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Part one of a two-part article appeared today on a HIV/AIDS blog , discussing the legal environment that medical marijuana currently resides in.

The Washington, D.C. city council voted last month in favor of legislation to legalize medical marijuana in the district, potentially allowing access to the drug for those with serious illnesses, including HIV infection.

The website Medical Marijuana ProCon.org states that mayor Adrian Fenty signed the bill on May 21, sending it to Congress for a mandatory 30-day review period (expected to end in July) before becoming law.

This springboards the article into how this going on in the shadows of Congress reveals how much momentum the medical marijuana movement has. Anyone who pays attention to the news knows that cannabis is on a far higher level of discussion than it was even 5 years ago.

If the proposal in Washington, D.C. becomes law, the city would become a legal safe zone for medical marijuana, joining 14 states that have already legalized the drug: Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey (see related AIDS Beacon news), New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington.

According to Medical Marijuana ProCon.org, 11 other states – which include Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and South Dakota – have legislation pending to legalize medical marijuana.

Most of the laws legalize the use, possession, and cultivation of marijuana by patients with serious medical conditions, including HIV/AIDS, who have received written approval from their doctors.

At least half the states in this country now have either a medical marijuana law, or have one in progress. But as the article points out, the specific laws vary wildly from state to state. How much can be grown, if it can be sold and who it can be sold to, how much medicine you can consume a month. All these and many more aspects of medical marijuana will be different depending on what state you’re in.

Our momentum is great, but medical marijuana remains a patchwork system in this country. And I hope you’ll agree with me; a patchwork system is less than what sick people deserve.

- Joe Klare