Re "A serious risk to public health" (Monitor Forum, Nov. 20): Tricia Lucas argues that marijuana causes addiction. Sorry, but there is no such thing as marijuana addiction, unlike alcohol, tobacco or an opiate such as morphine or heroin. Addiction is characterized by a physical dependence, complete with a set of symptoms that accompany withdrawal. Marijuana can produce a psychological dependence, not addiction. One interesting fact is that opiate withdrawal, in and of itself, won't cause death. High-dose alcoholic withdrawal, on the other hand, has a very good chance of killing the person going through it without medical intervention, as seizures and other very lethal reactions can occur. I'm glad that stuff is legal, huh? [continues 125 words]
A New Hampshire House panel has put up a stop sign on recreational use of marijuana just months after the Legislature decriminalized the drug for medical reasons. On an 11-7 vote, the House Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee recommended killing House Bill 492. Chairman Laura Pantelakos, D-Portsmouth, said she was unwilling to support the bill at this point, preferring to see how other states fare in allowing recreational use of marijuana. "Let's see what Washington state and Colorado do," Pantelakos said. [continues 691 words]
I was quite interested in the Monitor's editorial on drugs and particularly with respect to marijuana ("The right drug war, and the wrong one," Sept. 4). It took me back to the 1980s when a representative took a look at how so many young college students were getting their lives harmed or ruined by being convicted of a felony for possessing just one joint. He was sorry to see them suffer this fate for a simple mistake of experimenting with a drug that wasn't too much more harmful than alcohol, so he introduced a bill to decriminalize less than an ounce of marijuana and make it a misdemeanor. [continues 105 words]
Re "The right drug war, and the wrong one" (Monitor editorial, Sept. 4): The cause of your problems is not the solution to your problems. Prohibition is the cause of prohibitively high drug prices and profits. Prohibition is the means of giving billions of dollars in cash and unquantifiable sums of power to the drug cartels. Prohibition is the means of applying criminal sanctions to people with psychological addictions the least effective means of helping them but the most effective at turning them into unemployable repeat felons. [continues 175 words]
LSD, speed, angel dust, crack ... and now Molly. The names may change over time but the harm they do to young bodies and minds persists. While the nation's political attention has been focused on legalizing marijuana for medicinal and recreational use, the dialogue has drifted from where it needs to be - focusing on the drugs that without doubt or debate kill the body and maim the mind. The issue hit home locally when a 19-year-old Plymouth State University student died after overdosing at a Zedd concert held at the House of Blues club in Boston. That incident was followed by two non-fatal overdoses at another concert in Boston, and deaths linked to Molly also occurred at the Electric Zoo Festival in New York City, one of which was 20-year-old University of New Hampshire student Olivia Rotondo. [continues 453 words]
Law will cause death, suffering These are the inevitable consequences of New Hampshire's medical marijuana law: People will suffer, and some will die, either because dispensaries aren't yet open or will have to close due to the many restrictions put upon them; or when the medicine is too expensive for the same reason. Others will suffer because the type of medical marijuana that actually works for them isn't available due to low demand again due to the many restrictions. Other people will suffer serious side effects, up to and including death, from the mandated use of dangerous pharmacuticals before using the safest drug yet discovered. Other patients and caregivers will face fines, jail and even hard time in prison for medical marijuana used outside the rules dictated by the paranoid state government. Everyone is welcome to their own opinion, but I daresay it is objective fact that causing people to suffer and die while teasing them with a doomed medical marijuana program, and threatening them with serious criminal charges, is surely not "for the greater good." Paul O'Day Spofford [end]
HOSPICE AND HIV PROFESSIONALS EXPECT TO SEE LITTLE IMPACT FROM MEDICAL MARIJUANA BILL Editor's Note New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. Though medical marijuana will soon be legal in the Granite State, health care professionals say it will have little to no impact on their day-to-day operations. [continues 443 words]
Editor's Note New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. Inside her small apartment, Darlene Wilson looked over her various Native American artifacts and paintings that hung on the walls. [continues 850 words]
NEW LAW PROMISES GROWING PAINS FOR AREA POLICE DEPARTMENTS, WHO HAVE QUESTIONS OF THEIR OWN Editor's note: New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. NASHUA - The Legislature took care of Nashua Police Chief John Seusing's main angst with the state's medical marijuana bill. [continues 560 words]
Editor's note: New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. NASHUA - There's cookies, brownies, cakes, cupcakes, fudge, lollipops, even lemonade - nearly any sweet treat you could think of. [continues 1110 words]
NEW HAMPSHIRE MEDICAL MARIJUANA REGULATORS URGED TO LEARN FROM NEW JERSEY'S FAILURES Editor's note: New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. It sounds simple: Legalize therapeutic marijuana, create some dispensaries that grow it and sell it on doctors' orders, and you're done. [continues 720 words]
NASHUA AND AREA COMMUNITIES CAUTIOUS ON WELCOMING A MEDICAL MARIJUANA DISPENSARY Editor's note: New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. HUDSON - Some community leaders in southern New Hampshire refer to medical marijuana dispensaries in the same breath they use to talk about strip clubs and casinos. [continues 793 words]
Editor's note: New Hampshire is the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. CONCORD Gov. Maggie Hassan made New Hampshire the 19th state to legalize use of medical marijuana for seriously ill patients Tuesday, calling it the "compassionate and right policy" because it will prevent abuse. [continues 285 words]
If you have glaucoma, cancer, or multiple sclerosis, don't go running to the medical marijuana dispensary just yet. New Hampshire's medicinal marijuana legislation is one of the strictest in the nation, and a diagnosis of one of the qualifying conditions may not be enough. The law also stipulates that patients who suffer from debilitating symptoms as a result of their condition may only use marijuana after they have not responded to other, more traditional, forms of treatment. [continues 613 words]
CONCORD - Gov. Maggie Hassan has until Friday to sign legislation making New Hampshire the 19th state to let seriously ill people use marijuana to treat chronic pain. The bill was sent to the governor Monday after Senate President Peter Bragdon, R-Milford, signed off on it Sunday. Hassan agreed to sign the measure after the Legislature removed from the original bill the right of patients or caregivers to grow their own marijuana. Instead, those who are eligible will have to purchase the drug at up to four state-regulated dispensaries. [continues 63 words]
MAN WITH CHRONIC BACK PAIN SAYS HE'S IN FAVOR OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA BUT WON'T BREAK THE LAW FOR RELIEF Francis Paine, a former banker, suffers from chronic back pain and says although he believes marijuana could help him manage his pain greatly, he refuses to use an illegal substance. And when New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana law takes effect, it will be little relief to him: he doesn't have one of the conditions that qualify. Paine went on disability years ago, right around the time he was considering retirement. For more than 16 years, he worked for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, joining in 1992 as a senior bank examiner. Before that, he joined the U.S. Army and served with the National Security Agency until the early 1970s. [continues 515 words]
Editor's note: New Hampshire will become the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana with Gov. Maggie Hassan's signature. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. Clayton Holton, a 28-year-old Rochester man born with muscular dystrophy, is waiting to die. [continues 510 words]
Editor's note: New Hampshire will become the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana with Gov. Maggie Hassan's signature. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. When Gov. Maggie Hassan signs the state's therapeutic marijuana legislation into law, it will immediately become legal to use the drug to treat the debilitating symptoms of some illnesses. [continues 586 words]
While New Hampshire patients wait for marijuana dispensaries to be established in this state, a process that may take years, it's easy to wonder whether they could just drive over the border and get their doctor's order filled at dispensaries already up and running in neighboring states. The answer? Not really. The only possibility is Maine, whose medical marijuana law includes a "reciprocity clause" that allows out-of-state residents to get marijuana. However, this is allowed only if you have a medical certificate from a physician or osteopath certified to practice in Maine. It's not enough to have a certificate from your own doctor in New Hampshire; you'd have to establish a relationship with a Maine doctor, which at a minimum would include office visits. [continues 908 words]
Editor's note: New Hampshire will become the 19th state to allow some form of medical marijuana with Gov. Maggie Hassan's signature. The Telegraph's six-day series, Cannabis Care, examines New Hampshire's therapeutic marijuana legislation and how the law will work, including who can get the drug, how much it will cost, and what needs to happen before the first batch of marijuana is legally distributed in the state. [continues 1036 words]
Inside New Hampshire
