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23 Aug 2013

Alcohol, Marijuana Prohibitions Don’t Work

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Prohibition doesn’t work. Not in alcohol. Not in marijuana. Human nature is just too natural for such prohibitions to work beyond the scale of individuals and families.

This is what the Oglala Sioux Tribe decided last week in a historic, and extremely close referendum at the infamous Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. For the first time in 124 years, and after months of intense campaigning, they decided to permit the sale of “firewater.” Why? Because bootlegged booze has created “some of the highest rates of alcoholism in Indian Country and alcoholism is often connected with the high rate of domestic abuse, suicide, birth defects and violent crime on the reservation.” This quote comes from the Rapid City Journal on Aug. 15, which headlined this story.

By legalizing sales, the tribe will have the power to bankrupt the predatory liquor stores that line the edge of the reservation; regulate consumption, especially for children and pregnant women; and raise tax revenue for programs dealing with substance abuse and fetal alcohol syndrome. The Journal article featured a great-grandmother as the primary caretaker for her great-grandchildren because her granddaughter is alcoholic. Nevertheless, she and 1,678 others voted to keep the reservation “dry” to prevent even worse conditions. Worse than what? Three generations out of commission instead of two? Luckily, a slight majority of 1,843 voters carried the day to create a “wet” reservation.

This was big news for me last week because I was visiting family in my hometown of Bemidji, Minn., which has a large population of Native Americans, many of whom still resemble the historic photographs of ethnologist Edward Curtis. The largest nearby reservation, Red Lake, remains dry, even though it hurts their casino revenues and has done little to restrict the social damage of alcohol.

The dry status of Red Lake echoes the 18th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which banned alcohol sales on the premise that society would benefit. The new wet status of Pine Ridge echoes the 21st Amendment, which repealed that law because the negative consequences outweighed the positive, most importantly the flagrant disregard for the rule of law by otherwise law-abiding citizens.

The Pine Ridge vote also echoes recent trends in marijuana legislation. Twenty states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana even though the federal government doesn’t recognize the benefit. Connecticut is among them. In fact, East Hartford is considering an enormous facility for growing medical weed. The community stands to benefit from the new jobs and taxable revenue. Connecticut and 16 other states have decriminalized possession even though pot remains illegal at the federal level. And two states, Washington and Colorado, have legalized adult possession. In fact, a pot festival was underway in Seattle when I wrote this column, and the police were handing out munchies instead of citations. Given these trends, it’s only a matter of time before the prohibition against marijuana is repealed nationally.

This will not come without social costs. As parent, I fear for the neurological consequences of heavy pot use on teenage brains. As a teacher, I fear for the work ethic of a rising generation. As a citizen, I fear for the loss of workplace efficiency, the higher incidence of workplace accidents, and for the associated costs that I will share as a taxpayer.

Obviously, there is no good solution at the government level. Prohibition creates more problems than it solves. Regulation is costly and onerous. The only good solution is personal choice.

Like most of my cohort, I have personally experienced the pleasures of alcohol and marijuana use, and have witnessed the dangers associated with their abuse. For me, the disadvantages of both substances outweigh their advantages. I’m better off without alcohol because it was cramping my style and putting me to sleep. And, I’m better off without dope because – when I dallied with it decades ago – – it distorted my reality and robbed me of my initiative.

Without my initiative, I’d be little more than a lotus-eater mooching off others.

22 Aug 2013

Incredible Impact of Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Special

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A little over a week ago, Dr. Sanjay Gupta aired a one hour CNN special on medical marijuana. The impact of his special and an op-ed that he wrote for CNN – where he apologized for his past opposition to medical marijuana – has been incredible!

In the run-up to Gupta’s CNN special, his op-ed made national news and was shared more than half a million times on Facebook. Just a few years ago, he came out against medical marijuana. Yet in his op-ed he expressed regret for not studying the issue more closely and for believing the government’s propaganda.

Dr. Gupta’s show also played a critical role in improving New Jersey’s medical marijuana law. A major focus of the special is a young girl who needs medical marijuana to relieve her constant, debilitating seizures. Coincidently, there is legislation under consideration in New Jersey to expand its medical marijuana law so that minors can access it. The issue was sympathetically covered by Gupta, and within days, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was being asked about the legislation. Just a few days later Christie committed to signing it.

The latest manifestation of Gupta’s impact came today when President Obama’s press secretary was asked whether Gupta’s change of heart has caused the president to re-examine his position on medical marijuana. As you might expect, Obama’s spokesman sidestepped the question, claiming he couldn’t respond because he hadn’t read Gupta’s column.

But Gupta – who was Obama’s first choice to be U.S. Surgeon General upon taking office in 2009 – has generated so much news that it’s hard to believe that folks at the White House haven’t followed it.

I’ve worked at the Drug Policy Alliance for 14 years – and more people, even folks who don’t follow drug policy, have asked me about the Sanjay Gupta special than almost anything else I’ve worked on over the past decade and a half. It is clear that Dr. Gupta’s work is changing hearts, minds and ultimately lives.

Tony Newman is the director of media relations at the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org)

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Tony Newman
Published: August 20, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

19 Aug 2013

Chris Christie Supports Allowing MMJ for Children

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New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Friday asked for changes in a medical marijuana bill to to ease access to the drug for ill children.

Christie signaled that he would sign the bill if the Legislature changed it to stipulate that edible forms of marijuana would be available only to qualified minors, and that a pediatrician and psychiatrist had to approve a child’s prescription.

“Today, I am making common sense recommendations to this legislation to ensure sick children receive the treatment their parents prefer, while maintaining appropriate safeguards,” Christie said in a statement.

Christie agreed to allow sick children access to forms of pot that can be eaten. The move is supported by parents worried that the dry-leaf and lozenge forms of the drug pose health concerns.

He also supported removing a limit on the number of marijuana strains that state dispensaries can provide. That would give patients, adults and children, a variety of marijuana strains to choose from; advocates say different strains carry different medicinal properties.

Christie’s decision came two days after he was confronted at a campaign stop by an epileptic girl’s father, who says the new bill would make it easier for her get a version of medical marijuana she needs.

“Please don’t let my daughter die,” parent Brian Wilson cried to the governor in a moment caught by television cameras.

Wilson’s 2-year-old daughter, Vivian, suffers a version of epilepsy called Dravet syndrome that can cause life-ending seizures. Wilson contends that a certain type of medical marijuana — one with high levels of a compound called CBD and low levels of THC, the chemical that gets pot users high — could help control her seizures.

Limited by law to providing only three strains, the state’s single currently operating dispensary does not offer the high-CBD marijuana that Wilson believes would help.

Christie, who is believed to be a contender in the 2016 presidential election, shot back at Wilson during their Wednesday encounter that “these are complicated issues.” Christie had been criticized by medical marijuana advocates for failing to act on the bill for nearly two months. He has raised concerns that adults could exploit a bill intended to help children.

“I know you think it’s simple and it’s not,” he told Wilson.

Wilson and his wife, Meghan, of Scotch Plains, faulted Christie in a statement Friday for deciding “to make it so difficult for parents, who are already enduring tremendous pain and heartache, to get approval for such a safe and simple medication.”

New Jersey Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat, echoed Wilson’s disappointment in Christie for the “extra burdens” his version of the bill would place on parents. But he said he was “pleased to see the governor open to allowing this program to move forward.”

New Jersey is one of 20 states that allow medical marijuana, but has among the most stringent restrictions, especially for young patients.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Benjamin Mueller
Published: August 17, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Times
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

16 Aug 2013

AP Exclusive: NYC Comptroller Liu wants Marijuana Legalized

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New York City Comptroller John Liu is proposing a historic overhaul of the city’s marijuana laws, believing that legalizing medical marijuana and allowing adults to possess an ounce of pot for recreational use would pump more than $400 million into the city’s coffers.

The sweeping change, which would put New York at the forefront of a growing national debate over use of the drug, calls for recreational marijuana to be regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco.

Liu, the city’s top financial officer who is also running for mayor, commissioned a report that finds that New York City has a $1.65 billion marijuana market. If a 20 percent excise tax and the standard 8.875 percent city sales tax is imposed on the pot sales, it would yield $400 million annually in revenue, Liu believes. Another $31 million could be saved a year in law enforcement and court costs.“It is economically and socially just to tax it,” Liu told the Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. “We can eliminate some of the criminal nature that surrounds the drug and obtain revenue from it.”

The comptroller’s plan, which likely faces stiff opposition from state lawmakers who would have to authorize it, calls for the state to oversee private businesses selling pot. Licenses would be required, fees would be charged, and using the drug in public or while driving would be prohibited.

Liu’s team calculated that 900,000 city pot smokers spend about $2,000 a year on the drug. He is calling for the revenue surge to be used to reduce tuition at the City University of New York for city residents.

Twenty states and the District of Columbia currently permit medicinal marijuana. Two states, Washington and Colorado, last year voted to allow recreational marijuana for adults.

Officials in both states predicted that the change would be create a surge in revenue — up to $60 million annually in Colorado alone, according to supporters there. But while it is too soon to evaluate the exact economic ramifications in those states, experts do believe that the city budget would be bolstered by a similar measure.

“Now, people selling the product are doing it under the table and aren’t paying any taxes on it,” said Carl Davis, Senior Analyst at the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy. “That would change. And, it stands to reason, people would also start legally producing it locally, so there would be economic benefits there too.”

One of the nation’s leading pro-marijuana industry groups applauded Liu’s proposal.

“We recognize that marijuana is better sold behind the counter than on the streets,” said Betty Aldworth, deputy director of the National Cannabis Industry Association.

But neither Liu nor any city official has the authority to decriminalize marijuana; that can only be done by a law that passes the state legislature and is then signed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo.

Cuomo has steadfastly opposed any decriminalization efforts and is seen as unlikely to waver from that stance, particularly as he approaches a re-election campaign next year. The Republicans who share majority control of the Senate have also opposed decriminalization proposals. Neither Cuomo nor the Senate GOP leadership would comment on Liu’s proposal.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg, whose support could sway minds in Albany, has also long opposed efforts to legalize marijuana. His top spokesman declined comment on Liu’s proposal.

Liu is currently placing fifth in Democratic mayoral polls.

Sal Alabanese, a longshot Democratic mayoral candidate, has also called for legalizing marijuana.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/ap-exclusive-nyc-comptroller-liu-wants-marijuana-legalized/2013/08/13/d95acebe-0491-11e3-bfc5-406b928603b2_story.html

13 Aug 2013

The End Of Pot Panic

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WRONG-ON-WEED CONSERVATIVES DON’T GET IT: CANADIANS WANT DRUG LAWS BASED
ON FACTS

On a late July cross-Canada tour, new Liberal leader Justin Trudeau made headlines when he declared the time had come to legalize marijuana. “Listen, marijuana is not a health food supplement; it’s not great for you,” Trudeau told reporters on July 25. “But I did a lot of listening, a lot of reading, and a lot of paying attention to the very serious studies that have come out. And I realize that going the road of legalization is actually a responsible thing to look at and to do.”

The Harper Conservatives quickly attacked, stating in a press release that “drugs are illegal because of the harmful effect they have on users and society. We will continue protecting the interests of families across the country.”

To bolster their “tough on crime” position the Cons quoted several law enforcement officials on the harmful effects of cannabis. Other critics chimed in too. But plenty of people voiced support for Trudeau’s stance. And pundits were divided on the political repercussions of the move.

At first glance, legalization does seem to go against the “law and order” tenor of our times. In the Conservative press release, former RCMP assistant commissioner Fraser Macrae said “Cannabis is a currency for organized crime.” It doesn’t get much scarier than that, and a sizeable chunk of credulous Con supporters will likely go to their graves believing the propaganda they’ve been fed that marijuana is an evil on par with heroin, crack cocaine and crystal meth.

But in broader society, attitudes are changing.

Driven by the recognition that it’s marijuana’s very status as a black-market drug that permits it, like alcohol was in the 1920s, to be a cash cow for gangsters, people are increasingly persuaded that the “War on Drugs” as it relates to marijuana has been an abysmal failure. Even from a health perspective, research is showing that cannabis, far from being a lung cancer-inducing, brain cell-destroying menace, actually yields many benefits, including relief from stress, pain, nausea and anxiety.

As word spreads, and the number of Canadians with first-hand knowledge of pot grows from generation to generation, the electoral tide is shifting. In one 2012 poll, 57 per cent of Canadians supported legalization and 66 per cent said they expected it to happen in the next 10 years. In last November’s U.S. elections, Washington State and Colorado voted to legalize pot, and a group called Sensible BC is currently undertaking a petition drive to force a similar vote in B.C. in 2014.

With momentum growing to legalize pot, Trudeau’s position arguably could be a vote-getter in the 2015 federal election.

Not that the Liberals are the only party open to marijuana reform.

“The NDP’s position has been consistent since the early ’70s when the LeDain Commission suggested that Canada should move to decriminalize marijuana,” says Regina defence lawyer Noah Evanchuk, who ran for the NDP in the 2011 election. “Since the time of Tommy Douglas and David Lewis that’s a position the NDP has supported.”

Under s. 91 of the Constitution, the federal government has jurisdiction over criminal matters. Were the feds to decriminalize marijuana, says Evanchuk, it would enter a grey area constitutionally. The federal government and the provinces would have to work together to set up a regulatory framework.

“What the NDP is saying is we need to bring in medical professionals, members of the bar from the crown and defence, peace officers, mental health officials, to ensure that we do things in a prudent way as was done with other mind-altering substances like [alcohol and cigarettes],” says Evanchuk.

If that thought’s abhorrent to you, keep in mind that a regulatory framework already exists for marijuana that, if you jump through the proper hurdles, permits you to both grow and consume it.

“I always have to remind people that marijuana already is legal in Canada,” says Tim Selenski, a long-time Regina advocate for medicinal marijuana who runs a head shop and online dispensary. “I’ve been growing for over 10 years with a licence that allows me to do so. So when cops pull me over with cannabis, which has been several times, I don’t get arrested. But you need a licence.”

Under current Saskatchewan College of Physicians & Surgeons guidelines, doctors are required to meet stringent requirements like trying three alternative treatments ( often including addictive opiates ) before signing a patient’s application to Health Canada to legally obtain cannabis.

For many, the hassle isn’t worth it. But Selenski has recruited over 60 doctors who believe in marijuana’s therapeutic benefits. So that hurdle’s been largely overcome. And the feds are about to introduce new regulations that will make it even easier for doctors to prescribe cannabis.

“There’ll be no more arbitrary Health Canada forms,” says Selenski. “It’ll be pretty much like writing a [normal prescription].”

Within the next five years, Selenski estimates 300,000 Canadians will be legally licensed to possess pot. Regulations on the supply side are also changing. Concerned that individual growers were abusing the terms of their licence and over-producing for the black market, the feds are moving to a system of large-scale operators.

“They’re opening the door to big farmers,” says Selenski. “I’m applying for one of the commercial contracts. We have a $3.5 million building that we’re trying to light up.”

So with pot essentially legal anyway, why bother going through the formality of legalizing it? Well, the unfortunate reality is that when people are arrested and convicted for pot possession it still screws up your life.

“A criminal record of any kind carries with it severe repercussions,” says Evanchuk. “It’s one of the last safe forms of discrimination for which human rights legislation doesn’t apply, whether it’s trying to travel, particularly to the U.S., or applying for a job where you’re bondable, or a job with the civil service. So a criminal conviction, especially for a drug-related offence, sticks with you.”

Spurred by the passage of the Safe Streets & Communities Act in 2009, arrests for pot possession have jumped 41 per cent since 2006. In a June article titled “Why It’s Time To Legalize Marijuana”, Maclean’s reported that in 2011, 69 per cent of all drug charges were tied to pot.

That’s 78,000 in total for possession, cultivation and trafficking.

Arrest rates vary, too, from community to community, depending on police policy. In Vancouver, for instance, it was 30 per 100,000 people in 2011, while in Tofino it was 588.

That’s not the only inequity, says Evanchuk.

“There’s also a disparity in the type of prosecution based on ethnic status for First Nations people and socio-economic status. So if you’re lower income you’re more likely to be prosecuted and receive a criminal record. And although it’s not common, people in Saskatchewan do receive jail sentences for simple possession.”

In 2003, the Chretien government introduced a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession. Ten years later, the debate rages on.

But the direction society is moving is clear, says Selenski.

“We have cannabinoids in our body. The same thing that marijuana produces, we produce in our bodies. So for them to ban it because of these intoxicants, well=C2=85 you might as well ban people. It doesn’t ma ke any friggin’ sense. And I think people are finally starting to realize this.”

Source: Planet S (CN SN)
Copyright: 2013 Hullabaloo Publishing Ltd.
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.planetsmag.com/
Author: Gregory Beatty

11 Aug 2013

Do Medical-Marijuana Laws Save Lives on The Road?

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As legal marijuana spreads across America, mostly for medical use, anxiety about its side effects is spreading with it: What other changes will it bring? Campaigns against loosening the law tend to focus on its unknown and possibly dangerous repercussions—a surge in pot smoking, perhaps opening the door to increased use of harder drugs and to associated spikes in crime and other societal ills.

Amid the heated debate, a small amount of hard data is starting to emerge. And among the most intriguing findings is a recent study suggesting that Massachusetts could enjoy an unexpected boon from last November’s vote to legalize medical marijuana: fewer deaths on our roads and highways.

A team of economists who specialize in health and risk behaviors looked at the link between marijuana laws and traffic deaths, and found that roadway fatalities dropped significantly in states after they legalized medical marijuana. On average, deaths dropped 8 to 11 percent in the first full year after the law went into effect, and fell 10 to 13 percent by year four. Five years out, the results grew more varied, and faded in some cases.

The study doesn’t include Massachusetts, whose medical-marijuana law just went into effect in May, well after the researchers had finished collecting and analyzing their data. But applied to Massachusetts’ most recent traffic fatality statistics, the study’s findings would roughly translate to about 35 lives saved per year.

The notion that loosening the restrictions on a drug—one that’s hardly known for improving reaction times—might actually improve traffic safety is surprising on the face of it, and the researchers are careful to say that there’s nothing safe about driving under the influence of marijuana. But as they try to unpack what might be making the difference, it is becoming clear that the knowledge emerging from America’s new experiments with marijuana law could significantly change the public conversation—giving us new data about the effects of drugs on society, and landing a familiar debate on unfamiliar new ground.

For more than four decades, starting in 1970, a complete prohibition on pot was the law of the land, both federally and in every state. But in 1996, California cracked the door to legalization by allowing medical marijuana, and 19 states have followed. Two states, Colorado and Washington, have fully legalized marijuana for recreational use, both last year. Meanwhile, it remains illegal under federal law to buy, sell, use, or possess pot anywhere, in any amount.

The state-level legalization trend has been so rapid that there are thus far relatively few definitive studies on its effects. For instance, while medical marijuana laws seem to increase pot smoking generally, there are conflicting findings over whether it increases use among teenagers. A scattering of contradictory, often localized, studies have also been done on changes after legalization in crime, emergency room visits, and the use of other drugs. Obviously, each of these categories is complicated, with numerous factors at work.

Daniel Rees, a University of Colorado economist, and his colleagues decided to look at one major but narrow public-health statistic: state-by-state data on traffic fatalities compiled by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. They gathered the numbers and controlled for other factors, such as the overall nationwide decline in traffic deaths, and states individually lowering their legal blood-alcohol limits. It didn’t take long to see a pattern: Medical marijuana laws coincided with less roadway carnage.

The bulk of the team’s work, published this spring in the Journal of Law and Economics, was spent trying to figure out why. After parsing the statistics, the researchers themselves chalk the drop in deaths up to “substitution”—the idea that more pot-smoking means less booze-swilling. (It is assumed by most drug researchers that some medical marijuana leaks into the general population, so it’s not just patients who have more access to the drug.) The counter-argument, often used as a case against legalization, is that cannabis and alcohol are “complementary,” meaning that increased use of one spurs more consumption of the other. Once again, studies of this issue have conflicting results, because it’s tough to get precise consumer data about an illegal product. But Rees and his team say a deeper analysis of their data points to lower alcohol use as the likely mechanism for the drop in traffic fatalities.

For one thing, medical marijuana laws had a smaller impact on the number of deaths in crashes where alcohol was not a factor—a 7 percent drop on average, compared to a 13 percent drop in deaths where alcohol was implicated. In addition, the drop in deaths was more robust among young adults (between 20 and 40), especially young men, and it was stronger on nights and weekends. All of that lines up with what’s known about drinking and driving.

When it comes to traffic safety, says Rees, “the uncomfortable conclusion is that you’d rather have young adults smoking marijuana instead of drinking alcohol. Even I’m uncomfortable with it. But that’s where the logic takes us.”

The researchers offer two possible explanations for why more marijuana use could lead to less drunken driving. One is that pot smoking takes place in different circumstances than drinking. Drinking is legal, and drinks are served in many places that can only be reached by car. People drink at bars, restaurants, ball games, picnics, concerts, and just about any adult social gathering; then they drive home. Because recreational marijuana is still illegal in all but two states, it’s used in a much less open range of environments. In other words, people go out and drink, but stoners tend to stay home. (This is one factor that may start to change if legalization takes hold: In early 2013, the first “pot bars” opened in Colorado and Washington.)

The other possible explanation is straightforward, if definitely not something you’re likely to hear from your local chapter of DARE: It could be that pot availability leads to drunk drivers being replaced with stoned drivers, and that stoned drivers are, on average, safer. In fact, while studies indicate that pot is just as bad as alcohol for distance perception, reaction time, and hand-eye coordination, it appears to be less of a danger in simulated and real-world driving tests. Driving high is by no means safe: A meta-analysis by the British Medical Journal early in 2012 found that drivers who were high on marijuana had nearly double the risk of a serious crash compared to sober counterparts. But driving drunk is worse, causing a tenfold increase in accident risk for drivers with a blood-alcohol concentration at the legal limit of 0.08, or a forty-eightfold increase at the old legal limit of 0.1.

The researchers also point out that drivers under the influence of marijuana may “engage in compensatory behaviors” such as driving slowly, avoiding sudden, risky maneuvers, and staying well behind the car in front of them. Perhaps they are just more cautious than a drunk person would be, even though they are still impaired.

Marijuana legalization advocates may be eager to trumpet these results, but the research case is far from closed. Rosalie Pacula, an economist at the RAND Corporation specializing in drug policy research, says medical marijuana laws are far too varied from state to state to draw any broad conclusions about the effects of fuller legalization.

(In Massachusetts, the law’s patient-registration requirement places it on the stricter side, though its allowance for up to 35 dispensaries suggests fairly wide distribution.)

In work she’s presented at academic conferences but has yet to publish, Pacula reanalyzed the same crash incident data and found that the drop in traffic deaths was strongest in states that restrict spillover into recreational use by requiring patients to sign on to a state registry, as Massachusetts does. This muddies the case for “substitution,” since presumably those effects would be strongest when pot was most easily obtained. Along the same lines, Pacula’s analysis found that the decline in deaths was offset when marijuana dispensaries were allowed to operate and advertise their services openly under state law.

“I think they have a really interesting finding,” Pacula says. “But this is just the tip of the iceberg. It’s not, aha, we have it!”

What does seem clear is that as more data become available and pot prohibitions continue to fall, America’s approach to marijuana policy will have to get a lot more complicated than “just say no.” The legality of alcohol means that we have both solid information and precise laws about drinking and driving; now, as better data starts to trickle in about marijuana, what we learn will no doubt influence a variety of health and safety measures.

Rees and his collaborators continue to look at the effects of medical marijuana laws. In a forthcoming paper for the American Journal of Public Health, they have found correlations between medical marijuana laws and declines in suicides, and they’re also looking into a range of other effects.

Even if these results support the substitution theory argued in their traffic fatality study, with marijuana substituting for alcohol and perhaps mitigating some of its harmful effects, they acknowledge that there may be other social problems that pot makes worse than booze ever did. “It’s a possibility,” says Mark Anderson, a Montana State University economist and Rees’s primary collaborator on the marijuana studies. “I think that’s where we let the data tell us what’s going on.”

The one certainty is that drug policy is rife with tradeoffs. As we learn more about the experience of states that relax marijuana restrictions, the fallout will certainly be more complicated than just “good” or “bad.” America’s public experiment with looser drug laws has only just begun to tell us what we’ll need to know.

Chris Berdik is a journalist in Boston. His book, “Mind Over Mind,” was published in 2012 by Current, an imprint of Penguin.

Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Author: Chris Berdik
Published: August 9, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.boston.com/globe/

8 Aug 2013

Fla. Medical Marijuana Petition Pushes For 2014

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Michael Derigo arrived home from a trip to the grocery store June 25 to find half a dozen police cars surrounding his mobile home in Gibsonton. A neighbor had complained about his marijuana plants.

Since he was diagnosed with AIDS in 2004 and started on drugs to suppress it, Derigo, 59, has grown marijuana plants and juiced the leaves to drink. Unlike smoking dried leaves, he said, it doesn’t get him high.

“I’ve been able to keep my weight on where I’ve seen others just shrivel up and die,” he said.

Derigo has pleaded not guilty to possessing and manufacturing marijuana. His lawyer, Michael Minardi of Stuart, who specializes in such cases, plans a medical necessity defense.

“The war on drugs is a war on the American people,” Derigo said. “People sometimes do less time for murder than for marijuana.”

Cases such as his have led to a new petition drive to put a proposal on the 2014 ballot to legalize medical use of marijuana in Florida.

Similar efforts have failed before, but this one is backed by a new level of legal and political muscle — mainly from trial lawyer John Morgan of the Morgan & Morgan firm, a major Democratic political fundraiser. With his help, the United for Care campaign group has crafted a ballot proposal and hired petition gatherers.

Asked how much he’s willing to spend, Morgan, who’s known for seven-figure contributions to charitable and political causes, said simply, “As much as it takes.”

He plans to start running radio ads later this year; newspaper stories on the proposal have already drawn scores of volunteers, he said.

But the proposal could face high-powered opposition, possibly involving Republican political fundraiser, shopping center magnate and former ambassador Mel Sembler of St. Petersburg.

Sembler and his wife, Betty, are the founders of the charitable Drug Free America Foundation and a related public education group, Save Our Society from Drugs, which can act in political causes.

Calvina Fay, executive director of Drug Free America, said discussions are starting on legal and political strategies against the initiative, but she didn’t want to go into details.

Asked whether he’ll be involved, Sembler would say only that if an opposition group “gets organized, I’ll make that decision then.” Betty Sembler couldn’t be reached for comment.

Morgan has a personal interest in the campaign.

His brother Tim, now 55, is a quadriplegic as result of an accident when he was a teenager and uses marijuana to control muscle spasms. Their father, who had esophageal cancer and emphysema, used it for nausea before his death.

His father “was just in agony, nauseated, sick,” Morgan said. “He was one of these guys who said, ‘Don’t smoke, don’t do drugs,’ but Tim said try it. Overnight he was able to sit up and eat meals. He was able to enjoy life. It made his last days more restful and calm.”

Controlling the spasms enables Tim to work for Morgan’s firm, he added.

“This isn’t Cheech and Chong,” Morgan said. “This is people who have ALS, bone cancer where the pain is unrelenting, MS where their body is withering away. It wasn’t party lights and strobe music with my dad and brother. It was just peace and lack of pain.”

Ben Pollara, a veteran South Florida Democratic political strategist prominent in the Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama presidential campaigns and in Alex Sink’s 2010 gubernatorialrun, heads United for Care.

He and Morgan said their proposal is crafted to allow only tightly controlled, medically prescribed uses of marijuana, prohibiting home growing and and without contributing to recreational use — which critics say has happened in other states.

The potential for abuse will be a subject of debate in a referendum campaign, promised Fay. But before that can happen, the organizers face a tight deadline to get the proposal on the ballot. They need petition signatures equal to 8 percent of the 2012 presidential election vote, or 683,149, verified by local elections supervisors by Feb. 1. Allowing for invalid signatures and time for verification, that means getting nearly 1 million by early January, Pollara said.

Paid petition gatherers charge $3 per signature, but volunteers will supply some, Morgan said.

Another hurdle is state Supreme Court approval of the amendment.

Under the state Constitution, amendments proposed by citizen petitions, unlike those proposed by the state Legislature, must deal with a single subject. The court interprets that requirement strictly and has often used it to throw out proposed amendments.

The two-page marijuana amendment, which can be viewed at the www.unitedforcare.org, lists medical conditions for which marijuana may be prescribed; exempts it from mandatory insurance coverage; requires that the state Department of Health regulate dispensaries providing marijuana and related products; and sets up a system of state identification cards for prescribed users and their designated caregivers.

Pollara said he hopes to have 10 percent of the necessary signatures — the number required for Supreme Court review — in about a month.

He and Morgan took over a smaller-scale effort launched by a citizen activist, Kim Russell of Orlando, but decided to replace the amendment the group was pushing, ditch 30,000 signatures, and start from scratch.

“When we first met, John said this was not going to be a free-for-all, defacto legalization — it has to be a tightly controlled situation,” Pollara said.

They hired University of Florida law school professor Jon Mills, a former state House speaker whom Morgan called “the best constitutional lawyer in the state,” to rework the amendment with an eye toward Supreme Court approval.

Using money left over from a political committee he ran last year, Pollara commissioned a poll that found support for the measure topped 60 percent, Florida’s threshhold to pass a constitutional amendment.

An organized campaign could cut that level of support, but it would require substantial spending for advertising and voter outreach, said Fred Piccolo, a Republican political strategist.

Fay, with Drug Free America, said there will be a legal challenge to the wording before the Supreme Court and a campaign against the measure if it gets on the ballot.

She called medical marijuana “a scam” intended to lead to legalization for recreational use.

It’s dangerous, she contended, because users, already sick, risk ingesting an unregulated substance subject to contamination whose components and effects haven’t been rigorously studied.

“Just because somebody says it makes them feel good, where do we draw the line? Crack cocaine?” Fay said. “We once had people peddling crude oil as a medicine in this country. Think of Laetrile — it was a disaster,” she said, speaking of the cancer treatment banned as poisonous in most states.

There’s already an FDA-approved drug that includes the most sought after ingredient in marijuana, tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, Fay noted.

But advocates say this drug is a poor substitute, and other ingredients, notably cannabidiol, or CBD, provide some of the most important benefits with no psychoactive effect. Some grow strains rich with CBD but low in THC.

“We get emails from people all the time saying they were prescribed Marinol but couldn’t afford it, or it gets them stoned, whereas one or two puffs of marijuana doesn’t get them stoned and alleviates the symptoms,” Pollara said.

Marijuana user Derigo said his method of juicing the leaves calms nausea that would otherwise prevent him from eating, which would start the “downward spiral” of “AIDS wasting syndrome.” It also eases pain from nerve damage caused by shingles that struck while his immune system was depressed.

Formerly a quality control engineer, Derigo hasn’t worked for several years. He can’t afford the synthetic opiates prescribed at pain clinics, even if he wanted to take them, and the county health department, which provides his AIDS treatment, doesn’t give him anything effective for the nausea, he said.

Minardi, his lawyer, said he has handled about a dozen medical marijuana cases and has half a dozen pending. Prosecutors recently dropped charges against one, Robert Jordan of Parrish, charged with growing marijuana for his wife, who’s confined to a wheelchair with ALS.

Nearly all his marijuana clients are over age 50.

There have been suggestions that Morgan, who hopes to back former Gov. Charlie Crist in a 2014 race against Gov. Rick Scott, hopes the amendment campaign will spur turnout of young and liberal voters likely to oppose Scott.

In response, Morgan said, “I started thinking about this way before I knew that (Crist) would be in this position. I don’t think medical marijuana is going to motivate an 18-year-old. Legalizing it might.”

Morgan is right, according to officials with the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group for legal use of marijuana that has participated in several medical use and legalization campaigns.

“Legalization initiatives do seem to have an impact on young voter turnout, at least based on exit poll studies, but we haven’t seen the same dynamic on medical marijuana issues,” said political director Steve Fox.

A 2012 study found “a significant boost” in youth turnout in elections on legalization measures in Colorado in 2000 and Oregon and Washington in 1998, he said, but there’s been no indication of such an effect in the 2010 vote in Arizona on medical use. It passed by a razor-thin margin, 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: William March, The Tampa Tribune
Published: August 5, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

5 Aug 2013

Anti-Pot Campaigns Face New Obstacle

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Gabrielle Abesamis said she and her classmates at Niles West High School in Skokie receive plenty of information about marijuana from their health teachers, but when it comes to using the drug, some of her peers shrug off the lessons and just say YOLO — “You Only Live Once.”

With medical marijuana now encoded into Illinois law, she said, that attitude will only strengthen. “Even though it’s for medical use, I don’t think that matters to them,” said Abesamis, 17. “The fact that it’s legal for some people to possess it, they feel it’s OK for them to have it too.”

Illinois on Thursday became the 20th state to legalize pot for some medical patients, and although lawmakers say the rules will be among the toughest in the nation, educators and treatment experts worry that putting a partial stamp of approval on a once-forbidden drug will send a confusing message to young people.

“What happens with teenagers is (that) they begin to have that medicine-versus-drug argument,” said Andy Duran of Linking Efforts Against Drugs, an educational group based in Lake Forest. “They begin to think it’s not harmful or it’s not addictive because it’s a medicine.”

Teen views about the risks of marijuana have been easing for more than 20 years, according to the University of Michigan’s authoritative Monitoring the Future study. In 1991, about 4 in 5 high school seniors believed that people put themselves at great risk by smoking pot regularly. In 2012, fewer than half shared that opinion.

Attitudes appear even more casual around Chicago. The Illinois Youth Survey, which polls students about alcohol, tobacco and drug use, found that only a third of suburban teens and a quarter of those in the city believed that smoking pot once or twice a week brought great risk.

“Already, adolescents perceive marijuana to be not harmful, so I don’t know that we’re in a position where they could perceive it to be less harmful,” said Pamela Rodriguez of TASC, or Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities, which connects teens coming from juvenile court with drug treatment specialists.

She said the new marijuana law might actually prompt productive discussions about the proper use of medications. The abuse of prescription drugs is another major issue among her clientele, she said, and talking about medical pot could be a way to address the risks that any medication can pose.

The Robert Crown Center for Health Education in Hinsdale teaches thousands of children about drugs each year, and Margo Schmitt, the center’s director of education and evaluation, said its science-based presentations won’t change with the new law.

“We have actually been getting a lot of questions about it, especially this last spring,” Schmitt said. “Many of the kids have family in other states that have had something to do with (liberalized marijuana laws), so we get a lot of questions. We always answer them scientifically.”

Frank Pegueros, president of the international D.A.R.E. program, based in Los Angeles, said it has not made substantive changes to its anti-drug lessons, taught by police officers, even as states have relaxed their laws on pot.

“The fact that states have legalized marijuana for some purposes really calls for additional prevention education … because the fact is, the greater prevalence of the substance, the more accessible it is to minors,” he said.

Kate Mahoney of PEER Services, which provides drug education and treatment in Evanston and Glenview, said teens have long pointed to the medical use of marijuana to excuse their own pot smoking. Her response, she said, has been to say that she hopes they’ll never have a condition like cancer that might justify such a prescription.

“It is really challenging, because the truth is that most teens really do best with clear black-and-white boundaries,” she said. “We have muddied the waters.”

Dr. Thomas Wright, chief medical officer at the Rosecrance treatment center in Rockford, said he will try to draw parallels between marijuana and other legal substances.

“Just because it’s not illegal doesn’t mean it’s going to be good for you,” he said. “It’ll just join the ranks of alcohol and tobacco — two of the deadliest and most addictive drugs we have.”

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Author: John Keilman and Lisa Black, Chicago Tribune Reporters
Published: August 4, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

3 Aug 2013

Public MJ Use is Illegal but Seldom Punished

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Denver police have written more tickets for public marijuana use so far this year than in all of 2012, but the crime is rarely punished, according to new statistics from the city. Though Colorado voters in November legalized marijuana use by adults, consuming marijuana in public remains illegal, under both state law and Denver municipal ordinance. It brings a $100 fine under the state law.

According to figures provided by the Denver Department of Safety, police in the city wrote just 20 tickets for public marijuana consumption during the first half of 2013. Fifteen of those tickets came in May and June. Officers wrote only eight tickets in all of 2012, all but one of those pre-legalization.

“Nothing has changed for us policy-wise,” Denver police spokesman John White said. “If individuals are observed consuming marijuana in public, they will be cited.”

It’s difficult to determine whether public pot use has actually increased. There have been no scientific studies about public marijuana use in Denver, either pre- or post-legalization.

But people concerned about the impacts of marijuana legalization say, anecdotally, they have noticed a significant increase in open marijuana consumption.

“We’ve heard from a lot of people in the community that they’re seeing more and more of that,” said Diane Carlson, an organizer for the group Smart Colorado.

Carlson said she saw people smoking marijuana at the Denver Zoo’s Zoo Lights event in December as children walked nearby. Some visitors to the city also say public marijuana use is a problem in Denver, with one Chicago resident writing in a letter to The Denver Post that he and his family observed pot smoking “literally every block” on the 16th Street Mall.

Visit Denver spokesman Rich Grant said the tourism office has received several letters from visitors dismayed at the public pot smoking they saw in the city. But Grant said the number of those letters isn’t any more than letters Visit Denver receives on other topics. The office even receives letters from people concerned that — with bans on public consumption and prohibitions on marijuana use at many hotels — they won’t have a place to puff.

“At this point, nobody really knows what it’s going to be like or a lot of the details,” Grant said.

Snipped

Complete Article: http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ci_23779561/

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: John Ingold, The Denver Post
Published: August 2, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Contact: [email protected]

31 Jul 2013

D.C. Records its First Legal Pot Deal in 75 Years

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

The 15-year struggle to legalize medical marijuana in the District ended like this: A 51-year-old Northwest resident entered a North Capitol Street rowhouse Monday evening and emerged 90 minutes later with slightly less than a half-ounce of street-legal, high-grade, D.C.-grown cannabis.

Shortly before 6 p.m., Alonzo walked into the high-security sales room of the Capital City Care dispensary with two store employees to consummate the city’s first legal marijuana deal in at least 75 years. He purchased about $250 worth of three strains of cannabis.

“It’s a beautiful natural product that is from rain, sun and soil,” Alonzo said, wearing a dark T-shirt with a green logo of a cannabis leaf over a medical cross. “Mother Nature doesn’t make mistakes.”

Alonzo agreed to share his experiences navigating the District’s medical marijuana system on the condition that he be identified only by his middle name, concerned that public knowledge of his medical marijuana use could prove sensitive at work.

Capital City Care’s sales Monday to two patients represent the culmination of a fight that dates to the mid-1990s, when HIV/AIDS activists first fought to put medical marijuana on the citywide ballot. Nearly 70 percent of voters approved a 1998 legalization initiative, but Congress intervened for more than a decade, preventing the implementation of a medical marijuana program.

After Congress lifted its restrictions in 2009, the District government started a slow process to set up a strict regulatory and licensing regime limited to city residents with specific chronic illnesses, with lawmakers and city officials saying they were moving deliberately to reduce the risk of future federal intervention.

Initial hopes that cannabis could be made available to patients in late 2010 gave way to early 2011 and then mid-2012 as the city moved through the painstaking and politically sensitive process of licensing marijuana growers and retailers, as well as certifying the doctors who would recommend the medicine and patients who would consume it.

Alonzo, who is HIV-positive, said he had been following the rollout of the medical marijuana program since the beginning of the year. The combination of antiviral drugs he takes to manage his infection, Alonzo said, causes him frequent insomnia and occasional difficulty in swallowing and digesting.

Marijuana, he said, was not initially his preferred therapy. “Like many people, I certainly had my fair share in college, but then I really left it alone for a long time,” he said. A mid-1990s trip to Amsterdam with his former partner, who had a more advanced HIV infection, demonstrated how cannabis could help address the virus’s symptoms and the side effects of the drugs used to treat them.

In March, Alonzo approached his doctor about seeking a marijuana recommendation.

“He asked why, and I outlined my challenges,” he said. “I really don’t want to have a prescription drug dependency, and they weren’t working for the insomnia. He was agreeable to it. And then the long wait.”

To secure his first dose, Alonzo had to visit his doctor, who had to request recommendation forms from the health department, which then processed the forms and issued him a patient card.

Although the city’s medical marijuana program has started, it remains a slow start.

D.C. Health Department spokeswoman Najma Roberts said that as of Monday, only nine patients have obtained a city-issued medical marijuana card. About 20 doctors, she said, have requested forms from the city allowing them to recommend cannabis to their patients.

Capital City Care, the first of three planned District dispensaries to secure an operating license, offers four strains of medical cannabis, priced from $380 to $440 an ounce, grown by Northeast-based Holistic Remedies. More varieties will be offered once two other cultivation centers — including Capital City Care’s own — produce their first salable harvest, said Scott Morgan, a spokesman for Capital City Care.

Morgan said he was not aware of any health insurers willing to cover medical marijuana purchases. The prices, he said, reflect the highly regulated nature of the District’s system and the firm’s investment in its dispensary and growing operations.

Senior citizens, veterans and low-income patients are eligible for discounts of 10 to 15 percent, he said.

“After a couple of years of hard work, it’s exciting to open our doors and serve the patients our facility is really for,” Morgan said. “This is a moment we’ve all been looking forward to for a long time.”

Alonzo opted for the Blue Dream, Jack Herer and Master Kush strains and, to consume it, a $120 Magic Flight vaporizer.

The StickyGuide, a Web site reviewing medical marijuana strains and dispensaries, said Blue Dream “is helpful for reducing pain and stress while maintaining energy levels” and offers a flavor “reminiscent of hash with a subtle hint of blueberry underneath.” Master Kush, the site says, is a “classic indica-dominant strain” whose characteristics include “helping [to] promote relaxation and assisting with sleep.”

Wayne Turner, one of the leaders of the 1998 initiative effort, called Monday’s sales “the end of the beginning.”

“It’s taken us 15 years to get to this point,” he said, adding that the program had much left to prove. “We can do this. We can do this right. The world isn’t going to come to an end. People are going to have access to something that really is going to help them, really help them ease their suffering.”

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Mike DeBonis
Published: July 29, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

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