The preliminary 60-day supply limits for medical marijuana patients in Washington have been released:
Patients authorized to possess or grow marijuana for medical reasons under Washington law would be limited to 24 ounces of harvested marijuana, plus six mature plants and 18 immature plants, according to an official draft rule filed by the state Department of Health today.
The filing of the draft rule starts a rule-making process and a public-comment period. A hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 25 in Tumwater, Thurston County.
As I mentioned below, this is lower than earlier numbers proposed by the DOH, but it’s also higher than the 3 ounces that law enforcement considered “reasonable.” Why these numbers? Probably because they’re exactly the same as what Oregon allows.
Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the prime sponsor of the bill tasking the State Department of Health to set the limits, has released a statement:
We have a responsibility to stay true to the values of compassion and empathy that are at the basis of this law, which was passed by voters in 1998. While I appreciate the Department of Health’s efforts to address this complex issue, I am concerned that today’s proposed rule is more restrictive than what had been previously discussed and may be unclear regarding a physician’s role in making a recommendation for a patient’s use of medical marijuana. Since the rule is not yet final, I encourage all stakeholders to continue providing written input and participate in the upcoming public hearing on August 25 to ensure a full consideration of their concerns.
I’ve bought tickets to Everett AquaSox games online, and so I get their emails. They don’t really spam; otherwise, I’d unsubscribe from their list. This afternoon (Tuesday), I got an email titled “Please Join Dino Rossi for an Evening with the Everett AquaSox – July 7th”.
I thought that was a little odd. The text was:
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Friends:
Please join the Snohomish County finance committee for a night of great food and exciting AquaSox baseball at a special fundraiser to support Dino Rossi!
Monday July 7, 2008
Everett Memorial Stadium – 38th & Broadway, Everett
6:30PM
$100 per person or $200 per family (up to four)
Includes BBQ dinner and game ticket
RSVP to Lauren Lofstrom at lauren@dinorossi.com or (425) 498-2008
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And just a few minutes ago, I got an email from the real Everett AquaSox organization, addressed to “AquaSox Fans & Supporters” saying:
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Dear AquaSox Fans and Supporters:
We recently learned that our personal privacy policy was compromised in an attempt to solicit your support for a partisan political fundraiser.
In that regard, on behalf of our family ownership group, we would like to express our sincere apologies.
Although we did not authorize this communication nor were we aware of it in advance, we have justifiably received numerous complaints from you expressing your displeasure. We take full responsibility and again beg your pardon.
We take your personal privacy seriously. We will remain vigilant in protecting your email address from solicitors and vendors. We are taking immediate steps to ensure an incident like this never happens again.
We’d encourage you to contact General Manager Brian Sloan (brians@aquasox.com) or to contact us directly (petec@aquasox.com) if you’d like to discuss this in greater detail.
Again, we offer our deepest and most sincere apology.
We appreciate your continued support of the AquaSox. You are a valued fan and partner. We hope to see you at the ballpark this summer.
Sincerely,
Peter A. and Peter E. Carfagna
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Sorry! I was going to preface that comment with a note that is OT.
@1
Interesting. Not a very smart thing for a Rossi supporter to do.
@2
Not a problem. I’ll decree this as an official open thread… :)
The Rossi campaign got hold of all the season ticket holder’s email addresses? Was it clear that the email was from the Rossi campaign?
Thanks, Lee!
I knew Goldy would love this, and I just figured this was the best way to get the story out.
Steve @5
The email was purported to be from
The subject was “Please Join Dino Rossi for an Evening with the Everett AquaSox – July 7th”
The rest of the email is @1.
Legalize it, tax it, let offenders convicted of minor felonies out of jail, and stop wasting my tax dollars enforcing a stupid law.
Steve @5:
It was from “dino.rossi@dinorossi.com” (without the angle-brackets).
And it was not only season-ticket holders (which I am not) – it included people who had sonly bought tickets online.
@8
I tend to agree here about marijuana.
But on the otherhand…1.5 pounds is a 60 day supply?
No wonder the marijuana lobby is never taken seriously.
Me thinks that if they were trying to, “stay true to the values of compassion and empathy that are at the basis of this law” it wouldn’t have taken a decade to figure this out.
@10
You need a lot more of it when you make it into food, which people who are unable, or unwilling, to smoke it will often do.
@12
Thanks Lee,
You are completly right…
Of course I associated use of marijuana with the method I’m familiar with….(doh!)
24 oz is still a lot of weed, even if you cook it. And besides, that’s with six mature plants (bud on the leaf) and 18 soon too be budding plants (weed in the pipeline).
The problem here like the statistics false positives/false negatives tradeoff:
Set the number to high and you will get low level dealing (24oz at $300 an ounce would make for lucrative side gig for a certain blogger), set it too low and some folks with a pretty extreme, if justified, medical marijuana consumption are inconveinenced (it seems like by modifying the grow cycle/staggering crops, 18 plants with 24 oz in the bank should be enough to keep a steady supply of weed). Either problem with the setting the bar–low level dealing, inconvenienced patients–isn’t especially compelling to me without more evidence.
I vote for the no big deal reaction. Oh, and good on Washington for its weed laws.
@14
I just posted at Reload about this asking people in the medical marijuana community to look at what’s happened in Oregon in order to convince those on fence that the limits are too low.
OK, I don’t quite get it. What’s this 60 day supply and 24 ounces about? Is that 24 ounces of bud? Does that mean that over a period of 120 days a person can go through 48 ounces of bud?
Bump – in case anybody can answer my question @16.
@16
Basically, the legislature is saying that a person can have a sixty-day supply of the medicine in their possession at one time, and the DOH was tasked with establishing that number. What they came back with were the numbers that Oregon allows a patient to have at one time (although Oregon’s law does not actually specify that these limits are a “sixty-day supply”).
I know that there are patients out there who go through more than an ounce a week. As a recreational smoker, I have trouble comprehending that, but I also don’t have a terminal illness or are in need of serious pain management.
I’m discussing this with someone in Portland today and he’s giving me information about how the limits have worked in Oregon. I’ll hopefully be able to post up more soon.
One way to look at it – three plants under one 1000W metal halide light just might get you 18 ounces of bud (Hmm, now how would I know that?). Figure four crops per year max, or 72 oz. per year. More likely three crops per year, or 54 oz.
A late friend who had cancer along with a double organ transplant said he went through an ounce a week.