{"id":7286,"date":"2017-03-15T21:20:12","date_gmt":"2017-03-15T21:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/?p=2575167"},"modified":"2017-03-15T21:20:12","modified_gmt":"2017-03-15T21:20:12","slug":"map-how-do-state-medical-marijuana-laws-compare-advocates-give-report-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/map-how-do-state-medical-marijuana-laws-compare-advocates-give-report-card\/","title":{"rendered":"Map: How do state medical marijuana laws compare? Advocates give report card"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"wp_fb_like_button\" style=\"margin:5px 0 5px 5px;float:right;height:100px;\"><script src=\"http:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/all.js#xfbml=1\"><\/script><fb:like href=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/map-how-do-state-medical-marijuana-laws-compare-advocates-give-report-card\/\" send=\"true\" layout=\"standard\" width=\"450\" show_faces=\"false\" font=\"arial\" action=\"like\" colorscheme=\"light\"><\/fb:like><\/div><div class=\"row\" id=\"sticky-outer\">\n<div class=\"large-11 small-12 columns\">\n<div class=\"entry-meta-date\">Published: Mar 15, 2017, 8:12 am \u2022 Updated: Mar 15, 2017, 11:31 am<span class=\"single-comments-link\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/2017\/03\/15\/medical-marijuana-map-state-laws-2017-grades-asa\/75472\/#disqus_thread\" class=\"commentsNameLink\" \/><\/span><\/div>\n<p class=\"byline\">By <span class=\"author\"><a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/author\/awallace\/\" rel=\"author\">Alicia Wallace<\/a> and <a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/author\/pwashburn\/\" rel=\"author\">Polly Washburn<\/a><\/span><em>, The Cannabist Staff<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The majority of U.S. states now have a medical marijuana law in place, but the laws don\u2019t yet go far enough, a national medical marijuana patient advocacy group says.<\/p>\n<p>Americans for Safe Access recently released the latest iteration of its \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/american-safe-access.s3.amazonaws.com\/sos2017\/ASA_state_of_state_report_2017_14_online.pdf\">Medical Marijuana Access in the United States<\/a>\u201d annual report card, in which the organization conducts a state-by-state analysis of medical marijuana laws and programs.<\/p>\n<p>A total of 19 states received a grade from B-minus to B-plus in the report, up from 12 states the year before, ASA authors noted.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs of 2017, no state cannabis laws are within the \u2018A\u2019 range. Only a small minority of states currently include ASA\u2019s criteria of protections and rights that we believe all patients should be afforded under the law,\u201d Steph Sherer, ASA executive director, said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The organization measured each state by how well laws and regulations meet medical marijuana patients\u2019 needs across five categories:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Patient rights and civil protection from discrimination:<\/strong> Includes aspects such as protection from arrest, employment safeguards, parental rights and reciprocity.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Access to medicine:<\/strong> Includes aspects such as distribution programs, access to dried flowers, delivery, local bans, THC limits, CBD minimums.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Ease of navigation:<\/strong> Includes aspects such as qualifying conditions, ability to add new conditions, reasonable access to minors, fees.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Functionality:<\/strong> Includes aspects such as access to cultivation or dispensaries, legal protections, financial hardship waivers, insurance coverage.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Consumer safety and provider requirements:<\/strong> Includes aspects such as staff training, storage protocols, security protocols, labeling.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>ASA assigned a potential 100 points for each category and gave up to 25 bonus points to states that made what the organization viewed as statutory or regulatory improvements. <\/p>\n<p>The number of states receiving a failing grade remained at 17. According to the report authors, \u201cThis is partly due to a fairly large number of states that only allow a limited scope of CBD products.\u201d <\/p>\n<p><strong>To see how the states matched up, explore the medical marijuana map below. <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/american-safe-access.s3.amazonaws.com\/sos2017\/ASA_state_of_state_report_2017_14_online.pdf\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>Click here to read ASA\u2019s full report<\/strong><\/a>, including recommendations and commentary for each state. <\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<hr \/>\n<div class=\"entry-meta-author\">\n<div class=\"authorimage\"><a class=\"url fn n\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thecannabist.co\/author\/awallace\/\" rel=\"author\"><img src=\"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/map-how-do-state-medical-marijuana-laws-compare-advocates-give-report-card.jpg\" class=\"authormug\" \/><\/a><\/div>\n<p class=\"author-desc\">Alicia Wallace joined The Cannabist in July 2016, covering national marijuana policy and business. She contributes to the Denver Post&#8217;s beer industry coverage. In her 13 years as a business news reporter, her coverage has spanned the economy, Sports&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- .row --> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The majority of U.S. states now have a medical marijuana law in place, but the laws don&#8217;t yet go far enough, a national medical marijuana patient advocacy group says. Americans for Safe Access recently released the latest iteration of its &#8220;Medical Marijuana Access in the United States&#8221; annual report card, in which the organization conducts [&#8230;] <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[6811,6813,77,5667,9,5019,1,3,61,1736],"tags":[6816,6818,2655,5673,5022],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7286\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannitrol.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}