MidsMagazine

NEW YORK – An emergency medical technician accused of refusing to help a dying pregnant woman while on his coffee break has been shot and killed near a New York City nightclub.
Police say Jason Green was shot in the face near Manhattan’s Greenhouse club Sunday morning. Green was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. There have been no arrests.
Green and fellow EMT Melisa Jackson had been under criminal investigation for their handling of a distressed woman at a Brooklyn bakery Dec. 9. They were in line at the bakery when 25-year-old Eutisha Rennix collapsed.
Witnesses say the EMTs told workers to call 911 and left without helping the six-months-pregnant woman, whose prematurely born baby also died.
Green and Jackson insisted they tried to get help. They were suspended without pay.

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.