Medical Marijuana

MASON, Mich. — A Michigan judge has ruled that medical marijuana users who follow the state's medical marijuana law may collect unemployment benefits.

 

The Lansing State Journal reports Ingham County Circuit Judge William Collette's decision Tuesday overturned a state commission that found a state-approved medical marijuana user wasn't eligible for benefits after being fired following a drug test.

 

The case involves ex-Hayes Green Beach Memorial Hospital employee Jenine Kemp of Lansing, who was fired in 2011. Kemp, whose duties included performing CT scans and starting IVs, has Lupus and neuropathy. She would ingest marijuana in food.

 

Collette says the drug test "merely demonstrated what she had informed her employer of prior to the test — that she uses medical marijuana."

 

Michigan voters in 2008 approved the use of marijuana for medical reasons.

 

Read more: http://www.freep.com

DES MOINES, IA – A bill that would legalize the medical use of marijuana in Iowa was approved by a Senate subcommittee Monday, but is unlikely to advance further this year.

 

Senator Joe Bolkcom, D-Iowa City, said that his bill, Senate File 79, lacks support in the full Human Resources Committee, where the bill has been assigned.

 

The bill was approved by a three person subcommittee on Monday following testimony from citizens suffering from multiple sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder,  who told the subcommittee that marijuana was a better alternative to synthetic prescription drugs.

 

Sen. Bolkom’s bill would exempt patients in Iowa suffering from cancer, HIV/AIDS, ALS, severe pain and nausea, and other ailments from arrest and prosecution for using marijuana under their physicians’ recommendations.

 

Patients or their caregivers would be able to grow their medicine or they could obtain it from a nonprofit dispensary.

 

Republican subcommittee member Sen. Joni Ernst opposed the bill, saying it would be difficult to ensure dispensaries wouldn’t sell marijuana to people without a recommendation.

 

Read more: http://www.thedailychronic.net

BOSTON — Although Massachusetts is now the 18th state to allow the medical use of marijuana, scientists continue to grapple with understanding the properties of the drug and developing pot into medicine. Some researchers blame the federal government for blocking more study that could clarify marijuana’s medicinal benefits. The federal government says marijuana has no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse, and it recently upheld marijuana’s classification in the same category of drugs as heroin and LSD.

 

Lyle Craker is an agriculture professor at UMass Amherst who studies medicinal plants. For more than a decade, he’s tried to get permission from the federal government to grow marijuana for medical studies. Rick Doblin is founder and director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, which is sponsoring Craker’s efforts.

 

WBUR’s Deborah Becker spoke with Craker and Doblin, who said that some 40 years after researchers first touted marijuana’s medicinal benefits, they haven’t been able to get very far.

 

Read more: http://www.wbur.org