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US: Medical Marijuana Is Free For The Needy In Berkeley California Paul Ebeling Live Trading News Wednesday 03 Sep 2014 Berkeley California is a city prides itself on its liberal education, values and policies, includint generous benefits for the needy, and we do not care attitude toward the use of Marijuana. The city helps the low income poor, now the Medical Marijuana will be Free. Beginning next August, Medical Marijuana dispensaries in city will be required to donate at least 2% of their Marijuana to low-income residents. The City Council unanimously approved the requirement this Summer with the hope of making the drug, which can sell for up to $400 oz at dispensaries, affordable for all of its residents. The Marijuana Charity Mandate brought on a backlash from critics who mocked it as a tie-dyed fantasy in a city already famous for liberal experiments and home garden veggies. This is the 1st law of this kind in the nation. Tom Bates, the Mayor of Berkeley, said the city is working to ensure equal access to a drug he emphasized is medicine, useful for treating cancer pain and other maladies. “There are some truly compassionate cases that need to have Medical Marijuana,” Mr. Bates said. “But it’s expensive. You hear stories about people dying [in pain] from cancer who do not have the money.” Mr. Bates, a former state legislator and football player at the University of California , Berkeley, has also championed home brewing and organic vegetables on school menus. As for Medical Marijuana, “it’s a novel ideal to have it available to the poor,” he said. “Berkeley is known for doing new things.” Nearly 20 yrs after California became the 1st state to legalize Medical Marijuana, Berkeley’s new law highlights Marijuana use as medicine: Whether it is sold illegally on the street or legally in a dispensary, access to the drug depends almost entirely on whether you can pay for it. Almost anyone with $40 to spare can find a doctor who will prescribe cannabis to treat insomnia or migraines or low appetite or something else. Yet, because Marijuana remains illegal under federal law, insurance companies refuse to cover such treatments, which can run to hundreds of dollars per ounce for high THC designer strains at local dispensaries. In the San Francisco Bay Area Marijuana is more socially accepted than cigarettes, an informal network already exists to help low-income people obtain Medical Marijuana. The ‘compassion system’ has been formalized in Berkeley, where city officials aim to provide low-income patients with a more reliable supply of Medical Marijuana. Only Berkeley residents are eligible for the free Marijuana, and they must show proof of income, less than $32,000 a year for individuals. Dispensaries, which are prohibited by California law from turning a profit, will also have to hire security guards to patrol nearby, in order to deter crime, and true to the Berkeley idiom, guards are not be allowed to carry guns. One of the city’s largest dispensaries, Berkeley Patients Group, already gives away Marijuana to patients who cannot pay. About 100 people, not all of them Berkeley residents, receive free Marijuana from Berkeley Patients Group, representing about 1% of the drug the facility dispenses. The new law will now compel the dispensary to give away about 2X as much. Despite the outside mocking, no one voiced much objection to the new law in the city of Berkeley. If the city’s mandate is another step toward legalization for recreational use, Berkeley’s Mayor says, then so much the better. “I think what we’re seeing now is an evolution towards full legalization,” he said. “It’s coming. It may not be in the next few years, but it’s coming.” Stay tuned… HeffX-LTN Paul Ebeling http://www.livetradingnews.com/medical-marijuana-is-free-for-the-needy-in-berkeley-california-68880.htm#.VAbd4GNWVr8
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