Judge Rules Against State on Marijuana Farms

March 22, 2018 | Posted in Marijuana | By

In February the Medical Marijuana Commission announced five companies authorized to grow marijuana in Arkansas. However, this week a judge said the process commissioners followed to pick those companies did not comply with the law.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writes,

In a 28-page decision, Judge Wendell Griffen issued a preliminary injunction barring the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission from issuing five cannabis-growing licenses. The injunction is a continuance of a temporary restraining order Griffen issued a week ago, just hours before the commission planned to formally award the licenses to five companies.

Wednesday’s order, however, went a step further, declaring the commission’s rankings of the 95 growing license applications “null and void.”

The Medical Marijuana Commission reviewed and ranked applications to grow marijuana; the five highest-ranked applicants received cultivation licenses.

In his decision, Judge Griffen wrote that the process defied due process and the rule of law.

You can read more about this story here.

Photo By Cannabis Training University (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

Arkansas A.G. Rejects Recreational Marijuana Proposal

March 15, 2018 | Posted in Marijuana | By

Last week Arkansas Attorney General Leslie Rutledge rejected yet another proposal to legalize recreational marijuana.

Like virtually every other recreational marijuana proposal, the measure would have let adults and companies grow, buy, sell, and use marijuana for any reason.

The A.G.’s office rejected it, saying that the proposal suffered from the same “fundamental shortcomings” that have caused the office to reject other recreational marijuana proposals.

Attorney General Rutledge rejected at least 17 similar measures last year. This is the third recreational marijuana proposal her office has rejected so far this year.

As we have said before, marijuana’s proponents aren’t content with “medical marijuana.” The endgame is — and always has been — full legalization.

You can read the A.G.’s entire opinion here.

Photo By Cannabis Training University (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

HHS Secretary: “No Such Thing as Medical Marijuana”

March 7, 2018 | Posted in Marijuana | By

Last week U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar told news media in Ohio,

“There really is no such thing as medical marijuana. . . . There is no FDA approved use of marijuana, a botanical plant. I just want to be very clear about that.”

The statement echoes comments the DEA Chief made in 2015 saying that marijuana is not medicine and that medical marijuana is “a joke.”

Marijuana’s potency varies from plant to plant, depending on growing conditions.

Marijuana “doses” cannot be measured the way pills or cough syrups can. Studies have concluded that attempts to dose of marijuana are highly unpredictable.

What if you opened a bottle of Aspirin to find no two pills were the same size or contained the same levels of active ingredients? That would be unimaginable, but it happens with so-called “medical” marijuana.

We have said it for years: Marijuana may be many things, but medicine simply is not one of them.