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Who Really Controls Lara And Medical Marijuana In Michigan?


bobandtorey

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LANSING- Activists are screaming mad at the conduct of officials representing Governor Rick Snyder’s administration during a hearing today to determine if autism should be added to the list of illness that qualify a patient to use medical marijuana in Michigan.

The petition, submitted in 2014, contains a summary of 75 peer-reviewed articles on autism and 800 pages of reference material.  “When the panel sat down today, what they had was pieces of the document,” said Southfield attorney Michael Komorn.

Pieces apparently selected by the Attorney General’s office, according to statements made on the record by Board officials. What was missing? “The Summary, with the 75 peer-reviewed studies, and the 800 pages of clinical research on autism and cannabis,” Komorn said.

Advocates sued the government in Ingham County Circuit Court to force the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) to consider a petition for that purpose submitted in 2014 by Lisa Smith, whose son Noah has autism and other illnesses. Petitions are debated by the Medial Marihuana Review Panel (the Board) under rules established in 2008 by the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA). A previous petition to add autism to the MMMA was rejected at a Board hearing back in 2013.

“We litigated for a year,” to get the Smith petition accepted, Komorn said. The State was represented by the Office of the Attorney General, Bill Schuette. The language of the MMMA requires that each petition properly submitted must be considered by the Board. Schuette’s and LARA’s response was the opposite: we already ruled on that illness and no subsequent petition will be considered. “The Court decided theirs was a wrong interpretation. We won; they had to give us a new hearing on the petition submitted.”

A hearing on the Smith petition was held in May of this year. On July 1 a whole new Board was created, per rule changes made in January 2015 by LARA over the objections of citizens and Senators. Some of the members of the new panel had not heard the testimony on the Smith petition taken by the Board weeks earlier.

“When the Board assembled today we were expecting a vote yea or nay on the petition,” Komorn related. “Before we were able to begin the conversation it was brought to the attention of the Board as a whole by (Board member) David Brogren that this very comprehensive document with supporting papers was not given in its entirety to the Board, and that the Board should consider the entire package before voting.”

The science was scrubbed from the document given to the Board for consideration, Komorn said.

“When the Circuit Court made an order that the petition be considered, they meant the whole petition,” Komorn growled.  “(The Court) didn’t change the material submitted, it required the Board to consider the petition filed with the Court.”

Of a greater concern is the reason cited for the edited version of the petition being presented.

Along with a new Board comes a new leader, and the newly-appointed Board made selecting a new Chair their first priority. When the confusion regarding the petitions was exposed, her reaction was not one that inspired confidence among the hearing’s attendees. “The statement she made on the record was very distressing, that this information was given to the board by the Attorney General, not the Court,” Komorn said. “The Attorney General’s role was referenced by (the Chair), who said, in response to Brogren, this is what was sent to us by the Court via the Attorney General.”

“The representative kept referring to the fact that this document is what the Attorney General’s office gave us,” said Jamie Lowell of Ypsilanti’s 3rd Coast Medical Marijuana Dispensary, who attended the hearing.

Brogren mentioned on the record that he had given the Board the petition in its entirety two weeks ago. Even after the issue was exposed, Komorn said the Chair seemed more concerned with spin control than she was with establishing proper process. Komorn explained that “she kept insisting that the Board had all the information they needed to make a decision on autism and medical marijuana,” he said, “without seeing any of the science behind it.”

Brogren’s objections to considering the issue without all the facts swayed the result and stayed the Board from voting. They will reconvene at a later date to make a final determination on the Smith petition, after receiving the entire document.

In addition to being a criminal defense attorney, Komorn is the host of an Internet-base radio program broadcasting weekly for more than four years. The Planet Green Trees Radio Show (PGT) has followed the progress of the autism petition from the start, prior to 2012’s initial rejection. Shows #255 and #257 covered the topic with interviews and behind-the-scenes looks at the tribulations experienced by those advocates who sought a positive result at the July 20 hearing. One of those interviewed by the PGT staff: Dr. Harry Chugani, chief of pediatric neurology at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit

“There was a major flaw in the process of how information was being given to the Board members,” Komorn stated. He challenged the notion that the Attorney General, a noted medical marijuana detractor and a major opponent of the MMMA in 2008, should be filtering information approved by the Court for use by a state agency.

“Mind you, the AG had to be sued to bring this information to the Board in the first place,” Komorn emphasized. “Why is it OK for the Director of this Board to rely on them for the information used to make the determination of autism’s validity for inclusion on the medical marijuana program?”

As a barometer of governmental efficiency, Komorn gave the Board’s actions today two thumbs down. “This Board is not operating in a way that anyone in the public would appreciate… this behavior should do nothing but bring concern from citizens… I don’t think that anyone that walked out of that room has one bit of confidence in the integrity of the process.”

“I’d like to believe in the possibility of a fair hearing, but after experiencing the Attorney General in action over the years I can’t help but believe today’s behavior, creating unnecessary confusion and restriction, is intentionally designed to lead to a negative outcome,” Lowell observed. “I really hope I am wrong.”

 

 

 

No vote yet on adding autism as a medical condition to the MMMA- testimony indicates Attorney General’s office provided a severely edited petition to Board, one that eliminated scientific references

[caption id=attachment_10118" align="aligncenter" width="500]Michael-Komorn-and-Aaron-Justis-on-the-A

 

 

 

 

http://thecompassionchronicles.com/2015/07/20/who-really-controls-lara-and-medical-marijuana-in-michigan/

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Michigan could be the first state to include autism as a qualifying condition for medical cannabis. Community members and families with autistic children eagerly await a vote from Michigan’s Department of Licensing & Regulatory Affairs (LARA) that will take place July 31 and would permit medical cannabis as treatment for children and persons with autism. State doctors are presenting evidence, for the second time, to a panel who determines whether there is sufficient evidence to add autism as a qualification for medical cannabis.

 

In 2012, a mother with an autistic child petitioned LARA to legalize autism as a qualifying condition for medical cannabis. Unfortunately, the panel voted 7-2 against the petition, concluding there wasn’t enough peer-reviewed research to legitimize the benefits of medical cannabis for autism.

This year, on May 27th, another Michigan mother with an autistic child petitioned LARA with a robust team of support, including 19 family testimonies as well as state and national physicians who compiled 75 peer reviewed articles and over 800 pages of research detailing the hidden connection between the endocannabinoid system and autistic symptoms.

The effort, largely headed by Dr. Christian Bogner, a board certified physician at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Michigan, is pushing for a vote of approval, not to supplement all current treatment methods for autism, but to allow parents to provide cannabis as a therapeutic treatment without fear of being arrested.

In a recent publication, Dr. Bogner explains the current state of autism in the US: 

“1 in 68 kids [is] diagnosed with autism in the US. There [are] no effective treatments that are readily available. About 3.5 million Americans are affected [...and each] year the incidence raises 10%. It is a 236 billion dollar problem in this country per year, [and in] 10 years it will be [a] 400 billion [dollar problem].”

Bogner also has a child with autism, and he understands the hardships that come with it. Clearly something needs to be done, as our current approach to treating autism isn’t progressing patients and medicine forward.

Alongside Dr. Bogner, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a 40 year Professor Emeritus at Harvard Psychiatry, states: 

“Marijuana is the drug of choice these days for symptomatic treatment of autism. If I had an autistic child, I’d be right there with these parents figuring out his strain and dosage.”

Grinspoon also recognizes the implications cannabis can have on a child’s development, but points to other current treatments as more harmful: 

“There is no question that the brain continues to develop until the early 20s, and we must be very careful as physicians about young brains’ exposure. That being said, I do not worry at all about exposure to cannabis compared with the other pharmaceutical products used to treat autism.” 

To further the support to add autism as a qualifying condition, when questioned about the issue, Dr. Chugani, Chief of the Pediatric Neurology department at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, exclaimed, “It works!”

This review panel will be faced with a substantial amount of evidence compared to the first attempt in 2012. The vote will take place on July 31 -- if you want to support the effort to include autism as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana in Michigan, sign the Move On.org petition and voice your support while there's still time.

Edited by zapatosunidos
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What a wonderful Republican government we have here in Michigan.  When will people learn.

 

 

 

“When the Board assembled today we were expecting a vote yea or nay on the petition,” Komorn related. “Before we were able to begin the conversation it was brought to the attention of the Board as a whole by (Board member) David Brogren that this very comprehensive document with supporting papers was not given in its entirety to the Board, and that the Board should consider the entire package before voting.”

The science was scrubbed from the document given to the Board for consideration, Komorn said.

 

 

Along with a new Board comes a new leader, and the newly-appointed Board made selecting a new Chair their first priority. When the confusion regarding the petitions was exposed, her reaction was not one that inspired confidence among the hearing’s attendees. “The statement she made on the record was very distressing, that this information was given to the board by the Attorney General, not the Court,” Komorn said. “The Attorney General’s role was referenced by (the Chair), who said, in response to Brogren, this is what was sent to us by the Court via the Attorney General.”

 

Brogren mentioned on the record that he had given the Board the petition in its entirety two weeks ago. Even after the issue was exposed, Komorn said the Chair seemed more concerned with spin control than she was with establishing proper process.

 

 

 

Thanks again David for all you do. We appreciate you brother. And thanks for posting this Bob.

 

 

 Thanks for being a true patient advocate.  Way to bring light to a corrupt Republican administration and how they try to hurt, devalue, minimize and make irrelevant patient needs and concerns.  Such corruption from republican anti-drug zealotry. The Legacy of Nixon and Reagan still stain the country with nearly a million arrests per year.  Shame on the republicans for worshipping "saint" Ronnie.  How many lives must be destroyed by their laws and programs before people realize what a royal piece of excrement they were and still are.

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I think it is very important to note that the panel itself unanimously wished to proceed only after seeing the science.

 

It is LARA apparently that did not want the panel to see the science.

 

Same old BS but with a new twist, courtesy of Schuette and his cohorts in the executive branch. 

 

The age-old argument:  "We can't approve MMJ for medical use because there is no medical science that supports that conclusion....Oh, and by the way, it is nearly impossible to present such evidence because the laws of the land don't allow  the research."

 

The new argument:  "We can't approve MMJ for this specific medical use because their is no medical science to support it...because the AG made sure we weren't given the medical and scientific studies." 

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You also have to have a little bit of understanding about how the top leaders of the government in Michigan try to limit the power of executive agencies so that the governor and AG can get their way.  The governor,  through executive orders, can split up executive agencies and also shift responsibilities from one agency to another in order to limit the power of the agency.  (A lot of that power comes from gov. employee union contracts.)

 

In 1996, gov. Engler split the Michigan Department of Natural Resources (MDNR) into two distinct agencies - the MDNR, which would preside over fish and wildlife matters, and the new Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (which was tasked with addressing contamination issues.)  Why?  - Divide and conquer.  Engler didn't have the political capitol to clean-house in the MDNR and appoint people with his same mindset, so he divided the agency into two less powerful agencies that he could influence more.  Over the years, there has been a back-and forth turning of tides to reunite and then re-spilt the agency.

 

Same goes for shifting the MMMP from the MDCH to LARA.  I don't have much knowledge on the background of this move, but someone wise to political gamesmanship can only conclude that the reason for the shift was the the republican governor felt that his administration could exert more control over the program is it was in a licensing agency rather than a community health agency.

 

Political gamesmanship at its finest. 

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The problem here is that Schuette, Snyder, the Republican Morals Police, et all are unable to provide evidence that cannabis is the evil herb they claim it is. Despite all their efforts, science consistently falls on the side of cannabis being a beneficial substance. Whenever there is an issue on which science and the Bible are in conflict, the Republicans fall back on their traditional response - they hide their heads (or in this case the evidence) in the sand and pretend that science isn't real.

 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

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The problem here is that Schuette, Snyder, the Republican Morals Police, et all are unable to provide evidence that cannabis is the evil herb they claim it is. Despite all their efforts, science consistently falls on the side of cannabis being a beneficial substance. Whenever there is an issue on which science and the Bible are in conflict, the Republicans fall back on their traditional response - they hide their heads (or in this case the evidence) in the sand and pretend that science isn't real.

 

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

Yes there right  up there with "you can't fix stupid!"

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Three or more LARA staff, two from the AG, the administrators outnumbered the panelists on this one.

WOW. whats all that about? was this panel meeting different than previous ones? were AG members present before? i remember some video of meetings had more than just panel members, but didnt recognize the significance of it...

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These type of panels meetings etc. tend to have an assistant attorney general there to answer questions on legalities of proceedings etc.

 

Same as like cities and townships having a city attorney there.  It is LARAs panel so an admin has to be there.

 

But yea,... seems an extra from both were there this time.  Glad to see someones Wheaties got pissed in. :-)

 

p.s.  Just the department of licensing and regulating affairs  has ten assistant AG's at their  disposal.

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Thanks again David for all you do. We appreciate you brother. And thanks for posting this Bob.

 

 

 

Michigan could be the first state to include autism as a qualifying condition for medical cannabis. Community members and families with autistic children eagerly await a vote from Michigan’s Department of Licensing & Regulatory Affairs (LARA) that will take place July 31 and would permit medical cannabis as treatment for children and persons with autism. State doctors are presenting evidence, for the second time, to a panel who determines whether there is sufficient evidence to add autism as a qualification for medical cannabis.

 

In 2012, a mother with an autistic child petitioned LARA to legalize autism as a qualifying condition for medical cannabis. Unfortunately, the panel voted 7-2 against the petition, concluding there wasn’t enough peer-reviewed research to legitimize the benefits of medical cannabis for autism.

This year, on May 27th, another Michigan mother with an autistic child petitioned LARA with a robust team of support, including 19 family testimonies as well as state and national physicians who compiled 75 peer reviewed articles and over 800 pages of research detailing the hidden connection between the endocannabinoid system and autistic symptoms.

The effort, largely headed by Dr. Christian Bogner, a board certified physician at the Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine in Michigan, is pushing for a vote of approval, not to supplement all current treatment methods for autism, but to allow parents to provide cannabis as a therapeutic treatment without fear of being arrested.

In a recent publication, Dr. Bogner explains the current state of autism in the US: 

“1 in 68 kids [is] diagnosed with autism in the US. There [are] no effective treatments that are readily available. About 3.5 million Americans are affected [...and each] year the incidence raises 10%. It is a 236 billion dollar problem in this country per year, [and in] 10 years it will be [a] 400 billion [dollar problem].”

Bogner also has a child with autism, and he understands the hardships that come with it. Clearly something needs to be done, as our current approach to treating autism isn’t progressing patients and medicine forward.

Alongside Dr. Bogner, Dr. Lester Grinspoon, a 40 year Professor Emeritus at Harvard Psychiatry, states: 

“Marijuana is the drug of choice these days for symptomatic treatment of autism. If I had an autistic child, I’d be right there with these parents figuring out his strain and dosage.”

Grinspoon also recognizes the implications cannabis can have on a child’s development, but points to other current treatments as more harmful: 

“There is no question that the brain continues to develop until the early 20s, and we must be very careful as physicians about young brains’ exposure. That being said, I do not worry at all about exposure to cannabis compared with the other pharmaceutical products used to treat autism.” 

To further the support to add autism as a qualifying condition, when questioned about the issue, Dr. Chugani, Chief of the Pediatric Neurology department at Children’s Hospital of Michigan, exclaimed, “It works!”

This review panel will be faced with a substantial amount of evidence compared to the first attempt in 2012. The vote will take place on July 31 -- if you want to support the effort to include autism as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana in Michigan, sign the Move On.org petition and voice your support while there's still time.

 

 

 

on May 27th, another Michigan mother with an autistic child petitioned LARA with a robust team of support,

 

This is how support is "suppose" to happen and how things get done she is a brave lady and a Mother  thank you for coming out and speaking up 

 

 too allow parents to provide cannabis as a therapeutic treatment without fear of being arrested. 

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LANSING- Activists are screaming mad at the conduct of officials representing Governor Rick Snyder’s administration during a hearing today to determine if autism should be added to the list of illness that qualify a patient to use medical marijuana in Michigan.

The petition, submitted in 2014, contains a summary of 75 peer-reviewed articles on autism and 800 pages of reference material.  “When the panel sat down today, what they had was pieces of the document,” said Southfield attorney Michael Komorn.

Pieces apparently selected by the Attorney General’s office, according to statements made on the record by Board officials. What was missing? “The Summary, with the 75 peer-reviewed studies, and the 800 pages of clinical research on autism and cannabis,” Komorn said.

Advocates sued the government in Ingham County Circuit Court to force the Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs (LARA) to consider a petition for that purpose submitted in 2014 by Lisa Smith, whose son Noah has autism and other illnesses. Petitions are debated by the Medial Marihuana Review Panel (the Board) under rules established in 2008 by the Michigan Medical Marihuana Act (MMMA). A previous petition to add autism to the MMMA was rejected at a Board hearing back in 2013.

“We litigated for a year,” to get the Smith petition accepted, Komorn said. The State was represented by the Office of the Attorney General, Bill Schuette. The language of the MMMA requires that each petition properly submitted must be considered by the Board. Schuette’s and LARA’s response was the opposite: we already ruled on that illness and no subsequent petition will be considered. “The Court decided theirs was a wrong interpretation. We won; they had to give us a new hearing on the petition submitted.”

A hearing on the Smith petition was held in May of this year. On July 1 a whole new Board was created, per rule changes made in January 2015 by LARA over the objections of citizens and Senators. Some of the members of the new panel had not heard the testimony on the Smith petition taken by the Board weeks earlier.

“When the Board assembled today we were expecting a vote yea or nay on the petition,” Komorn related. “Before we were able to begin the conversation it was brought to the attention of the Board as a whole by (Board member) David Brogren that this very comprehensive document with supporting papers was not given in its entirety to the Board, and that the Board should consider the entire package before voting.”

The science was scrubbed from the document given to the Board for consideration, Komorn said.

“When the Circuit Court made an order that the petition be considered, they meant the whole petition,” Komorn growled.  “(The Court) didn’t change the material submitted, it required the Board to consider the petition filed with the Court.”

Of a greater concern is the reason cited for the edited version of the petition being presented.

Along with a new Board comes a new leader, and the newly-appointed Board made selecting a new Chair their first priority. When the confusion regarding the petitions was exposed, her reaction was not one that inspired confidence among the hearing’s attendees. “The statement she made on the record was very distressing, that this information was given to the board by the Attorney General, not the Court,” Komorn said. “The Attorney General’s role was referenced by (the Chair), who said, in response to Brogren, this is what was sent to us by the Court via the Attorney General.”

“The representative kept referring to the fact that this document is what the Attorney General’s office gave us,” said Jamie Lowell of Ypsilanti’s 3rd Coast Medical Marijuana Dispensary, who attended the hearing.

Brogren mentioned on the record that he had given the Board the petition in its entirety two weeks ago. Even after the issue was exposed, Komorn said the Chair seemed more concerned with spin control than she was with establishing proper process. Komorn explained that “she kept insisting that the Board had all the information they needed to make a decision on autism and medical marijuana,” he said, “without seeing any of the science behind it.”

Brogren’s objections to considering the issue without all the facts swayed the result and stayed the Board from voting. They will reconvene at a later date to make a final determination on the Smith petition, after receiving the entire document.

In addition to being a criminal defense attorney, Komorn is the host of an Internet-base radio program broadcasting weekly for more than four years. The Planet Green Trees Radio Show (PGT) has followed the progress of the autism petition from the start, prior to 2012’s initial rejection. Shows #255 and #257 covered the topic with interviews and behind-the-scenes looks at the tribulations experienced by those advocates who sought a positive result at the July 20 hearing. One of those interviewed by the PGT staff: Dr. Harry Chugani, chief of pediatric neurology at Children’s Hospital of Michigan in Detroit

“There was a major flaw in the process of how information was being given to the Board members,” Komorn stated. He challenged the notion that the Attorney General, a noted medical marijuana detractor and a major opponent of the MMMA in 2008, should be filtering information approved by the Court for use by a state agency.

“Mind you, the AG had to be sued to bring this information to the Board in the first place,” Komorn emphasized. “Why is it OK for the Director of this Board to rely on them for the information used to make the determination of autism’s validity for inclusion on the medical marijuana program?”

As a barometer of governmental efficiency, Komorn gave the Board’s actions today two thumbs down. “This Board is not operating in a way that anyone in the public would appreciate… this behavior should do nothing but bring concern from citizens… I don’t think that anyone that walked out of that room has one bit of confidence in the integrity of the process.”

“I’d like to believe in the possibility of a fair hearing, but after experiencing the Attorney General in action over the years I can’t help but believe today’s behavior, creating unnecessary confusion and restriction, is intentionally designed to lead to a negative outcome,” Lowell observed. “I really hope I am wrong.”

 

 

 

No vote yet on adding autism as a medical condition to the MMMA- testimony indicates Attorney General’s office provided a severely edited petition to Board, one that eliminated scientific references

[caption id=attachment_10118" align="aligncenter" width="500]Michael-Komorn-and-Aaron-Justis-on-the-A

 

 

 

 

http://thecompassionchronicles.com/2015/07/20/who-really-controls-lara-and-medical-marijuana-in-michigan/

That is such horse schit. Is there any means to compel the board to review all of the literature? How long are the odds that a mandamus action can be brought and succeed? It is not entirely clear that the board will abide and include the entirety of the documents. I appreciate that the press is reporting the matter, but it is apparently not enough. Where is the mainstream media in this?

Edited by GregS
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The panel itself yesterday voted to adjourn the meeting to allow time for LARA to forward the missing documents. The panel and LARA have both acknowledged they are missing and must have time to review prior to the vote. The new date and time: July 31, 2015 at 1:00 PM.

 

 

I'm glad its at 1pm and hope for a great outcome they should OK it this time 

 

Then it moves up to the next person who has the final say ?

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