On our MN House medical marijuana whip count page, we've posted the following update:
Bluestem Prairie's House medical marijuana people's whip count will not tally a whip count on the "compromise" clinical trial bill offered by the House in conjunction with law enforcement lobbyists.
This bill is not a companion bill to SF1641, and we're not going to pretend that it is. The Senate bill legalizes the use of medical marijuana for patients and sets up a tightly controlled system of alternative treatment centers to dispense medical cannabis to patients with cannabis cards. The legislation--originally offered by Tomassoni in the Senate,with a Melin sponsored companion in the House, originally dealt with K12 school technology.
The "compromise" allows for the creation of a few clinical trials, although the legality and feasibility these trials are suspect.
Should law enforcement lobbyists wish to create a whip count for the clinical studies bill they appear to have forced on Representative Melin, they are welcome to do so.
You can follow the Senate whip count here.
We hope that media reporting about the Senate and House bills will make clear that SF1641 and SF2470 are not companion bills and have no history together, not even a friendly happy hour at the Kelly Inn.
Another look at media coverage
A friend forwarded what looks to be the full Associated Press article we mentioned in Dazed and confused: medical cannabis bills definitely not media or Mary Kiffmeyer's bag.
Via the Star Tribune, the Associated Press's Mike Cronin reports under the headline A schism among medical marijuana advocates could threaten a Minnesota bill legalizing the drug.
Did Cronin write the headline, which suggests that divisions among medical marijuana advocates threatens a bill which none of them had seen before House leaders introduced it on Thursday? Or is that the genius of the Star Tribune itself at work?
The Senate bill which Melin and her law enforcement chums have amended was originally about K12 technology. One migh have just as well used the headline, "Sketchy tactics by medical cannabis opponents threaten medical marijuana bill."
As we have pointed out, the medical marijuana bill getting real hearings in the Senate isn't a legislative partner of this last minute compromise, whether or not the self-proclaimed bride is even legal in the state of Minnesota.
As Minnesotans for Compassionate Care lobbyist Heather Azzi points out in the Cronin article:
Hibbing Democrat Rep. Carly Melin did not inform several medical-marijuana supporters of her plan to announce new legislation leaving out the option of smoking marijuana on Thursday, activists said.
And, once they found out, Melin sequestered them in a room at the Capitol forbidding them to speak to other parents of children suffering from maladies that they believe marijuana could treat, said Heather Azzi, political director of Minnesotans for Compassionate Care. That nonprofit works to protect people who use marijuana for medicinal purposes from criminal prosecution.
Azzi has been a key ally of Melin's and Sen. Scott Dibble, DFL-Minneapolis, who sponsors that chamber's bill. She has assisted both in the drafting of several versions of medical-marijuana legislation. Azzi also has helped write medical-marijuana laws in several other states.
"My reaction was shock," Azzi said of Melin's actions. "She was my lead author and I trusted her."
Many people also cheered Melin for questioning law enforcment and its lobbyists' financial stake in continuing the prohibition of medical cannabis and street marijuana. We're sure those headlines will continue to circulate, we suspect that those who follow the issue won't be gulled.
In other reporting, Forum Communications reporter Don Davis writes in Minn. medical marijuana plan set to advance in House:
Keeping smoking out of state law allowed law enforcement to stay neutral on the issue and prosecutors to consider abandoning opposition.
Oh? Those alternative treatment centers weren't an issue? Were smoking the only problem law enforcement has with legalizing medical cannabis, the current iteration of the Dibble bill would be fine.
Davis does report:
But some advocates said the revised proposal is so filled with restrictions that patients would not be able to obtain the drug when and how they need it to alleviate symptoms.
"I'm not thrilled by these changes," Dibble said after introducing the measure to strip the smoking provision from his bill. "But they are protecting the main goals and values of the legislation, which is to get more people access to medical marijuana."
Dibble's bill still would allow patients to use a vaporizer to treat their ailments with marijuana. And it also would allow marijuana extracts in pill form and oils from the plant manufactured by alternative treatment center
The focus on smoking in reporting seems to muddle the fact that the active House and Senate bills aren't connected in fact or spirit.
Photo: Carly Melin, not so critical of law enforcement lobbyists now.
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