CCRMG

Autumn 2004
O'Shaughnessy's
Journal of the California Cannabis Research Medical Group

About the MMPU

By Pebbles Trippet
This issue of O’Shaughnessy’s was produced with support and input from the Medical Marijuana Patients Union, a grassroots, locally-based statewide patients’ rights organization.
The MMPU grew from a coalition started in 2000 by myself, Maurice Meikle, Michelle Regala, Ken Hayes and 40 others to offset the disproportional emphasis being placed on the interests of cannabis buyers’ clubs at the expense of patients’ needs and interests.

Drivers heading into the Mendocino County town of Elk on Highway 1 are greeted with signs declaring the MMPU's commitment to civic responsibility.

The MMPU guides people through the process of obtaining cannabis under California law. We do medical and legal referrals, case assessments and patient and doctor defense. We help patients know their rights under Prop 215, help them keep their doctors’ paperwork in order, help them create caregiver-cultivator contracts (a private transaction between the two people).
By not engaging in distribution we feel we face virtually no risk under First Amendment protections of speech and association. Our intention is to help everyone avoid arrest and confiscation of medicine by making them legal. We help people know how they are protected and and under what standards and guidlines, and how they differ from court to court, county to county, and state to state.
We are on the move. With two patients’ rights measures codified into California law and several federal and state court ruling coming down on the side of justice for cannabis patients and doctors —Mower, Raich, Conant, WAMM and SB420— the big picture is encouraging.
Other MMPU activities incude:
• Promoting a change in marijuana’s classification from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3, consistent with synthetic THC (Marinol).
• Promoting model SB420 gardens —using “collective cooperative cultivation projects” wherever possible under higher plant numbers and a minimum threshold of 100 square-foot plant canopy. “Patients helping patients” is the theme.
• Encouraging people to become caregivers, growing for patients unable to grow for themselves. Even a single plant for a single patient would make a difference in the scheme of things and would provide some degree of protection for the grower.
• Promoting state and local ballot initiatives based on patients’ rights —the California model— nationwide.
• Publishing “Eye of the Storm,” MMPU’s newsletter, and developing our website www.mmpu.org
• Defending Prop 215 patients and doctors in court cases, publicizing and fund-raising.
• Holding annual 4/20 celebrations for peace and medical freedom.
• Holding conferences such as “Law & Medicine Working Together” to build bridges and coalitions with agreed upon standards and guidelines for properly implementing medical marijuana laws, thus honoring the will of the voters and the spirit of the times.
The Medical Marijuana Patients Union can be contacted at 707-964-YESS or info<AT>mmpu.org.

O'Shaughnessy's

O'Shaughnessy's is the journal of the CCRMG/SCC. Our primary goals are the same as the stated goals of any reputable scientific publication: to bring out findings that are accurate, duplicable, and useful to the community at large. But in order to do this, we have to pursue parallel goals such as removing the impediments to clinical research created by Prohibition, and educating our colleagues, co-workers and patients as we educate ourselves about the medical uses of cannabis.

SCC

The Society of Cannabis Clinicians (SCC) was formed in the Autumn of 2004 by the member physicians of CCRMG to aid in the promulgation of voluntary standards for clinicians engaged in the recommendation and approval of cannabis under California law (HSC §11362.5).

As the collaborative effort continues to move closer to issueing guidelines, this site serves as a public venue for airing and discussing these guidelines.

Visit the SCC Site for more information.