Readers may remember that in Pass the stealth dutchies: Melin disses former allies in pediatric cannabis Facebook group, Bluestem reported that the Hibbing DFLer warned members of a closed pediatric cannabis Facebook group against those medical cannabis advocates who might favor full-scale legalization of medical marijuana.
Never mind that the carryover bill she herself introduced on May 2, 2013, was written by that oh-so-scary group. As PIM Weekly Report noted in Reefer-less madness: Dibble wins modest rehabilitation of a bad MMJ bill:
This is wholly fatuous on at least a couple of levels. First, the salient connections between MCC and MPP and their respective agendas have been a secret to exactly no one, least of all Carly Melin. Second, if MPP wrote the Senate bill, then it also wrote Melin's own original House bill.
In rebuking her one-time allies at this late date, Melin followed a long line of reformed Reds and kidnapping victims: She has fallen in love with her captors in House leadership. They, in turn, have fallen in love with their captors in the governor's office, who started it all by falling in love with their captors in the greater Minnesota cop lobby. Who knew Stockholm Syndrome could be so complicated?
Melin's conversion was but one cog in the House-led push to save Gov. Mark Dayton from himself on the suddenly flash-point issue of medical cannabis. . . .
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And a report on KAAL-TV last night underscores just how silly and self-serving) Melin's scare tactics were in addressing parents desperate for medicine to save their sick children. Steven Tellier reports in Colorado Nonprofit Interested in Selling Medical Marijuana in Minnesota:
Gov. Mark Dayton will likely sign Minnesota's medical marijuana bill in the coming days. But before it even becomes law, a Colorado nonprofit is already expressing interest in selling one particular kind of pot in Minnesota.
Realm of Caring is one of the first groups to express interest in Minnesota's currently nonexistent medical marijuana market. The group said it's currently exploring the possibility of manufacturing and distributing one specific strain of marijuana in Minnesota, but that nothing is set in stone. . . .
The Colorado nonprofit is known for producing Charlotte's Web, a strain of marijuana with little THC, and lots of anecdotal evidence that it solves child epilepsy. The mother of the girl the pill is named after testified before Minnesota lawmakers earlier this month. The group currently operates only in Colorado and California. It's interested in several other states, including Minnesota. But you can't send medical marijuana across state lines, so the nonprofit would need a licensed manufacturer on the ground in Minnesota.
"The infrastructure needs to be put in place, the testing equipment, those sorts of things. So a lot of logistics and details to be able to do it right would need to be taken care of," Jackson said. . . .
Is this one of the manufacturers that helped Melin write the compromise? If so, Melin should publicly apologize to the Marijuana Policy Project and Senator Scott Dibble, when she implied was duped by MPP.
Why so? In From Demon Weed to God’s Plant, How five pot-farming brothers are leading Colorado’s evangelicals toward embracing marijuana legalization, Salon reported that Jesse Stanley supports legalizing recreational marijuana.
On Faith had more on Jesse Stanley's mission in Marijuana Ministry:
. . . At a time when a majority of Americans favor legalization and pot is shaking off its 1960s-era hippie-dippy image to emerge into the mainstream of American life, Jesse encourages evangelicals to stop demonizing a drug that he says is far safer than alcohol, a substance that increasing numbers of his Christian friends consume.
For the Stanleys, their work isn’t about Cheech & Chong. It’s about What Would Jesus Do?
“Satan didn’t create this plant,” says Jesse. “Satan doesn’t create anything. This is God’s plant. And God is moving in the hearts of men and women and children around the world about this plant in ways that I never would’ve imagined five years ago.” . . .
Jesse Stanley is a Legalizer. And while he supports both medical and recreational uses, he does not revel in stoner culture and routinely declines invitations to 4/20 events held in Colorado every April where people gather and smoke pot in public, in violation of state law.
“It’s a question of stewardship,” says Jesse. “It is a plant that needs to be respected, not abused. And if used with discernment, it can help people a lot.”
On Planet Melin, Minnesotans better not trust the Marijuana Policy Project, because it advocates legalizing various uses of cannabis. We should, however, trust Realm of Caring, the nonprofit established by a for-profit medical marijuana company started by a band of brothers, one of whom supports legalizing responsible recreational use.
And after having had a hand in writing the bill that limits the number of sick Minnesotans who can be helped by medical cannabis, they want in. According to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune:
Now, the nonprofit Realm of Caring Foundation manages the patients, prescriptions, research and advocacy for Indispensary, the brothers’ for-profit marijuana operation.
Nice duopoly, if you can get it.
Are there other strains of medical cannabis available outside of this brand name product that might help children living with seizures? Do you think?
Even before the Stanley Brothers and friends started getting so much earned media, CNN reported in Medical marijuana helps stem 6-year-old's seizures:
Six-year-old Jayden David violently shakes on the ground, his blue eyes vacant and then filled with searing pain. The video shows an unvarnished look at a seizure, something Jayden once experienced routinely.
Not anymore, says his father, thanks to medical marijuana.
Before he started taking a liquid, nonpsychoactive form of marijuana, Jayden couldn't walk, eat solid food or take a bath.
He has Dravet's syndrome, a rare and catastrophic form of childhood epilepsy. It has triggered seizures so frequent that 44 times he has been rushed to the hospital in an ambulance, his distraught father by his side. . . .
Harborside Health Center, a medical marijuana clinic in Oakland, California, helped create the original tincture Jayden took. The center still analyzes and tests the marijuana before David administers it to his son. Harborside says it helps a number of child patients, including Jayden, whose parents legally obtain the marijuana.
In fact, other growers have developed a number of strains of low-THC, high-CBD cannabis--and Minnesota's new law isn't restricted to just low-THC strains. And given that (if Hardball's report, The new faces of marijuana, is to be trusted), "An additional list exists of more than 4,000 Colorado residents who are waiting for the oil," we wonder if Realm of Care can keep up with anticipated demand in Minnesota (a requirement of the new law). Such questions wouldn't have arisen had Melin stuck with the original bill, which privileged policy over politics by creating more dispensaries.
But what other manufacturers have Jesus and Carly Melin on their side?
Image: Screenshot of Melin's anti-MPP screed. On Planet Melin, it's okay to have pro-recreational legalizer manufacturers who might get half of a duopoly help write bills in 2014, but not those evil pro-recreational legalizer lobbyists who help you out in 2013. Okay then.
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