Senator Mark Leno Issues Statement on New Medical Cannabis Report

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

SACRAMENTO – Researchers from the University of California’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) today issued a report showing that there is “reasonable evidence that cannabis is a promising treatment” for some specific, pain-related medical conditions.

CMCR’s findings, which were presented today to the California Legislature and public, are included in a report that is available on the CMCR website: www.cmcr.ucsd.edu.

Senator Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) issued the following statement in response to today’s report:

“For too long the full evaluation of the therapeutic value of medical marijuana has been hindered by the lack of high quality scientific studies,” said Senator Leno. “Thanks to the vision and foresight of Senator John Vasconcellos in 1999, the California State Legislature sought to break through those roadblocks to study the potential benefits of medical cannabis. Today we have solid, scientific research that will benefit patients in California and across the globe.”

http://tinyurl.com/ydcam29

Read the full report here: 


PDF of REPORT

Medical Cannabis Report, Commissioned by State, to be Released

Tuesday, February 16, 2010
http://tinyurl.com/ydsv54j

SACRAMENTO – In 1999, the California Legislature and Governor enacted Senate Bill 847 (Vasconcellos), which commissioned the University of California to establish a scientific research program to expand the scientific knowledge on purported therapeutic usages of medical marijuana. The legislation passed with a strong bi-partisan vote and was supported by former Attorney General Dan Lungren as well as a coalition of statewide public safety and health organizations.

Pursuant to the new law, the University of California-San Diego established the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR) in 2000. The Legislature appropriated a total of $8.7 million to CMCR that has been used during the ensuing years to conduct clinical and pre-clinical trials of cannabis, including smoked medical marijuana, to provide evidence one way or the other to answer the question, “Does medical marijuana have therapeutic value?”

To achieve its objectives, CMCR funded a variety of carefully designed studies, and is prepared to release a report summarizing its research.

When: Wednesday, February 17, 2010, 10 a.m.
Where: State Capitol, Room 3191

Who:
Senator Mark Leno
Senator John Vasconcellos (ret), author of SB 847
Igor Grant, MD, Director, CMCR
J. Hampton Atkinson, MD, Co-director, CMCR
Barth Wilsey, MD, Clinical Professor, UC-Davis Health System

Uptown Community Planning Committee Meeting

February 2, 2010 – 6:00-9:00 p.m.
Joyce Beers Community Center
3900 Vermont Street San Diego, CA 92103

On Tuesday February 2, 2010 the Uptown Community Planning Committee (CPC) will discuss the request by the city council of the planning group to review and comment on the medical marijuana task force recommendations. The Uptown CPC will vote on recommending that the City Council adopt an ordinance which will allow medical marijuana collectives to apply through a process 3 Conditional Use Permit. Please come out and support the Uptown CPC as they will discuss regulating safe access to medical marijuana in San Diego.

Uptown CPC Medical Marijuana Agenda Item:
MEDICAL MARIJUANA TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS – Request by the City Council of the City of San Diego for its Community Planning Groups to make review and comment on the issue: Motion by Wilson; second by Lamb:

1. To implement the intent of the voters in enacting Proposition 215, the City of San Diego should establish a conditional use permit (CUP), process by which medical marijuana dispensaries may operate. Applications for such a CUP will be reviewed under a Process Three procedure – the initial decision would be make by a hearing officer; whose decision is appealable to the Planning Commission;

2. In drafting the enabling ordinance for the CUP process, it is recommended the City of San Diego review and consider incorporating applicable provisions from the draft ordinance prepared by Jeffrey A. Lake, Esq., and put forward by Southern California NORML: subject to revision to incorporate the City Council’s Medical Marijuana Task Force recommendations;

3. The CUP permitting process should require all medical marijuana dispensary applications to contain the governing document for each collaborative or cooperative; which should:

(1.) Identify the individual organizers and principal operators of the collaborative or cooperative;

(2.) Specifically identify how the collaborative or cooperative will be governed and operated, and what will be its administrative structure;

4. The CUP permitting process should also require a verifiable accounting and bookkeeping procedure be instituted at each medical marijuana dispensary, in accordance with standard accounting procedures. All dispensaries should be subject to annual audit; obtain business licenses; and pay taxes and all applicable fees.


www.safeaccessnow.org

Update After Jovan's Hearing - Injustice has Been Served

INJUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED AGAIN IN SAN DIEGO

Jovan’s next hearing two hearings are set for October 8th at 8:30am in Department 30 and October 13th at 8:15am in Department 11.

Tonight an innocent man still sits behind bars without any conviction or legitimate reason for incarceration simply after an accusation of providing medicine to a legitimate member of a collective who was a valid patient.

This morning the “Competency Hearing” of Jovan Jackson was held in Department 53 in front of Judge McGuire and a courtroom filled with supporters. The last time Jovan went to court, he never made it out. Although never once late for a court appearance and for simply requesting to represent himself, Jovan was ordered by the judge to be incarcerated to solitary confinement pending a competency examination. As unbelievable and ludicrous as this may sound, it is not an exaggeration. After three days in solitary confinement the guards in jail themselves released Jovan from solitary not understanding why a competent and sane man would be ordered to such extreme punishment. The rest of the time Jovan has spent with the general population even after a doctor deemed him competent.

This morning after being brought into the courtroom, Jovan was surrounded by three bailiffs who all stood no further than a foot away from Jovan ensuring that any breathing, thinking, or otherwise room would not be available.

The reason Jovan was initially incarcerated was that the judge wanted him to be examined for competency. He was deemed competent by a court ordered and selected physician days ago. This means he was supposed to be released today.

The prosecuting District Attorney Chris Lindbergh sat quietly grinning the entire proceeding refusing to make eye contact with anyone in the crowd or with Jovan. After respectfully addressing the court and again requesting to represent himself, the judge refused to hear Jovan’s motion and passed it over to another judge to deal with next week leaving Jovan again in Jail.
As soon as Jovan was removed from the courtroom and the crowd was cleared out after which DA Lindbergh spent at least the next 15 minutes chit chatting and laughing it up with the judge in the courtroom ensuring everyone could see him doing it. The arrogance and disregard for justice was very blatant and hard to watch.

Jovan has served our country honorably in the Navy for over eight years, is highly decorated, and is an upstanding and respected member of the San Diego community which was displayed today by the number of supporters in court. He was a part of a legitimate, non-profit, closed circuit, medical cannabis collective.

In August of last year, as a part of Bonnie Dumanis’ Operation Green Rx, Detective Scott Henderson (aka Jamie Conlan in picture below) of the San Diego Police department went to a local physician lied about his symptoms, condition, and obtained a recommendation for medical cannabis. After coming to the collective, Henderson requested to join and completed all the appropriate paperwork. After calling the doctor to verify the legitimacy of Henderson’s medical cannabis recommendation, Jovan allowed him to join the collective. Months later he was arrested and charged with felonies.

Jovan has done nothing wrong and tonight sits in jail because of the hate driven prosecution tactics that have no human interest in mind.

His next hearing is a Readiness Hearing currently set for October 8th at 8:30am in Department 30. The Preliminary hearing is currently set for October 13th at 8:15am in Department 11. Please come out and support Jovan in court. This injustice must end! The continued bias driven prosecution of legitimate medical cannabis patients must stop.

Help get Jovan out of jail! Write and call the DA’s office at 619-531-4040 and tell them to release Jovan from jail and to drop the charges against him. The District Attorney can also be reached via email at publicaffairs@sdcda.org or by mail at 330 w. Broadway San Diego, CA 92101.

Call the ACLU and ask them to look into this case, they can be reached at: 619-232-2121 or info@aclusandiego.org
　
　
　

Marijuana is NOT Medicine? Clarification Please!

By: Terrie Best, Campaign Manager

Stop Operation Green Rx

August, 12, 2009

I’m sure the doctors at University of California at San Diego’s (UCSD) Center for Medical Cannabis Studies (CMCS) would be amused to hear San Diego narcotics officers decree that marijuana is not medicine inasmuch as CMCS is paid by federal funds to find new and better ways to treat patients with it. The CMCS, a department of UCSD, perhaps the largest employer in San Diego, is housed near the Hillcrest UCSD Medical Center in the heart of Mission Hills. Its mission is to conduct high quality scientific studies intended to ascertain the general medical safety and efficacy of cannabis and cannabis products and examine alternative forms of cannabis administration. This is accomplished through focused controlled clinical trials, observational studies and randomized trials, which the center publishes and subjects to rigorous peer-review. I checked and the doctors who run this place are no slouches. The review panel alone reads like the Board of Directors at The University Club. They’re all MD’s and all are from prestigious medical schools – certainly weightier than a cop with an outdated opinion. These sorts could review for any medical journal they want to and probably they do. They are writers of textbooks and sworn to do no harm. So, if they say cannabis has medical value why do you suppose law enforcement in our town including the DA, insist that “marijuana is not medicine?” I’m not making this up, that is a direct quote from a training handout supervising narcotics officer, Conrado DeCastro - the so called mastermind of Operation Green Rx (Google it!)- pointed to when asked on the stand recently about his training and qualifications on the subject. Short of a conspiracy theory, I’m baffled why cops take such a hard line, and anybody who voted for the Compassionate Use Act of 1996 should be baffled if not outraged as well.

No matter what side of the issue you’re on, isn’t it time to find the common ground and begin to explore how we can implement the law in ways the pro-compassion voters as well as the DA, law enforcement and our local soccer mom’s can live with? With thriving research centers like the CMCS, isn’t the debate whether cannabis is medicine officially over? Wasn’t it over when we voted that it was appropriate for folks to use cannabis in treatment of medical symptoms? If anybody is still haggling over the issue of medicine, they are part of the problem. Clearly, it is time for San Diego law enforcement to invest in training around the issue of cannabis as medicine. So what keeps them from it? I wish I knew and it seems to be the million dollar question. The alternative, allowing police to use their opinions to decide which laws they will enforce, is far scary to me than any cannabis collective in my neighborhood. Wouldn’t that mean that if my local officer thought my botox injections where unsafe, I could be arrested? How about whether gay men should be protected from hate crimes? How can we pass the Compassionate Use Act and then sit back and let the DA decide for us what is and isn’t medicine and what laws will be enforce? Excuse me … be right back, I gotta go ask my local border patrol agent for advice on my health care policy. Be the change, People!