The Contra Costa Times has word that a medical Marijuana patient in San Bernardino County is suing the police, more accurately the sheriff for his policy of arresting medical Marijuana patients.

A medical marijuana user announced this week that he will file a lawsuit Monday against San Bernardino County to compel the county to issue ID cards to medical marijuana users.

Scott Bledsoe, of Crestline, will also seek a court order halting the Sheriff Department's practice of arresting medical marijuana users for possession even when users present evidence that the drugs are for medical use, according to a news release.

One of my buddies on Digg sent me this story on the passing of the Compassionate Use Medicinal Marijuana Act in NJ. The story is pretty straight forward, here is a clip:

The Department of Health and Senior Services would register people with debilitating medical conditions, which would include cancer, glaucoma, HIV or AIDS, or other diseases that cause wasting, chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, severe and persistent muscle spasms. The department then would issue a photo identity card and allow those registered to possess as many as "six marijuana plants and an ounce of usable marijuana," according to the bill.

That is more than enough for a patient to stay medicated, let's just hope that the federal government doesn't come down on NJ like they have in CA.

NBC LA reports that the U.S. supreme court refused to get involved in a California case where 8 grams of Marijuana were confiscated from a medical Marijuana patient in Santa Anna, CA during a traffic stop.

"It's now settled that state law enforcement officers cannot arrest Medical marijuana patients or seize their medicine simply because they prefer the contrary federal law," Elford said.

"Perhaps, in the future local government will think twice about expending significant time and resources to defy a law that is overwhelmingly supported by the people of our state."

Perhaps indeed.

The Chicago Flame is running a story on the most recent state in the USA to allow medical Marijuana; Michigan. Over the November election, Michigan became the 13th state in the United States Of America to allow sick and chronically ill people to seek a doctor's recommendation for Marijuana.

To keep medical marijuana illegal is to be contemptuous of science and our patients. Time and time again, marijuana has been shown to be safe and effective. Yet in 2004 Merck had to pull its anti-inflamatory drug Vioxx from the market after it killed an FDA-estimated 27,000. Surely if we allow such insufficiently tested drugs to be sold to the public, a plant that had been deemed by multiple authorities to be less dangerous than alcohol is safe enough. Our legislation regarding marijuana must have been authored by individuals who were either highly irrational, or let their offense at the youth culture and its attack on their generation's entrenched mores supercede expert medical opinion.

It's time for a change! Right on Michigan!

The California Supreme Court has ruled unanimously against compassionate care. This is a serious blow to many medical Marijuana patients in California who are too sick to cultivate their own medicine.

The Court held that, in order to be protected under the Act, a primary caregiver must consistently provide care, independent of any assistance in taking medical marijuana at or before the time he or she assumed responsibility for assisting with medical marijuana. To illustrate some examples of appropriate caregivers under the Act, the Court states: "The spouse or domestic partner caring for his or her ailing companion, the child caring for his or her ailing parent, the hospice nurse caring for his or her ailing patient -- each can point to the many ways in which they, medical marijuana aside, attend to and assume responsibility for the core survival needs of their dependants."

On the other hand, the Court said, a "defendant whose caregiving consisted principally of supplying marijuana and instructing on its use, and who otherwise only sporadically took some patients to medical appointments, cannot qualify as a primary caregiver under [California's Compassionate Use] Act."

Sadly, a lot of medical Marijuana patients don't have a daughter, partner or spouse to help them cultivate and use their medicine. In this reporter's opinion; this is a giant step backwards for California. Update: Here's an article about the change in Ukiah, CA.

Among the twelve states that have legalized the use and cultivation of medical cannabis, all but one (New Mexico) have experienced an overall decline in teen marijuana use since the enactment of their medi-pot laws. (Data was unavailable for New Mexico, which passed its law last year.) In seven of the twelve states, marijuana use among young people declined at rates that exceeded the national average.

“It’s a clear shield for commercial operations,” said Mike Sweeney, 60, a supporter of both medical marijuana and a local ballot measure on June 3 that called for new limits on the drug in Mendocino. “And we don’t want those here.”

The outcome of the ballot measure is not known, as votes are still being counted, but such community push-back is increasingly common across the state, even in the most liberal communities. In recent years, dozens of local governments have banned or restricted cannabis clubs, more formally known as dispensaries, that provide medical marijuana, in the face of public safety issues involved in its sale and cultivation, including crime and environmental damage.

The discussion table included invited representatives from police and sheriffs, prosecutors and the American Civil Liberties Union, a lone doctor, a medical-marijuana patient advocate, and the sponsor of the bill mandating a limit.

Although the health department sought public comment in an unusual set of workshops around the state before drafting a rule — which will start the clock on a set of formal hearings — Gov. Christine Gregoire directed it to seek more comment from law enforcement and the medical community, which were barely represented among the hundreds who spoke at the workshops.

California's medical marijuana patients are one step closer to being protected against work place discrimination after a bill made its way through the state Assembly this week.

Assembly Bill 2279, authored by Assemblyman Mark Leno and co-authored by Eureka's Assemblywoman Patty Berg, would make it unlawful for an employer to discriminate against an employee because of their status as a medical marijuana patient or caregiver or for failing a drug test.

”Voters have said that marijuana has legitimate medical uses, and this bill says workers shouldn't be punished for having medical needs,” Berg said in a statement.

Two area men with serious, chronic medical conditions will join an assemblyman in Albany today to urge passage of a Senate bill allowing the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

``We're hopeful,'' said Bruce Dunn, of Morris, from a hotel in Albany on Monday night.

He and Richard Williams, of Richmondville, will join other patients and Assembly Health Committee Chair Richard N. Gottfried, D-Manhattan, who will announce a television advertising campaign seeking Senate approval of a bill before the lawmakers adjourn June 23. Later, patients will lobby their senators, according to a media advisory from Gottfried and the Marijuana Police Project in Washington, D.C.