Bills be worked on now

My name is Chet R Biggerstaff and I am a patient that had his life literally saved by cannabis. I have been a cannabis patient since 1998 and started the Three Rivers Collective in the Tri-Cities WA in 2000 to help other patients not make the same mistakes I did learning my way in the cannabis world. We have waited far too long for someone to start the process of correcting the quagmire we are currently in with no access or protection.
To this effect we have contacted Senator Jerome Delvin (Richland) about the issues we face. He has signed on to develop 2 bills for the patients of WA State. One is for patient protections and the other for non-profit collectives (run by standard non-profit rules not a new set). These 2 bills will be pre-filled this December for the next session. Next month I will be attending a meeting with the Senator and his staff to write the initial draft of these 2 bills. As this process isnâ??t always very visible to the general public we have started a Meetup.com group for public discussion of the bills. The address is TRC Medical Cannabis bill (Richland, WA) - Meetup.com

Please come by and join the discussion as we need all the input we can get so that we can craft something that will work for all involved (with preference to the patients). The time of not doing anything is over. We must take action to help ourselves as our officials (most) have proven beyond a doubt that they are not there to help us with this. Peace

If our officials refuse to work with us on this again we will be forced to start a citizen initiative and by pass them altogether. This is their last chance to be proactive and to be involved in the development of these bills for patients. Please get involved and make your voice heard. Peace

Yes!

Excellent. Far, far past time. :thumbsup:

We will be holding the 1st meeting for discussion of the bills and the public forum we are setting up on June 6th at 4Pm. the location has yet to be decided and will be posted at the discussion site at TRC Medical Cannabis bill (Richland, WA) - Meetup.com by June 1st. If your local or want to be involved please feel free to come on out.

and please tell everyone you know as this will affect all of us. This isnt just talk, we have been working with the senator for over 6 months now and the list of supporters keeps growing. We need everyone to get involved in this as it is far past time we took control back from our "leaders" and do the right thing for patients state wide. Peace

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Originally Posted by drumbum420

and please tell everyone you know as this will affect all of us. This isnt just talk, we have been working with the senator for over 6 months now and the list of supporters keeps growing. We need everyone to get involved in this as it is far past time we took control back from our "leaders" and do the right thing for patients state wide. Peace

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We are already joining your discussion page!! :rasta::rasta:

you mean OUR site :)

Senator Jerome Delvin, is he not the one who is pushing to have a state registry of all medical marijuana patients so it is easier for dea to find us all? Is this the bill you are working on with him?

That part needs to come out of there, I do not know anyone that would sign up for that BS.

nothing personal,

oldmrgreen

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Originally Posted by oldmrgreen

Senator Jerome Delvin, is he not the one who is pushing to have a state registry of all medical marijuana patients so it is easier for dea to find us all? Is this the bill you are working on with him?

That part needs to come out of there, I do not know anyone that would sign up for that BS.

nothing personal,

oldmrgreen

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I have to agree that a registry system could/would be abused. After all, the government has a track record to where they abuse data bases as far as selling your information to third parties at a minimum, and giving information to LEO at the maximum. :thumbsup:

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Originally Posted by oldmrgreen

Senator Jerome Delvin, is he not the one who is pushing to have a state registry of all medical marijuana patients so it is easier for dea to find us all? Is this the bill you are working on with him?

That part needs to come out of there, I do not know anyone that would sign up for that BS.

nothing personal,

oldmrgreen

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Had my California card for 2 years and never had a problem with their registry, from what I heard the VA couldn't even get info from them. Sure makes it easier when travelling around state. Glad to see someone moving on this, sad Hemp Fest never took the initiative, guess it is all about the money.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by oldmrgreen

Senator Jerome Delvin, is he not the one who is pushing to have a state registry of all medical marijuana patients so it is easier for dea to find us all? Is this the bill you are working on with him?

That part needs to come out of there, I do not know anyone that would sign up for that BS.

nothing personal,

oldmrgreen

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I must agree with no registry system...we don't need one as long as our servants read the law without animus involved and read it in favor of patients rights to meds instead of LEO interests only..

The king county prosecutor's memo to all leo in king county is how it should be done state wide..."PRESUMPTION" which is written into our law is controlling.

He even noted that if a patient is without a valid documentation, their medical condition written down in a chart note is acceptable...

The spirit of the law is what I am talking about here..if a patient has a prescription, do they get arrested and hauled to jail and mangled through the system? Nope they are not, the presumption is?? "VALID".

So the whole crux now becomes, are our state employees using federal laws to trump state laws? If so, we are being denied honest services from our servants..which is a federal crime in of it self...

Which is a serious issue here in wa...more serious on the federal crimes list than marijuana crimes. And holds a longer prison sentence guideline...

This is why we don't need a registry system.

We need an honest servants registry system. imho

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Originally Posted by hiamps

Had my California card for 2 years and never had a problem with their registry, from what I heard the VA couldn't even get info from them. Sure makes it easier when travelling around state. Glad to see someone moving on this, sad Hemp Fest never took the initiative, guess it is all about the money.

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If you was a target, you would have had huge issues being registered. And cali. has a 8 oz. max. when traveling...if you got more, ya go to jail and have to defend yourself just as here in wa. with an aff. def. to criminal charges..

Cali. is different than wa...as far as the police state control over our lives..this is very apparent with how they treat medical patients here...

We are not like cali. with the legislature can't change an initiative without a vote from the citizens...

Here, they can change it after 2 yrs have passed...they have ultimate say so after 2 yrs...which means???

They can change the rules here...1 yr it's all good, 2 yrs later, it changes completely...

So really sit back and really realize what you may be asking for...:thumbsup:

This is good that your putting down your ideas but your doing it in the wrong place. You need to goto the discussion site and put it there or the senator and staff will not see it. This is why we set the site up so the public could get involved with the process. I have a lot to say on registries but I wont do it here as ill be doing the same thing across sites. Please take the time to come by and put your ideas down so we can have something to go on. i know the senator is leaning tword a registry and if people dont put down they dont want this en mass then it wont be viewed as a big problem. The addy is............

TRC Medical Cannabis bill (Richland, WA) - Meetup.com

Peace

Just an update. after many dates came and went we finally have a confirmed date, time, and location. we have RSVP's rolling in as we speak (senator Delvin, Senator Kol-Wells, a lawyer from the house health and safety committee, Dr gregory T Carter (my doc), Douglas Haitt, myself, and Steve Sarich have already RSVP'ed and more to come). This is the inital meeting for all parties to meet eachother and to draft an outline of what we think will be workable (read-able to be passed next year in session) in the current climate. I sincerly hope that our officials will start being proactive rather than reactive but I dont have a lot of hope for that. What i expect to happen is we will meet at several meetings and nothing will happen as they are reading the law from LE's point of view rather than the spirt of the law and from a patients point of view. We have made it VERY clear that if they do not work with us this time around that we will then roll out our citizen initative next spring and take them totally out of the loop. Feel free to join the discussion (disappointing that very few have which shows a severe lack of action on the part of patients as this is for all of us not just our group) at the above addy. peace :)

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Originally Posted by oldmrgreen

Senator Jerome Delvin, is he not the one who is pushing to have a state registry of all medical marijuana patients so it is easier for dea to find us all? Is this the bill you are working on with him?

That part needs to come out of there, I do not know anyone that would sign up for that BS.

nothing personal,

oldmrgreen

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I like that turn of the phrase to find us all because that is just what LEO would use it for. And probably try to link up forum posters with real persons and use selective targeting as pay back for calling them what they are. Persecutors and abusers of personal medical freedom. :cool:

Actually, the first thing we need is a declared moratorium on arresting medical patients under the guises and ruses being used by the nets to go after patients and dispensaries. Take that to them. :twocents:

Patients will always be arrested in WA.

So long as the law allows the law enforcement officials to be the ones deciding whether or not a patient is found to be in compliance. With no repercussions when their findings were faulty.

So long as a rule of 15 plants averaging 10 square feet each (according to the department of health, that's the average sized marijuana plant in WA and what's required to meet a 60 day supply), to presume what one needs to have a 60 day supply is over ruling the law which says you may have a 60 day supply, regardless of what that is in plant count or dried weight. As long as that system remains in place, patients will be arrested and/or having their property seized.


What we need is a law that says so long as you provide a recommendation from your doctor and your ID to an officer, they may not arrest you for any marijuana related offense covered by 69.51A.

That they may take a copy of your recommendation to determine if it is valid or not. If its fake, they can arrest you for that and whatever marijuana crime you committed.

If they have probable cause that you are doing something outside of RCW 69.51A (selling to non patients for example), that they may arrest you, but that if that arrest is not substantiated by overcoming all reasonable doubt that you were a legal patient (acting legally under the law), that the patient be granted the legal authority to reclaim $1,000,000 per "faulty arrest" (where a faulty arrest is defined as arresting a patient for not being compliant with RCW 69.51A when there was reasonable doubt presented that the patient actually was).


You do that and cops will never arrest a legit patient again. And any legit patient that is arrested will be quite happy when they cash their checks. If there is evidence which would cause a reasonable person to doubt the patient should be arrested, that patient should be able to sue that law enforcement agency or county or city or whoever for millions of dollars. That's the only way they will stop.


Without real teeth in law, patients will just be arrested and then not charged.

The problem is you're not going to be able to change the law in any meaningful way. The legislature just doesn't have the guts to do it. And in Washington the voters can't do it by initiative because the legislature will just change it in 2 years. The first law that needs to be changed is the law that allows the legislature to ever modify an initiative. Till thats done everything is just temporary.

It should also be brought to their attention that the Drug Nets are operating without oversight and really need to be audited to assure all their money is being used properly and legally. Some of these guys live like a Donnie Brasco, except they target mmj patients and dispensaries rather then the real drug king pins. :jointsmile:

The best plan is Doug Hiatts plan. Legalize it. But it needs to be done by the legislature. And I just don't see the legislature having enough guts to ever do that.