Marijuana Legalization

Montana voters will decide on Nov. 6 whether to keep the Legislature’s medical marijuana law that effectively repealed the 2004 voter-enacted law.

Between now and Election Day, additional restrictions from Senate Bill 423 may take effect. Last week, the Montana Supreme Court overturned a District Court judge’s ruling that certain provisions of SB423 violated rights guaranteed by the Montana Constitution. Helena District Judge Jim Reynolds issued a preliminary injunction last year, finding that the new law’s restrictions on medical marijuana providers and users amounted to unconstitutional infringement on citizens’ rights to privacy, to health care and to seek employment (as medical marijuana providers).

In overturning Reynolds’ ruling, the Supreme Court said there is no constitutional right to use marijuana or to sell it.

The 2011 Legislature acted because the voter-approved medical marijuana law was being exploited by a growing number of marijuana suppliers who encouraged people to get state medical marijuana cards. The number of cards issued grew tenfold within three years so that by the time the 2011 Legislature passed SB423, the state had nearly 30,000 registered medical marijuana users and 4,800 suppliers. Medical marijuana storefronts had sprouted along busy streets in Billing and other cities.

What had been promoted in 2004 as a compassionate law to allow seriously ill Montanans to legally access a drug that relieved their pain, glaucoma or nausea was transforming quickly into a marijuana-for-the-masses business.

The 2011 Legislature didn’t act on medical marijuana reform proposals from its interim committee. Instead, SB423 was cobbled together in the latter half of the 90-day session with less public input than the interim committee proposals had received.

Storefronts Shut Down

However, the new law has been effective at reining in legal marijuana suppliers and users. The law also authorized local governments to restrict medical marijuana storefronts, which Billings, Yellowstone County and other jurisdictions have since done. The law narrowed eligibility for medical marijuana cards and restricted the business of supplying card holders.

By August, the number of registered card holders had dropped to 8,849, registered suppliers numbered 399 and doctors recommending marijuana numbered 225. Back in December 2008, there had been 1,577 cardholders and 465 suppliers.

The Supreme Court decision allows the state to enforce a previously blocked provision in the new law that forbids legal suppliers from charging for marijuana. That change is likely to further reduce the number of legal suppliers and card holders.

The Legislature’s repeal of a voter-enacted law is troubling in its disregard of the people’s directive in 2004. However, the initiative proponents weren’t advertising “cannabis caravans,” medical marijuana shops a few blocks from schools or thousands of new users each month.

State-Federal Conflict

In his 12-page dissent from the majority medical marijuana opinion last week, Justice James C. Nelson said the state court simply should have dismissed the challenge to SB423 rather than sending it back to Reynolds.

“Montana’s medical marijuana laws, in effect, purport to make legal conduct that is violative of the federal Controlled Substances Act,” Nelson wrote. “That Montana’s courts have become complicit in this endeavor (by taking up questions regarding the interpretation of Montana’s medical marijuana laws in the absence of an actual underlying criminal prosecution) is shocking.”

Under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution, Nelson said, state law must give way to federal law “where compliance with both federal and state regulations is a physical impossibility.” If the illegality of marijuana is to be changed, Nelson said, Congress will have to change it first.

Nelson makes a good point: Regardless of what Montana voters decide in November, medical marijuana will remain risky for users and hazy for law enforcement.

Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Published: September 16, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Billings Gazette
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.billingsgazette.com/

Nine former heads of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration urged Attorney General Eric Holder on Friday to take a stand against possible legalization of recreational marijuana in three western states, saying silence would convey acceptance.

The former officials said in a letter sent on Friday that legalization would pose a direct conflict with federal law, indicating there would be a clash between the states and the federal government on the issue.

Voters in Colorado, Washington state and Oregon are due to decide in November whether to legalize marijuana for recreational use and to regulate and tax its sale.

“To continue to remain silent conveys to the American public and the global community a tacit acceptance of these dangerous initiatives,” they said in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by Reuters. A spokeswoman for Holder declined to comment on the letter.

The letter is similar to one they sent Holder in 2010 urging him to oppose a recreational pot legalization ballot measure in California. It was defeated with 53.5 percent of voters rejecting it.

Holder opposed the California measure before the vote, warning that U.S. officials would enforce federal laws against marijuana in California despite any state legalization.

Kevin Sabet, a former senior adviser on marijuana issues to President Barack Obama’s administration, said he would not be surprised if Holder took that same position again.

“Essentially, a state vote in favor of legalization is a moot point since federal laws would be, in (Holder’s) own words (from 2010), ‘vigorously enforced,’” Sabet said. “I can’t imagine a scenario where the Feds would sit back and do nothing.”

Obama administration officials have until now said little about the upcoming ballot measures, although the federal government has cracked down on medical cannabis dispensaries in several states by raiding them and threatening legal action.

Public Support

In recent years polls have shown growing national support for decriminalizing marijuana. In May, an Angus Reid survey showed 52 percent of those polled expressed support for legalizing pot. The poll of 1,017 respondents had a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

Gallup saw support hit 50 percent last year, the highest number the organization had ever measured on the question.

In the swing state of Colorado, the marijuana measure with its potential to bring out young voters is seen as potentially influencing votes for president. Tom Jensen of Public Policy Polling said earlier this year that marijuana “could be a difference maker” in the state.

The nine signatories to Friday’s letter included John Bartels, who ran the DEA from 1973 to 1975, and Karen Tandy, who was in charge from 2003 to 2007.

Tom Constantine, who was in charge of the DEA from 1994 to 1999 and also signed the letter, said the former administrators hoped it would send a message to voters and alter the public debate.

He said the letter had been sent so “voters would know in all fairness that no matter what they vote on in Colorado or wherever it is, that federal law still prevails.”

In response to a 2011 petition to legalize and regulate marijuana, Obama administration drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said at that time that federal officials were concerned about the drug because it was “associated with addiction, respiratory disease and cognitive impairment.”

Legalization advocates say the decades-old drug war in the United States has failed, and they compare laws against marijuana to the prohibition of alcoholic beverages from 1920 to 1933. They argue that society would be better served if marijuana could be taxed and regulated.

While no U.S. state allows recreational use of marijuana, 17 states and the District of Columbia permit its use in medicine.

“Anyone who is objective at all knows that current marijuana policy in this country is a complete disaster, with massive arrests, wasted resources, and violence in the U.S. and especially in Mexico,” said Jill Harris, managing director of strategic initiatives for Drug Policy Action, which has poured money into legalization campaigns.

Reporting By Alex Dobuzinskis; Editing by Cynthia Johnston and David Brunnstrom

Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Alex Dobuzinskis, Reuters
Published: September 7, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Thomson Reuters

Campaigns to become the first U.S. states to legalize marijuana for recreational use in Washington and Colorado have raised $3 million ahead of a November vote, far outpacing the opposition.

Proponents of pot legalization in Washington state have raised nearly $2 million since the initiative qualified for the ballot in January, and about $1 million in Colorado since its measure earned a place on the ballot the following month, according to the most recent state campaign figures.

In Oregon, where a voter referendum qualified in July, the legalization campaign reported less than $1,000 in contributions. All three state measures go on the ballot in November, when Americans vote for president and other offices.

With their war chests, backers of legalization drives in Washington state and Colorado have already bought television ads in a bid to convince voters, especially those who have never smoked pot, of merits of legalizing and taxing it.

Legalizing the drug for recreational purposes would run afoul of the federal government, which says that marijuana is a dangerous narcotic.

The referendums in the three Western states, among the 17 that already allow marijuana for medical purposes, comes as some states battle with the federal government over its raids of medical marijuana dispensaries.

“If one of these initiatives wins, it will really be a breakthrough,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which seeks alternatives to the current U.S. policy to combat drug use.

“And in the end, just as there has been a federal-state conflict involving medical marijuana, we anticipate there will be similar conflicts when states begin to legally regulate marijuana like alcohol,” he said. “But the only way we think change can happen is through this process.”

Polls indicate support in Colorado and Washington for legalizing pot.

A July poll by Survey USA of 630 registered voters in Washington state said 55 percent backed the marijuana legalization ballot measure. The margin of error was 4 percent.

Rasmussen Reports said its June poll of likely Colorado voters showed 61 percent supported legalizing and regulating pot. The survey had 500 respondents and a margin of 4.5 percent.

Billionaire Peter Lewis, the Ohio-based chairman of Progressive Insurance who helped finance successful state-level campaigns for medical marijuana, has emerged as the Washington state legalization measure’s largest supporter with total contributions this year of $875,000.

A representative for Lewis declined requests for comment.

Drug Policy Action, a group related to New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, has given $600,000 this year to the Washington legalization campaign.

The Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project has given the two registered groups behind the Colorado campaign most of their roughly $1 million in funds, state records show. Lists of donors to Marijuana Policy Project and Drug Policy Action are not publicly available.

Legal at 21

The ballot measures in all three states would legalize marijuana for people 21 and older, impose state-level taxes on the drug and allow sales of the drug at special pot stores.

A representative for the U.S. Justice Department had no comment in response to multiple requests. The Obama administration’s Office of National Drug Control Policy has argued that pot use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease and cognitive impairment.

“One of the canards the other side puts out is that keeping marijuana, even in small amounts, illegal is essentially equivalent to a modern day prohibition for alcohol, which is a total joke,” said Cully Stimson, chief of staff for the conservative Heritage Foundation, which opposes legalization.

Stimson said having only a couple drinks a day is healthy. “With marijuana use, the purpose is to get high,” he said.

Despite such arguments, opponents of legalization have so far fallen short in fundraising. State campaign figures show that Smart Colorado has raised the most of any anti-legalization group, but its 2012 total stands at less than $40,000.

Holcomb said her pro-legalization group bought more than $1 million in TV air time in Washington state this month.

In Colorado, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol spent $800,000 for fall season television ads, said Mason Tvert, co-director of the group.

Editing by Vicki Allen

Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Alex Dobuzinskis, Reuters
Published: August 25, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Thomson Reuters

Revelers at Seattle’s Hempfest celebration of marijuana were offered a debate by supporters and opponents of Initiative 502. We hope they were sober enough to think through it.

For the first time, it is possible to envision an end to marijuana prohibition. That is a huge change — a huge possible change that hasn’t happened yet. But prohibition replaced by what? Any new regime will have to be acceptable to a majority of people — and not just a majority of revelers at Hempfest or voters in liberal Seattle.

This fall, voters in Washington are being offered Initiative 502. For marijuana activists, it probably is not the ideal offer. The proposed law limits possession of smokable marijuana to one ounce. It has a blood-THC standard for driving a car, and no such standard exists now. It has heavy taxes. It doesn’t allow private growing of marijuana plants except by medical patients.

All this has occasioned bellyaching among cannabis users.

Our advice: Get real. Voters in Washington are just now ready, for the first time, to allow marijuana to be grown, processed and used for recreational purposes.

They are not ready to do this without a standard of intoxication for driving, or without licensing and regulation of people in the business, or without taxing marijuana like tobacco and alcohol.

Hempfest revelers should remember: Your festival is tolerated because Seattle people don’t agree with prohibition.

Nonetheless, state law still says possession of marijuana, except for medical patients, is punishable by fines and imprisonment.

In November, voters will be offered a law that declares possession of a limited amount of marijuana by adults is no longer punishable by fine or imprisonment.

Think carefully before rejecting the offer.

Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Published: August 20, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.seattletimes.com/

The initiative to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in Washington was estimated on Friday to raise up to $1.9 billion in new tax revenue over five years — or zero.

The wild swing, included in an analysis by the state Office of Financial Management, reflects broad uncertainty about the potential federal intervention in an initiative that would set up the nation’s first regulated market for recreational marijuana use.

The sky-high revenue estimate, which was previously disclosed in March, is based on an assumption that 363,000 customers in Washington would consume 187,000 pounds of marijuana in new state-license retail shops if Initiative 502 were approved in the Nov.  6 election.

If it does pass, I-502 would earmark $227 million a year of new marijuana taxes for the state’s basic health plan and $113 million a year for drug research, prevention and treatment.

Statewide administrative costs, covering such things as training police and licensing, would be more than $16 million a year.

But the fiscal analysis makes clear the “significant uncertainties related to federal enforcement of federal criminal laws” outlawing marijuana.  The analysis says that federal law enforcement could possibly target state-licensed growers and retailers, which “may prevent the development of a functioning marijuana market.”

Attached to the analysis is a 2010 letter from U.S.  Attorney General Eric Holder, sent as California voters were considering legalizing marijuana, vowing to “vigorously enforce the CSA ( Controlled Substances Act ) against those individuals and organizations that possess, manufacture and distribute marijuana for recreational use, even if such activities are permitted under state law.”

Alison Holcomb, campaign manager for I-502, said the federal response may depend on the margin of victory.  She noted that the federal government has only sporadically intervened in the medical-marijuana industry, and usually only when operators appear to be abusing state law.

“Voters need to know that the federal government is giving us the room to show what we want to do,” she said.

This analysis tried to tally some costs and savings for legalized marijuana but lacked data to estimate savings from fewer drug prosecutions.  In 2011, 9,308 charges were filed in local and superior courts statewide for possession of less than 40 grams, which would be legal under I-502.

A new DUI threshold for marijuana — a provision deeply unpopular with medical-marijuana patients — would likely raise nearly $4 million in fees from drivers charged under the provision.

On Friday, the state Official of Financial Management also released an analysis of Initiative 1240, which would allow the creation of charter schools.  I-1240 would cost $3.1 million over five years, mostly to establish an application process, and to run an oversight commission.

The initiative would authorize as many as 40 charter schools, which are free, public, independent and can hire nonunion teachers.  They would be funded the same way as traditional public schools, on a per-student basis.

Staff reporter Brian M.  Rosenthal contributed to this report.

Pubdate: Sat, 11 Aug 2012
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2012 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Author: Jonathan Martin