To show you medical marijuana can and should be accepted even in the smallest towns across America. When it comes to pain and medicine, it is time to look past these abolitionist ideas and promote a healthy and safe life style even for those who choose to use cannabis.

A small southwest Missouri village has passed an ordinance to allow the use of medical marijuana.

Mayor Joe Blundell said Cliff Village, with a population of about four dozen, wanted to show grass-roots support for Missouri to legalize medical marijuana as 13 other states have.

“This is symbolism, pure and simple,” Blundell told The Kansas City Star for a story published Tuesday. “I would like to be the brave one who grows the first plant, but they’ve built a lot of cages for the people who stick their necks out.”

It takes courage to fight for medical marijuana.

Cliff Village’s ordinance allows someone with a doctor’s approval to possess a few ounces of marijuana and grow a few plants.

Cliff Village passed the ordinance on Feb. 1 by a 3-2 vote. The mayor’s father was one of the council members to back him.

Columbia passed a similar ordinance in 2004.

All Americans should be able to have safe access to medical marijuana for whatever they need to alleviate.

The 30-year-old mayor said his interest medical marijuana comes from a painful past injury from a train accident that left him in a wheelchair.

“When I got introduced to this flower, it not only alleviated my pain, it got me out gardening,” Blundell said. “I’m not just stoning myself out. It allowed me to function.”

More and more people report what medical marijuana users have known for years, the plant can help those who have health problems or issues, to live a better, more productive and pain free life.

wow, they have arrested eight people over the photo of Michael Phelps smoking cannabis through a glass “bong” or aka water pipe.

This is insane, and calls for an immediate look into the decriminalization of marijuana at the federal level.

A Columbia, S.C., television station reports that eight people have been arrested after a photograph surfaced of Olympic star Michael Phelps smoking what looks like a bong.

WIS-TV says seven people have been charged with drug possession and one person with distribution.

The television station also reports that police have confiscated the bong that Phelps allegedly used during a party at the University of South Carolina, in Columbia.

He should’ve used a vaporizer and brought up the healthy aspect of using a vaporizer over inhaling smoke!

It’s time for America to stop wasting millions of tax payer dollars arresting, prosecuting, and jailing millions of it’s own citizens who choose to use cannabis. It’s time to reschedule cannabis today!

The latest from California regarding medical marijuana.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle:

The state Supreme Court turned back a challenge to California’s medical marijuana law Thursday from two counties that said they were being forced to condone federal drug-law violations by state-approved pot users.

San Diego and San Bernardino county officials had sued to overturn Proposition 215, the 1996 initiative that legalized medical marijuana, and a more recent law that required them to issue identification cards to users who had a doctor’s recommendation.

The justices unanimously denied review of an appellate decision in July that concluded California was free to decide whether to punish drug users under its own laws, despite the federal ban on marijuana.

The decision is “a momentous victory for countless seriously ill patients,” said Adam Wolf, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer who defended the state law in the appeals court. He said the counties should stop wasting money “in a doomed effort to undermine the will of California voters.”

But Thomas Bunton, a deputy San Diego County counsel, said the county would ask the U.S. Supreme Court to review the case.

The California law “authorizes people to engage in conduct that’s forbidden by federal law,” Bunton said.

Hurray for state’s rights. The people of California voted, and ultimately supported, compassionate use and safe access to medical marijuana. These people need to stop trying to go against the voters, and wasting tax payer’s money trying to change the state law allowing medical cannabis in California.

He said San Diego and San Bernardino counties particularly objected to the follow-up statute on identification cards that the Legislature passed in 2003. The cards, issued by the counties, protect their holders from arrest by state or local police for possessing small amounts of medical marijuana.

The U.S. Supreme Court has allowed federal authorities to rely on U.S. drug laws to prosecute medical marijuana patients and their suppliers, and to shut dispensaries in California and the 11 other states with laws similar to Prop. 215. But the court has not prevented the states from deciding which drugs to prohibit under their own laws.

In a separate case, the city of Garden Grove (Orange County) has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a California appellate ruling requiring police to return a patient’s medical marijuana after state charges were dismissed. That case also involves a potential conflict between federal and state law.

In the counties’ lawsuit, the Fourth District Court of Appeal in San Diego ruled July 31 that federal law doesn’t require states to impose criminal penalties for marijuana possession. The purpose of the federal law, the court said, is “to combat recreational drug use, not to regulate a state’s medical practices.”

Why are they wasting tax dollars on this?

In keeping up with the latest news on drug companies and their pain killers, here is the latest on Pfizer.

(Bloomberg) — Pfizer Inc. will pay $894 million to resolve most legal claims that its painkillers Celebrex and Bextra caused heart attacks and strokes.

Pfizer will pay $745 million to settle 90 percent of the suits claiming injuries from the products. The remainder will go to end class-action consumer fraud lawsuits and charges of inappropriate marketing by 33 states and the District of Columbia, New York-based Pfizer said today in a statement.

Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, was being sued over allegations that Celebrex and Bextra increased the risk of heart attacks or strokes after a similar pill, Merck & Co.’s Vioxx, was pulled from the market over the same side effects in 2004. Celebrex is still sold, generating $2.3 billion for Pfizer last year, while Bextra was recalled over a rare skin condition in 2005. Pfizer will book the settlement amount in its third-quarter earnings scheduled to be reported Oct. 21.

“Anytime that you have an opportunity to resolve litigation, which is inevitably something that creates uncertainty, in terms that make sense for the people and corporation, it is a good thing to do,” Amy Schulman, Pfizer’s general counsel, said in a telephone interview. “Given the stage we were at and events that have transpired, this seemed like an appropriate time to reach a resolution of the various matters.”

The reason this is important to medical marijuana patients or advocates, or caregiver, is that cannabis has often been used as a pain killer, and it does not have these types of side effects. One has every right to question the safety of these drug companies.

The article goes on to say…

Pfizer acquired Celebrex and Bextra as part of its more than $60 billion acquisition of Pharmacia Corp. in 2003. Bextra, Celebrex, and Vioxx are part of a class of medicines called non- steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, which also include ibuprofen and naproxen. U.S. regulators have warned that these drugs may increase the risk of heart attack and stroke.

Pfizer said there is no evidence that Celebrex, when taken at lower doses, poses a risk to the heart. Patients taking the biggest Celebrex dose of 400 milligrams twice a day tripled their chance of a heart attack or stroke, compared with people taking a placebo, according to a study presented in March at the American College of Cardiology meeting.

A more definitive assessment of Celebrex risks won’t come until 2010 or 2011, when a $100 million study of 20,000 patients comparing Celebrex with the pain pills ibuprofen and naproxen is expected to be completed by the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio.

Pfizer said the settlements include $60 million to 33 states and Washington, D.C., over alleged illegal promotion of Bextra and $89 million for consumer fraud lawsuits.

I hope people educate themselves on the safety of the “medicine” they are taking, to find out if it may affect their own health. When we see lawsuits like this being settled, one has to wonder, what is going on?

We need to start thinking more clearly on medical marijuana, and promoting the safe medicinal use of cannabis.

It looks like the fight continues in California. Garden Grove, famous from the Sublime song of the same name, has decided to ban medical marijuana dispensaries. Not too cool, man.

GARDEN GROVE, Calif.—Medical marijuana dispensaries won’t be allowed in the northern Orange County city of Garden Grove.

The City Council voted 4-1 Tuesday night to ban the pot stores. The ordinance takes effect in 30 days.

Councilman Mark Rosen cast the lone dissenting vote, saying the ban is “mired in mid-20th-century thinking.”

He noted the Unit-D dispensary, which has a conditional-use permit, has been operating for seven months without problems.

Councilman Steve Jones says he does not want the city to become exposed to liability for poor-quality pot.

California’s Compassionate Use Act permits marijuana use for medical reasons.

This goes against every reason why patients need safe access, not make it more difficult for people to acquire the much needed medicine. With gas prices the way they are, people need to be able to drive there or have someone drive them to local dispensaries. If you make people have to drive hundreds of miles to acquire their prescribed medicine, how will that help them?

California’s Compassionate Use Act allows patients access, it’s time to stop with these types of bans on dispensaries. The taxes paid by them benefits the city, and from what we’ve seen elsewhere in California, it does not encourage any more crime in the area. In fact, it cuts down the black market drug trade in the city, people with safe access, no longer have a need to buy drugs on the street. They can drive to the local medical marijuana dispensary and pick up their prescription like any patient. Help stop the drug deals on the street by fighting for your local medical marijuana dispensary.

Well, I don’t think any of us in America expected this housing foreclosure mess, and financial crisis that is upon us. Needlesstosay, we are putting off the move to California at this time, but I will surely post about it in the future. However, since the election is coming, I guess it is my duty to address the clear question about the two candidates who are running for the President of the United States in November. Which one supports medical marijuana? Which one wants to lock up people for smoking cannabis?

Clearly, I do not need to go into John McCain‘s thoughts on the subject to make it known, he is against anything to do with ‘medical marijuana.” He does not believe it has medicinal qualities, nor does he support its decriminalization, nor the legalization, for that matter. This man supports throwing people in jail, for the crime of possession, or even smoking a marijuana joint. Really, we need to do away with this mentality and get to the real issues facing America.

Barack Obama, on the other hand. Has a clear, and long record, of supporting medical marijuana. He has also voted to stop the raids on medical marijuana patients. This is all good news, and should come into play, come election day, if you are a supporter of medical marijuana.

Barack, gets it! He understands, some patients, need safe access to marijuana, or cannabis, for medicinal use.

We encourage all voters to think for themselves, but if you support medical marijuana, the choice is abundantly clear. Vote Obama!

In the past Senator Barack Obama has promised to end the federal raids on state medical marijuana patients, as well as their caregivers. He has voted against amendments to undermine state laws regarding cannabis as medicine.

It’s time for this country to go green, and by green I don’t mean energy, although that’d be nice too. Let’s knock some sense into congress and finally get meaningful legislation regarding medicinal marijuana in the next four years!

On June 2, 2007 Obama said this about raids: “I don’t think that should be a top priority of us, raiding people who are using … medical marijuana. With all the things we’ve got to worry about, and our Justice Department should be doing, that probably shouldn’t be a high priority.”

While the economy is certainly on everyone’s mind, we need to vote in someone who fill move forward with a new plan regarding rescheduling cannabis and helping change marijuana laws in this country. Go Obama!

Well, after long discussion, some tears, and some laughs – my wife and I have decided to move to California for medical marijuana and will use this site to tell the story both in text and pictures.

This decision will take some sacrifice, and we will leave behind family and friends – but in the end it will be worth it as my daily life, peace of mind, and happiness will be that much greater in a state where I can use medical marijuana safely, without having to turn to the black market. If that means moving to another state, then so be it.

My plan is to sell our home, move to California, get medical marijuana cards, grow pot legally within state law, and possibly even become a caregiver for patients. Although the latter may demand more than I can perform, I still would like to help patients in some way or another.

So anyway, I barely slept on this decision, and it is a big choice to make, but I feel it is right and will be the best thing for my family. I am going to move to California, get my medical marijuana patient card, and I will tell the story on this site. Not only for myself, but to show others it is in fact possible to move from a place where pot is minimum mandatory sentencing to a place where marijuana was decriminalized in 1976, and it is true that in California, you can grow, smoke, and process your own cannabis legally for medical purposes.

Check back for more as we prepare and get the plans together for what we need to do to make this a reality.

Many people across America are not aware how medical marijuana is accepted and viewed in California.

Most researchers agree that the value of the U.S. marijuana crop has increased sharply since the mid-nineties, as California and twelve other states have passed medical-marijuana laws. A drug-policy analyst named Jon Gettman recently estimated that in 2006 Californians grew more than twenty million pot plants. He reckoned that between 1981 and 2006 domestic marijuana production increased tenfold, making pot the leading cash crop in America, displacing corn. A 2005 State Department report put the country’s marijuana crop at twenty-two million pounds. The street value of California’s crop alone may be as high as fourteen billion dollars.

Californians love their pot, and grow it generously throughout the state. To prove how popular this plant is to grow, it has displaced corn as America’s leading cash crop.

According to Americans for Safe Access, which lobbies for medical marijuana, there are now more than two hundred thousand physician-sanctioned pot users in California. They acquire their medication from hundreds of dispensaries, collectives that are kept alive by the financial contributions of their patients, who pay cash for each quarter or eighth of an ounce of pot. The dispensaries also buy marijuana from their members, and sometimes directly from growers, whose crops can also be considered legal, depending on the size of the crop, the town where the plants are grown, and the disposition of the judge who hears the case.

I am a member of Safe Access and support these types of patient/grower relationships. Any American who needs or uses medical marijuana should have safe access to it.

California’s encouragement of a licit market for pot has set off a low-level civil war with the federal government. Growing, selling, and smoking marijuana remain strictly illegal under federal law. The Drug Enforcement Administration, which maintains that marijuana poses a danger to users on a par with heroin and PCP, has kept up an energetic presence in the state, busting pot growers and dispensary owners with the cooperation of some local police departments.

In the past five years, an unwritten set of rules has emerged to govern Californians participating in the medical-marijuana trade. Federal authorities do not generally bother arresting patients or doctors who write prescriptions. Instead, the D.E.A. pressures landlords to evict dispensaries and stages periodic raids on them, either shutting them down or seizing their money and marijuana. Dispensary owners are rarely arrested, and patient records are usually left alone. Through trial and error, dispensary owners have learned how to avoid trouble: Don’t advertise in newspapers, on billboards, or on flyers distributed door to door. Don’t sell to minors or cops. Don’t open more than two stores. Any Californian who is reasonably prudent can live a life centered on the cultivation, sale, and consumption of marijuana with little fear of being fined or going to jail.

Just the way Thomas Jefferson (hemp farmer) intended our land to be. Have the congress and police forgotten these famous words… “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” If there was ever a topic that deserved the passion of those seeking life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness being oppressed by the tyrants, it is now.

The most famous line of our Constitution should be the main charge or motive behind The Stand we take against those that stand in our way.

Looks like the police are not protecting and serving in Seattle.

Seattle police seized files on nearly 600 medical marijuana patients when officers searched the headquarters of a patient support group, activists said Wednesday.

The search occurred Tuesday after a nearby police bicycle officer reported the smell of marijuana. Martin Martinez, who runs the Lifevine cooperative as well as Cascadia NORML, the local chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said no one was arrested but officers seized about 12 ounces of marijuana in addition to the patient files and a computer.

Another case of a cop using his nose to initiate arrests of completely innocent people. If no one was arrested, why did they seize property?

There were no marijuana plants growing there, Martinez said. He is a longtime advocate of legalizing the medical use of marijuana, following a severe motorcycle crash that left him with nerve damage in 1986. Three other patients authorized to use pot under Washington’s medical marijuana law were also present when officers arrived at the office, which does not dispense marijuana, he said.

Again, these patients are authorized for medical marijuana and are breaking no laws.

Cascadia NORML has been issuing identity cards to medical marijuana patients, but before doing so, it requires the patients to provide their medical authorizations for verification. That’s why the patient files were in the office, Martinez said. The cards are not issued pursuant to the state’s medical marijuana law, but are designed to help identify the patient as legitimate if confronted by police.

Some of the nearly 600 patients are now dead, and some others are no longer actively using marijuana, he said.

This fact cannot be overlooked, many of the patient files they illegally seized are in fact for patients who have died. What do they need this for? This is a good program helping sick and dying people, why are the police seizing computer files on these patients? Do cops kick in the doors of dentists and steal their computers and go through their confidential patient file history? This is illegal, to do so under the guise of “eradicating marijuana” is misleading and malicious.

The police “have a heck of a lot of patient records I don’t think they should have,” said Douglas Hiatt, a Seattle attorney who specializes in medical marijuana cases. “For one thing, those records are protected under federal privacy laws. If you’re a medical marijuana patient, you don’t want the police to know who you are or where you live, and this is why – because you don’t get treated very well.”

Nice, a lawyer speaking the truth about how patients are treated, and the fact these records should remain private. Again, not to mention the fact these patients were not breaking any state laws. No plants were being grown there.

Under Washington’s medical marijuana law, doctors can authorize patients to have as much as a 60-day supply of marijuana to treat symptoms of AIDS, cancer and other debilitating or chronic conditions. The law doesn’t define what a 60-day supply is, but the state Health Department proposed this month that it be defined as 24 ounces of usable pot, along with six mature plants and 18 immature plants. Marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

According to Hiatt, the seized documents included patient authorizations, full medical histories, and the names of doctors who authorized the marijuana use.

This is why it is important to learn how California & New York are trying to put an end to this practice – Hault To Prosecuting Patients – by denying tax dollars be used for prosecuting patients and doing this type of illegal activity. Again, they did not arrest anyone because there were no laws being broken, this should not be tolerated or accepted in our society.

These are sick and dying people suffering daily pain, just trying to live a better life – have these police no compassion? Why should tax dollars go to pay cops to arrest the very people that laws were enacted to allow medical marijuana use?

Alison Chinn Holcomb, who follows marijuana issues for the Washington state chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said there doesn’t appear to be any evidence that the group was providing or growing marijuana, and no information that has been revealed thus far would seem to justify seizing the patient files.

“These are very sick people with very serious conditions, and we’re sure none of them want the nature of those conditions made available to the public or to anyone who doesn’t have a valid need for it,” she said.

Many patients are dying, and to have them being treated this way is a mockery of what America is supposed to stand for.

This is not freedom. When a people vote for laws, and the cops themselves fight against those laws – who can win? They are the ones with the guns, the patients have doctor bills, not weapons.

Do not think the drug companies or “Big Pharma,” short for Big Pharmaceutical companies, do not support the use of Cannabis as Medicine – as many find, you’d be surprised.

Watson has released a generic form of the brand name “Marinol” which is a cannabis/marijuana based medication under the name Dronabinol.

This shows that although many believe the drug companies do not “want” marijuana legalized as a medicine, that perception may indeed be false – as I show there are already over 100 million Americans taking cannabis-based pills, and a legion of others who grow and process their own through organic gardening and hydroponics.

Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a leading specialty pharmaceutical company, announced today that, under a supply agreement with Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Watson has launched the authorized generic version of dronabinol in the 2.5, 5 and 10 mg once daily dosage strengths. Dronabinol is the generic version of Solvay Pharmaceuticals’ MARINOL (dronabinol) CIII Capsules, indicated to treat nausea and vomiting associated with cancer chemotherapy in patients who have failed to respond adequately to conventional antiemetic treatments. Dronabinol is also indicated to treat anorexia associated with weight loss in patients with acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS). For the 12-months ending December 2007, Solvay reported MARINOL sales of 105 million.

Wow, 105 Million are on pills that cost an average of over $1000 a month for a supply. No way the drug companies will pass up a chance like this to make more money. Watson, leading generic pill maker is famous for its generic Vicodin and by releasing a generic form of Marinol (Drobabinol) you can see the wheels turning to bring this medication to as many patients as possible.

Under the terms of the supply agreement, Solvay Pharmaceuticals will supply the dronabinol capsules to the Company’s subsidiary, Watson Pharma, which will market, sell and distribute the product in the United States. Solvay Pharmaceuticals will receive a share of the profits from Watson’s sales of the generic product in the U.S. market. Further details on the agreement have not been disclosed.

“Marinol” is a brand name for “dronabinol” – here is a little info about it.

Dronabinol should not be used by any patient who has a history of hypersensitivity to any cannabinoid or to sesame oil. Patients should not drive, operate machinery, or engage in hazardous activity until they establish that they can tolerate dronabinol and perform such tasks safely. Dronabinol should be used with caution in patients with a history of seizure disorder; patients with cardiac disorders; patients with a history of substance abuse (including alcohol abuse or dependence); patients with mania, depression, or schizophrenia (along with careful psychiatric monitoring); patients taking sedatives, hypnotics, or other psychoactive drugs; and in elderly patients, pregnant patients, nursing mothers, or pediatric patients. The most common side effects probably related to dronabinol are dizziness, feelings of exaggerated happiness, paranoid reaction, drowsiness, thinking abnormal, abdominal pain, nausea and vomiting.

While I applaud the science behind this, I also encourage the allowance of patients and caregivers to grow their own and remain as independent of Big Pharma as they can. Obviously, pill-form cannabis is needed, and now Watson has released a generic form more sick and dying patients will be relieved of pain, hopefully at a cheaper price.

Regarding Dronabinol and its effectiveness:

Dronabinaol does not contain the other significant chemical constituents present in cannabis. While it is made of synthetic THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) there are dozens of other “cannabinoids” present in cannabis that work together (science still does not even know how exactly) to produce the medicinal feeling and relief associated with medical marijuana.

The cost of these pills are so much higher than the black market street price for marijuana it is insane. Reportedly it costs more than the expensive male performance pill Viagra, ranging from $20-$25 a pill – and taking three a day would cost a patient $75 a day – street cannabis is cheaper than that, and growing your own is virtually free of charge.

The idea that we should “synthesize” something that grows naturally on this planet is somewhat an awkward approach to medicine in my mind. Synthetic THC is not the same as the natural organic combination of cannabinoids found in cannabis, and it never will be.

About Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc.

Watson Pharmaceuticals, Inc., headquartered in Corona, CA, is a leading specialty pharmaceutical company that develops, manufactures, markets, sells and distributes brand and generic pharmaceutical products. Watson pursues a growth strategy combining internal product development, strategic alliances and collaborations and synergistic acquisitions of products and businesses.