A press release mailed out by the Marijuana Policy Project is saying that Barney Frank and Ron Paul are to introduce a new bill to fully legalize marijuana.

From that email:

Other co-sponsors include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Steve Cohen (D-TN), Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-CA). The legislation would limit the federal government’s role in marijuana enforcement to cross-border or inter-state smuggling, allowing people to legally grow, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal. The legislation is the first bill ever introduced in Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition.

Rep. Frank’s legislation would end state/federal conflicts over marijuana policy, reprioritize federal resources, and provide more room for states to do what is best for their own citizens.

Can’t wait to see what develops out of this. LEGALIZE! The time is right.

read more: Barney Frank and Ron Paul Legislation to Fully Legalize Marijuana

Here is further proof that once you set up legal, safe medicinal marijuana programs, citizens will in fact sign up!

In the past 16 days, almost 500 residents statewide have applied for Michigan’s Medical Marijuana Program.

According to the Michigan Department of Community Health, 483 people have applied for the program, however no cards have been issued thus far.

“(This) week we are going to issue our first set of licenses,” said MDCH Spokesman James McCurtis Jr. “And I don’t suspect we are going to have any problems.”

That’s almost 500 people in 16 days, standing up for their patient rights, and rights as any American should be afforded. The freedom to self medicate with a natural, safe, and effective form of organic medicine. Marijuana.

McCurtis said as of April 14, the number of applicants was 252, but there was a spike in applicants at the end of the week and the department has not run into any problems yet.

“We have all the information posted on the Web site telling people what to do, how to do it,” he said. “And basically if they follow those basic instructions then they shouldn’t have any problem either.”

According to MDCH’s Web site, michigan.gov/mmp, to register, all an applicant must do is complete the form and procedures on the MDCH’s Web site, have a physician certify them as a “qualifying patient” and pay an application fee of $100, or $25 if enrolled in a Medicaid health plan or receiving Supplemental Security Income.

Under the Michigan Medical Marijuana Act, a qualifying patient is “a person who has been diagnosed by a physician as having a debilitating medical condition.”

According to the act, MDCH has 15 days to verify the applicants’ information and if approved has five days to issue the identification card.

“I was expecting maybe we would hear some people receiving them today,” said attorney Matthew Abel on April 17, who is a criminal defense attorney for marijuana cases.

Abel said he spoke with a doctor who has written some recommendations for patients and MDCH had not contacted him to confirm his approval.

“They certainly have the right to contact the physicians, we thought they would be, but I don’t want to say anything negative,” the Central Michigan University alumnus said. “There’s no reason to expect they are dragging their feet, we just haven’t seen anything one way or the other.”

The problem is, as more and more states implement medical marijuana programs, it still leaves citizens in other states vulnerable for prosecution and/or jail time for using medical marijuana. We need a federal rescheduling of cannabis to protect all medical marijuana users in this country, not just a select few or those lucky enough to live in a state that can see past the War on Drugs.

We need a new way of thinking in this country in regards to medical marijuana. America accepts it, and welcomes it, it is time for law makers and police to step aside and allow patients access to this medicine. Medical grade cannabis.

Michigan has some new laws on the books, and one concerns medical marijuana.

Detroit Free Press reports in Medical Marijuana Law Put To Test: Michigan’s medical marijuana law is getting two tests in metro Detroit, with a Madison Heights couple arraigned Tuesday on drug manufacturing charges and a Chesterfield Township man using it to fight an arrest for possession.

Why should anyone who needs medical marijuana be arrested and denied their medicine?

Both cases have the potential to set precedents under the medical marijuana law, which went into effect Dec. 4.

In the March 30 raid of the home of Robert Redden, 59, and Torey Clark, 47, Madison Heights police seized 21 plants. Redden and Clark said they use marijuana for pain relief and, per the law, have letters from their doctors recommending its use.

Each faces felony manufacturing charges, and because of prior convictions, each faces up to 14 years in prison and a fine of up to $1 million if convicted.

14 years in prison for following a doctor’s orders? Imagine if the police kicked in an elderly patients door and arrested their for their prescription Vicodin? That is essentially what this amounts to. These people are growing their own safe and effective medical cannabis. Supplying themselves with their own natural medicine and they are being treated as criminals!

The raid came just days before a state program to issue official ID cards for people allowed to use medical marijuana began, and Madison Heights Deputy Police Chief Tony Roberts said having letters “doesn’t fulfill the legal requirement.”

The couple’s lawyer, Rob Mullen, said of police: “They’re not recognizing the law.”

Robert Dickson, a 53-year-old Chesterfield Township man with liver problems, is trying to use the law to fight a May 2008 arrest for marijuana possession. His case was adjourned Monday for 30 days while Dickson applies for his ID card.

His lawyer, Joe Biondo, said the law opens the door for a medical marijuana defense.

Now that the state has a medical marijuana program people like this need to be removed from the justice system and allowed to remain free and grown their own medicine.

We need your support for medical marijuana on the internet. Please link this site and/or image to show your support for medical use of cannabis.

Patients in every state are fighting for their right to use a natural plant as pain relief, whether it is from cancer, or debilitating migraine’s – if you have a blog or web site – put a link to Reschedule Cannabis to show your support.

Any American citizen who needs to use marijuana as medicine should be allowed to do so which is why we put together this site to help spread the message that “Cannabis is medicine and should be rescheduled so that it may be used legally for medicine.”

Even United States War veterans are behind medical marijuana. This veteran even uses it for “migraines.”

KALAMAZOO — The atomic explosions off remote islands in the South Pacific seemed to turn night into day.

They also turned Martin Chilcutt into a marijuana user.

Chilcutt said the drug has helped him to ease the pain he says dates back to his exposure to radiation during a 1956 U.S. government project testing nuclear and thermonuclear weapons.

A state ballot proposal could allow voters in November to decide whether Chilcutt’s measures to self-medicate should be legal in Michigan.

The 74-year-old former intelligence officer with the U.S. Naval Air Force has used other medications to help him with his physical and psychological problems, but marijuana helps “so much better,” he said.

“Sometimes I just want to die,” Chilcutt said. “You can only take intense pain for so long before you’ll do anything to escape it.”

He never intended to put his health at risk.

While part of the testing project, Chilcutt remembers, he donned large goggles and turned his back to protect his eyes as the bombs exploded in the early-morning darkness.

There was no protection, though, from the heavy doses of radiation that spewed from the explosions and reached Chilcutt.

He has battled skin cancer three times, including basal cell carcinoma, the most common form of cancer, with about a million new cases reported in the United States each year. He has been in remission for the past 10 years.

Cannabis has many medicinal uses.

Chilcutt’s four years in the military — he served from the middle to late 1950s — also took a psychological toll, he said.

For 30 years, he said, he has suffered chronic post-traumatic stress disorder, including bouts of anxiety, depression and anger, nightmares, arthritis and debilitating migraine headaches.

Marijuana helps them all, he said.

Although there are different ways to use the drug, such as ingesting or inhaling it, there is no difference in the drug’s effect based on consumption, according to the Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care, which is spearheading the state marijuana initiative.

“It just makes life so much easier,” he said. “It allows you to be comfortable.” Chilcutt, a retired psychotherapist, said he first learned of marijuana’s medical benefits in the late 1970s while counseling Vietnam War veterans in California. They told him the drug could help allay his pain, he said.

Cannabis even helps debilitating migraine. If you are a Migraineur (person who has recurring migraines) then you should know that medical marijuana has been known to be one of the best ways to survive debilitating migraines.

Current Medical Marijuana News in Michigan.

The Michigan Coalition for Compassionate Care (MCCC) is a grassroots organization devoted to passing a medical marijuana initiative in Michigan in November 2008. Currently, seriously ill people who use marijuana for medical purposes face the same penalties as those who use marijuana recreationally.

On November 20, 2007, MCCC submitted nearly half a million signatures to the state to qualify the initiative for the ballot. And on March 3, 2008, the Board formally certified our signatures! The signatures officially counted by the state came back with an 80.2% validity rate, far exceeding what was needed to qualify. This is an historic step forward for patients throughout the state.

The medical marijuana initiative will now be transmitted to the Michigan Legislature, which has 40 days to either pass it into law or send it to voters in November. Because the legislature has considered multiple medical marijuana bills in recent years and none has ever gained traction, Michiganders – who support protecting patients from arrest by nearly a 2 to 1 margin – are all but certain to vote on the issue at the polls later this year.

If the measure is certified and passed by a majority of voters on Election Day 2008, Michigan law will allow patients to use, possess, and grow their own marijuana for medical purposes with their doctors’ approval. This would make Michigan the first medical marijuana state in the Midwest.

Anyone who needs marijuana for medicinal purposes should have access to it.

An August 2003 poll found that 59% of Michigan voters support removing criminal penalties for the medical use of marijuana. And in each of five citywide medical marijuana votes, medical marijuana won in a landslide (with 62% in Flint in February 2007; with 63% in Traverse City and 61% in Ferndale in November 2005; with 74% in Ann Arbor in November 2004; and with 60% in Detroit in August 2004). It’s time for the state to follow the lead of these cities and protect seriously ill patients from the threat of arrest and jail.