ALBANY - New Yorkers who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder will now be able to use medical marijuana as a form of treatment. Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law Saturday that added PTSD to the list of conditions eligible for medical marijuana in New York. "As of today, marijuana will be legalized if a doctor authorizes and finds the condition of PTSD for a veteran, and I think that can help thousands of veterans. It's something that we've been talking about for a long time, and I'm glad we're taking action," Cuomo said. [continues 413 words]
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has signed legislation to add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of ailments that can legally be treated with medical marijuana. The PTSD bill was part of a package of legislation that Cuomo signed Saturday to mark Veterans Day. The Democratic governor said 19,000 New Yorkers with PTSD could be helped by medical marijuana. He said the potential beneficiaries include veterans as well as police officers and survivors of domestic violence, crime and accidents. [continues 55 words]
In July, the Food and Drug Administration took the important step of approving two final-phase clinical trials to determine whether a party drug that has long been on the Drug Enforcement Administration's Schedule I list of banned substances could be used to treat a psychiatric condition that afflicts millions. The drug is MDMA, a psychedelic commonly known as Ecstasy, previously deemed to have "no currently accepted medical use." The trials aim to determine whether the drug is, as earlier trials have suggested, a safe and effective treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder, when combined with psychotherapy. [continues 869 words]
Vendors hope to inform and educate THOUSANDS of people streamed into Winnipeg's first-ever HempFest Cannabis Expo this weekend to listen to presentations by industry leaders and check out exhibits set up by cannabis and hemp businesses from around the country. More than 60 businesses tabled the expo, which was held Saturday and Sunday at the RBC Convention Centre. Organizers estimated that about 15 per cent of the businesses were Manitoba-based. "It's to give a platform for businesses to connect with people who are hungry for information. Maybe they're interested in medical cannabis and they don't know where to go or what to ask," event organizer Sacha Hockenhull said. [continues 752 words]
Each of San Francisco's 11 supervisors has called for "equity" in the city's cannabis laws, meaning they want to create a racially diverse industry that gives former drug offenders a shot at success. On Wednesday, Supervisor Malia Cohen presented an ordinance to help the city achieve its social justice goals when sales of recreational marijuana become legal throughout the state in January. The city won't issue permits to sell recreational cannabis until an equity program is approved. Cohen's proposal - modeled after a similar program that Oakland approved in March and another that's being considered in Los Angeles - would prioritize permits for dispensary operators with marijuana arrests or convictions between 1971 and 2009. Also eligible for priority would be entrepreneurs who committed other nonviolent crimes during that time period, or who earn 80 percent of San Francisco's area median income, or who were displaced from their homes within the past 22 years. [continues 475 words]
Now heads private firm in marijuana sector A New Democratic MP is warning of a 'clear appearance of conflict of interest' after it was revealed that a member of the government's marijuana legalization task force is now running a medical marijuana company. Raf Souccar, a former RCMP deputy commissioner, served on the independent task force that advised the government on legalizing recreational marijuana use. The task force filed its non-binding report on Nov. 30, 2016, and it was made public two weeks later. [continues 748 words]
Medical marijuana dispensaries would be allowed to stay open while the state decides who will get a license for the lucrative cannabis business under a pair of bills to be introduced in the state Legislature. Sen. David Knezek, D-Dearborn Heights, and Rep. Yousef Rabhi, D-Ann Arbor, will introduce the bills in the Senate and House this week to counteract an advisory by the state to dispensaries that they should close before Dec. 15 or risk their chances at getting a license. [continues 466 words]
Toronto's former chief is not the only ex-cop or politician looking to profit from legal marijuana, but he may be the biggest hypocrite among them Julian Fantino has turned over a new leaf on marijuana. The former Toronto police chief, OPP commish and Harper-era cabinet minister will serve as executive chair of something called Aleafia Inc., which describes itself on its website as a "total health network." The company will essentially act as a middleman that connects prospective medicinal-marijuana users with licensed growers, according to the Globe and Mail, which broke the story over the weekend - and then promptly put it behind a paywall knowing full well the clicking frenzy Fantino's association with legal weed would touch off. [continues 669 words]
Fantino, once outspoken against culture of 'dopeheads,' says he has 'become more aware' of the drug's medicinal benefits Two of Canada's former top cops - one of them recently a Conservative cabinet minister - are helping launch a new prescription-marijuana business. Julian Fantino and Raf Souccar are executives with a business that will open a storefront clinic in a strip mall north of Toronto in the coming weeks. Vaughan-based Aleafia Inc. is not a marijuana dispensary. It aims to be be among a new breed of corporate go-betweens, a "total health" provider that creates treatment plans for prospective medicinal-marijuana users and connects them with cannabis products from licensed growers. [continues 763 words]
Mayor: No rush to OK lounges A Toronto committee has endorsed the provincial government's plan for recreational marijuana despite pleas from the pot industry to support private dispensaries and cannabis lounges within the city limits. Councillor Glenn De Baeremaeker said the city has a very limited role in this matter as jurisdiction falls to the federal and provincial governments. "You're talking to the wrong guy," De Baeremaeker said to the many stakeholder and user representatives who complained Monday about the provincial plan to sell pot through LCBO-affiliated stores and to limit consumption to private property. [continues 333 words]
Re: Big Weed will capitalize on cannabis at any cost to society, Opinion, Sept. 12 The government and Health Canada should fix the issues of access within the Access to Cannabis for Medical Purposes Regulations first. It's nothing short of pathetic that those previously licensed under the old regulations still don't have access. The government and Health Canada also need to end their sanctioned consortiums' profiteering off the backs of their clients. This has already cost Canadian veterans their coverage. Wayne Phillips, Hamilton [end]
Federal interference with Pennsylvania's medical-marijuana program would "force more suffering on some of our most vulnerable constituents," Gov. Wolf said in a letter to Rep. Charlie Dent (R., Pa.), who serves on the House Appropriations Committee. Wolf is alarmed that Congress could eliminate a provision in an appropriations bill that for four years has prohibited federal agencies from cracking down on the implementation of state-approved medical-cannabis programs. The states considered the provision, known as the Rohrabacher amendment, as tacit protection that gave them permission to launch their cannabis programs. [continues 349 words]
A sleeper issue has emerged among DFL candidates in the 2018 governor's race: Marijuana. St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, state Reps. Erin Murphy, Tina Liebling and Paul Thissen, and U.S. Rep. Tim Walz all support legalizing marijuana for recreational and not just medical use. Among the major DFL candidates, only State Auditor Rebecca Otto declined to do so. "When you confront the reality of the cost of criminalization vs. the benefits of legalization, I think the benefits outweigh the costs," said Coleman, whose campaign approached the Star Tribune to discuss the issue. [continues 675 words]
Not long ago, a supporter of mine visiting from California dropped by my Capitol office. A retired military officer and staunch conservative, he and I spent much of our conversation discussing the Republican agenda. Finally, I drew a breath and asked him about an issue I feared might divide us: the liberalization of our marijuana laws, specifically medical marijuana reform, on which for years I had been leading the charge. What did he think about that controversial position? "Dana," he replied, "there are some things about me you don't know." He told me about his three sons, all of whom enlisted after 9/11. [continues 730 words]
The explosion that wounded me during a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan in 2010 left me with a traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress. In 2012 I was medically retired from the Marine Corps because of debilitating migraines, vertigo and crippling depression. After a nine-year career, I sought care from the Department of Veterans Affairs. At first, I didn't object to the pills that arrived by mail: antidepressants, sedatives, amphetamines and mood stabilizers. Stuff to wake me up. Stuff to put me down. Stuff to keep me calm. Stuff to rile me up. Stuff to numb me from the effects of my wars as an infantryman in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stuff to numb me from the world all around. [continues 824 words]
Johnsie Gooslin spent Jan. 16, 2015, tending his babies -- that's what he called his marijuana plants. More than 70 of them were growing in a hydroponic system of his own design. Sometimes, he'd stay in his barn for 16 hours straight, perfecting his technique. That night, he left around 8 o'clock to head home. The moon was waning, down to a sliver, which left the sky as dark as the ridges that lined it. As he pulled away, the lights from his late-model Kia swept across his childhood hollow and his parents' trailer, which stood just up the road from the barn. He turned onto West Virginia Route 65. Crossing Mingo County, he passed the Delbarton Mine, where he had worked on and off for 14 years before his back gave out. Though Johnsie was built like a linebacker, falling once from a coal truck and twice from end loaders had taken a toll. At 36, his disks were a mess, and sciatica sometimes shot pain to his knees. [continues 4150 words]
Authorities found an exhaustive list of weapons, drug paraphernalia and Nazi propaganda when they raided a trailer Tuesday morning in a rural pocket of west central Florida, according to the Pasco County Sheriff's Office. Five felons, two of whom authorities described as documented gang members, were arrested after deputies and a SWAT team served a search warrant on the suburban New Port Richey mobile home, WFLA-Channel 8 reported. Inside the trailer, which is partially obscured by thick vegetation along a wooded street, were four firearms, ammunition, "hundreds of pages" of miscellaneous bank account and personal identification information, credit cards, veterans' ID cards, insurance cards, vehicle titles, "hundreds of pages of American Nazi Family propaganda (rules, hierarchy, oaths, etc)," opiates, meth, and drug paraphernalia including needles and scales, deputies said. [continues 60 words]
A Texas girl whose family moved to Colorado to use medical marijuana to treat her intractable epilepsy is among those suing Attorney General Jeff Sessions over the federal cannabis prohibition. Attorney General Jeff Sessions says the federal government should be able to prosecute marijuana use and distribution in states that have declared it legal. An 11-year-old Texas cannabis "refugee" has joined a retired NFL football player, an Iraq War veteran and two others in a lawsuit challenging beleaguered Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the federal government's stance on medical marijuana. [continues 795 words]
U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions is pressing Congress to allow federal law enforcement to target medical marijuana operations in states where they are legal. (July 21, 2017) U.S. Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions is pressing Congress to allow federal law enforcement to target medical marijuana operations in states where they are legal. (July 21, 2017) The Trump administration's attack on legal marijuana, already stymied by large states determined not to roll back the clock, is increasingly confronting an even more politically potent adversary: military veterans. [continues 1222 words]
Tens of thousands of people use cannabis in Fresno every day. Hundreds of people work in the cannabis industry, though few will admit it publicly -- and for good reason. Cannabis business is booming in Fresno and Fresno County, even though cultivation and retail sales are banned by local ordinances. The biggest pipe dream in Fresno is that cannabis bans work. In reality, they don't. Even so, the Fresno City Council just voted to prohibit dispensaries and other "recreational" businesses made legal by the passage of Proposition 64, the Adult Use of Marijuana Act. This is disappointing but not surprising. Medical cannabis has been legal since Proposition 215 passed in 1996, but City Hall has never bothered to draft local regulations. [continues 701 words]
ALBANY - Veterans groups are pressing Gov. Andrew Cuomo to allow those with post-traumatic stress disorder to use medical marijuana, urging him to sign a bill that will soon head to his desk. The state Senate voted late last month to add PTSD to the list of illnesses and ailments eligible for the state's medical-marijuana program, about six weeks after the Assembly voted to do the same. It remains unclear, however, whether Cuomo will sign the bill that could significantly expand the number of eligible patients in New York's medical-marijuana program, which is among the more restrictive in the nation. [continues 517 words]
TEMPLE TERRACE -- Dropping a giant joint in favor of the "USS Maryjane" seemed to smooth the waters for a pro-marijuana entry in this year's Temple Terrace Fourth of July Parade. The new float designed by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws featured the flag-festooned ship crewed by some military veterans and painted with the slogan, "Hemp for Victory." The theme plays off a World War II film from the Department of Agriculture that praised the nation's hemp farmers for their work in creating strong ropes from the stalks of marijuana plants for the armed forces. [continues 227 words]
The legalization of marijuana is just around the corner and many questions still have to be studied and answered to make sure it's going to be done responsibly, and more importantly safely, so the benefits can be highlighted for those still questioning the decision. The National Access Cannabis (http:/nationalaccesscanabis.com) is doing the largest-ever harm reduction study for opioids using cannabis(http:/opiatestudy.ca/) They are starting with 2,000 patients and plan to grow it quickly, based on the medical resources and the medical community's extensive interest in the study. [continues 255 words]
On the heels of a House rewrite Wednesday of the state's adult-use recreational marijuana law, approved by voters in November, local reaction has been mixed. Increasing the tax rate on marijuana sales from 12 percent to 28 percent and allowing local governing boards to ban or limit pot stores without asking local voters are among the more significant changes in the House bill. On Thursday, the debate over reshaping the law shifted to the state Senate, where a more modest set of revisions to existing law appeared headed for passage. [continues 925 words]
Donald Trump was not elected president to renew crackdowns on marijuana in states that have legalized it for medicinal or recreational purposes. Last week, it was revealed that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions sent a private letter to congressional leaders dated May 1 asking them to lift the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which prevents the Justice Department from meddling with state medical marijuana laws. "I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime," Sessions wrote, citing no evidence linking medical marijuana to the "historic drug epidemic" or violent crime increases. [continues 370 words]
Last Friday afternoon the House of Commons adjourned for the day with a rare event - a unanimous vote in favour of a private members bill from an opposition party. Bill C-211 instructs the government to create a federal framework to better deal with post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD. I've heard a lot about PTSD from people in my riding - it may surprise some how serious a problem this is in our communities, how widespread and how debilitating. And it bears repeating that PTSD not only impacts men and women who have served in our armed forces in actions overseas. [continues 437 words]
B.C. scientists are conducting a study that is one of the first to compare the way different strains of marijuana might affect patients suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Leading the team of researchers is Zach Walsh, a clinical psychologist and an associate professor at the University of B.C.'S Okanagan campus. For Walsh, the need for research that backs up claims made by veterans' groups, patients, and advocates has reached a critical point. "It's the patients leading the way on this, and they're using cannabis, so it's our job as health scientists to figure out if it's working," Walsh tells the Georgia Straight by phone. [continues 627 words]
One of Canada's largest medical cannabis producers says it will fund a Nova Scotia man's ongoing legal fight to have his marijuana prescription paid for by his employee-insurance plan - the latest move in a nationwide push by industry, patients and their advocates for more widespread cannabis coverage. Aurora Cannabis Inc., a publicly traded grower based in Alberta, announced this week that it will bankroll elevator mechanic Gordon Skinner's coming defence this fall in the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. [continues 565 words]
AGRICULTURE * MedReleaf was top beneficiary, documents show Veterans Affairs paid out $44.5 million for medical marijuana expenses in the year before Ottawa cracked down on soaring reimbursement costs - - more than three times what it covered in the prior two years combined. The department covered 3.7 million grams of marijuana at an average cost of $12.01 per gram from October 2015 to September 2016 - 30 per cent higher than what it considers market value. The cost breakdown was included in documents released under an access-to-information request ahead of a Veterans Affairs policy change this month that will significantly reduce the amount of medical marijuana eligible for reimbursement. [continues 1035 words]
Cannabis has been identified as a potential substitute for users of legal or illicit opioids, but a new Vancouver-based study shows the drug may also help reduce people's cravings for another highly addictive substance: crack cocaine. Scientists at the BC Centre on Substance Use tracked 122 people who consumed crack in and around Vancouver's Downtown Eastside over a three-year period and found they reported using that drug less frequently when they opted to also consume cannabis. "We're not saying that these results mean everyone will be able to smoke a joint and forget the fact that they are dependent on crack," said M.J. Milloy, an infectious-disease epidemiologist at the centre and senior author of the study. "What our findings do suggest is that cannabinoids might play a role in reducing the harms of crack use for some people. [continues 476 words]
Ex-soldiers tell trade show how natural drug has helped them battle war's after-effects Trev Bungay says the horror began in 1998 when he was among Canadian soldiers scouring the beaches of Nova Scotia in cleanup operations after the crash of a Swissair jet just off the Atlantic coast. "That was really my look at trauma for the very first time," Bungay told a panel discussion on Sunday at the inaugural O'Cannabiz Conference and Expo. Then came international missions in Africa, Bosnia, Haiti and four combat tours in Afghanistan. [continues 660 words]
World-class athletes attend Toronto cannabis trade show Anyone hoping to find a stoner scene worthy of a Jeff Spiccoli pipe dream at the conference would be disappointed There can't be much that better illustrates the mainstreaming of cannabis in North American culture than an industry "trade show" at which two world-class athletes endorse the product and muse about a day when pot companies will sponsor pro sports arenas. With the Liberal government promising to legalize marijuana by Canada Day 2018, the era of marijuana prohibition is over, Olympic gold medallist Ross Rebagliati told the O'Cannabiz Conference and Expo in Toronto on Saturday. [continues 570 words]
Dozens of activists, including some military veterans, plan to light joints Monday on the steps of the U.S. Capitol - federal land where committing the offense could draw a sentence of up to a year in jail - as part of an effort to urge a reluctant Congress to support marijuana legalization. "Monday @ High Noon" reads a flier for the event, calling on Congress to also remove marijuana from the nation's list of most-dangerous drugs. "Mass Civil Disobedience @ 4:20p - East Side of the US Capitol." [continues 611 words]
SALINAS, Calif. - This vast and fertile valley is often called the salad bowl of the nation for the countless heads of lettuce growing across its floor. Now California's marijuana industry is laying claim to a new slogan for the valley: America's cannabis bucket. After years of marijuana being cultivated in small plots out of sight from the authorities, California cannabis is going industrial. Over the past year, dilapidated greenhouses in the Salinas Valley, which were built for cut flower businesses, have been bought up by dozens of marijuana entrepreneurs, who are growing pot among the fields of spinach, strawberries and wine grapes. [continues 1291 words]
The Liberals' hot-boxing of a marijuana smokescreen It was a brilliant if not cynical move on the part of the Trudeau Liberals to table their marijuana legislation during the same week they thumped down a 294-page omnibus budget document like those contemptible Harperites were so prone to doing. After all, if a smokescreen was ever needed for a touchy topic, such as the Liberals' breaking a promise to never table the kind of all-encompassing omnibus bill that riled them up during the Conservatives' years, then what better way than to hot-box it in the progressive hipsterism of legalizing pot? [continues 524 words]
When the federal Liberals set a Canada Day 2018 deadline for marijuana legalization last weekend, they erected a new landmark in our country's history. I do not refer to the proposed changes to the law; you would, after all, have to be crazy to take a Liberal promise of this kind to the bank. But whether or not the Liberals make their Cannabis Day target, its mere creation is bound to change the way we talk about pot. Legalization is a reality now, something that has a birthday. Old canards, theories, and dreads are destined to get a last airing before we become preoccupied with concrete policy specifics - and then, when the unthinkable actually happens, we shall start having arguments based on actual data. [continues 750 words]
A group of Canadian military veterans who say they are suffering from health problems after consuming tainted medical marijuana is calling on Health Minister Jane Philpott to launch a formal investigation, saying the department has failed to examine the problem properly and fairly on behalf of patients. Scott Wood, a retired military policeman whose career involved investigating military wrongdoing and guarding heads of state, said he believes Health Canada is trying to sweep the problem under the rug without a proper investigation. [continues 1139 words]
More than half the medical-marijuana patients in a new study said they use cannabis to help them get off heavier prescription drugs, with the largest percentage saying pot acts as a substitute painkiller for opioids. The new research, published in the peer-reviewed International Journal of Drug Policy but funded by a licensed cannabis grower Tilray, adds to a small body of science that suggests patients are effectively using marijuana to replace opioids, a class of legal and illicit painkillers that has led to an ongoing crisis that killed hundreds of Canadians last year. [continues 541 words]
Vince Rigby remembered for work with veterans Friends of Vince Rigby are remembering him as a strong advocate for veterans across Cape Breton. Rigby's body was found by firefighters in an abandoned Robert Street building during a fire in Whitney Pier on Monday. Cape Breton Regional Police investigated the fire and ruled out any suspicion and foul play in the death of the Sydney man. The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. Ron Clarke, a Korean War veteran, said he will remember Rigby as a "strong advocate for veterans." [continues 323 words]
A Nova Scotia human rights board has ruled that a patient's medical marijuana should be covered by his employee insurance plan in a potentially precedent-setting case. The decision, issued Jan. 30, ruled in favour of Gordon Skinner's claim that he faced discrimination when trying to access insurance coverage for his disability. Independent human rights board of inquiry chair Benjamin Perryman said that medical marijuana should be an eligible expense since it requires a doctor's authorization and thus didn't fall within the plan's exclusions. [continues 341 words]
Man injured in workplace accident A Nova Scotia human rights board has ruled that a patient's medical marijuana should be covered by his employee insurance plan in a potentially precedent-setting case. The decision, issued Jan. 30, ruled in favour of Gordon Skinner's claim that he faced discrimination when trying to access insurance coverage for his disability. Independent human rights board of inquiry chair Benjamin Perryman said that medical marijuana should be an eligible expense since it requires a doctor's authorization and thus didn't fall within the plan's exclusions. [continues 332 words]
Nova Scotia's human-rights board has ruled that a man suffering from chronic pain must have his marijuana prescription paid for by his employee-insurance plan, with advocates saying the decision opens the door for patients across Canada to push for similar cannabis coverage. Gordon Skinner, from a community just outside Halifax, had argued that he faced discrimination when he was denied coverage by the Canadian Elevator Industry Welfare Trust Plan. He has been using medical cannabis to treat pain from an on-the-job car accident that forced him from work as an elevator mechanic more than six years ago. [continues 535 words]
A new U.S. government-funded report showing clear evidence cannabis is an effective remedy for those with chronic pain underscores the need for more research into how marijuana can help fight the deadly opioid crisis ravaging North America, according to one of Canada's leading pain researchers. A report released Thursday by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine outlined nearly 100 conclusions about the benefits and harms of cannabis on a range of public health and safety issues. [continues 606 words]
Maximum Daily Limit Dropping From 10 Grams Down To Three Almost three-quarters of veterans using medical marijuana will feel the effect this spring when the federal government imposes a new limit on the amount of weed for which it will pay. A new report says 74 per cent of veterans whose medical pot is covered by the government consume more than three grams per day - which will put them over the three-gram daily maximum the government is poised to impose starting in May. [continues 547 words]
[photo] Gov. Scott Walker announced the creation of a state task force to address the Wisconsin's troubling increase in opioid abuse at a Walgreens pharmacy at 3522 W. Wisconsin Ave.(Photo: Maggie Angst / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel) Gov. Scott Walker on Thursday called for a special legislative session to fight heroin addiction and ordered state agencies to ramp up their response to a drug that kills hundreds in Wisconsin each year. The Republican governor held series of events Thursday in Weston, Green Bay and Chippewa Falls to announce the special session and the executive orders, which seek to implement recommendations from a report issued by Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch and Rep. John Nygren (R-Marinette). [continues 714 words]
Police stay silent on their plan if store reoffends A leading Canadian marijuana activist is standing behind a bid by Auntie's Dispensary to reopen after a police raid shut them down. Last week, Halifax owner Shirley Martineau and three others were charged - and had their inventory seized - after complaints led the Halifax Regional Police to take action. Martineau, who hasn't returned phone calls, vowed to reopen and has volunteers working at the shop right now. Toronto marijuana legalization activist Jodie Emery, who is married to fellow activist Marc Emery, knows what Martineau is going through. [continues 682 words]
A key state House committee passed legislation Wednesday that would expand the list of medical conditions that can be treated with cannabis oil. House Bill 722 would add HIV/AIDS, epidermolysis bullosa, post-traumatic stress disorder, Tourette's syndrome and other disorders and illnesses to the list of qualifying medical conditions for the state's cannabis oil program. Lawmakers passed legislation last year that legalized cannabis oil for the treatment of eight disorders. "We're going to improve the lives of a significant amount of Georgians by the passing of this bill," said bill sponsor Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon. "Not as many as I would've liked." [continues 305 words]
Canada's Marijuana Task Force gave the green light to the green leaf, Tuesday. While legislation still must be written and and passed through Parliament, smokers of the bud were blown away by the federally appointed task force's recommendation the government legislate the recreational sale of marijuana to the general public. "We are super happy here, so glad to see this program is going forward," said Stephanie Brown, manager of the new Cannabis Supply Company in Barrie's south end. The store does not have cannabis on site, but does sell medical marijuana supplies such as vaporizers, water pipes, cookbooks and educational books, as well as setting up appointments for clients to meet with cannabis-friendly physicians. [continues 902 words]
The decision is to take effect in August, but evidence counters the notions that the drug is beneficial and that there aren't alternatives. As a staff psychiatrist working at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, I was alarmed to hear that the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is adding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana use starting in August 2017. During a press event on Dec. 1, Dr. Ed Ehlinger, commissioner of MDH, was quoted as saying, "PTSD presented the strongest case for potential benefits and a lack of treatment alternatives." [continues 416 words]
NASHVILLE - Medical marijuana will again become a topic of discussion and legislation during the 2017 legislative session. An announcement from the House Republican Caucus on Friday said an official announcement will come next week from state Rep. Jeremy Faison, R-Cosby, and Sen. Steve Dickerson, RNashville, who are planning to introduce legislation about medical marijuana. Medical marijuana has been a popular discussion within the legislature in recent years, and support from both parties has been steadily growing. Details about the legislation were not immediately clear. [continues 413 words]
