20 Jun 2013

Dream of ‘Cannabis Empire’ Raises Fears, Hackles

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For the activists who led the effort to legalize recreational marijuana in Washington state last fall, Jamen Shively was one of their biggest fears: an aspiring pot profiteer whose unabashed dreams of building a cannabis empire might attract unwanted attention from the federal government or a backlash that could slow the marijuana reform movement across the country.

With visionary zeal, the 45-year-old former Microsoft manager described his plans to a conference room packed with reporters and supporters last month, saying he was tired of waiting for a green light from the Obama administration, which still hasn’t said how it will respond to the legalization of recreational pot in Washington and Colorado. Shively vowed to quickly raise $10 million and eventually build his company, Diego Pellicer, into an international pot powerhouse.

Though he promised a “cautious and measured” expansion, Shively’s approach nevertheless contrasted with that of state regulators who want to avoid repeating the national experience with Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol, industries that profited wildly on addiction and abuse. Mark Kleiman, who heads the team hired to be Washington’s official marijuana consultant, responded on his blog: “It was inevitable that the legalization of cannabis would attract a certain number of insensate greedheads to the industry.”

Shively’s ambitions – “We are Big Marijuana,” he proclaimed – don’t merely raise questions about what marijuana legalization might look like in the long run and whether large corporations will come to dominate. He also risks getting himself indicted.

The Justice Department has said while it doesn’t intend to prosecute sick people for using marijuana, it will go after those who try to get rich from commercial sales. It hasn’t said yet whether it will sue to block Washington and Colorado from licensing pot growers, processors and stores.

The legalization votes in Washington and Colorado have created a fever for cannabis-related investing, to an extent. Conferences have focused on the parameters for legally investing in “ancillary businesses” – those that supply equipment needed by pot grows, for example – without financing the actual production or distribution of marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law.

Shively isn’t skirting the edges of the nascent industry, but diving right in, in a way that few other entrepreneurs are. Some companies that make high-end marijuana-infused products, such as Colorado-based Dixie Elixirs, are planning to make their brands available in other states, but it’s not clear anyone else is taking steps to create a pot empire.

“Developing a national brand in an industry in which it is illegal to move the core product across state lines presents some serious logistical challenges,” said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Diego Pellicer’s business plan estimates $120,000 of pure profit per month, per recreational pot store. Shively said he plans dozens of stores in Washington and Colorado.

At the May 30 news conference, Shively announced Diego’s first corporate deal – an arrangement with a Seattle medical marijuana company called the Northwest Patient Resource Center. He said Diego would be starting in the medical marijuana market in Washington and Colorado, and then transitioning some dispensaries to recreational pot stores once the states begin issuing licenses.

Shively said the arrangement was “not in violation of either federal or state law,” but it was troubling enough to one of the dispensary company owners that he’s walking away from the deal – and the company he helped found – because he fears it puts everyone involved at risk of federal prosecution.

“I’m not an activist. I’m just a businessman,” said the part-owner, Thomas Jun, a 42-year-old father of three. “I can’t afford to do any federal time.”

According to Shively, Diego Pellicer has acquired the option to buy Northwest Patient Resource Center, but does not actually own it. That’s what gives Diego Pellicer some protection and allows it to position itself for the time when more states legalize pot and Congress changes federal laws, he said. No marijuana will be moved interstate.

“We don’t touch cannabis. We don’t have ownership of cannabis,” he said. “It’s not a perfect insulation or buffer, but it’s the best possible mechanism that we can come up with.”

Through his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, Jun provided the AP with internal company documents, including a draft of the $1.6 million agreement dated May 30. The deal directs monthly payments of up to $50,000 from Diego be used to “to further develop and enhance NWPRC’s customer locations and to otherwise grow its business as currently conducted.” Former federal prosecutors say that could be seen as a conspiracy to violate federal law.

“It certainly would make me nervous to be involved in anything like this,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School-Los Angeles and a former assistant U.S. attorney.

Shively called the draft provided to AP “an obsolete document,” but declined to provide further details. He also declined to discuss a $10,000 check he wrote to the dispensary company May 27.

The deal highlights the tension between the varying degrees of acceptance of marijuana by the states and the outright prohibition by the federal government, which makes banking and other business functions problematic. For example, beyond the growing and sale of marijuana constituting federal crimes, the movement of money related to marijuana sales likely constitutes money laundering.

Dixie Elixirs won’t be directly involved in the growing, processing or sale of pot in multiple states, said Tripp Keber, its managing director. Instead, it will license its technical know-how and recipes to people in Washington or elsewhere who want to produce products under the Dixie Elixirs brand – and try to avoid the attention of federal prosecutors by adhering to state laws.

“Big public federal indictments are going to do the industry a disservice,” Keber said.

If Shively’s model is endorsed by the regulators writing rules for Washington’s pot industry, “then we would be increasing the risk of intervention by the federal government,” said Alison Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who drafted Washington’s law.

Shively said investors are advised that the company and those involved could face federal prosecution. A copy of Diego’s business plan includes 11 bullet points listing risks the company faces. None specifically suggests those involved could be prosecuted.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press
Published: June 17, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

20 Jun 2013

Medical Pot Laws Get Tougher

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Backers of medical-marijuana bills are proposing tighter restrictions on the drug to allay opponents’ fears of widespread use, a shift that is helping such legislation advance in additional states.

Illinois and New Hampshire are poised to pass some of the strictest medical-marijuana laws in the nation. They would join New Jersey, Connecticut and Delaware in banning patients from growing their own pot, increasing oversight on commercial growers and distributors, and restricting doctors from prescribing the drug for general pain.

The new restrictions are a far cry from the laws passed in the late 1990s, including in California, Colorado and Oregon, which were more ambiguous and, in some cases, made acquiring medical-marijuana prescriptions relatively simple.

In Colorado, for example, of the roughly 107,000 residents approved to use medical marijuana, pain is the qualifying condition for more than 100,000 of them. And in California, medical-marijuana prescriptions have become relatively common, as doctors can prescribe the drug for any illness “for which marijuana provides relief.”

“It’s clear that if I had proposed a California-type law, I would’ve had no chance of passing it,” said Illinois Rep. Lou Lang, the Democratic sponsor of the medical-marijuana bill now on the desk of Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn, a Democrat who says he is “very open-minded” about the bill.

Even in Canada, where medical marijuana has been legal since 2001, officials are pulling back. On Wednesday, the country is scheduled to publish rules that will soon ban patients from growing the drug at home.

The tighter state regulations appease some conservative lawmakers and governors hesitant to appear soft on crime, experts said, while still satisfying most medical-marijuana advocates, including patients and doctors.

From 1996 to 2008, the first 13 states to legalize medical marijuana allowed patients to grow the plant themselves and doctors to prescribe the drug for general pain, according to the Marijuana Policy Project, which tracks and advocates for medical-marijuana laws.

If Illinois and New Hampshire pass their laws as expected—becoming the 19th and 20th states to do so—five of the seven most recent medical-marijuana states would ban home cultivation and exclude or limit pain as a qualifying condition.

“There is suspicion about medical marijuana that it’s a foot in the door to full legalization,” said Sam Kamin, a law professor at the University of Denver. The new laws enable politicians to tell skeptical voters that “what we really want is sincere, well-regulated medical marijuana.”

Yet that suspicion isn’t without merit. In Colorado and Washington, two of the first states to allow medical marijuana, voters legalized recreational pot use in November. The states are setting up rules so retailers can begin selling the drug to anyone 21 and older next year.

Supporters of the Illinois bill say it would be the toughest such law in the nation—a claim used by proponents of similar bills elsewhere. The law would exclude minors, ban patients from growing their own pot and authorize doctors to prescribe the drug only for 33 serious medical conditions, including cancer, glaucoma and HIV/AIDS.

The Illinois bill would also give law-enforcement the authority to access to 24-hour surveillance video of the state’s licensed growers and revoke the driver’s license of any marijuana patient who refuses to undergo a sobriety test during a traffic stop.

The Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police said that though the bill could be worse, it opposes it. “It’s a lesser of two evils, maybe, but something we’re still fighting against,” said John Kennedy, the association’s director.

In New Hampshire, a conference committee reconciled the House and Senate versions of a medical-marijuana bill on Tuesday, bowing to demands from Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, including that patients cannot grow their own pot. The governor said she would sign it.

In New York, the legislature’s lower house recently passed a medical-marijuana bill. Aiming to get it through the more conservative Senate, this year’s bill is significantly more restrictive than past versions.

“We’re aiming for a very tightly regulated piece of legislation, which really will be the toughest in the nation,” said a sponsor of the bill, Democratic Sen. Diane Savino.

Some laws are so restrictive that getting the drug to those who need it has been difficult, advocates say. In New Jersey, only one dispensary has opened since its law passed in 2009, in part due to tight restrictions, including that the first six shops be nonprofit. So far, just 126 of the nearly 1,000 approved patients are obtaining marijuana legally, the state said.

Mike Miceli, a 32-year-old auto technician in Jackson, N.J., said marijuana is the only drug that puts his painful Crohn’s disease into remission. After being put on a waiting list for months, he drove in March to Maine, where pot dispensaries accept prescriptions from other states. Then, last month, Mr. Miceli was arrested during a traffic stop for possession of marijuana, despite his medical-marijuana card, and faces up to two years in jail.

Mr. Miceli said his attorney is optimistic the court will accept his medical-marijuana prescription as a legal defense, but he still will owe thousands of dollars in legal fees.

Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Author: Jack Nicas
Published: June 19, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.wsj.com/

18 Jun 2013

Dream of ‘Cannabis Empire’ Raises Fears, Hackles

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

For the activists who led the effort to legalize recreational marijuana in Washington state last fall, Jamen Shively was one of their biggest fears: an aspiring pot profiteer whose unabashed dreams of building a cannabis empire might attract unwanted attention from the federal government or a backlash that could slow the marijuana reform movement across the country.

With visionary zeal, the 45-year-old former Microsoft manager described his plans to a conference room packed with reporters and supporters last month, saying he was tired of waiting for a green light from the Obama administration, which still hasn’t said how it will respond to the legalization of recreational pot in Washington and Colorado. Shively vowed to quickly raise $10 million and eventually build his company, Diego Pellicer, into an international pot powerhouse.

Though he promised a “cautious and measured” expansion, Shively’s approach nevertheless contrasted with that of state regulators who want to avoid repeating the national experience with Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol, industries that profited wildly on addiction and abuse. Mark Kleiman, who heads the team hired to be Washington’s official marijuana consultant, responded on his blog: “It was inevitable that the legalization of cannabis would attract a certain number of insensate greedheads to the industry.”

Shively’s ambitions – “We are Big Marijuana,” he proclaimed – don’t merely raise questions about what marijuana legalization might look like in the long run and whether large corporations will come to dominate. He also risks getting himself indicted.

The Justice Department has said while it doesn’t intend to prosecute sick people for using marijuana, it will go after those who try to get rich from commercial sales. It hasn’t said yet whether it will sue to block Washington and Colorado from licensing pot growers, processors and stores.

The legalization votes in Washington and Colorado have created a fever for cannabis-related investing, to an extent. Conferences have focused on the parameters for legally investing in “ancillary businesses” – those that supply equipment needed by pot grows, for example – without financing the actual production or distribution of marijuana, which remains illegal under federal law.

Shively isn’t skirting the edges of the nascent industry, but diving right in, in a way that few other entrepreneurs are. Some companies that make high-end marijuana-infused products, such as Colorado-based Dixie Elixirs, are planning to make their brands available in other states, but it’s not clear anyone else is taking steps to create a pot empire.

“Developing a national brand in an industry in which it is illegal to move the core product across state lines presents some serious logistical challenges,” said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

Diego Pellicer’s business plan estimates $120,000 of pure profit per month, per recreational pot store. Shively said he plans dozens of stores in Washington and Colorado.

At the May 30 news conference, Shively announced Diego’s first corporate deal – an arrangement with a Seattle medical marijuana company called the Northwest Patient Resource Center. He said Diego would be starting in the medical marijuana market in Washington and Colorado, and then transitioning some dispensaries to recreational pot stores once the states begin issuing licenses.

Shively said the arrangement was “not in violation of either federal or state law,” but it was troubling enough to one of the dispensary company owners that he’s walking away from the deal – and the company he helped found – because he fears it puts everyone involved at risk of federal prosecution.

“I’m not an activist. I’m just a businessman,” said the part-owner, Thomas Jun, a 42-year-old father of three. “I can’t afford to do any federal time.”

According to Shively, Diego Pellicer has acquired the option to buy Northwest Patient Resource Center, but does not actually own it. That’s what gives Diego Pellicer some protection and allows it to position itself for the time when more states legalize pot and Congress changes federal laws, he said. No marijuana will be moved interstate.

“We don’t touch cannabis. We don’t have ownership of cannabis,” he said. “It’s not a perfect insulation or buffer, but it’s the best possible mechanism that we can come up with.”

Through his lawyer, Douglas Hiatt, Jun provided the AP with internal company documents, including a draft of the $1.6 million agreement dated May 30. The deal directs monthly payments of up to $50,000 from Diego be used to “to further develop and enhance NWPRC’s customer locations and to otherwise grow its business as currently conducted.” Former federal prosecutors say that could be seen as a conspiracy to violate federal law.

“It certainly would make me nervous to be involved in anything like this,” said Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School-Los Angeles and a former assistant U.S. attorney.

Shively called the draft provided to AP “an obsolete document,” but declined to provide further details. He also declined to discuss a $10,000 check he wrote to the dispensary company May 27.

The deal highlights the tension between the varying degrees of acceptance of marijuana by the states and the outright prohibition by the federal government, which makes banking and other business functions problematic. For example, beyond the growing and sale of marijuana constituting federal crimes, the movement of money related to marijuana sales likely constitutes money laundering.

Dixie Elixirs won’t be directly involved in the growing, processing or sale of pot in multiple states, said Tripp Keber, its managing director. Instead, it will license its technical know-how and recipes to people in Washington or elsewhere who want to produce products under the Dixie Elixirs brand – and try to avoid the attention of federal prosecutors by adhering to state laws.

“Big public federal indictments are going to do the industry a disservice,” Keber said.

If Shively’s model is endorsed by the regulators writing rules for Washington’s pot industry, “then we would be increasing the risk of intervention by the federal government,” said Alison Holcomb, the Seattle lawyer who drafted Washington’s law.

Shively said investors are advised that the company and those involved could face federal prosecution. A copy of Diego’s business plan includes 11 bullet points listing risks the company faces. None specifically suggests those involved could be prosecuted.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press
Published: June 17, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

18 Jun 2013

Pot More Dangerous Than You Know

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With the recent article published on May 12, 2013, “Mont.  goes its own way on pot,” it seems like the perfect opportunity to provide some clarifying facts about marijuana.

There is no scientific basis for using smoked marijuana as a medicine, no sound scientific studies supporting the medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data supporting the safety or effectiveness of marijuana for general medical use.  The Food and Drug Administration ruled that smoked marijuana does not meet the modern standards of medicine in the United States.  Marijuana is NOT approved nor endorsed by the FDA, the American Medical Association, the National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Glaucoma Society, the American Academy of Ophthalmology, the American Cancer Society or the American Pediatric Society.  The National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine has concluded that smoked marijuana should “not be recommended for medical use.”

Marijuana has over 500 components ( THC, CBD, etc.  ) that have been proven to increase the risk of cancer, lung damage, and poor pregnancy outcomes.  In comparison, most prescription medication contains a single compound in a standardized dosage.

The use of marijuana under the guise of “medicine” has given rise to numerous problems:

Affected youth drug use patterns.

States with “medical” marijuana laws had marijuana abuse/dependence rates almost double the states without such laws.

There is a direct correlation between “medical” marijuana and decreases in perception of harm and social disapproval.

Individuals who begin using the drug in their teens have approximately a one-in-six chance of developing marijuana dependence.  In fact, children and teens are six times likelier to be in treatment for marijuana than for all other illegal drugs combined.

Addiction rates among 12- to 17-year-olds are among the highest levels nationally in states that have “medical marijuana” programs.

Marijuana use negatively impacts adolescent brain development.  A recent study found that those who used cannabis heavily in their teens and continued through adulthood showed a permanent drop in IQ of eight points.  A loss of eight IQ points could drop a person of average intelligence into the lowest third of the intelligence range.

“Medical” marijuana could negatively impact employability.  More than 6,000 companies nationwide and scores of industries and professions require a pre-employment drug test.

Twenty percent of crashes in the U.S.  are caused by drugged driving.  Marijuana is the most prevalent illegal drug detected in impaired drivers, fatally injured drivers, and motor vehicle crash victims.

States that have fully implemented “medical” marijuana programs, to include dispensaries, are experiencing public safety issues.  They have seen first-hand that dispensaries lead to increased crime and adversely affect the quality of life in their communities.

The total overall costs of substance abuse in the U.S., including loss of productivity, health and crime-related costs exceed $600 billion annually.  This includes approximately $235 billion for alcohol, $193 billion for tobacco, and $181 billion for illicit drugs.

Marijuana is much more powerful today than it was 30 years ago, and so are its mind-altering effects.  Average THC levels rose from less than 1 percent in the mid-1970s to more than 6 percent in 2002.  Sinsemilla potency increased in the past two decades from 6 percent to more than 13 percent, with some samples containing THC levels of up to 33 percent.

Legalizing marijuana would significantly decrease the price of the drug and could result in an up to 50 percent increase in use.  This can have widespread ramifications in areas such as adolescent brain development, the academic achievement of our nation’s youth, employability, highway and public safety, as well as the economy.

The average “medical” marijuana user is a 32-year-old white male with a history of alcohol, cocaine and meth use, but NO history of a life-threatening illness.

Marijuana is not a harmless natural compound.  The “medical marijuana” movement is a well-developed strategic plan to dupe the common man into believing that an illicit, illegal drug, with no proven medical benefit, should be used as medicine.  Take a stand.  Become better informed.  Help the efforts to make our community a safe, healthy, drug free community.

Source: Montana Standard (Butte, MT)
Copyright: 2013 Montana Standard
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.mtstandard.com/
Author: Pat Prendergast

15 Jun 2013

Lawyer Takes On Feds Over New Pot Rules

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Abbotsford lawyer John Conroy is undertaking a legal battle against new changes to the federal government’s medical marijuana program.

On Monday, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq announced some of the anticipated changes to the program, which includes banning individual home-based medicinal grow-ops in favour of larger government licenced producers.

The new regulations mean sick or disabled people or their legal proxies with licences will no long be able to grow their own marijuana, said Conroy.

The price of marijuana from the large producers will cost people up to four times as much as producing their own, said Conroy.

The government estimates under the new program medical pot will be sold for $8 to $10 a gram while individuals grew their own for between $1 to $4, said Conroy.

The price increase will limit some sick individuals, many on a low income, from being able to buy marijuana for their conditions.

There is legal precedent that individuals with medical conditions with a doctor’s authorization have a Constitutional right to reasonable access to medical marijuana, said Conroy.

Under the old program, those that couldn’t afford dispensary or black market prices grew their own marijuana, something they won’t be able to do in the future.

Conroy expects to launch a Constitutional challenge on behalf of a coalition of medical marijuana users fighting the problematic aspects of the proposed regulations.

“Basically, we’re saying these people’s constitutional rights are being impaired by what’s being proposed,” said Conroy.

“At one time they could produce cannabis for themselves as there was no other program to provide it.  But a program that’s out of reach is akin to having no program at all.”

The group, MMAR DPL/ PPL Coalition Against Repeal, says it has 3,400 members across Canada.

Conroy said his firm has collected 1,000 victim impact statements so far.

The lawsuit aims to prevent some or all of the new regulations from coming into force, or to maintain the status quo until there’s some guarantee that all patients have reasonable access to medical marijuana.

Failing that, Conroy may also take up a class action lawsuit to compensate individuals who have invested resources and borne the costs of growing their own pot over the last decade.

On Monday, Aglukkaq agreed there must be reasonable access to legal marijuana for medical purposes.

But the government believes it must be done in a controlled manner to protect public safety, she said.

Since starting in 2001, the government’s medical marijuana program has grown exponentially, from less than 500 authorized persons to over 30,000 currently.

The rapid growth of those producing medical marijuana, often in private homes, had consequences for public health and safety, said Aglukkaq.

“These changes will strengthen the safety of Canadian communities, while making sure patients can access what they need to treat serious illnesses,” she said.

Municipal fire and bylaw authorities have long argued that home-based medical marijuana grows can pose fire safety problems or health problems due to mold.

Police point to the dangers of grow rips and the lack of enforcement to ensure licensed growers aren’t producing more than they need for the illegal market.

Under the new provisions, patients will have access to quality-controlled marijuana produced under sanitary conditions, said the minister.

But Conroy noted that individuals that grew or developed specific strains of marijuana for their particular medical conditions will be out of luck.

Litigation will get underway sometime after September and before March 2014 when the new regulations go into effect, he said.

The details on the federal government’s new Marihuana for Medical Purposes Regulations come out June 19.

Source: Abbotsford Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 The Abbotsford Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.abbotsfordtimes.com/
Author: Rochelle Baker

14 Jun 2013

Obama Helps Nip Pot Legalization In Latin America

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President Obama helped prevent a move toward pot legalization by some Latin American leaders.  But will he be as bold against Colorado, Washington state?

Peter Bensinger, a former Drug Enforcement Administration chief, was one of eight former DEA chiefs who recently spoke out in favor of the federal government needing to nullify Colorado and Washington’s laws legalizing recreational marijuana use.  They said the Obama administration has reacted too slowly and should immediately sue to force the states to rescind the legislation.

For all the political flak that President Obama is receiving for digital surveillance of Americans, he deserves some praise for protecting Americans on another front.  His administration has helped dampen moves by some Latin American leaders to legalize marijuana in the Western Hemisphere.

The Christian Science Monitor

A meeting of the Organization of the American States ended Thursday in Guatemala without the expected “serious” discussion among the 34 nations to legalize pot.  Just last month, an OAS report recommended legalization as one alternative to the current anti-drug approaches.

The report, which called for “flexibility,” came as quite a shock to many in the region.  Polls in most of Latin America, unlike in the United States, show legalization to be unpopular.

Leaders in a few states, such as Uruguay and Guatemala, favor legalization.  Others, such as in Brazil and Peru, decidedly do not.  Yet with two states in the US ( Washington and Colorado ) having legalized recreational use of pot last year, some in Latin America saw an opening to push Mr.  Obama to bend.

Fortunately, his secretary of State, John Kerry, did not accommodate such voices at the OAS assembly.  “These challenges simply defy any simple, one-shot, Band-Aid” approach, he said.  “Drug abuse destroys lives, tears at communities of all of our countries.” Other administration officials have been working for months to squash the region’s legalization efforts.

A few Latin American leaders were more explicit than Mr.  Kerry.  “We need a policy that is anti-crime and not pro-drug,” said Alva Baptiste, St.  Lucia’s foreign minister.  And Nicaragua’s OAS envoy, Denis Moncada, said, “Replacing and weakening the public policies and strategies now in use to combat the hemispheric drug problem would end up creating dangerous voids and jeopardize the security and well-being of our citizens.” Many of the region’s drug experts say countries need to focus on rule of law, addiction treatment, and gang suppression.

Obama does need to be plain about federal intentions toward legalization in the US.  His embattled attorney general, Eric Holder, must uphold federal law by cracking down on the selling of recreational marijuana in Washington and Colorado.  If he doesn’t, the president can hardly complain about states defying aspects of his Affordable Care Act ( “Obamacare” ).

Drug-producing countries such as Mexico, Colombia, and Peru that have suffered from a military approach in the struggle against trafficking cannot be faulted for seeking different approaches.  They are right to point to the US, which is the world’s largest consumer of illicit drugs, as a major cause of their woes.  But drug trafficking is also a sign that such countries need fundamental reform to root out corruption and raise social indicators.  Both Mexico and Colombia are well along that path.

The uncertainties of legalizing pot, let alone the moral arguments against government promoting its use, call for Obama to be vigilant against legalization.  He has now done that strongly abroad.  He must do much better at home.

Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Copyright: 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/

13 Jun 2013

The Many Different Faces Of Marijuana In America

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On Tuesday, Vermont moved to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for quantities up to an ounce, replacing potential prison time for arrests with fines.

Peter Shumlin, the state’s governor, made a telling distinction between weed and “harder” drugs when he announced the move. “This legislation allows our courts and law enforcement to focus their limited resources more effectively to fight highly addictive opiates such as heroin and prescription drugs that are tearing apart families and communities,” he said.

The idea that weed isn’t that big a deal and that governments need to readjust their priorities is pretty common. There’s little vocal anti-pot government outcry, no temperance movement analog for cannabis. Recent polls have found that a majority of Americans think marijuana should be legalized.

Even our mainstream faces of stoner culture are generally silly, harmless and amiable (Jeff Spicoli, Cheech & Chong, Harold & Kumar, and whatever Snoop is calling himself these days) except when they’re revered and saintly (read: Bob Marley). On TV, there was Weeds, a dramedy about an upper-middle-class widow who starts selling marijuana to make ends meet. Change the drug to something else like heroin or meth, drugs with more sinister reputations, and it becomes something much darker. You’d pretty much have to go all the way back to Reefer Madness to find a widely seen film that portrayed pot as dangerous or threatening. (And the whole reason we all know about that movie is because the concerns at its center are often mocked as kitschy and histrionic.)

Mona Lynch, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who studies the criminal justice system, says that stereotypes of marijuana usage in popular culture don’t come across as very threatening. “There’s not a lot of uproar around marijuana [as] a crushing problem,” she says.

But this image of weed use as benign recreation or banal nuisance doesn’t square with another great fact of American life — the War on Drugs. And more and more, that War on Drugs means marijuana.

Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project, says that 10 years ago, marijuana possession arrests made up 37 percent of all drug arrests. And now? “Half of all drug arrests are now marijuana-related,” he says — and 9 in 10 of those are for possession.

The focus of the continuing law enforcement battle on marijuana lands disproportionately on people of color. The ACLU crunched some Justice Department numbers on drug arrests, and released a much-discussed report last week on their findings. The upshot: African-Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for possessing marijuana than whites, even though blacks and whites consume weed at about the same rate.

For blacks — and black men in particular — marijuana is a gateway drug into the criminal justice system.

“The thing that was shocking about the report was the pervasiveness, that this [disparity in arrests] is happening everywhere,” Lynch tells me. “It’s happening in small towns, big towns, urban and rural.”

Both Edwards and Lynch say that part of the reason marijuana is getting more attention from law enforcement agencies is that police departments are being subsidized with lots of federal dollars to stop drugs, but the crack epidemic has since waned. “Institutions don’t like to shrink,” Lynch says. “It’s actually a reverse kind of pattern — drug arrests are going up [even] as crime drops.”

At the same time that marijuana’s become a more central focus of the War on Drugs, there are plenty of business types who are already making their plans for selling marijuana after, uh, all the smoke clears. They’re trying to give pot an altogether new face: as a widely available commercial product backed by big business. No one knows what that market might even look like quite yet, but it could be incredibly lucrative.

Might you be able to cop some weed at your supermarket behind the counter with cigarettes? Would your favorite coffee shop start selling some “extra special” lattes? What about an over-the-counter headache medicine packaged in a box with a little green leaf in the corner?

Seriously — it might not be that far-fetched.

Don Pellicer, a company that hopes to open marijuana stores in Washington and Colorado, is looking for investors. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, was a guest speaker at a Don Pellicer event last week, and has said that he would grow marijuana if weren’t against the law. “Once it’s legitimate and legal, sure, I could do it,” he told reporters. “I’m a farmer. Producers of all types can participate.” (Fox, it’s worth noting, used to run Coca-Cola in Mexico, and its sales jumped by 50 percent during his tenure.)

There are already vending machine companies working on cannabis-dispensing kiosks for retail stores for the people who don’t want the hassle of humoring those talky connoisseur types. “The way we see it, when you walk into a shop, you don’t need the expert or aficionado to help with selection,” says the head of one such vending company. “The people who are using this in the recreational space — they know what they want, and they don’t want to hear the whole spiel every time.”

And there are all the industrial, non-psychoactive applications. Hemp fiber, which is especially strong, is already used in all sorts of textiles. One researcher told writer Doug Fine that a decade after weed became legal, a domestic hemp industry would sprout up in the United States to the tune of $50 billion a year — which would outpace the estimates of what smokable reefer would bring in.

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

So now we have to reconcile the many different faces of marijuana — a jokey, pop-culture staple, a continuing fascination of law enforcement agencies whose attentions fall disproportionately on people of color, and the potential cash crop of a bright, green future.

Which of these will give way? Or will any of them?

Source: National Public Radio (US)
Author: Gene Demby
Published: June 12, 2013
Copyright: 2013 National Public Radio
Website: http://www.npr.org/
Contact: http://www.npr.org/contact/

12 Jun 2013

Bill Maher on The Greening of America

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

It’s a brave new pothead world. Until fairly recently, even a year ago, I would not have guessed that we would be at the place we are now – with 18 states legalizing medical marijuana and, according to one recent poll, a whopping 85 percent of the nation supporting medical use. For all our political rancor, it turns out, what ultimately unites us is pot. Weed is one of the few things that both hillbillies and hippies like. Rappers smoke pot, and country artists smoke pot. There’s just as much pot on Willie Nelson’s tour bus as there is on Snoop Dogg’s tour bus. Marijuana is bridging the red and blue divide and becoming a purple issue.

For those who worry that we will become a nation that sits on the couch eating Cheetos all day, relax. Smoking pot does not equal laziness. Weed was something I could always justify because it excited my brain. Some people it puts to sleep, others it turns paranoid. Some it makes creative, and we’re the lucky ones, because if it has done any damage to us, at least we have a receipt. I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas from pot. Including smoke more pot.

Legalization is another one of those issues, like gay marriage, that drives the Tea Bag people crazy. That Leave It to Beaver black-and-white 1950s image that Mitt Romney fit into so well is going away, and one big reason is marijuana. Bill Clinton once said, “If you look back on the Sixties and think there was more good than harm, you’re probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you’re probably a Republican.” Well, for those people who loved the Fifties, pot played a huge role in the cultural revolution that they detest.

The Next Seven States to Legalize Pot: http://www.cannabisnews.org/the-next-seven-states-to-legalize-pot/2012/12/20/

Republicans have always been an uneasy alliance of Jesus freaks, gun nuts, generic obese suburbanites and the super-rich, but what binds them is this idea that life was perfect in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1958. As soon as President Obama was elected, this visual of a black guy who liked smoking pot walking into the White House was too much. Whenever you hear them say, “I want my country back” – from what? Did Blackmanistan invade us? They may want it back, but that America is gone forever.

Of course, there’s a big economic incentive to legalizing marijuana. More than a decade ago, there was a county in Georgia where the people fired the sheriff because he was busting pot farmers. The crop was their lifeblood, so they got rid of the hardass and elected a sheriff who pledged to look the other way. That’s the kind of sea change that’s happening in America right now. If 40 years of abject failure of the War on Drugs has taught us anything, it’s that the customer base is large, strong and loyal. So as in everything, money talks. And money is there to be made. There’s no going back. We’ve reached the tipping point, legal marijuana is here to stay – it’s just a matter of how fast it will happen across the country.

This story is from the June 20th, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

Newshawk: John Tyler
Source: Rolling Stone (US)
Author: Bill Maher
Published: June 10, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.rollingstone.com/

10 Jun 2013

Five Myths About Legalizing Marijuana

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

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

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

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

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

2. Law enforcement officials oppose legalization.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8 Jun 2013

It’s Time To End Failed War On Marijuana

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Marijuana has become the drug of choice for police departments nationwide — a trend that is playing out with serious consequences here in Brown County.

According to a new report released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union, police have turned much of their zeal for fighting the failed War on Drugs toward the enforcement of marijuana laws in communities across Wisconsin and the country.

In 2010, cops in Wisconsin busted someone for having marijuana once every 28 minutes. The majority of these arrests are happening in communities of color. Despite roughly comparable usage rates, blacks in Wisconsin are nearly six times more likely than whites to be arrested for marijuana possession.

These racial disparities are particularly bad in Brown County. Compared to other Wisconsin counties with more than 300,000 residents, in 2010 Brown had the third-highest rate of racial disparity for marijuana possession arrests.

Black people in Brown County are more than seven times more likely than whites to be arrested for the same offense — even though blacks constitute only 2.2 percent of Brown County’s population.

And across Wisconsin, these disparities are only getting worse. Between 2001 and 2010, racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests soared more than 150 percent. Only two other states in the nation had higher increases during this period.

The aggressive enforcement of marijuana possession laws in Wisconsin needlessly ensnares thousands of people in the criminal justice system, crowds our jails, diverts precious police resources away from focusing on serious crimes, and wastes millions of taxpayer dollars. In 2010 alone, Wisconsin blew as much as $73.1 million enforcing marijuana laws.

Legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana in Wisconsin would end racially biased enforcement. Taxing and regulating marijuana would also save millions of dollars currently spent on enforcement while raising millions more in revenue, which could be invested in community and public health programs, including drug treatment.

Barring legalization, state legislators should work with law enforcement to de-penalize marijuana possession by removing all civil and criminal penalties. Low-level marijuana possession should be decriminalized to a civil offense, and prosecutors should focus on more serious offenses.

Brown County police departments can take action by reforming policing practices, including ending racial profiling, unconstitutional stops, frisks, searches, and programs that create incentives for officers to make low-level drug arrests.

This is an issue of racial justice, fiscal responsibility and common sense. What’s happening in Brown County, all over Wisconsin and across the nation proves that it’s time to end the failed War on Marijuana.

Source: Green Bay Press-Gazette (WI)
Copyright: 2013 Green Bay Press-Gazette
Website: http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/
Author: Chris Ahmuty

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