Marijuana Bills Advance in Kansas January 26, 2016

AP) – A Kansas Senate committee isn’t ready to endorse a narrow medical marijuana proposal.
The Corrections and Juvenile Justice Committee voted Tuesday to forward a medical marijuana bill to the full Senate without a recommendation on whether it should pass. The measure would allow therapeutic hemp oil to be used in treating seizures.
Republicans who control the panel expect the measure to be sent to another committee that handles health issues.
The medical marijuana proposal had been tied to another proposal to lessen criminal penalties for first- and second-time marijuana possession. The House passed a single bill covering both subjects last year.
The Senate corrections committee split the measures into two bills. It approved the one lowering penalties for marijuana possession and sent it to the full Senate for debate.

Push for Medical Marijuana Vote in Missouri in 2016 October 8, 2015

A 60-year old registered nurse from Missouri says the state ought to permit medical marijuana because she has seen it work.

Delores Halbin told KMBC TV Thursday she supports the plan to put a medical marijuana law on the 20116 Missouri ballot.

“It’s not a narcotic, it’s not an opiate…and it works,”Halbin said.

She says her husband suffers from a severe case of glaucoma.

Regular treatments did not help him much according to his wife.

When he started smoking marijuana, his wife said, the effect were almost immediate.

“He did not have to lay face down into a pillow,” said Halbin.

She says he was able to get up take walks and “have a life”.

Today advocates of medical marijuana filed petitions to put the issue to a statewide vote in 2016.

The group, New Approach Missouri, will have to gather the signatures of about 160,00 registered Missouri voters from across the state. The petitions need to be turned in by early May of 2016.

The plan is supported by the group, Show-Me Cannibus.

Earlier the group backed another proposal calling for complete legalization of the drug in Missouri.

Amber Iris Langston, a Show- me Cannibus member, says that remains a goal, but the group saw polling numbers indicating more support for a medical marijuana plan.

“We didn’t want to wait another year to help those patients,” she said

Missouri House Pushing Medical Marijuana Measure March 31, 2015

(AP) – Republican support for a medical marijuana law is moving a proposal forward to the full Missouri House.
A House panel Tuesday unanimously approved a Republican-sponsored measure that would allow some Missouri residents with specific illnesses to obtain and use marijuana legally.
Committee Chairman Republican Rep. Caleb Jones, of Columbia, says there are safeguards in the bill to prevent abuse. He says the House should decide on the issue.
Advocates for broader legalization of marijuana say the measure might be too restrictive. They cited concerns with tight limits on the amount patients can obtain, the exclusion of some illnesses and the lack of a home growing allowance for patients.
House Speaker John Diehl says there’s a chance the measure could move forward, but he wants to be sure it’s fully vetted.

Kansas Committee Considers Medical Marijuana January 21, 2015

(AP) – The Senate’s Public Health and Welfare Committee is to hear testimony this week from supporters and opponents of medical marijuana.

Two Democratic lawmakers have filed bills that would allow some patients with chronic illnesses to legally obtain and use marijuana. Similar measures have been filed since 2009, but none has progressed past informational hearings where no action can be taken, such as the ones this week.

Supporters of the Senate measure will address the panel on Wednesday, while opponents get their turn on Thursday.

About 50 people attended a rally last week at the Statehouse supporting the bill.

Currently 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana, while recreational marijuana use is legal in four states – Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska.

Obama Says Feds Won’t Chase Pot In States Where It’s Legal December 16, 2012

(AP)–President Barack Obama says he won’t go after pot users in Colorado and Washington, two states that just legalized the drug for recreational use. But advocates argue the president said the same thing about medical marijuana – and yet U.S. attorneys continue to force the closure of dispensaries across the U.S.

Welcome to the confusing and often conflicting policy on pot in the U.S., where medical marijuana is legal in many states, but it is increasingly difficult to grow, distribute or sell it. And at the federal level, at least officially, it is still an illegal drug everywhere.

Obama’s statement Friday provided little clarity in a world where marijuana is inching ever so carefully toward legitimacy.

That conflict is perhaps the greatest in California, where the state’s four U.S. Attorneys criminally prosecuted large growers and launched a coordinated crackdown on the state’s medical marijuana industry last year by threatening landlords with property forfeiture actions. Hundreds of pot shops went out of business.

Steve DeAngelo, executive director of an Oakland, Calif., dispensary that claims to be the nation’s largest, called for a federal policy that treats recreational and medical uses of the drug equally.

“If we’re going to recognize the rights of recreational users, then we should certainly protect the rights of medical cannabis patients who legally access the medicine their doctors have recommended,” he said.

The government is planning to soon release policies for dealing with marijuana in Colorado and Washington, where federal law still prohibits pot, as elsewhere in the country.