Marijuana Law Enforcement

8 May 2014

It’s High Time For Canada To Talk Pot

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Marijuana exists in a funny limbo in this country.

Despite a growing number of people who feel it should be decriminalized, or outright legal – and regulated – it remains a controlled substance.

And, as such, we have a multibillion-dollar industry in Canada attempting to operate under the radar of the law.

Weed is grown covertly on farms, in houses, condos or industrial bays, but is used widely across the country.

Often, the grow sites are booby trapped, electricity is stolen, and the property is contaminated, both with chemicals used in growing and mold damage.

A fire at a Calgary grow op even levelled a number of homes in 2009. Police say there is also the risk of break-ins and home invasions associated with these things.

Despite all of these apparent dangers Albertans just don’t care, or aren’t aware.

That’s one of the key findings in a new provincial report prepared by Calgary MLA Rick Fraser, the associate minister of public safety.

“The prevalent view of marijuana use is that it is either used as a recreational drug or for medical purposes,” he says in the report.

“There is a misperception that growing marijuana is a victimless crime, and this perception detracts from community involvement in reporting suspected MGOs. Many Albertans do not report marijuana grow ops when they know or suspect a residence in their community has been converted into one. The crime is likely not viewed as a danger to the community.”

It’s not really until people find themselves living next to one that they perceive this as a problem.

And so, because of the damage done to homes and the potential risk to public safety, the final recommendations report for Grow Op Free Alberta lists a host of solutions to existing problems, including requiring real estate agents to disclose a home was used to grow pot, guidelines for proper and safe remediation and bumping up tools to identify grow ops.

The one solution missing? Legalization and regulation.

I get it – all the province can really do in its power is mitigate the damage, try to hold people accountable when properties are made unfit for habitation, and ensure that remediation is done properly.

But, as public attitude shifts towards acceptance of marijuana, and a desire that governments leave adults alone to smoke what they please, the province could also take the lead in pushing the feds to make changes to criminal law in Canada.

So long as the status quo exists, residential grows will remain a big problem, with thousands estimated to be operating in Alberta.

The recommendations in the report give significant focus toward education, but I think despite the emphasis placed on informing the public, I don’t think we’ll start to see an increase in police reports.

Even if more people start reporting grow ops, that won’t necessarily mean there will be a reduction in people looking to grow marijuana.

So long as the trend toward supporting decriminalization and legalization continues, the public will believe that the key is a change in federal drug laws, not provincial public safety endeavours, no matter how wise they may be.

When looking at people opting not to report grow ops, the reasons behind their complacency are key.

And, with as many as two thirds of Canadians in support of decriminalization or legalization, we shouldn’t be surprised people aren’t reporting grows, and perhaps it should be taken as further sign we’re ready for greater debate on the issue.

As we’re approaching a federal election in 2015, here’s hoping we get one.

Source: Calgary Sun, The
Copyright: 2014 The Calgary Sun
Contact: http://www.calgarysun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://www.calgarysun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/67
Author: Dave Breakenridge

17 Sep 2013

Thousands Cited for Having Pot on Federal Land

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Karen Strand didn’t think she’d get in trouble for having a small container of medical marijuana when she went hiking in Olympic National Park this summer.

President Barack Obama, she remembered, had said the federal government had “bigger fish to fry” than people who follow state marijuana laws, and Washington state had just legalized pot.

But a ranger pulled her over on a remote gravel road, and Strand wound up as one of at least 27,700 people cited for having pot on federal land since 2009, according to an Associated Press analysis of federal court data. The number of citations is small compared to the hundreds of millions of visitors to national parks, forests and monuments each year.

But it nevertheless illustrates one of the many issues Washington, Colorado and other states face in complying with last month’s Justice Department memo that requires them to address eight federal law enforcement priorities if they want to regulate marijuana. Among those priorities is keeping marijuana use and possession off federal property.

State officials have no plans to license pot gardens or stores on federal land, but beyond that, they say, it’s not clear what they can do to discourage backpackers or campers from bringing a few joints into Rocky Mountain or Mount Rainier National Park.

“It’s not one of the big topics we’ve talked a lot about,” said Jaime Smith, a spokeswoman for Washington Gov. Jay Inslee.

Other concerns on the DOJ’s list include keeping marijuana away from kids and cartels, preventing drugged driving and pot-related gun violence, and keeping unregulated marijuana grows from spoiling federal land.

Thousands of people receive tickets every year charging them with having pot on U.S. property — a federal misdemeanor punishable by up to 6 months in jail and a $5,000 fine. The charges typically don’t result in jail time, but often do require at least one court appearance. They are frequently negotiated down to an infraction, akin to a traffic ticket, and a fine of up to a few hundred dollars.

Through the first seven months of this year, at least 146 people had been cited in Washington for having pot on federal land, which makes up nearly one-third of the state. At least 135 had been cited in Colorado. Washington’s figure is slightly below the same period for the past few years, while Colorado’s is roughly on track.

The number of people cited nationally has dropped, from 6,282 in 2009 to 5,772 in 2012, and is on pace to hit about 5,300 this year, according to data from the U.S. Courts Central Violations Bureau. The citations were issued at national parks, seashores, forests, military bases and monuments. There were even 10 tickets issued at the Pentagon.

Officials say the actual numbers are likely greater: Park rangers and other federal agents sometimes simply write on the ticket that the offender had a controlled substance, without specifying the drug.

Defendants say being prosecuted for having tiny amounts of pot on U.S. land — especially in Washington, Colorado and states with medical marijuana laws — belies the administration’s assertions that going after people who comply with state marijuana laws is not a priority. The DOJ first announced that position in a 2009 memo, though the fine print also made clear that pot isn’t welcome on federal property.

Strand, 36, was pulled over for having a broken taillight, and the ranger reported that he could smell fresh pot. She was ticketed for having 2 grams — far less than the ounce, or 28 grams, allowed by Washington’s recreational pot law, or the 24 ounces allowed by the state’s medical marijuana law.

“It is exceptionally confusing,” she said.

One morning this month, Strand sat in a small, crowded room at the federal courthouse in Tacoma for her initial appearance on charges of marijuana possession and drug paraphernalia — a pipe.

Near her sat her husband as well as several other people caught with weed on federal land, including a 21-year-old man who was accused of having 0.1 grams during a traffic stop on a highway that skirts Mount Rainier National Park.

“I just thought it was legal now,” Jonah Hunt said. “I didn’t know I was on federal land.”

Barbara Sievers, the assistant U.S. attorney handling the cases, informed the defendants their charges would not be dismissed.

“Regardless of whatever happened in the state, it’s federal law, and it’s federal property,” she said.

Former school teacher Melanie Cease, of Seattle, said a park ranger approached her one day in June at a secluded campsite in Olympic National Park. He came to make sure her dog was on a leash, but then saw an empty pipe on the picnic table.

With his hand on his gun, she said, the ranger demanded she turn over whatever pot she had. Cease, 48, was cited for having a “trace amount,” according to the ranger’s report.

“I’ve never been arrested in my life, and now I’m being threatened with six months in jail and a $5,000 fine for using my medicine?” she said. “It was my understanding the government was not going to mess with individual patients.”

Strand and Cease both pleaded not guilty, and their cases were set for trial in October.

Strand and her husband, Thomas, said they remain troubled by what they said felt like harassment from the park ranger. He repeatedly placed his hand on his gun when speaking to them, they said.

“It’s a beautiful place up there,” Thomas Strand said. “And I don’t know if I’ll ever go back.”

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, The Associated Press
Published: September 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

10 Jun 2013

Five Myths About Legalizing Marijuana

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With 16 states having decriminalized or legalized cannabis for non-medical use and eight more heading toward some kind of legalization, federal prohibition’s days seem numbered. You might wonder what America will look like when marijuana is in the corner store and at the farmers market. In three years spent researching that question, I found some ideas about the plant that just don’t hold up.

1. If pot is legal, more people will use it.

As drug policy undergoes big changes, I’ve been watching rates of youth cannabis use with interest. As it is for most fathers, the well-being of my family is the most important thing in my life. Whether you like the plant or not, as with alcohol, only adults should be allowed to partake of intoxicating substances. But youth cannabis use is near its highest level ever in the United States. When I spoke at a California high school recently and asked, “Who thinks cannabis is easier to obtain than alcohol?,” nearly every hand shot up.

In Portugal, by contrast, youth rates fell from 2002 to 2006, after all drugs were legalized there in 2001. Similarly, a 2011 Brown University-led study of middle and high school students in Rhode Island found no increases in adolescent use after the state legalized medical marijuana in 2006.

As for adult use, the numbers are mixed. A 2011 University of California at Berkeley study, for example, showed a slight increase in adult use with de facto legalization in the Netherlands (though the rate was still lower than in the United States). Yet that study and one in 2009 found Dutch rates to be slightly lower than the European average. When the United States’ 40-year-long war on marijuana ends, the country is not going to turn into a Cheech and Chong movie. It is, however, going to see the transfer of as much as 50 percent of cartel profits to the taxable economy.

2. Law enforcement officials oppose legalization.

It is true that many law enforcement lobby groups don’t want to end America’s most expensive war (which has cost $1 trillion and counting), but that’s because they’re the reason it’s so expensive. In 2010, two-thirds of federal spending on the drug war, $10 billion, went toward law enforcement and interdiction.

But law enforcement rank and file know the truth about the drug war’s profligate and ineffective spending, says former Los Angeles deputy police chief Stephen Downing, one of 5,000 public safety professionals who make up the group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. “Most law enforcers find it difficult not to recognize the many harms caused by our current drug laws,” he wrote to me in an e-mail. Those harms include, according to a new ACLU report, marijuana-possession arrests that are skewed heavily toward minorities.

Since marijuana prohibition drives the drug war, these huge costs would end when federal cannabis law changes. Sheriff Tom Allman in Mendocino County, Calif., helped permit, inspect and protect local cannabis farmers in 2010 and 2011. When I asked him why, he said: “This county has problems: domestic violence, meth, poverty. Marijuana isn’t even in the top 10. I want it off the front pages so I can deal with the real issues.”

3. Getting high would be the top revenue generator for the cannabis plant.

I called both of my U.S. senators’ offices to support inserting a provision into this year’s farm bill to legalize hemp for domestic cultivation. Based on my research on industrial cannabis, commonly called hemp, I’m staggered by the potential of this plant, which is not the variety you smoke.

In Canada, where 90 percent of the crop is bought by U.S. consumers, the government researches the best varieties for its hemp farmers, rather than refusing to issue them permits, as the United States tends to do. In a research facility in Manitoba, I saw a tractor whose body was made entirely of hemp fiber and binding. BMW and Dodgeuse hemp fibers in their door panels, and homes whose insulation and wall paneling are made partially of hemp represent a fast-growing trend in the European construction industry.

Jack Noel, who co-authored a 2012 industrial hemp task force report for the New Mexico Department of Agriculture, says that “within 10 years of the end of the war on drugs, we’ll see a $50 billion domestic hemp industry.” That’s bigger than the $40 billion some economists predict smoked cannabis would bring in.

Foods such as cereal and salad dressing are the biggest U.S. markets for hemp today, but industrial cannabis has the brightest future in the energy sector, where a Kentucky utility is planning to grow hemp for biomass energy.

4. Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol would control the legal cannabis industry.

In 1978, the Carter administration changed alcohol regulations to allow for microbreweries. Today the craft-beer market is worth $10.2 billion annually. The top-shelf cannabis farmers in California’s Emerald Triangle realize this potential. “We’re creating an international brand, like champagne and Parmigiano cheese,” says Tomas Balogh, co-founder of the Emerald Growers Association in Humboldt, Calif. Get ready for the bud and breakfast.

When America’s 100 million cannabis aficionados (17 million regular partakers) are freed from dealers, some are going to pick up a six-pack of joints at the corner store before heading to a barbecue, and others are going to seek out organically grown heirloom strains for their vegetable dip.

As Balogh puts it: “When people ask me if the small farmer or the big corporation will benefit from the end of prohibition, I say, ‘Both.’ The cannabis industry is already decentralized and farmer-owned. It’s up to consumers to keep it that way.” So Big Alcohol might control the corner store, but not the fine-wine shop or the farmers’ market.

5. In the heartland, legalization is a political nonstarter.

President Obama, in an interview last December, for the first time took seriously a question about the legalization of cannabis. He said that he didn’t yet support it but that he had “bigger fish to fry” than harassing Colorado and Washington.

In Colorado in 2012, 40 percent of Republican voters chose to legalize cannabis, and a greater share of Coloradans voted for legalization than voted for Obama.

In Arizona, a pretty conservative and silver state, 56 percent of those in a poll last month supported regulating cannabis for personal use. Maybe fiscal conservatives know about the $35 billion in annual nationwide tax savings that ending prohibition would bring. In Illinois, 63 percent of voters support medicinal marijuana, and they’re likely to get it. Even 60 percent of Kentuckians favor medical cannabis.

I’m not surprised. I live in a conservative valley in New Mexico. Yet as a woman in line at the post office recently told me: “It’s pills that killed my cousin. Fightin’ pot just keeps those dang cartels in business.”

Doug Fine is the author of “Too High to Fail: Cannabis and the New Green Economic Revolution,” in which he followed one legal medicinal cannabis plant from farm to patient.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Doug Fine
Published: June 7, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]

5 Jun 2013

Blacks Are Singled Out for Marijuana Arrests

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Black Americans were nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested on charges of marijuana possession in 2010, even though the two groups used the drug at similar rates, according to new federal data.

This disparity had grown steadily from a decade before, and in some states, including Iowa, Minnesota and Illinois, blacks were around eight times as likely to be arrested. During the same period, public attitudes toward marijuana softened and a number of states decriminalized its use. But about half of all drug arrests in 2011 were on marijuana-related charges, roughly the same portion as in 2010.

Advocates for the legalization of marijuana have criticized the Obama administration for having vocally opposed state legalization efforts and for taking a more aggressive approach than the Bush administration in closing medical marijuana dispensaries and prosecuting their owners in some states, especially Montana and California.

The new data, however, offers a more nuanced picture of marijuana enforcement on the state level. Drawn from police records from all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the report is the most comprehensive review of marijuana arrests by race and by county and is part of a report being released this week by the American Civil Liberties Union. Much of the data was also independently reviewed for The New York Times by researchers at Stanford University.

“We found that in virtually every county in the country, police have wasted taxpayer money enforcing marijuana laws in a racially biased manner,” said Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the A.C.L.U.’s Criminal Law Reform Project and the lead author of the report.

During President Obama’s first three years in office, the arrest rate for marijuana possession was about 5 percent higher than the average rate under President George W. Bush. And in 2011, marijuana use grew to about 7 percent, up from 6 percent in 2002 among Americans who said that they had used the drug in the past 30 days. Also, a majority of Americans in a Pew Research Center poll conducted in March supported legalizing marijuana.

Though there has been a shift in state laws and in popular attitudes about the drug, black and white Americans have experienced the change very differently.

“It’s pretty clear that law enforcement practices are not keeping pace with public opinion and state policies,” said Mona Lynch, a professor of criminology, law and society at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

She added that 13 states have in recent years passed or expanded laws decriminalizing marijuana use and that 18 states now allow it for medicinal use.

In the past year, Colorado and Washington State have legalized marijuana, leaving the Justice Department to decide how to respond to those laws because marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

The cost of drug enforcement has grown steadily over the past decade. In 2010, states spent an estimated $3.6 billion enforcing marijuana possession laws, a 30 percent increase from 10 years earlier. The increase came as many states, faced with budget shortfalls, were saving money by using alternatives to incarceration for nonviolent offenders. During the same period, arrests for most other types of crime steadily dropped.

Researchers said the growing racial disparities in marijuana arrests were especially striking because they were so consistent even across counties with large or small minority populations.

The A.C.L.U. report said that one possible reason that the racial disparity in arrests remained despite shifting state policies toward the drug is that police practices are slow to change. Federal programs like the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program continue to provide incentives for racial profiling, the report said, by including arrest numbers in its performance measures when distributing hundreds of millions of dollars to local law enforcement each year.

Phillip Atiba Goff, a psychology professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that police departments, partly driven by a desire to increase their drug arrest statistics, can concentrate on minority or poorer neighborhoods to meet numerical goals, focusing on low-level offenses that are easier, quicker and cheaper than investigating serious felony crimes.

“Whenever federal funding agencies encourage law enforcement to meet numerical arrest goals instead of public safety goals, it will likely promote stereotype-based policing and we can expect these sorts of racial gaps,” Professor Goff said.

A version of this article appeared in print on June 4, 2013, on page A11 of the New York edition with the headline: Blacks Are Singled Out For Marijuana Arrests, Federal Data Suggests.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Ian Urbina
Published: June 4, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

13 May 2013

Federal Crackdown Busts Montana’s MMJ Industry

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If American society’s tolerance for marijuana is now growing, then what happened in Montana illustrates just what can happen when the government decides things have gone too far. Pot advocates were running caravans, helping hundreds of residents in a day get medical marijuana user cards. Some doctors who conducted cursory exams on scores of people were fined. As the number of users quickly grew, so did a retail industry that led some to dub the state “Big High Country.”

Today, thousands of medical pot providers have gone out of business, and a health department survey showed that the number of registered users have fallen to less than a quarter of their 2011 numbers.

The drop was driven in part by a tougher 2011 law on medical marijuana use and distribution. But more than anything, marijuana advocates say, the demise of the once-booming medical pot industry was the result of the largest federal drug-trafficking investigation in the state’s industry.

The three-year investigation by the U.S. attorney’s office, the Drug Enforcement Administration and other federal agencies wrapped up last week when the last of 33 convicted defendants was sentenced. That allowed its architect, U.S. Attorney Michael Cotter, to speak publicly for the first time on the crackdown.

“For a long time, we were hearing complaints from local law enforcement and from citizens … that they were tired of marijuana and they were tired of it next to schools, to churches, people smoking it openly on the streets,” Cotter said in an interview with The Associated Press.

“It was just something that had to be done,” he said. “And the result of doing it the way that we did, it was a strong statement that marijuana wasn’t going to be tolerated in Montana.”

Cotter said he believes he is on the right side of history, regardless of what is happening in the country. Last fall, voters in Colorado and Washington state passed laws to legalize recreational pot use, and a Pew Research Center poll released last month found 52 percent of Americans think marijuana should be legal.

The Justice Department has yet to decide whether to sue in federal court to block Colorado and Washington’s laws under the legal argument that federal laws outlawing any use, possession or distribution of marijuana prevail over state laws.

In Montana, what started out as a system to provide marijuana to those with health problems turned the state into a source for drug trafficking, Cotter said. The industry had ballooned so much and so quickly that drug traffickers were operating under the guise of medicinal caregivers, and the pot was being sent to users in New Jersey, Virginia, Colorado and other states, he said.

Now, marijuana is still in Montana, but it’s manageable, he said.

The investigations were split geographically into three parts: Operation Smokejumper, Operation Weed Be Gone and Operation Noxious Weed. They targeted medical marijuana providers dealing in more than 100 plants and came away with 34 indictments, from a longtime state lobbyist to a former University of Montana quarterback.

Most of those arrested argued at first that they were following the state’s medical marijuana law. When federal prosecutors, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph Thaggard, successfully squelched that argument in court, all but three of the providers made plea deals.

The federal Controlled Substances Act, which bans any distribution or use of marijuana, trumps state law, Thaggard said. Besides, the investigation found that none of the defendants was following state law, he added.

“I think that we were confident that if we had to go down that road, we would show just how out of compliance these people were,” Thaggard said.

The final scorecard: 33 convictions. Thirty-one made plea deals, two went to trial and lost and the case against the accountant of a provider was dismissed.

Federal prosecutors in other states watched closely as the probe unfolded in Montana, and was widely seen as a success and possibly a model for others, Cotter said.

“Speaking through enforcement action does have the deterrent effect that is needed,” Cotter said. “It had the effect that we were looking for, and that was to deter the trafficking of marijuana.”

Montana Cannabis Information Association spokesman and Marijuana Policy Project lobbyist Chris Lindsey — who also was one of the 33 providers convicted in the probe — agreed the federal investigation was the main driver in changing the shape of the industry.

But a federal crackdown won’t stem the tide of the public will, he said.

Montana residents are increasingly in favor of improving the medical marijuana laws so there is better regulation and better access for those who need it, Lindsey said. “In Montana, it seems our options have only been the wild, wild West or no activity at all. Ultimately, we will be in the middle,” Lindsey said.

Cotter and DEA Agent in Charge Brady MacKay, who led much of the investigation, dispute that medical marijuana is beneficial for the seriously ill. They say patients who need the relief that marijuana provides should get it from Marinol, a prescription drug that contains some of the properties of marijuana.

“I think it’s Madison Avenue marketing, the person who dreamed up tying medical and marijuana together,” Cotter said. “It’s a powerful marketing tool. But the fact of the matter remains that marijuana is a dangerous drug and it’s harmful to people,” Cotter said.

Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Published: May 12, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Billings Gazette
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.billingsgazette.com/

26 Apr 2013

Legalizing Marijuana For Profit Is A Bad Idea

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The push to legalize Marijuana is going Gangham style. In the past several months, 55 percent of voters in Colorado and Washington approved a ballot measure making it legal for medical and nonmedical uses, and a slew of polls indicate that a majority of Americans now support making Marijuana as legal as cigarettes and alcohol.

Changing public attitudes is a big reason why the drive to let people legally “toke” up is gaining traction. But the question on the minds of politicians and business leaders is how much money can be made from this new industry?

Earlier this month Fortune magazine ran an unusual cover story attempting to answer this question. The article featured a group of West Coast Cannabis entrepreneurs who are seeking investments from prominent venture capital firms. These entrepreneurs want to produce and market products that will make smoking pot easy, sexy, and appealing. What’s their selling point? Cannabis could represent a $47 billion industry opportunity.

A broader selling point is that legalizing marijuana could help state governments cut their enforcement budgets and generate tax revenue. Since 1970, state and federal authorities have spent billions enforcing marijuana laws, but pot continues to be ubiquitous. Police have not reduced production, and laws are applied inconsistently across the spectrum of socioeconomic and minority populations.

The economic argument carries great weight for proponents. As revelers lit up last weekend to mark 4-20, the annual celebration of all-things weed, it’s tough to argue that consumer demand isn’t there. Legalizing an already booming black-market industry means the potential for job creation and a fresh source of income for state treasuries scrambling in the age of the sequesters.

However, once you clean the bong, this line of thinking goes up in smoke.

First, just because public opinion and economic arguments indicate otherwise, Congress must ask some hard questions before it changes 50-years of national drug policy. Questions like: why has marijuana enforcement failed? Is the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 fundamentally flawed? And if so, what can be done to reform it?

Finding the answers to these questions is not at the top of the political agenda. Attorney General Eric Holder testified recently about federal policies in relation to the newly passed Colorado and Washington initiatives, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) promised that the panel would discuss federal policies in light of the country’s patchwork of state marijuana laws. But there has been no concerted push for broad scale reform similar to the activities associated with the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act of 2009 or the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Second, legalizing cannabis for profit is simply a bad idea. It flies in the face of social responsibility. The acquisition of profit is driven by self-interest, not the common good. Business decisions are made based on how the outcome will improve the bottom line.

It wouldn’t be long before marijuana companies – likely backed by big tobacco, with its in-place marketing and distribution teams – started aggressive efforts to win consumers. They’ll develop attractive packaging, new and interesting flavors and strains, optimal paper to enhance the smoking effect, and compelling advertising campaigns all designed to get consumers hooked.

There will be messages appealing to long-time pot smokers and new pot smokers. There will be brands for youths, college kids, minorities, the poor, women, and urbanites. Smokers will come to believe they can’t live without their daily “wake & bake” just as they believe they can’t live without their smartphones or iPads. The mass-market consumption of marijuana will bring with it the same negative and ubiquitous effects we’ve seen with alcohol and cigarettes: health problems, driving under the influence, and addiction.

Once the industry gets rolling, those celebrated tax revenues will probably evaporate. Just in the last few days, Colorado State University released a study indicating that the tax revenues expected from the Centennial State’s newly legal industry will not pay for its regulation. Nor will it bring in a windfall of money proponents promised would pay for new school construction and other social benefits.

Even if the tax projections do pan out, as the industry grows in size and influence, lobbyists will exert pressure on politicians to lower taxes and loosen regulations, just as the tobacco industry has done in the past, to maximize profitability. This is the nature of the interplay of business and politics; for the most part, business has the upper hand.

Other advocates point to the potential of a diminished drug trade – growers, particularly Mexican drug gangs, will no longer have as lucrative a demand for their wares, and dealers won’t be engaging in criminal activity because their sales have dried up. But this too doesn’t factor in the flip side of business: where one market opportunity ends, another one begins. Drug lords may see a short-term curtailment of their revenue upon legalization, but they’ll branch out to sell other illegal substances, like some new designer drug or some drug that has been out of vogue.

Legalizing marijuana isn’t a simple, creative way to fill up the government’s depleted bank account or strike it rich in a new industry. It will only add to the cacophony of big businesses jockeying for your dollar and competing for politicians’ favor. The public needs to take a long-pause before it starts clamoring for the legal right to buy marijuana at the local 7-Eleven. Social responsibility dictates caution.

Source: Topix LLC
Link: http://politix.topix.com/homepage/5760-legalizing-marijuana-for-profit-is-a-bad-idea
Author: Jamie P. Chandler and Palmer Gibbs
Date: April 23, 2013

13 Apr 2013

LEAP Looks To Make Marijuana Legal Across U.S.

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The legalization of marijuana is becoming a topic that is sweeping the nation. Washington and Colorado recently legalized marijuana use and several other states have or are looking into the issue as well. In Nevada, a bill introduced by Democrat Joe Hogan would allow residents 21 and older to own up to one ounce of marijuana for recreational use and up to six marijuana plants as well as taxing marijuana sales.

The group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ( LEAP ) is hoping Nevada joins Washington and Colorado in the legalization of marijuana, though the group’s reasons may surprise you.

LEAP

LEAP is comprised of former law enforcement officers, attorneys and judges who all took part in the “war on drugs,” which President Richard Nixon began in the 70s. But LEAP argues that the war on drugs not only hasn’t been effective, it’s actually helped fuel the illegal drug trade in the United States.

“The war on drugs causes what it was designed to prevent,” former prosecutor James Gierach said. “It works in reverse and what seems like a good idea is a bad idea. It keeps the price of drugs high, but simple laws of economics tell us as we increase the price of drugs, the more someone is willing to supply it so there’s more drugs instead of less of it.”

Gierach said the war on drugs is actually doing more harm than good because of some basic reasons. The first reason is because prohibition ensures that large numbers of unregulated drugs will be available for people The second reason is because Giearch said the drug cartels themselves are in support of prohibition. Marijuana is the most widely used drug in the world, Giearch said. And according to LEAP, by choosing to ban all use of the drug, it drives up the demand for the cartels.

“In 2011, a drug threat assessment was issued,” Gierach said. “The DEA said cartels are producing 25,100 tons of marijuana a year. Sixty percent of the money that goes to cartels in Mexico is from marijuana.”

But LEAP’s reasoning for supporting the regulation and taxation on marijuana rather than its prohibition goes further. Whether it’s gun violence, gang violence and crimes, having to build more prisons, a blanket prohibition on drugs makes those issues worse.

“You name the crisis, the war on drugs makes it worse,” Gierach said. “It corrupts the police, the kids, we fund terrorism and put guns in the hands of kids=C2=85The law enforcement agencies are working for the cartels and gangs to ensure they are the only outlets for these substances.”

Gierach said that by prohibiting the use of substances, it has led to the creation of synthetic drugs, which can be dangerous to the user’s health.

“The substitutes are much more dangerous, resulting in death, disease and paralysis,” Gierach said.

LEAP also believes that freeing up money that is spent on by often lengthy investigations into drug charges and cases could be used else where to other types of cases.

Nevada

What action Nevada takes on legalizing marijuana remains to be seen. In the past, people have been in favor of the war on drugs because of different entities getting to keep part of the drug bust money. But it also needs to be stopped, Gierach said.

“Al Capone was in favor of prohibition,” Gierach said. “The cartels are. The street gangs are. Prohibition is the foundation for the business and helps it become the most valuable commodity on the face of the earth.”

LEAP is optimistic that the national consciousness about marijuana use is changing and he hopes to see all states adopt regulation laws on marijuana use=C2=85and sooner rather than later.

“The pendulum is swinging in regulation control land taxation of drugs,” Gierach said. “Nationally and locally on a state basis, we can’t pay the price tags that come with prohibition.”

Marijuana has hit White Pine County with two grows found last year with an estimated worth of more than $30 million. But whether AB 402 will make any movement this session remains to be seen. Opponents to legalizing marijuana say that it can lead to addiction and that it could send the wrong message to children that it’s OK to do drugs.

State Senator Pete Goicoeceha is one who opposes legalizing marijuana and said that he will not be supporting AB 402.

“I’m very concerned about it, especially the tax they’re imposing,” Goicoechea said. “It will allow you to have one ounce in your possession and it will be decriminalized. It opens it wide open for more illegal narcotics. You’ve got to pay a thousand dollar a gram tax on it, we’ll start seeing black market marijuana. It’ll throw the gates open. I will oppose the bill. I think it’s a gateway drug. I know it’s for people 21 and older, but it’s illegal for kids to smoke and they find their way. It’s just a matter of time.”

Goicoechea also expressed concerns passing a bill that goes against current federal laws.

It’s clear the debate surrounding legalizing marijuana is far from finished. Whether Nevada joins Washington and Colorado is an issue that is likely to see strong opinions on both sides.

Pubdate: Fri, 05 Apr 2013
Source: Ely Times (NV)
Copyright: 2013 The Ely Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.elynews.com/
Author: Lukas Eggen

9 Apr 2013

LEAP Looks To Make Marijuana Legal Across U.S.

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

The group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ( LEAP ) is hoping Nevada joins Washington and Colorado in the legalization of marijuana, though the group’s reasons may surprise you.

LEAP

Gierach said that by prohibiting the use of substances, it has led to the creation of synthetic drugs, which can be dangerous to the user’s health.

“The substitutes are much more dangerous, resulting in death, disease and paralysis,” Gierach said.

LEAP also believes that freeing up money that is spent on by often lengthy investigations into drug charges and cases could be used else where to other types of cases.

Nevada

LEAP is optimistic that the national consciousness about marijuana use is changing and he hopes to see all states adopt regulation laws on marijuana use=C2=85and sooner rather than later.

“The pendulum is swinging in regulation control land taxation of drugs,” Gierach said. “Nationally and locally on a state basis, we can’t pay the price tags that come with prohibition.”

State Senator Pete Goicoeceha is one who opposes legalizing marijuana and said that he will not be supporting AB 402.

Goicoechea also expressed concerns passing a bill that goes against current federal laws.

It’s clear the debate surrounding legalizing marijuana is far from finished. Whether Nevada joins Washington and Colorado is an issue that is likely to see strong opinions on both sides.

Pubdate: Fri, 05 Apr 2013
Source: Ely Times (NV)
Copyright: 2013 The Ely Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.elynews.com/
Author: Lukas Eggen

19 Sep 2012

Buckley Supports Marijuana Legalization

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State Rep. Peter Buckley has thrown his support behind Measure 80, an initiative that would legalize, regulate and tax marijuana consumed by adults.

“Overall, legalization would take the black market out of Oregon,” said Buckley, D-Ashland, who has served as co-chairman of the Legislature’s Ways and Means Committee for the past two sessions. He said he supports regulating marijuana in a manner similar to the regulation of alcohol under the Oregon Liquor Control Commission.

Under current laws, he said, medical marijuana has too many legal loopholes that have frustrated law enforcement and left the door open for abuse.

“I do think it’s a problem with some medical marijuana growers,” he said. “They’ve gotten greedy.”

Oregon voters will decide this November on the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, a citizen’s initiative campaign to regulate cannabis and encourage production of hemp.

According to the YES on 80 campaign, legalizing marijuana could save $60 million annually in law enforcement costs, while taxing it could bring in an extra $140 million. Under the proposal, marijuana would be purchased through state-run stores.

Buckley, who said he’s not a marijuana user and doesn’t have a medical marijuana card, said the federal government likely would question Oregon’s authority to legalize the drug if voters pass the measure, but he thinks that if enough states pass similar initiatives it could change the national debate.

“Hopefully, the federal government will see the light,” he said.

The new law will provide a clearer legal distinction for law enforcement in how to prosecute anyone furnishing marijuana to minors, Buckley said. The law still would make it illegal to drive under the influence of marijuana or to use it in public places.

Roy Kaufmann, spokesman for the YES on 80 campaign, said the law could add to Oregon’s image as a tourist destination, similar to the effect of the Oregon wine and beer industry.

Also, the initiative would create another growth industry in the state, he said. “Agricultural hemp will dwarf the marijuana market within a decade,” Kaufmann predicted.

Other states, including Washington and Colorado, may take up similar initiatives to legalizing marijuana. If enough states support legalization, Kaufmann said, “It would really force the federal government’s hand on this issue.”

He said the marijuana law has been written in a way to stand up to federal scrutiny.

Kaufmann said the prohibition of marijuana has been a failure in this country.

State Rep. Dennis Richardson, R-Central Point, said Oregon’s medical marijuana laws are “grossly abused,” but said he has too many questions about Measure 80 to support it.

“I am very much troubled by the current medical marijuana law,” said Richardson, who served as a co-chairman with Buckley on the Ways and Means Committee. “It is basically legalization through a back-door approach.”

He said the right to smoke pot is now being advertised as a simple matter of spending $100 to find the right doctor.

Richardson said he doesn’t support legalizing marijuana. But he said the state needs to have a rational debate about whether it wants to legalize cannabis or take a different approach and crack down on violations.

He said Measure 80 will at least get voters talking about medical marijuana laws, though he doubts the voters in his fairly conservative district would support the initiative.

While Measure 80 would raise tax dollars, Richardson said he’s reluctant to create a new state bureaucracy to keep track of the process.

He said he’s also concerned about creating another “sin tax,” in addition to the dollars the state already collects through gambling, cigarettes and alcohol.

Richardson, who doesn’t have a medical marijuana card, said he would consider using marijuana if he had a serious medical condition.

Source: Mail Tribune, The (Medford, OR)
Author: Damian Mann, Mail Tribune
Published: September 18, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Mail Tribune
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.mailtribune.com/

6 Sep 2012

Initiative Or No, Federal Law Trumps State On Marijuana

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Suppose voters decided that they’ve had it with federal drug rules that make marijuana an illegal substance akin to heroin or cocaine, and they change Washington state law to make marijuana legal.

Not in all instances, not for everyone, not at any time. But for adults, in regulated quantities, for limited uses.

While that might be a fair shorthand description of what Initiative 502 proposes this November, this isn’t just a hypothetical scenario about the future. It’s also a description of the past. In 1998, Washington voters “legalized” marijuana for medical uses, even though the federal government said at the time, and still does, the drug belongs on the list of controlled substances that have no legal medical use.

Fourteen years later, state officials still struggle with developing a system to regulate medical marijuana production and sale, while the U.S. Justice Department continues to prosecute “dispensaries” under federal drug trafficking statutes for selling pot to state-approved medicinal smokers unwilling or unable to grow it for themselves.

Supporters of I-502 — which would allow for the possession and consumption of small amounts of marijuana by adults but keep it illegal for minors and anyone operating a vehicle — say it will free local law enforcement and state courts from the cost of marijuana enforcement. The prosecution, defense, court and jail costs of those cases cost Washington governments more than $200 million between 2000 and 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington recently estimated.

Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart said the chance to lighten the load on local police and avoid filling local courts and jails makes I-502 a good choice. While there’s no guarantee what federal drug agents and prosecutors will do, the chance to begin discussions also would be a plus, he said.

“If nobody acts, nothing’s going to happen,” he said.

I-502 won’t stop federal officials from enforcing the law, most concede. But it will spark discussions on how to shift from individual users to large criminal organizations bringing drugs across state and national borders, said Pete Holmes, the Seattle city attorney and a supporter of the initiative.

“It would take a great deal of hubris to just brush it aside,” Holmes said.

The state’s federal prosecutors won’t even talk about what they would do if voters approve I-502.

“We’re not making plans right now,” said Mike Ormsby, U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington, adding he’s had no discussions with supporters of the initiative and “I don’t intend to have any.”

Jenny Durkan, U.S. attorney for Western Washington, hasn’t had any official discussions on what actions federal law enforcement would take if the ballot measure passes, a spokeswoman said. “We are prohibited from commenting on Initiative 502,” Emily Langlie said. “It’s possible, between now and the election, the Department of Justice will provide further instructions.”

Last year, Ormsby warned dispensaries in Spokane that they faced federal prosecution if they didn’t shut down. A letter from Ormsby and Durkan to Gov. Chris Gregoire prompted the governor to essentially gut a bill that legislators had hammered out to regulate the production and sale of medical marijuana, which was called for in the 1998 ballot measure.

“Growing, distributing and possessing marijuana in any capacity, other than as part of a federally authorized research program, is a violation of federal law regardless of state laws permitting such activities,” they wrote in April 2011.

I-502 calls for the state to regulate the production, processing and sale of marijuana — and collect taxes on it — through the state Liquor Control Board.

Holmes believes the passage of I-502 could actually ease the federal pressure on medical marijuana dispensaries. It was the proliferation of those facilities and readily available “prescriptions” that helped spur the federal crackdown, he said.

“There are a lot of sham users of medical marijuana,” he said. “The number of dispensaries you see is quite a bit beyond what’s needed for medical marijuana.”

I-502 would likely preclude the need for dispensaries because medical patients could find the drug relatively easily, he added.

State Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is running for governor this fall on the same ballot as I-502, said passage of the measure will create “a serious conflict between state law and federal law.” If state and local officials don’t prosecute marijuana cases, federal prosecutors likely will, he said.

“It’s not a state’s rights issue,” McKenna said: It’s an issue where federal law rules under the Constitution’s supremacy clause.

Like his Democratic opponent for governor, Jay Inslee, Republican McKenna opposes I-502. If the measure passes, one or the other would be faced with dealing with the fallout, although neither has specific plans.

Inslee’s campaign said simply that he would “work with legislators and stakeholders to implement the new law.”

McKenna said he believes the initiative will fail, so he won’t deal with a hypothetical like how he would deal with the U.S. Justice Department. “I don’t want to comment on what could happen on a law that won’t pass.”

Source: Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)
Copyright: 2012 The Spokesman-Review
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.spokesman.com/
Author: Jim Camden