18 Apr 2013

The Marijuana Two-step

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The 42nd Annual Hash Bash in Ann Arbor

The 42nd Annual Hash Bash in Ann Arbor was the highlight of a flurry of activities around marijuana the past few weeks.  A reported 3,000 people were at the University of Michigan Quadrangle for the Bash – part pep rally, part political effort and part toke-down.

State Rep.  Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, was one of many speakers at the well-organized and well-run event, which included local and national activists.  Mason Tyvert, who works for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, and who headed up the legalization campaign team in Colorado, spoke; other speakers included National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws founder Keith Stroup and seed geneticist D.J.  Short.

Irwin got the crowd cheering when he said, “I believe we should legalize marijuana.  …  The good news today, on the 42nd anniversary of Hash Bash, is we’re winning.  We’re winning the battle against marijuana prohibition.”

He cited electoral victories for legalization in Washington state and Colorado as evidence of the changing tide.  Then he talked about how activist involvement had made a difference in softening some of the more draconian measures in bills passed by the Michigan state Legislature last December regarding medical marijuana, adding that he would introduce a decriminalization bill in the state Legislature.  Irwin asked for help in pressing other legislators to support decriminalization.

“We’re going to end the drug war,” Irwin said.  “We’re going to legalize marijuana here in Michigan.  The amount of blood and treasure that we’ve spilled in this failed drug war are an embarrassment to our country.”

The Hash Bash came on the heels of a Pew Research Center poll showing that 52 percent of Americans believe marijuana should be legalized.  Speaker after speaker referenced the poll that, for the first time, showed a simple majority in favor of legalization.  In the past, polls have shown a plurality of Americans in support of legalization but never a majority.

“It smells like freedom,” said Tyvert.  “This is not just the tipping point; this is the tip of the iceberg.”

No fool’s day: Things aren’t quite so friendly for the herb in the Michigan state Legislature, where folks still seem to look at certified medical marijuana patients as possibly criminal.  Bills passed in December 2012, which went into effect April 1, 2013, put strictures on medical marijuana in Michigan.  HB4856 stipulates that marijuana transported in vehicles has to be in a container in the trunk.  If the vehicle has no trunk, then marijuana must be “enclosed in a case that is not readily accessible from the interior of the vehicle.” That seems to follow the model of alcohol law, which prohibits open containers inside cars; however it doesn’t seem to regard marijuana as medicine because I don’t know of any laws forbidding carrying any kind of medicine inside a car.

That thinking seems to follow the same path with HB4851, which requires doctors who recommend marijuana use to establish a “bona fide physician-patient relationship” that involves reviewing patient records.  This is all well and good, except it seems as if it’s more a view that medical marijuana patients are criminal.

Its ( unstated ) aim seems to be restricting access to patients seeking cannabis as a medical solution.  For instance, in last week’s Higher Ground column, I discussed a medical marijuana patient who was addicted to painkillers.  His pain management doctor knew nothing about marijuana and would not recommend it for him.  The patient found another doctor who would.  He then got off the prescribed opiates he was addicted to.  He went back to his pain doctor and showed that he was off the drugs.  Now, the doctor understands that marijuana can be useful.  Still, with little training or understanding of marijuana, and legal issues remaining unsettled, many doctors are loath to recommend it.

A couple of years ago I reported about an HIV doctor who had been recommending marijuana for patients.  After State Attorney General Bill Schuette said that federal law trumped state law, the doctor stopped recommending marijuana for fear of prosecution.  In another case, a patient who had previously been recommended to use medicinal cannabis went back to his doctor for recertification.  The doctor wouldn’t do it because he had been told that if he recommended marijuana to his patients he could no longer work at that clinic.

Doctors are being ostensibly pressured to eschew a course of treatment for fear of retribution should they prescribe – or even recommend – a substance that is purportedly “legal.”

There currently exists a punitive atmosphere toward physicians who choose a “legal” medical protocol, which effectively places undue hardships on patients who may be forced to “shop” for doctors who are even open to the idea that marijuana is a useful therapy.

Another part of the same bill allows outdoor grows.  However, the garden must be enclosed on all sides and not visible to the unaided eye.  The enclosure must be locked and anchored to the ground.  Anyone planning to grow marijuana should be warned to take a close look at the law – as there are specific materials required for use in making the enclosures.

April 1 was actually a good day in Rhode Island: A law that was passed last year decriminalizing possession of as much as 1 ounce of marijuana went into effect.  The law, first introduced in 2010, makes possession a civil offense punishable by a $150 fine.

Getting spacey with time: We all know that time is relative, and that marijuana users’ time perception may get a little rubbery while under the influence.  It seems like the federal government has fallen into that time-vortex when it comes to having anything to say about last November’s legalization votes in Colorado and Washington.

U.S.  Attorney General Eric Holder has said at least a few times since late in 2012 that the Obama administration would “soon” have something to say on the subject.  Last month, Holder said the administration was “still considering” its response.  I’m wondering what “soon” means to those folks.  Maybe they’ve inhaled and don’t realize that it’s been five months since the historic votes.  On the other hand, they have been busy with the fiscal cliff and the sequester – not to mention North Korea threatening to toss a nuclear weapon at its neighbor.  So maybe we just have to hold our breath a little longer.  As the old western swing song says, “Anytime you’re thinking ’bout me.  That’s the time I’ll be thinkin’ of you.” …  Anytime, Mr.  Holder.

We may not have to wait for him.  Last Friday, rumors began circulating about a proposed bipartisan bill in Congress that would protect marijuana users and businesses from federal laws as long as they are compliant with state laws.  Like I said, anytime.

They really meant it: Meanwhile, things seem to be moving along in the legalized states.  That is if you consider the 25 percent tax in Washington state and the 38 percent tax they’re considering in Colorado ( in the Denver area ) to be moving along.  They must have really meant it when they said they wanted to “tax and regulate” the substance.  Then again, the Colorado law allows folks to grow their own in an “enclosed, locked space.” Am I having deja vu here?

Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2013 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.metrotimes.com
Author: Larry Gabriel

18 Apr 2013

Why It’s So Hard For Scientists To Study Medical Marijuana

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Eighteen states (plus the District of Columbia) allow cannabis use for certain medical conditions. Despite that, scientists have a harder time doing research on the potential medical benefits of marijuana than they do on “harder” drugs like ecstasy or magic mushrooms. The public may think of pot use as no big deal, but federal laws make it difficult for researchers to obtain legal supplies. Clinical researchers can get permission from the DEA to grow or create restricted compounds like LSD, MDMA or psilocybin in the lab; not so with cannabis.

The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 placed marijuana in the most restrictive use category, Schedule I, deeming it a drug with no medicinal value and high potential for abuse. To do clinical research with marijuana, you need a DEA license, and you need to get your study approved by the FDA. When it comes to actually obtaining research-grade marijuana, though, you have to go through the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a process that has proved problematic for some researchers determined to study the potential medical benefits of pot.

“Marijuana is a linchpin in the War on Drugs,” explains Brad Burge, the director of communications for the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Research (MAPS), an organization currently embroiled in a lawsuit with the DEA over the right to establish a medical marijuana farm. “There’s a lot of investment in marijuana remaining illegal.”

Anecdotal evidence suggests that marijuana can reduce chronic pain, reduce muscle spasms in patients with multiple sclerosis and perhaps even help treat symptoms of PTSD. The small amount of clinical research out there also supports the idea that marijuana could be an effective treatment for pain. A 2007 study found that smoking cannabis reduced chronic pain in HIV-positive patients by 34 percent. Results from a Canadian study in 2010 further supported the theory that it can reduce the intensity of neuropathic pain–pain caused by damage to the nervous system–and help patients sleep.

Both the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians have called for more research into the therapeutic uses of marijuana and for the U.S. government to reconsider its classification as a Schedule I substance.

The University of Mississippi grows and harvests cannabis for studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, yet because NIDA’s congressionally mandated mission is to research the harmful effects of controlled substances and stop drug abuse, the institute isn’t interested in helping establish marijuana as a medicine.

“If you’re going to run a trial to show this is going to have positive effects, they’re essentially not going to allow it,” Lyle Craker, a professor and horticulturist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, says.

The federal government’s position on marijuana, according to a January 2011 document featured prominently on the DEA’s homepage, is that
The clear weight of the currently available evidence supports [Schedule I] classification, including evidence that smoked marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medicinal value in treatment in the United States, and evidence that there is a general lack of accepted safety for its use even under medical supervision… Specifically, smoked marijuana has not withstood the rigors of science–it is not medicine, and it is not safe.

Burge tells a different story. “The United States government has gone to great lengths to prevent [medical] research on whole-plant marijuana,” he says, though research into isolated components of the plant has gone on.

“We have an FDA-approved protocol, but the only way to actually get marijuana for the study, the only federally approved source, is at University of Mississippi,” he says. “NIDA refused to sell us the marijuana for this study.”

According to NIDA, the agency can provide research-grade marijuana to projects that have received funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), or to a non NIH-funded project that has an approved Investigational New Drug application on file with the FDA; has proper DEA registration; and has been approved as scientifically valid by a Health and Human Services scientific review panel.

The agency describes its position on cannabis research as such:
NIDA as well as other Institutes and Centers within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have supported and will continue to support research on both the adverse effects and therapeutic uses for marijuana provided the research applications meet accepted standards of scientific design and, on the basis of peer review, public health significance, and Institute priorities.

Because MAPS only needs supplies, not funding, the organization, with the help of Lyle Craker, has been trying to establish a private medical marijuana farm to supply cannabis for research for the past 12 years. The organization is currently suing the DEA for denying its license even after a DEA judge ruled in 2009 that such a license would serve the public interest.

Meanwhile, MAPS has applied to buy pot from the NIDA for a study on PTSD. In 2011, the scientific review panel from the Department of Health and Human Services rejected the application, citing concerns with the study’s design, though the protocol had already been approved by the FDA and has since been approved by the University of Arizona’s institutional review boards. MAPS has added a few safety procedures and plans on resubmitting the protocol to the HHS scientific review panel, but MAPS founder Rick Dobiln says he is “not hopeful since the core elements of the protocol design remain the same.”

Not everyone has had solely negative experiences with the bodies that control the flow of research-grade marijuana. The process just requires some bureaucratic legerdemain.

In 1992, Doblin approached Donald Abrams, a professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco and the chief of Hematology/Oncology at San Francisco General Hospital, and suggested he look into doing a clinical trial on the benefits of cannabis for HIV patients.

“Having gone to college in the ’60s myself, I thought it might be worth investigating,” Abrams says. “Little did I know how difficult that would be.” First, he attempted to study the role cannabis could play in treating patients suffering from HIV Wasting Syndrome, a condition that caused patients to lose weight and basically wither away and die without even getting an infection. But NIDA failed to approve his request for funding.

Continue reading article @ http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-04/why-its-so-hard-scientists-study-pot?page=1
Author: Shaunacy Ferro
Source: Popular Science

17 Apr 2013

Backers of Marijuana in Alaska Want 2014 Vote

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Alaska voters may get the chance next year to make their state the third in the country to approve the recreational use of marijuana by adults 21 and older.

Backers of the move on Tuesday took the first step toward getting the measure on the August 2014 primary ballot. Three prime sponsors of the effort filed their application for an initiative petition along with signatures from what they say are at least 100 other supporters with the state lieutenant governor’s office.

The group is led by Tim Hinterberger, an associate professor at the University of Alaska Anchorage. The other two prime sponsors are Bill Parker and Mary Reff, according to Gail Fenumiai, state elections director.

The measure would tax and regulate marijuana sales and allow Alaskans to cultivate marijuana for personal use. Among other things, it would allow the Legislature to create a Marijuana Control Board, though until then, the Alcohol Beverage Control Board would regulate marijuana sales. Alaskans age 21 and older could legally possess up to one ounce of marijuana under the proposal, or six marijuana plants, three of which could be mature.

If state officials decide everything’s in order after a 60-day review, backers will have until mid-January to get signatures from another 30,169 people — 10 percent of the number who voted in the last general election — to force a vote, said Steve Fox, the national political director of the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization group in Washington. The Marijuana Policy Project is working with the local committee.

The signatures would have to be gathered from at least 30 of the state’s 40 House districts, under procedures specified in the state constitution.

Alaskans rejected a legalization initiative in 2004, with only 44 percent of the state’s voters backing the idea. But Alaska’s marijuana laws are among the most liberal in the nation. In 1975, the state’s Supreme Court ruled that a person’s privacy included the right to possess up to 4 ounces of marijuana in his or her home — which is more than the new proposal would allow.

Snipped

Complete Article: http://drugsense.org/url/RX7AcJSi

Source: Anchorage Daily News (AK)
Author: Rob Hotakainen and Lisa Demers, Anchorage Daily News
Published: April 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Anchorage Daily News
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.adn.com/

17 Apr 2013

Illinois House Passes Medical Marijuana Bill

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The Illinois House today approved a measure to let people use marijuana for medical purposes, giving the proposal its best chance of becoming law in recent years. The House sent the bill to the Senate on a 61-57 vote. The Senate previously has passed similar legislation. Proponents say the legislation, which would set up a four-year pilot program, would be the most restrictive in the nation. Seventeen states and the District of Columbia have approved some form of marijuana use for medical purposes.

The legislation, sponsored by Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, had come close in the House but previously fallen short. Passing the House was viewed as the biggest hurdle in the legislature because the Senate previously has passed a similar bill, though not this year.

At the Capitol earlier today, Gov. Pat Quinn said he is “open-minded” on the issue. Quinn said he heard a story from a military veteran during a meeting in the governor’s statehouse office that provided compelling reasons to use cannabis for relief of pain.

“He was suffering from war wounds and found definite help by medical use of marijuana,” Quinn said. “I was quite impressed by his heartfelt feeling. I’m certainly open-minded to it.”

Marijuana, despite drawing questions and controversy, is seen by supporters as a progressive and safer alternative to harsh medication in treatments of various chronic illnesses like cancer, HIV or multiple sclerosis.

Under this bill, an individual could be prescribed no more than 2.5 ounces of marijuana during a two-week period. A doctor who prescribes marijuana must have had a prior and ongoing relationship with the patient—a move to lessen the chance that doctors could give out prescription weed willy-nilly.

Additional restrictions and regulations create numerous other hurdles before a person could get cannabis. The prescribing doctor must be licensed to practice in Illinois.

The House action comes after Cook County, the city of Chicago and some other cities have decriminalized possession of marijuana, allowing violators to be ticketed rather than booked into the jail.

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Author: Ray Long and Rafael Guerrero, Tribune Reporters
Published: April 17, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

17 Apr 2013

Marijuana Groups Kick Off DC Legalization Campaign

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National and local advocates for marijuana policy reform are using a new poll to kick off a major push for the legalization or decriminalization of cannabis in the District — one that could include the pursuit of a ballot initiative in 2014.

The poll was sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project, the Drug Policy Alliance and financed by Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, a company that had backed legalization referendums in four states. Public Policy Polling conducted the automated telephone poll on April 10 and 11, reaching 1,621 registered voters.

It showed two-thirds of D.C. registered voters would at least partially support a legalization referendum similar to the ones passed last year in Colorado and Washington state. Three-quarters of poll respondents favored the decriminalization approach adopted by several states and municipalities, which would turn the possession of small amounts of marijuana from a criminal offense to something more akin to a traffic ticket.

A January 2010 Washington Post survey found residents more closely split when asked whether they favored legalizing the possession of marijuana for personal use, with 46 percent in favor to 48 percent opposed. The Post poll, which carried a three-point margin of error, showed white residents were much more likely to favor legalization (60-35) than black residents (37-55).

The new poll, which did not report a margin of error, found a racial disparity, but a less dramatic one. Both white and black residents favored Colorado/Washington-style legalization, though by different degrees — 77-19 for whites, 53-38 for blacks. Same goes for the decriminalization question, which was supported by 85 percent of white residents and 69 percent of black residents.

There is evidence that national attitudes on marijuana policy have changed in recent years. A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this month found a majority of Americans favored legalization, marking a dramatic shift from even a decade ago, when closer to two-thirds of national poll respondents opposed legalization.

Adam Eidinger, a longtime local activist who is employed by Dr. Bronner’s, said the time has come for city leaders to change District law to reflect popular opinion. ”It’s a popular issue, and up until now the council has ignored it,” he said. “Maybe now they’ll realize the citizens want to to decriminalize at the very least.”

Officials with the Marijuana Policy Project and Drug Policy Alliance said they will be lobbying the D.C. Council in the coming months to pursue legislative changes. Mason Tvert, MPP’s communications director, said his group “will be talking to community leaders and elected officials about various options for adopting a more sensible marijuana policy in the District.” Bill Piper, director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, said decriminalization would be a “no-brainer” but legislators “should do more.”

“There is an opportunity to make a clean break from the past and treat drug use as a health issue instead of a criminal justice issue,” Piper said.

The new push comes just as the city’s first medical marijuana dispensary is set to open. But city legislators, most notably Council Chairman Phil Mendelson, have been wary of pursuing wide scale decriminalization or legalization — or even a more liberal medical marijuana regime — citing the likelihood that federal marijuana laws will remain in effect and the potential response from the city’s congressional overseers.

“There is a good argument for decriminalizing a drug that is widely used and that results in a lot of arrest records and not having an effect on violent crime,” Mendelson said in December, but “I don’t think this is the time for the District to be discussing that.”

Eidinger said Tuesday that he is prepared to mount a ballot initiative should the council fail to act. He has founded DCMJ — a skeleton organization consisting, he says, “basically me and a few other people in the city who are interested in advancing the issue.”

“The idea is that we need to create a grassroots organization in the city that is going to advance this ballot initiative if we have to do it,” Eidinger said. “Meanwhile, [MPP and DPA] will be accelerating their lobbying. I think it’s unnecessary if the council does their jobs.”

Piper, of the Drug Policy Alliance, acknowledged “internal and external discussions about doing a ballot measure” but “our preference is to work with the council on a set of reforms to reduce incarceration, racial disparities, and drug overdoses.”

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Mike DeBonis
Published: April 17, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

16 Apr 2013

Teen marijuana use Common because of Canadian Drug Policy

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The high rate of marijuana use among Canada’s youth is a by-product of strict drug control, pot activist and BC Green Party candidate Jodie Emery said.

Canada has the highest rate of cannabis use among young people in developed countries, according to a recent report by UNICEF. In Canada, 28 per cent of kids aged 11, 13 and 15 reported having used cannabis in the last 12 months. The data comes from a 2009-2010 World Health Organization (WHO) survey of 29 developed countries.

Canada also had the highest rates of youth marijuana use in a similar WHO survey conducted eight years prior, but the rate has gone down from 40 per cent to 28 per cent. While the situation may have improved, young people continue to use cannabis at a very high rate, despite laws against it.

In the Netherlands, a country known for its relaxed drug policy, only 17 per cent of youth said they used cannabis. Emery said that this actually makes sense.

“In countries with more liberal drug laws, the use of marijuana and other drugs is lower,” she said, a view that corresponds to the report’s findings.

Emery argued that the legalization and regulation of drugs help control the substance and keep it out of the hands of young people. When drugs are illegal, they’re controlled by criminal organizations, and gangs “give it to anyone who wants it,” she said. Further, these gangs make money off of prohibited drugs, so Emery asserts that politicians who support prohibition are in fact supporting gangs.

The health impacts of marijuana use are limited, and Emery says it’s no worse than alcohol, but a criminal record due to drug possession can have a life-long impact.

“The law causes more harm to young people than does the substance itself, Emery stated. “That needs to change.”

Emery makes it clear that she doesn’t condone marijuana use among children, and cited a report that suggested 16 could be an appropriate minimum age for marijuana use. The 2002 report, from a special committee to the Canadian Senate, recommended the legalization and regulation of marijuana. It said cannabis laws should only prohibit what causes demonstrable harm to others: illegal trafficking, impaired driving, and selling it to people under the age of sixteen.

Last November, a poll by Forum Research found that 65 per cent of Canadians support the legalization or decriminalization of marijuana. And yet, marijuana remains banned, with an exception for medical use.

Emery and many other proponents of legalization suggest that Canada follow the example of Washington state, which voted in November to legalize marijuana. The state will be regulating the sale of marijuana, while banning sales to young people, in the same way that alcohol is regulated.

Source: http://www.vancouverobserver.com/life/health/teen-marijuana-use-common-because-canadian-drug-policy-says-pot-activist

Author: Chris Lane

16 Apr 2013

Marijuana studies under Trudeau shelved before results Analyzed

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Ralph Miller was barely 30 years when he was hand-picked to lead a Canadian commission on whether marijuana should be legalized.

As research director, it was his job to guide a small army of scientists to investigate the nonmedicinal impact of a much-demonized drug during the late 1960s and early 1970s.

On May 29, 1969, then-prime minister Pierre Elliott Trudeau appointed Gerald Le Dain, a former dean of Osgoode Hall Law School and a future Supreme Court justice, to lead the inquiry. Le Dain hired the Miller — one of the few scientists who had a foot in both academia and the alternative culture. He was working at McMaster University at the time and had come to Canada a few years earlier from his native Detroit.

It has been described as one of the most comprehensive royal commissions ever conducted. The inquiry lasted almost four years. Nearly 30 public hearings took place across the country. Miller’s group oversaw 120 projects examining the physiological, psychological and behavioural effects of marijuana and other illegal drugs. They looked at extent and patterns of use, the social context of these drugs, how they played in mass media, legal and illegal sources of distribution, their role in law enforcement and the correctional system, among other things.

Around the same time, research funded by Ontario’s Conservative government was underway in Toronto to study the long-term effects of marijuana smoking in male and female volunteers. Dr. C.G. (Bill) Miles’ series of studies for the Addiction Research Foundation fed into the commission’s work though only portions of the results from the male studies were ever published.

By the time the commission issued its last of four reports in 1973, the perceived “drug crisis” in Canada was already waning. The commissioners were divided on whether pot should be legalized or decriminalized and much of the innovative research was left unanalyzed, according to Miller. The material was packed into boxes bound for the national archives. Miller says he would be willing to advise keen graduate students on how to start unpacking some of that rich data.

the Toronto Star spoke with Miller by email at an ashram in Rishikesh, India, and later by phone in West Vancouver, B.C., where he still consults on the impact of marijuana as well and holistic psychology.

“I have gotten a lot of mileage (kilometerage?) out of my Le Dain cannabis research,” he quipped by email.

Here is an edited transcript of his remarks on the collision of marijuana, science and politics from that time.

What prompted the commission?

“There was a lot of talk that drugs were destroying our youth, that hospitals were full of young people gone crazy on the use of drugs and that crime had gone up from drugs.

That was the crisis that caused Trudeau to say what is going on here.

All it was originally going to be was a departmental inquiry about marijuana issues. And then of course concern about LSD, psychedelics and so on.

At that point, coke hadn’t really reared its head in Canada much and heroin was entirely restricted to the West Coast.

Their great mistake, the Cabinet’s, is that they didn’t specifically exclude anything. They didn’t consider alcohol and tobacco to be drugs because in the general population it isn’t.

I made a point on logical grounds and in terms of physiological and socioeconomic effects, we had to include alcohol.

So the interim report did include alcohol, but not tobacco.

But I wrote all the tobacco stuff and stuffed it in the final report with only general approval at the end because they didn’t want to tackle that as well.

But when you look at the alcohol and drug research, it makes everything else a bad joke.

That’s why I quit working in the area.

They weren’t interested in the problem, in terms of the socio-economic impact of drugs, which means alcohol and tobacco. Added up, everything else is nothing compared to alcohol and tobacco problems.”

How did you land the job?

“They couldn’t find anyone in Canada qualified who also had a foot in the alternative culture.

I had given a talk on the non-medical use of drugs as part of a university conference. Le Dain heard about that and called me personally at McMaster to meet with him.

At that time, I had a giant Afro (dark brown, black) and had recently escaped from the U.S. to McMaster.

I purposely didn’t spiff myself up.

Le Dain himself was a conservative man, but brilliant, funny and intellectually honest.

I thought this was going to be just another government blah, blah, blah and I wasn’t really interested.

In my interview he never mentioned my hair.

Now my hair is trimmed up. I have my vice-president Biden hairdo on now.

No one else had ever been paid to work full time in these areas. Not only doing the original research, but surveying anyone who had ever done any LSD or any cannabis research. No one else had ever been in a position to do this before.

I was easily the world expert in cannabis.

What were some of the highlights of your research?

There were some amazing and funny things.

We got permission to use the RCMP airport at Rockcliffe. We wanted to see how fast stoners could drive around, what they would run over, if they could park.

That’s where the first driving studies were done.

We tested marijuana and alcohol on runways they weren’t using at the time.

We had regular stoners rating as high as they ever got and still driving around in the RCMP airport.

We did the first and only survey of every RCMP officer, went through all of their chemical analysis records in detail. And three months later, we had the meeting with the RCMP officers.

They were very embarrassed because they were expected to have all this data on marijuana and crime.

Other than busting people for simple possession and small dealers, they had nothing, except some guys who got busted for marijuana and were already under suspicion for gang rape a few weeks earlier. There was one case of a young man who turned out to be schizophrenic. He had taken hash and assaulted his parents. But it wasn’t clear it was even in the same month.

They said they were sure the world literature would support them, which it didn’t.

So that blew away the marijuana-causing-crime issue.

The LSD crimes were a young man naked worshipping the golden boy statue in front of the capitol building in Manitoba; some guys naked running through Stanley Park; and three people caught inappropriately dressed worshipping the trees in the park.

One of the crimes was he pulled into a gas station while high on LSD and tried to get them to service six imaginary automobiles. How’s that for heavy crime?

The worst one of all? A woman was caught attempting to fornicate with a peanut-vending machine.

The RCMP officers writing this down must have had a hoot but the head commissioners didn’t think this was funny at all. They were highly embarrassed.

We surveyed every psychiatric hospital and every hospital and major clinic with a psychiatric ward or outpatient clinic.

Physicians were seeing these kids coming in seeming schizy and that they were smoking dope and assumed that the families will want to blame something outside. Because it’s either the parenting or the outside. Because genetics is very hidden and not clearly known at that time.

In Ottawa, study, No difference between number of schizophrenics to be expected (1-3 per cent of population in age groups) and number being reported as being caused by marijuana/LSD. Which means marijuana or LSD was not likely causing anything but was maybe concomitant in increasing the symptoms.

The psych hospitals were full of people with alcohol problems. Again, alcohol wiped everything else off the map.

Was the drug crisis exaggerated?

“A general but not well-defined fear fed into “drug crisis.”

Many believed marijuana was a gateway drug. But in those days, few people smoked marijuana who didn’t start with tobacco.

I just gave a talk on that in India.”

Where did the pot for your research come from?

“A field run by the U.S. government in Kentucky. They collected seeds from around the world and were growing them in different conditions there.

Kentucky pot was a dark, rich green.”

What happened?

“We ran out of money and all of the studies we did — the pharmacology studies — were left only in the not-finished, final statistical analysis.

They didn’t come up with the money for a follow-up until all of my staff members had jobs elsewhere.

That was in 1973/74.

All of our core research, even the data, is in the national archives. Most is still in microfiche. And most of it hasn’t been published other than in the reports. Except the stuff that we involved outside people who had their own research grants from universities in California and around Ontario that published on their own.

But I couldn’t do it free.

I had my two kids. No access to staff or computers.

I was living in a wonderful commune in Stanley Park, Vancouver. I worked at a rehab program.

When the commission was over, Trudeau put the word out to the prosecutors and the whole judicial system and police to not waste time on simple possession.

Trudeau couldn’t do much with it. There wasn’t the political will around the country. They were still very conservative about it.

And here we are, a half-century later just about, and now the issue is coming around again. It’s about time.

I’ve been disappointed that no one seems to be tracking down any of us about the political, socio-economic issues.

Even young Trudeau himself seems to be dealing with these issues and doesn’t mention his dad’s commission at all.

He’s fishing around for answers and his dad’s commission did the work. And people don’t even seem to recognize it.”

What was your final conclusion?

“The big plague of stoners bringing Canada to its knees is a farce.”

Source: Toronto Star Newspapers Ltd.
Link: http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/04/08/governments_research_on_marijuanas_effects_done_long_ago.html
Author:Diana Zlomislic

16 Apr 2013

Medical Pot for Illinois Patients

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In 1976, the idea that marijuana could be a medicine was generally taken as laughable. Then a glaucoma patient named Robert Randall won a court ruling that he needed the drug to keep from going blind. His case started a movement that could finally make headway here. The Illinois House is set to vote this week on a bill to allow the therapeutic use of cannabis.

Illinois is not exactly on the cutting edge here. California took this step in 1996, and 18 states now grant access. Polls have consistently found a large majority of Americans believe that pot has medical uses and should be available for doctors to prescribe for treating illnesses.

They have good reason for those convictions. In 1999, a panel of the federal Institute of Medicine concluded, “Scientific data indicate the potential therapeutic value of cannabinoid drugs . . . for pain relief, control of nausea and vomiting, and appetite stimulation.” The American Medical Association has urged the federal government to allow research on the medical uses of marijuana.

Illinois legislators have repeatedly declined to let patients gain access to a drug that many say offers relief they get from nothing else. But lawmakers finally may be ready to pass a bill sponsored by Rep. Lou Lang, D-Skokie, creating a process to allow access to those with serious medical needs.

The nice thing about the delay is that Illinois has had the chance to learn from the good and bad of policy in other states. Under this measure, patients whose doctors prescribe cannabis would be able to get it, but under sensible controls.

In California, often decried for lax regulation and wide-open access, patients can grow their own pot, get prescriptions from doctors who work at marijuana dispensaries and qualify for vague ailments. Lang’s bill is designed to make sure legalization of medical marijuana does not amount to de facto legalization of recreational marijuana.

To that end, it requires patients to obtain prescriptions from doctors with whom they have pre-existing and ongoing relationships, and only for specific conditions, including cancer, HIV and multiple sclerosis, but excluding pain and mental illness. Patients would have to register with the state health department, undergo a background check and get an ID card.

The number of dispensaries would be limited to avert an explosion of storefront outlets, and they would be barred near schools, playgrounds and churches. Patients would not be allowed to grow their own pot, unlike in California. They would be permitted only 2.5 grams every two weeks — also unlike the Golden State, which imposes no limit. The bill requires drivers suspected of using pot to submit to field sobriety tests, on pain of having their licenses suspended.

It’s important to give doctors and patients the freedom to use cannabis for whatever medical value it has. It’s also important to treat it as a potent drug whose unchecked proliferation can bring troublesome side effects. This bill does both, and it deserves to pass.

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Published: April 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

15 Apr 2013

Weird 1972 Experiment In Marijuana Use

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marijuana_grow_1In the winter of 1972, 20 young women took part in one of the weirdest scientific experiments in this country’s history.

For 98 days in a downtown Toronto hospital, their brains, hearts, kidneys, livers, blood and urine were rigorously tested and analyzed.  A team of nurses kept round-the-clock records of their behaviour, logged at half-hour intervals.

Just how was marijuana affecting the 10 who had to smoke it every day?

Forty-one years later, these women are still wondering what exactly happened to them during their three-month stretch as human guinea pigs.

Doreen Brown, who now lives in Cambridge, is one of the women who took part in the study while in her 20s.  She turns 63 this month.

In the late 1960s, Brown moved to downtown Toronto to live on her own after her mother died.  She was 17.

“I was full of grief, a brick wall,” says Brown.  “I did things I knew weren’t good for me.”

Acid, mescaline, marijuana.

Though high or tired, she never missed a shift as a department store secretary.

But by the time she was 21, the lifestyle was wearing on her.  When a co-worker told her a group of scientists was looking for female volunteers to participate in a marijuana study for money, she saw an escape.

“It was a very split-second decision,” Brown says.  “I didn’t like what I was doing.  I wanted a change and thought, ‘Why not?’ ”

The research was part of a million-dollar program, the last in a series of provincially funded experiments designed to answer one of the country’s most pressing questions, raised when then-prime minister Pierre Trudeau entertained the idea of legalizing marijuana.

The study was lead by C.G.  ( Bill ) Miles, a British psychologist working in Toronto.

In 1971, the Addiction Research Foundation opened a research and treatment hospital where Miles’ marijuana study, Project E206, would be held.

He assembled a team that included two behavioural psychologists, one doctor, a psychiatrist, a social worker and a full-shift complement of registered nurses and attendants.

The hospital welcomed the 20 women to the ward with a formal dinner on Jan.  31, 1972.

Brown, then 21, scanned the long table.  None of the women, aged 18 to 35, looked familiar, though some seemed to know each other.

The ward was clean and modern, with blue carpet underfoot and the smell of fresh paint in the air.

It seemed an ideal place for a personal reinvention.

“I was hoping that maybe in there I would solve some of my issues – to be more open, happier,” Brown says.  “I was definitely a lost soul at that point.  Directionless.  I needed help but I didn’t know where to go to get it.”

The women were quickly split into two groups in two different areas of the hospital.  Half of them – the experimental group – were required to smoke increasingly potent doses of marijuana twice a night, while the other half – the control group – did not.  Both sides could buy as many relatively mild joints as they wanted for 50 cents apiece at a store that also sold alcohol, junk food, toiletries, cigarettes and magazines.

And then they got to work.

A key element of the study was its microeconomy.  The women were required to cover the cost of their existence, except for their bed and water, for 98 days.  Whatever money they earned and did not spend on food, clothing or entertainment, they could keep.  A $250 bonus awaited those who stuck with the experiment until the end.  Those who quit early would lose the extra payout and up to 75 per cent of their savings.

They made their living on a primitive-looking wooden device, a Guatemalan backstrap loom, on which they wove colourful, fuzzy, woollen belts with knotted tassels.  For every belt that passed inspection – it had to contain at least two colours and measure 132 centimetres in length – the women received $2.50.

After a few days of practice, the task got easier.

One participant bought chalk from the ward store to draw murals on the lounge walls.  Another, a professional bartender, mixed drinks.  Women in both groups were known to walk around naked.  Living on locked, separate wards didn’t stop women from the two groups from communicating with each other or people in surrounding office buildings – like the men who were being held in the forensic psychiatry unit at the Clarke Institute, which was next door.  The women wrote friendly, short messages on large placards and flashed their signs through the large windows that faced the street and an interior courtyard.

The carefree vibe didn’t last long.

The joints became so potent that some sought a doctor’s note to get out of their nightly obligations, saying they felt too sick to smoke.

“We were asking them to take it away,” Brown says.  “They knew we wanted it taken away; there was no doubt.  I felt comatose.  I couldn’t do anything.

“It became torture,” Brown says.

In the last week, the women who were left on the mandatory smoking unit refused to continue.

On May 8, 1972, the women left the centre.

Brown expected relief, some sense of freedom, but she felt paranoid instead.

“It was very scary,” she says.  “I thought, ‘Where am I going to go? What am I going to do?’ I was afraid to get on the subway.

“I was hoping that being in there for those 98 days might give me some perspective.  But if anything, for me, it magnified my problems.”

She spent a few years in therapy and went to the University of Toronto to study political science and history.

In her late 30s, she got pregnant and moved to Cambridge to raise her son.  She still works full-time at a local hearing clinic.  She has a granddaughter.

She still wonders what became of the results of the experiment.

Brown says she made several inquiries during the ’80s and ’90s.  She would have been more aggressive but feared she might lose her job at the time if word got out that she had taken part in a marijuana experiment.

She’s less concerned now.

“I want to know, I want to know,” she says.  “The dosages.  What they found psychologically, physically.  I feel ripped off, taken advantage of.  It’s just like it didn’t happen.  I feel like, yeah, you gave three months of your life for what?

“Were the results that horrible that they didn’t give them to us? You wonder.  I think they might have supported legalizing marijuana.  That’s why they didn’t come out.  I don’t know.  It leaves you with a lot of questions.”

Miles died in 2009 at the age of 74, but there are still some people who can help fill in the blanks of the women-and-marijuana study.

Janet McDougall was one of the junior researchers on the project.

She recalls the group disbanding suddenly and being left virtually alone with a few binders and reels of brown data tape.  On Miles’ instructions, she sent portions of it to economists at Texas A&M University.

Among them was John Kagel, now a professor of applied microeconomics at Ohio State University.  “Our analysis showed these people were perfectly rational, worked their butts off.  There was a beautiful, inadvertent event where they went on strike because they were making them smoke too much marijuana and it was interfering with their earnings, which appeared to be a primary motivation for some of them going into the thing.”

Research today indicates that while frequent cannabis smoking may well have harmful effects – including dependence and susceptibility to lung infections – motivation is not a problem.

Junior researcher McDougall does not know where the rest of the research data is today.

Dr.  Harold Kalant, the renowned former director of biological and behavioural research at the Addiction Research Foundation who, at 90, still works for its successor, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, knew in general terms what Miles was doing and what he found.

Did politics get in the way of Miles disseminating the data into a final report?

“My guess is that it probably wasn’t yielding anything that was going to have a direct influence on policy,” says Kalant.

For all the questions it raised, the study did answer at least one question convincingly, according to Ohio State’s Kagel.

“In terms of the central issue, if you legalize marijuana, were you going to get a bunch of stoned people just hanging out smoking dope all the time and not doing any work? This is fairly convincing evidence that wasn’t going to happen.”

Source: Record, The (Kitchener, CN ON)
Copyright: 2013 Metroland Media Group Ltd.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://news.therecord.com/
Author: Diana Zlomislic

15 Apr 2013

Why Legal Pot Is Coming to Nevada

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nevada-welcomeIt was no great feat, but as I predicted last October, Colorado and Washington have legalized pot, and Nevada is now in danger of losing our rightful place as the capital of forbidden fun.

On his tourism blog, Arthur Frommer wrote last year that we could “expect a torrent of new tourism to Seattle and Denver.”

The media is all over it, with a recent story filled with enough dumb pot puns and jokes to merit an editor’s termination, including references to “smoke signals,” grilled cheese sandwiches and food trucks, and fears that the feds could “harsh the mellow.”

Medical marijuana is already legal here, and Thursday a Nevada legislative committee approved the creation of medical marijuana dispensaries.

And last week, the Nevada Legislature took up a bill to legalize recreational marijuana.  It’s not going anywhere, but I applaud the Assembly Judiciary Committee for giving it a hearing.

Here’s why: There’s a better-than-even chance that recreational pot will be legal in Nevada after the 2016 election.

Wait, what’s that? you ask.

Let me explain.

For the first time, the Pew Research Center, the highly respected nonpartisan polling outfit, found that a majority of Americans favor marijuana legalization.

This wasn’t all that surprising, however, because a majority favored legalization for the first time in a Gallup poll last year.

More striking than the raw numbers is the trend, which points to rising support for legalization.

In fact, as an insightful recent piece in Talking Points Memo pointed out, the trend seems to parallel support for gay marriage.

The movement on gay marriage, recall, has been caused by a massive demographic shift whereby younger voters overwhelmingly favor marriage equality.  Same with marijuana.  Stay calm: Before you freak out, fearing the young are sitting around getting high all day, keep in mind that 6.9 percent of the population report using marijuana regularly, according to the most recent data.  Yes, that’s up from 5.8 percent in 2007, but way down from a high of 13.2 percent in 1979.

The real driver of the surge in popularity for both gay marriage and legalization of marijuana is a rapid increase in what I’d call the “Who Cares?” Caucus.  These younger voters – 1 in 5 of all voters in November were ages 18 to 29 – just don’t see the big deal with gay marriage or legal pot.

Conservatives have begun to throw in the towel on gay marriage, but on pot, some of them are actually leading the way, including National Review magazine, the organ of the establishment right.

So the trend is clear, and now, legalization advocates are looking for their next round of target states.  ( Just how the feds will react to this remains to be seen; marijuana is still illegal in the eyes of Washington.  )

Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, told me that the big prize is California, home to 38 million people and a cultural bellwether for the rest of the nation.

But Nevada is also at the top of the list, he said.  It’s not hard to figure out why – we’re libertarian when it come to vices and have been able to integrate them into our culture and economy while maintaining a sense of normalcy.  ( OK, not entirely, but you get the point.  )

The voters rejected legal pot in the past, but that was seven years ago.

The target year is 2016, when lazy Democrats will get off the couch to elect the first woman president in American history.

Again, it’s happening.

Legalizers should temper their joy.  Yes, this is the right policy.  It could raise tax revenue and keep people out of the vortex that is the legal system.

And surely Nevada’s creative minds will figure out how to capitalize on legal pot.

But, as with end of the prohibition of gambling and alcohol, we need to put the right policies in place to deal with the relevant issues, including increased marijuana consumption, crime, underage use, driving while intoxicated, addiction, etc.

These are not simple issues, and while ending prohibition will relieve certain problems, it will create others.

If we don’t get the policy right, we could wind up with prohibition again.

So, in a way, it’s good that we aren’t taking action yet.  We can watch Colorado and Washington state, which are both pretty rational, decently governed states.  Then we can follow their lead, learning from their successes and failures.

But we need to start figuring this out, because it’s happening.  And 2016 will be here quick.

Source: Las Vegas Sun (NV)
Copyright: 2013 Las Vegas Sun, Inc
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.lasvegassun.com/
Author: J. Patrick Coolican

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