cannabisnews.com: Panel Makes Progress To Fix Medical Marijuana Law
function share_this(num) {
 tit=encodeURIComponent('Panel Makes Progress To Fix Medical Marijuana Law');
 url=encodeURIComponent('http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/25/thread25913.shtml');
 site = new Array(5);
 site[0]='http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[1]='http://www.stumbleupon.com/submit.php?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[2]='http://digg.com/submit?topic=political_opinion&media=video&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[3]='http://reddit.com/submit?url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 site[4]='http://del.icio.us/post?v=4&noui&jump=close&url='+url+'&title='+tit;
 window.open(site[num],'sharer','toolbar=0,status=0,width=620,height=500');
 return false;
}






Panel Makes Progress To Fix Medical Marijuana Law
Posted by CN Staff on August 30, 2010 at 05:17:25 PT
Gazette Editorial
Source: Billings Gazette
Montana -- We’re encouraged by last week’s legislative action moving the process forward to tighten Montana’s medical marijuana regulations. Granted, this is just a little step in what will be a long legislative effort that could bring more restrictions to the state’s medical marijuana program that voters placed into law in 2004.The Children, Families, Health and Human Services Interim Committee voted 7-1 Tuesday to have a bill drafted and prepared for introduction before the 2011 Legislature convenes in January.
All this is in response to the unexpected growth of medical marijuana users and businesses. A year ago, the state had fewer than 4,000 marijuana patients. Now, almost 23,000 people have a medical marijuana card.Reports of abuses and questionable practices surround this industry, which continues to give us pause. An Aug. 22 Gazette story recounted our reporter’s eight-minute, six-question interview with a doctor over the Internet that yielded approval for a medical marijuana card. A Friday story described the wrongful-discharge lawsuit that three former employees of a Missoula medical marijuana business have filed accusing their boss of ordering the falsification of hundreds of cards.The proposed bill supported by the committee outlines these provisions:• Medical marijuana patients would have to be Montana residents. Current law contains no such requirement.• Physicians certifying patients for marijuana use must meet a detailed “standard of care” that includes a physical examination, maintaining of patient records and monitoring response to the treatment.• Patients seeking a medical marijuana card to treat “chronic pain” must get a recommendation from at least two physicians, not one. Nearly 70 percent of cardholders obtained a card after being diagnosed with chronic pain.• Medical marijuana “caregivers,” who now can have an unlimited number of patients for whom they provide and grow marijuana, would be limited to five patients and reclassified as “providers.”• New categories of marijuana “dispensaries” and “growers” would be created, must be licensed by the state and could grow marijuana tied to specific patients who sign up with a dispensary or provider. The businesses would provide quarterly reports on their amount of customers and marijuana grown and distributed.• Licensed providers, growers and dispensaries would have to undergo a fingerprinting and background check by state officials. Convicted felons could not get a license, and people on parole or probation with the Department of Corrections could not get a medical marijuana card.• The Department of Revenue would handle licensing of growers, dispensaries and providers.• Smoking medical marijuana in “plain view of or in a place open to the general public” would be prohibited.• Counties and cities would be allowed to use zoning regulations to restrict, but not prohibit, marijuana businesses.We believe most Montanans support more controls on this wide-open industry. The 2004 initiative received overwhelming support because voters believed its intent was to help seriously ill individuals with certain health problems. No one anticipated the explosion in the number of medical marijuana cardholders and businesses to supply them.Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)Published: August 30, 2010Copyright: 2010 The Billings GazetteContact: speakup billingsgazette.comWebsite: http://www.billingsgazette.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/z0ACU2abCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml 
Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help 
     
     
     
     




Comment #7 posted by runruff on September 01, 2010 at 05:45:43 PT
"What about glaucoma?"
I had to decide whether I want my eyesight or grow man boobs or go brain dead, impotent, loose my immune system, become lazy, unwashed, committing crimes to support my habit. I expect that since cannabis is a proven gateway drug, after forty years of almost constant use, I may still want to go on to the hard stuff and even the needle? I have never been attracted to the hard stuff. I don't know if I would become addicted to heroine or coke I have never tried them and I know I never will.I learned my lesson about hard stuff while serving as a teenage soldier. I became addicted to alcohol and it caused me a lot of trouble. I quit alcohol at age 24 and never looked back. All of my old drinking buddies have died 10,20,30, years ago to alcohol related deaths.If they had switched to cannabis, as I did, they would be alive today. See all my body knew was it was not always happy and booze could fool my bodies into thinking it was feeling good for awhile. I could not rid my self of the constant craving for alcohol. It was a 24/7 struggle until I realized the naturalness of the herb. I could quell the cravings and feel the way my body likes to feel without all the domestic, social and job related problems that go with booze. I did not understand addictions and craving back then, I understand better now. It's human to crave. It is a physical biological thing not a shameful, sinful, criminal thing to do. How perverse is our government to pervert nature into power and money?
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #6 posted by Hope on August 31, 2010 at 11:38:07 PT
Explosion
As Storm Crow said there are so many conditions and maladies that cannabis can help with.I agree with Runruff, Comment 4.So many people needing cannabis?I heard somewhere, recently, that, "One in every three people has or will have cancer."That's just cancer. What about glaucoma? What about chronic pain? What about epilepsy? What about muscular diseases? What about Alzheimer's? What about Tourette's syndrome?One in every three people has or will have cancer.There's your "Explosion".These people seeking this "Permission of the State, Busybodies, Profiteers, and Prohibitionists", need to see if they can benefit from cannabis consumption. They need to be have good access to it.As for the people that think too many people are seeking this balm. It's freaking them out. It's an "Explosion". They need their heads examined. (They could do it themselves. They have mirrors.) They're seriously self righteous busybodies all stirred into a fearful tither and trying to stir others into the same fearful tither.They should be rejoicing at the rediscovery of a good, old time medicinal. They should be rejoicing for any recovery and restoration, however small, of the natural freedom that should be accorded to all mankind.One in every three people they know has or will have cancer.One in every three people we all know or see has or will have cancer.That's just cancer.
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #5 posted by Storm Crow on August 31, 2010 at 10:04:28 PT
With all the ills that cannabis can treat....
Why wouldn't any informed person expect "an explosion"? The gentleman needs to read "Granny Storm Crow's MMJ Reference List- July 2010" and get an idea of the scope of medical conditions that cannabis can treat. Perhaps then, he would not be so astounded that cannabis IS a medicine that works- with MINIMAL side effects compared to the serious ones caused by opiates, anti-depressants, anti-epileptics and several other medications! 
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #4 posted by runruff on August 30, 2010 at 09:28:46 PT
"No one anticipated the explosion "
Uh, yes we did!You all did not realize how far out of the main stream you are on this subject. You are sinking in a cannabis aware society. You and your kind are sinking out of sight into your bog of lies, ignorance and deciet.Anticipate the explosion [enthusiasm], we were counting on it!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #3 posted by FoM on August 30, 2010 at 06:10:55 PT
Study: Smoking Pot May Ease Chronic Pain
August 30, 2010URL: http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/08/30/health.pot.reduce.pain/
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #2 posted by FoM on August 30, 2010 at 06:08:49 PT
Potpal
That's great. A Hemp House too!
[ Post Comment ]


Comment #1 posted by potpal on August 30, 2010 at 05:59:26 PT
ot / first a car, now the house
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/08/30/hemp-house-takes-green-de_n_695827.html 
[ Post Comment ]


Post Comment