing or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm to his employees.”

The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration website reports that “between 10 and 20 percent of the nation’s workers who die on the job test positive for alcohol or other drugs” and that “impairment by drug or alcohol use can constitute an avoidable workplace hazard.”

It is the position of OSHA that “drug-free workplace programs can help improve worker safety and health” and are “natural compliments to other initiatives that help ensure safe and healthy workplaces.”

Although not mandated by law, OSHA “strongly supports comprehensive drug-free workforce programs, especially within certain workplace environments, such as those involving safety-sensitive duties like operating machinery.” (1998 OSHA Advisory Letter, Enforcement Programs)

While OSHA supports workplace drug and alcohol programs, however, it does not currently maintain a standard applicable to such programs.

Nevertheless, failure to maintain such programs could be found to constitute a violation of OSHA’s General Duty Clause where the following four factors are found to exist: (1) the employer failed to keep its workplace free of a “hazard;” (2) the hazard was “recognized” either by the employer or by the employer’s industry generally; (3) the recognized hazard was causing or was likely to cause death or serious physical harm; and (4) there was a feasible means available that would eliminate or materially reduce the hazard.

Employers should also be mindful of potential obligations under the Drug-Free Workplace Act of 1988, which requires some federal contractors and all federal grantees to agree to provide drug-free workplaces as a precondition of receiving a contract or grant from a federal agency.

While the Act does not require drug testing, a number of federal agencies (including the Department of Defense, Department of Energy, Nuclear Regulatory Commission and National Aeronautics and Space Administration) have issued regulations that require federal contractors, grantees and licensees to maintain fitness-for-duty requirements or drug-free workplace programs that do include drug testing.

For the time-being, at least, federal laws and regulations governing drug-free workplaces and drug-testing will likely take precedence over any rights under state laws permitting possession or use of medical-marijuana, especially to the extent that safety-sensitive positions within the workplace are impacted.

Any employer operating in a state that has enacted legislation legalizing the possession and use of medical-marijuana should therefore consider not only the state’s law, but also the many federal laws, regulations and policy statements in determining the best course of action when presented with an employee or applicant who claims the right to use medical marijuana under the state’s medical-marijuana statute.

Source: http://www.hreonline.com/HRE/story.jsp?storyId=488193341

A new version of medical marijuana is creating a buzz, just not with patients. By manipulating a specific chemical, growers and drug companies are creating a generation of cannabis products designed to treat pain, without giving users a high.

The labels on the medical marijuana at one Oakland dispensary include some familiar initials like THC — the active ingredient that gives users a high. But alongside is another set of initials most people are not familiar with — CBD, short for cannabidiol.

“In the past few years, numbers of breakthroughs have been made about the chemical compounds in cannabis plant. One of the most important discoveries is of a compound called CBD. CBD is medically very effective, but has no psychoactive effect,” Steve DeAngelo said.

DeAngleo runs the Harborside Health Center medical marijuana dispensary. He says a small, but growing number of scientists are exploring the uses of non-psychoactive CBD.

Some early research suggests the molecule could have benefits for fighting inflammation and muscle pain.

If CBD has flown under the radar, it may be because growers were not looking for it.

“Unfortunately, all of the CBD has been removed from the cannabis supply in California,” DeAngelo said. “The reason for that is in underground market, psychoactivity was the most desirable trait, anything not psychoactive was selected out by breeders.”

Now growers for Harborside have begun identifying and cultivating marijuana strains that are high in CBD, and in many cases, low in THC.

“So it offers an option to patients who are really looking for the medical effect of cannabis and don’t desire any of the psychoactivity,” DeAngelo said.

The idea of medical marijuana without the kick has also caught the eye of the pharmaceutical industry.

A British pharmaceutical company has just been given the go-ahead to market a cannabis spray in England called Sativex, based on a formula heavy in CBD.

“So it takes the whole plant it removes the active components, then there’s some of manipulation of the ratio of CBD to delta-9 THC, which makes it more pharmacologic,” Dr. Donald Abrams said.

Abrams is head of Hematology-Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and a long time cannabis researcher at UCSF. He says while promising, CBD-based therapy by itself is still unproven.

“I don’t think we know because clinical trials have not really been done looking at CBD alone,” Abrams said.

Still, interest in less potent forms of medical marijuana is growing, along with the drug’s expanding use in treatment.

In blinded clinical trials at UC Davis, Dr. Barth Wilsey compared marijuana containing lower amounts of THC (the compound that produces the high) to samples with higher amounts. He found both, when inhaled through a vaporizer, were similarly effective at treating chronic pain in certain categories of patients.

“We’re trying to find the lowest dose, so that it’s not diverted to the recreational user,” Wilsey said.

At the Harborside dispensary in Oakland, DeAngelo believes locally grown, low dose products can successfully compete with versions under development by pharmaceutical companies.

“We have all the expertise that’s required to deliver this product to patients in a good way,” DeAngelo said.

Source:  http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=7583306http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/health&id=7583306

It’s now legal to grow and sell marijuana here in Michigan, if you’re licensed and are doing it for medicinal purposes. As more people try to make ends meet in this tough economy, the thought of making money by growing cannabis to help someone with a health problem is gaining popularity.

Nick Tennant opened Med Grow Cannabis College in Southfield about a year ago. Since then he says he’s watched nearly one thousand students go through the program. It’s a diverse group, including people who really need an income.

Nick told us, “You have laid off autoworkers that have come in looking for a new means of viability for their career path. There are people from age 21 to 81 learning to grow medical marijuana.”

Nick himself used to work in the auto industry. But when opportunities started drying up he saw growth potential as a legalized marijuana supplier and educator. “It was a new industry, something Michigan had never seen.”

At Med Grow Cannabis College, potential suppliers attend six weeks of classes. For a fee of $475 they learn how to start a medical marijuana business.

They’re taught how to use proper nutrients, special lights and fans to maximize growth potential.

Michigan allows a caregiver who is certified to grow 12 plants per patient. They can grow for five other patients as well as themselves, if they are certified to use medical marijuana. That means they can grow a maximum of 72 plants.

Nick says a caregiver can make six figures the way the Michigan law is written.

Earlier this year we introduced you to Mathew Watkins who is battling a deadly brain cancer. For him, medical marijuana relieves his excruciating pain and allows him to gain weight. Before the law he was throwing up all the time.

Matt’s dad buys his medical marijuana from a licensed caregiver… who grows a special concoction for Matt.

In his case they triple the THC. So he’s getting a cocktail of different plants.

But that can run $700 a month.

People who grow medical marijuana aren’t just making money, they’re spending it too.

Mike, the owner of Ultra Green Hydroponics in Redford told us you can spend $5000 on a garden. But for $1000 you can get started in the business.

Mike used to be a skilled machinist. But he saw work in his field dwindling, so he decided to get into a different field.

Dr. William Gonte of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Center in Southfield examines patients to determine if they qualify for medical marijuana. He thinks the growing of medicinal quality pot may soon be taken over by big business.

“I think the state of Michigan is looking at their options. Probably tobacco companies will be the companies that set up and form these facilities where you can buy medical marijuana in packages.”

And Nick hopes getting in on the ground floor of this new medical marijuana wave will take him to new heights.

“I know we’re on the verge of a big, new industry.”

Len Goodman can’t grow enough marijuana to keep up with demand.

He is one of just 11 growers approved by New Mexico to produce pot for all of the state’s 2,000 registered medical marijuana patients, and his customers routinely wipe out his supply. Once a strain of marijuana is harvested, dried and cured, he sends an announcement that patients can place orders, and the pot is usually gone in 24 hours.

New Mexico has been so cautious in licensing and regulating growers under its 3-year-old medical marijuana law that the small number of providers can’t grow enough, creating a shortage that has forced some patients to the street to buy illegal drugs.

The dilemma in New Mexico could have ramifications elsewhere because the state’s program has been held up as a national model, with other states looking to replicate its strong regulatory structure to avoid the chaos that has prevailed in places like California.

Prospective pot growers are subjected to a painstaking screening process before being granted a license. Once that happens, they are limited to 95 plants and seedlings and an inventory “that reflects current qualified patient needs.”

The providers’ identities and locations are kept secret, avoiding the kind of storefront dispensaries that have flourished in Colorado and California.

State Health Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil says he must balance patients’ needs against preventing so much legal pot from being grown that it ends up in the illegal market. He said the program is being expanded methodically to ensure sufficient oversight and to get to know producers and how they operate.

He also opposes having hundreds of producers and many thousands of patients, which he said “absolutely takes it out of the arena of use for in-state patients and into the arena of defacto legalization.”

Medical marijuana patient Larry Love sees New Mexico as an example of what not to do. He contends the department approves new growers much too slowly.

Love, who runs a radio blog and has been highly critical of Vigil, got his medical marijuana card in June 2009 but said it was November before he could get a supply from an authorized grower. He said that drove him and other patients to the illegal market, despite the risks.

Goodman’s Santa Fe County business, NewMexicann, has 650 registered patients — five times the number of patients he said he can supply. Other producers are in similar shape, he said.

As a result, he has to ration pot to patients who are chronically ill.

“Sometimes they don’t have enough so they use it when it’s really severe, which is not good,” he said. “It’s like seniors cutting down on their meds because they can’t afford it.”

The situation in New Mexico is being closely watched by other states as medical marijuana becomes increasingly popular nationwide.

New Jersey, Iowa, Maine, Rhode Island, Hawaii, Colorado, Washington, D.C., and some California municipalities have called about New Mexico’s law, Health Department spokeswoman Deborah Busemeyer said. They have been asking how the state manages producers and how it’s kept some control over legal pot while avoiding problems with federal agencies, since marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

New Jersey and Rhode Island have laws that are closer to New Mexico’s system than California’s much more freewheeling one.

New Mexico passed its medical marijuana law in 2007 with a groundbreaking provision to license production and distribution.

The Health Department spent more than a year crafting regulations, electing to go with a state-licensed system of nonprofits that places strict restrictions on how much pot they can grow.

Patients can get licenses to grow their own, but most turn to the state-sanctioned growers. The first producer wasn’t approved until March 2009. The health Department OK’d four more in November, then six more last week. It takes five to six months for a grower to ramp up to production.

In the meantime, patient rolls have grown to about 2,000. New Mexico approved 200 patients in the program’s first year; now it’s approving about 200 a month.

While Love praised the approval of the new producers, he said New Mexico still will have only about half the supply it needs for current patients. He claims the state needs at least 10 more producers by the end of the year to keep up.

FROM ANOTHER VIEW: Medical marijuana should be legalized
Photos
Grizzoffi.Victoria.jpg
Joe Tamborello / The Journal-Standard
Victoria Grizzoffi, Democratic candidate for 89th district state representative.

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By Victoria F. Grizzoffi
The Journal-Standard
Posted Jul 16, 2010 @ 05:34 PM
Last update Jul 16, 2010 @ 05:35 PM
State of Illinois —

I’m glad to read that I’m in such good company with so many optimists.

I have my ups and downs just like everyone else. If I can’t solve a problem myself I reach out to others and work together to find the best solutions.

I would support Senate Bill 1381. If a terminally ill person can benefit from marijuana, I don’t see why not. It must be regulated and under the strict guidelines from a physician. I have personally experienced the death of family members from cancer and frankly, there comes a point where there isn’t anything you wouldn’t do to make a loved one as comfortable as possible.

There are also situations where marijuana helps a person receiving treatments cope with the side effects better. I would trust marijuana before the countless synthetic drugs that come and go off the market. They advertise drugs on T.V. and the side effects are worse than the ailment you have. We’ve all heard them, “may cause death.”

Marijuana has been around forever and demonized. I have never seen or heard of anyone turn into the crazed maniac portrayed in the 1936 movie Reefer Madness. That was pure Hollywood, before my time, and I have seen the movie.

If anything is a “gateway” drug it starts with cigarettes and alcohol. Yet there are many people who smoke and drink and are not criminals and addicts. And just like cigarettes, alcohol, prescription drugs, weapons and even a driver’s license, comes personal responsibility.

Once again I must stress here that it must be regulated and a person must have a prescription just like any other narcotic. I am not endorsing or condoning general use and a free for all.

I see regulating it to be the biggest obstacle because here comes the patent wars. The drug companies will worry because this is something that can be grown by anyone. And the problem always is, money and greed.

There is also industrial hemp used for rope, clothing, oils and many other uses that has less than 1 percent THC levels in it. During WWII our country grew hemp to help the war effort. Farmers in North Dakota are fighting to change legislation so they can grow it. Imagine the entrepreneurism, economic growth, and revenue that could be generated by a new textile industry. I know there is space available at Mill Race.

Obtaining an Oregon medical-marijuana card no longer will be limited to Oregon residents.

Current administrative rules require applicants to show Oregon identification and proof of residency. But as part of a review of otherwise routine changes proposed in the rules, the Department of Justice has advised the Department of Human Services that the 1998 law authorizing medical marijuana is not limited to residents.

Temporary rules will allow the program to accept a driver’s license, government-issued identification card, U.S. passport or military identification.

The other rules changes, including what is considered acceptable documentation, will be heard at 11 a.m. July 30 in Conference Room 1-A at the State Office Building, 800 NE Oregon St., Portland.

As of April, there were 36,380 card holders. A card authorizes a patient, or a designated caregiver, to grow a specified amount of marijuana and possess it for medical use. Doctors must approve the underlying condition, specified in the law, for which medical use is sought. The state does not furnish the names of physicians or supply medical marijuana, although a potential ballot initiative Nov. 2 would allow the state to license dispensaries.

Source: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20107100317#ixzz0tPr8sHIU

Even as San Jose city leaders wrestle with how to regulate the growing number of medical marijuana dispensaries, a new business is launching to teach people the ins and outs of this budding industry.

Jeffrey Zorn is a graduate of Oaksterdam University located in Oakland, which is billed as America’s first college for students looking into that line of work. Zorn says the timing is right for San Jose to have its own education facility. This weekend marks the first “weekend boot camp classes” by the Cannabis Training University and more sessions are scheduled.

Zorn says “Our workshops provide students with knowledge how to open their own medical marijuana dispensary, how to properly run the dispensary, how to cook with cannabis, how to grown their own cannabis.”

Zorn says his first session has attracted about 30 pre-registered participants. The list of students includes Pat Knoop who is the executive director of Holistic Health Care Cooperative in San Jose. Knoop says he is going to have anyone who works or volunteers at his operation go through the training.

Knoop says “It’s like anything. You’re always learning, you never stop learning so the more people that you can be exposed to the more knowledge I get, the better job I’m going to do for the patients.”

San Jose estimates there are 50 to 70 medical marijuana outlets in the city. City leaders are going to hold a community meeting on July 20th to talk about how to best regulate medical marijuana dispensaries.

For now, the Cannabis Training University is online, offering and scheduling its courses at various south bay locations. Zorn says the University will soon have a physical store front location. He says “This is an exciting time in the cannabis industry and there is definitely a great need for a school like ours in San Jose.”

Source: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/south_bay&id=7546698

California Assembly to Vote on Joint Resolution

A bill sponsored by ASA that urges federal officials to adopt a new national policy ensuring safe access is now before the California Assembly. Following testimony by California Director Don Duncan last month, the Assembly’s Committee on Health voted 10-3 to pass the non-binding resolution to the full Assembly.

“This legislation is needed now more than ever,” said Duncan in his testimony to the committee. “Lest federal officials think their job is done, they need to know their work addressing medical marijuana as a public health issue has only just begun.”

Originally introduced by State Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) in June 2009, Senate Joint Resolution 14 urges the federal government to end medical marijuana raids and to “create a comprehensive federal medical marijuana policy that ensures safe and legal access to any patient that would benefit from it.” The full Senate passed the bill last August by a vote of 23-15.

“Patients and providers in California remain at risk of arrest and prosecution by federal law enforcement,” said Senator Leno in a statement on the resolution. “And legally established medical marijuana cooperatives continue to be the subjects of federal raids and prosecutions.”

The Department of Justice issued a memo to US Attorneys in October 2009, discouraging them from prosecuting individuals who comply with state medical cannabis laws. But raids, arrests and prosecutions have occurred since then in California, Colorado and New Mexico. More than two-dozen patients and providers are currently being prosecuted under federal law and face decades in prison.

In California, medical marijuana provider James Stacy, whose dispensary was raided by the DEA in September 2009, a month before the Justice Department policy was issued, is scheduled to go to trial next month.

“No one should go to federal prison for treating illness or injury with a safe, effective medicine,” said Duncan. “Suffering patients across the country will benefit from a sensible, comprehensive federal medical cannabis policy.”

In addition to urging President Obama and Congress to “move quickly to end federal raids, intimidation, and interference with state medical marijuana law,” SJR 14 asks them to establish “an affirmative defense to medical marijuana charges in federal court and establish federal legal protection for individuals authorized by state and local law.”

Under federal rules of evidence, defendants facing federal marijuana charges cannot use their medical condition or compliance with state law as a defense in court. A bill to change that, the Truth in Trials Act (HR 3939), is currently pending before Congress.

If passed by the Assembly, the resolution will then be sent to President Obama, Vice President Biden, the Speaker of the House and each member of the California Congressional delegation.

http://www.opposingviews.com/i/we-need-a-new-federal-policy-on-medical-cannabis

Until today, Catherine Cobb of the Maine Department of Health and Human Services says the state had received only one dispensary application and it was incomplete. But by two o’clock this afternoon, they came pouring in — 29 applications for eight districts.

Three were late and not accepted. But of the 29 applicants, several are seeking to open dispensaries in more than one location. “We expected many individual companies to compete for the same districts,” Cobb says. “We will sort it out as we review the applications and score them and figure out which are the best ones.”

Under Maine’s Medical Use of Marijuana Act, the applications will be scored on a variety of criteria, such as convenience of location, prior business experience, patient education, record keeping, security and staffing. Igor Rakuz of the Maine Wellness Group says his non-profit applied for three of the eight districts: in southern Maine, Cumberland County and mid-coast Maine.

He says his group developed a patient-centric social networking system that’s similar to Facebook, but which complies with federal patient privacy laws. “It’s a half-a-million dollar Web site that’s sold to hospitals. We’re one of the first to utilize this technology and what it does is it helps us quantify anecdotal evidence from testimony from patients and caregivers and doctors.”

Rakuz also touts the fact that his group has teamed up with the University of New England School of Pharmacology to analyze medicinal properties of the marijuana strains they use. “By doing so, we’ll be the first group to ever be able to quantify this information, to actually see what a patient is smoking and why they’re getting the effects that they are getting.”

But in order to move ahead with that plan, the Maine Wellness Group will have to be awarded at least one license in one of the three districts for which it has applied. And it will have competition. The Northeast Patients Group, which is tied to the well-established Berkeley Patients Group in California, also has applications for Cumberland County and the midcoast. In fact, the group has five applications for the eight districts, the most of any applicant.

A spokesperson for Northeast Patients Group did not return telephone calls to MPBN by airtime, but Catherine Cobb of DHHS says previous dispensary experience does not necessarily give any applicant an advantage. “All we ask for is experience running a non-profit or other business. We’re looking for the business experience and then we’re looking at the quality of the application.”

Northeast Patients Group was the only applicant for District 5, which includes Waterville. And only one applicant, a group calling itself Safer Alternatives of Fort Kent, applied for District 8 in northernmost Maine. That would appear to put both in good standing for a dispensary license. But it’s no guarantee.

The applications will have to meet approval from a panel of four people in DHHS. Cobb is one of them. She declined to identify any of the others appointed by the commissioner. The panel is expected to name the eight finalists on July 9th.

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‘No reason for anyone to die over marijuana,’ mother of slain pot dispensary worker says
June 25, 2010 | 1:04 pm

Matt Butcher’s mother described the killing as “totally senseless,” saying her son was simply trying to cobble together part-time jobs in a tough economy.

“He was one of the most peaceful people,” said Julie Butcher, who works as a regional director of the Service Employees International Union Local 721. “He would have given them anything they wanted. There’s no reason for anyone to die over marijuana.”

Butcher, 27, was one of two pot dispensary workers killed Thursday.

The first robbery occurred at 4:15 p.m. on Sunset Boulevard in Echo Park. In that incident, an unknown number of suspects stormed into the Higher Patch Holistic Care store at 1302 Sunset Blvd. Butcher was killed and another employee was left wounded.

The second robbery happened a few miles away at 9:15 p.m. at the Hollywood Holistic store on the 1600 block of North El Centro Avenue. One employee was slain in that incident.

The killings come as Los Angeles authorities are in the process of cracking down on pot businesses, resulting in the closure of dozens of the outlets.

– David Zahniser and Andrew Blankstein

Photo: Police gather evidence at the scene of the Echo Park shooting. Credit: John W. Adkisson / Los Angeles Times

An ordinance allowing medical marijuana dispensaries to open in the unincorporated areas of San Diego County was approved by county supervisors Wednesday on a 4-1 vote.

Supervisor Ron Roberts cast the lone dissenting vote, saying he agreed with the assessment of critics that the zoning restrictions severely limit the number of possible sites where a dispensary could locate.

“I am concerned that we are reducing the number of site down to next to none,” Roberts said. “I think we’re violating the spirit of the law.”

Supervisor Dianne Jacob rejected a staff recommendation that would have allowed the dispensaries to open with 500 feet of homes and 600 feet from churches, parks and schools.

Her motion that won approval limits the dispensaries to industrial zones no closer than 1,000 feet from those uses.

Valley Center’s Eugene Davidovich, spokesman for the group Americans for Safe Access, contended that restriction effectively shuts out dispensaries entirely.

“What they have done is eradicate medical marijuana anywhere in the county,” he said.

A county spokesman said planners maintain there are at least 15 potential sites.

Dispensary operators would have to pay up to $20,000 to obtain a license, money the Sheriff’s Department will use to pay for inspectors and assure compliance with state and county laws.

The dispensaries also will be required to pay a lesser amount still being determined as an annual fee required to stay in business.

As New York’s legislative session draws to a close this week, MPP, New York Patients First, and hundreds of New Yorkers are pushing hard to ensure that medical marijuana is included in this year’s state budget. In March, the Senate passed a resolution calling for medical marijuana to be included in the budget, but New York Gov. David Paterson — who has previously voiced his support for a medical marijuana law — has never come out and said he supports its inclusion. Paterson is demanding the budget pass this week, so he is essentially all that stands in the way of New York becoming the 15th medical marijuana state.

If you live or vote in New York and support protecting seriously ill patients from arrest, please call the governor TODAY and tell him to not stand in the way of patient relief. Click here to find out how.

Since New York’s medical marijuana bill was first introduced in 1997, 13 states have had laws enacted — including neighboring Vermont and New Jersey. The budget is a natural place for the bill because it would raise tens of millions of dollars for the cash-strapped state through modest excise taxes and licensing fees.

This is what a medical-marijuana class looks like. Twenty-five or so students — men, women, young, middle-aged — listen attentively as an instructor holds up a leafy green plant and runs down the list of nutrients it needs. Nitrogen: stimulates leaf and stem growth. Magnesium: helps leaf structure. Phosphorous: aids in the germination of seeds. Michigan’s Med Grow Cannabis College is one of several unaccredited schools to have sprung up in the 14 states and the District of Columbia that have legalized medical use of marijuana. Many of its students suffer from chronic pain. Others are looking to supply those in need of relief.

The Med Grow campus sits across the street from a KFC in Southfield, a relatively prosperous suburb of Detroit. Nearly one-fifth of its 90 or so students are former auto-industry workers. These recent enrollees — and the more than 1,000 people who have completed courses at Med Grow since it opened in September — are betting that studying such topics as bloom cycles and advanced pruning techniques will help them succeed in what may be one of the few growth industries in Michigan, home of the nation’s highest unemployment rate: 14%. With medical marijuana fetching as much as $500 for 1 oz. (28 g), providing it to a mere five patients could generate $10,000 a month in sales.

Six-week courses at Med Grow cost $475, and the school is planning to open campuses in Colorado and New Jersey within roughly the next year. Meanwhile, the nation’s first marijuana school, the three-year-old Oaksterdam University, has expanded from Oakland, Calif., to locations in Los Angeles and one in Flint, Mich., and may open more.

But as Med Grow founder Nick Tennant can attest, it’s not easy being a leader of an emerging industry. Tennant, a very lean, very blond 24-year-old, grew up in the Detroit suburb of Warren and watched the auto-detailing business he started after high school founder along with the region’s economy. Then, in 2008, a surprising majority of Michigan voters approved a measure to allow people with cancer, Crohn’s disease, AIDS and other ailments to apply for state-issued cards to grow or obtain marijuana. He recalls thinking, “You could sit there and watch the industry evolve or step into the game.”

So he wrote up a business plan for a marijuana-growers school and approached his car-detailing clients as potential investors. Many thought it was a joke, but enough took him seriously. He declines to say how much money he raised.

The next step was finding a landlord. One told him flatly, “I don’t want to take on the risk.” To which Tennant replied, “If you want to let your building sit vacant, go for it.” He eventually settled on 5,000 sq. ft. (465 sq m) in an office building in Southfield, a half hour’s drive north of downtown Detroit.

The first thing you notice when you walk into Med Grow is the pungent smell of marijuana. One of the school’s two grow rooms showcases a single massive marijuana plant that, in terms of height and canopy, is about the size of a kitchen table.

Size matters, because Michigan limits the number of plants patients and caregivers may grow. Patients, more than 18,000 of whom have registered with the state since the law took effect in April 2009, may grow up to 12 marijuana plants. Caregivers — some 7,800 have registered so far — are restricted to a dozen plants for each of the five patients they’re allowed to supply. But the law doesn’t address where registrants can obtain plants or seeds. Nor does it address the issue of pharmacy-like dispensaries.

“This law is still brand-new, and it has a lot of gray areas,” says James McCurtis, spokesman for Michigan’s department of community health, which manages the state’s medical-marijuana program.

Southfield’s police chief, Joseph Thomas Jr., is keeping a close eye on Med Grow. His officers have let its students know that if they get caught with marijuana, then, as Thomas puts it, “we’re going to drop you like a bad habit.” Although he thinks the school has a right to exist, he uses this analogy: “You can teach people how to shoot a gun, but they can’t go out and rob a bank with it.”

Med Grow’s curriculum includes classes on law, accounting and business development. But marketing yourself as a caregiver is tricky. Students are warned against telling acquaintances that they grow marijuana. Med Grow staffer Tom Schuster, 52, a former bank employee, provides a cautionary tale: a few weeks ago, someone ripped a hole in the wall of an apartment he managed and took $15,000 worth of marijuana and $5,000 worth of lamps and other growing equipment. “Stole my whole livelihood,” he says of the incident, which he did not report to the police.

Fear of violent crime is one reason recreational use of marijuana is still illegal almost everywhere. And yet, ironically, the reason Detroit may follow Philadelphia’s lead and liberalize restrictions on possession of small amounts of marijuana is to alleviate the strain on the local criminal-justice system.

In November, Californians will vote on a measure that would legalize marijuana for recreational use — and allow the drug to be taxed. Tom Ammiano, a Democratic assemblyman from San Francisco, estimates such a tax could generate up to $2 billion in annual revenue for California. “When I speak about this issue, there’s always a line of people with a business angle — an idea for a dispensary or a new grow light,” he says. “We’re a capitalistic society, and realistically, the tax will push people over the edge [to] realize, ‘There’s gold in them thar hills.’” And Nick Tennant will have his pickax at the ready.