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

7 May 2014

Federal Government Ordered 1000 Lbs Of Marijuana

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The federal government just ordered all the marijuana it wants — something it would send most Americans to prison for doing.

On Monday, the Drug Enforcement Administration issued a new rule that increases the U.S. government’s production quota for medical marijuana from an annual 21 kg to 650 kg. That’s about 1,433 pounds of pot in total.

The U.S. government grows marijuana for research purposes at the University of Mississippi in the only federally legal marijuana garden in the U.S. The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) oversees the cultivation, production and distribution of these crops.

“NIDA recently notified the DEA that it required additional supplies of marijuana to be manufactured in 2014 to provide for current and anticipated research efforts involving marijuana,” reads a recent Federal Register’s statement from the DEA.

The statement goes on to specify a production quota of 650,000 grams of pot for the current year.

The DEA decided to grant NIDA access to more marijuana “in order to provide a continuous and uninterrupted supply” of cannabis for research, according to the statement, which also says that the federal government was “unaware” of NIDA’s need for additional marijuana when the initial production quota of 21 kg was set in 2013.

Twenty-one states have legalized marijuana for medical use, and recreational marijuana is legal in Colorado and Washington, with sales in Colorado having already begun. About a dozen other states are considering legalizing marijuana in some form in the coming years.

Still, under federal law the plant remains illegal and classified as a Schedule I drug, meaning it’s considered one of “the most dangerous” substances “with no currently accepted medical use.”

The feds have long been accused of only funding marijuana research that focuses on the potential negative effects of the substance, but that trend appears to be changing.

According to The Hill, NIDA has conducted about 30 studies to date on the potential benefits of marijuana.

The most recent research effort was approved in March, when the Department of Health and Human Services signed off on a study assessing medical cannabis as a potential treatment for veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder. Researchers will provide the equivalent of two joints per day, cultivated from the federal government’s stash at Ole Miss, for 50 veterans.

The federal government’s interest in marijuana certainly appears to be growing. Since 2003, more than 500 grants for marijuana-related studies have received approval from the feds, with a marked upswing in recent years, according to McClatchy. Only 22 grants were approved in 2003 for cannabis research, totaling $6 million, but in 2012, 69 grants were approved for a total of over $30 million.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Matt Ferner, The Huffington Post
Published: May 5, 2014
Copyright: 2014 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

7 May 2014

Pot Smoking Stats Real Eye Opener

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Do you smoke pot? According to stats I saw this week, 12 per cent of Ontario residents 15 and over smoked marijuana at least once over a recent 12-month period.  Which is about 1.3 million Ontarians.  Or about 130,000 people here in York Region.

This is according to Statistics Canada’s Canadian Community Health Survey for 2012, which asked Canadians over 15 if they used cannabis or hash.

Keep in mind these were only the people willing to admit to using pot.

The real numbers could be a lot higher, pardon the pun, considering this is a type of behaviour not everyone would readily admit to on a government form.

For political prognosticators, that’s a lot of Justin Trudeau supporters.  Maybe that’s why Stephen Harper’s poll numbers seem to be going up in smoke.

And here I thought some people were just really happy, really hungry, or had the giggles.

Next time someone laughs at one of your jokes, you’ll be tempted to ask, “Did you actually think that’s funny, or are you just high?” And stop eating those Cheesies.

Obviously it can’t be just teenagers, whose current slang words for cannabis or getting high – according to this thing called Google I have on my computer – include to get blazed, chief, burn one, bent, kush and, well, by the time someone like me is using them in a community newspaper, they may already be obsolete.

Point is, considering the stats, there must be professors, lawyers, MPs ( such as the aforementioned Mr.  Trudeau ), journalists, the Ford family, and many others out there, who you would not think of as your typical pot smokers, who are, in fact.

Don’t get me wrong.  I don’t have a whole lot against people who smoke up.

They used to bother me more, when I thought of all the mayhem created by the people growing the pot, with law enforcement chasing them – all in the quest to supply herbal refreshment to people who rationalized that their little illegal indulgence was harmless.

But as the pot laws become more relaxed, particularly in the U.S., the people who smoked up despite the laws and the negative consequences for society, seem a little less selfish, a little more mainstream.

Things are being legalized, taxed, in some U.S.  states, including Colorado and Washington.  In Canada, we are just getting a sniff of this brave new world.

So now, there is a rush by all kinds of people to get into Canada’s “medical” marijuana business.  Why?

Because of several recent court decisions, the projection in the next few years is that up to 400,000 Canadians will have gotten themselves permits to use medical marijuana, as in daily, up from 40,000, which now must be supplied by government approved growers ( think $ signs ), with Canada’s doctors forced to take part in the approval process for “patients”.

This despite what the Canadian Medical Association says is a lack of scientific evidence that marijuana is anything other than a recreational drug, even if it is, anecdotally – for some – helpful dealing with illnesses that cause pain or seizures.  Fine.  But 400,000 people?

Maybe, like the U.S., it’s time to give everyone the right to smoke pot ( responsibly – no driving ) and leave the doctors and Ottawa out of it.  Something to put in your bong and smoke before the next federal election.

3 May 2014

How Bad Is Marijuana for Your Health?

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The Journal of Neuroscience recently published a study linking recreational marijuana use to subtle changes in brain structure. The researchers, led by Jodi Gilman of Massachusetts General Hospital, identified increased gray matter density in the left nucleus accumbens and some bordering areas. The study was fine, but the media coverage was abysmal. Reporters overstated the findings, mischaracterized the study, and failed to mention previous research done on pot smoking and health. Goldfish may not have a three-second memory, but some journalists seem to. When a new paper comes out, it’s often treated as the first ever and final word on the topic. There is a significant body of literature on the neurological and wider health effects of marijuana, and to ignore it when covering new studies seems to me a form of journalistic malpractice.

A press release from the Society for Neuroscience trumpeted the Gilman study’s importance because it looked at casual users rather than regular pot smokers, who form the basis of most marijuana studies. That claim is dubious in the extreme. The subjects averaged 3.83 days of smoking and 11.2 total joints per week. Characterizing these people as casual pot smokers was a great media hook, but it defied common sense. Occasional users wondered if they’d done permanent damage, and parents were concerned that their teenagers might face profound neurological changes from experimenting with pot. Any reporter who read the study, however, should have known not to take that bait.

Even by the standards of past medical studies, it’s a stretch to call these subjects casual pot smokers. Just two years ago, for example, Janna Cousijn and colleagues published a study on a group that she called “heavy” marijuana users. In the average week, they smoked 3 grams of cannabis—approximately 2 grams less than Gilman’s casual smokers. (A joint has about 0.5 grams of cannabis.) The justification for calling Gilman’s subjects casual smokers is that they didn’t meet the criteria for dependence, but when you count up the joints, the study doesn’t look so revolutionary.

Many stories also claimed that the Gilman study showed direct causation between pot smoking and brain abnormalities. That’s wrong. The study looked at differences between pot smokers and abstainers at a single moment. Only a longitudinal study, examining brain changes over time, could have suggested causation. As a letter writer to the Journal of Neuroscience noted, it’s possible that pre-existing brain differences cause some people to seek out marijuana. Gilman’s pot smokers also drank more and smoked more cigarettes than the control group, which supports this interpretation and also raises the possibility that other factors led to brain structure differences.

The biggest problem with the coverage of the marijuana study was that it failed to put the new research into context. Valentina Lorenzetti of the University of Melbourne recently published a widely cited review paper synthesizing dozens of studies on marijuana and the brain. Taking the literature as a whole, there is evidence suggesting that marijuana use causes structural changes in three parts of the brain: the frontal lobes, temporal lobes, and the cerebellum. The data also reinforces the idea that long-term, heavy smokers experience greater changes than casual users. The studies, however, have serious flaws. They are typically small and have been unable to show that the structural changes cause cognitive impairment. Gilman’s study of 20 smokers is a good contribution to the literature, but it doesn’t resolve those problems.

If you are considering smoking pot—or quitting—here is what you need to know.

Smoking marijuana once is very unlikely to harm you. It takes at least 15 grams of cannabis to kill a person, and probably much more than that. A healthy person would have to smoke dozens of joints in a single session to risk death from overdose. People who do die from the acute effects of marijuana die in accidents: A recent study suggested that more than 10 percent of drivers killed in car accidents test positive for cannabis.*

The more likely risk from trying marijuana is dependence. There is a debate over whether marijuana is addictive, but you needn’t bother with it—it’s mainly about semantics. The fact is, approximately 9 percent of people who start smoking pot become dependent by ordinary medical standards. That’s low compared with dependence rates for other drugs: More than 15 percent of people who drink become alcoholics, and 32 percent of people who try cigarettes get hooked. Still, you should think seriously about a 1-in-11 chance of addiction, especially if you have a personal or family history of substance abuse.

What sorts of health risks are these regular cannabis users taking? It’s extremely challenging to study the long-term health effects of marijuana in humans. You can’t legally ask 1,000 people to smoke three joints a week for 40 years just to see what happens, so researchers can only compare health data from people who admit to smoking pot with data from people who don’t admit to it. Retrospective correlational studies like these raise all kinds of problems, such as matching the groups for confounding variables. (Do they smoke cigarettes? Do they have a family history of cancer? What do they eat? Do they exercise?) Even if you assume that everyone is telling the truth, there are also bound to be wide variations in how much pot the subjects used. Most studies suggest that any potential health risks of cannabis are dose-dependent—people who smoke only a little face very few health risks, while people who smoke a lot are more likely to get sick—but this is still largely a matter of conjecture.

With that caveat out of the way, here are some findings. Studies consistently show that frequent marijuana smoking is associated with some forms of respiratory dysfunction. Smokers report problems with coughing, wheezing, and phlegm. Lung cancer is a murkier issue. Cannabis smoke contains higher concentrations of some carcinogens than cigarette smoke does. Some large studies show increased prevalence of respiratory tract cancers in cannabis users, while others find no correlation.

With the legalization of recreational marijuana in some states, many people have asked whether they can minimize cancer risk by ingesting rather than smoking cannabis. It’s a reasonable suggestion. At this point, however, the question is unanswerable. There simply aren’t enough people with a long history of eating marijuana, but not smoking it, to put together a study. Ingestion may be risky, because it seems easier to overindulge in food products than in smoking. Colorado is currently reviewing its regulations after accidental deaths involving ingested cannabis. Keeping cannabis brownies is especially risky if you ever have children in your home. A study released last year suggested that an increasing number of children in Colorado are accidentally eating marijuana-laced food products.

The cognitive effects of chronic marijuana use are uncertain. If you’re an adult who smokes occasionally, there appears to be little or no reason to believe your mental performance will suffer. Several studies also show that those who experience impairments may recover if they stop smoking. Heavy, long-term smokers may experience memory and attention loss. There is also some indication that heavy marijuana users are more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia, but it’s not clear which is the cause and which the effect, if indeed there is such a relationship; it may be the case that people with schizophrenia are self-medicating with marijuana.

As with alcohol and tobacco, it’s fairly clear that minors should not use marijuana. Many studies show that kids who smoke pot do poorly in school, and some studies suggest that they commit suicide at higher rates. Although the causal relationship isn’t clear, the risks are too great.

You probably have plenty of other questions. For example, is marijuana less bad for you than alcohol or tobacco? The comparison is basically impossible to make. Mountains of data link cigarette smoking to a staggering collection of adverse events. It’s difficult to know whether the same goes for marijuana, because fewer people smoke it, and those who do typically smoke less pot than cigarette smokers do tobacco. Comparing alcohol with marijuana—aside from differences in acute toxicity and driving competence—is also impractical.

Seriously, though, if you’re trying to decide among smoking pot, taking up cigarettes, and drinking alcohol based on health risks, I suggest finding a different hobby.

*Correction, May 1, 2014: Due to an editing error, this piece misstated that almost 25 percent of drivers killed in car accidents test positive for cannabis. Almost 25 percent test positive for non-alcohol drugs; of those, about 12 percent test positive for cannabis.

Brian Palmer is Slate’s chief explainer. He also writes How and Why and Ecologic for the Washington Post. Follow him on Twitter.

Source: Slate Magazine (US Web)
Author: Brian Palmer
Published: May 1, 2014
Copyright: 2014 The Slate Group, LLC.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.slate.com/

3 May 2014

DEA Chief Says Marijuana-Trafficking Spiking

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The Drug Enforcement Administration is concerned about a surge in the illegal shipment of marijuana from Colorado since the state legalized the drug, and is trying to crack down on minors’ use of the substance, the head of the agency said Wednesday.

Administrator Michele Leonhart said the DEA is troubled by the increase in marijuana trafficking in states surrounding Colorado and worries that the same phenomenon could be repeated around Washington state, where recreational marijuana is expected to be sold legally soon. In Kansas, she said, there has been a 61 percent increase in seizures of marijuana from Colorado.

Speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Leonhart said the softening of attitudes nationwide about the risk of marijuana has confirmed some of the agency’s fears.

“The trends are what us in law enforcement had expected would happen,” she said. “In 2012, 438,000 Americans were addicted to heroin. And 10 times that number were dependent on marijuana.”

The Obama administration released a memo in August saying it would not challenge legalization laws in Colorado and Washington as long as the two states maintained strict rules regarding the sale and distribution of the drug. In the memo, Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole stressed that marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

The Justice Department directed federal prosecutors not to target individual users but instead to focus on eight areas of enforcement. Those aims include preventing the distribution of marijuana to minors, stopping the drug from being grown on public land, keeping marijuana from falling into the hands of cartels and gangs, and preventing the diversion of the drug to states where it remains illegal.

DEA officials have expressed frustration privately about the legalization of marijuana by Colorado and Washington state, where local officials consider the change an opportunity to generate tax revenue and boost tourism.

But in January, James. L. Capra, the DEA’s chief of operations, called marijuana legalization at the state level “reckless and irresponsible,” and warned that the decriminalization movement would have dire consequences.

“It scares us,” he said during a Senate hearing. “Every part of the world where this has been tried, it has failed time and time again.”

Two years ago, nine former DEA administrators wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to express their concern about the states’ movements to legalize marijuana and urge him to oppose the ballot initiatives.

“To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives,” wrote the former administrators, who oversaw the DEA under Democratic and Republican presidents from 1973 to 2007.

On Wednesday, Leonhart spoke about why she thinks marijuana is dangerous. She said that marijuana-related emergency-room visits increased by 28 percent between 2007 and 2011 and that one in 15 high school seniors is a near-daily marijuana user. Since 2009, she said, more high school seniors have been smoking pot than smoking cigarettes.

Marijuana advocates say that concerns about the drug’s danger are exaggerated. In an interview with the New Yorker magazine, President Obama compared the use of marijuana to drinking alcohol.

“As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life,” he said. “I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol.”

Leonhart also spoke out in support of mandatory minimum sentencing for drug crimes, an issue Holder has highlighted recently as part of his initiative to reduce prison crowding and foster equity in criminal sentencing.

Holder has instructed his 93 U.S. attorneys to use their discretion in charging low-level, nonviolent criminals with offenses that impose severe mandatory sentences.

Leonhart, in response to a question from Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), said: “Having been in law enforcement as an agent for 33 years [and] a Baltimore City police officer before that, I can tell you that for me and for the agents that work at the DEA, mandatory minimums have been very important to our investigations. We depend on those as a way to ensure that the right sentences equate the level of violator we are going after.”

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Sari Horwitz
Published: April 30, 2014
Copyright: 2014 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

 

27 Apr 2014

John Paul Stevens Thinks MJ Should Be Legalized

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Former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens believes marijuana should be legalized by the federal government, predicting that the public will soon decide prohibiting the substance is “not worth the cost.” In a Thursday interview with NPR’s Scott Simon, the retired justice was asked if he believes the drug should be legal at the federal level.

“Yes,” Stevens said. “I really think that that’s another instance of public opinion [that’s] changed. And recognize that the distinction between marijuana and alcoholic beverages is really not much of a distinction. Alcohol, the prohibition against selling and dispensing alcoholic beverages has I think been generally, there’s a general consensus that it was not worth the cost. And I think really in time that will be the general consensus with respect to this particular drug.”

Click over to NPR for the full interview: http://drugsense.org/url/mjtmuHdP

Recent polling has shown that most Americans agree with Stevens. Last October, a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans are in favor of legalization, marking the first time in the poll a clear majority has been in favor of legal pot. And in a Pew Research Center survey released earlier this month, 75 percent of respondents said they believe legalization is inevitable.

“Justice Stevens is right. Public opinion is shifting rapidly in favor of marijuana legalization,” Tom Angell, chairman of Marijuana Majority, said in a statement. “Polls now consistently show that a clear majority of the public supports ending prohibition and, as this trend continues, we’ll start to see more prominent people and politicians saying it’s time to change the laws.”

Stevens, who stepped down from the bench in 2010, is currently promoting his new book, Six Amendments, in which he details the changes he would make to the U.S. Constitution. Among his proposals are abolishing the death penalty, imposing stricter campaign finance reforms and changing the Second Amendment to allow tougher gun control laws.

This post has been updated to include Angell’s statement.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Mollie Reilly, The Huffington Post
Published: April 24, 2014
Copyright: 2014 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

21 Apr 2014

Marijuana Has Come A Long Way Since Last 4/20

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What a difference a year makes. From 4/20, 2013, to 4/20, 2014, marijuana has taken big steps out of the shadows of the black market and into the light of the mainstream — from record high popular support and the first legal recreational sales, to an entire country legalizing marijuana.

Here’s a look at the last 12 months of marijuana milestones:

Colorado Sold Legal, Recreational Marijuana For The First Time

The first month of legal sales generated $14 million. Those millions were brought in by only 59 marijuana businesses that were able to get through the application process, and represent just a fraction of the approximately 550 outlets in the state eligible for retail licenses.

Now, as the fourth month of sales winds to a close, Denver has still not descended into the crime-filled hellscape that some members of law enforcement predicted. In fact, overall crime in Mile High City appears to be down since legal pot sales began.

And as time passes, more Coloradan voters are happy with legalization. A recent survey from Public Policy Polling showed that 57 percent of Colorado voters now approve of marijuana legalization, while 35 percent disapprove. Amendment 64, the measure that legalized recreational marijuana in the state, passed by only a 10-point margin.

The Promise Of Medical Marijuana Continued To Grow

“Charlotte’s Web” isn’t just a classic children’s story. It’s also the name of a coveted medical marijuana strain used to treat children with epilepsy.

Over the last year, hundreds of families uprooted themselves and moved to Colorado to take advantage of the state’s expansive medical marijuana laws, and in search of Charlotte’s Web — a strain of pot high in CBD, a non-psychoactive ingredient, and low in THC, which causes users to feel “high.” The strain was developed by the Colorado Springs-based Realm of Caring nonprofit.

The pot strain is named after 7-year-old Charlotte Figi, who used to have hundreds of seizures each week. Charlotte now controls 99 percent of seizures with her medical marijuana treatment, according to her mother Paige.

Also this year, the Food and Drug Administration moved forward with an orphan drug designation for a cannabis-based drug called Epidiolex to fight severe forms of childhood epilepsy. The Epidiolex maker still must demonstrate efficacy of the drug in clinical trials to win FDA approval to market the medicine, but the orphan drug designation represents a tremendous step for cannabis-based medicine.

The federal government signed off on a study using medical marijuana to treat post-traumatic stress disorder in veterans, another sign of shifting federal policy.

Study after study demonstrated the promise of medical marijuana since last 4/20. Purified forms of cannabis were shown to be effective at attacking some forms of aggressive cancer. Marijuana use has also been tied to better blood sugar control, and to slowing the spread of HIV. The legalization of the plant for medical purposes may lead to lower suicide rates.

The Return Of Hemp

A flag made of hemp flying over the U.S. Capitol in July may have been a sign that hemp was going to have a banner year.

Just months later in Colorado, farmer Ryan Loflin planted 55 acres of hemp — the first legal hemp crop planted in the U.S. in nearly 60 years.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 70 bills related to hemp have been introduced in more than half of U.S. states. That’s more than triple the number of hemp bills introduced during the same period last year, and nearly double the number hemp bills introduced in all of 2013.

Added to that is the recent passage of the Farm Bill, which legalizes industrial hemp production for research purposes in states that permit it.

Support For Pot Surges

An October Gallup poll showed for the first time that a clear majority of Americans want to see marijuana legalized. Gallup noted that when the question was first asked in 1969, only 12 percent of Americans favored legalization.

Americans also want an end to the long-running war on drugs. A recent survey from Pew found that 67 percent of Americans say that government should provide treatment for people who use illegal drugs. Only 26 percent thought the government should be prosecuting drug users.

Americans regard marijuana as relatively benign. In that same Pew poll, 69 percent of Americans felt that alcohol is a bigger danger to a person’s health than marijuana, and 63 percent said alcohol is a bigger danger to society than marijuana.

Of all the vices a person can indulge in, Americans told NBC News/The Wall Street Journal that marijuana may be the most benign substance — less harmful than sugar.

More States Approved Progressive Pot Laws

While the title of third state to legalize marijuana is still up for grabs, lawmakers around U.S. the have been scaling back harsh anti-weed laws. Maryland recently became the latest state to officially decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana. Washington, D.C., awaits congressional approval of a similar measure. New Hampshire appeared poised to pass a similar law, but it was recently rejected by state lawmakers. Other states, including Illinois, are considering legislation to decriminalize low-level possession.

Medical marijuana has also made some strides since last year’s 4/20. Maryland this month became the 21st state to legalize marijuana for medical use. A new trend has appeared in conservative and Deep South states, as bills to legalize medicine derived from marijuana have found surprising support in places like Alabama, where a measure was signed into law this year.

Uruguay Makes History

At the end of 2013, Uruguay became the world’s first country to legalize a national marketplace for marijuana. Citing frustrations over failed attempts to stem the drug trade, President Jose Mujica signed a law handing the government responsibility for overseeing the new industry.

The move drew some derision from the international community, including the United Nations, but also applause. Mujica was nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize, in part for his work legalizing the plant.

In an effort to undercut the black market, the Uruguay government has set the starting price around $1 a gram. Legal weed in the U.S., including at legal pot shops in Colorado, can cost around $20 for the same amount. There are also limits on the amount residents can buy or grow. But with marijuana already accessible in Uruguay before legalization, many pot reformers have hailed the move as an alternative to prohibition that will ultimately give the government more avenues to help protect public health and safety.

Obama Says Pot Is No More Dangerous Than Alcohol

The president was an admitted pot user in his youth. And while he now regards his experiences as foolish, he revealed earlier this year that he didn’t believe his behavior was particularly dangerous.

“I don’t think it is more dangerous than alcohol,” President Barack Obama told The New Yorker’s David Remnick in a January interview.

The president said that would discourage people from using it, but his comments led to a much bigger question: If marijuana is as dangerous as alcohol, why does Obama’s administration insist that it is rightfully considered an illegal Schedule I substance, alongside heroin and LSD? The irony of this wasn’t lost on Congress. A month after the interview, a group of representatives a called on Obama to drop pot from Schedule I. The administration has resisted the request.

Eric Holder Is ‘Cautiously Optimistic’ About Legal Weed

Some of the biggest advances in pot policy over the last year have come thanks to action — or perhaps inaction — by the Justice Department. Last August, it decided that it would allow legalization laws in Colorado and Washington proceed. And this month, Attorney General Eric Holder told The Huffington Post that he was cautiously optimistic about how those state laws were proceeding.

Holder has said the Justice Department would be happy to work with Congress to reschedule marijuana and has been clear that the administration won’t push the issue without action from lawmakers.

No matter how hard you try, time always wins.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Matt Ferner and Nick Wing, The Huffington Post
Published: April 20, 2014
Copyright: 2014 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

18 Apr 2014

Study Finds Signs of Brain Changes in Pot Smokers

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A small study of casual marijuana smokers has turned up evidence of changes in the brain, a possible sign of trouble ahead, researchers say. The young adults who volunteered for the study were not dependent on pot, nor did they show any marijuana-related problems.

“What we think we are seeing here is a very early indication of what becomes a problem later on with prolonged use,” things like lack of focus and impaired judgment, said Dr. Hans Breiter, a study author.

Longer-term studies will be needed to see if such brain changes cause any symptoms over time, said Breiter, of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and Massachusetts General Hospital.

Previous studies have shown mixed results in looking for brain changes from marijuana use, perhaps because of differences in the techniques used, he and others noted in Wednesday’s issue of the Journal of Neurosciences.

The study is among the first to focus on possible brain effects in recreational pot smokers, said Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The federal agency helped pay for the work. She called the work important but preliminary.

The 20 pot users in the study, ages 18 to 25, said they smoked marijuana an average of about four days a week, for an average total of about 11 joints. Half of them smoked fewer than six joints a week. Researchers scanned their brains and compared the results to those of 20 non-users who were matched for age, sex and other traits.

The results showed differences in two brain areas associated with emotion and motivation — the amygdala and the nucleus accumbens. Users showed higher density than non-users, as well as differences in shape of those areas. Both differences were more pronounced in those who reported smoking more marijuana.

Volkow said larger studies are needed to explore whether casual to moderate marijuana use really does cause anatomical brain changes, and if so, whether that leads to any impairment.

The current work doesn’t determine whether casual to moderate marijuana use is harmful to the brain, she said.

Murat Yucel of Monash University in Australia, who has studied the brains of marijuana users but didn’t participate in the new study, said in an email that the new results suggest “the effects of marijuana can occur much earlier than previously thought.” Some of the effect may depend on a person’s age when marijuana use starts, he said.

Another brain researcher, Krista Lisdahl of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, said her own work has found similar results. “I think the clear message is we see brain alterations before you develop dependence,” she said.

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner in Chicago contributed to this report.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Malcolm Ritter, Associated Press
Published: April 16, 2014
Copyright: 2014 The Associated Press

15 Apr 2014

What Perfect Marijuana High Would Feel Like

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Marijuana users really enjoy strong weed, but would prefer that it came without paranoia, memory loss and impaired ability to function. That’s according to a new report from the Global Drug Survey in partnership with The Huffington Post, which anonymously surveyed more than 38,000 users around the globe.

All marijuana is not created equal. Effects can vary depending on the plant variety, cultivation, processing and blending. Cannabis has two major plant types — indica and sativa — and hundreds of hybrid strains with different characteristics. It’s produced in forms that include dried flowers, oil and wax.

The survey asked users what they’d like in a “perfect cannabis.” The results show that the “global dominance of high potency [marijuana] leaves many users far from satisfied,” the researchers say.

So what would the effects be of perfect pot — or “balanced bud” as the Global Drug Survey calls it?

Users want their cannabis to be strong and pure. And they want it to have a distinct flavor, and to impart a high marked by greater sensory perception, allowing them to “comfortably” speak to others with more giggles and laughs, while giving them the “ability to function when stoned,” according to the Global Drug Survey report.

Users report they don’t like some side effects of strong marijuana, including hangover feelings, paranoia, harmful effects on the lungs, feelings of becoming forgetful, an urge to use more, and feelings of being distracted or preoccupied, according to the survey.

Responses to the Global Drug Survey:

“There appears to be a paradox in the way people describe their perfect cannabis,” the Global Drug Survey report says. “This is because most the effects of being ‘high’ are due to THC, but higher doses of this drug are associated with more negative psychological effects. So while they want a preparation with overall more pleasurable effects, they also describe wanting less of the negative effects that are also due to THC such as sedation, munchies, memory impairment, restlessness. It might well be what they are describing is a high potency THC containing preparation balanced by CBD which is missing from many current strains.”

Currently, 21 states have legalized medical marijuana. Colorado and Washington have legalized marijuana for recreational use and more than a dozen other states are considering legalization in some form. With all that interest and all those regulated marketplaces, growers and sellers can tap into users’ preferences with the Global Drug Survey data and help design a better plant.

The Global Drug Survey bills itself as the world’s biggest annual survey of drug users. This year, 79,322 people from more than a dozen countries participated in the anonymous online questionnaire.

Because the Global Drug Survey does not involve a random sample of participants, its results cannot be considered representative of any larger population. “Ultimately, the only people that this study (like so many others) can definitively tell you about are those who have participated,” the researchers say.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Matt Ferner, The Huffington Post
Published: April 14, 2014
Copyright: 2014 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

15 Apr 2014

Are Baby Boomers Ready To Give MJ a Second Chance?

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Are aging baby boomers ready to rekindle a long-ago love affair with marijuana? That is a weighty question for cultural anthropologists and cool-eyed business analysts alike as the once celebrated, later maligned, but explicitly contraband cannabis plant goes legit — for the first time in nearly 80 years — in a new era of medical and recreational use.

For many who smoked marijuana in their dorms in the ’60s and ’70s, it was an act of rebellion, a communal experience, and maybe a political statement. Today’s product is more likely to be marketed as anti-inflammatory than anti-establishment. And, to the distinct discomfort of some, it may come in a neat corporate package rather than an illicit nickel bag.

“I remember the smoke-filled theaters of our college years,” said Kathryn Maynes, 57, a Beacon Hill boomer who works for a real estate development firm. “There was the obligatory ‘Reefer Madness’ (film) on the screen and people blowing weed. It was very sociable. You didn’t just light up and have a joint to yourself. It was inclusive, it was friendly.”

Maynes, however, gave up marijuana in her 20s and never returned, partly because it left her with feelings of anxiety.

“If it were legalized tomorrow for recreational use, I would think twice about it,” Maynes said. “If I did it, it would only be with people I really trust.”

In fact, 20 states, including Massachusetts, already have legalized marijuana for medical purposes, while Colorado and Washington state have made recreational marijuana legal. Fully three quarters of Americans have told pollsters that they now see legalization for recreational use as inevitable, according to Martin A. Lee, director of Project CBD, a medical marijuana information service, and author of “Smoke Signals,” a social history of marijuana.

“On a cultural level, the debate is virtually over,” said Lee. “It’s widely recognized that marijuana has health benefits. For baby boomers who got high in the ’60s and ’70s, their experience was largely benign. And now it’s becoming mainstream. It’s not just long-haired rebels and stoners. It’s Mom and Dad, Republicans and Democrats, a real slice of America.”

Marijuana’s use for medicinal purposes dates back to ancient China. In the United States, it was used in a variety of treatments from the 1850s to the 1930s when, after getting snared in the Prohibition-era dragnet, it was made illegal.

The plant was formally removed from the US Dispensatory, a compendium of medicines, in 1942. But after a resurgence among hippies and college students in the 1960s, it emerged as a popular, though illegal, treatment in the 1980s for AIDS patients who found it could dull pain, stimulate appetite, and relieve nausea. That inspired a campaign to legalize or decriminalize medical marijuana in California and other states.

Since then, “it’s sort of been a U-turn back to the time when marijuana was widely used in medicine,” Lee said. The momentum was aided by a rediscovery of strains containing cannabidiol, called CBD, a marijuana component with low levels of the psychoactive agent THC. That has made it more appealing as a therapy for treating diseases ranging from cancer and Alzheimer’s to diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic pain, alcoholism, psychosis, and depression.

Studies project the growth of a $10 billion legal marijuana industry by 2018, and entrepreneurs and investors are scrambling to capitalize. In addition to growers and sellers, support services and enabling technologies have been cropping up in the emerging niche.

“We’ve developed two products that can help the baby boom generation adapt to all of the choices out there,” said David Goldstein, communications director for Potbotics, a Palo Alto, Calif., startup. “A lot of them feel overwhelmed by the consumer buying process.”

Later this year, Potbotics plans to launch BrainBot, a high-frequency monitoring system that can be used in doctors’ offices to evaluate the brain’s reaction to marijuana and recommend which strains might reduce anxiety or eliminate insomnia for specific patients. The company also plans to roll out PotBot, a recommendation engine in the form of an avatar that can suggest marijuana options for medical and recreational uses.

“You don’t need a doctor to talk to the avatar,” Goldstein said, suggesting an older generation may see a “paradigm shift” in how marijuana is viewed in popular culture.

“In the past, baby boomers used marijuana for the same reason they didn’t want their kids to use it. They were abusing the substance. But with the end of prohibition, everything’s been going in a good direction,” Goldstein said. “We’re giving jobs to taxpaying Americans rather than the black market or Mexican cartels.”

Younger generations may have fewer qualms about the emerging marijuana business.

Justin Desjardins, a 35-year-old Worcester man who works for a renewable energy firm, said his high school basketball career was ended when he was caught with marijuana, which he considered a victimless crime. More recently, after he injured his leg playing football at a family gathering, he said he has used it medically to help him cope with arthritis.

“I always thought that you should just make it legal,” Desjardins said. “People are finding out it’s somewhat of a miracle drug. I have no problem with it going corporate if it means you won’t ruin people’s lives if they got caught with a couple of joints.”

Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Author: Robert Weisman, Globe Staff
Published: April 13, 2014
Copyright: 2014 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/

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