Cannabis – Page 154

29 Jan 2013

Will States Lead The Way To Legalizing Marijuana?

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When citizens of Colorado and Washington voted to legalize marijuana in November they created a conflict, because pot remains illegal under federal law and anyone who lights up is committing a federal crime and could theoretically still be arrested for it. After Colorado passed the referendum, Governor John Hickenlooper said the implementation of the law in his state would be a “complicated process” and he warned residents not to “break out the Cheetos or Goldfish too quickly.”

While it seems unlikely that the federal government will make much of an effort to arrest pot users in Colorado or Washington—Obama has said he has “bigger fish to fry”— the tension between federal and state laws on marijuana remains. Just last week, an appeals court rejected a suit that sought to lower the classification of medical marijuana under federal drug laws.

That court ruling threw the issue back to Congress and the Drug Enforcement Agency, which should start a serious reconsideration of national policy toward marijuana. The federal government should start by reclassifying medical marijuana, legalizing it outright, or at least dialing down the penalties. And it should begin to have the sort of serious discussion about legalizing recreational marijuana that is now occurring in the states.

The campaign to legalize marijuana has long been viewed as a fringe cause, backed by young people and old hippies. That perception has lingered even though public opinion polls have shown that a growing percentage of the public favors legalization – as much as 68% in one recent poll. In the past two decades, supporters of marijuana have focused on legalizing medical use, and they have had impressive success. Today, 18 states and the District of Columbia have made medical use legal – and at least seven more states are considering it. Meanwhile, the DEA still classifies marijuana as a “schedule 1” drug under the federal Controlled Substances Act of 1970 – a classification for drugs that have no accepted medical use. Americans for Safe Access, a pro-marijuana group, challenged this classification, but last week the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rejected the lawsuit. That ruling left in place the DEA’s blunt position that there is “no currently accepted medical use for marijuana in the United States.”

The votes in Colorado and Washington were a watershed, however, because they shifted the debate from medical marijuana to outright legalization. And the votes were not even close. In Colorado, the referendum passed by more than 6%. In Washington, the margin was 10%.

Afterwards, President Obama said that the federal government has a lot of crime to prosecute and “it does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that, under state law, that is legal.” Last week, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee said that he had a conversation with Attorney General Eric Holder that encouraged him about his state’s ability to carry out the referendum legalizing marijuana.

It is good that the Obama administration appears to be standing down now, but that has not always been the case. As recently as last year, the Justice Department was cracking down on medical marijuana producers in California and other states. There is no way to know that the federal government will continue to leave marijuana policy to the states. And whatever policy the Obama administration adopts, it could be undone when a new President takes office.

Justice Louis Brandeis once said that the states should function as “laboratories,” testing new ideas for possible adoption by the whole nation. We have seen enough over the past 16 years from the states that have legalized medical marijuana to know that the benefits are real and the alleged dangers overblown. With this data in hand, the DEA should reclassify marijuana to acknowledge its possible medical uses.

In Colorado and Washington, a bolder experiment is now underway. The rest of the nation should watch closely. It is possible that legalization will lead to higher crime rates, increased use of harder drugs, and other menaces that marijuana critics warn about. But if legalization in these states has few negative effects, we will have the strongest argument yet for why marijuana should be legal nationwide.

Source: Time Magazine (US)
Author: Adam Cohen
Published: January 28, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Time Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.time.com/time/

29 Jan 2013

Atmospheric Oxygen Levels Are Dropping Faster Than Atmospheric Carbon Levels Are Rising

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Posted by Good German on January 27, 2013

Forget rising temperatures and bigger storms, this is the big problem that neither side of the mainstream debate over environmental destruction is talking about. Peter Tatchell reported for the Guardian back in 2008:

The rise in carbon dioxide emissions is big news. It is prompting action to reverse global warming. But little or no attention is being paid to the long-term fall in oxygen concentrations and its knock-on effects.

Compared to prehistoric times, the level of oxygen in the earth’s atmosphere has declined by over a third and in polluted cities the decline may be more than 50%. This change in the makeup of the air we breathe has potentially serious implications for our health. Indeed, it could ultimately threaten the survival of human life on earth, according to Roddy Newman, who is drafting a new book, The Oxygen Crisis.

I am not a scientist, but this seems a reasonable concern. It is a possibility that we should examine and assess. So, what’s the evidence?

Around 10,000 years ago, the planet’s forest cover was at least twice what it is today, which means that forests are now emitting only half the amount of oxygen.

Desertification and deforestation are rapidly accelerating this long-term loss of oxygen sources.

The story at sea is much the same. Nasa reports that in the north Pacific ocean oxygen-producing phytoplankton concentrations are 30% lower today, compared to the 1980s. This is a huge drop in just three decades.

Moreover, the UN environment programme confirmed in 2004 that there were nearly 150 “dead zones” in the world’s oceans where discharged sewage and industrial waste, farm fertiliser run-off and other pollutants have reduced oxygen levels to such an extent that most or all sea creatures can no longer live there. This oxygen starvation is reducing regional fish stocks and diminishing the food supplies of populations that are dependent on fishing. It also causes genetic mutations and hormonal changes that can affect the reproductive capacity of sea life, which could further diminish global fish supplies.

Professor Robert Berner of Yale University has researched oxygen levels in prehistoric times by chemically analysing air bubbles trapped in fossilised tree amber. He suggests that humans breathed a much more oxygen-rich air 10,000 years ago.

Further back, the oxygen levels were even greater. Robert Sloan has listed the percentage of oxygen in samples of dinosaur-era amber as: 28% (130m years ago), 29% (115m years ago), 35% (95m years ago), 33% (88m years ago), 35% (75m years ago), 35% (70m years ago), 35% (68m years ago), 31% (65.2m years ago), and 29% (65m years ago).

Professor Ian Plimer of Adelaide University and Professor Jon Harrison of the University of Arizona concur. Like most other scientists they accept that oxygen levels in the atmosphere in prehistoric times averaged around 30% to 35%, compared to only 21% today – and that the levels are even less in densely populated, polluted city centres and industrial complexes, perhaps only 15 % or lower.

Much of this recent, accelerated change is down to human activity, notably the industrial revolution and the burning of fossil fuels. The Professor of Geological Sciences at Notre Dame University in Indiana, J Keith Rigby, was quoted in 1993-1994 as saying:

In the 20th century, humanity has pumped increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere by burning the carbon stored in coal, petroleum and natural gas. In the process, we’ve also been consuming oxygen and destroying plant life – cutting down forests at an alarming rate and thereby short-circuiting the cycle’s natural rebound. We’re artificially slowing down one process and speeding up another, forcing a change in the atmosphere.

Very interesting. But does this decline in oxygen matter? Are there any practical consequences that we ought to be concerned about? What is the effect of lower oxygen levels on the human body? Does it disrupt and impair our immune systems and therefore make us more prone to cancer and degenerative diseases?

The effects of long term oxygen deprivation on the brain, called cerebral hypoxia, are known and some sound reminiscent of the general rise of stupidity in the industrialized world.

Professor Ervin Laszlo (quoted in Tatchell’s article) writes:

Evidence from prehistoric times indicates that the oxygen content of pristine nature was above the 21% of total volume that it is today. It has decreased in recent times due mainly to the burning of coal in the middle of the last century. Currently the oxygen content of the Earth’s atmosphere dips to 19% over impacted areas, and it is down to 12 to 17% over the major cities. At these levels it is difficult for people to get sufficient oxygen to maintain bodily health: it takes a proper intake of oxygen to keep body cells and organs, and the entire immune system, functioning at full efficiency. At the levels we have reached today cancers and other degenerative diseases are likely to develop. And at 6 to 7% life can no longer be sustained.

More specific details regarding the drop in atmospheric oxygen can be found here.

23 Jan 2013

Effort to legalize hemp gains new life in Kentucky

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Gregory A. Hall, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal

FRANKFORT, Ky. — With support from some of the state’s top politicians and claims that it would create thousands of jobs, an effort to legalize industrial hemp — the less-potent cousin of marijuana — may have its best chance of passing the Kentucky General Assembly.

Opposition from the Kentucky State Police helped kill earlier efforts to legalize hemp, which can be processed into fiber for clothing or provide an oil used in skin- and hair-care products. Once legal, hemp production in the United States was centered in Kentucky. Production fell nationally after the mid-1800s, as cotton surged.

State police still oppose legalizing hemp, arguing in part that because the plants look virtually the same as marijuana it could impede drug enforcement efforts.

But the proposal to legalize hemp has gained momentum from the alliance of Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, state Senate Agriculture Committee Chairman Paul Hornback, U.S. Sen. Rand Paul and the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce.

"This is something that you don’t have to borrow any money (for) that will have an immediate impact of thousands of jobs," Comer said, based on an assumption that processors and manufacturers would locate in Kentucky if it is one of the first states to approve it. "We’re ahead at something that relates to economic development for once, so let’s pursue it."

Comer and Paul say the state police concerns are unfounded because growers of industrial hemp would be licensed and global-positioning system devices would identify legal crops and reveal others as illegal.

Comer’s Senate Bill 50, sponsored by Hornback, a Republican from Shelbyville, was filed earlier this month just before the legislature adjourned until February.

The bill would require growers to be licensed annually and have their backgrounds checked by the Agriculture Department. Each licensee would be required to plant a minimum of 10 acres to eliminate people who aren’t serious from getting licenses.

Growers would have to keep sales contracts for three years and provide names of hemp buyers to the department.

Hemp seeds produce plants with less than 1 percent THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, which has between 3 percent and 15 percent THC.

Comer said he believes there are 22 votes in the 38-member Senate in favor of the bill. But if it isn’t assigned to Hornback’s committee by Senate President Robert Stivers and other Senate leaders, it may never get to the floor.

"I’m afraid I see problems in the Senate," Comer said.

Stivers, a Republican from Manchester, said some members are uncomfortable with the bill.

If the measure passes the Senate, it likely will face an even tougher battle in the House, where Agriculture Committee Chairman Tom McKee, a Democrat from Cynthiana, has blocked similar bills from getting a vote in the past

McKee has said the state police concerns resonate with him.

"I think we have some questions to answer, but I certainly don’t want to close any opportunity for viable agriculture," McKee said earlier this month.

Gov. Steve Beshear said on a Lexington radio call-in show recently that his "only hesitation" is law enforcement concerns.

Even if an industrial hemp bill passed in Kentucky, it would still need federal approval. Federal drug policy effectively bans growing it, although other countries, such as Canada, allow it.

Paul, a Bowling Green Republican, has supported federal legislation to enable hemp production by classifying it separately from marijuana. Paul and Comer appeared together at the Kentucky State Fair last year to talk about their support for industrial hemp.

If legalized, Comer said he doesn’t see corn and soybean growers in Western Kentucky switching to industrial hemp, but he said it would be a profitable alternative for growers in hillier areas whose land is now used for grazing and pasture.

21 Jan 2013

Ky. hemp supporters gain big endorsement

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Published: January 20, 2013

By BRUCE SCHREINER — Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Industrial hemp’s repositioning toward mainstream status gained ground with a timely endorsement from the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. But the plant’s proponents have more work to do in cultivating support to legalize a crop that once was a Bluegrass state staple.

The chamber said recently that provided there’s adequate regulatory oversight, it supports legislation to position Kentucky as a leader in the production and commercialization of industrial hemp. The position was hailed by hemp backers, noting the chamber’s political clout.

"When Kentucky’s leading voice for small businesses and economic development endorses a piece of legislation, lawmakers sit up and listen," said state Agriculture Commissioner James Comer, a former state lawmaker.

Comer is leading the comeback campaign for the versatile crop outlawed for decades due to its association with its cousin, marijuana. Hemp has a negligible content of THC, the psychoactive compound that gives marijuana users a high.

Comer, a farmer himself, touts hemp’s potential while crisscrossing the state, saying Kentucky can become a hub of hemp production and manufacturing. The crop can be turned into paper, clothing, food, biofuel, lotions and other products.

"We could be the Silicon Valley of industrial hemp manufacturing right here in Kentucky," Comer said recently.

Bills aimed at legalizing the crop have been introduced in the Kentucky House and Senate, and lawmakers are expected to debate the issue when they return to the State Capitol in Frankfort next month to resume the 2013 session.

But hemp backers acknowledge challenges remain, namely resistance from Kentucky State Police. And that opposition could have a spillover effect with lawmakers hesitant to oppose the state’s top law enforcement agency.

State Police Commissioner Rodney Brewer last month restated the agency’s opposition, saying law enforcement may have difficulty distinguishing between hemp and marijuana.

Comer met with Brewer following a meeting of the Kentucky Industrial Hemp Commission late last year, but the commissioner said they’ve had no follow-up discussions. Comer said he’d like to have state police support but sees the agency’s resistance as a "non-factor."

"I was a state representative for 11 years and very few bills ever passed without somebody being opposed to them," he said.

Republican Sen. Paul Hornback of Shelbyville, lead sponsor of one of the hemp bills, said state police opposition will be an obstacle. But he said the state chamber’s support for legalizing the crop helps reshape the crop’s image.

"Everybody has to feel comfortable with the bill," said Hornback, a tobacco farmer who once was lukewarm to hemp. "With the stature that the state chamber has, I think it does legitimize it. It brings credibility to the issue."

Supporters say there’s a ready-made market for hemp, pointing to industry estimates that U.S. retail sales of hemp products exceed $400 million. Hemp is grown legally in Canada and many other countries, and imports into the U.S. include finished hemp products.

At least a couple of Kentucky companies – a tobacco processor and a seed supplier – have expressed interest in branching out into hemp. Hemp supporters say that could lead to jobs, especially in rural areas.

But the resistance of state police could be a sticking point for some lawmakers, including the top House leader.

"It will be difficult to pass any legislation that doesn’t have the support of the Kentucky State Police and Kentucky’s law enforcement community," said House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg. "As long as they have reservations, I have reservations."

Another potentially key player in the debate, Rep. Tom McKee, D-Cynthiana, said the biggest impediments to hemp’s comeback are the federal ban on hemp and the concerns of state police.

But McKee, chairman of the House Agriculture and Small Business Committee, hasn’t yet staked out a position on the issue.

"We don’t want to close a door on any viable agricultural crop that is profitable and would be well-accepted," he said.

Under Hornback’s bill, hemp growers would need licenses, and applicants would have to pass criminal background checks.

U.S. Sen. Rand Paul said he would seek a waiver from the federal ban on hemp for Kentucky if state lawmakers vote to legalize the crop. Paul also has pushed for federal legislation to remove restrictions on hemp cultivation. The Kentucky Republican said hemp supporters need to persuade law enforcement skeptics that the crop "won’t make the drug problem worse."

"We live in a modern world where we have GPS," he said in a recent speech in Frankfort. "Couldn’t a farmer or anybody who wants to grow it just get a simple one-page permit and say these are my GPS coordinates where it’s being grown and it could be checked?"

As for Comer, the agriculture commissioner has said he won’t defy the federal government on the issue.

The crop hasn’t been grown in the U.S. since the 1950s. Kentucky once was a leading producer of industrial hemp. During World War II, the U.S. government encouraged farmers to grow hemp for the war effort because other industrial fibers, often imported from overseas, were in short supply.

Because it can thrive in small, sloping plots, Comer said hemp could be a viable crop on marginal land in central and eastern Kentucky.

"A decade from now, someone will look back and think, ‘You mean there were people opposed to growing industrial hemp?’" he said.

19 Jan 2013

If You Smoke It, You Will Become Addicted!

posted in: Cannabis News | 3

In recent weeks, we have seen a shift in how drug war proponents are talking about marijuana. No longer able to convince the public that people who use marijuana should go to jail, they are singing a new tune; they should all go to treatment. This is a shift we have seen before. When marijuana first came on the scene in the U.S. in the early 1900s, reports of marijuana induced violence among Mexicans fueled the nation’s fear about the little known plant. When the general population started experimenting with the herb in the 1920s, it became clear that the claims of violence were fabricated. Losing the ability to instill fear in the public around marijuana use, the message was modified. The new message tied marijuana use to insanity and mental illness, which were highly stigmatized conditions, and continue to be. Being labeled as mentally ill frightened the white, middle class, marijuana consumers, and this fear led to the support of the Marijuana Tax Act in 1937.

Fast forward to 2012. Public support for marijuana legalization is at an all-time high and the government acknowledges that a change is being considered. No longer able to convince Americans that marijuana consumers are dangerous criminals who deserve to be locked up, history is repeating itself. We are seeing a shift in the message, from marijuana consumers as criminals to marijuana consumers as sick people who belong in treatment. It’s a propaganda shell game and we can’t fall for it again.

A recent article in the New York Times quoted Dr. Nora Volkow, the head of the National Institute on Drug Abuse as saying that 1 out of 6 adolescents who try marijuana will become addicted. That is akin to saying, if you keep making that face, it will freeze that way. In fact, a mere 2.8% of 12-17 year olds who used marijuana in 2010 entered treatment for it, and many of those cases could be the result of an agreement between the courts and the defendant in lieu of involvement with the juvenile justice system. When looking at the broader landscape of marijuana use, we see that 1.1% of marijuana users 12 and older in 2010 went to treatment for the substance. We also saw twice as many arrested for simple marijuana possession that year than enter treatment for marijuana dependence (750,000 vs. 335,833). The claim that marijuana causes mental illness, or that all marijuana consumers are addicted and in need of treatment undermines the efforts by mental health and addictions professionals to address the serious illnesses and addictions that pose real threats to persons and society.

Dr. David Nathan, a clinical associate professor at Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and recently elected as a distinguished fellow in the American Psychiatric Association, wrote in a piece on CNN.com, “Throughout my career as a clinical psychiatrist, I have seen lives ruined by drugs like cocaine, painkillers and alcohol. I have also borne witness to the devastation brought upon cannabis users — almost never by abuse of the drug, but by a justice system that chooses a sledgehammer to kill a weed.”

Recently, former Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy announced the formation of a new group, SAM, which stands for A Smarter Approach to Marijuana. Kennedy and his group recognize that the argument of jail for marijuana is no longer salient with today’s population, so they have repackaged the message for a new generation: marijuana use is a mental illness and requires treatment, every time. This sentiment is echoed in his group’s project list, which includes, “Increased funding for mental health courts and treatment of drug dependency, so those caught using marijuana might avoid incarceration, get help and potentially have their criminal records cleared.”

On its face, this statement is not so outrageous, but upon closer look it is frightening for two reasons. First, although increased funding for mental health services and substance abuse treatment can be beneficial, according to a 2008 report, 90% of those who currently need substance abuse treatment do not receive it, this compares to 24% of diabetes patients who do not receive treatment. It is estimated that 23 million people need addiction care, and only 2.3 million receive it. Forcing marijuana consumers into an already overloaded system will reduce the likelihood of care for those with serious, life threatening addictions. Furthermore, since approximately 37% of treatment referrals come from the criminal justice system, initiating a pipeline from the courtroom to treatment will result in a tidal wave of first time, young marijuana offenders entering substance abuse treatment to trade the label of criminal for addict. Secondly, Kennedy’s group refers to treatment for those “caught” with marijuana. This implies, that, under his plan, the U.S. will continue to seek out marijuana users, presumably via law enforcement. Or, perhaps Kennedy et al will institute a special marijuana task force charged with roaming the country in search of marijuana addicts. Whatever the case, SAM’s plan involves the active identification of marijuana consumers, followed by forced involvement in the system. Don’t be fooled, this is not a “new way” for marijuana, but rather a regressive old approach dressed in new clothes.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Amanda Reiman, Policy Manager, Drug Policy Alliance
Published: January 18, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

18 Jan 2013

Studying Marijuana and Its Loftier Purpose

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Tikkun Olam, a medical marijuana farm in Israel, blends the high-tech and the spiritual.

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: January 1, 2013

SAFED, Israel — Among the rows of plants growing at a government-approved medical marijuana farm in the Galilee hills in northern Israel, one strain is said to have the strongest psychoactive effect of any cannabis in the world. Another, rich in anti-inflammatory properties, will not get you high at all.

Marijuana is illegal in Israel, but farms like this one, at a secret location near the city of Safed, are at the cutting edge of the debate on the legality, benefits and risks of medicinal cannabis. Its staff members wear white lab coats, its growing facilities are fitted with state-of-the-art equipment for controlling light and humidity, and its grounds are protected by security cameras and guards.

But in addition to the high-tech atmosphere, there is a spiritual one. The plantation, Israel’s largest and most established medical marijuana farm — and now a thriving commercial enterprise — is imbued with a higher sense of purpose, reflected by the aura of Safed, an age-old center of Jewish mysticism, as well as by its name, Tikkun Olam, a reference to the Jewish concept of repairing or healing the world.

There is an on-site synagogue in a trailer, a sweet aroma of freshly harvested cannabis that infuses the atmosphere and, halfway up a wooded hillside overlooking the farm, a blue-domed tomb of a rabbinic sage and his wife.

In the United States, medical marijuana programs exist in 18 states but remain illegal under federal law. In Israel, the law defines marijuana as an illegal and dangerous drug, and there is still no legislation regulating its use for medicinal purposes.

Yet Israel’s Ministry of Health issues special licenses that allow thousands of patients to receive medical marijuana, and some government officials are now promoting the country’s advances in the field as an example of its pioneering and innovation.

“I hope we will overcome the legal obstacles for Tikkun Olam and other companies,” Yuli Edelstein, the minister of public diplomacy and diaspora affairs, told journalists during a recent government-sponsored tour of the farm, part of Israel’s effort to brand itself as something beyond a conflict zone. In addition to helping the sick, he said, the effort “could be helpful for explaining what we are about in this country.”

Israelis have been at the vanguard of research into the medicinal properties of cannabis for decades.

In the 1960s, Prof. Raphael Mechoulam and his colleague Yechiel Gaoni at the Weizmann Institute of Science isolated, analyzed and synthesized the main psychoactive ingredient in the cannabis plant, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC. Later, Professor Mechoulam deciphered the cannabinoids native to the brain. Ruth Gallily, a professor emerita of immunology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, has studied another main constituent of cannabis — cannabidiol, or CBD — considered a powerful anti-inflammatory and anti-anxiety agent.

When Zach Klein, a former filmmaker, made a documentary on medical marijuana that was broadcast on Israeli television in 2009, about 400 Israelis were licensed to receive the substance. Today, the number has risen to about 11,000.

Mr. Klein became devoted to the subject and went to work for Tikkun Olam in research and development. “Cannabis was used as medicine for centuries,” he said. “Now science is telling us how it works.”

Israeli researchers say cannabis can be beneficial for a variety of illnesses and conditions, from helping cancer patients relieve pain and ease loss of appetite to improving the quality of life for people with post-traumatic stress disorder and neuropsychological conditions. The natural ingredients in the plant, they say, can help with digestive function, infections and recovery after a heart attack.

The marijuana harvest, from plants that can grow over six feet tall, is processed into bags of flowers and ready-rolled cigarettes. There are also cannabis-laced cakes, cookies, candy, gum, honey, ointments and oil drops. The strain known as Eran Almog, which has the highest concentration of THC, is recommended for severe pain. Avidekel, a strain rich in CBD and with hardly any psychoactive ingredient, allows patients to benefit from the drug while being able to drive and to function at work.

Working with Hebrew University researchers, the farm has also developed a version in capsule form, which would make exporting the drug more practical, should the law allow it.

CONTINUE READING PAGE 2….

17 Jan 2013

Colorado Preps for Recreational Marijuana

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Driving east on Interstate 70 through Denver’s warehouse district, the smell of the marijuana plants growing inside unmarked industrial buildings blasts through car air vents and overwhelms drivers who roll down their windows. The smell is a pungent reminder that the state of Colorado is now home to some of the world’s laxest marijuana regulations.

The state legalized medicinal marijuana use in 2000, but in November voters in Colorado went even further by approving a constitutional amendment that legalizes recreational marijuana for all users over 21 and aims to “regulate marijuana like alcohol.”

Now, a governor-appointed “Amendment 64” task force is racing to draft regulations on everything from banking to public safety, to submit to the governor and the general assembly by the end of February. The legal sale of marijuana to recreational users is scheduled to begin as early as October.

The passage of the new law raises a lot of questions, especially for the established medical marijuana community. While marijuana advocates cheered Amendment 64’s passage, Colorado’s current medical marijuana providers, arguably the nation’s most successful and well-regulated, are apprehensive about how the new laws might change the current landscape. These businesses, 299 medical marijuana centers statewide at the end of 2012, have completed 1000-page business applications and probing background checks, paid taxes to the state Department of Revenue and still managed to turn a profit.

Now that recreational marijuana is legal, medical marijuana sellers must decide whether to pursue a permit to serve recreational users, or remain medical dispensaries. If they do expand their operations, how might the new recreational market change their relationship with their medical patients? And most importantly, will the federal government shut them down as soon as they begin serving recreational users?

Established Medical Marijuana Market

When it comes to regulating marijuana, Colorado is further along than the state of Washington, which also legalized recreational marijuana use in November’s election. In Colorado, unlike in Washington, medical marijuana dispensaries are for-profit businesses and all dispensaries and employees are registered and licensed, which has helped legitimize an industry that’s been forced underground in most of the world. You won’t see marijuana leaves emblazoned on dispensary doors or pictures of Bob Marley on the walls. Instead, they feel like small doctors’ offices with waiting rooms and helpful receptionists.

“We’re trying to rebrand the image of marijuana in general and get away from that pot stoner culture,” says Jason Katz, head of operations at Local Product, a Denver dispensary located in view of the statehouse. “As long as we can continue to keep doing that with the recreational model…we’ll be moving in the right direction.”

For most medical marijuana sellers, the decision to serve recreational users is likely to come down to economics—there will simply be more customers, and more money, for businesses who serve recreational users alongside medical users.

“If anyone over 21 can buy marijuana,” says Katz, “why would a patient go through a $100 state registration process to get a medical marijuana card when they can just buy it without doing any of that? I think it makes sense for our business to go recreational in that it will open up our customer base.”

Analysts expect that customer base to be upwards of one million in-state consumers, which for a marijuana products manufacturing company like Denver-based Dixie Elixirs, spells big profits.

“Ultimately my goal is to sell our business to big alcohol, big tobacco, or potentially big pharma,” says Tripp Keber, managing director of Dixie Elixirs. The company makes more than 75 marijuana-infused products, ranging from marijuana-infused truffles to flavored sodas to non-psychoactive cannabis body lotion. Located in the Denver warehouse district , a whiff of the outside air leaves little doubt about the new cash crop in town.

But until the regulations are finalized later this year, business owners who want recreational permits will have to sit on their hands. They’ll have to make sure they follow all the rules, such as not selling to anyone without a medical marijuana card, says Denver medical marijuana lawyer Warren Edson. That takes a lot of restraint. Since Amendment 64’s passage, says Katz, he’s had about three or four people a day either calling or knocking on the door of his dispensary asking to buy recreational marijuana.

Writing The Rules

In a dimly-lit room in a Denver office building across the street from the golden-domed statehouse, the first draft of the new rules for recreational marijuana are being hammered out by agency officials, medical marijuana interest groups, lawyers, doctors and concerned citizens. The mundaneness of the setting belies the enormity of the task: creating the most open marijuana market in the country while at the same time protecting public health, safety and trying not to run too far afoul of the federal government, which still considers marijuana use—medical or otherwise—to be illegal.

At a working group meeting of the Amendment 64 task force last week, banking issues took center stage. Under the Controlled Substances Act, any bank that takes money from an illegal enterprise can lose its FDIC coverage and potentially be prosecuted. This means that medical marijuana businesses are cash only, which makes for a potentially dangerous situation where businesses have thousands of dollars in cash on hand at any given time, making them vulnerable to robbers.

But fixing this problem would require action from the federal government, which is unlikely in such a short amount of time. However, the attitudes in Washington, D.C. about marijuana seem to be tacitly on the side of state experimentation.

The Obama administration is taking a hands-off approach in both Colorado and Washington, saying his administration has “bigger fish to fry” than going after recreational marijuana users in those states. And a 2009 U.S. Department of Justice memo made clear that pursuing medical marijuana users would be the administration’s lowest enforcement priority.

That bodes well for Colorado, since its strict medical marijuana regulations seem to have satisfied federal drug enforcement authorities. Few Colorado dispensaries have been shut down and raids are uncommon, unlike in California where the Drug Enforcement Agency has raided and closed hundreds of dispensaries in the last few years. Many in the medical marijuana community hope that the Amendment 64 task force and ultimately the general assembly simply roll over many of the medical marijuana regulations into new recreational regulations.

The regulations also make business owners and employees feel safer navigating this legally precarious industry. Other states such as Massachusetts, Arizona, Connecticut that are crafting their own medical marijuana regulations are looking to Colorado’s example as a way to serve patients while not upsetting the federal government.

A Marijuana Trajectory

Indeed, national political analysts agree that Colorado’s trajectory, from making marijuana possession the lowest criminal priority, to legalizing medical marijuana and then legalizing recreational use, is the ultimate goal for most activists. “I don’t think the distinction between medical and recreational marijuana will hold up,” says Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Association for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). “We hear people asking, why be in purgatory? Why spend 10 years on decriminalizing possession and medical marijuana only to move on to recreational later?… Legalization is so much more politically salient now that it makes the discussion around medical marijuana almost pedestrian.”

Already this legislative session, legislators in five states have proposed medical marijuana legislation and in five other states, legislators will consider following in Colorado and Washington’s footsteps to regulate marijuana like alcohol, according to the Marijuana Policy Project.

But however the states regulate it, marijuana remains a Schedule I narcotic in the eyes of the federal government, equivalent to heroin and LSD. That means that, while unlikely, all of these business owners, employees, and even regulators are open to federal prosecution. While the risks are still high, Keber says he sleeps pretty soundly.

“We operate with our doors wide open,” says Keber, “and we’ve hosted law enforcement officers, state and federal legislators here. The reality is that (prosecution) is always a concern, but I don’t lose sleep over it. If federal agents arrest me… they should go to mayor’s office since he puts his name on the business license, then they should wrap up the governor since he signed it into law.”

Source: Stateline.org (DC)
Author: Maggie Clark, Staff Writer
Published: January 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Stateline.org
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.stateline.org/

15 Jan 2013

In California, It’s U.S. vs. State Over Marijuana

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Matthew R. Davies graduated from college with a master’s degree in business and a taste for enterprise, working in real estate, restaurants and mobile home parks before seizing on what he saw as uncharted territory with a vast potential for profits — medical marijuana.

He brought graduate-level business skills to a world decidedly operating in the shadows. He hired accountants, compliance lawyers, managers, a staff of 75 and a payroll firm. He paid California sales tax and filed for state and local business permits.

But in a case that highlights the growing clash between the federal government and those states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use, the United States Justice Department indicted Mr. Davies six months ago on charges of cultivating marijuana, after raiding two dispensaries and a warehouse filled with nearly 2,000 marijuana plants.

The United States attorney for the Eastern District of California, Benjamin B. Wagner, a 2009 Obama appointee, wants Mr. Davies to agree to a plea that includes a mandatory minimum of five years in prison, calling the case a straightforward prosecution of “one of the most significant commercial marijuana traffickers to be prosecuted in this district.”

At the center of this federal-state collision is a round-faced 34-year-old father of two young girls. Displaying a sheaf of legal documents, Mr. Davies, who has no criminal record, insisted in an interview that he had meticulously followed California law in setting up a business in 2009 that generated $8 million in annual revenues. By all appearances, Mr. Davies’ dispensaries operated as openly as the local Krispy Kreme, albeit on decidedly more tremulous legal ground.

“To be looking at 15 years of our life, you couldn’t pay me enough to give that up,” Mr. Davies said at the dining room table in his two-story home along the San Joaquin River Delta, referring to the amount of time he could potentially serve in prison. “If I had believed for a minute this would happen, I would never have gotten into this.

“We thought, this is an industry in its infancy, it’s a heavy cash business, it’s basically being used by people who use it to cloak illegal activity. Nobody was doing it the right way. We thought we could make a model of how this should be done.”

His lawyers appealed this month to Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. to halt what they suggested was a prosecution at odds with Justice Department policies to avoid prosecutions of medical marijuana users and with President Obama’s statement that the government has “bigger fish to fry” than recreational marijuana users.

“Does this mean that the federal government will be prosecuting individuals throughout California, Washington, Colorado and elsewhere who comply with state law permitting marijuana use, or is the Davies case merely a rogue prosecutor out of step with administration and department policy?” asked Elliot R. Peters, one of his lawyers.

“This is not a case of an illicit drug ring under the guise of medical marijuana,” Mr. Peters wrote. “Here, marijuana was provided to qualified adult patients with a medical recommendation from a licensed physician. Records were kept, proceeds were tracked, payroll and sales taxes were duly paid.”

Mr. Holder’s aides declined to comment, referring a reporter to a letter from Mr. Wagner to Mr. Davies’s lawyers in which he disputed the depiction of the defendant as anything other than a major-league drug trafficker.

“Mr. Davies was not a seriously ill user of marijuana nor was he a medical caregiver — he was the major player in a very significant commercial operation that sought to make large profits from the cultivation and sale of marijuana,” the letter said. Mr. Wagner said that prosecuting such people “remains a core priority of the department.”

The case illustrates the struggle states and the federal government are now facing as they seek to deal with the changing contours of marijuana laws and public attitudes toward the drug. Colorado and Washington legalized marijuana for recreational use last year, and are among the 18 states, and the District of Columbia, that currently allow its medical use.

Two of Mr. Davies’s co-defendants are pleading guilty, agreeing to five-year minimum terms, to avoid stiffer sentences. Mr. Davies, while saying he did not “want to be a martyr,” decided to challenge the indictment with a combination of legal and public-relations measures, setting up a Web site devoted to his case and hiring Chris Lehane, a hard-hitting political consultant and former senior aide in Bill Clinton’s White House.

Among Mr. Davies’s advocates here in California are Paul I. Bonell, who was the president of the Premier Credit Union for 21 years before Mr. Davies hired him in early 2011 to oversee his businesses’ fiscal controls. After the businesses were raided in October that year, Mr. Bonell took a position as the head of the Lodi Boys and Girls Club.

“I had some reservations going in,” he said of Mr. Davies’s enterprise. “But the industry was exploding. Matt wanted to have internal controls in place. And we thought: This was a legitimate business. If the State of California deems it legitimate, we want to be the best at it.”

Mr. Davies’s accountant, David M. Silva, said he set up spreadsheets to keep track of inventories, revenues and expenses. “I’ve been a C.P.A. for 30 years,” Mr. Silva said. “What I saw was a guy who was trying to run an operation in an up-and-up way.”

The federal authorities said they stumbled across the operation after two men were spotted apparently breaking into Mr. Davies’s 30,000-square-foot Stockton warehouse. The police said they smelled marijuana plants. Federal agents conducted a raid and confiscated 1,962 plants and 200 pounds of marijuana.

Mr. Davies, who is free on $100,000 bail, greeted visitors to his gated home by asking them to speak softly while walking through the entryway so as not to awaken his sleeping infant. He called out to his wife when asked when he was indicted: “Hey, Molly — we were indicted on your birthday, right? July 18.”

Mr. Davies referred to marijuana as “medicine,” and himself as a turnaround expert.

“We were basically pharmacists for medical marijuana — everything was in full compliance with state law,” he said. “We paid our employees. We paid overtime. We had people going for unemployment if we fired them.”

“Why are they coming after me?” he asked. “If they have such a problem with California, why can’t they sue California?”

Stephanie Horton, 25, who went to work for Mr. Davies after going to one of his dispensaries to obtain medical marijuana to help her deal with ovarian and cervical cancer, said she was devastated by the arrest of employers she described as among the best she had ever had — not to mention the loss of her job.

“I’d go back and work there in a heartbeat,” Ms. Horton said. “I totally trusted them. We’re not criminals. I’ve never been arrested my whole life. I need that medication, and so do a whole lot of people.”

But federal prosecutors offered a much less sympathetic view of Mr. Davies. The authorities shut down the warehouse and two dispensaries but said that Mr. Davies had ties to a total of seven dispensaries in the region, which they said yielded $500,000 in annual profits. Mr. Davies’s lawyers disputed those assertions.

“Mr. Davies is being prosecuted for serious felony offenses,” Mr. Wagner wrote to Mr. Davies’s lawyers. “I understand he is facing unpleasant alternatives. Neither a meeting with me nor seeking a review in Washington will change that reality.”

This is as much a legal clash as a cultural clash. Recreational marijuana use is common across this state, and without the legal stigma attached to it in much of the country. The federal government is viewed as a distant force.

“It’s mind-boggling that there were hundreds of attorneys advising their clients that it was O.K. to do this, only to be bushwhacked by a federal system that most people in California are not even paying attention to,” said William J. Portanova, a former federal drug prosecutor and a lawyer for one of Mr. Davies’s co-defendants. “It’s tragic.”

A version of this article appeared in print on January 14, 2013, on page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: In California, It’s U.S. vs. State Over Marijuana.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Adam Nagourney
Published: January 14, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

4 Jan 2013

Kentucky agriculture commissioner brings pro-hemp message to Lexington

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

Published: January 3, 2013

By Beverly Fortune — [email protected]

Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner James Comer brought his pro-hemp message to the Lexington Forum on Thursday.

Since taking office in 2011, Comer has held town meetings in all 120 Kentucky counties, inviting local legislators to attend, to promote industrial hemp. In the early 19th century, Kentucky was the nation’s leading hemp producer.

Comer is backing a bill in the General Assembly that would permit industrial hemp to again be cultivated.

Hemp would produce income for farmers and create manufacturing jobs for products using hemp, he said.

Farmers growing hemp would have to be licensed by the state and their fields inspected regularly, Comer said.

The Department of Agriculture, the state’s largest regulatory agency, would oversee cultivation and sales of the crop.

Hemp is a sustainable, annual crop that "is easy and cheap to grow," he said. "It grows well in this climate and requires very little fertilizer or insecticides." The plant grows best in marginal soils found in many Central and Eastern Kentucky counties.

For people, including law enforcement officers, who are concerned that marijuana might be grown in hemp fields and the hemp and marijuana plants confused, Comer said the two look completely different.

Marijuana is a short, bushy plant with lots of leaves; industrial hemp is tall, with a thick stalk and few leaves.

When grown near each other, hemp and marijuana cross-pollinate, and the hemp destroys buds on the marijuana plants, he said. "Industrial hemp is an enemy of marijuana," Comer said. "Law enforcement should be for industrial hemp."

The long-dormant Industrial Hemp Commission, revived under Comer, has contracted with the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture to conduct an economic-impact study.

For the crop to be grown successfully, there has to be a market for the fibers, Comer said. "Many products we make from plastic, like car dashboards, armrests, carpet and fabrics, are made from hemp in other countries. Hemp is also used to make paper."

Comer said one major benefit of growing hemp would be the manufacturing jobs created to produce items using hemp fibers, seed and oil.

"The United States is the only industrial country in the world that doesn’t allow industrial hemp to be grown, yet many products Americans buy have hemp as an ingredient," he said. Hemp is legally grown in Canada and China, and throughout Europe.

If the General Assembly approves growing industrial hemp, the federal government would have to lift restrictions before it could be grown. "I want us to be ready when the federal government gives the go-ahead. I’m convinced they’re going to do that," Comer said.

Beverly Fortune: (859) 231-3251. Twitter: @BFortune2010.

29 Dec 2012

Support The Industrial Hemp Farming Act

posted in: Latest Hemp News | 0

Lawmakers in both the House of Representatives and the Senate are seeking to allow for the commercial farming of industrial hemp by introducing the Industrial Hemp Farming Act.

House Bill 1831, which was introduced last year by Texas Republican Ron Paul and a coalition of 25 co-sponsors, and SB 3501, introduced this August in the Senate by Oregon Democrat Ron Wyden and three co-sponsors, would exclude low potency varieties of marijuana from federal prohibition. If approved, this measure will grant state legislatures the authority to license and regulate the commercial production of hemp as an industrial and agricultural commodity. Several states — including North Dakota, Montana, and Vermont — have enacted regulations to allow for the cultivation of hemp under state law. However, none of these laws can be implemented without federal approval. Passage of HR 1831 would remove existing federal barriers and allow states that wish to regulate commercial hemp production the authority to do so.

Vote Hemp President, Eric Steenstra stated, "It is due time for the Senate as well as President Obama and the Attorney General to prioritize the crop’s benefits to farmers and to take action like Rep. Paul and the cosponsors of H.R. 1831 have done. With the U.S. hemp industry valued at over $400 million in annual retail sales and growing, a change in federal policy to allow hemp farming would mean instant job creation, among many other economic and environmental benefits."

According to a 2010 Congressional Resource Service report, "approximately 30 countries in Europe, Asia, and North and South America currently permit farmers to grow hemp." But the United States does not. As a result, U.S. companies that specialize in hempen goods have no choice but to import hemp material. These added production costs are then passed on to the consumer who must pay artificially high retail prices for hemp products.

Previous versions of The Industrial Hemp Farming Act have been introduced in the House, but failed to receive a public hearing or a committee vote. This is the first year the issue has ever been introduced in the Senate. Please write your members of Congress today and tell them to end the federal prohibition of industrial hemp production. For your convenience, a prewritten letter will be e-mailed to your member of Congress when you enter your contact information below. For more information about industrial hemp, please visit: http://www.votehemp.org.

Thank you for assisting NORML’s federal law reform efforts.

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