Iowa likely won't be the 15th state to legalize medical marijuana any time soon, but there has been plenty of talk about the idea with two bills in the Legislature and a possible recommendation on legalization Wednesday by the state pharmacy board.

Although both legislative measures are considered dead for the session, backers said support is growing and some expect the Iowa Board of Pharmacy to add to the momentum when it discusses the issue and considers recommending whether marijuana should be allowed for medical use.

"We're supposedly the drug experts and so, I would hope that the Legislature would consider the recommendation valuable to them," said Lloyd Jessen, executive director of the Iowa Board of Pharmacy.

Medical marijuana initially came before the pharmacy board in 2008 when the American Civil Liberties Union of Iowa and others petitioned the board to remove marijuana from the Legislature's Schedule I classification. To be classified as Schedule I, a drug must have a high potential for abuse and no safe medical use.

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Muraco Kyashna-Tocha, 49, of Seattle, has grown marijuana legally since 1999. Kyashna-Tocha has had five neck and back surgeries and said that using marijuana manages her pain enough so she can engage in daily life. Credit: Chris Joseph Taylor/The Seattle Times

If you happen to be a medical marijuana patient like me, you’re well aware that there are lots of folks who still harbor some enormous moral judgments about cannabis and those who use it medically — even in the states where it is legal.

If you aren’t a patient, chances are you may either already know one, or soon will. As the acceptance of the medical use of pot grows, so does the number of patients choosing this option.

So let’s talk about those moral judgments.

Medical marijuana patients are too often given to understand that we should somehow feel vaguely guilty about the relief that we get through using the herb.

We are given, intentionally or not, little cues which seem to carry the message “You are a little less than entirely acceptable to polite society.”

To some of us, that feels a lot like “Why don’t those people just stay at home?”

While “interacting” with a proudly ignorant Twitter user today, I was freshly reminded of this unfortunate dynamic, and it got me thinking about the same old tired, threadbare judgments and stereotypes that patients must deal with, over and over and over again.

Sometimes the attitudes manifest themselves a little more subtly.

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On Thursday, a Denver news station interviewed Chris Bartkowicz about his medical-marijuana operation in the basement of his home. Bartkowicz, confident of his compliance with state laws, boasted of its size and profitability.

"I'm definitely living the dream now," he told 9News.

The following day, the dream was over.

Drug-enforcement agents raided his home, placed him under arrest, and carried off dozens of black bags of marijuana plants and growing lights.

The Obama administration promised in October that the federal government would respect state laws allowing the growing and selling of marijuana for medicinal use, but the Drug Enforcement Agency sent a loud message with the arrest of Bartkowicz.

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Zeta Ceti constructs a display at the iGrow warehouse in Oakland, a one-stop shop for medicinal marijuana cultivation. Credit: Michael Macor / The Chronicle

Call it the Walmart of weed.

In a 15,000-square-foot warehouse just down the road from the Oakland Airport, an entrepreneur is opening a one-stop shop for medicinal marijuana cultivation that's believed to be the largest in the state.

Don't know the first thing about growing pot? The folks at iGrow have a doctor on site to get you a cannabis card and sell you all the necessary equipment for indoor, hydroponic cultivation - from pumps, nutrients and tubing to lights and fans.

Don't know how to set it up? For a fee, on-site technicians will show you how to build it in your home and even maintain it weekly.

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The Lenoir County, North Carolina, Sheriff’s Office calls it one of the most sophisticated marijuana growing operations they’ve ever uncovered.

Three people are in custody on drug-related charges, after a growing operation was found in a buried school bus. Sheriff Major Chris Hill says digging the large hole and then getting the bus in it required both thought and effort.

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The American Medical Association has taken a giant step by asking the federal government to take marijuana off its most restrictive list of controlled substances while the AMA conducts research into the potential medical uses of cannabis.

By listing pot on "Schedule 1,"the federal government officially labels marijuana a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, even though California law allows the use of medicinal marijuana under certain circumstances.

"The idea that cannabis has no medical use is absurd on its face, because I know every materia medica (pharmacology text) that has been written has included cannabis as a medicine. The first medical textbook, written by Sir William Osler, said marijuana relieved migraines," said Dr. David Bearman, a Goleta physician widely known for his advocacy of medical marijuana.

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Three months ago, Laura Kriho stood before a roomful of fellow medical-marijuana advocates and urged them to get involved with the political process to create regulations for the state's legal-marijuana industry.

"I know our standards are way higher than the government's standards," she said then.

Now, as the medical-marijuana community prepares for a rally today that it hopes will grab the attention of state lawmakers, Kriho is among a number of cannabis advocates who have soured on what the community can accomplish by working with politicians.

Frustrated by what she says are overly harsh regulatory proposals from state and local governments and believing the marijuana community's input has largely been ignored, Kriho said she is increasingly inclined to bypass policymakers altogether and instead use ballot initiatives and the courts to bring legal clarity to the state's medical-marijuana policy.

"There's only a few ways you can control your government," Kriho, of the Cannabis Therapy Institute, said Wednesday. "One of them is through the ballot box. One of them is through the jury box."

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Credit: Dexter Phoenix Salem-News.com

These are some of the headlines we might see, if things continue the way they've been going - with the increasingly global movement towards a more rational policy regarding the use of a naturally occurring, yet chemically compelling plant/substance called Cannabis. Cannabis Sativa, and its sister, Cannabis Indica, otherwise know as Pot, Marijuana, Mary Jane, Herb, Grass, Weed, Reefer, Gage, Kind, Ganja, et cetera (the list goes on and on) is the world's most popular social relaxant, but simultaneously most controversial "narcotic" drug. The terminology is debatable, as many don't consider it a drug at all. Many find it just helps them unwind.

Although its effects, especially from the Indica strains such as Afghan and cross-bred hybrids such as White Widow can be a bit narcotizing, in that they can make you sleepy (good for insomnia), Cannabis in its various forms such as "Bud", the dried flowers of the plant, and "Hash" or Hashish or "Kief", the concentrated resin glands of the plant, cannot credibly continue to be classified by the US DEA, NIDA, FDA, ONDCP et al, as a dangerous "Schedule I" narcotic lumped in with the likes of LSD, PCP, Heroin etc. as having a high potential for abuse and having no medical applications.

As California's current governor once said "It's not a drug, it's a leaf!" More recently he added "It's time for a debate" about whether we should consider the ramifications of legalization of the herb by examining those countries (Portugal has over seven years of success with decriminaliztion of most drugs) that've implemented drug reforms such as decriminalization and legalization. He could make a tremendous difference to the forward movement of this thinking by signing such legislation into law before he leaves office. That just might happen.

Mankind has a symbiotic (mutually helpful) history with marijuana, or cannabis, going back many thousands of years - no one knows for sure how long, but medical uses in China have been documented as far back as 5,000 BC. Modern medicine was just beginning to understand this unique plant's potential protective, anti-emetic, anti-inflammatory, anti-spasmodic, and psychopharmacological properties when the US Government took drastic steps to ban its use and study.

The plant and hominids have happily coexisted in harmony for many millenia, as evidenced by the fact that humans have developed an "endocannabinoid" system which mimics the cannabinoids (active elements) in Cannabis itself. The human brain and nervous system has evolved with specific receptor sites that match cannabinoids such as THC and CBD, thus enhancing the existence of both man and plant.

This coming year should prove very interesting indeed with respect to developments on the medical cannabis front. With the AMA's recent reversal of its 70-some year boycott on the beneficial herb, maybe congress or the President himself will see fit to remove this incredibly medicinally useful plant from the Schedule I, paradoxical purgatory it has languished in for decades. The stars (movie and cosmological) are aligning in support of this potentially earth-shaking plant. By 'earthshaking' I mean it can literally save lives, economies and the overall ecology of the planet on which we have but a tenuous hold.

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Madison: At the Dec. 15 combined committee (cannabis) hearing on AB554/SB368, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, support from health care professionals, particularly those who treat patients in real pain or represent professions that do, was strong. This was evident to those attending the hearing and to those viewing it on Wisconsin Eye.

Unfortunately, the representative of the Wisconsin State Medical Society (SMS), Dr. Michael Miller, an addiction specialist with a lucrative practice treating people involuntarily referred for counseling after detection of marijuana use, was not among those supporting the JRMMA Dec. 15.

But even Dr. Miller's on record opposition on behalf of the SMS to the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act was tempered by statements he made. As to "gateway drugs", Dr. Miller identified tobacco, a legal substance, as the number one gateway drug. He also acknowledged not only had SMS members not been polled as to whether they supported the JRMMA, but if they were, "you might get a lot of members saying yes".

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Rade Kovacevic runs the Medical Cannibis Club of Canada in Guelph where medicinal marijuana is available. Credit: Guelph Mercury

It’s a controversial operation but quietly so.

While it promotes itself and its workings via the internet, it guards its location closely. Even when you’ve arrived at the lobby of the downtown building where it’s situated – for now at least – only a simple sign marks its presence. White plastic letters on a brown board softly announce: Medical Club of Guelph.

The front door of the second-floor office is always locked. A doorbell chimes when a visitor wants access.

Behind the closed door, employees of the club – the Medical Cannabis Club of Guelph — dispense medical marijuana. It opened just over three years ago. It has quietly grown to 238 members.

The discreetness is to keep away those seeking recreational marijuana, said club founder Rade Kovacevic.

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No laughing matter: Males are more likely than females to have experienced cannabis abuse or dependence.

The findings reveal the characteristics of those who are more likely to experience a cannabis use disorder.
Half of the 21 year olds in the study reported having use of cannabis in their lifetime, and 21 percent were classified as ever having ever had a cannabis use disorder.
Males were much more likely than females to have experienced cannabis abuse or dependence.
Children whose mothers had frequently changed their marital status or who experience sexual abuse at childhood were more likely to develop a cannabis use disorder by 21 years.
Those who showed aggressive or delinquent behaviour at 14 years were more than twice as likely as other children to develop a cannabis use disorder by 21 years.
Young adults who reported poor academic performance, or have smoked a cigarette or consumed alcohol by 14 years were more likely to use and develop a cannabis disorder than others who have not.

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