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New Stricter State Proposal Would Allow MMJ
Posted by CN Staff on March 28, 2013 at 12:49:02 PT
By Tom Precious, News Albany Bureau
Source: Buffalo News
Albany -- Lawmakers have introduced a measure with stricter provisions than past failed efforts to legalize marijuana sales to New Yorkers who have a “severe debilitating or life-threatening’’ health condition.The new bill, which ends such past ideas as letting people grow their own marijuana, would have the state Health Department regulate the process, which would include allowing a certain number of private for-profits or not-for-profits to grow the plants and sell the drug under new security protocols to patients with treatment plans approved by a physician, physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner.
The measure was introduced by its past sponsors, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat, and Sen. Diane Savino, a Staten Island Democrat. Savino has more political power this year as one of five breakaway Democrats who jointly run the Senate with Republicans. The bill has 68 co-sponsors, including 10 Senate Democrats. It has previously sailed through the Assembly.Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has opposed the idea of medical marijuana legalization, though advocates believe he could be flexible, especially since he is already promoting a plan to relax marijuana possession laws. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have medical marijuana laws. Advocates say the measure will more strictly regulate the drug than prescription painkillers; patient advocates in the past have said marijuana will be cheaper, less addictive and less dangerous than many of the painkiller prescriptions they take.The bill defines those eligible to be certified by the Health Department to obtain marijuana as someone with a “serious’’ health condition, including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, epilepsy, diabetes, post-traumatic stress syndrome and others. The patient would have to be under a doctor’s supervision. Patients who a doctor believes have less than a year to live also would be eligible to buy the drug. Medical marijuana also would be listed as one of the covered drugs on a new state prescription drug tracking system intended to reduce doctor and pharmacy shopping by addicts.Marijuana could be grown and dispensed by hospitals, for-profit companies and not-for-profit corporations, and an excise tax would be imposed on the facilities, with part of the proceeds shared with local “host’’ communities. “The bill is much more restrictive than the New York laws regulating highly dangerous drugs like morphine, Oxycontin or Valium,’’ Gottfried said.“Anybody who ever had a family member suffer from a debilitating disease learns very quickly the limitations of modern medicine at treating pain,’’ added Savino.The bill’s backers include the American Public Health Association, American Bar Association, New York State Nurses Association, Pharmacists Society of the State of New York, New York AIDS Coalition, the Independence Party of New York and the Drug Policy Alliance. Critics, including some Senate Republicans and the state Conservative Party, have said marijuana could be diverted by patients to others not eligible for the drug and that the plan sends the wrong message, especially to teenagers, about a drug some call a gateway to stronger drugs.Source: Buffalo News (NY)Author: Tom Precious, News Albany Bureau Published: March 28, 2013Copyright: 2013 The Buffalo NewsContact: lettertoeditor buffnews.comWebsite: http://www.buffalonews.com/ URL: http://drugsense.org/url/O6zANPO5CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
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Comment #11 posted by Hope on April 01, 2013 at 09:14:52 PT
All of us that knew anything about cannabis
already knew this. But the mainstream media has picked it up now.Fighting Drug Addiction With Marijuanahttp://abcnews.go.com/ABC_Univision/News/fighting-drug-addiction-marijuana/story?id=18851710#.UVmyCByG3u0
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Comment #10 posted by kaptinemo on March 31, 2013 at 07:36:37 PT:
Runruff, it's just History repeating itself
In the late 19th century doctors used to prescribe cannabis tinctures to alcoholics to wean them off the booze...and coincidentally reduce the accompanying alcohol-fueled domestic violence that was rampant in those days. (Remember, a wife was considered chattel that didn't even have the right to vote back then; their social status was practically non-existent, and a husband could pretty much do anything he pleased with her, including kill her under certain circumstances, as per the patriarchal social conventions of the day. In many cases, a black eye or bruises were the best she might hope for.)Hell, even in extreme cases, the doctors might even suggest that the dangerously violent juicer take up smoking opium, of all things. But that was a (very!) last resort.Drug substitution was a very old, time-tested methodology...until the sado-moralists took over the legal system and imposed their neuroses on the medical profession. That the latter caved, knuckled under and eventually began to support the sado-moralists in imposing their supposedly Utopian-minded but horrifically destructive neuroses is one of the great tragedies of the 20th century.
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on March 30, 2013 at 11:08:03 PT
Runruff
They mean a lot to me.Probably not to the zealous prohibitionist, though.Someday cannabis use, I expect, will be as common as tea and coffee use. It is an even more amazing and helpful plant than those two plants.
 
I'm so glad you survived, Jerry. You are a pioneer of this new age and of this struggle to end a really deadly and dangerous and costly amount of injustice. It's been an honor conversing with you.
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Comment #8 posted by runruff on March 30, 2013 at 06:48:15 PT
A childhood alcoholic since I was seven.
The story is not about where I got it. that was easy in my living environment.Alcohol addiction with an addiction to tobacco was ruining my life but I did not realize it for many years. Fast forward to 1970 I was 24 years old and other than the military I had not done anything.I found that if I smoke pot instead of drinking it took the edge off of my craving and lessened my obsessive dwelling on having a drink. I still do not drink alcohol to this day. I became clear enough to see he string of rubble I had created in my life, as a drunk and don't want a replay.I have three friends living heroine free today thanks to friends who were willing to contribute some strong herb to them to detox with. These friends have been clean now for decades.I know that these little anecdotes do not mean that much in the overall picture of things but what if we multiply this by a few million?
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Comment #7 posted by mexweed on March 29, 2013 at 13:49:56 PT:
"Ounce" of Prevention
 patrioticdissension nailed it: "a drug some call a gateway to stronger drugs." Answer: "It's the tobacco, stupid"-- not only is $igarette smoking the #1 gateway drug to stronger drugs (it reduces your sense of taste and smell and other protections against experimenting with bad stuff), the main fear with cannabis is that it will REPLACE cigarettes and alcohol, and the predators who profit from those have too much $$$ clout with the legislators (check how much money Speaker Boehner gets from $igarette companies and who's on his Advisory Council; check how much $IGARETTE TAX is collected in New York).When are cannabis advocates going to dare speak candidly about the potential of cannabis to solve the national drug problem by drasticly COLLAPSING the demand for $igarettes, alcohol, opiates, cocaine? That's the #1 issue to start with. Cannabis is an herbal dietary supplement which can PREVENT illness ($igarette smoking according to the CDC costs US economy $97-bil./year for medical costs, $96-bil./year for lost productivity). It is GOOD LUCK for the taxpayer if some of that herb is "diverted" from medical use to PREVENTION (proverbially worth 16 times as much as a cure).
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Comment #6 posted by ekim on March 29, 2013 at 07:39:53 PT
a little more info on The Young Turks TV Show
http://current.com/shows/the-young-turks/
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Comment #5 posted by FoM on March 29, 2013 at 04:46:40 PT
Kapt
Stupid isn't it?
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Comment #4 posted by kaptinemo on March 28, 2013 at 21:03:01 PT:
Treating the safest substance in the world like 
a dangerous wild animal that has to be caged, fettered, fed with robot arms and watched by CCTV 24 hours a day, while something that you can poison yourself with easily, is the source of most domestic violence in America and is so flammable it's the favorite fuel of race car drivers is easily available at almost any corner store in nearly every town in the Republic.How can this not be interpreted as insane?
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Comment #3 posted by ekim on March 28, 2013 at 16:54:37 PT
Tommy Chong and Dillan Radign 
on now dir tv 358 The Young Turks talkin hydro
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Comment #2 posted by The GCW on March 28, 2013 at 15:20:31 PT
Poop hits fan, fan blows up.
Scathing audit throws Colorado recreational marijuana rules into chaoshttp://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_22890505/scathing-audit-throws-colorado-recreational-marijuana-rules-into-0-And the scathing audit article:http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_22887156/legislators-criticize-spending-at-agency-overseeing-medical-marijuana
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Comment #1 posted by patrioticdissension on March 28, 2013 at 15:19:19 PT:
RE: last paragraph
This sentence about diverting drugs from patients to others not eligible is like saying..............Critics, including some Senate Republicans and the state Conservative Party, have said STIMULANT ADHD MEDICINE could be diverted by patients to others not eligible for the drug and that the plan sends the wrong message, especially to teenagers, about a drug some call a gateway to stronger drugs. So isnt there a risk of any kind of medication with recreational value being diverted to ineligible people .......so again how the heck is cannabis any worse? Saying it should remain illegal because its going to be one more on the list of substances frequently diverted simply isnt a good enough reason. I have been unfortunate enough to actually hear from people who think its a reason to keep it illegal.
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