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/

5 Aug 2013

Anti-Pot Campaigns Face New Obstacle

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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

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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

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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/

28 Jul 2013

Pro-Pot Ad Debuts At NASCAR Race

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Spectators streaming into the NASCAR Brickyard 400 at Indianapolis Motor Speedway starting on Friday might notice something a little different about one of the advertisements on screens nearby. The 30-second spot, seen above, might look and sound a lot like a typical beer ad, but it’s actually promoting an alternative: legal marijuana.

The ad, titled “New Beer,” is from the Marijuana Policy Project — the nation’s largest pro-marijuana legalization advocacy group — and will air dozens of times beginning Friday. It marks the first time a pro-pot ad has been shown at a major sporting event, though technically it is being shown outside the stadium’s grounds.

The spot notes that marijuana is different from beer, which will likely be flowing generously at the weekend NASCAR race, frequently regarded as one of the year’s biggest. Pot has no calories, does not cause hangovers and does not contribute to violent or reckless behavior, the ad says. It concludes with the tagline, “Marijuana: Less harmful than alcohol and time to treat it that way,” which is laid over stock footage of some people who look like they’re high and happy on a beach.

“Our goal is to make this weekend’s event as educational as it will be enjoyable,” Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement. “We simply want those adults who will be enjoying a beer or two to think about the fact that marijuana is an objectively less harmful product.”

Marijuana is not legal in Indiana, for medical or recreational use, and punishments governing the substance are quite strict. In fact, marijuana has only been legalized for recreational use in two states, Colorado and Washington. But Tvert says the ad is designed to educate and encourage people to get behind the wider legalization movement.

“Marijuana is less toxic and less addictive than alcohol, and it is far less likely to contribute to violent and reckless behavior,” he said. “We hope racing fans who support marijuana prohibition will question the logic of punishing adults simply for using a product that is safer than those produced by sponsors of NASCAR events and teams that race in them.”

USA Today reports that upwards of 600,000 fans may attend the race, 225,000 of them whom can be packed into stadium seating. Tvert told USA Today that the ad was purchased for a “non-profit” rate of $2,200 and made on a $350 budget.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Nick Wing, The Huffington Post
Published: July 26, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

20 Jul 2013

MJ-Infused Faith Challenges Definition of Religion

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Sixty-four-year old Roger Christie, a resident of Hawaii’s Big Island, although most recently of Cell 104 at Honolulu Federal Detention Center, is a Religious Science practitioner, a minister of the Universal Life Church, ordained in the Church of the Universe (in Canada), an official of the Oklevueha Native American Church of Hilo, Hawaii, and the founder of the Hawai’i Cannabis THC Ministry.

As you might guess, it was the last of those spiritual vocations that landed him in prison.

In 2010, Mr. Christie, along with several co-defendants, was indicted on charges including conspiracy to manufacture and distribute marijuana. He does not dispute the facts of the case. He just believes that his operation — “a real ‘street ministry’ serving the needs of our neighbors from all walks of life,” he told me, in an e-mail from prison, “busy six days a week,” employing “three secretaries and a doorman” — was protected by the First Amendment.

On July 29, Mr. Christie’s lawyer will argue in Hawaii federal court that his client should be allowed to present a religious-freedom defense at the eventual criminal trial. He will base his argument on the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, passed by Congress in 1993, which requires the government to show a “compelling interest” whenever it “substantially burdens” a religious practice. In 2006, the Supreme Court relied on the act to permit a New Mexico church to use the hallucinogen hoasca, or ayahuasca, for sacramental purposes.

But so far such exceptions have been granted to small religious communities and relatively obscure drugs: for American Indians’ use of peyote, for example, or the New Mexico church with its ayahuasca. But marijuana? That would be far more problematic.

“The difference is that peyote and hoasca have little or no recreational market, and that is not likely to change because they make you sick before they make you high,” Douglas Laycock, who teaches constitutional law at the University of Virginia, wrote in an e-mail in explaining why a court would be unlikely to approve of the church’s practice. “Marijuana has a huge recreational market. Diversion from religious to recreational uses, and false claims of religious use, would be major problems.”

Mr. Christie is hoping that now, as many state marijuana laws are liberalized, federal courts may allow him to argue for the sacramental needs of his ministry, where until his arrest he worked full time. First, he must convince a federal judge that his religion — or one of his religions — is not just a form of personal spirituality concocted to get stoned legally.

According to Mr. Christie’s personal declaration, filed with the court in April, he joined the Religion of Jesus in 1993, was ordained in 2000, then founded as an offshoot the THC Ministry. (THC, tetrahydrocannabinol, is the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana.) “The THC Ministry,” he wrote, “is a universal religious organization that uses cannabis to exalt consciousness, facilitate harmony and become close to God and nature and each other.”

The Religion of Jesus, Mr. Christie wrote, holds that sacramental marijuana use is “a God-given right, as told to us in the Bible in Genesis 1:29, in which it says, ‘Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant …’?” Other tenets of the faith include, “Our religion does not believe in going to war” and, “Our ministers are required to use a hemp-cloth shawl for ceremonies and prayer.”

Mr. Christie’s declaration lacks the somber tone that usually distinguishes “religion.” At his Sunday services, he would “weed out, so to speak,” any visitors who seemed “insincere” about the faith — people without any sense of pot’s spiritual purpose. His faith’s “primary sacred day” is April 20, known to Deadheads, readers of Craigslist and High Times subscribers as “4/20,” slang for marijuana.

The Sunday service sounds like a Judd Apatow movie outtake; it requires a “volcano vaporizer” and “large clear inhalation bag.” In addition, “after services,” Mr. Christie wrote, “members would gather to drink hempseed coffee, eat and talk.” Religion, or late-morning munchies?

But the courts have offered no coherent definition of religion. “What constitutes a religion is one of the hardest questions of all, and except in the most obvious cases, the courts tend to avoid it if they can,” according to Professor Laycock. As religion scholars point out, categories like “legitimate” privilege religions that are old and established — those that have buildings, and other trappings of power.

In a telephone interview, the Rev. James D. Kimmel, who in 1969 founded the Religion of Jesus, Mr. Christie’s church, summed up the church’s beliefs as “God is our father and we’re all sons and daughters of God.” That isn’t the language that Mr. Christie uses, but for Mr. Kimmel, who is 78 and not the talk-show host, who lives in Hawaii and talks a lot about an esoteric text called the Urantia Book, such a discrepancy is no problem at all. “It’s a personal religion,” he said. “We’re not institutional.”

The courts will probably be loath to allow Mr. Christie his humorous, personal, idiosyncratic religion. If we could all have our own religions, the courts would have a lot more defendants claiming their religions require drug use. Besides, he may not be the ideal crusader for religious marijuana. According to the government, the THC Ministry offered a “sanctuary kit” that included a cognac-and-cannabis “tincture” — the recommended donation was $1,000.

And in its brief, the government quotes transcriptions of wiretapped conversations in which Mr. Christie sounds like a drug dealer haggling over prices, not a man of God serving his people’s spiritual needs.

Yet Mr. Christie’s case raises difficult, important questions. If only old or popular religions are protected, what would the First Amendment mean? If almost any belief system were a religion, then what would the word mean?

For its well-meaning efforts to carve out religious protections, government got into the business of deciding which religions count — and, to Mr. Christie’s chagrin, which ones do not.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Mark Oppenheimer
Published: July 19, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

17 Jul 2013

MJ Legalization Considered in Maine, DC, Calif.

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Advocates of marijuana legalization have seen an acceleration of their cause in recent years, particularly after residents of Washington state and Colorado voted to legalize recreational cannabis in November’s elections. Now, more jurisdictions are taking up, or at least considering taking up the issue.

In Maine Monday, Portland City Council planned a public hearing to discuss a citizen-proposed measure legalizing possession of up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana for those 21 and older. After the meeting, the city council will decide whether to adopt the measure, send a referendum to voters or write an alternative proposal alongside the citizen measure.

Proponents gathered more than twice the 1,500 signatures required to get the proposal, which would prohibit smoking pot in public spaces such as schools or public parks, and allow landlords to prohibit it in their apartments, on this year’s ballot.

Maine law allows medical marijuana, and has already decriminalized its use, but possession of a small amount still carries a maximum fine of $600. A state-wide referendum on legalization is expected in 2014.

In the nation’s capital, a D.C. councilman introduced a bill Wednesday to decriminalize possession in the District.

Councilman Tommy Wells unveiled legislation to drop the penalty for carrying less than an ounce of marijuana to $100, down from $1,000 or a six-month prison stint.

Wells’s legislation also stipulates minors attend a drug awareness program and complete community service.

An American Civil Liberties Union report in June found the District bears the country’s highest arrest rate per capita in the country for marijuana possession-related arrests, at three times the national average. Those are three times more likely to involve an African American than a caucasian.

Moves toward decriminalization and legalization receive broad support in D.C., with 75 percent of residents saying they support decriminalization in small amounts and 63 percent say they’re in favor of legalization, according to an April PPP poll.

And in California, which rejected a 2010 measure for legalization, already has medical marijuana and decriminalization laws on the books.

But the legalization effort is likely to make another ballot appearance in 2016, with the backing of some of the state’s wealthiest citizens. Silicon Valley’s entrepreneurs and the billionaires behind some of the world’s most successful tech companies are expected to back the effort.

Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform chairwoman Dale Sky Jones said 2010′s Proposition 19 failed largely because of fundraising shortfalls.

Liberal billionaire George Soros helped back that measure and Prop. 215, the successful 1996 medical marijuana bill, will probably help again, and Progressive insurance chief Peter Lewis are still “engaged” Jones said.

But it’s Silicon Valley that gives her the most optimism.

Bay-area entrepreneurs such as Facebook founders Sean Parker and Dustin Moskovitz, who both put substantial funds into the 2010 effort have “network of friends” to tap into, Jones said. “There’s money to burn in those industries.”

Source: United Press International (Wire)
Author: Gabrielle Levy, UPI.com
Published: July 15, 2013
Copyright 2013 United Press International
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.upi.com/

16 Jul 2013

Feds Should Stop Fighting Medical Marijuana

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To all appearances, Connecticut is well on the way to making medical marijuana available to people who are suffering from certain serious illnesses. Regulations have been drafted and will be voted on by a legislative committee next month. Physicians have thus far certified 660 patients as eligible for the palliative substance. Proposals for production facilities have surfaced in Watertown and Middletown, with others on the way.

But there remains one nagging, unresolved issue: It is still a federal crime to use, cultivate, dispense or possess marijuana. Indeed, since 2009 the Justice Department has conducted more than 170 aggressive raids in inie medical marijuana states, according to the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access.

Connecticut officials think they have crafted a strict, tightly regulated law that will not draw the attention of federal authorities. We hope they are right. The better option is to end the disconnect between state and federal laws, so people with cancer, Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis and other ailments can, if they choose, use marijuana to gain some measure of relief.

Obama

In 2008 candidate Barack Obama said that medical marijuana would not be a priority target of Justice Department resources. Well, not so fast. The department’s policy on the subject was outlined in a couple of memos, most recently the 2011 “Cole Memo,” from Deputy U.S. Attorney General James M. Cole to U.S. attorneys around the country.

Mr. Cole said it is “likely not an efficient use of federal resources” to focus enforcement on sick people or their caregivers, but reminded the federal prosecutors that persons “who are in the business of cultivating, selling or distributing marijuana, and those who knowingly facilitate such activities, are in violation of the Controlled Substances Act, regardless of state law … such persons are subject to federal enforcement action, including potential prosecution.”

The plain meaning is that federal law enforcement officers can — and in an increasing number of cases have — gone after medical marijuana growers.

Scale

Justice Department spokeswoman Allison Price said via email last week that the department’s focus is “on making sure that people aren’t using the pretext of medical marijuana to do large-scale interstate drug dealing.”

She suggests the feds are looking at larger operations that aren’t well monitored. This should work in Connecticut’s favor. The state’s statute, passed last year, envisions a small, tightly controlled system. There will be no more than 10 secure production facilities (Colorado has more than 1,000 farms), and a limited but as yet undetermined number of dispensaries, each run by a licensed pharmacist. Marijuana will be treated like other controlled pharmaceuticals.

“Connecticut has done everything it can to insulate itself from federal intervention,” said Consumer Protection Commissioner William M. Rubenstein, whose department administers the program. He said in drafting the regulations, his people studied the experience in some (lightly regulated) Western states, and opted for a closely controlled system that would prevent theft and diversion and focus on sick people.

But for the federal law, major pharmaceutical companies, who know how to make safe drugs at competitive prices, might be in the game.

However …

In the vast and complex world of law there are many situations where state and federal laws disagree. The state and federal minimum wages are different, for example. We can live with most of these discrepancies, but not the disconnect on medical marijuana; it causes too many problems.

For example, the Colorado Court of Appeals in April upheld the firing of a quadriplegic man, Brandon Coates, for off-the-job medical-marijuana use, concluding that, because marijuana is illegal under federal law, employees have no protection to use it. Mr. Coates uses marijuana to control muscle spasms.

At present, 19 states and the District of Columbia have chosen to help people such as Mr. Coates. We urge Congress and the president to let them, by passing a law like Connecticut’s.

Source: Hartford Courant (CT)
Published: July 15, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Hartford Courant
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.courant.com/

12 Jul 2013

D.C. Council Bill Seeks To Decriminalize MJ

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Marijuana advocates in the District have a few friends on the D.C. Council. D.C. Councilmember Tommy Wells (D-Ward 6) unveiled a bill Wednesday morning that would decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, according to WUSA9.

Under the bill, anyone caught with less than one ounce of marijuana would face a civil penalty of a $100 fine. Under current law, possession of marijuana is a misdemeanor offense; first-time offenders face up to six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.

At a press conference, Wells said that the purpose of decriminalization is to save youths caught with marijuana from losing employment opportunities in the future.

“Once you have a marijuana charge on your record, you cannot participate in certainly the construction boom that is happening all over the city, and it works to stigmatize people … and it disadvantages them from jobs,” Wells said, according to The Washington Post.

A report by the American Civil Liberties Union in June found that D.C. leads the nation in marijuana possession arrests per capita, with a rate more than three times higher than the national average. The ACLU also found that nationally African Americans are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than whites, even though the two groups use marijuana at a nearly equal rate.

The proposed legislation was hailed by marijuana advocacy organizations.

“It is time to adopt a more sensible marijuana policy in our nation’s capital, and that is what Councilman Wells has proposed,” said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, in a press release.

According to surveys, the majority of D.C. residents support decriminalizing and legalizing marijuana. A poll conducted by Public Policy Polling in April found that 75 percent of D.C. residents support decriminalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana and that 63 percent support legalizing and taxing marijuana for those 21 and older.

Mayor Vincent Gray, however, has said that the District should focus on the implementation of its medical marijuana program before considering the decriminalization of marijuana more broadly.

Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) is also skeptical of decriminalizing marijuana, citing federal concerns.

“I don’t think it’s the right time,” Mendelson told the Post in May, adding, “I don’t think decriminalization of marijuana will go over easily with Congress.”

Wells introduced the legislation with Councilmember Marion Barry (D-Ward 8) and six additional co-sponsors, including Councilmember David Grosso (I-At Large), who has said he would support a bill to legalize marijuana.

If the District does decriminalize marijuana for personal use, it would join 14 states that already have similar laws on the books.

This story has been updated to note the introduction of the D.C. Council bill with multiple co-sponsors.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Will Wrigley
Published: July 10, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: [email protected]
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

11 Jul 2013

Former Mexican President Fox Urges Legalization

posted in: Cannabis News | 0

Former Mexican President Vicente Fox took his crusade to legalize marijuana to San Francisco on Monday, joining pot advocates to urge the United States and his own country to decriminalize the sale and recreational use of cannabis.

Fox met for three hours with the advocates, including Steve DeAngelo, the Oakland-based executive director of California’s largest marijuana dispensary, and former Microsoft executive Jamen Shively, who hopes to create a Seattle-based pot brand now that Washington state has legalized recreational use.

Legalization, Fox told reporters after the meeting, is the only way to end the violence of Mexican drug cartels, which he blamed on America’s war on drugs.

“The cost of the war is becoming unbearable – too high for Mexico, for Latin America and for the rest of the world,” Fox said in English.

Every day, he said, 40 young people are killed in drug-related violence.

Fox’s position on legalizing drugs has evolved over time since the days when he cooperated with U.S. efforts to tamp down production in Mexico during his 2000-2006 presidential term. He has been increasingly vocal in his opposition to current policies, backing two prior efforts to legalize marijuana in Mexico.

Mexico’s current president, Enrique Peña Nieto, has opposed legalization. But he recently said that he would consider world opinion on the matter, particularly in light of recent voter-approved initiatives to legalize marijuana in Washington state and Colorado for recreational use.

In San Francisco on Monday, Fox said he had signed on to attend and help develop an international summit later this month in Mexico to strategize a path to end marijuana prohibition.

Participants scheduled to attend the three-day meeting starting July 18 in San Cristobal include an American surgeon, the dean of Harvard’s School of Public Health and a Mexican congressman who plans to introduce a bill to legalize marijuana in Mexico this summer, Fox said.

The bill, which he expects to be introduced by Mexican lawmaker Fernando Belaunzaran, would legalize adult recreational use of marijuana, Fox said.

Support for legalizing marijuana in the United States has been growing. Nineteen states and the District of Columbia have passed medical marijuana laws, according to the pro-legalization National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. But the drug remains illegal under federal law.

Lifting the prohibition on cannabis in Mexico, however, appears to face more of an uphill battle. Mexican lawmakers have rejected previous legalization efforts and polls have shown little popular support for the idea.

But Fox promised to wage what he said was a necessary battle.

“We cannot afford more blood and the loss of more young people,” Fox said. “We must get out of the trap we are in.”

Editing by Sharon Bernstein and Eric Walsh

Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Ronnie Cohen
Published: July 8, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Thomson Reuters

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