California Medical Marijuana Regulation Bill which would have in time California's medical marijuana industry has died due to a lack of support in the state Senate.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano called off a listed Senate commission vote on his medical marijuana regulation legislation on Monday, admitting that he was short on votes ahead of a July time limit, reports Torey Van Oot at the Sacramento Bee.

"Positively in with noses, the noses weren't there, even in commission," Ammiano (D-San Francisco) said of the Businesses, Professions, and Economic Development Committee. According to followers of Assembly Bill 2312, moderation are required to California's 16-year-old medical marijuana laws to defend legal growers, sellers and patients in the wake of federal raids and increased inquiry from local authorities.

Monday's decision, however, kills any probability for a decision this year, according to observers. Legislation which would have protected some marijuana distributors from trial died on the Senate floor earlier this year, and a drive to succeed a medical marijuana regulation program for the statewide ballot didn't draw the money it required to do well.

Ammiano said he's resolute to permit the commission to hold more inquiries and issue a report after the legislative assembly suspends.

While the CA Medical Marijuana Regulation bill "represents my best effort to regulate this industry that has existed in a patchwork of regulations and laws for the past 15 years," Ammiano said, more study could create an even better bill.

"There is no doubt that my colleagues understand the need for this legislation, and I have a lot of faith in this committee that we can hammer out a well-balanced regulatory policy during the fall to answer calls from local governments, law enforcement including our Attorney General, patients, and the public to enact a highly regulated system for medical marijuana and provide a clear set of rules for everybody," Ammiano said.

The CA medical marijuana regulation bill had made it out of the California Assembly earlier this month on a 41-28 vote. It would have created a state Bureau of Medical Marijuana Enforcement to provide omission of the medicinal cannabis industry.

It would also allow local governments to tax marijuana products, which made it unpopular with some medical marijuana dispensary owners.

Medical Marijuana advocates also didn't like the fact that late modifications were added to the CA medical marijuana regulation bill which would permit city councils and county boards of supervisors to ban medical marijuana dispensaries, reports David Downs of the East Bay Express. Medical marijuana Patient advocates in battlefield counties where safe access though medical marijuana dispensary storefront has been eliminated said that such bans are a deal-breaker. 

Law enforcement types didn't like it either. State law enforcement associations opposite to the CA medical marijuana regulation bill claimed the measure was "really an oversize authorization slip for medical marijuana stores to control in a practical free manner."

Don Duncan, executive director at medical marijuana patient advocacy group Americans for Safe Access, said the CA medical marijuana regulation bill would be back in one form or another.

"Many good bills take more than a year to pass," Duncan wrote to ASA members. "We need to make sure that taxation, if necessary, is limited; and we need to make it difficult for cities and counties to ban patients' associations outright."

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The business of medical marijuana dispensaries does not negatively impact local crime rates, according to a federally funded study published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs.

Investigators at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) studied whether the rise of medical marijuana dispensaries is related with high crimes rates. Researchers appraised the spatial relationship between density of medical marijuana dispensaries and two types of crime rates (violent crime and property crime) in 95 survey tracts in Sacramento, California, during the year 2009.

Researchers reported: “There were no observed cross-sectional relations between the density of medical marijuana dispensaries and either violent or property crime rates in this study. These results advise that the density of medical marijuana dispensaries may not be associated with crime rates or that other factors, such as measures California marijuana dispensaries take to decrease crime (i.e., doormen, video cameras), may raise custody such that it prevents likely provoked criminals.”

Writers agreed that their result “run opposing to public insights” and that they disagree with public statements made by the California Police Chief’s Association, which had formerly claimed, “Drug dealing, sales to minors, loitering, heavy vehicle and foot traffic in retail areas, increased noise, and robberies of customers just outside marijuana dispensaries are … common auxiliary by-products of (medicinal marijuana) operations.”

The UCLA is not the first study to disagree the claim that brick-and-mortar marijuana dispensaries are negatively related with crime. A 2011 study of crime rates in Los Angeles published by the RAND Corporation likewise accomplished, “[W]e found no facts that medical marijuana dispensaries in general reason crime to increase.” However, soon following its publication RAND removed the study from its website after their findings were widely assessed by the Los Angeles city attorney’s office.

Other analyses of crime statistics in the cities of Denver, Los Angeles, and Colorado Springs have independently undecided the view that the locations of marijuana dispensaries are related with high occurrences of criminal activity.

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Studied by: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

"Physicians who treat neuropathic pain with opioids should evaluate their patients for a trial of medical marijuana and prescribe it when appropriate prior to using opioids"

Sacramento, CA: Physicians who prescribe opioid drugs to patients with neuropathy (nerve pain) have to consider recommending marijuana as an alternative therapy, according to a peer-reviewed paper published online last month in the Harm Reduction Journal.

"There is sufficient evidence of safety and efficacy for the use of Medical Marijuana (Cannabinoids) in the treatment of nerve pain relative to opioids," the commentary states. "In states where medicinal marijuana is legal, physicians who treat neuropathic pain with opioids should evaluate their patients for a trial of marijuana and prescribe it when appropriate prior to using opioids.

Prescribing medical marijuana in place of opioids for neuropathic pain may reduce the morbidity and mortality rates associated with prescription pain medications and may be an effective harm reduction strategy."

The author notes that between the years 1999 and 2006, "approximately 65,000 people died from opioid analgesic overdose." By contrast, he writes "No one has ever died from an overdose of marijuana."

In clinical trials, inhaled medical marijuana has consistently been shown to reduce neuropathic pain of diverse causes in subjects unresponsive to standard pain therapies.

In November, clinical investigators at the University of California, San Francisco reported that vaporized marijuana augments the analgesic effects of opiates in subjects prescribed morphine or oxycodone. Authors of the study surmised that marijuana-specific interventions "may allow for opioid treatment at lower doses with fewer [patient] side effects."

Neuropathy affects between five percent and 10 percent of the US population. The condition is often unresponsive to conventional analgesic medications such as opiates and non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs.

Source: NORML.org

In recent month, a number of celebrities - from the rap group Cypress Hill to earlier talk show host Montel Williams - have come out in support of medical marijuana in California and across the country.

The broad range just more demonstrate what our California medical marijuana attorneys already recognize: the infinite array of profit this drug gives for patients who are suffering form a diversity of sickness.

The fight for the right to quietly allocate, buy and use marijuana for medicinal purposes is being fought on quite a few fronts throughout the state right now. It's been continuing since California became the first state to legalize the drug in 1996. Since then, 16 other states have tracked suit.

Sometimes, patients feel it's a continuous dance of one-step-forward, two-steps-back. Last year, the Obama administration gave orders for federal prosecutors to do hard work on matters other than medical marijuana. But last drop, prosecutors began moving forward anyway with a host of crackdowns across the state, shutting down medical marijuana dispensaries and collectives that it said were ballooning to uncontrollable extent.

Then pot proponents claimed victory a few weeks ago when an appeals court ruled that local governments couldn't operate nuisance laws simply for the purpose of shutting down medical marijuana dispensaries that were working legally.

But there were again setbacks when a federal judge in Sacramento refused to even hear a case brought by medical marijuana patients and operatives claiming that federal prosecutors are pay no attention to the presidential directive. The judge basically said the president's orders aren't compulsory.

Last week, Cypress Hill front man B-Real headed a march from Los Angeles City Hall to the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building at 4:20 p.m. in an attempt to say resistance to the crackdown and send a message that the state's medical marijuana laws should be protected. The rapper told LA Weekly that he was pleased with the produce for what basically generation a fight for civil rights. He follows up that effort with a "Smokeout Festival" headlined also by Sublime, Korn, Rusko and Wiz Khalifa. The event, B-Real said, is part of a greater movement.

"The goal of its inception was to use the power of music to build a platform for supporters, advocates and fans to congregate and take a stand toward decriminalization," he told AllHipHop News.

All artists involved, he said, were chosen for their talent, as well as their pro-medical marijuana support.

Also publicly voicing a pro-marijuana place in recent weeks is previous talk show host Montel Williams. He just held a news conference in Maryland on the issue and in addition appears on the Dr. Oz show. The 54-year-old has been dealing with multiple sclerosis since 1990. He said he has suffered with pain in his face, side and lower edge for years. Marijuana, he said, is the only material he has found that has provided him with relief. On Dr. Oz's program, he said since he began using medicinal marijuana, sign has stopped forming in his brain - leading him to believe it is the weed that has stopped the disease's development.

He said while it may not be a solution for everyone, medical marijuana has permitted him to have his life back.

A main success for patient's rights lawyers and those devoted in the battle for safe and legal weed dispensaries in Los Angeles.

State appellate court judiciaries in City of Lake Forest v. Evergreen Holistic Collective have ruled in favor of weed dispensaries and rejected the case that cities could ban these businesses by using local nuisance regulations, thereby circumventing the voters' clear choice some years ago to legalize the use and sale of marijuana for medical purposes.

California medical marijuana attorneys have work exhaustively on behalf of medical marijuana collectives in Lake Forest and the near areas. And we know that this judgment goes in opposition to an earlier beginning ban that was passed down by an Orange County judge about two years ago. That judgment would have shuttered Lake Forest's Evergreen Holistic Collective, but a stay was concerned until a higher could take a judgment.

In the provisional, federal authorities shut down the action a few months ago. A hearing on that issue is scheduled for later this month.

Still, this ruling is epic for weed dispensaries throughout the state because it means that while municipalities do have the power to regulate these legal businesses, they can't continue to ignore the will of the people by trying to shut them down by using nuisance laws.

One justice wrote that the city had asked for the nuisance injunction not because the weed dispensary was being operated offensively or due to any complaints by local residents, but rather because it was operating period. The justice went on to say that while he unspoken the decision may dissatisfy some, legislators and policy makers are hop by the will of the people.

"Although courts will continue to resolve disputes over the meaning of the (Compassionate Use Act) and (the Medical Marijuana Program Act's), policy choices about the role of medical marijuana in California state, including any changes or adjustments that may be made, rest ultimately with the people and their representatives," the justice wrote.

California medical marijuana defense attorney Damian Nassiri wrote:

"Based on this holding, the City of Sante Fe Springs may not ban collectives as they have done. They also may not try to rid their city of weed dispensaries using strong-arm tactics, such as sending the cease desist letter to the Plaintiff, demanding that they evict the defendants."

While the ruling backs the right of these weed dispensaries to continue to control, they did decide that non-profit medical marijuana collectives may only dispense marijuana from the place in which it was grown. That means it can't be grown wherever and then transported to be sold in a storefront.

This is a hard-won success for those who buy and sell marijuana for doctor-prescribed, medical purposes. These individuals have been frequently stressed by state and local officials, who have continued to try to prevent their action at every turn.

Representatives for Evergreen said that what mattered most in this case was the capability to be able to work in their society, rather than having to convert to San Diego or L.A. to have gained their medicine.

Still, the fight is not over yet. The issue of dissimilarities between state and federal law has yet to be ruled upon by the nation's highest court.

These types of cases will continue to be of top concern for everyone in California, and our medical marijuana defense attorneys will continue to stand on the front lines in defense of the rights of medical marijuana collectives, growers, patients.

The THC Support recommends skilled and aggressive illustration to the medical marijuana industry in California, throughout Palm Springs, Victorville, Hesperia and La Puente. Call 1-800-594-2260 for a private meeting to discuss your rights.

Alternative Links

1) Get Medical Marijuana Card in California

2) Find Medical Marijuana Doctor in California

Source: marijuanalawyerblog.com