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23 Jul 2012

Medical Marijuana: The Facts

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Christie Administration Has Been Responsive on Issue

I was surprised and saddened to see the editorial Wednesday titled “Med marijuana: What’s the deal?” The Asbury Park Press’ editorial board is typically thorough and factually accurate, but in this instance it couldn’t be more off the mark.

While this program appeared to get off to a slow start, we have seen real, and substantial, progress over the past year, particularly the past few months.

The problem right now isn’t the program or the progress. The problem is the Press’ lack of factual followup. The same day the editorial appeared in the Press, an article ran in The Wall Street Journal titled, “Legal for some, pot crops up in N.J.,” highlighting the headway being made in our program.

The same people whom the Press quotes as taking issue with the administration – quotes from months ago – are quoted from the past few days praising the people in the Christie administration and the folks directly running the program. That is downright sloppy – and ultimately unfair to those of us who have broken our butts to get this program on track and moving forward.

One facility run by the Greenleaf center is already growing plants that are now a foot high. They should begin dispensing the much-needed medicine to patients as early as mid-September. A second facility run by the Compassionate Care Foundation hopes to have a crop ready by November. The claim that none of the centers around the state have begun operating is just plain wrong.

The editorial says the Christie administration is at the heart of the delays, yet the Journal article quotes Bill Thomas, CEO of Compassionate Care, as saying, “We have had complete cooperation with the Department of Health. They are helping us.” While these two facilities are moving forward, the other four are “searching or in negotiations for locations,” according to the Department of Health.

In my efforts to move this program forward, I have found the administration to be responsive to fair and legitimate questions or issues every step of the way. John O’Brien, the executive director of the medicinal marijuana program appointed by the governor, and Charlie McKenna, the governor’s chief counsel, have received well-deserved praise from the people legitimately trying to move their operations forward.

My office has reached out to every one of the approved entities. Some have really engaged and some have completely blown off offers of help – – now having only themselves to blame for their lack of progress. But no entity at this point can legitimately blame the administration for a lack of progress.

If all of the approved entities don’t begin to move forward, we will at some point have to consider revoking the approvals of those not moving forward, and reissue those rights to other entities. While the guidelines the Christie administration put in place are strict, it is the high bar set by those guidelines that has given our program here in New Jersey the extremely high level of credibility it has throughout the country. The programs in California and Colorado are complete disasters by comparison. The strict regulations in New Jersey destroy the arguments of anyone fear-mongering or casting aspersions on our program or medical marijuana in general.

We all want our patients suffering from illness and chronic pain to get relief, but we also need to make sure we put the right program in place and administer it thoroughly and carefully, to build credibility with a somewhat skeptical public. The polls show a majority of people favor medical marijuana, but too many folks then turn around and say they don’t want the facilities in their back yard. The comprehensive, clear, consistent and strict design of our program – a design devised by the Christie administration – should allay any reason for fear.

Source: Asbury Park Press (NJ)
Copyright: 2012 Asbury Park Press
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.app.com/
Author: Declan O’Scanlon

23 Jul 2012

Experts Warn On Impact Of Legal Pot

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Legalizing marijuana in even a single state could drive down prices dramatically across the country, encouraging more people to smoke the drug, a panel of experts said at a briefing Tuesday.

Last week, Oregon became the third state that will vote this November on a ballot measure to legalize marijuana, joining Colorado and Washington.

“Legalization is unprecedented – not even the Netherlands has done it – – it is entirely possible it will happen this year,” said Jonathan Caulkins, co-author of “Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

“The effects will be enormous,” said Caulkins, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, during an event at the American Enterprise Institute.

The Obama administration opposes legalizing marijuana and has taken action to shut down some medical-marijuana dispensaries in California and Colorado.

Caulkins said one of the main reasons for outlawing the drug is to make it riskier to produce and sell, driving up prices and curbing use. A price collapse after legalization in some states could undermine marijuana laws nationally.

Caulkins said Colorado’s proposition would allow residents to obtain a grower’s license fairly easily, making the state a good home for exporters of marijuana.

“They would be able to provide marijuana to New York state markets at one quarter of the current price,” he said, predicting similar price declines in other states.

Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at the University of California, Los Angeles, said his advice to federal officials would be “to sit down with the governor of the state and say, ‘Look, we can make your life completely miserable – and we will – unless you figure out a way to avoid the exports.”

One option would be to impose strict limits on how much of the drug retailers could sell to each customer.

Washington’s proposal would present authorities with a different problem. The state is proposing to create a strong system of regulations with the aim of propping up prices. Caulkins said the federal government could strike down the regulations but would leave a free for-all behind.

“The federal government will face some really difficult choices where actions are like double-edged swords,” Caulkins said.

ource: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2012 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Author: Ian Duncan, Tribune Washington bureau

18 Jul 2012

3 States Mull MJ Legalization Experts Warn: Beware

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Legalizing marijuana in even a single state could drive down prices dramatically across the country, encouraging more people to smoke the drug, a panel of experts said at a briefing Tuesday. Last week, Oregon became the third state that will vote this November on a ballot measure to legalize marijuana, joining Colorado and Washington.

“Legalization is unprecedented – not even the Netherlands has done it – it is entirely possible it will happen this year,” said Jonathan Caulkins, co-author of “Marijuana Legalization: What Everyone Needs to Know.”

“The effects will be enormous,” said Caulkins, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, during an event at the American Enterprise Institute.

The Obama administration opposes legalizing marijuana and has taken action to shut down some medical marijuana dispensaries in California and Colorado.

Caulkins said one of the main reasons for outlawing the drug is to make it riskier to produce and sell, driving up prices and curbing use. A price collapse following legalization in some states could undermine marijuana laws nationally, the experts warned.

Caulkins said Colorado’s proposition would allow residents to obtain a grower’s license fairly easily, making the state a good home for exporters of marijuana.

“They would be able to provide marijuana to New York state markets at one quarter of the current price,” he said, predicting similar price declines in other states.

Mark Kleiman, a professor of public policy at UCLA, said his advice to federal officials would be “to sit down with the governor of the state and say, ‘Look, we can make your life completely miserable — and we will – unless you figure out a way to avoid the exports.”

One option would be to impose strict limits on how much of the drug retailers could sell to each customer.

“The federal government will face some really difficult choices where actions are like double-edged swords,” Caulkins said.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Ian Duncan
Published: July 17, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

16 Jul 2012

1 in 8 with Fibromyalgia Uses Medicinal Cannabis

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One in eight people with the painful condition fibromyalgia self-medicate with pot and other cannabis products, according to a new Canadian study.

“That is not unusual behavior, in general, for people with chronic medical illnesses for which we don’t have great treatments,” said Dr. Igor Grant, who heads the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California and was not involved in the study.

“People start looking around, they look for other types of remedies, because they need the help,” he told Reuters Health.

The question is if self-medicating with cannabis is really helpful for people with fibromyalgia, researchers say.

Marijuana has been shown to ease certain types of pain in patients with HIV and other conditions. But Grant said he doesn’t know of any research showing the drug can relieve the pain associated with fibromyalgia.

And the question of whether it helps fibromyalgia sufferers regain some of their daily functions, such as housekeeping or working, remains up in the air, too.

“We don’t want to just see pain reduction, but an improvement in function,” said Peter Ste-Marie, a pain researcher at McGill University in Montreal, who worked on the new study. “If it’s not helping them get back into a daily life pattern, is it helping them?”

People with fibromyalgia typically experience pain in their joints and muscles and may also suffer from frequent headaches and fatigue.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about two percent of adults have fibromyalgia, which remains a mystery to scientists.

The condition can be treated with physical therapy, antidepressants, pain medications and other approaches, although none of them is a cure.

To see how many people turn to marijuana, Ste-Marie and his colleagues collected information from the medical records of 457 patients who came to the pain unit at McGill University Health Center. Their findings are published in the journal Arthritis Care & Research.

All of the patients had been referred to the clinic for fibromyalgia symptoms, although only 302 of the patients were confirmed to have fibromyalgia as their primary diagnosis.

About 10 percent said they smoked marijuana for medical purposes and another three percent had a prescription for a synthetic form of the active chemical in the cannabis plant.

“The popular knowledge of marijuana being available for pain would tend to demonstrate why 10 percent of patients would give it a try,” said Ste-Marie.

“There really is no miracle drug for fibromyalgia. We definitely understand that patients would try to find something else,” he told Reuters Health.

The researchers couldn’t tell from the study which of the patient had started smoked pot before their fibromyalgia developed. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, about 40 percent of U.S. adults have tried marijuana at some point.

The study showed that pot smokers and non-users had the same rates of disability and unemployment. However, patients who had unstable mental illness or had a worrisome use of opioid pain medications were more likely to report using cannabis – a finding that raised concerns with Ste-Marie and his colleagues.

“Before saying herbal cannabis has a future in fibromyalgia, there are multiple things that need to be looked at,” he said.

Newshawk: Konagold
Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Kerry Grens, Reuters
Published: July 13, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Thomson Reuters

13 Jul 2012

Alcohol Not Marijuana Triggers Drug Abuse in Teenagers

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If you want your kids to stay away from drugs, then you might want to keep teenagers off alcohol because a new study says that long term drug abuse is likely to occur due to alcohol, not marijuana, use.

The present study included data on more than 14,500 high-school students from 120 schools across U.S. The data was obtained from Monitoring the Future study.

Researchers analyzed the data to find out what substances were being tried by students. They checked for use of marijuana, cocaine, heroin, LSD, amphetamines, tranquilizers and other narcotics. Alcohol was the first substance to be tried by students, the results showed.

“By recognizing the important predictive role of alcohol and delaying initiation of alcohol use, school officials and public health leaders can positively impact the progression of substance use. I am confident in our findings and the clear implications they have for school-based prevention programs. By delaying and/or preventing the use of alcohol, these programs can indirectly reduce the rate of use of other substances,” Adam Barry, an assistant professor and researcher in the College of Health and Human Performance at the University of Florida.

“These findings add further credence to the literature identifying alcohol as the gateway drug to other substance use,” Barry said.

Estimates from major surveys in U.S say that by age 17 most teenagers, between 59 percent and 71 percent, had consumed alcohol, 31 percent to 44 percent had tried cannabis, and 4 percent to 6 percent had tried cocaine, in a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Researchers say that parents should prevent teenagers from drinking. Alcohol is commonly available and isn’t considered as taboo as other substances but many studies have shown that alcohol abuse in early years can make teenagers more likely to abuse other drugs.

The study doesn’t clearly define how drug abuse actually starts but it does provide some idea about a good intervention program to keep children from becoming long-term drug abusers.

“Parents should know that a strict, zero-tolerance policy at home is best. Increasing alcohol-specific rules and decreasing availability will help prevent an adolescent’s alcohol use. The longer that alcohol initiation is delayed, the more likely that other drug or substance use will be delayed or prevented as well,” he said.

10 Jul 2012

Pot Prohibition Benefits No One

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You can’t visit a winery established in the 19th century without hearing about the heroic efforts made to preserve the ancient vines that provide the grapes, which with time and care, produce wine. From 1920 until 1933, the manufacture, sale and transportation of alcohol within the USA was prohibited. So called “Prohibition” was an effort to control the use of alcohol, especially among the working classes. Its roots stretch even earlier in our history. Before Prohibition began, the brewing, wine-making and distillery businesses in the nation represented about 14 percent of the economy, and employed thousands. It took the Great Depression to convince voters that maybe Prohibition was not such a good idea.

Prohibition began with the ratification of the 18th Amendment to the Constitution. Interestingly, drinking itself was never made illegal. Those who had the money could continue to consume alcohol as they pleased, from private stocks. Every President during the period, and over 80 percent of Congress had their own private stashes of alcohol. The people affected by this law were the working classes and the poor. The original thought was that if the sale of alcohol was made illegal, people would not consume it. We could control the risk of alcoholism, and reduce the problems often associated with it. Instead, people went to extremes to obtain it.

The advent of Prohibition was a bonanza for organized crime, bootleggers, and of all things, Canadian manufacturers.

Canada and other neighbors like Mexico never made the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal. Alcohol was bootlegged into this country and then sold at great (non-taxed) profit, estimated by the end of prohibition to exceed $2 billion a year. Hence, the rise of Al Capone and the so-called mob. Home distilling became popular, and thousands died because of the lack of regulation.

Prohibition was repealed in 1933 with the 21st Amendment to the Constitution, in the heart of the Great Depression. Budweiser sent a truck-load of beer to the White House to honor the occasion, delivered by their famous Clydesdales.

We face a similar situation today around the pros and cons of the legalization of marijuana. An article in Sunday’s New York Times (”Cities Balk as Federal Law on Marijuana Is Enforced”) highlighted Arcata in the discussion about medical marijuana clinics. Many states, along with California, have decided that marijuana, at least for medical reasons, should be legal. Though the voters have spoken, the federal government continues to enforce its rules. Not unlike drinkers during Prohibition, marijuana users are forced to go underground. Illegal grow houses and trespassing on public lands are the result, with huge profits for those willing to take the risk. Needless to say, none of this is taxed or regulated.

Do we really want to continue down this road? No one benefits. Private citizens, not to mention law enforcement officials, are at constant risk because of people cultivating marijuana illegally, whether in grow houses which have become ubiquitous, or on public lands. Marijuana isn’t going away, no matter what the federal government says. The alternative to regulation is no regulation, and the chaos we experience is the result. Surely local governments are better able to determine which clinics are legitimate and which are not. By blindly threatening every clinic, as has become the federal government’s policy today, we shoot ourselves in the foot. The rich, as usual, can do pretty much what they want, as they always have. It is the medically legitimate marijuana users who are forced underground, into the black market, much as in Prohibition days.

For a small town, Arcata has a big reputation. We are known for many things, from big trees and beautiful beaches, to being capitol of the so-called “Emerald Triangle.” Perhaps we can also help the nation move forward in meaningful dialogue about the so-called war on drugs.

Source: Times-Standard (Eureka, CA)
Copyright: 2012 Times-Standard
Contact: http://www.times-standard.com/writeus
Website: http://www.times-standard.com/
Author: Eric Duff

10 Jul 2012

Medical Marijuana Users Oppose Home Grow-Op Ruling

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Saskatchewan’s exempted medical marijuana users and growers are criticizing a decision by the federal government to stop individuals from growing the plant.

“I will be forced to purchase it from the government and that restricts me because I cannot produce the type that I like and that helps (dull the pain),” said Jason Hiltz, a medicinal marijuana advocate in Saskatoon who received an exemption in 2008 to grow the plants and take the drug.

Health Canada will no longer allow individuals to grow marijuana for medical use by 2014, federal Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq told CBC News on Friday.

Aglukkaq was reacting to a CBC investigation this week that Health Canada is ill-equipped to inspect licensed growers. There are also complaints from critics who say sanctioned growers are abusing their permits and often growing far more than they need. The individual grow-ops also attract break-ins, critics say.

The health minister said previously Health Canada wants to tender licences to produce marijuana in a way the same way as conventional drugs – by companies, under tightly regulated conditions. There are around 1,200 patients and 200 growers in Saskatchewan, who are limited to providing medical marijuana for up to two patients.

Shutting down licensed medical marijuana growers will only push people to obtain pot illegally, said Kaylynn Colby, 25, a Regina head shop worker who obtained an exemption after a doctor prescribed medical marijuana for pain.

“All they’re doing is creating demand in the black market,” Colby said.

In her teens, Colby suffered a herniated disc in her back that was never diagnosed. She suffers from severe juvenile arthritis, she said.

“All of the other painkillers they were (prescribing) were causing a lot more damage,” Colby said. “This (growing medical marijuana) was definitely the safer way to go about it. Since then I haven’t taken more pain killers for my condition.”

For Hiltz, two car crashes in 2005 and 2006 left him with a fractured vertebrae and spinal stenosis, which compresses his spinal cord, causing pain and weakness in his neck, shoulder and left arm.

An expert horticulturalist, Hiltz says the medical marijuana he produces is far better at dulling the pain than the government’s medical marijuana he would be forced to access.

Hiltz also says he can grow his own medical marijuana for around $140 per month compared to $540 for Health Canada’s mail-order pot, which is produced by Saskatchewan-based Prairie Plant Systems Inc.

Colby agrees that the medical marijuana produced for Health Canada isn’t as effective.

“I’ve seen it, I’ve smelt it and I would not want anything to do with it,” Colby said. “-I’ve never heard anybody satisfied or happy with it at all. It’s low-grade, poor quality, and it often doesn’t even help the medical condition very much.”

She would like to see the government increase the number of patients licensed growers can provide for.

“By allowing people to grow their own medicine, which is something that hasn’t hurt anyone, that would be a lot more beneficial than more rules and more boundaries and more punishment,” Colby said.

Source: StarPhoenix, The (CN SN)
Copyright: 2012 The StarPhoenix
Contact: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/saskatoonstarphoenix/
Author: David Hutton

8 Jul 2012

‘Savages’ Boss Oliver Stone Knows Good Weed

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Oliver Stone has smoked great marijuana all over the world, from Vietnam and Thailand to Jamaica and South Sudan. But the filmmaker says the best weed is made in the USA and that pot could be a huge growth industry for taxpayers if it were legalized.

Stone, whose drug-war thriller “Savages” opens Friday, has been a regular toker since his days as an infantryman in Vietnam in the late 1960s and knows a good herb when he inhales one. He insisted in a recent interview that no one is producing better stuff now than U.S. growers.

“There’s good weed everywhere in the world, but my God, these Americans are brilliant,” said Stone, 65, who sees only benefits from legalizing marijuana. “It can be done.

It can be done legally, safely, healthy, and it can be taxed and the government can pay for education and stuff like that. Also, you can save a fortune by not putting kids in jail.”

Stone is known for mixing polemics and drama in films such as “JFK,” ”Born on the Fourth of July,” ”Wall Street” and “Nixon,” his saga of the president who declared the war on drugs 40 years ago. Yet “Savages” may be closer to a pure thrill ride than anything he’s done, the action coming without much in the way of preaching for legalization.

Still, the film offers a fictional portrait of violence among a Mexican drug cartel and California pot growers that makes legalizing marijuana seem like a sane option.

“That would be my personal solution, but as a politician, I would fight for decriminalization first, because that is the immediate by-product of this mess that we got ourselves into. It’s very hard to pull out of a $40 billion-a-year industry, which is the prison industry.

It’s probably more than $40 billion. But they will fight you tooth and nail to keep these prisons as big as they are,” Stone said.

“It’s worse than slavery, per capita. In the black community, it is a form of slavery, this drug war, because it imprisons a huge portion of people, destroys their lives, coarsens our culture. And why? Marijuana is much less harmful than tobacco and prescription drugs in many cases and certainly alcohol. This puritanical strain got started with Nixon. It was a political issue for him, and it’s gotten worse. It’s like the Pentagon. You can’t stop it.”

“Savages” co-star Salma Hayek had some worries that the film could have become a sermon in favor of drug legalization. She was glad the film wound up sticking to a good story and generally keeping politics out of it, even though she agrees that legalization makes sense for marijuana, at least.

“Yeah, marijuana, if it’s legalized and controlled,” Hayek said. “Some of the other drugs that are on the market are really, really dangerous. The legal drugs. That your doctor can prescribe. And they can kill you with it slowly.”

Hayek plays the merciless boss of a Mexican cartel aiming to seize control of a California pot operation whose leaders (Aaron Johnson and Taylor Kitsch) grow the best marijuana on the planet. The film co-stars Benicio Del Toro as Hayek’s brutal lieutenant, John Travolta as a corrupt Drug Enforcement Agency cop and Blake Lively as Johnson and Kitsch’s shared lover, whose kidnapping puts the two sides at war.

Stone, who has two Academy Awards as best director for 1989′s “Born on the Fourth of July” and 1986′s “Platoon” (the latter also won best picture), has had a fitful career since the mid-1990s, with critical bombs such as “Alexander” and modest box-office results for “W.”, “World Trade Center” and “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.”

With gorgeous Southern California scenery, wicked humor and relentless action, “Savages” may have more commercial appeal than anything Stone has done in decades. While the film itself doesn’t preach, it has given Stone a soapbox to play devil’s advocate, even landing him on the cover of the marijuana magazine High Times, smoking a joint.

“He’s Oliver Stone for a reason. There’s no filter, and he is who he is, and I admire that,” said “Savages” star Kitsch. “At the end of the day, who you’re going to be facing is yourself. If you can stay true to that — and I tell you, this business tests every minute of it — I love that. I love to see someone that is like, ‘Look, this (expletive) movie is what I’ve done. Take it or leave it.’ It’s an admirable quality, especially in this business.”

Stone considers his pot use part of a healthy regimen.

“It doesn’t hurt me,” he said. “As you can see, I’m still functioning at my age. My mind feels good. I may not be the brightest rocket in the room, but I certainly feel like I’m competent.”

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: David Germain, The Associated Press
Published: July 5, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Associated Press

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