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The REAL Dirt on ‘Pot Cards’

Waste $200 + to get your name & more on a subpoena-able government ‘I do pot list’!

The latest assault upon California Medical Marijuana patients has presented itself in the farcically veiled Trojan Hours disguise of the now infamous OPTIONAL California Department of Health Services Medical Marijuana ‘Identification Card’. This joint County-of-residence/State program includes needless retention of Name, Medical info, etc. ‘for future unspecified purposes’.*  Proposition 215 was specifically authored as NO DATABASE. By constitutional law (and as ~re-affirmed by the Official CA State Legislative Analyst SB420 report), this program is OPTIONAL .

Specifically:

• Patients do not need to ever turn their names, etc. in to any government ‘registry’ for their constitutional Prop. 215 rights. Period. By definition, fundamentally, such is not ‘medicine’. Any politicians, ‘pot clubs’, marijuana seller’s attorneys, etc. that shamelessly attempt to cover their own butts by needless mandate otherwise are merely just stating what they really think of patients as human beings.
• Before a patient allows their name to be put on ANY government, etc. list, they would be well advised to demand what that entity will do when subpoenaed. Is there even a policy? In writing? Suggest skipping all the usual ‘we’ll fight it’ crap and cut to the reality : Jail or Turn Over The List .
• The patient’s part of whatever medical cannabis procurement transaction (‘black market’, pot club, legitimate dispensary, ‘manufacture’[growing], etc.) IS legal under Prop 215. 
• Law enforcement is REQUIRED (as per the groundbreaking ASA/CHP lawsuit) to honor the patient’s actual physician’s medical marijuana recommendation the same as any State/County registry card. Indeed, apparently many in law enforcement increasingly actually prefer the physician’s statement as they have become aware of the major date fraud incompetence issue surrounding the State Cards : Absurdly, the dates on these official state confirmatory cards normatively bear no relationship to the actual dates the physician issued – the ONLY valid dates – often misleading users by up to 11 months (for a mere 1 year card ! ).**  Tragically, Law Enforcement has no choice but eat this garbage as required by the same flawed law. The Courts however appear to have NO interest is such trash : ~universally they require the accuracy that is ONLY afforded by a physician’s statement.
• As a generic marker of general acceptance issues, a recent unpublished in-house telephone survey of ALL the Medical Cannabis Dispensaries and ‘pot clubs’ in California (with ~60+% sample response) revealed just how surprisingly irrelevant all cards have become:
  
  

San Francisco ‘proper’ :        70+ % = ‘Letter Only’

Greater Bay Area :                 90+ % = ‘Letter Only’

Remainder of Northern CA : 100 %  = ‘Letter Only’

The entire I-80 corridor :       100 %  = ‘Letter Only’

ALL of Southern CA             100 %  = ‘Letter Only’

* To its credit, the San Francisco no longer keeps a list of names NOW - only after the vociferous patient objections initiated from this practice (see ‘potdoc.com’). Pathetically however, essentially all other counties are tellingly keeping unnecessary lists.

** Marin County the admirable exception to date error.