12 Apr 2013

Send ‘Em To Jail That Day!

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

The annual Drug & Alcohol Testing Industry Association (DATIA) conference, held in 2012 in San Antonio, Texas, looks like any other industry gathering. The 600 or so attendees sip their complimentary Starbucks coffee, munch on small plates of muffins and fresh fruit, and backslap old acquaintances as they file into a sprawling Marriott hotel conference hall. They will hear a keynote address by Robert DuPont, who served as drug policy director under Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Nothing odd about any of this until you consider that the main subject of the conference is urine.

Seventy-seven years old, DuPont adopts the air of a sprightly televangelist as he outlines what he calls “the new battle lines” in the war on drugs, one that “begins with kids.” At the climax of his speech, DuPont offers “the new paradigm” of drug treatment: a program that one controversial Hawaiian judge administers to all drug-addicted probationers he oversees. “If they test positive,” he says, his voice slowly rising into a high-pitched yell, “they go to jail that day! No discussion!… No discretion! To jail that day!”

As DuPont finishes his speech, the hundreds of drug-testing company representatives in the audience rise to give him a standing ovation.

DuPont is in an expansive mood following his speech. Since the 1980s, he has been in the business of selling drug-testing services to employers. As far as he’s concerned, drug tests should be given to “anybody who receives a benefit,” from unemployment insurance to welfare. “Test ‘em all!” he exclaims.

This may sound overzealous, but Republican lawmakers around the country are already enthusiastically embracing the idea of making clean urine a condition of receiving public benefits. Since 2011, seven states have passed laws mandating drug tests for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) applicants and recipients, and in 2012 at least twenty-five other states considered proposals to tie welfare cash assistance, and in some cases also food stamps, to drug tests. In February 2012, Congress passed a law paving the way for states to urine-test the recipients of unemployment benefits seeking work in sectors where such screenings are required. Since then, sixteen states have considered laws tying unemployment insurance benefits to drug tests.

The thirst for urine can be traced to the military’s 1971 Operation Golden Flow, aimed at detecting druggies among Vietnam veterans. Launched in response to rumors of heroin addiction, the test disproportionately netted marijuana users, since one byproduct of marijuana, carboxy-THC, lingers in the body longer than that of harder drugs. (In contrast, the body flushes out the byproducts of harder drugs, such as cocaine and heroin, within a day.) Nevertheless, before long, all service members were required to urinate in a cup at least once every two years.

Then there was the executive order issued by Ronald Reagan in 1986, which warned that “the use of illegal drugs, on or off duty, by federal employees in certain positions…may pose a serious risk to national security.” The order mandated that all federal agencies implement drug-testing programs to “show the way towards achieving drug-free workplaces.” Two years later, Reagan went one step further, signing the Drug Free Workplace Act, which mandated urine tests for every employee working for a federal grantee and even those working for some contractors.

At first, the medical profession dismissed urine testing as “chemical McCarthyism”—and ineffective to boot, since a worker using cocaine several times a week was more likely to pass a drug test than a colleague who’d smoked a joint at a party the previous Saturday night. Meanwhile, most tests ignored alcohol, which is the drug most often blamed for workplace accidents.

“It’s like learning that somebody drank beer three days ago,” says Bill Piper, director of national affairs with the Drug Policy Alliance. “What’s that going to say about how functional they are at work today? It’s unscientific and discriminatory.”

But the Reagan administration saw drug tests as essential for cracking down on a population largely outside the reach of law enforcement: people smoking pot in the privacy of their own homes. “Because anyone using drugs stands a very good chance of being discovered, with disqualification from employment as a possible consequence, many will decide that the price of using drugs is just too high,” read a 1989 White House report.

In the decades since, drug-testing companies have marketed urine tests as a wise investment for all employers. They claim that any drug user is a less productive worker, and more likely to cause workplace accidents, show up late for work or simply quit. Such claims persist despite a 1994 review, by the National Academy of Sciences, of all the independent research published on workplace drug testing, which found little support to back up those claims.

Indeed, one study of employers in the high-tech sector found that drug testing “reduced rather than enhanced productivity.” Performance-based tests, researchers found, are far more effective at assessing a worker’s ability to perform safety-sensitive jobs than drug testing. Unlike urine tests, these tests detect drug impairment and a host of other factors (fatigue, stress, alcohol) far more likely to compromise a worker’s concentration than past marijuana use.

Nevertheless, the escalation of the drug war would prove more powerful than the evidence that undermined it, producing a powerful coalition of government and private industry players determined to convince employers of the wisdom of monitoring their workers’ bladders.

One of the entrepreneurs drawn to the burgeoning drug-testing industry was Elaine Taulé. A longtime DATIA board member, she says she got into the business because she wanted to test her own sons. When she told this to the staff of National Health Laboratories, a major drug-testing lab, in 1987, they were incredulous. “The lab just sort of looked at me and said, ‘What! Do you really think your 17-year-old is going to pee in a cup?’” But Taulé was insistent. “If I say, ‘It’s either your urine or your car keys,’ I may get his urine,” she said. She went on to found her own drug-testing business, NMS Management Services, in 1989.

Taulé’s timing was impeccable. Around the time she started testing her sons, other, much larger players were entering the field, including the Swiss pharmaceutical giant Hoffmann-La Roche, the manufacturer of Valium and a range of popular sleeping pills. The company established one of the first major drug-testing labs in America and won an early urine-testing contract with the Pentagon, leading to $300 million in annual sales by 1987. The following year, Hoffmann-La Roche stepped up its sales efforts with the launch of a major PR and lobbying campaign to “mobilize corporate America to confront the illicit drug problem in their workplaces.” The drug manufacturer called its new campaign “Corporate Initiatives for a Drug-Free Workplace.”

Before long, with the help of a New Jersey–based lawyer named David Evans, Hoffmann-La Roche was organizing workshops around the country to convince employers to set up drug-testing programs. In an interview with The Nation, Evans likened his role to that of “a doctor coming in to talk about how to set up a medical device.” During that first campaign, 1,000 employers signed up. “There’s clearly a momentum here,” gushed Irwin Lerner, then the drug company’s president, at the campaign’s launch in 1988. “I think we’ve tapped a chord among corporate America.”

The sleeping pill manufacturer’s enthusiasm evidently impressed Reagan himself, who delivered a keynote address at the launch of Hoffmann-La Roche’s Corporate Initiatives campaign. Reagan praised the company for making “it clear that not only are drug users not part of the ‘in crowd,’ but unless they quit taking illegal drugs they’ll be part of the out-of-work crowd.”

The drug-testing industry took aim at lawmakers as much as employers. Hoffmann-La Roche, for instance, worked “with federal and state government officials,” according to a press release issued by the PR company hired to market the campaign. Lerner told the press that the drug company also envisioned a “grassroots strategy” to prevent states from passing laws to decriminalize marijuana.

By 2006, 84 percent of American employers were reporting that they drug-tested their workers. Today, drug testing is a multi-billion-dollar-a-year industry. DATIA represents more than 1,200 companies and employs a DC-based lobbying firm, Washington Policy Associates. Hoffmann-La Roche’s former consultant, David Evans, now runs his own lobbying firm and has ghostwritten several state laws to expand drug testing. Most significant, in the 1990s Evans crafted the Workplace Drug Testing Act for the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), of which Hoffmann-La Roche was a paying member. Laying out protocols for workplace drug testing, the bill—which has been enacted into law in several states—upheld the rights of employers to fire employees who do not comply with their companies’ drug-free workplace program.

Over the past decade, lobbyists like Evans have focused on what a DATIA newsletter recently dubbed “the next frontier”—schoolchildren. In 2002, a representative from the influential drug-testing management firm Besinger, DuPont & Associates heralded schools as “potentially a much bigger market than the workplace.” That year, the Supreme Court upheld the right of schools to drug-test any student involved in extracurricular activities, from the football team to the chess club. (Many in the drug-testing industry advocate testing all school kids ages 12 and up, but they have failed thus far to convince the courts.)

Like Elaine Taulé, David Evans turned to his own kids for inspiration. He helped the two New Jersey high schools where his children were students to craft drug-testing policies and then set about promoting them as models for schools across the country. In a 2004 radio address, President George W. Bush singled out one of them, Hunterdon Central Regional High School, as a sterling example of “the positive results of drug testing across the country” and proposed committing $23 million of federal education funds to drug-testing high schoolers.

Studies have shown that there is no difference in levels of drug use at schools that subject students to testing and those that do not. And some drug policy experts worry that drug testing may push students away from marijuana and toward drugs such as cocaine, heroin and alcohol—those not generally detected by urine tests.

Nevertheless, Taulé sighed contentedly in the hotel lobby outside DATIA’s 2012 meeting. “It’s like it’s come full circle,” the Florida entrepreneur says. “I started off wanting to help kids, and now I am.” Taulé, who has received two grants from the Department of Education to collect the urine of Florida school kids, somehow can’t stop testing her own sons. Now well into middle age, and both employed at their mother’s drug-testing firm, her sons walk up to us and shyly ask permission to join the interview.

Settling into an upholstered chair across from his mom, 50-year-old Marc Taulé laughs nervously, recalling the last time his mom made him hand over his urine—last year. To everyone’s surprise, he tested positive for cocaine. He’s not a cocaine user; he had been prescribed a painkiller called Lidocaine after minor surgery. “I love them, and just don’t want to see them in trouble,” Elaine Taulé explains.

How has the industry countered charges that its tests catch casual marijuana users more effectively than users of cocaine or heroin? By demonizing pot as particularly destructive. Despite having previously advocated decriminalizing marijuana, the first thing Robert (“Test ‘em all!”) DuPont did after leaving office in 1978 was to hold a press conference declaring that “in many ways it’s the worst drug of all the illegal drugs.” With that declaration, he broke from all expert opinion at the time, including his own. Only three years earlier, he was listed as a co-author of a white paper calling marijuana “a minor problem.”

DuPont, who now sells his services as a “drug-testing management” consultant, would explain his turnaround on cannabis in a PBS interview by saying: “I realized that these public policies were symbolic—all that really mattered was you were for [the decriminalization of marijuana] or you were against it…. I think about it as a litmus test.” In other words, one’s position on marijuana is, above all, a morality test—one in which the use of any illegal drug at all is understood to be a social ill, and therefore the most commonly used illegal drug in America is seen as particularly insidious.

It was not so long ago that the American Management Association published a survey showing that workplace drug testing was rapidly declining. In 2006, HR Magazine cited human resource professionals and testing experts who explained the drop-off by pointing out that drug testing “shows no demonstrable return on investment.” In other words, there was nothing to gain by spending money to ferret out employees who might be perfectly effective workers. This seemed only natural to Lewis Maltby, who in 1999 wrote an ACLU report titled “Drug Testing: A Bad Investment,” and who sees the decline in private employers’ use of drug testing as proof that “testing never meant anything to begin with.” Nearly 60 percent of the 1,000 companies who responded to a DATIA-funded survey in 2011 claimed to drug-test all job candidates. But the same study found a rise in the number of companies that do not conduct any form of pre-employment testing, with several reporting that they do “not believe in drug testing.”

Schools have been similarly reluctant to embrace testing. But industry leaders like DuPont remain optimistic about the benefits of targeting recipients of government assistance. In 2011, Elaine Taulé’s NMS Management Services was one of several companies enlisted by Florida’s Department of Children and Families to inspect the urine of welfare applicants. That year, Republican Governor Rick Scott—whose wife owns a network of Florida clinics that profit from drug tests—signed a law requiring all applicants for cash assistance through the state’s TANF program to take a drug test. Welfare applicants were required to pay the $25 to $30 charged by the drug-testing firms for the tests; those who tested negative would be reimbursed by the state.

The courts struck down Florida’s law soon after it went into effect, following a lawsuit by the ACLU. In the meantime, only 2.6 percent of applicants tested positive for a drug, mostly for marijuana use. The tests cost the state $113,000, in addition to $595,000 in court-ordered retroactive benefits for those who tested positive or refused testing. By July 2012, Florida had spent $88,783 defending the program in court—a costly legal battle that the state ultimately lost when a court ruled in February to uphold the decision striking down the law.

Undeterred, Georgia passed a law nearly identical to Florida’s, although its implementation was put on hold pending the ruling on Florida’s law. (It is unclear how Georgia will proceed now.) In all, in 2012 twenty-eight states considered instituting welfare drug-testing laws; four of them passed welfare drug-testing bills into law. Given that Arizona and Missouri had already recently mandated drug tests for some applicants for social assistance, this brings the number of states currently requiring drug tests for welfare applicants to seven.

In the meantime, several Republican lawmakers in Congress have pushed hard for the mandatory drug testing of anyone, anywhere, applying for welfare. Leading the charge in the Senate is Orrin Hatch, longtime conservative stalwart from Utah, who received a $8,000 campaign contribution in 2012 from the political action committee of Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp), a behemoth in the drug-testing industry and a Hoffmann-La Roche spinoff. Hatch has also received $3,000 from another political action committee to which LabCorp contributes—the American Clinical Laboratory Association PAC—as well as $4,000 in campaign contributions from the PAC of another company with major interests in drug testing, Abbott Laboratories. GOP Congressman Charles Boustany is among those pushing welfare drug testing in the House. In the 2012 campaign cycle, he received $15,000 from Abbott Laboratories’ PAC.

Data released by the National Conference of State Legislatures demonstrates that lawmakers’ obsession with drug-testing the poor has shown no sign of abating in the current legislative session. Twenty-nine states have proposed welfare drug testing in 2013.

A day after assuming the vice presidency of the Kansas State Senate in November 2012, Republican Senator Jeff King vowed that his state would pass a law mandating drug tests not only for welfare but also unemployment recipients. King’s proposal was approved by the House on March 26.

Drug testing for welfare recipients is also being discussed in Ohio and Texas, where Abbott Laboratories spent $133,500 on campaign donations to state politicians in the lead-up to the 2010 and 2012 elections, in addition to more than $500,000 spent by the company on state lobbying contracts since 2010.

Watts Key is the national director of service providers at LabCorp. Sitting in the hallway of the Marriott during the DATIA conference, Key says he’s confident that when the legality of urine testing for benefits is “sorted out,” it will “be a very big part of drug testing.” To him it’s inevitable that welfare becomes “a huge potential market of drug testing.”

He’s hardly the only industry leader pointing to good times ahead. “It’s a matter of time” before drug testing for welfare benefits is widespread, says Philip Dubois, DATIA’s chairman-elect. Dubois’s own drug-testing firm is now gearing up to test welfare applicants in Georgia.

As more states consider mandatory drug testing as a condition of financial help, DATIA staffers are preparing for a busy 2013. “Say Michigan proposes a welfare drug-testing law,” says Laura Shelton, DATIA’s executive director. “What we’d do is look at what we like about it, what we don’t like about it, and then provide [members] the sample text that they can then send to their legislator in support of the law, and if there’s any changes that we suggest.”

Sitting in a hotel hallway at the conclusion of the conference, Shelton says that she envisions a setup in which drug-testing for benefits “would go hand in hand with…welfare. It’s basically the same thing, when you look at it.” Because so many people must undergo drug tests “to have a job to pay taxes,” she reasons, it makes sense that “if that taxpayer money is being used for [unemployment insurance] or for welfare, that testing [should] be a part of that program as well.”

Congress agreed when, in February 2012, it amended federal rules to allow states to drug-test select unemployment applicants. The Drug Policy Alliance dubbed it a “policy [that] broadly expands and subsidizes drug testing in a way that may be difficult to reverse for many years, if ever.” Among the Republican lawmakers who pushed hard for the change was Congressman Dave Camp, who owns at least $81,000 in assets in companies that are major players in the drug-testing industry, such as LabCorp, Abbott Laboratories and Hewlett-Packard. He has also received $5,000 in federal campaign contributions from LabCorp over the past three years.

The Labor Department has yet to issue guidelines to states interested in drug-testing unemployment insurance applicants—but states are hardly waiting for guidance. With sixteen states considering such bills since 2012, the idea has found enthusiastic champions in Texas’s GOP-dominated legislature. Forcing jobless Texans to pee in cups would cost the state $30 million a year, according to the Texas legislative budget office, with $27 million of this sum going to a drug-testing company. Yet last November, Governor Perry publicly endorsed the idea at a press conference with State Senators Tommy Williams and Craig Estes, as well as State Representative Brandon Creighton. All four have recently received campaign money from Abbott Laboratories.

“What better way to shake it and move it, and drive some of ‘em outta the program, than to implement drug testing?” says Chris Williams, a vice president at ArcPoint Labs. His firm is already marketing its “welfare drug-testing services” in more than a dozen states, and providing more hands-on services to one of the lawmakers leading South Carolina’s efforts to drug-test unemployment insurance recipients.

Seated in a secluded corner of the Marriott on the final day of the DATIA conference along with several other ArcPoint executives, Williams explains that the company has been advising Republican State Senator David Thomas, the sponsor of a proposed 2010 South Carolina bill to drug-test the jobless. The bill was defeated.

In 2012, South Carolina legislators considered three separate bills to drug-test the unemployed, and the idea has been championed by the governor, ALEC alum Nikki Haley, who exclaimed at a Lexington country club gathering in September 2011, “I so want drug testing. It’s something I’ve been wanting since the first day I walked into office.” The same year, despite a statewide unemployment rate higher than 9 percent, South Carolina lawmakers slashed the duration for such benefits from twenty-six to twenty weeks.

“Initiatives like this, [which] scapegoat those who need—and are entitled to depend on—basic social insurance programs, are inconsistent with the unemployment insurance program’s purpose and history, insensitive to the realities of today’s economy, and insulting to millions who are shouldering the greatest burdens of job loss and inability to find new work,” says Rebecca Dixon, an analyst at the National Employment Law Project. But for Republican lawmakers pushing to slash a federal program that has become a lifeline for millions of Americans, scapegoating the victims of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression seems to be precisely the goal.

For decades, drug tests have disproportionately targeted vulnerable groups, such as low-wage workers, children and parolees. And everywhere these tests have been institutionalized, civil libertarians have criticized them as an infringement of privacy and rights. Yet if Republican lawmakers get their way, millions of laid-off workers and welfare recipients around the country will be subjected to the kind of intimate intrusion that Elaine Taulé imposes on her middle-aged sons.

Back at the DATIA conference, Marc Taulé, who has been rewarded for his years of subservience to his mom’s urine testing with a position as vice president of business development at NMS, remarks, “We’re still on the random drug-testing program in the Taulé family!”

“I’m sure our nieces and nephews are gonna be random-drug-tested, too!” he adds, his staccato laughter ringing out nervously through the lobby of the Marriott.

This article originally appeared in the Nation Magazine. This story was produced with support from the Economic Hardship Reporting Project.

Isabel Macdonald is AlterNet’s NYC-based publicist. Before joining AlterNet, she was the communications director at the media watch group Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, and her writing has appeared in Extra Magazine, Huffington Post, the Indypendent and Z Magazine.

Newshawk: Afterburner
Source: AlterNet (US)
Author: Isabel Macdonald
Published: April 10, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Independent Media Institute
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.alternet.org/

9 Apr 2013

Legal Marijuana Sales Set To Quadruple By 2018

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

U.S. legal marijuana sales are projected to hit $1.5 billion this year, and that could look like nothing in just a few years. Data from Medical Marijuana Business Daily shows that total sales could quadruple to $6 billion by 2018 on the back of legalization efforts in Washington and Colorado, as well as the growing medical marijuana industry.

The two states both legalized the recreational use of weed in November. Elsewhere, 18 states and Washington, D.C. have made medical marijuana legal, while 10 others have formal measures pending to legalize medical marijuana, according to the National Cannabis Industry Association.

That’s reflective of a wider acceptance of the drug. A recent Pew Research Center poll discovered a majority of Americans support pot legalization for the first time in more than four decades. As many as 52 percent of Americans support legalizing weed — 45 percent do not — and nearly three-fourths say the amount of money spent enforcing marijuana usage laws is not worth the cost.

Such growing support has led marijuana-tied businesses to pitch their companies to Wall Street investors, the Los Angeles Times reported in March. Take Vincent Mehdizadeh, founder of MedBox, an automated weed dispensing machine company. He’s seeking $20 million from investors in anticipation of potential expansion.

“Everybody’s loosening up a lot because they realize the momentum has shifted and the financial world is going to have to make room for this industry,” Mehdizadeh told the LAT. “Wall Street and investment banks are going to have to come along for the ride, eventually.”

Thinking about investing in the marijuana industry yourself? Be sure to keep the risks in mind. It was reported last year that 500 of the estimated 3,000 U.S. marijuana dispensaries either had been closed by the government or shut down in the past year.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Caroline Fairchild
Published: April 8, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

9 Apr 2013

LEAP Looks To Make Marijuana Legal Across U.S.

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

The legalization of marijuana is becoming a topic that is sweeping the nation.  Washington and Colorado recently legalized marijuana use and several other states have or are looking into the issue as well.  In Nevada, a bill introduced by Democrat Joe Hogan would allow residents 21 and older to own up to one ounce of marijuana for recreational use and up to six marijuana plants as well as taxing marijuana sales.

The group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition ( LEAP ) is hoping Nevada joins Washington and Colorado in the legalization of marijuana, though the group’s reasons may surprise you.

LEAP

LEAP is comprised of former law enforcement officers, attorneys and judges who all took part in the “war on drugs,” which President Richard Nixon began in the 70s.  But LEAP argues that the war on drugs not only hasn’t been effective, it’s actually helped fuel the illegal drug trade in the United States.

“The war on drugs causes what it was designed to prevent,” former prosecutor James Gierach said.  “It works in reverse and what seems like a good idea is a bad idea.  It keeps the price of drugs high, but simple laws of economics tell us as we increase the price of drugs, the more someone is willing to supply it so there’s more drugs instead of less of it.”

Gierach said the war on drugs is actually doing more harm than good because of some basic reasons.  The first reason is because prohibition ensures that large numbers of unregulated drugs will be available for people The second reason is because Giearch said the drug cartels themselves are in support of prohibition.  Marijuana is the most widely used drug in the world, Giearch said.  And according to LEAP, by choosing to ban all use of the drug, it drives up the demand for the cartels.

“In 2011, a drug threat assessment was issued,” Gierach said.  “The DEA said cartels are producing 25,100 tons of marijuana a year.  Sixty percent of the money that goes to cartels in Mexico is from marijuana.”

But LEAP’s reasoning for supporting the regulation and taxation on marijuana rather than its prohibition goes further.  Whether it’s gun violence, gang violence and crimes, having to build more prisons, a blanket prohibition on drugs makes those issues worse.

“You name the crisis, the war on drugs makes it worse,” Gierach said.  “It corrupts the police, the kids, we fund terrorism and put guns in the hands of kids=C2=85The law enforcement agencies are working for the cartels and gangs to ensure they are the only outlets for these substances.”

Gierach said that by prohibiting the use of substances, it has led to the creation of synthetic drugs, which can be dangerous to the user’s health.

“The substitutes are much more dangerous, resulting in death, disease and paralysis,” Gierach said.

LEAP also believes that freeing up money that is spent on by often lengthy investigations into drug charges and cases could be used else where to other types of cases.

Nevada

What action Nevada takes on legalizing marijuana remains to be seen.  In the past, people have been in favor of the war on drugs because of different entities getting to keep part of the drug bust money.  But it also needs to be stopped, Gierach said.

“Al Capone was in favor of prohibition,” Gierach said.  “The cartels are.  The street gangs are.  Prohibition is the foundation for the business and helps it become the most valuable commodity on the face of the earth.”

LEAP is optimistic that the national consciousness about marijuana use is changing and he hopes to see all states adopt regulation laws on marijuana use=C2=85and sooner rather than later.

“The pendulum is swinging in regulation control land taxation of drugs,” Gierach said.  “Nationally and locally on a state basis, we can’t pay the price tags that come with prohibition.”

Marijuana has hit White Pine County with two grows found last year with an estimated worth of more than $30 million.  But whether AB 402 will make any movement this session remains to be seen.  Opponents to legalizing marijuana say that it can lead to addiction and that it could send the wrong message to children that it’s OK to do drugs.

State Senator Pete Goicoeceha is one who opposes legalizing marijuana and said that he will not be supporting AB 402.

“I’m very concerned about it, especially the tax they’re imposing,” Goicoechea said.  “It will allow you to have one ounce in your possession and it will be decriminalized.  It opens it wide open for more illegal narcotics.  You’ve got to pay a thousand dollar a gram tax on it, we’ll start seeing black market marijuana.  It’ll throw the gates open.  I will oppose the bill.  I think it’s a gateway drug.  I know it’s for people 21 and older, but it’s illegal for kids to smoke and they find their way.  It’s just a matter of time.”

Goicoechea also expressed concerns passing a bill that goes against current federal laws.

It’s clear the debate surrounding legalizing marijuana is far from finished.  Whether Nevada joins Washington and Colorado is an issue that is likely to see strong opinions on both sides.

Pubdate: Fri, 05 Apr 2013
Source: Ely Times (NV)
Copyright: 2013 The Ely Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.elynews.com/
Author: Lukas Eggen

5 Apr 2013

Support for Legal Marijuana Reached Tipping Point

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

For the first time, a major US poll has found that a majority of Americans support legalization of marijuana.

The Pew Research Center announced Thursday that 52 percent of Americans say that marijuana use should be made legal, versus 45 percent who say it should not. The trend line has been moving gradually in the direction of majority support for more than 20 years. In 1991, only 17 percent supported legalization, while 78 percent opposed.

As with gay marriage, which has also seen a sharp rise in support in the past few years, the Pew poll found major generational differences in views on marijuana. Among Millennials – those now aged 18 to 32 – support is at 65 percent, up from just 36 percent in 2008. Among Generation X, those born between 1965 and 1980, support has risen dramatically, from 28 percent in 1994 to 54 percent today.

Half of Baby Boomers support legalized marijuana today, and among the over-65 Silent Generation support has doubled since 2002 – from 17 percent to 32 percent.

Among other noteworthy findings in the Pew poll:

Nearly three in four Americans (72 percent) say government efforts to enforce marijuana laws cost more than they are worth.

Sixty percent say the federal government should not enforce federal laws prohibiting marijuana use in states that have legalized it. Last November, voters in Colorado and Washington state approved the personal use of small amounts of marijuana.

Some 48 percent of Americans say they have tried marijuana, up from 38 percent a decade ago.

Republicans oppose legalization, while Democrats support it. Among Republicans, it’s 37 percent favoring legalization to 60 percent opposing. Among Democrats, 59 percent say legalize it and 39 percent say don’t.

Marijuana’s image as a “gateway” drug is fading. Today, 38 percent of Americans agree that “for most people the use of marijuana leads to the use of hard drugs.” In 1977, 60 percent felt that way.

Despite the trends, those opposed to legalization are not giving up. In a column in the Washington Post, former Bush administration official Peter Wehner writes that as Republicans search for new issues to champion, fighting drug use and legalization should be one.

“Today, many parents rightly believe the culture is against them. Government policies should stand with responsible parents – and under no circumstances actively undermine them,” writes Mr. Wehner, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center in Washington.

“Drug legalization would do exactly that. It would send an unmistakable signal to everyone, including the young: Drug use is not a big deal.”

But in fact, Wehner writes, “the law is a moral teacher,” and government can play a role in the shaping of character. Therefore, “Republicans should prefer that it be a constructive one, which is why they should speak out forcefully and intelligently against drug legalization.”

Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Author: Linda Feldmann, Staff Writer
Published: April 4, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/

5 Apr 2013

Medical Marijuana Plan Hits Snag

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

A North Shore couple hoping to receive one of the first licenses to produce medical marijuana under new federal regulations has run into a bureaucratic roadblock.

The Regional District of Central Kootenay last week denied a variance application to let the couple expand two outbuildings on their property to a combined 4,435 square feet ( 412 square meters ) – more than four times the maximum size allowed for a home-based business in a residential area – and increase the number of permitted employees from two to four.

One of the applicants, who spoke to the Star on condition of anonymity, explained that by applying for a variance rather than going through a rezoning process, they hoped to avoid a public hearing that would have made their location common knowledge.

“I didn’t want it put on the map where a large medical grow facility was,” he said.

They aren’t hiding the nature of their proposed business from the regional district or neighbours, he added, but do have security concerns if their address is widely advertised.

However, when the matter reached the regional district’s rural affairs committee this month, directors upheld a staff recommendation to reject the variance and suggested the applicants seek rezoning instead.

Committee chair Hans Cunningham said the decision was based both on the size of the proposed variance and their belief regulations to be introduced this year will insist that commercial medical marijuana operations be located in industrial or agricultural areas.

“I applaud [the applicants] in that they want to get a jump on what’s going on,” he said.  “But if we give them a variance and the government said ‘No, you have to be on agricultural or industrial land,’ they’re not going to get a license.  So it makes sense to do the rezoning.”

The decision followed a presentation by the proponents, who came with several letters of support from neighbours and a petition of 30 names.  ( A staff report also listed objections from other neighbours, but they mostly related to the operation’s size, not its purpose.  )

“They made a hell of a presentation,” said director Larry Binks.  “Letter perfect.  It was well written and well documented.” He was one of three directors who spoke against denying the variance, believing the subject of marijuana clouded the discussion.

The proponents had no obligation to disclose what sort of business they were planning, he noted.  Still, he too believes rezoning is the right path – but wishes the applicants had been warned at the outset the variance had little chance of succeeding.

‘EPICENTRE OF MARIJUANA’

The applicant who spoke to the Star said they’re considering their options and haven’t decided whether to apply for rezoning.  “I don’t feel I’ve been treated badly by the regional district,” he said.  “It turned out my variance was too big.  I was asking for a lot.”

Even so, they would still be among the smallest license-seekers, he said.

He also said this area is already home to a high density of marijuana grow-ops as part of an illicit “black and grey marketplace” and called the federal government’s new rules the first “white regulations,” which he hopes are the first step in legalizing marijuana for recreational use.

“This new well-regulated industry will simply absorb the black market in time as it takes the profit out of growing and selling marijuana in the black market,” he said.

“We believe Nelson is the epicenter of marijuana and that reputation can be exploited for the benefit of our entire community.  Our leaders should wake up to this fact and see that there is an incredible opportunity for our community in particular to reap huge benefits.”

He urged local politicians to welcome and encourage medical marijuana entrepreneurs with “open door policies, rules, zoning, and investment,” and avoid making decisions “out of ignorance, fear, and the propaganda they have been fed for years.”

WIDER DISCUSSION

The North Shore application, the first to reach the regional district, comes as local government considers its role in policing medical marijuana operations.

The new federal regulations – originally expected to be unveiled next month but apparently now delayed until October – are intended to license commercial production and distribution of medical pot while eliminating personal grow ops.

But a recent memo from RDCK planning staff asks how Health Canada’s procedures will mesh with the regional district’s permitting process and whether building and bylaw officers will inspect commercial operations.  It also wonders about the potential effect on neighbours and whether locations will be made public.

Staff consulted other jurisdictions and concluded the most practical solution is to focus on agricultural zones where licensed producers can operate in stand-alone buildings well away from homes.  They suggest existing operators not zoned agricultural could stay put but would be required to apply for rezoning.

The board referred the memo to its April meeting, when Kootenay Columbia MP David Wilks, who is helping draft the new legislation, will be present.

But the North Shore proponent said he’s disappointed the RDCK is “playing follow the leader” when he believes it should be setting the precedents.  “Our municipalities should be looking for ways to keep our cottage industry, by working with the new regulations for maximum Kootenay benefit,” he said.

Source: Nelson Star (CN BC)
Section: Front page
Copyright: 2013 Black Press
Website: http://www.bclocalnews.com/kootenay_rockies/nelsonstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4866
Author: Greg Nesteroff

31 Mar 2013

New Stricter State Proposal Would Allow MMJ

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Lawmakers have introduced a measure with stricter provisions than past failed efforts to legalize marijuana sales to New Yorkers who have a “severe debilitating or life-threatening’’ health condition.

The new bill, which ends such past ideas as letting people grow their own marijuana, would have the state Health Department regulate the process, which would include allowing a certain number of private for-profits or not-for-profits to grow the plants and sell the drug under new security protocols to patients with treatment plans approved by a physician, physician’s assistant or nurse practitioner.

The measure was introduced by its past sponsors, Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat, and Sen. Diane Savino, a Staten Island Democrat. Savino has more political power this year as one of five breakaway Democrats who jointly run the Senate with Republicans.

The bill has 68 co-sponsors, including 10 Senate Democrats. It has previously sailed through the Assembly.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has opposed the idea of medical marijuana legalization, though advocates believe he could be flexible, especially since he is already promoting a plan to relax marijuana possession laws. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia have medical marijuana laws.

Advocates say the measure will more strictly regulate the drug than prescription painkillers; patient advocates in the past have said marijuana will be cheaper, less addictive and less dangerous than many of the painkiller prescriptions they take.

The bill defines those eligible to be certified by the Health Department to obtain marijuana as someone with a “serious’’ health condition, including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, epilepsy, diabetes, post-traumatic stress syndrome and others.

The patient would have to be under a doctor’s supervision. Patients who a doctor believes have less than a year to live also would be eligible to buy the drug. Medical marijuana also would be listed as one of the covered drugs on a new state prescription drug tracking system intended to reduce doctor and pharmacy shopping by addicts.

Marijuana could be grown and dispensed by hospitals, for-profit companies and not-for-profit corporations, and an excise tax would be imposed on the facilities, with part of the proceeds shared with local “host’’ communities.

“The bill is much more restrictive than the New York laws regulating highly dangerous drugs like morphine, Oxycontin or Valium,’’ Gottfried said.

“Anybody who ever had a family member suffer from a debilitating disease learns very quickly the limitations of modern medicine at treating pain,’’ added Savino.

The bill’s backers include the American Public Health Association, American Bar Association, New York State Nurses Association, Pharmacists Society of the State of New York, New York AIDS Coalition, the Independence Party of New York and the Drug Policy Alliance.

Critics, including some Senate Republicans and the state Conservative Party, have said marijuana could be diverted by patients to others not eligible for the drug and that the plan sends the wrong message, especially to teenagers, about a drug some call a gateway to stronger drugs.

Source: Buffalo News (NY)
Author: Tom Precious, News Albany Bureau
Published: March 28, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Buffalo News
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.buffalonews.com/

30 Mar 2013

Marijuana Task Force Issues 58 Recommendations

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Colorado’s Marijuana Task Force issued its final recommendations for how the state ought to implement Amendment 64, though the actual regulations will be made by state lawmakers. The 165-page report released Wednesday included 58 recommendations to be reviewed by the governor and state legislators.

Task Force Co-Chair Jack Finlaw, the Governor’s Chief Legal Counsel, called the report “very comprehensive” and said that it laid the groundwork for regulation.

“The Task Force recommendations will now need to be perfected through the legislative process and rulemakings by various state agencies,” Finlaw said in a statement.

Click here to read the report in full: http://www.colorado.gov/cms/forms/dor-tax/A64TaskForceFinalReport.pdf

Task force leaders agreed that legislators will have to put a “Marijuana Products Sales Tax” initiative on the November ballot, but left the taxation rate to legislators.

According to a 7News report, some in the task force recommended a 25 percent sales tax, but others were concerned that it would continue to perpetuate the underground market for cheap pot.

The task force also recommended that during the first year of licensing “only entities with valid medical marijuana licenses should be able to obtain licenses to grow, process and sell adult-use cannabis.”

Smoking marijuana in bars should be banned in establishments covered by the Colorado Clean Indoor Air Act as well as other places where tabacco smoke is tolerated, the report says.

Consistent with alcohol rules, the task force also recommends that the Legislature prohibit open packages of marijuana in vehicles.

“This was ground-breaking work and the Task Force process went very well,” task force co-chair Barbara Brohl said. “It was supported by many committed and astute individuals who took the Governor’s charge very seriously. Task force members represented differing viewpoints, they addressed all issues in a well-thought-out manner and worked hard to develop sound solutions. The Task Force did all the ‘heavy lifting,” but now a lot of follow up work has to be done in the coming months.”

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Published: March 13, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

30 Mar 2013

Group Forms To Oppose Colorado Marijuana Stores

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A citizens’ group opposed to a large-scale recreational marijuana industry in Colorado has hired two powerhouse lobbyists in preparation for the state legislature’s coming pot fight.

Smart Colorado formed as a nonprofit group within the last several weeks, group leader Doug Robinson said. After collecting donations, Robinson said the group has hired former congressional candidate Mike Feeley and longtime Capitol lobbyist Sandra Hagen Solin to represent it as legislators write the laws for the forthcoming recreational marijuana industry.

It will be the first time in the last several years that a citizens’ group devoted to restricting marijuana will have such high-powered representation at the Capitol. While medical-marijuana businesses have had lobbyists for awhile, anti-marijuana lobbying has often been done by law-enforcement groups or a disjointed collection of advocates.

Robinson said members of Smart Colorado — whom he described as “basically, a bunch of moms” — decided they needed to be better organized and represented to make a difference. Though Smart Colorado shares a name with the campaign committee opposed to Amendment 64, the measure passed in November legalizing limited marijuana possession and sales, Robinson said the two groups are separate.

“We have organized for one reason, and that is to keep Colorado the best state in the nation,” Robinson told lawmakers on Friday during a meeting of a special legislative committee drafting the bill on recreational marijuana. “We are deeply concerned that the way 64 is implemented could threaten this.”

Robinson said the group respects that Colorado voters legalized marijuana in November, but he said the group wants to keep the recreational marijuana industry as small and contained as possible. Group members testifying before the legislative committee said they fear greater availability of marijuana will lead to big public health and safety problems, especially with kids.

“It looks like we are heading down the path of socializing the costs and privatizing the profits,” group member Gina Carbone said.

The legislative committee, though, rejected on Friday one suggestion from Smart Colorado: state-run marijuana stores. The group said state-run stores will prevent marijuana leaks to kids. But a state task force that suggested regulations for recreational marijuana recommended against state-run stores. Such stores would likely provoke a strong response from the federal government.

The legislative committee on Friday sided with the task force’s recommendation against state-run stores.

The committee put off decisions on a number of other issues — including whether to allow pot sales to out-of-state visitors or requiring marijuana stores to grow what they sell. It is scheduled to meet again next Friday, but lawmakers also discussed adding extra, early-morning meetings to complete the work.

The committee must have bills for recreational marijuana written by the end of the month. The full legislature will then have 38 days to pass the bills before the end of the session.

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: John Ingold, The Denver Post
Published: March 15, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/

30 Mar 2013

Wash. Touts Credentials of Pot Consultant

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Green thumb? Check. Extensive knowledge of the black market? Check. Throw in impeccable academic credentials and decades of experience with government agencies, and you have Washington’s marijuana consultant — a team advising officials on all things pot as they develop rules for the state’s new industry in legal, heavily taxed marijuana.

The Washington Liquor Control Board introduced Massachusetts-based BOTEC Analysis Corp. as the presumptive winner of the consultant contract during a news conference Tuesday. The team is led by a University of California, Los Angeles, public policy professor and includes a former executive of the company that is the sole licensed supplier of medical marijuana in the Netherlands. It also includes researchers with the RAND Corp. who will help figure out how much marijuana state-licensed growers should produce.

“These are, by far, the top consultants available,” said Randy Simmons, who oversees the implementation of the legal weed law for the board. “We’re serious about doing this the right way.”

Washington and Colorado last year became the first states to pass laws legalizing the recreational use of marijuana and setting up systems of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores where adults over 21 can walk in and buy up to an ounce of heavily taxed cannabis. Sales could begin at the end of the year.

The votes left state officials with a daunting task: figuring out how to build a huge pot industry from scratch. The state’s Liquor Control Board must determine how many growers and stores there should be, how much pot should be produced, how it should be packaged, and how it should be tested to ensure people don’t get sick.

The board is doing a lot of its own research, with buttoned-up bureaucrats traveling to grow operations in California and Colorado as well as within Washington state. But the consultant’s advice will also be important. The state is aiming to produce just enough marijuana to meet current demand: Producing too little would drive up prices and help the black market flourish, while producing too much could lead to excess pot being trafficked out of state.

BOTEC — it stands for “back of the envelope calculations” — is a 30-year-old think tank headed by Mark Kleiman, a UCLA public policy professor with a doctorate from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. The firm has evaluated government programs and provided consulting relating to drug abuse, crime and public health. It studied the results of an effort to crack down on heroin dealers in Lynn, Mass., and in the early 1990s advised the Office of National Drug Control Policy on drug-demand reduction programs.

Kleiman has written several books on drug policy and crime, including “Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know,” and he has argued that states can’t legalize marijuana — federal officials would never stand for it.

“Pot dealers nationwide — and from Canada, for that matter — would flock to California to stock up,” he wrote in an opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times in 2010, when California was considering legalizing marijuana. “There’s no way on earth the federal government is going to tolerate that. Instead, we’d see massive federal busts of California growers and retail dealers, no matter how legal their activity was under state law.”

For that reason, some marijuana advocates questioned how committed his team would be to carrying out the will of the voters. But Alison Holcomb, the author of Washington’s new law, said the choice of a consultant who isn’t a pot cheerleader sent a message that the state is taking its responsibilities seriously.

That’s a crucial concern because state officials are trying to persuade the federal government not to sue to block the law from taking effect. Gov. Jay Inslee has said he stressed to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder that Washington will have the best-regulated system possible, but the Justice Department still has not announced its intentions.

Steven Davenport, BOTEC’s managing director, said that with more than 30 people involved, the team comprises a wide range of opinions on marijuana legalization, but none is relevant to the task at hand: figuring out how it can best be accomplished, balancing the needs of a working marijuana distribution system with the interests of public health.

“We understand the significance and the size of the task in front of us,” Davenport said. “Our intent is to make sure the board does this correctly.”

Other team members include Michael Sautman, former CEO of Bedrocan International, the international affiliate of the only company licensed to produce medical marijuana for patients in the Netherlands; the company is overseen by the Dutch Ministry of Health, according to BOTEC’s bid for the contract.

Sautman “has consulted lawmakers and regulators in Canada, Israel and several U.S. states regarding how medical marijuana is produced and distributed in the Netherlands,” the bid reads.

Beau Kilmer, co-director of RAND’s Drug Policy Research Center, said RAND is already under contract with the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy to develop a new approach for estimating the number of marijuana users across the country and how much pot they consume. His group will build off that work to estimate use by county in Washington state, and that it could involve Internet-based surveys asking people to detail their cannabis use — to the extent of asking them to explain the size of their most recent joint, as compared with a photograph of a joint next to a credit card or ruler for scale.

“That’s going to be a challenge, but I’m excited to work on it,” Kilmer said.

The value of BOTEC’s contract has not been set, but it is expected to exceed $100,000. The losing bidders have 10 days to contest the award.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Gene Johnson, The Associated Press
Published: March 19, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

30 Mar 2013

Pot Views Changing

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

For political science pundits, it’s a new high.  The latest public survey shows more than two in every five Lethbridge-area people agree with recreational use of marijuana.  And even more – close to 79 per cent – say it should be readily available as a medical treatment.

The growing support for decriminalizing the use of marijuana, from 42 per cent of local residents who responded, is reported by the Citizen Society Research Lab at Lethbridge College.  Approval was even higher ( 42.7 per cent ) in Coaldale, also included in the college’s twice-yearly public opinion surveys.

Nearly 45 per cent of Albertans responding to the college’s province-wide poll last fall were also in favour – and the strongest support, 48.2 per cent, came from across southern Alberta.

“It’s the ( baby ) boomers and the parents of kids who might get ‘busted’ with a small amount of pot,” says Faron Ellis, political scientist at Lethbridge College.

They’re hoping to see Canadian law changed, as voters were in Colorado and Washington state.  Realistically, Albertans know the Stephen Harper government stands opposed.

But it’s the provincial government that appoints the judges, he adds, and they’re not harsh with first-time offenders.

The new telephone survey – taken Feb.  9 and 10, with 835 randomly selected adults in Lethbridge and Coaldale – showed Wildrose party supporters more likely ( more than 39 per cent ) than Conservatives ( 33.6 ) to support decriminalization.  New Democrats were most strongly supportive at 65.5 per cent.

Wildrose partisans were also more permissive than Tories on other issues, Ellis found.  Citizens who said they vote Wildrose also voiced stronger support for medical use of marijuana, for doctor-assisted suicide and for a woman’s right to choose an abortion.

They’re reflecting a libertarian view that’s also surfaced among Harper’s MPs, he points out.

“They’re saying we should have less government interference in our economic lives, but also in our personal lives.”

Ellis says approval for the prescribed use of marijuana to counteract pain and other medical symptoms has been strong, ever since the college began its twice-a-year opinion surveys.  It’s remained in the 70-80 per cent range over the last decade, peaking at 80.1 per cent in 2012.

Support continues to grow on another issue, a woman’s right to choose.  Despite in-your-face campaigns by some religious groups, Ellis reports pro-choice responses have passed 80 per cent for the first time.

“It appears their behaviour has failed to stop the trend to more and more support” for choice, he says.

Perhaps surprisingly, the latest poll found 87.4 per cent of Lethbridge and Coaldale residents who attend church as least “several times a year” support women’s choice.

That figure grows to 94 per cent of those who said they attend “seldom or never,” a group that includes about 52 per cent of all residents polled.

A bare majority of those who claimed to attend at least twice a month were also in favour, reflecting differences between the city’s religious liberals and conservatives.

Ellis says the survey also found most southern Albertans agree on a once-contentious topic.  Same-sex marriage is supported by more than 83.8 per cent of those who attend church occasionally as well as 85.2 per cent who said “seldom or never.”

Among those who say they attend very regularly ( about 30 per cent of the population ) there’s close to 40 per cent support.

When the question was asked 10 years ago – before all provinces had made the change – Ellis says about one-third of Lethbridge people polled were in favour of lesbian or gay couples marrying.  But now, for the first time, that popular support has passed 70 per cent.

“Southern Albertans have accepted that as a just and legitimate aspect of Canadian society,” he says.

Public support for a still-controversial issue, doctor-assisted death, has also grown.  Nearly 75 per cent of those responding to this month’s survey voiced their approval, compared with 66.4 per cent a year ago and 61.9 per cent in 2011.  More than 82 per cent of those who sometimes attend church were in favour, vs.  about 44 per cent who attend frequently.

In contrast, Ellis says, more than 60 per cent of those who attend frequently were in favour of the death penalty for first-degree murder – – nearly as high as the 66.6 per cent who don’t attend.

Church attendance isn’t an absolute predictor of southern Albertans’ attitudes, Ellis admits.  On some issues, he says, it depends on whether people lean more heavily on Old Testament vengeance or New Testament forgiveness.

The Lethbridge College survey, conducted by supervised college students and distance education students of Athabasca University, polled citizens whose phone numbers were selected at random.  Its margin of error is stated as 3.4 percentage points, plus or minus, 19 times out of 20.

Source: Lethbridge Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2013 The Lethbridge Herald
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/
Author: Dave Mabell

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