by Russell Barth

 
Ottawa ON – I would rather have one than not, but living with a Medical Marijuana License from Health Canada has been a bit of a nightmare. For my wife and I, it has been a stressful and humiliating experience on more than one occasion. The fact that we have to carry “Special Papers” with us to keep us out of jail because we have medical conditions smacks of segregation.
 
Okay, so it isn’t exactly The Gaza Strip or Apartheid or the Warsaw Ghetto, but big things like that often start out as little things like this. I had three of my great uncles go to Europe in the 1940′s to try and prevent exactly this sort of totalitarian nonsense from ever coming to our shores, and now look at us.
 
First, there is living with a debilitating medical condition itself. People who seek a medical marijuana license from Health Canada do not have intermittent back pain or knee aches that keeps them from tossing around the ol’ pig skin with their grandson, or a bit of nausea when they have one too many chili dogs. The people seeking this medical exemption are people living with painful, debilitating, and often life-threatening conditions like MS, arthritis, crohn’s, PTSD, AIDS, epilepsy, Parkinson’s, and cancer.
 
Patients are often made to feel worse when they fail to respond to the “standard” medications, and are often accused of trying to hustle doctors into “a prescription to get high”. The irony being, of course, that anyone who has used pot knows that you can get a lot higher with the pharmaceuticals than you can with pot. If getting high were the motive, there are far easier way to go about it than this.
 
Then there is the paperwork. My wife and I have been exceedingly lucky in this regard, as our doctors were not reluctant to sign. Many patients have difficulty getting their doctors to sign, but not because of pot. Usually, it is because the doctors don’t want to have anything to do with the unconstitutional federal program, or because their insurance, or the clinic where they practice, or the College Of Physicians, has told them “you are on your own” if they sign.
 
Read complete article here:
http://cornwallfreenews.com/2011/08/systematic-discrimination-what-its-like-living-with-a-medical-marijuana-license-opinion-by-russell-barth-august-2-2011/

The General Assembly’s attempt at comprehensive sentencing reform crashed and burned in the last session. So prospects for any effort to reduce criminal penalties look like a long shot. But a targeted attempt at addressing marijuana laws could fare better, provided the bill receives a good public discussion before the full legislature considers it.
Financially, Indiana needs marijuana sentencing reform. The legislature’s Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee heard last week that reducing or eliminating penalties for possession of small amounts of marijuana could save up to $200 million a year in law enforcement and corrections costs.
Legalizing and taxing marijuana for medical use could bring in $50 million annually in sales tax revenues.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20110802/EDIT07/308029997/1021/EDIT

Written by Brandie Piper

 
Seattle (NBC) – We all love our animals and want to keep them happy. Since it’s hard for them to roll a joint, a Seattle company is developing a medical marijuana patch for pets. Jim Alekson’s Medical Marijuana Delivery Systems LLC has patented a patch called Tetracan that he says could be used on dogs, cats and even horses.
But why would a dog need medical marijuana?
“Because dogs suffer from the same maladies that humans do. It’s a question of quality of life,” said Alekson.
While the patch does conjure visions of pups frolicking in fields of poppies, Alekson says pets suffer greatly from pain, everything from arthritis to cancer. He points to pharmaceutical painkillers that have proven harmful, sometimes fatal in animals.
Alekson, an owner of three Papillons, says the pot patch is far more mellow.
“I’d much rather they were on something holistic as opposed to something chemical that I know is breaking down some of the organs in their body,” he said.
 
Read complete article here:
http://www.ksdk.com/news/article/269280/71/Marijuana-coming-soon-for-dogs