Medical Marijuana

State-sanctioned medical marijuana dispensaries now outnumber Starbucks in Colorado. But outside Denver and Boulder, few doctors are comfortable dealing with medical marijuana. Now, residents in rural Colorado towns like Salida can see a doctor who are willing to recommend medical marijuana aboard two shiny aluminum vintage airstream trailers, which have been converted into mobile doctors' offices. The trailers criss-cross the state, providing exams for new patients and access to medical marijuana for those deemed eligible.

Mark Slaugh, membership director of the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, wrote to Rep. Mark Barker, R-Colorado Springs, and Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs to urge legislative action on behalf of a teenage medical marijuana patient being denied access to his medicine by Colorado's Harrison School District 2. The teenager in question was diagnosed a little more than a year ago with a very rare condition that causes seizures, which can last for days. Slaugh said the district should take a more reasonable approach to the situation and the legislature should rewrite medical marijuana laws so that this situation doesn’t come up in the first place.

Conflict between state and federal laws over the legality of medical marijuana has left owners of medical marijuana dispensaries finding that their financial services can go up in smoke. They're caught in a legal gray area that makes big banks wary or downright hostile. Last spring, Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., and 14 other members of Congress sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner seeking reassurance for financial institutions. The letter to Geithner asks his office to "issue formal written guidance for financial institutions assuring that Department priorities do not include targeting or pursuing institutions whose account holders are involved in a business ostensibly operating in compliance with a state medical marijuana law." No response has been received.

The saga of a Colorado Springs, Colorado teenager struggling with a rare neurological condition best controlled with medical marijuana lozenges became a little more surreal when school officials informed the student’s father that the child cannot return to school on any day that he consumes medical marijuana. The child missed most of the last school year when he was diagnosed with diaphragmatic and axial myoclonus, which causes seizures that can last for 24 hours or more. He spent extensive periods of time hospitalized and used morphine and other narcotics to control the seizures until doctors discovered that THC works better than any other medication.

In San Francisco, a medical marijuana collective is trying to change the idea of a medical marijuana club as a tiny storefront office in a declining part of town, or a huge but impersonal former warehouse.

Greenway University has received full formal state approval from the Colorado Department of Higher Education. The university has received authorization to teach ten medical marijuana state-approved courses, the only such state-approved and regulated medical marijuana courses in the United States. Greenway University is renowned for its compliance driven medical marijuana educational services in California, Colorado, Arizona and the Western US.

The Detroit Free Press reports on Michigan communities that have been sued over ordinances restricting medical marijuana.