For those of you (like myself) who have not had the chance to see a first-class medical marijuana operation, here’s a nice look (Via Scott Morgan)
It’s also the potential vision of what a post-legalization distribution method could be.
- DrugWarRant.com, the longest running single-issue blog devoted to drug policy
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I’m a passionate advocate of full legalization. I believe medical use needs an exception
till that arrives. This place is built on the black market foundation of all cannabis pricing. Legal cannabis is not going to cost anywhere near what it does now. Dispensaries in CA all work from the prices of the black market.
They appear to sell all indoor grown cannabis. That method is very costly and uses enormous amounts of energy. Talk about a carbon footprint. Also there is no such thing as “organic” indoor, a fundamental component to organic is sun.
Besides, legal cannabis is not going to be restricted to non-profit status any more than alcohol is now, they won’t have to attempt to fulfill the “caregiver” requirements with all that “free” therapy, (paid for by the extreme profits generated by black market based prices) Sorry but I’m not buying the nonprofit line either. I’m not against profit at all, I’m against phony assurances of nonprofit benevolence considering the realities of all this.
This is as slick a piece of marketing as one might find from pharmaceutical corporation. I’m not at all convinced that patients come first, after all, just like the
health care and pharmaceutical industry we have now, all this generosity doesn’t come free.
They are convenient for those without connections.
The quickness that it came together, after the terrorizing,
and the quality of it all impresses me.
American ingenuity at its finest in spite of Govs meddling.
Is that a fat lady singing or flying pigs squealing?
Watch-On-The-Web:
Important Medical Marijuana Case Before California Supreme Court
The End of Prohibition By Jacob Weisberg
CN Source: Slate November 02, 2009
“I think this would be a good time for a beer,”
~ Franklin D. Roosevelt said upon signing a bill that made 3.2-percent lager legal again, some months ahead of the full repeal of Prohibition.
“I inhaled—that was the point.”
~ Barack Obama as he presides over the dismantling of our contemporary forms of prohibition…
RxGanja products
Ganjabars in Vending Machines,
Ain’t that America, Home of the Free Baby.
Schedule#1 Narcotic Burlap?
Hemp Products not grown by US family farms.
Re-legalize it.
I tend to agree with Ned.
The 800 lb. gorilla in the dispensary is the patient that obtains a medical marijuana card solely as a cover to consume cannabis without the fear of prosecution. We all know they exist, yet reform leaders continually state that medical marijuana is not a Trojan Horse for full legalization. This wink and a nod approach will come back to bite us in the ass when reform groups move beyond advocating medicinal use to advocating use for all.
If we look at Amsterdam and Portugal, and now Mexico, where drug policy reform surpasses that of the United States, we see that medical marijuana played no part in their policy decisions. Their drug policy success should serve as a cautionary tale to all those championing medical marijuana as the proper strategy to move the drug debate forward.
I’m still trying to figure out their pricing. In Mexico, a lid goes for around $15US. If a person were allowed to grow their own or purchase from a local grower, aside from any taxes placed on such a purchase, it wouldn’t be that expensive at all.
Valid medicinal value, it’s a victimless crime, the War on Drugs WAY too costly, too many arrests for simple possession, tax it and use the money to pay for health insurance and to reduce the deficit…Need I say more?
Woodstock Universe supports legalization of Marijuana.
Add vote in our poll about legalization at http://www.woodstockuniverse.com.
Current poll results…97% for legalization, 3% against.
Listen to RADIO WOODSTOCK 69 which features only music from the original Woodstock era (1967-1971) and RADIO WOODSTOCK with music from the original Woodstock era to today’s artists who reflect the spirit of Woodstock. Watch Woodstock TV.
Peace, love, music, one world,
RFWoodstock
As someone who hails from a (bass-ackwards!) State that doesn’t have medicinal cannabis laws worthy of the name, I’m forced to observe this from afar with both envy and trepidation. The arguments regarding the problem of those who abuse the laws allowing for medicinal use in those States which have them are no less valid. Yet, my sentiment is that if I were residing in such a State, I might be tempted to do the same.
If only because it might hasten the day for full re-legalization, by sheer weight of numbers; recall the old line from movies of the 1930’s and early 1940’s in which characters would ‘wink and nod’ about the use of alcohol ‘purely for medicinal purposes’. The implication of how many people knowingly broke the laws of alcohol Prohibition by using that ‘back door’ was obvious.
I am not a fan of incrementalism. Fabianist maneuverings don’t suit a blunt personality like mine. I’d prefer an up-front fight, debate, thrust and counter-thrust until the issue is settled, one way or another. But I have to admit that what has happened in California and elsewhere has indeed advanced the cause, because the ugly truth is that our opponents won’t accommodate my desire for a knock-down, drag-out fight; they prefer to snipe from the battlements of their (taxpayer-funded!) ivory towers and have their goons wade into the trenches with tasers and truncheons, not sweet words of reason.
So, if we have to do the same thing as people back in the 1920’s and 1930’s did regarding this matter, like as not, then so be it. It is a variation of Marc Emery’s “Overgrow the government” and apparently has been working. But it doesn’t mean I personally like it.
Feds to Continue Raids on Medical Pot in California
The federal government will continue raids on medical marijuana operations in California despite guidelines issued by the Justice Department two weeks ago indicating the contrary.
Drug czar: Look at problems with medical pot in California
Nov 3 2009
Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske is attempting to discourage a medical marijuana drive in Iowa while a pharmacy board is holding hearings to collect input on the subject and could decide to make a recommendation to state lawmakers.
How Much Does It Cost to Build an Air-Conditioned Drug Smuggling Tunnel?
Oct 30 2009
Cost of building one with air-conditioning and electric transportation is low compared with the likely rewards.
kapt~
I believe the reason our opponents don’t engage us in an all-out brawl, one which you and I and many others desire, is that drug policy reform leaders simply do not agitate for one.
As long as our side remains focused mainly on medical marijuana, the longer the larger question of prohibition repeal is delayed – something that seems to suit our opponents just fine. Again, I point to Amsterdam, Portugal and Mexico as better examples of effective drug policy reform.
where in ca is this located? One white girl (employee) I swear shes from florida. yea? Killian? crazy hot mama
R.O.E. – guess You get My Lucky Vote today since I’m a convicted felon..tee hee..(really)..real-eagle-eyes it!
RFWoodstock – I always thought Woodstock and Merle Hagard legalized everything back then anyway, ya know, back in the good ‘ole days.
But now we have Google-Eyes on everything that these little prohibitionist mice do, i.e. Mega Crops In Utah; U.S.A.
DdC – awesome amount of hemp products being produced here in Ojai, CA as I learned from looking at this info You have provided above. Thanks (everyone!)
That would be my ultimate pick of professions, growing for the vast number of things including a cocoa plant that are ‘heaven-sent’.
I did some interesting reading yesterday also about language, consiousness, Trilokpuri Massacre, and alot of things….’Joie de vivre’ means ‘Joy of Living.’
Wonder how often they shoot workers for rival dispensaries. Can someone in law enforcement explain to me how this is worse than getting an untested, unregulated product from a street dealer who doesn’t check IDs?
To answer a few points:
@ David E William: As to the concerns about “abuse” of the system, it is important to remember that in California the law allows medical use for “any condition” for which marijuana “provides relief.” Thus the law permits a very broad array of uses, and it was intentionally written as such. So I don’t think “abuse” is as rampant as suggested – nothing in the law limits medical use to so-called “serious” medical conditions.
Whether or not this is perceived as a cover for full scale legalization is beside the point. California’s experiment has been phenomenally successful by any measure — it has convinced large swaths of the public that large scale marijuana distribution can be done safely and effectively and it has created sizable above-ground private and public sector economic interests that virtually ensure the program will not be rolled back on a state level. And, there is now a large constituency of consumers in California who are politically motivated to preserve and expand the reforms that we have already won. Better yet, political organizers have easy access to these voters.
Your supposition that these dispensiaries are not actually non-profits lacks any real merit. There have been abuses in this regard, and some high profile prosecutions, and it is certainly true that people in the industry are making money. But paying yourself a salary from your non-profit, even a generous one, is not illegal. Many executives of many non-profits make a lot of money for their efforts, and deservedly so. The point is that a non-profit sinks all of its money back into the non-profits efforts in some way, be it by paying employees or furthering the mission.
All in all, the California situation is a huge win for the reform movement and the positive ripple effects on the reform movement outside of California are apparent. Sure, full scale legalization would be better, but I don’t think there is any serious argument that California or the medical marijuana movement generally are setting this effort back. Quite the contrary.
@will: Harborside Health Center is in Oakland. It’s great. Definitely one of the best.
@Ned: While it is true that many of the dispensiaries charge “black market” prices or similar prices I think this is justified because the production is still largely forced underground and it was only very recently that the dispensiary operators could relax a bit vis-a-vis fear of federal prosecution (which is pricey!). That said, I have observed downward pressure on prices for less-than-super-high-grade marijuana over the past several years. There is competition in this marketplace, and as it expands, there will be even more downward price pressure. As to the indoor growing, this too is an unfortunate fact of life until we can secure broader legalization. Outdoor grows simply are not safe from criminal or law enforcement activity. It’s not the fault of the medical marijuana industry.
Adding my tuppence WRT kpj’s offering, I keep pointing out to all and sundry why California’s Prop215 was written the way it was, i.e. so broadly. It was deliberately made to be simple in design because it was both inclusive and restrictive at the same time.
Inclusive, as it dared to leave open-ended the possibility that cannabis-based medicines would be found to be effective for conditions not yet treated by them.
Restrictive, as by making it so inclusive, it was intended to tie the hands of local law enforcement, forcing them to become dependent upon the Feds, who may have more in the way of resources to mount attacks upon dispensaries, but by doing so, risked the popular backlash that they have received courtesy of their arrogant high-handedness in attacking said dispensaries.
The degree of that unpopularity became evident after the first attack upon the Coral’s WO/MENS Alliance group, and has only grown since then, with popular sentiment swinging ever more in the favor of the dispensaries in particular, and cannabis re-legalization in general.
Prop215 in essence was a gigantic trap, a pit filled with poo-smeared pungi sticks, and the DrugWarriors charged right into it. Now they’re spitted on it and can’t get out, and they’re getting more desperate as time goes by and medicinal cannabis has become more accepted within society.
As I said, I wish it didn’t have to be that way, but the DrugWarriors are essentially cowards, hiding behind the force of The State rather than standing and facing us, empty-handed, armed only with the strength of their convictions. They will only debate us as to the efficacy and morality of their actions as their penultimate move, just prior to their eventual capitulation. And a great many of them sense that day is coming soon.
kpj~
I did not make any mention as to the whether or not dispensaries are abusing non-profit status – perhaps you were thinking of someone else’s post?
Your belief that medical marijuana is a huge win is correct, but only to a point. It has done literally nothing for cannabis consumers not possessing a medical card, or for those residing in states where medical marijuana is outlawed. Nor has it had any impact on those arrested for the simple possession of pot – and there will be over 750,000 this year.
I’m not against medical marijuana. I just continue to believe it is not the proper strategy to move the drug debate forward. I hate to sound like a broken record, but Amsterdam and Portugal and Mexico are much farther ahead of the US concerning drug policy reform – and they did not start out with medical marijuana.
Daniel, IMHO one of the reasons why the Left is so strong in many Western countries, notably in Europe, is because those countries have already had horrifically tragic experiences with (Right-wing sired) fascism controlling their political systems in the past. It serves as an object lesson for us here because of the de facto Right-wing authoritarian slant that much of our political system suffers from…and which suffuses the DrugWar.
We like to claim we are free, but any cannabist knows how much of a lie that is. Those nations that have experienced fascism, either home-grown or imposed by force by neighboring countries, know the real meaning of freedom because they have had theirs stripped from them and had to take it back by force, at terrible cost.
We have not yet reached that point…but may yet. I really do pray that we might not ever have to experience that, but the sad fact is that far too many people in this country take their rights too much for granted, and are willing to surrender those rights – and that of their neighbors! – for an illusion of security. Again, the DrugWar is a perfect example of that in action.
The nations you have named have all had their experiences with how costly surrendering your rights, whether willingly or by force, can be, and how hard it is to win them back. Nations like the US or the UK, by contrast, have forgotten the lessons provided by horrors experienced by their neighbors and distant friends, and flirt with fascism like a child playing with matches…in a munitions factory.
My point? As I said, I don’t like the idea that it has to be medicinal cannabis that is the edge of the crowbar we must wedge into the hairline crack of prohibition. I’d prefer a few blocks of C-4, myself, and obliterate the damn thing completely.
But so long as most Americans who’ve never experienced the power of The State savaging their lives (as the DrugWar does regularly) take stands on rights to be the hopeless mutterings of political ‘fever swamp’ dwelling denizens who are ‘behind the times’ and ‘unfashionable’ (freedom as ‘unfashionable’; what a concept) and not mentioned in polite company, then we’ll have to use what we have at hand to get the job done.
Because the truth is and has always been that those ‘voices crying in the wilderness’ with their warnings of approaching menace are rarely taken seriously before that menace arrives, screaming epithets, blood dripping from its’ hands and intent upon your demise. The public at large has been conditioned a la Pavlov to view those warning of impending disaster to be wild-eyed nutcases worthy of institutionalization…even when they’re right. And by the time they’re proven right, it’s too late.
So…the public must be acclimated, bit by bit, into taking back its’ sense of personal sovereignty, and if it takes the slow and steady application of that crowbar, then until we can breach the wall of prohibition further with more direct methods, we’re stuck with incrementalization.
Prohibition fuels the cartel; glad to see Montana’s progress today and also Breckenridge, CO dispensaries.
People are fed up with the lies..pure and simple.
They lose..we win..I watched the history of the Declaration of Indepedence in a cartoon format today.
Americans have struggled, fought and died for the freedom we still posess, far too long to let cartel and DEA corruption get the best of us.
The chart representing pot arrests in comparison to absolute violent rape/murder is a good wake up call that we should all do our utmost to demonstrate this clear/precise message to others.
YesWeCannabis I read your comment this a.m. and I hope You do not mind this reiteration, “You can read the paper..mention the cartel-related murders that happen in CA alone are higher than they have ever been, but yet there are no arrests being made.”
This is extremely wrong and backwards to say the least in our society. What the hell happened..population explosion is somewhat to blame but this is shocking today!
It embarrasses us to the rest of the world!
Someone please explain to me once again, what are we doing in Iraq? Protecting women and children (and Men) from what we are doing to each other here today and every day.
Time for change..big change..wake up America..go find a pedophile or two..perhaps three..or four.
We are peacefully ending the insanity war daily because We The People are sticking up for Truth.
It is between the crooks, the crooked and the crooked-crooks (cartel, mafia {hiding behind a false religion} and bureaucracy) presently getting exorcised from leadership..one chip at a time.
We Americans are reclaiming our natural resource finally since hemp began being trodden on in order to promote deadly tobacco/alcohol and wasting of the land and environment.
That clean-cut classy example in the above picture is another one of my dreams for people someday..not if but when. It may take a few more years but everyone’s coming around slowly but surely.
It is another sad fact of life that some of these prohibitionists will be directly affected with cancer and plagues and then be forced to learn the hard way to not judge others.
One more question, if I may, why don’t the States individually get cited by the CIA? FBI? for not arresting murderous thugs. Do we have the wrong group of individuals imprisoned as scapegoats? Yes…we do!
P.S. I have seen alot of true fairness going on within Utah’s Court System for quite a few years.
A Lady Circuit Judge readily dismissed small quantity several years ago and I personally know friends of mine of whom did not go to jail over the past few years for simple possession. Turtle steps..but good ones!
Shurtleff – out of the race for Senate – was just announced…h.m.m.m.
Damn, very nice website. I actually came across this on Yahoo, and I am happy I did. I will definately be revisiting here more often. Wish I could add to the conversation and bring a bit more to the table, but am just absorbing as much info as I can at the moment.
Thank You
watch free movie online net
It’s splendid idea to create internet page like this one! Very untypical point of view and nice graphic.
actually, i watched this movie twice because i sort of laughed a lot on the ugly truth movie .”~