"Michigan patients with chronic or debilitating disease could legally possess and use marijuana under a proposal likely to go before state voters in November.

 

A state elections panel today certified petitions containing 377,975 signatures backing the plan, well over the 304,000 minimum needed to put the initiative before voters if the Legislature fails to act upon it within the next 40 days.

 

The Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, the group which circulated the petitions, wants to allow those with serious illnesses to obtain a doctor’s authorization to cultivate up to 12 marijuana plants and possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana without fear of prosecution.

About a dozen states nationally allow the use of marijuana for medical purposes under some circumstances."

 

Far too early to call but that they had nearly 20% more signatures than needed is surely a good sign.

The Daily Trojan posted an article about legalizing Marijuana, the monetary implications it would have through the taxation of, and a little opinion to go along with it.

College and high school students are the ones most affected by marijuana's illegal status, Gettman said.

"Who do you think gets busted the most? College and high school kids," he said. "The arrest rate for teens or young adults is three or four times higher than the rest of the public."

Gettman said he believes youths working to legalize marijuana is "good citizenship."

"The law hits people who are vulnerable," he said. "College kids need to realize that this affects them as taxpayers down the road."

The article goes on to say that legalization isn't coming soon, and it saddens me to agree. We need to keep pushing for supoort of Medical Marijuana in the states that do not have laws protecting seriously ill patients. Do you think we'll see legal Marijuana in the U.S.A. in the next ten years?

The Chicago Tribune has yet more proof of senator McCain's complete lack of understanding of medical Marijuana. In his latest blunder, the senator tells off a sickly woman in a wheelchair, telling her there are other options for her pain. Here's a snip:

Even a sickly, soft-spoken woman in a wheelchair gets no pass from him. The other day, at a meeting with voters in New Hampshire, Linda Macia mentioned her use of medical marijuana and politely asked his position on permitting it. Barely were the words out of her mouth before the Arizona senator spun on his heel, stalked away and heaped scorn on the idea.

You may be one of the unique cases in America that only medical marijuana can relieve pain from," he said, in a skeptical tone. "Every medical expert I know of, including the AMA (American Medical Association), says there are much more effective and much more, uh, better treatments for pain. He also ridiculed the notion that police would arrest patients for using marijuana as medicine.

This is how you treat sick people? Yes, Senator, police would and do arrest patients for using marijuana as a medicine. Here's our previous story, showing how much compassion senator McCain has for medical Marijuana patients.

The Leader-Telegram Online has a story about Jacki Rickert of Mondovi, WI and her fight to get medical Marijuana available in her state. Here's a clip from the article:

As far back as high school, Rickert said, she has been suffering the debilitating effects of the genetic disorder Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and reflex sympathetic dystrophy. Both are chronic and incurable.

"(Doctors) don't know where one ends and the other beings," she said.

The ailments have left her in severe pain and confined to a wheelchair, and often to her modest, single-story home. Although she takes morphine for her pain, Rickert said marijuana saved her life.

This is the case for many suffering people in states without a medical marijuana program. As far as the government is concerned, Marijuana has no medicinal effects, yet it's saving this woman's life. Do we have any readers in WI?

Forbes posted an opinion piece on the taxes spent on busting Marijuana users, much like the article below.

The U.S. marijuana is a $113 billion annual business that costs taxpayers $41.8 billion in enforcement costs and lost tax revenues, according to a study to be published later Monday.

The study, "Lost Taxes and Other Costs of Marijuana Laws," by Jon Gettman, contends that marijuana sales are mostly the province of teenagers and young adults. His numbers also imply that the industry is supported, in both demand prices, by a relatively few extremely heavy users.

AlterNET posted an editorial about the continued wasted time and efforts of the police, busting Marijuana users.

Since 1990, over 10.4 million Americans have been busted for pot. When will we recognize it's time to stand up to the war on harmless pot smoking?

Here in California, we've started the medical marijuana program, and many of our larger cities have placed posession on the lowest possible priority for police- what will it take for this "war on drugs" to take a cease fire on Marijuana? Are you hassled in your town for smoking the sweet leaf?

An opinion piece on The Daily Breeze brings up the fact that legalizing Marijuana could bring in Billions of dollars a year to the state of California. I've been telling this to people for a long time now, as it is, we're taxing medical marijuana, which will bring in an incredible amount of money for the golden (green) state. Here's a snip:

How much pot is grown in California? The take from the annual Campaign Against Marijuana Production, a joint campaign of state, federal and local authorities, now approaches $7 billion in street value, but law enforcement spokesmen generally estimate they confiscate no more than one-tenth of the crop.

That estimate recently spurred the Mendocino County Board of Supervisors to implore its local congressman, Democrat Mike Thompson, to press forward efforts to get marijuana legalized. As medical pot users in California have frequently discovered since passage of Proposition 215 in 1996 attempted to legalize medicinal use with a doctor's recommendation, any significant leglization will have to come from the federal level. State laws are simply too easy for federal agents to overrule.