Last week, the Utah Lt. Governor\u2019s Office released figures that show organizers behind a medical marijuana ballot measure have met the minimum number of signatures required to put the question before voters this November. Activists gathered 200,000 signatures in 27 of Utah\u2019s 29 state senate districts. This puts them over the necessary 26 districts and minimum of 113,000 signatures, and setting up for a showdown over the future of medical marijuana in Utah.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Utah Patients Coalition is excited to have achieved a huge first step in the fight to help patients gain access to the treatments and medicine they need,\u201d said DJ Schanz, director of the\u00a0Utah Patients Coalition<\/a>, speaking to<\/a> Salt Lake City\u2019s\u00a0Fox 13 News on April 20.<\/p>\n Christine Stenquist of Together for Responsible Use and Cannabis Education (TRUCE<\/a>), a Utah-based cannabis advocacy group, added: \u201cThe will of the people is being heard loud and clear. Today is an important milestone on the road to safe access to medicinal cannabis for Utah\u2019s patients. It\u2019s an emotional day for those who have fought for and hoped so desperately for relief from their suffering.\u201d<\/p>\n The Lt. Governor\u2019s Office has until May 15 to officially certify which ballot initiatives have made it over the bar. But it is looking good for the\u00a0Utah Medical Cannabis Act<\/a>.<\/p>\n The state bureaucracy, however, appears to be preparing for a far less ambitious measure that is now pending in the state house \u2014 which would allow for medical use of cannabidiol (CBD) extracts, but not herbaceous cannabis or preparations containing THC. An accompanying measure would legalize cultivation of industrial hemp \u2014 that is, cannabis with near-zero THC. The idea is that CBD products would be derived from the hemp.<\/p>\n On April 19, officials from Utah\u2019s\u00a0Department of Agriculture & Food<\/a>\u00a0met with business owners, farmers and patient advocates to receive their input before undertaking the drafting of regulations to oversee hemp and CBD production,\u00a0Deseret News reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n The legislation was launched in response to the fact that CBD products are already being sold at several retail outlets in the state in violation of the law. Especially forcing the issue was the case of Ed Hendershot, an antique dealer in Heber City who was\u00a0cited by state authorities<\/a>\u00a0last year for selling a Colorado-produced CBD preparation from his store.<\/p>\n \u201cIt has nothing to do with THC\u2026 It\u2019s hemp-grade CBD,\u201d said Sen. Evan Vickers, a Cedar City pharmacist and sponsor of the bill, speaking to the Salt Lake Tribune<\/a>, in words apparently intended to assuage the social conservatives who have mobilized against the ballot measure. \u201cTechnically it\u2019s illegal by the DEA. But they are not enforcing that.\u201d<\/p>\n In March, Utah\u2019s governor signed into law<\/a> another measure that allowed the use of herbaceous marijuana \u2014 but only by the terminally ill, defined as those expected to die within six months. However, the law stipulated that the cannabis could only be grown by a state contractor and sold through a state-run dispensary, which have yet to be approved.<\/p>\n These cautious measures would basically be rendered irrelevant by the ballot measure, if it passes in November. The proposed Medical Cannabis Act would make herbaceous marijuana available to all approved patients and eliminate the restrictions on THC. This would inherently allow for the use of either high-CBD herbaceous varieties or CBD products prepared from medical-grade cannabis rather than industrial hemp.<\/p>\n So, two very different models for a medical marijuana program seem to be racing toward the finish line in Utah. With the continued opposition of the\u00a0Utah Medical Association<\/a>\u00a0and Gov. Gary Herbert, the challenge has just begun for proponents of Medical Cannabis Act.<\/p>\n But Medical Cannabis Act advocates can take encouragement in a write-up in a local paper, the Ogden Standard Examiner,\u00a0which\u00a0fact-checked<\/a> the Utah Medical Association\u2019s arguments against the measure. The analysis finds some of the UMA\u2019s claims \u2014 for instance, that the Utah ballot proposal would allow \u201cfour times the amount of marijuana\u201d than in other states with such laws \u2014 to be \u201cpure rubbish.\u201d<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/strong> do you think medical marijuana in Utah will end up restricted or inclusive?<\/p>\n The post The Future of Medical Marijuana in Utah<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Last week, the Utah Lt. Governor\u2019s Office released figures that show organizers behind a medical marijuana ballot measure have met the minimum number of signatures required to put the question before voters this November. Activists gathered 200,000 signatures in 27 of Utah\u2019s 29 state senate districts. This puts them overContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,139,81,424,1133],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25669"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25669"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25669\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25670,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25669\/revisions\/25670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: The Future of Medical Marijuana in Utah<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"