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Adam Ford
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http://stoparrestingpatients.org/
Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care (MCCC) is a grassroots organization devoted to passing a medical marijuana initiative in Michigan in November 2008. Currently, seriously ill people who use marijuana for medical purposes face the same penalties as those who use marijuana recreationally.
On November 20, 2007, MCCC submitted nearly half a million signatures to the state to qualify the initiative for the ballot. And on March 3, 2008, the Board formally certified our signatures! The signatures officially counted by the state came back with an 80.2% validity rate, far exceeding what was needed to qualify. This is an historic step forward for patients throughout the state.
The medical marijuana initiative was then transmitted to the Michigan Legislature, which had 40 days to either pass it into law or send it to voters in November. Those 40 days expired on Friday, April 11 with the legislature taking no action -- meaning that MCCC's initiative will officially appear on the November ballot!
If the measure is passed by a majority of voters on Election Day 2008, Michigan law will allow patients to use, possess, and grow their own marijuana for medical purposes with their doctors’ approval. This would make Michigan the first medical marijuana state in the Midwest.
Michigan is home to more than 10 million people. If the measure passes, almost one quarter of the nation would live in states with medical marijuana laws. |
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Fri Aug 22, 2008 9:03 pm |
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Public D
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Sat Aug 23, 2008 9:47 am |
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twotap
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Why stop there. Legalize it, regulate it, and of course the dems favorite thing Tax it. Free up some of those DEA folks to go after the crack and Meth suppliers and leave the stoners alone.  |
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Sat Aug 23, 2008 11:43 am |
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Public D
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Sat Aug 23, 2008 12:04 pm |
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MikeInGB
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| Thanks for the info, Adam. I will surely support this. |
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Sat Aug 23, 2008 4:09 pm |
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twotap
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quote:
Right on, Adam!
twice
Of course we all know you believe your posts override anyone elses but im willing to bet he heard you the first time.  |
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Sat Aug 23, 2008 5:02 pm |
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MikeInGB
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Sat Aug 23, 2008 5:08 pm |
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twotap
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Stoner talk cool.  Right on man. |
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Sat Aug 23, 2008 5:20 pm |
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Adam
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Legal pot debuts in Midwest
Paw PAW, Mich.—At first glance they look like old pals, maybe a bunch from the Rotary Club leisurely gabbing away over the hamburger special, making the waitress work overtime for her tip.
But these guys are different. Their eyes, their fidgeting and their restlessness betray a shared bond of chronic pain, sleepless nights, depression and a reliance on heavy-duty prescription drugs. Around this lunchtime table, they talk about the only thing that gives them a measure of peace, the only thing that, for perhaps a few hours, sets them free: marijuana.
They've been smoking or eating marijuana for years—privately and illegally. And now, because Michigan voters approved marijuana use for the treatment of certain serious maladies, Bob White soon will be able to get himself together in his Three Rivers home "without having to draw the shades."
Legalized medical marijuana is about to make its debut in Michigan, which becomes the 13th state and the first between the Rockies and the East Coast to embrace the controversial pain treatment. In a vote last November that defied the culture war/reefer madness connotation to the illegal drug, 63 percent of the state's voters—and a majority in every county—said yes to medical marijuana. The measure collected 250,000 more votes than Barack Obama, who won the state easily.
"This shows that, bottom line, medical use of marijuana is not very controversial with the public," said Wendy Chapkis, co-author of "Dying to Get High: Marijuana as Medicine."
"Politicians are afraid to look soft on drugs, but the public understands that cannabis is not a problem for medical use," Chapkis said.
The police disagree, and so do many politicians. In a change in federal policy, the Justice Department this week said it will go after California's medical marijuana distributors only if they violate federal and state laws. Sen. Charles Grassley (R- Iowa) warned Thursday that such a policy will encourage use of harder drugs.
Opponents appear to be a minority protest against a movement gaining momentum. In the wake of the Michigan vote, legislatures in other states, including Illinois, Minnesota and New Jersey, are advancing bills to legalize the medical use of marijuana, and Michigan will be watched carefully to see how it works for people like the men who recently sat around a table at a west Michigan diner.
There is no sense of euphoria among the men, each weary from grinding pain. Their maladies include cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, neck, back and spinal problems, nerve disorders, depression and sleep apnea, for which they take a cabinetful of prescription painkillers and other medications. Marijuana provides only temporary relief. For them, marijuana is not the ticket to a better life, but to a temporarily less difficult one.
Some, like bleary-eyed Bill Kelly, who grew up in a conservative family, came to it apprehensively. Kelly, 26, suffers from nerve disorders and depression. His foot went numb over lunch.
"It got to the point where my psychiatrist was my drug dealer," said Kelly, who said a turning point for him was when his doctor prescribed anti-psychotic drugs "and all I saw was red and green colors." The Kalamazoo man said he started smoking marijuana in the past year.
Technically, medical marijuana became legal in Michigan in December, a month after the public vote. The law takes full effect in April, when doctors begin receiving applications from patients seeking authorization to use marijuana for illnesses such as cancer, HIV-AIDS, glaucoma and other maladies that provoke chronic pain. Once they receive cards authorizing marijuana use, patients can grow their own—up to 12 plants—or designate a "caregiver" who will grow marijuana for them. Unlike California, there will be no public dispensaries that sell marijuana.
But there are legal holes and inconsistencies in the law that, in many ways, will likely preserve the underground nature of marijuana use. Patients can legally buy marijuana on the street, but sellers can be prosecuted. Although patients can grow their own plants, they cannot legally obtain the seeds to grow them. Medical doctors are not required to participate. And, despite the imprimatur of legality from the state of Michigan, there is nothing in the law to protect medical marijuana patients from being dismissed by their employer for using marijuana.
Ron Stephens lost his job in 2007 after a urine test detected marijuana. Stephens, 50, suffers from depression and a chronic neck disorder that limits his neck, shoulder and arm movements. He's undergone a spinal fusion operation, has lost the use of his right hand and cannot sit for more than 10 or 15 minutes. He spent a decade taking prescribed painkillers, including Vicodin, Percocet, and the synthetic narcotic methadone, which he took for two years.
"Somehow it was OK for me to show up for work with all those drugs in me," said Stephens, who asked that his hometown not be identified. "Marijuana carries such a stigma. It's so ... stupid."
Stephens is now growing his own marijuana, out of economic necessity, given its $125- to $300-per-ounce cost, he said. He built his own "grow room" with high-powered lights and reflective paper on the walls, which is really silver Christmas wrapping.
The grow-it-yourself decision presents a big problem because it puts patients at risk of break-ins and theft, said Greg Francisco, executive director of the Michigan Medical Marijuana Association, which led the successful ballot campaign.
So-called "grow-rippers" are only part of the concern of the police, who predict the law will ignite widespread marijuana abuse.
"You can call it medical marijuana, but this is the nose under the tent to the legalization of marijuana," said George Basar, chief of police in Howell and president of the Michigan Association of Chiefs of Police. "My biggest fear is large, sophisticated growing operations and, eventually, storefront operations, which will lead to narcotics robberies.
"I think what we've done here is taken the pot needs of a small segment of the population and blew the door wide-open to lots of others," Basar added.
Some supporters of the new law acknowledge the potential for abuse. Bob White, who suffers from myasthenia gravis, a muscle wasting disease, and arthritis of the back and knees, predicted "a few idiots will abuse it." John Targowski, a criminal defense attorney in Kalamazoo who specializes in drug cases, said he worries that "opponents will succeed in convincing people that it is a Trojan horse for legalization."
Targowski, 31, is a paraplegic who used cannabis under California's medical marijuana law when he practiced in that state. He cautions against letting opponents define the law as a boon for bearded hippies and potheads. "This isn't about people smoking joints, but I'm afraid it could turn into a culture war instead of a rational scientific discussion," Targowski said.
The public seems to be miles ahead of the political establishment on the issue. Eleven of the 13 states that have approved medical marijuana have done so through public referendums, not the legislative process.
Majorie Russell, a professor at Thomas M. Cooley Law School in Lansing, said the measure passed in Michigan because large numbers of Baby Boomers either have personal experience or know someone who has gone through chemotherapy or suffers from chronic pain. "That changed a lot of attitudes," Russell said.
That debate is not on the mind of Jack Hemsworth, who suffers from cancer and depression and did not want his hometown identified. The news media are to blame for portraying marijuana as "Reefer Madness," he said. The issue that should be discussed, Hemsworth said, is choosing addiction to damaging prescription painkillers or embracing a drug, marijuana, that makes you—if only for a while—functional.
To him, there is nothing to debate.
"If you can escape time, that is bliss," said Hemsworth, who, just a few minutes later, was doubled over by a severe spasm in his left hand. |
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Sat Mar 21, 2009 7:54 pm |
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seek4truth
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Adam,
As a police officer I wish they would have legalized it all together. This law has alot of grey areas. I took a legal update class on this law, nobody really new on how to enforce it. There are far to many loop holes in this law. I would rather have seen shops set up rather then the home grow labs established. I agree with you on the war on drugs. I think the money being spent on it is out of control. When alcohol was illegal, how many murders happened? Now that it is legal, when is the last time you saw someone get killed over a keg of beer? I have attached a link that states this same idea. This organization consists of cops and former cops that want to legalize drugs. I'm not sure on how feel about the hard drugs being legal, but I think they are on to something. Check it out and let me know what you think.
http://www.leap.cc/cms/index.php |
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No job, no income, no motivation, no problem Obama has your back. |
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Mon Mar 23, 2009 4:11 pm |
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Adam
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| LEAP has some good videos on youtube. The drug war is very costly particularly for Mexico. Eventually Mexico may be forced to get smart and quit dying to fight the U.S.'s failed war on drugs. |
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Mon Mar 23, 2009 11:01 pm |
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Adam
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Marijuana No Laughing Matter, Mr. President
The president's busy. He's got important things to do, like rescuing the economy, saving jobs and mortgages and industries. But we ought not to let him off the hook for his frivolous dismissal of a widely popular question he faced in Thursday's Online Town Hall.
At the top of the televised event, the president announced that of the 3.5 million votes on the thousands of questions received in advance, one topic "ranked fairly high." It was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and encourage job creation. He responded: "The answer is no, I don't think that is a good strategy to grow our economy." He then asked rhetorically what the question says about "the online audience."
Get it? His in-the-flesh audience got it, chuckling politely at the allusion to a Stoner Nation plugged in to the "internets."
The problem for Mr. Obama is that marijuana reform was at or near the top of the list of all questions in three major categories: budget, health care reform, green jobs and energy. Our leader doesn't seem to understand that millions of his interlocutor-constituents are actually quite serious about the issue.
Which is not to say that drugs, particularly pot, doesn't offer up a rich if predictable vein of humor. Cheech and Chong's vintage "Dave's not here!" routine is still a side-splitter. As Larry the Cable Guy would say, "I don't care who you are, that's funny right there."
But there's nothing comical about tens of millions of Americans being busted, frightened out of their wits, losing their jobs, their student loans, their public housing, their families, their freedom...
And show me the humor in a dying cancer patient who's denied legal access to a drug known to relieve pain and suffering.
Having just returned from Minnesota whose state lawmakers are entertaining a conservative, highly restrictive medical marijuana law, I can tell you what's not funny to Joni Whiting.
Ms. Whiting told the House's Public Safety Policy and Oversight Committee of her 26-year-old daughter Stephanie's two-year battle with facial melanoma that surfaced during the young woman's third pregnancy. The packed hearing room was dead quiet as Ms. Whiting spoke of Stephanie's face being cut off "one inch at a time, until there was nothing left to cut." She spoke of her daughter's severe nausea, her "continuous and uncontrollable pain."
Stephanie moved back to her family's home and "bravely began to make plans for the ending of her life." The tumors continued to grow, invading the inside and outside of her mouth, as well as her throat and chest. Nausea was a constant companion. Zofran and (significantly) Marinol, the synthetic pill version of THC, did nothing to abate the symptoms. Stephanie began wasting away. She lost all hope of relief.
Joni's other children approached their mother, begged her to let their sister use marijuana. But Ms. Whiting, a Vietnam veteran whose youngest son recently returned from 18 months in Iraq, was a law-abiding woman. And she was afraid of the authorities. There was no way she would allow the illicit substance in her house. As she held her ground, her grownup kids removed Stephanie from the family home.
Three days later, wracked by guilt, Joni welcomed her daughter back. "I called a number of family members and friends...and asked if they knew of anywhere we could purchase marijuana. The next morning someone had placed a package of it on our doorstep. I have never known whom to thank for it but I remain grateful beyond belief." The marijuana restored Stephanie's appetite. It allowed her to eat three meals a day, and to keep the food down. She regained energy and, in the words of her mother, "looked better than I had seen her in months."
Stephanie survived another 89 days, celebrating both Thanksgiving and Christmas with her family.
Shortly after the holidays, Stephanie's pain became "so severe that when she asked my husband and me to lie down on both sides of her and hold her, she couldn't stand the pain of us touching her body."
Stephanie died on January 14, 2003 in the room she grew up in, holding her mother's hand. A mother who, as she told the legislative committee, would "have no problem going to jail for acquiring medical marijuana for my suffering child."
Following Joni Whiting's presentation, it was all I could do to hold it together during my own testimony. Such was the power of this one woman's story. And of the sadness and rage roiling inside me as I reflected on the countless other Stephanies who are made to suffer not only the ravages of terminal illness and intractable pain but the callousness and narrow-mindedness of their leaders.
When I finished my testimony, a local police chief, a member of the committee, angrily accused me of disrespecting the police officers in the room--who'd shown up in force, in uniform, to oppose medical marijuana. Wearing a bright yellow tie with the lettering "Police Line, Do Not Cross," the chief charged me with placing more stock in the opinions of doctors than of Minnesota's cops. Guilty, as charged. Who are we, I asked him, to substitute our judgment for that of medical professionals and their patients? Who are we, for that matter, to deny the will of the people.
There's much value in humor, even during times of pain and tragedy. So long as the joke is not at the expense of the suffering.
It's been a bad couple of weeks for the president. His Leno comment about the Special Olympics while self-deprecating and not malicious was certainly tone deaf, followed soon after by his casting gratuitous aspersions at serious advocates of marijuana reform.
But Barack Obama is a decent and honorable man, compassionate and wise. I can't believe he would do anything other than what Joni Whiting did if, God forbid, he faced similar choices within his own family. I can't believe he doesn't realize the political value of taking a more reasoned, courageous stand on drug policy reform in general. Or of at least providing honest, thoughtful answers on the issue.
Perhaps we should show him what's in it for him? Perhaps we should make certain that in every future "town hall" the president is reassured of the seriousness of the legions of voters working to end cruel and ineffective drug laws. |
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Adam
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Sun Mar 29, 2009 12:17 pm |
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Adam
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Mon Apr 20, 2009 3:59 pm |
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back again
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| wellll. i see nothing wrong with medical use but working in construction i don't want to work with anyone who's high on anything. i saw the aftermath of an oiler who was high working with a crane operator. the oiler slipped/ tripped but the crane operator didn't know this kid was on the tracks. it was quite a mess. |
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even a small act of goodness may be a tiny raft of salvation across the treacherous gulf of sin, but one who drinks the wine of selfishness, and dances on the little boat of meaness, sinks in the ocean of ignorance.
P.Y. |
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Mon Apr 20, 2009 5:37 pm |
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Adam
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Thu Sep 03, 2009 11:58 am |
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