Toni Armijo will be getting some compensation from the Albuquerque, New Mexico, Police Department for her destroyed cannabis plants. She did, however, have to wait quite awhile for this payday.

In August of 2010, a neighbor of Ms. Armijo called the police concerned that she was suicidal. When the police came to do a wellness check on her, she was gone, but they entered and found her marijuana plants just sprouting beneath a grow light. The officers pulled all the plants from their pots and held them as evidence. By the time Armijo came back to her house, and was able to convince the police that she was a licensed grower for her own medical marijuana, her entire crop, now stuffed into a paper bag, was ruined.

Officials in Albuquerque will have to pay Ms. Armijo $3,100 dollars for her loss.

Expanded Links:
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/pot-payout-city-pays-woman-3-100-cops-ruin-marijuana-plants-article-1.1010928#ixzz1kPxdjeln

http://www.koat.com/news/30260020/detail.html#ixzz1kS1vNcr3

(KOAT) ALBUQUERQUE, NM — A driver, who died after driving the wrong way on Interstate 25, and slamming into an ambulance, had a blood-alcohol level of more than three times the legal limit, according to a toxicology report obtained by Action 7 News on Tuesday.

Blood tests showed that Kylene Holmes had a 0.26 blood-alcohol level.

Tests also showed trace amounts of marijuana in her system.

You ever notice when you read about these terrible wrecks, they always seem to know the exact blood-alcohol levels but never the exact nanograms-per-milliliter of THC in the blood?  It always seems to be a “trace amount” at best or just “marijuana was detected in her system” at worst.  Yet a toxicology report is going to list exact amounts of both substances.

A “trace amount” for most of this testing is 2ng/ml or lower.  That’s an amount so low that it would be unlikely someone was actively impaired by it.

A 0.26 blood-alcohol level is an amount so high you can just about guarantee the person is actively impaired and severely so.

As far as I’m concerned, when you read “three times the legal limit”, the story is over; we know what caused this tragedy.  Unless you can show me toxicology of 5ng/ml or greater, the detection of marijuana in her system is as irrelevant as knowing what she ate for dinner that night.

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Hemp Headlines

1. Irv Rosenfeld: World Record Joint Smoker
2. Could marijuana advertising save Denver papers?
3. Mississippi teacher faces 30 years, $1 million fine, for growing marijuana

Daily Toker Tunes

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• Rockin’ Friday: Sean Hayes – “Smoking Signals”

Cannabis Conversations

• Dr. Carl Hart, Dr. Wendy Chapkis, Philippe Lucas, and Paul Armentano (among others) discussing medical marijuana’s future at the DPA Reform Conference in Albuquerque.

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Cannabis Conversations

• Ethan Nadelmann: Highlights of Opening Remarks at DPA Reform Conference in Albuquerque, NM.

Daily Toker Tunes

• Groovin’ Thursday: What the Science – “Higher (feat. Tiffany Paige)”

Cannabis Conversations

• Aaron Houston, MPP Federal Lobbyist, on Mexican drug cartel influence in small town America
• Lorenzo Jones, A Better Way Foundation, on the progress of reform in Connecticut
• Whitney Taylor, former campaign director, on new civil fines for “public consumption” following passage of her Massachusetts’ Question 2 decrim measure
• Karen O’Keefe, MPP State Programs Director, on new medical marijuana bills that take away right to home grow or restrict qualifying conditions

I usually reserve Politicians on Pot for state and federal politicians, but every now and then I get a response received by an activist Stasher that warrants inclusion on the blog.

Stasher Max writes: “Jeremy Toulouse is running for District 5 City Council of Albuquerque, NM. I sent him a facebook message regarding the legalization of a certain illegitimately labeled schedule one substance. Here is his reply;”

Nice to hear from you max. If you go to my plan and see the governments I will collaborate, you will see that Mexico is there, which is for this reason. I agree though that legalization/decriminalization of current controlled substances is the absolute key to destroying the trafficking and crime involved with it.

To be honest though, this has to be a joint state and federal initiative, since as long as it is illegal outside of Nuevo Mexico, they will still traffic through us to other places. I do support this strongly as I believe that alcohol is the “gateway” drug and that it is the most dangerous substance!

ALBUQUERQUE (KRQE) – Post traumatic stress disorder, nerve pain and Hepatitis C could soon be added to the list of ailments treated by medical marijuana in New Mexico.

On Thursday, petitioners asked a medical group to recommend the use of medical marijuana for several other ailments.

So far four of the 17 ailments petitioned Thursday will be placed on a recommendation list that will go to the secretary of health for approval.

The panel has tabled some ailments including chronic pain. They said some of the tabled ailments need to be further researched.

The use of medical marijuana to treat depression was denied by the panel.

via Panel considers cannabis for more uses.

New Mexico has the most restrictive list of conditions for which medical marijuana is approved:

Under current state law, the only qualifying conditions for the medical cannabis program are:

1. Cancer
2. Glaucoma
3. Multiple Sclerosis
4. Epilepsy
5. Spinal Cord Damage with Intractable Spasticity
6. HIV/AIDS
7. Also, any patient in hospice care could qualify.

The lack of chronic pain and chronic nausea on this list is a huge problem.  Most patients in the other twelve medical marijuana states qualify for those conditions and cannabis gives them a huge measure of relief.  Addition of nerve pain and Hep C are good, and adding PTSD would be a move most of the medical states haven’t recognized.  I would have also liked to have seen depression make the list as well.

Sometimes I wonder if the medical marijuana programs in these states are deciding on qualifying conditions not on the basis of medical science, but rather to insure that there aren’t too many patients in the program.  

(We here in Oregon often hear that medical marijuana is “out of control” because we have over 22,000 registered patients, as if there is some magic number at which there are “too many” medical marijuana patients.  Oregon’s OSCaR database registers cancer patients in Oregon and there are 17,000 of them per year.  If everyone in Oregon who could qualify got a card did get a card, we’d probably have 100,000 patients!)

Hey, Albuquerque!  Here I come!