I am curious about price and quality of medical marijuana in the states where it is available. How does it compare to the street?
way things are going in central CA its not going to matter. Cities here have been slowly but surely shutting them down.
A friend of mine uses this service.
(NSFW - Marijuana information)
Here in California, the price is pretty much the same. In my opinion the quality of the medical stuff has been more consistent. Not more potent, just consistent from batch to batch. I actually can’t remember the last time I smoked anything that didn’t come from a medical marijuana dispensary, and I don’t even have a prescription.
And that’s the problem with the dispensary system. Nothing personal, gladtobeblazed, but a lot of critics of medical marijuana think that it’ll make recreational use easier. And, well, they’re probably right. Now, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that in itself - I have no problem with adulting getting intoxicated on whichever drug they choose, so long as they don’t drive afterwards. But a lot of people do, and our laws reflect that belief. The fact that medical marijuana dispensaries don’t always seem serious about respecting those laws makes it harder for them to become established - which is a damn shame, because there are many genuinely sick people who need the services they provide.
I agree completely. All of the growers I used to know started growing for dispensaries and all the dealers I knew have quit the game. It’s just too easy to make friends with somebody who has a cannabis card (whether they actually have a medical condition or not).
If patients providing medicine to others to whom it was not prescribed for the purposes of recreation is enough to shut down the dispensaries, why aren’t pharmacies all over California being shut down? Prescription pill popping is a serious issue, arguably more so than marijuana, both in terms of widespread use and health effects.
That is an excellent point. However, there is also the issue of people getting scripts who aren’t really sick. I have heard that something like 2/3rds of the dispensary’s patients don’t really need it. That said, I think it is completely asinine that it is illegal in the first place, but I think being disingenuous about it hurts the cause. OTOH, it does help collect data on the social or health impact of widespread cannabis use. Have there been any changes in the DUI stats? Are they relatable to legal consumption of ganja? For that matter has use increased?
I don’t know about the percentage, but I hear tell it’s pretty easy to get some vicodin or percosets indefinitely by complaining to the right doctor about “headaches” or “back problems”. But really, who is going to argue with a doctor besides another doctor? If a doctor says you need it, you need it, right? People are just up in arms about pot because it’s been 100% illegal until recently. They don’t realize that the same things have been going on for other prescription medicines for ages.
I’m hoping that – any day now, 
– the feds and other states are going to say, “Pot has been de facto legal in California for awhile now and all hell hasn’t broken loose. Maybe we should rethink this whole prohibition thing”.
Maybe this is straying into GD, but is there any reason besides misinformation that this drug is illegal in the first place? I know laws don’t require valid reasons to exist, but does any modern government agency even attempt to defend prohibition? How does the DEA pep up their agents before a large drug bust? Accuse all users and dealers of being “scum”?
Drugs are bad, mkay? They must be, because only criminals do drugs. They’re criminals because they do illegal drugs. The drugs have to be illegal, cause they’re bad. We know they’re bad, because only criminals do them.
In Oregon you either grow it yourself if you have a card, or have a non-card holding grower. Often times the grower takes part of the harvest (and thus is able to smoke it) in return for providing pot to the patient.
Are the dispensaries sole-purpose establishments? Because that would be an important distinction. The pharmacy that is dispensing pain pills is also dispensing life-saving antibiotics, heart medicine, and everything else. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there have been at least a few cases of pharmacies with extreme levels of prescription drug abuse associated with them that have closed or ceased to carry those drugs. Also, there is the whole issue of going with the medical marijuana card vs. a prescription. I don’t really understand the rationale for that. If a state wants to make something available to meet a medical need, why not use the existing prescription structure to do that? (I am sure there is some federal law or maybe physician professional association reason that isn’t done, I just don’t know what it is.) But only selling pain pills only in the case of a valid prescription provides the pharmacies with a defense not available to the dispensaries.