Regulator to consider authorizing pot use for 10 conditions
LANSING, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan regulator will consider an advisory board’s recommendation to add autism and other conditions to a list of allowable medical conditions for the use of marijuana.
The review panel Friday recommended including 10 conditions. They are obsessive compulsive disorder, arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, spinal cord injury, inflammatory bowel disease, ulcerative colitis, Parkinson’s, Tourette Syndrome, autism and chronic pain.
State Department of Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Director Shelly Edgerton has until July 10 to decide on nine of the recommendations. She has Aug. 6 to make a determination on another.
In 2015, a previous director rejected a recommendation to allow marijuana use for autism.
Marijuana is allowed to relieve the side effects of cancer and other conditions. Only post-traumatic stress disorder has been added since voters approved the law in 2008.
Pro-marijuana legalization group backs O’Neill for governor
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The leading advocacy group for legalized marijuana in Ohio has endorsed Democrat Bill O’Neill for governor.
The Ohio Cannabis Institute says it will promote the former Ohio Supreme Court justice among its significant following of registered voters before Tuesday’s primaries.
A spokesman for Sir Alan Mooney, the institute’s co-founder, said O’Neill is “the only one with a sound plan.”
The 70-year-old O’Neill, also a nurse, proposes legalizing and taxing recreational marijuana and using the proceeds to reopen shuttered state mental health facilities. His pro-legalization stance was a key motivation for O’Neill to enter the race. Medical marijuana is set to become legal in Ohio later this year.
O’Neill faces former consumer watchdog Richard Cordray, former U.S. Rep. Dennis Kucinich and state Sen. Joe Schiavoni for the Democratic nomination.
