GRASS-ROOTS EFFORT: VILLAGE LEGALIZES MEDICAL MARIJUANA W/ MISSOURI
HB 277, MEDICAL MARIJUANA INFO

CLIFF VILLAGE, Mo. - It's early evening and Joe Blundell is splayed
out on his bed, on his stomach.

After a couple days of media interviews, it's just him, some friends,
and a bout of pain.

I'm on my stomach because I couldn't sit (in my wheelchair)," Blundell
said.

More than three weeks have passed since Blundell, 30, stopped using
marijuana. He abandoned the drug not long before he introduced an
ordinance legalizing its use for medical reasons inside Cliff Village,
a hamlet on Joplin's southern fringes, where Blundell serves as mayor.
That ordinance passed two weeks ago.

Cliff Village has no employees and levies no taxes. It gets about
$1,300 a year in distributions of state fuel taxes for road repairs
and $120 to $200 more in cable TV franchise fees. But the village
doesn't make many headlines. Until now.

The ordinance is largely a symbolic gesture. Cliff Village has no
local court system of its own and the small Joplin suburb is still
subject to state laws that ban marijuana even for medical purposes.

But Blundell and others are hoping their action will raise debate
about the uses of marijuana.

This is symbolism, pure and simple," Blundell explained during some of
his interviews. "I would like to be the brave one who grows the first
plant, but they've built a lot of cages for the people who stick their
necks out."

Again this year, legislation has been proposed that would put to
Missouri voters the question of whether medical marijuana should be
legalized. Similar legislation has been proposed in the past, although
it usually stalls at the committee or subcommittee level.

But there are now 13 states that allow medical marijuana. The Obama
administration also has signaled that it could change federal drug
policy, if not federal law, on medical marijuana.

Last year, supporters of a measure that would have lessened penalties
for personal possession of marijuana in Joplin came up 531 signatures
short of getting it on the ballot. The organizers of that campaign say
they plan to try again in the region, perhaps in Springfield, and this
time they will likely pose an additional ballot question that would
address medical marijuana.

All of this attention has made Cliff Village, which had a population
of 33 in the 2000 census, an unlikely ground zero for a grass-roots
movement about, well, "grass."

Pain relief

It has been more than eight years since a train pulling into a station
in Nottinghill, England, crushed Blundell and left him
wheelchair-bound in an accident. He had titanium screws and brackets
drilled into his spinal column.

For the first year after the accident, Blundell relied on painkillers
such as morphine, codeine and Demerol. It was an area resident who
eventually suggested he try a marijuana cigarette to help ease the
pain. It helped. A lot, he said.

Blundell said he doesn't hurt all the time, but when he does he
described the pain as "screaming," "excruciating," and "blinding." In
the past, he has used marijuana when the pain comes, in the evenings
to help relax and fall asleep.

It has allowed him to be functional," said Sarah Perkins, Blundell's
business partner.

Blundell, in arguing for marijuana's safety, contends that using it
has not compromised his ability to help develop a business offering
innovative technologies.

That venture, Sustainable Living Systems Inc., is a green-construction
and assembly firm that designs homes that completely heat and cool
themselves without outside energy use, according to the company's Web
site. Perkins is president and founder; Blundell is listed on the Web
site as a co-inventor and technology consultant.

Blundell said the Cliff Village ordinance was borne out of a desire to
generate support for the bill introduced in the Missouri House earlier
this year. That bill, if passed, would put the issues before voters as
a referendum in November 2010.

Really, I just want to see a vote," he said of the state
referendum.

The ordinance

The Cliff Village ordinance allows those with physician approval to
grow a total of seven plants - four immature, three mature - and to
possess up to three ounces at any given time.

The measure passed by a 3-2 margin on Feb. 1. Besides the mayor, the
three supporters among the village's board of trustees included
Blundell's father.

The two dissenting votes came from the couple Doug Grooms and Kerstin
Landwer. Landwer on Thursday said they were declining to comment on
the issue.

A random survey of residents in the village found no vocal opposition
among village residents.

I'm OK with it," said Josh Estes, who lives just a few doors down from
Blundell. "It doesn't bother me."

Village resident Troy Mondt said it "blows my mind" that the village
voted to legalize marijuana, even if only for medical reasons. He
added that he is in favor of it.