United States Cannabis News – Page 13

27 Apr 2013

Pot Legalization Won’t Change Mission

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The nation’s drug czar said Wednesday the legalization of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado won’t change his office’s mission of fighting the country’s drug problem by focusing on addiction treatment that will be available under the federal health overhaul.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, released President Barack Obama’s 2013 strategy for fighting drug addiction Wednesday at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. The strategy includes a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons.

“The legal issue of Washington and Colorado is really a question you have to go back to the Department of Justice,” Kerlikowske said when asked about the impact the two states would have on national drug policy.

The key to the administration’s efforts to deliver health care to drug addicts is in the federal health care overhaul because it will require insurance companies to cover treatment for substance abuse disorders, as they currently do for chronic diseases like diabetes. That change could lead to addiction treatment for several million more people.

“Treatment shouldn’t be a privilege limited to those who can afford it, but it’s a service available to all who need it,” Kerlikowske said.

The strategy outlined by Kerlikowske also supports a greater emphasis on criminal justice reforms that include drug courts and probation programs aimed at reducing incarceration rates. It also will include community-based policing programs designed to break the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration while steering law enforcement resources to more serious offenses.

Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, said addiction needs to be acknowledged as a disease that can be diagnosed and treated. He said the debate over the nation’s drug problem has become locked in a highly charged ideological debate in which there are no simple answers.

“We’re not going to solve it by drug legalization, and we’re certainly not in my career going to arrest our way out of this problem, either, and these two extreme approaches really aren’t guided by the experience, the compassion or the knowledge that’s needed,” Kerlikowske said.

Kerlikowske was joined by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Anthony Batts, Baltimore’s police commissioner; and Dr. Eric Strain, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Batts noted that Maryland lawmakers this year showed signs of becoming more lenient on laws relating to marijuana, and he expressed his opposition to leniency. The state Senate passed a bill to decriminalize the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana, but the bill did not pass in the House of Delegates.

Batts said he views marijuana as a “starter drug.”

“I’m seeing more takeover robberies — people breaking into houses — surrounding marijuana, and it is dealing with younger people who are doing these takeover robberies that are resulting in murders, shootings and killings,” Batts said.

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Brian Witte, The Associated Press
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

26 Apr 2013

Pot Legalization Won’t Change Mission

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“Treatment shouldn’t be a privilege limited to those who can afford it, but it’s a service available to all who need it,” Kerlikowske said.

Batts said he views marijuana as a “starter drug.”

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Brian Witte, The Associated Press
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

26 Apr 2013

Legalizing Marijuana For Profit Is A Bad Idea

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The push to legalize Marijuana is going Gangham style. In the past several months, 55 percent of voters in Colorado and Washington approved a ballot measure making it legal for medical and nonmedical uses, and a slew of polls indicate that a majority of Americans now support making Marijuana as legal as cigarettes and alcohol.

Changing public attitudes is a big reason why the drive to let people legally “toke” up is gaining traction. But the question on the minds of politicians and business leaders is how much money can be made from this new industry?

Earlier this month Fortune magazine ran an unusual cover story attempting to answer this question. The article featured a group of West Coast Cannabis entrepreneurs who are seeking investments from prominent venture capital firms. These entrepreneurs want to produce and market products that will make smoking pot easy, sexy, and appealing. What’s their selling point? Cannabis could represent a $47 billion industry opportunity.

A broader selling point is that legalizing marijuana could help state governments cut their enforcement budgets and generate tax revenue. Since 1970, state and federal authorities have spent billions enforcing marijuana laws, but pot continues to be ubiquitous. Police have not reduced production, and laws are applied inconsistently across the spectrum of socioeconomic and minority populations.

The economic argument carries great weight for proponents. As revelers lit up last weekend to mark 4-20, the annual celebration of all-things weed, it’s tough to argue that consumer demand isn’t there. Legalizing an already booming black-market industry means the potential for job creation and a fresh source of income for state treasuries scrambling in the age of the sequesters.

However, once you clean the bong, this line of thinking goes up in smoke.

First, just because public opinion and economic arguments indicate otherwise, Congress must ask some hard questions before it changes 50-years of national drug policy. Questions like: why has marijuana enforcement failed? Is the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 fundamentally flawed? And if so, what can be done to reform it?

Finding the answers to these questions is not at the top of the political agenda. Attorney General Eric Holder testified recently about federal policies in relation to the newly passed Colorado and Washington initiatives, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) promised that the panel would discuss federal policies in light of the country’s patchwork of state marijuana laws. But there has been no concerted push for broad scale reform similar to the activities associated with the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act of 2009 or the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Second, legalizing cannabis for profit is simply a bad idea. It flies in the face of social responsibility. The acquisition of profit is driven by self-interest, not the common good. Business decisions are made based on how the outcome will improve the bottom line.

It wouldn’t be long before marijuana companies – likely backed by big tobacco, with its in-place marketing and distribution teams – started aggressive efforts to win consumers. They’ll develop attractive packaging, new and interesting flavors and strains, optimal paper to enhance the smoking effect, and compelling advertising campaigns all designed to get consumers hooked.

There will be messages appealing to long-time pot smokers and new pot smokers. There will be brands for youths, college kids, minorities, the poor, women, and urbanites. Smokers will come to believe they can’t live without their daily “wake & bake” just as they believe they can’t live without their smartphones or iPads. The mass-market consumption of marijuana will bring with it the same negative and ubiquitous effects we’ve seen with alcohol and cigarettes: health problems, driving under the influence, and addiction.

Once the industry gets rolling, those celebrated tax revenues will probably evaporate. Just in the last few days, Colorado State University released a study indicating that the tax revenues expected from the Centennial State’s newly legal industry will not pay for its regulation. Nor will it bring in a windfall of money proponents promised would pay for new school construction and other social benefits.

Even if the tax projections do pan out, as the industry grows in size and influence, lobbyists will exert pressure on politicians to lower taxes and loosen regulations, just as the tobacco industry has done in the past, to maximize profitability. This is the nature of the interplay of business and politics; for the most part, business has the upper hand.

Other advocates point to the potential of a diminished drug trade – growers, particularly Mexican drug gangs, will no longer have as lucrative a demand for their wares, and dealers won’t be engaging in criminal activity because their sales have dried up. But this too doesn’t factor in the flip side of business: where one market opportunity ends, another one begins. Drug lords may see a short-term curtailment of their revenue upon legalization, but they’ll branch out to sell other illegal substances, like some new designer drug or some drug that has been out of vogue.

Legalizing marijuana isn’t a simple, creative way to fill up the government’s depleted bank account or strike it rich in a new industry. It will only add to the cacophony of big businesses jockeying for your dollar and competing for politicians’ favor. The public needs to take a long-pause before it starts clamoring for the legal right to buy marijuana at the local 7-Eleven. Social responsibility dictates caution.

Source: Topix LLC
Link: http://politix.topix.com/homepage/5760-legalizing-marijuana-for-profit-is-a-bad-idea
Author: Jamie P. Chandler and Palmer Gibbs
Date: April 23, 2013

25 Apr 2013

Speakers Debate Legalizing Marijuana

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Two leading experts on marijuana legalization squared off Thursday on the implications, merits and economic effects of legalizing the substance in a debate hosted by the Janus Political Union Debates, a sub-group of the Janus Forum. Alex Friedland ’15, fellows director of the Janus Forum, moderated the debate and began by asking the two speakers to present 15-minute opening remarks.

Aaron Houston, executive director of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and decade-long proponent of marijuana legalization, said illegality has created a stigma around marijuana use. He said the majority of marijuana users in the United States are “silenced,” but the country is now at a “tipping point” for discussion about legalization.

Houston repeatedly said young people are being “locked in cages” for marijuana possession, an aspect of the criminal system that needs reform.

Houston also cited the benefits of being able to regulate the market for marijuana if the substance were legalized, adding that the underground market is currently largely controlled by drug cartels.

“We can tax it, regulate it and control it, like alcohol, and take profits away from those people,” Houston said.

Kevin Sabet, former senior adviser to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and Houston’s opponent in the debate, agreed that the criminal processing of marijuana possession needed improvement, but said legalization is “a step too far.”

Though “controlling something in the black market on its face sounds appealing,” the feasibility of this would be “a lot more complicated and scary,” Sabet said. If marijuana were legal, it would become cheaper and therefore easier to obtain, especially for young people, he said. Because marijuana is much easier for vendors to grow than alcohol or tobacco, these dealers could more easily avoid paying taxes on the substance, he said.

Sabet also emphasized the capitalization and advertising market that would stem from marijuana’s legalization. He compared the potential marijuana advertising industry to that of tobacco in the 1980s, when companies’ advertising campaigns directly targeted youths. He added that there are “eight times as many liquor outlets in poorer communities of color,” and these groups would be targeted as well.

Friedland asked Houston to discuss health concerns, pointing to studies that link prolonged marijuana use from a young age to lower IQs and schizophrenia.

Houston said alcohol and tobacco were much more dangerous than marijuana and questioned the validity of marijuana’s connection to schizophrenia.

“The (Drug Enforcement Administration) said in 1989 that marijuana is one of the therapeutically safest substances known to mankind,” Houston said.

Thirty minutes were allotted at the end of the debate for questions from the approximately 30-person audience. Audience member Benjamin Koatz ’16 asked Sabet why he thought a black market for marijuana would be less harmful than a legalized, regulated market.

Sabet responded that if marijuana were legalized, the black market would exclusively target young people. He added that “when a drug is normalized,” it is more difficult to conduct education and prevention programs.

Audience members posed questions to both speakers about how personal liberty fit into the discussion around marijuana legalization.

Houston said the continued war against marijuana use has been an “assault” on personal liberty. He reiterated that many young people are arrested and — in rare cases — charged with felonies for small possessions.

Sabet emphasized that “when your behavior affects other people,” the drug is no longer safe, citing a statistic that confirms driving under the influence of marijuana is the second highest cause of car-related accidents in the United States, after incidents caused by driving under the influence of alcohol.

Sabet said the vast majority of marijuana users are not arrested, and less than 0.1 percent of inmates are in state prison for smoking marijuana. Because the use of marijuana may affect other people, not legalizing the drug does not infringe on personal liberty, he said.

Maya Manning ’14, an audience member, said she supported legalizing marijuana use before attending the debate, but after listening she is now the “closest” she has been to “swinging the other way.”

“The psychological aspect of doing something that is illegal concerned me initially, so I supported legalization,” Manning said. “But the idea of capitalism and advertising taking a hold of this is horrifying.”

Source: Brown Daily Herald, The (Brown, RI Edu)
Author: Maggie Livingstone, Senior Staff Writer
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Brown Daily Herald
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.browndailyherald.com/

24 Apr 2013

Court Rules for Immigrant in Deportation Case

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“The social sharing of a small amount of marijuana” by immigrants lawfully in the United States does not require their automatic deportation, the Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday.

“Sharing a small amount of marijuana for no remuneration, let alone possession with intent to do so, does not fit easily into the everyday understanding of trafficking, which ordinarily means some sort of commercial dealing,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote for a seven-justice majority, partly quoting from an earlier case.

The case arose from a traffic stop in Georgia in 2007 during which Adrian Moncrieffe, a Jamaican citizen, was found with 1.3 grams of marijuana — “the equivalent,” Justice Sotomayor wrote, “of about two or three marijuana cigarettes.”

Mr. Moncrieffe pleaded guilty to possession with intent to distribute, a felony under Georgia law, and was sentenced to five years of probation. Saying the conviction established that Mr. Moncrieffe had committed an “aggravated felony,” federal authorities sought to deport him.

Tuesday’s decision was the third in a series of Supreme Court cases considering whether a given state drug crime amounted to an aggravated felony under the immigration laws. If it does, the government has no choice but to deport the defendant. If it does not, the attorney general has the discretion to show leniency.

The question in all of the cases was how to understand state drug convictions in light of a part of the immigration laws that defines aggravated felonies to include drug offenses that would be punishable by more than a year in prison under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

The act generally calls for a maximum term of five years for possessing controlled substances with an intent to distribute them. But it contains an exception for the distribution of “a small amount of marijuana for no remuneration,” which judges may treat as a misdemeanor subject to no more than a year in prison.

Justice Sotomayor wrote that it was not clear whether the formal elements of Mr. Moncrieffe’s state conviction fit within the federal exception. The ambiguity, she said, counted in his favor, sparing him from automatic deportation.

The federal government said the actual facts of the case mattered and should be determined during immigration proceedings. Justice Sotomayor rejected that approach, saying that “our nation’s overburdened immigration courts” would have difficulty making such determinations based on stale or missing evidence presented by immigrants who may be in detention and have no right to a lawyer.

In dissent, Justice Clarence Thomas said the majority’s approach “has the effect of treating a substantial number of state felonies as federal misdemeanors, even when they would result in federal felony convictions.” The only theme that unites the court’s decisions in this area, Justice Thomas added, “appears to be that the government consistently loses.”

In a second dissent in the case, Moncrieffe v. Holder, No. 11-702, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. said the majority’s approach was “analytically confused.” It will, he said, allow people working for “some of the world’s most dangerous drug cartels” to escape automatic deportation. “The court’s decision,” Justice Alito added, “also means that the consequences of a conviction for illegal possession with intent to distribute will vary radically depending on the state in which the case is prosecuted.”

Justice Alito said that Mr. Moncrieffe had had the opportunity to show immigration authorities that he would have been eligible for lenient treatment under the federal drug law. But the “petitioner, for whatever reason, availed himself only of the opportunity to show that his conviction had involved a small amount of marijuana and did not present evidence — or even contend — that his offense had not involved remuneration.”

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Adam Liptak
Published: April 23, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

22 Apr 2013

Research Doesn’t Support Use Of Medical Marijuana

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Based on science and concern about young minds and the safety of our citizens, we believe that the crude drugs from the plant Cannabis should be illegal. There are differing views on this issue. In our democracy, divergent views are expected. The more personal the issue, the more passionate and less logical the discussion.

Media articles support marijuana as a medicine. This complex weed is supposed to cure insomnia, arthritis, glaucoma, nausea, loss of appetite, epilepsy, etc.; and that, if legalized and taxed by government, as with alcohol and tobacco, it could solve our financial woes.

Let’s examine some misinformation used by marijuana proponents, which is mostly based on anecdotal evidence or driven by political agenda. Before the emotional and political issues drive a mass experimentation, using Americans as guinea pigs, we must scrutinize marijuana.

Marijuana is a crude drug from the Cannabis plant, known to contain more than 700 chemicals. When smoked, these components produce more cancer-causing compounds than found in tobacco smoke. Cannabinoids are chemicals found only in the Cannabis plant. Many are psychotropic: have mind-altering effects and are fat soluble. They are stored in and alter the brain, reproductive organs and other fat cells. A nursing mother will pass THC and other cannabinoids to her baby through her milk.

THCis the one chemical that most people associate with marijuana. It is an intoxicant with some medical properties. Marijuana is not just THC. Pure THC is a prescribed medication that has passed rigid Food and Drug Administration requirements to protect public health; whereas, marijuana will never pass any approval process.

In Florida, a 2010 survey of high school students, reported 21.8 percent of seniors used marijuana in the past month. This is up from19.7 percent in 2008; thus, today one in five of our high school seniors are being exposed to a drug that can cause much harm. Additionally, marijuana is listed as the primary substance of abuse for 31.1percent of treatment admissions in Florida. Over halfwere12-17 years of age.

In December, 2012, the Government Drug Abuse Warning Network Report stated that over 45,000 American youth between the ages of15 to17 entered emergency rooms because of marijuana. If 100 young people needed emergency room treatment because of a FDA approved drug, pro-marijuana groups and elected officials would demand the drug’s removal from the market.

As reported by the U.S. Surgeon General, marijuana reduces the immune system’s ability to fight infections, interferes with the reproductive system, affects memory and learning, creates paranoia, and is addictive. Marijuana reduces the IQ of young users by 8 to10 IQ points, changes depth perception and alters the ability to judge distance.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse reported in December of 2012 that “research from different areas is converging on the fact that regular marijuana use by young people can have long-lasting negative impact on the structure and function of their brains.” Want your child on pot?

Marijuana users are dangerous drivers. There is no roadside test to detect or to determine impairment. Highway deaths will increase if marijuana is used more frequently in Florida.

Research shows that cannabinoids in marijuana are mind altering. They will alter the consciousness and make any disease seem less severe. The disease is not being treated.

And, the disease can be made worse. Will the passionate supporters of “medical marijuana” obliterate years of scientific research that has revealed the dangers of marijuana? Will Florida use its citizens as experimental objects? Hopefully, Florida voters will not have to decide.

Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2013 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/mVLAxQfA
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Authors: Carlton Turner and Herbert Goldstein

20 Apr 2013

Bill Introduced to Define Drug-Endangered Children

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Proposed legislation cites federal law in defining when a child is endangered by a caregiver’s use or possession of drugs, potentially trumping Colorado law and making it illegal to possess, smoke or grow pot near children or in their homes.

Senate Bill 278, which was introduced Thursday and assigned to the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, would create a legal definition of a drug-endangered child in the context of abuse and neglect.

Under the proposal, any child whose well-being is endangered by the use, possession, distribution or manufacture of a controlled substance could be a victim of child abuse or neglect.

That definition could include the use and possession of marijuana, which is legal under Colorado law, but still considered illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act, which the bill cites.

Colorado’s passage of Amendment 64 in November legalized the use and limited possession of the drug by people 21 and older. It also allows people to grow six plants in their homes.

The bill is intended to create consistency in practice between law enforcement, child welfare services and other agencies, said one of its sponsors, Sen. Linda Newell, D-Littleton.

With the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana and Colorado’s recent ranking as the second worst state for prescription drug abuse, the bill will spark a complicated and important conversation, Newell said.

“This bill is not without its complications,” Newell said. “It is really difficult to find that delicate balance between making sure the kids are protected, but at the same time not overstepping and having unintentional consequences for a family who is providing a very safe home.”

Under the bill, children who test positive for either a Schedule I or Schedule II controlled substance could also be considered endangered and possible victims of abuse or neglect.

Infants who test positive for Schedule II drugs at birth will not be considered endangered if their mothers were prescribed the drugs. Schedule II drugs include commonly prescribed opiates, such as codeine. That portion of the bill cites Colorado law and does not include infants who test positive for marijuana at birth.

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: Jordan Steffen, The Denver Post
Published: April 19, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Contact: [email protected]

20 Apr 2013

High security for Denver Marijuana Celebration

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As tens of thousands of people gather to celebrate and smoke marijuana in Denver, police will be out in full force.

But it’s not the pot smoking they’re concerned about at the yearly event, billed as the nation’s largest April 20 celebration. Instead, police say they’re focused on crowd security in light of attacks that killed three at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.

“We’re aware of the events in Boston,” said Denver police spokesman Aaron Kafer, who declined to give specifics about security measures being taken. “Our message to the public is that, if you see something, say something.”

Organizers say the event — which drew 50,000 people last year — could bring a record 80,000 this year, since it’s the first celebration since Colorado and Washington voted to make pot legal for recreational use.

Even with the legalization, Colorado law bans open and public marijuana use. Still, authorities generally look the other way. The smoke hangs thick over a park at the base of the state Capitol, and live music keeps the crowd entertained well past the moment of group smoking at 4:20 p.m.

Group smoke-outs are also planned Saturday from New York to San Francisco. The origins of the number “420″ as a code for pot are murky, but the drug’s users have for decades marked the date 4/20 as a day to use pot together.

Denver’s celebration this year also features the nation’s first open-to-all Cannabis Cup, a marijuana competition patterned after one held in Amsterdam.

Similar to a beer or wine festival, pot growers compete for awards for taste, appearance and potency of their weed. Denver’s event, sponsored by High Times magazine, has sold out more than 5,000 tickets. Snoop Lion, the new reggae- and marijuana-loving persona for the rapper better known as Snoop Dogg, will receive a “Lifetime Achievement Award” from High Times. And the hip-hop group Cypress Hill was set to perform a sold-out concert Saturday evening in Colorado’s iconic Red Rocks Amphitheatre.

The celebration should be especially buoyant this year, organizer Miguel Lopez said, because it marks the first observation since Colorado and Washington voted to defy federal drug law and declare pot OK for adults over 21.

Both states are still waiting for a federal response to the votes and are working on setting up commercial pot sales, which are still limited to people with certain medical conditions. In the meantime, pot users are free to share and use the drug in small amounts.

Lopez said the holiday is more than an excuse to get high — it’s also a political statement by people who want to see the end of marijuana prohibition.

“You don’t have to smoke weed to go to 4/20 rallies. You don’t have to be gay to go to a Pride festival. You don’t have to be Mexican to celebrate Cinco de Mayo,” Lopez said.

“That’s what this is. It’s a celebration, it’s a statement about justice and freedom and this movement.”

Colorado’s weekend celebrations drew plenty of marijuana activists from out of state.

“Never have I ever imagined I could do this on American soil,” said Eddie Ramirez, an Austin, Texas, pot user who attended a “420 Happy Hour” Friday at a downtown Denver hotel. “Being a smoker my whole life, this has been on my bucket list — go scuba diving, go deep-sea fishing and go to the Cannabis Cup.”

One place pot-smoking won’t be as evident this year is the University of Colorado in Boulder. The school once was home to the nation’s largest group smoke-out on April 20. More than 10,000 people showed up in 2010, and in 2011 Playboy magazine cited the celebration and named the campus the nation’s No. 1 party school.

Last year, school officials closed the site of the party, Norlin Quad, on April 20. They planned to rope off the area again this year.

Lopez conceded that many don’t appreciate the April 20 smoke-outs. But he insisted they at least force marijuana critics to talk about the drug and consider its legal status.

“Not everybody likes everything in America. That’s one of the great things, that we can express ourselves,” Lopez said.

Source: The Associated Press

Link: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/04/20/denver-pot-holiday/2098755/

19 Apr 2013

Mysterious Player Shakes Up Marijuana Game

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The name appeared out of nowhere, unfamiliar to the players who have worked for months to influence how recreational marijuana will be regulated in Colorado.

On March 28, someone named Matt Taylor hired high-powered lobbying firm Axiom Strategies to work on “marijuana issues,” records show. Taylor has since expanded his lobbying team to rival that of anyone with a stake in adult-use marijuana legalized by Amendment 64 in November.

“No one knows who he is, and with a name like that, no one has been able to find out much,” said Joe Megyesy, who lobbies for a law firm that specializes in marijuana and for the Marijuana Policy Project, the main funder of the Amendment 64 campaign. “I haven’t seen anything like it — but we’ve never seen anything like Amendment 64.”

Colorado’s marijuana mystery man, it turns out, describes himself as a former Marine and failed race-car driver who made his wealth in home heating oil on the East Coast and wants to get in on the ground floor of a budding industry worth untold millions in his home state.

Big Spender

The appearance of a new, big-spending character comes at a key moment as Colorado enters unchartered territory of legalized pot. Disparate interests and unlikely alliances are trying to shape the rules that will determine who can enter a highly lucrative business and how the market will be structured.

Marijuana interests — led by medical marijuana business groups and dispensaries — already have paid at least $137,475 to lobbyists in the fiscal year that began in June, a Denver Post analysis found.

And the real battle has not begun: Bills in the General Assembly to establish rules for recreational pot have yet to be introduced, and fewer than three weeks remain in the session.

One issue has proven especially controversial: whether to let recreational pot stores and commercial growers operate independently.

Snipped

Complete Article: http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_23058748/

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Author: Eric Gorski, The Denver Post
Published: April 19, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Denver Post
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Contact: [email protected]

18 Apr 2013

The Marijuana Two-step

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The 42nd Annual Hash Bash in Ann Arbor

The 42nd Annual Hash Bash in Ann Arbor was the highlight of a flurry of activities around marijuana the past few weeks. A reported 3,000 people were at the University of Michigan Quadrangle for the Bash – part pep rally, part political effort and part toke-down.

State Rep. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, was one of many speakers at the well-organized and well-run event, which included local and national activists. Mason Tyvert, who works for the Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project, and who headed up the legalization campaign team in Colorado, spoke; other speakers included National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws founder Keith Stroup and seed geneticist D.J. Short.

Irwin got the crowd cheering when he said, “I believe we should legalize marijuana. … The good news today, on the 42nd anniversary of Hash Bash, is we’re winning. We’re winning the battle against marijuana prohibition.”

He cited electoral victories for legalization in Washington state and Colorado as evidence of the changing tide. Then he talked about how activist involvement had made a difference in softening some of the more draconian measures in bills passed by the Michigan state Legislature last December regarding medical marijuana, adding that he would introduce a decriminalization bill in the state Legislature. Irwin asked for help in pressing other legislators to support decriminalization.

“We’re going to end the drug war,” Irwin said. “We’re going to legalize marijuana here in Michigan. The amount of blood and treasure that we’ve spilled in this failed drug war are an embarrassment to our country.”

The Hash Bash came on the heels of a Pew Research Center poll showing that 52 percent of Americans believe marijuana should be legalized. Speaker after speaker referenced the poll that, for the first time, showed a simple majority in favor of legalization. In the past, polls have shown a plurality of Americans in support of legalization but never a majority.

“It smells like freedom,” said Tyvert. “This is not just the tipping point; this is the tip of the iceberg.”

No fool’s day: Things aren’t quite so friendly for the herb in the Michigan state Legislature, where folks still seem to look at certified medical marijuana patients as possibly criminal. Bills passed in December 2012, which went into effect April 1, 2013, put strictures on medical marijuana in Michigan. HB4856 stipulates that marijuana transported in vehicles has to be in a container in the trunk. If the vehicle has no trunk, then marijuana must be “enclosed in a case that is not readily accessible from the interior of the vehicle.” That seems to follow the model of alcohol law, which prohibits open containers inside cars; however it doesn’t seem to regard marijuana as medicine because I don’t know of any laws forbidding carrying any kind of medicine inside a car.

That thinking seems to follow the same path with HB4851, which requires doctors who recommend marijuana use to establish a “bona fide physician-patient relationship” that involves reviewing patient records. This is all well and good, except it seems as if it’s more a view that medical marijuana patients are criminal.

Its ( unstated ) aim seems to be restricting access to patients seeking cannabis as a medical solution. For instance, in last week’s Higher Ground column, I discussed a medical marijuana patient who was addicted to painkillers. His pain management doctor knew nothing about marijuana and would not recommend it for him. The patient found another doctor who would. He then got off the prescribed opiates he was addicted to. He went back to his pain doctor and showed that he was off the drugs. Now, the doctor understands that marijuana can be useful. Still, with little training or understanding of marijuana, and legal issues remaining unsettled, many doctors are loath to recommend it.

A couple of years ago I reported about an HIV doctor who had been recommending marijuana for patients. After State Attorney General Bill Schuette said that federal law trumped state law, the doctor stopped recommending marijuana for fear of prosecution. In another case, a patient who had previously been recommended to use medicinal cannabis went back to his doctor for recertification. The doctor wouldn’t do it because he had been told that if he recommended marijuana to his patients he could no longer work at that clinic.

Doctors are being ostensibly pressured to eschew a course of treatment for fear of retribution should they prescribe – or even recommend – a substance that is purportedly “legal.”

There currently exists a punitive atmosphere toward physicians who choose a “legal” medical protocol, which effectively places undue hardships on patients who may be forced to “shop” for doctors who are even open to the idea that marijuana is a useful therapy.

Another part of the same bill allows outdoor grows. However, the garden must be enclosed on all sides and not visible to the unaided eye. The enclosure must be locked and anchored to the ground. Anyone planning to grow marijuana should be warned to take a close look at the law – as there are specific materials required for use in making the enclosures.

April 1 was actually a good day in Rhode Island: A law that was passed last year decriminalizing possession of as much as 1 ounce of marijuana went into effect. The law, first introduced in 2010, makes possession a civil offense punishable by a $150 fine.

Getting spacey with time: We all know that time is relative, and that marijuana users’ time perception may get a little rubbery while under the influence. It seems like the federal government has fallen into that time-vortex when it comes to having anything to say about last November’s legalization votes in Colorado and Washington.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said at least a few times since late in 2012 that the Obama administration would “soon” have something to say on the subject. Last month, Holder said the administration was “still considering” its response. I’m wondering what “soon” means to those folks. Maybe they’ve inhaled and don’t realize that it’s been five months since the historic votes. On the other hand, they have been busy with the fiscal cliff and the sequester – not to mention North Korea threatening to toss a nuclear weapon at its neighbor. So maybe we just have to hold our breath a little longer. As the old western swing song says, “Anytime you’re thinking ’bout me. That’s the time I’ll be thinkin’ of you.” … Anytime, Mr. Holder.

We may not have to wait for him. Last Friday, rumors began circulating about a proposed bipartisan bill in Congress that would protect marijuana users and businesses from federal laws as long as they are compliant with state laws. Like I said, anytime.

They really meant it: Meanwhile, things seem to be moving along in the legalized states. That is if you consider the 25 percent tax in Washington state and the 38 percent tax they’re considering in Colorado ( in the Denver area ) to be moving along. They must have really meant it when they said they wanted to “tax and regulate” the substance. Then again, the Colorado law allows folks to grow their own in an “enclosed, locked space.” Am I having deja vu here?

Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2013 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.metrotimes.com
Author: Larry Gabriel

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