MI Medical Marijuana Rally 9-7-11

[Sweater Cows!]

A rally was held in at the Capitol Building in Lansing this past Wednesday Sept 7 2011. The Capitol Facilities managers estimated up 1500 people in attendance with other sources saying anywhere from 2-5 thousand.

 

There are quite a few bills being introduced this fall, some good for the patients and some that are not good.

 

The way I personally view the law is as follows. The law is far from vague or full of loopholes. it states that a patient may grow there own marijuana, or have a caregiver grow for them, that part is pretty clear to me.

 

The big problems I see are that according to the research I have done online it is not as easy as one might think to grow a plant indoors. The research puts the cost for an indoor setup into the thousands for those who are not 'handymen' who can build there own high end system that can run a perpetual grow schedule(meaning having a consistent supply year-round so as not having to have one or two big harvests (and then be over the limit of allowable marijuana).  Numerous other details that can be seen by watching some videos the most informative I have found(even the first half if you can't watch it all) google video grow room.

 

To find a caregiver who is experienced, ethical and can provide a consistent, organic as well as bug and mold/fungus free and affordable supply of medicine is not as easy as picking the first one in the classified ads.There are as many pitfalls to having a caregiver. They could be  greedy people who are  in it for the money or they could plainly not know what they are doing.

 

An inexperienced caregiver grower or patient grower  will not be able to provide medicine for some time, whether due to crop failures or infestation, contamination or plain bad luck with the grow.

 

This is where the compassion clubs(dispensary...there is a difference) come in, it is just easier to go join a club and buy your medicine as it is to go buy your hamburger instead of raising and butchering a cow or growing and canning your winters supply of canned vegetables, soups, fruit and sauces.If a caregiver or patient ends up with more than they need they can supply the clubs with whatever is left over.

 

Although it is not addressed as being part of the MMA(medical marihauna act) the compassion club/collective provides a valuable service to those unable to use other resources. Patient to Patient transfers are the best way to find the proper strains that address each persons individual medical needs. Every strain is unique. Indica's that focus to Dopamine. Sativa's that focus to Seratonin. Hybrids that have the qualities of both. How can a person order a seed online and spen months growing it without the chance to sample it and know if it's affects are appropriate for that patients needs. Also, a Co-op for patients or caregivers to get together and grow in one place can take much of the cost, work and stress away from having to go it alone and risking a long wait due to inexperience or being unable to afford a grow room system.

 

The final option, is going back to the street dealers, this would make the Mexican Cartels very happy. Before the law was passed the majority of marijuana found in Michigan was compressed imported from south of the border 'brick weed'.  Unlike locally farmed Medical Marijuana tests have shown that this product contained mold and fungus and pesticides.  I can only imagine the loss of sales of marijuana the cartels have experienced from Michigan since 2008 and the other states with Med. marijuana has took a nice chunk of there illegal funding away. Ask any patient when the last time they saw any 'commercial' (imported brickweed) was and I bet you will find maybe once or twice in the last year or two.

 

I believe the State Attorney General Bill Shuette and many of his brethren in the legislature, courts and prosecutors offices of Michigan have no desire to work for the citizens of our state. They are more concerned with the big money machine that is the war on drugs. Whether the doctors and administrators at rehabs, lawyers in criminal cases, prison shareholders or legislatures getting nice funding from Big Pharmaceutical lobbyists we need nothing more than to follow the money trail to see why these people are not interested in following a law that was enacted by 63% of the voters of our state.

 

Whether tomatoes or carrots or medical marijuana support your local farmer.

 

Here are some pictures from the rally

 

Airplane with "SHUETTE KEEP PATIENTS OFF THE STREETS" slogan trailing

Re Below..every five minutes someone dies from pharmaceuticals

 

^^above^^ one the steps of the Capital building behind the speakers podium looking out at part of the crowd.

 

And below, last but not least my favorite slogan..

Keep Granny out of the Ghetto!

 

Stay tuned to the images section for more photos.

 

[XLFD]

I think when this law was initiated by the people and won handily at the ballot box with 63%, many envisioned that the intent was to get this treated like any other pain-relieving drug, to be able to get a prescription from a doctor and get the medicine from the local drugstore, and people would still be punished if they transferred it to those who weren't prescribed MM. 

Heaven knows, Rite-Aid and Walgreen's dispense a lot of prescription drugs with stronger and potentially more deleterious effects effects than cannabis. 

[Sweater Cows!]

People were greatly mistaken if that was their assumption. It clearly spells out that the patient or caregiver is to be the provider of medicine.

I am not surprised that people did not think about the fact that since it is still illegal on the Federal level a pharmacy cannot distribute the product. Since it is still against federal laws a doctor cannot write a prescription for it either. The doctor can only recommend the patient for a card.

If the voters who are not truly Med. MJ proponents and voted for this law are surprised I don't think they read and gave a lot of consideration to the law. Like I said before, I do believe the only people able to provide the meds are a patient to themselves or a caregiver to their patients. But being realistic about things we must accept that that situation may not work for everyone do to many reasons including but not limited to physical, financial and space limitations and greedy caregivers who price the meds so high that it is cheaper to resort to the cartel branded street weed for less money(and quality).

 

The people at the helm of the big pharmaceutical companies are very against this BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE, FROM THE PEOPLE distribution method. Unlike giant Agriculture seed corps like Monsanto want to patent corn, the Big Pharma or AG companies cannot get there hands in the pot so to speak of marijuana. The industry lobbyists for thesre companies surely will do all they can to prevent a revenue stream that they cannot control.

 

The state government anti-med mj people are not altruistic  in their law changing. The one thing they want to do is limit the growing to 10 companies who pay $2500 each year to grow the states supply, therefore taking the right to produce ones own meds away from the citizens.

 

Now, tell me, who do you think will get those contracts? I bet it is the lawmakers best and biggest campaign contributers, not the first 10 people to apply. That is a big money scam if i ever saw one.

 

Follow the money.

[AQUAMAN]

Interesting thread, nice pics too, thanks Dagny.

[XLFD]

Dagny, were you the one who took the pictures or did you get them from the web?  If you were there, were these guys protesting civilly or not, and were they from normally different spectrums of politics?

[Sweater Cows!]

I took the photo's. As far as civility I would say it was more civil than any web forum I have ever been on has managed to be, but then again all but one person was there for the common goal of getting the legislature to hear the patients. Up at the front where the speakers were people would do some chanting  like "who's house, Our House" and some other things I can't recall. Each chant would only go 3-4 times and then people would quiet back down for the speaker. I guess I thought it would have more like the rally's a person see's on TV, but it was far from being that way, very laid back and good vibe throughout. We never smelled any smoke there either, people were behaving appropriately for the goal of influencing the legislature, not having a crazy fest for attention. I can't say for sure about the political spectrum of those in attendance, there was a definite spread in age from college all the way up to grandma and grandpa, I would put the majority of the group there as being in there 30's on up to 60's with a mean age of (my guess 45). There was also a broad spectrum of people from all walks of life so by looking at the variety in the 'caste' and age of those there I would say they were likely just as much spread in their politically viewpoints.

The only thing that was had negative energy was the guy in the back on the sidewalk who was the lone anti MMJ person. I must say he had balls of steel to go out there all by himself. There were some people getting into some yelling with him, I think more of the anger was because he kept bringing up bible versus and calling us all sinners more so than if he had used some sort of logical or factual based argument. Most people in the MMJ movement seem pretty intelligent and would not seem to mind a good debate about the pro's and cons, but when anyone tried to bring up a an argument about one thing or another the guy would start in  on how everyone needed to get jesus and that they were going to hell and needed to repent and all that sort of stuff.

 

I do have some video but need to figure out how to make it post.

[Lisa O'Brien]

I have to admit - the Bible is not my strong suit, but I don't remember anything in there about smoking weed being a sin. Did he happen to have a book or line # ??????

[Sweater Cows!]

In this photo we can see that there is actually a majority of the people that 30's or older. The age when we start feeling our age so to speak. I used to think my mom was a whining baby always saying how this or that hurt, but now I understand she wasn't full of it. Some would  say that this movement is about a bunch of 'stoners' wanting to get high, but i think if that was the case that we would see a majority of the crowd being college kids and high schoolers, not the  age people that we spot here. Sure there are a few young people around. but this is not the same crowd you find at a rave or going out to the clubs on the weekend.

[Sweater Cows!]

Here's my handsome man at the rally

[AQUAMAN]

Looks like a very cross-aged crowd of young and old alike, and nice to hear they all were on cue for intelligent and polite debate. Handsome man indeed, good protector too. Thanks Dagny.

[Sweater Cows!]

At first I thought you were gonna say the pooch looks cross-legged. LOLOLOL, that doesn't even exist, lol bow legged yes, cross legged NO. ROFL at my quick reading eyes.