[taintedone]

Hello Fellow Patients and Providers,

Walnut Creek passed a moratorium on collectives on Tuesday, but there were some very positive points made by city council persons regarding the need for safe access. I have been in direct contact with some of them who have asked me to organize patients to write letters and contact the editor of the local paper, the Contra Costa Times, and other news outlets in the area to ensure that the voice of the patients who need these services may be heard. We must speak up and let the public know that it is unacceptable to continue to make local patients drive to other municipalities to get their medicine. Below is the contact information for the editor of the CoCo Times and some other news outlets in the area. Please help me to organize an effective campaign so that we may begin to see safe access in the Walnut Creek and surrounding areas.

Contra Costa Times
Executive Editor: Kevin Keane
925-977-8406 kkeane@bayareanewsgroup.com
News Desk: 925-943-8235 ccnnewsrelease@bayareanewsgroup.com
Local News: Andrew McGail: 925-943-8227 amcgail@bayareanewsgroup.com

KTVU
P.O. Box 22222
Oakland, CA 94623
Phone: (510) 834-1212

KCBS News TipLine
24 hour newsroom number
Tel: 415-474-KCBS (5227)
Fax: 415-765-4080

ABC7: http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/feature?s...ces&id=5792275

Talking Points:

Cannabis is a safe and effective medicine
How does cannabis help you?
Californians have a right to legally obtain and use cannabis
It has been 13 years since the passing of Prop. 215 and safe access is long overdue in this community
Moratoriums and bans on dispensing collectives place undue burdens on patients to travel long distances to access therapies
Limiting access deprives qualified patients of the medicine promised to them by the Compassionate Use Act
Patients with limited mobility and financial security suffer undue hardship by being forced to travel for their wellness needs
Cannabis dispensing collectives provide support and healing for patients. The type of support offered at these facilities improve a patients quality of life and create positive psychosocial health benefits
It is shameful for elected officials to actively prevent safe an legal access for patients
Medical cannabis dispensing collectives can be a positive part of the community when properly controlled and regulated, as they prevent lawful patients from obtaining their medicine in unlawful manners.
Research confirms that support services offered by many collectives are effective for patients with a variety of cancers and other terminal illnesses, making them less anxious, depresses, and to encourage better use of their time.
There is no evidence of medical cannabis dispensing collectives leading to a disproportionate amount of crime, as any business is subject to the elements of a tough economy and desperate criminals. It is unfair to stigmatize patients in this manner and create unnecessary fear in the community regarding the use of cannabis medicines.
Please write a letter or make a phone call. I believe pressure from the community through the proper media channels will help to open up safe access in Contra Costa finally and change the face of safe access in the area. Take time to contact the editor by phone, letter, or email and express your desire to see safe and effective access in Walnut Creek, as it is the center for wellness activities in the entire Contra Costa area and they should lead the charge in alternative healing as well. Thanks for your time and support. Now go write a letter and make that call. I will be doing the same. Contact me directly for any further questions or for advice on writing a good letter. I would be happy to edit any submissions if folks are unsure. Be well.


Mickey Martin
T-Comp Consulting Director
www.freetainted.com
www.tcompconsulting.com
mickey@tcompconsulting.com
510-377-1990
http://twitter.com/CANNABISconsult

Your support is greatly appreciated as we fight for the rights of patients and providers to operate safely and effectively in medical cannabis states. We will win this war!

***The views expressed in this communication are not necessarily the views of T-Comp Consulting, Tainted Compassion, The MCSC, West Coast Cannabis, or any other group I am affiliated with.***

[taintedone]

Mickey Martin
510-377-1990

Contra Costa Times
Attention: Kevin Keane, Executive Editor
2640 Shadelands Dr.
Walnut Creek, CA 94598

Greetings,

I am writing you to express concern over your coverage of the Walnut Creek City Council meeting that was held Tuesday. August 18th regarding a moratorium on medical cannabis dispensing collectives. I think your piece was informative but failed to honestly represent the needs of patients in your community. I would strongly encourage your news outlet to follow up your piece with some informative and truthful information regarding the need for safe access in the area. I would be happy to do an in-depth interview on this matter and represent the patient base in the area. I have dedicated over a decade of my life to medical cannabis activism and am a resident of Contra Costa County who believes greatly in the need for a safe and well-lit facility for patients to access these therapies. Too many misconceptions arise from sensationalism that has been experienced in the media surrounding the hot button topic of cannabis medicines. I would be happy to begin dispelling these myths and misinformation. I believe your news organization has an obligation to its readership to give a clear and honest picture of the reality that medical cannabis is safe and that most of the organizations that provide medicine are well-run and outgoing groups of patients that practice safe handling, safe community, and responsible accounting practices in their daily operations.

Cannabis dispensing collectives provide a unique environment for support and healing. Most improve patient’s quality of life by providing not just safe and effective cannabis medicines, but a positive psychosocial health benefit through the collective structure. Medical cannabis collectives can be a positive part of the community when properly controlled and regulated, as they provide economic, health, social and political benefits to the communities they serve. They prevent legally qualified patients in the area from having to obtain these medicines in otherwise illegal and dangerous situations.

There is no evidence of medical cannabis dispensing collectives creating a disproportionate amount of crime in the communities they serve. A collective has better security presence than most banks and often neighborhoods, such as Oakland, report much less crime in the areas collectives are located due to their security culture. A collective carries far less inventory than a store like Target, generates far less income that the local grocery store, and has much more rigid access procedures than any liquor store or pharmacy. In a tough economy there will always be desperate people willing to commit crimes to gain monetary value, but medical cannabis patients should not be singled out as nuisance or crime attractors, as the evidence simply does not support that. Any representation to the contrary is simply dishonest.

I encourage you to contact me directly to dig deeper into this matter, as it is an important and relevant discussion that we must have in the community and begin to dispel the sensationalist rhetoric that often plagues medical cannabis patients and providers. Your news organization is a valuable resource of information to the Contra Costa community and I hope that you see the need to address the matter in a genuine and well-thought manner. I would encourage you to meet with myself and other patients in the area to discuss the true benefits of cannabis therapies and understand more clearly what is at stake in this public debate.

To illustrate more clearly the need in the community, I work closely with a patient in the area who is a breast cancer survivor and suffers from an unknown gastrointestinal disorder that has hospitalized her in John Muir Hospital over 300 times in the past few years. She is a mother of three children and an active member of the community. Currently she has to drive long distances to access her medicine and often goes without due to lack of transportation or time to get to the nearest collective. She experiences uncontrollable vomiting and severe nausea regularly. Cannabis is the only medicine she has found to safely and effectively mange her condition and help her to lead a more regular life. Her condition has seen her weight drop to 89 pounds at times and cannabis helps her to eat and consume protein-based supplements more regularly to avoid making her condition much more serious. She is no criminal. She is a taxpaying, responsible, and upstanding member of this community and it is inexcusable to continue to make her suffer to enable some irrational fear of what a dispensing collective does.

Please contact me to discuss this matter further and to work together to provide real and honest dialogue about this matter to the communities your news organization serve. I look forward to your response and offer my services as a liaison to the medical cannabis movement and the tens of thousands of patients in the area. Thank you for your time and I hope we can discuss mutual goals and share valuable information in the near future.


Kind Regards,


Mickey Martin

[taintedone]

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