1 May 2013

An Unlikely Defender Of State Pot Laws

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Orange County Rep.  Dana Rohrabacher Is Hoping More Colleagues Are Starting to See Things His Way.

WASHINGTON – For more than a decade, conservative Orange County Rep.  Dana Rohrabacher has formed an unusual alliance with liberals on an unexpected topic – the defense of marijuana.

Rohrabacher ( R-Huntington Beach ) and his allies have so far waged a futile effort to pass legislation that would prevent federal authorities from interfering with medical marijuana use in California and other places where pot use is permitted by state law.

But as more states have moved to allow the drug’s use, Rohrabacher believes his Respect State Marijuana Laws Act may be gaining momentum in Congress.

The recently reintroduced measure would shield from federal prosecution people acting in accordance with their states’ marijuana laws, including new Colorado and Washington laws that allow adult recreational use of the drug.

“The prospects are much better now,” said Rohrabacher, whose co-sponsors include Rep.  Barbara Lee ( D-Oakland ), a Bay Area liberal who is usually about as far apart ideologically from Rohrabacher as anybody in Congress.

Still, Rohrabacher has his work cut out for him.  The House last year soundly rejected, by a 262-163 vote, an effort he led to block the use of federal funds to prevent states from implementing medical marijuana laws.  Only 28 Republicans supported the measure.

Rohrabacher has a libertarian bent but became more interested in the medical benefits of marijuana after having to spoon-feed his dying mother because of her loss of appetite.  He has talked about the relief that marijuana might have afforded her.

He has been emboldened by a recent Pew Research Center poll that showed respondents, by nearly 2 to 1, believe the federal government should not enforce federal laws prohibiting the use of marijuana in states where it is legal.

Perhaps as important as the shifting public opinion, he said in an interview, is his colleagues’ eagerness to erase Washington’s red ink.  Substantial majorities of Republicans and Democrats in the Pew survey regarded federal enforcement of anti-marijuana laws as not worth the cost.

“If people of the states recognize what a waste of limited resources this is, then the federal government should respect what the people of those states want for their own criminal justice system,” Rohrabacher said.

Since 1996, when California became the first state to legalize the drug’s use for medical treatment, 17 other states and the District of Columbia have approved medical marijuana measures.  Last year, Colorado and Washington state voters opted to allow recreational users to possess an ounce of marijuana.  A move is underway to put a measure on the Alaska ballot to permit recreational use of the drug.

Efforts are underway in other states, including Idaho, Illinois and New Hampshire, to allow medicinal use of marijuana.

Rohrabacher also is hoping to convince GOP colleagues that his bill fits with the party’s traditional support for states’ rights.

“It is time that we respect states’ rights, get serious about prioritizing our federal government’s activities, and show some common sense and compassion when dealing with the sick among us,” Rohrabacher said last year when he proposed his measure.

However, Rep.  Frank R.  Wolf ( R-Va.  ), chairman of the appropriations subcommittee that oversees Justice Department spending, responded at the time: “If a state said sex trafficking is OK, would we honor that?…  States, in the past, have done some things that have not been good in this country.”

The president’s drug czar, R.  Gil Kerlikowske, recently said at the National Press Club that the Justice Department was responsible for enforcing the Controlled Substances Act, and “that remains unchanged.  No state, no executive, can nullify a statute that’s been passed by Congress.”

Kevin Sabet, a former advisor to Kerlikowske, said Rohrabacher’s latest attempt would “likely suffer the same fate as his several previous attempts that have failed over the past decade.”

Steve Fox, national political director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which promotes legalization, regards the bill as a long shot in this congressional session.  But he said the legislation “sends the message that it is simply not a rational use of federal law enforcement resources to prosecute and imprison individuals who are acting in compliance with state marijuana laws.”

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Author: Richard Simon

30 Apr 2013

A Smarter Federal Path on State-Voted MJ Laws

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The time is at hand for the Obama administration to stop dithering, to take a clear position on the rights of Washington state and Colorado — and by precedent all others — to experiment with legalized marijuana.

That’s what Govs. Jay Inslee of Washington and John Hickenlooper of Colorado are asking the Justice Department to do — even though they personally opposed the marijuana legalization measures their voters approved last November.

The governors insist they can make their states’ new laws work well through responsible regulations that license, regulate and tax the production and sale of marijuana. New state labeling laws, say supporters, will also remove confusion and dangerous use levels by showing the potency in terms of THC, the psychoactive component of the cannabis plant, analogous to the labeling of alcoholic beverages.

Clearly it’s a direction the American people — who favor marijuana legalization 52 to 41 percent in recent polling — would approve.

A collaborative approach would be consistent with President Obama’s own marijuana history — a substance he tried himself as a youth. Asked last December about the Colorado and Washington legalization votes, he told Barbara Walters “It would not make sense for us to see a top priority as going after recreational users in states that have determined that it’s legal,” because “we’ve got bigger fish to fry.”

But Mr. President, there are serious issues to resolve. As personal purchase and use of marijuana are permitted in some states, can the practice really be contained at state borders? Will television, Web and print advertising be allowed? Will the legalizing states allow many small or just a few large suppliers? How much marijuana will be eligible for sale at one time? How will “marijuana tourism” — out-of-state visitors coming just to stock up — be handled? Will retail outlets be allowed near a state’s borders?

And then questions that undecided states may want to hear answered: Will the big tax revenues that marijuana supporters predict actually come true? Will driving under the influence of marijuana prove a real problem — and if so, how will it be controlled? Or on the health front: Will freely available marijuana help returning veterans suffering from PTSD? And generally, will it lead to more or less use of a substance we know is clearly dangerous: alcohol?

Those are the types of intriguing questions that journalist-scholar Stuart Taylor Jr. probes in a newly released Brookings Institution policy paper — “Marijuana Policy and Presidential Leadership: How to Avoid a Federal-State Train Wreck.”

Central to his case: the argument for an early, upfront agreement by the Obama administration and the states. Because the opposite — a fierce federal crackdown on Colorado and Washington state’s licensed marijuana producers and sellers — could well “backfire by producing an atomized, anarchic, state-legalized but unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers could neither contain nor force the states to contain.”

And back to Obama — what about the U.S. Justice Department? It could use threats of conspiracy prosecutions to scare off applicants for state licenses to grow and sell marijuana. But there are federalism barriers: Washington can’t directly force states to enforce federal law. And there are only 4,400 federal Drug Enforcement Administration agents — “nowhere near enough,” Taylor suggests, “to restrain the metastasis of the grow-your-own-and-share marijuana market” — with small-time criminals crowding in — “that state legalization without regulation would stimulate.”

The recent precedents aren’t good. Faced by 18 states’ laws already allowing marijuana for medical use, the Justice Department has swung back and forth from general permissiveness to cracking down unmercifully in individual cases.

A crux of the problem is the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970, which insists that marijuana has no medicinal properties — an assertion “on its face nonsensical,” says Rep. Earl Blumenauer, D-Ore.

But the law’s criminal sanctions for cultivating, possessing or distributing marijuana aren’t alone, notes Taylor. The statute also instructs that the attorney general “shall cooperate” with states on controlled substances, with power “to enter into contractual agreements … to provide for cooperative enforcement and regulatory activities.”

This is the opening, Taylor argues, that the Obama administration should take to negotiate with the states legalizing marijuana use — a process that would lead them toward careful regulation and standards, and away from the threat of irrational federal prosecutions.

In a more sensible world, Congress would be rewriting the Controlled Substances Act to reclassify marijuana as the relatively low-risk drug it clearly is. But who’d expect this Congress to do anything so rational?

That leaves states to regulate carefully on their own. And a clear challenge for Obama. Here’s a president who’s been bold enough to jump ahead of Congress on issues ranging from gay marriage to amnesty for DREAM Act immigrants. So now, why not smooth the way to marijuana reform when states choose it?

Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Writers Group

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Author: Neal Peirce, Syndicated Columnist
Published: April 27, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

30 Apr 2013

Make Money With Pot, Not War

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Are we about to see the end of the war on drugs?

Following ballot measures last November, producing and selling marijuana are now legal in both Colorado and Washington state.  Several other U.S.  states have decriminalized simple possession of marijuana, or allowed its medical usage.  The latter is also the case in Canada.

The financial consequences of a complete and general legalization across the continent would certainly be huge.

Over the past couple of decades, billions of dollars have been spent fighting this unwinnable war, which has fuelled corruption, organized crime, and violence.  Thousands of people are killed in drug fights every year in Mexico.  In Canada and the U.S., it has justified growing government intrusion in commercial and private life, from the money-laundering bureaucracies to civil forfeiture laws.

Despite this, recreational use of drugs is as popular as ever.

The simple economic fact is that when there is a demand, a supply will be forthcoming — legally or illegally.  We should therefore reconcile ourselves with what economists call “consumer sovereignty,” that is, let people consume what they want, and let’s prosecute only real crimes.

From an economic perspective, it would be a lot more profitable for everyone if we stopped wasting resources trying to suppress this trade, and instead let it develop legitimately and have governments regulate and tax it.  I don’t like taxes, but in that case, that would mean a huge improvement in terms of economic efficiency.

In British Columbia only, where a lot of marijuana is illicitly being grown, legalization could generate $2.5 billion in government tax and licensing revenues over five years, according to a recent research paper from Simon Fraser University.

Both the Wall Street Journal and The Economist have been convincingly arguing for many years against the war on drugs.  And for the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, a majority of Americans now favour legalizing the use of marijuana.  In Canada, public support has also been high for several years.

My point is not that drug consumption is a good thing or that I encourage it, but merely that any rational person can see that the current policy has not been a success despite all the money spent and all the people jailed.  It is high time we rethink our strategy in this regard.  Let’s end the war on pot and make money with it instead.

Source: Kingston Whig-Standard (CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 Sun Media
Contact: http://www.thewhig.com/letters
Website: http://www.thewhig.com/
Author: Michel Kelly-Gagnon

28 Apr 2013

Federal Law Trumps Colorado’s on Medical Marijuana

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A severely disabled man fired because of his after-hours medical-marijuana use has no legal recourse because the drug remains banned under federal law, a Colorado court ruled Thursday.

A three-judge panel of the Colorado Court of Appeals upheld 2-1 the firing of Brandon Coats, a quadriplegic who has a prescription for the drug in a state that permits medical marijuana, saying he was not protected from dismissal under the Colorado Lawful Off-Duty Activities Statute.

The statute prohibits employers from dismissing employees who engage in legal activity outside of work, but says nothing about those who violate federal but not state law.

“Plaintiff contends that we must read ‘lawful activity’ to include activity that is prohibited by federal law, but not state law,” said Chief Judge Janice Davidson in the divided opinion. “However, while we agree that the general purpose of [the law] is to keep an employer’s proverbial nose out of an employee’s off-site hours business we can find no legislative intent to extend employment protection to those engaged in activities that violate federal law.”

The case illustrates the ongoing tension between federal and state authorities as voters and legislatures move to legalize medical marijuana in violation of the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The conflict is likely to intensify after the passage of ballot measures in November approving recreational marijuana for adults 21 and over in Colorado and Washington.

Brian Vicente, a Denver lawyer and marijuana- decriminalization advocate, called the court’s ruling “disappointing” given the recent moves by Colorado voters to legalize medical and recreational pot.

“I thought it was an inappropriate reliance on federal law — the court used that as an ‘out’ to avoid a ruling based on state law,” Mr. Vicente said.

At the same time, he said, the ruling underscores the need for the state legislature to update the Colorado Lawful Activities Statute, which originally was intended to protect tobacco smokers from being fired.

“We call it ‘the smokers’ rights statute,’ but the court’s take was that Colorado needs to revisit this statute to incorporate medical and now adult recreational use,” Mr. Vicente said.

The Colorado legislature is now considering a package of bills designed to create a regulatory framework for recreational marijuana as required by Amendment 64, which won 55 percent of the vote in November.

Nearly 109,000 Colorado residents hold valid medical-marijuana registry cards. The most common medical condition cited for treatment is “severe pain,” reported by 94 percent of cardholders, followed by “muscle spasms” at 16 percent, according to the state Department of Public Health and Environment.

Mr. Coats worked as a telephone operator for Dish Network until he was fired in 2010 for failing a drug test in violation of the company’s drug policy.

In his lawsuit, Mr. Coats said he never used marijuana at work and was never under the influence of the drug while on duty.

Source: Washington Times (DC)
Author: Valerie Richardson, The Washington Times
Published: April 25, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Washington Times, LLC
Website: http://www.washtimes.com/
Contact: [email protected]

28 Apr 2013

Advocates Eye Legalizing Marijuana in Alaska

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Alaska, known for its live-and-let-live lifestyle, is poised to become the next battleground in the push to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. The state has a complicated history with the drug, with its highest court ruling nearly 40 years ago that adults have a constitutional right to possess and smoke marijuana for personal use in their own homes.

In the late 1990s, Alaska became one of the first states to allow the use of pot for medicinal reasons.

Then the pendulum swung the other direction, with residents in 2004 rejecting a ballot effort to legalize recreational marijuana. And in 2006, the state passed a law criminalizing possession of even small amounts of the drug — leaving the current state of affairs somewhat murky.

Supporters of recreational marijuana say attitudes toward pot have softened in the past decade, and they believe they have a real shot at success in Alaska.

The state is reviewing their request to begin gathering signatures to get an initiative on next year’s ballot. The proposal would make it legal for those 21 and older to use and possess up to 1 ounce of marijuana, though not in public. It also would set out provisions for legal grow operations and establish an excise tax.

It’s a significantly different version of the failed 2004 ballot effort that would’ve allowed adults 21 and older to use, grow, sell or give away marijuana or hemp products without penalty under state law.

“The whole initiative, you can tell, is scaled down to be as palatable as possible,” said one of the sponsors, Bill Parker.

If the initiative application is accepted, backers will have until January, before the next legislative session starts, to gather the more than 30,000 signatures required to qualify the measure for the primary ballot.

The effort could determine whether the pendulum swings back.

The Alaska Supreme Court, in its landmark 1975 decision, found possession of marijuana by adults at home for personal use is constitutionally protected as part of their basic right to privacy, though the court made clear it didn’t condone the use of pot.

The laws tightened again with a 2006 state law criminalizing marijuana possession. The American Civil Liberties Union sued, saying the law conflicted with the 1975 ruling. The state maintained marijuana had become more intoxicating than in the 1970s, a point disputed by ACLU.

But the high court, in 2009, declined to make a finding, concluding any challenge to the law must await an actual prosecution.

Parker said the lack of clarity regarding marijuana possession is a problem, but he noted police aren’t exactly peeking into people’s homes to see if they have the drug.

Deputy Attorney General Richard Svobodny said in an email that home-use marijuana cases in Alaska are few because authorities have no reason to get a search warrant unless something else is going on inside a house that attracts their attention.

The proposed initiative includes language that says it’s not intended to diminish the right to privacy interpreted in the 1975 case. But it notes that case is not a “blanket protection for marijuana possession,” said Mason Tvert, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project.

“In order to have a system where individuals can go to a store, buy an ounce of marijuana, drive home, and enjoy it at home, it is necessary to make up to an ounce of marijuana entirely legal,” Tvert said.

Alaska is one of many states mulling changes to marijuana laws. Last fall, voters in Colorado and Washington state passed initiatives legalizing, taxing and regulating recreational marijuana.

This year, bills were filed in more than half the states to enact a medical marijuana law, decriminalize or reduce penalties for simple possession, or to tax and regulate marijuana for adult use, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. However, many of those proposals died, stalled or will be carried over.

Tvert said his group is working to promote initiatives allowing recreational marijuana in a handful of other states, including California, Oregon, Maine and Nevada. He thinks those states will be ready to pass such a measure in 2016.

“Ultimately we are starting to see the marijuana policy debate shift away from whether marijuana should be allowed or prohibited and toward how we will treat it,” Tvert said.

The U.S. Justice Department has not said how it will respond to the laws in Washington and Colorado. A bipartisan group of congressmen, including Alaska’s lone U.S. House member, Don Young, recently introduced legislation that would ensure the federal government respects stat e marijuana laws. For the Republican Young, it’s a states’ rights issue, his spokesman said by email.

Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell, who consistently has fought the feds when he believes they’ve overstepped their bounds, supports a state’s right to establish its own laws and appreciates Young’s effort, Parnell spokeswoman Sharon Leighow said. But he also considers marijuana a “gateway drug that can lead to more serious patterns of substance abuse and criminal offenses,” she said by email. He has not stated his position on the proposed initiative.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Becky Bohrer, Associated Press
Published: April 26, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

28 Apr 2013

Pot Activist Sees ‘Beginning Of The End’ For Prohibition

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4/20.  New numbers released ahead of yearly smoke-out in city show majority warming to marijuana legalization in B.C.

There will be more than just a pungent aroma wafting over the Vancouver Art Gallery at Saturday’s annual 4/20 protest.

Activists say a new wave of optimism has been lit under them by more polls showing overwhelming public support for marijuana legalization in B.C.

“I feel like we’re at the beginning of the end of cannabis prohibition now,” said longtime pot campaigner Dana Larsen, referring to the November referendums in Washington and Colorado that saw adult recreational use legalized.

“I’ve been involved in this for 20 years and people have often said, ‘Oh, it’s just around the corner, they’re going to legalize it any day now.’ And I’ve always thought, ‘No, it’s going to be within my lifetime if I’m lucky,’ but …  I feel like there’s a pathway now to decriminalization for us in the province that didn’t exist before.”

Larsen will be on the main stage at Saturday’s annual smoke-out, encouraging 15,000 to 20,000 giggling, redeyed revellers to get involved in his Sensible BC campaign, which aims to spur a provincial referendum in September 2014.

An Angus Reid poll released Thursday found 73 per cent of British Columbians support a proposed research trial to evaluate whether the taxation and strict regulation of adult marijuana use could reduce profits to organized crime and better prevent youth access.

Another poll released this week, commissioned by Sensible BC, shows more than 70 per cent support for decriminalizing possession and urging the federal government to give B.C.  the right to legalize the drug.

Larsen says he has more than 1,000 volunteers, 20,000 people pre-registered to sign his referendum petition this fall, and robocalls scheduled to go out to every land-line number in the province starting this week, offering the option to pre-register for the petition.

Source: Metro (Vancouver, CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 Metro Canada
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.metronews.ca/vancouver
Author: Kate Webb

28 Apr 2013

Marijuana Repeal Considered In Colorado

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” Marijuana legalization could be going back to the ballot in Colorado — a prospect that infuriated pot legalization activists Friday.

The proposal for a marijuana ballot measure came as the House started debate Friday evening on bills to regulate and tax pot. One bill would state how pot should be grown and sold, and the other would tax recreational marijuana more than 30 percent.

A draft bill floating around the Capitol late this week suggests that a new ballot question on pot taxes should repeal recreational pot in the state constitution if voters don’t approve 15 percent excise taxes on retail pot and a new 15 percent marijuana sales tax. Those would be in addition to regular state and local sales taxes.
Lawmakers have only a few days left to finish work deciding how to regulate the newly legal drug.

Marijuana activists immediately blasted the proposal as a backhanded effort to repeal the pot vote, in which 55 percent of Coloradans chose to flout federal drug law and declare pot legal in small amounts for adults over 21.

“It’s clear that the intent … is to prevent marijuana from being legal and being regulated and being controlled,” said Mason Tvert, who led last year’s campaign to add recreational pot to the state constitution, which has allowed medical marijuana since 2000.

Sen. Larry Crowder, R-Alamosa, said the whole purpose of legalizing recreational marijuana was to raise money for education and other programs. “So if there’s no money, we shouldn’t have marijuana,” Crowder said.

A volunteer group that has been critical of proposed marijuana regulations, Smart Colorado, praised the effort to get rid of recreational pot without approval of the taxes.

A spokesman for the group, Eric Anderson, said in a statement that marijuana activists “sold the ballot issue to Colorado voters as a way to pay for state priorities like education, but increasingly it’s looking like it could be a net drain on the state budget.”
The marijuana measure approved last year won more votes than President Barack Obama, who carried the state. The pot measure directed lawmakers to come back to the ballot with a tax proposal, with much of the money going to school construction. Because of Colorado’s Byzantine tax laws, the recreational pot taxes can’t be levied until voters again sign off on them.

In Washington state, the only other place where voters last year approved recreational pot, the ballot measure set taxes at 75 percent, settling the question. Both states are still waiting to find out whether the federal government plans to sue to block retail sales of the drug, set to begin next year.

The Colorado repeal effort wouldn’t apply to medical marijuana, which voters approved in 2000.

Lawmakers from both parties have expressed worry this year that Colorado won’t be able to afford to give recreational pot the kind of intense oversight and regulation many expect. From labeling and potency standards to making sure pot taxes are collected, the regulatory scheme under consideration in Colorado wouldn’t be cheap.

The state House started debate Friday on the tax ballot question. The repeal provision, if it appears, would come later, likely when the pot tax shifts to the Senate.

Some lawmakers said Friday they doubt lawmakers would send pot legalization back to voters this year.

“That’s almost like saying to voters, ‘Vote for this, or else,’” said Sen. Cheri Jahn, D-Wheat Ridge. “I don’t think you threaten voters like that. When over 55 percent of the people vote for something, I think we have to respect that.”

Marijuana repeal debate could dominate the Legislature’s closing days. The path to repeal would be uncertain, but some lawmakers say it’s only fair to ask again if voters are willing to legalize pot and risk federal intervention in exchange for a tax windfall projected to exceed $100 million a year.

“I think that’s why the people supported it,” Crowder said.

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2013/04/2…in-colorado-2/

27 Apr 2013

7 Key Questions on Marijuana Legalization

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Believe me, I’ve heard all the pot jokes, and some of them are true. Public support for legalizing marijuana use is at an all-time high. Some state-level marijuana laws are going up in smoke. And yes, Washington and Colorado are embarking on a historic joint venture.

Puns aside, discussions about marijuana legalization are getting serious. In November, voters in Colorado and Washington made the unprecedented decision to allow commercial production, distribution and possession of marijuana for nonmedical purposes. Not even the Netherlands goes that far.

Policymakers in both states are confronting some new and tricky issues that have never been addressed. For them, and for anyone else thinking about changing their pot laws, here are seven key decision areas that will shape the costs and benefits of marijuana legalization:

1. Production. Where will legal pot be grown — outdoors on commercial farms, inside in confined growing spaces, or somewhere in between? RAND research has found that legalizing marijuana could make it dramatically cheaper to produce — first because producers will no longer have to operate covertly, and second because suppliers won’t need to be compensated for running the risks of getting arrested or assaulted. After lawmakers decide how it will be grown, production costs will be shaped by the number of producers and other regulations such as product testing.

2. Profit motive. If there is a commercial pot industry, businesses will have strong incentives to create and maintain the heavy users who use most of the pot. To get a sense of what this could look like, look no further than the alcohol and tobacco industries, which have found ingenious ways to hook and reel in heavy users. So will private companies be allowed to enter the pot market, or will states limit it to home producers, non-profit groups or cooperatives? If a state insisted on having a monopoly on pot production, it could rake in a decent amount revenue — but for now, that possibility seems far off in the United States since marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

3. Promotion. Will states try to limit or counter advertisements in the communities and stores that sell marijuana? U.S. jurisprudence against curtailing what’s known as “commercial free speech” could make it tough to regulate the promotion of pot. While a state monopoly system could help control promotion, those advertisements you see for state lotteries should give you pause.

4. Prevention. If pot is legal for adults, how will school and community prevention programs adapt their messages to prevent kids from using? While some proposals to legalize marijuana would divert tax revenues to prevention efforts, the messaging and strategy should probably be in place before legal marijuana ever hits the streets.

5. Potency. Marijuana potency is usually measured by its tetrahydrocannabinol content, or THC — the chemical compound largely responsible for creating the “high” from pot, as well as increasing the risk of panic attacks. Much of the marijuana coming into the U.S. from Mexico is about 6% THC, while the marijuana sold in medical dispensaries in California ranges from 10%-25% THC. Meanwhile, the Dutch are now considering limiting the pot sold at their famed coffee shops to no more than 15% THC.

While THC receives the most of the attention, don’t forget other compounds like cannabidiol, or CBD — which is believed to counter some of the effects of THC.

6. Price. With marijuana, like any other commodity, price will influence consumption and revenues. A growing body of research suggests that when marijuana prices go down, the probability that someone might use marijuana goes up. So retail prices will largely be a function of consumer demand, production costs and tax rates. If taxes are set too high, pot will become expensive enough to create an incentive for an illicit market — exactly what legalization is trying to avoid. The way taxes are set will also have an effect on what’s purchased and consumed — that is, whether pot is taxed by value, total weight, THC content, or other chemical properties.

7. Permanency. The first jurisdictions to legalize pot will probably suffer growing pains and want to make changes later on. They would do well to build some flexibility into their taxation and regulatory regime. For example, while it may make sense to tax marijuana as a function of its THC to CBD ratio, 10 years from now we may have research suggesting a better way to tax. Just in case they change their minds, some pioneering jurisdictions may want to include a sunset provision that would give them an escape clause, a chance — by simply sitting still — to overcome the lobbying muscle of the newly legal industry that will no doubt fight hard to stay in business. As the sunset date approaches, legislators or voters could choose either to keep their legalization regime or to try something different.

Of course, these aren’t the only decisions facing those who are thinking about legalizing marijuana. But if we want to move away from the puns and abstract discussions to serious policy debates, these “Seven Ps” are a fine place to start.

Source: USA Today (US)
Author: Beau Kilmer
Published: April 25, 2013
Copyright: 2013 USA Today, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/

27 Apr 2013

Pot Legalization Won’t Change Mission

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The nation’s drug czar said Wednesday the legalization of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado won’t change his office’s mission of fighting the country’s drug problem by focusing on addiction treatment that will be available under the federal health overhaul.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, released President Barack Obama’s 2013 strategy for fighting drug addiction Wednesday at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. The strategy includes a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons.

“The legal issue of Washington and Colorado is really a question you have to go back to the Department of Justice,” Kerlikowske said when asked about the impact the two states would have on national drug policy.

The key to the administration’s efforts to deliver health care to drug addicts is in the federal health care overhaul because it will require insurance companies to cover treatment for substance abuse disorders, as they currently do for chronic diseases like diabetes. That change could lead to addiction treatment for several million more people.

“Treatment shouldn’t be a privilege limited to those who can afford it, but it’s a service available to all who need it,” Kerlikowske said.

The strategy outlined by Kerlikowske also supports a greater emphasis on criminal justice reforms that include drug courts and probation programs aimed at reducing incarceration rates. It also will include community-based policing programs designed to break the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration while steering law enforcement resources to more serious offenses.

Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, said addiction needs to be acknowledged as a disease that can be diagnosed and treated. He said the debate over the nation’s drug problem has become locked in a highly charged ideological debate in which there are no simple answers.

“We’re not going to solve it by drug legalization, and we’re certainly not in my career going to arrest our way out of this problem, either, and these two extreme approaches really aren’t guided by the experience, the compassion or the knowledge that’s needed,” Kerlikowske said.

Kerlikowske was joined by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Anthony Batts, Baltimore’s police commissioner; and Dr. Eric Strain, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Batts noted that Maryland lawmakers this year showed signs of becoming more lenient on laws relating to marijuana, and he expressed his opposition to leniency. The state Senate passed a bill to decriminalize the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana, but the bill did not pass in the House of Delegates.

Batts said he views marijuana as a “starter drug.”

“I’m seeing more takeover robberies — people breaking into houses — surrounding marijuana, and it is dealing with younger people who are doing these takeover robberies that are resulting in murders, shootings and killings,” Batts said.

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Brian Witte, The Associated Press
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

26 Apr 2013

Pot Legalization Won’t Change Mission

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The nation’s drug czar said Wednesday the legalization of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado won’t change his office’s mission of fighting the country’s drug problem by focusing on addiction treatment that will be available under the federal health overhaul.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, released President Barack Obama’s 2013 strategy for fighting drug addiction Wednesday at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. The strategy includes a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons.

“The legal issue of Washington and Colorado is really a question you have to go back to the Department of Justice,” Kerlikowske said when asked about the impact the two states would have on national drug policy.

The key to the administration’s efforts to deliver health care to drug addicts is in the federal health care overhaul because it will require insurance companies to cover treatment for substance abuse disorders, as they currently do for chronic diseases like diabetes. That change could lead to addiction treatment for several million more people.

“Treatment shouldn’t be a privilege limited to those who can afford it, but it’s a service available to all who need it,” Kerlikowske said.

The strategy outlined by Kerlikowske also supports a greater emphasis on criminal justice reforms that include drug courts and probation programs aimed at reducing incarceration rates. It also will include community-based policing programs designed to break the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration while steering law enforcement resources to more serious offenses.

Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, said addiction needs to be acknowledged as a disease that can be diagnosed and treated. He said the debate over the nation’s drug problem has become locked in a highly charged ideological debate in which there are no simple answers.

“We’re not going to solve it by drug legalization, and we’re certainly not in my career going to arrest our way out of this problem, either, and these two extreme approaches really aren’t guided by the experience, the compassion or the knowledge that’s needed,” Kerlikowske said.

Kerlikowske was joined by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Anthony Batts, Baltimore’s police commissioner; and Dr. Eric Strain, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Batts noted that Maryland lawmakers this year showed signs of becoming more lenient on laws relating to marijuana, and he expressed his opposition to leniency. The state Senate passed a bill to decriminalize the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana, but the bill did not pass in the House of Delegates.

Batts said he views marijuana as a “starter drug.”

“I’m seeing more takeover robberies — people breaking into houses — surrounding marijuana, and it is dealing with younger people who are doing these takeover robberies that are resulting in murders, shootings and killings,” Batts said.

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Brian Witte, The Associated Press
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

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