cannabisnews.com: Home Cultivation May Stall Medical Marijuana in NH
function share_this(num) {
 tit=encodeURIComponent('Home Cultivation May Stall Medical Marijuana in NH');
 url=encodeURIComponent('http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/27/thread27349.shtml');
 site = new Array(5);
 site[0]='http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[1]='http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit.php?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[2]='http://digg.com/submit?topic=political_opinion&media=video&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[3]='http://reddit.com/submit?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[4]='http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 window.open(site[num],'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=620,height=500');
 return false;
}






Home Cultivation May Stall Medical Marijuana in NH
Posted by CN Staff on February 23, 2013 at 05:38:47 PT
By Morgan True, Associated Press
Source: Associated Press
Concord, N.H. -- A provision to allow people to grow their own medical marijuana could be a sticking point in a bill currently working its way through the New Hampshire Legislature that would legalize the drug for those with chronic or terminal illnesses. This is the fourth time in six years that lawmakers have tried to pass a medical marijuana bill. Former Democratic Gov. John Lynch vetoed the previous three attempts. Gov. Maggie Hassan, also a Democrat, has said she would support legalizing medical marijuana, but a spokesman said Friday she has concerns about home growing.
"The governor believes any measure permitting the use of medically prescribed marijuana must ensure that the method of distribution is safe and tightly regulated and has concerns about the ability to properly regulate a home grow option, but she will continue to listen to the concerns of advocates, law enforcement and legislators as the process moves forward," Hassan spokesman Marc Goldberg said. Supporters of the home cultivation provision said it's crucial for access by patients in rural areas and could significantly bring down costs to people already facing steep medical bills. "Beyond the long-term savings for patients, in other states it's taken at least a year, sometimes more, to get dispensaries up and running," said Matt Simon, an advocate with the Marijuana Policy Project, "In New Jersey, it took three years and that's too long for many patients." The bill before the House Health Human Services and Elderly Affairs Committee would allow patients or a caregiver to grow up to four adult plants and 12 seedlings at one time. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have passed medical marijuana laws, including all five other New England states. The District of Columbia and four other states prohibit home cultivation. At a hearing Thursday, people dealing with chronic pain and their families urged New Hampshire lawmakers to pass a medical marijuana law. Many said they would prefer to cultivate their own plants, including Rep. Ted Wright, R-Moultonborough, whose wife is battling cancer. Marijuana has helped her maintain a healthy weight during a difficult round of drug trials, he said. He was part of a group of legislators who toured dispensaries in Maine, and said purchasing from them cost roughly $400 a month. That's an added expense he said he'd like to avoid. Clayton Holton, 27, a wheelchair user due to a rare form of muscular dystrophy, has made the trip from Rochester, N.H., before to testify in favor of legalizing medical marijuana. One of Holton's symptoms is wasting syndrome — or serious weight loss — and he said marijuana has helped him gain weight and allowed him to take fewer other drugs. "To live in suffering and agony on a daily basis to the point where you have to take so many opiate drugs just to slightly numb the pain ... that's not quality of life, that's destroying what little life I have," he said. Holton said, given the option, he would choose to designate a caregiver to grow marijuana for him, instead of purchasing from a dispensary. Opponents worry that any medical marijuana law would be a regulatory and law enforcement nightmare. In addition, they say it's not the best solution for patients. Dr. Seddon Savage, former president of the New Hampshire Medical Society, said while some patients might find marijuana beneficial they often turn to it before exploring other options, such as two marijuana derivative medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration. "As written, this bill does not appear to be aimed at making herbal marijuana available for the rare patients who truly need it, but more for making an infrastructure to distribute marijuana to many people who might feel better using marijuana," she said.Source: Associated Press (Wire)Author: Morgan True, Associated PressPublished:  February 22, 2013Copyright: 2013 The Associated PressCannabisNews  Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help 
     
     
     
     




Comment #6 posted by Swazi-X on February 24, 2013 at 18:33:06 PT:
Home Growing of Cannabis=Death For Big Pharma
The prohibitionist profiteers will always oppose home cultivation because it threatens their income. Whether it's cops, lawyers or the deep pocketed Big Pharma, alcohol lobby and the for-profit prison industry. Our suffering is merely what's required for them to make more money - we don't matter in any other way to them.Big Pharma especially should be terrified. They have the resources to already know cannabis holds real potential for curing a slew of their big-profit diseases - the kind where they put you on "medicine" for the rest of your life. Cancer, Diabetes, Alzheimers, Asthma, Depression among many others could possibly be cured with cannabis in one of it's forms.The real scare for them comes when people realize fresh cannabis holds incredible health benefits without any "high" at all. Try a handful of fresh (unsprayed of course) leaf in your next smoothie, or better yet - instead of wasting time trimming popcorn buds freeze 'em fresh and put a small handful in your smoothie. Watch the YouTube video "Leaf" - they juice the leaves but putting it in your smoothie is more efficient.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by HempWorld on February 24, 2013 at 11:48:32 PT
Home growing = safety valve
Too much govt meddling? In the form of regulation, taxes? Then home growing will fill the void, this is a built-in check on over-intrusive govt.Let freedom ring!
Cannabis Shop
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by museman on February 24, 2013 at 11:28:23 PT
Sam
Absolutely. Don't forget the 'Carpetbaggers' who went down to the 'reconstructed' south to buy up all the property that had been reduced to rubble and bankruptcy by the war. What the Pharma and Law guys (they share the same bed) all want is control, and profit. If you allow liberty and freedom WITH ANYTHING there is no control and free people are free to make their own profit without giving the do-nothings a cut."No taxation without representation." -nice phrase that, too bad it is meaningless.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by John Tyler on February 24, 2013 at 08:31:45 PT
only a reasonable tax will work
I am glad people around the country are having the cannabis conversation. I think this shows real progress. Denying home cultivation though is an excuse by prohibitionist to make things more difficult. Also sticking big taxes on cannabis is a mistake. It will just encourage everybody to seek alternative sources to save money. If there are to be taxes they should be reasonable and affordable. One article had some place proposing a $100 tax per plant and another place proposing a $50 an ounce tax. That is insane and ridiculous. Gardening cannot be regulated like that. No one pays fees for growing tomatoes or peppers or beans. How would it be possible to control millions and millions of gardens. A plant is a plant. Retail sales taxation should not be more than $5 an ounce either. This stuff is going to be on the store shelf with other products selling for way less. Consumers are not going to like an ounce of vegetable material selling at more than $50 an ounce. It will not work. But notice, the prohibitionists have conceded defeat. Now we are settling on a price.  
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on February 24, 2013 at 07:56:24 PT
growing
You can see why the focus boils down to this - "home growing" is the elephant in the room, the giant issue that is going to define cannabis reform.Growing means that this medicine will be forever out of reach of the grasping tax-man and governmental bureaucrats. It means that Big Pharma's cannabinoid pills will take a serious dent in sales.  It means that America's expanding lower classes, who are expected to live without adequate health care, even though they work hard at multiple jobs, could get a big safety valve in the form of a cheap palliative and preventative medicine.We are moving quickly to a day where we're expected to pay 50, 60, even 70% of the gross returns of the private economy to the govt. in taxes. Look at California if you need an example. The move by Peter Lewis to ban growing in Washington and Massachusetts, just as we're finally winning the demographic battle, should have been a HUGE wake up call. Something is seriously wrong there folks. In the Civil War, just as everyone was celebrating the freedom of the slaves, the elitists pulled a bait-n-switch and put the black people back into a cruel apartheid system for another 100 years. This pull to pull "home growing" out at the point of victory bears and uncanny similarity to Reconstruction to me. Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by Hope on February 23, 2013 at 17:51:11 PT
Sending Out Smoke Signals
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/fashion/marijuana-etiquette-sending-out-smoke-signals.html?pagewanted=all
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment