cannabisnews.com: Brown's Rules on Medical Marijuana





Brown's Rules on Medical Marijuana
Posted by CN Staff on August 27, 2008 at 06:43:57 PT
Editorial
Source: Los Angeles Times
California -- They're more than a decade overdue, but the guidelines on medical marijuana issued this week by California Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown could finally help divide the gray area in which the state's growers and dispensers operate into clearer shades of black and white.Brown's 11-page directive is aimed at giving police the ability to distinguish between criminals and legitimate medical marijuana sellers under state law, as well as protecting patients from arrest.
It won't stop federal drug enforcement agents from raiding law-abiding dispensaries and prosecuting innocent business owners whenever they see fit, but it will make such raids harder to justify -- and might ramp up the pressure for more sensible federal marijuana policies.When California voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 215 in 1996, allowing the sale and use of marijuana for people with demonstrated medical needs, it set off a host of consequences both positive and negative. As voters intended, thousands of people suffering from AIDS, glaucoma and other serious ailments now have access to a safe, legitimate treatment. Yet as voters didn't intend, the state is now riddled with dispensaries that employ on-site doctors who will write a prescription to nearly anyone who walks through the door, while places such as Humboldt County have been invaded by criminal elements running underground grow houses to supply these middlemen.Most of the negative consequences can be attributed to the gap between state and federal marijuana laws. The fact that even sellers considered legitimate by the state can be prosecuted and ruined by federal agents encourages black-market dealers, who endanger their communities by ignoring fire codes, selling to healthy minors and fighting turf wars with other dealers. The centerpiece of Brown's directive is its insistence that medical marijuana sellers must operate as nonprofit collectives or cooperatives, and the marijuana they sell must be grown by state-certified patients or caregivers. That will empower municipal police to weed out the bad guys.Overall, Proposition 215 has done more good than harm. In addition to marijuana's medical benefits, its legitimate sale brings in $100 million a year in tax revenues, and even though it can be abused by users, it isn't demonstrably more dangerous to society than tobacco and alcohol. The state's new guidelines will help reduce the measure's harmful side effects, but the only long-term solution is for the feds to stop the medical marijuana raids and leave California law enforcement to California officers.Note: New guidelines on legal pot use are a welcome shield for Californians with medical needs.Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)Published: August 27, 2008Copyright: 2008 Los Angeles TimesContact: letters latimes.comWebsite: http://www.latimes.com/CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
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Comment #11 posted by museman on August 28, 2008 at 12:07:21 PT
protest at DNC
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHuuwrQee3w"Get the Fox out of here!"
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on August 28, 2008 at 08:29:17 PT
afterburner
I have watched the Convention every night too. I never watched Conventions. I did watch Obama give the speech in 04 and Kerry's speech but that was all. I just checked the weather in Denver today and it looks good. I know that a Republican christian prayed for rain. Hopefully it won't rain and the stadium will be packed out and Obama stays safe. 
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Comment #9 posted by afterburner on August 28, 2008 at 08:04:25 PT
This Is One Week I Was Glad to Have Nights Off
I've watch the Democratic National Convention (a first for me) every night so far and listened to the speeches. In the back of my mind I wonder if the expressed populism can live-up-to truly enlightened cannabis reform. I am holding my breath.
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on August 28, 2008 at 05:54:26 PT
museman
I really liked the song. I like John Legend since I heard Yes We Can. I don't look at Obama or any one that has run for president as anything other then a person who is good at being a politician. I don't have high expectations for any politician but I still like having hope. If McCain wins I won't get hysterical but will retreat into my own world and live the rest of my life detached from the whole thing. I guess since I only voted for a President 2 times in my life I don't look at it like some people.
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Comment #7 posted by museman on August 28, 2008 at 01:28:08 PT
FoM
I did check out the song,Smarmy. No offense meant to the artist, but that would be my take.I am deliberately refraining from focussing on the candidates. In 1976 I worked very hard for the Tom Hayden campaign -whose claim to fame was being one of the "Chicago Seven" He was "our" candidate. He represented "change." We hoped for immediate political resolution to a situation that has only been revealed to be (0ver the years) much worse than we originally thought. I canvassed, registered people to vote, convincing literally hundreds (maybe thousands)of folks to vote for him in several precincts, including and predominantly in minority neighborhoods. I helped organize a rally in Bakersfield that included a political aliance with and endorsement from caesar Chavez and the then rising United Farm Workers Union.I believed.All the way up to the point that I shook his hand and looked in his eyes.It was over just like that.What I saw in his eyes...And the trouble is, I've seen the same thing now, over, and over again.Even saw it in Kucinich when he came to town here in '04. And I really liked what Kucinich has to say. Sounds really good.I dare not even look for it in Obama, I'd rather not even know. What difference does it make. I'd actually, in my heart like to vote for McKinney. She strikes me as very real. A black woman. Her platform is about all the things we talk about, and would actually like politicians/government to be, and she shares birthdays with me, definitely a plus, but she doesn't stand a chance in hell (or amerika) of even getting on the national ballot.So in voting for Obama, I vote because it is a tenuos straw connecting me to the dream and idea of liberty, which for some reason I just can't let go of, and some hollow vestiges of a belief I once had in this corrupted system, even though I realisticly can expect nothing more than a brief respite from the global conquest, perhaps an opportunity to gain some ground in reality when the enforcers of illusion are turned away for a while.Breathing room is fine by me. Give consciousness even the smallest opportunity to grow and it will. If Obama gets elected, if he doesn't get assasinated, and we don't have somem kind of GOB coup like what happened with Kennedy, we might get that breath. If by some horror of horrors; the regime continues, I predict insurrection. Obama has to be elected. The alternative is just terrible. nuff said.
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on August 27, 2008 at 13:11:07 PT
museman
I like that. I hope you check out John Legend's song. It's really good.
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Comment #5 posted by museman on August 27, 2008 at 12:57:50 PT
continued...
I forgot to add she had an Obama in'08 bumper. 
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Comment #4 posted by museman on August 27, 2008 at 12:55:53 PT
a little OT tale
Today as I was leaving the grocery store, there was a car parked next to mine that had a button hanging from the windshield mirror saying "What would Buddha do?"As I was pulling out the owner of the car was putting groceries in the trunk, and I stopped and said; "Buddha would vote for Obama too." She smiled very big and said, "Yes, yes, he would."
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Comment #3 posted by FoM on August 27, 2008 at 12:02:53 PT
OT: If You're Out There - John Legend
You can download this very good song by John Legend on this link.Backstage with John Legend: "If You're Out There"http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/stateupdates/gG5lQb
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Comment #2 posted by museman on August 27, 2008 at 11:05:57 PT
profit?
Making a profit from peoples pain is bad kharma. Whether it is pharmaceutical companies and HMOs, or cannabis clubs, it makes no difference.The black market prices are way above cost. The profit margin is about 350%. Too many 'landowners' got their land from such profits, parading their 'hipness' around their communities like local celebrity and hippie royalty -because they got rich from marijuana prohibition (usually farming out their operations so that if a bust came down they and their money got away.)I don't have a problem with fair trade, equitable compensation, and the like, but if you are getting rich in this world, I can guarantee many will suffer for the imbalance. It isn't fair to single out pot clubs, while other 'medical' facilities and systems are raking it in at record profits, but 2 wrongs don't make a right. Medical Cannabis dispensaries have no business charging people those kinds of prices, particularly when the main reason for the jacked up overpricing, has traditionally been because of its illegality, and the danger of prosecution and encarceration (along with possibly losing everything you own.) If the state sanctions your grow, that should realisticly cut the overhead down to organic garden prices.The whole thing is about money and power, so if you take the threat of poor people getting access to the same resources as rich people away, the feds (who serve the rich) should have less reason to try and stop it.Without the money, there is not much power, so not much threat there. Can't do anything about the consciousness issue. Their fear of greater awareness is justified. Eventually greater awareness will displace the current ignorance and idiocy.As far as "attracting criminal elements" is concerned, that is true. You have a pot dispensary, you will attract the biggest criminals in amerika; they wear badges and guns, held on leashes by the suit-and-tie elites, and they frequently murder old ladies and children in their slavering zeal to invade and pillage the public.If justice were real in this country, the prisons would have a very wealthy population right now. I wouldn't want to share that space with their dogs though; probably be a good idea to put the cops in a seperate cell block from the lawyers, CEOs, bankers, and politicians.
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Comment #1 posted by user123 on August 27, 2008 at 10:37:39 PT:
So?
It's taken someone 12 years to figure out that these clubs have been pricing their product at street level prices? $60 bucks for a top of the line eighth. Around $400 an ounce. They do have overhead and employees to pay. But heaven forbid there should be drug companies in this country operating at a profit. Oh wait, there are, it's just that they contribute to political campaigns and get to avoid being labeled "criminal elements." 
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