HOW DO ALASKA POLICE TEST FOR MARIJUANA IN DRIVERS SUSPECTED OF DUI?
This week, we’ll examine a two-part question from Roger about cannabis intoxication and impaired driving. It’s been a hot topic in states where cannabis is now legal, and laws, policies and technologies are constantly evolving across the nation. The situation in Alaska is relatively stable because it apparently hasn’t changed very much since voters approved the legalization of recreational pot.  The Legislature has taken no action, and the ballot measure itself didn’t include DUI details. Roger asks:
If a person is stopped by police, and suspected of impaired driving with cannabis, what test can police do that doesn’t simply find traces in the blood or urine that could have already been there for weeks? Would this mean a person would have to wait a month before driving again, legally? With alcohol, there is a percentage limit that can be tested. Will they ever be able to do that with cannabis, to actually treat it “like alcohol?”
As Roger rightly notes, some marijuana tests detect past use, but don’t test for intoxication. Without getting technical here, urine tests look for a version of THC which no longer has an active effect, and which the body can store for over a month or more depending on individual factors. Tests seeking that substance are commonly used by employers with zero-tolerance drug policies, and because those tests don’t test for intoxication, they’re different from the ones used in court on DUI charges. So, no, people won’t have to be afraid of waiting to drive until all traces of marijuana consumption have left their bodies to avoid risking a marijuana DUI.
The chief intoxicating element of cannabis is delta-9 THC, or for our purposes here, “active THC.” Basically it’s THC that has not been used by the body yet. The only currently drop-dead accurate test to determine how much of it is in someone’s system within the narrow window of time associated with suspicion of impaired driving is to draw blood and test it. Blood tests in that case do test for active THC, not the inactive kind that sticks around for a while. But, for reasons we’ll get into later, that level by itself doesn’t prove intoxication on a basis as reliable as a similar level for alcohol does.
Charges of DUI strictly involving cannabis are rare in Alaska. Megan Peters, public information officer for the Alaska State Troopers, said in the last two months, troopers have charged only one driver with driving under the influence of marijuana. According to a troopers dispatch, that driver was a 55-year-old Eagle River man who got pulled over because his passenger wasn’t wearing a seat belt.  That court case is pending, Peters said.
When asked whether Anchorage police had charged anyone with a marijuana DUI in the past two months, Chief Mark Mew didn’t mention any specific cases but said, “We suspect marijuana involvement in approximately two dozen cases over the last couple months. This is a loose estimate, and the numbers cannot be confirmed until lab results are back. However, this number (and corresponding lab work) is based on cases in which suspects provide a breath (alcohol test) result below .08. It is not currently possible for us to estimate or know the total number of drivers who are impaired by both alcohol above a .08 and marijuana.”
How do police judge marijuana impairment?
Mew wrote in an email that the investigation of a suspected marijuana
DUI typically follows a protocol for APD officers:
An officer observes signs of impairment in a driver. The driver fails “standardized field sobriety tests” conducted at the scene. The officer arrests the suspect and takes him/her in for a breath test.  The driver blows either a 0.00 (scenario A) or some value under the per se limit for alcohol (scenario B). So we now suspect alcohol’s role in the impairment is either non-existent (example A) or amounts to a partial contributor (example B). But the driver is obviously wasted, so some other substance is involved. Is it pot? Some other illicit drug? A legally prescribed drug? Paint fumes? A seizure or diabetic episode? We ask more questions, which the driver may or may not choose to answer. We call a Drug Recognition Expert (DRE) if we have one on duty. The DRE may be able to ferret out the likely answer. Ultimately, we apply for a search warrant to get (and later analyze) the driver’s blood. That is the only way we will know for sure what has been ingested. We take the driver to the magistrate, not knowing the results of the blood test. We explain whatever we do know and what we are waiting to learn. The magistrate considers all this in determining what kind of bail and conditions to impose.
Peters in an email described troopers following essentially the same process.
Compared to alcohol breath tests, blood tests for cannabis are expensive and something of a hassle for law enforcement because of special protocols, storage, delay of test results and extra training needs. In Alaska, drawing blood for determining impaired driving requires consent or a warrant unless there are other factors beyond suspicion of cannabis intoxication. Alaska law issues driver’s licenses on the condition of implied consent for alcohol breath tests under suspicion of DUI, and for blood or urine tests for any controlled substances in the case of an accident that causes death or serious injury. But the state’s driver manual doesn’t mention cannabis by name in the section explaining implied consent laws.
All of these reasons mean there is strong incentive for technological innovation. Once the breath test for alcohol became standardized and states set blood alcohol limits, known as “per se” limits, police and citizens alike gained a clear standard to make decisions on. But that doesn’t exist yet at a statewide level, and according to Mew, it would have to be a change made at that level.
Can pot have a legal limit like alcohol?
Colorado, along with other states, has set a per se limit of active THC at 5 nanograms per milliliter of blood. But that ratio means different things to different people. Many smokers may be intoxicated at that point, but many heavy or frequent users, including medical patients, may feel perfectly sober there. But everyone, no matter body type or experience level, is a certain, quantifiable amount “drunk” with a blood alcohol content of .08 percent.
The per se law in Colorado has led to complications for law enforcement and citizens, a phenomenon some call “sober DUIs” because the ratio of intoxication to blood THC level depends largely on individual use patterns.
The cannabis critic for the Denver weekly Westword (and a medical card holder in Colorado), for instance, tested at more than three times his state’s legal limit after abstaining from all forms of pot overnight plus 15 hours. That bears repeating: He tested at nearly three times Colorado’s legal limit for active THC in the blood, but he was completely sober.
There are saliva tests available, but they’re not as reliable as the courts would need them to be for evidence of intoxication. A Canadian company says it has developed a prototype pot breath test machine, but details are sparse. If a reliable and accurate breath test were ever developed and put widely in use, like the one in place for water-soluble alcohol, marijuana’s fat-soluble nature may mean evidence vulnerable to challenge. But who knows how any of this will play out in the courts.
All of this means, in my opinion, that setting per se limits for pot pose a big challenge. Unless future technology can reliably and accurately test for active THC and correlate it to impairment based on a known and regular formula, society won’t be able to treat marijuana strictly “like alcohol” when it comes to DUIs. Still, because of the great need among citizens and law enforcement to determine what amount of THC in the body is safe to drive with, and then find a cheap and reliable way to test for it, science and entrepreneurs are searching for the magic bullet.
Time will tell however, and because of THC’s behavior in the body, the most reliable future test of impaired driving may not even end up being one of blood. Because of the expense and hassle of blood tests, if someone could figure out a way to get blood out of the cannabis DUI enforcement equation, it could be worth a mint.
To that end, researchers at Arizona State University have developed a smartphone app they say is a new use of technology already in use to detect Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s and one Marines are adapting to train helicopter pilots. The app uses a phone’s camera to measure the tiny, involuntary movements of the eyes to determine how impaired someone is. It will soon be studied in the field, according to ASU, in one study with users to see if the app has an effect on their decisions whether to drive or not. Another study will work with police to “detect what drug is in a person’s system and the degree of impairment,” starting with marijuana.
Are stoned drivers a problem in Alaska?
According to the Christian Science Monitor, in Washington in 2013, the first full year of legalization there, drivers testing positive for marijuana jumped nearly 25 percent over the previous year, but there was no corresponding increase in car accidents or fatalities.  Intoxicated driving of any kind is never a good idea, but to complicate things even more, transportation studies have found that including losing some reaction time, stoned drivers tend to recognize their own impairment and compensate for it.
So while the world researches the problem and the Legislature approaches the end of its session, what enforcement tools are needed right now according to authorities?
Mew said that an implied consent law for both blood and breath would help but that it would have to pass muster in the courts and Legislature. He and Peters both said that their agency’s marijuana DUI enforcement efforts would benefit from some sort of easy, accurate and reliable test, either of breath or blood. But Mew added that in the meantime, an expansion of refrigeration capacity would help APD store test samples, as well as an expansion of training programs for patrol and specialist officers who encounter drugged drivers.
Mew said that wish list was part of what APD has learned from other agencies around the country, but another need the department heard of has less to do with enforcement and more to do with gathering data:
“Reprogram your reporting systems to capture the marijuana and
drugged driving statistics that everyone is soon going to demand.”
That data would be of use to policy makers in Alaska, for nothing else to determine the real scope and nature of problems stoned drivers pose on Alaska roadways.
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
Webpage: http://mapinc.org/url/23ypLMpc
Copyright: 2015 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
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Author: Jaime Adame
Page: 4B

MEDICAL MARIJUANA VIEWS AIRED
Panel gives both sides chance to voice opinions on controversial
issue
FAYETTEVILLE - A panel discussion on medical marijuana offered Fayetteville city attorney Kit Williams a chance to describe his wife’s personal story of how the drug helped her while she underwent chemotherapy treatments for cancer.
Fayetteville city attorney Kit Williams admitted that about five years ago, before his wife’s diagnosis, he thought advocacy for medical marijuana “was a bunch of smoke and mirrors.”
But the panel at the Arkansas Health Disparities Conference at the University of Arkansas also gave a Little Rock doctor, David Smith, a chance to express his concerns about the chemicals in marijuana.
Williams said his wife, Emily, suffered greatly from nausea while being treated for lymphoma, a type of cancer.
But once she began using marijuana, “the pain that she had been feeling, the nausea that had been wrecking her system, started going away almost immediately,” Williams said.
He admitted that about five years ago, before his wife’s diagnosis, he thought advocacy for medical marijuana “was a bunch of smoke and mirrors.”
He said he and his wife, now free of cancer symptoms, considered keeping her usage a secret during public efforts to make medical marijuana legal in Arkansas.
“But it wasn’t right. Not everybody is going to be as brave as my wife,” Williams said.
Smith, a palliative care physician who treats gravely ill patients at Baptist Health Medical Center in Little Rock, said he agreed that more research should be done on certain types of chemicals in marijuana.
“The things that influence us based on our isolated cases or our personal experience, we can’t just practice medicine because those things are not reliable,” Smith said. “They don’t hold up to statistical scrutiny. We need much more.”
He offered reasons why he would be concerned about medical marijuana as proposed previously in Arkansas, however. For example, he expressed concern that children might have easier access to the drug.
He also doubted that marijuana dispensary workers had the training of a pharmacist, for example.
“If you use a medical model, we need to make it a medicine,” Smith said.
Also on the panel was Melissa Fults, campaign director for Arkansans for Compassionate Care. She spoke about what she described as the overly harsh restrictions on research into the benefits of marijuana.
In an interview after the panel, Fults said her group has drafted a new proposal that would legalize marijuana for medical use in Arkansas. She said the group has set of goal of gathering 140,000 signatures by January to have the measure - which she described as having more restrictions than a previous draft from the group - on the state ballot in 2016.
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Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: Tucson Weekly (AZ)
Copyright: 2015 Tucson Weekly
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/462
Author: Maria Ines Taracena

TWO’S A CROWD
Only One Group Can Survive the Legalization Initiative Process If
Arizona Really Wants Legal Weed
A group made up of medical marijuana dispensary stakeholders surprised the Marijuana Policy Project when they came out of the closet with a different ballot measure proposal to legalize recreational pot next year.
Up until about two weeks ago, the official plan A was an initiative by the Washington-based group that’s been in the works for months.  But MPP can’t seem to make all of its Arizona allies happy, and ended up pushing its former campaign chairwoman Gina Berman to abandon the group and start her own.
This plan B group, Arizonans for Responsible Legalization, alleges MPP haven’t ompromised to the requests of dispensaries. Some of the disagreements include the number of dispensaries allowed to operate and the licensing structure.
Berman, who is also the medical director of the Phoenix-area Giving Tree Wellness Center dispensary, said in a very short statement, after filing paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office, that the newly established group would unveil the measure’s language in the next few weeks, and that they were committed to ensure “the greatest benefit to taxpayers and boosting education funding.”
Safer Arizona, which provided input in MPP’s initiative draft process, knew about the group’s plan for some time, according to Mikel Weisser, Safer’s political director. “If they didn’t get what they wanted, something was going to blow up,” he says. “Because MPP wasn’t dealing with their own investors properly, they are currently facing losing them.”
Rob Kampia, MPP co-founder and executive director, sent out an email on April 1 (after another arose where he threatened Berman to boycott her dispensary), saying Berman’s allegations came out of left field.  He summarized parts of the MPP measure, which all seem to benefit dispensaries. He said MPP and Berman had agreed on these right before plan B emerged.
One: Only medical marijuana dispensary registration certificate holders would be granted unlimited pot cultivation licenses. And two:
Industry newcomers not only would be at the bottom of the list for
licensing, but they’d also only qualify for “the smallest license available.”
Also, “The number of licenses for these businesses would not be limited by the initiative, but would be subject to limitations imposed by rules and ordinances established by cities, towns, and counties. There would be no limit on who can apply for any of these licenses, but medical marijuana dispensary registration certificate holders would be preferred over other applicants,” he said.
He wraps it up saying MPP is sticking to that agreement, but that if the Responsible Legalization folks move forward with this surprise initiative, MPP will scratch that and file a measure that has a “free-market approach.”
MPP’s initiative is currently in the hands of the Legislative Counsel’s office. Once the counsel gives them feedback, they’ll submit the final initiative to the Secretary of State and commence the signature gathering process.
Kampia mentioned cultivation rights in the email, as well. Allegedly, a person would have the right to grow six plants at his or her home.  This is similar to the language in a previous draft, but it was scratched, creating chaos with Safer Arizona and other advocates.
“Respect the will of the actual consumers you claim to be serving, involve the community waiting to be your army, be our champion,” Weisser said in a statement after plan B initiative was announced.  Weisser says Safer has its own initiative, and that they’ve also consider their own plans A through G in case things with MPP and others fall through. “MPP has consistently refused to pay enough attention to our concern (home cultivation), and our group started scrambling when MPP cut the grow rights,” he says.
MPP Arizona Political Director Carlos Alfaro was calm when he said MPP, the dispensaries and activists are discussing a middle ground.
“Be sure that none of this really has disrupted any of our plans or any operations,” he says. “There are so many drafts of this initiative, trying to get all of these people and their interests involved. Once we have that all cleared up, we hope to have an initiative that compromises those interests.”
Weisser says that someone’s got to give in this heated pot battle.  There cannot be two initiatives gathering signatures and landing on the ballot. It might, once again, cheat Arizona out of legal pot.
“I believe that MPP and the plan B are fighting for the same donor stream, only one is going to survive,” he says. “The person who’s supposed to be raising money for you just jumped on the other team.  They are going to have to come up with a resolution.”
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Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/ObjXjzOJ
Copyright: 2015 The Arizona Republic
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Author: Yvonne Wingett Sanchez

E-MAIL: POT-LEGALIZATION GROUP’S LEADER TARGETS RIVAL ORGANIZATION
The director of a group behind an initiative to legalize pot in Arizona threatened to target the business affairs of a marijuana-dispensary medical director who joined a competing legalization effort, documents obtained by The Arizona Republic show.
Two groups have filed paperwork with the Secretary of State’s Office to pursue initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana: the influential Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project and the newly created Arizonans for Responsible Legalization.
The conflict focuses on Gina Berman, medical director at the Giving Tree Wellness Center marijuana dispensary and an emergency-room physician. Berman worked with the Marijuana Policy Project’s campaign committee before joining Arizonans for Responsible Legalization.
The documents shed light on conflicting philosophies behind the proposed ballot measures and offer insight into how the 2016 ballot initiatives may be pitched to Arizona voters.
In an e-mail to Berman late last month, Rob Kampia, co-founder and executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project, which has helped with legalization efforts in other states, expressed surprise at her departure.
“Obviously, I was shocked to learn that you formed a campaign committee to compete with your own campaign committee,” Kampia wrote.  He later added that if she filed a competing marijuana initiative with the secretary of state, “we will specifically launch a series of actions to harm your business, in the spirit of what social-justice movements do to boycott bad companies or bad business owners.”
Kampia, who did not respond to The Republic’s request to discuss the dispute, wrote in his e-mail the competing initiative would not affect his group’s plans. He also said his group’s retaliation would be completely legal.
“For example, I’m already budgeting ... $10,000 (as of Friday) to pay people for 1,000 hours of time to distribute literature outside of your front door, and the literature will not portray you in a kind way,” Kampia’s e-mail said. “We will not target any other dispensaries; we will only target you. (There are other legal actions I have planned, so please just assume that distributing literature will be one of four or five tactics to disrupt your business; again, this will all be legal).”
Berman, now chairwoman of the Arizonans for Responsible Legalization, responded and urged Kampia to “reconsider this path.” She wrote that he should work with ARL to advance that group’s marijuana legalization idea.
If Kampia pursues the threat, Berman wrote, “it is very likely that both MPP as an organization and you as an individual will be liable for tortuously interfering with business expectancies.”
She warned that her group may also pursue legal claims against his if he retaliates.
The groups, she wrote, “disagreed on several” key points on the planned campaigns, most notably, the number of marijuana dispensaries that would be allowed to operate and home-grow provisions. Both groups are finalizing their initiatives.
Berman wrote that the Marijuana Policy Project has proposed that its legalization initiative allow “an unlimited number of marijuana dispensaries” throughout the state. Such a proposal would be bad, she wrote, because voters “do not support such a radical departure from current law.”
“An incremental approach, that caps the number of dispensaries at or slightly above the current number of licensed dispensaries, is the only politically feasible approach,” Berman wrote. She added that oversight and monitoring of an unlimited number of dispensaries by public officials would be impossible.
Berman also wrote that the Marijuana Policy Project had proposed “a dramatic deregulation of homegrown marijuana,” but speculates that voters would not support that.
She wrote that it would be a mistake to have competing measures on the 2016 ballot because they would “inevitably dilute the financial resources available to the decriminalization effort in Arizona.”
Marijuana Policy Project officials have said their initiative might be modeled after the marijuana program in Colorado, which was approved by voters and allows adults age 21 and older to use and possess up to an ounce of pot. The marijuana is purchased at marijuana shops allowed to operate under the law.
Such marijuana use remains illegal under the federal Controlled Substances Act, but in 2013 the U.S. Department of Justice said it would allow laws regulating recreational use of marijuana.
Mason Tvert, Marijuana Policy Project communications director, declined to discuss Kampia’s letter. However, he said, the group was disappointed that Berman left the group, saying “it came out of nowhere.”
Arizona is among a couple dozen states and the District of Columbia that allow marijuana use for medicinal or recreational reasons.  Arizona voters approved the use of medicinal marijuana in 2010 for conditions such as chronic pain and cancer, but the program didn’t gain momentum until last year, when dispensaries began to open.
About 65,000 people participate in the program, and the state Department of Health Services, which oversees the program, has limited the number of dispensaries to 126 statewide.
In an April 1 e-mail to people involved in the effort, Kampia wrote Berman had “misstated the facts a few times recently” and said his group would push for an “unlimited number of retail licenses.”
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Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/hjOStVNI
Copyright: 2015 The Arizona Republic
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Author: Michael Kiefer

RULING ALLOWS PROBATIONERS TO USE MEDICAL POT
Court: Stopping Valid Use Can’t Be Probation Term
The Arizona Supreme Court on Tuesday issued two rulings barring courts and prosecutors from denying marijuana use as a term of probation if the convicted felons have valid medical-marijuana cards.
In one case, a man convicted of possessing marijuana for sale in Cochise County was forbidden from using marijuana by a probation officer after he was released from prison.
In the second, a woman pleading guilty to DUI in Yavapai County refused to accept abstention from marijuana as a term of probation, prompting the prosecution to withdraw the plea agreement. Both had valid medical-marijuana cards.
The Supreme Court ruled that both had the right to use marijuana for their medical conditions and that prosecutors and courts could not block that right as a term of probation.
“The Supreme Court is recognizing what the people decided when they passed the initiative: You can use your medicine,” said David Euchner, an assistant Pima County public defender.
Euchner argued as a friend of the court in both cases in his role as a member of the executive committee for Arizona Attorneys for Criminal Justice.
The court ruled, however, that the Yavapai County Attorney’s Office had the right to withdraw from the offered plea agreement because it had not yet been accepted by a judge.
In 2010, Keenan Reed-Kaliher pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana for sale in Cochise County and was sent to prison for a year and a half.
The Medical Marijuana Act was passed later that year and went into effect in 2011, so it did not affect Reed-Kaliher’s plea agreement.
The terms of his probation required that he “obey all laws,” according to the Supreme Court decision.
When he was released on probation, Reed-Kaliher’s probation officer added the term that he not possess or use marijuana. Reed-Kaliher, who had a valid medical-marijuana card, appealed.
A Cochise County Superior Court judge did not agree with his argument, but the Arizona Court of Appeals did.
Tuesday’s decision affirmed the Court of Appeals ruling.
“[I]f the state extends a plea offer that includes probation, it cannot condition the plea on acceptance of a probationary term that would prohibit a qualified patient from using medical marijuana ...” the ruling said.
Prosecutors are not pleased with the ruling.
“It’s another example of the problems with initiative drafting and unintended consequences,” Maricopa County Attorney Bill Montgomery said in an e-mail to The Arizona Republic. “There was no discussion at the time of the election regarding the impact to case resolutions and the ability for parties to negotiate plea agreements.”
Montgomery is a staunch opponent of marijuana use. On March 23, he raised eyebrows during a debate in Tempe over the use of recreational marijuana when he called a veteran who admitted to using the drug an “enemy.”
But the defense attorney he faced off against, Marc Victor, said Tuesday’s court ruling was just, “because the initiative specifically said your right to use medical marijuana can’t be taken away.”
Still, Victor found it “bizarre,” noting ReedKaliher’s conviction and “at the same time we’re giving you the right to smoke marijuana while you’re rehabilitating.”
The second case Tuesday covered a slightly different probation angle.
Jennifer Lee Ferrell was arrested in 2012 and charged with DUI.
Pursuant to Yavapai County Attorney’s Office policy, Ferrell’s plea agreement required her to avoid marijuana as a condition of probation.
The high court said no.
Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk is also firmly against marijuana use.
“I implemented the ‘no marijuana condition’ after the probation department noted a significant increase in the number of probationers obtaining a medical marijuana card to use marijuana while on felony probation,” Polk said in an e-mail to The Republic. “My goal - and the goal of the system - is to set convicted felons up to succeed, to find employment and to turn their lives around. Marijuana is not part of that equation.”
Polk said she is considering appealing to the U.S. Supreme Court.
The Reed-Kaliher case also addressed whether federal drug laws pre-empted state law and would undo the two court decisions.
The Arizona Supreme Court said no.
“The matter of preemption has to be addressed sooner or later,” Montgomery said.
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Pubdate: Fri, 10 Apr 2015
Source: Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, CA)
Copyright: 2015 Appeal-Democrat
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http://www.appeal-democrat.com/sections/services/forms/editorletter.php
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Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1343
Author: Eric Vodden

AFTER RULING, POT REFERENDUM PETITIONS ARE TURNED AWAY
Opponents to Yuba County’s new medical marijuana ordinance tried Thursday to file referendum petitions with county election officials, but were turned away.
County Clerk-Recorder Terry Hansen said she had no choice but to not accept the petitions that would force the new ordinance to a public vote. Ordinance opponents also made an unsuccessful attempt to file them with the clerk to the Board of Supervisors.
“They were polite,” Hansen said. “I told them we are not trying to be obstructive and that when we have some direction from the court we will help them through the process.”
The attempt came after the 3rd District Court of Appeal on Wednesday denied an emergency writ filed by attorney Joe Elford, representing growers. That writ sought to overturn a Yuba County court ruling on Tuesday that left an “urgency” designation with the ordinance intact, effectively blocking the referendum.
Elford said Thursday he intends to seek relief from the state Supreme Court. The attempt to file the referendum petitions would have preserved the integrity of the signatures if opponents get a favorable Supreme Court ruling, he said.
Instead, Elford said, the petitions will be placed in a safety deposit box, with the date recorded, to ensure no signatures were collected after Thursday.
Six growers and Yuba Patients Coalition, Inc., sued Yuba County over the new, stricter marijuana cultivation ordinance approved March 10 by county supervisors. The new ordinance bans outdoor plants and limits plants to a dozen inside a qualified accessory building.
At issue in recent hearings was the board’s decision to designate the new law an urgency ordinance. That meant it took effect immediately and eliminated a 30-day waiting period for gathering referendum signatures.
Opponents still have the option of collecting signatures for a voter initiative.
Since there is no procedure for filing emergency writs with the
Supreme Court, Elford said there wasn’t time to file before the end
of what would have been today’s referendum deadline. He said the
Supreme Court appeal, which would presumably have to include a motion to reinstate the referendum process, will likely be made next week.
Yuba County Superior Court Judge Benjamin Wirtschafter must also still formally rule on the growers’ motion for a preliminary injunction that would halt enforcement of the ordinance until the initial lawsuit is resolved.
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Pubdate: Thu, 05 Mar 2015
Source: SF Weekly (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
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Website: http://www.sfweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/812
Author: Chris Roberts

Why Are the U.S. Attorney and DEA Taking an Interest in Everyday
Tenderloin Crime?
FEDERAL ‘LOIN
Ivan Speed is not a model citizen. Since growing up in the Alemany housing projects, Speed has spent his adulthood running the streets in San Francisco, racking up the kind of record—assault, theft, drugs, guns—that would earn even a fallen choir boy the title of “career criminal.”
Not that anyone in the Marina has anything to fear from the likes of Speed. His crime spree as of late has been contained to the Tenderloin, where his alleged misdeeds—stealing $25, swiping a phone, selling $50 worth of crack cocaine—are seemingly trivial, especially considering these daily occurrences often take place in full view of rollerbag-dragging tourists who wandered a block too far from their Union Square hotel.
But Speed’s multiple stints in custody in between filling the police blotter are not entirely harmless. Speed and many others like him stuck in the criminal justice system’s revolving door are why are San Francisco has the highest recidivism rate in the state -- 77.9 percent, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. They also create a constant headache for frustrated police, who are tired of arresting the same people for the same crimes in the same place. Cops blame an accommodating district attorney and lenient judges for sticking them with the regular cast of recalcitrant reoffenders. Multiple offenses might lead to nothing more than probation, which means a swift return to the streets.
It appears that police have found an innovative solution to this revolving door. Thanks to the federal Justice Department, which in between dealing with terrorism and immigration has taken an interest in policing the Tenderloin, “business as usual” on Turk Street can now lead to a federal prison term.
This month, Speed is scheduled to stand trial for allegedly possessing a gun—a no-no for a felon on probation. The gun was allegedly used in a May 2012 robbery, where four men allegedly robbed a victim of a phone and $25 in front of a Tenderloin liquor store. As of now, there might not be a victim in this crime: The robbery victim gave police a fake name and a fake address before disappearing completely, according to court filings, and no witnesses are scheduled to testify in court.
If convicted, Speed could serve more than 200 months in prison, court filings say.
Mellina Williams’ situation is similar. In 2013, San Francisco cops nabbed the now 32-year-old black woman for selling 1.4 grams of crack to an undercover cop—a kind of “buy-bust” that clogged court dockets with dope fiends and stuff narcs’ pockets with overtime pay during the crack era’s heyday. This anachronistic practice is dying out. Courts don’t want to deal with hordes of nonviolent drug offenders any more than overcrowded prisons want to house them.
But for her cheap rock, Williams did over a year in federal lockup.  Williams and Speed were both arrested in “Operation Safe Schools,” a 2013 caper in which S.F. cops working with Drug Enforcement Administration agents brought in 10 people for selling crack on the streets of the Tenderloin. In federal court, treasured San Francisco innovations like drug court, pretrial diversion, and other alternatives to incarceration do not apply, and judges working with mandatory minimums are not compelled to treat drug sales, no matter how petty, with probation.
The purpose of “Safe Schools,” according to the feds, is to crack down on drug dealing near schools. And as happens in the central part of a densely populated city, all of the Tenderloin’s reliable drug corners—Turk and Taylor, Golden Gate and Hyde, to name a few—are within 1,000 feet of a school. That triggers tougher penalties and justifies the federal government’s interest in dime and nickel rocks of crack.
Eight of the 10 suspects arrested in the first Safe Schools sweep were black women, an inexplicable discrepancy unlike any other I’ve seen. Most were in their late 20s or early 30s, and most were mothers themselves, according to court documents. Nearly all had a string of prior convictions for the same offenses: possession of drugs, possession of drugs with the intent to sell, sale of drugs to an undercover officer. Instead of probation, all of them did at least a year in federal lockup.
If the first Safe Schools failed to impress, check out the sequel. In February, federal prosecutors announced another Safe Schools haul.
This one -- 19 people—is even bigger, but it’s more of the same:
repeat offenders, black men and women, the denizens of the Tenderloin
at the mercy of a federal government that, unlike San Francisco, is
not giving up on the drug war.
SFPD Chief Greg Suhr, the former narc who received praise from liberal and libertarian media in December for supposedly “disbanding” the city’s narcotics unit, is a huge fan. In a press release announcing Safe Schools II, Suhr praised the DEA and the U.S.  Attorney and offered harsh words for the drug dealers “preying on young children.”
Which they aren’t. Speed is accused of holding a gun during a liquor store holdup. Williams sold a rock to an undercover cop. These crimes do not involve kids. Even if Safe Schools is 100 percent successful of ridding the TL of dope dealers, school kids will still have to navigate a maze of chronic inebriates and mentally ill people while traversing the Tenderloin.
“Safe Schools” seems to serve one main purpose: It gives those cops tired of seeing the same faces a workaround to avoid local leniency and give dope fiends real punishment, with rules that favor the cops instead of the robbers.
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Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: SF Weekly (CA)
Column: ChemTales
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.sfweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.sfweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/812
Author: Chris Roberts

SFPD’S FERGUSON PROBLEM
The San Francisco Police Department worked hard to arrest Cassie Roberts.
San Francisco cops along with Drug Enforcement Administration agents staked out Roberts and several dozen other Tenderloin denizens for weeks, recording and observing video of them from rooftops and parked cars. After a hand-to-hand-drug sale between Roberts and a confidential informant wearing a hidden body camera was caught on camera, a U.S. attorney went to a grand jury with Roberts’ name. An indictment was issued, an arrest warrant was signed by a federal judge, and later, Roberts was apprehended and charged in federal court.
Roberts is one of the 37 people SFPD arrested from August 2013 to February 2015 in a sting called “Operation Safe Schools.” Lenient local and state sentencing guidelines such as Prop. 47 do not apply to federal busts; thanks to federal mandatory minimums, fewer than 1.4 grams of crack cocaine earned Roberts and 12 others about one year in federal prison.
Every one of the people arrested during that sting is black. Almost half are women. In Roberts’ case, cops passed on busting another drug dealer - an Asian woman - so they could nab Roberts. The confidential informant rejected drugs from “the Asian chick” to get “the good shit” from Roberts, according to court filings.
On its face, this looks bad. As a quick walk down Turk Street shows, selling small quantities of drugs in the Tenderloin is an equal opportunity pursuit. (Just to be safe, the defense called an expert witness who testified that, yes, people of all races sell heroin, Oxycontin, crack, and other drugs in the Tenderloin.)
For the SFPD, the timing couldn’t be worse. Chief Greg Suhr is in the middle of firing or disciplining 10 veteran officers, including a captain and a sergeant who exchanged racist text messages with a former cop recently convicted on federal corruption charges. The content of the messages included: “All niggers must fucking hang;” “White power!;” “U may have to kill the half-breed kids too;” and “Ask my 6 year old what he thinks about Obama.” That on top of the all-black arrests paints a troubling picture of San Francisco cops.
At a press conference last week regarding recent law-enforcement scandals - the text messages and the two drug lab technicians who may have jeopardized cases with faulty DNA evidence - Suhr struck a defiant tone.
A day after telling a Board of Supervisors committee that bias is a natural thing - “I have bias, everybody has bias,” he said - Suhr defended Operation Safe Schools as a worthy exercise that will keep children safe.
“The one common denominator” was not race, but “selling narcotics in and around schools,” he said.
One cop will be investigated for his conduct during the stings, Suhr
said, but not for racial profiling when making arrests: The
unidentified officer uttered “Fucking BMs” - short for “black males”
? while conducting surveillance. “Ssh, we’re rolling,” the cop’s partner admonished.

Not everyone arrested by the SFPD is African-American. Blacks
comprise less than 6 percent of San Francisco’s population, yet about
56 percent of the people arrested in the city are black, according to
Public Defender Jeff Adachi. That includes well over half of the
people arrested last year for felony drug charges.
According to Rev. Amos Brown, the minister who heads the San Francisco chapter of the NAACP, San Francisco police have a racial problem that is on par with Ferguson, Missouri’s. This - the text messages, the all-black busts - is proof positive, he told me recently. “It’s the same as it ever was,” he said.
That’s an incendiary statement that was marginalized by another influential black leader named Brown.
In late March, former Mayor Willie Brown used his weekly column in the Sunday San Francisco Chronicle to dismiss Amos Brown’s Ferguson remarks as akin to 9/11 trutherism (the Chronicle’s editors also allowed Willie Brown to repeat an old lie: That Amos Brown had used a 9/11 memorial to blame America for the attacks).
In his most recent Sunday column, however, Willie Brown reversed his opinion, devoting the space to “the story that isn’t being addressed at all, namely that San Francisco is a lot more like Ferguson, Mo., than anyone will admit.”
Willie Brown’s Ferguson flip-flop took less than three weeks.
The 37 black people arrested in Safe Schools appeared to have been singled out. They were all repeat offenders known to police with rap sheets that read like a criminal’s resume: drug possession, drug sales, theft, assault. They were not arrested moments after they allegedly committed these crimes. Their names were given to a prosecutor who then presented the evidence needed for an indictment and a subsequent arrest.
Even Suhr’s best defense falls flat. he and U.S. Attorney for Northern California Melinda Haag praised Operation Safe Schools for protecting school kids. But, as defense attorneys pointed out, there’s a slight flaw: There are no public schools in the Tenderloin.  And, hundreds of other drug deals go down right in front of public schools without attention from federal authorities.
A couple of black leaders are calling on Suhr to do what he does whenever a civilian is killed by police: Call a meeting and present himself, listen to concerns and address them. That would be better than what he appears to be doing now, which is trying to use kids to mask a racial bias.
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Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
Column: The Week in Weed
Copyright: 2015 North Coast Journal
Contact: letters@northcoastjournal.com
Website: http://www.northcoastjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2833
Author: Grant Scott-Goforth

GIVE IT AWAY NOW
Washington, D.C. is shaping up to be the most fascinating setting of the great American marijuana experiment.
A series of political quirks have made the city’s marijuana-friendly lawmakers and residents agitated, but the outcome - a potentially commercialism-free, socialistic utopian marijuana share society - is being cautiously heralded by some analysts.
D.C. had been moving toward the decriminalization of weed for some time when Congress, in all its wisdom, passed a law banning the city from spending money to regulate pot. That old governmental logic:
Prohibit spending money to get rid of costly-to-enforce laws. Anyway,
when D.C. voters repealed the law prohibiting marijuana last year,
local lawmakers were left with one choice: a marijuana share economy.
Unlike Colorado or Washington, where the state governments carefully track the growth, preparation and trade of marijuana, D.C. - unable to fund an ABC-like marijuana oversight board - decommercialized the industry.
So you can possess pot, grow it, smoke it and give it away. But you cannot trade or sell it.
Mark Kleiman of the RAND Corporation thinks this is a good idea.  According to a recent New York Times article, Kleiman and his fellow researchers have recommended that states find “intermediate options between prohibition and commercial legalization,” like nonprofit cooperatives or government-run grows (like the system Uruguay recently adopted). Another option is a grow-your-own weed economy like D.C.
That, Kleiman argues, reduces the negative impacts likely to appear in full commercialization: “The main risk is that marijuana businesses will - as alcohol and tobacco companies did - successfully market their products to heavy users who would be better off using less, and that they will resist regulations that discourage problem use,” writes the Times.
Conservative commentator David Frum, who opposes outright legalization, told the Times that the D.C. model has merit. “It does seek to thread a path between the evils of having an industry that creates a lot of dependency and, on the other hand, having a lot of people in jail for issues that are fundamentally of dependency and not moral failing.”
The big question is if grow-and-give marijuana will work. There’s
little doubt some aspect of the black market will continue. Not all
of marijuana’s frequent users have the means or desire to grow their
own. It’s hard to imagine many people taking on the costs of growing
? in D.C., it would have to be indoors - in order to give buds away with nothing expected in return.

But Kleiman says grow-and-give has the potential to get rid of the
“flagrant” black market - the kind of street dealing and
money-changing that harms neighborhoods and leads to violence - while
not opening the floodgates to Big Marijuana.
California, meanwhile, isn’t flummoxed by congressional meddling like D.C., so it’s unlikely that such a radical mode of legalization would ever stick here.
So far, Ballotpedia lists only one legalization ballot measure with the potential to appear on the 2016 ballot, though there are apparently others in the works. California Marijuana Legalization Initiative, sponsored by the Marijuana Policy Project, would regulate and tax weed, leaving everything else to the private sector.
The Golden State’s medical marijuana industry operates in the billions, and there hasn’t been the scent of a non-commercial proposal from any industry associations, advocates or legislators.  There’s simply too much money to be made. And lost.
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Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact: sactoletters@newsreview.com
Website: http://newsreview.com/sacto/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540
Author: Ngaio Bealum

OILY TEARS
Hi, Ngaio, I enjoy your articles.
I’ve never smoked it but once, finding it wasn’t my thing, but I have no issues with those that do. Which brings me to my question: I’m a 73-year-old male diagnosed with low-stage prostate cancer that will eventually kill me. Luckily for me, a friend with stage 4 metastatic lung cancer, not wishing to spend her final days in misery, elected to use the Rick Simpson procedure. In two months, the tumor had shrunk a third and there were no signs of other progression. Her last checkup showed no change in her status.
After more research and being unimpressed with the traditional options available, I started the treatment two months ago. My question is how is one to tell that they are receiving the proper product?
Is it based on faith?
I feel like my next test in two weeks should show me cancer-free as proof that my product was correct. Do you have any idea as to the proper amount?
How can you tell the strength, purity?
I guess I’m asking for any information you may have on this confusing issue.
? Tom

Hello, Tom. I am sorry to hear that you have cancer and I am glad
your friend is doing better.
I hope the treatment works for you, as well. The thing about the Rick Simpson cannabis oil treatment, a.k.a. Phoenix Tears (phoenixtears.ca), is that while the anecdotal evidence is promising (your friend is doing better, I have a friend who beat cancer with it), there are no rigorous studies showing it to be effective. I am sure it will help you, though.
At the least, it couldn’t hurt to try. As to your question about how to know if you are getting the right product, well, it depends.
Your letter doesn’t say where you are from, but if you got your oil from a reputable dispensary in California, you most likely have the right stuff.
Most clubs these days send their products to labs for testing, so you should be OK there.
However, the FDA did recently send out warning letters to a few manufacturers of high-CBD products (http://1.usa.gov/19UhWoB) about making unsupported claims and not having very much CBD in their products.
This all goes to show how prohibition is holding us back from doing serious research into how cannabis helps to fight cancer.
I hope the Rick Simpson oil helps. Please keep in touch.
I’m making weed butter for the first time, and I’m seeing so many recipes with totally different steps and methods.
Do you have any advice or favorite weed butter recipes?
And what do you like to make with it when it’s done?
? Guy

Easy and quick: Put some butter and some ground-up cannabis in a
crockpot set on low. Let it cook at least two hours or overnight.
Strain it and chill it. Boom. Done. Use it like regular butter.
Pound cake is always good, or just slather it on some toast and go about your day. Woot!
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, CA)
Copyright: 2015 Appeal-Democrat
Contact:
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/sections/services/forms/editorletter.php
Website: http://www.appeal-democrat.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1343
Author: Harold Kruger
Page: A7

POT CASE GOES UP IN SMOKE?
California’s Marijuana Wars Never Seem to End, and Now the Frontlines Are in Yuba County.
What a scary thought if you’re one of the pot people.
This mess just spun out of control, as the supervisors passed an ordinance they thought would make everybody happy, or at least not upset.
But with marijuana, nothing is easy. Suddenly, there were all of these pot grows, mostly in the foothills, which got the foothills folks upset.
So they managed to persuade the board to pass a more restrictive ordinance.
Who’s unhappy now? The pot people, who say they need their pot for medicinal purposes.
But isn’t that supposed to be allowed in California? You grow pot for medical reasons?
Well, apparently not, if growing the pot upsets your neighbor, whose life is apparently ruined just knowing there’s pot growing next door.
And then there’s the crime thing - folks apparently like to steal other folks’ pot - so it turns into a big mess.
And now it’s a big mess in the courts.
Lawsuits are blooming faster than pot buds. Lawyers are running into court for injunctions and restraining orders and plenty of other stuff.
It makes for plenty of legal work but not much more pot being grown.
The appeals court in Sacramento has already ruled on this, saying a municipality isn’t required to allow the growing of any marijuana.
Meanwhile, in the Philippines
You may remember this paper’s stories about Rice Aircraft Services Inc. in Olivehurst and its efforts to sell helicopters to the Philippines.
Those efforts have sparked two federal lawsuits in Sacramento and a criminal case on the East Coast involving a man who claimed to be a State Department employee but wasn’t.
Now, it seems, the Philippine Senate is launching its own investigations, three of them, in fact.
And the government recently terminated its contract with Rice, according to the Manilla Times, which has reported all of this with great gusto.
It reported earlier this month that one senator was trying to find out if “there was clear violation of law and a prima facie wastage of taxpayers’ money.”
Yes, a wastage.
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Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015     Source: East Bay Express (CA)     Author: David Downs
REGULATING WATER USE BY POT FARMS
Humboldt Assemblymember Jim Wood’s tiny amendment to the state’s water code is part of a groundbreaking new vision for marijuana agriculture.
The California Assembly plans to hold an unprecedented hearing on April 15 to examine a proposal to regulate a controversial, billion-dollar state crop: marijuana.
At first glance, Humboldt County Assemblymember Jim Wood’s proposed regulation bill, the “Marijuana Watershed Protection Act” looks innocuous: It would add a single paragraph to the state’s water code, and one to the health and safety code. But, in truth, AB 243 represents a groundbreaking new vision for the future of California cannabis agriculture - especially when it comes to water use.
Under the proposed law, pot farms would have to follow the same environmental regulations that govern other farmers. Regional water boards would issue permits to pot farms, and then legal farms would operate in largely self-policing cannabis agriculture districts that would function much like ones that involve almond growers or other specialty, regional agriculture.
The proposed regulations are earth-shattering, said Hezekiah Allen, president of the Emerald Grower’s Association. “In and of itself, [AB 243] is relatively short and sweet, but what you’re seeing is absolutely” huge.
Wood’s bill would give several state agencies and regional water boards the green light to “address” pot cultivation’s environmental impacts and “coordinate” on the issue. It also would make the state water board’s marijuana pilot project - which has been working with pot farmers and has just released environmental best-practices guidelines - permanent and expand it throughout the state.
Wood said the bill is a homegrown response to pot’s environmental impacts on the North Coast, which are analogous to strip mining and clear-cutting. Many well-intentioned but misinformed medical growers think they can steal water and trash streams, thereby threatening the extinction of Coho salmon and other species. “There’s a perception out there that, ‘This is my land, I can do whatever I want to my land,’” Wood said in an interview. And the reality is that with ownership comes responsibility, and you have a responsibility to not pollute and not to take water that isn’t yours from our neighbor.”Industrial agriculture might hog the vast majority of the state’s water, but pot’s slim takings are magnified by their location in parched and stressed areas near streams.
A March study published by PLOS One found that in one severely affected study area, “three of the four watersheds evaluated [had] water demands for marijuana cultivation [that] exceed[ed] streamflow
during low-flow periods.”
Allen noted that the places least likely to manage water communally are also the ones most likely to entice pot farmers: They’re rural and lawless.
“Certainly, in Trinity County, there isn’t enough law enforcement to enforce anything up there, so it’s pretty much, ‘Come and do what you like and you’re not going to get busted and if you are it’s going to be a slap on the wrist because they’re so inundated with cases,’” Wood said. AB 243 provides regional water boards the mandate they need to intervene, permit good farmers, and fine bad ones, Wood added.
On January 23, the state water board announced the results of a three-day inspection of marijuana grows in the Eel River watershed in Northern California. Members of the multi-agency task force didn’t arrest anyone or rip out plants - instead, they poked around fourteen private properties in Sproul Creek, home to endangered Coho salmon. Sproul Creek went dry for the first time in 2014, “most likely a result of water diversions for marijuana cultivation” combined with the ongoing drought, a water board press release states. During the inspection, state water board officials found violations they intend to address, but regulators are seeking voluntary compliance in exchange for permits, rather than issuing fines - “much like [the board] regulates and monitors other activities on California’s North Coast,” the board’s press release added.
If that doesn’t work out, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s Watershed Enforcement Team can serve warrants, cite growers, and confiscate crops. “We hope to not have to resort to those measures,” stated Lieutenant DeWayne Little of Fish and Wildlife.
The water board expects to hand out a variety of permits in the coming weeks to farmers and more would come under AB 243. Cannabis agriculture districts could follow in the coming years. All of these steps provide a path for law-abiding growers to become normalized, Wood said. “The last thing we want to do is come in and say, ‘We’re here just like the old days to eradicate your grow,’” the Assemblymember added. “That’s not what this is about. It’s about educating people on best management practices and cleaning things up so we don’t damage the environment.”
Second-generation cultivator Casey O’Neill of Happy Day Farms lauded the state’s progress during at a tasting event in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill last weekend. O’Neill said officials have learned over decades that eradication doesn’t work. He’s ready to integrate his farm into mainstream society.
“That’s what’s been so great is to be able to talk to the regulators and say, ‘No, I’m not compliant, but I want to be,” he said. “We finally have made it through to that point where we can have an intelligent conversation.”
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Pubdate: Tue, 07 Apr 2015
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/OWwW9u57
Copyright: 2015 The Press-Enterprise Company
Contact: http://www.pe.com/localnews/opinion/letters_form.html
Website: http://www.pe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/830

DISAPPROVAL NOT ENOUGH REASON TO BAN DISPENSARIES
Prominently featured on the city of Riverside’s website is discussion of a city-commissioned poll on Measure A, the medical marijuana initiative on the June 2 ballot, showing opposition from a majority of those surveyed.
The poll, which cost more than $25,000, surveyed 400 residents on matters of medical marijuana, taxes and approval of various city officials. As valuable as public opinion polling is, it isn’t a substitute for thorough, well-reasoned policy development.
“This poll demonstrates that the majority of Riverside residents strongly oppose opening marijuana dispensaries within our city and, instead, support the existing ban,” read a statement from Mayor Rusty Bailey.
The city of Riverside is well within its legal right to prohibit medical marijuana dispensaries. What matters, though, is whether the exercise of force to suppress such establishments is necessary and prudent. Majority support or opposition does not speak to either of these things.
As to whether it is necessary, issues like public safety come to mind. If permitting dispensaries causes more crime, it may be justified to prohibit them. The evidence on this, including research funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, suggests that they are not, in aggregate, associated with increased crime.
Specific public safety issues cited by the city in years past, including its ban on mobile medical marijuana delivery services, have centered on claims that marijuana dispensers can be robbed and that children can accidentally ingest marijuana.
It is possible that those engaged in the grey-market and black-market marijuana dispensation are at higher risk of crime and that bringing the businesses above ground may reduce the likelihood of victimization. Drug dealers usually don’t call the cops.
There is also the argument that, with a greater public access to marijuana, small children will have more opportunities to harm themselves by ingesting the drug, an argument made by the city in years past.
Of course, the presence of guns and swimming pools, both legal, also are associated with many accidental deaths. Banning those things, and countless others, could be rationalized on the basis of a potential risk to children.
It may be that marijuana dispensaries are simply undesirable businesses, from the perspective of city officials and even other types of businesses. With the city having spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in pursuit of prohibition, and no clear threat demonstrated to public safety, simple disapproval seems a low standard for such a costly endeavor.
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Pubdate: Tue, 07 Apr 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Seema Mehta

NEWSOM TAKING A GAMBLE ON POT
Lieutenant Governor Is Used to Controversy, but Fallout Now Could Affect His 2018 Hopes.
A few weeks into his first term as mayor of San Francisco in 2004, Gavin Newsom made a bold and controversial decision, ordering the city-county clerk to violate state law and issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
Newsom was ultimately vindicated, with gay marriage gaining public acceptance and becoming legal in California and three dozen other states. But at the time, even some of his supporters thought he was committing political suicide.
As Newsom, now lieutenant governor, prepares for a gubernatorial campaign in 2018, he finds himself at a similar crossroads. This time, his issue is the legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes.
Newsom, a Democrat, is the highest-ranking state official to support legalization. If an expected 2016 ballot measure to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana includes safeguards that he views as crucial, Newsom will endorse it and effectively be the public face of the effort.
Although legalization would probably be popular with liberal and young voters, others Newsom must court in his run for governor could present a challenge.
“He could motivate large numbers of young people who aren’t regular voters to turn out for him,” said Dan Schnur, director of USC’s Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics. “But taking a leadership role on this could make older swing voters nervous, even if they agree with him on the issue. It’s a potentially risky play.”
Voters in California legalized medical marijuana in 1996 but 14 years later voted against recreational use, 53.5% to 46.5%. Since then, polling has shown that public support for legalizing pot has grown, reaching 53% in a March survey by the Public Policy Institute of California - a record high in the organization’s surveys.
Democrats, whites, blacks and people ages 18 to 34 showed the greatest support, with more than 6 in 10 favoring legalization. Older Californians were more skeptical. The state’s two fastest-growing voter groups, Latinos and Asians, strongly opposed it.
Even among Democratic policymakers, the matter remains controversial:
Both U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Gov. Jerry Brown oppose legalization.
“How many people can get stoned and still have a great state or a great nation? The world’s pretty dangerous, very competitive,” Brown said on “Meet the Press” last year. “I think we need to stay alert, if not 24 hours a day, more than some of the potheads might be able to put together.”
Newsom expresses support for legalization in terms of criminal and social justice, saying African American and Latino youths are more likely than others to be criminally penalized for recreational marijuana use. He insists he has never smoked marijuana and hates the smell.
“This is not ... a flippant debate about stoners and potheads. This is serious stuff, and I don’t want to be part of the status quo,” Newsom said in an interview, brushing off potential political implications.
“I’m happy to take that risk because I think people will be benefited in a profound way if we do this right.... People like me, we come and go, we’re a dime a dozen. This is a principle that will transcend [us].”
Newsom’s critics say he is seizing on the matter out of political convenience.
“Gavin Newsom has a history of looking for someone else’s parade that he can run to the front of, in order to promote himself,” said Ron Nehring, a former state Republican Party chairman who unsuccessfully challenged Newsom in his 2014 reelection bid. “Certainly this is the latest example of that.”
Nehring argues that there are ways to address concerns about how the criminal justice system treats users without increasing consumption of marijuana, which he laments would be the natural outcome of legalization.
As mayor of San Francisco, Newsom had a history of courting controversy.
He was burned in effigy when his “Care Not Cash” program replaced subsidies for the homeless with housing and support services. He expanded city healthcare for San Francisco residents, regardless of immigration status, preexisting conditions and employment status - the first universal healthcare program in the nation.
However, same-sex marriage - popular locally but toxic for Democrats nationally back then - has best defined his political persona.
When the California Supreme Court in 2008 upheld same-sex marriage, an ebullient Newsom declared at a San Francisco City Hall news conference: “This door’s wide open now. It’s going to happen, whether you like it or not!”
Newsom’s proclamation became the centerpiece of a television ad by proponents of a successful ballot measure later that year to define marriage as between a man and a woman.
Democratic consultant Garry South is among those who thought Newsom’s foray into gay marriage was “political death.” But as an advisor to Newsom’s short-lived gubernatorial run in 2009, he found that voters in focus groups viewed Newsom’s move as “an act of conscience” - precisely because there was no political benefit to it.
“There’s always a downside to being out front on a controversial or even semi-controversial public policy issue,” South said. “But I got to give Newsom credit. He had a certain amount of prescience about the same-sex marriage issue that no one else at the time had.”
Newsom is approaching marijuana legalization far more cautiously.
He chairs a commission of law enforcement, medical experts and others that was created by the American Civil Liberties Union of Northern California to study the issue.
The group recently released a report listing dozens of areas of inquiry, including how marijuana should be taxed, how to assess drivers under the influence of the drug, and how the substance could be advertised and sold to consumers without increasing its use by teenagers.
Public input on these topics will be solicited across the state over the next three months.
“I want to see it done right, and that’s why I’m telling all these groups I want to be supportive of a ballot initiative, but it has to be the right one,” Newsom said.
“We have to be accountable and responsible for making sure that we address the intended and unintended consequences of any effort to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana for adults.
“It’s not good enough to put something on the ballot and begin after the fact to ask those questions.”
Bruce Cain, a political science professor at Stanford University, said it was wise for Newsom to anticipate fallout from a legalization proposal or its implementation.
“If he’s going to be the lead person, the last thing he needs is for this to blow up for him,” Cain said.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 10 Apr 2015
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/RduHp2G3
Copyright: 2015 The Orange County Register
Contact: letters@ocregister.com
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: Martin Wisckol

ROHRABACHER TO HOLDER: STOP MEDICAL MARIJUANA PROSECUTIONS
An Orange County Republican congressman has written Attorney General Eric Holder insisting he back off prosecution of medical marijuana dispensaries and respect a congressional budget amendment designed to protect dispensaries operating within the bounds of state law.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Costa Mesa, and Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, signed the letter to Holder. It was prompted by a Justice Department quote in the Los Angeles Times justifying the continued prosecution of dispensaries.
Rohrabacher and Farr were co-sponsors of a landmark budget amendment last year that said funding to the Justice Department and Drug Enforcement Agency could not be used to enforce federal marijuana laws when they’re at odds with state medical pot provisions.  Twenty-three states have legalized use of medical marijuana.
Nonetheless, the Justice Department is pursuing charges against three Bay Area dispensaries.
Justice Department spokesman Patrick Rudenbush told the Los Angeles Times that his agency did not interpret the budget amendment as protecting individuals against prosecution, but rather simply stopped it from “impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws.”
Rohrabacher and Farr aren’t buying it.
“We can imagine few more efficient and effective ways of ‘impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws’ than prosecuting individuals and organizations acting in accordance with those laws,” they wrote.
In a statement, Rohrabacher added, “The continuing prosecution of these cases represents a clear defiance of the will of the people, as represented by the United States Congress. Good people, as a result, are victimized by their own government.”
Rohrabacher has been a consistent champion of legalized pot. He’s the co-sponsor of a bill that would permit Veteran Affairs physicians to recommend the use of medicinal marijuana for veterans in states where medical pot use is legal. He has also urged his congressional colleagues not to stand in the way of new state laws legalizing the recreational pot use.
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Colorado:  Can I freely smoke marijuana in my condo? I own the
condo, and the condo association has no rules about smoking. Also,
can I smoke freely on my balcony?
If you’re the homeowner and you say it’s okay, you can smoke two joints before you smoke two joints, then smoke two more.  Colorado law says you’re the king of that castle, and if the king wants to puff tuff, the king can puff tuff. Your balcony is also fair game for toking, thanks to a Denver City Council decision last year.  Your garage and even your front porch are pro-pot zones (we’ve taken a shine to puffing a doobie while working on the car, ourselves).
But keep in mind that your HOA can still set rules banning your ability to puff in your yard, on your porch or in any other space that could fall into the definition of “common area” for the complex.  The association can even tell you when and how you can puff indoors.  According to some HOA legal experts, if your smoking pot in your own place bothers a neighbor, the HOA may require you to seal your front door or even install vent systems. So you might not want to waft ganja smoke over the neighbor’s kids while they play outside lest you feel the wrath of an Angry Parent and the HOA board. Some HOAs have also banned cultivation due to smell and potential mold issues in shared walls - so if you’re planning on growing, make sure you’re within the rules, or you could be facing some major fines.
Our advice? Cash in on the rising home values and move out as soon as
possible. HOAs are hives for busybodies with nothing better to do
than gripe about how other people live - and they’ve never been a
good place for the cannabis-friendly.
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015
Source: Colorado Springs Independent (CO)
Column: CannaBiz
Copyright: 2015 Colorado Springs Independent
Contact: letters@csindy.com
Website: http://www.csindy.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1536
Author: Bryce Crawford

COLORADO TO CONSIDER PTSD, KARA’SMOKEY’ CLUB OPENS AND MORE
Another chance for PTSD
On Friday, the Colorado Medical Marijuana Scientific Advisory Council will consider a petition from Colorado group Vets 4 Freedoms to add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of ailments the state considers treatable with medical cannabis. Previous groups have brought the petition multiple times, only to be denied every time by the Colorado Board of Health. This consideration is a prelude to one by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
The 8:30 a.m. meeting at the Hilton Garden Inn (600 S. Colorado Blvd., Denver, 303/692-2184) is open to the public, though no comments will be accepted.
The Denver-based Cannabis Patients Alliance sounds optimistic. “This is the first time a petition will be reviewed by a 13-member committee in a public forum,” it writes on its website, adding:
“Previously, the [Colorado Department of Public Health and
Environment] only looked at human clinical trials to make their
decisions. ... Because the SAC included observational studies in the
research they recommended for funding, it only seemed appropriate to
also include observational studies when considering new petitions. So
this time, both clinical trials and observational studies will be
included in the review process.”
Nationally, the federal government is taking its own look at links between treating PTSD and pot, reported military.com last week.
“The National Institute of Drug Abuse on Wednesday informed the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies that it is ready to supply researchers with marijuana needed for the study ...” Bryant Jordan wrote. “The study will mark the first federally approved study in which the subjects will be able to ingest the marijuana by smoking it, [a spokesman] said. It will also be ‘the first whole-plant marijuana study,’ meaning the marijuana will not simply be an extract of the cannabis in a manufactured delivery system, such as a pill.”
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs estimates between 11 and 20 percent of soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from PTSD.
Keef crumbs
It’s called the HotBox Kara”Smokey” Club, but it’s really just a space inside Speak Easy Vape Lounge (2508 E. Bijou St., speakeasycannabisclub.com) where performance and pot combine every Tuesday between 8 p.m. and midnight. Entrance is $5.
State Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont and point person for marijuana issues at the Capitol, said in a recent interview with the Denver Post that he could see cannabis clubs sticking around and being regulated by the state. “People are going to create their own public consumption spots,” he says, “so I believe it is safer to create some rules for that type of consumption just as we have done with alcohol.”
Colorado Springs is home to at least five such businesses, the most in the state.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2015 Boulder Weekly
Contact: letters@boulderweekly.com
Website: http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

ONE AUTHOR’S CANNABIS JOURNEY OF DISCOVERY
When Bruce Barcott began to research a book about the legalization of marijuana in the United States, one of the first things that concerned him was how he was going to talk with his children about it.
An author and science writer whose work appears in The New York Times and Atlantic Monthly, Barcott, like many Americans, was a novice about cannabis, apathetic until he had to vote for or against legalization in Washington in 2012, his knowledge limited mostly to its longtime status as a drug promoted as being more dangerous than cocaine or methamphetamine by the federal government.
Barcott, whose previous book was The Last Flight of the Scarlet Macaw: One Woman’s Fight to Save the World’s Most Beautiful Bird, was stunned at what he found as he embarked on a twoyear journey of discovery into why American citizens and states are changing their minds about marijuana’s place in society.
Weed the People: The Future of Legal Marijuana in America comprises what he has learned along the way and works as a great point-of-entry for novices as well as a readable, fascinating look at legalization in Colorado and Washington. If you’re curious about or on the fence about what’s happening with cannabis these days, Weed the People is a great place to begin.
An argument I’ve heard over and over the last two years about legalization is that it glamorizes the drug and makes it harder to be a good parent. Barcott found exactly the opposite.
“I expected it to be difficult to be able to talk with my kids, but I was able to dive into the research and talk with them about what I was finding,” he said about his children, now 13 and 16. “We have a lot of small conversations about what I am finding, what they should take into consideration. I don’t want them to smoke marijuana, but I do want them armed with the facts. It’s not only broken a taboo, it’s led to great conversations about other things as well.”
Barcott studied the history of marijuana in America, from the days when Pancho Villa began smuggling it across the border from Mexico through the fear campaigns of Harry Anslinger and Richard Nixon that demonized and isolated the drug as dangerous, even though there was no science to back up their claims.
He looked into the issue of medical marijuana and why so many states have allowed some kind of access to it, and he researched firsthand the issues surrounding legalization efforts. He was here on January 1, 2014, when retail stores opened, and talked with countless individuals involved in every aspect of the industry in both states.  He dined with Kevin Sabet, the most outspoken anti-legalization lobbyist in the country, And he tried cannabis as medicine and for recreation.
What he found really surprised him.
He discovered that the subject of cannabis has been so steeped in misinformation, morals and politics over the last century that it was hard to even study it. And he found industry people in Colorado and Washington different than he expected.
“Besides there being some fantastic characters in the industry,” he said in a recent interview, “what it came down to was that these are people who are retail shop owners and farmers.”
Barcott, who resides near Seattle and lived in Boulder from 2006 to 2008, says that legalization has gone better in Colorado than his home state. “That’s something we are struggling with. Our regulatory and taxing schemes are tough. We need some reform to the laws already, but that’s hard to sell now.”
The main advantage is the regulatory framework Colorado enacted for medical marijuana in 2010.
“When retail marijuana came online, state officials already had a fairly well-functioning regulatory scheme in place,” Barcott explained. “And the first opportunity to apply for a retail license went to the known good actors in the medical marijuana space.”
After voters passed Washington Initiative 502, Gov. Christine Gregoire, expressing fears that state employees might be at risk for federal prosecution, vetoed the best chance at a similar regulatory scheme, Barcott said. Because the medical system was outside the law, state officials opened the retail license application process to anybody.
“The bar for applying was set too low, we got thousands of applicants, and winners were drawn by lottery. Result: Many, many winners who had zero experience with pot, zero retail experience, no real financing capacity or plan,” he said.
Some of those winners partnered with more experienced, well-financed entrepreneurs while others tried to go it alone and failed, leaving the state with dozens of unfulfilled “ghost licenses” attached to would-be entrepreneurs who had no chance of actually opening a store.
“And that is why, as of early 2015, Colorado has a pretty well-functioning system, and Washington’s is still hobbled,” he said.
Barcott is writing history as it happens, which means the book stops at the end of 2014.
“If I had had a couple more months, I would have covered the D.C.  vote for legalization,” he said. “I think that’s interesting, the wrangling over whether Congress was going to allow the law to go through.”
One of the things I enjoyed most about the book was how he approaches the inevitable cultural clashes as cannabis moves out of the shadows.
“One of my favorite times was the Classically Cannabis evening in Colorado,” he said. “It was fascinating to see how we could use this legally at a technically private but public event. I found that the sort of friendly, neighborly culture lived and continued in that setting, with people sharing easily. It helped serve to break down barriers better than alcohol.”
You can hear Leland discuss his most recent column and Colorado
cannabis issues each Thursday morning on KGNU. http://news.kgnu.org/weed
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xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Gazette, The (Colorado Springs, CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Gazette
Contact: http://www.gazette.com/sections/opinion/submitletter/
Website: http://www.gazette.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/165

TO FIX MARIJUANA PROBLEMS, START BY STOPPING
The Rocky Mountain High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area reports 30 people were injured last year in 32 explosions involving hash oil production. It’s a dangerous dilemma that seriously undermines well-intentioned beliefs that legalization would enhance public safety.
On this topic, people who favor and oppose legalization should agree:
Hash oil explosions must stop. Toward that end, a House committed
voted 13-0 last week to establish felony charges for anyone suspected
of using explosive gas to make hash oil in a residence. The bill would
limit hash oil production to commercial operations, which are
ostensibly easier to monitor and regulate.
As explained by a Thornton police sergeant in The Cannabist, a Denver publication devoted to marijuana coverage, hash oil explosions are to 2015 what methamphetamine labs were to the 1990s. Hash oil extraction often involves forcing butane, propane or liquid through cannabis leaves. Without proper ventilation, the process can cause vapors to invisibly pool - just as any gas leak can lead to the dangerous pooling of explosive gas in low-lying areas of structures. Getting control of this obvious public safety threat is a no-brainer.
It’s also a good start to a much bigger problem. Colorado’s marijuana industry remains a flawed experiment, viewed by rest of the world, in need of multiple major reforms.
As it stands, the recreational marijuana business has done nothing to raise money for schools - a key component of industry promises that played a significant role in getting voters to approve legalization.  Because of (TABOR) - a law that mostly keeps Colorado out of trouble - all tax revenues from 2015 need to be returned to the general public.  Even some ardent supporters of TABOR don’t see much sense in that. The industry was supposed to help fund schools, drug education and government while generating enough revenue for the cost of its regulation. Legislators need to get a question to the ballot asking for permission to keep the funds.
But a bigger problem than TABOR’s unintended effect on recreational tax revenues is the thriving “medical” marijuana trade. Everyone knows that illnesses and injuries are not true requirements for shopping at medical marijuana stores and saving 22 percent on taxes. Because the medical trade serves as a tax loophole, medical marijuana sales have grown in the face of recreational sales. Until the Legislature finds a way to resolves this problem, tax revenues on pot will continue to disappoint.
By all means, work fast to stop the hash oil fires and explosions.  It’s an urgent public safety matter. But realize much more work must be done. Those who still favor legalization should do the most to fight for a system of taxation and regulation that genuinely works. If they don’t, they may lose the support of non-marijuana users who supported Amendment 64 with a belief regulation and taxes could make things better, safer and more prosperous for all.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
xxx
TELL MARC EMERY SUGGESTION USING HAIR FLAT IRON @ 325 DEGREES & PARCHMENT PAPER.
XXX
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 10 Apr 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248

FED OFFICIAL, POT BUSINESSES MEET
A federal banking official took the unprecedented step of meeting with marijuana business owners. But Kansas City Federal Reserve President Esther George gave no indication that the industry is any closer to getting more access to banking services.
The Denver meeting was arranged by two Colorado congressmen who have tried unsuccessfully to pass laws expanding banking access for the pot industry. Also joining the closed-door meeting were Colorado bankers. It was thought to be the first meeting of a Federal Reserve president with pot businesses.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
LAWMAKERS CONSIDER POT FOR PAROLEES
Colorado lawmakers started work Thursday on a proposal to allow people on probation or parole to use medical marijuana.
The state has allowed medical marijuana use for 15 years-but not for people on probation or parole.
A bill facing its first test Thursday in the state House would change that policy by saying that pot use doesn’t amount to a probation violation for people with medical clearance to use the drug.
“If it’s in the constitution, you should have the right to use it on probation,” said Rep. Joe Salazar, a Thornton Democrat who sponsored the bill.
The change wouldn’t apply to probationers whose crime was related to marijuana.
Denver Post staff and wire reports
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 07 Apr 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/LNLmKNSU
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Katherine Chiglinsky, Bloomberg News

MARIJUANA ON STORE SHELVES CREATES CARGO-HAULING NICHE
Pot Couriers Find Another Business From Industry.
At a farm in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, Corey Young tucks his client’s marijuana into a shoe box-sized container in an unmarked white van and heads out on the road.
“We don’t want to be going through a small town and have someone see bins in the back,” said Young, a founder of courier service CannaRabbit. “We do not want to stick out at all.”
Young wants to stay hidden not because pot is against the law.  Colorado began legal sales of recreational marijuana last year. The secrecy is designed to ensure the safety of drivers shuttling cargo that retails for as much as $220 an ounce.
CannaRabbit and peers are rushing in as regional truckers and nationwide haulers United Parcel Service and FedEx steer clear on concerns over the lack of nationwide clearance of a practice that is still illegal in most states.
“You don’t really see these kind of new industries popping up that often,” said Povilas Grincevicius, a spokesman for Denver-based Absolute Security & Personal Protection, another courier service for the state’s marijuana businesses. “This is one of those once-in-a-lifetime opportunities.”
Couriers do more than carry pot for the state’s network of more than 800 growers, manufacturers, dispensaries and laboratories. The industry remains mostly cash-only as federally chartered banks have been hesitant to extend loans for trade that U.S. authorities may see as against the law.
That’s why logo-free vehicles like CannaRabbit’s van are an asset.
Young, 42, said he had worked on a pot farm named Maggie’s Farm, after Bob Dylan’s 1965 song, just south of Canon City. Maggie’s Farm was delivering its own products to stores when “the labs started using us to go pick up their samples,” he said. “They trusted us to keep things untainted.”
As demand grew, Young said he started CannaRabbit with a partner and then joined forces with Security Grade Protective Services Inc. in 2014. The company’s 20 employees now serve 60 clients a week.
Colorado is at the forefront of setting transport rules, permitting third-party couriers with proper documentation. Other states that have legalized pot have regulatory hurdles.
Oregon, where voters approved legalization in November, plans to name a rules advisory committee in coming weeks to draft regulations, state Liquor Control Commission spokeswoman Karynn Fish wrote in an e-mail. The group will meet through October, and the commission will begin accepting license applications for retail stores by January 2016.
In Washington, where legal sales began in July, outside carriers for marijuana businesses aren’t allowed, according to Brian Smith, communications director of the state Liquor Control Board.
Marijuana businesses are concerned that transporting pot on Washington’s rural roads without secured transport poses safety risks, State Sen. Brian Hatfield said. He said a bill he cosponsored to allow the outside delivery companies stalled.
Alaska also approved legalized pot in November, creating more potential opportunities for startup courier services. District of Columbia voters agreed to allow residents to grow their own pot, though selling it would still be illegal.
The pot industry has been a boon for Colorado, which expects to receive $87.3 million in tax revenue from it next fiscal year. The state’s Marijuana Enforcement Division has issued about 340 licenses to recreational pot stores since the 2012 legalization vote, according to its website.
Employment in the growth, production and sales of the product grew 14 percent in the first quarter of 2014 from the end of 2013, Alexandra Hall, the chief economist for Colorado’s Department of Labor and Employment, said in an email on March 9. That doesn’t include the impact from indirect jobs serving the industry, such as the couriers, she said.
Among those indirect beneficiaries are former Jefferson County Sheriff ‘s Deputy Dan Sullivan and ex-infantryman Ted Daniels, who started Blue Line Protection Group Inc., a Denver-based company that provides armored-car services and security guards to the industry.  Two other ex-deputies were their first employees.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 07 Apr 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/jZjsy7t0
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Joey Bunch

POT WARNINGS DEBATED
Store Signs for Pregnant Women Questioned
A bill to warn pregnant women about the dangers of using marijuana had some Colorado legislators on Monday questioning whether that would be constitutional, since the mandate from voters who passed 2012’s Amendment 64 was to regulate pot like alcohol.
After a rigorous debate, House Bill 1298 passed on a voice vote, but just barely. The House of Representatives will take a roll call vote within the next few days to determine if the bill dies or advances to the state Senate.
The legislation would require pot shops to “display in a conspicuous location a sign that warns pregnant women about the potential risks caused by marijuana.” The state health department would determine the signs’ language. The bill also would prohibit marketing pot products to pregnant women.
“This bill is a fairly simple one, but it’s an important one,” said Rep. Jack Tate, R-Centennial, one of the bill’s sponsors. “It’s about providing information to consumers. It’s about providing important health information to people - specifically to pregnant women - about a product that’s detrimental to the health and safety of their unborn child.”
Bars and stores, however, don’t have to put up signs warning about the threat of alcohol to pregnant women. The federal government, however, requires that those warnings appear on package labels.
“This bill violates the spirit of Amendment 64, and that’s in our constitution,” said Rep. Steve Lebsock, D-Thornton. “We shouldn’t be doing that. We’re going to be treating this industry differently.”
Rep. Jonathan Singer, D-Longmont, another of the bill’s sponsors, said that they’re both warnings, just in different places. He said killing the bill would regulate the two differently, since no warning would apply to pot products.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/kFygG5Vq
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Steve Raabe

ROOM SEARCH BUZZING
The Hunt for Accomodations Around 4/20 Is Lighting Up Hotels.Com
Online searches for Denver hotel rooms around the marijuana celebration date of April 20 are soaring, according to data from booking website Hotels.com.
Search totals also spiked last April, during the first year of legal retail weed in Colorado.
Hotels.com said the numbers suggest that the oft-asked question - does legal marijuana generate an increase in tourism? - has been answered affirmatively.
Marijuana enthusiasts hold so-called 4/20 rallies each spring that attract thousands of publicly smoking participants, even though Colorado’s statute prohibits public consumption.
The website operator said searches for Denver bookings during April 17-20 are up 60 percent over the same period in 2014. Searches last April had soared 73 percent compared with the same period in 2013, before retail marijuana sales were legal.
A Hotels.com spokeswoman declined to disclose the number of searches used in calculating the percentage increases.
Hotels.com said similar increases are being seen in Washington, where recreational sales became legal in July. In Oregon, where legal sales will begin July 1, booking searches are up 25 percent for travel during the first 90 days of legalization.
Deborah Park, a spokeswoman for Visit Denver, the city’s convention and visitors bureau, noted that the Hotels.com report analyzes only online searches, not bookings for hotel rooms.
Park said Denver’s lodging tax collections in 2014 were a record $19.6 million, up 21 percent from 2013. She said hotel bookings were driven by increases in convention delegates, business travelers and ski tourists.
In addition to its data on 4/20 hotel searches, Hotels.com reported that Denver’s ranking as a travel destination is rising. The city in 2014 was the 14th-most-popular domestic destination, up from 15th in 2013 and 19th in 2012.
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xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 05 Apr 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: letters@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Steve Hendrix

IN D.C., A SHORT PATH TO POT PRESCRIPTIONS
Twice a week at the office of Patrick Fasusi, District residents line up to ask the pain specialist to approve their use of medical marijuana. For most, the brief wait in the lobby is longer than their consultation.
As marijuana, which became legal for recreational use in the nation’s capital in February, continues to morph from contraband to commonplace, Fasusi’s clinic is a window into the ease with which some residents have been buying officially sanctioned pot for more than two years.
More than 2,700 people have registered for the city’s medical marijuana program, a number that has more than tripled since summer, when the D.C. Council relaxed the rules for participation. And many observers predict that the interest spurred by legalization will lead even more people to jump through the minor hoops required to obtain an official medical marijuana card from the city’s Department of Health.
The first step is a stop at a sympathetic doctor’s office. More than 240 D.C. physicians have applied to participate in the Department of Health’s online system that lets them recommend patients for medical cannabis.
But fewer doctors are busier, or more open about their work with medical marijuana patients, than Fasusi, a pain specialist and neurologist in Northwest Washington. At a clinic, two patients agreed in March to let a reporter sit in on their consultation as long as they were not identified.
The first, an unemployed man in his mid-30s, complained of pain following knee surgery - in 1995- and loss of appetite. Fasusi took his temperature and blood pressure and asked him a series of questions. The patient had no other major medical problems, was not on any medication, did not drink and smoked only marijuana. About 18 minutes later, after examining the knee, the doctor filled out the health department’s electronic application for the card and told the man to return for a follow-up in four months.
The second patient, a 20-yearold student from the District’s Takoma neighborhood, said she had been battling insomnia for a year and a half. The sleeplessness was creating anxiety, she said. She had tried over-the-counter melatonin but had not seen a doctor. “Do you smoke?” “Actually, I tried marijuana, and that was calming.”
He approved her application, as well.
Afterward, the doctor said the two consultations were fairly typical, although he said most of his patients have seen other doctors about their medical conditions before they come to him.
Fasusi, a strong advocate of medicinal marijuana, wrote more than 1,000 cannabis recommendations in 2014. City regulations call for an audit of any physician who writes more than 250, andthe doctor said he was called before a Department of Health panel last year. They asked questions but did not tellhimto change his practice, and they noted that the 250 number was not meant as a limit, he said. The department said it could not comment on a specific physician’s prescribing habits.
“They were very, very supportive,” Fasusi said. “They wanted more
information about how the program works.” A dizzying display of pot
Now that it is legal for any District resident to smoke marijuana in the home, some pot professionals say more recreational users will take notice of the availability of medical cannabis. Indeed, Fasusi said he has seen a slight uptick in interest since legalization took effect.
“It’s really not difficult to register and get your cannabis card,” said Vanessa West, general manager of the Metropolitan Wellness Center, in remarks to a downtown marijuana expo in February. “The Department of Health has made it, inmy mind, rather easy.”
For those who obtain a physician’s recommendation, the next stop is a visit to one of the city’s three official medical cannabis dispensaries. Each participant is assigned a dispensary, and there are no better places to observe the dizzying makeover of marijuana than in these shops, where a brisk and lawful trade has been going on for more than a year.
Chris Minar works the front desk of the TakomaWellness Center, the largest of the three. Minar was a D.C. police officer for 28 years, including eight years running “buy-and-bust” stings against small-time pot dealers. Now, when people show up to buy marijuana, he greets them by name and offers them coffee.
“Tarik, how you doing?” he asked one afternoon not long ago as Tarik Davis, a 33-year-old musician who uses cannabis for back spasms, entered the waiting room. “How’s your mother?”
Minar took a part-time job in security here after retiring from the force. So did Darrell Green, the 6-foot-4 former D.C. police officer selling grams of Blue Dream and Sativa Afghani at the rear counter (debit cards accepted).
The decor at Takoma Wellness is a blend of spa lobby and head shop, and the place proudly reeks with a pungency that was once the mark of locked dorm rooms and dark rock concerts. The rear sales room offers a glimpse of what a retail pot market might look like: well-lighted cases lined with fat green buds. Blue Dream sells for $21agram; Merry ‘n’ Berryfor $22. A small pre-rolled joint of Blue Kush goes for $13.
“It’s still a little mind-numbing when they walk into a place like this,” said Jeffrey Kahn, a rabbi who served four congregations from Australia to New Jersey before opening Takoma Wellness with his wife, Stephanie, their two sons and a daughter-in-law. “It’s just a total paradigm shift.”
In the first months of medical marijuana, the enterprise was clouded by the suspicion and reticence that has long marked pot’s black-market status. Neighbors were wary. One early participant came in with his hat pulled low over dark glasses, suspecting a sting. When a documentary film crew came by in early 2014, the staff could not find a single participant willing to go on camera.
But the Kahns hired former police officers to reassure neighbors and
coached them to make clients feel welcome. (“At first, when they would
answer the phone, we’d have to tell them, ‘Not your cop voice,’ “
Stephanie said.) Andslowly, as more than 1,000 D.C. residents have
registered with the city’s Department ofHealth to buy cannabis at
Takoma Wellness - out of about 2,600 registered citywide-retail pot
has begun to feel more routine to those on both sides of the
transaction. For clients, a ‘blessing’
During a visit to Takoma Wellness in March, customers came and went - and more than a dozen were willing to give their names and talk openly about their marijuana use.
“Just being on the legal side of things makes for huge peace of mind,” said Spencer Thompson, 26, a salesman at anH&Mstore in Friendship Heights. He had been smoking marijuana for years and found that it eased his nearly crippling social anxiety. When he got his first job with medical coverage, he asked his doctor about the anti-anxiety drug Xanax. She recommended medical cannabis instead. “She said if the pot was working, it was probably better.”
The customers filing in and out of the dispensary represented a cross-section of the District. Some were young and fit and practiced pot smokers. Others said they had never tried the drug, or had not done so for years, before a health concern led them to sign up. Their complaints ranged from phantom pain from an amputation to cluster migraines to muscle spasms from a motorcycle accident.
Breast cancer survivor Anna Hall, 39, said a few drops of sativa oil under her tongue is the only thing that has eased the nerve pain she feels from Tamoxifin, a cancer drug she will be taking for another nine years.
Jeremy Douglas, 39, a former deep-sea diver for the Navy, said the herb helped him kick the opioid painkillers he had been popping since he was blown out of a Humvee in an explosion in Bahrain in 2004.
Sydney Buffalow said two small hits of marijuana a day - sometimes inhaled from a steam vaporizer, sometimes in oil-infused tea - ease the pain of endometriosis. “I was so glad to tell my dealer I would no longer be coming to see him,” she said. “This place is a blessing.”
Insurance companies will not cover pot, the Kahns said, making it an out-of pocket expense. But low-income customers get a citymandated 20 percent discount. The health department charges $100 for the marijuana card, or $25 for the poor.
The dispensary is housed in a small suite of freshly redecorated offices in a tiny shopping center a few blocks from the Takoma Metro station. The waiting room is a dentist-lobby haven of pastel walls, subtle art and trim leather chairs. The bell on the alwayslocked front door rings every few minutes and, like a speakeasy, Minar asks each customer for their officialD.C. Department ofHealth marijuana card and a second photo ID before he lets him or her in.
Traffic is brisk, thanks to an ongoing shortage of the cannabis supplied by the District’s three official growers. Dispensaries often limit how much each participant can buy to a gram or so per visit, so some customers come back every fewdays.
If anything deters recreational users from trying to access the medical marijuana network, it may be this shortage, and the resulting jump in dispensary prices. Two ounces of a strain called BerryO costs $552 at Takoma Wellness. A similar quantity of premium pot is available on the black market for as low as $350, according to several local dealers interviewed recently who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid legal scrutiny.
In the center’s dispensary room, where cardholders are called by name, Green works the register and talks with clients about the THC and CBD levels of the various strains. Packets of rolling papers fill one shelf, and glass pipes, another. But most of the space is devoted to smoke-free methods of imbibing: Volcano Vaporizers; Magical Butter machines that distill it to oil; a lone box of Duncan Hines brownie mix.
“We advise people that anything is healthier than smoking,” Stephanie said.
The Kahns view their bustling enterprise as part business and part mission. Stephanie’s father was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the 1960s. He tried a range of treatments, including snake venom, but found the most relief from marijuana. A huge honeymoon portrait of her smiling parents hangs in the dispensary lobby, and Stephanie tells the story to almost every newclient.
“This is very personal for us,” she said.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 07 Apr 2015
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2015 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Kay Lazar

CONTINUED DELAYS THREATEN MASS. MEDICAL MARIJUANA FIRMS
Months of controversy and bureaucratic delays in the Massachusetts medical marijuana program have driven away some investors, stranding several of the companies awarded the first dispensary licenses and leaving them short on cash.
The uncertainty and mounting costs have pushed back the opening of the first dispensaries - originally expected last summer - to this summer, with some owners now saying they are unlikely to be ready until late this year.
The delay leaves thousands of patients in limbo. State figures show roughly 14,000 patients have received doctor certifications to use marijuana medicinally, and 7,100 of them have completed the state’s registration process, paying their $50 annual fee to legally shop in the dispensaries.
“It’s despicable,” said Nichole Snow, deputy director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance. “We need our medicine for relief from serious conditions.”
Twenty provisional dispensary licenses were initially awarded by the administration of Governor Deval Patrick in January 2014, but regulators were forced to freeze the process soon after, amid questions about applicants’ finances and misrepresentations, along with concerns about potential conflicts of interest and political influence.
Massachusetts had intrigued many potential investors with its 2012 voter-approved law that made the state among the first to adopt a medical marijuana dispensary system. But during the five months the licensing process was put on hold amid controversy last year, at least five other states adopted medical marijuana laws or regulations for dispensary systems.
“We started looking around, and other investors started looking, and they said Massachusetts is a pain. People got fed up with it, walked away, and went to friendly states, like Illinois,” said Douglas Leighton, managing director of Dutchess Capital, a Boston venture capital fund.
Leighton has personally bankrolled dispensaries in Washington state, Vermont, and one in Massachusetts, Coastal Compassion Inc. in Fairhaven, which is expected to open in late December.
In addition to the state’s contentious licensing process, its regulations require dispensary companies to operate as nonprofit organizations, further discouraging investors, Leighton said.
“If I didn’t live in the state of Massachusetts my entire life, I wouldn’t invest [in marijuana companies] here,” he said.
The dispensary licensing system crafted by the Patrick administration’s health department is distinctly different from the process the department uses to license other health facilities, such as hospitals. The system for hospitals scrutinizes a facility’s proposed health services and the need for those services in surrounding communities.
But with dispensaries, potential health services took a back seat to zoning, security, and other considerations, and companies were required to bid for a license the way vendors selling the state computers would vie for the business, known as a government procurement process.
Patrick’s successor, Governor Charlie Baker, is expected to revamp the medical marijuana program soon.
“The current administration faults the use of a procurement process, as opposed to a licensing process, faults it for the delay in getting these places open, and getting patients served, and the overall negative public perception that many folks see as an insider’s game,” said Tim Buckley, Baker’s communication director.
William Noyes Webster Foundation Inc. in Dennis is among the marijuana companies dealing with the fallout from the delays. The company received one of the 15 licenses ultimately awarded by the health department last year. Regulators revoked several other provisional licenses after more carefully vetting the applicants.
William Noyes’s business plan, similar to those of other applicants, assumed the state would award the full 35 licenses allowed by law, which called for up to five licenses per county. But William Noyes ended up with the only license in Barnstable County.
Scarcity often makes a commodity more valuable - and more attractive for investors - but for several of the marijuana companies with Massachusetts licenses, it has had unintended consequences.
William Noyes suddenly found itself unprepared to grow the amount of marijuana needed to serve many more patients. The company realized it would need a cultivation facility at least three times as large.
“All of a sudden, the cost of putting the whole thing together escalated, and when it did, our backers didn’t have the money to do the deal,” said Paul Covell, William Noyes’s chief executive.
The company is talking to potential investors, and Covell said the prospect of a 2016 state ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for recreational use has intrigued investors. Many observers expect the initiative to include a provision that will give preference to existing medicinal dispensaries to win licenses for recreational sales.
Despite its setback, William Noyes expects to open later this year.
Executives at two other dispensary companies declined to speak publicly about their financing challenges, saying they feared any publicity after last year’s tumultuous process might jeopardize their company’s license.
But a consultant who advised four successful Massachusetts applicants said that the financing problems William Noyes faced were not unusual.
“Even groups that were fully capitalized have had to raise significantly more money,” to expand cultivation centers, said Kris Krane, managing partner of 4Front Advisors, a consulting company.
Krane said cultivation centers are the most expensive part of the business because they require sophisticated lighting, heating, and air conditioning systems. The state’s licensing process under the Patrick administration awarded extra points to applicants who had secured a cultivation site when they applied. Several companies leased buildings during the application process, without having the chance to scrutinize the buildings’ infrastructure, Krane said.
Many discovered that structures were in worse shape than previously thought and faced upgrades of $1 million more than anticipated, Krane said.
“There is generally more erosion in buildings in the Northeast,” said Krane, who previously advised marijuana companies in more temperate climates.
“Some of this is new, even for industry veterans,” Krane said. “It’s been a pretty universal challenge here.”
Still, industry leaders said they believe the worst of the
licensing-related problems are behind them.

“All new industries face challenges, but Commonwealth Dispensary
Association members are confident that the process is moving forward
in a responsible manner,” Kevin Gilnack, the trade association’s
executive director, said in a statement.
“In the coming months, we expect that some dispensaries will be in a position to begin providing patients with medicine, and more will complete the licensing process,” he said.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015
Source: Metro Times (Detroit, MI)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2015 C.E.G.W./Times-Shamrock
Contact: letters@metrotimes.com
Website: http://www.metrotimes.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1381
Author: Larry Gabriel

NOTES FROM THE HASH BASH
Tommy Chong, half of the vintage comedy duo Cheech and Chong, made a series of appearances over the weekend for a big weekend anchored by the 44th Ann Arbor Hash Bash.
On Friday there was a breakfast at an Ann Arbor-area hotel, along with about 50 invited guests. I managed to get in with someone who had a plus-one invite - her husband was out of town, so I got in. I figured it would be interesting to hear what Chong had to say and maybe I’d get a few laughs.
When I got there, a bunch of folks were just standing around in the lobby chatting. There were a fair number of familiar faces in the crowd: Matt Abel, director of Michigan NORML, as well as Charmie Gholson from Michigan Moms United. Jamie Lowell from 3rd Coast Compassion Center, Heidi Parikh from Michigan Compassion, Rick Thompson of the Compassion Chronicles, and Harry Cayce from People’s Choice dispensary - it was a crowd of marijuana folks all around. I met the owners of the Om of Medicine, and a few others, whose names I neglected to remember or write down.
When it came time to sit down and eat that’s just what we did. There was no speechmaking about Chong or legalization. The guy from BDT smoke shops, who seemed to be escorting Chong around said, “Let’s eat.”
Chong threw in a “Where’s the food?” and that was that.
After the jaws finished masticating the French toast and eggs, folks lined up to get their Cheech and Chong albums signed and have their picture taken with Chong.
As we were leaving, I got a chance to put my signature on a cardboard box that Cayce carried. “DEA evidence” was printed on the side.  Apparently the box once contained evidence from Cayce that the DEA had to return to him after some complication and he wanted the cannabis activists to sign his box.
Then I headed to Hazel Park, where Chong appeared at the BDT shop on John R. The location was easy to find - there was a line snaked around the block with people clutching their old Cheech and Chong albums waiting to get them autographed. What amazed me was the number of people who appeared to be about 17. Chong is an old-school stoner whose heyday was in the 1970s. I figured the young folks wouldn’t know much about him. But they were there in droves.
There was a tent in a lot behind BDT where all the action was. Mayor Jan Parisi was on hand to give Chong the key to the city. This was the only time that I saw Chong make any attempt to be funny. He had something that looked like an oversized joint that he flashed around during speechmaking that no one could hear. When Parisi handed Chong the oversized key, he handed her the oversized joint, saying, “I’d like to present to the mayor of Hazel Park my key to the universe.” Chong then put the key to his mouth as though he were smoking a pipe.  Then he had to return to the tent to continue signing autographs and taking pictures.
I asked Parisi why she was out there for Chong. She said that she was “just excited to see him here. I just liked him in That ‘70s Show.”
Then I turned to City Councilman Andy LeCureaux, who was also out there. He was ready for me. “I’m the marijuana councilman,” he said.  “I’m the libertarian who wants to end the war on drugs.”
There was an odor of burning marijuana wafting through the air. The people standing in line with their Big Bambu albums in hand had to do something as they waited. I went to the end of the line and asked a woman there how long she was willing to wait to get an autograph.
“As long as it takes,” she said. As far as I could tell she was going to be a couple of hours at it.
On Saturday I headed to Ann Arbor again for the Hash Bash and ran into more Bash-bound traffic than ever before. The U-M spring football game was on and added to the traffic, but that happens most years. I think there were more folks headed to the Bash because Chong was appearing. The bottom line is it took me about two hours to get there and I missed most of the first hour.
As I arrived, 18-year-old Alysa Erwin was speaking about her fight with brain cancer using hemp oil treatments.
Shortly thereafter Chong came on. “I don’t need a lot of marijuana,” he said, “but I need it every day.” Chong himself fought off prostate cancer with hemp oil treatments. His speech was a short, rambling discussion hitting points such as DEA rescheduling of marijuana, CBD oil treating epilepsy, and asset forfeiture. He finished with “I got to go smoke me one right now,” and headed over to the Monroe Street Fair to sit in a BDT booth and continue signing autographs. About a quarter of the crowd headed over with him as they were apparently more interested in Chong than the more political talk coming from others. There were still a lot of people who hung in there for that - like I said, it was a big crowd.
Things continued with the likes of Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor), and Rep. Mike Callton (R-Barry County). Lansing Mayor Virg Bernero had spoken earlier. Attorney Jeffrey Hank talked about the MI Legalize effort to get legalization on the ballot in 2016.
Then the whole thing was wrapped up by guitarist Laith Al-Saadi playing a rousing version of “Let’s Go Get Stoned.” I’m pretty sure the crowd was already there.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: Trentonian, The (NJ)
Copyright: 2015 The Trentonian
Contact: letters@trentonian.com
Website: http://www.trentonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1006
Author: Edward Forchion, NJWeedman.com For The Trentonian

NJWEEDMAN VS. THE CHRISTIE
The Christie has had a bad spell-last week he made headlines by calling marijuana legalization and herb taxes “Blood Money.” It’s set in stone that Gov. Chris Christie does not like marijuana and is one of those fools who really believes the Reefer Madness lies of the 1930s - no surprise there. He was confronted by a teacher and that encounter went viral, a state judge is questioning his pension plans, and his cronyism with the Wall Street bankers has been exposed as a nearly 1 billion dollar Cash Cow featured on the nationally televised show The Young Turks.
While I personally don’t like most of Republican Christie’s policies, and he personally bullied me years ago-I do like his Jersey style and his take-no-shit attitude, and though his presidency would have been scary on a global scale, imaging an “old friend of mine” as president was certainly interesting to me. I think it may have created a unique national profile opportunity for me.
Now I’m watching his presidential hopes go up in smoke, like rancid dope. And I’m having mixed feelings about it.
I’ve said repeatedly that his marijuana policies doom his chances nationally anyway. But THE GOV was forced to address the marijuana issue again after he was confronted by my alter ego “NJWeedman, Superhero of the Potheads,” from the Weedmobil’s PA system. Hey, Batman drives a Batmobile, so what do you expect Weedman to drive: a Weedmobil.
You see, just as Batman had his archenemies, such as the Joker and Riddler, NJWeedman has The Christie and Mary Potless Angelini. (That was a Harry Anslinger reference, for those in Rush Limbaugh’s “Rio-linda.”)
The alter ego of Clark Kent, star reporter at the fictional Daily Planet newspaper, is Superman. The alter ego of Edward Forchion, felon Columnist at the nonfictional newspaper The Trentonian, is NJWeedman. So I might need a Lois Lane (any voluptuous volunteers?), and like Batman had his sidekick, Robin, I need an Herb.
We are such polar opposites: If this were a comic book, I believe NJWeedman would be the little good guy persecuted citizen and The Christie would be the evil big guy bureaucratic tyrant. NJweedman would be the The Christie’s nemesis.
In this episode: NJWeedman confronts The Christie with: “Hey, Batman drives a Batmobile, so what do you expect NJWeedman to drive? A Weedmobil.”
NJWeedman helps others obtain medical marijuana; The Christie blocks them from getting it. Truth, justice, and the America way are concepts The Christie gives lip service to. When asked by NJWeedman when he would “stop arresting people for marijuana,” The Christie replied: “You know now, I haven’t arrested anybody. I don’t get to do that anymore...I’m The Gov now... ask Obama!”
Christie has prosecuted people for pot, and he’s been awarded the father-of-the-year award. NJWeedman has been prosecuted for pot and had his family destroyed for this plant. Christie is “rich,” NJWeedman is “poor,” Christie white, NJWeedman not, Christie aspires to the White House, NJWeedman avoids the jailhouse. NJWeedman is righteous, Christie is not.
I could have a ball actually making a comic strip of Christie vs NJWeedman, but this is an opinion Column. So on to serious issues.  Christie has a major problem. On Monday the New Jersey State Supreme Court granted the administration’s motion for it to assume jurisdiction in the case, the recent Appeals Court ruling that Christie must work with the Legislature to find the $1.5 billion pension installments that Christie cut from the current budget is at stake. Christie is a reneger.
So the State Supreme Court will now resolve the legal fight between The Christie administration and public employee unions over siphoned pension payments, which ironically is a precursor to another Christie decision on diverted retiree benefits at the end of the fiscal year.  The Supreme Court set oral arguments in that budget case of Christie’s for May 6, about seven weeks before the fiscal year ends on June 30. It appears Christie will be rebuffed in his case.
NJWeedman has become a major problem. The New Jersey Appeals Court has scheduled oral arguments in the State vs Forchion case on May 4.  In this case, Clifton NJ lawyer John Saykanic challenged the very constitutionality of the NJ state marijuana laws for numerous reasons, including not providing a “religious exemption” to the state marijuana laws after it provided a “secular” exemption with the passage of the NJ Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (CUMMA) in 2010. The federal courts have said, “If a secular exemption is allowed, a religious exemption must be as well.” NJWeedman foresees a historic successful ruling in this case.
This “marijuana religious issue” is getting a lot of national attention this week because of the recent Religious Freedom and Restoration Act version signed into law last week in Indiana.  Indianapolis resident Bill Levin, who happens to be one of NJWeedman’s Facebook friends and a comrade in marijuana-legalization activism, has formed a Cannabis Church called the 1st Church of Cannabis.
Saykanic also challenged the fact that when Forchion was arrested on April Fool’s Day 2010, three months after CUMMA’s passage, he had a valid medical card issued by the State of California. Christie has refused to allow NJ law to offer reciprocity in direct conflict with Article IV, Section 1, of the United States Constitution, known as the “Full Faith and Credit Clause.”
The Full Faith and Credit Clause addresses the duties that states within the United States have to respect the “Public Acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other state.
NJWeedman argues that he was a California resident at the time and had a valid CA medical marijuana card issued under the California Compassionate Use ACT. The State of New Jersey unconstitutionally at the behest of Christie refuses to accept the medical marijuana ACTS of other states. This was a similar argument used by The Christie in relation to gay marriage a couple years ago, but ultimately he capitulated on that. NJweedman predicts an ultimate win in this legal argument.
This simple legal argument is, just as a license is issued via the NJ Motor Vehicle ACT and as an ACT it is respected nationwide, so should my California marijuana card issued via the CA Compassionate Use ACT be included here in New Jersey despite The Christie.
BTW-this week NJWeedman had a great 45-minute conversation with Jon-Henry Barr, president of the NJ Municipal Prosecutors Association. I’ve been blowing smoke his way for five straight Columns, ever since he said it was “a waste to be prosecuting people for pot.” Now I always knew he wasn’t my enemy, but he reassured me that he was more my ally than The Christie’s.
He told me they already took an unofficial straw poll on legalization and they are on NJWeedman’s side, but they can’t just stop prosecuting potheads in defiance of state laws. I still differ on that. I know another 404 potheads were prosecuted by the state’s municipal prosecutors again, mostly citizens of color.
Again, just like during alcohol prohibition prosecutors refused to prosecute alcohol users, I publicly demand municipal prosecutors refuse to prosecute potheads during this pot prohibition.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: Kirk
Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015
Source: Tahoe Daily Tribune (South Lake Tahoe, CA)
Column: Mental Health Matters
Copyright: 2015 Swift Communications
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/fXmayKuh
Website: http://www.tahoedailytribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/443
Author: Andrew Whyman
Note: Incline Village resident Andrew Whyman, MD, is a clinical and
forensic psychiatrist. His column focuses on drugs, mental health and
substance abuse in an effort to raise better awareness.
DRUG TREATMENT INDUSTRY A FAILED THERAPEUTIC ENTERPRISE
The seeds of a health care revolution in drug and alcohol treatment are just starting to germinate. The outcome is far from certain, but, with billions on the table, an epic battle is percolating.
Let’s start with the convoluted back story. A hundred-plus years ago, drug and alcohol problems were generally viewed as moral weakness and/or personality defect confined to working class Caucasians or ethnic minorities. Alcohol and drug use was legal in America.
Then, the temperance movement produced alcohol Prohibition in 1920.
America’s drive to establish international prominence led Theodore Roosevelt’s Administration to orchestrate the International Opium Convention of 1912, the first international drug control treaty.
Fallacious and racist stereotypes about certain groups who used drugs
? i.e. Chinese, Blacks, Mexicans going on murderous rampages, compromising the virtues of San Francisco society matrons, or engaging in herculean sexual feats - led to the gradual criminalization of drug use (See “Drugs, Society and Human Behavior “by Carl Hart and Charles Kgir).

None of this was based on science or factual data about the negative
impact of drugs on society. All of it reflected the culture and
politics of the time (“The American Disease: Origins of Narcotic
Control,” David Musto, M.D., 1973).
When a small group of physicians was arrested by the federal government for prescribing opiates to treat addiction, doctors withdrew from the drug treatment enterprise entirely.
After Prohibition was repealed, government expanded the laws criminalizing drug possession (See “Drugs: America’s Holy War” by Arthur Benavie). Lengthy prison sentences for drug possession became the norm, and eventually included “life mandatory minimums,” i.e. a life sentence with no chance of parole.
Jail and prison populations exploded, as did state and federal budgets to feed the cost of these laws.
Medical research about addiction was discouraged and evidence-driven treatment resources were few. Academic medical centers rarely provided either inpatient or outpatient treatment programs.
Given the paucity of medical care and evidence driven treatment, non-medical providers of care filled the vacuum. Alcoholics Anonymous and its derivative 12-step programs became the norm and the predominant treatment model.
Thousands of private residential treatment programs opened around the country owned by entrepreneurs and staffed by former addicts (See “Inside Rehab” by Anne Fletcher, 2013).
In more recent years, a host of factors has altered the treatment landscape.
As jails and prisons filled to capacity and beyond due in no small part to the addict population, both the financial and social costs of incarceration accelerated.
Recidivism of released prisoners was enormous. Rates of substance abuse and addiction showed no signs of lessening.
The criminal enterprise of illegal drug manufacture and sales continued to be highly profitable and immune to American-driven military efforts around the globe to eradicate drugs at their source.
The “War on Drugs” commencing in the 1970s was increasingly seen as a failure.
Overlapping with these factors, biological research produced an understanding of changes in brain chemistry associated with addiction. The field of Addiction Medicine gained credibility and confidence.
Scientific papers began to show the usefulness of medications in treating opiate addiction and alcoholism. These findings contradicted central tenants of 12-step programs in the private and the criminal justice systems of treatment.
Comprehensive surveys of the drug rehabilitation industry demonstrated that most residential treatment programs failed to provide effective care (“The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-step Programs and the Rehab Industry,” Lance Dodes, M.D., and “Handbook of Alcoholism Treatment Approaches”).
An overview of the central failings of the 12-step model of treatment just appeared in the April 2015 issue of the Atlantic Magazine.
Detailed studies exposed the meager qualifications of most “counselors” in the drug treatment industry.
A damning 2012 report by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University compared the current state of addiction medicine to general medicine 100 years ago. It notes that many states do not require licensing or certification of addiction counselors, that patients see a “broad range of practitioners largely exempt from medical standard.”
Each of these data threads, woven together, leads to the conclusion that, with rare exception, the drug treatment industry is a failed therapeutic enterprise, one that promises much, at substantial cost, while achieving precious little.
Now, add the Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act. And the Affordable Care Act providing insurance coverage to millions while requiring improved efficiencies and treatment outcomes.
These initiatives should threaten the future viability of the present drug treatment industry by requiring markedly enhanced professional qualifications for providers and scientific metrics showing that treatment works. Of course, with billions at stake, you never know.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 05 Apr 2015
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The New York Times Company
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Michael Schwirtz

BRONX TEENAGER WHO FELL FROM ROOF WHILE FLEEING THE POLICE DIES
A Bronx teenager who fell off the roof of a six-story apartment building on Thursday while fleeing police officers died of his injuries on Saturday at St. Barnabas Hospital, the police said.
Authorities said Hakeem Kuta, 17, was with a group of other teenagers who were smoking marijuana Thursday evening in the lobby of the apartment building at 2685 Valentine Avenue in the Bronx. A man who exited the building complained to four uniformed officers, who then entered the lobby. When Mr. Kuta and several others ran to the roof, two officers chased them.
All but Mr. Kuta and a 14-year-old were able to elude the police. With officers shouting, “please don’t move,” Mr. Kuta tried to step over a short wall at the edge of the building but stumbled, officials said.  The 14-year-old grabbed for Mr. Kuta’s vest as he fell, officials said, but he was not able to hang on.
The Police Department said that the officers appeared to have acted appropriately. After Mr. Kuta fell, officers raced from the roof to give first aid, officials said. Officer Maria Imburgia applied chest compressions until paramedics arrived.
Officers made no arrests on Thursday evening, though marijuana was found in the lobby.
Marijuana arrests have plummeted since November, when Mayor Bill de Blasio instituted a policy making possession of 25 grams or less punishable with a ticket, not criminal charges. People who are caught smoking marijuana in public, though, still face arrest.
Mr. Kuta had no criminal record, officials said. A relative, Abdallah Dopo, said the teenager had been born in Ghana and had moved to the United States about three or four years ago with his parents and a younger sister.
A version of this article appears in print on April 5, 2015, on page
A21 of the New York edition with the headline: Teenager Who Fell Off
Roof While Fleeing the Police Dies
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MAP posted-by: Matt
xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2015 Newsday Inc.
Contact: letters@newsday.com
Website: http://www.newsday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/308
Author: William F. B. O’Reilly

POT IS ALL THE RAGE - AND THAT’S DANGEROUS
Think maple syrup spread across a sheet pan and hardened. Or a thin crepe made of brittle amber resin.
Smash it into tiny shards, drop a piece in a pipe, and what have you got?
“Shatter.”
It’s the hot new smokable marijuana concentrate, and it’s guaranteed to keep you high all day, so high in fact that it’s sending freaked-outkids to emergency rooms across the country, mostly in Western states. But that shouldn’t be for long. Drugs have an annoying habit of drifting eastward in America.
The average THC potency of domestically grown pot in 2009 was 5.6 percent, according to a University of Mississippi Potency Monitoring Project report. Shatter can be up to 90 percent pure THC.
If that’s not to your or your kids’ taste, maybe “wax” is. Wax is what its name implies: a wax made from cannabis oil. Smoke it or ingest it and you’ll get a THC hit of 50 to 80 percent. It can also be called “butter,” although “budder,” as it’s sometimes spelled, can also be made from Hashish resins.
Looking to get high? One of the new marijuana lip balm products will certainly do. They’re made to look like Chapstick or Blistex containers. Spread them on your lips and ka-boom! No more pesky learning. A quarter-ounce jar of the stuff with 56 mg of THC is on sale right now for $8 at a Colorado cannabis retailer. It’s advertised online as “pure, medicated lip balm.” Cute.
These are just a smattering of powerful THC concentrates spreading throughout America, both legally and illegally, largely due to marijuana legalization in just a handful of states and Washington, D.C. This is what happens when American marketing and manufacturing ingenuity meet a growing legal market.
E-vaporizers, “sexy oil,” “Full Melt” and “Butane Hash Oil” are among the myriad marijuana concentrate products now available. Old edible THC standbys like pot and hash brownies have given way to a booming THC candy market. Pot-infused lollipops are a big hit with children.  Go figure.
Does anyone—except the guy reading this in his mother’s basement with a black light and a velvet Hendrix poster—think this is a good national development?
I think it’s slow suicide.
But I can hear the protests:
What about alcohol? Isn’t that worse?
What about cancer sufferers? How can we deny them something that eases their pain and nausea?
People are going to do it, anyway. Why not get tax
revenue?

These are all fair points, but none of them negate the emerging
reality of where newly legalized marijuana in just four states—
Washington, Colorado, Oregon and Alaska—is leading us. Seven more
states—Arizona, California, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Massachusetts
and Missouri—are close to joining them. New York recently passed
legalized medical marijuana, but hasn’t rolled it out in earnest yet.
Marijuana farmers and distributors who lobbied in the name of mercy for the medically needy, clearly had, or now have, bigger dollar signs in their eyes than just the medicinal market. In just a few short years, pot has become big business in America, and big businesses always seek to expand their product reach. Ask the tobacco industry.  At the same time, state legislators addicted to revenue streams, and political contributions, are abandoning long-held positions virtually overnight. No question: Pot is all the rage right now.
A majority of Americans for the first time favor legalizing marijuana by a 52-42 margin, according to a 2014 General Social Survey. I don’t know if that’s because so many adults polled smoked pot in their youth and don’t think they can pass judgment without being hypocritical or if peer pressure on a massive scale is in play. Whatever it is, it’s sparking a robust and dangerous marijuana concentrates market and that should be raising red flags.
Mark Twain once wrote that, “It’s easier to stay out than to get out.”
His quote should be mailed to every state legislator in America.
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Argus Observer (OR)
Copyright: 2015 Ontario Argus Observer
Contact: editor@argusobserver.com
Website: http://www.argusobserver.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4163
Author: Jessica Else

PROFESSOR SAYS MARIJUANA BENEFITS THE BODY
ONTARIO - Curious locals and supporters of medical marijuana were offered some nuggets of information at the U People Like Me Medical Marijuana Awareness Blitz Friday night in Ontario.
The event was hosted by the Stormy Ray Cardholders’ Foundation at the Four Rivers Cultural Center, and wasn’t without it’s technical issues.  Throughout the entire evening there were periodic microphone glitches.
“Someone turned off our live feed right before we started,” said Stormy Ray, who heads up the foundation. “It was devastating to all of us who put in our hard work.”
In spite of the difficulties, however, the show went on in the midst of a packed house. More than 70 people attended, causing standing room only.
William Lopez was the master of ceremonies and the group raffled off several vaporizers as well as a glass bong. Several people gave testimonies on the benefits of medical marijuana and there was a presentation by Eastern Oregon University assistant chemistry and biochemistry professor, Jeremy Riggle.
Riggle spoke on the chemical compounds in marijuana that give it healing properties.
“There’s a treasure trove of different chemicals that have different effects,” Riggle said. “All the compounds have been shown to have benefits and we’re just barely scratching the surface on this stuff.”
The main chunk of Riggle’s presentation focused on the human body’s endocannabinoid system, which regulates homeostasis within cells and inside the body, overall. This system helps regulate things like appetite, mood, and the sensation of pain.
Riggle explained that the cannabinoids within medical marijuana interact with the body’s endocannabinoid system in a large variety of ways, promoting healthy cells and causing unhealthy cells to self-abort.
“That’s why it’s so good for fighting cancer,” Riggle said. “It tells sick cells to commit suicide.”
Chris Artiach, a student at Treasure Valley Community College, a 2015 gold medalist in the Special Olympics, and a veteran with PTSD, said medical marijuana is his only medication for constant pain because he is allergic to both opiates and narcotics.
“They say it’s bad for our community and it will cause problems, but we’re already the second worst in Oregon,” Artiach said. “We don’t get addicted to it. We don’t die. We just smile.”
The event concluded with a mixer for the audience, which packed the meeting room at the cultural center, to mingle and enjoy live music.
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 12 Apr 2015
Source: Houston Chronicle (TX)
Copyright: 2015 Houston Chronicle Publishing Company Division, Hearst Newspaper
Contact: viewpoints@chron.com
Website: http://www.chron.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/198
Author: Robert Sharpe
Page: B15
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n199/a05.html

MARIJUANA PROHIBITION
Regarding “Wise counsel” (Page B8, Thursday), Houston Police Chief Charles McClelland is to be commended for speaking out against marijuana prohibition.
There are positive aspects to legalization that bear repeating. New research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that states with open medical marijuana access have a 25 percent lower opioid overdose death rate than marijuana prohibition states.
This research finding has huge implications for states such as Texas that are grappling with prescription narcotic and heroin overdose deaths.
The substitution effect was documented by California physicians long before the JAMA research. Legal marijuana access is correlated with a reduction in opioid and alcohol abuse.
The marijuana plant is incapable of causing an overdose death. Not even aspirin can make the same claim, much less alcohol or prescription narcotics. The phrase “if it saves one life” has been used to justify all manner of drug war abuses. Legal marijuana access has the potential to save thousands of lives.
Robert Sharpe, policy analyst,
Common Sense for Drug Policy,
Washington, D.C.
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Pubdate: Wed, 08 Apr 2015
Source: Seattle Weekly (WA)
Column: Higher Ground
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact:
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Website: http://www.seattleweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/410
Author: Michael A. Stusser

RUNNER’S HIGH
Spring has sprung, and it’s finally time to strap on the running shoes and get stoned out of your mind!
There’s no doubt that marijuana is good for all kinds of things:
stimulating the appetite, creative brainstorming, giggle-fests . . .
but exercise?
Yes, apparently. According to an article in last month’s Runner’s World, athletes who use cannabis benefit from stress relief and reduced inflammation.
Now I’m no marathoner, but I do understand the pain and nausea that kind of grind might cause; hell, I “hit the wall” on walks from Starbucks to the car. And long-distance runners are now claiming that the pain relief associated with marijuana is also a huge benefit for their grueling efforts, helping athletes achieve an idealized state earlier in their run.
“When you have runner’s high, you have feelings very similar to those you would feel if you were smoking marijuana,” stated neuroscientist Arne Dietrich in Runner’s World. The prefrontal cortex of the brain regulates both feelings, Dietrich notes, including “sedation, analgesia, mild happiness, the loss of the sensation of time, and a loss of worries.” What? Where was I?
It makes sense that the CBDs that help to block the input of pain for medicinal purposes and act as anti-inflammatories can also help athletes struggling with joint pain in various sports.
And we’re not just talking about snowboarders or Ultimate Frisbee Golf jocks either. A Wall Street Journal story recently interviewed ultra-marathon runners, who run up to 200 miles over 20-hour periods, and many noted that cannabis aids with the stomach cramps and intense muscle pain they endure along the way. “The person who is going to win an ultra is someone who can manage their pain, not puke, and stay calm,” said veteran runner Jenn Shelton. “Pot does all three of those things.” I have a better suggestion for these masochistic ultra-marathoners: moderation!
Even the World Anti-Doping Agency and U.S. Track & Field are coming around on dope. Last year the WADA raised the acceptable amount of THC a runner can have in his or her system, flagging only runners who use pot on the day of competition. Using marijuana during training sessions or as a sleep aid the night before a race is all good.  There’s a reason the fastest man on the planet, Usain Bolt, is from Jamaica, mon!
Running high as a kite is not for everyone.
Chronic smoking has been related to pulmonary irritation and symptoms of chronic bronchitis (including hocking loogies). “There are cardiovascular effects, like increasing heart rate,” says Gregory Gerdeman (The Pot Book) in the Runner’s World piece. “These may be minimal in young athletes or those with tolerance, but should be considered seriously by anyone at risk for coronary heart disease.
Plus, there have been some studies that suggest it influences blood flow to the brain, which can influence the risk of stroke.”
Still, cannabis smoking doesn’t have nearly the negative effect on the lungs that tobacco does. The National Institutes of Health did a study in 2013 that I wish I’d been chosen for. They exposed a group of adults to up to seven “joint years”-one joint per day for seven years-and found that even those extremes didn’t diminish lung function. In fact, marijuana users in the study performed a little better than nonsmokers on a lung-function test, because ganja smokers were basically “training” over time by taking deep breaths and holding smoke in.
Outside did its own piece on stoned running (“Know Before You Go!”), and, while not condoning the practice, gave helpful tips, including not getting lost, bringing munchies along the way, and “dosing” in a safe environment: “You don’t want to be 10 miles into the mountains and suddenly feel like you need to take a nap because THC makes you sleepy, then find yourself dozing off in the middle of the woods with no food or shelter.” Their advice on dosing was a little . . . high:
“While lower doses often lead to a relaxed physical state and sense
of well-being, or a ‘body high,’ high doses can bring on an acid-trip
type of experience with hallucinations and possible paranoia.
Once the drug kicks in, the high can last from four to 10 hours, or possibly longer.” Not sure where they’re getting their ganja, but I want some. Wow!
My own advice is to use marijuana as a sort of reward after you exercise. The perfect indulgent treat?
The CannaBar! It’s a protein candy bar made using almonds, honey, and hemp-based cannabidiols-with less fatty ingredients that the Clif bars you’re shakily shoving in mid-marathon. Sadly, the CannaBar is made with a cannabis sativa without much THC, so it doesn’t get you high; you’ll want to do that in the traditional way-and by that I mean taking off your Brooks, collapsing on the couch, and sucking down bong hits.
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Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Erik Eckholm, New York Times

NEW FEDERAL LAW COULD HALT MEDICAL POT CASES
BLOOMFIELD, N.M. - Charles C. Lynch seemed to be doing everything right when he opened a medical marijuana dispensary in the tidy coastal town of Morro Bay, Calif.
The mayor, the city attorney and leaders of the local Chamber of Commerce all came for the ribbon-cutting in 2006. The conditions for his business license, including a ban on customers younger than 18 and compliance with California’s medical marijuana laws, were posted on the wall.
But two years later, Lynch was convicted of multiple felonies under federal law for selling marijuana. He is one of hundreds of defendants and prisoners caught up in the stark conflict between federal law, which puts marijuana in the same class as heroin with no exception for medical sales, and the decisions by many states to authorize medical uses.
“I feel so left out of society,” said Lynch, 52, who is out on bond and appealing his conviction, from a battered trailer behind his mother’s house here in northwestern New Mexico. He is waiting to see if he must go to prison.
Now, though, a legal wild card has been injected into his case and those of several other defendants in California and Washington state.
In December, in a little-publicized amendment to the 2015 appropriations bill that one legal scholar called a “buried land mine,” Congress barred the Justice Department from spending any money to prevent states from “implementing their own state laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana.”
In the most advanced test of the law yet, Lynch’s lawyers have asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which includes Hawaii, to “direct the DOJ to cease spending funds on the case.” In a filing late last month, they argued that federal officials continuing to work on his prosecution “would be committing criminal acts.”
But the Justice Department strongly disagrees, asserting that the amendment does not undercut its power to enforce federal drug law. It says that the amendment only bars federal agencies from interfering with state efforts to carry out medical marijuana laws, and that it does not preclude criminal prosecutions for violations of the Controlled Substances Act.
With the new challenge raised in several cases, federal judges will have to weigh in soon, opening a new arena in a legal field already rife with contradiction and paradox. At latest count, 23 states plus the District of Columbia permit medical marijuana. Four states have authorized recreational sales as well.
“If any court, especially the 9th Circuit, declares that the provision precludes federal prosecution of state-compliant individuals, this will be huge,” said Douglas A. Berman, a professor at the Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University and editor of the Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform blog.
Such a ruling could put federal courts in the odd position of determining “when a state actor is complying with state law,” said Berman, who used the metaphor of a buried land mine.
The California sponsors of the amendment, including Reps. Sam Farr and Barbara Lee, both Democrats, and Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, said it was clearly intended to curb individual prosecutions and have accused the Justice Department of violating its spirit and substance.
“If federal prosecutors are engaged in legal action against those involved with medical marijuana, in a state that has made it legal, then they are the ones who are the lawbreakers,” Rohrabacher said.
Farr said, “For the feds to come in and take this hardline approach in a state with years of experience in regulating medical marijuana is disruptive and disrespectful.”
The sponsors said they were planning how to renew the spending prohibition next year.
The amendment aside, federal prosecutions of state-approved dispensaries have declined sharply in the last two years, particularly since the Justice Department issued a nonbinding “guidance” to prosecutors in 2013. That guidance recommended against pursuing dispensaries, growers and patients who comply with state law, have no links to cartels or interstate smuggling, and do not sell to minors.
New raids on state-approved dispensaries have largely ended, said Steph Sherer, executive director of Americans for Safe Access, a private group that lobbied for the December amendment. At the same time, she said, federal prosecutors have relentlessly pursued pre-existing cases like Lynch’s.
After Lynch’s arrest and the seizure of his funds, his family mustered resources for a bond, but then he spent nine months and 10 days under house arrest, with an ankle bracelet. Unable to find work, he lost his house. For the last year and a half, he has been allowed to stay with his family in this rural area of New Mexico, next to the Navajo reservation.
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Pubdate: Tue, 07 Apr 2015
Source: Herald, The (Everett, WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Daily Herald Co.
Contact: letters@heraldnet.com
Website: http://www.heraldnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/190

VOTERS PREFER LEGAL WEED TO PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES
In three key swing states, marijuana legalization is more popular than any potential 2016 presidential contender. That’s according to a Quinnipiac University poll conducted in March. More than 80 percent of adults in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Florida support medical marijuana, according to the survey. Fifty-one percent of Pennsylvanians, 52 percent of Ohioans and 55 percent of Floridians also support legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use.
From Herald news services
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Pubdate: Thu, 09 Apr 2015
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Josh Barro

Revenue Disappointment
WHY MARIJUANA TAXES WON’T SAVE STATE BUDGETS
Colorado’s marijuana tax collections are not as high as expected.
In February 2014, Gov. John Hickenlooper’s office projected Colorado would take in $118 million in taxes on recreational marijuana in its first full year after legalization. With seven months of revenue data in, his office has cut that projection and believes it will collect just $69 million through the end of the fiscal year in June, a miss of 42 percent.
That figure is consequential in two ways. First, it’s a wide miss.  Second, compared with Colorado’s all-funds budget of $27 billion, neither $69 million nor $118 million is a large number.
“It’s a distraction,” Andrew Freedman, Colorado’s director of marijuana coordination, says of the tax issue. And despite the marijuana tax miss, overall state revenues are exceeding projections, which may force the state to rebate some marijuana tax receipts to taxpayers.
In the political debate over marijuana policy, fiscal benefits - bringing marijuana into the legal economy and taxing it - have loomed large. The summary of the marijuana legalization question put before voters in 2012 stipulated the first $40 million raised by one of the three taxes on recreational marijuana would be put toward school construction each year. In practice, Colorado is likely to receive just $20 million from that tax this year.
But it’s not just Colorado. When Scott Pattison, the executive director of the National Association of State Budget Officers, appeared on C-Span’s Washington Journal call-in show to discuss state finances in December, callers repeatedly suggested that legal marijuana could fix budget gaps in other states. One asserted, incorrectly, that legal marijuana had increased Colorado’s tax revenues by a billion dollars.
Colorado’s marijuana taxes are part of a broader trend in recent years: States, looking for ways to close budget shortfalls without raising broad-based taxes, have leaned on “sin” revenues: higher taxes on cigarettes, higher fees and fines and higher revenue from gambling. And as they have sought to squeeze more revenue from these sources, they have often been disappointed.
Gambling revenue has stagnated as markets have become saturated.  Nearly every state has legal gambling, including 37 states with casinos. Expansions of gambling do more to siphon revenue from existing gambling outlets than to generate new tax and lottery revenue.
High cigarette taxes have led to counterfeiting of tax stamps and cross-border smuggling of cigarettes from low-tax jurisdictions to high-tax ones. Because the taxes have also succeeded in the policy goal of reducing smoking, the other policy goal of raising revenue is less of a success.
In the case of marijuana, Colorado’s revenue has disappointed because legal recreational marijuana sales have been lower than expected.  State officials thought many customers of medical marijuana dispensaries would migrate to the recreational market. But this process has been slow, in part because there is a financial disincentive to switch: Medical marijuana is subject only to general sales tax, while a 15 percent tax is imposed on recreational marijuana at wholesale and a further 10 percent at retail, in additional to the general sales tax.
But Mr. Freedman says the biggest drag on revenue is that so much of Colorado’s marijuana market remains unregulated. A 2014 report commissioned by the state’s Department of Revenue estimated 130 metric tons of marijuana was consumed in the state that year, while just 77 metric tons was sold through medical dispensaries and recreational marijuana retailers. The rest was untaxed: a combination of home growing, production by untaxed medical “caregivers” whose lightly regulated status is protected in the state constitution and plain old black-market production and trafficking.
The state is trying to get its marijuana market in order. It has imposed new rules to limit the number of plants that caregivers may possess, aiming to ensure their operations are truly aimed at providing for a small number of patients, not diverting some of the supply into the recreational market. And it is tightening oversight of doctors to ensure medical marijuana recommendations are written only for bona fide debilitating medical conditions. In time, these moves may draw more users into the recreational market where they belong.
On the other hand, falling market prices could cut into future tax revenues. Retail prices in Colorado were generally more than $10 a gram as of last fall. In some cases, that was more than marijuana in the illegal market. But illegal production is costly and inefficient.  As legal producers scale up and compete, they are likely to cut prices sharply, according to Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at the University of California, Los Angeles, who has played a major role in establishing Washington State’s legal marijuana market.  According to Samantha Chin, the director of marketing at Colorado Pot Guide, retail prices have fallen between 16 and 30 percent in the Denver area since November.
“If commercial cannabis is $2 per gram at retail, I doubt people will bother getting a medical card,” Mr. Kleiman says. Because the state’s marijuana tax is levied per dollar, not per gram, a sharp drop in prices would mean even less tax revenue.
There are lessons here for other states. Because of low public support for marijuana prohibition, many jurisdictions have intentionally lax enforcement around illegal marijuana markets. This often shows up as a wink-wink culture around medical access. (See, for example, “Medical Kush Doctor” signs that once adorned storefronts in Venice, Calif.) After legalization, that culture of lax enforcement can be a barrier to tax collection.
Another lesson is that marijuana taxes should be “specific excise” taxes per unit of intoxicant. In most states, cigarettes are taxed by the pack and alcohol by the liter. Marijuana could similarly be taxed by the gram (either of plant or of T.H.C.), which would protect states from revenue declines if pretax prices fall.
Taxes on intoxicants are meant to offset the negative social effects of intoxicant use; the size of those effects should not be expected to vary with market price.
But even if Colorado got all this right, improved revenues would not be among the most important effects that marijuana legalization has on the state.
“Tax revenue is nice to have, but in most states is not going to be enough to change the budget picture significantly,” Mr. Kleiman says.  “The stakes in reducing criminal activity and incarceration and protecting public health are way higher than the stakes in generating revenue.”
Mr. Kleiman has advocated an alternative legalization model, currently being introduced in Washington, D.C., in which cultivation, possession and use are permitted but sales are not. One goal of this model is to avoid the creation of a commercial marijuana sector that markets its products aggressively. A downside of the model is that there are no legal sales on which to collect taxes - but as Colorado shows, Washington, D.C., may not be giving up that much, fiscally.
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