Tuesday, November 3rd, 2009 at 8:24 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Westword) To make a long story short, the board voted 9-0 this morning to strike language stating that a marijuana caregiver has to have “significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient.”
The board didn’t come up with a new definition, though — suggesting that it will wait for its regularly scheduled December 16 meeting to tackle the challenge. As of now, in other words, there’s no definition anywhere in state regulations stating what, exactly, it means to be a marijuana caregiver.
Gee, I wonder how many new dispensaries can set up shop in Colorado between now and December 16? Haven’t they learned anything from Los Angeles? State and local governments can’t just abdicate their responsibility to come up with clear regulations regarding medical marijuana. In the absence of guidelines, people will assume the best-case scenario that allows their businesses to flourish, and then when the government does come up with regulations, they end up destroying the businesses of many people who had the best of intentions along with the carpetbaggers who were just looking to make a buck of medical marijuana.
Monday, November 2nd, 2009 at 7:22 pm | By: Radical Russ
In an underhanded move, the Colorado Board of Health will be voting to weaken the medical marijuana law at an “emergency” meeting on Tuesday, November 3 at 10:30am in Denver. At this stealth meeting the Board will be voting to redefine what a “caregiver” is to require such individuals to provide supplementary– and often unnecessary– services beyond simply providing sick patients with medical marijuana.
“This is like requiring my pharmacist to give me a massage or make me a sandwich,” said Dan Pope, muscular dystrophy patient and medical card holder. “I can do those activities myself. I need a caregiver to give me medicine. End of story.”
This meeting, which was announced in a late afternoon email to a small handful of patient advocates, is another example of the state engaging in underhanded tactics in their effort to undermine the medical marijuana law and the will of the Colorado voters. Please help hold them accountable.
Here’s How You Can Help:
(1) Attend the Meeting. This meeting will occur at 10:30am on Tuesday, November 3 in the Snow Room, 1st Floor Building A of the Colorado Department of Public Health and the Environment, 4300 Cherry Creek Dr. South, Denver CO.
(2) Call-in to the Meeting. While we strongly prefer that you attend in person, you can also call-in at 1-866-899-5399, conference code *3529725*
(3) Spread the Word. Please tell friends and family to attend the meeting and forward this alert widely!
Thursday, October 29th, 2009 at 3:58 pm | By: Radical Russ
…but Colorado has also said that providing marijuana in and of itself counts as caregiving. It will be interesting to see how this one plays out.
The Colorado Court of Appeals issued a ruling today (10/29) creating the first case law on Colorado’s Medical Marijuana Law (Article XVIII, Section 14 of the Colorado Constitution). The court ruled that a medical marijuana caregiver must know their patients personally and must provide them with other services in addition to the acquisition of medical marijuana.
However, the decision came in the appeal of a defendant who was arrested *before* the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment issued rules this summer clarifying the patient/caregiver relationship. So the Court of Appeals opinion may not have any immediate bearing on medical marijuana caregivers currently operating in compliance with those rules and regulations, but it may show the future direction the Court is likely to take on this issue.
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009 at 11:04 am | By: Radical Russ
(Des Moines Register) A caregiver at a Waterloo nursing home has been fired after she was accused of providing a resident with marijuana and sexual favors.
The incident involves Tina Turner, 29, of Evansdale, who worked as a nurse aide at Harmony House. She was fired in May after her co-workers reported allegations that she had given marijuana to a 28-year-old resident with muscular dystrophy and had stimulated him sexually.
According to state records, three of Turner’s co-workers told Harmony House’s administrator that the disabled resident had admitted smoking marijuana in the facility. A fourth worker said the man’s room had smelled of Axe Body Spray, which the resident allegedly told the staff was used to mask the smell of the marijuana.
At a recent state hearing dealing with her request for unemployment benefits, Turner testified that while she discussed marijuana with the resident, she never had sex with him or procured drugs for him.
“It started out when he said, ‘I know there’s a lot of people in this facility that smoke marijuana,’ and I said, ‘Yeah,’ ” Turner testified. “He says, ‘Well, I’d like to try it so it could help with my pain.’ … I said that I wished he could smoke marijuana.”
The problem here is the Complicated Disaster that forbids disabled Iowans from using safe and effective medical marijuana. If you ask me, this kind of caregiver is Simply The Best. We Don’t Need Another Hero, we need more courageous caregivers from Des Moines, Iowa, to the Nutbush City Limits who will cross River Deep, Mountain High to help patients manage their pain with medical marijuana. As for the sexual favors, What’s Love Got To Do With It? Yes, it is improper for a nurse’s aide to be a patient’s Private Dancer, but they are both consenting adults, so I can’t get too upset if she might Shake a Tail Feather for a disabled Typical Male now and then.
Sorry about the Tina Turner jokes, I just couldn’t help myself, Please direct any complaints to 634-5789, but you Better Be Good To Me… arrrgghh I can’t stop!
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009 at 11:20 am | By: Radical Russ
(Summit Daily News) BOULDER — Boulder County Caregivers offers 16 glass jars of marijuana with names like Skinny Pineapple and Early Pearl Maui, priced at $375 to $420 an ounce. There are marijuana capsules and snacks made with cannabis butter, such as rice crispy treats.
Russian palladium today is trading at $250 – $262 per ounce. It is the softest of the platinum group metals and is used in things like catalytic converters, cell phones, and computers. It is a fairly rare material which must be laboriously mined underground. Somehow this valuable useful rare earth metal costs less for the men and machinery to dig up, smelt, process, pack, and ship overseas than the flowers of a locally-grown bush.
I can get a wholesale ounce of Spanish Saffron today for $89.95 wholesale, which sells for a suggested $129.95 retail. Saffron is the individual threads of the saffron flower which must be hand-picked. It grows mostly in Iran and Spain and each flower produces only three threads. It takes 75,000 flowers to produce a pound. Somehow, this valuable useful rare flower costs less for the men to harvest, handpick tiny threads from each individual flower, dry and vacuum pack, and ship overseas than the flowers of a locally-grown bush.
One of the rarest and most expensive cognacs in the world is France’s Remy Martin Cognac Black Pearl Louis XIII. It is made from a 100-year-old fruit brandy and aged in a single barrel that is several centuries old. It sells for $28,000 for a 1.75l bottle, or about $464 per ounce. Somehow, this valuable rare historical luxury liquor costs just a little more for the men to ferment, bottle, and ship overseas than the flowers of a locally-grown bush.
Monday, July 20th, 2009 at 10:03 am | By: Radical Russ
(Denver Post) The Colorado Board of Health today will vote on a proposal that may cut off some of 7,360 registered patients’ access to medical marijuana.
The proposal would shut down small and large medical marijuana dispensaries by limiting them to selling their medical herbs to five patients at a time.
Currently there is no limit to how many patients they can supply.
At issue is wording in Amendment 20, passed in 2000 by Colorado voters, which allows people with debilitating medical conditions, such as cancer and HIV/AIDS, to grow their own marijuana or appoint a “caregiver” to do it.
Caregiver has, however, in some cases taken the form of dispensaries that serve more than 600 patients each.
The health board is proposing to tighten the definition of caregiver to someone who does more that just supply marijuana.
Here is the actual language of Colorado’s constitutional amendment in question (emphasis mine):
0-4-287 – ARTICLE XVIII Section 14 (f) “Primary care-giver” means a person, other than the patient and the patient’s physician, who is eighteen years of age or older and has significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient who has a debilitating medical condition.
It’s that “significant responsibility” part that the Board of Health takes to mean “attending to patient health care needs aside from just providing medical marijuana”.
I think that if you’ve got HIV/AIDS and without marijuana you can’t eat, you waste away, and you die, then the person who provides you a medicine that helps you eat and live has a pretty significant responsibility for managing your well-being. If you’ve got cluster headaches that reduce you to a bawling wreck lying in the fetal position in a darkened room, then the person who provides you a medicine that takes away that pain and allows you to live a productive life has a pretty significant responsibility. If you’ve got multiple sclerosis and tremble so badly you can’t feed yourself, much less work, then the person who provides you a medicine that quells your tremors has a pretty significant responsibility.
I think the voters of Colorado intrinsically knew that when they voted for Amendment 20. I suppose the Board of Health would counter that the “dispensary as care-giver” definition would make any pharmacist a “care-giver” when they hand out pills. I’d reply that the folks in the Rocky Mountain High state are well aware that medical marijuana isn’t some mass-produced pill you can order from a factory. It requires intense gardening, harvesting, and manicuring, and is otherwise only available from shady dudes on the street. If Colorado decided to limit care-givers to five patients, it seems obvious that the well-being of thousands of patients will be threatened because they can’t just go to a pharmacy and pick up their medicine.
The Board of Health seems to think a care-giver is a designation along the lines of Certified Nurses Assistant (CNA). My wife is a registered CNA in Oregon and she had to take a lot of nursing training and pass tests to get that license, which she must renew every year. CNA’s have “significant responsibility” for their patients, bathing them, taking vitals, administering medications, helping them ambulate, and being ready with first aid and CPR should the patient need them. Yet, in Amendment 20, there is no medical training or licensing necessary to be a care-giver, only the requirement of being 18 or older. So how “significant” a responsibility for health care does Colorado intend on placing in medically-untrained people’s hands?
Friday, July 17th, 2009 at 12:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
(Denver Daily News) The health department on Monday will consider making things a bit more complicated for [Andy] Cookston’s [Cannabis Medical] caregiving operation, which he operates with his wife, Lori. On Monday, the Board of Health will vote on a proposal that would limit caregivers to five patients, as well as require them to provide so-called “significant care,” like cooking, cleaning and scrubbing toilets.
“That means you’ll have another illegal market to deal with,” starts Cookston, still standing in the printing portion of his store. “If they limit growth, a guy like me is not going to let down 15 people in wheelchairs. I’m not going to do it.”
The whole issue has Brian Vicente, executive director of pro-medical marijuana group Sensible Colorado, smoking mad.
“Could you imagine if your doctor instructed you to use a medication, but when you went to pick it up your pharmacist said, ‘Sorry, I’ve already helped five people today?’” asked Vicente, who also serves as counsel to Cookston.
Dispensaries have shot up across Colorado since President Obama took office and eased federal crackdowns on medical marijuana growing and dispensing operations. It’s estimated that more than 40 dispensaries are operating legally across Colorado, according to Vicente. Of those, at least 10 are in Denver. Many more operate underground. And perhaps even worse, some of the more than 7,600 patients seek street dealers.
Concerns are being raised that if the health department imposes the new regulations, more patients would look to the street, or certainly to dispensaries forced to go underground.
Board of Health public hearing on proposed changes to the Medical Marijuana Registry Program:
WHEN: Monday, 9 a.m.
WHERE: Tivoli Student Union, Conference Room 250, 900 Auraria Parkway, on the Auraria Campus
Much of this controversy stems from the definition of a “caregiver” – what does it mean to give care to a seriously sick or disabled person? The state wants you to believe that caregiving is akin to being a Certified Nurses Assistant – taking vitals, dispensing medicine, cooking, cleaning, bathing the patient, etc. and if you want to be picky about it, that is a proper definition in historical context.
But with medical marijuana, “caregiver” is a placeholder term for someone who assists in the growing, preparation, and dispensing of medical marijuana, because the term you would normally use for such a person – “pharmacist” – is unavailable to us due to the federal prohibition on cannabis. Or the other term you might use – “dealer” – is inappropriate because the grower and seller of the cannabis is doing so legally and not for profit.
I think much of this controversy could have been avoided if we had been able to pass medical marijuana initiatives with the term “gardener”. Obviously the marijuana needs to be grown, harvested, and packaged before the patient can use it, which really means the only thing the “caregiver” if giving care towards is a plant, not a person.
Now, to be fair, most of the Colorado dispensary owners I met in Aspen are actually providing holistic caregiving services, like massage therapy, counseling, grocery services, and so on. I say a rose by any other name would still smell as sweet – whether we call them “caregivers”, “growers”, or “dispensaries”, they are providing a critical health care service, and as such, the Colorado health department should avoid getting caught up in the distinctions of terminology and focus on the good being done by the caregivers involved. Accept that the people of Colorado support medical access to marijuana, accept that some sort of business – underground or legit – is going to arise to serve that need, and work with the caregivers to craft sensible and responsible ordinances that protect the patients and the state.
Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 12:20 pm | By: Radical Russ
The Los Angeles Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee of the City Council will be holding a special meeting next Monday June 29, 2009 to hear 29 medical marijuana collective hardship exemption applications.
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I am really enjoying my opportunities to speak with former law enforcement officers about the drug war. Today we speak with Jonathan Wender, the professor and former/current law enforcement officer who was fired for his controversial drug war views (see Stash story here).
Then activist/comedian Tere Joyce is back with the newly-revamped Southern California Report, where we get the latest on cannabis culture in Hollywood and beyond. We learn about Tere’s work as a caregiver for an elderly lady and how the state human services department is interfering over medical marijuana.
Tere brings a friend of mine from the PacNW, Mark “The Mustard Man” Kikel (or “Musty” to his friends) on the show to promote a benefit concert to help pay his impending medical bills. A full slate of top PacNW comedy talent is onstage tomorrow in my hometown, Potland, Oregon, at the Bagdad Theater, 7:30pm Tickets are only $5 and you’ll be helping one of our own defray the costs of double hip replacement surgery in six weeks. Mark was canned by his employer and needs to raise only a few hundred bucks to keep the COBRA coverage that will pay for the operation. I’ll be there supporting Musty, and I hope my web-footed homies here in Stumptown will join me.
Thursday, July 3rd, 2008 at 12:08 pm | By: Radical Russ
FRESNO, Calif. — The Fresno County Board of Supervisors will conduct a public hearing on the local implementation of the statewide Medical Marijuana Identification Card Program, 9 a.m., July 8, in the County Board Chambers in the Hall of Records at 2281 Tulare St.
Although 40 California counties have implemented the program – including Merced, Tulare, Inyo and San Benito as well as Los Angeles, Orange and Kern – Fresno has yet to act.
Aaron Smith, California organizer for the Marijuana Policy Project, noted that the program – mandated by a state law that went into effect in 2004 – benefits law enforcement by removing the burden of verifying patient documentation from officers on the street. The ID card provides a means for local peace officers to easily identify bona fide medical marijuana patients during enforcement stops.
“We are merely calling on the Board of Supervisors to follow existing state law so that suffering patients like Diana do not have to live in fear of false arrest at the expense of local taxpayers,” Smith said. “It is the duty of the county’s leaders to protect their most vulnerable citizens and to make the jobs of local law enforcement easier by providing them with all the tools available. This program is a major step in the right direction.”
To help educate the community about this and other medical marijuana issues facing Fresno, MPP will host a free screening of the award-winning medical marijuana documentary “Waiting to Inhale,” followed by a panel discussion, July 7, at 7 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Church at 2672 E. Alluvial Ave., in Clovis.
I’m coming at you from Oregon, where our medical marijuana law requires an ID card for all patients, caregivers (I’m one), and growers. California has mandated that all counties offer an ID card program, but participation in the program is optional.
I guess I don’t understand why Californians would not want a mandatory, statewide ID card system. I hear the complaint, “I don’t want to be on some government list!” Well, do you have a Social Security Number? Then you’re already on a government list!
I can’t tell you how much of a relief it was the first time my caregiver card meant something to me. I was transporting two fairly-bushy four-foot plants to one of our cardholder meetings. They were covered with thin white plastic garbage bags, but with the light streaming through you could make out the silhouette of some fine Oregon cannabis.
I looked into my rearview and there was one of Portland’s finest tailing me. I got that initial adrenaline rush all us stoners get when there is suddenly a cop driving behind you, especially when you’re carrying ounces of ganja. Then I remembered, “Hey, I’ve got a caregiver card. If he pulls be over, I just show him my license, registration, insurance, and caregiver card and I’m driving away scot-free!” The panic subsided. The cop never pulled me over. But that feeling of relief definitely trumps any sort of paranoid thought I ever had about being on some “gub’mint list”.
RevRayGreen: I'll post a pic of me and my son....gimme a minute
Missippi Hippy: Guess what... I'm gonna be a new... ummmmm well, my pet piggie Ganja is in labor and they ain't mine in the same sense. See what your wife [...]
RevRayGreen: days they didn't talk back..or act disrespectful..
RevRayGreen: feel so lucky my son is 18 going 19 and my daughter 16 going on 17..relish the days that can't talk back
Urb Age: Congrats Spof thats awesome. My little Clara is about to hit 20 months. Im not the activist I used to be, but its made me a better man.
Urb Age: Heck I was gonna go up there, but just not feeling well this weekend..Dang it, I hate it when that happens..
RevRayGreen: wishing I was hanging at NORML cafe...
JohnH: Just a quick comment about tokin' and sperm motility....been tokin since age 14 and have 8 kids ranging in age from 30 to 9...(what can I say, I found 2 [...]
slash5city: really ..oprah 35 yr or more in the closet toker ...outed ....o my god !!
SneakerPimp: that would be huge news just imagen the headline
RevRayGreen: maybe Oprah smokes and keeps it on the DL...
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Colorado Board of Health unanimously strikes down caregiver definition
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