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1. Montana case to test the legality of caregiver-to-caregiver transactions
2. Canadian stats show an increase in marijuana arrests, decrease in almost all other crime arrests
3. Canada to study blood tests of drivers involved in auto crashes
4. Washington dispensary operator faces charges

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(Denver Post) Gov. Bill Ritter signed into law today two bills regulating and legitimizing the state’s medical-marijuana industry.

The new law will require doctors to have completed a full assessment of the patient’s medical history, to talk with the patient about the medical condition that has caused them to seek marijuana and to be available for follow-up care. The law also prevents doctors from getting paid by dispensaries to write recommendations.

The reason people go to so-called “medical marijuana doctors” is because most of them have already had a full assessment by their doctor, but he or she won’t write a recommendation.  Many doctors want to help their patients with cannabis, but cannot write a recommendation without losing their job, because of restrictions from insurance, HMOs, clinics, or hospitals they work with.

Because their own doctor cannot help, many patients gather their records — usually at least three years’ worth — that document their medical condition and take them to the “medical marijuana doctor”.  So now we expect these people, many of them on fixed incomes, to pay for a whole new redundant set of examinations?

The law requires that dispensaries be licensed at both the state and local levels, and it allows local governments — or voters — to ban dispensaries and large-scale marijuana-growing operations in their communities.

Because when it comes to getting medical care to sick people, we ought to trust the will of the voters in every little conservative hick mountain town.  Why stop there?  How about votes to ban abortion services, alcohol rehabs, and free clinics for the “undesirables”who use them?

What this means is that your Colorado constitutional right to cannabis medicine will be subject to your geography.  Live in Denver, you can probably get medicine, but live in Colorado Springs and you’re going to spend some gas money (which you have plenty of on a fixed income, right?)

The new law will place other requirements on dispensaries, as well. People convicted recently of a felony — or at all of a drug-related felony — will be barred from operating a dispensary.

Dispensaries require a constant and large supply of well-grown and well-harvested marijuana.  Who has the best experience for the job?  The felons convicted before medical marijuana of maintaining constant and large supplies of well-grown and well-harvested marijuana!  With the stroke of a pen, the governor just decimated the potential pool of qualified dispensary operators.

People who have lived in Colorado for fewer than two years cannot open a new dispensary.

OK, so no people who got caught growing in the past AND nobody from out of state can open a new dispensary?

And all dispensaries must grow at least 70 percent of the marijuana they sell, meaning people currently operating as wholesale growers either have to partner with a dispensary or shut down.

Can you imagine telling a pharmacy they have to produce 70% of all their pills in-house?

Significantly from a legal standpoint, the law also makes a distinction between dispensaries and “primary caregivers” — small-scale marijuana providers whose work is protected in the state’s constitution. In order to qualify for that special protection now, caregivers can serve no more than five patients and grow no more than six plants per patient, in most cases. They must also register with the state.

There are numerous lawsuits pending regarding these laws.  As long as we continue to make distinctions over whom we imprison for cannabis based on their health conditions, we’ll continue to see complex and restrictive laws that make healthcare more difficult for patients and do nothing to stop a few healthy people from exploiting the laws.

Marijuana Law Reform in 2010 (March Update)

With New Jersey recently becoming the 14th medical marijuana state, activists in marijuana law reform have been celebrating.  After all, over 82 million Americans now live in states where medical use of marijuana is legal – that’s 27% of the US population! Last election, Massachusetts became the 13th decriminalization state, which means over 107 million Americans live in a state where possession of small personal amounts of marijuana no longer merit an arrest – that’s 35% of the US population.

Population of States with Medical Marijuana Laws

However, after watching fourteen years of marijuana activism focused solely on those who use cannabis for medicine, I must warn activists that medical marijuana is not getting any better and the time for re-legalization of cannabis for all adults – even the healthy ones – is now.

Population of States that have Decriminalized Marijuana

Medical marijuana was a great 20th century strategy to get the sick and dying off the battlefield in the war on drugs.  It was the perfect vehicle to enlighten the public, who for so long have been indoctrinated into the reefer madness that classifies cannabis like LSD and heroin.  But in the 21st century the idea that marijuana is only a medicine is beginning to take hold and governments and voters are crafting ever-more-restrictive medical marijuana laws.  For the vast majority of cannabis consumers this threatens to move us from the category of “illegal drug users” to “possessors of medicine without a prescription” – a step up, perhaps, but still left facing criminal prosecution.

Comparison of five core rights found in existing medical marijuana law

California legalized medical marijuana in 1996.  That initiative, Prop-215, established what is clearly the most liberal medical marijuana statute to date:

• A doctor can recommend for any condition;
• You needn’t have a “bona fide” doctor/patient relationship;
• Dispensaries are allowed;
• Self cultivation is allowed;
• Patients are protected from arrest.

Comparison of plant and possession limits and qualifying conditions in medical marijuana law

If we consider these five attributes of the law the baseline, then in the past fourteen years, all thirteen medical marijuana states that have followed have failed to achieve all five.  Eight states only offer three or four of those liberties and the rest offer two or only one.  Most disturbingly, the right of patients to grow their own medicine (or have a caregiver do it for them), which has been a bedrock principle in medical marijuana law, was taken away from patients in the most recent medical marijuana state, New Jersey.  Bills that were considered but vetoed in 2009 in Minnesota and New Hampshire, and those moving forward in New York, Pennsylvania, as well as an initiative in Arizona, all sacrifice this core right.

New Jersey - The (No Medical Marijuana) Garden State

A comparison of plant and possession limits also shows the decline from the original starting point in California, where 12 plants and 8 ounces are allowed.  Oregon and Washington passed their laws next and have the highest statutory limits: 24 plants and 24 ounces in Oregon and 15 plants and 24 ounces in Washington.  (To be fair, all the West Coast states started with lower limits or more vague limits that were modified by the legislature.)  But since then, only one state has allowed more than 3 ounces (New Mexico with 6 ounces) and average number of plants allowed is a little less than ten.

The "Big 8" Conditions for which marijuana is recommended in the states

Another decline in medical marijuana freedom appears when we look at the conditions for which medical marijuana protection is afforded in the various states.  There are eight conditions which could be considered the “standard” ones: cancer; HIV/AIDS; seizure disorders, like epilepsy; spastic disorders, like multiple sclerosis; glaucoma; chronic nausea; cachexia; and chronic pain.  Most medical marijuana states recognize all eight conditions; a couple (Vermont and Rhode Island) recognize seven of eight.

Other conditions recognized in state medical marijuana laws (not a complete list)

The latest law in New Jersey, however, eliminated chronic pain, chronic nausea, and cachexia, making it the most restrictive list in the nation.  The bill proposed but vetoed in New Hampshire required one to try all other remedies for chronic pain before trying medical marijuana.  The vetoed Minnesota bill wouldn’t even allow cancer and HIV/AIDS patients to use medical marijuana unless they could show they were terminal (about to die).  The lists in the latest proposed bills continue to become more restricted.

Until we do have legalization for all, every medical marijuana law is going to fail to adequately serve all medical users and subject them to increasing restriction and scrutiny.  Additionally, medical marijuana laws make patients an attractive target for criminals because prohibition maintains huge profits for stolen medical cannabis, as well as becoming targets for overzealous anti-marijuana cops and prosecutors.

The reason the recent medical marijuana laws are losing ground is not a failure of the medical marijuana strategy, but rather due to its success.  Medical marijuana has portrayed the herb as “powerful and effective medicine”.  Well, what do we do with powerful and effective medicines?  We keep them under lock and key.  We require people to visit doctors.  We strictly monitor prescription pads.  We bust people who have them without proper papers.

Rather than justifying the prohibitionists’ shibboleth of medical marijuana as “the camel’s nose under the tent” for legalization, I’m arguing it’s the opposite: that continuing the medical marijuana strategy further cements the “powerful and effective medicine” frame and takes us farther away from treating cannabis as a personal choice of relaxant.  We’ll get to a point where the public accepts “powerful and effective cannabis medicine” and looks upon personal use like we look at someone getting fraudulent scrips for painkillers.

If one of the West Coast states doesn’t pull off legalization soon, the pendulum is going to swing back the other way on marijuana.  The economic incentives may fade if the economy recovers and then the tax & regulate argument fizzles.  And if we are going to continue working on medical marijuana, the bills and initiatives need to get better, not worse.  The way it’s looking now is that the Northeast and upper Midwest are going to institute chronic conditions-only, 2 oz limit, strict registry, only personal doctor, no home grow, state-run dispensary medical marijuana for $15/gram in the next six years.  How then do we approach those people and say, “Hey, you know that powerful and effective medical marijuana that you only let a few hundred really sick people use after jumping though a mile of hoops?  We think everybody should have it and jump through no hoops!”

Medical marijuana would never have passed in any state if it were not for the votes of non-medical users of marijuana.  I do believe it is time for medical marijuana patients in the states that have programs to “repay the favor” and fight as hard for legalization as social tokers fought for medical.  Only patients can best make the argument that while prohibition exists, they will always face job discrimination, loss of child custody, high black market prices, housing discrimination, and the sneers of the Bill O’Reillys who think 99% of medical marijuana patients are faking.  So long as the prohibition profit exists, there will always be these CBS Undercover investigations casting a pall on all legitimate medical marijuana because of the irresponsible acts of a few.

Maybe I’m just too much of a dreamer.  I imagine acres and acres of hemp fields, huge indoor hydroponic cannabis warehouses, thriving cafes and coffeehouses, some folks growing their own in a garage or closet, regular outdoor festivals and special indoor events where cannabis smoking is permitted, buying and selling all varieties of cannabis from ounces at a farmer’s market to bulk bales at CostCo… and none of that is done with “powerful and effective medicines”.

I don’t think that it is reformer’s job to pass medical marijuana in all fifty states first and then worry about legalization in one.  I think states that have medical should be moving forward on legalization, states without should focus on better medical laws by calling prohibitionists’ bluff on “marijuana outta control!” in the Western states with liberal medical laws.

(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.”

This summer, the board determined that all a caregiver had to do was provide a patient with marijuana. However, the Colorado Court of Appeals ruled that this concept was invalid in a decision last week. So today, the board wasted no time in chucking their whole definition into the waste bin.

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.

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!

…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.

Read the Colo. Court of Appeals opinion here: http://www.cobar.org/opinions/opinion.cfm?opinionid=7372&courtid=1

The opinion was issued on Oct. 29 in the case of Colorado v. Clendenin.

Stacy Clendenin was a caregiver in Boulder County who was convicted in October 2006 of marijuana cultivation and was denied the right to have patients testify at her trial if those patients did not know Stacy personally while she was serving as their caregiver. Her attorney, Rob Corry, argued in the appeal that there is no law that requires the primary caregiver to have face-to-face contact with the patient and that the trial court erred by making an arbitrary decision to prevent patient witnesses from testifying. Corry argued that the Colorado State Board of Health recently supported Corry’s interpretation of the law, in new rules that went into effect on August 30, 2009, which state that “significant responsibility” could mean simply providing a patient with medical marijuana.

http://www.colorado420.com/news/clendenin/

http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hs/medicalmarijuana/AdoptedRules0200900360.pdf

Rob Corry issued a statement to the Cannabis Therapy Institute that said:

“The Court of Appeals’ opinion is narrow and by its own terms only applies to defendants who went to trial before August 30, 2009, the effective date of the Colorado Board of Health Regulations providing that a person need only provide medicine to satisfy the constitutional definition of caregiver.  (See page 13-14 of Clendenin opinion.)  There are encouraging sentiments in Judge Loeb’s concurrence, where he states there could be legislative clarification to correct a possible lack of protection for everyone in the supply chain.  We will almost certainly appeal this opinion to the Colorado Supreme Court and will be working with the legislature if it chooses to follow Judge Loeb’s guidance and protect all suppliers of medicine.”

Jeff Gard, a Boulder attorney who specializes in medical marijuana laws, had a more conservative view of the ruling. His statement says:

“It is more critical than ever to view the medical marijuana laws as conservatively as possible.  Under the Clendenin case, the Court of Appeals ruled that the primary care-giver affirmative defense does not apply where the provision of marijuana is itself the substance of the relationship.  As I have told prospective caregivers who seek my advice, caregiving means more than cultivating and/or providing medical marijuana to your patient and any such activities must be limited only to patients who have assigned you to be their caregiver.  Caregiving requires a personal relationship and providing medical marijuana to your patient is only one small part of managing the patient’s well-being.”

Officials with state’s Medical Marijuana Registry program will be meeting with their attorneys next week to discuss the legal impact of the ruling.

When asked how the ruling would affect the Registry’s rules, Mark Salley, spokesperson for the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment told the CTI that, “The Department will be evaluating the Court’s ruling and the possible impact of medical marijuana rules currently in place.”

Laura Kriho, spokesperson for the Cannabis Therapy Institute, was not surprised by the ruling. “We hope this has no immediate negative effect on patients’ safe access to their medicine, and we are not in favor of any government regulation that will restrict medical cannabis therapies or caregiving relationships,” she said. “However, we do feel that anything that encourages our caregivers to take better care of their patients will only be good for the patients. If caregivers strive to attain the spirit of this decision, we can expect medical care for patients overall to improve,” she said.

“If caregivers decide to use this decision as a model on how to run their businesses or to set up patient service collectives, patients and communities will thrive,” says Timothy Tipton of the Rocky Mountain Caregivers Cooperative. “This should encourage other professionals that provide caregiving services and alternative therapies to begin to include medical cannabis in their practices. This will only serve to boost the industry to another level of service for our patients.”

(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!

(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.

The total is expected to rise to 15,000 by year’s end, according to the state health department, which blames the rapid increase on patient confidentiality guarantees and federal plans to stop raiding medical marijuana operations, which the U.S. government considers illegal.

“Blames” the rapid increase?  Shouldn’t that be “credits” the rapid increase?  Why is it that when businesses have rapid growth, that’s “growing the economy”, and when government programs have rapid growth, that’s “serving the people”, but when medical marijuana patient rolls rise, that’s “abuse of the system”?

Since December, the average patient age in Colorado has dropped from 42 to 24, raising more questions about abuses.

Yeah, because younger people don’t get glaucoma, cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, migraines, fibromyalgia, etc.  Before the dispensaries, what point was there in registering?  The older patient and the younger patient would both be growing their own or buying it on the black market.  Older patients would be more likely to want to protect their possessions and family and be in better position to pay the fee to the state to be legal.  If the average age is down, then it is just normalizing to where it should be without artificial barriers like being forced to buy in an illegal market.

Leigh’s waiting room could be found in a dentist’s office, save for coffee-table reading material that includes a copy of High Times and a Timothy Leary book. Spice jars feature samples of marijuana available for sale. All sales are by appointment only, and Leigh’s business collects about $10,000 in sales tax a month.

Leigh’s patients are mainly middle-aged women with multiple sclerosis and men coping with hepatitis C. One employee said he takes tincture drops to help prevent seizures. A customer, a jiujitsu coach, said he uses it to treat pain from four surgeries and regular fights.

Today Leigh, a self-described soccer and karate mom, has seven employees, offers health insurance and plans to add 401(k) benefits. She worries federal agents might raid her business, even though the Obama administration says the government will stop targeting medical marijuana operations that are in line with state law.

These are good things and don’t think that I oppose dispensaries, because I don’t.  If two people want to engage in commerce and agree to ridiculous prices for an herb, I’ll support that to my dying day.  What I have a problem with is that it seems that the black market prices and profits are becoming the de facto standard for what people envision from a legal marijuana market.  My old weed dealer used to tell me it was the risk of prosecution that justified his outlaw untaxed profits.  Now that marijuana is semi-legal in Colorado and California and the feds have backed off, those people making the profits don’t have that risk.

So, then, the high prices and profits must exist because of the risk the rest of us non-medical users and growers and sellers are taking due to marijuana prohibition.  The people buying and selling with impunity are profiting from the arrests that ruin the lives of the rest of us and keep the price of a weed at luxury cognac levels.

Cheerleaders of this capitalism tell me that with more dispensaries come more competition and thus, lower prices.  With 70 Colorado dispensaries and over 700 California dispensaries, how much longer before that competition factor kicks in?

Here’s my fear: prohibited marijuana supports a myriad of industries and it won’t become legal until those industries can shape legal marijuana into a system where they can continue to make money.  “Locking people up” becomes “drug courts” and “mandatory rehab”.  “Medical marijuana” becomes “Sativex” or some inhaler.  “The guy” who has the hook-up becomes “the doctor” who makes recommendations.  “The dealer” becomes “the dispensary”.  Nothing changes but the names as cannabis consumers continue to be fleeced for a plant product that should cost as much as grapes or strawberries.  Or at least as cheap as saffron.

(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?

(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.