So things have very recently changed here where I live. Paradise, CA has seven town council member. They are “non-partisan” by law, which is true of most all town or city councils. Of course that really isn’t remotely true. They just voted to take advantage of a loophole that was not supposed to be at all. When our Governor signed three new laws into being regarding regulation of marijuana for recreational purposes in California in anticipation we would vote for it in 2016, an inadvertent loophole was created. These new laws, which are going to be gradually brought online until they are in full effect in 2018, allow for towns and even entire counties to not allow recreational marijuana dispensaries if they want, should recreational marijuana be legal in California.
When towns looked into the wording, they realized they could pounce now before recreational marijuana becomes legal (if it even does pass in 2016). They decided they could make it illegal now prior to any law coming online in the future regarding recreational marijuana.
What Paradise, CA has done (and Oroville, CA and Biggs, CA) is make all marijuana illegal. They took advantage of this unintended loophole, which has now been recognized by the state and will be closed on March 1st, to make medical marijuana illegal as well. NOW, in our town, it is illegal to grow medical marijuana. It is illegal to possess medical marijuana (that means if you have a medical marijuana license and get caught with marijuana you have broken the law). It is illegal to transport or distribute medical marijuana as well. In other words, where I live it is illegal to have any marijuana at all ever for any reason at all. State law and medical licenses be damned.
What a sad state of affairs. There are serious reasons folks use and need medical marijuana, but now it’s entirely illegal here. What is the penalty? We don’t know. They haven’t told us. They quickly passed this new law before they even flushed out the legal consequences. Will they put you in jail? What huge fine will they foist upon you? Sheesh!
BTW, in my home state of Colorado, which has legal recreational marijuana and has done the best by far of any state in that regard, they are doing real medical research with it at the University of Colorado Medical Centers. Besides what we know about marijuana being great for pain, anxiety, sleep disorders and seizures, they’ve recently discovered it’s really good for those who suffer from migraine headaches. They are kinda doing something illegal-ish since marijuana is a Schedule I drug (the worst and most dangerous category of all drugs) according to Federal Law.
www.fool.com/…
Researchers from the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and Gedde Whole Health used two medical marijuana specialty clinics in Colorado to test 121 patients with a primary diagnosis of migraine headaches between January 2010 and September 2014. The idea was to determine what effect, if any, marijuana had on reducing migraine frequency over the course of the month with the assumption that cannabinoids within the cannabis plant could positively affect serotonin production and reduce the severity of, or completely eliminate, a migraine. Prior research has suggested a connection between low serotonin levels and migraine frequency.
The results demonstrated a statistically significant advantage for marijuana when it came to migraine frequency reduction. Migraine frequency for the tested patients dropped from 10.4 per month to just 4.6 per month, a 56% clinical benefit. The study notes that most patients used more than one form of marijuana, and positive effects were noted in 48 patients, or roughly 40%. This included 14 patients who were able to abort their migraine headache completely. Additionally, inhaled marijuana was the most common use method attributed to aborted migraine headaches.
What do you want to kibitz about tonight?