This is a subject matter that I have wanted to blog about for quite some time now. Jury Nullification consists of a jury rendering a not-guilty plea even though there is evidence to show the defendant is guilty of the crime. A jury engaged in jury nullification is not disobeying or breaking any law, or doing anything morally incorrect, they are simply saying they do not wish to apply the law as it is written/interpreted in that specific instance.

Most folks don't really understand what a Jurys job truly is. A jury's true job is not to enforce law or judge another, it is a check in the checks and balances built into the judicial system by our forefathers to ensure that our government is not taking advantage of its citizens. Again, the primary focus of a jury is to ensure that the government is not overstepping their bounds when it comes to their attempts to prosecute a citizen of our great country for something considered law. A more detailed explaination of Jury Nullifcation can be found on Wikipedia, I highly recommend you educate your self outside of wikipedia as well regarding this an all subject matters.

The point I wanted to make with regards to jury nullification and medicinal cannabis is rather simple. While we have a medical cannabis law here in Montana it is vague and contains areas of debate. This "grayness" of the act as some like to refer to it creates confusion for all parties involved. Therefore it is assumed that all parties will stumble and make mistakes during the initial period of growth. When a caregiver stumbles the police are ready and waiting, occassionally those arrests are not valid or have legitimate reasons. In these situations it is up to the jury to determine the validity of the reasons and if applicable find the defendant not-guilty even though there is overwhelming evidence against them. The simple fact is the law is vague and can be interpreted to either side of the line. The simple act of listening and applying compasion on the part of a jury is truly all it takes to discern if the defendant is worthy of the charges being brough upon them.

Know your rights, question authority and ALWAYS think for yourself, grapevine perception isn't all it is cracked up to be!

Google "cannabis jury nullification".

I must say the last few days I have heard some serious HORROR stories from patients looking for, rather, in dire need of, a quality caregiver. It appears that more and more patients are finding that having their buddy or pre-MMMP card black market dealer as their caregiver is a HUGE mistake and in the end only hurts the patient.

For instance I had a fellow tell me his current caregiver told him he was allowed six plants in each stage of growth. I was absolutely taken back and damn near fell out of my chair. I couldn't believe that a caregiver would put that patient in harms way by having 12 plants too many. I told him the law states six plants total and makes no designation as to what stage of growth the plants are in. He almost lost it, he was an elderly gentleman that had property, a pension, family responsibilities, etc... and he was unknowingly committing a SERIOUS felony. He has obviously since remedy the situation and destroyed the overage plants but the simple fact that the person this patient put his trust into would do such a thing is just horrendous and appalling.

Another story I was told by another patient pertained to the number of bags the caregiver was allowed to dispense to the patient at a time. This patient was told by their caregiver that they were only allowed to dispense one (1) bag with up to one (1) ounce of cannabis in it. He was not allowed by the Montana Medical Marijuana Act to dispense mutliple bags and thus he could only dispense one strain at a time to the patient.

I just sat there in shock and awe shaking my head in disbelief. I pulled the law up and walked through it section by section with this patient and afterwards asked him, did you see anywhere in there that says anything at all about "bags". He was convinced he was being dupped and it was saddening because this persons c/g was his 25 year friend. Just plain sad.

Folks, caregivers are a dime a dozen but the Montana Medical Marijuana Act has safeguards built into it to ensure your the one that is the center of this specific universe - the Change Request Form.

If you have a caregiver that is decietful, shady, inconsistent, price flucuating, or one of the many other bs tactics being deployed by the black market caregivers, give us a call. We take pride in being the best in Montana and we'll prove it to you time and time again just a dedicated caregiver should for each of their deserving patients.

Don't have a lot of time as of late so the blog entries are in slow motion, but I was reading this and wanted to pass it along.

Check it out!

http://www.dphhs.mt.gov/medicalmarijuana/mmpregistryinformation.pdf

We bagged and tagged the harvested cannabis and will let it sit in the brown paper bags another 24 hours or so and then the curing process can begin. We took a little different approach to the trimming this go round by taking almost EVERYTHING off when we harvested and thus only have to do a little touch-up trimming once they are just about finished curing.

We have deliveries in Missoula today, so it will be a long day!

Wishes to everyone for a wonderful Thursday, and an even better Friday!

Just finished a three, that's right 3 hour maintenance session in the operation with the wife. We drained all the reservoirs, cleaned them, their lids and the submersible pumps and reassembled. We filled w/fresh water and set the nutrients to the appropriate level, added some stress zyme and finally, set the ph to 5.8. Right now the ph down is in demand, out of the well our ph is 7.4. After we add appropriate nutes, we're around 6.3-6.5. Right now we are still running our Botanicare nutrients with molassas & Advanced Nutrients Hammerhead PK 9/18 in the flower units. The stress zyme is a cheaper alternative to the hygrozyme and other botanical solutions, albeit the stress zyme isn't cheap at Petsmart, but well worth what it does cost.

We recently started using the black mixing pan from Lowes, or rather, "High Density Polyethylene Large Black Mixing Tub", to hold all our reservoirs and they are working out great!! They keep any dripping water contained for easy clean up, the dripping can also be overcome by using contractor bags, but we prefer to capture the little that did leak using these tubs. Before we started using these, I hated walking in and the floor had a puddle. Water and all that light equates to algae, something we don't want or need in our op. All in all I am pretty happy with the set up these reservoirs & tubs. We planned things out from the get go and one of the primary things we spent a lot of time thinking about is WATER. The real, and only in our opinion, downside to hydro. There are many stories online, and I have heard a few from other patients/caregivrs, telling the tale of moldy carpet, ruined subfloors and structural framing from leaking hydro set ups. It is well worth it to plan it out and think it through before taking on a hydroponics grow!

Curing meds look good, still quite wet after 24 hours in the sealed mason jars. We let them air out for 20 minutes this evening and resealed them. The JTR is SOOOOO stinky, and in such a good way :)

Hygrozyme & Hammerhead PK 9/18, From Local Hydro Shop or online. Planet Natural is my local hydro shop, they ROCK!

Stress Zyme, From Petsmart, in aquarium department. 

High Density Polyethylene Large Black Mixing Tub from Lowes, < $12 bucks now, they were $13.xx, price mark down - Yipee (I bough two (2) today, so I know).

I was talking with a Montana licensed physician today regarding medical cannabis and had said the word "trichome", we all know what trichomes are and that they are not only relevant to cannabis as they exist through out botany. Well when I pronounced it, he was taken back and didn't quite understand what I had said and thought I had mispronounced it. I had told him that for the longest time I pronounced it tri-chome and sometimes even tri-chrome, adding the erroneous 'r', but a while back had discovered on reference.com that I was mispronouncing it and that it was actually pronounced trik-ohm. The doctor went to the website and listened to it being annunciated online and was pleasantly surprised and appreciative for the knowledge.

An interesting point about anything cannabis related, if you don't educate yourself, you'll end up knowing nothing or nothing but grapevine perception.

Check it out yourself.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trichome

Load the web page from the link above, then click the gray speaker icon next to the word as shown in the image below. It will highlight blue when you mouse over/click it.
*Make sure your speakers are turned on*

Hi all, hope everyone is doing well this evening.

The mrs and I just finished straining a batch of butter, so far things are looking nice. We added 4 ounces of button buds from JTR and Blueberry to a little over one pound of butter. We had simmered it for 8 hours last night and let it slow cool today in the crock pot then lightly reheated it so it was fluid enough to pour again for the straining. Boy oh boy, no matter how many times you've done this, the aweful smell of the cooking cannabis & butter is just horrendous, thank goodness we have a well ventilated room to do it in, PEEEWWWWW~!

We got the recipe from a forum friend over at Smokapelli.com, a Montana Marijuana Patient & Caregiver Only Forum, and was told it is a rather potent one and to inform all patients that want to try it to be cautious and go slow. The recommended dosage was a one (1) teaspoon for a 160 pound person, so adjust accordingly for your body weight.

It can take a little while to kick in for some folks, so truly do take it slow and give it time. A lot of patients I talk to state they usually get impatient waiting for it to kick in and end up smoking/vaping instead. With edibles, patients is a virtue :) Eat a cookie, brownie, muffin and wait, and don't worry if you wait 30-45 minutes, give it some time before munching another. Remember, each of us are different and the way that THC effects us each is different, so it may take your fellow patient 20 minutes to feel the effects and it could take you 45 to feel them.

Relax, enjoy and be patient.

Another word of wisdom if you're not familiar with edibles, plan out your time before munching down on anything with cannabis in it. Consuming cannabis via edibles can be much, much more intense then smoking or vaping you'll need to take this into account and make sure you don't have to be anywhere for 4-5 hours in the least, preferably the rest of the day/night Safety first!!

Welp, we intend to take pictures of the process the next time we do it so that we can post directions on our website/blog. Shouldn't be too long before we get back to it again.

Have a good night!

PS - Billings deliveries tomorrow!

Facebook was a private tool when it was first created, used in colleges and high schools and eventually the corporate world and finally the entire WWW. In our experiences the best use for this social networking tool from our cannabis caregiver service perspetive is for storing and sharing links to pertinent content amongst our friends and their friends and the friends we have we don't even know and have never even spoke too once; we just add them all when they request it.

We all understand that sharing knowledge is a truly generous gift we can bestow upon each other and with out it we can never achieve or exceed our goals. Facebook definitely delivers the vehicle to share that knowledge in a larger scale with no expense outside of an workstation & a internet connection.

With that said, we recommend that you take a peak if you haven't already and if you're already on FB, check out our FB page:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/pages/Ennis-MT/Hope-Caregivers-of-Montana/134463537711?ref=ts