UPDATE: Following the NORML Conference and my “Box Canyon” presentation, people have been asking for my comprehensive medical marijuana chart. I’ve added the bills and states that protect a patient’s driver’s license to the previously chart.
Chart of current and proposed Medical Marijuana Laws
NORML National Conference begins on Thursday. We’ll be streaming live all three days of the event, beginning our coverage on Wed, Sep 8, 5pm at the World Famous Oregon NORML Cannabis Cafe. Josh Belville (my li’l bro!) will be entertaining with an acoustic guitar set, followed by Asha singing and playing the baby grand piano.
Our conference this year features Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), California NAACP head Alice Huffman, and former New Mexico governor and 2012 GOP presidential candidate Gary Johnson.
The final panel on Saturday looks at medical marijuana with respect to efforts to legalize marijuana for healthy people. Stephen Gutwillig of Drug Policy Alliance will argue that medical marijuana is an inevitable step toward legalization. Steve DeAngelo from Harborside Health Centers will argue that well-run medical dispensaries set the model for full legalization. Steph Sherer from Americans for Safe Access will argue that medical marijuana is and should be an issue separated from legalization for all. I get to follow these luminaries with my “The Box Canyon: Path to Legalization or to Permanent Medicalization?”
As part of that presentation, I have compiled all the existing medical marijuana laws in 14 states + DC, laws vetoed in three states, laws being voted on in two states, and bills defeated in 14 states. Explanatory notes follow after the break. (Download the new Medical Marijuana Trends in PDF.)
NORML – Medical Marijuana Trends – Chart Notes
REG = Registry Card BUY = Dispensaries WORK = Pee Test Protections TRAVEL = Reciprocity DRIVE = Driver’s License Protections HOUSE = Renter Protections TXPLT = Transplant Protections KIDS = Child Custody Protections
ALABAMA (Failed in 2009/2010): Spasticity must be multiple sclerosis. Some leniency for “for any other ailment.”
ALASKA: All Alaskans are protected for 1 ounce of personal possession in the home.
ARIZONA (Voting in 2010): No home growing if within 25 miles of a dispensary. WORK protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole.
CALIFORNIA: Limits of 6 mature plants and 8 ounces are “a floor”.. “For any other ailment” language allows for all conditions even when not specifically named.
COLORADO: Dispensaries must now produce 70% of their cannabis “in house”.
CONNECTICUT (vetoed): 4 plants must be less than four feet tall. Seizures must be epilepsy.
DELAWARE (Failed in 2009/2010): WORK and HOUSE protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole.
DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA: No home growing.
HAWAII, MICHIGAN, MISSOURI, MONTANA, NEVADA, RHODE ISLAND, WISCONSIN: No special circumstances.
ILLINOIS (Failed in 2009/2010): WORK and HOUSE protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole.
IOWA (Failed in 2009/2010): WORK and HOUSE protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole.
KANSAS (Failed in 2009/2010): WORK and HOUSE protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole.
MAINE: Pain must be “intractable”
MARYLAND (Failed in 2009/2010): No home growing. Some leniency on “for any other ailment.”
MASSACHUSETTS: “A” caregiver may be reimbursed could equal limited sales.
MINNESOTA (vetoed): No home growing, qualifying conditions must be “terminal”, WORK and HOUSE protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole.
MISSISSIPPI: 30 grams in possession per mature plant.
NEW HAMPSHIRE (vetoed): Conditions must be chronic or terminal with the listed symptoms. Pain must not have responded to conventional medications.
NEW JERSEY: No home growing.
NEW MEXICO: May possess more plants with recommendation, some leniency for “any other ailment” if it is terminal.
NEW YORK (Failed in 2009/2010): No home growing. Strong support on “for any other ailment.”
NORTH CAROLINA (Failed in 2009/2010): 100 square foot of canopy for plant limit.
OHIO (Failed in 2009/2010): HOUSE protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole. 200 grams in possession.
OREGON: Originally set limits as 3 plants and 3 ounces, later amended to 6 plants and 24 ounces, traded for affirmative defense. Likely to pass dispensary measure in 2010.
PENNSYLVANIA (Failed in 2009/2010): Some leniency on “for any other ailment.”
SOUTH DAKOTA (voting in 2010): Pain must be “intractable”. WORK and HOUSE protections have “unless it violates federal law” loophole.
TENNESSEE & VIRGINIA: Bills contained “prescription” language and would therefore be moot even if passed.
VERMONT: Spasticity must be multiple sclerosis.
WASHINGTON: Originally set limits as a “60 day supply”, later determined to be 15 plants and 24 ounces. No registry = arrest possible.
CORRECTIONS? Email russ@norml.org.
That’s a good one. I also thought of driving protections – some of the new bills have “metabolites don’t equal impairment” clauses. Feel free o contribute more ideas, I’m always open to suggestions for improving data presentations.
Cool! Just missing caregivers’ patient limitations.
What about Michigan? It’s up there – “MI”.
Someone at NORML CON asked me to correct the Hawaii plant numbers because they get 7, not 3. The chart reflects the mature plant limits, not over all plant limits, so 3 is correct. (I figure, who cares how many seedlings you get; it’s mature plants that give you medicine…)
What about Michigan?
One little known fact about medical marijuana law is that they don’t simply exist in 14 states and DC. Since 1978, 31 states have passed legislation legalizing cannabis for medical use.
The unfortunate truth is that more than half of these laws weren’t implementable, due primarily to the use of the word “prescription”, which conflicts directly with federal laws regarding Schedule I substance control.
In the mid-90s, some smart folks in California figured it out. If it weren’t for their wise usage of the word “recommendation”, insead of “prescription”, It is highly doubtful folks in 13 more states would have ever managed to provide for safe and legal access to medical cannabis for suffering patients.
It is simply amazing, given the wealth of information available on the subject, that Tennessee and Virginia are poised to make the same fatal mistake repeated time and again by other states for nearly 20 years before the first workable laws surfaced.
For some, one step forward and two steps back seem to be the norm.
This is why i advertise this. This is a nonprofit organization dispensary website that everybody should join and support so when New Jersey finally sets up regulations patients will have this place to go to.
Cannabinol Haven
providing medication to rid the pain.
Don’t get down. I’m just another guy like you who was frustrated, but I got lucky and met the right folks at the right time and had the right skills for the job of my dreams.
But I was sitting in Idaho, just seven years ago, feeling just like you. It felt so bad I had to move to Oregon so I could feel like my activism would accomplish something. I have no kids or mortgage, so it was an easier move than it would be for most.
Maybe I should have toughed it out and helped Idaho realize some reform. But now I’ve met some great reformers like Serra Frank from Moms 4 Marijuana out in Boise and I have new hope. Nobody would have thought Boise State would be ranked #3 in college football, so maybe our belief that Idaho would never legalize is just as crazy a dream, huh?
You do have a part to play, even if you never form a chapter, just by being an openly proud cannabis consumer. You set an example and you destroy stereotypes and prejudice. That is the most important thing anyone can do to help legalize.
I look at that chart and all the hard work and then i cried because its so clear that my state will never ever have legal or medical cannabis. looks like Im in bed with about 14 states that have nothing going on other than arrests! I know i have to move I know that I need to for my health and safety I just dont have anywhere to go nor can I with a wife and 4 kids in tow. It really sucks when so many states not only have an active cannabis activist community but that they at least have some sort of bills being voted on or Props being put forward. When you have no one to even work with let alone to try to be an activist starting a movement here its hard to keep going for nothing.
Nothing I have done in 7 years here has made any difference, Ive not created a activist community, I have not gotten bills passed or voted on, i only have put myself out in the open for discrimination and or worse. I have done what i can, even before Russ, i had a chapter packet sent out from NORML to form one here. I have told people since the 90s to educate and visit NORML to do so. After Russ came I worked with him to get emails of people interested or he would let me know if someone contacted him and gave them my email. But Russ has exploded with Fame in our community hes so far out of reach to me and feel in a whole left behind. I have hit the streets talking to all i can or that will listen to me but the worst thing is that the few and I mean few tokers I do hang with or go see every week, they are not willing to do even half of what I am and Im doing nothing!
As for Prop19, anyone that is a toker medical or not that would want my life/state laws for the rest of the tokers out there in CA then you are truly selfish and are not my brother or fellow toker you are the enemy of the movement. To tell a person like me in my state that 19 is in any way worse than whats in place now, you could get smacked in the face for such madness.
I sit here reading this chart again and can see how so many states are on the edge of mmj or legalizing and can only think what is wrong here in my state that I have to live here of all places and try to just be who I am, its real hard for me to see why anyone would complain about what their state is like when yes there are states that have nothing not one thing in the works or may never have it, 14 of them!
This chart has opened my eyes, I can see now that Im not helping the movement at all, I have done nothing and Its hitting me real hard, so hard i dont even care at all, its just the fact that I have no part in any of this, no part to play at all.