Buy Medical Marijuana At Your Pharmacy? Michigan Senate Panel Oks Measure

[bobandtorey]

LANSING — Medical marijuana users could buy tested and regulated pot from pharmacies under a bill passed Tuesday by the Senate Government Operations Committee.

Opponents of the bill, however, say it is nothing more than an attempt to take business away from the small-scale and home growers.

“The voters decided that medical marijuana was a good thing for the state of Michigan, but unfortunately, very few parameters were put around that,” said Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, a supporter of the bill. “For me, it’s about the illegitimate use and the potential for not only a bad product, but it also getting into the hands of people who are underage.”

Former Speaker of the House Chuck Perricone, who now represents Prairie Plant Systems, a licensed Canadian marijuana manufacturer, said the legislation would give medical marijuana users a better option for their cannabis.

“This is nothing more than an option or a choice. This product was marketed to the public as medical; let’s make it medical,” he said. “The market for this is virtually untapped. The potential for the product is tremendous.”

Several dozen activists attending the committee meeting Tuesday said they feared the bill was a money grab by large-scale growers and pharmacies that want to muscle out home growers.

“We need to grow our own medicine,” said Charmie Gholson, founder of Michigan Moms United, which fights for legal protections for medical marijuana users. “I’m not sure why a Canadian corporation can come in and try to buy our Legislature.”

The bill would: amend the public health code and classify marijuana as a Schedule 2 controlled substance; provide for the licensure and regulation of facilities to grow and test pharmaceutical-grade pot, and allow those facilities to sell the drug to pharmacies to dispense.

Medical marijuana users would have to get an additional, enhanced certificate from a doctor to be able to buy the drug from a pharmacy. The bill also would restrict the sale of pharmaceutical-grade cannabis to 2 ounces per month, per customer who is at least 18 years old.

The option is needed for medical marijuana users, said state Sen. Roger Kahn, R-Saginaw Township, to ensure a safe product free of toxins.

“Marijuana, if it’s to be medical marijuana, should be held to the standard of medical safety and dosage predictability,” he said. “The mold issue is serious, the pesticide issue is serious. Both of those have the potential to be lethal.”

Kahn said the bill would not stop homegrown marijuana by either cardholders or caregivers.

“But I don’t think that would be a good choice,” he said. “The best choice would be to get something that is safe and predictable.”

Rick Thompson of Americans for Safe Access said the issue of product quality isn’t real.

“Unregulated cannabis has never killed anyone. There are no illnesses,” he said. “Those issues are smoke screens.”

The legislation, which passed on a 3-0 vote in committee, is contingent upon the federal government reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule 2 controlled substance, which would give it medical legitimacy and would allow pharmacies to dispense it. Marijuana is now a Schedule 1 controlled substance, which the federal government still considers an illegal substance with no medical benefit.

Perricone said the federal government has taken a number of steps to broaden the availability of marijuana, from signaling that it won’t prosecute in states that have approved medical or recreational marijuana use to allowing for broader access to financing for marijuana businesses.

But Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, said she was uncomfortable supporting a bill that has to wait for congressional approval. She passed on voting on the bill, which now moves to the full Senate, where it is likely to be brought up for a vote later this week.

“It’s an unusual step for the Legislature to act in case something that may or may not happen in the federal government,” she said. “The attorney general’s discretion is something very different from congressional approval.”

 

http://www.freep.com/article/20131105/NEWS06/311050133/medical-marijuana-pharmacies-michigan-senate

[t-pain]

its getting weird in here.

the republicans are being bought out by the marijuana industry

and the democrats are against marijuana reform.

i think probably the repubs are just taking free money and keeping their traps shut about anti-marijuana for a year or two. this will backfire for proponents of 4271 and prarie plant systems.

 

i dont see rescheduling coming from the DEA or FDA, especially after that last court case.

so its up to congress , which wont touch it with a 20 ft pole, or obama himself.

 

the same obama who has cracked down on mmj at every single angle possible. irs, real estate, atf, cbp, forest and park rangers, etc.

Edited November 6, 2013 by t-pain

[trichcycler]

it's going to get pretty confusing soon, separating our prescription medications in the parking lot....ok...these have to go in the glove box, and this one in the trunk, oh, wait, I CAN take two of these before I drive, wooohooo!

[greenbuddha]

I mentioned it before in other posts;  it will be the politicians in Lansing that try to bring forth these 'new' cannabis laws.
 
And when they see the money that is going to be made in Colorado and Washington State, we will see the presentation of other MJ bills in Lansing  written by these same politicians... AND they won't be laws that represent in any way what will be 'good' cannabis laws. 

 

We, the cannabis consumers and supporters have to begin to write up the 'use' laws we wish to see happen here in Michigan, otherwise the pols will do it for us and we will NOT like it... guaranteed!

[greenbuddha]

its getting weird in here.

the republicans are being bought out by the marijuana industry

and the democrats are against marijuana reform.

i think probably the repubs are just taking free money and keeping their traps shut about anti-marijuana for a year or two. this will backfire for proponents of 4271 and prarie plant systems.

 

i dont see rescheduling coming from the DEA or FDA, especially after that last court case.

so its up to congress , which wont touch it with a 20 ft pole, or obama himself.

 

the same obama who has cracked down on mmj at every single angle possible. irs, real estate, atf, cbp, forest and park rangers, etc.

 

We won't see any changes in federal law related to cannabis until more states pass MJ use laws making it impossible for the U.S. Congress to ignore the situation any longer.

 

Congress has never done anything that it didn't have to do, unless of course it would mean more money in their pockets or more tax money to play games with, and this includes BOTH the Dems AND the Repubs.

[+washtenaut]

We won't see any changes in federal law related to cannabis until more states pass MJ use laws making it impossible for the U.S. Congress to ignore the situation any longer.

 

Congress has never done anything that it didn't have to do, unless of course it would mean more money in their pockets or more tax money to play games with, and this includes BOTH the Dems AND the Repubs.

 

There is big money in the legal drug business, billions.

 

I am starting to believe that there will soon be federal rescheduling for pharmaceutical products made from cannabis by pharmaceutical companies.

[trichcycler]

I wonder if that move would shed a dim light on the fact, then, that the feds have been lying to us all along for corporate profits, and a revisit of EVERY draconian cannabis incarceration, arrest, and judgment imposed by it and based upon it's own untruthful findings ?

[+washtenaut]

When it comes time for the feds to begin reversing themselves on cannabis, no, I don't think that will mean very many prisoners get set free.  They are in prison because they knowingly broke the law and were convicted of doing so.  That has not changed at all.  Having said that, I am sure most will be set free at the first parole opportunity, but there will be no mass releases, imo.

 

Also, the feds are just a collection of people.  This group (the feds) has changed tremendously over time.  When the people in charge today change the scheduling, they will paint themselves as the enlightened ones that are helping us all.

 

When more rights were granted to blacks and to gays, at that point in time, were they all furious with those in charge at the time because of the mistakes of the past?  They may have come to resent the past sins over time, but at the moment they finally got their deserved rights, they were understandably overjoyed.

[outsideinthecold]

An odd happenstance; those instrumental for supporting the creation of an unaffordable arrest and punishment industry as an integral part of the public government structure now are going to change course and lead the charge to generate revenue from the gray market they created.

 

We get the government we deserve.