When you think about it, Cain's marijuana support is a natural fit.

So now there are three Republicans running for president with a better stance on state medical marijuana laws than President Obama:

(MSNBC.com) ”If states want to legalize medical marijuana, I think that’s a state’s right,” Cain said while campaigning in Iowa. “Because one of my overriding approaches to looking at all  of these issues — most of them belong at the state, because when you do something federally … you try to force one-size-fits-all.”

That sentiment wouldn’t necessarily make Cain the only Republican candidate who’s sympathetic to marijuana rights. Texas Rep. Ron Paul supports the availability of medical marijuana, and former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson supports the drug’s overall legalization.

When it comes to medical pot, an April 2010 poll by the Pew Research Center found that 61 percent of Republicans favored legalization, while 37 percent of Republicans opposed that. Self-described conservatives even split in favor of legalizing medical marijuana, 54-44 percent.

The weight of this issue is becoming too much for Republicans desperate to unseat Obama to ignore.  Medical marijuana enjoys more than 75% support nationwide and majority support in any demographic group you care to choose.  Support for outright legalization is up to 50% nationwide and is rising over the past three polls in every demographic group except “self-described liberals”.

Of course, Obama said a lot of “states rights” type rhetoric on the campaign trail in 2007 and 2008 as well.  We see how that turned out.

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Tawana Nichols, director of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP), deliberately withheld information from the state’s Advisory Committee on Medical Marijuana (ACMM) concerning a massive increase in patient fees, according to Barry Kast, the Administrator of the Office of Community Health and Health Plans that supervises the OMMP.  Meanwhile, lobbyists representing the entities that would profit from the fee increases were informed just five days following the introduction of the fee increases.

Responding to inquiries by Jennifer Alexander from the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act campaign as to why Ms. Nichols did not inform patient advocates of the pending 100%-2000% fee increase at the June 6, 2011 meeting of the ACMM, Mr. Kast explained,

Staff of the OMMP were only marginally aware of the options under consideration by the Joint Committee on Ways and Means as legislative discussions moved forward….

The LFO [legislative financial office] report presented on May 24 to the Human Services Sub-Committee of Ways and Means included specific written and oral testimony detailing increases in fees, changes in policy and a spreadsheet with budget adjustments.  The adjustments included the fees in question based on estimates of projected revenues that would be generated by the changes recommended….

As you can see, the Ways and Means Committee had not acted on the budget officially at the time the ACMM met on June 6. …

In my judgment she proceeded cautiously at the ACMM meeting last week and delivered exactly what she promised as soon as the Ways and Means Committee moved the budget forward.  To have said more to the ACMM on June 6 would have been as irresponsible as saying nothing at all and could have jeopardized the relationship of the program with policy-makers in Salem.

Mr. Kast’s explanation is that nothing was official about raising the basic patient fee from $100 to $200 because it was not official yet.  Mr. Kast further explains that on June 8 (Wednesday) the joint committee released their bill, on June 10 (Friday) the bill was forwarded to the Senate and House.  On June 11 (Saturday), Ms. Nichols sent a memo to the head of the ACMM for distribution to the rest of the committee and the patient community for a bill that just passed today, on a Tuesday before noon.

The problem with Mr. Kast’s explanation is that Doug Barber, a lobbyist from “LobbyOregon” representing “business, governmental and nonprofit clients in the fields of health care, public transit, and social services”, was made aware of the proposed fee increase and was disseminating that to his clients at the Oregon Rural Health Association (ORHA).

"Pot Smokers" will be taxed "to help fund public health". But only if they are really sick and poor. We can't raise the $200 million from full legalization, because then healthy people will smoke pot!

This newsletter, dated May 29, just five days after Mr. Kast admits Ways & Means had the consideration in mind, explains to ORHA that “Pot Smokers to Fund EMT MTU (Mobile Training Units)”

Medical marijuana card fees will double — from $100 to $200 per year — raising $7 million in 2011-13 to help fund public health.  Those funds will be used to restore funding for both EMT Mobile Training Units.

Rep. Jim Thompson (R-Dallas) who sponsored HB 3850 for the Oregon Rural Health Association, when hearing that the MTUs were funded, joked, “I might have to get one of those cards.”

So the people who benefit from the taxing of the sick are given eleven business days advanced knowledge of its passage (“will double”, not “may double”) and the people paying the tax, through their advisory committee (that by law must be kept apprised of medical marijuana program changes in the legislature), are given one business day advanced knowledge.

The insult of referring to medical marijuana patients as “pot smokers” is typical of the way some lawmakers believe the program is a joke.  Senator Bates, in his remarks introducing the bill, made a feeble joke about the bill coming from the Ways & Means Joint Subcommittee, not a subcommittee concerned with marijuana joints.

Download audio file (OR-Sen-Bates-Joint-Committee-Joke.mp3)

The bill easily passed the Senate with little debate.  Now that the budget bill has the medical marijuana fee increases tucked in along with so many other budget items it will be near impossible for the House to resist passing it.  Both chambers and both parties are eager to close up the session for the summer and get the bill to the governor’s desk.

Meanwhile, as the legislature taxes the poorest of the sickest 40,000 patients to raise $7 million in revenue, 360 thousand other Oregonians who use cannabis remain untaxed and unregulated to the tune of $200 million in potential revenue.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott singed a controversial bill this week that makes welfare recipients in his state, first submit to a urine, blood or hair sample for drug testing before they receive benefits. After signing the bill, he told reporters, “The goal of this is to make sure we don’t waste taxpayers’ money, and hopefully more people will focus on not using illegal drugs.” A positive test will get you an immediate ban on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families for six months.

Read the original:
Florida Welfare Recipients Must Have a Clean Drug Test to Qualify

(Washington Post) DOVER, Del. — Gov. Jack Markell has signed legislation making Delaware the 16th state to allow the use of medical marijuana.

The new law allows people 18 and older with certain serious or debilitating conditions that could be alleviated by marijuana to possess up to six ounces of the drug. Qualifying patients would be referred to state-licensed and regulated “compassion centers,” which would be located in each of Delaware’s three counties. The centers would grow, cultivate and dispense the marijuana.

Some highlights of the Delaware law:

• Patients may possess up to six ounces of usable cannabis
• Patients may purchase cannabis from three state-licensed dispensaries
• Patients may not grow their own cannabis
• Dispensary workers must be 21 years old and five or more years since a drug misdemeanor.  Drug felons are excluded.
• Patients may get cards for cancer, HIV/AIDS, cirrhosis, ALS (Lou Gehrig’s), Alzheimer’s agitation, and PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder)
• Patients may get cards to deal with cachexia or wasting syndrome; intractable nausea; seizures; or severe and persistent muscle spasms
• Pain patients can only get a card if their pain has not responded to previously prescribed medication or surgical measures for more than three months or for which other treatment options produced serious side effects
• Patients may designate caregivers and caregivers may only assist up to five patients.
• Only the weight of usable medicine is considered against a patients limits, not the weight of preparations (e.g. the three grams of medicine in the ten ounces of brownies counts only as three grams, not ten ounces)
• Patients shall not be considered DUID solely for the presence of marijuana metabolites in their urine
• Schools may not discriminate against patients in enrollment*
• Landlords may not discriminate against patients in housing*
• Medical care, including organ transplants, shall not be denied to patients
• Employers may not discriminate against patients in hiring, promotions, and firing.  Positive urine screens for marijuana cannot be used against patients*
• Patients may not be discriminated against in cases of parental rights and child custody.

*unless failing to do so would cause the school or landlord  or employer to lose a monetary or licensing-related benefit under federal law or regulations.

(Delaware Online) DOVER – The Delaware Senate sent Gov. Jack Markell legislation late this afternoon that would make Delaware the 16th state to legalize marijuana use for medical purposes.

Under Senate Bill 17, physicians could recommend marijuana for patients suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, multiple sclerosis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Alzheimer’s disease and post-traumatic stress disorder.

People with other chronic disease or debilitating medical conditions could qualify if other medicines or surgical procedures have failed to relieve their pain or caused seizures, severe or persistent muscle spasms and intractable nausea. Physicians and patients would have to have a “bona fide physician-patient relationship” and other medical treatments would have to be exhausted before marijuana is recommended, according to the legislation.

While I am thrilled that PTSD will be covered, making Delaware the third state (California and New Mexico are the others) to cover that mental illness, I am less than enthused about the “medicine of last resort” aspect to protecting those with pain, seizures, spasticity, or nausea.  The state could argue that the pharmaceutical opioids, even though they cause you all sorts of awful side effects, do actually help your pain, so you don’t get to use safer non-toxic non-addictive cannabis.

The “bona-fide” relationship means few patients will actually get their cards, as so many of their “bona-fide” physicians can’t or won’t sign for medical marijuana.

Also, patients cannot grow their own but may possess up to 6 ounces of medicine purchased from three state-licensed dispensaries… and we’ve seen how much the current administration is threatening the other state-licensed dispensaries in Rhode Island, Colorado, and Arizona.

It is progress… but as the map gets filled with more “green” medical marijuana states we should be coloring them with increasingly lighter shades of green.

(Providence Business News) PROVIDENCE – Gov. Lincoln D. Chafee said Monday he has put a hold on the state’s medical marijuana certificate of registration program after receiving notice that it could violate federal law.

The news comes after the U.S. attorney for the district of Rhode Island told the governor in a three-page, hand-delivered letter on Friday that the state law establishing up to three medical-marijuana centers could lead to civil and criminal prosecution.

Chafee explained that the letter “clarified” the U.S. Department of Justice’s position on medical marijuana.

“The Department of Justice previously indicated that it would not focus its limited resources on doctors and their sick patients who prescribe and use marijuana if such use was permitted by state law,” Chafee said in a news release.

Chafee said he has placed a hold on the certificate of registration program, “in light of the U.S. Attorney’s articulate position on closing compassion centers, seizing proceeds and prosecuting business enterprises that market and sell medical marijuana.”

Is there not a governor in any of the fifteen medical marijuana states who will show some leadership and challenge the federal government’s bullying?  The feds don’t even acknowledge such a thing as “medical marijuana”!  The US Dept. of Justice’s position is that anyone anywhere in the United States in possession of a single joint is committing a misdemeanor worth a year in prison and anyone growing a single plant is committing a felony worth five years in prison.

So merely by having a medical marijuana program, Gov. Chafee, your state is engaging in a conspiracy with hundreds of Rhode Islanders to break federal controlled substance laws.

It’s not the medical marijuana patients the feds care about; it’s the medical marijuana industry.  So long as it is a husband tending a pot garden for his wife who’s a patient, it’s all fine.  But if it is a businessman tending pot forests for 500 patients, then the feds can’t have it.  Those businessmen might build loyal voting blocs and raise substantial money for lobbying and initiative campaigns and primary challengers.  And they might show the public an example of what a well-run, tightly-controlled, safe and clean distribution system for legal marijuana would be like.  Next thing you know, people start to wonder why we don’t just legalize it for healthy people, too, and raise a bunch of tax revenue.

When the feds raid these compassion centers, they don’t even bother to arrest and charge anyone!  No, that would lead to a court trial and the government having to explain to a judge and some news media why drastic measures had to be taken to shut down a place where cancer patients get medicine.  Instead they just bust down the doors, smash the cabinets and displays, destroy the security cams and monitors, seize the computers and cash and records, and send everyone on their way.  It’s an institutionalized thuggery that would make the mafia jealous.

(Bozeman Daily Chronicle) Gov. Brian Schweitzer will allow a major overhaul of Montana’s medical marijuana act to become law, the governor told the Chronicle editorial board this afternoon.

Schweitzer was highly critical of the reform bill, which will allow caregivers to serve no more than three patients and bar people from accepting money for medical marijuana.

However, he said he cannot allow the Montana’s current medical marijuana law — which has allowed marijuana businesses to flourish and the number of marijuana patients in Montana to balloon beyond 30,000 people — to continue.

“With the structure we have in place now, we have people using Montana law to smoke marijuana just to smoke it. That’s what I believe,” Schweitzer said.

And… so what?!?  Do you think they are going to stop?  Whether you think they are suffering enough not to be locked in a cage for smoking a non-toxic herb is irrelevant.  If you really believe the so-called “recreational user” is using the Montana medical marijuana law to escape criminal prosecution, I have yet to hear why it is so important to be criminally punishing him in the first place.  They were smoking pot before, they are smoking pot now, they will smoke pot after July 1.

What you will lose are the jobs that were created by a dispensary industry.  You’ll lose the potential sales taxes and payroll taxes and money staying in Montana instead of flowing to other states or Mexico.  You’ll lose the ability to know where the medical marijuana is being grown and where it is being bought and sold and knowing there will be some level of security, identification checking, agricultural quality controls, and zoning regulations.  You just made the underground market broader and deeper now that 9 out of 10 legal consumers will be returned to criminal status.

But he was skeptical of the argument that the law will make it nearly impossible for legitimate users to get marijuana.

“My guess is there will be a very active business in not producing marijuana, but selling grow-boxes to help people to grow marijuana,” he said.

Again with the “legitimate users”, that inevitable distinction created by the medical marijuana concept that divides us into “patients” and “criminals” based on our personal suffering.  Got cancer? Aw, here’s a joint.  Got migraines?  Too bad, faker, take a pill or get in the cage.

Why must we punish, imprison, force rehab, and enforce abstinence regarding cannabis use?  I always get answers about federal law, drug schedules, dangerous drugs, and so forth, and every argument falls apart when I note we’re freely allowed to consume alcohol and tobacco.  I get warnings about how cannabis will lead to these other drugs that do awful things, but never what’s so dangerous about the cannabis itself.

As for those grow boxes, I don’t foresee a whole lot of wheelchair-bound patients, those suffering spasticity, some with other mobility issues being able to grow their own.  So they are to rely on caregivers who now cannot be reimbursed for their efforts and cannot help too many patients.  There are always too few compassionate altruistic individuals like that and some of the most vulnerable “legitimate users” are going to suffer, Governor.

And he was unequivocal about the effect the law will have on marijuana businesses across the state, some of which provide pot to hundreds of people.

“July 1, they’re out of business,” he said.

Because that’s what Montana needs – more unemployment and failed small businesses!