The Minnesota Office of Medical Cannabis Advisory Panel on Intractable Pain will meet on Thursday to decide if intractable pain should be added to the list of qualifying medical conditions under the state’s medical marijuana law. While the public is welcome to attend the meeting, please note that public comment will not be taken on Thursday.

WHAT: Advisory Panel on Intractable Pain meeting
WHEN: Thursday, October 29, 1:00 - 3:00 p.m. CT
WHERE: Amherst H. Wilder Center — Auditorium A, St. Paul

For the past two months, the Minnesota Department of Health has been hosting meetings across the state to solicit public feedback on whether intractable pain should be added. Reports indicate an overwhelming majority of attendees supported adding pain. They also accepted written comments from potential and certified medical cannabis patients, their caregivers and loved ones, health care practitioners, and other interested parties. Just this past weekend, the Star Tribune published an editorial urging the Department of Health to add intractable pain to the state’s medical marijuana law.

Thank you so much to everyone who attended the community hearings, submitted comments, and urged your friends and family to do so, too. These simple acts may soon mean a world of difference for some suffering neighbors.

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Two competing marijuana initiative campaigns in Maine announced they will unite behind one state ballot measure to end marijuana prohibition in 2016.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol, backed by MPP, will stop collecting signatures in support of the initiative it filed in March and spearhead the campaign in support of a similar initiative filed in February by Legalize Maine. Each of the campaigns has collected approximately 40,000 signatures, and they will work together to collect the remaining signatures needed to qualify for the November 2016 ballot. They have until January to collect a total of approximately 61,000 valid signatures of registered Maine voters.

Portland Press Herald reports:

The development ends the fragmentation among supporters of legalization that made the movement vulnerable to divisions by opponents, and it also eliminates the possibility that voters would pass two legalization questions, which would have forced the legalization language into the hands of the Legislature.

While advocates say they’re confident Maine is ready for legalized marijuana, they were also concerned having two very similar proposals on the ballot would create confusion about voters who would have to parse out the differences. If both qualified for the ballot and were approved, the Legislature would have had to undertake the messy task of sorting out conflicts in statute.

“We’ve all been concerned about having two initiatives and splitting the vote,” said state Rep. Diane Russell, D-Portland, a longtime legalization advocate who has supported the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. “I think when it comes down to it, the people of Maine support legalizing marijuana in a responsible, safe manner. There would have been confusion about which one to support.”

"Joining forces is the best step forward, not only for our respective campaigns, but for Maine as a whole," said David Boyer, campaign manager for the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol. "We all agree marijuana prohibition has been a colossal failure and that it must be replaced with a system in which marijuana is legal for adults and regulated like alcohol. We can more effectively accomplish our shared goal by combining our resources and working together instead of on parallel tracks.

“We had some differences of opinion on some of the specifics, but our initiatives were largely similar overall. We would not get behind this measure unless we were 100% confident that it will effectively and responsibly end prohibition in Maine. We’re also confident that the voters will agree."

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Early this week, the Brookings Institution released a report titled 'Ending the U.S. government's war on medical marijuana research', which analyzes the ways in which the federal government hinders effective research, and how these policies could be changed.

The federal government is stifling medical research in a rapidly transforming area of public policy that has consequences for public health and public safety. As medical marijuana becomes increasingly accessible in state-regulated, legal markets, and as others self-medicate in jurisdictions that do not allow the medical use of cannabis, it is increasingly important that the scientific community conduct research on this substance. However, statutory, regulatory, bureaucratic, and cultural barriers have paralyzed science and threatened the integrity of research freedom in this area. It is time for the federal government to recognize the serious public policy risks born from limited medical, public health, and pharmaceutical research into cannabis and its use.

You can read the full report here.

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A Gallup poll released Wednesday shows 58% of adults in the United States think marijuana should be made legal, up from 51% in October 2014. Just 40% think it should remain illegal.

The national poll of 1,015 adults was conducted October 7-11 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4%. The full results are available at here.

Americans' support for legalizing marijuana is the highest Gallup has measured to date, at 58%. Given the patterns of support by age, that percentage should continue to grow in the future. Younger generations of Americans have been increasingly likely to favor legal use of marijuana as they entered adulthood compared with older generations of Americans when they were the same age decades ago. Now, more than seven in 10 of today's young adults support legalization.

But Americans today -- particularly those between 35 and 64 -- are more supportive of legal marijuana than members of their same birth cohort were in the past. Now senior citizens are alone among age groups in opposing pot legalization.

These trends suggest that state and local governments may come under increasing pressure to ease restrictions on marijuana use, if not go even further like the states of Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska in making recreational marijuana use completely legal.

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[caption id="attachment_9275" align="alignright" width="200"] Prime Minister Justin Trudeau[/caption]

On Monday, the Liberal Party in Canada won the national elections by wide margins, promising an impending shift in a number of policy areas, including marijuana. Newly elected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that the Canadian government would quickly begin the process of making marijuana legal for adults.

USA Today reports:

Trudeau promised that under his leadership Canada would create a system to tax, regulate and sell marijuana, along with stiff penalties for anyone giving pot to children or caught driving while stoned. The Liberal Party's cannabis legalization statement echoes the language used by many U.S. legalization advocates.

"Canada’s current system of marijuana prohibition does not work. It does not prevent young people from using marijuana and too many Canadians end up with criminal records for possessing small amounts of the drug," the party's position statement says. "To ensure that we keep marijuana out of the hands of children, and the profits out of the hands of criminals, we will legalize, regulate, and restrict access to marijuana."

This development could have a serious impact on marijuana policy in the United States.

On top of that, Mexico's Supreme Court will hold a hearing on October 28 to determine whether federal policies banning the possession and cultivation of marijuana are unconstitutional. Soon, the United States may be the only large nation on the North American continent to carry on the failed policies of marijuana prohibition.

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A federal judge ruled Monday that a budget amendment approved by Congress prevents the Department of Justice from taking action against medical marijuana patients and providers who are operating in compliance with state laws.

Northern District of California Judge Charles Breyer

[caption id="attachment_9272" align="alignright" width="240"] Judge Charles Breyer (Photo: Hillary Jones-Mixon / The Recorder)[/caption]

said that by enacting the so-called Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, “Congress dictated…that it intended to prohibit the Department of Justice from expending any funds in connection with the enforcement of any law that interfered with California’s ability” to implement its own state medical marijuana laws. The decision was prompted by U.S. Attorney Melinda Haag’s efforts to shut down the Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana, a prominent San Francisco-area medical marijuana dispensary. Judge Breyer’s ruling is available here.

The Washington Post reports:

When the legislation was passed, advocates and lawmakers on both sides of the issue agreed that the bill basically prevented the DEA from going after medical marijuana dispensaries, provided that such dispensaries were acting in compliance with state law. The DEA, however, didn't see it that way. In a leaked memo, the Justice Department contended that the amendment only prevents actions against actual states -- not against the individuals or businesses or business that actually carry out marijuana laws. In their interpretation, the bill still allowed them to pursue criminal and civil actions against medical marijuana businesses and the patients who patronized them.

The DoJ's reading of the amendment infuriated its sponsors. They called for an investigation into the Department of Justice's "tortuous twisting of the text" of the bill, saying it violated common sense. Yesterday, judge Charles Breyer of the U.S. district court in northern California agreed.

...

Dan Riffle of the Marijuana Policy Project agreed. "This is a big win for medical marijuana patients and their providers," he wrote in a statement, "and a significant victory in our efforts to end the federal government’s war on marijuana. Federal raids of legitimate medical marijuana businesses aren’t just stupid and wasteful, but also illegal."

The ruling could discourage the DoJ from creative interpretations of the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment going forward, which should let medical marijuana businesses and their patients in 23 states breathe a sigh of relief.

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Our allies at Patients Out of Time, in partnership with the Maryland Medical Cannabis Commission and the Maryland Cannabis Industry Association, are hosting two half-day seminars about medical marijuana and the endocannabinoid system this week — one in Columbia and one in La Plata. Registration is required and the events are free for physicians.

Medical Cannabis 101: The Physician’s Primer

Maryland Pharmacists Association
9115 Guilford Rd., Suite 200
Columbia, MD 21046
Thursday, October 22, 9:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m.
Click here to register

University of Maryland Charles Regional Medical Center
5 Garrett Rd.
La Plata, MD 20646
Friday, October 23, 10:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.
Click here to register

Both of these events will feature Dustin Sulak, D.O., who will touch on the literature on endocannabinoid physiology, clinical applications of cannabinoids, and share his experience overseeing 18,000 medical marijuana patients in New England. Mary Lynn Mathre, RN, MSN, CARN, President of Patients Out of Time, will also speak on the history of medical cannabis and the discovery of the endocannabinoid system. Eric Sterling, a member of the Maryland medical marijuana commission, will speak at the Columbia event about the programs details. These events will be particularly beneficial for Maryland physicians, so please send this along to any doctors you know in the state.

You can visit Patients Out of Time for more information on the events. For more details on Maryland’s medical marijuana program, please visit the Medical Cannabis Commission’s website.

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MPP has been paying close attention to the slate of candidates running for president next year. Marijuana policy reform has been coming up more and more as the hopefuls try to adjust to increasing public support for ending prohibition, but could the issue have an impact on who is the next leader of the United States?

Last night, MPP's Dan Riffle spoke with Fox News about how marijuana initiatives could affect the 2016 presidential election.

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[caption id="attachment_9260" align="alignright" width="214"] Rep. Dave Reed[/caption]

At the beginning of the summer, Pennsylvania House Majority Leader Dave Reed appointed a work group to develop recommendations for House medical cannabis legislation. Late last month, the group sent its recommendations to Leader Reed, and a bill is being drafted that incorporates them.

The work group recommendations included several favorable provisions such as vaporization for all patients, a minimum of 65 dispensaries, and a broad list of conditions including PTSD and chronic pain. While the recommendations are mostly reasonable, we would like to see as many dispensaries as possible and to see several other conditions such as lupus, wasting, nausea, rheumatoid arthritis, and diabetes included in the final bill.

The work group did not reach a consensus in certain areas where one outcome is clearly preferable for patients. For example, patients should receive immediate legal protections, and the legislation should not include a sunset provision.

If you are a Pennsylvania resident, please contact your representative today and ask them to act quickly to pass the strongest possible program for Pennsylvania patients.

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The Medical Cannabis Advisory Board agreed last week to recommend adding eight new medical conditions to Illinois’ medical cannabis pilot program. The conditions are chronic pain syndrome, autism, osteoarthritis, post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain due to trauma, chronic post-operative pain, intractable pain, and irritable bowel syndrome.

The department previously rejected the advisory board’s recommendation that it approve 11 conditions. At the time it noted that the program was not yet fully up and running, but now with at least one dispensary opening this month, that reasoning no longer applies. Just yesterday, Harbory in Marion, Illinois became the first dispensary to open in the state.

These changes would significantly improve the state program. The medical cannabis program recognizes only a narrow range of conditions, and Illinois is in the minority of medical marijuana states when it comes to options for patients with serious pain. In addition, an increasing number of medical marijuana states recognize post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Seriously ill patients in Illinois should not be left behind. The state should listen to its team of experts and adopt these conditions without delay.

If you are an Illinois resident, please send a clear message to the director of the Illinois Department of Public Health and ask him to add these conditions without delay.

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