Perhaps as early as next week, Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm is expected to sign a series of bills that would outlaw K2 -- one of several names given to synthetic cannabinoids ("fake marijuana") that are sprayed onto different herbs and sold legally in smoke shops across the country. Such products are labeled "not for human consumption," but people use them anyway, because, when smoked, they can mimic the effects of marijuana, but they don't show up on drug tests. More importantly, unlike marijuana,…

Earlier this week, Oakland County authorities raided two medical marijuana businesses and several private homes, arresting 15 people and confiscating what was allegedly $750,000 worth of marijuana and equipment. One of the facilities raided, Clinical Relief, is located in Ferndale, Michigan where the City Council voted just two days earlier to lift a moratorium on such businesses. Now comes news that one of the individuals whose home was raided, 67-year-old Sal Agro, has died of an apparent heart…

The American Civil Liberties Union today filed a lawsuit against Wal-Mart on behalf of Joseph Casias, the 30-year-old former Associate of the Year who was wrongfully fired by a Battle Creek, Michigan Wal-Mart for his legal use of medical marijuana. Casias, who is married with two children, suffers from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor, for which he is a registered medical marijuana patient under state law. But in March, Wal-Mart, in violation of Michigan’s medical marijuana law, fired him…

For those of you who don't regularly see our video features, I present to you the MPP Insider #009.  You can access the HD version by right-clicking and viewing on YouTube, or by viewing the video in fullscreen mode.

Doctors at Oregon’s two organ transplant centers will not provide organs to people who have marijuana compounds in their blood, even if they are legal medical marijuana patients, The Portland Tribune reports today. This restriction has had dire consequences for patients like Jim Klahr, a Portland medical marijuana patient who suffers from hepatitis and cirrhosis, but hasn’t been able to take his medicine since 2004 because he’s on the waiting list for a liver transplant at Oregon Health and Science…

One day after MPP called for a nationwide boycott of Wal-Mart stores in order to protest the company’s contemptible and baseless firing of Michigan medical marijuana patient Joe Casias, the world’s largest public corporation is already changing its position — albeit not to the extent we all desire. A Wal-Mart spokesperson has told Fox News that the company is no longer challenging Casias’s eligibility for unemployment, reversing the despicable stance it took before news of the firing made national…

This morning, the Marijuana Policy Project called upon shoppers across the country to join in a boycott of Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., in order to protest the unjust and potentially unlawful firing of Joe Casias, a 29-year-old medical marijuana patient and sinus cancer survivor who suffers from an inoperable brain tumor. After dutifully working at a Wal-Mart in Battle Creek, Michigan, for five years, Casias was suddenly terminated because he tested positive for marijuana during a drug screening administered…

Joseph Casias, 29, has sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor. Despite his condition, he has dutifully gone to work every day for the last five years at a Wal-Mart in Battle Creek, Michigan, where in 2008 he was named Associate of the Year. Casias is also a legal medical marijuana patient under Michigan state law. He uses marijuana with the recommendation of his doctor to relieve the effects of cancer. But Wal-Mart, the world’s largest public corporation, has no sympathy for his condition or…

MPP director of state policies Karen O'Keefe spoke this morning at a hearing convened by the Michigan Department of Community Health to consider draft regulations implementing the state's new medical marijuana law. The very well attended hearing took the whole morning, Karen reports, with large numbers of patients presenting constructive criticisms of rules that in some cases go beyond the authority given the department by the voter-approved initiative. Of particular concern are rules that require…