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  ID Card for Marijuana Patients Urged
Posted by FoM on September 25, 2001 at 12:53:18 PT
By Ray Huard, Union-Tribune Staff Writer  
Source: Union-Tribune  

medical A proposed state law that would create county-issued identification cards for medical marijuana users should be passed, the San Diego City Council recommended yesterday.

Senate Bill 187 would help implement Proposition 215, the 1996 state ballot measure to allow the medical use of marijuana. Issuing cards to sick people who use marijuana to relieve their symptoms is meant to protect them from arrest.

"This is just another way for patients to be able to prove their medical need," said Juliana Humphrey, chairwoman of the city's Medical Marijuana Task Force. "For the police, they don't want to arrest sick people."

The council voted 8-1 to support the legislation, which would establish a voluntary state registry for medical marijuana users. Those who chose to register would be issued cards by county health departments indicating they were entitled to use marijuana for medical purposes.

"It is a health issue," said Councilman George Stevens. "It is a very serious health issue to relieve their pain."

Councilman Brian Maienschein was the dissenter.

Even as the state legislation works its way through the process, the city's Medical Marijuana Task Force plans to present a proposal for municipal identification cards to the council's Public Safety & Neighborhood Services Committee as soon as next month, Humphrey said in an interview after the council vote.

A state program is preferable because it would apply to more people and eliminate jurisdictional concerns, Humphrey said. But she said the city will proceed "on a parallel track" with the state legislation.

"We're going to carry on for our own citizens," Humphrey said.

Humphrey said the task force's proposal would be based on what others have done, including the city of San Francisco.

In considering the issuance of identification cards, Humphrey said: "San Diego is not going out on a limb here. All we are doing is assisting in the implementation of an existing law."

San Francisco is the only large California city that issues such cards. It adopted a program last year that allows sick people with a doctor's note to pay a $25 fee to get a card that allows them to use marijuana to relieve their symptoms.

Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Author: Ray Huard, Union-Tribune Staff Writer
Published: September 25, 2001
Copyright: 2001 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@uniontrib.com
Website: http://www.uniontrib.com/

Related Articles & Web Site:

Medical Marijuana Information Links
http://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htm

San Diego Officials Urge IDs for Medical Pot Users
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread10574.shtml

Medicinal Marijuana Task Force Approved
http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread9837.shtml


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Comment #4 posted by herbdoc215 on September 25, 2001 at 17:28:09 PT:

Please Pass 187!!!!!!
I am begging everyone to bug the governer until he signs this bill as it is the only prayer I have of ever getting home again or ever seeing my family before I die from an illness induced by my military service. I am now living in exile in BC,Canada because the sheriff of Humboldt county wants to kill me any way he can, vendetta with a badge. He broke over a dozen laws in destroying my life and no one said a word. At least this law recognizes our right to form co-ops to ensure an adequate supply of medicine, and even if I can never come home then no more patients will have to live in this hell of having no country. How much longer until we can stand as one and put our wishes aside for the greater good? Steven Tuck

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Comment #3 posted by E_Johnson on September 25, 2001 at 15:01:33 PT
Just make us wear a green patch and get it over
Why don't we just admit the purpose that "potheads" serve in today's America is similar to the purpose served by Jews in Germany in the thirties and the purpose served by witches during the European witch hunts.

This is a group that normal citizens are encouraged to hate and scapegoat freely.

There always has to be some group like this, and in modern American society, where modernism is a religion, that group is going to be somebody who doesn't fit into the modern paradigm.

The whole problem with marijuana is that it fits nowhere into the modern paradigm. Science is proving inadequate as a defense because the modern scientific paradigm of medicine is the pill, not the plant. The modern scientific paradigm of the mind is a thinking, not a feeling, organ. The tick tock clock of the modern thinking mind must not be mushed up with green feelings, feelings that could even involve that most non-modern of all sensations -- the love of God.

There always has to be someone to hate. In a modern liberal society, we cannot hate black people or Jews or Catholics or even witches any more without violating modern liberal ideals.

But the potheads!

We saw during eight years of the Clinton administration that hatred and scapegoating fit perfectly well within the modern liberal paradigm.



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Comment #2 posted by Imprint on September 25, 2001 at 14:26:50 PT
While this is nice to see
The problem is that law enforcement doesn’t really care. They didn’t care in 96 when prop. 215 passed and they will work hard to go-a-around this effort as well.

Back when Steve Kubby was arrested for growing medical marijuana he heard sheriff’s deputies murmuring comments like “You might be able to get away with this in San Francisco, but this is Placer County and we voted against 215”. (source: Waiting to Inhale, by Alan Bock)

California is chuck full of DA’s, Sheriff’s and police officers that feel this way and choose to not follow the will of the people.

I’m still hopeful though. Once medical marijuana is fully embraced we will see indisputable real life data that supports the fact that marijuana isn’t harmful and that will give real legitimacy to legalization for recreational use.

[ Post Comment ]

 
Comment #1 posted by Ethan Russo MD on September 25, 2001 at 13:31:33 PT:

Necessary Evil?
I was recently involved in a case in San Diego County in which a woman with migraine, and a doctor's letter was arrested anyway for growing 15 plants.

Many months later, without her job or her husband, and much impoverished for her mistreatment, an excellent and devoted public defender got the case dropped once we provided massive amounts of documentation of cannabis' benefits for her condition.

Is this what government is for, to persecute its citizens for following the law and seeking relief in an herbal medicine? Some government, some mercy. Maybe a registration card would help, but not without some better insight on the part of law enforcement.

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