I can only hope and pray that people like Trump's new Attorney General Jeff Sessions are aware of stories like this. If they're not............I'm quite scared as to where marijuana accessibility is going to go in the next four years.
I saw this last night and the story does raise a lot of issues.
First the national climate for people dependent on medical marijuana is not optimal. There are the constraints of Federal law and each state has its own laws. Travel and moving with one's medication is very complicated.
Adults can easily assess the risks of any move--either temporary or permanent--and make a decision knowing they could easily be without marijuana in a state where the laws are different.
It is not clear why the parents chose to move from Rhode Island, where their child was medically safe, to New York, where their child would not have access to marijuana which was indispensable for his health. From the employment content available in the essay it seems that the move may have been for professional reasons, as the mother and writer was on faculty at Brown.
I am all for legalization of marijuana as well as improving access for people who can benefit medically from marijuana. Given the uncertainty of its overall status legally would it not be a better idea for families whose children depend on it to stay put?
Update:
The mother was a writer at Brown and an adjunct professor which means her salary was probably not very high. She moved to Colombia University to take a job as writer in residence. Probably not a great salary there either.
[Edited on 1/7/2017 by Swifty]
While very restrictive in comparison to other medicinal states, New York has in place a legal framework to allow for medicinal marijuana. Just this week there has been talk within Albany circles to add "Chronic Pain" to the absurdly short list of ailments which qualify an individual to receive a prescription.
Also bantered about is the possibility of adding five additional licenses to the first five granted in year one. Thereby making a total of ten entities who can grow, sell, etc. to patients in New York.
Lastly, Nurse Practitioners and Physician Assistants can now prescribe medical marijuana to patients in New York.
What supposedly is driving these changes after year one in New York is the fact that the medicinal marijuana business in New York simply hasn't taken off as expected.
The five license holders not only paid out of their asses for the license from the State, but they've invested a great deal of money with very few people actually purchasing cannabis from a dispensary.
It's so abundant nearly everywhere in the state that many people simply continue to use the Black Market to obtain it.
Fine by us on the Best Coast, as long as the rest of the country stays primitive, buy from us. And then go to jail because you voted for a Nazi! DUH!
Fine by us on the Best Coast, as long as the rest of the country stays primitive, buy from us. And then go to jail because you voted for a Nazi! DUH!
New York is so corrupt we'll probably never improve legal access to cannabis....Even the changes proposed this week are baby steps compared with many states that border New York....Vermont and Massachusetts are perfect examples. Both are leaps and bounds ahead on the cannabis issue.
New York fancies itself a progressive state, but on the cannabis issue it is far from it.
Since individual states are doing what they want in regards to marijuana, people who need it should go there. Massachusetts passed legislation recently (during this past election), and Colorado has an entire business model going on. Why should people have to relocate? Because 'shoulds' don't work in this world, you have to look at what the situation is, and make decisions accordingly that will enable you to obtain what you want and need.
