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January 17, 2012 in Idaho
Medical marijuana bill introduced in Idaho House
BOISE - Medical marijuana legislation was introduced in the Idaho House today, where Rep. Tom Trail, R-Moscow, introduced HB 370 as a personal bill.
He proposed similar legislation last year; it got an informational hearing from the House Health & Welfare Committee, but didn’t proceed. HB 370 would permit patients with debilitating medical conditions to be dispensed up to 2 ounces of marijuana every 28 days; they’d have to get it from state-authorized “alternative treatment centers.”
The bill says, “Compassion dictates that a distinction be made between medical and nonmedical uses of marijuana. Hence, the purpose of this chapter is to protect from arrest, prosecution, property forfeiture, and criminal or other penalties those patients who use marijuana to alleviate suffering from debilitating medical conditions, as well as their physicians, primary care givers and those who are authorized to produce marijuana for medical purposes.” Under the measure, only patients who’d registered with the state and received a registration card could legally possess medical marijuana.
An Idaho group currently is gathering signatures for a proposed initiative to legalize medical marijuana; Trail said last year that other states’ experience has shown that legislation with strict controls is preferable to a voter initiative.
In the Idaho Legislature, individual lawmakers can introduce legislation without a committee’s say-so within the opening weeks of the session; they then are assigned to committees for possible hearings.
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empyrius on January 17 at 1:21 p.m.
How long will the federal government continue to contend that the marijuana plant contains no medical value whatsoever?!?
How much longer will “our” federal government continue to lie straight to our faces?!?!?
“Our” federal policing and health organizations, the very ones’ that contend marijuana has no medical value whatsoever and must remain a schedule I drug, need to immediately surrender b/c I am making a citizen’s arrest on their corrupt butts!
May the smoke from our yummy yummy bud waft from our blessed Evergreen State to the Atlantic coast my Christian brothers and sisters!
Amen
slamdunk on January 17 at 1:32 p.m.
This will never make it out of committee. Those rednecks in the Idaho leg are way to conservative for that. Besides, they’d rather spend their time doing worthwhile things like lowering the tax rate for their fat cat friends and cutting services to the poor. Schools in that backwater are pretty much already gutted by the big fat door of the Tuna boat so that needs no attention.
Middleman on January 17 at 1:58 p.m.
Well…..one of the so-called “rednecks” (Rep. Tom Trail, R-Moscow) is the sponsor of the bill. This will be interesting to watch. On another note, I definitely think the State Superintendent of Public Schools, Tom Luna, needs some MM. That dude needs to chill out before he is voted out!
Note_to_Self on January 17 at 2:11 p.m.
This will never fly in Idaho, but I wonder when people demand an end to the war on drugs? Legalize, regulate and tax it and take the money we have spent criminalizing it and put it towards education and treatement. Prohibition did not work for alcohol and it is not working for drugs.
RedCedar on January 17 at 3:39 p.m.
It’s not the rednecks that won’t let Tom Trail’s bill out of committee It’s the Mormons. The Mormons are the most politically meddlesome religion in America today. They either don’t think they can control themselves without the threat of government punishment, or they think it’s their job to control not only themselves but all the heathens as well. Hence, Idaho retains a set of blue laws that look like an historical artifact from the 1950s.
The tacit agreement between North and South Idaho used to be that the North, where the mines were, would send money to the South, in return for which the South would ignore all the shocking vice that was going on in the North. In those days, the state’s two congressional districts were split by an east-west line, so the North could elect a vice-tolerating labor-supporting Democrat, and the south could elect a moralizing, farm-supporting Republican. Then the Republicans got greedy and flipped the congressional district line so it runs north/south, with sufficient Boise/Nampa Mormon Republicans gerrymandered into each district so that the rest of the state has almost no voice at all in congress.
citizenX on January 17 at 4:12 p.m.
This is the first sign of a compassionate heart in Idaho’s legislature, and my hat is off to Tom Trail for introducing HB370. Maybe it’s because it’s an election year? However, the real problem here is that prohibition of marijuana consumption still exists at all. When Idaho looks for spending cuts, they ignore their blatant self-addiction to incarcerating Idaho’s public for drug use. Could it be that’s because it sees overcrowded prisons as job creation? And Tpubs think that it’s the drug users who have the twisted minds! Compassion. It’s just the first step towards changing a misguided direction, for those who prosecute, while claiming whatever morally religious high ground doctrine they stand behind. May the baby Jesus open their minds and shut their collective mouths, until a yes vote on HB370 gets it passed. It’s long-past overdue.
SMARTGUY on January 17 at 5:25 p.m.
I am still waiting for medical meth
empyrius on January 17 at 7:23 p.m.
Here ya go SMARTGUY:
http://www.drugs.com/ritalin.html
Tis just easier for the meth-heads to buy the nasty bathtub variety of meth now-a-days though.
All unnatural crap. A safe method of distributing coca from the plant itself would be ideal! But you can sure bet your bottom dollar there is trillions of dollars coming mostly form pharmo-giants, and the most powerful guns in the world, that would never allow that to happen!
Marijuana will also prove to be a wholly natural part of curative programs for those whom suffer addiction to “legal” and “illegal” varieties of amphetamine . . .
Yet one more reason why there is trillions upon trillions of dollars worth of future profits, and the most powerful guns in the world, that have their sights on owning the marijuana plant!
empyrius on January 17 at 7:48 p.m.
You see the U.S. government, the department of Human and Health Services specifically, has this patent on cannabinoids produced by marijuana plants:
http://uspatent6630507.com/
While of course one mega-giant pharmaceutical [GW Pharmaceuticals] company has the exclusive right to distribute naturally derived THC in pill form:
http://www.gwpharm.com/Sativex.aspx
And of course Marinol, synthetic THC that the DEA itself assisted in producing so us pill poppers would not have to smoke our medicine (http://www.justice.gov/dea/ongoing/marinol.html), is available to you here http://www.themarinol.com/buy-marinol.php
Har har har har
force_vector on January 17 at 7:52 p.m.
Empyrius - Just when I start to warm to the idea, I read your “har har har” and your “May the smoke from our yummy yummy bud waft from our blessed Evergreen State to the Atlantic coast my Christian brothers and sisters!”, and think to myself, “maybe not”.
mrd on January 17 at 8:09 p.m.
Legalized mj would be a big mistake for Idaho. It sure hasn’t done much for Washington from what I have read. There is no need for more intoxicants to be legalized. Mj has too many numerous health and social problems to mention here but there is enough research to support. Look into research done by Columbia University if you are interested.
greenlibertarian on January 17 at 10:20 p.m.
mrd on January 17 at 8:09 p.m.
Legalized mj would be a big mistake for Idaho. It sure hasn’t done much for Washington from what I have read. There is no need for more intoxicants to be legalized. Mj has too many numerous health and social problems to mention here but there is enough research to support. Look into research done by Columbia University if you are interested.
You position is utterly out of the scientific and sociological mainstream.
The distribution system breeds giant swaths of crime, corruption, and of course, unfair dealing by the state and all players.
There are always some negative personal and societal consequences for those who abuse drugs. MJ is far less conducive to abuse that many other substances readily available, many legal. Prescription pill abuse kills more people than does illegal drug abuse.
And law enforcement is even jumping on board, the ethical ones:
http://www.leap.cc/
empyrius on January 18 at 4:53 a.m.
You are right force_vector in that I should present my opinion and materials in a less mocking manner . . .
But after 45 years on this planet the mockery big money makes of us, we the people, on this “issue” of marijuana alone, makes me sadly aware that “our” representative democracy is nothing more than a sham.
When one reads what the DEA and HHS offers, the language their lawyers use, the endless circumlocution, the twisted statistics (Seriously twisted stuff! A person ODs on alcohol, is taken to the ER, mentions that they may have smoked some herb in the past year, and wham-bam even though they drank themselves sick with booze the marijuana they smoked five months ago is to blame! Seriously funny stuff man!), the self-referential studies of Ivy league professors subsidized by the government and pharmo-giants to say that marijuana is bad, no wait good, but no actually evil personified, while the government itlself, and two major pharmo-giants basically own the marijuana plant . . .
well . . .
Big money rules us and that is the bottom line!