Press Release from the Friends of Cushingberry.
March 17, 2010
Representative Cushingberry will be taking comments and suggestions to improve the Michigan Medical Marijuana Program at a hearing of the Appropriations: Investigations, Intergovernmental Affairs and Oversight Committee on March 18th at 10AM in room 352, House Appropriations on the 3rd floor of the Capitol Building.
(Click Here for Committee Page Dates and Times)
Written comment is preferred and, if you would like to submit your concerns please contact Rep. Cushingberry and your own State Representative at www.michigan.gov
If you would like to leave a comment on this page, please do so as the information will be compiled and noted for the record. The long time delay in processing applications is un-acceptable and will be improved for the good of the people. The chairman will want to know the status of the 15 member board that is responsible for reviewing additional medical conditions. Who are the members and, when is the first meeting date are questions that will be answered and addressed by MDCH/MMP represenatives.
Driving Directions to State Capitol in Lansing MI
28 comments:
The MMMAct does allow the patient's paperwork to act as the "card" - as the MDCH is not able to issue the cards in a timely manner. What we need is the LEO to also consider the validity of the paperwork - and stop arresting people for having the paperwork, waiting for the card!
The MDCH- MMMP should notify the Attorney General in writing of it's non compliance on the issuing of cards. The Attorney General should forward that information to every Judge, Prosecuting Attorney, and Chief of Police in Michigan to avoid violating patients rights.
The MDCH currently has three employee’s working on issuing cards to MMP patients; they are working as hard but not working smart. There seems to be many ways to allow them to become more efficient. Such as creating a date base that LEO can access to verify patients/caregiver status even if the card has not been issued. The may also consider allowing doctor’s whom have been signing for patients access to this database as well therefore they can enter a patients info into the system the day they have been seen. Then the three people at the MDCH can simply update and maintain the system. Currently sick people are going to jail and losing medication because of no card or system to verify having an application in for a card.
The direct benefits to qualified patients as a result of the voter approved Michigan Medical Marijuana Program are well documented.
There are substantive indirect benefits as well. Among these are a reduction in black market demand, the increase in related private sector business activity, enhanced revenues to the state and the reduction in public sector costs for enforcement of prohibition.
For these reasons along, it is in everyone's best interest to support the current program.
Unfortunately, as evidenced by the changes proposed in the legistative bills SB 616, SB 617, SB 618, and HR 5288, many elected officials and Law Enforcement Officials seem determined to overturn the intent of a Constitutional Amendment passed with a 63% majority.
With an annual cost of the so-called 'War on Drugs' estimated at three-hundred billion dollars, most of which is spent enforcing marijuana prohibition, the larger question should be whether spending such substantial amounts is justified.
Keep in mind, most of the societal costs related to prohibition fall on the nation's poor and particularly on minorities.
In Michigan alone, the US Department of Health estimates nearly one-million citizens use cannabis recreationally at least once a year. Total consumption in Michigan is 15,000,000 ounces.
Consider this; if consumption was taxed at $50/ounce and cannabis was treated like the much more harmful substances, tobacco and alcohol, the resulting revenues and savings on prohibition enforcement would amount to nearly one-billion dollars.
Given the state's dire economic dilemna, the Appropriation Committee should focus not on changing the Medical Marijuana Program, but investigating the benefits of rationalizing the failed prohibition laws.
The delay in processing medical marijuana cards for patients and caregivers is unacceptable.
Law enforcement not accepting the filed paperwork till the card comes is unacceptable.
Law enforcement doing inspections is unacceptable.
Law enforcement using the following reasons to do illegal search’s and to obtain illegal warrants is unacceptable:
a) We got a tip someone is growing marijuana …….So what? It’s legal for SOME people to grow and is NOT reason enough to get a warrant to search their home.
b) When I approached the car I smelt marijuana…… So what again its legal for SOME people to transport marijuana.
Judges not allowing a person to use the AD in court is unacceptable.
We need to change our ways from the days when marijuana arrest helped build law enforcement and court’s bank accounts. Not every person using marijuana is a criminal.
Thank You
John Wells
Executive Director of 3MED
I am a card holding medical marijuana patient and want to know why it is taking the state over 100days to get cards out to those who qualify.
Under the law the MDCH-MMMP cards are to be issued within 20 days of receipt of a an application and its approval.
We have had legal patients arrested and I'm not talking about young kids either.
I'm talking about patients with cancer, MS and other serious medical conditions they qualify under.
I guess Michigan has all kinds of money to spend defending law suits that will be coming sooner than later.
Maybe a couple seven figure judgements against the state or local cities will help.
And AG Cox you can forget about getting into the governors seat.
You are unable to do the job you have now, why would we trust you in another.
You could of spoke out against the arrests and stopped them by telling local police to follow the law as written not how they choose to interpret it.
But you stand silent and let the continued illegal activities of local police carry on across the state.
And your silence speaks volumes about your total lack of integrity and character.
MARVIN is looking forward to your phone call.
March 17, 2010 12:19 PM
Press Release from the Friends of Cushingberry.
March 17, 2010
Here is my list of things will improve the Michigan Medical Marijuana Program:
If a person can prove that they have been receiving SSD or SSI for three or more years, their patient cards should be good for two years.
Renewal card should be have the cost of the original card.
Because not all patients smoke, and because smoking is not the healthiest way to ingest medication, allow the “preparations thereof” amount greater than the 2.5 ounces. “preparations thereof” would include topical such as ointments & sprays, capsules, and food items.
More importantly, the MDCH should be held to forwarding patients their cards within the 20 days called for in the law.
The MDCH MMP is violating the law. The excuses are not valid. This is no tougher than voter registration that every Township , City , and Village do every day. The hold up of criminal background checks is a self created problem. A signed statement by the patient should suffice for medical purposes. Already a Dr. signs , a patient signs, a caregiver signs if one is needed. Stop the delays now. Contacting the Michigan State Police with patient and caregiver names and dates of birth violates the law also and MDCH should be reprimanded and sanctioned.
if the condition that makes me a qualifying patient is degenerative and will never get better my card should be permanent. maybe charge people like me $200 instead of $100. also... i would like to see members only collectives legalized so that caregivers can transfer overages to other patients that are in need. not dispensaries that will sell to anybody that walks through the door but members only collectives.
They have found a way around sending the cards out in a timely manner...they "issue the card" on time then send it months later
I really believe that "issuing"...means getting to the person. Its not just a technical term
Anyone who gets in front of these people can ask them about that
Its bad enough we have to pay for a card to get “equal protection” under the law, but we have to keep paying to renew the card. Along with the added cost of doctor visits. If a condition is not going to get better or if it going to get worst then the card should be for life. The state has permanent trailer plates and it does not take 100 days to get them out. I wonder if there would be a bigger outcry if their paychecks were coming this late? Also there is no reason an automated system could not be used for after hours by law enforcement. Most of law enforcements raids, stops and searches are done after hours. Now law enforcement knows what hours the phone line is up so why are they still doing this? Makes you wonder. John Wells Executive Director 3MED.org
The MDCH MUST hire enough staff to process the registrations in a timely manner and enough stagg to handle the renewals which begin in april. The delays are increasing and the Department's action should cause or compel legal action.
Added to that, the Director and Department have made little or no effort to appoint the Committee to evaluate added qualified conditions meriting treatment under the MMA.
At some point the footdragging becine actuinabke,
AS for the LOE's petty foot dragging it will continue until false arrests suits are litigated. Some LOE has been commendable but much petulant behavior as they lose their easiest targets.
Aggressive legislative oversight is necessary if the will of the people is to be recognized. Continuing to leave LOE with any power over medical marijuana patients must cease and immedicatly.
Unfortunately the people apparently have no one able to lead in the acceotane if the NNA in the executuve branches It fall to the legislature to lead and without delay.
thanks for having the hearing fcdmh
I am a patient Who wanted to also be a caregiver and help a close friend with cancer and another in a wheel chair,Both on disability.
They can not afford to pay much for meds, but get tremendous relief from medical marijuana
I live in a town which passed a zoning ordinance preventing citizens at home from growing for more then them selves (becoming a caregiver).
I did not want to charge anything from them as they don't have much.
I am prevented from helping them due to the zone, as i cannot afford to rent a New building in a zone and pay additional costs that come with it.
I am very clean and all organic,Who is hurt by my grow?
Its not loud,doesn't smell and non toxic,but i can not grow for another person(Legally allowed by the state)
I had some extra space in a closet(which wouldn't cost me much to utilize..)
So who is the ones who suffer?The patients who need it the most.
What i want to see besides LAw enforcement following the law(you have a card.its verified.within limits,Thank you have a nice day)
Instead of current status of arresting everyone and sorting it out later,who cares if patients need MMJ
.LEO needs to enforce the law as it is not as how they want it to be..
63 percent of the voters didn't vote for MMJ to be legal to round up patients and caregivers who are following the law and force them into forfeiture court and legal fees most can not afford.
Please address these issue as they are hurting a lot of people trying to get relief and be legal with out hurting any one.
Patients need more protection.
Law enforcement is not following the law as it is and is rather doing what they personally feel is right.Not the law.Its not right and very unconstitutional..
Please tell them to stop violating the law.Rushing into an unarmed persons home who is following the law they voted for, just to have Armed gunman screaming throwing ill citizens on the floor,stealing there medication,and anything else of value in the home,sometimes the home it self if its worth enough to them.I don't know what u call it but that is text book listing of Breaking entering,brandishing a gun,armed robbery,kidnapping when they arrest you when you are legal.False imprisonment,and finally extortion when they force u to pay to fight for your personal property back,other wise u are damaged more if u don't pay.
please stop armed gunmen from committing armed robbery on patients with immunity...
i agree with a comment above.If u have a degenrative deises you should get ur card for life or at least the 10$ fee to change new cards they charge now.Degernitive isn't curable it WILL get worse there for wy do u have to pay 200 for another cert and 100 to the state? again?
$100 per year, every year is ridiculous. One year renewal is ridiculous. Issuing the card 3 months before sending it is ridiculous. Being arrested because you don't have the card in hand is ridiculous.
I'd like to point out the enormous social cost of being "in the system" if you are a legal patient or caregiver and get arrested. Representative, please realize that just court costs alone can send someone into a financial tailspin that lasts for months, if not years. The fallout from that is often job loss, home loss, family and social censure, and many other social ills. These in turn COST THE STATE MONEY because being arrested forces people into penury, and people then have to get food stamps, etc. I have seen it many times in my research for my Masters in Public Health. These people I'm talking about are sick people in pain, so what on EARTH is the thinking behind allowing police to play fast and loose with the law? It's costing us all money! And it's WRONG!
Representative Cushingberry,
Thank you for the opportunity for input. The time to receive the cards is really bad for Public opinion on the goverment workers. The $100 cost should be incentive to serve the people, who also pay their wages. This medication can be just as important as any other drug, especially when it helps us take less of other meds. People who are following the law, and are arrested should also be a priority, especially because stress exasperates our conditions, besides the costs involved. I am a 50 year old woman with chronic and degenerative disorders. 63 percent of the voters that voted this in will like to know who is trying to change the law, especially before the 2010 and 2112 elections, and all the Health Care issues being discussed.
Thank you for the hearing too.
L. Cotter
I propose that the MDCH be fined for each card that is late to the card holder. I'd suggest a dollar a day for the first 30 days, then 5 dollars a day for each subsequent day. Many that are presently in this system would have gotten their cards free from the state. Either that or the MDCH would have figured out a better system.
I would also like to suggest that the plant counts be increased. Using the 12 plant rule, but making those 12 plants "mature plants" with no restriction on plants that are vegging or being propagated.
About Time these Issues are Addressed.
Why are Cards being issued after 100+ Days and Patients and Caregivers being Areseted from uninformed Police Departments.
Caregiver/Patient Co-Ops are needed for the Low Income Patients. This is an Obvious Needed Reality and will eventually be solved in the courts if not before hand.
Since the State already Collects a Huge $100 Fee from each Patient no other Taxes should be attached to Medical Marijuana.
More Pressure should also be put on Our Federal Goverment to do the right thing and Listen too We The People of this Country.
The Lies about Hemp/Cannabis/Marijuana have all been know for long enough. Please read a very old book for an Honest Education. It only takes a few hours to read and will enlighten and open ones Eyes to Reality.
Read The Emperor Wears No Clothes by Jack Herer, link to Free E-book listed below.
http://www.jackherer.com/chapters.html
Thank You for the Opportunity too let My Voice be Heard: from a Concerened and Fearful US Citizen.
Can We Really Trust our Goverment to do the Right thing ?
Legal to post Excerpt from Jack Herer's book The Emperor Wears No Clothes
Link http://www.jackherer.com/chapter15.html
Poisoning Pot Smokers
In August and September, 1983, Turner went on national television to justify the illegal marijuana spraying (by plane) of paraquat in Georgia, Kentucky, and Tennessee by the DEA. He said it would teach a lesson to any kid who died from paraquat-poisoned pot. Turner was forced to resign after announcing his conclusions in public that marijuana caused homosexuality, the breakdown of the immune system, and, therefore, AIDS.
Looking into the therapeutic potential of cannabis is the most controlled and discouraged research, but any tests pursuing negative or harmful effects of cannabis are promoted. Since these tests often backfire or are inconclusive, even this research is rare.
Turner quoted "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" to show how jazz (rock) singers are eroding the America "he" loves with this hallucinogenic drug marijuana! Which he meant to stamp out.
Phony Paraquat Kits
During the 1978 Mexican marijuana paraquat scare, and while still a private citizen working for the state of Mississippi marijuana farm, this same Carlton Turner called High Times magazine to advertise a paraquat tester. Unknown to Turner, High Times was not accepting ads for any paraquat testers because all evidence showed the testers didn't work.
Dean Latimer then a High Times associate editor, strung Turner along in virtually daily phone conversations for a month, listening to Turner talk about how much money Turner was going to make from sales of the device.
High Times wanted to see a sample. When Turner delivered his prototype version of the paraquat test kit to High Times, it was a total "Rube Goldberg" type rip-off, "just like the dozen or so phony kits other companies tried to buy ad space for at this time," wrote Latimer in an article published in 1984.
Turner apparently never thought High Times was ethical enough to check the contraption out. He assumed they would just take the ad money and run print the ad and make Turner rich.
He didn't care if some kid died or was bilked out of money believing in his bogus paraquat test kit.
After this attempted mail fraud, this man became President Reagan's national drug czar in 1981, recommended by George Bush and Nancy Reagan.
A Wanton Disregard for Life
Turner even said that he doesn't even care if hundreds of kids die from smoking pot the federal government has deliberately sprayed with paraquat.
Then at the April 25, 1985, PRIDE conference in Atlanta, Georgia, with Nancy Reagan and 16 foreign First Ladies in attendance (including Imelda Marcos), Turner called for the death penalty for drug dealers.
Turner was, after all, Reagan's, Bush's, and the pharmaceutical companies' own hired gun, who saw his entire mission as not against heroin, PCP, or cocaine, but to wipe out pot and jazz/rock music.
Carlton Turner was forced to resign after Newsweek magazine excoriated him October 27, 1986, in a large editorial sidebar. His resignation was a foregone conclusion after being lampooned in the Washington Post and elsewhere as no other public figure in recent memory for his conclusions (in public addresses) that marijuana smoking caused homosexuality, the breakdown of the immune system, and, therefore, AIDS.
He resigned December 16, 1986. What should have been front page headline news was buried in the back pages during the Iran-contra scandal that exploded that week.
More from Jack Herer's book
http://www.jackherer.com/chapter16.html
Quality of Life Should Not be Denied the Sick and Dying!
Todd McCormick, 36, suffered from cancer between the ages of 2 through 15, which resulted in his top five vertebrae being fused. In 1978, when Todd was 9 years old, Ann McCormick, Todd’s mom, read in the Family Doctor’s column of the Good Housekeeping magazine, about the use of marijuana for glaucoma and cancer patients taking chemotherapy. The article stated that marijuana helped with nausea and appetite stimulation. These were Todd’s symptoms! He couldn’t eat, felt sick, food made him sick, and the lack of food made him weak.
A few months went by and Todd’s tumors acted up, and chemotherapy began again. After a chemotherapy treatment, and on the way home, his mom told the then listless Todd to get on the floor of the car and smoke a joint. Remember now, and keep in mind, Todd was only 9 years old then. They got home and, for the first time, Todd could actually get out of the car by himself and walk to the house with crutches. Then he even sat down and ate dinner! He actually had an appetite! He hadn’t had one in a long time…
The next day, after the next treatment, Ann again told Todd to sit on the floor of the car and smoke a marijuana joint. Again, Todd showed the same results. It was the marijuana! So ecstatic, Todd’s mom went to see the doctors to tell them what happened. They all got quiet and advised her that the process of obtaining medical marijuana would take too long to be a benefit. In reality, it was the fear of federal law, repercussions, penalties and the threat to their medical licenses and livelihood if they recommended the use of marijuana that motivated their advice, even though marijuana would really help Todd. As she walked away, a doctor came up to her and asked her if she could get more? She was confused, thinking that maybe he wanted some, but said yes. He told her to continue what she was doing and to just shut up about it! That was exactly what she did. Todd used marijuana from that day on to alleviate his pain and suffering. In 1997, in Bel Aire, California, Todd was engaged in experimentation utilizing many varieties of cannabis to discover which plants at which stage (e.g. before they budded, after they budded, in the vegetative state? from the roots? seed? what plant age? and on and on) were most effective for various pains and illnesses; which chemicals in the marijuana plant (e.g. cannabinoids, cannabidiolic acid, and tetrahydrocannabinol, etc.) was effective and was writing a meticulously researched book on the subject when he was arrest-ed by the DEA on July 29, 1997 for federal conspiracy and manufacturing (cultivation) charges.
On November 3, 1999, Todd McCormick was denied any medical necessity defense in court, so on November 19, 1999, he pled guilty, and on March 27, 2000, he was sentenced to five years in federal prison.
Under the terms of his release on bail (which was secured by his mother’s home of 50 years), he had to abstain from the use of marijuana, which was the only medicine which would alleviate the nausea caused by his treatments for AIDS and cancer. Without smoking marijuana, Peter, along with hundreds of thousands before him, could barely hold down the “cocktails” of chemotherapy he was required to take on a daily basis. Because he wasn’t allowed medicinal marijuana, he got sick and ended up choking on his own vomit and died.
He was in a sense murdered by the government because of the terms of his release on bail. The sick and dying should not be denied the quality of their lives!
Greetings all...
The charman will be collecting comments for MDCH and MDIT to improve the program. Your thoughts and concerns have been presented by your leaders.
thank you all for your input,
The Friends of George Cushingberry Jr.
Make it so employers can no longer terminate employees who are legally using Marijuana under this act. Take the Walmart case in Battle Creek as a perfect example. Using marijuana legally should not mean one should forfeit their job or future employment because of a drug screening.
I am 54 yrs old a college grad a retired tradesman and a minister I truly believe med mj is a god given natural aid for some phyiscal problems and dieseases The people have spoken with our vote It is time to accept these changes and time to, implement these laws fairly.Allow caregivers the right to sample and grade what they grow for patients.allow compaason club run dispencaries,not big business pharmacy types or you have taken the compassion out and will trade it for profit. thank you pres. bay county compassion club and co-op
When the committees are formed to review conditions and / or how to speed things up at MDCH there must be some members of our community on there. I volunteer for such a position.
John Wells
Executive Director of 3MED
It is my belief, and the belief of many others, that the State NEEDS to intervene in to local and federal police and agents that are raiding and harassing State-Legal patients and caregivers. This has to end! Mr. Cushingberry, PLEASE work to end this harassment and unfair targeting.
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