Medical Marijuana in OK

SAN LUIS, Ariz.- This city took the first step Wednesday to regulate marijuana dispensaries under the state's new medical marijuana law.

The action comes after voters in November approved a ballot measure allowing Arizonans to obtain marijuana for medical reasons with a doctor's prescription. The law is set to take effect in January.

At its regular meeting Wednesday, the council approved two ordinances. One allows for the establishment of marijuana dispensaries and for regulated cultivation of pot, and a second establishes a fee of $2,000 to open a dispensary.

Even as the council adopted both ordinances by unanimous vote, Mayor Juan Carlos Escamilla noted, "There are still many questions about how they're going to operate and where. With these ordinances, we are simply preparing for what comes."

The council's action, he added, simply allows the city to be ready for when the law takes effect.

"There are still many discussions to come. We will have a regulation in place for people who would like to take out a license for this activity, but that's not all we have to regulate. There will be more measures we will have to discuss and approve."

What was approved Wednesday night, Escamilla added, "are regulations that for the time being, we can implement until we can be better prepared, studying what other cities are doing and talking with people in California - because that is where this law was passed - so that we can see what needs to be done here."

City officials' other concern, he added, is that the new law not have any negative impacts on the community.

"Since the voters approved this, it has to be something controlled, complying with the rules. We hope that the doctors will be professional and that they don't prescribe it only because someone has a headache or back pains, that ( patients ) truly need it and that it is controlled."

Arizona:

Lake Havasu City officials said the city's role in handling the issue of medical marijuana will be small.

The city's Planning and Zoning Commission is set to discuss locations for medical marijuana dispensaries at 9 a.m. Wednesday in city council chambers in the police facility.

Arizona voters approved Proposition 203 in November by a 50.13 percent to 49.87 percent margin. Prop. 203 allows for the use, sale and growing of medical marijuana. The act "specifically grants cities and counties the authority to enact reasonable zoning regulations that limit the use of land for registered nonprofit medical marijuana dispensaries to specified areas," according to city documents.

"The legislation that was passed prohibits the city from controlling the sale of medical marijuana with the exception of zoning," said City Manager Charlie Cassens. "What we can do is control where the dispensaries and grow operations are and that's the process that is going on right now and that's what the Planning and Zoning Commission will be discussing."

Assistant City Attorney Kelly Garry said she's unsure how various cities and counties will interpret "reasonable zoning regulations" but she added that Lake Havasu City has a sound plan.

"It's hard to say what it means exactly," Garry said. "We just don't have any experience with medical marijuana dispensaries in this state so we will have to see.... I believe what the city has drafted is extremely reasonable, and I don't believe it will be a problem at all."

Mohave County planning and zoning officials also are expected to address the issue Jan. 12. Phoenix officials agreed earlier this week that dispensaries would only be allowed in strip malls and commercial centers. Other regulations also included locations that must be at least 250 feet from residential areas, 1,320 feet from schools, 500 feet from churches, and at least one mile apart, according to the associated press. State officials have reported previously that about 125 dispensaries will open around the state by mid-2011.

You know the push for reforming our nation’s broken marijuana laws is gaining momentum when it takes hold in Oklahoma.

Senator Connie Johnson (D-Oklahoma City) has introduced SB 573,“The Compassionate Use Act of 2011.” The bill would exempt patients, and their caregivers, whose doctors recommend marijuana from the state’s criminal penalties for use or cultivation of marijuana. There are a number of ways you can get involved, but first and foremost, contact your legislators and urge them to side with science and medical experts, and support this compassionate legislation.

And the good news doesn’t stop there. Sen. Richard Lerblance (D-McAlester) has introduced two bills that would reduce the penalties for marijuana possession in Oklahoma. SB 843 would remove the possibility of incarceration for all non-violent drug-related first offenses, and SB 326 would reduce the minimum threshold an offender would need to serve from 85% to 65% of his or her sentence before being eligible for probation or parole.

There are other bills that you might be interested in, such as HB 1801, which would overhaul Oklahoma’s drug sentencing standards and HB 2033, a bill that proposes a number of employer-friendly reforms to Oklahoma’s Workplace Drug Testing Act. Subscribe to our legislative alert service and we’ll keep you posted on all of these proposals.

If you are a patient who could benefit from the medical use of marijuana, a medical professional, or a member of the law enforcement or legal communities, please contact MPP at state@mpp.org to see how you can be of special help in passing these bills.

We are gaining momentum...come join us! www.okmedicalmarijuana.org We need your support.

Irvin Rosenfeld isn't your stereotypical stoner.
The 58-year-old stockbroker has smoked 10-12 cannabis sativa cigarettes every day for more than 28 years.
Rosenfeld, who was the second person to get medical marijuana ever and NORML's third speaker for Medical Marijuana Month, spoke to the UCF community on Feb. 16 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. in the Key West Ballroom.
At that time, Rosenfeld was prescribed to take more than 30 pills a day including but not limited to morphine, Quaalude and Valium to treat his multiple congenital cartilaginous exostoses, which he's had since he was 10 years old. His body had more than 200 tumors in it and even after his growth plates had halted, a second rare disease, pseudopseudohypoparathyroidism , developed. His doctors told him it was a death sentence.
Before using marijuana medically, his use was purely social even though he didn't agree with it.
"It was a way of making friends, and even though I thought it was garbage, I liked being able to make friends through the use of it," Rosenfeld said.
The tenth time he smoked was the first time he'd sat for more than 10 minutes without discomfort and medication.
"Once I discovered that cannabis was the medicine I needed, I knew I would be arrested and I would be sunk if caught with it," Rosenfeld said. "I am not a criminal, I am a patient."
Since age 21 Rosenfeld has not had another tumor form. His doctors were astounded and couldn't figure out why, but Rosenfeld knew it was because of his recently discovered medication.
He decided to drop out of college after his third semester and move back to Virginia to take on the Federal government. He gained support from his family and doctor and started the persistent fight to gain access to his medicine, a battle that would last 10 years.
In 1982, Rosenfeld, who has the Federal right to smoke his cannabis sativa cigarettes wherever smoking is permitted, received his first tin canister of 320 cigarettes. The government refers to his medication as an experimental new drug that only four patients currently have access to.
When it came time for his doctor to write a report on the success of his use, Rosenfeld knew how it'd be received.
"I told him the truth," Rosenfeld said of the conversation with his doctor. "Any positive report was going to be buried because the government has no interest in the positive aspects of cannabis."
On the report written after that, his doctor decided to write on every page in big red letters "it's working."
The government said nothing.
"The truth is that the government only gave me medicinal cannabis because I backed them in a corner," Rosenfeld said. "They have no interest in continuing this program once the patients are gone."
As stated in his book, My Medicine, the program will terminate when the patients do. He realized four years ago that he needed to share his story; otherwise, it would die with him.
"I know I am taking a risk with the Federal government and my book, but I need to educate people," said Rosenfeld. "The government doesn't want to know and that's what we are up against. I went public so I could be the face of the medical marijuana movement."
Rosenfeld made sure to distinguish between the words 'cannabis' and 'marijuana.'
"What I get every 25 days is cannabis sativa, not marijuana," he said. "By using the word 'marijuana' or 'pot' you demonize the drug. Every time we use the word 'pot', we are playing into their hands."
Rosenfeld is creating a new company, Medical Cannabis Solutions, which is going to attempt to achieve something never done before, write its own state law. As the face of the movement, Rosenfeld has credibility when speaking about the battle for his medicine and the necessity to make it available to all patients. He estimates that it will take about six months to a year to complete the project.

Friends,

Senate Bill 573 did not receive a hearing this session. It will not move forward. This was expected. It has been obvious, for many decades, that the Oklahoma Legislature is more socially conservative than the average Oklahoman. 2/3 of the medical marijuana bills, which have passed in other states, have been through ballot initiatives (vote of people). Oklahoma allows for ballot initiatives. It is most likely that a petition drive and ballot initiative will ultimately be the only way to pass medical marijuana in Oklahoma.

Regardless, Senator Constance Johnson has done a great service for the medical marijuana movement in Oklahoma. She is the first state legislator, brave enough and compassionate enough, to introduce a true medical marijuana bill. She is the kind of leader I salute.

Now we must not lose our momentum. It is time for true commitment to our mission. This year we must work harder to persuade our doctors to endorse this campaign. This year we must work harder to improve media coverage of our campaign. This year we must cough up a little more personal time to help with the movement. This year we must learn to raise money, so we can afford statewide publicity. Liberating medical marijuana will be rewarding, but be prepared to work much harder this year.

Damn it. I was looking forward to it!

U.S. government’s National Institutes of Health:

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death.”

…The potential benefits of medicinal cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.”

The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.

A father from Montana claims his 3-year-old son, who was battling brain cancer, is alive today partly due to marijuana oil, which he gave him during the boy's nine-month stay in a Salt Lake City hospital.
Mike Hyde said he fed his son Cash the oil through his gastrostomy tube (or G-tube)— without doctors' knowledge — to ease his pain while the toddler was going through chemotherapy treatments.
“After his first round of high-dose chemo in August 2010, he no longer ate anything, and this went on through September,” Hyde told FoxNews.com .“He was getting worse and worse.”
This harrowing ordeal started for the Hyde family in May of last year when radiologists at Community Medical Center in Missoula, Mont., discovered a stage 4 brain tumor when Cash was just 20-months-old. Cash, or Cashy as his dad likes to call him, was eventually diagnosed with a primitive neuroectodermal tumor (PNET), which is a malignant tumor of the central nervous system that spreads easily, and is usually found in infants, children and young adults.
“The oncologist recommended that Cashy receive three cycles of chemotherapy followed by three cycles of high-dose chemotherapy with stem cell rescue,” Hyde said.
Cash underwent the therapy, but the results were heartbreaking for his mom and dad, and it was at this point that they decided to step in.
“By the end of September he was so sick,” Hyde said.“He was no longer was able to take feedings into his G-tube. His stomach lining was burnt from the chemo therapy, it was no longer processing anything – it was fried. I asked doctors if there was anything else we can give him and they said ‘We’re giving him max amounts of all anti-nausea medications we can give him.’ They basically told me that this was as good as it was going to get. I told them that it was unacceptable.”
At this point, Hyde decided to pull Cash off the anti-nausea drug cocktail due to numerous side effects, and at the same time, he decided to start administering .3 milligrams of marijuana oil through his son’s G-tube.
“I put him on the oil and he started eating again, his quality of life completely changed, and we were told it was a miracle… that it was just amazing. He was sitting up and laughing again,” he said.
But Cash took a turn for the worse after his sixth round of chemotherapy. He went into septic shock, he had a stroke and suffered pulmonary hemorrhaging all at the same time.
“Doctors told us he was not going to make it,” Hyde recalled.“He was on life support for 40 days and was in a medically-induced coma. They said he would have brain damage and his lungs would fail. But I knew the medicine (marijuana oil) was in his body, and that helped him heal. It helped to rebuild his stomach lining, his liver and his lungs. He walked out of the ICU in mid-December. The nurses and doctors called him a ‘Christmas miracle.’”
Cash, now 3, was finally released from the hospital at the end of January and his prognosis looks excellent. Two weeks ago, he went for a check-up, and doctors didn’t even recognize him.
“They were amazed,” Hyde said.“The brain scans were amazing, his tumor is gone and his liver and kidneys are 100 percent healed. He should be on dialysis, but he’s running around.”
And while Hyde acknowledges that chemo killed the cancer, he said it almost killed his son in the process.
“It brought him to the edge of life, and if I wouldn’t have stepped in when I did, he wouldn’t be here right now. The marijuana oil was the best pain drug available for Cashy, as well as a neuro-protectant, antioxidant and antibacterial. I know it saves Cash’s life.”
Medical marijuana is legal in some U.S. states, including Montana, but is illegal to possess it without authorization from a medical professional. Hyde was able to get the oil for his son through a medical marijuana card that was issued by the state of Montana in Cash’s name.
Marijuana has been widely used to treat cancer patients suffering from chemotherapy-inducing nausea and vomiting.

"It makes little sense. I've never heard anything like it," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a New York-based advocacy organization. "It's just pure hysteria. Where did this idea even come from?"

The law -- which was overwhelmingly approved by the Oklahoma Senate last month and later signed by Republican Gov. Mary Fallin on April 29 -- was requested by the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. But since the state has seen just about a dozen cases of hashish manufacturing in the past decade, the agency's spokesman, Mark Woodward, acknowledges that the new law is a "preventative" move.

"It's very rare," Woodward said of hashish production in the state. "It may be two or three years before we see another [case]. This is not going to be a prison-clogger here."

Under the new law, which specifically creates a new felony for converting marijuana to hashish, conviction of a first offense would result in a prison sentence anywhere from two years to life in prison. Sentences would be doubled for second offenses and those convicted would be ineligible for suspended sentences or probation.

"They're not going to do life, but the legalization groups get a hold of that and run with it," Woodward said. "Are we seeing people doing it in Oklahoma? No, but we want to be ready if and when that comes up."

Nadelmann and other critics of the new law told FoxNews.com that the measure is a "throwback in time" to the Draconian sentences connected to cocaine and crack cocaine in the 1980s. It also appears to be "evidence-free" since Oklahoma officials rarely see hashish manufacturing in the state, Nadelmann said.

"If you want to throw someone into prison for the rest of their life for making some hash, I imagine not cleaning your room should be good for six months in solitary," activist and marijuana advocate Vivian McPeak wrote in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "Of course, these people are in red state territory. You can garner some serious votes by throwing the worthless dope-heads into the bottomless pit in those parts. The fact that there is no record of anyone ever dying from hashish has absolutely no bearing there."

Oklahoma's incarceration rate routinely ranks in the top five nationally, and its prison population -- more than half of whom are nonviolent offenders -- has grown from 22,600 in 2000 to nearly 26,000 today. The state's prison budget, meanwhile, has increased from $366 million to $483 million last year.

State Rep. Sue Tibbs, R-Tulsa, who authored the legislation, referred inquiries to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs, the agency that requested the bill. But at least one local lawmaker acknowledged that political opponents from both sides may target an incumbent as being "soft on crime" for not supporting a law with harsher drug penalties.

"It's just the mindset up here, and it’s been beaten into these new senators and representatives that you cannot be soft on crime," state Sen. Richard Lerblance, a Democrat, told The Associated Press. "It was the same way when Democrats were in control."

"We just want to lock them up and throw away the key," said Lerblance, one of only two senators to oppose the hashish bill.

Meanwhile, House Speaker Kris Steele, a Republican, recognizes the "Shakespearean" irony that state lawmakers approved the hashish bill on the same day it approved a proposal to increase the use of electronic monitoring and community sentencing for low-risk offenders to cut Oklahoma's prison population.

"I think it just goes to show how far we have to go with cultural attitudes in the state among prosecutors and others that, although we've taken a couple of good baby steps, here we're doing something that's directly opposed to that," Steele told The Associated Press.

Give us God's medicine now. I am sick of this.

John wrote:

Give us God's medicine now. I am sick of this.

There is a bill for medical use in Oklahoma. SB 573 did not get a hearing this session but it is still alive. Please contact your state legislators and let them know you want the law to change.

“Penalties against drug use should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself. Nowhere is this more clear than in the laws against the possession of marijuana in private for personal use.”
- Message to Congress, August 2, 1977.

I agree to legalize it!

This is long over due. People want safe effective medicine that dosen't kill.

Anon wrote:

I'm shocked at how vehement most of these posts are. I'm sure people are working on a draft for a bill to legalize Medical Marijuana. I am also sure that this bill will undergo many revisions before it passes. Let's not forget these changes take place over time. It's great to have such involvement in issues but a certain degree of poise could be sustained.
Also, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics has a very educated staff. I have personally sat in on lectures given by said institution and it's officials are well- informed.
It's definitely an issue to be discussed and thought over. Obviously, legalizing it would be a slow process. At first it may only be available to cancer patients. Growing it independently is probably out of the question, not necessarily for money purposes but for control concerns.
I feel the issue of Sen. Aldridge "ambushing" Ms. Stahl was perhaps irrelevant to the issue. I'm sure Ms. Stahl was prepped with information and studies reguarding the topic. It seems Sen. Aldridge was doing the same. I doubt they were planning an arrest. He could have chosen a less aggressive choice of company, but his decision was not wrong. He made himself available to Ms. Stahl to talk about it; a intimidating for her, but perhaps she should have prepared for a little tension when discussing a controversial topic with conservative leader.
I am interested to see how this endeavor develops!

They also have agents recently convicted of selling guns to Mexican Cartels. Who monitors this outfit?

Its not as sweet as street level man!

The OBNDD is full of gays that they can't make reasonable decisions. Many sit around in cars all day on your tax dollar sucking each others pipes.