Newswise
Newswise — The growing body of evidence that marijuana (cannabis) may be effective as a pain reliever has been expanded with publication of a new study in The Journal of Pain reporting that patients with nerve pain showed reduced pain intensity from smoking marijuana.

Researchers at University of California Davis examined whether marijuana produces analgesia for patients with neuropathic pain. Thirty-eight patients were examined. They were given either high-dose (7%), low-dose (3.5%) or placebo cannabis.

The authors reported that identical levels of analgesia were produced at each cumulative dose level by both concentrations of the agent. As with opioids, cannabis does not rely on a relaxing or tranquilizing effect, but reduces the core component of nociception and the emotional aspect of the pain experience to an equal degree. There were undesirable consequences observed from cannabis smoking, such as feeing high or impaired, but they did not inhibit tolerability or cause anyone to withdraw from the study. In general, side effects and mood changes were inconsequential.

It was noted by the authors that since high and low dose cannabis produced equal analgesic efficacy, a case could be made for testing lower concentrations to determine if the analgesic profile can be maintained while reducing potential cognitive decline.

In addition, the authors said further research could probe whether adding the lowest effective dose of cannabis to another analgesic drug might lead to more effective neuropathic pain treatment for patients who otherwise are treatment-resistant.

Funny thing - this study has been out there since April and we reported on it back then.  And yet, it was never seen in the mainstream media.  But when a study arises showing marijuana as ineffective for acute pain treatment, it gets picked up the very next day by the Washington Post.  Just another way in which prohibitionist politics affects the reporting of marijuana science - the good reports get buried and the bad reports get headlines.

Raleigh to hear from marijuana advocates | Serving Henderson, Transylvania and Polk Counties | North Carolina | BlueRidgeNow.com
Advocates and local residents will speak before the state House this week to encourage a study into the use of medicinal marijuana.

Polk County resident Jean Marlowe, Democratic Rep. Earl Jones of Guilford County, former U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jocelyn Elders and Saluda resident Ray Pague plan to speak Wednesday at the Capitol auditorium.

Jones said he will introduce a measure calling for a study to be done on the benefits of medicinal marijuana.

“Dr. Elders will address the Science and Technology Committee of the House about this subject,” Jones said. “I have a bill that will be requesting a study committee.”

Jones said he is introducing the bill because he believes marijuana may hold a potential cure for ailments or pain.

“Marijuana has been proven in studies to reduce the pain and suffering in patients suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, AIDS and cancer,” he said. Jones said his top priority in policy making is to benefit the public, and in this case helping the public manage pain.

“There is not a reason for marijuana not to be used legally in North Carolina if it could help our residents manage their pain and suffering,” he said.

You can hear my interview with Rep. Jones on the archived podcast from June 2.

Lingle’s veto list includes 52 bills | HonoluluAdvertiser.com | The Honolulu Advertiser
[Hawaii Governor Linda] Lingle may veto a bill that would set up a task force to study issues surrounding medical marijuana because it could potentially counter federal prohibitions against the drug.

“The Legislature and many individuals in the community worked hard to pass these measures; however, it is my responsibility as governor to ensure that the bills are legal, constitutional, fiscally sound, and in the best long-term interest of the public,” Lingle said in a statement.

Maybe I don’t understand Hawaii’s state government, but don’t the courts have the responsibility of determining whether bills are legal and constitutional?

You can contact the governor and tell her that this bill merely directs the state to study the feasibility of medical marijuana distribution and to review possession limits for patients. Nothing against federal law can be found in the bill.

The Honorable Linda Lingle
Governor, State of Hawai`i
Executive Chambers
State Capitol
Honolulu, Hawai`i 96813

Phone: 808-586-0034
Fax: 808-586-0006
e-mail: governor.lingle@hawaii.gov

Marijuana Has Anti-Inflammatory That Won’t Get You High
A compound in marijuana may be a potent anti-inflammatory agent that won’t get people high, scientists say.

The finding could be a boon to sufferers of arthritis, cirrhosis, and other diseases. Existing drugs can be less effective for some people and can carry side effects, from stomach ulcers to increased risk of heart attacks.

Now researchers say that another cannabinoid, called beta-caryophyllene, or (E)-BCP, helps combat inflammation without affecting the brain [like THC does].

(E)-BCP is already part of many people’s daily diets, the researchers note. Foods that are particularly high in the compound include black pepper, oregano, basil, lime, cinnamon, carrots, and celery.

Essential oils from cannabis plants—whose leaves and flowers are used to make the marijuana drug—contain up to 35 percent (E)-BCP.

But even after decades of cannabis research, scientists hadn’t previously known that the compound had anti-inflammatory properties.

Cannabinoids in marijuana are known to primarily affect two of the many molecular receptors in the human body.

The CB1 receptor is found in the brain and central nervous system and is responsible for the high people experience when they smoke pot.

The other receptor, called CB2, is found in tissues in the rest of the body and triggers a cascade of biochemical reactions that can help combat inflammation.

“Our interest is to exploit the pharmacological nature of the CB2 receptor,” because it does not have psychotropic side effects, [lead study author Jürg Gertsch of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology] explained in an email.

“Targeting the CB2 receptor could be a therapeutic strategy to prevent or treat diseases like Crohn’s disease [inflammation of the intestinal tract], liver cirrhosis, osteoarthritis, and atherosclerosis.”

THC activates both receptors, so it won’t alleviate inflammation without also making people high.

But (E)-BCP affects only the CB2 receptor, according to the new study, which appears in today’s issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Studies like this are a double-edged sword.  On the one hand, it is great to see more science being funneled into cannabis research, and I’m always thrilled to learn about the therapeutic wonders of nature’s most perfect plant.  But on the other, I worry about the medicalization of marijuana and how this research will lead to so many beneficial pharmaceuticals that lack a “high” that prohibitionists will have a rhetorical weapon to use in arguing for the end of medical “plant” marijuana.

In other words, if we believe we have a right to get high, we cannot depend on medical marijuana to reinforce that belief, or they will just give us the medical marijuana without the high.

Medical Pot Ineffective as Acute Pain Treatment - washingtonpost.com
MONDAY, June 23 (HealthDay News) — Oral cannabis (a form of medical marijuana) was ineffective in treating certain types of acute pain and actually increased sensitivity to some other kinds of discomfort, say researchers at the Medical University of Vienna, Austria.

Their study included 18 healthy women who were given oral cannabis or a placebo. The women were then evaluated for heat and electrical pain thresholds in skin areas that had induced sunburn. This is an accepted method of assessing response to acute pain.

“The surprising result of our study was the absence of any kind of analgesic activity of THC-standardized cannabis extract on experimentally induced pain using well-established human model procedures,” study author Dr. Birgit Kraft said in a prepared statement. “Our results also seem to support the impression that high doses of cannabinoids may even cause increased sensitivity in certain pain conditions.”

The study is published in the July issue of the journal Anesthesiology.

Pain is a strange thing.  There are many types of pain, and it seems that THC is effective for some and not for others.  For example, we’re finding great results in the use of cannabis to treat neuropathic, or nerve pain, which is very resistant to treatment with conventional analgesics.

We’ve also found that there is a “Goldilocks dose” when it comes to treating pain with cannabis — where low potency (2% THC) marijuana didn’t help and high-potency (8% THC) marijuana made it worse, but moderate-potency (4% THC) was “just right” and helped ease certain types of pain.  (See more NORML Articles on cannabis and pain here.)

Or we could just ask the tens of thousands of medical marijuana patients in America’s 12 Free States who list chronic pain as their qualifying condition whether cannabis is working for their pain…

[Charles] Monson, 45, was paralyzed in 1979 when he and a friend decided to go for a swim. “I dove under a wave, hit a shallow spot and broke my neck,” Monson recalls. “I was paralyzed instantly and was floating face-down.”

Monson, who is confined to a wheelchair and has lost most of the use of his hands, tried to remain active. Nevertheless, he says he lives in constant pain and discomfort.

“My brain isn’t able to constantly able to monitor the muscles in my legs,” he says. “Any little stimulus like being touched or moving my wheelchair or sitting still for a while and then moving will trigger a muscle spasm, big ones, that will yank my body to the side.”

As a result, Monson was chronically sleep-deprived to the point of falling asleep behind the wheel of his specially equipped van. Doctors prescribed muscle relaxants and various other seizure medications, but Monson says he didn’t like the side effects.

“I had tried Valium, Baclofen, Gabapentin. That gave me a sense of not being sharp in my mind and just feeling kind of woozy,” Monson says. “I tried Marinol, which is synthetic marijuana. It’s very hard to dose. It’s either not very effective, or when it gets to the point of being effective, you’re loopy.”

Monson says a friend recommended marijuana in the 1980s and after trying it, he said he found relief: “I smoked it in bed and I slept better than I ever had. The other thing that makes cannabis so much more effective than any other of the spasticity drugs is that it allows me rather than just treating my spasticity to manage it.”

So naturally, on October 30, 2007 at 7am, police were dispatched to the home of this legal California medical marijuana patient, armed with assault rifles and bullet-proof vests, handcuffing this quadriplegic man and his care provider, and ransacking the house to discover 16 plants, 2½ ounces of medicine, and an elaborate grow system. After confiscating it all as evidence, the district attorney declined to prosecute the case.

Now Charles Monson can add post traumatic stress to his list of ailments, as the raid so terrified him that he refuses to grow again until his case is resolved. He fortunately has the assistance of a local dispensary, Nature’s Wellness, which itself was raided by the DEA back in March.

If only the Orange police department would get the message that the district attorney clearly has: the people of California passed Prop 215 partially because they thought SWAT team raids on quadriplegics were cruel and unnecessary.

NY Assembly Passes Medical Marijuana Bill
ALBANY — The New York Assembly passed a bill today that would protect New Yorkers with life threatening or debilitating conditions from arrest for using medical marijuana when their doctors believe it would be the best treatment option, 79-48.

The bill is similar to the medical marijuana bill the Assembly passed last year. The version passed today was modified to address concerns voiced by members of the Senate, who have until June 23 to pass the bill before the legislature recesses.

“Every day that goes by without this sensible, compassionate law is a day in which our most vulnerable citizens must choose between suffering debilitating pain or risking arrest in order to find relief,” said bill sponsor and Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried. “These patients don’t have the luxury of waiting another year for their elected representatives to act – they need the Senate to stand up for them now.”

Dr. Kevin Smith, a Saugerties psychiatrist who has been recognized by the state legislature for his work with police forensics, said the bill would change the lives of people like him who have no better pain relief options.

“Unless you or a loved one has experienced it, it’s difficult to understand the frustration and helplessness that comes from knowing that relief is readily available but forbidden by law,” said Smith, who suffers from a painful genetic defect that causes his immune system to attack his spine and hips as though they were foreign bodies; the debilitating pain forced him to quit practicing medicine. “Medical marijuana can give me my life back, but right now I am barred by law from using it. This is crazy.”

Glenn Amandola, a medically retired New York City police officer from Northport who suffers from chronic pain and a seizure disorder after being injured on the job in 1987, said it makes no sense for the law to prevent him from using medical marijuana when his doctor says it could help.

“As an officer with the New York City Police Department, I swore to uphold state law, and I’ll never break that oath,” he said. “The flip side to that, however, is that our lawmakers owe it to people like me who live in constant pain to make sure the law doesn’t penalize us for seeking relief. I should have the right to decide for myself – with my doctor – what my best treatment options are.”

The Assembly bill, A.4867B, would allow patients to register with the state to be allowed to grow up to 12 plants and to possess up to 2.5 ounces of their medicine. State-regulated distribution would replace home cultivation when the federal government grants the state permission to do so.

Dan Gross: Arlen visits People Paper | Philadelphia Daily News | 06/17/2008
[Pennsylvania Senator Arlen] Specter addressed the Daily News Editorial Board yesterday on local, national and international issues. Several years ago, early in his battle with cancer, Specter told me that he had considered introducing legislation supporting medical marijuana, so I figured I should follow up on that.

Yesterday, I asked Specter - someone who could potentially benefit from it - whether he would use medical marijuana himself.

“If it were legalized in Pennsylvania and if I were in pain and my doctor prescribed it, then yes, absolutely I would,” he told me. When I asked if he would consider sparking up without it being legalized, I’d swear there was a brief smile before the senator said he was “certainly not about to say I would violate the law.”

It’s amazing how much someone’s views on medical marijuana change when they’re battling cancer, isn’t it?

Ferndale voters to decide medical marijuana issue — chicagotribune.com
FERNDALE, Mich. - Ferndale voters will get the chance to legalize the sale of marijuana within city limits for medical purposes.

The Detroit News reports the proposal on the Nov. 4 ballot would allow the National Organization for Positive Medicine to obtain a court order to distribute and sell medical marijuana to “sick” patients.

The Daily Tribune of Royal Oak reports the group’s Carl M. Swanson collected enough signatures to get the issue on the ballot in the Detroit suburb.

The proposal isn’t related to a statewide medical marijuana proposal.

Ferndale voters in 2005 approved an ordinance allowing the use of medical marijuana.

Don’t you just love how they put the quotation marks around the word “sick”?

Michigan is voting on statewide medical marijuana this November.  So it will be interesting to see, if that passes and this Ferndale measure passes, whether Ferndale will see the creation of medical marijuana dispensaries.

Medicinal marijuana can cause range of adverse effects, say researchers
METRO VANCOUVER - The use of medical marijuana to relieve pain and other disease symptoms can cause a huge range of adverse effects, says an analysis of safety studies co-authored by University of B.C. and McGill University researchers.

The researchers evaluated 31 studies done around the world during the past 40 years and found that while nearly 97 per cent of adverse events were not serious or life threatening, medicinal marijuana users still have an 86-per-cent increase in the rate of non-serious adverse effects like drowsiness and dizziness (compared to non users), according to the study in the June 17 Canadian Medical Association Journal.

Wait a minute. Am I getting this right? Are you telling me you reviewed 40 years of studies to find very few people are ever harmed by marijuana and you might get sleepy and dizzy when you’re high? Who was in charge of this study, Dr. Phineas T. Obvious, Ph.Duh?

The risk of suffering serious, adverse effects requiring hospitalization is not elevated in medicinal marijuana users, compared to non-users, according to the study. But studies on patients taking marijuana have nevertheless shown that rarely, serious effects have been documented, including multiple sclerosis relapses, convulsions, respiratory and gastrointestinal disorders, urinary infections, cancer tumour progression and psychiatric disorders.

Sentence one: medical marijuana users and non-users are at equal risk.

Sentence two: medical marijuana users rarely suffer serious harm.

Therefore, non-users also rarely suffer serious harm.

So what’s the scare tactic here? Don’t take medical marijuana to relieve your pain, because you’ve got the same chance of bad things happening to you if you just suffered with the pain without marijuana?

(”Hey dude, don’t spark up that joint!” - “Why not?” - “A tiger might see it and eat you!” - “There are no tigers in Oregon.” - “Yeah, but if you smoke that joint, your chances go up by nothing!”)

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NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano published this op/ed in the Vallejo Times Herald in California.  (I’ve edited it a bit for length.)

Cancer info your government isn’t sharing - Vallejo Times Herald
The Times-Herald’s editorial cartoon of Monday, May 26 illustrates the grim reality facing Senator Ted Kennedy, and the approximately 10,000 Americans like him diagnosed with gliomas (brain cancer) every year. Despite even the most optimistic prognosis, the sad reality facing glioma and glioblastoma patients is that even with radiation and chemotherapy treatment, the disease will claim the lives of 50 percent of its victims within one year and virtually all within three years.

But what if there were an alternative treatment for gliomas that could selectively target the cancer while leaving healthy cells intact? And what if federal bureaucrats were aware of this treatment, but deliberately withheld this information from the public?

Sadly, the questions posed above are not entirely hypothetical.

…In fact, the first experiment documenting pot’s potent anti-cancer effects took place in 1974 at the Medical College of Virginia at the behest federal bureaucrats. The results of that study, reported in an Aug. 18, 1974, Washington Post newspaper feature, were that marijuana’s primary psychoactive component, THC, “slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”

Despite these favorable preliminary findings (eventually published the following year in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute), U.S. government officials refused to authorize any follow-up research until conducting a similar - though secret - clinical trial in the mid-1990s. That study, conducted by the U.S. National Toxicology Program to the tune of $2 million, concluded that mice and rats administered high doses of THC over long periods had greater protection against malignant tumors than untreated controls.

…[I]n the past 10 years scientists overseas have generously picked up where U.S. researchers so abruptly left off, reporting that cannabinoids can halt the spread of numerous cancer cells - including prostate cancer, breast cancer, lung cancer, pancreatic cancer, and in one human clinical trial, brain cancer. … A 2006 patient trial published in the British Journal of Cancer even reported that the intracranial administration of THC was associated with reduced tumor cell proliferation in humans with advanced glioblastoma.

What possible advancements in the treatment of cancer may have been achieved over the past 34 years had U.S. government officials chosen to advance - rather than suppress - clinical research into the anti-cancer effects of cannabis? It’s a shame we have to speculate; it’s even more tragic that the families of Senator Kennedy and thousands of others must suffer while we do.

Well, ya see, we can’t go researching whether THC helps treat cancer, because that will send the wrong message to the children… the message that we’ve been lying to them about the medical properties of marijuana for all these years!  Remember, whenever a prohibitionist tells you that marijuana is dangerous and (gasp!) “what about the children?”, they are essentially saying “we can’t let sick people get better with marijuana because some teenager might get high somewhere.”

New Report Co-Authored by SUNY Albany Researcher: Teen Marijuana Use Down in States With Medical Marijuana Laws : NewsLI.com - Long Island News, News Long Island
A newly updated analysis released today, co-authored by Dr. Mitch Earleywine, associate professor of psychology at the Albany campus of the State University of New York, shows that state medical marijuana laws have not increased teen marijuana use, despite fears that have been raised when such measures are considered. Teen marijuana use has consistently declined in states with medical marijuana laws, and generally more markedly than national averages.

“Opponents of medical use of marijuana regularly argue that such laws ’send the wrong message to children,’ but there is just no sign of that effect in the data,” said Dr. Earleywine, a substance abuse researcher and author of the acclaimed book, “Understanding Marijuana” (Oxford University Press, 2002). “In every state for which there’s data, teen marijuana use has gone down since the medical marijuana law was passed, often a much larger decline than nationally.”

In California, which passed the first effective medical marijuana law in 1996, marijuana use has declined sharply among all age groups. Among ninth-graders, marijuana use in the past 30 days (”current use” as defined in the surveys) declined by 47 percent from 1995-96 to 2005-06, the latest survey results available.

A similar pattern is emerging in the states with newer medical marijuana laws. Vermont and Montana, whose medical marijuana laws were enacted in 2004, have seen declines in current marijuana use of 15 percent and 9 percent, respectively. In Rhode Island, whose medical marijuana law took effect in January 2006, current use declined 7 percent from 2005 to 2007. There are no before-and-after data available yet from New Mexico, whose medical marijuana law was passed last year. Overall, declines in teen marijuana use in the 11 medical marijuana states for which data are available have slightly exceeded the national trends.

What about the “message” that we send to the children?  Well, it looks like the message changes from “this weed is a cool underground drug” to “this weed is just another medicine”.  Kids are always looking to be rebels and they tend to shy away from things their parents find acceptable.  So is it surprising that as marijuana becomes more mainstream and acceptable, kids looking to be rebellious turn away from it?

4 Men Invade Big Island Home, Steal Marijuana, Cash - Most Popular News Story - KITV Honolulu
HONOLULU — Four men wearing masks broke into a Keeau home Monday and stole marijuana plants and cash, according to Big Island police.

It happened at about 3 p.m. in a home in the Hawaiian Paradise Park subdivision.

The men demanded cash and marijuana from a 60-year-old man who lived in the home, police said. The man had a permit for medical marijuana.

One of the men carried a knife, police said. The victim was not injured.

Police said the men were only identified as four local males between the ages of 25 to 30, wearing the masks and long-sleeved shirts.

Medical marijuana patients will continue to be at risk of these home invasion arrests so long as the absurd prohibition of cannabis for healthy people remains.  The medical marijuana laws never provided for a way for patients to get their medicine, so many grow their own.  The bad guys know that and know there can be about $2,400-$10,000 worth of street weed they can sell from their heist.  Does anyone think we’d be less safe if the marijuana was so readily available in a liquor store that it wouldn’t be worth the effort or jail time to threaten and rob a senior citizen?

Local News | Oregon Court of Appeals protects medical marijuana | Seattle Times Newspaper PORTLAND — The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled that an employer must make a reasonable accommodation for medical marijuana use for a disability.

In an opinion issued Wednesday, the appeals court upheld a ruling by the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.

The agency said that Emerald Steel Fabricators in Eugene violated state laws barring discrimination against the disabled by discharging an employee who used medical marijuana.

A key issue was the fact the employee never used marijuana in the workplace — an issue the Oregon Supreme Court avoided in 2006 when it ruled against a registered medical marijuana user fired from his job at a Columbia Forest Products plant after urine tests detected traces of the drug.

Employers do not have to let patients smoke medical marijuana in the workplace. But the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act approved by voters in 1998 was unclear about whether employers must accommodate workers who smoke medical marijuana off the job.

In the opinion by Judge Timothy Sercombe, the Oregon Court of Appeals went back over the 2006 Oregon Supreme Court ruling to emphasize the Emerald Steel employee never used the marijuana at work — just like the worker in the Columbia Forest case.

Medical marijuana has been opposed by the construction industry, which wants laws to prohibit medical marijuana users from potentially hazardous jobs such as operating heavy machinery.

Supporters of restrictions on medical marijuana use, including state Rep. Mike Schaufler, D-Happy Valley, have said they are trying to ensure public safety.

But medical marijuana activist John Sajo says that during legislative hearings last year, nobody was able to identify a single case where a medical marijuana patient had caused a workplace accident or problem.

Rep. Schaufler sure had a fun time during testimony from some of us Oregon activists. We printed up flyers accusing Schaufler of instituting job discrimination against the sick and disabled. Schaufler replied that the whole set of Oregon Revised Statutes are books full of discrimination, for example, it discriminates against him performing brain surgery or building a 100-ft tower in his yard.

When a politician can’t tell the difference between reasonable regulations based on public safety and unreasonable regulations designed to discriminate, you know you’ve got a tough battle on your hands. They think a medical marijuana patient at work is as dangerous as a state representative performing brain surgery.

See, Schaufler, like lots of people, think that the medical marijuana patient is going to be running around like Cheech & Chong all the time, hot-boxing the cab of the crane or giggling when they notice they’ve been parked in the bulldozer for the past twenty minutes. They really think we’re crazy to, in their mind, put Jeff Spicoli from Fast Times at Ridgemont High behind the bandsaw at the mill or put The Dude from The Big Lebowski in charge of demolition at the construction site. They really can’t see that marijuana “should be treated like other medicines”, just as it says in the law.

They seem to have no issue with the users of heavy prescription drugs; in fact, we brought forth proposals that would actually test for impairment rather than the quality of a worker’s urine. That was soundly rejected; why, it might burden those workers who use Ambien, Xanax, OxyContin, Percocet, Prozac, or even who just like to knock back a beer or two during lunch. We can only conclude that it’s not the impairment they really care about, it losing their right to fire whom they consider “potheads”.

Schaufler also had a hard time explaining how this was a measure to promote public safety. Since Oregon’s medical marijuana law went into effect in 1999, we’ve seen workplace fatalities remain more or less steady and workdays lost from injuries drop, even as the patient population grew from 600 in 2000 to almost 20,000 today. If medical marijuana users in the workplace are such a hazard, where are the bodies?

Taking a pot shot County appeals concealed handgun versus medical marijuana decision- OregonLive.com
Washington County’s Board of Commissioners Tuesday approved filing an appeal of a circuit court judge’s ruling that federal firearms laws do not supersede Oregon’s medical marijuana law when it comes to obtaining a state Concealed Handgun License.

Sheriff Rob Gordon revoked or denied CHL’s to Steven Schwerdt, Paul Sansone and Lee Wallick on the basis they disclosed they have used a controlled substance, medical marijuana, regularly and for prolonged period of time. Gordon believes these people are barred by federal law from possessing firearms.

Judge Steven L. Price said as a matter of law, Oregon’s CHL requirements do not include abstaining from medical marijuana nor qualifying to possess firearms under federal standards.

The commissioners agreed with Gordon’s opinion that it is necessary to obtain a binding legal opinion on the issue from the Oregon Court of Appeals.

County counsel also wants answers to questions about whether issuing permits could subject the sheriff and the county to federal prosecution or civil liability.

The attacks on medical marijuana patients for their legal state-approved use of cannabis are staggering. In addition to wanting to deny patients their 2nd Amendment right* to own a handgun, states have pushed to deny medical marijuana patients from having driver’s licenses; from working in so-called “dangerous” positions; and from working as teachers, doctors, lawyers, public employees or elected officials.

Private enterprise denies medical marijuana patients the right to work through drug testing. Government agencies evict patients from federally subsidized housing. Customs won’t let patients cross the US/Canada border. Divorce lawyers and child protective services will use a patient’s medical marijuana use as a factor in determining the custody of patients’ children.

It all comes back to the criminalization of marijuana; the understandable blurring of the lines between recreational and medical use that are always going to exist so long as marijuana is prohibited to the majority of its users. For there are much more powerful legal prescription drugs than cannabis, but nobody fears the Prozac patient owning a handgun, the Xanax patient working in a “dangerous position”, or the OxyContin patient having a driver’s license.

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helenair.com
A week after the state Corrections Department abandoned a proposed rule that would have banned anyone on probation or parole from using medical marijuana, one Missoula man says he’s already reaping the benefits.

“I was told that I could go ahead and toke up again,” said David Michaud, 39, a convicted felon and stay-at-home dad who uses medical marijuana to relieve chronic migraine headaches, pain and nausea.

In 2000, Michaud was arrested with four ounces of marijuana during a ski trip to Breckenridge, Colo., and was subsequently convicted of felony drug possession. Earlier this year, Michaud and his wife moved to Montana, where he is registered as a medical marijuana patient and has four prescriptions for the drug signed by three physicians.

But Michaud said his probation officer told him he couldn’t fill those prescriptions, and suggested he instead ask his doctor for a prescription to Marinol, a synthetic version of the active ingredient in marijuana. But Michaud says, and many patients agree, that the synthetic treatment is not as effective because it mimics just one substance in the cannabis plant, when a combination of substances may be what helps relieve the pain.

Michaud said he disclosed his marijuana use to his probation officer after studying the finer points of Montana’s medical marijuana law, which places no restrictions on probationers or parolees.

“So I told my probation officer that I had started following my doctor’s advice again and was smoking marijuana, and she sent me to jail for three days,” Michaud said.

Diana Koch, chief legal counsel for the Department of Corrections, said her hands are tied because of the way the initiative-passed law was written.

“The medical marijuana statute just doesn’t allow criminal consequences for someone who is legitimately authorized to take medical marijuana.  We hope this isn’t going to give a carte blanche license to every drug offender who wishes to obtain marijuana,” Koch said. “It is so difficult to rehabilitate people with drug addictions when they are told it is OK to have drugs. We just hope public safety does not get out of hand, and the public is not as safe if drug-addicted people are allowed legitimately to have a drug.”

Michaud said his life is easier now that he doesn’t have to defy his probation officer, and that the pain management is critical to his quality of life.

“It’s awful not being free of pain,” he said. “I mean, they could prescribe me narcotics, or painkillers, which are more toxic and more expensive than cannabis. It’s a shame there’s such a stigma on marijuana.”

You have to wonder what Diana Koch thinks about probationers and parolees who are out walking the streets right now with prescriptions for Vicodin, OxyContin, or Xanax!  I sure hope public safety does not get out of hand.  And why is it that public safety is threatened by the THC in marijuana but not the THC in Marinol?

Ms. Koch, having ex-felons on marijuana may actually be one of the best outcomes you could hope for.  Staying at home, being mellow, watching cartoons, eating cookie dough - hey, you’ll know where they are and they’ll be no harm to anyone!

I’m surfing through the intertubes when I come upon this bit of syndicated opinion…

North Star Writers Group - Syndicated Commentary: Opinion, Humor and Features
The boundaries between the justifiable purpose of the substance and the not-so-underground culture of recreational use have blurred, and it’s not doing law-abiding users any favors. We’re an image-driven culture, so no matter how many reports and physician testimonials [about marijuana’s medical efficacy] another acronym-happy organization comes up with, a single shot of a “pharmacy” with a neon 420 sign flashing and Grateful Dead poster speaks for itself.

In California, the ease with which a prescription can be obtained relying solely on the patient’s word and then filled by a vending machine is laughable. To convince the nation that marijuana is a legitimate drug reserved for extreme cases, either start putting Vicodin in Pez dispensers or start treating Mary Jane like a potent controlled substance.

Vendors insist that the machines’ increased security (comparable to an ATM) will make it possible for people to access marijuana after store hours. Anyone who has driven up to their pharmacy only to remember that it’s not open 24 hours knows how frustrating not having access to necessary medication can be. Then again, pain relief – whether rolled into a joint or in a child-safety sealed bottle – is not an emergency.

If we don’t vend insulin, there is probably a good reason not to vend BC Bud. You can’t treat the substance as a harmless, easily available helper and then show up at legislative hearings and talk about it as if it were the miracle drug that belongs on the pharmacy top shelf.

First of all, as someone who just recently experienced the sudden excruciating pain of kidney stones and called 911 for an ambulance for the first time, I have to disagree that pain relief isn’t an emergency.  And this writer doesn’t even address someone dry heaving to the point of choking to death, a person for whom a spasm or a seizure can be severely harmful, or someone who suffers severe PTSD.

However, she does hit upon an interesting point about the medicalization of marijuana - the dichotomy of medical and recreation use.  But she draws the wrong conclusions.  It’s not that doobie puffers have perpetrated some fraud about marijuana’s medical efficacy; it’s that government has perpetrated a fraud about marijuana’s alleged dangers.

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SignOnSanDiego.com > News > Metro — It’s counties against state again in appeal of pot suit
Nineteen months after a judge rejected San Diego County’s lawsuit against the state of California seeking to overturn medical marijuana laws, government lawyers are returning to court to argue their appeals.

In a case being watched closely by counties around the state, oral arguments are scheduled for 9 a.m. Tuesday in a 4th District Court of Appeal courtroom in downtown San Diego.

Lawyers for San Diego and San Bernardino counties will argue that the state cannot force counties to issue identification cards to qualified medical marijuana patients because the drug is illegal under federal law.

The state will join lawyers for sick and dying patients in arguing that San Diego Superior Court Judge William R. Nevitt Jr. ruled correctly in 2006, when he said the county must follow state law and issue the cards.

In 1996, 56 percent of California voters approved Proposition 215, which allows chronically ill patients to grow and smoke marijuana to relieve symptoms related to their sickness.

Seven years later, amid confusion and lackluster support for medical marijuana among many law enforcement and local elected officials, then-Gov. Gray Davis signed a bill requiring counties to issue identification cards to qualified patients.

Staff attorney Joseph Elford of Americans for Safe Access, another advocacy group that represents medical marijuana patients, said he expects San Diego and San Bernardino counties to take their case to the California Supreme Court if they lose this appeal.

“It’s extremely political,” said Elford, who is meeting with a group of patients Tuesday night to update them on the case. “The boards of supervisors from San Diego and San Bernardino (counties) are opposed to what the rest of the state, and people in their own counties, voted in favor of.”

Sometimes I’m just stunned at the huevos grande some of these elected officials are sportin’ - it’s a wonder they can even walk.

Between this case and the case in Hailey, Idaho, I just can’t believe that the elected representatives of the people feel it is their duty to sue their bosses - we the people! - who have voted in large majorities to support the medical use of marijuana.  Regardless how you feel personally about it, you are elected to represent us and to uphold, protect, and defend the laws that we the people!

Mendocino voters repeal lenient pot policy
Mendocino County relinquished its crown as the nation’s epicenter of pot leniency Tuesday, with voters decisively approving a hotly contested measure to limit residents to six plants apiece under the state’s medicinal pot law.

With 85.5 percent of precincts reporting, Measure B had already locked up an unbeatable 55.5 percent of the vote. The measure - which repealed an initiative approved by county voters eight years ago allowing residents to grow as many as 25 pot plants for personal use - needed majority approval to pass.

Other jurisdictions in the United States allow more plants, but they are generally confined to a specific space and must be used medically. Under the eight-year-old Mendocino regulations, the 25 allowable plants can grow as large and thick as possible, and be used as the owner wishes.

When the county’s regulations passed as Measure G in 2000, proponents said the rules would simply codify what had been happening for decades in the county - massive pot growth that made Mendocino part of Northern California’s renowned “Emerald Triangle.”

The generous standards made it easier for people to grow pot to be used as pain-relief medicine, advocates say. But many residents and law enforcement officials complain that the standards were abused by people growing hundreds of plants at home for commercial sale.

There’s only one problem with the passage of Measure B: it restores the limit of plants for medical users as determined by Senate Bill 420, which is six plants and eight ounces. However, that language has just been ruled unconstitutional by a California appeals court. According to attorney Omar Figueroa, there currently is no official “limit” for California medical marijuana patients; each patient’s reasonable amount of medical marijuana would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis.

Given this development, Measure B is moot regarding medical users. Measure G had also allowed 25 plants for personal (recreational) use; that is now repealed, but it was never legally in force anyway, since both California and United States law ban the growing of cannabis for personal use.

The Daily Star, Oneonta, NY - The Newspaper for the Heartland of New York - Patients to push for medical marijuana law
Two area men with serious, chronic medical conditions will join an assemblyman in Albany today to urge passage of a Senate bill allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

“We’re hopeful,” said Bruce Dunn, of Morris, from a hotel in Albany on Monday night.

He and Richard Williams, of Richmondville, will join other patients and Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried, D-Manhattan, who will announce a television advertising campaign seeking Senate approval of a bill before the lawmakers adjourn June 23.

The Assembly bill sponsored by Gottfried legalizes the possession, manufacture, use, delivery, transport or administration of marijuana by a patient or designated caregiver for a certified medical use and directs the Department of Health to monitor uses. In its justification, the bill refers to the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine 1999 report that “nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety … all can be mitigated by marijuana.”

Doctors and patients have documented that marijuana can be an effective treatment _ where other medications have failed _ for some patients with HIV/AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis and other life-threatening or debilitating conditions.

Dunn said he has tried many therapies and medicines since his accident in 1988 and he needs the drug because it eases pain, softens muscles and motivates him. Marijuana is a safe drug that should be available to those who would benefit, he said.

Burton Aldrich, a quadriplegic father of five from Kingston, is featured in the ads to be broadcast on CNN and CNN Headline News, among other channels, starting Wednesday.

Medical marijuana has passed the Assembly, but it faces opposition in the New York Senate.  Senator James Seward has punted on the issue, saying that the US Supreme Court has ruled that state medical marijuana laws do not overrule federal laws against marijuana, and even though twelve states have moved to protect their patients from arrest by state and local authorities - who make 99% of all marijuana arrests - he believes New Yorks shouldn’t “go down that road”.

The people of New York and of America support medical marijuana.  The cities were the first to support this, then a few progressive states.  The federal government will be the last to give in on this issue, because it is a grassroots issue.  People of New York, contact your senators and tell them to listen to the people on this issue and protect New York’s most vulnerable sick and disabled people from state and local arrest.