Medical marijuana: CO health department application outsourcing not to private company

• Very interesting conversation, everyone. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

• More potential HPPA privacy violations. Just my medical records, my surgeries, my conditions, my STDs, etc...; no big deal, right? Wrong. How could so many people be duped by these two-faced imbeciles and crooks pushing all these attacks (regulations) on our constitutional rights? The dispensary owners were duped, because they were blinded by their fucking greed and couldn't see an obvious "set up" or they deliberately slept with the devil to cut out 80 percent of the competition (how could eliminating 80 percent of dispensaries and eliminating most small caregivers help patients?). I just returned from a way-too-long trip to Boulder for the sole purpose of getting meds; and I was turned down for the sixth fucking time now, because I didn�t have certified mail receipt and will never have it, as I lost it and the postal service only keeps them in data base for 30 days (the 30 day certified postal receipt confusion was thrown out there with the new regs to help confuse everybody, but a certified mail receipt is not in the constitution, of course)...More importantly though, I have 6 past licenses and all the current paperwork, signed off by a physician, who has no restrictions or conditions on their license. Basically, all these centers have lost my business, forever and ever, as they chose to refuse to provide meds, though I had all the paperwork with a copy of money order sent to CDPHE. "Never going back to"� any center who has blocked my access because of their ignorance or to any center that doesn't have great options for under 12/g. Or any center that sells me "bunk" edibles -- or should we say "neglibles"? Initially, I said I�d give this last center another chance when CDPHE gets into gear and sends me my application, which I sent last Spring. But as my pain began to escalate into the intolerable range on the way home tonight, I became WAY PISSED. On one hand, I understand that many centers have been frightened into refusing medications by the new, UNCONSTITUTIONAL regulations, and I understand that by refusing patients medicine -- even when the patient has all the legal paperwork -- that they are simply trying to keep their licenses to operate. However, would some attorney or somebody from CDPHE or DOR (they started all the confusion in the first fucking place) explain for the record -- and for these dispensaries too fearful to serve patients with adequate, required paperwork -- that a patient DOESN�T NEED A CERTIFIED MAIL RECEIPT when they have completed signed application, doc�s hancock, and proof of money order or check. I realize the centers are worried about their ability to operate, but they might want to wake up to the FACT THAT IF A CENTER REFUSES SERVICE TO A PATIENT WITH NEEDED LEGAL PAPER WORK, THEY MIGHT BE SUED OUT OF BUSINESS!! I'm calling attorneys tomorrow to look into this, so I am better prepared in the future. The patient and caregiver lawsuit might benefit from a phone-line, because it�s easier and because some patients probably don�t want a written record of their state-legal efforts, given we are in the middle of a state constitutional �coup�, and we know that CDPHE and DOR are doing everything they can to undermine Amendment 20 and BLOCK AND SABOTAGE PATIENT ACCESS and OPTIONS� And what makes this patient "railroading" so incredibly FUCKED UP is the paid liars made all these regs "to protect patients." What a "take the money and run" fucking crock of shit. These life-long b-crats are keeping me from my medicine, fuckers. What if I kept them from their erection pills, vicodin, xanax or lithium? Bastards. So, the guy in charge of the D.O.R. used to be a D.E.A. agent? Now, that�s a story, there. How can he supervise a state medical cannabis program, if he spent his whole career trying to convince people that cannabis isn't medicine (which is profoundly ignorant and/or incredibly low)? How does he reconcile this glaring conflict? Can the patients somehow fire him and hire somebody who really cares about patients and who is more knowledgeable about this plant's amazing medical history and well-established medical efficacy for a wide range of symptoms and clinical conditions? We deserve somebody who is not trying to destroy our access and who understands that Hippocrates would be kicking some b-crat ass, if he saw how the CDPHE and the DOR have blatantly restricted patient access to their doctor-recommended medicine. Enough with the harm, scum.

• here is one example: http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2007/dec/04/couple-reclaim-marijuana/ "James Masters admitted that, at the time, neither he nor his wife was on the state's medical marijuana registry, nor did they have the card required to grow medical marijuana. He said they didn't have the money and his doctor's recommendation had expired." "Hiatt ruled Nov. 26 that the plants and growing equipment must be returned, saying that while the couple weren't on the registry, they had fulfilled the definition of medical marijuana caregiver in the practical sense."

• I think even expired paper work has been upheld in court as being acceptable as long as the original ailment persists and the patient is within the standard legal limits. I'd have to find the article though to be sure .... If this is the case then you can forget about the required costly annual doc recommendations too...one recommendation is good until revoked. .... will hunt for the article

• "Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project" -- if you are serious about raising money for a lawsuit, do you have a trust fund created for your fund raising project? pardon my skepticism but donating straight to a paypal account isn't very legit. go with a trust fund so people that donate will be sure their money makes it to the right cause.

• As Joel Warner reported last week in the post "Medical marijuana deluge: Colorado MMJ patients top 113,000, bring in $9 mil in fees," Colorado's MMJ patient total skyrocketed from about 65,000 in April 2010 to 105,000 just three months later. Now, four months after that, only 8,000 additional people have applied for a card." A+ to Sen Chris Romer(D), Sen Tom Massey(R) and Sen Joyce Foster (D) for writing and helping pass HB1284 and SB109, statutes written with the purpose of putting the genie back in the bottle in regard to the MMJ program in Colorado. Your dirty deed of scaring the crap out of patients is working. Or maybe after the onslaught of media attention more patients read the constitution and realized the state license is not required for an affirmative defense in marijuana possession. All a patient needs is a doctors recommendation. Or maybe patients have realized their confidentiality was being breached with the involvement of the Dept of Rev. in June. Whatever the case, the CDPHE will not be collecting the big bucks like they were. No one need apply and risk breaches of privacy, so says our constitution.

• Are you a patient, doctor or caregiver negatively affected by the actions of the CDPHE, HB1284 or SB109? Contact: cannabislawsuit.com

• Private or not the constitution is pretty limited and clear on who has access to mmj patient info. I don't see DPA anywhere in the constitution. Quote the Colorado Constitution Article 18 section 14: "(h) "State health agency" means that public health related entity of state government designated by the governor to establish and maintain a confidential registry of patients authorized to engage in the medical use of marijuana and enact rules to administer this program." The governor appointed the CDPHE to be the state health agency. "(a) No person shall be permitted to gain access to any information about patients in the state health agency's confidential registry, or any information otherwise maintained by the state health agency about physicians and primary care-givers, except for authorized employees of the state health agency in the course of their official duties and authorized employees of state or local law enforcement agencies which have stopped or arrested a person who claims to be engaged in the medical use of marijuana and in possession of a registry identification card or its functional equivalent, pursuant to paragraph (e) of this subsection (3). Authorized employees of state or local law enforcement agencies shall be granted access to the information contained within the state health agency's confidential registry only for the purpose of verifying that an individual who has presented a registry identification card to a state or local law enforcement official is lawfully in possession of such card." No one but the CPDHE and state and local law enforcement can access the info and only to verify a valid license. Below the constitution even provides for criminal penalties for breach of confidentiality by the health agency, (CDPHE). "(8) Not later than April 30, 2001, the General Assembly shall define such terms and enact such legislation as may be necessary for implementation of this section, as well as determine and enact criminal penalties for: (d) Breach of confidentiality of information provided to or by the state health agency."

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