MPP Wants 27 Medical Marijuana States By 2014

Our recent victory in Delaware brought the count of medical marijuana states up to 16.

Today, I’m happy to report that we’re also making incredible progress in other states and — with your support — we will remain on track to reach our goal of making medical marijuana legal in 27 states by 2014.

- We’re raising money to place a pair of medical marijuana initiatives on the November 2012 ballots in Arkansas and Idaho.  The Arkansas signature drive has already started, and the Idaho drive will hopefully start in September.

- We’re now just a couple votes short of passing our bill in New York state, and the governor has recently improved his position. We’re ready to re-start our lobbying campaign in Albany as soon as we raise the money.

- In Illinois, our bill fell just three votes short in the state House. We’re now actively organizing to pick up those three votes, and we already have the support of the governor.

- Here in the District of Columbia, the city government will soon be accepting applications from business entrepreneurs who wish to grow and dispense medical marijuana. We’re now so close to having five dispensaries in our nation’s capital!

- In Maryland, the governor just launched a commission to formulate a medical marijuana bill that will be acceptable to key legislators and other powerbrokers, and one of MPP’s staff attorneys has been appointed to that commission.

I’m going to be blunt: MPP will be incurring $100,000 in monthly expenses to keep this “27 states by 2014” strategy on track. But it will be worth every penny.

Just to put this into perspective … if you and 970 other friends each donate between $5/month and $2,000/month on your credit cards, we’ll reach the goal of generating $100,000/month for the “27 states by 2014” campaign.

Changing laws isn’t easy, but that’s why we’re here. Please start (or increase) your monthly credit card donation today to help make the “27 states by 2014” plan a reality.

 

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

Reality Show To Focus On Oakland Medical Marijuana Dispensary

The Discovery Channel announced today that it will produce a reality series about Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, the nation’s largest medical cannabis dispensary.

“Weed Wars,” scheduled to premiere this fall, “fearlessly pulls back the curtain on a once illegal and still controversial world,” according to a press release issued by Discovery.

In 2004, Oakland became the first city to license medical cannabis outlets. The Harborside Health Center, founded by Steve DeAngelo, serves over 80,000 patients. It recently extended its reach with a second location in San Jose.

In addition to DeAngelo and his staff, “Weed Wars” will follow the journey of the plant itself — from seed germination to harvesting, profiling growers and farmers along the way. “(The show) is a fascinating glimpse into this highly unique setting,” said Nancy Daniels, executive vice president of production and development for Discovery Channel.

(Source) http://blogs.mercurynews.com

read more: http://www.thcfinder.com/marijuana-blog/culture/2011/07/reality-show-to-focus-on-oakland-medical-marijuana-dispensary#ixzz1SgROpMQj

Proposed Tracking Program Has SF Medical Marijuana Growers In Fear Feds Or Criminals Could Obtain Addresses

San Francisco officials want to keep a record of all suppliers of medical marijuana dispensaries, an idea that has some members of the pot community fuming.

“If there is a list, it’s available to the public, and it’s available to the feds,” said Kevin Reed, a member of The City’s Medical Cannabis Task Force and owner of the Green Cross, a medical cannabis delivery service.

Reed said most members of cannabis collectives and cooperatives grow small amounts of pot in their homes, warning that a city record of their names and addresses could be accessible by anyone — including federal law enforcement officials or criminals who rob grow operations.

Despite statements by the Obama administration that it would not go after medical marijuana dispensaries that comply with state laws, cannabis supporters say such raids have continued, and Reed remained wary about a public record of growers.

“It just goes against everything that we’re doing,” Reed said. “What we do is federally illegal. As long as The City is offering patients no protection, it’s just absurd.”

According to a written statement from the San Francisco Department of Public Health, officials announced at a May 20 task force meeting that they “anticipated maintaining a record of all sources/cultivators for each [dispensary].”

Public health officials would only answer questions about this proposal in writing, and a spokeswoman did not respond to a question about whether the list would be publicly available.

The statement noted that the department, which issues permits for medical cannabis dispensaries, is tasked with ensuring that the cannabis such dispensaries cultivate and distribute is in compliance with state and local laws.

There currently are 26 permitted dispensaries in The City, and nine more have applied for permits.

Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, the director of environmental health, said such dispensaries get their products from “diverse sources” and that the department needs to ensure those sources are legal. California law requires that marijuana distributed by medical cannabis collectives or co-operatives be cultivated only by their members, and not for profit.

“Over the past few years, there has been a proliferation of cultivation in many San Francisco neighborhoods,” Bhatia said. Some of these sites violate city planning and building codes, and create fire or hazardous materials dangers, according to his statement.

“The department’s overarching aim is to steer [medical cannabis dispensary] practices towards conformity with California and San Francisco law,” Bhatia said. “In this way, we reduced the likelihood for MCDs of community concerns and criminal prosecution.”

The idea is apparently just in its formative stages, however, and no decision has been made.
“We are open to alternative ways to ensure the safety and legality of cultivation,” Bhatia said. “We will be discussing this with the dispensary community.”

Community activist and task force member Stephanie Tucker called a public list “a deal-breaker.”

“DPH historically has always been very good at protecting safe access, and balancing that with public safety,” Tucker said. “Obviously, as a community, we have concerns about that information becoming public.

“We need to find a solution, a happy medium.”

http://www.theweedblog.com/proposed-tracking-program-has-sf-medical-marijuana-growers-in-fear-feds-or-criminals-could-obtain-addresses/

S.F. Pot Shops Must Release Names & Addresses Of Growers

​The San Francisco Department of Public Health, which licenses and polices the city’s 26 storefront medical marijuana dispensaries, announced on Friday that it will ask every dispensary to provide a list — with names and addresses — of every grower with which it does business.

The result would be a disaster for the city’s burgeoning medical marijuana industry, according to Kevin Reed, president of the Green Cross medicinal cannabis delivery service, reports Chris Roberts at the S.F. Weekly.

“It’s unacceptable,” Reed told the Weekly. “It would be a disaster.”

The list of grower names and addresses is needed, claimed Rajiv Bhatia, head of DPH’s Occupational & Environmental Health, for safety and legality reasons.

“DPH is trying to ensure that permitted MCDs [medical cannabis dispensaries] comply with all state and local laws,” Bhatia said. “By ensuring this, the industry will be best situated to be protected from code enforcement and criminal prosecution.”

Photo: Luke Thomas/The Green Cross

Kevin Reed: “It’s unacceptable. It would be a disaster.”

​ But that isn’t sitting so well with the city’s medical marijuana growers, who have noticed the increasingly threatening nature of letters of U.S. Attorneys in medical marijuana states. All that saber-rattling by drug warriors within the Obama

Administration doesn’t exactly make turning over a list of names and addresses seem like the best idea ever.

According to Reed, the list would push legal operators underground while doing nothing to change the habits of illegal cultivators.

And if the list were publicly available, it could be used as a “shopping list” by rip-off artists, thieves, and, of course, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), since the feds still consider cannabis illegal, even for medicinal purposes, regardless of state laws.

“There’s no way anyone on the city or state level can provide us protection from the federal government,” Reed said.

Theories regarding why the S.F. Health Department is suddenly concerned about whether dispensaries comply with state and local law — more than a decade after the City By The Bay passed its Medicinal Cannabis Dispensary Act — include taxes, police, and in industry takeover, reports Roberts at the Weekly.

Reed said he believes the DPH wants a list of all the city’s legal growers so that it can eventually tax them. But the city also wants addresses of grow sites located outside San Francisco.

Some growers believe the DPH is being strong-armed by the S.F. Police Department.

And then there are the conspiracy theorists who say the stricter regulations would make it easier for a few mega-operators to take over the medical marijuana industry.

“I understand DPH’s frustration of being thrust into the middle of this confusing and contradictory system, but there is way too much risk to force full transparency in cultivation,” said Brendan Hallinan, an attorney handling permitting for medical marijuana dispensaries.

“After the federal government specifically told Oakland ‘no way’ on their permitted-cultivation sites, it is ridiculous to ask SF MCDs to go right ahead and do the same thing,” Hallinan said.