Medical marijuana advocate: CDPHE meeting helps caregivers despite comments snafu

• The Draft Regulaions (at http://www.cdphe.state.co.us/hs/medicalmarijuana/Memo_Draft%20Primary%20Caregiver.pdf) do not reflect the changes made at the meeting -- Hause's version is obnoxious, to be sure.

• Well, Robert Chase at least cared enough to show up for the meeting. Did you? How many meetings have you gone to lately? How many donations to activist groups have you made? None? I thought so. People like you like to point fingers and complain that Robert's brand of activism doesn't suit you, yet you do nothing on your own to help bring that about. The world of cannabis politics may be too contentious for you. If you can't stand the heat, better get out now, cuz it's only going to get crazier. Remember what the esteemed HS Thompson said, "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." Either step up to help or step aside and sit down and stop bitching.

• We are right in opposing all the unconstitutional provisions in SB109 & HB1284, but it is important always to have context. The CDPHE held a meeting of its Advisory Committee yesterday. The Advisory Committee, presented with essentially the same proposed requirements which the Department tried (and narrowly failed) to foist onto the Board of Health at its July 20, 2009 hearing and which the Denver District Court threw out after the CDPHE's make-believe emergency hearing of November 3, 2009, instead chose to explicitly recognize caregivers' educatory and consultative role as fulfilling their responsibility to have significant responsibility for managing patients' well-being. The State will not succeed in making caregivers into certified nurse's assistants or in saddling them with onerous requirements unrelated to their constitutional prerogative to supply cannabis to patients, and Jill can claim some of the credit.

• Define gluttonous blood sucking leech; those politicians, medical practioners, care givers, dispensaries and growers who support the concept of Medical Marijauna

• Strong take, observer. Thanks for posting and commenting.

• Seems to me that all the "in-fighting" "between" advocates is mudslinging in one direction. Respectful discourse without personal attacks shouldn't be too much to ask.

• It should be emphasized that objecting out-of-turn from the floor induced Lisa Miller to depart from the agenda and allow us to speak. I make no apology for being angry at the counterrevolutionaries against medical cannabis. The Advisory Committee has made some positive recommendations and turned back the worst of the prohibitionist proposals (preventing physicians from specializing or travelling, e.g.). Jill Lamoureux seems the best advocate for the interests of patients on the Committee -- she requested the alternative to the redefinition of caregivers as personal assistants. I am capable of overreaction -- it has been a pleasant surprise to find that Dr. Bowles (who voted against us over the issue of allowing physicians with conditional licenses to recommend cannabis) has (apparently -- I did miss these votes) voted for patients and caregivers on several crucial issues. The draft now presumably reads something like: “Significant responsibility for managing the well-being of a patient” means, IN ADDITION TO THE ABILITY TO PROVIDE MEDICAL MARIJUANA, consultation and education about the medical use of cannabis, assisting a patient with daily activities, including but not limited to transportation or housekeeping or meal preparation or shopping or making any necessary arrangement for access to medical care or NON-MEDICAL MARIJAUANA [sic -- there are numerous errors in the draft rules, typographical and otherwise] services or provision of medical marijuana. My heart and my mind are both in the right place, thank-you, but I don't claim to be omniscient. The Advisory Committee has confounded my expectation that it would simply rubber-stamp the Department's proposals. While I would prefer that it unequivocally uphold the intent of Article XVIII, Section 14 against the depredations of the General Assembly and the Attorney General, it is unreasonable to expect it to contradict the unconstitutional laws; a court must repudiate those. What the prohibitionists have already lost before the Advisory Committee should thwart much of the attack against patients' access to recommendations and caregiving (i.e. of five or fewer patients). I have been more concerned about the prohibitionists' abuse of the CDPHE to go after patients, doctors, and caregivers than about the byzantine overregulation of dispensaries. It is too soon to declare victory, but the news from this front is encouraging. Patients will not be safe until SB109 & HB1284 are overturned, or all these issues are rendered moot by re-legalizing cannabis in 2012. P.S. The notion that raising one's voice or exercising the right of free speech vociferously is "not working within the system" is completely wrong. We are the victims of a war being waged against our rights and the principles upon which this country was founded; using force to resist clearly would be justified -- anyone who is not actually taking up arms against the fascists is working within the system.

• All I can say is good on the CDPHE Board for kicking Robert out. While his heart may be in the right place his mind isn't. He and Kathleen Chippi still believe that screaming at public officials can benefit anyone. His presence as an advocate for the MMJ movement is an embarrassment for everyone else involved and his juvenile behavior only serves to set the pro-MJ movement backwards 10 years. Thank you for your good heart Robert, but please learn a lesson from this and behave yourself in public. If you want to win at their game you have to play by the rules, something that marijuana movement is only now learning. It is simply impossible to beat the system, you have to work within it. That is how MMJ has gotten as far as it has, working within the system. Now we need to work within the system to protect and preserve those rights against those who would take them back from us, be that the CDPHE or the Medical Marijuana Industry Group, there are those who are working to protect their personal beliefs and interests and it is our duty to ensure they don't succeed, but again, working within the system.

• I would think more a restrictive caregiver definition and waiver process would benefit Jill's business. Not everyone in this industry is trying to stomp on patients rights - without patients there is no industry - some people get that. Advocates who trash everyone - even those trying to help and not helping patients rights and access.

• the committee voted in favor of adding education and consultation on medical-marijuana use to the current definition of caregiver. In addition, the caregiver waiver process was broadened. In the past, patients had to provide evidence that they'd be harmed if a caregiver wasn't given a waiver. But the committee now recommends that benefits the patient will enjoy if the caregiver receives a waiver will also be considered. sounds like much progress over the draft rules released a couple days ago. Patients can choose a caregiver with more than 5 patients for personal reasons and that caregiver can consult patients on marijuana not housekeeping and cooking. This is good for patients and caregivers if it is really re-written to reflect this.

• HELPS CAREGIVERS? NO WAY! what the CDPHE did yesterday was ILLEGAL-Nothing less! Jill suports it becasue Jill has her high paid lobbyists working for her self centered interests of buying her way into surviving the demise of the mmj program in Colorado.

• Small victories?!! Where!!! This committee's attorney Ann Hause has been writing language that destroys the ability of caregivers to take care of patients. Read it all on the CDPHE web page. How is any of this progress?

• STOMPING ON PATIENTS AND CAREGIVERS!

• Sure, Jill is stepping forward. Unfortunately, the stepping forward includes stepping ON TOP all the patients and caregivers RIGHTS, of as she sat on both the CDPHE advisory board and the DoR advisory board. The CDPHE advisory does NOT have the constitutional right to re define caregivers, only the voters do.

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