Global Ganja Report

In a victory for medical marijuana patients, the California Supreme Court on May 23 denied review of an important dispensary case out of Los Angeles. Rejecting calls from State Attorney General Kamala Harris and law enforcement to review a 2nd District Court of Appeal ruling in People v. Colvin, the high court upheld certain protections for patients and providers. The Attorney General had argued that some undefined percentage of patients were legally required to participate in the operation of the medical marijuana dispensaries in order to obtain medication from them.

State health officials in Arizona are finally accepting applications to operate medical marijuana dispensaries, after months of delays due to rule-making and litigation—including an unsuccessful bid by Gov. Jan Brewer to block the program in the courts. The voter-approved Arizona Medical Marijuana Act calls for the state to establish a Medical Marijuana Program, with up to 126 dispensaries. Several requirements that caused concern for potential applicants have been removed; most notably, a prior bankruptcy was eliminated as a disqualifying factor.

Smoking cannabis can help relieve spasticity (muscle tightness) and pain in people who suffer from multiple sclerosis, a new study suggests. Study leader Dr. Jody Corey-Bloom, director of the US San Diego Multiple Sclerosis Center, looked at 30 multiple sclerosis patients with muscle tightness who weren't helped by conventional medicines, and discovered they found relief from smoking cannabis. "Smoking pot reduces the spasticity by about a third compared to patients on placebo," she said. Those who smoked cannabis also had a 50% decrease in pain scores. The study is published in the May 14 issue of the Canadian Medical Association Journal. (Huffington Post, Health Day, May 14)

Colorado's Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol is running a TV ad May 11 with a Mother's Day theme. The ad, entitled "Dear Mom," is in support of Amendment 64, which will go to voters in November. It features a young woman writing an e-mail to her mother suggesting it's "high time" they talk about her marijuana use (as the Denver Post put it, pun presumably not intended). "The young woman explains that marijuana use is, in her experience, safer and more healthy than the drinking she [the daughter] did in college."

The Rhode Island Senate passed compromise legislation May 9 intended to revive a stalled effort to open medical marijuana dispensaries in the state, with new limits on quantities the facilities may possess. If the measure passes the House, the dispensaries could be open within months. The vote represents progress for dispensaries that were poised to open last year, when Gov. Lincoln Chafee held up their permits citing the threat of federal prosecution.

Federal agents from the DEA and IRS, backed up with Santa Barbara police, served search warrants at a medical marijuana dispensary and a grow house on May 2 and 3. No arrests were made, but search warrants were executed at the Pacific Coast Collective dispensary and, the next morning, at 305 E. Haley St., which was named as a grow house. Agents and detectives also searched the residences of PCC operator Charles Jeff Restivo in Carpinteria, who is already facing local felony charges related to the dispensary; and Steven Kessler in Santa Barbara, who was said to operate the cultivation site.

Connecticut's Senate on May 5 passed HB 5389, which will allow citizens to obtain cannabis for medicinal use under defined conditions. The bill cleared the Democrat-controlled Senate in a 21-13 vote. The new law will make Connecticut the USA's 17th medical marijuana state. Opponents of the law raised the usual concerns that those who do not qualify under the act might be able to purchase cannabis with faulty prescriptions. The Connecticut law, however, seeks to eliminate this problem by requiring that qualified patients purchase only from licensed pharmacists who also must obtain a permit to dispense cannabis. The bill has already been passed by the state's House and now only needs to be signed by Gov. Dannel Malloy (D), who has already expressed support for the measure. (Journal Inquirer, Manchester, CT, May 7; Jurist, May 6)

A May 5 report in the Sacramento Bee portrays an Emerald Triangle hard-hit by the federal crackdown on medical marijuana in California. Cultivators who sought legitimacy through the medical market are fleeing to the black market, leading to a glut—which is now ironically hurting the remnant medicinal market. With cheap weed getting dumped in the college town of Arcata, some local dispensaries say business is down 75%. The price of top-line bud has dropped from around $5,000 to under $1,000. "Last I heard, a pound of marijuana is $800 for outdoor grown," gloated Mendocino County Sheriff Tom Allman. "That's plummeting. You might do better with tomatoes."