Front Page  »  

Marijuana and assisted suicide bills go to California governor

September 14, 2015

suicide 2A series of medical marijuana regulations passed both houses of the California Legislature just prior to a midnight deadline, and a bill that would legalize assisted suicide also moved on to the governor’s desk Friday.

Friday marked the final day of the state’s 2015 legislative session. A watered-down climate change bill also passed both houses, while a package of tobacco regulations did not make its way out of the Legislature.

Shortly before the midnight deadline, lawmakers passed three medical marijuana bills: AB 266, AB 243 and SB 643. Govern Jerry Brown is likely to sign them into law. [SF Gate]

The medical marijuana bills call for doing away with collectives and cooperatives in favor of licensed and background-checked commercial growers, distributors and sellers. Those who purchase medical marijuana would still be required to obtain a doctor’s recommendation.

If signed into law, the bills would also create dual licensing of dispensaries by local and state officials. Additionally, cities and counties would be allowed to ban medical marijuana activity or tax it.

The assisted suicide bill passed the Senate on a 23-15 vote. It passed the Assembly earlier in the week on a 43-34 vote.

If signed into law, the End of Life Option Act would allow doctors to prescribe life-ending drugs to the terminally ill.

Brown, a former Jesuit seminary student who once considered becoming a Catholic priest, has yet to state his position on the legislation. The Catholic Church is a leading opponent of the bill.

The climate change bill, SB 350, also passed shortly before the midnight deadline. In order for it to pass the Assembly, lawmakers had to remove a provision that would have required California to cut in half the amount of gasoline used to fuel cars by the year 2030.

Still, SB 350 would give California some of the most far-reaching renewable energy regulations in the nation. The bill would require utilities, including PG&E, to generate 50 percent of the electricity they provide from renewable sources, like solar, wind and geothermal, by 2030. [Mercury News]

Current state law requires utilities to generate 33 percent of the energy they provide from renewable sources by 2020.

Two proposed tobacco regulations passed the Senate but did not make it to the Assembly floor in time for a vote. The proposals would have raised the smoking age to 21 and treated e-cigarettes like a tobacco product.


Loading...
Subjects:                                     
Related:


17 Comments
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

The Marijuana bill will do nothing more than allow the Mexican drug cartels (business as usual) to sell drugs (including marijuana) cheaper than anyone else.


So, does this alert anyone to the fact that Kevin de Leon and 8 California Senators (taken along as patsies, IMO) to discuss climate control in Mexico, could also have been conferring with Mexican “officials” on California’s marijuana policy?


Maybe, someone can explain how this bill will do anything but allow local communities to tax legal marijuana, allow legal marijuana to suffer under state and local regulations,and keep the California marijuana market wide open to the Sinaloa Drug Cartel.


0

No one is buying that shit mexi weed. Trust me.


0

The decision on assisted suicide could not have come at a more inappropriate time for Governor Brown, the avowed Catholic. Just after Brown visited with the Pope in Italy on climate control, and right before the Pope is scheduled to come to the US, Brown will have to decide an issue opposed by the Catholic Church.


Will he defy the Church in approving the Assisted Suicide bill, or will he put faith over his governmental responsibilities, similar to the Kim Davis (refusal to issue marriage licenses to gays) case in Alabama.


Has Brown allowed his faith to dictate his governmental policies in the past? Surely he knows that population control is part of global climate change, yet lack of birth control information and financial birth control support for large poor Catholic populations has never been an issue to him. Surely he knows that continued mass importation of the very poor into California is deadly to water conservation measures and does harm to California’s middle class who pays for their support. Yet, he sees no problem with “making room” for millions of people coming here illegally.


Will Brown’s conflict of interest between Catholic Church policies and government policies be called out if he doesn’t sign the Assisted Suicide bill? Or will he get a pass?


0

Half of the trick with physician assisted suicide is how the medical world deals with it. The last years of life are extremely expensive. A friend who worked as a physician in England experienced the elderly not receiving emergency lifesaving measures, due to state-influenced protocols. Some of those could have survived the particular episode and had a few more good years. It would be tempting for BigMedical to and Medicare to favor the choice of termination over the expensive choice of living. I can see allowing someone to choose it, but at the same time there will be a very strong financial incentive to end a life.


0

Big G, don’t kid yourself. The medical establishment profits big time by prolonging life at any cost. When they have an elderly patient on medicare they run every unnecessary test they can think of to increase their profits because they can. It’s an open checkbook. When my Dad who was 88 had a fall an injured his hip, they patched him up and then went on to run test after test that were not relevant to his injury. I recall him complaining of feeling like a guinea pig. They actually discharged him and readmitted him without him actually leaving the hospital. What finally killed him was a stress test they ran, but they got every nickle they could while they had him.


0

Brown should have stayed the course and become a catholic priest. So far, many bills he, they have passed in Sac are so immoral.


And who knows?, maybe he could have been the poope one day.


0

“poope”


LOL! Couldn’t have said it better myself!


0

Conservatives wish to prevent — and liberals wish to promote:


— increase in drug dispensing (Marijuana – a proposed life enjoyment option);


— the life-ending drugs, (an end of life option for the terminally ill);


— the termination of the birth of unwanted children (women’s choice by abortion);


— the acceptance of past condemned sexual practices (Sodomy);


— and the marriage of same-sex couples (as a personal right).


This has all happened as a result fifty years ago in 1965 when Supreme Court William Douglas wrote the lead opinion in Griswold v. Connecticut, finding a “right to privacy” in the “penumbras” of the first eight amendments of the Bill of Rights.


This pivotal case involved a Connecticut “Comstock law” that prohibited any person — even married couples — from using “any drug, medicinal article or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception.”


My — how times have changed! I being in my 85th year now understands that Conservatism regarding the above specification lies dead in the dust of history — like it or not!


0

The medical marijuana bills call for doing away with collectives and cooperatives in favor of licensed and background-checked commercial growers, distributors and sellers. Those who purchase medical marijuana would still be required to obtain a doctor’s recommendation.

——————–

It’s all govt. and political games. Grain sells for $35 a bushel and the resulting liquor $10 a liter. Coffee sells for $8 a pound. Marijuana is easier and cheaper to grow then either. Think about it.


The powers that be have no current interest in bringing mj prices down to free market. If they did, mj would sell for $10 a pound. They are just looking at ways to line their pockets. We’re looking at another 20 years and another generation of Americans to get rid of the stigma and to see prices drop to free market levels.


0

State to mandate 50% renewable energy sources by 2030 while the State’s other half (Coastal Comm, F&W, SWRCB, etc.) will beat down any permit with years of EIR fun. Another disguised tax for us mexi ….I mean Californians.


0

The 1973 blockbuster movie Soylent Green was based on pure “Sci-Fi” at the time.

Now it’s becoming reality.


0

Really? It is time to take your foil hat in for an adjustment.


0

Now we can get a clear view of our no longer devout Catholic seminary student turned governor’s view of assisting in snuffing out a life.


Isn’t this the same crowd that advocates for marijuana to assist with the extreme pain people in this same condition experience?


0

So are you suggesting nothing palliative for the pain?


0

No, not at all. I’m a huge believer in offering the terminally ill whatever there hearts desire if it’ll alleviate the pain. In many cases it restore appetite and so forth BUT that’s already available to them without any struggle or further governmental involvement whatsoever.


0

Here is the rub though. Sometimes you can get to a point where no meds work near the end. I know of such cases. So if a person is terminal and they are to point that pain meds don’t work, who are you or I to deny there right if they so seek to end their life? They should sit there in extreme pain to meet your expectations of what’s right? That is between them and whatever deity they may believe in.


0
1 2