Must have been the Molly because I woke up with a hell of a hangover.
"Mass. drops flawed marijuana applicants; Half of dispensaries accused of hiding profits or misleading claim" by Kay Lazar and Shelley Murphy | Globe Staff June 27, 2014
Nearly half the 20 applicants given initial approval for medical marijuana dispensaries have been eliminated after a second review, state health officials announced Friday — including both in Boston and all three run by former Massachusetts congressman William Delahunt.
Reasons for rejection ranged from questionable corporate structures that appeared to divert revenues from the non-profit dispensaries to for-profit affiliates; misrepresenting local support; and omitting one investor’s drug conviction.
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Only 11 dispensaries will be given provisional certificates allowing them to set up operations and undergo inspections, Karen van Unen, executive director of the state’s medical marijuana program, said during a news conference.
She said some dispensaries could open by November, but most wouldn’t until February; state officials originally envisioned most would open this summer. She said 97 percent of the state’s population will live within 30 miles of a dispensary.
The contentious, high-stakes selection process was delayed for months after the media and losing applicants raised concerns about misrepresentations, financial arrangements, and conflicts of interest involving several of the companies approved in January for provisional dispensary licenses, as well as the backgrounds of some of their principals.
The state then launched a more thorough examination of the companies, which revealed the assorted problems.
Those rejected are:
I suppose you can see for yourself who was excluded from the circle.
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State officials have acknowledged they hadn’t checked the veracity of applicants’ claims before the January announcement, despite spending more than $600,000 on two contractors who were hired to scour the backgrounds and evaluate their proposals. Regulators said they have since dug extensively into company executives’ backgrounds, finances, and business plans.
The level of RANK ROT CORRUPTION at ALL LEVELS of GOVERNMENT is STUNNING right down to the roach. So what were those guys doing while receiving $600,000 dollars, and the elite political cla$$ running this country and doling out dough just don't know what to do with all the tax and other ill-gotten loot, do they?
If I can do a flashback here a bit, what they are saying is the state never bothered to clean the pot and get rid of the seeds and stems, right?
That would explain all the mixed me$$ages, contradictions, and holes in the joint I call a newspaper (my pathetic and embarra$$ing addiction).
My name is.... ooooooh, almost got me! Good thing I'm not, well, you know (blog editor frowns).
At Friday’s news conference, van Unen said the fact that the latest review found so many problems should not shake the public’s confidence in the process.
She's got it all wrong; there is no more confidence to shake for this elite cadre of $coundrels running this state. The true question is can they get it back, and the sad reality is no. Too late. Been here way too long.
“I say it’s fabulous,” she said. “I am delighted to be at this point.”
The state is happy implementation is being delayed yet again.
The selection process has been shrouded in secrecy, with state health officials refusing to release the documents showing in detail how they evaluated and scored each of the 100 applicants that vied for the first batch of licenses awarded by the state. Those documents were finally released Friday afternoon.
Hoping that they will burn up over the Slow Saturday, Sunday Special weekend news cycle!
But don't worry, my confidence in them has not been shaken.
Several lawsuits have been filed, and state lawmakers launched an investigation into the fairness of the licensing process, which was authorized by voters in a 2012 referendum. Massachusetts is one of 22 states that has legalized medical use of marijuana....
They have turned me. I was once for it, voted in favor of it, in fact, but now to hell with this mess. To hell with state involvement, to hell with the tax revenue, to hell with business and jobs, to hell with suffering people in need of medicine, let's just repeal this stupid law and make marijuana flat-out illegal. That will clear out the $moke, so to speak.
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Related: Hub officials laud dispensary action
How many times I have to say pass?
"Mass. cracking down on medical marijuana caregivers" by Shelley Murphy and Kay Lazar | Globe Staff June 27, 2014
Massachusetts health officials cracked down this week on a booming cottage industry of self-described caregivers who have been selling marijuana to meet the demand created by the state’s 18-month-old medical marijuana law.
In this case, I gue$$ capitali$m is no good. Funny how I was always told supply-and-demand in school when the truth is control of the currency. That never came up much in $hul.
The state sent letters to more than 1,300 patients, plus 17 caregivers, warning them that state regulations prohibit any caregiver from selling marijuana to more than one patient, according to David Kibbe, a spokesman for the state Department of Public Health.
Wait until you see what it said.
The caregivers, many of whom advertise on the Internet, are the only legal avenue for people to buy marijuana until storefront dispensaries start to open — probably November at the earliest — and the regulators’ action angered people who rely on the drug to relieve symptoms.
Yeah, well, push back that opening date and take a toke so the anger subsides (blog editor frowns; is that the answer to my rage here? Where can I go to get it? Why am I just a stupid old man drinking a coffee and reading the lottery ticket -- always a lo$er -- known as a Globe?).
“I have been put in a terrible situation,” said David Tamarin, a 41-year-old North Andover lawyer who has been certified by a doctor to take medical marijuana for chronic back pain and anxiety.
Tamarin said he was outraged by the letter advising him that he had to find another caregiver, one who was not serving any other patients.
“The legalization of medical marijuana should make it easier, not more difficult, for a patient to get his medicine,” he said.
What has he been smoking here in Massachusetts, the pharmaceutical capital of AmeriKa?
Tamarin’s caregiver, William Downing, a longtime activist for legalizing marijuana, owns Reading-based Yankee Care Givers, which he estimated delivers cannabis products to 1,000 patients. He said he received a letter warning him to “cease and desist” operating as a caregiver to more than one patient.
That sounds VERY THREATENING and INTIMIDATING coming from a state that loves us all so much, want's to protect us and keep us all healthy and such.
Many of Downing’s patients also received letters from Karen van Unen , executive director of the health department’s medical marijuana program, saying, “Until dispensaries become operational, you may choose a new personal caregiver, or determine that you no longer require the services of a personal caregiver at this time.”
Wow, HOW COLD!!
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Scott Murphy, a 31-year-old Iraq veteran who uses marijuana to ease the pain of his degenerative arthritis, wrote a letter to state health officials after learning of the crackdown, saying he believed they were misinterpreting the medical marijuana law.
(Blog editor turns head to side and says to himself "As if vets didn't have enough problems with the VA."
The Globe is like pot; it's also a depressant because for some reason I find myself dejected more and more and earlier and earlier reading their pages these days. The double-line of balk ink on the notepad between read and unread is creeping north faster than ISIS on the Iraq-Syrian border.)
“They so easily say you can just find another caregiver or not use one at all,” said Murphy, president of Veterans for Safe Access and Compassionate Care, a group that advocates for veterans’ health issues. “It does not seem like a patient-centered approach. It is not that easy to grow your own, and that takes three or four months. This is not fair.”
Actually, if you think the state is your Partner (pun intended), it turns out it is the in$urer- and pharmaceutical conglomerate-centered approach.
Downing said during a telephone interview that he will immediately stop selling marijuana, but he is asking patients to join a lawsuit that he is contemplating against the state that will challenge its claim that he is breaking the law.
Well, at lea$t $ome $moke will be blown the way of the lawyers as sick people continue to suffer for who knows how much longer?
“The one-patient-per-caregiver regulation is illegal. . . . It’s causing great harm,” said Downing, adding that qualifying patients currently have limited access to medical marijuana because the state has failed to license any dispensaries since voters approved marijuana for medicinal use in November 2012.
Maybe Obama can do a waiver thing or something.
The licensing process is behind schedule. Dispensaries were expected to open this summer, but the state didn’t award provisional certificates to companies until Friday, and it will take months for them to get set up, undergo inspections, and grow their first crops.
Years, even.... hopefully.
“DPH is more concerned with their regulations than they are with the well-being of the citizens of Massachusetts,” Downing said....
You are just figuring that out, huh?
Maybe it's the PTSD, right?
Thank God Massachusetts isn't like rotten Arizona, huh?
Just wish they had been concerned with regulations regarding the meningitis cri$i$ that murdered at least 64 people.
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Also see: Obama's War on Medical Marijuana Comes to Massachusetts
Isn't much of a wake and bake, is it?
Not a good habit on which to get hooked, not if you care about your heart and lungs, anyway.
FDA extending comment period on e-cigarette rules
Drawing that out, too. I've quit anyway, so....
