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Edited on Wed Sep-01-10 07:11 PM by RainDog
NBC NewsIn D.C., there are just five qualifying conditions for medical marijuana: Cancer, HIV, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and glaucoma. That's stricter than the list of admissible conditions for 13 of the other 14 states with legalized medical marijuana -- some of which are introducing new conditions.
Another condition included in the new law -- perhaps the most stringent of all -- prohibits patients in D.C. from using marijuana they grow themselves. Only dispensaries have the authority to grow and distribute marijuana under the law. So, a patient who has been self medicating using home-grown marijuana on the advice of a doctor could still be arrested even after the regulations come into effect in January 2011 -- if that marijuana did not come through a dispensary.
"D.C. falls in line with a trend of medical marijuana jurisdictions, especially on the East Coast," says Meno. He says that some jurisdictions, especially in California, failed to pass local regulations that clarified the law, leading to some limited abuse of the system. Jurisdictions that have passed medical marijuana legislation in the meantime -- including D.C. -- have "erred on the side of caution."</blockquote]
Washington Post
District liquor regulators will play a lead role in the city's new medical marijuana program when it debuts Jan. 1, according to draft rules issued Friday by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).
Under the regulations, the city health department would be responsible for registering legal marijuana users. But the licensing and oversight of the facilities that will grow and distribute medical cannabis would be handled by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and its enforcement arm, the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. The prospect of having the same regulators overseeing medical marijuana and liquor stores concerns advocates who have fought to have cannabis recognized as a medical treatment, not just as a drug for recreational use.
Congress has prevented D.C. from honoring the law its citizens voted to change for over 12 years by tying up the funds to implement the law. (The regulations and the 87 pages of administration rules to now implement the law are also available via the WP link.)
Much as the liquor board can immediately shutter a bar or nightclub, it would be able close a dispensary if it were causing "immediate danger to the health and safety of the public." The chief of police would be able to shut down a dispensary for 96 hours.
Nickles said the regulations were written with an eye toward avoiding the problems seen in other states -- especially California, where lawmakers are trying to rein in a medical marijuana industry estimated to generate about $2 billion a year in sales. Choosing the liquor board to oversee the industry, he said, was part of that.
Although it has tried to block its implementation for 12 years, the Federal Government can see that, all around it, people in this nation have stated that they recognize and accept legitimate uses for cannabis.
It is past time for the DEA to change the scheduling for cannabis to reflect the reality that exists. We no longer have a party in the majority that bragged it was no longer "reality-based."*
*The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." - Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine
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