The Medical Marijuana Racket

Source: The Medical Marijuana Racket – LewRockwell

http://www.lewrockwell.com

I saw a small sign stuck in the grass near the side of a road where I live in Orlando that I have never seen before. I wrote down the text on the sign so I could remember it. It simply said:

Legal Weed

Office Visit $199

Signs like this were inconceivable until January 3 of this year. That is the day when Florida’s Amendment 2 took effect, “The Florida Medical Marijuana Legalization Initiative.” Amendment 2 appeared on the November 8, 2016, ballot in Florida as an initiated constitutional amendment under the title of: Use of Marijuana for Debilitating Medical Conditions. The ballot summary reads:

Allows medical use of marijuana for individuals with debilitating medical conditions as determined by a licensed Florida physician. Allows caregivers to assist patients’ medical use of marijuana. The Department of Health shall register and regulate centers that produce and distribute marijuana for medical purposes and shall issue identification cards to patients and caregivers. Applies only to Florida law. Does not immunize violations of federal law or any non-medical use, possession or production of marijuana.

Florida voters overwhelmingly passed Amendment 2 by a vote of 71.32 to 28.68 percent. Article X, section 29 of the Florida constitution has been amended to allow Floridians access to marijuana for medical use. There are now 29 states that have legalized medical marijuana, plus the District of Columbia.

But all is not well.

According to the text of Amendment 2, a “debilitating medical condition” means

cancer, epilepsy, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), Crohn’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, or other debilitating medical conditions of the same kind or class as or comparable to those enumerated, and for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient.

“Identification card” means “a document issued by the Department that identifies a qualifying patient or a caregiver.”

“Medical use” means “the acquisition, possession, use, delivery, transfer, or administration of an amount of marijuana not in conflict with Department rules.”

“Caregiver” means

a person who is at least twenty-one (21) years old who has agreed to assist with a qualifying patient’s medical use of marijuana and has qualified for and obtained a caregiver identification card issued by the Department. The Department may limit the number of qualifying patients a caregiver may assist at one time and the number of caregivers that a qualifying patient may have at one time. Caregivers are prohibited from consuming marijuana obtained for medical use by the qualifying patient.

“Physician” means “a person who is licensed to practice medicine in Florida.” According to the Orlando Sentinel: physicians have been licensed by the state — with dozens in Orlando — to recommend medical cannabis to patients.”

“Physician certification” means

a written document signed by a physician, stating that in the physician’s professional opinion, the patient suffers from a debilitating medical condition, that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for the patient, and for how long the physician recommends the medical use of marijuana for the patient. A physician certification may only be provided after the physician has conducted a physical examination and a full assessment of the medical history of the patient. In order for a physician certification to be issued to a minor, a parent or legal guardian of the minor must consent in writing.

“Qualifying patient” means “a person who has been diagnosed to have a debilitating medical condition, who has a physician certification and a valid qualifying patient identification card.”

All medical marijuana treatment centers (MMTCs) must be registered with the Florida Department of Health.

The Department of Health is tasked with issuing “reasonable regulations necessary for the implementation and enforcement of this section” to ensure “the availability and safe use of medical marijuana by qualifying patients.” No later than six months after the effective date of section 29, “the following regulations shall be promulgated”:

1. Procedures for the issuance and annual renewal of qualifying patient identification cards to people with physician certifications and standards for renewal of such identification cards. Before issuing an identification card to a minor, the Department must receive written consent from the minor’s parent or legal guardian, in addition to the physician certification.
2. Procedures establishing qualifications and standards for caregivers, including conducting appropriate background checks, and procedures for the issuance and annual renewal of caregiver identification cards.
3. Procedures for the registration of MMTCs that include procedures for the issuance, renewal, suspension and revocation of registration, and standards to ensure proper security, record keeping, testing, labeling, inspection, and safety.
4. A regulation that defines the amount of marijuana that could reasonably be presumed to be an adequate supply for qualifying patients’ medical use, based on the best available evidence. This presumption as to quantity may be overcome with evidence of a particular qualifying patient’s appropriate medical use.

The text of the amendment is also very clear that nothing in it “shall affect or repeal laws relating to non-medical use, possession, production, or sale of marijuana” or “authorizes the use of medical marijuana by anyone other than a qualifying patient.”

What a racket.

No one in Florida in pain because he suffers from a “debilitating medical condition” can obtain marijuana to alleviate his pain without jumping through numerous hoops and going to great expense even though he can easily purchase and consume all the Tylenol, aspirin, or alcohol he wants to. Yet, these three substances (especially alcohol) cause many deaths every year while the number of deaths from marijuana every year is still a big fat zero.

So, what’s a libertarian to make of all this?

First of all, some freedom is better than no freedom. Some marijuana freedom is better than no marijuana freedom. Legal medical  marijuana and illegal recreational marijuana is better than illegal medical and recreational marijuana. Legal medical marijuana with regulations and restrictions is better than illegal medical marijuana.

Second, limited federalism is better than no federalism. On the federal level, marijuana is classified as a Schedule I controlled substance under the Controlled Substances Act with “a high potential for abuse” and “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.” The Supreme Court case of Gonzales v. Raich (2005) affirmed the power of the federal government under the Constitution’s commerce clause to ban the medical use of marijuana. Yet, 29 states, including Florida, are permitted by the federal government to allow the medical use of marijuana.

Third, any adult should be able obtain marijuana just like he would obtain any other medicine. It shouldn’t matter what his medical condition is. He shouldn’t have to obtain an identification card. He shouldn’t have to be a qualified patient. No physician should need a special license to prescribe marijuana. Patients should be able to chose anyone to be a caregiver. No qualifications and standards for caregivers should be promulgated. No physician certification should have to be issued. No MMTCs should have to be registered. No regulations, reasonable or otherwise, should be issued by the government. The amount of marijuana possessed by a patient should not be limited. No prescription should have to be obtained to purchase marijuana. No physician should have to be seen before one is able to use marijuana for some aliment.

And fourth, the use of marijuana for any reason should be perfectly legal. There should be no laws at any level of government regarding the buying, selling, growing, processing, transporting, manufacturing, advertising, using, possessing, or “trafficking” of marijuana for any reason. There should be no laws at any level of government to prohibit, regulate, restrict, or otherwise control what a man desires to smoke, drink, inject, snort, sniff, inhale, swallow, or otherwise ingest into his mouth, nose, veins, or lungs. There should be no federal or state DEAs, no Office of National Drug Control Policy, no drug schedules, and no Controlled Substances Act. There should be marijuana freedom. That is the libertarian position.

The Best of Laurence M. Vance

The Pendle Witch Child (59 min)

Simon Armitage presents the extraordinary story of the most disturbing witch trial in British history and the key role played in it by one nine – year – old girl. Jennet Device, a beggar – girl from Pendle in Lancashire, was the star witness in the trial in 1612 of her own mother, her brother, her sister and many of her neighbours and, thanks to her chilling testimony, they were all hanged. Armitage explores the lethal power and influence of one child’s words – a story of fear, magic and demonic pacts retold partly with vivid and innovative hand – drawn animation. He discovers how Jennet’s appearance in the witness box cast its shadow way beyond Lancashire, impressing lawyers, politicians, clerics and even King James I himself, and setting a dark precedent for child testimony in witch trials as far away as America.

5 Children of The Evilest Dictators (7 min)

World famous dictators possessed unlimited power: in their sever hands was the fate of not only the state but also of every person who lived in it, including the fate of their own children. Could we say that the tyranny of the fathers didn’t affect their families, and that their children were swimming in rivers of money, love and understanding, while the country was drowning in rivers of blood? Let’s see. Here are five children of dictators and their unenviable fate.

We Know Who Owns Britain

Come on UK, reclaim what is yours, get rid of the parasites that are enslaving you right back to medieval times. Grab the pitch forks and march in protest and anger! (Use the pitch forks only for show; no violence is needed; just stop electing the parasites into power). Or have you turned imbecilic like the American population? What the heck is wrong with you?  You keep electing these parasites and the result is what you deserve.

Serfdom then, serfdom now.

Source: We Know Who Owns Britain

With permission from

http://www.counterpunch.org

by Julian Vigo

August 17, 2016

In 2014 the Scottish government announced a land reform programme, aptly named 432:50–Towards a comprehensive land reform agenda for Scotland to reflect the fact that 432 people own 50% of the land in Scotland. And this report is worth readings as it is an indictment of the pervasive obstruction of information linking which parts of British aristocracy own what and the disparity in wealth affecting this country:

Inequality in wealth is an increasing concern internationally. Debate about the causes and consequences of inequality has focused, in the UK and elsewhere, on the divide between the ‘one per cent’ (who hold a large and growing proportion of available wealth) and the ‘ninety-nine per cent’ (whose share of total wealth has been falling). The inequality inherent in Scotland’s land ownership pattern, however, is of an entirely different order to the more general 1:99 divide. The disparity in this instance is not between one hundredth of the population and the other ninety-nine hundredths. Setting aside the complex ownership structures many owners have put in place (below) in order to obscure or conceal aspects of their ownership, the divide is between the equivalent of one twelve-thousandth part of the population (the part owning half of Scotland’s privately-owned land) and the remainder. [emphasis mine]

And if this was not condemnation enough of the greed rife throughout the country’s land ownership, Conservative MEP (Member of the European Parliament) Struan Stevenson estimates that Scotland’s wealthiest landowners will net around £1 billion from rental charges levied on wind farms which, he underscores, only exist because of public subsidy.  What the United States government did to bail out Wall Street, the British people have been doing for centuries for its elite, acting against their own interests.  The question we must all ask now, is why?

First, the 432:50 paper set out a compelling case for the need for land reform in Scotland and the equally important need to register who owns the land since the Registration Act of 1617 which created the Register of Sasines did not make land registration compulsory.  And by the early twentieth century, Scotland moved from a system of recording deeds to that of registering titles which was assisted by the 1979 Land Registration Act.  “The Land of Scotland and the Common Good,” the final report which 432:50 instigated, came out in May 2014 and this was followed up in November, 2014 with the First Minister, Nicola Surgeon, announcing plans to establish an accountability for Scotland’s land which must be an asset “that benefits the many and not the few.”  Initially announcing twelve legislative proposals, by 2015 “A Consulation on the Future of Land Reform in Scotland” proposed to give powers to ministers to intervene where the scale of land ownership or the conduct of a landlord was acting as a barrier to sustainable development; to establish a Scottish Land Reform Commission; to improve the transparency and accountability of land ownership; to ensure charities holding large areas of land were under an obligation to engage with local communities; to remove business rates exemptions for shooting and deerstalking estates.

The Land Reform Bill was finally passed by the Parliament on 16 March of this year and received Royal Assent on 22 March, 2016, but by and large the bill was what many described as “underwhelming.”  While the new legislation subsumes protections for tenant farmers and the end to tax relief for sporting estates and a new Scottish Land Fund with £10m available to help community buy-outs, the other promised amendments never made it through: the restriction of the amount of land that one individual can own; the prevention of land ownership through offshore tax havens; and the creation of a public register of landowners throughout Scotland. But even with this bill falling short of more radical change, Scotland is light years ahead of England and Wales on this matter.

For throughout its history, Britain has been the welfare state for capital. And just as Americans were quick to point to the US government’s bailout of its elite class in 2008 while homeless line the streets, today we see that the elite in the United Kingdom are able to hold onto their wealth primarily through the obfuscation of information and the control of media.  Indeed, should the masses learn how much the very few elite of this nation actually own, many would likely take to the streets in protest.  The same secrecy surrounding who owns Scotland’s land exists south of the border as well, and such secrecy must be removed in order for meaningful land reform to take place.

Now that Gerald Grosvenor, the 6th Duke of Westminster, has passed away, his son, the twenty-five year old Hugh Grosvenor, has taken the helm of what some media outlets inaccurately describe as “half of London.” More accurately the 7th Duke of Westminster now owns 300 acres of central London between Mayfair and Belgravia as well as 133,000 acres in Scotland, Lancashire and Cheshire.  In total, the wealth that Grosvenor has inherited between property and other assets is estimated to be £9bn.  All this while housing is scarce in London, all this while homelessness rises to record levels as 2015 government statistics show that 3,569 people slept in the rough while local agencies report that 8,096 people slept rough from April 2015 through March 2016, double the rate of 2010.  Equally as daunting, 114,790 households in England, 14,160 in Wales, and 34,662 in Scotland applied to their local authority for homelessness assistance in 2015-2016.

All this while a huge chunk of the £9bn inheritance will not be subject to death duties–only a periodic tax and income from these assets is likely to be subject to tax due the inheritance being part of a complex trust arrangement.  Ah, the travails of the rich and famous!

Meanwhile, the elite of the United Kingdom might believe that obscuring land ownership titles will keep them from being held accountable for the growing poverty in the country, the reality is that everyone knows who they are.

And yes, Hugh Grosvenor, we are looking directly at you.

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Julian Vigo is a scholar, film-maker and human rights consultant. Her latest book is Earthquake in Haiti: The Pornography of Poverty and the Politics of Development (2015). She can be reached at: julian.vigo@gmail.com

More articles by:Julian Vigo