Category — Medical Marijuana

On Wednesday, DEA agents raided Full Spectrum Laboratories, a lab in Denver, Colorado, that tests medical marijuana for dispensaries. Bob Winnicki, president of the lab, said the DEA issued a subpoena requesting that it turn over customer and patient records from the past six months. Winnicki said he wasn’t charged with a crime, but agents seized about $10,000 worth of marijuana, some of which was going to be made into capsules for people with multiple sclerosis and Parkinson’s disease.

Winnicki said his operation isn’t a dispensary, but rather a lab that tests marijuana for mold, fungus and pesticides, and tests the effectiveness of different strains of marijuana for treating various ailments for dispensaries and patients. He said he applied for a DEA license back in October to use standards needed to test the marijuana, but didn’t hear from them until Wednesday.

Though the circumstances involved are still unclear, there is no doubt that federal law enforcement agents have bigger fish to fry. While this company was trying to ensure that medical marijuana—the use of which has been sanctioned by the Obama administration—is safe for patients, Mexican drug cartels are operating in 230 cities across the country. If the DEA truly cares about public safety, this is the last place they should be spending their time—and a single dollar spent on any kind of prosecution of these individuals would be one of the most egregious misuses of government resources imaginable.

President Obama has nominated the acting head of the DEA, Michele Leonhart, to take on the post permanently. We have been generally happy with the Justice Department during Obama’s freshman year, but it would be nice to see a new face at the DEA. Here’s why.

Early in Leonhart’s career, she was the Special Agent in Charge of the Los Angeles Field Division, where she oversaw President George W. Bush’s brutal tactic of raiding and arresting medical marijuana patients. Most readers will remember the raids on dispensaries that were part of the former president’s war on drugs until 2009, but during the early years of the Bush administration, these raids were directed at individual patients, not just distributors. This show of force was a political message meant to undermine state medical marijuana laws. Bush was so smitten with Leonhart’s work fighting innocent cancer patients that he promoted her to deputy director in 2003.

In that role, Leonhart rejected the application of Professor Lyle Craker of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to research marijuana’s medical value. Professor Craker was proposing the kind of project considered essential if marijuana is ever to be licensed by the FDA as a prescription medicine, and a DEA administrative law judge ruled in Craker’s favor. Leonhart, however, ignored the judge’s ruling and denied the application. Her reasons were transparently phony: an ideological opposition to medical marijuana dressed up in pseudoscientific language. This is precisely the sort of nonsense Obama has pledged to end.

At a news conference in April, Michele Leonhart said that legalizing drugs “would be a failed law enforcement strategy for both the U.S. and Mexico.” That’s certainly not change I can believe in.

Yesterday, a team of bipartisan Maryland legislators announced the details of two bills that would make medical marijuana legal and accessible for qualified patients in the state.

The bill’s main sponsor in the House is Del. Dan Morhaim (D-Baltimore County), who, as an internist and emergency medical physician, has been very effective at explaining why patients and doctors need access to a range of treatment options, including marijuana.

As proposed, the bill would allow patients with a “debilitating medical condition” to obtain marijuana from state-run distribution centers with the recommendation of a doctor with whom they have a long-standing relationship.

[Read more →]

After more than two years of deliberation — and just plain foot-dragging — on the issue, the Los Angeles City Council voted 9-3 today to enact an ordinance regulating the operation of medical marijuana facilities in the city. It’s certainly a significant milestone that the second largest city in the nation (eighth in the world) has a law on the books allowing marijuana to be sold through locally regulated storefronts. However, upon digging into the details of the ordinance, it doesn’t seem to be a great boon for the seriously ill and injured Angelenos who rely on medical marijuana.

The ordinance will restrict the number of medical marijuana facilities in the city to 70, but it does grandfather in about 150 collectives which were registered with the city prior to a moratorium which went into effect in 2007. The law will also require all marijuana products to be tested for contaminants and pesticides by an “independent and certified laboratory.” Testing of this nature is a great idea and indeed some in California’s medical marijuana community are working on developing such practices and standards, but finding a lab equipped for this type of testing overnight will be no small chore.

What’s probably the most troublesome detail is that the new ordinance institutes 1,000-foot zones around “sensitive uses” where medical marijuana collectives cannot operate legally. These include schools, public parks, libraries, and even churches. This huge 1,000-foot radius and another requirement that facilities may not be located adjacent to residential zones — which is not required of alcohol vendors — will force nearly all to move.

Meanwhile, patients looking for a safe and open place to acquire their medicine in Los Angeles may just be finding life that much more difficult.

“Can an employer punish someone for doing something that is constitutionally protected?”

That’s the question raised by a pair of articles in Colorado today that lay out the precarious work situation many medical marijuana patients find themselves in.

[Read more →]

The California Supreme Court affirmed today that the state’s voter-approved medical marijuana law (Proposition 215) does not prevent qualified patients and caregivers from possessing more marijuana than is set forth in the personal guidelines established by the legislature in 2004. While the outcome of this case, People v. Kelly, hasn’t fundamentally changed California law — not in our view, at least — the decision provided necessary direction for law enforcement.

Although his status as a legal patient was not in question, the defendant in this case was prosecuted for possessing more marijuana than was allowed by the “limits” (8 ounces and 6 mature plants) established in companion state legislation to Prop. 215. The court affirmed that in fact there are no limits on the amount of marijuana a patient can possess or cultivate so long as it’s in accordance with their personal needs. The thresholds set by the legislature are in fact only guidelines for law enforcement to follow when determining whether or not to arrest someone who possesses of one of the state’s voluntary medical marijuana ID cards.

So, what does this all mean for California patients and caregivers? [Read more →]

Last night, Scott Brown (R-Mass.) beat Democrat Martha Coakley in a special election to replace the late Senator Ted Kennedy, becoming the first Republican to hold a Senate seat in Massachusetts since the 1970s. So what happened up there?

To state it simply, the Democrats chose a bad candidate. They backed one of the most vocal and public opponents of the MPP-funded ballot initiative, Question 2, which decriminalized marijuana possession in Massachusetts in 2008. Question 2 was more popular than President Obama on Election Day, garnering 65% of the vote compared with the president’s 62%. All but three towns in the state supported the initiative.

There is a lesson here for Democrats and Republicans alike: Support for marijuana reform will help, not hurt, a candidate in elections. Public support is surging forward. Polls on legalization are moving quickly toward majority approval nationwide — in the west, it’s already passed the 50% mark — and medical marijuana enjoys 81% support. Politicians on both sides of the aisle must recognize that it’s time to use this populist platform as a tool for winning elections.

Scott Brown is not a card-carrying member of the marijuana reform movement by any stretch of the imagination. As a state senator, he proposed that possession of marijuana in a vehicle remain a criminal offense, attempting to pull back parts of Question 2. But Brown was not a leading opponent of the measure nor was he publicly associated with the issue, as Coakley was. The lesson here, however, is of the could have should have variety: Democrats could have backed a candidate that supported Question 2, and they should have used marijuana reform as a tool in the campaign. Had they, today’s election results may have looked a lot different.

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll reveals that more than eight in 10 Americans (81%) support efforts to make marijuana legal for medical use, up from 69 percent in 1997. Fifty-six percent say that if it’s allowed, “doctors should be able to prescribe medical marijuana to anyone they think it can help.” Last week the New Jersey state legislature passed a medical marijuana bill and yesterday Gov. Corzine signed the bill into law, making New Jersey the 14^th state to provide its sick and dying patients with safe access to marijuana.

Additionally, the ABC News/Washington Post poll finds 46 percent support for making the possession of small amounts of marijuana legal for personal use, up from 22 percent in 1997.