A Case in Maricopa County Superior Court Is Another Distraction in the Medical Marijuana Saga Two lawyers walk into a bar. Then the lawsuits start flying, and nobody gets to have any fun drinking, because the lawyers are throwing briefs around like bar stools and screaming at the judge to throw that motherfucker out of here, because he's drunk and he's spilling drinks all over everyone. So the drunk motherfucker screams at the judge a little, defending his actions, and the judge eventually hears enough and orders a bouncer to throw someone into the street. [continues 619 words]
If You Are Willing to Travel Just North of Irvington, Earth's Healing Is a Welcoming (and Affordable) Dispensary It's a problem I wish I'd had two years ago-dispensaries popping so fast I can't get out fast enough to visit them all. Another one opened last Monday on the southside-Earth's Healing Pain Treatment & Wellness Center-so here's a glimpse of what they offer. The dispensary is in a great location. Where do you want to be when you walk out with $500 worth of meds? How about on Benson Highway within sight of the Pima County Sheriff's Department headquarters? Earth's Healing is also within easy reach of a big chunk of the southside, giving the city a kind of ring of protection around the east, south and west sides. [continues 606 words]
State-by-state, like a giant sticky ball, the cause of medical marijuana makes progress There's a video game called Katamari Damacy that lets you roll a tiny adhesive ball around on the screen, picking up anything you roll over. You start by picking up tiny things, like pens or pencils or silverware. Eventually you are picking up bigger and bigger things, like trees, houses, office buildings and stadiums, then planets and comets. The cannabis katamari started picking up pencils and pens in 1996, when California passed the nation's first medical marijuana law. Now we're starting to pick up some cars and trucks, and it won't be long before we're snapping up buildings and aircraft carriers across the nation as legislatures turn from the dark side to the light. Here's a sampling of some recent developments: [continues 560 words]
Arizona has proceeded with caution in implementing the state's medical marijuana program ("The Numbers Game," May 2). California is often held up as an example of what not to do. It's true that anyone in California who wants a medical marijuana recommendation can get one. The recommendation allows consumers to purchase locally grown marijuana of known quality and safety from dispensaries that generate tax revenue. That's a good thing. So-called medical marijuana abuses are not to be feared. It's the status quo that's scary. [continues 86 words]
With 17 Dispensaries Cleared to Open and 37,422 Patients, Mr. Smith Looks at the State of MMJ in AZ When the MMJ program launched in Arizona, there was a lot of cock blocking and stalling and excuses from the governor's office and other chambers of government across the state. It took more than two years to get a dispensary, and so far just 17 have been cleared to open. But viewed from where I sit (the patient chair), the MMJ program seems to be operating pretty smoothly. I haven't heard much from anyone about major problems, and it seems the state is holding up its end of the bargain now. The governor has seen the error of her ways, or at least sees the error of defying the judges who repeatedly tell Attorney Generalissimo Tom Horne to STFU and get out of the way. [continues 537 words]
While the End of the Prohibition on Marijuana Seems Imminent on Some Fronts, There Are Still Those Resisting the Path of Progress Across the nation, cannabis advocates in and out of the medical marijuana arena in recent weeks have been trumpeting a New World Order where weed is concerned. The feds vowed to back off of dispensaries and the banks that want to serve them; and Sanjay Gupta flipped his stance on cannabis, saying he hadn't really looked much at the stuff, and now that he has, well, it's legit. All hail the Gupta. [continues 612 words]
Some Very Expensive Equipment Is Being Used to Determine the Makeup of Several Dispensaries' Marijuana The first time I wondered what was in my cannabis was in the late 1970s, when the U.S. government conspired with Mexico to use the herbicide Paraquat to destroy marijuana crops south of the border. The governments sprayed the crops, then spread the rumor (later largely debunked) that any surviving Paraquat pot was unsafe to smoke. The program drew ire, and the vague health threats had folks across the nation asking pot dealers, "It isn't Mexican, is it? Because I don't want any Mexican. The feds are spraying that shit with POISON, man! Get me some Colombian." The program was short-lived and people quickly ceased worrying about what was in their cannabis. These days you don't have to wonder. [continues 518 words]
The Distribution System for Medical Marijuana Hasn't Evolved As Quickly As Most Expected If you build it they will come. Maybe. Back in the day (the day being late 2010), when a functional medical cannabis program was a gleam in our collective eye, there was hope spilling all over the ground where medical cannabis was concerned. There was hope that we would quickly have that functional system. Hope that dispensaries and patients would soon be trading green for green. Hope that a thriving cannabis economy would spring to life across the state, leaving relief and comfort in its wake. Or not. [continues 513 words]
Mr. Smith Becomes the Martha Stewart of Cannabinoid Cooking I made butter once - just plain, old regular butter. It's actually really easy. All you have to do is put some heavy cream in a jar and shake it for a while. You can do it much quicker by beating the cream with a hand or bowl mixer until it forms stiff peaks, then beating it some more. Eventually (after about 10 minutes) the cream breaks down, separating into fat solids (butter) and buttermilk. Drain off the buttermilk, and you have butter. Try it at home - it's surprisingly simple and fun and kids love it. Plus, you then get to eat fresh butter. Six cups of cream makes about a pound of butter. [continues 570 words]
Surprisingly Likely to No One, the Arizona Legislature Is Out to Subvert the Will of the Voters Again Our esteemed state Legislature is hard at work up in Phoenix, collectively yea-ing and nay-ing its way through huge piles of legislation, some of which will surely make your life better and some of which will just piss you off. To wit: A few weeks ago, I wrote about a suggestion from a Phoenix valley 'stick to bring the Arizona Medical Marijuana Act before voters again. The resolution in the state House of Representatives, brought by a Republican, would not have required the governor's signature to pass. Thankfully the Teabilly attempt didn't get a hearing in committee, so it goes nowhere, at least until he or another of his ilk tries again. Politicians have a way of doing that, as evidenced by the 30-some attempts in Congress to repeal the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. [continues 442 words]
If You're Avoiding Smoke, Making Your Cannabinoids Soluble Could Be the Solution I work out a lot. I'm a bit of a fitness buff who took a year off recently to study exercise science in college-real college, not a set of personal-training books I ordered on the Internet. So I'm a fitness buff and a bona fide, qualified fitness expert ... but I smoke. It's not cigarettes, it's cannabis, so I only smoke eight or 10 hits per day, but I undeniably breathe in a lot of cancer-causing agents and tar and ash and other bullshit I'd rather not breathe. It's annoying and filthy, and I know it's doing absolutely nothing to better my life in any way. I stress a little over smoking, but it's arguably the fastest, most convenient way to get cannabis into the nerve center. [continues 462 words]
Our Columnist Checks in on Developments From New Hampshire to Bullhead City You can't throw a rock these days without hitting an interesting medical cannabis development somewhere in this great nation of ours. From coast to coast, a rising tide of legislatures, lawyers and patients is washing up against a sea wall of cock-blockers and naysayers. It's fun to watch, and interesting to muse upon. To wit: New Hampshire In the bucolic state that nestles up beside Vermont, medical marijuana is crashing on the rocks. Advocates there are trying for the fourth time in six years to pass an MMJ law, facing an apparent uphill climb since the previous governor, Democrat John Lynch, vetoed previous attempts. This time around, with a bill pending in the Legislature, Gov. Maggie Hassan, also a Democrat, is hinting she might also strike down the current attempt. It's about homegrown. [continues 519 words]
Is It Fair That Someone Can Be Prosecuted for Driving Under Last Week's Influence? Once there was a scientist named Friedrich Wurst. There probably still is, but back in 2003, he did a study of alcohol metabolites in the corpus humanum. He found that one, ethyl glucuronide (EtG), is an excellent indicator that a person had a drink up to 80 hours prior to testing. EtG is among a new generation of biochemical markers that could be used to document alcohol use among professionals who have to prove sobriety for licensure (some doctors) and folks in treatment programs, Wurst said. [continues 550 words]
Courts Are Looking at the Legality of Cannabis Clubs, but Are They Delaying the Inevitable? God bless medical marijuana clubs and the people who run them, but a Michigan Supreme Court ruling last week might be the death knell for cannabis collectives everywhere. Hmpf. The highest court in the mitten state decided on Feb. 8 that it's illegal for the shops to exist, that the club owners are astray of the law when they facilitate transfers between patients and/or caregivers. The state of Michigan started the lofty legal spat when it sued Brandon McQueen and Matthew Taylor of Mount Pleasant (it's in the hand part, just west of the bottom end of the thumb), claiming the Compassionate Apothecary club was illegal. [continues 603 words]
The Stubborn Truth A wise man once said: "You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true" by J.M. Smith Opinions about cannabis are like ... well ... opinions. Everybody has one, and you almost certainly think at least a couple of mine suck. But some people, myself included and hopefully you, try to base their opinions on facts, when they can get them. Fortunately, this being the 21st century and all, facts are actually pretty easy to come by, so I looked up some recent ones. To wit: [continues 626 words]
Surveys Say That Public Opinion Is Trending Toward Legislation It seems marijuana polls are all the rage these days, given the way the winds of change swept through Washington, Colorado, Connecticut and Massachusetts in November, and they pop up all over the place when you search the Internet for, say, ideas for a medical marijuana column. Just last week in Hawaii, which seems far away but is actually a neighboring state if you skip over Mexico, a group seeking legal reform released a survey (http://acluhawaii.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/dpagmarijuanapolicyfindings.pdf) highlighting public opinion there. [continues 549 words]
Read three times and committed to the editor, Tucson Weekly, made the order of the day and days henceforth until Dec. 31, 2013, and ordered to be printed, Mr. Smith, medical marijuana columnist, reported the following resolution concerning Medical Marijuana. Sec. 1: Be it resolved that Mr. Smith will exercise more due diligence in fact-finding. I've spent a fair amount of my Mr. Smith time telling you what I think. That's what I'm here for, largely, but at a certain point, telling you what I think with a thinnish foundation of facts starts to sound pretty empty. [continues 560 words]
J.M.'S Question: Should He Come Out of the Closet to His Mom As a Pot-Smoker? When I was 17, I flunked out of high school. It wasn't a slow descent into failure, as it is with a lot of kids. It was an abrupt, spectacular, fail-every-class-my-senior-year crash into the deck. Despite the darkest, most-fervent efforts of my subconscious, I almost made it anyway, barely falling short of a D in biology. I missed graduation by one credit. [continues 601 words]
The President Talks A Nice Game About Marijuana, But That Doesn't Mean Much As the presidential election was unfolding, and it started to look like an Obama victory, cannabis advocates across the nation started wondering what the Choomer in Chief would do about the drug. It was looking like voters would make it legal for recreational use in Colorado and Washington and maybe Oregon, too. President Obama had offered a few hints about how he feels, never advocating full legalization or even directly backing the medical paradigm, but saying he thinks the Department of Justice should consider it a low priority to bust medical-marijuana establishments in states where it's legal. It was a weak endorsement, of sorts. Some thought his post-election lame-duck status would allow him the freedom to revert to his high school days and come out for legalization. Then on Election Day, all hell broke loose when voters (the smart ones, anyway) gave the nod to recreational use in Washington and Colorado, prompting my daughter to say on Facebook, "Everyone is going to move to Colorado now and the current residents are going to be like 'wut is going on' and it's going to be a huge mess." I don't know how many people are planning to move, but I do think a huge mess is developing. [continues 421 words]
Judges continue to hand down harsh sentences for marijuana-related charges Last winter, Kaleb Phillips stalked a man to a Maryland parking lot, then gunned him down for being in the wrong gang. Phillips and six of his friends plotted the murder of Arnold Fagans for several hours and abruptly ended his life outside of his apartment on Jan. 12. Last Thursday, Phillips, 20, took his medicine in the form of a 30-year sentence, half of which must be served, because gunning people down is a violent crime. Yes, he won't be eligible for parole for 15 years. Violence, being so aggravating, is an aggravating factor when it comes to murder sentencing. Give worse, get worse. [continues 531 words]
