Curious.

It appears to use "hemp" as a synonym for "non-psychoactive cannabis."  Might be more palatable to the public that way,
or at least to the legislators.

Probably an improvement over the unfortunate "right to try" bill.

In practice, it would be interesting to see if applications for additional qualifying conditions and additional strains/preparations
are decided rapidly, or if the deciders will use every second of the 180-day review period before ruling.

It will be interesting, if this passes, to see what criteria the govt will impose when they decide which conditions and strains
deserve inclusion.  Since THC does have therapeutic properties of its own - not just CBD - I wonder if they'd allow a strain
exceeding the 3% limit when a medical condition is added and THC/CBD balanced strains are proposed to treat it.

What do you-all think?  Is this a stepping stone toward less restrictive legislation, or will it just allow the politicians to claim
they've "done something" - that is, done enough - about cannabis medicine?
 
 
 

On Feb 11, 2015, at 12:24 PM, Esau wrote:

> > http://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2015_16/measures/documents/hb2282_00_0000.pdf
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 09 Feb 2015
Source: Daily Telegraph (Australia)
Copyright: 2015 News Limited
Contact: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/readers-comments
Website: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/113
Note: LTE form at bottom of comment page
Author: Bruce McDougall

DRUGGED STUDENT CRISIS IN SCHOOLS

THE number of students using or possessing drugs in NSW schools is at
record levels.

On average 20 students are suspended each week after being busted
with illicit drugs, with some principals calling it a "crisis".

Schools handed out 790 long suspensions for drug offences in 2013 -
the highest number in almost a decade and more than double the number
of suspensions in 2009.

For the two years 2012 and 2013, schools imposed 1539 long
suspensions on students for offences involving suspected illicit
substances, data collated by the NSW Department of Education and
Communities shows. While much of the drug and alcohol use occurs
outside school, some students have become seriously ill in class or
in the playground and have had to be taken to hospital.

In one Western Sydney school up to eight students - seven boys and
one girl - were found to be "drug-affected" during lessons.

"The young persons were all just sitting motionless and blankly
staring while in class," a serious incident report said.

"The principal suspects that one student is possibly supplying
illegal substances outside the school grounds."

One of the students was overheard talking to a classmate about
supplying drugs and replying that he "only had one left". Police were
called in by the school, which earlier that week had conducted an
"educational presentation" about illegal drug use.

More than 200 high school principals revealed in a survey that
alcohol and drugs were having "significant and negative impacts on
academic performance" with teachers forced to spend large amounts of
time trying to help affected students. One female student at a
northern Sydney school was unable to stand up while another student
fell over in class and hit his head.

The principals from government, independent and Catholic schools
surveyed for the Australian National Council on Drugs said alcohol
and cannabis were the major concerns. But students were also found to
have taken ice, amphetamines, ecstasy and tabs.

Drug and alcohol consumption in young people has been linked to
mental health issues and cyber-bullying.

The Australian National Council on Drugs said schools needed a "far
greater level of support from governments, communities and the drug
and alcohol sector".

The NSW Department of Education and Communities said students from
kindergarten to Year 10 learned about the "consequences and issues
related to drugs including alcohol" through the personal development,
health and physical education syllabus.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Feb 2015
Source: Herald Sun (Australia)
Copyright: 2015 Herald and Weekly Times
Contact: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/opinion/letter
Website: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/187
Author: Andrew Jefferson
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?142 (Supervised Injection Sites)

INNER CITY ZOMBIE TOWN

Shooting Gallery Not the Answer

A NEW push to set up a legal heroin-shooting gallery in one of
Melbourne's most drug-affected suburbs - dubbed "zombie town" - has
angered traders and residents.

They are tired of junkies littering Richmond's streets with discarded syringes.

But Yarra Council, the Yarra Drug and Health Forum, the Greens, the
Australian Sex Party, and the Australian Medical Association are keen
for the State Government to follow NSW's lead by sanctioning a
six-month trial of a supervised injecting room.

Local police fear the arrival of the state's first injecting room
could attract more dealers to Richmond, keen to feed the habit of
desperate addicts, leading to an increase in crime.

They say more than 60 per-cent of crooks caught there, including drug
dealers, come from outside Richmond.

"They deal, use and steal," said Inspector Bernie Edwards of the
Yarra division.

Richmond Asian Business Association spokesman Meca Ho said Victoria
St traders were against the injecting room, saying addicts were
already scaring away customers. "It's getting worse, not better," he
said. "I liken them to zombies, it's like zombie town." "People are
too scared to walk down Victoria St because they don't feel safe - we
don't need a shop attracting more," Mr Ho said. Richmond resident
Jackson Ly was also not impressed. "An injecting room will just
encourage more drug use, not less," he said.

With drug dealing and illicit use rife around the Richmond Housing
Estate, one Yarra councillor fears the area is starting to resemble
crime-ridden parts of Los Angeles.

The Sunday Herald Sun visited the estate and photographed druggies
injecting heroin just metres from kids' playgrounds and a primary
school. Users in drug-induced states were seen aggressively menacing
pedestrians, while two addicts brazenly shot-up in a multi-storey carpark.

Some continue to dump used syringes in streets and laneways, posing a
particular health risk to young children.

Cr Stephen Jolly said residents in Richmond and Abbotsford often felt
unsafe witnessing drug-related behaviour or stumbling across
discarded syringes.

"We need to find a solution because the illegal drug industry is
making life intolerable for residents," he said.

"We're living in Melbourne, not South Central LA, and it's time to
look at a different approach. If a safe injecting room helps us to
move drug use off the streets, I think residents would support that move.

"I call on the new government to allow council to trial such a facility."

Fitzroy-based police officer Sen-Sgt Kelvin Gale said he had some
concerns about supervised injecting rooms.

"One of the big problems is drugs cost money," he said.

"You're going to be putting more drug traffickers closer to that
facility so potentially it might bring more crime in.

"There might be $100,000 worth of drugs going through that front door
every day. I'm tipping that money to buy the drugs didn't come from
Centrelink, it's coming out of people's houses - their flatscreen TVs
and jewellery."

Greens Melbourne MP Adam Bandt said one Richmond resident told him
they came home to find someone passed out after injecting in their
front yard. "People are finding syringes in sandpits, yards and
laneways and they're sick of it," he said.

AMA Victoria vice president Dr Gary Speck said heroin contributed to
the deaths of 132 Victorians in 2013.

"Access to sterile needles does not result in an increase in the
number of people using heroin, rather it reduces the chance of users
contracting viruses such as hepatitis C or HIV," he said.

"It allows drug users to be helped. It is time to bring Victoria's
approach into the 21st century."

Mental Health Minister Martin Foley said the State Government did not
support supervised injecting rooms.

"Harm minimisation and evidence-based responses to drug use like
needle and syringe programs, pharmacotherapies, as well as treatment
and support services, are our focus," he said.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Mon, 09 Feb 2015
Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network
Contact: letters@calgaryherald.com
Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/66
Author: Brian Hutchinson
Page: B1

MARIJUANA PROMOTER GETS INTO HIGH GEAR

Briere Seeking to Grow Retail Opportunities

This city has its own Prince of Pot, cannabis promoter Marc Emery.
But he's minor royalty next to Don Briere. Or Donald Joseph Briere,
as he's known inside the Canadian justice and penal systems. He was
once this country's most prolific marijuana producer and distributor,
with 33 illegal growing operations hidden across B. C.

In the late 1990s, before an informant ratted them out to police,
Briere and his cohorts were growing and selling two tonnes of pot annually.

"That's a lot of weed," he laughs. "We were outlaws. My share was $
5-million a year."

He made B. C. bud famous. And he paid a price.

Briere was convicted in 2001 on charges that included drug
cultivation, possession for the purpose of trafficking and possession
of a prohibited firearm.

He was sentenced to four years in prison.

While on parole in 2004, he was busted again, this time for running
an illegal marijuana shop on Vancouver's hipster high street,
Commercial Drive. For that blatant infraction, he was convicted and
sentenced to another 2.5 years behind bars.

Briere is now 63, and with all the legal hassles and two heart
attacks behind him, one might think he'd have retirement in mind. Far from it.

The irrepressible pot impresario is back in the marijuana trade,
making his mark in retail.

He's selling potent cannabis products from a chain of eight stores he
has opened - and has managed to keep open, despite admitting he sells
his product for " recreational" use - over the past 20 months in
Vancouver. Weeds Glass and Gifts does a brisk business.

He's got six more shops on the way, including new outlets in Surrey,
North Vancouver, Whistler and Sechelt, a vacation paradise just up the coast.

Briere says he's also looking at potential stores in Toronto and Montreal.

These aren't dimly lit backrooms where shifty-eyed dealers slip
greasy dime bags into the pockets of nervous adolescents. Business is
conducted openly, inside shops on busy streets. They have regular store hours.

The products are fresh and plentiful. The quality is consistent, and
so, he hopes, is the customer experience.

He's hired a full-time accountant, and recently took on a young
Vancouver lawyer, Ian Ramage, who now serves as the chain's vice-
president of operations and in-house counsel.

On a recent morning visit to Briere's flagship store in downtown
Vancouver, customers selected bags of dried marijuana and edible
cannabis products from dozens of trays. One fellow paid $ 5 for a
heavy hit of highly concentrated cannabis oil, served from the
store's "dabber bar." In the back office, Briere used a microscope to
examine new product. "Quality control," he explained.

Officially, Weeds sells marijuana to people with medical needs only.
Customers are required to obtain a membership card; for that, they
must produce a note from a qualified health service provider,
confirming they have a legitimate ailment - from multiple sclerosis
to insomnia to headaches - that might be soothed with cannabis. Weeds
employees will refer potential, non-card holding customers aged 19 or
older to a local naturopath.

Weeds doesn't yet own the local market; competition is fierce in Vancouver.

There are now 61 so-called medical marijuana dispensaries in the
city, according to the Vancouver Police Department, with more opening
all the time. Medical marijuana is astonishingly popular in a city
reputed to be a fitness and health leader.

Three years ago, there were just a few dispensaries in Vancouver, and
maybe a handful of others in the rest of Canada, says Jamie Shaw,
president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis
Dispensaries, an organization that promotes and aims to regulate the
sale of cannabis for medical purposes. Now there are approximately
100 across the country.

None of the Vancouver dispensaries have been issued city business
permits. It's a curious situation: Unlicensed, unregulated marijuana
stores operate throughout the city, but few people - aside from
prohibitionists, of whom there are almost none anymore - seem concerned.

Vancouver police spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham says the city takes a
"a priority-based approach" to marijuana. Police know where all the
pot shops are and they make regular visits, but they won't consider
disturbing an operation unless there's a complaint made and public
safety is at risk. For example, police will intervene if a store
sells marijuana to minors, or is deemed unsanitary. Inspectors from
Vancouver Coastal Health, the local health authority, and the
Vancouver Fire Department also make regular visits to the unlicensed stores.

"We don't call them dispensaries," says Fincham, acknowledging that
the term is, for many outlets, a semantic manoeuvre.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Mon, 09 Feb 2015
Source: Windsor Star (CN ON)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/x0E5jcdd
Copyright: 2015 The Windsor Star
Contact: letters@windsorstar.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/windsorstar/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/501
Author: Brian Hutchinson
Page: A6

POT IMPRESARIO IS BACK IN THE TRADE, GROWING A RETAIL CHAIN

Busted for Pushing, Briere Expands Business

VANCOUVER - This city has its own Prince of Pot, cannabis promoter
Marc Emery. But he's minor royalty next to Don Briere. Or Donald
Joseph Briere, as he's known inside the Canadian justice and penal
systems. He was once this country's most prolific marijuana producer
and distributor, with 33 illegal growing operations hidden across B.C.

In the late 1990s, before an informant ratted them out to police,
Briere and his cohorts were growing and selling two tonnes of pot
annually. "That's a lot of weed," he laughs. "We were outlaws. My
share was $5-million a year."

He made B.C. bud famous. And he paid a price. Briere was convicted in
2001 on charges that included drug cultivation, possession for the
purpose of trafficking and possession of a prohibited firearm. He was
sentenced to four years in prison. While on parole in 2004, he was
busted again, this time for running an illegal marijuana shop on
Vancouver's hipster high street, Commercial Drive. For that blatant
infraction, he was convicted and sentenced to another 2.5 years behind bars.

Briere is now 63, and with all the legal hassles and two heart
attacks behind him, one might think he'd have retirement in mind. Far
from it. The irrepressible pot impresario is back in the marijuana
trade, making his mark in retail.

He's selling potent cannabis products from a chain of eight stores he
has opened - and has managed to keep open, despite admitting he sells
his product for "recreational" use - over the past 20 months in
Vancouver. Weeds Glass and Gifts does a brisk business.

He's got six more shops on the way, including new outlets in Surrey,
North Vancouver, Whistler and Sechelt, a vacation paradise just up
the coast. Briere says he's also looking at potential stores in
Toronto and Montreal.

These aren't dimly lit backrooms where shifty-eyed dealers slip
greasy dime bags into the pockets of nervous adolescents. Business is
conducted openly, inside shops on busy streets. They have regular store hours.

The products are fresh and plentiful. The quality is consistent, and
so, he hopes, is the customer experience.

He's hired a full-time accountant, and recently took on a young
Vancouver lawyer, Ian Ramage, who now serves as the chain's
vice-president of operations and in-house counsel. On a recent
morning visit to Briere's flagship store in downtown Vancouver,
customers selected bags of dried marijuana and edible cannabis
products from dozens of trays. One fellow paid $5 for a heavy hit of
highly concentrated cannabis oil, served from the store's "dabber
bar." In the back office, Briere used a microscope to examine new
product. "Quality control," he explained.

Officially, Weeds sells marijuana to people with medical needs only.
Customers are required to obtain a membership card; for that, they
must produce a note from a qualified health service provider,
confirming they have a legitimate ailment - from multiple sclerosis
to insomnia to headaches - that might be soothed with cannabis.

Weeds employees will refer potential, non-card holding customers aged
19 or older to a local naturopath.

Weeds doesn't yet own the local market; competition is fierce in
Vancouver. There are now 61 so-called medical marijuana dispensaries
in the city, according to the Vancouver Police Department, with more
opening all the time. Medical marijuana is astonishingly popular, in
a city reputed to be a fitness and health leader.

Three years ago, there were just a few dispensaries in Vancouver, and
maybe a handful of others in the rest of Canada, says Jamie Shaw,
president of the Canadian Association of Medical Cannabis
Dispensaries, an organization that promotes and aims to regulate the
sale of cannabis for medical purposes. Now there are approximately
100 across the country. "There's been really crazy growth in the last
year or two," she says. "The only thing they have in common is they
all dispense cannabis. Some are non-profit and some aren't."

None of the Vancouver dispensaries have been issued city business
permits. It's a curious situation: Unlicensed, unregulated marijuana
stores operate throughout the city, but few people - aside from
prohibitionists, of whom there are almost none anymore - seem concerned.

Vancouver police spokesman Sgt. Randy Fincham says the city takes a
"a priority based approach" to marijuana. Police know where all the
pot shops are and they make regular visits, but they won't consider
disturbing an operation unless there's a complaint made and public
safety is at risk. For example, police will intervene if a store
sells marijuana to minors, or is deemed unsanitary. Inspectors from
Vancouver Coastal Health, the local health authority, and the
Vancouver Fire Department also make regular visits to the unlicensed stores.

"We don't call them dispensaries," says Sgt. Fincham, acknowledging
that the term is, for many outlets, a semantic manoeuvre.

Briere acknowledges that some customers have no medical use for his
marijuana, and he agrees that his stores aren't all about health
care. "Of course not," he says. "We're setting this up to be
recreational, full on recreational."

Making a profit is not his main objective, he insists. But he's in
serious expansion mode.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 08 Feb 2015
Source: Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
Copyright: 2015 The Sydney Morning Herald
Contact: letters@smh.com.au
Website: http://www.smh.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/441
Author: Jewel Topsfield
Page: 5

BALI PRISONERS FEAR ABANDONMENT

Prisoners in Bali's Kerobokan jail are petrified they will be
abandoned by the world after their mentors and advocates Andrew Chan
and Myuran Sukumaran are killed this month.

While the art, computer, bible and cooking classes co-ordinated by
Sukumaran and Chan are well documented, few on the outside are aware
of the advocacy role the men have played in the prison over many years.

The two Australians use their extensive network of supporters to
source food, medical supplies, money and other goods for fellow prisoners.

''One of the Iranian lads had asthma - they were able to help with
just a simple thing like getting him a ventilator,'' says Jocelyn
Johinke, an Australian who has taught reflexology in the jail for four
years.

''A girl had a tooth problem and was in severe pain and they were able
to get her a dentist.''

Inmates cried and hugged when they learnt on Friday that Chan and
Sukumaran would be executed this month for attempting to export 8.2
kilograms of heroin to Australia.

''The girls were devastated, the guards were devastated, everyone was
in tears. The girls thought they were going to be abandoned,'' Ms
Johinke said.

''One of the girls said yesterday, and it makes you cry, 'Myuran is
like my brother, my father and my uncle, all welded into one'.''

When Ms Johinke proposed teaching reflexology at the jail, Chan and
Sukumaran put out feelers to gauge interest.

Prior to the Australians' arrival there had been few activities
available for women. It was Sukumaran who persuaded former prison
governor Siswanto to allow the first co-ed art class - provided there
were guards watching to ensure there was no ''jiggy-jiggy''.

Ms Johinke said between four and 15 women attended the reflexology
class and it had been a pleasure watching the talent emerge.

''One of the girls wrote me a beautiful letter about how through what
she had learnt she was able to support her child through school. She
was able to do head and shoulder massages - I even saw her doing one
of the guards.''

Rahol, an Iranian prisoner in Kerobokan jail, said about 30 prisoners
worked for Sukumaran. A T-shirt printing project, which combines the
skills prisoners learnt in sewing and computer graphics classes,
helped to self-fund the programs.

''They get food and sometimes if we have problem about money he
helping us,'' Rahol said in a letter to Indonesian president Joko Widodo.

''But one thing he doesn't like is drug. But I see he give work [to]
some people [who] use drugs, just want to help to stop drug . . . if
you want to execute him 30 people lose work, 30 people can't get food
. . . maybe they all going to drug.''

Lizzie Love, who teaches art at the prison, emerged on Friday with two
paintings donated by Sukumaran to help cover the medical costs of
Filipino prisoner Maria Cecilia Lopez.

Lopez was diagnosed with a uterine myoma, a benign tumour in the
uterus, while pregnant.

''That is why I bring drugs here in Indonesia. I thought that is the
easiest way to help myself to support my health problem and the
baby,'' Lopez said. ''After a month I was detained in prison I lost
the baby.''

The myoma is now the size of a four-month-old baby. Ms Love said
Sukumaran was trying to raise $4000 to cover Lopez's medical bills so
she can have the operation before he and Chan are executed.

Sukumaran's paintings, one of Lopez and the other a self-portrait,
have been purchased by expat Australians Aki and Samantha
Kotzamichalis, the face of upmarket Seminyak bar Ku de Ta.

Ms Love said the couple were looking for suggestions on where the
paintings could be exhibited - such as a Melbourne gallery - to reveal
what the men had accomplished.

Meanwhile, Ms Johinke said she had promised the female prisoners they
would not be left ''high and dry''.

''It's just difficult without a contact.''
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Matt

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Feb 2015
Source: Jerusalem Post (Israel)
Copyright: 2015 The Jerusalem Post
Contact: http://info.jpost.com/C002/Services/Feedback/editors.html
Website: http://www.jpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/516
Author: Rebecca Spence
Page: 17

LE'OR AIMS TO PUT MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION ON THE JEWISH AGENDA

"You know, it's a funny thing, every one of the bastards that are out
for legalizing marijuana is Jewish. What the Christ is the matter
with the Jews, Bob, what is the matter with them?"

That was President Richard Nixon speaking to his top aide, H.R. "Bob"
Haldeman, during a recorded White House meeting back in 1971.

Fast forward some four decades, a new nonprofit group based in
Portland, Ore., is hoping to prove Nixon right. Le'Or, founded about
a year ago with seed funding from Dr. Bronner's Magic Soap Company,
wants to convince American Jews that ending marijuana prohibition
belongs on the progressive Jewish communal agenda alongside marriage
equality and immigration reform.

"Our goal is to erode the stigma, so that the Jewish community at
large can see that supporting marijuana legalization is not just the
right thing to do, it's the Jewish thing to do," said Roy Kaufmann,
who founded Le'Or with his wife, Claire. The Oregon governor's
speechwriter by day, the Israeli-born Kaufmann, 36, is a staunch
opponent of America's decadeslong War on Drugs. Launched by Nixon in
the 1970s and expanded during the Reagan era, the ongoing drug war
has resulted in an unprecedented number of US citizens - and a
disproportionate number of African-American males - being sent to
prison for drug-related offenses.

Part of the answer, legalization advocates say, is to make marijuana
a controlled substance on par with alcohol and cigarettes. In
November, Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D.C., joined Colorado and
Washington state in legalizing recreational cannabis use. The four
states will tax and regulate sales of the plant, while DC's law,
which sanctioned possession only, has yet to take effect following a
congressional move to block its implementation.

Meanwhile, medical marijuana is now legal in 23 US states. While
cannabis is still prohibited under federal law, as the tide shifts
toward legalization, even Congress is softening its stance. Last
December's government spending bill included a bipartisan amendment
that blocks the US Justice Department from using funds to target
patients or collectives in states with medical marijuana programs.

The seeds of Le'Or - "to illuminate" in Hebrew - were planted when
the Kaufmanns began to lament the lack of Jewish communal involvement
in pushing for marijuana legalization.

"There's a disconnect between the civil rights issue and the number
of Jewish people who, let's be honest, enjoy the cannabis plant,"
said Claire Kaufmann, now a marketing and branding consultant for the
burgeoning cannabis industry. "It seems to me to be a contradiction."

Specifically, it outraged the couple that while white Americans -
themselves included - could casually smoke marijuana and get away
with it, their black counterparts were far too often arrested and
incarcerated for the same low-level crime.

A business school graduate and the mother of three young children,
Kaufmann, 35, said she never imagined she'd wind up working in the
marijuana industry. The Portland resident became involved, she said,
because of her commitment to drug policy reform, not to reap the kind
of profits that have given rise to a new crop of cannabis
entrepreneurs in what has been dubbed the "green rush."

"My real passion is the racial and economic injustices," said Claire
Kaufmann, who blogs about the industry at rebrandingcannabis. com. "I
see marijuana legalization as the gateway issue to a much larger and
more uncomfortable issue around prison sentencing reform."

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, black people use drugs
at about the same rates as whites but are three to five times more
likely to be arrested as a result.

In 2012, Roy Kaufmann led the first campaign to legalize marijuana in
Oregon. He was struck by how few rabbis and Jewish communal leaders
jumped on board. After the failed bid, he turned to Dr. Bronner's to
back his idea for a Jewish pro-cannabis group.

Dr. Bronner's has played a leading role in hemp and marijuana
legalization efforts since 2001, when David Bronner, the company's
president and grandson of the spiritually minded German-Jewish
soapmaker, launched a successful lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement
Agency to allow hemp imports into the United States. The Vista,
Calif.-based company uses non-psychoactive hemp oil imported from
Canada in its all-natural line of soaps.

While Bronner, 41, was raised Protestant, he also grew up reciting
the Jewish Shema prayer and said he feels a strong connection to his
Jewish roots. His grandfather's universalist "All-One" message -
touted on famously wacky soap labels with references to Rabbi Hillel
and Jesus - remains at the core of the company's progressive philosophy.

"The major drug reform groups in the country are already led by Jews,
and they're doing it out of a deep-seated commitment to social
justice," Bronner said. "Furthermore, Israel has been a real pioneer
in cannabis."

One of the world's only countries with a national medical marijuana
program, Israel has long taken the lead on marijuana research. THC,
the psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant, was first identified
in 1964 by Israeli scientist Raphael Mechoulam, for example. And just
this year, an Israeli research company announced that it had
developed an oral patch so that medical marijuana users can ingest
the drug without inhaling smoke. The patch was based on research
conducted at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.

Bronner himself helped jump-start Israel's $40-million-year medical
marijuana industry more than a decade ago when he donated $50,000 to
the country's first dispensary, Tikkun Olam, which takes its name
from the Jewish mystical tradition of repairing the world. In 2014,
the Magic Soap Company donated more than $100,000 to both the Oregon
and Alaska legalization initiatives, and some $250,000 to the DC
campaign. But Bronner's activism has been more than monetary. In
2009, he planted hemp seeds in front of the Drug Enforcement Agency's
D.C. headquarters to protest the US ban on hemp farming, and three
years later he locked himself in a steel cage with a dozen industrial
hemp plants - they contain only trace amounts of THC - in front of
the White House.

Last year, President Barack Obama signed into law a farm bill that
included an amendment to allow industrial hemp farming for research
purposes. The amendment was co-sponsored by Jared Polis, a Jewish
Democratic congressman from Colorado who recently introduced a
bipartisan bill to allow hemp production for commercial purposes as well.

As Bronner noted, the leaders of many of America's major drug policy
reform groups are also Jewish. Among the organizations they helm are
the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a
nonprofit that studies the therapeutic potential of psychedelics and
marijuana and was founded by the Jewish Chicago native Rick Doblin.
There's also the Drug Policy Alliance, whose founder and executive
director, Ethan Nadelmann, is the son of a prominent
Reconstructionist rabbi and links policy work to "the broader Jewish
tradition of fighting for social justice."

Jewish advocacy groups, however, have largely hung back on issues of
marijuana legalization and drug policy reform. Those contacted by
JTA, including Bend the Arc: A Jewish Partnership for Justice and the
American Jewish Committee, which lobbies Congress on behalf of issues
such as immigration reform and marriage equality, declined to comment.

But according to Doug Kahn, executive director of the Jewish
Community Relations Council of San Francisco, "the lack of engagement
on this issue by the organized Jewish community is not because it's a
taboo issue, it's because we have to set priorities. And this issue
has not emerged as a priority."

Ethan Felson, vice president and general counsel of the Jewish
Council for Public Affairs - the umbrella body of local community
relations councils - agreed with Kahn's assessment, but added that as
the marijuana legalization issue becomes more prevalent, the local
councils will have to take a closer look.

"I'm not aware of a lot of communities that have delved deeply at
this point," Felson said. "But it's likely that over the next few
years that will change."

Within the organized Jewish community, however, the Reform movement
has been a marked exception. In 1999, Women of Reform Judaism passed
a resolution in support of medical marijuana that four years later
was adopted by the full Union for Reform Judaism. More recently, the
Reform movement's public affairs arm, the Religious Action Center,
has lobbied Congress on behalf of legislation reforming prison sentencing.

"The core priority for us has been addressing the sentencing
disparity between white Americans and black Americans who are
convicted for drug-related offenses," said Barbara Weinstein, the
RAC's associate director.

For some prominent Jews, however, it's not merely about whether or
not to prioritize other issues, but about actively working to block
marijuana legalization. In Florida, where a November bid to legalize
medical marijuana lost by 3 percentage points, Jewish billionaire
Sheldon Adelson pumped $5 million into the campaign to defeat its
passage. The casino mogul's Israeli-born wife, Miriam, is a drug
addiction specialist who runs a rehabilitation center in Las Vegas
and believes that marijuana is a "gateway drug" to harder, more
dangerous substances - a belief that legalization advocates dispute,
citing studies to the contrary.

But if Le'Or has its way, Florida could indeed legalize medical
marijuana in the next election cycle - and California might well take
the next step and allow recreational use.

"We're talking about some of the biggest Jewish communities in the
US," Roy Kaufmann said. "I look at 2016 and I think, 'This is an
opportunity to start building something now.'" - JTA
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 16 Feb 2015
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2015 Telegraph Media Group Limited
Contact: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Authors: John Bingham, Peter Dominiczak, and Camilla Turner

CANNABIS CAUSING A QUARTER OF PSYCHOSIS

Study Finds 60,000 Britons Are Living With Mental Illness Because of
Super-Strong Drug

ONE in four new cases of psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia
could be the direct result of smoking extra-strong varieties of
cannabis, a major new study concludes.

The finding suggests that about 60,000 people in Britain are
currently living with conditions involving hallucinations and
paranoid episodes brought on by abuse of high-potency cannabis, known
as skunk, and more than 300,000 people who have smoked skunk will
experience such problems in their lifetime.

The six-year study, the first of its kind in Britain, calculates that
daily users of skunk are five times more likely to suffer psychosis
than those who never touch it.

Psychiatrists said there is now an "urgent need" for a drive to
educate the public about the risks involved with the substance. It is
believed that even newer varieties, some of them more than twice as
potent as those currently available on British streets, have already
been developed in the Netherlands.

The findings reopen the debate about the classification of cannabis
as an illegal drug, with some supporters of liberalisation now
considering tougher restrictions on some varieties.

Chris Grayling, the Justice Secretary, said the findings underlined
arguments against decriminalisation.

Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat former Home Office minister who
has called for drug laws to be relaxed, said that there may be a case
for giving skunk a new classification.

The study, by researchers from the Institute of Psychiatry,
Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London, is due to be
published in the journal Lancet Psychiatry later this week. They
studied almost 800 working-age adults from one area of south London,
half of whom had been recently treated for a psychotic episode for
the first time.

The incidence of schizophrenia in the area has doubled since the
mid-Sixties, a trend widely thought to be linked to drug use.

Cannabis use in the UK overall has fallen by about 40 per cent in the
past decade but, for those using it, the typical potency has
increased sharply in that time.

Levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (or THC), the main psychoactive
compound, are about 15 per cent in skunk, compared with about four
per cent in traditional "hash" cannabis.

The study concluded that the strength of cannabis and the frequency
of use play a crucial role in determining the mental health risks.

"Compared with those who never used cannabis, individuals who mostly
used skunk-like cannabis were nearly twice as likely to be diagnosed
with a psychotic disorder if they used it less than once per week,
almost three times as likely if they used it at weekends, and more
than five times as likely if they were daily users," the paper notes.

It found that skunk use was the "strongest predictor" of psychotic
illness in those studied and that 24 per cent of new cases in the
area could be attributed to skunk. It also noted that those who
started smoking cannabis before the age of 15 had higher risk of
developing psychotic disorders than others.

"Our findings show the importance of raising public awareness of the
risk associated with use of high-potency cannabis, especially when
such varieties of cannabis are becoming more available," the paper concludes.

"The worldwide trend of liberalisation of the legal constraints on
the use of cannabis further emphasises the urgent need to develop
public education to inform young people about the risks of
high-potency cannabis."

Dr Marta Di Forti, the lead author, said the significance of how
regularly people smoked cannabis has often been overlooked in
day-to-day treatment. "When a GP or psychiatrist asks if a patient
uses cannabis it's not helpful - it's like asking whether someone
drinks," she said.

"As with alcohol, the relevant questions are how often and what type
of cannabis." Prof Sir Robin Murray, professor of psychiatric
research at King's, said: "It is now well known that use of cannabis
increases the risk of psychosis. However, sceptics still claim that
this is not an important cause of schizophrenia-like psychosis.

"This paper suggests that we could prevent almost one quarter of
cases of psychosis if no-one smoked high-potency cannabis."

He added: "Education is the important thing - people need to know the
risks of regular use of high-potency cannabis.

Mr Grayling said: "Far too many of those who end up in our criminal
justice system have got drug and mental health problems.

"It's clear to me that drug addiction is at the root of a large
proportion of crimes in the UK and that it causes mental health
problems which are all too apparent in our prisons.

"That's why mental health will be our next big reform focus - but
it's also why decriminalisation is not the right option."

Mark Winstanley, the chief executive of Rethink Mental Illness, said:
"Essentially, smoking cannabis is like playing a very real game of
Russian roulette with your mental health. Reclassifying cannabis
isn't the answer."

A Home Office spokesman said: "Our approach remains clear: we must
prevent drug use in our communities and help dependent individuals
through treatment and recovery, while ensuring law enforcement
protects society by stopping supply and tackling the organised crime
that is associated with the drugs trade."
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 16 Feb 2015
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2015 Telegraph Media Group Limited
Contact: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Author: Max Pemberton

THE MENACE FROM LEGAL HIGHS IS JUST A CLICK AWAY

As far as futile activities go, the fight against legal highs is a
textbook example. According to figures released last week, police
incidents involving legal highs  substances sold in high street shops
and on the internet, including products for the home such as "plant
food", but which contain psychoactive elements that mimic the effects
of cannabis, amphetamine and heroin  have more than doubled in a year,

The web enables ever quicker and easier access to these substances.
Their cheapness and the veneer of respectability  because they are
nominally "legal" means that more people are eschewing illicit drugs
in favour of taking the alternative.

It is placing tremendous pressure on resources, with police forces
reporting a surge in incidents, in some areas an increase more than
100 times the level seen just three years ago. From my own experience
of working in A&E, the number of people we see who are victims of
legal highs is growing exponentially.

The Government is in an impossible position, because the traditional
response to drugs - ban them - doesn't work. Every time one is
outlawed, another takes its place within weeks. Not only has the web
made it easy for anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of chemistry to
identify the structure of a banned compound and alter it sufficiently
so that it can be classed as legal, it also enables the production
and distribution. Enterprising individuals can locate small chemical
plants, usually in China, where labour and materials are cheap, and
go into business. And there's not a thing we can do about it.

I have, for many years, worked with addicts and I do not take drug
use lightly. I certainly don't advocate decriminalising them. In an
ideal world, people wouldn't feel the need to take intoxicants, but
the fact is that many prefer a stimulant to a depressant such as
alcohol. From a pragmatic perspective, then, our main priority should
be ensuring that children and teenagers do not have ready access to
these substances.

In many ways, I think legal highs are more worrying than illegal
drugs. We have long experience of this latter group and most aren't
nearly as physically harmful as socially sanctioned substances such
as tobacco or alcohol. The effects they have on the body are
wellknown. Legal highs, in contrast, are entirely unknown. Every
person who takes them is a guinea pig. Each time a new one hits the
market, it's Russian roulette as to the consequences. We certainly
have no idea what the long-term effects will be.

But, worst of all, is the fact that anyone with an internet
connection can get hold of them. While you wouldn't want your
teenager hanging out with known drug dealers on a street corner, they
can, in effect, do precisely this every time they log on.

As I see it, there are two options, neither of which is ideal. The
first is to introduce legislation similar to the Analogue Act in the
United States. This rules that substances similar to those that are
already subject to control are banned automatically. In theory, this
would prevent the cat-and-mouse game between the authorities and
illicit drug manufacturers. In reality, of course, it can't prevent
their use; it will just stop them being available in shops.

The US legislation was introduced in 1986, long before the dawn of
the internet, and despite its existence, new psychoactive substances
continue to be widely available there because they can be ordered
online. It doesn't stop them being taken, and it isn't sufficient a
measure to protect minors.

The alternative is that you accept that some people will always seek
out psychoactive substances and so allow these to remain legal, but
license them while we investigate the longterm effects. They could be
sold in pharmacies rather than in corner shops or late-night garages
as they are currently. Age restrictions could be applied, too. This
would go a long way to limiting the access.

It's an imperfect solution, but the current policy of banning and
criminalising simply doesn't work and doesn't protect our children.
We banned mephedrone in 2010 - the first legal high to hit the
headlines - and yet it's everywhere and it has spawned a hundred imitators.

It is time for a rethink.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx

Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 16 Feb 2015
Source: Daily Record (UK)
Copyright: 2015 Daily Record and Sunday Mail Ltd.
Contact: editors@dailyrecord.co.uk
Website: http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/111
Author: Lynn Jolly
Bookmark: http://mapinc.org/people/David+Nutt

PROF: GIVE SCRIPTS FOR ECSTASY

A FORMER Government drugs tsar says cannabis and ecstasy should be
used to treat patients battling cancer and depression.

Professor David Nutt claimed that banning certain drugs is depriving
patients and doctors of "extremely useful" therapies for chronic pain
and illnesses.

Nutt, who was fired by the Government in 2009 for claiming
horse-riding is more dangerous than ecstasy, also said there may be
therapeutic benefits in legal highs.

The psychiatrist added: "Let the doctors decide which drugs are
harmful, not the politician."

Nutt said Scotland could lead a "new neuroscientific enlightenment"
by using illegal drugs including psychedelics and MDMA.

He said: "Scotland has consistently led the world in science.

"My call for a neuroscience enlightenment resonates with this grand
tradition of free thinking and could lead to much improved healthcare
developments in Scotland using new treatments such as cannabis,
psychedelics, MDMA and related compounds."
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sat, 14 Feb 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/Ssmpfr5t
Copyright: 2015 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Contact: letters@adn.com
Website: http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July '14
Author: Scott Woodham

CAN I KEEP MY RENTERS FROM USING, POSSESSING OR GROWING POT?

Highly Informed discusses whether or not landlords would be able to
prevent marijuana possession, use or cultivation in residential
properties. public domain image

Philip wonders if legalized cannabis in Alaska will affect him and
his tenants: "I own rental property at which my lessor may currently
smoke (tobacco) indoors. Can I prohibit the renter from growing,
possessing or using (cannabis) if they choose to rent from me?"

Cynthia Franklin, director of Alaska's Alcoholic Beverage Control
Board, the agency currently in charge of the rulemaking process
initiated by voters with Ballot Measure 2, said by email she believes
that yes, state law allows for private property owners to set the
rules regarding herb on their own property.

The initiative-created statute Franklin identified as relevant is AS
17.38.120(d), which reads, "Nothing in this chapter (AS 17.38) shall
prohibit a person, employer, school, hospital, recreation or youth
center, correction facility, corporation or any other entity who
occupies, owns or controls private property from prohibiting or
otherwise regulating the possession, consumption, use, display,
transfer, distribution, sale, transportation, or growing of marijuana
on or in that property."

Franklin said, "That means that a landlord could write a prohibition
of marijuana in the lease. If a tenant had marijuana in any of these
capacities on the property, they would be violating the lease in the
same way as if they had a pet on a property where the lease
prohibited pets, and would be subject to eviction and perhaps fines
to restore the property to its pre-lease condition, depending on the
specific terms of the lease or rental agreement."

According to the Alaska Department of Law, any rules in a lease or
rental agreement must be reasonable and clearly defined, and must
apply to all tenants equally. So if a landlord would like to include
a clause like that in a lease, there's no stopping him or her. And if
a tenant signs such an agreement, the law seems unlikely to side with
the tenant in a dispute.

However, whether such a clause is enforceable would be less certain.
Franklin said that, in her opinion, landlords will be able to ban pot
independently and it will be enforceable. "But we won't know for sure
until someone sues," she said.

Kevin Brady, an Anchorage attorney familiar with landlord-tenant law,
disagrees. In a phone interview, he honed in on a key question:
"Unless a behavior produces an observable effect on the property, how
would it be enforceable?"

To guess at how a rental dispute over cannabis may resolve, there are
a variety of complications to consider. I'm limiting my discussion to
residential property, not commercial. Brady noted that commercial
tenants typically have a different legal standing from residential tenants.

None of the following is the last word and should not count as legal
advice, simply a discussion of possibilities. Tenants and landlords
should consult an attorney if they wonder about how their rights and
responsibilities work in the real world, not the hypothetical
universe of this column.

A funny looking houseplant?

So first, let's tackle the cultivation element of Philip's question.

The Alaska Uniform Residential Landlord & Tenant Act holds that a
landlord's reasonable, clearly defined and equally applied rules may
be enforced if their purpose is to promote the convenience, safety,
health or welfare of the tenants; preserve the landlord's property
from abuse; or make a fair distribution of services and facilities.
But that isn't always referring to rules included in a lease
agreement (things like signs against cars idling near building
ventilation intakes and so on). Leases are different. Landlords can
write just about anything into a lease agreement, and tenants may or
may not sign it. But writing those terms down and enforcing them are
two different things.

Because a home garden could conceivably lead to nuisances or property
damage that a landlord wouldn't want, clauses describing their
acceptable construction or design would seem reasonable to include in
a lease agreement -- for instance, requiring adequate odor control,
or proper heat mitigation and safe water or electrical systems. An
outright ban on legal cannabis cultivation would not seem reasonable
to me unless houseplants or other kinds of plants, like tomatoes or
kitchen herbs, are also prohibited on the property, indoor or out.

Ballot Measure 2's approval introduced a section to state law that
applies to personal cultivation (AS 17.38.030). It requires that
cultivation "may only occur on property lawfully in possession of the
cultivator, or with the consent of the person in lawful possession of
the property." I interpret the effect of that as an invitation for
people negotiating the transfer of possession or use of property
between two parties to specify or set conditions for such consent.
That seems reasonable and enforceable.

However, cultivation aside, prohibiting the simple possession of
state-legal amounts of marijuana on a property does not seem
enforceable because possession itself has no real consequences to a
property. Having marijuana in an apartment is not the same as having
a pet. Cannabis does not claw at the door or crash through vertical
blinds. Certain kinds of cannabis may smell like skunk, aged cheese
or pine-scented ammonia, but a plant won't spray the walls like a cat
might. For that matter, you can't keep pets in airtight jars.

For tenants' own good?

The health or welfare part of the law may be a way for some landlords
to try to ban all use of cannabis in residential properties, it seems
to me, but that seems unreasonable unless alcohol or tobacco aren't
similarly prohibited. In Philip's case, a landlord who allows
cigarette smoking wouldn't seem to have much standing to ban
marijuana smoking. It follows that the same reasoning would go for
alcohol consumption.

If the grounds for a landlord's indoor smoking bans rest on avoiding
damage to the property, it may not apply to all situations involving
cannabis. For a variety of reasons, chief among them frequency of use
and lack of wall-yellowing nicotine, cannabis smoke does not linger
the way tobacco smoke does. And if a ban is instituted to promote the
health and welfare of other tenants who may be negatively impacted by
cannabis smoke or vapors, preventing problems may not require an
outright ban in the lease. There are also municipal nuisance
ordinances that would likely apply to a situation like that, and
others, regardless of a lease agreement.

Also, there are ways besides smoking to consume cannabis.
Vaporization, either of cured flowers or any of the various
concentrates, doesn't involve combustion. Eating cookies also doesn't
produce smoke. So even if a landlord has a broad prohibitions against
smoking, it may not apply to all forms of cannabis use.

And even if there are prohibitions against smoking indoors or in
common areas, I don't think they'd apply to smoking on a porch or
deck not shared by multiple units. It seems like people could still
step outside on a private deck, much as they do now with cigarettes.

Brady said that landlords who may want to ban pot on their properties
"might have to endure, for lack of a better word," some amount of
discreet behavior involving cannabis that doesn't have undesirable
consequences to the property.

A property owner who would like to make a rule against smoking
cannabis may be risking a tenant who abides by that agreement but
still vaporizes cannabis or consumes edible products, neither of
which involve smoke from combustion and have essentially no
observable effect on a property.

Brady said that one avenue a landlord could use for enforcing a
blanket prohibition on cannabis at a residential property is a "no
criminal law violation" clause. Because federal law still treats the
plant and its produce as illegal, Brady said in his opinion a clause
like that might be enforceable for eviction purposes.
"Realistically," he said, "I don't see it playing out. It's unlikely
that simple possession would be a matter for federal court."

Typically, federal charges for marijuana involve extremely large
amounts intended for sale, not personal use.

Hippies must use side door

If landlords out there are really serious about keeping cannabis
users out of their properties, they might have to revise current
leases to cover situations that aren't accounted for. Landlords are
free to put anything in their leases they want. Tenants are free not
to sign. And just putting something in a lease doesn't mean it's
enforceable. Decades of prohibition have trained many cannabis
enthusiasts to be canny concealers of their behavior and to be
comfortable risking negative consequences, many of which -- until
Feb. 24 -- involve criminal charges that will seem much worse
compared to trying to find a new place to rent.

A rental agreement revision process might also risk losing current or
future tenants who don't want a nanny for a landlord, whether or not
they use cannabis. It might also surprise landlords which of their
current tenants won't be willing to give up responsibly using,
possessing or growing cannabis in their homes, even if they rent.

If a landlord really is dead-set on keeping the pot out of their
properties, there may be a simple fix. "Pot smoker" is not a class
protected from discrimination in Alaska. Neither is "stoner" or "Long
Haired Country Boy."

Just including language like that in the classified ad for tenants
would pretty well make sure undesirables don't apply. But I don't
think that'll happen. First of all, if drug use survey data are at
all accurate, Alaska's high per-capita use rate and strong pride in
personal privacy might mean that unit goes unrented for a while,
maybe a long while. Also, sexuality isn't a protected class either,
and there aren't any rental advertisements I've seen that say "no
gays." And thank goodness for that.

So, the answer, legalized cannabis or not, is that landlords should
still feel free to be clear in spelling out the behavior they expect
of the people who rent or lease property from them. But they should
be aware that depending on their specific situation, a prohibition on
cannabis may be enforceable, and it may be even less desirable than
grudgingly accepting some discreet, nondamaging use of herb.

And tenants should be careful to only rent from people whose rules
they would like to live under. Signing a lease means abiding by
reasonable rules or risking a hassle.

Have a question about marijuana news or culture in Alaska? Send it to
cannabis-north@alaskadispatch.com with "Highly Informed" in the subject line.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 11 Feb 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/gY9UW5H6
Copyright: 2015 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Contact: letters@adn.com
Website: http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July '14
Author: Scott Woodham

DOES ALASKA PLAN TO CREATE A STATE BANK TO HANDLE CANNA-BUSINESS FUNDS?

Tristan asks Highly Informed, "Does Alaska have any plans to start or
allow a state-backed bank to serve the marijuana industry?"

For several reasons, the answer is not right now, but that's far from
the end of the discussion.

Kevin Anselm, director of Alaska's Division of Banking and Securities
said via telephone that no, the state of Alaska has made no plans to
start or allow such a bank. However, she did say that the possibility
is being discussed and that people have asked her office a similar question.

"People are looking at options," Anselm said.

The options she laid out for creating a state-backed bank are
somewhat complex, legal herb or not, and since Alaska's path toward
one is barely a glimmer of a curiosity at this point, let alone a
plan, I'll spare everyone the deepest ins and outs for now.

The only state to have a state-backed bank, all cannabis industry
aside, is North Dakota, so when anyone talks state-backed banks,
that's by default the model. Anselm said that various difficulties in
regulating such a bank is probably why there aren't more of them in
the U.S. There are many ways to look at oversight of a state bank,
for instance. Would it be state revenue officials or a state
treasurer? Maybe a third-party auditor? In North Dakota, the state
government is still the regulator of its state bank, but oversight
isn't done by banking and securities officials, Anselm said.

Credit unions are another option for handling the money generated by
the cannabis industry that has come up lately, but none have opened
yet. In Colorado, people are trying to create a credit union that
would serve the needs of cannabis businesses, but it's been
problematic so far. Though it's received permission from the state of
Colorado, it has not secured permission from federal regulators to
open its doors.

Anselm said that no one has asked her office about creating a credit
union in Alaska to serve the cannabis industry. But she also said
that there are two paths to founding a bank or credit union, one
begins with a state charter the other begins by getting a federal one.

According to Anselm, almost simultaneously with obtaining a charter,
banking insurance must also be obtained, and that insurance is
overseen by federal regulators. Federal laws and policies against
cannabis have posed an obstacle to grass-based banks or credit
unions, particularly, Anselm said, when it comes to securing deposit
insurance. Bankers have also balked for other reasons related to
federal law, according to a New York Times story published this week.

At the end of January, a bank in Oregon, a state where voters
approved a measure to legalize recreational marijuana, was openly
accepting deposits from canna-businesses across state lines, the
Denver Post reported. And then a week later, the bank decided to pull
back from its plan citing an inability to deal with overwhelming
demand for services. Industry insiders told the Post that they
suspect the real reason was a request by federal regulators.

Maybe the federal government will change its policies and make the
issues of banks and credit unions handling green derived from The
Green moot, including here in Alaska.

"Federal regulators are talking about it," Anselm said. "Nobody's
dealing with it in a vacuum."

So, the answer here is a no, but you're not the only curious one,
Tristan. Stay tuned. Maybe, maybe not.

Have a question about marijuana news or culture in Alaska? Send it to
cannabis-north@alaskadispatch.com with "Highly Informed" in the subject line.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 12 Feb 2015
Source: Tucson Weekly (AZ)
Copyright: 2015 Tucson Weekly
Contact: mailbag@tucsonweekly.com
Website: http://www.tucsonweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/462
Author: Maria Ines Taracena

SMOKING AND STRANDED

Despite MMJ Act, in Arizona Any Amount of THC Can Get You Busted With a DUI

Shabreta Peterson got a medical marijuana card in December to legally
treat her severe social anxiety, extreme nausea and excruciating back pain.

All it takes is a puff or two, or some edibles in the morning, for
her to get through the full-time work day comfortably. In the
mornings, she has to decide, "Should I smoke before work and not hurt
all day? Or be in pain until I get home?"

"It took me a long time to decide to get my card, and once I got it,
I realized that I did it so that I could have freedom, I wouldn't
have to worry about getting pulled over and having marijuana on me,
and get in trouble for it," Peterson says. "What happened is that now
I actually feel like I have a target on my back."

She, like many others, is afraid to get behind the wheel, because as
the current law stands, drivers with active metabolites in their
system can be charged with a DUI. THC can stay in your bloodstream
for days, sometimes weeks, after the last hit.

Peterson is among the approximately 55,000 medical marijuana users in
the state who, for the most part, have social and economic
responsibilities-jobs, college and university courses and so on-and
who require reliable transportation, preferably their own automobile,
to move from point A to point B.

Well, Arizona's rules on pot and driving might get worse.

If a bill introduced in the state House last month moves through the
Arizona Legislature and Gov. Doug Ducey signs it into law, inactive
metabolites found in your bloodstream could also result in DUI convictions.

HB 2273, authored by Republican state Rep. Sonny Borrelli of Kingman,
seeks to revise the state's driving under the influence statute,
clarifying that both active and inactive metabolites are a go for
DUIs, despite an April 2014 ruling by the Arizona Supreme Court
saying the presence of non-impairing metabolites shouldn't be grounds
for conviction.

"If they are trying to pass laws to protect citizens from actions of
others, let's do it right, let's do it based on science," says Robert
Clark, co-chairman of Safer Arizona, a pot advocacy group. "When it
comes to alcohol, you can set a number, anybody, when they reach
those numbers, you are intoxicated, proven fact. Those numbers mean
nothing with cannabis, whether they are for inactive or active metabolites."

You can have X nanograms of THC without actually being high, he says.

When the state Supreme Court issued its ruling, it argued it made no
sense to criminalize what has been legal conduct since 2010,
referring to the Medical Marijuana Act, which gave people with
chronic pain, glaucoma, most-recently post-traumatic stress disorder,
among other debilitating conditions, the OK to smoke, eat, and do
what they please with pot. Not to say that everyone who uses
marijuana is good to drive, but asking to have absolutely no traces
of pot in the bloodstream for a medical marijuana patient who drives
is unrealistic, Clark says.

After the state Supreme Court ruling, the Arizona Court of Appeals in
October clarified that the state's Medical Marijuana Act doesn't
protect cardholders from DUI convictions.

The MMJ Act does prohibit driving under the influence of marijuana,
but it says that patients shouldn't be prosecuted solely on the
presence of metabolites or marijuana components that don't seem to
have enough concentration to actually cause impairment. Now, it would
be a pain in the ass to go back and add a protection, since any
changes would require 75 percent of the state Legislature to approve.

To Clark and Peterson, this type of legislation is not about
protecting citizens, it is about conservative politicians trying to
establish rules that make medical marijuana users' lives harder.

"It is wrong to criminalize responsible people, go after sick people,
we run that risk every day," Clark says. "We have been asking people
in the community to contact their representatives, saying we don't
want any laws that criminalize sick people. We don't want people
popping a bunch of opiates and driving ... cannabis does not have the
same effects. Lawmakers are afraid of something that they have no
experience with."

Colorado, Washington state, where adults 21 and over can buy and
possess marijuana, and a few other places have legal limits for
concentration of THC in the blood that merits a DUI. In Washington,
for instance, drivers are considered to be impaired if they have more
than five nanograms of THC per milliliter. In Arizona, any amount of
THC can get you busted.

Clark suggests there should be other methods, aside from blood tests,
to determine if a person is impaired.

In the meantime, Peterson is left with no choice but to ignore this
one state rule.

"When I smoke, I feel better, I am not agitated, I am not short with
anyone, I am happier, pain-free," Peterson says. "And I drive on it
because I don't have a choice. I have to go to work, I have to drive,
and it is sad, I am one of those people who have that battle every
day. People are scared to medicate."
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 11 Feb 2015
Source: Daily Star, The (Lebanon)
Copyright: 2015 The Daily Star
Contact: opinion@dailystar.com.lb
Website: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/547
Author: Mary Papenfuss, Reuters

CASINOS TO CANNABIS: NATIVE AMERICANS ENTER POT TRADE

UKIAH, Calif.: A damp plot of bright green grass next to a Native
American greenhouse in northern California doesn't look like much,
but it could soon set the burgeoning marijuana industry on fire.

An initial, 10,000-square-foot state-of-the art greenhouse is due to
be erected within weeks on the land in Ukiah owned by the 250-member
Pinoleville Pomo Nation, about 140 miles north of Sacramento. It's
the initial phase of a joint marijuana production and processing
venture believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

The endeavor, launched after a U.S. Department of Justice memo
largely cleared the way for such enterprises, is expected to trigger
similar ventures to bring cannabis cash to Native Americans, like the
windfalls from tribal casinos and tax-free cigarette sales.

But the new opportunity has sparked controversy as tribes struggle
with concerns about historically high rates of substance abuse.

"It's going to be up to each Indian nation to decide whether this is
a tremendous economic opportunity or something to be feared," said
lawyer Robert Odawi Porter, an expert on tribal law and former
president of the Seneca Nation of New York. "But one thing is
certain. Everyone is talking about it."

"Alcohol has ravaged Indian communities. It stares us in the face
every day," Porter said. "Now we've got to carefully examine the
impact of marijuana."

Pomo tribal leaders are cautiously optimistic about their venture
with FoxBarry Farms of Kansas and the United Cannabis Corp (UCANN),
of Colorado. They want to avoid a clash with law enforcement or
neighbors, but are eager for a new source of income and support
medical marijuana.

"We have a history of using plants for medicine," Pomo Tribal Council
Vice Chairwoman Angela James told Reuters. "The tribe is seeking
economic development, and we're comfortable with these partners and
this product."

Pomo's marijuana plants will be used in UCANN-branded medicinal pot
products from pills to "sublinguals" - tinctures applied under the
tongue to address problems from insomnia to chronic pain.

Planting at the greenhouse is expected in early spring but the
partners have declined to say how much cannabis will be produced. The
complex will eventually occupy two and a half acres, with 10 extra
available for offices and processing. The venture will employ up to
100 workers.

FoxBarry and United Cannabis plan to launch two other tribal
operations in California but have declined to identify the tribes.
Publicly traded UCANN aims to advance the use of cannabinoids in
medicine, while economic development firm FoxBarry, which is
investing $30 million in the three ventures, works with Native
American governments across the nation.

The Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians, representing nearly 50
tribes but not Pomo, passed a resolution last year opposing
legalization of marijuana, citing its "threat to the health and
safety of all tribes, especially our youth."

However, interest has exploded since a DOJ memo in December signaled
that tribes would be treated the same as states that legalize
marijuana for medicinal or recreational use.

Porter and lawyers from the Harris Moure law firm in Seattle, which
has a cannabis legal division, are sponsoring a conference this month
in Washington state for Native American leaders to explore all
aspects of marijuana enterprises from the economic benefits to the
social impact.

Officials won't "prioritize" enforcing federal marijuana laws, the
DOJ memo stated, if conditions are met, including barring sale to minors.

The memo indicates that a tribe can choose to legalize marijuana even
within states where it's illegal, but would be barred from
distributing pot beyond its own territory.

U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson, whose district includes nine tribes in
South Dakota, says leaders contacted him on a range of issues,
including the risks of federal prosecution. "Others want to keep
marijuana off their lands," he told Reuters.

The Cherokee Nation in Oklahoma has no interest in the business,
spokeswoman Amanda Clinton said. But Montana's Fort Peck Assiniboine
and Sioux Tribes, and the Red Lake Band of Chippewas in Minnesota,
have begun feasibility studies.

One of the most dramatic splits is in Washington, which began sales
of recreational marijuana in 2014.

Washington state's 1,200-member Suquamish tribe last year notified
authorities it was considering producing and selling marijuana. The
tribe "has a responsibility to explore business opportunities that
may help raise funds," Suquamish Chairman Leonard Forsman said in a statement.

But the state's 10,000-member Yakama tribe has outlawed marijuana on
its 1.2 million acres, and wants it banned from 10.2 million acres of
ancestral land it ceded to the federal government.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 12 Feb 2015
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
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

IN WEED VERITAS

It should come as no surprise to anyone who's done more than a
cursory perusal of the World Wide Web that weed and porn show up
online together - to paraphrase a psychologist in Jennifer Fumiko
Cahill's cover story this week, "overlapping interests." But most of
those Tumblrs and Instagrams don't really incorporate weed into the
smut. The feeds are a string of images; a cheesecake photo of a girl
in pot-leaf-print underpants, then a pile of buds. A bent model
stolen from Swank, followed by smartphone snapshot of an indoor
garden. A gif of dudes pounding away at each other, followed by a
shot of a shirtless hunk smoking a cigarette? Whatever, close enough.

Actual weed-themed erotica is harder to come by, apparently. (I did
not do an exhaustive search. If I'm wrong, please send corrections to
my boss: editor@northcoastjournal.com.)

But worry not! Filling the pot-porn void is a cast of
hairless-from-the-eyelashes-down journalists at the Naked Weed
Report, a weekly, softcore webcast that in some ways is a lot like
this very column. (In many ways it's not at all like this column.)

Porn is not quite the right word for it. The six-minute newscasts
feature a medley of young women awkwardly stripping in front of a
green screen while they poorly annunciate teleprompter cues about sex
positions, cannabis-related research and unoriginal but
stoner-friendly "news." It's hollow and strangely hypocritical to
watch a young woman unhook her bra while she badmouths Paris Hilton's
career path, but the biggest question is, why does this even exist?

Weed news roundups are OBVIOUSLY of cultural and historical
importance, and willingly naked women are cool, by most accounts, but
who decided we need them to mix?

OK, but what about people who want their overlapping interests in
ganja and orgasms to be a little more interactive? Enter High There!,
the Android app that connects lonely weed lovers. The Tinder of
marijuana was born when the company's now-CEO got walked out on for
coming clean about his stonerdom during first dates.

Like Tinder, the app lets you browse local profiles for shared
interests (read: hot profile pics) without having to worry that your
puffing proclivity will bring the hookup to a grinding halt. It's
unclear how much of a presence the app has behind the Emerald Curtain
- it's unavailable to iPhone users. But - serious question - do
people in the Humboldt County dating scene need to worry that pot is
a dealbreaker? Isn't some kind of weed activity or association expected?

If anything, it's probably Humboldt's sober singles that need a dating app.

A Reddit user recently took to the site to ask the classic
coming-of-age question: "Weed makes me temporarily gay. Anyone else?"

Um. No.

But, presuming the post wasn't a scared-straight plant from the
American Family Association (and there's a good chance it is based on
this strangely unsubtle text from the post: "I feel very attracted to
girls and not at all to men when sober, but when I get high I just
want a big cock to suck and a man who fucks the shit out of me"),
maybe there's an explanation. And it's not the phallic imagery (ahem,
bong users) permeating weed culture.

In last year's article succinctly titled "Fucking Stoned: The Search
for a Weed-Based Aphrodisiac," sex experts told Motherboard that
cannabis can be arousing, but more likely reinforces "whatever level
of sexual interest a user is already experiencing."

Author Susie Bright recommended small to moderate doses of pot to
enhance arousal for those disinclined to sleepiness and paranoia, but
added, "it's hard to identify universal truths when it comes to
cannabis and pleasure."

Indeed, little research has been done on cannabis' loin-igniting
effects, but pot has been used as a Reefer Madness scapegoat for
sexual deviance and violence. Of course, being attracted to dudes is
neither of those. So embrace the feeling, Redditor. Or don't.
Whatever makes you happy.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 12 Feb 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

THE ABCS OF THC

High, Ngaio. I am confused as to what all is in my marijuana. What is
the difference between CBD and THC and all that other stuff? Thank you.

-Sassy Bubbles

It would be my pleasure. There are more than 400 different compounds
in the cannabis plant. The ones we know the most about are:
tetrahydrocannabinol, cannabidiol and terpenes.

THC is the chemical that gets you stoned. It works by binding to the
cannabinoid receptors in your brain. That's right, your body is
designed to enjoy weed. I'm exaggerating a little, but the human body
does produce its own cannabinoids. It's true. Look it up. But I
digress. To continue: THC causes your body to release dopamine, which
creates a mild euphoria. THC also messes with your hippocampus, which
is why your short term memory gets a little fuzzy. THC can also cause
the munchies, and in large doses can create hallucinations.

CBD is the newest star in the cannabis universe. Because CBD has no
psychoactive effects-er, doesn't get you stoned-the chemical was
almost bred out of the cannabis plant, but recent research has shown
CBD to be very effective as a mood leavener and as an anticonvulsant
(it's good at stopping seizures). CBD is also a good antiemetic, or
thing that helps you not vomit, although I don't recommend getting
drunk and then smoking a joint so you won't throw up. Trust me,
that's a really bad idea. You can learn more about CBD at www.projectcbd.org.

Terpenes are the chemicals that give marijuana such a distinctive
aroma. So far, more than 100 terpenes have been discovered, and they
all have cool names like limonene and myrcene and terpineol.
Different terpenes have different aromas and different effects
(myrcene makes you sleepy, limonene is good for stress relief, etc.)
which is probably why some people are so picky about what their
marijuana smells like. There's a good list over at
www.leafly.com/news/cannabis-101/terpenes-the-flavors-of-cannabis-aromatherapy.
Other than that, there are two main kinds of cannabis strains:
sativas, which generally produce energetic, "buzzy" effects, and
indicas, which are known for their mellow "couch lock" results.
Indicas and sativas can also be cross-bred, producing hybrid strains.
A good resource for learning about different strains and their
effects is www.leafly.com.

Hmm. If weed has all this good stuff in it, shouldn't we be making it
easier for scientists to do research? Of course we should. Write a
letter to the DEA today and tell them to reschedule cannabis. Thank you.

Hey, what's going on this weekend?

-Eric D.

I'm glad you asked. I will be attending the International Cannabis
Business Conference in San Francisco. All the cannabis experts will
be there: Rick Steves, Dr. Carl Hart, Steve DeAngelo, Amanda Reiman
. I could go on. Oh, and Del tha Funkee Homosapien is performing. I
wonder if he will change the name of his song from "Mistadobilina" to
"Mista-dab-alina"? More info at www.internationalcbc.com.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 11 Feb 2015
Source: East Bay Express (CA)
Copyright: 2015 East Bay Express
Contact: http://posting.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/SubmitLetter/Page
Website: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1131
Author: David Downs

THE WEED WAR UNDERMINES SCIENCE

A Columbia Professor Argues That Research That Exaggerates the
Effects of Marijuana Is Spurring People to Reject Other Types of
Research As Well.

Biased research on cannabis is an institutionalized form of magical thinking.

Anti-vaxxers, climate-change deniers, religious fundamentalists, and
drug warriors all share a commonality: They reject science.

And according to Columbia University professor Carl Hart, biased
research on cannabis is an institutionalized form of magical thinking
that is undermining the credibility of science as well. Hart is
scheduled to deliver a keynote speech on spotting bias on Sunday at
the International Cannabis Business Conference (ICBC) in San Francisco.

A Miami native, Hart grew up around drugs in the hood, but the US Air
Force punched his ticket to higher learning. Hart has a bachelor's
and master's degree from the University of Maryland and a PhD in
neuroscience. He's also a father of three. And he's Columbia
University's first tenured African-American science professor. In
2014, Hart won the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award for
his 2013 book High Price: A Neuroscientist's Journey of
Self-Discovery that Challenges Everything You Know About Drugs and Society.

Below is the first in a series of excerpts from of our conversation
with Hart. Look out for more in the coming days on the Legalization
Nation blog and on upcoming episodes of Legalization Nation's
podcast, The Hash.

LN: What message do you hope to carry to the businessmen and
activists at the ICBC?

Hart: The number one thing I want people to understand is there is a
lot of misinformation out there about cannabis, some of it coming
from the scientific community, particularly in terms of exaggerating
the harmful effects associated with cannabis. At some point, these
[business] folks will come across this information, so I want to make
sure they know how to evaluate it critically and make thoughtful
decisions about it. That's number one. Number two: Cannabis business
and capitalism is growing in the United States and one of the things
I want to help them to understand is they can be leaders in making
sure that the folks they hire in their businesses look like people in
the United States and not just white.

LN: I had a progressive, sixty-something African-American Oakland
woman ask me, "What's legalization going to do to the boys selling
pot on [her] corner? Are they going to be out of a job? Then what?"
What do you make of the critique that rich, white males stand to gain
the most from legalization?

Hart: Yeah, you know I sympathize with that person, obviously. I
mean, I sold marijuana, you know? But the fact is this: We can't
expect one fledgling, developing industry alone to solve this major
problem in the United States, which the republic has ignored since we
came out of slavery. That's not even logical.

Other companies and industries don't even have to deal with these
questions. No one's asking the lottery [industry about this]. My aunt
for many years ran numbers. She got put out of business when Florida
got the lottery. No one was talking about that. ... Black folks got shut out.

So yeah, we can expect to see the same thing in this industry if we
don't put pressure on [canna-business] to hire them, but we shouldn't
say, "Well, we should not have this industry, because of that."
That's nonsense - more people going to jail as a result.

LN: What do you make of the rash of anti-marijuana brain science
research that came out last year? Cannabis law reform critics
frequently cite one study purporting to show a drop in IQ among
heavy, decades-long smokers, as well as structural changes in the brain.

Hart: Contextualization is almost never talked about, or discussed. .
When we think about the brain and behavior, we say, "Is there some
sort of functional difference in somebody's brain who uses marijuana
versus somebody's brain who doesn't use marijuana?" ... When you ask
those simple, basic questions, the answer to them is, "No. They
performed exactly the same. And yeah, you do have some differences
but these differences fall within the normal range of human variability."

LN: Why is this context so often missing? What force is at play here?

Hart: The majority of scientists are not evil people, they just know
who butters their bread. It's a simple sort of thing. The incentives
are out of whack. ... The National Institute on Drug Abuse funds 90
percent of the world's research on drug abuse with our tax dollars.
The mission of NIDA is to focus on pathology, or drug addiction. ...
You have this disproportionate focus when, in fact, 90 percent of the
people who use marijuana smoke it with no problems.

LN: With legalization, is that bias going away?

Hart: No. I have absolutely no hope for that. We are remedial in our
understanding of drugs, and we as a country are comfortable with that
because, bluntly speaking, the people who often talk about drugs are
idiots. I'm not encouraged that we are somehow moving toward a more
objective, balanced, even system.

We're heading in a dangerous sort of direction. This demonstrates
that science itself can be biased, and it is biased, and for some
people that is license to reject science more broadly in general and
then they can believe whatever nonsense they want to believe without science.

I hope people realize that they're contributing to allowing people to
have these ignorant uninformed views, because they distrust science.
That frightens me.

LN: We're back to magical thinking, religious thinking, the
undermining of basic empiricism here.

Hart: Exactly. And we are such a wealthy society and we have such a
knowledge base that we should not be in that position.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 12 Feb 2015
Source: SF Weekly (CA)
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

One San Francisco Dispensary Owner Wants to Put a Stop to Super-Potent Edibles

WEED LIMITS

I'm afraid of what's in my freezer.

Wrapped in tinfoil, with "DO NOT EAT" scribbled in Sharpie, is a
small brownie. At 447 calories and 27 grams of fat, only some people
could eat this chocolate-toffee treat guilt-free. But you can forget
about trying to run or work it off after digesting: A few bites, and
you're in for a really weird day. If you eat the whole thing, prepare
for a long, lost weekend.

This is because the brownie contains 700 milligrams of THC. That's
the psychoactive punch in about an entire ounce of high-grade
California medical cannabis. To put this into context: It takes about
15 to 25 milligrams of THC to get someone high. The brownie contains
about 35 times that amount.

Super potent edibles are on the rise everywhere marijuana is legal.
If a brownie like this doesn't scare you, try devouring one of the
1,000-milligram chocolate bars available in Colorado and California.
Even more modest edibles are still too much: On my desk there's a
pouch of hot chocolate mix containing 120 milligrams of THC. I cannot
give it away. I tried pitching the benefit of a really relaxing cup
of cocoa by the evening fire to a skier bruised by a day's run. "I
need to be able to see the next day in order to ski," she says.

There is a market for these products. People are buying them. And
edibles are becoming stronger and stronger. That means that while
very few people would - or could - smoke an entire bag of marijuana,
more people are eating the equivalent.

This is not sitting well with Kevin Reed. He is the founder and
president of The Green Cross, one of San Francisco's oldest licensed
medical cannabis dispensaries. Reed is fine with you being stoned; if
you see him around town, and he knows you're a legal cannabis
patient, he just may hand you a finger-sized joint. But he will not
share my brownie.

"There is no medical necessity that requires that kind of dose," said
Reed, who is trying to bring concerns of an out-of-control,
"irresponsible" edibles industry to San Francisco City Hall.

For a long time, Reed limited edibles sold via his delivery service
and storefront dispensary to 50 milligrams of THC. Patients
complained that the product was too weak. So he upped it to 100
milligrams per package (in two 50-milligram servings). That stopped
the complaints, but even that is too much for most people, he said.

Reed's mother once visited him from her native Alabama and asked to
try a cookie. The subsequent ordeal went something like this: She
thought she was having a heart attack; Reed wouldn't take her to the
emergency room, because waiting off a high, the only solution to an
edibles overdose, is not better in an ER. She accused her son of
trying to kill her. She recovered and mother and son are fine, but
the experience turned Reed off from excessive edibles.

That scene is certainly being repeated across the country.

In California, where legal weed is only permitted to be used as
medication, powerful edibles are not medically necessary, Reed says.
They serve one function: to get incredibly fucked up. This could pose
a problem for the patients with severe pain or lung problems who do
need edible cannabis. "We are afraid if this trend continues, edibles
will be taken away altogether," Reed wrote in a letter to the city.

Even worse: For anyone involved with cannabis, including the makers
of the bomb brownie, experiences like these could halt legalization
in its tracks.

In January, Reed wrote to the Department of Public Health and to the
Board of Supervisors, requesting that something be done. He doesn't
want a ban on mega-edibles, just a limit on what's sold in
city-licensed medical dispensaries, as well as a rule requiring
dispensaries to tell cannabis patients exactly how powerful edibles
are. Though most edibles carry a label, there is currently no
requirement to label an edible with its THC content.

Reed thinks a 150-milligram limit on edibles is reasonable. If you
really need 700 milligrams of THC, he reasons, you can eat two or
three. Putting all of that into one tiny chocolate square, however,
"it's like a marijuana roofie," he tells me.

At least for now, weed roofies are okay in San Francisco. Neither
public health officials nor elected officials are demonstrating any
interest in regulating edibles.

Other than Reed, nobody has complained to the Health Department about
edibles being too strong, officials there tell me (the city's entire
dispensary program only generates about half-a-dozen complaints
annually as it is, mostly whining about double parking and people
smoking weed outside).

The city could, in theory, regulate edible strength the same way the
alcohol content in beer and wine and the strength of Oxycodone pills
are regulated. But that would require action from the Board of
Supervisors, according to health officials.

Only three of the 11 city supervisors have given Reed a response. As
far as what they plan to do remains unknown. None of the three
responded to a request from SF Weekly for comment.

The reluctance from City Hall is partially the cannabis's industry's
own fault. Several attempts to get government and the marijuana
industry involved and working together failed spectacularly. The
edible issue, if unchecked, could also be headed toward a much bigger disaster.

As for my brownie, it's staying put until I can find a way to cut it
into thirty-fifths.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sat, 14 Feb 2015
Source: Press-Enterprise (Riverside, CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/aB0tGuxl
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

END PROHIBITIONS ON MEDICAL POT DISPENSARIES

In 1996, California voters approved Proposition 215, which authorized
the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

While the initiative permits the prescribing and use of marijuana, it
allows local governments to implement aspects of the law in ways they
see fit. For the most part, Inland cities have been quite slow in
permitting the establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries.

This trend has seen cracks in recent years, with cities like Palm
Springs, Desert Hot Springs and Cathedral City authorizing the
establishment of medical marijuana dispensaries.

The city of San Bernardino considered moving forward on permitting
dispensaries last summer, while residents in Riverside will vote on
an initiative in June to do the same.

The latest city to consider permitting dispensaries is the city of
Upland. The public has begun to push an initiative on the matter,
while the city council is sorting out how to proceed.

"I am concerned with the amount of financial resources Upland has
utilized in dealing with medical marijuana dispensaries operating in
the city, when funds are needed for the operation of vital general
services, public safety and public works that the city provides to
residents and businesses," says city councilman Gino Filippi.

At least $600,000 has been spent chasing medical marijuana
dispensaries in the city in recent years, according to the councilman.

As cities across the region are beginning to realize, chasing
dispensaries is a costly game of whack-a-mole. Since 2007, the city
of Riverside has spent over $800,000 on legal fees taking on
dispensaries. Likewise, the city of San Bernardino reports spending
upwards of $15,000 in legal fees taking on each dispensary.

"We'd rather spend our money filling potholes and other things that
benefit the community but we have to do this," says San Bernardino
city attorney Gary Saenz. Mr. Saenz and San Bernardino Councilman Jim
Mulvihill have indicated that the city may return to the issue in the
near future.

Adding to the basic costs involved, local officials seem increasingly
aware of the prospect of full legalization of marijuana in the coming years.

Taking into consideration the large expenditures on failed
prohibitions and the trends toward legalizing marijuana, we believe
that cities should end their doomed prohibitions on medical marijuana
dispensaries. Tax dollars are better spent on more practical,
tangible and beneficial matters.
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
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xxx
Newshawk: chip
Pubdate: Fri, 13 Feb 2015
Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Website: http://www.wsj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/487
Author: Steve Knopper

COLORADO: GOING HARSH ON THE POT PARTY

In Colorado and in Washington state, residents may not toke up in
public although the rules for what constitutes a public event can be murky.

DENVER - You might imagine that Colorado has become a pot-fueled
cultural carnival since the state legalized recreational marijuana
last year: midnight screenings of "Dude, Where's My Car?" ;
uninhibited jam-band concerts at the famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre
under clouds of herbal smoke.

In fact, both here and in Washington state, residents may not toke up
in public - and that includes restaurants, bars, football games and
rock concerts - although the rules for what constitutes a public
event can be murky. Advertising for pot sales, too, is problematic,
as Colorado bans spots on billboards, TV and radio stations and the
Internet if more than 30% of the target audience is underage. (Two
publications have challenged this Colorado law; Washington has no
such state-law restrictions.)

In December, Seth Rogen tried to promote his movie "The Interview" by
inviting Denver marijuana enthusiasts to a screening at a small
theater. After city officials threatened to shut down the event, the
actor was reduced to wandering the aisles with a bottle of tequila,
pouring shots for attendees.

Last spring, the Colorado Symphony Orchestra announced a "classically
cannabis"  fundraiser, but Denver city officials shut it down,
banning concertgoers from bringing and smoking pot at the event. (The
CSO later held the event privately; a spokesperson did not respond to
a request for comment.)

"The cannabis was supposed to be regulated like alcohol, but it's a
strange mixture of all the regulations for alcohol and all the
regulations for tobacco,"  says Ash McGonigal, an independent
filmmaker trying raise funds to open a theater in rural Gilpin County
west of Denver, where moviegoers could smoke pot while watching art
films. "It's going to be very political going forward." McGonigal
adds that "local governments"  are supportive of his efforts and are
willing to work with him, but he wouldn't divulge cities or names.

In Washington, the public pot celebrations are even sparser. "It
would be nice if they had some changes to the law to increase
tourism,"  says Trek Hollnagel, director of operations for
4-year-old, Seattle-based Dope magazine. "You can imagine if some
people in Washington could take advantage of that - some of the
better clubs or lounges struggling with business could change over to
vapor lounges."

One effect of the new laws is to draw some artists more frequently to
the state. Since the state legalized marijuana in early 2014, the
annual events on April 20, the unofficial pot-smokers' holiday, have
drawn rappers Snoop Dogg , Wiz Khalifa and, this year, Cypress Hill,
Method Man and Redman.

Whoo Kid, a veteran DJ and Sirius XM host who has worked with dozens
of superstar rappers, is one of many musicians who have added
Colorado to their must-play list. "I'm from New York City -
Colorado's not on my list of destinations. But it became a
destination that I have to check out at least a couple of times a
year,"  says the DJ, who played the April 20 rally in 2014 and
returns in two months. "We go there a day early for the show, and we
stay another day, then we leave. It's really three days for one show.
Might as well relax and smoke and chill out."

Nevertheless, at last year's concert, police gave out 47 citations
for public pot consumption.

"[Pot] ends up being a nice perk once you're there, but not really
the reason we're going,"  Peter Schwartz, booking agent for Danny
Brown and Cypress Hill, told Denver's 5280 magazine. "Let's keep in
mind, realistically, that people who enjoy marijuana have it. They
don't really need to go to Colorado for it."
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Feb 2015
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2015 Albuquerque Journal
Contact: opinion@abqjournal.com
Website: http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Christopher Ingraham, Washington Post

COLORADO'S LEGAL WEED MARKET

$700 Million in Sales Last Year $1 Billion Predicted by 2016

WASHINGTON - Legal marijuana was a $700 million dollar industry in
Colorado last year, according to a Washington Post analysis of
recently released tax data from the state's Department of Revenue. In
2014, Colorado retailers sold $386 million of medical marijuana and
$313 million for purely recreational purposes. The two segments of
the market generated $63 million in tax revenue, with an additional
$13 million collected in licenses and fees.

The total economic impact of the state's marijuana industry is likely
greater, as these figures don't include retail sales of products
related to marijuana, like pipes and bongs, and they don't account
for increased tourist spending in other segments of Colorado's
economy, like hotels and restaurants.

With a full year of data to work with, the state has a clearer
picture of what to expect from its marijuana market going forward.
Total marijuana tax revenues are now expected to climb to $94 million
annually by 2016, according to the latest projections. This would
equate to a $1 billion dollar retail market.

The revenue figures are high enough that Colorado now finds itself in
the enviable situation of having to figure out what to do with all
that money. And it's catching the attention of other states, like
Vermont, now considering legalization.

But Colorado's pot businesses aren't necessarily rolling in dough.
Marijuana growers and retailers aren't eligible for the wide variety
of tax deductions available to other businesses, which could take a
huge bite out of their profits. Banks are also hesitant to do
business with the marijuana industry for fear of a federal crackdown,
which makes legal weed a de-facto cash-only proposition, with all of
the risks and dangers that entails.

The federal government has been taking steps -- albeit small ones --
to help integrate the marijuana industry with the rest of the market.
Late last year the IRS issued a memorandum assuring accountants who
file taxes for marijuana businesses that they won't face increased
risk of an audit or penalties. And tucked within December's
last-minute spending compromise was a measure forbidding the Drug
Enforcement Agency from raiding medical marijuana outlets, provided
those outlets are in compliance with state law.

Colorado has implemented a $700 million marijuana market without any
of the dire consequences that legalization opponents warned about.
Fatal car accidents in the state are flat, and well below the
past-decade average. Crime is down in Denver and the surrounding
area. While some societal effects of marijuana legalization may not
make themselves fully known until several years down the line, the
first year of legal weed in Colorado went smoothly.
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
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xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 11 Feb 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: Griffin Swartzell

TAX PREPARERS OK TO WORK WITH RMJ; BILLS COMING AND GOING; MORE

Toking & taxes

It's tax season, and the IRS' Office of Professional Responsibility
has some guidance for tax-prep professionals working with
recreational marijuana retailers.

According to Kathy Bylkas, an enrolled agent for the Springs agency
Your TaxLady, businesses can deduct expenses for growing and
wholesale costs, but not retail costs - advertising, sales staff,
etc. So long as tax preparers don't help marijuana retailers
reclassify retail costs as wholesale, and so long as all income gets
declared, she says the IRS won't punish tax preparers for working
with dispensaries.

Pot & politics

It's not exactly a call for reclassification, but it's notable that
in a Feb. 4 interview with CBS, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy
said, "There is some preliminary data showing that for certain
medical conditions and symptoms that marijuana can be helpful." He
noted that his position is based on available data, and that he hopes
to see more research on marijuana as a medicine.

"I think that we have to use that data to drive policy decisions,"
Murthy said, "and I'm very interested to see where that takes us."

Weed & welfare

On Monday, Feb. 9, the Colorado Senate passed a bill to ban
withdrawal of EBT funds from ATMs at dispensaries and strip clubs.
The bill, SB15-65, is currently waiting for House of Representatives approval.

Last year, a similar bill was defeated by House Democrats, who were
concerned about people living in poor neighborhoods with limited
access to ATMs, according to a January 2014 Pueblo Chieftain article.

The bill's sponsors told the Denver Post they were concerned that
Colorado might lose some federal welfare funds if it could be proven
that said money was going to marijuana. Rep. Dan Nordberg, R-Colorado
Springs, the bill's main House sponsor, told the Post he doesn't
think the Democrats' concern about poor neighborhoods with limited
access to ATMs outside of dispensaries is valid.

According to a Feb. 6 FOX21 story, no marijuana industry group has
taken a stance against the bill.

Marijuana & maternity

The Colorado House Committee on Public Health Care and Human Services
has indefinitely postponed a bill - HB15-1036 - that would require
dispensaries to warn consumers about the risks of using marijuana
while pregnant. Specifically, the bill would mandate standardized
signage, and "prohibit a medical marijuana center agent or employee
from recommending medical marijuana to a pregnant woman."

According to tweets from Kristen Wyatt of the Colorado Associated
Press, the sponsor, Rep. Jack Tate, R-Centennial, has agreed to pull
his bill and try again.
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
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xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 12 Feb 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

THE OBAMA DRUG WAR BUDGET AND THE DEFINITION OF INSANITY

The words were encouraging, especially coming from the surgeon
general of the United States. "We have some preliminary data showing
that for certain medical conditions and symptoms that marijuana can
be helpful. So I think we have to use that data to drive policy
making, and I'm very interested to see where that data takes us,"
said newly appointed Vivek Murthy last week during a television interview.

I'd argue there were more than "preliminary data" out there, but
never mind. And there was more. In its budget proposal for 2016, the
Obama administration declares that the old ways to run the drug war
have to change. The "enforcement-centric" approach the United States
has used for almost a century isn't working, says a president who is
on record as saying that cannabis is less dangerous than alcohol.

A bipartisan House bill just introduced would allow government
physicians to recommend medical marijuana to veterans in states where
it is legal. The Justice Department declines to prosecute states
passing legalization or medical cannabis laws that are illegal on a
federal level. And now the surgeon general is saying positive things
about cannabis easing symptoms of certain medical conditions.

It's all good, right? The budget request is called a "21st century
approach to drug policy that outlines innovative policies and
programs and recognizes that substance use disorders are not just a
criminal justice issue, but also a major public health concern" and
brags that more than $12 billion will be spent on public health, more
than any previous year.

And yet the request asks for even more spending that basically
emphasizes the same approach its own leaders admit isn't working.

"The President's 2016 budget calls for the largest commitment to
substance use disorder treatment and prevention efforts to date,"
said Michael Botticelli, the appointed-on-Monday director of the
Office of National Drug Control Policy - the nation's drug czar.
"This budget demonstrates the Obama administration's ongoing
commitment to a science-based drug policy with a balanced approach to
public health and public safety."

Spending $12 billion for public health is a lot of cash, but it's
hardly a molehill in the amount of money being sought for the
law-enforcement side of the equation. The total amount being asked is
truly staggering: $27.5 billion - almost a $2 billion increase over this year.

And more than two-thirds of that dough is being sought, as it always
is and has been and probably always will be, for the triumvirate of
criminal justice against drug users: the departments of Defense,
Homeland Security and Justice. The administration wants to spend
almost $4 billion just to incarcerate users and sellers and another
$3 billion to fund the Drug Enforcement Administration. Oh, there are
some multi-million dollar cuts here and there, and a few higher
numbers shuffled around to address "public health concerns."

But who's even noticing, or questioning, such enormous numbers? After
a while, they just begin to run together. What's another $2 or $3
billion here or there? A few hundred million moved into another department?

And by the time the budget goes through Congress and is finally
enacted, Republicans will probably add even more pork to please their
law-andorder constituency and put a capital letter on the complete
disconnect in our nation's approach to drugs.

A recent study by researchers from the ArcView Group, a cannabis
industry investment and research company, found that the U.S. market
for legal cannabis in 2014 is about $2.7 billion, up from $1.5
billion in 2013, and projects even more growth as state laws continue
to change.

So let's review: We have cannabis, a Schedule 1 drug, defined as
being dangerously addictive and having no currently accepted medical
use. And we have a $2.7 billion industry, with at least 1.5 million
citizens legally using marijuana to help relieve symptoms of various
diseases in almost half our states. The federal government has also
just given its blessing to Native American tribes to sell cannabis on
their reservations. Veterans Affairs doctors may soon be able to
prescribe medical marijuana to vets.

About 35 million other people, or one in every 10 Americans, have
chosen, for whatever reason and despite the federal prohibition, to
use cannabis, which has created a market that operates at a pretty
high level of efficiency despite the billions being spent to stop it.
Who even knows how large this market is?

These Americans are going to use it no matter what the government
says, and at this point just about anyone who wants it and has a
couple hundred dollars can buy an ounce of pot.

Yet our elected representatives will allot more than $35 billion of
your tax money next year to keep things pretty much the same.

Just looking at our own history, we could learn that prohibition of
pleasurable substances doesn't work. We could come up with a better
way to handle drugs that doesn't entail $35 billion a year, Homeland
Security or the Justice Department. But no, we continue on a drug
policy that is hypocritical, irrational and foolish. And that, my
friends, is the definition of insanity.

Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com 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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---
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xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 12 Feb 2015
Source: Westword (Denver, CO)
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.westword.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.westword.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1616
Author: William Breathes

WHAT IS VEGANIC GROWING?

Dear Stoner: I know what organic growing is, but what is "veganic" growing?

Curious Cultivator

Dear Curious: Veganic growing is the process of chopping up a vegan
to feed your plants, Little Shop of Horrors style. Feed me, Seymour!

Seriously, veganic growing is growing your cannabis without using any
nutrients derived from animals or chemically derived minerals.
Organic growers tend to rely on things like bat guano and emulsified
fish guts as a source of nutrients; veganic growers shun things like
that, using only nutrients derived from plants, like fermented
leaves. While some do it for philosophical reasons, most veganic
growers we know are meat-eaters who just want better-quality
cannabis. The idea is that the microbes in the soil break down the
vegan nutrients and deliver them to the plant more easily than they
would with animal-based nutrients. According to some studies, the
transfer of nutrients is three times higher in veganic gardening.
Well-known grower Kyle Kushman has moved to an entirely veganic
mixture and is one of the method's most vocal advocates, saying that
it "elevates the cultivation of cannabis flowers to the highest level
of purity possible." I don't know if I'd go that far, but I am
starting to see a lot of growers making the switch and praising the
end product. To learn more, check out kylekushman.com.

Dear Stoner: Can NBA players smoke weed? If so, does that account for
the Nuggets' horrible season thus far?

No Nugs

Dear NN: The NBA, like most American pro-sports leagues, does not
allow marijuana use among players - even in states that have
legalized possession of small amounts of pot. Players caught smoking
herb three times get a five-game suspension. But that's not to say
that players aren't getting high. The NBA tests players four times
during the season for drugs, but the testing is random, so some
players end up getting their fourth drug test early in the season,
which basically gives them a hall pass to toke up the rest of the year.

Pot is not the reason the Nuggets are in the tank, though. Their
piss-poor season thus far falls squarely on the shoulders of coach
Brian Shaw, who can't get his talented players to act like a damn
team on the court.

Shaw clearly needs to calm down and quit using the media to accuse
players of purposefully losing games. We suggest he do a few
one-hitters in the locker room after a game - and we'd be happy to
provide him with all the free herb he can handle if it could make
this team worth watching again.
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 12 Feb 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122

LET YOUNG PATIENT GO TO JEFFCO SCHOOL

At some point in Colorado's experiment with marijuana, an issue
surrounding the schools and medical pot was bound to arise.

Jefferson County Public Schools is now the test case, and is using
the strange defense that marijuana is federally outlawed to justify
snatching the medicine from the hands of a Wheat Ridge middle school
student with severe disabilities, according to 7News.

Fourteen-year-old Jack Splitt has been approved by doctors and the
state to use medical marijuana. The type of marijuana Splitt used for
his treatments is virtually devoid of THC- the psychoactive
ingredient in pot that gets people high. The arm patch and oil that
Splitt used contained cannabidiol, or CBD, which his parents say
treats the boy's spastic quadriplegic cerebral palsy and dystonia.

He was wearing a patch at Everitt Middle School when officials
confiscated it and told him and his personal nurse not to return with
it ever again.

"It helps him, and it's natural," said his father, Colby Splitt.

District officials say because schools receive federal funds, federal
laws apply.

Marijuana is prohibited under federal law but permitted under
Colorado's constitution. And the idea that federal officials would
yank funding because a seriously ill patient is being treated borders
on the fanciful.

In Colorado, medical marijuana is illegal for people 18 or younger,
unless they receive a waiver. As of December, 462 minors were
registered as marijuana patients.

Colorado law also bans marijuana on school grounds. However, if the
pot doesn't have the psychoactive component and is being used for
medical purposes, it shouldn't be lumped into the same category.

Schools should use common sense about when to crack down.

Denying a medically fragile student a medicine that helps him-out of
fear of an unlikely federal reprisal-does not make sense.

The school should allow CBD and leave the boy alone.
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
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xxx
Newshawk: The GCW
Pubdate: Sun, 08 Feb 2015
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2015 Summit Daily News
Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587
Author: Karl Herchenroeder

MICHAEL BLOOMBERG CALLS COLORADO'S DECISION ON LEGAL MARIJUANA
STUPID

Three-term New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg harped on the
importance of vocational education and blasted Colorado's decision to
legalize marijuana as stupid Friday evening before a sold-out crowd at
the Aspen Institute.

When an audience member asked the 72-year-old Bloomberg about Colorado
marijuana, he responded that it was a terrible idea, one that is
hurting the developing minds of children. Though he admitted to
smoking a joint in the 1960s, he said the drug is more accessible and
more damaging today.

"What are we going to say in 10 years when we see all these kids whose
IQs are 5 and 10 points lower than they would have been?" he asked. "I
couldn't feel more strongly about it, and my girlfriend says it's no
different than alcohol. It is different than alcohol. This is one of
the stupider things that's happening across our country."

On education, Bloomberg said the U.S. should deliver the kind of
schooling that will help people become self-sustainable and increase a
sense of dignity. If a person has the option of going to Harvard or
becoming a plumber, he said he would suggest thinking about the
plumbing career.

"The Harvard graduate on average will never catch up to a plumber,"
Bloomberg said. "Partially because the first four years - instead of
spending $60,000, you make $60,000."

Cities should create jobs that meet the skills of its residents, he
said, not potential residents. In New York City, where $56 million
tourists visit annually, Bloomberg said the hospitality and service
industries are key. Though some might say those aren't good jobs, he
claimed that a waitress in the grand ballroom of the Waldorf Astoria
Hotel makes $150,000 a year because of strong union negotiations. A
waitress in a decent New York restaurant will make $50,000 to $60,000
a year, he said.

Bloomberg, who is now worth $36.6 billion, according to Forbes, said
the poor in the U.S. need better education. By the end of his life, he
said he's going to write a book about why the poor remain poor.

"It's always the poor that get screwed," said the founder of Bloomberg
L.P.

Moderator Jennifer Bradley, director of the Center for Urban
Innovation at the Institute, then asked what the U.S. can do to get
people out of poverty. Bloomberg responded that conventional wisdom
points to education, but education isn't going to help uneducated
adults. Bradley later asked how government can offer basic fairness to
the children "who have been failed."

Bloomberg claimed that 95 percent of murders fall into a specific
category: male, minority and between the ages of 15 and 25. Cities
need to get guns out of this group's hands and keep them alive, he
said.

"These kids think they're going to get killed anyway because all their
friends are getting killed," Bloomberg said. "They just don't have any
long-term focus or anything. It's a joke to have a gun. It's a joke to
pull a trigger."

At one point, the former mayor brought up New York City's
stop-and-frisk practices, which gained national attention in 2011.
Bloomberg said that during his last year in office, a minister at a
Baptist church in Harlem invited him to speak.

"While I'm sitting there waiting for him to introduce me, he said to
his congregation, 'You know, if every one of you stopped and frisked
your kid before they went out at night, the mayor wouldn't have to do
it,'" Bloomberg said. "And so I knew I was going to be okay with that
audience."
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
MAP posted-by: Matt

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Feb 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/frvXNjtJ
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Noelle Phillips
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

S.D. COUPLE FIGHTING FOR CASH SEIZED WHILE VACATIONING IN COLORADO

On Dec. 2, two South Dakota residents cruised through Parker after
making a wrong turn during a Colorado vacation.

A Parker police officer pulled over 33-year-old Margaret McKinney
because the temporary tag on her car was in the wrong place. The
officer smelled marijuana and asked to search the car, McKinney said.

"I thought, 'For what?' " McKinney said. "I had no reason for not
allowing the search. I wasn't doing anything wrong."

By the time the traffic stop ended, McKinney and her boyfriend, Dion
"Tony" Anderson, 46, were out more than $25,000 after spending two
hours being detained on the roadside by Parker police and a federal
Drug Enforcement Administration agent.

The couple said they were never charged with a crime and were allowed
to keep marijuana and a pipe. But the money was seized after officers
found it stuffed in socks in a suitcase.

"I saw her pipe on the hood of her car, and she got to keep it while
my money went in the other direction," Anderson said. "That burned my
tail feathers."

Now, Anderson, who said he received the money through a lawsuit
settlement, must prove he obtained the money through legal means to
get it back from the government.

Parker police and the DEA declined to speak about the case, but legal
experts said it seems Anderson's money was taken through a
controversial government program that was ended last month by U.S.
Attorney General Eric Holder.

"It literally sounds like highway robbery," said Mark Silverstein,
legal director for the ACLU-Colorado.

Renewed spotlight on law

Laws that allow police to seize a person's cash or car or other
assets have been in the spotlight in recent months.

In Colorado, where laws regarding asset forfeiture already are tight,
a bill has been filed with the intent of making it even more
difficult. Police and prosecutors are negotiating with the bill's
sponsor, Sen. Laura Woods, R-Arvada. The bill is supported by defense
attorneys.

Critics of asset forfeiture have argued that police abuse the
procedure to fatten their budgets.

Between Oct. 1, 2013, and Sept. 30, 2014, federal agents in Colorado
seized $13.5 million, according to statistics from the U.S.
Attorney's Office in Colorado. About $2.8 million of that filtered
down to local law enforcement agencies.

Law enforcement agencies say asset forfeiture is a crucial weapon in
their battle against drug cartels and human traffickers as they try
to destroy their operations by drying up finances.

In October 2013, for example, federal agents pulled over Denver
attorney David Furtado and seized $450,000 from the trunk of his car
while investigating ties between the medical marijuana industry and
Colombian drug cartels. That case is pending in federal courts.

In response to criticism about government seizing assets, Holder
issued a Jan. 16 memo that bars federal agencies from
administratively adopting local asset forfeiture cases. The policy,
developed in the early days of the 1980s drug war, was criticized often.

Under the old policy, if a local police officer got permission to
search a car during a traffic stop and found a large amount of cash,
he could call a federal agent - often the DEA - for assistance. The
federal agent could adopt the case through administrative action.

Then, the person who had the money would have to challenge the
seizure and prove that the money was obtained through legal means -
rather than forcing the government to prove it was obtained illegally.

Defense attorneys, the ACLU and others argue that the policy's
concept was directly opposite of the innocent-until-proven-guilty
principle of the American criminal justice system.

All of this was the focus of a Washington Post series last fall.

Focus on bigger cases

If the feds now want to take over a local case, they would have to
appear before a judge and ask for a warrant, said Jeffrey Dorschner,
a spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Denver.

Filing legal papers for warrants and appearing before a judge take
time and effort. As a result, legal experts said it is likely federal
agents would go after only the largest cases to make the effort worthwhile.

"The U.S. Attorney's Office will focus on the bigger cases that we
care the most about," Dorschner said.

Federal agents still can seize cash and other assets when a case
originates with their agency or when working on a joint investigation
with state or local police.

In Colorado, that's how most asset forfeitures happen, Dorschner said.

Multi-jurisdictional police task forces are widespread in the Denver
area, including in Parker, where McKinney and Anderson were stopped.

In Parker, two officers are assigned to a DEA task force, said police
Capt. Jim Tsurapas, who oversees investigations and specialized units.

Tsurapas said he could not talk about the Dec. 2 traffic stop
involving Anderson and McKinney.

But it's not unusual for the department's patrol and traffic officers
to call the DEA task force members if they suspect drug crimes have
been committed, he said. Under those circumstances, any property
seizures would be passed to the DEA.

Since the traffic stop in Parker, Anderson said he has struggled.

He admits making poor decisions in the past. Anderson and McKinney
have minor criminal records in South Dakota, including each being
charged in November with marijuana possession.

But no criminal charges have been filed against them in the November
traffic stop in Parker.

Anderson described himself as "sub-literate" and said he has never
held a bank account.

Anderson's lawyer in the personal injury case, Andy Damgaard of the
Janklow Law Firm in Sioux Falls, S.D., confirmed that Anderson had
received an amount in excess of $28,000 in a settlement.

Damgaard also recalled writing a letter on Anderson's behalf so a
bank would cash his settlement check.

"To each his own," Damgaard said.

Anderson told The Denver Post that he had carried the cash on
vacation because he was worried about it getting stolen while he was
away from home.

"I figured the place could get burned down or burglarized ," Anderson
said. "I felt safer with it on my person."

Without the money, he hasn't been able to make his car payment. And
he lost his apartment because he couldn't pay the rent.

All of it has led to depression.

"I really don't know what to say," he said while crying. "It really
has affected my psyche.

"I don't have the ability to provide for myself right now with the
kind of work I do."

[sidebar]

Asset forfeiture and distribution in Colorado

The amount collected each fiscal year:

2010 - $4,349,601.59

2011 - $4,665,068.44

2012 - $6,584,111.65

2013 - $2,887,472.93

2014 - $13,534,730.32

The amount distributed each fiscal year to law enforcement agencies:

2010 - $2,983,528.87

2011 - $ 204,235.21

2012 - $2,859,505.93

2013 - $1,336,976.18

2014 - $2,816,068.43

Source: U.S. Attorney's Office, Colorado
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 13 Feb 2015
Source: Day, The (New London,CT)
Copyright: 2015 The Day Publishing Co.
Contact: editor@theday.com
Website: http://www.theday.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/293
Author: Joe Wojtas
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?237 (Drug Dogs)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?225 (Students - United States)

OFFICIAL CRITICIZES DRUG SWEEP AT STONINGTON HIGH

Stonington - Board of Education member Craig Esposito has criticized
the use of police dogs to search the high school for illegal drugs in
December, saying it sent a "bad message" to students.

"It's like you're the warden and the school is a prison," he told
Principal Mark Friese during Thursday night's Board of Education meeting.

"You as an adult would not want to be treated that way. To me, it's
overkill," he said.

His comments came after Friese offered an overview of the Dec. 12
sweep, in which eight police dogs from area departments searched
school hallways, locker rooms and parking lots for illegal drugs
while students remained in their classrooms. Two students were cited
for possession of marijuana.

Esposito said the fact that the sweep netted just two violations
shows there is not a problem, but an overreaction.

But Friese said during his time at the school he has found illegal
drugs on a number of occasions.

"I know it's around and I know it's increasing," he said.

"I feel a strong message is needed to make sure it's not here."

Friese said students were told at the beginning of the school year
that the dogs would come to the school. He said he plans to have the
dogs conduct sweeps twice each school year and more if he feels the
problem is increasing.

Board of Education Chairman Frank Todisco reminded Esposito that the
school board had approved the policy that allowed the K-9 teams in school.

"I feel it's important to let parents know that we're not going to
allow drugs here," added Superintendent of Schools Van Riley. "In my
experience, if you don't do things like this, you will have more" problems.

Charlie Buxton, a senior who is the board's student representative,
told the board his fellow classmates did not have an issue with the
dogs. He said they had been warned the dogs would be coming in during
the school year.

"It sends a clear message to students that you're here for learning," he said.
__________________________________________________________________________
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 13 Feb 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Catherine Rampell
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

DRUG TESTS FOR EVERYONE

Scott Walker is right: It's time for more Americans to get
comfortable peeing in cups. Our nation's fiscal health may depend on it.

I'm referring, of course, to taking a drug test as a condition for
receiving government benefits. Walker, the Wisconsin governor and a
likely 2016 Republican presidential contender, made this a
centerpiece of his recently announced state budget.

True, results from other states that have tried this strategy don't
look particularly encouraging. In Tennessee, more than 16,000
applicants for public assistance were screened for drug use under a
new state law; exactly 37 tested positive, or about 0.2 percent.

Likewise, when Florida began drugtesting applicants for cash
assistance in 2011, just 108 of 4,086, or 2.6 percent, failed. (For
comparison's sake, an estimated 8.6 percent of adult Floridians use
illegal drugs in a given month.) The cost to conduct Florida's
testing was $118,140, more than the state would have paid out in
benefits to the people who failed the screening. And that does not
include the $400,000 in legal bills that the state has paid defending
the law in court, only to see it struck down for violating the
constitutional protection against unreasonable government searches.

None of this has stopped states from pursuing drug-testing mandates
for welfare applicants, albeit using more careful wording to avoid
the constitutionality concerns (though they may yet face their own
legal challenges). At least 12 have passed such laws, and 12 others
are considering them. In Wisconsin, Walker wants to test not just
welfare applicants but also anyone applying for Medicaid, food stamps
or unemployment insurance benefits.

Now, some people might say that these kinds of mandates are really
about harassing and inconveniencing the poor, since there is little
evidence that this population has high rates of illicit drug abuse.
(Alcohol is actually the most common substance abused by the poor.)
Others might say they're really about funneling public funds to
well-connected drug-testing companies. Or that our elected officials
just want to score cheap political points, since no politician likes
being branded as the sap who favors making it easier for drug addicts
to suckle at the government teat.

Still others might contend that, whatever the motivation behind the
proliferation of such laws in recent years, they are at the very
least a gigantic waste of taxpayer money when you consider the costs
of administering the tests.

Me? I think these policies are just poorly targeted.

If we really want to weed out undeserving, drug-addled recipients of
public funds, and thereby improve the government's bottom line, we
need to make like Willie Sutton and go where the money is: to the
populations that receive the biggest public subsidies.

Spoiler alert: that's not welfare recipients.

At the federal level, we'll spend about $700 billion this fiscal year
on means-tested health insurance programs (such as Medicaid) and what
the Congressional Budget Office calls "income security programs"
(such as food stamps and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families). By
contrast, we'll spend twice that much on Medicare and Social Security
alone. Surely if we start pulling all of the nation's elderly into
our drug-testing dragnet, enough aging hippies will test positive for
doobie use to disqualify them from benefits and save the country some
major dough.

Veterans, college students, politicians, government contractors and
plenty of other suspicious groups also receive sizable government
funds. Let's round 'em up and make them pee in a cup, too.

But if we really want to take advantage of this innovative fiscal
rebalancing strategy, the most fertile place to start may be among
the many wellheeled beneficiaries of the country's $1.4 trillion in
tax expenditures - the back-door spending that politicians do through
the tax code. About half of this tax-side spending is captured by the
top 20 percent, which means that drug-testing people who want to
claim tax breaks could produce a huge windfall.

Want to take that deduction for home mortgage interest? I'm sorry,
sir, you'll have to submit a urine sample. Eyeing that
carried-interest tax loophole? Here's a cup for you, too. ( Those of
us who have seen "The Wolf of Wall Street" know that big-time
financiers can afford the really good drugs.) Same with charitable
deductions, health insurance deductions and everything else on your
thick, itemized 1040.

Sure, some Americans will complain that blanket drug-testing is an
unreasonable violation of their Fourth Amendment rights. But as long
as they're clean, they should have nothing to hide. Right?
__________________________________________________________________________
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 10 Feb 2015
Source: Washington Times (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Times, LLC.
Contact: yourletters@washingtontimes.com
Website: http://www.washingtontimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/492
Author: Deborah Simmons

GIVE D.C. LAWMAKERS A DRUG TEST

The D.C. Council made another wrong move Monday by discussing the
pros and cons of the Prohibition of Pre-Employment Marijuana Testing
Act, which would bar employers from drug testing job applicants and
prospective employees.

Before the lawmakers take another whiff of this insidious proposal,
they should take a serious step in a different direction.

All 13 members of the council and Mayor Muriel Bowser, if she is
considering endorsing such a bill, should be tested for drugs.

The very idea of measures such as these opens wide the doors to
undermine public safety, public health and common sense.

The legislation was introduced by council members Vincent Orange,
David Grosso and Anita Bonds, who are three of four at-large
lawmakers, and it was co-sponsored by freshman lawmaker Charles
Allen, who represents Capitol Hill, the U.S. Marine Barracks and the
Washington Navy Yard, among other neighborhoods.

On first blush, the proposed law appears as though it might apply
only to D.C. employers like private firms and nonprofit groups. But
that's at first blush.

Take schools. D.C. Public Schools says this on its website regarding
drug testing: "As mandated by the Child and Youth, Safety and Health
Omnibus Amendment Act of 2004 (CYSHA), DCPS has implemented a
Mandatory Drug and Alcohol Testing (MDAT) Program. Under CYSHA, all
employees in 'safety-sensitive' positions - those with a significant
degree of contact with students - must be subject to drug and alcohol testing."

But what about non-DCPS employees in "safety-sensitive" positions -
those who work in before-school and after-school programs, for
example? Are parents to only learn after the fact that their
children's preschool caretaker is a pot head? Or that their school
bus driver was transporting their disabled children and an ounce or
two of marijuana on the same route?

And why should DCPS and the rest of the D.C. government be exempt but
not Papa Johns, McDonald's and liquor stores and the like?

This proposed measure, which springs from the Committee on Business,
Consumer and Regulatory Affairs, makes no sense.

Unless, that is, its intent is to treat the mayor and D.C. lawmakers
as an elite group of pro-marijuana enthusiasts whose message is "do
as we say, not as we do."

In fact, there are but two public benefits to the Prohibition of
Pre-Employment Marijuana Testing Act: 1) "Report to the Council
information regarding health education programs in public schools
related to substance abuse;" and 2) "Evaluate the effectiveness of
the District's treatment programs regarding the use and abuse of marijuana."

And both mandates should be under the purview of the Department of
Health, the Metropolitan Police Department and DCPS - the agencies
chiefly responsible for public health, public safety, and the health
and education of babies, youths and adults.

An education conundrum

Speaking of Messrs. Orange and Grosso, and Ms. Bonds, the three Ward
5 residents actually represent all D.C. residents as at-large
lawmakers and it's time to put them on the spot again.

This time the issue is education, in general, and school choice, in
particular. And they need to reveal their hand ASAP.

By week's end, an estimated 1,600 could be school-less because the
D.C. Public Charter School Board might vote to close the Dorothy I.
Height Community Academy Public Charter Schools, which has three D.C. campuses.

The vote is on the calendar because the founder of the schools, Kent
Amos, is accused of financial improprieties. His case is in the hands
of the courts.

But the charter board and city officials should not throw the babies
out with the (possibly dirty) bath water.

The council did not declare itself defunct when lawmakers were caught
with their hands in the cookie jar.

The city didn't give vouchers to tens of thousands of families so
their kids could attend private and parochial schools when DCPS
academics were in the toilet.

Don't muddy the name of the late Dorothy I. Height because of what
Mr. Amos or others may have done.

More important, do not block the schoolhouse doors to children
because of what adults did or did not do.

Punish the offender, not the children.
__________________________________________________________________________
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 08 Feb 2015
Source: South Bend Tribune (IN)
Copyright: 2015 South Bend Tribune
Contact: vop@sbtinfo.com
Website: http://www.southbendtribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/621
Author: Howard Dukes

ALEXANDER ADDRESSES NEGATIVE IMPACT OF DRUG LAWS

It would seem that the decision to invite Michelle Alexander, author of
the book "The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of
Colorblindness," to speak Monday at Saint Mary's College was inspired by
stories ripped from recent headlines.

Instead, Mana Derakhshani, a French professor and associate director
of the Center for Women's Intercultural Leadership at Saint Mary's,
says part of her interest in the book stemmed from her desire to find
good material for a faculty reading group.

"Originally, I ran across her book when it first came out, and I was
intrigued by the title," Derakhshani says. "Still, I didn't read it
right away, but I was intrigued by the title and I wanted to read it,
and when the faculty decided that they wanted to do a reading group,
several (people) thought that this would be a good one."

Derakhshani says those discussions took place prior to the unrest in
places such as Ferguson, Mo., after a grand jury decided not to indict
Officer Darren Wilson after an altercation with Michael Brown that
resulted in the unarmed teenager being shot and killed. The grand jury
believed Wilson acted in self-defense after Brown reached for the
officer's weapon, while the Brown family believes that the shooting
was a deadly example of the type of overly aggressive policing that
has fostered fear and mistrust of police in minority
communities.

Alexander's book focuses on the role that the war on drugs played in
the explosion of incarceration rates starting in the early 1980s, as
well as the devastating burden that having a felony conviction places
on the lives of the nonviolent offenders who comprise the overwhelming
majority of people arrested, convicted and eventually returned to
their communities after doing their time. Still, Alexander, who was
not available for an interview, believes that laws that mandated
different sentences be imposed on those caught with powder cocaine as
opposed to crack cocaine, court rulings broadening the ability of law
enforcement to detain and search people suspected of drug crimes, and
the militarization of police forces nationwide are connected to the
long-standing belief - the Rev. Martin Luther King even touched on
allegations of police brutality in his "I Have a Dream" speech - that
law enforcement in minority communities is sometimes
heavy-handed.

The title that attracted Derakhshani's attention refers to the period
between the end of the Civil War and the passage of the Civil Rights
Act of 1964 when Southern states passed a series of laws aimed at
eliminating the citizenship rights of the former slaves. A law
professor at The Ohio State University, Alexander believes that the
war on drugs similarly makes it impossible for those returning to
society after serving drug sentences to engage with mainstream society.

Derakhshani says Alexander's lecture comes at an important time for
reasons beyond the recent tragedies in places such as Ferguson and New
York.

"Locally, with (the dispute over) the ticketing (of students for
certain disciplinary violations), that forces us to address it back
this school-to-prison pipeline," she says.

Saint Mary's students Markie Harrison and Laura Early both say they
are looking forward to attending Alexander's lecture.

Harrison says she became interested in the book while in high school,
and it became a source for her senior paper at Saint Mary's.

"I've been very interested in the criminal justice system and its
relation to race, and so I decided to do my senior composition paper
on the television show 'Law & Order' because it's a very popular show
and I wanted to examine how race was represented in that television
show."

Early says she caught snippets of an Alexander lecture, most likely on
C-Span, while channel surfing, and what the professor said remained
embedded in her consciousness.

"I heard this lady speak at a college lecture hall, and I kind of
tuned in a little bit and she was saying how the prison system is a
replica of the Jim Crow laws," Early says. "I forgot about it, but
when it was time to pick topic, I told my adviser that I wanted to do
it on mass incarceration and injustice within the prison system. She
mentioned to me that Alexander had a book on mass incarceration titled
'The New Jim Crow,' so I got the book and I read it and I was addicted
to it. I was just in awe."
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
MAP posted-by: Matt

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 16 Feb 2015
Source: Boston Herald (MA)
Copyright: 2015 The Boston Herald, Inc
Contact: letterstoeditor@bostonherald.com
Website: http://news.bostonherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/53
Note: Prints only very short LTEs.
Author: Julia Purdy
Note: Julia Purdy is a freelance writer residing in the Rutland, Vt., area.

POT'S JUST ONE TOKE OVER THE LINE

What if Vermont legalized recreational marijuana? A report from the
Rand Corp., commissioned by Gov. Peter Shumlin - in anticipation of
legislative action - addresses that question, including an assessment
of the potential for the state to make some money off the weed.

Rand looked at the likelihood of Vermont becoming a destination for
marijuana buyers from out of state.

Here we learn, "There are more than 1 million U.S. current
(past-month) marijuana users within a two-hour drive of Vermont and 5
million within 500 miles ... Visitors from surrounding states and
Canada present an opportunity in terms of tax and fee revenue from
marijuana sales and complementary goods but a potentially very large
burden in terms of public nuisance, traffic safety, and enforcement costs."

The report is mum about the potential collateral damage to
surrounding states, nor does it provide any warning that said states
might object to such goings-on in their backyards. Clearly, their
reactions would be out of Vermont's control.

In fact, this conundrum is already the basis for Nebraska and
Oklahoma v. Colorado, a lawsuit filed in December directly with the
U.S. Supreme Court. The lawsuit alleges that Colorado's 2012
recreational marijuana law is creating a cross-border nuisance. It
asserts that cannabis contraband is spreading to the those
neighboring plaintiff states and resulting in injury to them by
"draining their treasuries, and placing stress on their criminal
justice systems."

"Cross-border nuisance" was addressed in a 1907 lawsuit in which
Georgia sued to force Tennessee to shut down a copper smelter whose
airborne toxic fumes endangered the health of Georgia residents. The
issue was - and is - that states are prohibited by the Constitution
from subjecting their neighbors to harmful and uncompensated effects
of those activities.

In a paper published last December entitled "Fear and Loathing in
Colorado" Chad DeVeaux and Anne Mostad-Jensen, both of Concordia
University Law School, point out that "Colorado's introduction of
recreational marijuana into the stream of interstate commerce has
reawakened this long-dormant body of constitutional law."

One of the hopes of marijuana legalization is that it would make the
local illegal market wither and die. But it would be naive to assume
that cannabis products would not leave Vermont as contraband in
luggage or in private vehicles, feeding the illegal drug trade of the
neighbor states, potentially taxing their law enforcement, courts,
and medical services.

Idaho State Police report that most of its drug seizures have been at
the border with Washington state. So far, Idaho has not launched a
similar lawsuit against Washington state.

In any case, the term "marijuana tourism" is a euphemism for a
regional smuggling operation, of which Vermont would be the
epicenter. It would put neighbor states in a spot they might not want to be in.

That is unless the Massachusetts Legislature decides to get there first.
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sat, 14 Feb 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: Bella English

LEFT IN THE LURCH ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA

It can happen any time, at home or, as it did recently, in public:
Cindy and Keith Gedick of Palmer had to bundle their daughter out of
a bookstore when she began to have a screaming meltdown. They were
followed by a few customers who thought the little girl was being abused.

"We call it the red zone," says Cindy. "You can't touch her; you
can't talk to her. She's just unglued."

Such fits are a fact of life for the Gedicks and the reason they
would eventually seek out medical marijuana. Besides having epilepsy,
Rebekah, 4, was born with an abnormal hippocampus, the part of the
brain that regulates memory and emotional behavior. Her issues
include seizures and out-of-control tantrums that leave her red-faced
and perspiring.

After Rebekah was prescribed drugs with side effects that included
serial vomiting - and which failed to stabilize her behavior - the
Gedicks did some research and got a doctor's approval for medical marijuana.

But with no dispensaries open in Massachusetts, they cannot obtain
it. The options used by other patients - finding a "caregiver" who is
allowed under state law to provide a limited supply to one person,
legally growing their own, or getting it through the illegal black
market - are out of the question for them for practical and personal reasons.

Cases like the Gedicks' put a human face on the hardship the lengthy
dispensary delays have placed on patients for whom the interim
system, which most participants agree is complicated and flawed, has
worked either poorly or not at all. That includes those with a need
who have found themselves unable to obtain medical marijuana, and
others who have faced struggles - sometimes resorting to illegal
means - to get a drug that by now should be as available as any other
prescription.

More than two years after voters approved medical marijuana, no
facilities have launched because of licensing delays by the state
Department of Public Health. Though 15 sites have finally been
chosen, the first one, in Salem, won't open at least until late
spring. Initially the law envisioned that there would be as many as
35 nonprofit facilities ready by the end of 2013.

For the Gedicks, it's the not-so-simple matter of getting what they
need. Cindy Gedick says her family requires the services of a
dispensary. They don't know the strains of cannabis and the ratio of
its compounds that would benefit Rebekah: "We would need to
experiment with several different strains to see what works best for
her. We need a dispensary that offers that atmosphere."

The Gedicks are hardly alone in their frustration. Four years ago,
Vivienne Simon, 64, was diagnosed with ocular melonoma. Though the
eye tumor was successfully treated, she fears the spread of bad
cells, which occurs in half the cases, and has been unable to get a caregiver.

Simon knows that medical marijuana can help ease the discomfort
associated with chemotherapy, but like a number of cancer patients
she believes that it may also prevent a recurrence. "I'm worried this
thing can get into my lungs or liver," she said. "The only thing
Western medicine can offer me is 'Good luck,' or some horrible
treatments with terrible side effects."

A life coach and lawyer, Simon tried for months to find a caregiver
online. The leads she got either had a client already, or didn't respond.

It's not surprising. Problems surrounding caregivers have been among
the thorniest ones confronting patients. A number of medical
marijuana advocates and patients say the legitimate caregiver market
is tight because state regulations changed from allowing them to grow
or procure medical marijuana for five patients - as was approved by
voters - to just one patient soon after the law passed. Reacting to
increasing reports of caregivers taking on multiple clients, the
state moved to crack down on the practice this summer.

Also the process of finding a trustworthy supplier has been anything
but transparent. Those involved with medical marijuana say that the
caregivers operate in a legal gray area, with few qualification
requirements and little oversight about the source and quality of
what they sell. The state is in the process of trying to register
them but finding a caregiver and vetting him or her remains the
responsibility of patients and usually takes the form of patient networking.

"It's not the Department of Public Health's role to help find
caregivers for patients," says Scott Zoback, acting director of
communications for the DPH. "Massachusetts has a dispensary-based system."

Some law enforcement sources - and some caregivers themselves - have
expressed dismay over what they consider online sales by people who
don't know medical marijuana.

"Not many people would risk all the negative aspects to grow for
someone else," says Michael Fitzgerald, who with his wife, Melissa,
owns New England Grass Roots Institute in Quincy, where they have
taught more than 700 people with a range of health issues about
medical marijuana. "I know about 10 real caregivers who do this for a
loved one," he says. Some others, in his view, are little more than
drug dealers.

Simon contacted the American Civil Liberties Union, which directed
her to the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy Alliance, a coalition of
medical marijuana patients and their families, caregivers, and health
professionals who support safe access to it.

She got the name of a caregiver near the Rhode Island border but
discovered that he would have to work "under the table," since he
already had another client. Through an online cancer support group,
she tried to get what she needed from a California dispensary, "but
that got very complicated."

Other patients have been able to get what they need, but their paths
have been anything but straight.

Tezla Mayorga's son Peter was 16 when the medical marijuana law
passed. Peter, who suffers from bipolar disorder, had hit a rough
patch. He was kicked out of school, began cutting himself, punched
holes in the walls of their Revere home, and left suicide notes.

After he had a bad reaction to antidepressants, his mother began
researching medical marijuana. It was a difficult decision. Mayorga
grew up middle-class in Honduras, a culture where marijuana is
considered something "for street people." But when her only child
began a downward spiral, she decided to give the treatment a try.

Mayorga took a course at New England Grass Roots and learned more
about medical marijuana. She got written permission from a doctor but
was at a loss as to where to obtain it. "I don't even know the
language to use," she says. "I didn't know where to turn."

jonathan wiggs/globe staff

Fitzgerald, in Quincy, teaches people with a range of health issues
about medical marijuana.

Through online networking, she found what she considers a reliable
source who also supplies others. It is not apparently legal nor has
it been easy. She works long hours as a chef at a catering company
and drives an hour each way to get the marijuana. But she says it is worth it.

Peter, who inhales the fumes through a vaporizer, is calmer and eats
and sleeps better, Mayorga says. "I'm not ashamed of it. To me, this
is medicine, it is like milk for my son."

One young woman started using it for lupus after getting clearance
from a doctor. A friend gave her a plant, which she put in the
family's backyard for a while, in an affluent Boston suburb. Her
mother, a nurse married to a financial planner, wasn't thrilled about
having it in their yard and was concerned about gossiping neighbors.
And the daughter found the plant difficult to maintain, especially in
winter, so she connected with a caregiver who supplies her.

Still, the mother would rather go to a dispensary than a caregiver
"so we can know what we're getting."

For the woman with lupus, medical marijuana has been a godsend. She
was being treated with heavy-duty medications, including
chemotherapy, which made her sicker. "Medical marijuana has helped
with pain, appetite, sleep and anxiety," says her mother.

Beyond the practical hurdles, the family has also faced a less
obvious problem: concerns about social disapproval. They do not want
to be identified for fear it could jeopardize their jobs or
scandalize their neighbors. Though medical marijuana is inching its
way out of its stoner-image closet, there are still those who fear a stigma.

"Both my husband and I come from Irish-Catholic families," says the
mother, who is 57. "People have negative perceptions of marijuana,
but we're not doing anything wrong. We're following all the rules."

But going through the front door of a dispensary will ease their
worry about stigma. "It will be more in the open," says the mother.
"We are in the shadows now."

Simon, the cancer patient, is thinking of taking a course at New
England Grass Roots so that she can learn to grow her own. Like the
rest of these patients she can't understand why the state has dragged
its feet. "Let's just get the ball moving and get people what they
need," she says. "This is medicine, not entertainment."
__________________________________________________________________________
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---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Feb 2015
Source: Buffalo News (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The Buffalo News
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/GXIzebQL
Website: http://www.buffalonews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/61
Author: Lee Coppola, News Book Reviewer
Note: Lee Coppola is a former print and TV journalist, a former
federal prosecutor and the retired dean of St. Bonaventure
University's Journalism School.

A TOUGH NEW WAY OF LOOKING AT THE 'WAR ON DRUGS.'

Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs

By Johann Hari

Bloomsbury

389 pages, $27

Johann Hari spent three years gathering material for "Chasing the
Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs." Most of it was
traveling the world and talking to people connected with the drug
trade. Through them, and through his research, he tells the story of
drugs, their maladies and benefits.

And through them, he formulates two surprising conclusions.

Meet Chino. a she who wanted to be a he. She/he was abandoned by her
mother, then raised by a grandmother who fought her granddaughter's
gender confusion. So Chino turned to drugs, then to dealing. The he
in she was Brooklyn street-tough, and Chino formed the Souls of
Mischief, a crack-dealing gang. She/he was 14.

Meet Leigh Maddox, a streetwise Baltimore cop who infiltrated the
local Ku Klux Klan but then turned to the drug war in tribute to her
best friend, who was waylaid by a drug gang, sexually assaulted and
left in a vacant house for animals to ravage her body.

Meet Juan Manuel Oguin, who knew death from the moment of birth in
Cuidad Juarez, where violence reigns among the drug cartels. Juan is
an "angel." He wears feathered wings and roams the streets of his
native city urging the drug lords to seek forgiveness for their
crimes. He knows he'll probably meet a horrible demise for his
efforts, but he doesn't care.

Meet Gabor Mate, a Vancouver doctor who helped change the mindset of
his city's drug enforcers by convincing them it was far better to
treat addicts as humans than to revile them as society's dregs.

Chino, Leigh, Juan and Gabor and others all play an important part in
Hari's storytelling. But the major roles belong to what the author
calls the Mount Rushmore of the drug war - Harry Anslinger, Billie
Holiday and Arnold Rothstein.

Anslinger was the nation's drug czar long before the term had been
created. As head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, he ruled
ruthlessly - J. Edgar Hoover-style - over a cadre of agents with the
premise that all illegal drugs and those that sell and use them are
evil. But it was through Anslinger that Hari found a thread in the
fight against drugs that persisted throughout his research. Simply
put: it was not a war against drugs, it was a war spawned by racism.

Writes Hari:

"The arguments we hear today for the drug war are that we must
protect teenagers from drugs, and prevent addiction in general. But
they were not. They crop up occasionally, as asides. The main reason
given for banning drugs - the reason obsessing the men who launched
the war  was that the blacks, Mexicans and Chinese were using these
chemicals, forgetting their place, and menacing white people."

Anslinger's mantra, in his words, was, "The increase (in drug
addiction) is practically 100 per cent among Negro people. The Negro
population ... accounts for 10 per cent of the population, but 60 per
cent of the addicts."

Enter Billie Holiday, the raspy-voiced singer whose fame as an
entertainer paralleled her fame as a drug user. She was a slow moving
target for Anslinger's crusade.

Born in a Baltimore slum to a prostitute, Holiday was raped by a
neighbor when she 10, then told she tricked the man into having sex
with her. She was sent to a reform school, then to a convent tended
by nuns stricter than prison guards. It didn't take her long to become defiant.

And that defiance led her to a stint as a prostitute and to saloons
where she found she could sing ... and people listened and wanted
more. It was a world of blues and booze with drugs as an ever present
companion.

To Anslinger, taking down Holiday meant taking down a culture he
abhorred. He assigned his only black agent to track her every move,
then a band of agents in support, following her from club to club and
from hideaway to hideaway. They eventually succeeded and Holiday
spent a year in prison.

But that wasn't enough for Anslinger. As she lay dying in a Manhattan
hospital at 44, Anslinger's agents paid her a visit and said they
found a small packet of heroin in her room, hanging on a nail in a
wall six feet and out of reach from her bed. They charged her with
possession but she avoided prosecution ... by dying.

If Anslinger was the nation's first drug czar and Holiday the
symbolic prey, then Arnold Rothstein was the first drug lord and the
third prong in the author's drug triumvirate.

Rothstein reigned over a criminal empire in the 1920s during the
height of Prohibition and the millions in illegal profits it provided
the underworld. But Rothstein's bailiwick was drugs, specifically the
organized receipt and distribution of drugs.

He ran his operation like a Fortune 500 business, suffocating the
petty drug gangs that warred each other over minimal quantities.
Rothstein, who fixed the 1919 World Series and kept police and
prosecutors in his back pocket, bought in bulk and employed a
disciplined cadre of hoodlums who ensured his investments were protected.

His organization controlled the drug trade throughout the eastern
seaboard and, in Hari's analysis, forged the template for drug
distribution in future decades.

But the author does not limit his work to illegal drugs. He also
delves into the increased use of prescription drugs, the ones that
dull the pain and give relief to the suffering. But, he asks, why do
some grow addicted to the pain killers while the vast majority don't.
His answer: the addicted turn to them to relieve the stress of daily
life, especially, he writes, a middle-class life that's been
crumbling even before the economic crisis pick-axed it.

And he looks for solutions in places where drugs have been legalized,
places like Portugal and even Washington state and Colorado, albeit
only marijuana there. But he has a simple premise for legalizing
drugs, a premise built around allowing medical professionals to
determine the need for drugs, thereby eliminating the need for drug
dealers to find customers so they can make money.

After all, he muses, it worked in a drug clinic in England, where
prescribing drugs destroyed the network that sold them illegally amid
violence and turmoil. "When you prescribe heroin, fewer people are
recruited to use heroin," he writes. And "when you prescribe cocaine,
fewer people are recruited to use cocaine."

So back to his major conclusions. The first, already mentioned, that
the drug war was initiated in the United States to root out
minorities, especially blacks. The second the author determined from
his visits to clinics, his research and his meetings with drug users
and those who treat them.

Addiction, Hari surmises, stems from troubled upbringings. troubled
encounters, troubled lives. The solution, if there is one, he opines,
comes in recognizing the circumstances of addiction, in treating
addicts like humans rather than criminals. His travels, he writes,
convince him that once they feel worthwhile, they change.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 16 Feb 2015
Source: Tulsa World (OK)
Copyright: 2015 World Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@tulsaworld.com
Website: http://www.tulsaworld.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/463

MED MARIJUANA

House OKs Limited Use

We applaud the state House for voting 99-2 last week to legalize use
of an active marijuana ingredient for the treatment of severe
epileptic seizures in children.

Earlier this year, Gov. Mary Fallin urged the state to legalize
nonintoxicating medicinal cannabis oil - CBD - on a supervised basis
for children suffering from severe seizure disorders.

While CBD is derived from cannabis, Fallin has opposed any broader
legalization of marijuana. We think that's a pretty good read of
where the people of Oklahoma stand on the issue too.

Limited use of CBD for trial studies is a compassionate and prudent
course of action. We hope that the Senate will see it that way as
well and approve House Bill 2154 by Rep. John Echols, R-Oklahoma City.

Some parents firmly believe CBD helps, or could help, their young
children, and they want it available so that families do not have to
go through the inconvenience, expense and upheaval of leaving the
state to seek treatment.

The House pursued a prudent course in approving limited, supervised
use of medical marijuana, but we can't see any broader legalization
of medical marijuana in Oklahoma at this point.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 10 Feb 2015
Source: Dallas Morning News (TX)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/F0W8cYkT
Copyright: 2015 The Dallas Morning News, Inc.
Contact: http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/send-a-letter/
Website: http://www.dallasnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/117
Author: Jane Sadler
Note: Dr. Jane Sadler is a family medicine physician on staff at
Baylor Medical Center at Garland. She blogs at health blog.dallasnews.com.

A DOCTOR'S VIEW OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA

As a primary care provider, I'm used to seeing medical trends emerge.
Right now, I'm paying close attention to the debate over marijuana
legalization.

Colorado launched legal recreational marijuana sales on Jan. 1, 2014.
Last month, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported
that Colorado health care providers have experienced "unexpected
health effects" from the widespread use of marijuana. JAMA
contributors report the state has seen an increased number of
patients with severe burns from butane-ignited flash fires. According
to their experts, butane is used to extract tetrahydrocannabinol, or
THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

Researchers also found that Colorado hospitals have seen increased
numbers of emergency room visits for cyclic-vomiting syndrome. This
syndrome is characterized by recurrent episodes of nausea, vomiting
and colicky abdominal pain and is due to frequent use of highly
concentrated THC-containing products.

Most concerning are THC health effects found among Colorado's
children. Numbers of children brought to the emergency room for
unintentional marijuana ingestion are increasing. For example: One
study found that in the two years after Colorado loosened laws on
medical marijuana in 2009, 14 children were admitted to one Colorado
community hospital for ingestion of edible marijuana products, and
seven of those children were placed in intensive care. In the four
years before the laws changed, that hospital had no such cases, said
the study, which appeared in JAMA Pediatrics in 2013.

The study said that most of these ingestions were in the form of
marijuana-laced food products - such as candies, baked goods or soft
drinks - and that grandparents were often the source.

Despite these dangers, evidence supports marijuana use for its
significant medical benefits in some medical conditions, and many
states allow medical marijuana use.

THC has proven antiinflammatory effects ( Inflammatory Bowel Disease,
2013) for people with significant bowel diseases. Studies are
underway to develop marijuana-infused drugs that could reduce the
incidence of seizures in treatment-resistant patients ( Epilepsy
Behavior, 2013). Marijuana is known to benefit people with chronic
pain and under controlled prescribing and specific dosing schedules
may be safer than opioids (such as Vicodin or OxyContin) for chronic
pain management.

Notably, states with legalization of marijuana have up to 25 percent
fewer opioid-related deaths, according to an August article in JAMA
Internal Medicine.

I have known several patients to augment pain medications with
marijuana for improved symptom relief. This practice, of course, is
against medical advice and is highly illegal. I never support
breaking the law. Many physicians have concerns about side effects of
concomitant marijuana use with prescribed pain medications, including
heart-related complications in those with underlying heart disease.
The Journal of the American Heart Association reported last year that
cannabis use alone poses a significant risk factor for heart disease
in young people.

Many chronic pain patients suffer depression. The British Journal of
Psychiatry reported in 2002 that THC use is associated with worsening
of anxiety, underlying depression and other psychiatric disorders. On
the contrary, the Journal of Neuroscience in 2007 reported marijuana
to be a "potent" antidepressant at low doses but agreed with the
prior study that it may "worsen depression" at high doses, confirming
the need for close medical monitoring of its use.

We have a lot to learn from Colorado's legalization of marijuana. As
a physician, I have many concerns with uncontrolled over-the-counter
marijuana use. Sure, it is natural, but so is tobacco; natural does
not mean that it is necessarily good. In addition, inhaling marijuana
could damage lung tissue.

If so many people use marijuana to manage pain or depression, then
health care providers need to do a better job of finding safe
treatment solutions. In Texas, medical providers currently cannot
prescribe THC or marijuana for pain.

The American Academy of Family Physicians "recognizes that there is
support for the medical use of marijuana but advocates that usage be
based on high-quality, patient-centered, evidence-based research and
advocates for further studies into the use of medical marijuana and
related compounds."

I intend to remain a cautious observer with an eye of interest for
what treatment options will hold in the near future.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: www.flcan.org
Pubdate: Sat, 07 Feb 2015
Source: Tampa Bay Times (FL)
Copyright: 2015 St. Petersburg Times
Contact: http://www.sptimes.com/letters/
Website: http://www.tampabay.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/419
Page: A4

DRIVERS DRINKING LESS; MORE USE DRUGS

WASHINGTON - The number of drivers on the road with alcohol in their
systems has declined by nearly one-third since 2007, but there has
been a large increase in drivers using marijuana and other illegal
drugs, a government report released Friday found.

The report by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said
the share of drivers who test positive for alcohol has declined by
more than three quarters since the agency first began conducting
roadside surveys in 1973.

But the latest survey, conducted in 2013 and 2014, also found that 22
percent of drivers tested positive for at least one drug that could
affect safety. That includes illegal drugs as well as prescription and
over-the-counter medications.

The anonymous surveys have been conducted five times over the past 40
years. They gather data in dozens of locations across the country from
drivers who agree to participate.

Mark Rosekind, head of the safety administration, credited efforts to
curb drunken driving for the decline in drivers who test positive for
alcohol, but said 'there is no victory as long as a single American
dies in an alcohol-related crash.' About 8 percent of drivers during
weekend nighttime hours were found to have some alcohol in their
system, and 1.5 percent were found with 0.08 percent or higher breath
alcohol content - the legal limit in every state. Drivers with any
alcohol in their systems and drivers testing greater than 0.08 percent
were both down by about 30 percent from the previous survey in 2007.

At the same time, more than 15 percent of drivers tested positive for
at least one illegal drug, up from 12 percent in 2007. The number of
drivers with marijuana in their systems grew by nearly 50 percent over
the same period of time, from 8.6 percent in 2007 to 12.6 percent in
2014.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Matt

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Feb 2015
Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright: 2015 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact: letters@dispatch.com
Website: http://www.dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/93
Author: Rob Hotakainen, McClatchy Newspapers

POT FROM COLO., WASH. SEEPING INTO OTHER STATES

WASHINGTON - When Colorado and Washington won permission from the
U.S. Justice Department to begin selling marijuana in retail stores,
the states promised to keep the drug inside their borders and away
from children.

It has not been easy for them to do so.

Even before Colorado opened its recreational pot shops last year,
when only the sale of medical marijuana was legal, the state had a
reputation as a top pot exporter.

In 2013, 40 states intercepted marijuana that came from Colorado,
with Missouri ranked first in the number of cases, followed by Texas,
Illinois, Oklahoma and Kansas, according to the Rocky Mountain High
Intensity Drug Trafficking Area program. While no final count has
been released for 2014, there's been no stop in the seizures.

In Washington, Michael Botticelli, who was confirmed last week as the
director of national drug control policy, told the Senate Judiciary
Committee last week that an increase in cross-border trafficking of
pot is now a "serious concern," and that he wants to fight it.

In Seattle, the Washington Poison Center said last month that
marijuana-related exposures rose 56 percent to 246 in 2014. Teenagers
were involved in the most incidents, followed by children younger
than 12. They got sick from products such as marijuana-infused
chocolate bars, brownies and gummy bears. Many of those came from the
state's unregulated medical dispensaries, since the recreational
shops, which opened last summer, cannot sell items that appeal to children.

With Colorado reporting a similar increase in pot-related poison
calls last year, critics say it's clear that both states are doing a
poor job controlling marijuana.

"The elephant in the room that hardly anyone wants to acknowledge is
that Washington and Colorado are not implementing legalization
particularly well," said Kevin Sabet, president of the
anti-legalization group Smart Approaches to Marijuana. "Marijuana is
pouring over to border states, despite campaign promises to the
contrary. Calls to poison centers are up, and the big marijuana
corporate lobby is as strong as ever."

Before Washington state opened its first pot stores last July,
Democratic Gov. Jay Inslee promised "an all-hands-on-deck effort" to
keep marijuana out of the hands of minors.

Colorado is taking most of the criticism, partly because it has a
longer history of sales. Colorado got a six-month jump on Washington
state, opening its first retail stores on Jan. 1, 2014.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 15 Feb 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
Note: The Washington Post

STONED DRIVERS A LOT SAFER THAN DRUNK ONES

WASHINGTON - A new study from the National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration finds that drivers who use marijuana are at a
significantly lower risk for a crash than drivers who use alcohol.

And after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers
who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than
who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving.

For marijuana, and for a number of other legal and illegal drugs
including antidepressants, painkillers, stimulants and the like,
there is no statistically significant change in the risk of a crash
associated with using that drug prior to driving. But overall alcohol
use, measured at a blood alcohol concentration threshold of 0.05 or
above, increases your odds of a wreck nearly seven-fold.

The study finds that the measurable presence of THC (marijuana's
primary active ingredient) in a person's system doesn't correlate
with impairment in the same way that blood alcohol concentration does.

The NHTSA doesn't mince words: "At the current time, specific drug
concentration levels cannot be reliably equated with a specific
degree of driver impairment."

In heavy marijuana users, measurable amounts of THC can be detectable
in the body days or even weeks after the last use, and long after any
psychoactive effects remain.

Several states have passed laws attempting to define
"marijuana-impaired driving" similarly to drunk driving. Colorado,
for instance, sets a blood THC threshold of 0.5 nanograms per
milliliter. But that number tells us next to nothing about whether a
person is impaired or fit to drive. The implication is that these
states are locking up people who are perfectly sober.

A companion study released by the NHTSA identified a sharp jump in
the number of weekend night-time drivers testing positive for THC
between 2007 and 2013/2014, from 8.6 percent to 12.6 percent.

Numbers like these are alarming at first glance. They generate plenty
of thoughtless media coverage. They're used by marijuana legalization
opponents to conjure up the bogeyman of legions of stoned drivers
menacing the nation's roads.

But all these numbers really tell us is that more people are using
marijuana at some point in the days or weeks before they drive. With
legalization fully underway in several states, there's nothing
surprising about this.

"The change in use may reflect the emergence of a new trend in the
country that warrants monitoring," the NHTSA study concludes.

So, should we all assume that we're safe to blaze one and go for a
joyride whenever the whimsy strikes us? Absolutely not.

There's plenty of evidence showing that marijuana use impairs key
driving skills. If you get really stoned and then get behind the
wheel, you're asking for trouble.

What we do need, however, are better roadside mechanisms for
detecting marijuana-related impairment. Several companies are
developing pot breathalyzers for this purpose.

We also need a lot more research into the effects of marijuana use on
driving ability, particularly to get a better sense of how pot's
effect on driving diminishes in the hours after using. But this kind
of research remains incredibly difficult to do, primarily because the
federal government still classifies weed as a Schedule 1 substance,
as dangerous as heroin.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom

xxx