Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: California, cannabis, ganja, hashish, hemp, Jerry Brown, Los Angeles, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, Proposition 215, skunk, weed
CA — California Attorney General Jerry Brown has ordered a crackdown on medical pot clubs that are selling the drug for big profits.
The move puts the state a bit more in line with the feds in dealing with the explosion of questionable marijuana dispensaries since the passage of Proposition 215 more than a decade ago.
The first target was Today’s Health Care club in Northridge (Los Angeles County), which agents from the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement raided over the weekend. The club owner and an alleged middleman were booked on drug-dealing charges.
Brown said Tuesday he would “not be surprised” to see similar raids here in the Bay Area.
“The voters wanted medical marijuana dispensaries to be used for seriously ill patients and their caregivers – not as million-dollar businesses,” Brown said.
In recent years, pot club raids have been conducted mainly by federal authorities who don’t recognize Prop. 215, the initiative California voters passed in 1996 to let patients use cannabis to treat what ailed them. Although medical marijuana is still illegal under federal law, the feds say many of their targets were actually sham outfits that were dealing marijuana for, shall we say, nonmedicinal uses.
This week, Brown issued an 11-page directive laying out guidelines that medical marijuana cooperatives must follow to comply with Prop. 215.
Among them: Sell only to legitimate patients. Operate as nonprofits. Buy pot only from fellow cooperative members at prices that cover cost, as opposed to professional growers out for big bucks.
“We are not out to harass legitimate clubs,” Brown said. “The targets are those clubs that are part of a larger criminal operation where medical marijuana winds up being sold on the street and contributing to crime and violence.”
Brown’s Rules on Medical Marijuana
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)
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, ganja, hashish, Hawaii, hemp, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, skunk, weed
Hilo, Hawaii — Despite Gov. Linda Lingle’s veto of a measure that would have tightened gaps in Hawai’i’s medical marijuana laws, state lawmakers vowed yesterday to reintroduce legislation in the upcoming 2009 session.
“We had this bill to address problems with our law,” said Rep. Joe Bertram III, D-11th (Makena, Wailea, Kihei). “Our state law is so vague that patients don’t know how to get medical cannabis for legitimate use.”
Lingle’s veto of the bill last month left muddy issues that a task force would have aired: legal distribution, transportation and how federal and state laws interact, Bertram said.
Bertram and Rep. John Mizuno, D-30th (Kamehameha Heights, Kalihi Valley, Fort Shafter), yesterday invited law enforcement officials, physicians, a law professor and members of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawai’i to air their concerns that will be melded into bills for the upcoming legislative session that will begin in January.
To be effective, a state law must remove criminal penalties for patients using or possessing medical marijuana, Bertram said.
Patients and primary caregivers on an approved list are exempt from state law prohibiting marijuana possession, but not federal law.
Hawai’i is one of 12 states that have laws allowing qualified patients to use marijuana. Today more than 4,000 patients are registered with the state Narcotics Enforcement Division and are allowed to legally grow and use the drug.
Hawai’i was the first state to allow medical use of marijuana by a law enacted in 2000.
Snipped
Complete Article: http://drugsense.org/url/6Hx0Ad8D
Source: Honolulu Advertiser (HI)
Website: http://www.honoluluadvertiser.com/
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, ganja, hashish, hemp, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, seattle, skunk, weed
Tumwater, Thurston County — More than 100 activists who jammed a state Health Department hearing Monday to protest proposed medical-marijuana limits won at least a minor victory: getting more time to make their case.
Responding to concerns by advocates, Assistant Health Secretary Karen Jensen extended until 5 p.m. Friday the deadline for comments on a proposed rule to limit medical-marijuana users to possessing 24 ounces of cultivated marijuana, six mature plants and 18 immature plants.
The action came at a 2-½-hour hearing in which about 50 patients, doctors and other marijuana supporters blasted the proposal as unfair, unrealistic and unduly influenced by law-enforcement agencies.
“We’re not criminals. We’re patients,” said Melissa Leggee, of Spokane. “We just want to be left alone to do what we need to do to survive.”
Leggee said she uses marijuana to ease chronic pain, irritable bowel syndrome and other conditions.
Dr. Karen Hamilton, of Redmond, who has treated patients helped by marijuana, said the proposal would “effectively take treatment out of the doctors’ hands,” adding that there is no “one-size-fits-all” appropriate marijuana dose.
Speaker after speaker said six mature plants can’t possibly provide the amount of marijuana most patients need to combat pain, nausea and symptoms of more than a dozen ailments the drug is used to treat. As a result, they argued, users would need to find drug dealers to augment their supply.
“You’re going to make everyone in this room a felon,” if the proposed limit is adopted, Steve Sarich, of Kirkland, told the panel of Health Department officials. Sarich is director of CannaCare, which provides legal assistance and starter plants to patients.
Lawsuit Filed
Sarich and another activist, John Worthington, of Renton, filed a lawsuit Friday in Thurston County Superior Court that they hope will force the state to reclassify marijuana, now on a list of “Schedule I” drugs deemed to have no valid medical use.
Sarich said the state’s old drug law, which contains that listing, should be superseded by Initiative 692, passed in 1998, which legalizes marijuana for medical purposes.
The initiative, approved by nearly 59 percent of Washington voters, said patients with valid certification by a physician should be allowed to possess a 60-day supply of marijuana but contained no definition of what quantity that is.
Last year, the Legislature directed the Health Department to spell out an acceptable amount.
Several speakers Monday criticized Health Department staffers for not sticking with an earlier draft proposal, which would have allowed a user 35 ounces of harvested marijuana and a 100-square-foot growing “canopy.”
That proposal was changed after Gov. Christine Gregoire’s policy analysts urged the Health Department to get input from law-enforcement agencies and medical experts, who were scarcely represented at the workshops on the draft proposal.
Staffers for Gregoire also told Health Department officials the amount appeared to be on the high side.
The change prompted Troy Williams, of Clark County, to remark that department officials should “stand up, have some courage, and tell the governor to shove it.”
Jensen said she expects the agency to take about a month to evaluate comments and come up with a rule set by Health Secretary Mary Selecky.
If substantial changes are made to the current proposal, Jensen said, a new round of comments would be solicited.
Target of Raids
Despite the Washington initiative, possession, cultivation and sale of marijuana remain illegal under federal law. Some advocates for medical marijuana have found themselves the target of raids by law enforcement, which they say violates their rights not just to legal pot but to freedom of speech.
The homes of both Sarich and Worthington were raided early last year. Marijuana plants were seized at each man’s home, but neither was formally charged.
Jeanne Ferguson, of Seattle, executive director of “Grammas for Ganja,” said the controversy would disappear if marijuana were legalized. “The plant should be free to be grown in your backyard, next to your broccoli and carrots.”
Outside the Health Department’s Tumwater offices during Monday’s hearing, marijuana backers set up a blue tent in which certified patients could “medicate.”
Activists said state staffers had asked them not to set up the tent but did not interfere once it was in place.
Information from The Seattle Times archives is included in this report.
To read & comment on the Health Department’s proposed limits for medical marijuana see: http://www.doh.wa.gov/hsqa/medical-marijuana
Complete Title: State Extends Time for Comments on Medical-Marijuana Limits
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/
Filed under: Hemp&Law, hemp in general | Tags: canada, cannabis, ganja, grow, hashish, hemp, marijuana, pot, skunk, weed
POLICE TAKE TO SKIES TO STOP OUTDOOR GROW-OPS
A integrated police team combing Vancouver Island from the sky looking for marijuana grow-ops expects to seize more than 20,000 plants.
The team is expected to find a significant amount of outdoor pot as the growing season now comes to an end, says Const. Darren Lagan of the Island District RCMP.
“Based on what we have seen in the air so far, we will get 20,000 plants altogether,” Lagan said Friday.
The goal of the annual fall police project is to locate and destroy marijuana grown outdoors, which is often on Crown land, notes Lagan.
While he noted police may be able to detect grow-ops from a helicopter, they can not always get into the isolated areas to tear them down.
“The number of sites we get to depends on weather and location,” said Lagan.
“Through our partnership with the Canadian military, we are able to utilize their expertise and equipment to gain access to these challenging locations,” added Lagan.
Last year, he said, the fall detection program on the Island netted RCMP about 20,000 plants.
And Lagan pointed out that many of those they busted last year set up in a new location: “They will change location from year to year, but were atuned to that.”
Outdoor pot production poses significant environmental risk, he said.
Streams are often diverted, growth-enhancing chemicals and pesticides are introduced into pristine lands and garbage is left behind at many of the sites, said Lagan.
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: California, cannabis, ganja, hashish, hemp, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, Sacramento, skunk, weed
Sacramento, CA — For the first time in the dozen years of turmoil since state voters legalized medical marijuana, California’s top law enforcement official stepped into the fray Monday with new guidelines designed in part to quell the ongoing friction between the state and federal authorities.
Atty. Gen. Jerry Brown issued an 11-page directive intended to help legitimate patients avoid arrest while giving police the tools to distinguish legal medical marijuana operations from illegal cultivators and criminal middlemen.
He suggested his new “road map” would serve as a shield against the federal government, which has waged war against the state’s pot rules by conducting raids and mounting court challenges.
“Hopefully the feds will back off in instances where people are really following these guidelines,” Brown said Monday in a telephone interview.
The guidelines affirm the legality of many of the state’s medical marijuana dispensaries, but only those operated as collectives or cooperatives and not in business for profit.
“Clearly there have been abuses, places that served as big fronts for illegal drug dealing,” Brown said. “This will help get criminals out of medical marijuana.”
An unlikely coalition of police and medical marijuana activists welcomed the new guidelines, the first substantial directive from a state agency since voters approved Proposition 215 in 1996.
“As far as I’m concerned, I give this two thumbs up,” said Kevin Reed of the Green Cross, a collective in San Francisco. “If you’re in it for profit, you shouldn’t be in medical cannabis.”
“This is huge,” said Kris Hermes of Americans for Safe Access, a pro-medical marijuana group. “Hopefully this will send a message to the federal government that California doesn’t intend to deter from the course it has set.”
The federal government maintains a strict prohibition against marijuana as medicine, and for more than a decade it has made California — which has an estimated 200,000 cannabis-using patients — the principal beachhead in the battle against medical marijuana.
Federal officials at the president’s Office of National Drug Control Policy and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration did not return calls for comment.
Police, meanwhile, welcomed Brown’s guidelines, saying they shed light on what had often seemed to them a shadowy world.
“We have been operating in the dark for many years,” said Jerry Dyer, Fresno’s chief of police and president of the California Police Chiefs Assn.
Dealing with medical marijuana patients and dispensaries, he said, “has been like trying to hit a moving target. This allows us to know what the target is.”
Brown’s guidelines urge patients to apply for state-sanctioned medical marijuana ID cards — and advise police to accept authenticated cards as proof of medical need.
Patients are prohibited from using cannabis near schools and recreation centers or at work, unless an employer gives permission. Police, meanwhile, must return seized cannabis to patients who are later proved legitimate.
Brown takes a notably hard line on for-profit dispensaries.
Scores of storefront operations have sprouted up, often with business owners running virtual emporiums of cannabis.
Under the attorney general’s guidelines, they must operate as not-for-profit collectives or cooperatives, and establishments are prohibited from buying marijuana from illegal, commercial growers. Instead, the marijuana must be grown by patients or their caregivers, with fees limited to covering overhead and operating expenses.
Bruce Mirken of the Marijuana Policy project questioned the nonprofit distinction, saying, “The last I heard, Walgreens isn’t a charity.”
But the rules essentially give police a green light to raid for-profit storefront dispensaries.
The guidelines also say that a dispensary that signs up patients after they simply fill out forms making the owner their primary caregiver is “likely unlawful.”
They suggest that investigating officers be alert to signs of mass production and illegal sales, including “excessive amounts” of marijuana and cash, weapons and other indicators of criminal activity.
“We know that cartels are controlling many of the medical marijuana dispensaries operating for profit,” said Dyer, the Fresno police chief.
“I’m hopeful the state will partner with local police and the feds to shut down the cartels.”
Note: Jerry Brown outlines steps to help patients and dispensaries stay within the law, help police know when to step in and, it’s hoped, keep the federal government at bay.
Complete Title: California Attorney General Issues Medical Marijuana Guidelines
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: cannabis, ganja, hashish, hemp, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, skunk, supreme court, weed
California — Last Wednesday the California Supreme Court unanimously agreed to hear the case of California vs Patrick Kelly to determine whether any limits imposed by the legislature to the Compassionate Use Act is constitutional.
While the California Supreme Court takes up the issue, the existing limits in the California Health and Safety Code remain in effect throughout much of California. For Mendocino County, the limits are a bit murkier as the ongoing legal challenge to the portion of Measure B, which had the county adopt the state limits may await the final Supreme Court decision.
Superior Court Judge John Behnke in his August 8 decision on the challenge to the Measure B limits ruled “if the state legislature cannot amend a stat law passed by initiative (the Compassionate Use Act) by passing specific legislation certainly the electorate of a county can’t amend a statewide initiative by passing a local ordinance or initiative.”While this decision was made prior to the Supreme Court accepting the Kelly case for review, Behnke cited the more recent appeals court ruling from July 31 of California vs Phomphakdy as raising similar issues to the Kelly case although it cannot be cited for 30 days and also may be accepted by the Supreme Court for further review.
The Behnke decision leaves the county effectively without any new guidelines for law enforcement, although the statewide limits appear to serve as a minimum protection for medical marijuana users, at least until the Phomphakdy case either becomes law on August 30 or is accepted for Supreme Court review.
A review of California vs. Patrick Kelly:
A Los Angeles County medical marijuana case, which most agree would never have seen a courtroom in Mendocino County, has raised questions on whether any limits imposed by the legislature to the Compassionate Use Act is constitutional.
The Court of Appeal in the case of California vs. Patrick Kelly ruled limits on medical marijuana possession imposed by the Health and Safety Code to be unconstitutional. In July, the state Attorney General petitioned the state Supreme Court to review the case. On August 13, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, leaving in place the current provisions of the Health and Safety Code.
In California vs. Patrick Kelly, the appeals court overturned Kelly’s 2006 conviction for possession of more than an ounce of marijuana for which he received a sentence of 2 days in jail and 3 years probation. The jury was asked, but declined, to convict Kelly of possession and cultivation of marijuana for sale.
A summary of the case reveals a substantially different prosecutorial atmosphere in Los Angeles County than prevails in Mendocino County. According to court records, Kelly suffers from several ruptured vertebrae causing severe back pain, as well as mood disorders, hepatitis, nausea and lack of appetite, which he had tried treating with epidurals, pain therapy, hot and cold braces, nerve stimulators and medication. Dissatisfied with this treatment plan, in part due to the cost of pain management pills, Kelly sought a recommendation to use marijuana, which he received in 2005.
Unable to afford marijuana from a dispensary, Kelly began growing a few plants at his home, consuming between one and two ounces per week.
Based on a tip from an informant and the visibility of some pot plants in the backyard, law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant for Kelly’s home and confiscated 12 ounces of processed pot stored in 2-ounce baggies, seven potted marijuana plants, a loaded gun in the nightstand and a scale.
Kelly had taped a copy of his valid medical marijuana recommendation to the garage door including a phone number where it could be verified 24 hours a day, keeping the original copy in his bedroom. The deputy called and verified the validity of the recommendation. One plant had a homemade trip wire constructed from Christmas wrapping and bells.
Because Kelly had about 4 ounces more marijuana than allowed under the California Health and Safety Code and did not have a special doctor’s recommendation to exceed the code amount, he was arrested for cultivation and possession of marijuana for sale. The charges were filed despite the lack of any evidence associated with the sale of marijuana such as nickel and dime bags, pagers, cell phones, pay-owe sheets, money, safes or elaborate growing systems at the Kelly residence. Kelly denied ever selling marijuana.
The case went to a jury trial. During the trial, according to the appeal, the prosecutor improperly instructed the jury that because the Health and Safety Code set an eight-ounce possession maximum for medical marijuana, the possession of more, which was not specifically authorized by a recommendation, was illegal. The case was overturned and a new trial ordered.
Although the court also declared the current Health and Safety Code limits unconstitutional, when the Supreme Court agreed to take up the case, that declaration was set aside pending the outcome of a future Supreme Court ruling.
Source: Willits News (CA)
Website: http://www.willitsnews.com/
Filed under: Hemp&Law, hemp in general | Tags: California, cannabis, Dea, ganja, hashish, hemp, marijuana, pot, skunk, weed
California — A threat from federal drug officials is forcing El Dorado County’s medical-marijuana clinic to lease a new headquarters.
The Medical Marijuana Caregivers Association of El Dorado County previously leased from a landlord who received written notice recently from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration. The notice said the agency had discovered the lease agreement between the caregivers association and the landlord, and warned the arrangement violated federal drug law.
Matt Vaughn, director of the local caregiver association, said budget matters are forcing a move at the same time the DEA letter is, so it could be worse.“The consequences are minimal for us, but in general, if they did get a DEA letter, it’s going to cost a landlord a good renter,” Vaughn said.
In 2007, the agency began warning landlords, all of them in southern California.
“The goal is advice,” said Special Agent Sarah Pullen. “The Los Angeles field office sent out nearly 200 letters.”
In bold-face type, the letters warned landlords that California’s 10-year-old Compassionate Use Act legalizing use of medical pot did not protect them from federal law criminalizing the providing of space for distributing any drug named on the federal Controlled Substances List.
“Violation of this law is a felony crime, and carries with it a penalty of up to 20 years in prison,” the letters said. “In addition, federal law allows for the seizure of assets, including real property, which have been used in conjunction with the distribution of controlled substances.”
Soon, the notice program expanded to northern California.
“The DEA San Francisco Office sent out approximately 50 letters to property owners,” said Special Agent Casey McEnry..
The DEA does not recognize California’s voter-approved legalization of medical marijuana. Pullen said the DEA is out to shut down all California med-pot dispensaries by any legal means necessary.
“There are hundreds of them in L.A.,” she said. “Our resources are limited. We use them as we can.”
She declined to provide a cost estimate for the letter-writing program.
Source: Folsom Telegraph (CA)
Website: http://folsomtelegraph.com/
Filed under: Hemp&Law, HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: California, cannabis, ganja, hashish, hemp, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, weed
California — We understand why a local judge struck down the provisions of voter-approved Measure B limiting the number of plants a medical marijuana patient can grow.
The California Appeals Court ruled in May that the six mature, 12 immature plant limit and the eight ounce dried marijuana possession limit were unconstitutional because the California Legislature had set the limits by legislation not voter initiative. Measure B’s limits were based on the California state law.
(The California Supreme Court has now decided to take up the question of the legality of these limits which were rejected a second time in another Appeals Court ruling in July.)
Now, medical marijuana growing and possession goes back to the confusing and varied interpretations that existed before the state passed its regulations – regulations that were fervently sought by true medical marijuana patients in order to bring some order and protection to the 1996 initiative that was unfortunately very poorly worded.
As of this moment, there are technically no limits on the number of medical marijuana plants a person can grow – but anything they grow has to be strictly for their own personal medical needs.
That is the important distinction and one that local marijuana growers need to pay attention to.
Unfortunately this ruling may encourage more of the commercial backyard growing we’ve seen from people who will assume that “no limits” means they can get away with anything.
We hope that our Sheriff Tom Allman and District Attorney Meredith Lintott will make it clear in their actions that this local court ruling – and the ruling it stems from in People v. Kelly in the State Court of Appeals – still makes it clear that medical marijuana growing must be for personal medical use – and lacking any regulatory direction, not some conglomerate in San Francisco or dispensary in Ukiah.
The courts ruled that the Compassionate Use Act does not limit a medical marijuana patient’s growing allowance based on a doctor’s recommendation. But it is also clear that those needs must be approved by a doctor and clearly defines “caregiver” as a person “designated by the person exempted under this section who has consistently assumed responsibility for the housing, health, or safety of that person.”
We have long argued that the definition of caregiver from the CUA had been twisted out of all proportion and made mockery of the compassion California voters tried to extend to the truly sick and dying.
We will see if the California Supreme Court agrees that regulating the CUA by legislation is constitutional. If not, the CUA will likely be scrutinized and perhaps amended by another voter initiative. If that happens, we believe it is time to set constitutional limits on the number of plants a medical marijuana patient can have, and provide a strict definition of caregiver, limiting that to one person, someone who is personally caring for the patient on a regular basis, not someone in Mendocino County growing 100 plants in their name.
The Kelly decision – and the local decision based on it – should not be construed as an open door to more pot growing. These decisions should be viewed as restating the limits envisioned on medical marijuana when the voters passed the CUA, limits that have been ignored up and down the state and which have led voters even in this Emerald Triangle, to reject marijuana growing as greedy and dangerous to their communities.
Source: Ukiah Daily Journal (CA)
Website: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/
Filed under: HempTherapy, hemp in general | Tags: California, cannabis, ganja, hashish, hemp, Los Angeles, marijuana, medical cannabis, medical marijuana, pot, weed
USA — Depending on whom you ask, marijuana is a dangerous drug that should be kept illegal alongside heroin and PCP, or it’s a miracle herb with a trove of medical benefits that the government is seeking to deny the public — or something in between: a plant with medical uses and drawbacks, worth exploring.
As the political debates over medical marijuana drag on, a small cadre of researchers continues to test inhaled marijuana for the treatment of pain, nausea and muscle spasms.
All drugs have risks, they point out — including ones in most Americans’ medicine cabinets, such as aspirin and other pain-relievers or antihistamines such as Benadryl.
Doctors try to balance those risks against the potential for medical good — why not for marijuana as well, they ask.
The truth, these researchers say, is that marijuana has medical benefits — for chronic-pain syndromes, cancer pain, multiple sclerosis, AIDS wasting syndrome and the nausea that accompanies chemotherapy — and attempts to understand and harness these are being hampered. Also, they add, science reveals that the risks of marijuana use, which have been thoroughly researched, are real but generally small.
Dr. Donald Abrams, chief of hematology and oncology at San Francisco General Hospital and professor of clinical medicine at UC San Francisco, says he sees cancer patients in pain, not eating or sleeping well, experiencing nausea and vomiting from treatment, and being depressed about their situation. He says he is glad that he lives in California, where use of medical marijuana is allowed by state law, although federal officials continue to raid cannabis dispensaries in the state and scrutinize practices of physicians who specialize in writing cannabis recommendations for patients.
“I can talk to patients about medicinal cannabis [and] I’m often recommending it to them for these indications,” Abrams says.
Note: A look at the pros and cons of medical marijuana use, a topic that inspires strong opinions on both sides.
Read on to learn what science has to say about the medical pros and cons, and some mitigating factors, of Cannabis sativa.
Pro: Marijuana Use for Chronic Pain and Nausea
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-marijuanapro18-2008aug18,0,3084928.story
Con: Marijuana’s Damaging Effects
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-marijuanacon18-2008aug18,0,2700897.story
Vaporizers Can Cut Marijuana Smoke, Retain Similar Medical Effects
http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-marijuanabox18-2008aug18,0,2237553.story
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
