Marijuana comes from the Cannabis sativa plant and is the most commonly used illicit drug in the United States. See more controlled substance pictures.
Although banned by the U.S. federal government in 1937, it is estimated that 14.8 million Americans use marijuana, which is roughly the population ofCalcutta, India. The United States drug market is one of the world’s most commercially viable and attracts drug traffickers from every corner of the globe. On American soil, marijuana costs between $400 and $2000 per pound. A pound of higher quality marijuana, known as sinsemilla, costs between $900 and $6,000.
Marijuana is the buds and leaves of the Cannabis sativa plant. This plant contains more than 400 chemicals, including delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the plant’s main psychoactive chemical. THC is known to affect our brain’sshort-term memory. Additionally, marijuana affects motor coordination, increases your heartrate and raises levels of anxiety. Studies also show that marijuana contains cancer-causing chemicals typically associated with cigarettes. In this article, you will learn about marijuana, why this drug is so popular and what effects it has on your mind and body.
The Marijuana Plant
The recognizable marijuana leaf with five to seven leaflets attached at a center point
The history of marijuana use reaches back farther than many would guess. Cultivation of the Cannabis sativa plant dates back thousands of years. The first written account of cannabis cultivation (ostensibly used as medical marijuana) is found in Chinese records dating from 28 B.C. That means Chinese cultures were growing marijuana more than 2,000 years ago. However, the plant may have been cultivated long before then — there have been reports of a nearly 3,000-year-old Egyptian mummycontaining traces of THC, the main psychoactive chemical in marijuana.
Cannabis sativa is perhaps the most recognizable plant in the world. Pictures of the ubiquitous green cannabis leaf show up in the news media, textbooks and drug-prevention literature, and the leaf’s shape is made into jewelry, put on bumper stickers and clothing and spray-painted on walls. The leaves are arranged palmately, radiating from a common center like the fingers of a hand spreading apart. Although most people know what the cannabis plant looks like, they may know very little about its horticulture.
The marijuana plant has many uses. Its stiff, fibrous stalk can be used to make lots of products, from food to ship sails. The stalk is comprised of two parts — the hurd and thebast. The bast provides fibers that can be woven into many fabrics. These fibers (also called hemp) are woven to create canvas, which has been used to make ship sails for centuries.
The hurd provides pulp to make paper, oil to make paints and varnishes, and seed for food. Marijuana plants produce a high-protein, high-carbohydrate seed that is used in granola and cereals. Hemp oil and seed contain only trace amounts of psychoactive chemicals.
Owning hemp products, such as hemp rope or a hemp shirt, is legal. However, it is illegal to grow or possess marijuana in plant or drug form in the United States. Possession of the cannabis plant or marijuana seeds is punishable by fines and possible jail sentences.
Cannabis sativa is believed to be a native plant of India, where it possibly originated in a region just north of the Himalayan mountains. It’s a herbaceous annual that can grow to a height of between 13 and 18 feet (4 to 5.4 meters). The plant has flowers that bloom from late summer to mid-fall. Cannabis plants usually have one of two types of flowers, male or female, and some plants have both. Male flowers grow in elongated clusters along the leaves and turn yellow and die after blossoming. Female flowers grow in spikelike clusters and remain dark green for a month after blossoming, until the seed ripens. Hashish, which is more powerful than marijuana, is made from the resin of the cannabis flowers.
Marijuana plants contain more than 400 chemicals, 60 of which fit into a category called cannabinoids. THC is just one of these cannabinoids, but it’s the chemical most often associated with the effects that marijuana has on the brain. Cannabis plants also contain choline, eugenol, guaicacol and piperidine. The concentration of THC and other cannabinoids varies depending on growing conditions, plant genetics and processing after harvest. You’ll learn more about the potency of THC and the toxicity of marijuana next.
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MedCare Is Your Local Medical Marijuana Dispensary. MedCare Specializes In Medical Marijuana Delivery Service To Southern California. MedCare Offers Exclusive Memberships, Marijuana Deals,Top Quality Medications, Cannabis Sales, Femininized Clones, Amazing Edibles, Concentrates And More. All Medication Can Be Delivered To The Comfort Of Your Home. MedCare Is A Professional Medical Marijuana Company. We Are Discreet And Affordable. MedCare Centers From Canyon Lake, California.
We Deliver To All Of The Following Cities:Canyon Lake, Corona, Hemet, Horsthief, Lake Elsinore, Lake Mathews, Lakeside, Lakeview, Menifee, Mira Loma, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Murrieta Hot Springs, Norco, Perris, Quail Valley, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, San Jacinto, Sedco Hills, Temescal Canyon, Wildomar, Grand Terrace, Highland, Colton, Moreno Valley, And Many Many More. MedCare Delivers Patients Medical Cannabis Medicine To Their Homes. Handicap Medical Marijuana Patients Are Our Primary Patients. To Receive Your Medication Delivered To You Call 800-420-4369.
Angel McClary Raich, a California woman at the center of the recent Supreme Court case on medical marijuana, hasn’t changed her treatment regimen since the Court ruled in June that patients who take the drug in states where its medicinal use is legal are not shielded from federal prosecution. A thin woman with long, dark hair and an intense gaze, Raich takes marijuana, or cannabis as she prefers to call it, about every two waking hours — by smoking it, by inhaling it as a vapor, by eating it in foods, or by applying it topically as a balm. She says that it relieves her chronic pain and boosts her appetite, preventing her from becoming emaciated because of a mysterious wasting syndrome. Raich and her doctor maintain that without access to the eight or nine pounds of privately grown cannabis that she consumes each year, she would die.
Although Raich has embraced a public role advocating the medicinal use of marijuana, she says that her health suffered during the hectic days following the announcement of the Court’s decision, when a whirlwind schedule of press conferences and congressional meetings in Washington prevented her from medicating herself with cannabis as regularly as she needed to. “My body was shutting down on me,” she said in an interview from her Oakland home last month. “I’m scared of my health failing. I’m scared of the federal government coming in and doing more harm. [Recently,] the city of Oakland warned there were going to be some raids” on marijuana dispensaries. “We’re all just waiting. Sitting on the frontline is extremely stressful.”
In the Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Raich, the justices ruled 6 to 3 that the federal government has the power to arrest and prosecute patients and their suppliers even if the marijuana use is permitted under state law, because of its authority under the federal Controlled Substances Act to regulate interstate commerce in illegal drugs. In practical terms, it is not yet clear what effect the Court’s decision will have on patients. An estimated 115,000 people have obtained recommendations for marijuana from doctors in the 10 states that have legalized the cultivation, possession, and use of marijuana for medicinal purposes. Besides California, those states are Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington. (Three weeks after the decision was announced, Rhode Island’s legislature passed a similar law and soon afterward overrode a veto by the state’s governor.)
Immediately after the news of the high court’s ruling, attorneys general in the states that have approved the use of medical marijuana emphasized that the practice remained legal under their state laws, and a telephone survey of a random national sample of registered voters, commissioned by the Washington-based Marijuana Policy Project, indicated that 68 percent of respondents opposed federal prosecution of patients who use marijuana for medical reasons. Nationally, most marijuana arrests are made by state and local law-enforcement agencies, with federal arrests accounting for only about 1 percent of cases. However, soon after the decision was announced, federal agents raided 3 of San Francisco’s more than 40 medical marijuana dispensaries. Nineteen people were charged with running an international drug ring; they allegedly were using the dispensaries as a front for trafficking in marijuana and in the illegal amphetamine “ecstasy.”
In California, the raids were widely viewed as a signal that federal drug-enforcement agents intended to crack down on abuse of the state’s medical marijuana program. California has an estimated 100,000 medical marijuana users. Its 1996 law grants doctors much greater latitude in recommending the drug than do similar laws in other states, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in 2000 that doctors who prescribe marijuana are protected from federal prosecution under the First Amendment, provided that they do not help their patients obtain the drug. In San Francisco, some journalists or investigators who posed as patients have reported that they had little difficulty obtaining a recommendation for medical marijuana, which allows the holder to purchase the drug from a dispensary. “We’re empathetic to the sick,” the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Javier Pena told reporters after the raids, “but we can’t disregard the federal law.”1
Even before the Supreme Court decision, many Californians had been calling for stricter state regulation of medical marijuana. Some cities have banned marijuana dispensaries, and many counties and cities — including San Francisco — have imposed moratoriums on the opening of new ones. Some local jurisdictions register and issue identification cards to patients who use marijuana for medical reasons, and state officials have been working on a voluntary statewide registration program. However, the officials recently put the program on hold, citing concern that the issuance of identification cards to patients might put state health officials at risk of prosecution for aiding a federal crime and that federal drug-enforcement agents might seek state records in order to identify medical marijuana users. Registration of patients and the issuance of identification cards by the state are required in seven other states that have legalized the medical use of marijuana; patients can show the card as a defense against arrest by local or state police for possession of the drug. Maine and Washington do not issue identification cards to patients.
Conditions for which marijuana is commonly recommended include nausea caused by cancer chemotherapy; anorexia or wasting due to cancer, AIDS, or other diseases; chronic pain; spasticity caused by multiple sclerosis or other neurologic disorders; and glaucoma. Frank Lucido, a Berkeley family practitioner who is Raich’s doctor, said that so far, the Court ruling appears to have had little effect on his patients who use medical marijuana. About 30 percent of Lucido’s practice consists of evaluating patients who want a recommendation for the drug. He said in an interview that he will not issue such a recommendation unless a patient has a primary care physician and has a condition serious enough to require follow-up at least annually. About 80 percent of his patients who use medical cannabis have chronic pain; a smaller number take the drug for muscle spasms, mood disorders, migraine, AIDS, or cancer. “My patients probably average in their 30s,” Lucido said. “I have had probably five patients who are under 18. These are people with serious illnesses, where parents were very clear that this would be a good medication for them.”
Peter A. Rasmussen, an oncologist in Salem, Oregon, said he discusses the option of trying marijuana with about 1 in 10 patients in his practice. “It’s not my first choice for any symptom,” he said in an interview. “I only talk about it with people if my first-line treatment doesn’t work.” Rasmussen said marijuana has helped stimulate appetite or reduce nausea in a number of his patients with cancer, but others have been distressed by its psychological effects. Some express interest in trying marijuana but have difficulty getting the drug. “Most of my patients who use it, I think, just buy the drug illegally,” he said. “But a lot of my patients, they’re older, they don’t know any kids, they don’t hang out on the street. They just don’t know how to get it.”
Clinical research on marijuana has been hampered by the fact that the plant, which contains dozens of active substances, is an illegal drug classified as having no legitimate medical use. Researchers wishing to do clinical studies must first get government permission and obtain a supply of the drug from the National Institute on Drug Abuse. In a report published in 1999, an expert committee of the Institute of Medicine expressed concern about the adverse health effects of smoking marijuana, particularly on the respiratory tract. The report called for expanded research on marijuana’s active components, known as cannabinoids, including studies to explore the chemicals’ potential therapeutic effects and to develop safe, reliable, rapid-onset delivery systems. It also recommended short-term clinical trials of marijuana “in patients with conditions for which there is reasonable expectation of efficacy.”2
There has been some progress toward those goals. The Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research (CMCR), a three-year research initiative established in 1999 by the California state legislature, has funded several placebo-controlled clinical trials of smoked marijuana to treat neuropathic pain, pain from other causes, and spasticity in multiple sclerosis, and the results are likely to be available soon. The National Institute on Drug Abuse provided both the active marijuana and the “placebo,” a smokable version of the drug from which dronabinol (Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC) and certain other active constituents had been removed. “It’s like decaf coffee or nicotine-free cigarettes, and it tastes the same [as marijuana],” said Igor Grant, a professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Diego, and director of the CMCR. He said additional studies of the whole plant, as well as its individual components, are still needed. “It’s still the case that we don’t know which components of botanical marijuana have beneficial effects, if any,” he said.
In an open-label trial, oncologist Donald I. Abrams of the University of California, San Francisco, found evidence of marijuana’s effectiveness in the treatment of neuropathic pain among HIV-infected patients and has just finished a placebo-controlled trial that he intends to publish soon. Abrams has also shown that cannabinoids that are smoked or taken orally do not adversely affect drug treatment of HIV,3 and he is completing a study that compares blood levels of cannabinoids among volunteers who inhaled vaporized marijuana with similar levels among volunteers who smoked the drug. Vaporizers heat the drug to a temperature below that required for combustion, producing vapor that contains the active ingredients without the tar or particulates thought to be responsible for most of the drug’s adverse effects on the respiratory tract.
Meanwhile, a new marijuana-derived drug is on the Canadian market and may soon be considered for approval by the Food and Drug Administration. Sativex, a liquid cannabis extract that is sprayed under the tongue, was approved in Canada in June for the treatment of neuropathic pain in multiple sclerosis. Its principal active ingredients are dronabinol and cannabidiol, which are believed to be the primary active components of marijuana. The drug’s manufacturer, GW Pharmaceuticals of Britain, is also testing it for cancer pain, rheumatoid arthritis, postoperative pain, and other indications. Marinol, a synthetic version of dronabinol supplied in capsules, is approved in the United States for chemotherapy-associated nausea and for anorexia and wasting among patients with AIDS.
On the day the Supreme Court ruling was announced, John Walters, President George W. Bush’s “drug czar,” issued a statement declaring, “Today’s decision marks the end of medical marijuana as a political issue. . . . We have a responsibility as a civilized society to ensure that the medicine Americans receive from their doctors is effective, safe, and free from the pro-drug politics that are being promoted in America under the guise of medicine.” Nine days later, the House of Representatives, for the third year in a row, defeated a measure that would have prevented the Justice Department from spending money to prosecute medical marijuana cases under federal law.
Nevertheless, marijuana advocates insist that the long-running battle between federal and state governments over the medicinal use of marijuana is far from over. Activists next plan to focus on getting more states to pass laws legalizing medical marijuana, according to Steve Fox, former director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project.
It is surprising that the Supreme Court decision does not necessarily spell the end even of Angel Raich’s legal case. Raich and another California patient, Diane Monson, who initially sued to prevent the Justice Department from prosecuting them or their suppliers, won a favorable ruling in 2003 from California’s Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The Supreme Court’s reversal now sends their case back to that court. Raich said that she, Monson, and their attorneys will ask the appeals court judges to consider other legal arguments, such as whether prosecuting patients who use marijuana to relieve pain violates their right to due process of law. “Previous decisions have established that there is a fundamental right to preserve one’s life and avoid needless pain and suffering,” explained Boston University’s Randy Barnett, a constitutional lawyer who argued the women’s case before the Supreme Court. “Federal restriction on accessibility to medical cannabis is an infringement” on that right, he said.
Raich vowed to continue her personal battle. “I’m stubborn as heck, so I don’t plan to give it up that easily. I plan to fight until I can’t fight anymore,” she said.
An interview with Dr. Donald Abrams can be heard at www.nejm.org.
SOURCE INFORMATION
Dr. Okie is a contributing editor of the Journal.
MedCare offers Exclusive memberships, Marijuana Deals,Top quality medications, Cannabis sales, Femininized clones, amazing edibles, concentrates and more. MedCare is your local medical marijuana dispensary. MedCare specializes in Medical Marijuana Delivery Service to Southern California. All medication can be delivered to the comfort of your home. MedCare is a professional medical marijuana company. We are discreet and affordable. MedCare centers from Canyon Lake, California.
We deliver to: Canyon Lake, Corona, Hemet, Horsthief, Lake Elsinore, Lake Mathews, Lakeside, Lakeview, Menifee, Mira Loma, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Murrieta Hot Springs, Norco, Perris, Quail Valley, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, San Jacinto, Sedco Hills, Temescal Canyon, Wildomar, Grand Terrace, Highland, Colton, Moreno Valley, and many many more. MedCare Delivers patients medical cannabis medicine to their homes. Handicap medical marijuana Patients are our primary patients. To receive your medication delivered to you call 800-420-4369
SoCal Man Who Told Cops Someone Stole His Weed Can Keep His Dope
Oops. We had a little too much fun with the story when we learned that an Orange County man reported earlier this month that someone had burgled his bud — 25 pounds worth. Really? Just tell ‘em nothing was taken was our advice.
As it happens, Newport Beach police tell the Costa Mesa Daily Pilot this week that the victim was okay to possess so much marijuana after all.
Seems to us there’s a legal gray area here (even a legislator’s aide we called about it couldn’t come up with a quick answer about whether having so much cannabis would be legit), but here’s the deal, according to the Pilot:
“Under state law, a cultivator can possess up to 8 ounces of marijuana, and six mature or 12 immature plants per patient.”
The cultivator has to be a “primary caregiver” for “patients.”
We guess this guy had a lot of patients. Cops say he was operating a collective. Out of his Santa Ana Heights home?
Ironically, that could be a bigger problem for authorities, and that aspect of the caper is still under investigation.
The man, who has not been identified, was the victim of a burglary Feb. 6. He didn’t call the fuzz. A neighbor who spotted someone breaking in did. But the victim did tell cops some green stuff about yea high was gone.
Interestingly, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano recently introduced a bill that would allow prosecutors to make marijuana cultivation — currently an automatic felony in California — a misdemeanor.
If it’s an automatic felony, why is growing a little for patients okay?
Bill co-sponsor David Eyster says:
“The proposed change affords local District Attorneys the charging discretion to determine, for example, that a home gardener with a few non-medical marijuana plants will not be prosecuted at the same level as a profiteer operating a major marijuana plantation.”
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KCET’s SoCal Connected recently ran this follow up piece to their award-winning series on the expansion of medical cannabis collectives in Los Angeles. City Council Member Ed Reyes, Community Organizer Mike Larsen, and I are all finally on the same page about one thing – we are tired of this controvesry. Unfortunately, there may be no end in sight. Collective operators should take no comfort in that. Growing frustration may lead to more enforcement, more onerous restrictions, or an outright ban on collectives.
City attorney, Pulitzer-winning Seattle paper call for marijuana legalization
Last year, many hopeful drug reform advocates expected California to be the first state to officially overturn the prohibition of marijuana. But after Prop. 19’s failure on the state-wide ballot at the end of 2010, few would have expected the next major push for reform would come from Washington.
Yet, here they are: the Washington legislature is poised to consider House Bill 1550, which would legalize and regulate cannabis, and apply taxes on sales.
The effort was enough to prompt a Seattle city attorney and The Seattle Times editorial board to come out in favor of the measure, urging legislators to make Washington State the first in the union to move for a repeal of prohibition.
The legislation would allow for specific licensing of cannabis farmers, producers and sellers, limiting sales to otherwise age-restricted venues like liquor stores. It would also permit local municipalities to use the electoral process to set restrictions or other determinations on sales of marijuana.
Under the proposed laws, the Department of Agriculture would also regulate farming operations and mandate certain growing techniques in order to maintain potency standards, which would be clearly labeled on product packaging.
“In 1998, Washington was one of the earliest to vote for medical marijuana. It was a leap of faith, and the right decision,” the Times opined. “In 2003, Seattle was one of the first places in America to vote to make simple marijuana possession the lowest police priority. That, too, was a leap of faith, and the right decision. A year ago, City Attorney Pete Holmes stopped all prosecutions for simple possession: the right decision.
“It is time for the next step. It is a leap, yes — but not such a big one, now.”
The editorial specifically called out sympathies toward people whose impulse is to avoid marijuana altogether.
“We understand the feeling,” they explained. “We have felt it ourselves. Certainly the life of a parent would be easier if everyone had no choice but to be straight and sober all the time. But an intoxicant-free world is not the one we have, nor is it the one most adults want.
“Marijuana is available now. If your child doesn’t smoke it, maybe it is because your parenting works. But prohibition has not worked.”
The day prior, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes leveled a similar argument in the paper, telling readers that marijuana is much more akin to alcohol than other hard drugs, and that prohibition is “ineffective” at reducing its negative effects on society.
“Instead, I support tightening laws against driving while stoned, preventing the sale of marijuana to minors, and ensuring that anything other than small-scale noncommercial marijuana production takes place in regulated agricultural facilities — and not residential basements,” he wrote.
“It is critical that we get these details right. Ending marijuana prohibition isn’t a panacea, but it’s a necessary step in the right direction, and the specifics of a rational regulatory system for marijuana are important.”
Were marijuana legalized in Washington and made available for retail sales, it could generate over $300 million in new revenues and displace over $25 million in costs to law enforcement, a state analysis said.
The bill was being considered by the Washington State House Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee. It was seen as unlikely to pass, as the same committee voted down a similar measure last year. All but two or the Democratic members voted against legalization.
The Seattle Times won a Pulitzer prize in 2010 for its coverage of the shooting deaths of four police officers.
Another effort, led by legalization activists at “Sensible Washington,” filed last week for placement on the next statewide ballot. The group said it would begin circulating petitions soon.
Even if Washington legalized marijuana, it would remain against federal law, but it was unclear what action, if any, the Department of Justice might take. President Barack Obama has said he does not favor legalization, but called drug reforms a “legitimate” issue worthy of debate.
This video is from news station KONG HD 5 in Seattle, as snipped by Mox News.
This video is from a public hearing of the Washington legislature’s House Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee on Feb. 8, 2011. Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
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MedCare Is Your Local Medical Marijuana Dispensary. MedCare Specializes In Medical Marijuana Delivery Service To Southern California. MedCare Offers Exclusive Memberships, Marijuana Deals,Top Quality Medications, Cannabis Sales, Femininized Clones, Amazing Edibles, Concentrates And More. All Medication Can Be Delivered To The Comfort Of Your Home. MedCare Is A Professional Medical Marijuana Company. We Are Discreet And Affordable. MedCare Centers From Canyon Lake, California.
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Over the last decade there have been numerous publications demonstrating the anti-cancer effects of plant and synthetic cannabinoids. Notably, the main ingredient of Cannabis, THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), has demonstrated the ability to kill multipletypes of cancers in a variety of cancerresearch models. CBD (cannabidiol), another common plant component, has also shown the ability to kill cancer cells, recently it has been used to successfully treat breast cancer in a mouse researchmodel of the disease.
Certain types of brain cancer appear to be vulnerable to cannabinoids such as THC and CBD. Scientific research has demonstrated that THC and other cannabinoids can kill extremely aggressive brain cancers known as glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) or grade IV astrocytomas. Researchers have also experimented with combining different cananbinoids for the treatment of aggressive brain cancers. So far, the results have been extremely promising. There is a need for new treatments for GBMs, as current treatments for these cancers can extend life for up to 15 months, if you’re lucky.
Last year, the journal of Molecular Cancer Therapeutics published research demonstrating that combination’s of THC and CBD, the two most abundant cannabinoids on the plant, can lead to a greater-than-additive or synergistic inhibition of cancer growth. Now, nearly a year to the date, the journal has published another article studying the anti-cancer effects of THC and CBD. The new article takes the next steps towards getting this therapy in to the clinic by testing THC and CBD in animals along side a common brain tumor drug TMZ (temozolomide).
The study was conducted in Spain, and the experiments analyzing the effects of cannabinoids were conducted with tumors or brain cancer cells from human samples and a tumor xenograft mouse model. A tumor xenograft model is basically a cancer that is induced into an animal that has a compromised immune system. This allows researchers to give a mouse a tumor consisting of human cells, thus a promising anti-cancer treatment can be tested on a human tumor in a more natural environment, than a petri dish.
The plant cannabinoids used for this study were “kindly provided by GW pharmaceuticals.” THC and CBD were also provided as plant extracts or “botanical drug substances,” meaning they contained small amounts of other cannabinoids. Allowing these researchers to construct a custom anti-cancer,Sativex-like substance. Other synthetic cannabinoids such as SR141716A and SR144528 were donated by Sonafi-Aventis.
In the figure provided it shows that THC and TMZ can drastically inhibit the size of tumor. The pictures on the graph are of tumors after 15 days of treatment.
In other experiments the authors also examined combinations of THC,CBD, TMZ , and SAT-L (a “botonical drug substance” or extract containing a 1:1 ratio of THC and CBD, 7.5mg each). Interestingly their results also showed that TMZ resistant cells, can be killed by cannabinoids or in combination with cannabinoids.
The researchers conclude that:
“Taken together, our observations support that the administration of cannabinoids, and in particular ofSativex, which is currently used for palliative applications in patients with cancer and multiple sclerosis, alone or in combination with TMZ, could be of potential interest for the management of GBM.”
Cannabis-based medicines are most often prescribed to increase quality of life or treat symptoms of disease. As research continues on this ancient medicine, scientific data suggests that cannabinoids are not only promising treatments but represent potential cures.
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We deliver to: Canyon Lake, Corona, Hemet, Horsthief, Lake Elsinore, Lake Mathews, Lakeside, Lakeview, Menifee, Mira Loma, Moreno Valley, Murrieta, Murrieta Hot Springs, Norco, Perris, Quail Valley, Rancho Cucamonga, Rialto, San Jacinto, Sedco Hills, Temescal Canyon, Wildomar, Grand Terrace, Highland, Colton, Moreno Valley, and many many more. MedCare Delivers patients medical cannabis medicine to their homes. Handicap medical marijuana Patients are our primary patients. To receive your medication delivered to you call 800-420-4369
Man sentenced to eight years in prison for pot grower’s death
A B.C. Provincial Court judge urged a man involved in killing a pot grower to stay on the right path during his time in prison.
Joshua Steven Holl, 26, pleaded guilty earlier this month to manslaughter in the 2007 death of Michael Gerald Larson.
On Friday Judge Paul Dohm sentenced Holl to eight years in prison, minus 4 1/2 years of credit for time served. He will spend another 3 1/2 years in prison.
On Nov. 30, 2007 Holl was one of four people who planned to rip off a marijuana grow operation Larson was tending in a Surrey home.
In his reasons for sentence Dohm said Holl was the one who used a crowbar to break into the home through a window. When Larson tried to run, Holl doused him with bear spray.
Larson opened the front door to find a man with a baseball bat waiting for him. As a third man held on to him, Larson was beaten into unconsciousness.
Holl and the man with the bat stole what they could and left.
Dohm said testimony from the preliminary inquiry showed that Larson could have lived if he received immediate medical attention. No one called an ambulance.
Holl was arrested after an undercover police operation.
Last year Holl and his co-accused Darryl Karl Cole were ordered to stand trial on charges of first-degree murder and conspiracy but they recently elected to return to provincial court. Cole is scheduled to appear in court in Surrey Tuesday.
Dohm said Holl has a criminal record with more than 40 convictions and was on probation at the time of the killing.
During his time in jail, Holl has taken programs and made efforts to rehabilitate himself. He also expressed “significant” remorse, Dohm said.
Holl says he has changed his ways and is optimistic for the future, Dohm said.
“I, as well as others, hope Mr. Holl is true to his word.”
If Holl continues to use his time in prison wisely, Dohm said, it’s to his benefit.
“I strongly encourage you to continue what you’ve been doing the past two years. . . . The choice is yours. I hope you make the right call,” Dohm said.
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In California, the raids were widely viewed as a signal that federal drug-enforcement agents intended to crack down on abuse of the state’s medical marijuana program. California has an estimated 100,000 medical marijuana users. Its 1996 law grants doctors much greater latitude in recommending the drug than do similar laws in other states, and the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ruled in 2000 that doctors who prescribe marijuana are protected from federal prosecution under the First Amendment, provided that they do not help their patients obtain the drug. In San Francisco, some journalists or investigators who posed as patients have reported that they had little difficulty obtaining a recommendation for medical marijuana, which allows the holder to purchase the drug from a dispensary. “We’re empathetic to the sick,” the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Javier Pena told reporters after the raids, “but we can’t disregard the federal law.”
KCET’s SoCal Connected recently ran this follow up piece to their award-winning series on the expansion of medical cannabis collectives in Los Angeles. City Council Member Ed Reyes, Community Organizer Mike Larsen, and I are all finally on the same page about one thing – we are tired of this controvesry. Unfortunately, there may be no end in sight. Collective operators should take no comfort in that. Growing frustration may lead to more enforcement, more onerous restrictions, or an outright ban on collectives.
