Medicinal benefits
The Food and Drug Administration recently approved a cannabis-derived medicinal product formulated specifically to treat seizures associated with two rare forms of epilepsy. This means that clinicians can now write a prescription for the product, and patients or their caregivers will obtain it at a pharmacy, including the pharmacies in our town. The product will not be accessible at retail cannabis dispensaries. We have black hearts in this town that persistently spoke out against any type of cannabis activity, including patient-centered retail sales. Worse, we have elected officials and election year candidates who acknowledged a belief in the medicinal efficacy of cannabis but would not support medicinal-only activity. State law allows for local jurisdictions to limit cannabis activity to medicinal access only, as many cities and counties have done. Oklahoma voters just approved medicinal cannabis, much to the chagrin of hard-line conservatives, including the governor of the state. Now there are 30 states with medicinal cannabis regulations. So-called “recreational” cannabis does not have to be permitted just because voters of a state approve it. Local jurisdictions can still ban commercial “recreational” activity. What kind of person would tell you they believe your cannabis is medicine, just buy it somewhere else, not in Benicia? I speak as a motivated senior patient that replaced opioids with cannabis for pain management. I am “on it” every day of my life.
The city of Walnut Creek recently approved retail cannabis for medicinal access only, on a unanimous vote of their city council. The voices of thousands of seniors, mainly from the Rossmoor senior community, motivated the flip from total ban. The seniors of Walnut Creek demanded access to an alternative to opioids for pain management and sleep disorders, and they will soon be able to acquire cannabis locally for that role. It will be interesting to see how local voices against regulated cannabis respond to the cannabis excise tax measure that will be on our ballot in November. It will also be interesting to see if any of them will write the “argument against” approving the tax, or rebuttal to the “argument for.” My guess is they will all clam up, because, after all, it’s for the money.
Stan Golovich,
Benicia
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Stan I do believe you are confused. We will have two retail cannabis stores in Benicia. We are 28,000 residents. Vallejo has eleven and they are close to 140,000 residents . So as you see we are on their target maybe a couple stores less comparing population. Vallejo has a 10% excise tax on retail and Benicia if voters approve will be between 3/6% excise tax. The so called gold mine will not be there as I have said many times at the retail sales side. Benicia will; also have manufacturing, delivery etc in the BIP. How many is to be determined. Yes Stan Benicia is in the game and your continual rant that we are not is about worn out. It will not be about the money. It will be about sound thinking and what is good for this fine city. My prediction is that cities that go all in will not have an improved image but a deteriorating one or just as they are today. Look around Stan.
Early in the cannabis skirmishes, a local elected official dismissed medicinal cannabis as unproven. Another equated support for medicinal cannabis as the selling of his soul and putting the soul of Benicia at risk by supporting retail medicinal activity. This was preceded by an acknowledgment that cannabis is medicine and that he has “friends who smoke dope”.
Candidate “Too Fast” joined “Soul Man” in acknowledgment of cannabis as medicine, claimed to have voted for Proposition 64 but does not want it legal in Benicia. Commercial cannabis activity was unwelcome at the Economic Development Board, and met tepid interest at the Planning Commission.
This certification by the FDA is a landmark event that legislators on both sides of the aisle regard as a precursor to removing cannabis from Schedule 1 listing. The product will mainly benefit thousands of children. Early in the lessons, an image of a young girl embracing a cannabis plant like it was a new puppy was linked here. Even after that, the black hearts would not budge to accommodate medicinal sales only, citing the “slippery slope” to adult-use sales activity in a town that organizes and celebrates a number of recreational alcohol events, downtown and elsewhere, typically with resultant over-consumption by some attendees.
This product is formulated from full spectrum cannabis, not industrial hemp. The company that developed it is also on track to have another product approved for the treatment of MS and cancer. A minority of folks in our town are stubbornly clinging to the illegality of cannabis from the DEA perspective to sustain their archaic views, while a majority of others have accepted, or like myself have benefited from, the medicinal efficacy of cannabis, now certified as medicine by the FDA.
Commercial cannabis is now part of our economic development plan. Incumbents and candidates that have failed to evolve with the national cultural shift on cannabis, not to mention the acceptance of local commercial activity by a convincing majority in the November 2016 Prop. 64 vote in our charming small town, are doomed to failure.
Lastly, the new rules are out for comment. One notable change is that no jurisdiction may prohibit delivery of cannabis into their county, city, or town. Some jurisdictions actually tried to prohibit delivery services from using their roadways to bring that crap into their town. If you are conflicted about regulated cannabis in Benicia, just be like Boehner.
Vive la France!
Stan, I just wish you would read past the first couple lines in an FDA press release. The drug has zero THC and cannot cause intoxication in any form. A lot of drugs start their lives with a plant (willow bark is the easiest one to remember). Here’s a link to the whole story…https://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/PressAnnouncements/ucm611046.htm
Regarding recreational use…I can barely breathe without adding smoke or other things into my lungs. Now, I’d go for some brownies but then I’d have to take more insulin. I don’t care, though, if you use or even if you abuse…not my business. Government is too overreaching, IMO, to dictate personal choices except when they infringe on rights of other folks. I’m not a prude, unlike everyone who says things like, “I don’t want to do that so you cannot do that.”
I do believe you are also confused. It is not so much anti medical/recreation cannabis as it is placement of retail outlets. The planning commission wanted one in the lower arsenal. We will have two and for the size of town that is enough. The big push will be the BIP for distribution, manufacturing, test etc. No one will object to that. It will be in our city. The important thing about placement is it will be very easy to buy retail cannabis in Benicia. End of the story. It will be in Benicia at the proper level.
And while I am lamenting…don’t expect the town to embrace any change. I recall the effort one guy made just to expand his gasoline dispensing business to (after paying hundreds of thousands of dollars) for an EIR and was turned down at the last moment (here I’m speculating) because one of the board members owned a gas station. He was so peed off that he rented a truck to say, “Don’t vote, it only encourages them.” as a billboard that he parked on an empty lot he owned. Or more recently when the town turned down an applicant for a donut shop….
When I moved here in 1977, I thought the town could become another Sausalito or Carmel…instead we are like Dixon and will remain so until the 60’s “agin’ everything’ crowd dies off.
And we continue to re-hash (pun intended) a settled matter.
Pot is legal. Stores will be opened in Benicia. Why the letter?
Answer: having pot legal and available is not enough. We must all accept and be incorporated into the brainwashed “Pot is a Miracle” plant thinking. Stan apparently can’t accept the fact that he has won. We must now all think like him.