Real THC Caps: Comments

"My local center here in Southern Oregon gives out samples to mm patients with licenses. It is on a first come first serve basis and those with the most serious health problems are at the first of the list." --Mogie

"A grower I know charges their patient $25 oz. They figured that is just a few dollars above cost. Sounds about right"

Thanks Mogie, now that's what I call fair pricing, $3000 for a pound is not justfiable, but the law of supply and demand is in play here plus the fact that it's illegal drives the price up, not to mention man is greedy by nature. However, it's a crop and crops are priced in bushell's per acre. Why can't we price medical marijuana that way. God meant for it to be free that's why it grows like a...well, a weed:stick out tongue:! People who grow it and sell it at the accepted black market prices are just as bad as the government who outlaws the use of marijuana. I couldn't do that, I don't love money that much. I love God, my family, my neighbor and marijuana.:rock on: It sure is healthier for the human condition than what our government legalizes:devil:. Unless you get thrown in prison of course.


Source: Mogie, now that's what I call fair pricing,

You are so right. I've never even tried to grow for the laws are extremely harsh for growing in Iowa. I would love to have the opportunity to be free to do that, I just moved from an apt to a house my friend owns. There is a room in the basement that use to be a very successful grow room 20 years ago, but I can't talk him into taking the chance again even though he never got busted the police know him and the house from past tenants. If I were in Oregon I would definetly attempt to learn. It is the best way to gaurentee you know what you have and a steady supply. :scream: Peace to all, and for those of you who do live in Oregon and are on the MMJ Program there, take a silent moment for those of us who are legally denied our medicine and can't afford $20 a freakin' gram from the black market


Source: I can't even afford $20 a freakin' gram from the black market

*At best*, dispensaries should only be used to span the gap between getting your paperwork finalized and harvesting your first plant. I also think the prices are a rip in these establishments...but in the long run if you rely on someone else to furnish your meds and you fail to learn how to be self-sufficient you will always pay for the work/risk/time someone else must put in to produce the meds you use. plant the seed. That is the true answer. btdt


Source: *At best*, dispensaries should only be used

I'm paying right now $300.00 ounce but thats two at a time still too much but my husband is medical he is going to grow and i believe all sick should get affordable access


Source: I'm paying right now $300.00 ounce

All I know is, my dad has diabetes and if he developed this condition and was unable to use marijuana as a medicine (I know he would, he's already told me he would) then I would go insane.... I love him way too much to see him in any sort of pain...] [/quote]Thank you Crewdude you, along with my son, have the one characteristic missing from those opposed to medical marijuana use, compassion. I thank you for bringing the human issue to the forefront. But there are people out there who, through no fault of there own, have never experienced the medical benefits of marijuana or even marijuana itself. Sooner or later the political BS for keeping marijuana prohibitive, for whatever reason, will be stopped, perhaps through our generations voting power and that of our children. Only since the U.S Governments war on marijuana started in 1937 has cannabis ever been questioned as not being safe. The medical benefits from marijuana far out weigh the risks, if any, that may be involved. Even by smoking it without a Vaporizor. Two thousand years of medical records document that fact, however it was used most often in a tincture of cannabis which they would mix with alcohol and that was what Queen Victoria used for her menstruel cramps. But the USA wants marijuana kept illegal to maintain power and control over its citizens, or for what ever corrupt and idiotic reason(s.) The US Government is headed for a big change and our economy is headed for another depression. All of which could be avoided my legalizing and taxing the sale of cannabis for medical and recreational/personal use. The Dutch have proven that it works. Imagine the Billions of dollars saved by not having to enforce the archaic laws against marijuana that exist today. The laws against marijuana were first based on racial prejudice, then tweaked yearly to be legal all the while keeping any scientific or medical records/evidence that may be pro marijuana locked up or shredded in order to maintain and continue the propaganda against marijuana. I look forward to the day I can legally buy and use the safest drug known to man. It is not addictive and you cannot overdose on it. This is only true with Cannabis/Marijuana/Delta9-THC. With the discovery of CBD's one of the many cannabinoids found in marijuana, more so in Ruderalis then Sativa or Indica, doctors and scientist's have found how beneficial it can be for MS and other conditions. Once again I thank you for your compassion and would like to remind you and everyone young and old that it is our duty to change congress and change the laws regarding the use of marijuana.


Source: All I know is, my dad has diabetes

My son paid $60 for 3.5 grams of Ruderalispot leaf which is, from what I read, not as potent as Sativa or Indica (I've never smoked it.) The fact that medical marijuana is illegal in Iowa, but not THC in a gelled capsule i.e. Marinol, shows the two face stance on marijuana legalization/Drug Classification. If THC is legal in pill form it should also be legal in its natural plant form:scream:!I am so sick and tired of being sick and tired of not being able to legally use marijuana to control the constant waves:catchawave: of nausea I surf every hour of every day due to Diabetic Neuropathic GastroParesis (paralyzed stomach muscles) which causes delayed stomach emptying or total rejection. I am currently on 5 mg Marinol 2 times a day. I, with my doctors permission, will be getting the 10 mg version soon. I could get by with the 5 mg strength but I need more than just 2 a day. But insurance wise you will get approved faster staying at the same dosing frequency but raising the dose strength, rather than staying at the same strength and increasing the number of pills per day. I tried to raise my Marinol 2.5 mg script from 2 a day to 3 a day. The insurance company denied it. So my doctor kept me at the same dosing frequency but raised the strength from 2.5 mg to 5 mg. This they approved.:party: So now that we know I need the 5 mg strength but 3 times a day rather than 2 we have learned that my doctor will have to raise the strength to 10 mg while keeping the same dosing frequency, 1 in the moring and 1 before dinner. Marinol is helpful, better than any other anti nausea/vomiting medication other than the cannabis plant used in its natural state i.e. inhaling the THC from a vaporizor, the safest and easiest way to titrate ones THC dose. The argument that the stronger the THC level the more dangerous the use is totally assbackwards. THC is the safe, effective desired drug, with mature cannabis buds of at least 15-20% THC allows the patient access to a purer form of the active ingrediant Delta9-THC, which is the non addictive non fatal mood/mind/body altering/healing drug. The feds say that the "Smoking" is an issue for the THC delivery system, if there were a way to administer THC where its effcts are immediate, as in smoking, it would be FDA & DEA approved. Thus Marinol and Sativex. But the patient can't wait and already knows the safest and highly controlled THC delivery system is called the Vaporizor. Remove the confusion and legalize marijuana for medical and recreational purposes. How the hell congress can justify keeping a safer mood altering drug than alcohol & nicotine illegal is evil, cruel and sadistically insane. Don't you agree?pot leaf:toking:


Source: My son paid $60 for 3.5 grams of Ruderalispot leaf

This is crazy. I know greed is the motivating factor rather than compassion but how the hell do they justify those prices when it's freakin' legal for some folks. If money is the motivating factor in legalizing marijuana that's ok but admit it. Don't use poor sick people to get rich off of. It seems to me that at those prices it still creates a big black market within a legal market. I can see how some patients would need to get at least a pound to sell off in order to pay for their medicine.


Source: This is crazy.

WTF??? It's only a weed and a prolific one at that. Yeah, I know it takes daily care to insure a quality crop, and I do not have a green thumb, just an arthritic one. But these prices are out of control. Just as marijuana should and will once again be totally legal, then we can start growing it, selling it and buying it by the BUSHELL BASKET!!! Just like any other crop. You know it's going to be that way for Indusrial Hemp, so why not for people who use it for medical reasons and can't afford those prices. I think Oregon has the right idea in one of their compassion coalition communes growers freely contribute excess marijuana i.e. more than they are legally allowed to grow. Then they put all that in one bag, so to speak, and this is what is available for poor people and/or the disabled. Now that sounds like a plan


Source: WTF Meidical Pot Prices are INSANE

This case illustrates several current problems with the current system.

1. The clause in California law that says the 'medical marijuana industry must be non-profit' in no way also means that the business can not make lots of money. Why is the article reading like having successful sales was the bad thing?

2. What is excessive pay when 'non-profits' spend extra cash on payroll to themselves and still charge sick people over street prices claiming they have more 'overhead' so have to?


Source: CA pot dispensary owner gets 8 years from Feds

Even though I distrust almost anything involving the feds, and medical marijuana dispensaries…the owners of legitimate grow facilitie$, grow hou$e$, grow warehou$$e$ and di$pen$arie$ so often seem to need more money. Even though the legitimate businesses are INCREDIBLY lucrative even at moderate involvement.

Somehow, I suspect that the greed factor is involved.

There is SO MUCH money involved, that the eyeballs start rolling $ $ $ signs like slot machine reels. A wheel-barrow full starts to look like a bucket, then a cup, then a thimble!

When will people see what greed and bazillion$ of $$ do? There are so many examples of how it is nothing but bad after a few Ten$ of Million$ of Dollar$? Why? Because it just i$n't HUNDRED$ of Million $$$$!


Source: CA pot dispensary owner gets 8 years from Feds

Health Canada, in turn, sells the marijuana to a small group of authorized users for $150 – plus GST – for each 30-gram bag of ground-up flowering tops, with a strength of up to 14 per cent THC, the main active ingredient. That works out to $5,000 for each kilogram, or a markup of more than 1,500 per cent. "It's impossible for a person on disability," said Ron Lawrence, 38, a burn victim in Windsor, Ont., who needs medical marijuana to control severe pain. "The sickest people are the ones that need it the most . . . they're the ones who don't work." Adds Scott McCluskey, 48, in Westbank, B.C., who suffers spinal-cord pain that is eased by marijuana: "They're selling it for criminal street prices. . . . I don't think anybody, especially seriously ill people . . . should have to pay this type of money for medicine." ******* Editor: Selling legal pot at illegal prices is immoral!!


Source: Health Canada charging huge markup on medical pot

The "Oregon NORML" is a rip off. The people who really need this as medicine and not as a means to get high will have to pay $2095.00 a year to use the services of this place not to mention the cost of getting a medical marijuana card. Do the people at Oregon NORML really think they are helping those in need? I only see them helping themselves as NORML. Greedy Greedy Greedy..... Shame on you Madeline Martinez!!!!!


Source: Comment by FervantWisdom posted July 29, 2010 to the Oregonian story "Portland's Cannabis Cafe will reopen this weekend"

Perhaps the biggest medical marijuana ripoff is the price of the marijuana itself. Even the finest quality, potent, pathogen-free marijuana should never cost more than $6 per gram, which allows for at least $3 profit per gram, energy, labor, and security included.Sick people are being ripped off by unscrupulous malefactors in the good name of "medicine."There ought to be a law....


**************
Editor even $6/g is a ripp off

1/8 oz = 3.5g of pot = $21 (6*28/8)
1/4 oz = 7g of pot =$42 (6*28/4)
1 oz pot = 28g = $168 ($6*28)
1 pound of pot = $2,688 (16*28*6)

Would you pay $2,688 for a head of lettuce that weights about a pound?
Lettuce is sold by the ton, not by the 1/8 1/4, oz, or gram!!!! Pot is a WEED!!!


Source: Comment by AnnOnaMice posted to Medical Marijuana Rip-Offs: Five Reasons to Not Pay for Patient "Pre-Registration

How do patients, like myself who are impoverished afford to either grow my own or pay these prices for someone to assist me? If one plant produces 6 ounces of dry smokable marijuana, am I to understand it would have cost the caregiver $1200 to $3600 to grow it? I'm afraid this new law won't be very beneficial for me.I sure wish the law would allow me to grow my marijuana in my garden, under the sun. I wonder if the law would consider an "enclosed facility" as being a fenced area with a locked gate ?


Source: Comment # 17 posted to Board "Michian Medical Marijuana" at http://michiganmedicalmarijuana.org

Ahh the great state of California born here moved around the world an still came back....

As for medical prices here it is ridiculous how much these clubs can charge. At 3250 a lb is standard club price (what the grower gets)-then it can go for as much as 80 for an1/8 oz or you get a break and get 1/4 for 140! Then all the novelty stuff like the cigars 50 and oils 30-60( both prohibitively expensive and not that great of quality) I have also heard the tale of 8000-10000 buck weed for a lb but I mean cmon who is gonna pay that much? The most I ever heard here is 4300 and that was stuff that makes you wish you could walk or move .. Thanks to friends I never have to visit these establishments--but if I had to I would complain--That all said we do live in a democratic country so the way to bring the prices down is everyone grow your own and those that cannot can share or invest with the ones that can----thus taking away the demand and then driving down the club prices. After all they can't put all the country in jail-----:) sorry for the ramble--man that was good pot.....


Source: Comment # 8 posted to Board "Legal Medical Marijuana Price" at Greenpassion.org

Medical Marijuina is by far, much more expensive for a variety of reasons

First of all, Medical Marijuana (MM) is highly regulated by Department of Health. To even purchase MM, you must be approved medically and then purchase an annually renewable ID card (California's runs over $100 just for the card. To date, very few insurance companies have added MM to their approved list of meds.

You might want to check out the MM California handbook locaed at the following web address:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/294986/Medical-Marijuana-handbook

MM can cost around $350 an ounce. Given those on MM therapy may use that in about a week, you could consider it will likely cost over $1,200 a month for legal mm.

The price of street marijuana is highly flexible based on available quantity, quality, and location. It is likely you would pay around 1/2 the cost of MM even for an equivalent quantity, however, there are no guarantees that it will be free of contaminants that could make one temporarily ill, poison one, or even potentially kill a person.

One of the best sites to find a lot of information about MM, both supporting it and challenging its use is at: http://www.medicalmarijuanaprocon.org/

Hope this helps


Source: Comment posted to Amazon's AskvilleWhy is the cost legal marijuana medical equal street prices?

Some chronic pain conditions and other medical problems that evidence shows are mitigated by marijuana should be grounds for prescriptive treatment.

But the vast majority of ' medical marijuana ' consumption is farcical.. one can regard these dispensaries as rackets designed to print money ...

the idea that dispensaries will pay down the state budget deficit is silly. All that stated , if you want to sit around befuddled by pot .. go ahead.


Source: Comment posted to story California Pot Party is Over on Aug 1, 2012

Imler says he is sickened at what is going on today in California in the name of compassion. Our medical marijuana program is going into the toilet. Dispensaries are offering no charitable services and charging patients outrageous amounts for medical marijuana. Almost none of the dispensaries in California grow their own marijuana.

Nothing in Prop. 215 allows for the sale of marijuana to anyone. We created Prop. 215 so that patients would not have to deal with black market profiteers. But today it is all about the money. Most of the dispensaries operating in California are little more than dope dealers with store fronts. It's outrageous that a decade after Prop. 215 passed, people still can't get the medical marijuana they need. Imler says.

--Rev. Scott Imler is the co-author of proposition 215 the 1996 ballot initiative that legalized medical marijuana in California.


Source: A Comparison of Medical Marijuana Programs in California and Oregon

All they (Harborside and all the rest) do is screen for mold. They do not screen for pesticides and fungicides and the pseudoscience you believe in that can match a strain to a particular illness is pure baloney.


Source: Comment posted in reply to Bigjooohnnymac comment that was posted at 9:30 AM on August 3, 2012

The Rev. Scott Imler, who co-wrote CA Proposition 215 and advocates for the limited use of medical marijuana, put it best recently when he said, "We created Prop. 215 so that patients would not have to deal with black market profiteers. But today it is all about the money. Most of the dispensaries operating in California are little more than dope dealers with storefronts."

Selling joints to anyone with a pulse and $200 cash was never the bill of goods that the voters were sold CA in 1996.


Source: California's pot party is over SF Chronicle, Aug 6, 2012.

I have nothing against making a profit, it's the American way. But these prices are based on over 40 yrs. of black market price increases.

You'd think that because their operating within the confines of state law that they would LOWER their prices and sell volume. Black market prices have exorbitant profit margins built in, BUT their legal RIGHT ???

I don't think the state law was intended that all you have to do is get a PERMIT and today your legal while yesterday you weren't. The Feds have a problem with black market profit margins while maintaining the VAIL of legitimacy.


Source: Comment posted to LA Times story "Some Southern California 'non-profit'pot shops make big money" on 10:12 AM June 19, 2012.

--------
Editor: In San Luis Obispo County (SLO), you don't even need a business license. Just put a ad in your local free paper and your in business legally. Out of seven delivery services busted in SLO in December 2010, only one had a valid buisness license.

Corporate fascists must protect the industries that profit from prohibition.

Nothing new under America's sun....

"Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica."
–Abraham Lincoln (from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company in Germany)

"Hemp is of first necessity to the wealth & protection of the country."
- Thomas Jefferson, U.S. President

"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere."
- George Washington, U.S. President

"We shall, by and by, want a world of hemp more for our own consumption."
- John Adams, U.S. President

"The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced. It is an open secret that the dangerous increase of crime in this country is closely connected with this."
-Albert Einstein quote on Hemp

"An entire family was murdered by a youthful addict in Florida. When officers arrived at the home, they found the youth staggering about in a human slaughterhouse. With an axe he had killed his father, mother, two brothers, and a sister. He seemed to be in a daze. He had no recollection of having committed the multiple crime. The officers knew him ordinarily as a sane, rather quiet young man; now he was pitifully crazed. They sought the reason. The boy said that he had been in the habit of smoking something which youthful friends called 'muggles', a childish name for marijuana."
-William R Hearst.

"By the tons it is coming into this country, the deadly, dreadful poison that racks and tears not only the body, but the very heart and soul of every human being who once becomes a slave to it in any of its cruel and devastating forms. Marihuana is a short cut to the insane asylum. Smoke marihuana cigarettes for a month and what was once your brain will be nothing but a storehouse of horrid specters. Hasheesh makes a murderer who kills for the love of killing out of the mildest mannered man who ever laughed at the idea that any habit could ever get him."
-William R Hearst

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."
-Harry Anslinger FBN

"Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with (white) female students, smoking [marijuana] and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution. Result: pregnancy"
-Harry Anslinger FBN

"Two Negros took a girl fourteen years old and kept her for two days under the influence of hemp. Upon recovery she was found to be suffering from syphilis."
-Harry Anslinger FBN

Inadvertently, Popular Mechanics Feb 1938 "The New Billion Dollar Crop" tells a different story where "timber for paper" would be eliminated over night


Source: Comment posted to Sacramento Bee story "IRS seizes California medical marijuana provider's bank account" on Jun 15, 2012

Backes is cool as hell, and his point about this being a revolution based on science is well said and long due. His trip to Washington that he related was news to me and I appreciate the inside view very much. And it’s good to have folks like Backes in there, out there and on top of this.

A few questions, however.

Since a) it costs about a buck to raise a clone to maturity, and b) a mature cannabis plant produces at least 2 ounces of dried bud (if raised well, much more), and c) medical marijuana sellers charge street prices, which means that said minimal yield would gross about $800 in store, then where exactly is the money going? With an phenomenal margin like that, how can pot dispensaries come close to being able to claim that they are non-profit?

Isn’t it ironic that, at the "compassion” clubs, no breaks are given to the sick folks they serve? Given the money potential, dispensaries—non-profit, mind you—should be able to charge a fraction of what they do. Heck, patients might do better from the local illicit dealer. (Or is he the just guy running the local dispensary these days?)

How exactly do we get from Big Pharma to straight up legalization? The middle is the hard part and is always missing, avoided, when people talk about the medical weed subject.

I don’t see legalization happening once cannabis is in the hands of drug corporations. The buck stops there. And that way it stays on Schedule one with hard drugs (all of which can be prescribed)—which would help make the medical angle easier for politicians to sell and vote for—and corner the market. Legalization shmegalization, yes?

A person I know, legitimately ill and in need, just got his green card. Awesome. By provision of the medical marijuana system here, he’s allowed to have 15 pot plants growing in each 60 day period. Awesomer.

But think about it. If each plant produces 2 oz. (minimally) and one can crop out at least three indoor harvests per year (four pretty easily as well, but let’s stay low), that would allow him an ounce of high test cloned ganja every three days. Do the math.

Heavy cannabis ingesters might be able to consume an eighth a day—but that is highly unlikely at today’s potencies—and after all, one can only get so high before simply falling asleep. So, who pulled the wool over legislator’s eyes on this one?

Source: Comment posted to Dangerous Minds on May 1, 2011

Oaksterdam University founder Richard Lee's disability not withstanding the reason I can't get on board with the indignation everyone else has about the raid on the pot trade school in Oakland is because the medical marijunana debate has been co-opted by just plain old pot heads who want to get high and, in alot of cases, make some money.

Instead of getting happy about finding a "doctor" so you can get your card for (pick one) anxiety, finger cramps, hangovers, or hangnails, just admit you like the high and man up and fight for legalized marijuana, period. Don't pretend to be supporting people who need it for a real medical reason.

Source: Comment posted to Los Angeles Times on April 14, 2012

Thanks again for your support. After my friend died a few years back from bone cancer and HIV, I agreed to grow for his surviving partner who is also HIV positive. We have worked on treating his symptoms and his viral count has dropped significantly. Then we discovered a man named Ricky Simpson. Ricky lives up in Nova Scotia, and grows cannabis. He got cancer a while back. Through his own treatment he cured his cancer. He uses high doses of concentrated cannabis oil. Ricky has repeated this on over 300 people with a 100% success rate. So yes, we are making history, and no I don't get a paycheck. Occasionally you may come across good people in this world too, don't be so quick to assume everyone is out to make a quick buck.

Source: Posted to NPR.org website on May 17, 2010

this what happens when this drug that is meant for those who medically need it..had been highjacked by healthy potheads..

Source: CA Dispensaries can't be banned, but must grow pot on site

To the many commenters who have said medical cannabis is a sham, I present the following evidence.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20053780

Note that this is a document on a federal government web site. It is an abstract of one of the more recent studies at the University of Madrid that are examining the effect of THC and CBD, 2 of the primary active agents in cannabis, on human glioma (brain tumor) cells. Initial testing in human cell xenomorphs (human cells implanted in rats or other animals) show that THC induces spontaneous cell death for cancer cells while leaving neighboring healthy cells unharmed. THC combined with CBD is even more effective, and both in combination with the primary chemotherapy agent for human brain tumors (Temozolomide aka. Temodar) was more effective still. The researchers also achieved similar results in a few volunteers with late stage gliomas. If any pharmaceutical drug shoed the same results there would be wide-spread phase 1 trials and research. Sadly, the same results were discovered in a study by the US federal government in the 70's but were suppressed because they didn't match what the Nixon/Ford administration was hoping for. This is all established fact, feel free to do the research yourself if you want.

I am a brain cancer patient. I am being denied a non-toxic compound that can potentially slow or reverse the progression of my disease, and there is no rational reason for that denial.

Source: Suit over medical marijuana crackdown thrown out

I'm glad I baked my medical pot into browneis then smoked it. Otherwise, I would have lost my hands & feet if I had.

This is another reason why some medical pot patients should not smoke pot. Smoking is the customary way for recreational pot users consume it and promoted by dispensories. What works for recreational users may not be best for medical pot users. Children, young adults and those with lung or circulation problems should not be smoking their medical pot.

I have very bad blood ciruclation due to a accident. Such that when I woke up in the ER my feet & hands were purple. Afterwards, if I had smoke my medical pot I probably would have lost my hands and feet as smoking would have made my circulation worst.

Recently. I read this story

Smoking can make your nipples fall off after breast surgery

about how a plastic surgeon advises his female paatients who are smokers to avoid smoking before & after breast surgery or their nipples could fall off.

The nicotine and the carbon monoxide in cigarette smoke can reduce the blood flow and act like a tourniquet.

Here we go...Gov. Brown iner-hippie comes out. The difference with this new Brown is that he is going to try to TAX pot to fill his smoke and mirrow budget. Pot dispenseries are wrong on so many levels. They are run by mobsters, 99% of their customer base are not terminally Ill or have serious cancer issues. There are countless videos of kids getting prescriptions from fake doctors, I could go on and on.

On a political note, I can tell you it is not going to happen on a presidential election year. Can you imagine the visual of President Obama who has said he used to smoke pot reversing the law??? Hell no he is not going to change a thing...... Besides, the US would look hypocritical on the international stage as we push other countries to radicate their drug industries.


Source: LA Times

Michael Jobes
Vallejo, California


I live in a drug-riddled city of about 117,000. Our city has 17 "dispensaries". I'm convinced there must be some kind of plague you get in your early 20's that causes your pants to fall down and can only be cured with pot. That's who's lined up outside the "legalized drug dealing den" around the corner from my house.

Source: [latimesblogs.latimes.com]

At the end of the day, this will push the MEDICAL marijuana law back towards the spirit of the law, if not the letter. The law approved by voters was not intended to fund for-profit clinics, it was to give medical patients access to marijuana without being prosecuted. And then some entrepreneurs took it upon themselves to capitalize on the high sale to production cost ratio and make a ton of money, sliding through a pseudo-gray area. And now we're back to MEDICAL marijuana. Until the law changes to directly legalize it for everyone, not just medical patients, I don't have a problem with making it clear the gray areas aren't that gray.

Source: [latimesblogs.latimes.com]

I totally agree with the crack down. There are dispensaries open that do not follow the law and they should be closed. Some of the dispensaries being shut down, as the article suggests, are merely fronts for people who want to use the name "dispensary" as a means to run a drugdealing business. This is not acceptable. There is a legal process, it does not involve shipping the product out of state and it should require that the person in need be present and identifiable at the point of sale. We do the same thing for alcohol sales.

see [latimesblogs.latimes.com]

According to State Law you can only belong to one collective. That collective must grow it's own marijuana and distribute, on a donation basis to recoup costs, only to it's membership. Some of these dispensaries have thousands of members - how is that a collective? Even on a non-profit basis there is money to be made - state law allows for the market price of the product. At $4000 a pound, there is plenty of money to go around from grower to curer to packaging to collective adminstrators. The greedy got involved and have now ruined it for the rest. A true cannabis collective should have no more that 50 members and you should know everyone in your collective. Greed again, like in Wall Street, is killing a thriving industry.

[latimesblogs.latimes.com]

"I like the argument (sell & tax it like alcohol), but the problem with the "like alcohol" statement is that it is NOTHING like alcohol. Making alcohol, especially good alcohol that someone would want to drink, is really really time consuming and hard to do.

Pot on the other hand, even REALLY good pot, is so easy to grow you almost can't kill the stuff. Seeds (or clones), sun, water, dirt, that's it!

So since anyone can do it, everyone WILL do it, and then it becomes really hard to tax. No one taxes me for the tomatoes I grow and eat -- so I doubt that there will be a tax windfall through legalization."

There will, however, be a huge reduction in wasted tax dollars that are currently going toward law enforcement and incarceration. So yes I'm for it, I just don't expect that the tax argument will pan out.

Souce: [www.sfgate.com]

As a primary care physician here in SF, I definitely think MOST medical marijuana is a joke. "Doctor, I need it to help me sleep. I need it for anxiety. I have chronic back pain." Sorry, but you are 25 years old, and you're addicted to pot.

Source: [www.sfgate.com]

This is crazy. I know greed is the motivating factor rather than compassion but how the hell do they justify those prices when it's freakin' legal for some folks. If money is the motivating factor in legalizing marijuana that's ok but admit it.

Don't use poor sick people to get rich off of. It seems to me that at those prices it still creates a big black market within a legal market. I can see how some patients would need to get at least a pound to sell off in order to pay for their medicine.

Posted 08 March 2008 - 01:41 PM
[www.greenpassion.org]

"Well done, with regard to the documentary "Green Rush". The growers are don't strike me as the brightest bulbs. They whine about the pitfalls of the business. In my opinion the business is only lucrative because its illegal. If every shmo could grow weed legally tomorrow, it would be sold for two bucks a pound right next to the lettuce."

Commenting on the film "The Green Rush" (2008) about Northern Cali growers

WTF??? It's only a weed and a prolific one at that. Yeah, I know it takes daily care to insure a quality crop, and I do not have a green thumb, just an arthritic one. But these prices are out of control. Just as marijuana should and will once again be totally legal, then we can start growing it, selling it and buying it by the BUSHELL BASKET!!! Just like any other crop. You know it's going to be that way for Indusrial Hemp, so why not for people who use it for medical reasons and can't afford those prices. I think Oregon has the right idea in one of their compassion coalition communes growers freely contribute excess marijuana i.e. more than they are legally allowed to grow. Then they put all that in one bag, so to speak, and this is what is available for poor people and/or the disabled. Now that sounds like a plan.
Source:
Posted 08 March 2008 - 07:34 AM
[www.greenpassion.org]

I was visiting a few collectives when i notice alot have stop operating or moved location, WTF! So i went home did some research and noticed a few things.

1. All herbs sold and i mean the majority! Are purchase outside the county! If u think about it no $$ really goes back to the county but into the pockets or greedy collectives that be pushing 65 dollar eigths and 420$ Oz and to the pockets of other county like trinity and humbolt.

2. i actually see herbs that have a higher price than street and are often outdoor pretty rare to see indoor.For example outdoor sour diesel are sold for 320$ at some collective,shit i use to get deals on sour d indoor grown for 290 and sometimes less.

The compliance law kicked in and alot of theM are required to pay higher fees and have a grow room on site of collectives, collectives within 1000 feet from schools are needed to be shut down and collectives need to be 1000 feet away from each other. Card holders are encourage to grow thier own meds instead of goin to collectives.

Probably a great law to pressure the collectives operating into being more compasionate and actually buy and resell locally grown meds. So the city that allows them to operate can gain $$ back into its local economy instead of $$ gain from county being transfer to another county.

Source:
[www.rollitup.org]