States with legalized marijuana enact new regulations and expansions

[caption id="attachment_14051" align="alignleft" width="300"] Medical marijuana sign - wikimedia commons[/caption]

Marsha Hunt with Carol Forsloff---Whether it's a medical marijuana distribution center in the Portland, Oregon area, a commercial outlet in Washington or a small shop in Colorado, many people with medical problems celebrate the hands off policy of the Federal government, even as the issue about a drug of choice, and its controversies, stops boiling and allows service with a smile for those in need.

Yesterday the Human Collective folks in Portland, Oregon had a bright, open atmosphere, as people arrived quietly and with their usual decorum to a place that reflects the calm and competent way the owner-manager and others operate a business that those with medical marijuana needs find exemplary and applaud.

Washington State has already moved along after the announcement by Eric Holder that the Federal government would look the other way with those states who have legalized marijuana. The prohibitions about driving and the reference to meticulous record-keeping offers hopeful answers for medication that has benefited many.

Scientific facts may be relatively sparse, in relationship to other medications, however they support benefit to people with numerous medical conditions, including diabetic neuropathy, chronic pain, glaucoma and a host of other ailments.

Oregon has not passed a law allowing recreational use, although its close relative on the border, Washington State, has done so, even as distribution centers awaited the decision on just how the ordinary citizen could purchase marijuana.

Washington State has made the decision to license 334 pot stores, including at least 21 in Seattle and 61 in King County. Revised state rules have developed for a recreational marijuana system, with the total pot production capped at 40 metric tons each year., which the state estimates 25 percent of the total state market for legal creational, medical and illicit-market marijuana.

Medical marijuana users hide in plain sight

Reporter interviews office personnel at the Human Collective in Portland, Oregon

Carol Forsloff-----20 states have passed laws legalizing marijuana for medical use,  with Illinois the most recent; yet marijuana users often voluntarily hide in plain sight as they remain part of the collateral damage from the war on drugs.

Nancy Reagan’s good-intentioned “let’s say no” reinforced the notion that anyone who uses marijuana is doing harm to their bodies and violating the law.  Crime stories abounded with tales of people using marijuana as they counted their money in the smoke-filled back rooms with pipes and paraphernalia that spoke of errant ways and defiance against authority.  With this backdrop, the marijuana user often hides in plain sight in order to avoid the stigmas associated with marijuana in any form for any reason.

Whereas the news media reports the states as they adopt new laws on marijuana use,  many do not highlight the conflicts that take place between the states and the federal regulations on marijuana use.  Growers, distributors and users find themselves dodging the proverbial bullet, when clinics are raided by heavy booted, armed folks who can arrive at any time, reinforcing marijuana use as a crime, when 20 states have declared the drug to be a medication worthy of regulation, distribution and use by people who need it for medical reasons.

Most of the people who obtain their marijuana medication at Human Collective II, a distribution center in the greater Portland, Oregon area, are over the age of 50.  Many of these people have chronic pain conditions, and whereas they are familiar with marijuana use, sometimes in those young days of pot smoking, folk singing and protesting, they still recall it as something done by subterfuge and viewed as snubbing one’s nose at authority.  Now those stereotypes haunt the new user who looks for relief with a known substance but still retains the prejudices that came with marijuana years ago and that continue to linger in the minds of many,  according to Donald Morse, assistant manager of the Human Collective clinic.

“The drug still carries the stigma,” Morse maintains.  “It’s all about the money.  And as it took decades to get rid of the prejudices towards gays, it will take time for people to truly accept marijuana as a viable option for treating health complaints.”  Morse is one of those distributors who face Federal authorities in a case going to trial later this year, having been indicted for distributing marijuana to users who have the legal right to use it and to select the grower of it as well.  And Human Collective has been seen as a model clinic for others in the State of Oregon because of its professional manner and methods of providing medical marijuana.  These are the concerns facing those who use medical marijuana and those who provide it for them, as the war on drugs continues to create wounds and casualties, even as it appears to be on its way to resolution, at least within the several states.

Discrepancies in marijuana laws continue to create serious problems forpatients

[caption id="attachment_14051" align="alignleft" width="300"] Medical marijuana sign - wikimedia commons[/caption]

Top news on MSNBC includes a story of the arrest of actor Armie Hammer in Texas for possession of marijuana.  The evidence of his offense consisted of less than an ounce of marijuana in addition to three medicinal marijuana cookies and one brownie.  This is the kind of product those who use marijuana for medical purposes would carry with them, especially for certain chronic conditions and a prime example of the problems involved when some states allow medical marijuana use while the federal government and other states do not.

The recent raids in California continue to reveal the problems involved in the dispensing of marijuana.   More than 20,000 persons were arrested in California last year for possession of marijuana.     It has also been found that African-Americans are among the most likely to be arrested for marijuana use, four times more likely than whites.

On one side of the debate about marijuana are the proponents of legalizing marijuana use for everyone.  On the other, are those who oppose marijuana based on a view that states the drug is simply that and too often used for a “high” that can impact perception and judgment.  Caught in the middle are those who have medical conditions that help in the control of those conditions or who allow the patient to manage the pain and discomfort of sometimes disabling conditions.

Oregon is one of those states where medical marijuana users walk the line on using the drug, either inside or outside the state.  The card-carrying marijuana user who has been approved to use the drug for medicinal purposes also receives a warning letter when the card is issued that the Federal government does not approve of the drug and that the user is on her/his own in fighting any legal battle regarding the use of marijuana.  That risk is enhanced if a user crosses the state line into any other state where the law prohibits use of marijuana for any purpose.  Texas is one of those states.

Human Collective, an organization in Tigard, Oregon,  is one of those centers that promote the legal use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.  Unlike other dispensing facilities, this center is scrupulous in who it allows into the facility and literally requires not just the evidence that the customer’s use is legal under Oregon law but that the delivery is rational, discreet and within tight guidelines that follow virtually a drugstore-type reception.  They, like the patients they serve, must be cautious as a result of the conflicts within the Oregon community of politicians, the Federal government and other states.

Texas does not recognize the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes and therefore prosecutes those possessing the drug on a criminal basis.  Armie Hammer, and others like him, if caught with the small amount of marijuana as in the situation reported this morning, can face up to six months in jail and a $2000 fine on the first offense.