Before making an appointment to see a physician for a medical marijuana card you should first do 10 minutes of research to make sure your doctor does not have any disciplinary actions pending. In addition you will want to call the clinic and make sure you are going to PHYSICALLY SEE A DOCTOR IN PERSON, not over the computer.

Here is how you research a doctor medical record: READ ON…

As medical marijuana laws sweep across the US, states are trying to figure out just exactly how to implement. I recently reviewed a few of the new laws being proposed and wanted to share some thoughts.

SB170 proposed by Senator Jeff Essman, R-Billings states that any recommendation given by a physician must be approved by an independent panel of three physicians.

HB429 by Rep Berry states that after a doctor recommends cannabis to a patient is must be approved by a judge.

The former seems like over-kill. The latter is absolutely absurd. READ ON…

It is really amazing how difficult the cities are making it for legal medical marijuana dispensaries to take care of patients. It seems like every other day they are creating new regulations which contradict the old ones, creating new zoning ordinances that force more to close and forcing them to adhere to the most ridiculous rules that NO OTHER business has to follow. READ ON…

It has been a tough road for many people who have ventured into the medical marijuana industry. Dispensary owners being arrested and imprisoned, assets seized and now the latest casualty… a colorado physician is being stripped of his right to practice medicine. How did this happen? READ ON….

Over the past week I have had 5 patients who received medical marijuana recommendations from clinics only to find out that their doctor did not have a medical license in good standing. What happened is that they went to a dispensary to get medication and were turned away because the dispensary was not accepting recommendations by that doctor.

How common is this? Apparently very common. I recently went to the California State Medical Boards website and looked up 10 physicians listed on canorml.org’s website. 5 of them were disciplined by the medical board for various actions. 1 had a felony conviction, another had a license outright revoked and the others had infractions that were punished.

It’s pretty amazing the situation California workers are in right now. Unemployment is skyrocketing and now we find out that it can no longer pay out unemployment benefits and is borrowing from the federal government to support itself. See this article in the LA Times. http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-jobless-fund-broke-20101107,0,4181722.story?track=rss&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+latimes%2Fbusiness+%28L.A.+Times+-+Business%29 READ ON…

The great thing about our democracy is that our citizens have the right to vote freely. Obviously the majority of voters in California were not convinced it was the right thing to do.

Moving forward, the state of California needs to strengthen its medical marijuana laws to insure that patients always have safe access to medicine. In my mind four things need to happen. READ ON!

Anyone in the medical marijuana industry in California for the past 3 years or longer has certainly learned the economic lesson of supply and demand. Prior to this explosion in the medical marijuana industry in the past 18 months, there were a few folks in the medical marijuana industry that dominated. They could charge whatever price they wanted because patients would pay for it…. because they were the only game in town. Makes sense. But with any opportunity you will have other folks get in the game to capitalize on the same opportunity. Compound that with POOR to NO regulation and you have what we now have in California; A fairly UNREGULATED industry with vague laws, a few threads of ethics and a LOT people in the game. READ ON….

After three full years of discussing the benefits of using cannabis for medical purposes in California with thousands of patients I can say with the most sincerity that there are patients suffering across the country unnecessarily. There is no reason that someone who has debilitating pain and is taking multiple doses of opiate narcotics daily should have to continue to do so. There is no reason that someone who is undergoing chemotherapy for cancer or interferon for hepatitis C should have to suffer. Cannabis CLEARLY improves the quality of these patients lives. You can not let the fact that many patients will malinger in order to get a recommendation to use cannabis legally for recreational purposes to stop that from allowing patients safe access to it.

In the state of California, patients are allowed to use marijuana for medicinal purposes if they have a recommendation (not prescription) from a medical doctor (DO or MD) stating that the doctor feels it would benefit them. Proposition 215, passed in 1996, was the law that allowed doctors and patients to do this. Here are the steps you need to take to receive a recommendation: