Medical marijuana card arrives more than two months after cancer patient died

Medical marijuana card arrives more than two months after cancer patient died

​Elaine Betts took care of her family and friends, took care of her neighborhood. I know, because she used to live on my block, before she bought a little house a few blocks away and started taking care of that neighborhood.

When she was diagnosed with cancer last year, she continued to take care of others -- sending a reassuring note that she'd had a good, long, interesting life, and that we should not worry about her. She took care of herself, too, and in early October sent her application for a medical marijuana card to the state via registered mail.

That card finally arrived a few days ago -- more than five months after Elaine had applied, and over two months since she died.

Colorado has been swamped with an unexpected flood of requests for medical marijuana cards. By the end of last June, 10,000 patients had registered, with 400 new applications arriving each day. By this fall, when Elaine applied for her card, over a thousand applications were delivered to the health department office doing the processing on some days, and the post office was beginning to complain. In January, when the office was still working on September applications, a record 1,650 applications arrived in a single day.

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2010/03/elaine_betts_took_care_of.php

You'd think we were trying to get PCP approved for kindergartners or something...