cannabisnews.com: The Lockyer/Vasconcellos Medical Pot Bill (SB 848)





The Lockyer/Vasconcellos Medical Pot Bill (SB 848)
Posted by FoM on June 27, 1999 at 11:29:28 PT
A Letter from Steve Kubby!
Source: Kubby Files
Friends, The Lockyer/Vasconcellos medical pot bill (SB 848) is set for Assembly Health Committee hearing July 13th.
Sunday, June 27, 1999 Over the past few weeks, a number of folks I respect have asked me to support this bill. Their argument goes like this: --This bill is the best we can hope for. --The voluntary ID program will protect patients in rural areas. --The venue will change from Law Enforcement to Health Departments. --We will have more impact if we wait until the legislature tries to change the bill and then make a real media stink. Now for the downside. Senate Bill 848, lays down several new layers of bureaucracy and fees on the backs of sick, disabled and dying people. Virtually everything in SB 848 is designed so as to not inconvenience law enforcement -- at the expense of patients. Under SB 848 medical marijuana patients will become a persecuted group much like the Jewish people under Nazi Germany: --subject to arrest for not reporting if they move or change doctors --subject to arrest for failing to carry the proper "papers" --must submit to warrantless search --must avoid prohibited areas such as schools, parks, youth centers I wish I could please my friends and be quiet about SB 848, but the sad truth is that SB 848 is a hostile and intrusive law, intended by politicians and police to deal themselves back into the very areas of our private medical lives that Prop. 215 now protects. Medical rights are inalienable and cannot be separated from us by any law or any government. Medical rights are protected by the Bill of Rights, the Single Convention Treaty, the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights and most standards of human dignity. Senate bill 848 not only violates medical rights, it creates new penalties that make medical decisions subject to political ideology. Nothing in SB 848 does anything to hold accountable those rogue officials and police who continue to violate, loot, persecute and destroy sick and dying people. Sixteen pages of recommendations and not one single penalty for anyone from the government who violates the medical or civil rights of a medical marijuana patient. Here are some of the repressive proposals in SB 848: --Creates a limited list of conditions for which cannabis can be recommended or approved. Proposition 215 allows any doctor to recommend marijuana for any medical condition. And why not? How many doctors are going to recommend medical marijuana for frivolous ailments? Why do we need politicians and police to decide which ailments qualify? --Bans all out-of-state doctors. Proposition 215 empowers any medical doctor from any state to recommend or approve their patient’s medical use of marijuana while the patient is in California. This bill would ban doctor recommendations from Sloan-Kettering (NYC) or the Mayo Clinic (Minnesota). --Imposes limits on caregivers such as registering every caregiver with their digital photograph and address information; banning family members under 18 from watering a patient's plants; limiting patients to one caregiver at a time. --Makes it a crime, punishable by jail and fines, for a sick or dying patient to change doctors and not notify the county health department. --Establishes 58 separate and distinct registries; one in every county in California plus two state level registries: one maintained by the state Dept. of Health Services and another by state law enforcement personnel. --Forces every patient to pay fees and go through all the hurdles, verifications, updates every year, even if their doctor’s approval is long term. Prop. 215 allows for open ended recommendations with no time limits (Remember, many patients are so sick, or weak that any visit to the doctor or Health Department is painful, exhausting and dangerous.) --Destroys the confidentiality of patient medical records and violates the sanctity of the doctor-patient relationship. --Limits patients who register with the state and their caregiver to possession, transportation, delivery, sales or cultivation of medical marijuana in an amount approved by the Department of Health Services or subjects them to arrest. Proposition 215 establishes no such limits because some patients want to grow a long-term supply at once while others want to grow continuously. I urge you to take a moment and re-read The Compassionate Use Act of 1996. Like our Bill of Rights, this act is simple and clear in protecting the individual rights of patients. Nothing in SB 848 is required or even suggested. Check it out at:http://www.kubby.com/CompassionateUseAct.htmlLet freedom grow, Steve THE KUBBY FILES-http://www.kubby.com/Monarch Bay Plaza #375Dana Point, Ca 92629DON'T GET LEFT OUT OF THE LOOP:Subscribe:Kubby-Announce-on list.kubby.com Unsubscribe:Kubby-Announce-off list.kubby.org 
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Comment #2 posted by Doctor Dave on June 27, 1999 at 23:08:13 PT
This Bill Taxes You and Takes Away Your Rights
This bill is not even close to the best we can hope for. The politicians should be talking about a sales bill that establishes reasonable taxes which do not create a black market, not finding additional ways to burden and repress sick and dying people.Forget the out-of-state doctors provision -- only CA doctors are subject to state jurisdiction, after all :-|, how about the main points?How would anyone feel who has to pay a yearly tax for the right to use a medical treament? Especially someone who is sick and dying?And why are criminal penalties prescribed for patients? Didn't Proposition 215 REMOVE criminal penalties for MJ patients? Why are police to be involved in what is quite simply a medical decision that should be protected by patient-doctor confidentiality?Doctor Dave
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Comment #1 posted by Rainbow on June 27, 1999 at 15:28:47 PT:
Mayo????
Sorry Steve but the Mayo Clinic is probably not inclined to prescribe marijuana. They need medical Science (whatever that is) before they will say OK.In fact they won't even change their website of wrong information. Like marijuana causes breast enlargement in Men and marijuana will make you impotent and women not able to conceive.Sorry the Mayo Clinic is a prohibitionist site.CheersRainbowP.S. i know I have been trying for several months to get them to change.
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