Exhale, Chicago, A Little Pot May Be Fine(d)
Posted on | June 27, 2012 | No Comments
In Chicago, a new policy on marijuana possession would mean adults who are caught with a small amount of the illegal drug would receive a fine instead of being arrested.
It’s mostly about money and how best to use police resources.
Under current Illinois law, anyone found with less than about 1 ounce of marijuana can be charged with a misdemeanor. If found guilty, they face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine.
Mayor Rahm Emanuel says that after a ride with Chicago police officers in the gang crimes unit, he knew there had to be a better alternative: Police said they spent too much time on the streets and in courtrooms because of low-level marijuana cases that are dismissed nearly nine out of 10 times.
‘A Different Penalty’
“It’s not decriminalization,” Emanuel says. “It’s dealing with it in a different way, a different penalty. And I want police officers fighting the crimes that need to be fought.”
That means going after the big drug dealers and gang bangers, he says, in a city where homicides have jumped 35 percent. Under the proposed change, a person 18 or older who is found with about a half-ounce or less could get a ticket and go on their way, provided they have proper ID and aren’t wanted for another crime.
Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says that without an ID, there’d be an arrest. And he says that “on school grounds, in parks and where there is open smoking of marijuana, it will be a custodial arrest.”
Those receiving tickets would face a $250 to $500 fine — but no criminal record or jail time. McCarthy says that would still hold people accountable while not tying up his officers.
“It takes an officer four hours to process and complete an arrest for marijuana,” he says.
The entire ticketing process, though, could take less than an hour. So if two officers in a beat car are making an arrest, double that four hours to eight hours. Chicago police make about 20,000 low-level marijuana possession arrests a year. So when you do the math, you can see how cumbersome a marijuana arrest can be.
Alderman Danny Solis, who is sponsoring the proposal, says it would free up a lot of officers.
“Yes, marijuana is still bad,” he says. “There’s no way I can condone it. But I know that we’re going to have these police officers in these violent neighborhoods. And hopefully, that extra police man-hours will be helping to save lives of young men and women.”
Worries About Effects On Demand For Pot
Alderman Jason Ervin’s ward has a pervasive drug culture, and the violence that accompanies it. He thinks ticketing people is the wrong approach.
“I don’t understand why you believe that this will not have an increase on demand, if you are literally proposing a ticket versus an arrest,” he says.
But Kathleen Kane-Willis, who heads a drug policy consortium at Roosevelt University, says demand “is not tied to criminal penalties.”
“It’s a misconception in the public’s mind that penalty structures influence demand,” she says. “Demand trends are long and do not respond to what the penalties are.”
A number of states and municipalities throughout the country have taken steps to turn possession of pot in small amounts from a criminal offense to a civil one — in large part because of resources. Kane-Willis notes that Chicago’s limit of about half an ounce is on the low end of what other municipalities have set.
No ‘Free Pass’
Originally, Chicago Alderman Ed Burke called issuing tickets for marijuana a slippery slope that would give kids a message that smoking pot was OK. But Burke now says that because police will still arrest juveniles, he’ll support the bill and doesn’t think Chicago will become a haven for marijuana smokers.
“If somebody thinks that they’re going to get a free pass in Chicago,” he says, “that they can stroll down Michigan Avenue smoking dope — that’s not the case.”
Burke says that because the vast majority of low-level pot cases are dismissed under current law, the effort to issue tickets with fines actually creates a policy that has some teeth. Another alderman says it just reeks of common sense.
Transcript
RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:
Chicago’s city council is taking up the issue of marijuana possession today. It will decide whether police can issue a ticket to adults caught with a small amount of the drug rather than arresting them. As NPR’s Cheryl Corley reports, it’s mostly a question of money and how best to use police resources.
CHERYL CORLEY, BYLINE: Under current Illinois law, anyone found with less than about an ounce of marijuana can be charged with a misdemeanor. If found guilty, they face up to a year in jail and a $2,500 fine. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel says after a ride with officers in the gang crimes unit, he knew there had to be a better alternative. Police said they spent too much time on the streets and in courtrooms over low level marijuana cases that are dismissed nearly nine out of ten times.
MAYOR RAHM EMANUEL: Now it’s not decriminalization. It’s dealing with it in a different way, a different penalty. And I want police officers fighting the crimes that need to be fought.
CORLEY: Like going after the big drug dealers and gang bangers, he says, in a city where homicides have jumped 35 percent. Under the proposed change, a person 18 or older who’s found with about a half ounce or less could get a ticket and go on their way, provided they have proper ID and aren’t wanted for another crime. Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy says without an ID there’d be an arrest plus…
GARRY MCCARTHY: On school grounds, in parks, and where there is open smoking of marijuana it will be a custodial arrest.
CORLEY: Those receiving tickets would face a $250 to $500 fine but no criminal record or jail time. McCarthy says it will still hold people accountable while not tying up his officers.
MCCARTHY: It takes an officer four hours to process and complete an arrest for marijuana.
CORLEY: The entire ticketing process, though, could take less than an hour. So if two officers in a beat car are making an arrest double that four hours to eight hours. Chicago police make about 20,000 low level marijuana possession arrests a year. So when you do the math you can see how cumbersome a marijuana arrest can be. Alderman Danny Solis, who’s sponsoring the proposal, says it would free up lots of officers.
DANNY SOLIS: Yes, marijuana is still bad. There’s no way I can condone it, but I know that we’re going to have these police officers in these violent neighborhoods and hopefully that extra police man hours will be helping to save lives of young men and women.
CORLEY: In Alderman Jason Ervin’s ward, there is a pervasive drug culture and the violence that accompanies it. He thinks ticketing people is the wrong approach.
JASON ERVIN: I don’t understand why you believe that this will not have an increase on demand if you’re literally proposing a ticket versus an arrest.
KATHLEEN KANE WILLIS: Demand does not go up. Demand is not tied to criminal penalties.
CORLEY: Kathleen Kane Willis heads a drug policy consortium at Roosevelt University.
WILLIS: It’s a misconception in the public’s mind that penalty structures influence demand. Demand trends are long and do not respond to what the penalties are.
CORLEY: A number of states and municipalities throughout the country have taken steps to turn possession of pot in small amounts from a criminal offense to a civil one, in large part because of resources. Willis notes the city’s limit of about a half an ounce is on the low end of what other municipalities have set. Some on the council point out that since under current law, the vast majority of low level pot cases are dismissed, the effort to issue tickets with fines actually creates a policy that has some teeth. Others say it just reeks of common sense.
Cheryl Corley, NPR News, Chicago. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright National Public Radio.
Get Legal Today with Same Day Service from Michigan’s Largest & Most Respected Certification Clinic
Posted on | June 23, 2012 | No Comments
Get Legal Today with Same Day Service from Michigan’s Largest & Most Respected Certification Clinic
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New Hampshire Governor John Lynch Blatantly Violates Thousands of Terminally Ill Patients’ Rights Out of Spite
Posted on | June 22, 2012 | No Comments
Concord, NH — June 22, 2012. In a rebuke to the New Hampshire state legislature and thousands of patients, Governor John Lynch vetoed medical marijuana legislation yesterday for the second time since 2009, despite strong legislative and popular support. SB 409 passed the New Hampshire House by an overwhelming vote of 236-96, more than the two-thirds needed to override the governor’s veto. However, because of a narrower margin in the senate, an override is less certain. SB 409 would protect the right of qualifying patients to cultivate their own medical marijuana or designate a caregiver to cultivate it for them, and would limit possession to 6 plants and 6 ounces of dried marijuana.
“We applaud the New Hampshire legislature for trying to meet the health care needs of thousands of its citizens,” said Steph Sherer, Executive Director of Americans for Safe Access, the country’s largest medical marijuana advocacy organization. “Unfortunately, a departing governor with an axe to grind is getting in the way of this important and popularly supported legislation. We’re now calling on the legislature to rise to the occasion, and override the governor’s veto.”
Advocates were successful during deliberations to incorporate patient cultivation into the list of enumerated rights, something common to most state medical marijuana laws, but absent from the more recent laws passed in Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, and the District of Columbia. In states without patient cultivation, implementation has lagged thereby causing the rights of thousands of otherwise qualifying patients to be denied. The sluggish pace of implementation is also due in part to threats of criminal prosecution being made by the Obama Administration.
Advocates in New Hampshire also pushed for and achieved the passage of other amendments to SB 409, such as one that would protect organ transplant patients against discrimination. Purging medical marijuana patients from transplant lists is a common practice at transplant centers across the country, including the internationally renowned Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
SB 409 originally called for “Alternative Treatment Centers,” centralized regulated facilities where patients could safely and legally obtain their medication. This provision, however, was stricken from the bill during deliberations. States with older medical marijuana laws, such as California, Maine, Vermont, and Washington, which originally excluded distribution systems, have either recently adopted or are trying to pass amendments that recognize that need.
The passage of SB 409 and Governor Lynch’s veto comes as Connecticut adopted a law earlier this month, making it the 17th medical marijuana state. Medical marijuana laws have been passed in the States of Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington, as well as Washington, D.C.
Further information: SB 409: http://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/legislation/2012/SB0409.html
Source: http://www.safeaccessnow.org
Rick Simpson’s Run From The Cure Video – Full Version
Posted on | June 22, 2012 | No Comments
Our wellness center has helped over 400 patients diagnosed with cancer. Our founding members along with current and previous patients and caregivers all have had experiences with someone close to them who was diagnosed with some sort of cancer.
This is the Rick Simpson story, “Run From The Cure”
After much debate over the type of controversy, several consultations with our attorney, and consideration for our patients we have decided to promote Rick Simpson’s Hemp Oil extraction method.
The video has been embeded in this post but a link can be found below where you can view this exact same full-length presentation on Rick Simpson’s own website Phoenix Tears.
This video can be found on Rick Simpson’s own website here: http://phoenixtears.ca/video-library/
Medical marijuana brings relief for sick kids in Michigan but the treatment is controversial
Posted on | June 15, 2012 | No Comments
Rebecca Brown, 48, gives her son Cooper, 14, medical marijuana to control seizures. / REGINA H. BOONE/Detroit Free Press
LANSING — Rebecca Brown says she tried every prescription drug she could find to control the frequent seizures her son suffered because of a severe form of epilepsy.
When nothing worked consistently, and the drugs and special diet caused kidney stones and pancreas problems as side effects, the Oakland County woman turned to medical marijuana.
Now, Cooper Brown, 14, is one of 44 Michigan residents younger than 18 with a medical marijuana card. His mom says his seizures have dropped off dramatically since he started using it early this year.
But the treatment is controversial. Marijuana — medical or otherwise — is illegal at the federal level and some doctors say it shouldn’t be used by adults, let alone children. A lack of clinical studies means there is uncertainty about its effects on developing brains and nervous systems.
Though still in middle school, Cooper is not the youngest child on the state’s medical marijuana registry. A 7-year-old, two 9-year-olds, an 11-year-old, and a 13-year-old can also legally possess and consume medical pot in Michigan.
State officials won’t disclose the children’s medical conditions. They say they don’t know whether the kids smoke the drug or take it some other way, such as in a baked good, a liquid extract called a tincture, or by using a vaporizer.
Parents say they’ve successfully used medical cannabis to treat their kids for Dravet Syndrome, which Cooper has, as well as autism, attention deficit disorder, muscular dystrophy, and the pain and nausea of cancer, among other ailments.
Brown said she would never let Cooper smoke marijuana. Instead, he eats it in food she prepares for him.
Brown would not identify her supplier but said she searches out cannabis that laboratory tests show is low in THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), the compound which provides the marijuana high, but with elevated levels of a lesser-known compound, CBD (cannabidiol), which has antiseizure properties.
Brown said in an interview with the Free Press that she might face criticism for going public but hopes she can help even one family lessen the stress and suffering that she and her family have endured.
“This isn’t something we entered into lightly,” Brown said. “I’ve done a lot of reading and a lot of research. I have everything tested.
“I am not a pot smoker and never in a million years thought of trying this,” she said. “But when your child is suffering and you feel desperate, you consider things you may not have before.
“Parents, when their kids are healthy, they take it for granted.”
Doctors’ permission
Brown first had to convince her skeptical husband. Because Cooper is younger than 18, Michigan law required her to get not one, but two doctors — Cooper’s pediatrician and his neurologist — to sign off on him using it.
Like Michigan, most states that have legalized medical marijuana don’t require users to be at least 18. Only Delaware, and now Connecticut, which this month became the 17th state to legalize it, have such a requirement, said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, D.C.
Dr. Tom George, a practicing physician and former Republican state senator from Kalamazoo who voted against Michigan legalizing medical marijuana in 2008, said there are no absolutes in medicine but an effective prescription treatment is almost always preferable to herbal marijuana.
Michigan, which has more than 130,000 adults on its medical marijuana registry, should amend its law so the drug can be used only for a limited number of specific conditions — not any time a doctor gives the OK — he said.
George, who unsuccessfully sought the GOP nomination for governor in 2010, said his concerns are heightened when it comes to use by children, though he’s not sure that should be banned.
“I don’t think we know in growing nervous systems what effects it might have,” George said.
In the case of the Brown family, “I like the fact that he’s not smoking it,” and “it sounds like she’s done her homework,” George said.
“It’s hard to know what to say based on anecdotal cases.”
The American Academy of Pediatrics doesn’t have a policy on medical cannabis, though it’s working on developing one, officials said.
Nearly three-quarters of Michigan medical marijuana users who are minors are either 16 or 17 years old. Similar high school-age concentrations of underage users in other states have prompted concerns about students using medical marijuana cards to supply the drug not just to themselves, but to their friends.
It’s a worry even for some proponents of medical pot, such as the Eugene, Ore., man who writes the Weed Blog under the pen name Johnny Green.
“I think it’s kind of unusual that in a part of the country where there’s a high prevalence of abuse of the program, there’s also a high prevalence of teenagers getting their medical marijuana cards,” Green said, in reference to Oregon.
Green, 31, who would not give his real name and said he uses medical cannabis to treat his tendinitis, said minors should face stricter controls than adults in getting medical marijuana cards. He said he likes the fact that Michigan, unlike Oregon and most other states, requires not one, but two doctors’ signatures.
Farmington Hills attorney Robert Mullen, spokesman for the Michigan chapter of the National Patients Rights Association, which favors testing requirements and improved controls over medical marijuana, said he also favors Michigan’s two-doctor requirement.
Long-term effects
As for concerns about the long-term effects of medical cannabis on young patients, “there’s a cost-benefit analysis to any form of treatment,” Mullen said.
Prescription drugs also can have long-term adverse effects, and “here’s someone who’s run the full gamut of Western medicine and it’s not working, so she’s trying something that’s an organic treatment,” he said.
Though Cooper is small for his age and is in a special education class when he attends school, he is at the high end of the spectrum for youngsters with Dravet Syndrome. He likes to play video games, cook and hang out with friends, and he has verbal skills that many with the same condition lack.
Rebecca Brown said she decided to try medical cannabis for her son after she saw a YouTube video about Jason David of Modesto, Calif., who said he believes the drug saved the life of his son Jayden, 5, who also has Dravet Syndrome and only recently began speaking a few words.
“My son had a seizure every day of his life,” David said in a telephone interview. “He was crying in pain every day.” Since he started giving the boy an oral tincture of high-CBD cannabis, “he’s been doing amazing,” and “now he can go a week without having one and when he does, it’s not nearly as severe.”
Brown said she takes Cooper’s medical cannabis to Iron Labs LLC in Walled Lake where it’s tested not just for CBD content but for herbicides and other harmful impurities.
She said she’s concerned about continuity of supply because high-CBD cannabis was hard to find in Michigan and it would be illegal for her to import it from another state.
“One day a few weeks ago I didn’t give him any medicine and that day he had five seizures,” said Brown, who uses Facebook to reach out to other moms with sick kids.
“To me, it’s not a drug issue, it’s a compassion issue,” Brown said.
Contact Paul Egan: 517-372-8660 or pegan@freepress.com
More Details: Medical cannabis cards for kids
Patients younger than 18 can get medical marijuana cards in Michigan, but they face special requirements in addition to the $100 application fee.
• The minor’s legal guardian must sign off on the application.
• Adults require a doctor’s certification; minors must have certifications from two doctors.
Source: http://www.freep.com/article/20120527/NEWS15/205270523/Medical-marijuana-brings-relief-for-sick-kids-in-Michigan-but-the-treatment-is-controversial