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Medical Marijuana: Colorado Court of Appeals Rules Caregivers Must Do More Than Just Grow Pot

In an opinion released Thursday, the Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled that persons designated as "caregivers" under the state's medical marijuana law must do more than merely supply marijuana to patients. In so doing, the court upheld the conviction of a Longmont woman, Stacy Clendenin, who argued that marijuana she grew in her home was distributed to authorized patients in dispensaries.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/files/colorado-application.jpg
Colorado state medical marijuana application
That wasn't good enough for the appeals court. Caregivers authorized to grow marijuana for patients must actually know the patients they are growing for, the court said.

"We conclude that to qualify as a 'primary care-giver' a person must do more than merely supply a patient who has a debilitating medical condition with marijuana," the court ruled.

The ruling, if upheld on appeal, threatens to put a crimp in Colorado's burgeoning medical marijuana industry. Dozens of dispensaries have sprung up in the state this year, and growers have been supplying some of them.

That has sparked calls for reining in the dispensaries, a call that was echoed in a concurring opinion to the ruling. In his concurrence, Judge Alan Loeb wrote that Colorado's constitutional amendment legalizing medical marijuana "cries out for legislative action."

Attorney General John Suthers told the Denver Post he applauded the decision. "I am pleased to see the Court of Appeals has provided legal support for our case that a caregiver, under Amendment 20, must do more than simply provide marijuana to a patient," Suthers said. "I also was pleased to see the assertion in the special concurrence that Amendment 20 'cries out for legislative action.' I could not agree more. I hope the legislature will act and create a regulatory framework that gives substance to the Court of Appeals' findings."

But Clendinin's attorney, Robert Corry, said the ruling was limited and that he would appeal it. "This decision is quite limited and only applies to Stacy Clendenin and only applies to those who went to trial before July when the state board agreed that caregivers could simply provide marijuana," Corry said. "I am concerned that the court superimposed California law on Colorado and I don't think California (medical marijuana) law is a shining star of success."

Why did they use the term

Why did they use the term "primary care giver" in the initiative if they didn't expect it to be taken seriously? I never understood how this language could be stretched to cover dispensaries. The language would suggest a nurse, a parent, a spouse, a significant other, an administrator of a nursing home, a social worker, etc. Presumably a patient would obtain mj from illegal sources at first (the patient would not be legally liable for buying, but the seller would for selling) until s/he or hir primary caregiver had grown enough for hir to use, while institutions such as nursing homes could bridge their caregiver status as suppliers of mj as their patients came & went.

Medical Marijuana

I dont think theres anything wrong with that providing anyone who qualifies to smoke may also sell to their friends. I actually think it is a very good idea to keep the traffic down.

Develop social networking to meet the challenge

The positive side of this is that dispensaries can take this ruling at its word and get to know each patient personally-- what's wrong with that?
Their personnel could undertake to be virtual nurse, parent, spouse, caregiver etc. in the sense of instructing every patient, individually or in group sessions as convenient, making sure they learn proficiency in harm-reduction smoking or vaporizing procedures, eliminate the hot-burning overdose $igarette approach with or without nicotine, and develop awareness of nutrition and exercise and avoidance of drugs with which there could be any cross-influence with the cannabis.

Medical Cannabis

My opinion on this is a patient is a patient they should have they're own rights to talk personally about they're dehabilitating disease or disorder. I also believe that the requirements as a patient should be broadened a little bit. Cannabis can be used for many things like sleeping disorders, add or addhd, post traumatic stress syndrome,asthma. I think the caregiver should be open to talk to the patient if needed and talk about what the problem is so that the caregiver can prescribe the right kind of cannabis to the patient. Most people don't understand there is 2 types of cannabis a sativa and a Indica both of these have very different properties for example: one is a lower high make you calm down or sleep more and one is an upper high that tends to wake you up and keep you more alert. There are many differences in these two types of cannabis that many people have not looked into or explored. There is to many to name. Also take into mind that newer marijuana plants have been crossbread and mixed sativa and indica which brings a third type of cannabis which is almost fully unexplored. Also there is so many different strains of marijuana it is not even funny and I highly doubt many people know the best strains to use for different diseases I think this should be researched by the public and the govenrment and all research discovered to be open to the caregivers and patients. Having said all of this brings another factor into play say you wanted to have 3 different types of marijuana plants you are going to need your three stage of a plant process to keep up with the patients which is your clones or seedlings you are going to need your growing stage and you are going to need your flowering or budding stage so say you have 10 patients 4 want one plant 3 want a different plant 2 want the other strain and the last patient has special needs for a special plant then you run into this problem cannabis takes about 2 months to finish and be ready for prescription If the law states you can only grow 3 budding plants and four babies each one of these patients is going to use about an ounce on average a month and the law states you are to only have 1 ounce per plant The average modernized cannabis plant puts out anywhere from 1 ounce to 4 ounces or more there is another problem this barely takes care of the medical licensed caregivers medicinal needs. In order to take care of 10' 20 , or even 30 patients you would need about 33 plants growing at all times. In my opinion a caregiver or dispenserary should not handle more than 30 patients by him or herself This is the pheasable limit to handle. Keep in mind probably only a good 25% of the patients will ever become a caregiver not everyone wants to grow or has the knowledge to do this. So this leaves another problem how will all the patients get theyre choice of caregiver if one is limited or even be left without a way to get the medicine. This is where I think it should be the responsibility of the caregivers to either hire an employee as another caregiver or see if an existing patient is willing to go somewhere else. These problems can be worked out with a little work as shown it is not as complicating as everybody is making it. For those of you that can't face the facts that more than half of the nations population smoke cannabis and a good majority of the world for some medicinal reason or stress relieving cause, better than cigarettes and alcohol any day I feel bad for you because you are stuck in a time that does not exist in this upcoming world open your mind and your eyes this is the future. Legilization is probably not that far away this medical law is just a slow step to see how the public acts with this being so close to legal In my opinion it should stay this way until everybody becomes accustom to the everyday medicinal properties of cannabis sincerely thekindlove

Medicinal cannabis

Just to make my statement clear my opinion on a caregiver by law should not be required to have short 5-10 minute talks with a patient (unless) the patient requests for some time to talk about theyre condition or different prescriptions of the different varieties of cannabis this respects the patients and the caregivers rights as a medical perspective am I wrong?

Dispenseries

You can go into WalMart and fill you prescription for any narcotic painkiller with out having to know your pharmacist personally, so long as you have a valid, verifiable prescription. Granted, medical marijuana is not prescribed, its recomended by a doctor, it is still the same concept. I think the only regulations should be along the lines of making sure dispenseries or caregivers are not providing to the general public, and the doctors recomending the MMJ are ethical. The votors approved amendement 20, and the sales tax collected is a benifit to the cities in which the dispenseries are located. The president has already stated he is going to allow states "home rule" in regards to MMJ be honered. Also individual cities are making there own choices on allowing dispenseries. I understand the states position on reegulation,but please take all sides into consideration before placing rules on an amendment that the citizens of Colorado have already approved.

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