We have been busy preparing for our clinic tomorrow at our Patient Care & Education Center. The schedule is full, the medical records are ready, the patients are eager to take the first step to becoming a legal cannabis user.

We'll by running like crazy tomorrow but it is all worth it!

Check back Friday for an update on how the clinic went!

Until then :)

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.

There has been a lot of information going around about the need for legislative changes that would enforce some sort of oversight on caregivers. The quandary is who is best suited to be ones to do the overseeing??...???

Department of Agriculture wants to get involved for caregivers that have nursery size grow operations. They have a lot of leeway as well as they can inspect operations and things along those lines.  I just hope that they understand cannabis is not the same as hay or grain and thus their books may need some overhauling to become current. I also believe they just want to get their piece of the pie via their nursery licenses, everyone wants some green and everyone wants control.

DPHHS is the obvious choice I personally think that they should create a task force that could inspect ops and ensure they are up to code and operating in a safe fashion. As I understand it they already have task force units in the DPHHS that go around doing inspections and quality assurance in day cares. Anyone have the exact details on this please use the comments section to accurately enlighten us all.

The one that should ABSOLUTELY NOT be in charge of overseeing cannabis caregiver operations is the law enforcement agencies. They have screamed for dozens of years that cannabis has NO MEDICAL value, with that said they can NEVER be the ones to control and oversee medical cannabis, they themselves have said that medical and cannabis do not go together as cannabis has no medicinal values. That simple belief would completely hinder their ability to be unbiased and subjective to the operations they would be overseeing. I don't mean that in a manner that they would not overlook certain things, I mean in the fashion that they always be looking for the illegal aspects and not the aspects that truly need overseeing, such as the operations nutrients and pest control applications. The inspecting entity doesn't need to have a "I want to arrest you" attitude, they need to take the approach of helping ensure that the patients are getting quality medicine.

Do we see police officers going into Madison Foods in Ennis and arresting them because of outdated cheese or veggies that are really fuzzy and they're not supposed to be? Don't think so... betcha if we made the grocers have to pay a fine to the police stations that the LEO's would be in there writing tickets left and right. With that said, I ask you, is that want we need for medicinal cannabis???..??

The wheels are churning on how they can "control" cannabis, make sure you contact your local officials and be heard about how the best way to ensure caregivers are providing safe medicine, but not in a fashion that is meant to scare and intimidate.

Well it has been a while since i have had time to sit down and add entries to our blog. A lot of driving for patient deliveries and setting up our physician clinic in Ennis this coming Thursday.

In the time I've been preoccupied a lot as been brewing in the news about cannabis, specifically the report that Tom Berry out of Round Up is going to be introducing legislation in the upcoming session which would only result in more restrictions on patients access to their medicine. There is some talk of limiting a caregiver to 5 patients under the guise of some thought that if you really are caregiving you can only focus on 5 or less patients. Well my rebuttal to that would be that a good caregiver is EXTREMELY hard to find and if a good one is available and has 300 patients, then so be it. The patients DESERVE the right to quality medicine through their caregiver as per the Montana Medical Marijuana Act.

The simple fact is that the MMMA was written and voted for because of the many thousands of patients in Montana that have debilitating conditions that get relief when using cannabis to treat their conditions.

Tom doesn't seem to understand that the law was written in a fashion that it would be self-maintaining in regards to caregivers. Patients are the absolute center of the law, a patient can change their designated caregiver with a simple form that cost nothing to submit. This simple process is the safety that was built into the law to ensure that patients are taken seriously and kept in the forefront of the law and its implementation with out state. Caregivers that are worth their weight in salt understand that a patient is the center point and that the caregiver is simply an assest available to the patient to ensure their easy access to their medicine while following the letter of the law. A quality caregiver is VERY HARD TO FIND, darn near impossible in some areas of our great state, why in the world would we want to limit access to the quality caregivers and force patients into having to designate a subpar caregiver?? It doesn't make logical sense to me. We strive to be the absolute best caregivers in the state of Montana all the while understanding and focusing our efforts on our patients and nothing else. Would punishing the patients on our waiting list because we are a quality caregiver service and have more then 5 patients really be benefiting the patients???..??!!! I highly doubt so.

The simplest analogy I can come up with would be, do we restrict the number of patients the manufacturer of hydrocodone is allowed to dispense their medicine too?...??..??? ABSOLUTELY NOT, it is made available in many locations and very easy to obtain. Why would someone be so callus as to introduce changes to the law that would limit their access to their medicine? It doesn't make sense if they are in fact understanding of the fact that cannabis is a viable treatment for many hundreds, if not thousands of ailments common to humans. Tom Berry received a brief but poignant email from me today stating something similar to this blog posting, I hope he will really take the time to reconsider his view on medicinal cannabis and its accessibility to the patients that need it before introducing legislation that is simply anti-cannabis (like his previous bills he has attempted to and/or submitted).

I call to action all Montanans and citizens of our great country that believe law is what We the people say it is, period and not something to be construed and twisted by ideologic elected officials. Remember Tom, you're only where you are to be a puppet for the constituents that put you into that office so you had better go out and listen to them, they want accessible cannabis under the law. Do not make it more difficult for them to obtain from a reliable, dedicated caregiver.

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