Washington, U.S.A. – The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), in conjunction with the Women’s CannaBusiness Network, a project it launched earlier this year, today called on President Obama to cease enforcement actions against state-legal medical cannabis providers while the administration reviews its policies to determine whether they are in the public interest. Respected industry businesswomen defended their work and powerfully expressed their frustration with the administration’s crackdown.

“The women here today are compassionate and courageous leaders,” said Jill Lamoureaux, owner of Colorado Dispensary Services. ”They are pioneers in alternative medicine. They are job creators and tax revenue generators. They are hear to bring awareness to the Obama administration’s reversal on medical marijuana policy and to ask that the Justice Department immediately stop shutting down state-legal businesses that are serving patients, creating jobs and generating tax revenues.”

Jen Reynolds, a mother of four who will lose her job on Monday because of the actions of the U.S. attorney in Colorado, urged the President to think about the people whom are being affected.

“This is not about ‘marijuana dealers,’” Reynolds said. “This is about medical cannabis patients having a safe and regulated environment in which to purchase their medicine. It is about employees like me, who had the amazing opportunity to help patients alleviate their suffering, while earning a living wage. My center should have been a model for others to follow, not a target for federal action.”

NCIA also released a report entitled, “The Colorado Cannabis Industry: A Tale of Ten Cities,” which details the sales and tax revenues generated by medical marijuana centers in ten Colorado cities.

“The ten cities included in the report alone generated close to $10 million in state and local sales taxes in 2011,” explained Aaron Smith, NCIA executive director. “This money is being used to improve government services in these areas, which is one more benefit of a regulated medical cannabis industry.”

The report is available here: http://thecannabisindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CO_TaleofTenCities.pdf

The mission of the National Cannabis Industry Association is to defend, promote and advance the interests of the cannabis industry and its members. For more information, please visit www.TheCannabisIndustry.org.

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Hollywood, U.S.A. — Medbox company CEO, Dr. Bruce Bedrick commented on the recent admission by some Los Angeles City Councilmen that they are in favor of legalized medical marijuana. “We applaud the courage and conviction of belief shown by these city leaders,” Bedrick stated. “The weight of science validates that marijuana has significant medical efficacy. To ignore the evidence is to succumb to political tradewinds.”

Councilman Bill Rosendahl told The Los Angeles Times that he is in favor of legalizing marijuana and that he has had his own medical marijuana prescription for a decade, and relies on the drug to cope with neuropathy – a painful nerve disorder.

Paul Koretz, Councilman for the city’s Fifth District, told The Times that he is, “an unabashed supporter of medical marijuana.”

Both Koretz and Rosendahl said they share constituent concerns about the proliferation of marijuana, but disagree with the council’s latest strategy, which prohibits businesses from providing medical marijuana to even the most seriously ill patients.

Shortly after the Los Angeles City Council voted to ban medical marijuana, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed to hear arguments challenging the federal government’s classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no medical value.

The appeal asserts that the federal government has acted arbitrarily and capriciously in its efforts to deny marijuana to millions of patients, and that the government cannot apply “different criteria to marijuana than to other drugs, ignore critical scientific data, misrepresent social science research, or rely upon unsubstantiated assumptions.”

Numerous studies have been published that show the medical benefits of marijuana for illnesses such as neuropathic pain, multiple sclerosis, and Alzheimer’s. Last year, the National Cancer Institute added cannabis to its list of Complementary and Alternative Medicines, pointing out that it’s been therapeutically used for millennia.

A new, comprehensive study on the evidence that cannabis may be useful as medicine was published in May of this year in The Open Neurology Journal, a leading peer reviewed publication. The study concluded that marijuana’s federal classification as a Schedule I substance “is not tenable; (and) it is not accurate that cannabis has no medical value, or that information on safety is lacking.”

Medbox supports sensible regulations on the medical marijuana industry, including assuring that dispensaries maintain a proper distance from schools, parks and playgrounds; and that operators submit fingerprint samples to the City to insure that they are not convicted felons.

Medbox is also in favor of increasing legitimacy and transparency in the medical marijuana industry. The company has developed a patented system that tightly controls access of marijuana to only those patients that possesses a current doctor’s recommendation, and verifies the identity of the patient through both an identification card and a fingerprint scan. The Medbox system also maintains a permanent and unalterable record of each transaction to assure compliance with all regulations and for taxation purposes.

Bedrick summarized, “We believe that the Los Angeles City Council will construct sensible regulations regarding medical marijuana through the upcoming referendum or court challenges, if needed. This along with the upcoming federal hearing in October regarding reclassification of the drug, may allow access to this medicine without further legal ramifications for patients that rely on its

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