It’s 4/20. That means in addition to gratuitous pot smoking, there will be a number of gratuitous articles and studies about marijuana, and Santa Fe is not sheltered from this storm. The Daily Beast, a news aggregation site, rates Santa Fe the 23rd Most Stoned City in America. Right on.

Even though Santa Fe doesn’t have a NORML chapter, using data from  the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, a relatively high marijuana arrest rate, our 8.5 percent pot-users population and something called our Pot Culture, Santa Fe still made the grade.

Today, a four-physician Advisory Board recommending expanding and facilitating the qualifications for medical cannabis. The board, which advises the New Mexico Department of Health on its medical cannabis program, voted to allow patients suffering from behavioral disturbances related to autism, traumatic brain injury, mental retardation or dementia to use medical cannabis and voted unanimously to eliminate the requirement that chronic pain sufferers get a second opinion from a specialist to qualify for medical cannabis.

Today’s hearing also included an update on the medical cannabis program, which according to Program Manager Dominick Zurlo now has 1448 patients (11 of the total cumulative patients enrolled are now deceased) and only five licensed producers. The numbers are impressive, but so is the backlog: 40 would-be producers are waiting for approval, some patients still can’t get legal cannabis and even Zurlo recognizes that the program “ha[s] not yet met patient need.” Details from the meeting and updated figures after the jump. Continue reading »

The anti-drunk driving campaign is drawing a crowd at the Roundhouse. The anti-weed campaign, not so much.

Show us what has left the back of your eyelids burning. Send pictures of visual trespass and peculiarities to copyeditor [at] sfreporter.com, subject “eyedropper.”

On my journey to work this morning, the dreamy, familiar voice of Steve Inskeep was replaced by another, almost-as-familiar one: that of former New Mexico Gov Gary Johnson. He was talking to KUNM’s Arcie Chapa about legalizing marijuana, among other things. A couple of pithy quotes from Johnson:

“Ninety percent of the drug problem is prohibition-related, not use-related.”

“All of the thousands, if not millions of entrepreneurs, business people, doctors, lawyers and scientists who would move to New Mexico [if] marijuana was legal…maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad thing!”

And no, I was not reporting while driving. You can access the KUNM archive here; set your times for 8am – 9am today to hear Johnson. Oh, and…don’t forget: If you’re bored with Obama-ism, you could join the 1,848 Facebookers who plan to elect this guy for president.

Photo courtesy Wikimedia.

Coming soon: Big Buddha’s Cheese. But in the meantime, New Mexico’s sole licensed nonprofit medical cannabis producer is all out of product.

Marjorie Childress at the New Mexico Independent is reporting that the Santa Fe Institute for Natural Medicine has already sold out. Childress cites an unnamed medical cannabis patient who provided an alert from the SFINM Web site:

8/28/09 PRODUCT UPDATE

We are currently sold out of our inventory. Not knowing what members would like, our first crop was 50/50 indica dominant/sativa dominant. And although we are so sorry to run out, we now know that members prefer sativa dominant. We will try and adjust our proportions accordingly so this does not happen again. Also, please keep in mind that it takes 12-18 months for a smooth running ongoing production. This is especially tricky when it is a pilot project and mother nature is involved. We very much appreciate your patience.

Come October, we hope to introduce Big Buddha’s Cheese, Chocolope, and Kandy Kush to the menu. More details will come in September.

Everyone from Tennessee-grower Bernie Ellis to former state medical cannabis program coordinator Melissa Milam have complained that the 95-plant limit the DOH has imposed on nonprofit growers is far too small to handle the statewide patient demand. What compounds the problem is DOH Secretary Dr. Alfredo Vigil could not tell SFR when he thinks a second nonprofit grower/distributor will be granted a license.

To date there are 20 outstanding applications filed by nonprofit entities wishing to offer legal medical cannabis to patients. There are 540 patients registered with the program, only about a fifth are licensed to grow for themselves.

NMI’s glimpse into the private SFINM web site confirms that New Mexico patients are paying street prices for cannabis: “The top grade is $378 an ounce, the middle grade is $336, and the bottom grade…is $182 an ounce.”