Tag: medical marijuana (page 6)

The Newark Star Ledger joins two state senatorss and goes to bat today seeking a pardon for John Ray Wilson, a MS patient busted for growing 17 pot plants behind his house. He's facing 20 years. Prosecutors offered hin 3 to 9, which he turned down. The paper ends with:

Sens. Nicholas Scutari and Raymond Lesniak (both D-Union) have asked Gov. Jon Corzine to pardon Wilson, who declined an offer to plead guilty in return for a three- to nine-year sentence and is scheduled to go on trial Dec. 14. The senators want Corzine to throw out the first-degree charge, so Wilson can enter pretrial intervention on the lesser offenses. They have called the charges "inappropriate" and an "inhumane application" of the law.

Dude, they’re right, this is totally bogus.

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Summit County, Colorado is home to several Colorado ski towns, including Breckenridge, Frisco, Silverthorne and Dillon. Some of its land is not in any town, thus it has control over "unincorporated areas" of the county.

Breckenridge voters will vote Tuesday on whether to remove all criminal penalties for adult possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. A few years ago, voters passed a resolution mandating that medical marijuana enforcement be the lowest police priority.

Last week, Silverthorne joined Frisco and Breckenridge (pdf) in enacting regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries (pdf). Breckenridge has even posted the required forms online. Dillon is expected to do the same. [More...]

The Colorado Court of Appeals today issued an opinion holding that medical marijuana caregivers must do more than merely provide pot and must have significant responsibility for providing for the well-being of their patients.

The case involved a woman named Stacy Clendenin, who in 2006 was charged with cultivating marijuana in a Longmont home. Clendenin argued that the marijuana she grew in the home was then distributed to authorized patients through marijuana dispensaries.

But the appeals court ruled that simply knowing that the end user of marijuana is a patient is not enough. Instead, the court said, a care-giver authorized to grow marijuana must actually know the patients who use it....In a special concurring opinion, Judge Alan Loeb wrote that Colorado's constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana "cries out for legislative action."

Actually, the opinion (available here, pdf) said the trial court ruled the caregiver must personally know the patient, and it was deciding the issue on other grounds. [More...]

The DEA issued this statement today on the DOJ revised policy on medical marijuana busts in states where it is legal:

“DEA welcomes the issuance of these clarifying guidelines pertaining to the use of federal investigative and prosecutorial resources in states that have enacted laws authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

"These guidelines do not legalize marijuana. It is not the practice or policy of DEA to target individuals with serious medical conditions who comply with state laws authorizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes. Consistent with the DOJ guidelines, we will continue to identify and investigate any criminal organization or individual who unlawfully grows, markets or distributes marijuana or other dangerous drugs. Those who unlawfully possess firearms, commit acts of violence, provide drugs to minors, or have ties to other criminal organizations may also be subject to arrest.

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Is the medical marijuana dispensary business really booming? John Suthers, the Attorney General in Colorado says it is. He's looking for ways to regulate it. Some municipalities are putting "freezes" on new applications while they try to develop standards and rules. [More...]

Bump and Update: Here is the text of the DOJ memo.

The Department of Justice is sending out a three page memo to prosecutors in the 14 states that have legalized medical marijuana with new guidelines for prosecutions. According to unnamed officials,

... [the memo] emphasizes that prosecutors have wide discretion in choosing which cases to pursue, and says it is not a good use of federal manpower to prosecute those who are without a doubt in compliance with state law.

Without a doubt? Sounds like there's some wiggle room. [More...]

The Denver Post reports today on the sad cases of some disabled medical marijuana users, including one with MS, who are being evicted from federally subsidized housing due to regulations that prohibit illegal use of controlled substances. Under federal law, all marijuana use is illegal, even in states that allow it.

Even with the state's OK to use medical marijuana, people such as Hewitt can't live in federal housing or receive federal subsidies for rent under the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development's Housing Choice Voucher Program.

The FBI was busy in Denver today, raiding medical marijuana businesses, but, the U.S. Attorneys' office says they weren't after the pot -- even though they seized it.

FBI has busted an operation run by Russians who they say came up with an elaborate scheme to steal from credit card companies that somehow involves a local medical marijuana business and a local car dealership, according to sources and the U.S. Attorney's office.

Law enforcement officers arrested four people Friday morning across the metro area who were allegedly part of the bank fraud operation. FBI agents also served search warrants at more than a dozen locations, including personal residences, auto dealerships and the medical marijuana business called Alternative Medicine of Southeast Denver (AMSD), a company that is the same building as CannaMed, on Leetsdale Drive in Denver. CannaMed is where people can apply to get medical marijuana.

Four persons of Russian nationality were arrested and charged with bank fraud and making false statements on loan applications. [More...]

Colorado has had a medical marijuana law, passed by voters as an amendment to the state constitution, since 2000. Recently, someone got the idea to have the Colorado State Board of Health try and limit dispensaries from supplying more than five patients.

Monday, there was a hearing. 500 activists, from police officers who support medical marijuana to those in wheelchairs and Iraq vets with PTSD, showed up to try and defeat the proposal. It worked.

For starters, they motivated off their couches and packed the Tivoli Student Union on the Auraria campus to protest a proposal to limit medical marijuana providers to five patients each. The audience was made up of persons in wheelchairs and crutches, reefer-promoting police officers, AIDS and cancer patients, and a woman who described herself as a “pro-life Republican mother.”

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Via Huffington Post and Mashable, Apple has approved a medical marijuana app for iPhones:

Apple has approved a new $2.99 iPhone app, aptly named Cannabis [iTunes link]. It’s made by the also appropriately-named Ajnag.com. The purpose of the app is to help locate legal medical marijuana in states and locations where it can be found. Will this app lead thousands of iPhone users to cannabis, or is it a tool of a movement in favor of marijuana legalization? The answer, surprisingly, is both:

Colorado experienced its first major medical marijuana dispensary robbery today. New Options Wellness in Boulder was robbed at gunpoint around this afternoon. There were no injuries but everything was taken. [More...]

Via the Marijuana Policy Project: Rhode Island today becomes the second state in the country to allow the regulated sale of medical marijuana. The law allows three state-regulated and licensed compassion centers to dispense pot to those with medical needs:

In landslide votes of 68-0 and 35-3, the Rhode Island General Assembly today overrode Gov. Donald Carcieri's veto of legislation to allow the licensed, regulated sale of marijuana to seriously ill patients. Rhode Island will now become only the second state (after New Mexico) to license and regulate medical marijuana dispensing.

The new law is now in effect. In 2006, Rhode Island passed a law authorizing the the use of medical marijuana. While patients were permitted to grow their own pot or designate a caregiver to grow it for them, many were not able to obtain it. More on Rhode Island's laws here.