Michigan’s Medical Marijuana Law Goes Into Effect

Alt Med, Legal Posted by jacquie strax» No Comments

Michigan voters legalized medical marijuana last year. Rules for the program went into effect Saturday. In Los Angeles the law remains an obstacle but a federal judge is unhappy with the law. In New York City, Mayor Michael Bloomberg is opposed but three Democratic candidates for district attorney have declared in favor of legalization for patients.

Patients in Michigan can apply for a state-issued ID card to protect them from arrest for growing and using marijuana to treat pain and other symptoms stemming from illnesses such as such as cancer and multiple sclerosis. A doctor’s recommendation is required.
Source: Detroit Free Press freep.com Yesterday in Los Angeles, sentencing of Charles Lynch, a key figure in the national debate over medical marijuana, was postponed. LA Times reports that a federal judge said “he was inclined to impose a more lenient sentence than the five years required by federal sentencing guidelines, but questioning whether he had the authority to do so.”

“‘If I could find a way out, I would,’ U.S. District Judge George H. Wu said. He gave lawyers in the case until June 2 to file briefs regarding the impending sentence of Charles Lynch.”

On Tuesday (April 22), New York Daily News reported similar developments:

The three Democratic candidates for Manhattan district attorney said Tuesday they back the legalization of medical marijuana.

“Doctors should be able to prescribe marijuana for patients with serious health conditions – or side effects, like those from chemotherapy – when they determine that it is medically appropriate,” said DA hopeful Richard Aborn in response to a Daily News inquiry.

“Patients, in turn, who receive their doctor’s prescription, should be able to obtain marijuana, with appropriate controls to ensure safety and prevent criminal trafficking,” Aborn added.

Leslie Crocker Snyder and Cy Vance, the other two Democratic candidates, also voiced support.

In Albany, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried and state Sen. Thomas Duane, both Manhattan Democrats, introduced legislation that would protect New York patients from arrest for using medical marijuana.

“It is cruel to make seriously ill patients criminals for relying on medical marijuana for relief when their doctor recommends it,” said Gottfried, who has been pushing the issue for more than a decade.

LINKS
http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/medical/
http://www.mpp.org

Medical marijuana sales are not expected to sprout quickly
Justice Department’s decision not to go after legal California dispensaries is not seen as a broad endorsement, especially when local communities ban or limit them.
By Catherine Saillant, LA Times 8:41 PM PDT, April 24, 2009

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Time to End the War on Drugs

Posted by Tim Lynch

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is calling for a large-scale study on the question of  whether to legalize marijuana.  Arnold wants the study to include international comparisons to show the possible impact of such a change.  Cato just released such a study concerning Portugal.

Our friends at NORML are running ads like this in some markets.

Over at Reason, Jacob Sullum takes a look at national Zogby poll numbers, which shows that a majority of voters support marijuana legalization.

Tim Lynch

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Former President Fox: “Legalize Drugs”

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Former President Fox: “Legalize Drugs” Posted by Juan Carlos Hidalgo

Mexico’s former President, Vicente Fox, joins the growing chorus of Latin American ex-presidents calling for an end on the war on drugs. He’s proposing an open debate on drug legalization.

It’s a shame, though, that these leaders wait until they are out of office to voice their opposition to Washington’s prohibitionist drug strategy. While it’s true, as Fox points out, that any step towards legalization in the region must be supported by the United States, Latin American presidents skeptical of the status quo could use the pulpits at the United Nations, Organization of American States, or the Summits of the Americas to denounce the war on drugs and call for different approaches.

Still, Fox’s opinion on the matter is welcome.

Juan Carlos Hidalgo

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Drug War Insanity Goes Up in Smoke

Posted by Tim Lynch

As my colleague David Rittgers notes below, the announcement by the Department of Justice that it will no longer seek to arrest medical marijuana users is a breakthrough for common sense in federal drug policy.

It is bizarre that it takes a major policy announcement to spell out what a waste of police and court time it is to investigate the ill people who use medical marijuana. Historians will surely look back on this period and ponder how our government could have seriously embraced the opposite policy, in the same way we look back at the strange days of alcohol prohibition.

The Obama administration should be taking much bolder steps to stop the criminalization of drug use more generally. More and more people have come to recognize that the drug war has been given a fair chance to work, but it has proved to be a grand failure.

Tim Lynch

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Obama Orders Medical Marijuana Use Allowed Where State Law Makes it Legal

19 October 2009Filed under Cancer, Legal Posted by jacquie strax» No Comments

The Obama administration has changed Federal policies on regulation of medical marijuana use under state law. During his presidential race last year, Barack Obama said that he intended to halt raids of medical marijuana facilities operating legally under state laws. Today, new Justice Department guidelines brought this change about.

The new guidelines order federal drug agents to stop arresting or charging patients, caregivers or suppliers who are dispensing, buying or using marijuana for medical purposes allowed by state law.

Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr. said today the Obama administration is officially reversing the federal position on medical marijuana and ordering authorities not to arrest or charge any users and suppliers who conform to state laws.

“It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana, but we will not tolerate drug traffickers who hide behind claims of compliance with state law to mask activities that are clearly illegal,” Holder said in a statement accompanying the new guidelines.

“This balanced policy formalizes a sensible approach that the Department has been following since January: effectively focus our resources on serious drug traffickers while taking into account state and local laws,” Holder said.

The guidelines reverse Bush administration policy, which held that authorities should continue to enforce federal drug laws even in states where medical marijuana is legal.

Currently, 13 states have enacted laws that make medical marijuana legal. These states are:

Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington.

In addition, Arizona since 1996 allows physicians to prescribe marijuana but has not legalized its use; and Maryland allows medical use defense in court.
For details on state laws visit: http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/viewresource.asp?resourceID

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‘Reefer Sanity’

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‘Reefer Sanity’ Posted by Tim Lynch

Kathleen Parker in the Washington Post:

Arguments for and against decriminalization of some or all drugs are familiar by now. Distilled to the basics, the drug war has empowered criminals while criminalizing otherwise law-abiding citizens and wasted billions that could have been better spent on education and rehabilitation.

By ever-greater numbers, Americans support decriminalizing at least marijuana, which millions admit to having used, including a couple of presidents and a Supreme Court justice. A recent Gallup poll found that 44 percent of Americans favor legalization for any purpose, not just medical, up from 31 percent in 2000.

Read the whole thing.  For more Cato work, go here.

Tim Lynch

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Fact-checking Drug Czar Barry McCaffrey

Posted by Tim Lynch

I appeared on the CNN program Lou Dobbs Tonight last Thursday (Oct. 22) to discuss the medical marijuana issue and the drug war in general.  There were two other guests: Peter Moskos from John Jay College and the organization Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) and Barry McCaffrey, retired General of the U.S. Army and former “Drug Czar” under President Bill Clinton.

I was really astonished by the doubletalk coming from McCaffrey.  Watch the clip below and then I’ll explain two of the worst examples so you can come to your own conclusions about this guy.

Doubletalk: Example One:

Tim Lynch: “Some states have changed their marijuana laws to allow patients who are suffering from cancer and AIDS–people who want to use marijuana for medical reasons

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12 questions of marijuana anonymous

The following questions may help you determine whether marijuana is a problem in your life.

Has smoking pot stopped being fun?Do you ever get high alone?Is it hard for you to imagine a life without marijuana?Do you find that your friends are determined by your marijuana use?Do you smoke marijuana to avoid dealing with your problems?Do you smoke pot to cope with your feelings?Does your marijuana use let you live in a privately defined world?Have you ever failed to keep promises you made about cutting down or controlling your dope smoking?Has your use of marijuana caused problems with memory, concentration, or motivation?When your stash is nearly empty, do you feel anxious or worried about how to get more?Do you plan your life around your marijuana use?Have friends or relatives ever complained that your pot smoking is damaging your relationship with them?

If you answered yes to any of the above questions, you may have a problem with marijuana.

From; Marijuana Anonymous

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Medical Marijuana Goes Retail: You Can Tax It

Retail shops are a sort of second wave of medical marijuana.

California first approved the use of medical marijuana in 1996, but it wasn’t until 2004 that the state approved the creation of distribution centers. Now medical marijuana stores are sprouting like weeds in Los Angeles (sorry); the city council could vote today to limit their number, the WSJ reports.

Hundreds of stores have opened in the past year, and the city now has somewhere around 1,000 marijuana dispensaries. By contrast, San Francisco, which has more rules governing the shops, has about 30.

Earlier this month, voters approved the creation of retail dispensaries in Maine, which has allowed some access to medial marijuana since 1999. Fourteen states now allow some access to medial marijuana, and five allow for retail dispensaries, according to the Associated Press (Colorado, Rhode Island and New Mexico, along with California and Maine).

If retail stores are the second wave, maybe taxation will be the third.

Colorado’s attorney general concluded in a formal opinion issued last week that retail sales of marijuana are subject to state and local sales taxes in most instances. Denver is already gearing up to collect local taxes on medical marijuana, the Denver Post notes. And in Oakland, California, voters earlier this year approved a local tax on medical marijuana sales.

Could taxation go beyond medical use? California is at least considering it. This analysis by a state tax official suggests that a $50 per ounce tax on marijuana could raise between $990 million and $1.4 billion.

While plenty of people remain opposed to full legalization (not to mention medical marijuana), support is growing, the Washington Post noted yesterday. Nationwide, 44% of people favor full legalization, up 13 points since 2000, according to a Gallup poll cited by the WaPo.

Photo: Getty Images

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The Cannabis Caregiver -- Business Opportunity?

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For several years now, I have been envisioning a great new business that I would start when legal marijuana comes to Florida.
Let me start by saying, I went to college during the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

If I can stop laughing I'll give you my take on the article below. If you are one of my good buddies you already heard my story.

If you read -- The Metamorphosis of This Alzheimer's Caregiver (Part One) -- you know I am a curious person. I am always coming up with wacky ideas for new businesses. Not all of them are as wacky as they seem.



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Caffeine Addiction

Recovering alcoholics and addicts have a long history of drinking large amounts of coffee, tea and cola soft drinks.

Coffee, tea, cola drinks, chocolate and many foods contain caffeine. A new range of drinks on the market is a variety of high content caffeine drinks such as Red Bull.

Caffeine, a stimulant, is the most widely consumed drug. Caffeine has occasionally been considered a drug of abuse and has the potential for people to become addicted.

Signs of are;

Coffee simply stimulates the central nervous system, increases stress hormones in the blood streams, thus making a person feel unnaturally alert. Consequently increased alert state tends to subdue your body’s natural instincts and prevent it from relaxing. This causes undue stress and leads to various kinds of disorders.

Daily caffeine intake induces a 24 hour cyclic disturbance in your body. While the morning cup of coffee or tea perks up your mood most people can’t stop at that. Almost every office goer develops a craving for the next cup and subsequently, a heavy fatigue sets in by late afternoon. Even if endless cups revives you at this time of the day, a total collapse is inevitable by evening.

Irritability, fatigue and gloom along with an uncomfortable sensation are the  usual symptom. what is worse is that finally when you try to sleep away  your blues at night, you just can’t. That’s no the end. The next morning you get up tired, thirsting for a steaming  cuppa  to settle your mood.

Thus begins a coffeeholic’s journey. At the end of which, apart from developing dark circles under the eyes, you also acquire acidity problems, irregular palpitations and more.

The Withdrawal Symptoms of Caffeine

Once you have lowered your caffeine dependence status and realized that caffeine is the trouble factor in your diet, don’t take the hasty decisions of cutting down on all such intake. For in case of sudden elimination of all caffeine products from your diet, the withdrawal symptoms maybe too tough to handle. consequently, you may suffer from some of the following withdrawal symptoms:

Headaches,IrritabilityIntensification of premenstrual symptomsFatigueGeneralized muscular tensionNauseaLack of appetiteConstipationLack of concentrationDisorientationForgetfulness

Quitting Coffee Gradually

So make sure you reduce your caffeine intake gradually. Initially reduce your intake by half. Avoid the other half by replacing  it with a cup of mild organic green tea or herbal tea. For example if you are used to four cups of coffee in a day, start drinking two cups of coffee and two cups of mild green tea. Gradually replace the mild tea with with soup or plain hot water mixed with honey and lime. Then replace the remaining two cups of coffee with mild tea and follow the same pattern.

4 cups of coffee2 cups of coffee

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