Pubdate: Wed, 03 Oct 2012
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Copyright: 2012 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact:  http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel

ACTIVISTS VS. BUREAUCRATS

Lawsuits part of effort to get state officials to comply with medical
marijuana law

Medical marijuana laws generally get bureaucratic pushback from
administrators, politicians and law enforcement unhappy with the
changes made by citizens' initiatives. Michigan medical marijuana
activists claim that is the case with the Michigan Bureau of Licensing
and Regulatory Affairs (LARA), which oversees the Michigan Medical
Marihuana program (MMMP).

LARA has definitely been remiss in processing applications and issuing
registration cards to patients and caregivers in the past. Although
Rae Ramsdell, director of LARA's Bureau of Health Professions, claims
to have caught up on a backlog of applications since buying new
card-printing machines, complaints about receiving cards late still
circulate among activists.

In addition, LARA has not convened a review panel to consider adding
qualifying conditions to the Michigan Medical Marijuana Program
registry as required by the law passed in November 2008. After nearly
four years, that still hasn't happened.

On Sept. 19, the Detroit-based law office, Cannabis Counsel PLC, filed
a lawsuit in Ingham County against LARA Director Steven H. Hilfinger
and Ramsdell on the behalf of plaintiff Martin Chilcutt, a nearly
80-year-old U.S. Navy veteran who founded the group Veterans for
Medical Marijuana Access. The suit requests a court order that would
force the officials to follow the law.

"There have been hundreds of petitions filed and they still haven't
convened a panel to add qualifying conditions to the registry," says
attorney Thomas Lavigne of Cannabis Counsel. "Our guy filed years ago.
They're supposed to make a decision within 180 days of the petition.
They haven't carried out their obligation under this act in any regard."

There are about a dozen conditions that qualify patients to have
medical marijuana in Michigan. These include cancer, glaucoma, AIDS,
ALC, Crohn's disease, Alzheimer's disease, chronic pain, nausea,
seizures, wasting syndrome and a few other conditions. Although they
don't qualify in Michigan, Parkinson's disease, anorexia and
post-traumatic stress disorder are qualifying conditions in some other
states. A bill pending in the Michigan Legislature would remove
glaucoma as a qualifying condition.

Registration cards are another issue. According to law, the MMMP has
to approve or deny an application within 15 days of receiving the
application and fee. If the application is approved LARA is supposed
to issue a registry card within five days. If the application is
denied, the department has to notify the applicant within 15 days of
receipt. After 30 days, if an application has not been denied but the
applicant has not received a card, a doctor's recommendation and the
patient's application can serve as verification of his or her status
for legal purposes. Lavigne says that's not working.

"In the meantime, law enforcement officers are taking the attitude
that if you don't have the plastic card from the state you're not
legal," he says. "We've got hundreds of cases where people have not
gotten their card ever."

Lavigne says that, several months ago, LARA had a notice on its
website telling applicants that if they had applied 11 months earlier
the agency wasn't going to send a card because it would be expired in
a month.

Lori Donlan, from LARA's office of communications, sent an e-mail to
me saying that LARA was in "100 percent compliance of the Act" and
that the panel, which still lacks two members, will meet by the end of
the year. Regarding the lawsuit, she wrote, "No comments are available
at this time since the document is being reviewed by our legal
counsel, the Attorney General's Office."

There are about 131,000 registered medical marijuana patients in
Michigan and about 27,000 caregivers. Early on, LARA representatives
claimed that they were overwhelmed by applications for the program.
However, it's been nearly four years since the program was
implemented. That seems enough time to ramp things up. State
registration cards for patients on Social Security, Social Security
Disability or certain categories of Medicaid cost $25. The charge for
all others is $100. Information on the LARA website says that there
have been 222,413 MMMP applications and renewals. It would seem that
there is enough money in the system to hire staff and buy equipment to
expedite things.

Lawsuits seem to be the way to get things done in general when it
comes to getting government to change marijuana policies. On Oct. 16,
oral arguments will begin in Americans for Safer Access vs. Drug
Enforcement Agency in the ASA's effort to get the DEA to remove
marijuana from Schedule 1 of the Controlled Substances Act. Schedule 1
drugs are those deemed to have no medical use and a high potential for
abuse. The ASA was one of a coalition of organizations that petitioned
the DEA in 2002 to reschedule marijuana. The DEA denied that petition
last year after ASA sued to compel the government to act on it.

That denial opened the door for ASA to sue the DEA to defend its
position in court. There is plenty of evidence that marijuana does
have medical uses available now - thousands of studies are now on
record. That doesn't mean the DEA will reschedule marijuana, but it
will be very interesting to see how its lawyers will argue against
seemingly overwhelming evidence.

Evidence of marijuana's medical efficacy is getting stronger and
stronger. Recently scientists at California Pacific Medical Center
reported that Cannabidiol (CBD), one of marijuana's active
ingredients, might stop the spread of aggressive cancers by turning
off the ID-1 gene that spreads the disease. Laboratory and animal
testing has already produced promising results, and researchers are
now waiting for permission to perform human clinical trials.

"It took us about 20 years of research to figure this out, but we are
very excited," molecular biologist Pierre Desprez, one of the
scientists behind the discovery, told The Huffington Post. "We want to
get started with trials as soon as possible."

Researchers warn that the amount of CBD necessary to get their results
cannot be achieved by smoking marijuana. Desprez's team has been
synthesizing CBD in a laboratory. CBD has also been shown to be
helpful in treating seizures, Alzheimer's disease and multiple sclerosis.

Last year a Harvard University study showed THC, the ingredient in
cannabis that produces the high in users, is useful in treating lung
cancer. Researchers found that THC activates naturally produced
receptors to fight off lung cancer.

On the down side, recent research has shown that chronic marijuana use
by youth under age 18 has been tied to lowering their IQ by an average
of about five points. While this is sobering news, marijuana
legalization advocates are pretty uniform in arguing that the
substance be legalized for adults 21 and older.

Another recent study, by researchers at the University of Southern
California, found a relationship between smoking marijuana and
testicular cancer in young men. Based on the self-reported behavior of
163 testicular cancers victims compared to 292 healthy men, USC
researchers found that marijuana smokers were twice as likely to
develop virulent strains of testicle cancer. The majority of
testicular cancer diagnoses are in men aged 20 to 44. According to the
American Cancer Society, if the cancer has not spread, the five-year
survival rate is 99 percent. Ironically, the USC folks found that
cocaine use reduced the risk of testicular cancer in marijuana users.
Keep it real guys, frosting your nose is not recommended as a way to
maintain healthy genitals.
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MAP posted-by: Matt