Archive for month: February, 2016

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Vincent Piperato, 5, who has Dravet syndrome, uses a tablet while his mother, Amy, looks on and sister Alexa, 9, does her homework at home in Thiells. The family is struggling to find a physician willing to prescribe Vincent medical marijuana.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)Buy Photo

Reporter David Robinson took questions Friday on Reddit about the issues snarling New York’s medical marijuana program. Robinson’s latest story on the subject found that the Department of Health…

The Register’s Editorial
4 a.m. CST February 27, 2016

This week’s state Supreme Court’s ruling, which upholds most of the 2011 Montana Marijuana Act, could throw 40 shops out of business in Southwest Montana.

In Butte-Silver Bow County alone, 24 medical marijuana providers are in jeopardy.

But it’s not just the providers whose livelihoods are threatened.

In Southwest Montana, the ruling will affect 1,874 patients, according to Montana Department of Public Health and Human Services’ website.

In…

Church officials announced several weeks ago that they anxious the plan would have unintended consequences.

Utah’s Senate spent almost an hour on Friday debating the plan as the bill’s sponsor, Republican Sen. While stopping short of endorsing it, the church said added restrictions to the plan late last week were substantial improvements.

The restrictive extract plan that the church has not opposed is seen by some conservative Utah legislators as a safer option than the wide-ranging medical marijuana laws that more than 20 other states have…

Friday morning marked the beginning of a notable experiment for Humboldt County as a small group of medical marijuana growers stood before the doors of the county Planning and Building Department in Eureka in hopes of obtaining government approval.

For many of the cannabis farmers standing in line, the chance came as a relief following nearly 20 years of obscure guidelines passed down by California’s 1996 voter initiative Proposition 215, which legalized medicinal…

The state’s medical cannabis program is about to become a lot more transparent. Ten months after it rejected SFR’s request to review dozens of new grower license applications, the Department of Health says it will release information on the licensees for the first time.

According to a post on the department’s website, Health Secretary Retta Ward has accepted the recommendation of a public hearing officer to amend the program’s rules. Gov. Susana Martinez ordered the…

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah veterans expressed support Friday for Sen. Mark Madsen’s medical marijuana bill as a treatment option for post-traumatic stress disorder.

Pete Haglin, a former paratrooper, shared his own journey with PTSD.

“When we volunteered, we knew what that entailed. We knew what it meant to be a paratrooper. We know that paratroopers fight, that paratroopers die. We were prepared for that,” he said.

“What we weren’t prepared for was some of the struggles we would face back home in dealing with some of the aftereffects. Once…

And these incidents are increasing more dramatically among out-of-state visitors, according to research published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

They found that ER visits related to marijuana by people from out of state almost doubled, from 85 per 100,000 visits in 2013 to 168 per 100,000 visits in 2014, which is the first year recreational marijuana was sold legally.

Researchers recorded 163 marijuana cases per 10,000 visits by people from out-of-state in 2014, up from 78 per 10,000 visits in 2012.

The doctors say there…

This week a Federal Court judge in Vancouver ruled in favour of medical marijuana users, saying they should be allowed to grow their own pot, and federal laws preventing them from doing so are unconstitutional.

Strangely enough, the judge’s conclusions from the bench on high — so to speak — echo much of what hippies and potheads and rights activists have been saying about pot for half a century or so.

The federal government — i.e., the former Conservative federal government — had declared it was too dangerous to allow medical…

When word spread around the Capitol that freshly minted lobbyist Amy Jenkins signed on to represent the California Cannabis Industry Association, veteran lobbyists told her the move could ruin her political career.

“I was warned against it,” recalled Jenkins, who moved on as former Sen. Lou Correa’s chief of staff to Platinum Advisors in late 2014. “Now we’re seeing this complete shift in attitude where these very same people are coming to me and saying, ‘Hey, do you have a client you can throw my way or can you give me a…

The 17-12 vote on the second substitute of SB73, sponsored by Sen. Mark Madsen, R-Saratoga Springs, came despite opposition from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the Utah Medical Association and law enforcement groups.

“I really did not expect [the passage]. I really didn’t think we’d get these votes today,” said Christine Stenquist, co-founder and president of the group Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education.

Stenquist and other advocates who had threatened to launch an initiative to let voters…