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‘Legalize Virginia’ to Elevate the Discussion Around Marijuana Reform

Jesse Scaccia | September 10, 2018

Topics: ACLU, Board of Pharmacy, CBD, Marijuana, marijuana dispensaries, medical marijuana, Medicinal, Norfolk, O'Connor Brewing Company, Virginia marijuana laws, Virginia NORML

Update: Legalize Virginia has been rescheduled to next week, starting Sept. 18.

Last week the Board of Pharmacy Ad Hoc Committee met to determine which companies will be the first to be able to open medical cannabis dispensaries in Virginia.

Yes, they met behind closed doors. And no, the current law is not enough. But that doesn’t change the fact that what is happening right now is a huge, huge step for marijuana in Virginia.

Within the next year, you will be able to bring a form signed by your doctor to a regulated business in the Commonwealth, and there, they will give you an oil derived from a marijuana plant grown on site. It’s just the beginning for those very lucky five business license holders, who you can expect to fiercely try to attract as many patient customers through their doors as possible.

When you picture the folks waiting in line at those dispensaries, I urge you to think of the hundreds of thousands of people in Virginia with genuine illnesses and conditions, who genuinely will find solace and healing from medical marijuana.

Think of my friend Creed Leffler, who has Cerebral Palsy. He calls marijuana the “miracle plant” for the way it helps his muscles relax. “There is no such thing as recreational marijuana,” Leffler said. “It’s all medicinal.”

Creed Leffler

The list of the ailments that can be treated with marijuana is longer than your arm. Check out this chart. Chronic pain, epilepsy, PTSD, ALS, cancer, diabetes — the list goes on and on. The stories are heartbreaking.

Melanie Seifert Davis’s daughter Maddie has been fighting metastatic brain cancer since she was five. “Because of the use of multiple cannabis products, Madison lives a life free of pain, seizures or any limiting deficits, and full of the joys of childhood all children deserve,” said Davis, an ER nurse. “My degree in Biology and my years in the trenches of modern medicine have enabled me to make treatment decisions for my family that rely on evidence-based best practices and emerging research findings, including the multitude of medical benefits that can be derived from marijuana.”

Melanie Seifert Davis’ with her daughter Maddie

I expect marijuana law reform in Virginia to move relatively quickly from here. Expect the businesses granted licenses to be a part of the army of voices banging the drum for even more cannabis law reform in the Commonwealth. The organization I am a part of, Virginia NORML, will be pushing for a decriminalization bill this upcoming General Assembly.

There is hope. There is a plan. And there’s also going to be a party.

Virginia NORML is working with Norfolk’s O’Connor Brewing Company to push the conversation forward with Legalize Virginia Festival, a week-long series of workshops, panels, events, and activities all diving into a different aspect of reform.

Last Monday, the group held “Marijuana Saved My Life: Cannabis as Medicine in Virginia,” a forum on the new medical cannabis law, who it will help, and how to talk to your doctor about it, with Virginia NORML Executive Director Jenn Michelle Pedini leading the panel. Lisa Bohn, a Purple Heart veteran who uses cannabis to help her cope with PTSD, along with Davis and Leffler, will also speak on the panel. On Tuesday, Sept. 18, the festival will hold the “Equity and Expungement: Talking Marijuana and Race in Virginia” panel, which will look at the disparity in arrest rates among white Virginians and Virginians of color, the expungement of records of those with marijuana offenses, and more. Norfolk NAACP President Joe Dillard, Bill Farrar, director of public policy and communications for ACLU of Virginia, and expungement and restoration of rights attorney Wanda Cooper will serve on the panel. Thursday’s discussion will dive into what cities in Virginia can do about cannabis law reform.

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All forums run from 7 to 8 pm at O’Connor Brewing Company and followed by more informal workshops. Tonight, there will be a workshop on growing hops and hemp, on Tuesday will be a workshop on entering the cannabis industry, and on Thursday there will be a workshop on how to be a kick-ass marijuana activist.

Friday, Sept. 21 is the festival atmosphere. O’Connor is releasing a special beer they’re brewing with hemp seeds, called “YES, NORFOLK CAN(yon),” a pale ale modeled after their Norfolk Canyon brew. There will be a ton of pop-ups as part of NOMARAMA’s Munchie Market, a killer list of independent vendors, DJs, a pop-up yoga class, and a retro arcade. The festival runs from 3 pm to midnight.

The fact that O’Connor Brewing Co., a major name in Virginia craft beer, is hosting this series of events is, in-and-of-itself, a testament to the new day for marijuana in Virginia.

This issue is out of the shadows. Soon, we’ll be walking into legal dispensaries in the light of day. And what a beautiful day that will be.

You can check out the entire schedule for Legalize Virginia here.

The State Of Medicinal Marijuana In Virginia

Ash Griffith | April 20, 2018

Topics: CBD, decriminalization, medical marijuana, Medicinal, Ralph Northam, THC, Virginia NORML

Ever since Gov. Ralph Northam signed HB 1251 in February, there has been a lot of contained excitement and talk in the Commonwealth. This has come from many different legislative viewpoints and policy perspectives. HB 1251 is officially a game changer, which now allows doctors to recommend cannabidiol (CBD) and tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THC-A) oils to patients with a diagnosed condition or disease that could benefit from them. Yes, that’s right, oil, not the plant itself, and just recommend, not exactly decriminalized.

Image by Medical Jane

Even though the feedback surrounding the legislation has been mostly positive, especially since the bill was approved with a startlingly unanimous 40-0 vote, there has still been a lot of misconceptions and confusion. Despite having a Democratic governor in the office, it’s still important to know the rules to play the game, more so when it comes to marijuana legislation.

Tetrahydrocannabinolic Acid (THC)

Executive Director of Virginia NORML, Jenn Michelle Pedini, is no stranger to the game, and is very quick to help correct the misconceptions people have been making since the house bill was introduced and passed. One of the largest misconceptions is that cannabis oil is now legal, which is inaccurate. Rather what was passed and expanded on was something known as an affirmative defense.

“It doesn’t make something legal,” said Pedini. “But provides a defense that is acceptable for certain possessions.” Under this model, law enforcement cannot pursue arrests for medicinal usage, but they can still arrest a person should they chose to. Does it necessarily preempt arrest? No, but should it? Absolutely. It doesn’t necessarily preempt that.”

While conversationally everyone throws around the phrase “legalized”, which isn’t completely inaccurate in that it relays certain information, it is still not correct in regards to what the actual legalities are. Out of the 30 states where medical cannabis laws are in effect, medical cannabis is only recommended, but never prescribed which is why the affirmative defense clause is in motion so that if a patient is caught transporting medicine across state lines from a reciprocity state they are less likely (but not guaranteed, interestingly) to be arrested for what is effectively drug trafficking.

So if that’s the case, how close are we to taxing and adult regulation in Virginia?

“Marijuana number one is schedule one, but even if it were on a different schedule, there are still specific restrictions on marijuana itself from the DEA,” said Pedini, when asked how marijuana scheduling works at a federal level. “Removing [it] from the controlled substances act would be helpful and allow for further testing, but the type of testing that we’re talking about is testing that would allow for the pharmaceuticalization.”

This brings up another aspect of the medicinal marijuana conversation. For anyone who has paid attention to the news in the last year, they will be firmly aware of the opioid crisis that has permeated throughout the US. It is has become so entrenched that it is even affecting how doctors are prescribing medication to their patients. Yet one of the strongest arguments in place right now for the legalization of medical marijuana is that it has the potential to mitigate some of the crisis surrounding opioid addiction.

Pedini doesn’t disagree with this defense, who said the data and research in place to support this hypothesis doesn’t lie. If anything it poses a larger question of why this has not been considered sooner.  

One of the most famous compounds in marijuana, THC, halts the rapid increase of opiate receptors. Doing so allows patients who need to use opiates to use the same amount consistently, instead of steadily wanting more and more when they don’t need it. Similarly to when you’ve just had surgery and get that first morphine drip and you feel fantastic, and then four hours later you want a little more.

“It’s because of these simple biological mechanisms are why people ‘substitute’ cannabis for opiates. There was this sort of trope for a while of ‘well they’re just substituting one drug for the other,’ and ‘they just want to get high’,” said Pedini. She also talked about the perception of “moral failure” and how the idea of “swapping one out for the other” has had a detrimental impact on considering marijuana as an acceptable alternative to opioids.

In the US, there are nine states in total that tax and regulate the adult use of marijuana such as Colorado and Vermont. 

Having a democratic governor such as Ralph Northam has made a positive difference in the fight for medical marijuana, and bodes well for the future of regulated adult use in Virginia; there are still many legislative hurdles ahead. Among those things is successfully implementing state-wide medical regulation and a shift in federal policy at a national level.

Pedini was also clear about this. “Virginia’s policymakers will not pass any law that remains in conflict with federal law. “You can safely assume that they’re going to require a shift in federal policy first in order to tax and regulate marijuana for adult use in the Commonwealth,” she said. When is this likely to happen? According to the experts like Pedini, probably not until the next presidential election.

Virginia continues to move forward with tiny, more progressive steps, such as electing two Democratic governors in a row in favor of marijuana reform. Movements such as passing a bill which expands the affirmative defense for possession from only intractable epilepsy to any diagnosed condition make it clearer that a future that states such as Colorado and Vermont experience may not be so far away after all.

Image By Vivienne Lee

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