WHY WE NEED A DRUG SUMMIT
NSW has been hit by an ice-berg. Rates of ice use and detection are crashing through the roof and have now reached pandemic proportions.  Experts have compared the crisis to the crack cocaine scourge that hit the United States in the 1980s.
It’s a problem that’s careering out of control, and the Liberal State
Government doesn’t have a clue what to do about it.

Trust me, I know—because I’ve seen this crisis first-hand.
As a criminal lawyer (who mostly deals with legal aid clients) much of my work involves defending people who are struggling with drug addiction and/or mental health issues.
I am constantly frustrated by the inability of our legal system to adequately deal with people who need treatment, not punishment. Our system is geared around the idea of incarceration as a disincentive for people who use and/or deal to use drugs.
I cringe every time I hear a conservative politician talking about “tougher sentences” as an effective deterrent to drug-related crime.
Let’s get something straight—a person in the grip of addiction will
do anything to get their next hit. They are being controlled by the
drugs, not by the thought of a prison sentence if caught engaging in criminal activity.
NSW has the highest prison population of all states, reaching 10,917 in 2014, a 13 per cent increase from 2013. Three-quarters of the inmates have been charged with drug-related crime. Over half of those released from prison today will re-offend and return within two years.
Given that it costs around $100,000 to house one prisoner for one
year, it’s clear that our one-size-fits-all reliance on custodial
sentences comes at a great financial and safety cost to the community.

If we want to address drug-related crime then we have to break the
cycle of addiction and offending.

And the way to break that cycle is through intervention and
rehabilitation. That means providing options such as accessible
diversionary programs and more drug rehabilitation centres inside and outside prisons.
My struggle in the courtroom is to find a way through the legal system
that allows my clients to access treatment for their addictions so
that they can get their lives back on track and contribute positively
to the community.

My passion for law reform, however, doesn’t just come from
professional experiences—it’s also a product of my own personal
journey.

About nine years ago, I was working as a music photographer and
producer and was well and truly immersed in the lifestyle.

After a while the party lifestyle started to take its toll, and eventually it all came crashing down when I was caught dealing with about $250 worth of cocaine. I took full responsibility for my behaviour, my matter went to court and I was not convicted.
As it turned out, getting arrested was the best thing that ever happened to me. It allowed me to break out of a destructive lifestyle and start over.
I went to the Buttery Residential Rehabilitation Centre near Byron Bay and completed a six-month program. When I came out of the Buttery I was a different person, and someone who wanted to help others find their way back to lead a meaningful life.
I enrolled in a law degree and graduated with honours.
Five years later I was able to return to my university to receive an
award as the law school alumni of the year.

I proved to myself that with the right motivation, and the right support, you can escape the vortex of drugs and alcohol and have a productive life.
I hope that my story can help others escape the traps of alcohol and drug dependency, but the occasional cautionary tale from someone who has come out the other end is not enough.
If we are to overcome the ice epidemic then we need a concerted
government-led, community-wide strategy.

We need to look back to 1999, and learn from the Carr Labor Government’s successful response to the heroin epidemic that was gripping Sydney at the time.
Bob Carr recognised the problem, and called a Parliamentary drug
summit to find solutions.

The key insight arising from the summit was to stop treating heroin addiction as a legal problem, and start treating it as a medical problem.
The Carr Labor government took courageous, but life-saving steps, like introducing the Kings Cross medical injecting room.
15 years later, we face a new enemy—the destructive and fiercely
addictive drug ice.

It’s time we again called together the best and brightest minds to
find effective solutions to this crisis.

That is why State Labor is supporting a second drug
summit.

It’s time the Liberals made the same commitment.
Edwina Lloyd is state Labor candidate for the seat of Sydney.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Mon, 19 Jan 2015
Source: Tribune, The (India)
Copyright: The Tribune Trust, 2015
Contact: letters@tribuneindia.com
Website: http://www.tribuneindia.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5042
Author: Deepanker Gupta

DRUG SMUGGLING RAMPANT IN UDHAMPUR
Conviction rate dismal, most accused acquitted due to insufficient
evidence

There has been a significant increase in drug smuggling in Udhampur district, but the conviction rate has been a dismal 4.6 per cent over the years.
According to official data, 110 cases have been registered in Udhampur in the past five years but the accused in a majority of these cases managed to go scot-free.
As 74 km of the 300-km-long Jammu-Srinagar National Highway passes through Udhampur district, adjoining areas of Udhampur become temporary haven for smugglers.
Many times, drug smugglers are arrested and produced in court, but they get acquitted as investigating officers fail to produce sufficient evidence.
“It is a routine that higher officials publicise arrests of these
smugglers as major achievements but at later stages in court, the
accused gets acquitted as the evidence submitted by the prosecution is not sufficient to prove the guilt of the accused under the NDPS Act.  Many times, investigating officers help the accused in such a way that the offense is not established in the court of law,” alleged Dinkar Gupta, a lawyer working in Udhampur.
A senior police officer said, “We try our best to arrest the culprits.
The Udhampur police, in the last one week, succeeded in arresting four
smugglers from the periphery of the town and seized more than 6 kg
charas and 35 kg of poppy straw. We have also submitted a report to
the higher authorities for procurement and installation of full body
scanners to be installed at the Jakheni check point so that every
vehicle coming from Srinagar is thoroughly scanned for drugs as well as weapons.” Out of four arrests, two youths were locals.
Reports sent by Intelligence Bureau from Udhampur suggest that smugglers have made temporary transit camps in Krimachi, Sattani, Jib Thathi, Battal Ballian and other areas in the periphery of Udhampur while taking drugs from the Valley towards Punjab and other parts of the country, often through the Dhar road.
“If you go through the records of the last ten years, all the narco
smugglers arrested are only couriers and small players in the game and
to date, no kingpin has ever been caught by the police, which in
itself raises a question mark,” said a senior intelligence officer on
the condition of anonymity.
 

[sidebar]
110 cases filed in five years
As 74 km of the 300-km-long Jammu-Srinagar national highway passes through Udhampur district, smugglers make temporary transit camps in adjoining areas of Udhampur
Intelligence Bureau reports suggest that smugglers have made such camps in Krimachi, Sattani, Jib Thathi, Battal Ballian near Udhampur for taking drugs from the Valley towards Punjab and other parts of the country, often through the Dhar road
As many as 110 cases have been registered in Udhampur in the past five years but the accused in a majority of these cases managed to go scot-free
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MAP posted-by: Matt
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Mon, 19 Jan 2015
Source: Bangkok Post (Thailand)
Copyright: The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2015
Contact: postbag@bangkokpost.co.th
Website: http://www.bangkokpost.co.th/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/39
Page: 8

DRUG WAR IS FLAGGING
A couple of major developments have taken place against the backdrop
of the battle against drugs. The two cases seem to illustrate the two
extremes of this long fight. In Thailand, suit-clad officials from
four countries agreed politely to set up an information-sharing
headquarters. No one is in charge. The specific goals are not just
unstated, but appear not to exist. In Indonesia, at the other end of
the pendulum, prison authorities yesterday brought six convicted drug dealers - five of them foreigners - to the killing stakes for execution by firing squad.
The Indonesia action drew predictable protests. In a span of more than 30 years, Southeast Asian countries have executed several hundred people convicted of serious drug offences. Only a tiny handful have been actual traffickers. Most of those hanged, shot or drugged have been “mules”, the lowest ranking of all drug sellers.
The stark truth is clear. Executing low-level drug smugglers and
peddlers has not changed anything about the trade. It has not affected
the manufacture of drugs, the amount peddled, the attempts to carry it
across borders or, in the end, the wholesale or petty peddling of
drugs on the streets. Signs at immigration points warning of the
possible use of the death penalty for drug offences, and brochures
handed out by airlines saying the same, probably have scared some would-be smugglers. But not all of them.
The truth about the death penalty is that it still is threatened,
still is sentenced by the courts and still is carried out - although
not as often as in the past. Indonesia’s decision last week to send
five foreigners and a local to the executioner’s stake is a sign of
desperation. Unable to halt drug smuggling, unable to consider a new, better way to fight dangerous drugs, Indonesia merely vents its failure on mules and drug abusers.
The latest faltering step is the four-nation committee, established in
Chiang Mai last Thursday. Officials from Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and
China call it - of course - a hub against drug trafficking. The target
is supposed to be drugs smuggled along and across the Mekong River,
which is a long way from Chiang Mai. There is no one in permanent
charge of this Safe Mekong Coordination Centre. The head of the office
will be different each year, rotated by nationality. And to get
everything off to a rather unfortunate start, the Myanmar delegate
Myint Thein was allowed to make an unchallenged statement that boiled down to blaming ethnic minorities and countries that produce precursor chemicals for the methamphetamine epidemic.
Drug mules, drug peddlers and drug smugglers are violent criminals.  They deserve strong punishment. But the government must know that locking them up is barely noticed by drug merchants. The real enemies of Thai society are inside protected areas of Myanmar. They also are inside our institutions, corrupting government and security forces while directing the smuggling and money laundering on which the drug trade depends.
If governments continue to take the same actions against drug
smugglers, including executions, there will be no progress in
suppressing the trade. Similarly, if governments respond with more
committees like the one formed last week - more “task forces” without
strong leadership - there can be no progress in defending society
against trafficking. By employing tired old tactics, government is
actually throwing up its hands. Without a viable plan to catch and
shut down big traffickers, this criminal enterprise will not be stopped.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Tue, 20 Jan 2015
Source: Bangkok Post (Thailand)
Copyright: The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2015
Contact: postbag@bangkokpost.co.th
Website: http://www.bangkokpost.co.th/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/39
Author: Penny D Herasati
Page: 8

DEATH A LAST RESORT
In response to your editorial entitled “Drug war is flagging”, on Jan 19, the Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia in Bangkok wishes to state the following:
1. Indonesia is now confronted by drugs and precursor abuse, an
emergency that requires extraordinary measures. The Indonesian
government in exercising its constitutional duty to impose stern
actions within the framework of Indonesian laws against drugs-related offences which are regarded as one of the most serious crimes.
2. The execution has been imposed on anybody regardless of
nationality based on strong legal evidence and through a judicial
process. It is carried out as a last resort and only after all legal
options have been exhausted, including appeals and requests for
presidential pardons. The law stipulates that the death penalty is
exercised in accordance with the level of the offence, such as that
distributors, producers, and drug lords.

3. Drug-related offences pose a serious threat to the nation as abuse
is on the rise. In 2013, there were 4.5 million cases; this number is
predicted to rise to 5 million in 2015. We have around 4 million
narcotics addicts; about 4.4% are 10-19 years old, 9% are 20-29 years old, 3.7% are 30-39 years old, and 2.1% over 40 years. They are abusing about 2 tonnes of heroin, 49.5 tonnes of crystal meth, 147 million ecstasy pills and 242 tonnes of marijuana. An average of 1,500 Indonesians die every month to drugs-related abuse.
Penny D Herasati
Counsellor for Political, Security and Legal Affairs
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 2015
Source: Express & Star (UK)
Copyright: Express & Star, 2015
Contact: http://www.expressandstar.com/es/aboutus/feedback/letters.shtml
Website: http://www.expressandstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3092

ONLINE CANNABIS CULTURE ‘A CONCERN’
Experts have raised concerns about a thriving Twitter cannabis culture.
During a single month, researchers identified more than seven million tweets referring to marijuana, with “pro-pot” messages outnumbering those opposed to the drug by 15 to one.
Most of those sending and receiving “pot tweets” were under the age of 25, and many in their teens, said the team.
US psychiatrist and lead author Dr Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, from the Washington University Institute for Public Health, said: “It’s a concern because frequent marijuana use can affect brain structures and interfere with cognitive function, emotional development and academic performance.
“The younger people are when they begin using marijuana, the more likely they are to become dependent. A lot of young people will phase out of marijuana use as they get older, but unfortunately, we’re not good at predicting who those individuals are.”
The findings, reported in the Journal of Adolescent Health, follow a computer search of tweets conducted between February 5 and March 5 last year.
Working with social media analytics company Simply Measured, the researchers looked for every tweet that mentioned marijuana.
Using search terms such as “joint”, “blunt”, “weed”, “stoner” and “bong”, the team turned up more than 7.6 million tweets referencing the drug.
An examination of a random sample of almost 7,000 tweets from these accounts revealed that 77% were pro-marijuana, 5% against, and 18% neutral.
Dr Cavazos-Rehg added: “Many people believe marijuana use is harmless, and social media conversations almost certainly drive some of those opinions, making the drug appear socially acceptable.
“Although we can’t yet link pro-pot tweets to actual drug use, we should be worried because many people are receiving these messages are at an age when they are most likely to experiment with drugs and develop problems with substance use.”
People tweeting pro-marijuana messages had more than 50 million
Twitter followers - around 12 times more than those tweeting
anti-marijuana messages.

Pro-pot tweets were most commonly aimed at encouraging use of cannabis and its legalisation, and made claims about the drug’s health benefit.
And 10% of the pro-marijuana tweets were sent by individuals who said they were taking the drug or high at the time.
Anti-marijuana tweets often states that the drug’s users were “losers” or unproductive, or that taking cannabis is unattractive.
They also stressed that the drug was harmful, or that the person
tweeting was against legalisation.

The scientists focused their analysis on Twitter accounts with more
than 775 followers, as well as those with “Klout scores” of 44 and
above.

A Klout score measures social media influences on a scale of one to 100.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: Frontiersman, The (Wasilla, AK)
Copyright: 2015 Wick Communications
Contact: editor@frontiersman.com
Website: http://www.frontiersman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1532
Author: Brian O’Connor

FORUM CROWD PRO-POT, PRO-REGULATION
PALMER - Residents and local government officials appear cautiously optimistic about the future of marijuana in the Mat-Su Valley, based on discussion at Thursday’s meeting.
Some of the commentary heard during Thursday’s informal mayoral forum
which involved mayors of Wasilla, Palmer, Houston, and the Mat-Su Borough - focused on specific policy recommendations, like the suggestion that a limited number of licenses be offered, and be
initially awarded via lottery. Other recommendations, like a speaker who urged officials to adopt specific regulations only as specific problems arose, were more general.
For example, MEA project manager and power investigator Yukon Tanner said any approach to legalized marijuana should include provisions allowing for inspections based on power use.
Because marijuana is often grown indoors, it has in the past required large amounts of power, which law enforcement agencies, including the Alaska State Troopers, have often used as probable cause to raid marijuana-growing operations. That, in turn, often leads growers to steal electricity using wiring shunts around meters and other measures.
“We have collected as much as $278,000 from one individual,” he said.  “We would like you to consider some provision for utility inspection or utility oversight of these operations so we’re assured that whatever power used is paid for.”
“We certainly want to sell some,” Tanner added. “We have a new power plant we want to pay for.”
Another specific proposal by Walter Christolear was to set a total
number of nontransferable permits, then void and add to the permit
pool as business owners leave the industry. Christolear also
suggested a set number and range of hours of operation, and that
scales used to measure product should be inspected by the Office of Measurement Standards and Commercial Vehicle Enforcement’s Weights and Measures section.
“I think the state should have a marijuana control board, and not
have it regulated by the alcohol control board, because they are
inundated with alcohol problems,” he said. “I think if you had two
separate entities, it would work a lot simpler.”

Others, like Bill Fikes, suggested a more unregulated industry would maximize potential economic benefits.
“I think you need to look at minimalistic regulations,” he said.
“Give us the opportunity to self-regulate. When you see a problem
come up, then approach regulation.”

“For over 3,000 years, marijuana’s lived perfectly peacefully with mankind,” Fikes added. “There has never been a death reported from marijuana use, until about 80 years ago, we made regulations about it and we started shooting each other over it.”
While specific proposals abounded, some specifics about the law are
presently unknown. For example, the ballot measure states that the
bill legalizing marijuana should take effect 90 days after the
election’s certification by the Lieutenant Governor, though officials
think that means a range of dates, from Feb. 24 to Feb. 26, are the dates personal use provisions could go into effect, according to borough attorney Nicholas Spiropoulos.
Enthusiasm for the measure varied considerably among the borough’s
three incorporated municipalities. In the two precincts within the
Palmer city limits, voters narrowly voted to approve the legalization
of marijuana, 52 percent to 48 percent. In the lone City of Houston
precinct, voters approved the measure 57 percent to 43 percent. Of
the borough’s three cities, Wasilla alone rejected the measure, 53
percent to 47 percent. More broadly, Valley voters as a group
rejected the measure.

The tone of mayoral enthusiasm for the debate largely reflected these measures. Wasilla Mayor Bert Cottle pledged the city would hold it’s own open forum on the subject.
Palmer Mayor Delena Johnson publicly campaigned against the measure during her unsuccessful bid against Rep. Bill Stoltze for a Senate seat, but said she would reflect voter’s wishes going forward.
“I’m thankful that this issue offers so much control to local government,” she said. “I stand by the quote ‘The government closest to the people governs best.’”
At least two state legislators listened to a portion of the meeting
via teleconference. Stoltze was unavailable for comment Friday,
because he was travelling back from Colorado. Rep. Shelley Hughes said she had listened to large portions of the meeting. While Hughes is uncertain how the legislature could or should approach the issues surrounding recreational use, the measure may create political room for legislators to address needed reforms to the medical marijuana statutes, she said.
“A lot of votes were won and moved in the yes column on this bill
believing it solved the medical marijuana problems,” Hughes said.

Even if the Alcohol Control Board ended up taking point on the issue, it would need to add experts in marijuana, Hughes said.
Speakers at the Thursday forum appeared to pin a lot of economic hope on marijuana’s potential, like Daniel Palmer.
“This has great potential of becoming a major industry within the
state of Alaska, funding a lot of projects and other issues within
the state. How many of you have noticed gas prices are down?” he said. “This might be the one thing that saves us, because people are going to be out of work with the North Slope companies.”
“This has great potential to be abused or of great benefit to
taxpayers and our voters,” Palmer added.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: Kirk
Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2015 The Arizona Republic
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Authors: Gina Berman and Ryan Hurley

‘BIG MARIJUANA’ IS ALREADY HERE
Advocates: ‘Big marijuana’ is already here, and it’s not those pushing for a regulated industry. We call it the cartel.
In Sheila Polk and Merilee Fowler’s guest column (“Why ‘Big Marijuana’
must be stopped,” Viewpoints, Jan. 10), they naively refer to “Big
Marijuana” as a greedy monster that will be created if a regulated
system for marijuana is put in place.

We have news for them. Big Marijuana already exists, and it’s called the cartel.
These are criminals who will rape, murder and steal to sell drugs to our children, and they were created and enriched by the very prohibition that Polk and Fowler advocate we maintain.
We tried prohibition in this country once and it didn’t work.
Prohibition created gangsters and criminals and did little to stem the supply of alcohol.
Prohibition won’t work for marijuana, a substance, by the way, that is objectively far less harmful than the legal substances alcohol and tobacco.
Everyone can agree on one thing: We should do our best to keep marijuana out of the hands of our young people. Prohibition has been a spectacular failure in this regard. Ask high-school students and they will tell you unequivocally that marijuana is prevalent and being sold at their school every day.
Drug dealers don’t check ID.
As a contrast, look at the success we have had convincing young people not to smoke cigarettes. According to the Centers for Disease Control, cigarette smoking by high-school students is at its lowest rate in 22 years.
Why? Not because we made cigarettes illegal. Instead, we taxed, we regulated, we demanded that sellers vigorously check ID, and we used the tax revenue to provide kids with real information about the dangers of smoking.
But for marijuana, our policies remain dangerously in the past. It is
time for a more intelligent approach. Polk, Fowler and other
prohibitionists must not have paid much attention on the first day of
high-school history.

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat
it.

Dr. Gina Berman and M. Ryan Hurley are president and treasurer,
respectively, of Marijuana Policy Project of Arizona.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 21 Jan 2015
Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/Ay5RkEOQ
Copyright: 2015 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/0n4cG7L1
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/376
Author: Leonard Pitts Jr., Miami Herald

SOMETHING OBSCENE ABOUT CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURES
Imagine this: You get pulled over by police. Maybe they claim you were seven miles over the speed limit, maybe they say you made an improper lane change. Doesn’t matter, because the traffic stop is only a pretext.
Using that pretext, they ask permission to search your car for drugs.  You give permission and they search. Or you decline permission, but that doesn’t matter, either. They make you wait until a drug-sniffing canine can be brought to the scene, then tell you the dog has indicated the presence of drugs - and search anyway.
Now imagine that no drugs are turned up, but they do find a large sum
of money and demand that you account for it. Maybe you’re going to a
car auction out of state, maybe the money is a loan from a relative,
maybe you just don’t trust banks. This is yet something else that
doesn’t matter. The police insist that this is drug money. They
scratch out a handwritten receipt and, without a warrant, without an arrest, maybe without even giving you a ticket for the alleged traffic violation, they drive away with your money.
You want it back? Hire a lawyer. You might be successful  in a year or two. Or you might not. Either way, it’s going to cost you, and if the amount in question is too small, getting an attorney might not be practical. Would you spend $5,000 to (maybe) recover $4,000? No. So the police keep your money  your money  and you swallow the loss.
You find that scenario far-fetched? It’s not fetched nearly as far as
you think.

Just since 2008, there have been more than 55,000 “civil asset
forfeitures” for cash and property totaling $3 billion. And for every
actual drug dealer thus ensnared, there seems to be someone like Mandrel Stuart, who told The Washington Post last year that he lost his business when police seized $17,550, leaving him no operating funds. Or like Ming Tong Liu, who lost an opportunity to buy a restaurant when police took $75,000 he had raised from relatives for the purchase.
So one is heartened at last week’s announcement from Attorney General Eric Holder that the federal government is largely abandoning the practice.
The civil asset forfeiture has been a weapon in the so-called “War on
Drugs” since the Nixon years. Initially conceived as a way to hit big
drug cartels in the wallet, it has metastasized into a Kafkaesque
nightmare for thousands of ordinary Americans. Indeed, the Post
reports the seizures have more than doubled under President Barack Obama.

Now the administration is pulling back. Not that Holder’s
announcement ends the practice completely  state and local
governments are free to continue it on their own. What ends, or at
least is sharply curtailed, is federal involvement, i.e., a program
called “equitable sharing,” under which seized property was “adopted” by the feds, meaning the case was handed off to Washington, which took 20 percent off the top, the rest going into the local treasury.
Ask your local law enforcement officials if they will be following
Holder’s lead. And if not, why not?

Because  and this should go without saying  in a nation with a constitutional guarantee against “unreasonable searches and seizures” there is something obscene about a practice that incentivizes police to, in essence, steal money from law-abiding citizens and leaves said citizens no reasonable recourse for getting it back.
Yet, this is precisely what has gone on for years without notice,
much less a peep of protest, from we, the people  proving yet again
that we the people will countenance great violence to our basic
freedoms in the name of expedience. The insult compounding the
injury? The expedience didn’t even work and has had no discernible impact on the use of illegal narcotics. To the contrary, that usage has thrived under the “War on Drugs.”
Sadly, the Constitution has done less well.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jan 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

WHAT’S UP, DOC?
I got my 215 card on a drippy early afternoon. It took about an hour
and a half, but a good portion of that was spent in the waiting room
even though I had an appointment. The whole business felt doctory and friendly - if a little rougher around the edges than your average clinic visit.

Let’s back up. I, like many people who grew up in Humboldt County,
started experimenting with marijuana for fun in my teens. That
continued through my early 20s until I realized that getting high
just wasn’t for me - it brought on, or at least exacerbated, anxiety
and a general young-adult malaise.

So why, now, seek a medical marijuana recommendation? I’ll admit, at least part of it was simple curiosity. I’d heard from several people it was remarkably easy - show up claiming some malady, pay your fee and boom, it’s legal for you to grow, possess and purchase pot.
Larger motivation was for work, having taken on the pot beat. I’ve been to events with 215 areas I’m not allowed to visit. I want to see what the patients see; to visit dispensaries and experience what they experience (maybe without the high). I wanted to see behind the curtain of a fascinating and still relatively new medical industry.
I’m a generally healthy person. But I had no intention of trying to deceive or exaggerate my way into a recommendation, so I walked into the clinic that day with two problems I suspected might get me approved for medical pot. First, I tweaked my back in my late teens playing basketball, and it’s been an off-and-on problem since.
Second, I’ve got general anxiety - another thing that comes and goes depending on what life’s throwing at me.
I don’t consider either of those undiagnosed afflictions
debilitating. Would they be enough for me to get a doctor’s
recommendation for marijuana?

Stepping into the clinic (which I won’t identify), was like entering
a doctor’s office in an ever-so-slightly alternate universe. I filled
out my paperwork on an overstuffed couch instead of a stiff chair.
Posters hung on the walls in place of nutritional charts. It all felt
a bit slapdash, as though they hadn’t really cleared the remnants of whatever business previously occupied the space. But my nerves eased as the young men checking in patients chatted amiably with the six to eight other people - all men, ranging from early 20s to late 60s, from work boots to dress shoes - who came and went in the time I was there.
When it was my turn, I was ushered back to see a nurse, who sat under an Einstein poster asking me questions that I had mostly already answered on the medical forms. “What’s the pain like? Is it chronic?  Have you treated in the past with marijuana?” She asked if I knew about CBDs (THC’s non-stoney, potentially medicinal cousin present in certain strains - I did), and lamented that marijuana remained illegal at all. She took my pulse, my blood pressure.
Then, into another little room, where I sat in front of a computer
monitor waiting to Skype with a doctor. After a couple minutes he
popped up on the screen, introduced himself, read my ailments back to me, reiterated some legal language and boom: a 12-month recommendation in less than 60 seconds.
Was it easy? Yes. The assembly line approach felt impersonal, but that makes sense, given that it’s vastly different from other health care practices. People don’t go there for a thorough evaluation or a breakdown of exactly what marijuana product is best for them; it’s just a middle step between patients’ primary care provider and their dispensaries.
It’s like getting your doctor to acknowledge something’s wrong, then
going to the pharmacist to ask what will help. Luckily, we have
top-notch marijuana pharmacists; in a year of writing the Week in
Weed, I’ve met a lot of dispensary owners, employees and advocates who care deeply about getting the right medicine to the right people.
More than 2,000 people have been issued medical marijuana cards in Humboldt County since 2004, according to the California Department of Public Health - 78,000 statewide.
Many of those cardholders probably had a plan when they walked out of
the clinic. Maybe others, like me, felt it was more of an exercise -
a potential tool - than the beginning of a treatment plan. Others
wanted to expand their options, to explore how marijuana could help.
With the right pharmacist, they’ll be in good hands.
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Pubdate: Sat, 24 Jan 2015
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/aKEzTPYA
Copyright: 2015 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Joe Garofoli
Page: A1

MAJOR MYSTERY OF MARIJUANA - JUST HOW POTENT IS THAT POT?
The multibillion-dollar marijuana industry is booming, but it has not
yet grown up. Unlike nearly every industry its size, the cannabis
business lacks uniform standards and methodologies to measure the potency of its products.
That inconsistency raises safety concerns that could challenge the legitimacy of the industry and attract more heavy-handed government regulation.
“What do peanut butter, Sambuca and ibuprofen all have in common?” asks Randall Kruep, CEO of Sage Analytics, a new company pitching a $50,000 device that can analyze the strength of cannabis in seconds.  “If you take a shot or two of Sambuca, you know what it’s going to do to you. But that’s not always the case here.”
California’s medical marijuana industry has few guidelines regarding labeling. States in which recreational use is legal have some oversight of labeling and packaging. The federal government has no role because it still considers marijuana to be an illegal drug.
With such uneven government-mandated standards, the industry is starting to monitor itself. The cannabis business is now embracing the rigors of science and labeling - and the biotech industry sees an opportunity.
On Friday inside a Fisherman’s Wharf hotel, 200 people - most of them chemists, biotech researchers and statisticians - gathered to exchange ideas, share the results of experiments and take the first steps in creating uniform pot potency standards at the first Emerald Conference. It was organized by Emerald Scientific, a San Luis Obispo company that bills itself “Your Cannabis Science Distributor.”
It was more like a science fair than a Phish concert, and nary a whiff of weed could be detected. When one presenter - a chemist - asked how many people in the room had a scientific background, most hands shot up.
Outside the conference room several companies displayed technology designed to quickly analyze the potency and chemistry of cannabis. If the industry is going to go mainstream, many say accurate labeling requirements are a must.
“You can eat a (marijuanainfused) cookie and you don’t know if
there’s 10 milligrams in it or 1,000 milligrams until about an hour
later - and then your day is ruined,” said Josh Wurzer, president of
SCLabs, a 5-year-old Santa Cruz laboratory that is one of the nation’s oldest.

The aim here was to prevent another Maureen Dowd incident.
Columnist ate pot candy
The New York Times columnist became, in her words, “the poster girl
for bad pot trips” when she chronicled freaking out after eating a
marijuana-infused candy bar last year in Colorado, where recreational
marijuana use is legal. Dowd ate a couple of bites of a candy bar
that was supposed to be broken up into 16 individual doses. Since
then, Colorado has strengthened its labeling requirements on edible marijuana products.
Much of the technology on display Friday to detect the potency of pot is already used to analyze products in the food and pharmaceutical industries. Some see opportunity in a market that is about to burst wide open.
“I know the word ‘disrupt’ gets overused,” Kruep said, “but that’s
what we’re doing here.”

Still, creating industry-wide standards will not be an easy task for
a sector that has spent so long in the shadows of legality.

Even though 23 states and Washington, D.C., have legalized medical cannabis, and Colorado and Washington state have recreational sales, the federal government still considers it illegal. President Obama, however, gave the industry a boost of encouragement this week when he said his administration will not “spend a lot of resources trying to turn back decisions that have been made at the state level on this issue.”
“My suspicion is that you’re going to see other states start looking
at this,” Obama said.

Advocates celebrated the president’s nod to legalization campaigns as a tacit green light.
Legalization to be on ballot?
With that in mind, many conference-goers feel an urgency to move
quickly to adopt standards, particularly in California. It is a near
certainty that a ballot measure legalizing marijuana will be before
voters in November 2016, and early polls show it has a lot of support.

The sooner that the cannabis industry can craft its own standards, “the less chance that they will be imposed on them from government,” said Ken Snoke, president of Emerald Scientific.
Kruep compared this moment in cannabis history to the fledgling days of the commercialized Internet.
“There were quite of few different industry players who had to get
organized so the Internet could work, so it could scale and move
forward,” Kruep said. “The early days of the Internet were wild Wild West days just like this. But the industry largely took care of itself.”
The growth of the cannabis market is luring companies from other
industries. Shimadzu is a scientific instruments company that has
long sold its products to the pharmaceutical industry. But now, by
selling $30,000 machines that analyze the potency of pot, the
California marijuana industry has become one of the company’s
fastest-growing markets.

“It’s very strange,” said Drew Abrams, a sales engineer with Shimadzu, as he stood near one of the company machines. “A couple of years ago, you couldn’t talk about this at work. Now you can’t go to work and not talk about it.”
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Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/sxPEvkmS
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@utsandiego.com
Website: http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it’s circulation area.
Author: David Garrick

SAN DIEGO COULD BECOME COUNTY’S MEDICAL POT MECCA
No Other Cities in the Region Have Given OK to Dispensaries
SAN DIEGO - With every city in the county declining to allow medical marijuana dispensaries except San Diego, the city could become a sort of mecca for legal pot in the region.
From Poway to Ocean-side to Imperial Beach and Santee, people seeking legal medical marijuana will have to rely on the roughly 30 dispensaries expected to start opening in the city of San Diego this spring, or the one dispensary the county government allowed to open last summer near El Cajon.
That’s because voters in six cities - Del Mar, Encinitas, Imperial
Beach, La Mesa, Lemon Grove and Solana Beach - have rejected
dispensary ballot measures since 2012. And the elected leaders in several other cities, including Chula Vista and Ocean-side, have voted to ban dispensaries.
Advocates for legal marijuana say the smaller cities are depriving
sick people of convenient access to medicine they need.

“The unfounded fear of marijuana is causing people in convalescent
care facilities and hospitals - people that really need it - not to
be able to get it,” said Marcus Boyd, vice chair of the San Diego
chapter of Americans for Safe Access. “Trying to hide it from
everybody is keeping it from the people who need it the most.”

Opponents of legalized marijuana, however, applaud the county’s other 17 cities for refusing to budge, and they say San Diego is making a huge mistake by joining nearly 50 California cities that allow legal dispensaries.
“It’s too bad the city of San Diego didn’t follow the lead of their companion cities all around them,” said Scott Chipman, leader of San Diegans for Safe Neighborhoods. “Somehow, San Diego thinks it’s smarter than everyone else.”
Advocates say if other cities don’t follow San Diego, there will be an increase in pollution and clogged roads, because people will be forced to frequently make long trips to San Diego for pot.
They also say suburban cities will struggle to eliminate illegal pot
shops because the demand won’t go away, prompting new illegal
dispensaries to open every time one gets shut down.

One thing that could change the dynamics might be deliveries, which the dispensaries in San Diego will be allowed to make across city lines.
But advocates said delivery charges could sharply inflate prices, and they questioned how many San Diego dispensaries will be interested in delivering to faraway places like Vista or Julian.
Lance Rogers, legal counsel for the California Cannabis Industry
Association, said he’s optimistic that many of San Diego County’s
other cities will begin allowing legal dispensaries in coming years,
because that’s been a pattern across the state.

In every region of California, large cities such as Los Angeles and San Francisco have typically legalized dispensaries first, and many of their suburbs have then followed.
For example, Oakland began allowing legal dispensaries in 2004, and San Francisco followed suit in 2005. Since then, the Bay Area suburbs of San Mateo, Richmond and San Leandro have OK’d dispensaries.
“Once there is a track record in the larger cities, the surrounding
smaller cities come online after that,” said Rogers, adding that
slowly increasing familiarity with marijuana and dispensaries could
also help. “It was a foreign idea, but it’s become a lot less foreign idea.”

Jessica McElfresh, an attorney representing groups trying to open legal dispensaries in San Diego, said another reason to believe more local cities might allow dispensaries is the ballot measures in Encinitas and La Mesa last November.
While voters rejected proposals to allow dispensaries, they came
closer to passing than four similar measures in 2012.

The La Mesa measure got 46 percent support, and the Encinitas one got 44 percent, while in 2012 a measure in Solana Beach got 38 percent, one in Lemon Grove got 40 percent, one in Imperial Beach got 42 percent, and one in Del Mar got 44 percent.
“It’s particularly significant that the percentages shrunk, because
2012 was a presidential election when higher turnout typically
helps,” McElfresh said. “That suggests we may be able to break
through in 2016.”

Michael Cindrich, executive director of San Diego’s chapter of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said his group is exploring additional ballot measures for 2016 and encouraging residents to pressure their elected leaders.
City councils in the county’s two largest cities after San Diego - Chula Vista and Oceanside, will apparently need lots of convincing.
Chula Vista’s council voted to ban dispensaries three years ago, citing concerns about crime, violence, increased use by minors and people without medical need gaining access to a drug that’s still illegal under federal law.
Last June, Oceanside did the same, contending dispensaries would be a bad fit for the community and could lead to crime and more drug use by young people.
“I believe it’s just not right for us,” said Deputy Mayor Esther
Sanchez. “It’s just too easy to get a letter from a doctor saying
that you can use marijuana for medical purposes.”

After years of debate and controversy, San Diego went the other direction last winter and approved an ordinance allowing dispensaries but sharply limiting where they can open.
Four dispensaries are poised to receive final approvals from the San Diego Planning Commission this winter, with the first scheduled for Thursday. Thirty-four other applicants are further back in the approval pipeline, but the city ordinance sets a maximum of 36.
Another variable in the equation is the possibility Californians will
vote in 2016 to legalize recreational marijuana, following the lead
of Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska.
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Pubdate: Fri, 23 Jan 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/Ecdoorqq
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@utsandiego.com
Website: http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it’s circulation area.
Author: Morgan Lee

SMUGGLING BY DRONE NEW THREAT AT BORDER
Drug smugglers at the U.S. border with Mexico are taking their first uncertain steps into the fast-evolving world of airborne robotics, as U.S. authorities rush to address a new vulnerability.
A small drone crashed Tuesday evening at a Tijuana shopping mall a short distance from the San Ysidro border crossing. Strapped to its underside were six packets of methamphetamine weighing about seven pounds.
Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said agency officials in San Diego have been preparing for drone smuggling for six months after receiving a tip that drug traffickers might try out the technology.
“It’s the newest threat and vulnerability that we’re facing because
they’re very difficult to detect,” she said.

She declined to discuss what tools U.S. authorities have at their
disposal to deal with small drones.

“We’re trying to make sure this doesn’t become a bigger problem,”
Mack said. “This is the first we’ve seen of it, and it did not
succeed and that is good news.”

U.S. customs officials have yet to intercept any drones smuggling
narcotics across U.S. borders, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration said the technique is unlikely to be very profitable.

Over the years, drug smugglers have surmounted border fences and patrols with everything from slingshots to ultralight aircraft. They have burrowed underground tunnels between warehouses and installed railways and ventilation systems.
Drugs have been swallowed in capsules and surgically packed inside pets, and at border crossings, drugs are frequently hidden in secret compartments within vehicles.
In another new twist, drug smugglers this year have targeted cars and
drivers with access to the SENTRI trusted traveler lanes at San
Ysidro by placing containers with powerful magnets under their
vehicles, The Associated Press reported Thursday.

Smugglers apparently then recovered the illegal cargo far from the
view of border authorities in the United States. Police seized about
13 pounds of heroin from underneath one vehicle this month after its
driver spotted the magnetic containers while filling up for gas in
the United States.

Advances in drone technology that have helped sell more than a million drones in recent years to hobbyists and some businesses could prove difficult to trace or intercept at the border.
Matt Maziarz, an editor at MultiRotor Pilot and Fly RC magazines,
said the remote control device that crashed in Tijuana could easily
be equipped to carry a payload as large as a 12-pound video camera.

Flight times can be stretched up to an hour, and drones can be
piloted as far as five miles as pilots watch for obstacles through an
onboard camera - despite guidelines by the Federal Aviation
Administration limiting flights to line of sight.

Sophisticated programmers have equipped drones to navigate by pre-set GPS coordinates, he said.
“It will literally pop up a Google map, and you can pinpoint where
the thing goes,” Maziarz said.

Those features are earning drones a starring role in everything from search and rescue operations to mending fences on vast farms, said Maziarz, who laments the use of the technology by criminals.
He said news of the smuggling attempt in Tijuana touched off a flurry of online discussions among afficionados of “multi-rotor” devices, who shun the word “drone” because of its military association.
Law enforcement can’t yet hack into drones, he contends, because remote control transmitters and receivers now hop between frequencies every millisecond.
“With the drones or with RC (radio controlled) aircraft there’s not much they can do without following it to wherever it goes or shooting it out of the sky,” he said.
In Tijuana, where the drone fell Tuesday night, the city government has purchased drones to evaluate traffic accidents, detect landslides and control wildfires.
Attorney John Davidson of St. Louis has been blogging about the
potential for smuggling by unpiloted aircraft for several years.

Drug cartels are almost certain to move into the technology as it becomes cheaper, considering past smuggling attempts using manned aircraft and crudely built submarines, he said. Drones that can be programmed to navigate on their own may be irresistible.
“What people are interested in is avoiding getting caught,” he said.
“They’re going to start thinking, ‘Do I send four or five at once?’ “
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Pubdate: Mon, 26 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/OZLzGLFb
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Ricardo Baca

APPLE SAYS NO TO SOME POT APPS
Dispensary Owners Lob Complaints Over Marketplace Shutout.
On the same November day that saw more than 1million people in Oregon, Alaska and Washington, D. C., vote to legalize recreational marijuana, a popular social media app rooted in the cannabis space was removed from Apple’s massive commercial marketplace known as the App Store.
“The App Store is one of the largest content distribution channels in the world, and we’d already been on there for 14 months,” said Isaac Dietrich, CEO of Denver-based social media outfit Mass Roots. “After we were taken down from the App Store, I called Apple back on election day and the guy said they had amended the App Store policy on cannabis social apps.
“I told him, ‘ You do know that Oregon, Alaska andD. C. are about to push legalization through.’ He said the executives in the App Store said this content isn’t the kind of content they want to see in the App Store.”
Apple told The Denver Post its policies on marijuana apps have not changed. Its legal guideline 22.1 says, “Apps must comply with all legal requirements in any location where they are made available to users.”
The typically private Apple would not comment on individual
companies’ complaints.

But Dietrich says something must have changed within the corporation recently. And his complaint against Apple isn’t the only one from the marijuana tech space.
While cannabis legalization continues to push forward in the U. S.,
there are countless roadblocks still awaiting the legal pot industry
especially given the plant’s precarious relationship with federal
law, which still lists marijuana as a Schedule I drug. The App Store’s strict restrictions could make the marketplace cannabis’ most heated tech battleground. After MassRoots’ petition to Apple secured more than 10,000 signatures in two weeks, several other pot-related businesses are starting to gripe publicly about their negative experiences with Apple.
Casey Eastman, a developer with Denver-based Weedmaps, said: “I’d be
surprised if I’m not pushing 20 rejections ( from Apple) in the last
couple of years. And that’s my professional record. But I guess
failure is part of experience.”

Zach Marburger, the CEO of Colorado-based development firm CannaBuild, said: “The issues with Apple have been all people are talking about in the last two weeks in the marijuana underground and the tech underground. If enough people cry foul, Apple will listen.”
New developments
Among developers’ complaints: An app or update is rejected without
explanation; Apple doesn’t like certain words or feature sets, but
they don’t always say which ones. Developers are forced to operate in
the dark, poking and prodding blindly, they say, wasting time and
money because the moderators of the App Store - which offers
1.4million apps in 155 countries-won’t explicitly say what’s OK and what’s not.

“We have 300,000- plus users on our iOS platform,” said Eastman,
whose employer Weedmaps directs users to legal pot shops and
dispensaries.”We’re leaning on Apple, and we need that out there.
Apple is going to find what works for them legally so they’re not
worried about repercussions from the government, but I wish they’d
communicate that: ‘ Hey, we’re worried about this, so we can’t allow
you to do this.’ Instead you submit it, and they say, ‘ No, that
won’t fly.’ You say, ‘ What about if we do this?’ They say, ‘ We look
forward to reviewing your app.’ “

And the app review process takes more time, often another week or two.
A spot in the App Store is essential for most successful companies.  In 2014 the App Store saw its billings grow by 50 percent when its apps generated more than $ 10 billion in revenue for developers, Apple said.
Eastman estimates that at least 30 percent of Weedmaps’ overall
traffic comes via its iOS app- a product that has taken hundreds of
hours to meet Apple’s guidelines. Some of the items Apple won’t allow
Weedmaps to include in its iOS app: pot menu prices, reviews,
coupons, any mention of the words “recreational,” “retail,” “adult
use” or “21- plus,” and even its 4: 20 alarm, Eastman said.

And what about the Android servicing Google Play?
“We haven’t had much of any resistance on Google Play and publishing for Android devices,” said Eastman, adding that recreational pot shops inColorado and Washington are listed on Weedmaps’ Android app, but not on its Apple app. “If we wanted to put an ( Android) update out today, we could do it with no resistance.”
CannaBuild’s Marburger has had the same experience,”We have an app that is a marijuana cooking calculator,” he said. “Android approved it in five minutes, and Apple denied it in 10 days.”
A technical advance
Back at MassRoots’ Denver headquarters, Dietrich and his team are stressed. Of the 230,000 users on their Instagram-like interface, 120,000 had downloaded its now-pulled Apple app. Whereas MassRoots was averaging 700 new sign-ups per day before the iOS issues, the company is now averaging only 400 - hardly the kind of trending a startup hopes for.
“We have great investors and a war chest to work with,” said
Dietrich. “But Apple is censoring the cannabis movement right now,
and it’s slowing down innovation in the cannabis industry to a
greater extent than the federal government. I can’t believe that (
Apple CEO) Tim Cook is letting this happen.”

MassRoots hosted the Marijuana Tech Startup Competition in September 2014 in Denver, and “almost every single app that came out of that weekend has been rejected by Apple,” said Dietrich.
But it’s not all bad news. When Marburger was first interviewed for this piece a few weeks ago, he was awaiting word back from Apple on his Whaxy app, which acts as an Open Table for pot shops and allows users to skip lines inside dispensaries.
A week later, Marburger heard back from Apple. Whaxy was approved.  But the CannaBuild team chose to fix a bug and resubmit it to Apple for approval.
“I just assume every submission will get rejected until they do otherwise, even if prior ones have gotten approved,” Marburger said.  “With Apple, we hope for the best but prepare for the worst.”
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Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jan 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

CREATING A NATIONAL CANNABIS BRAND MIGHT BE HARDER THAN YOU THINK
I ran across several stories about Bethenny Frankel, a reality show
personality, who, after apparently being spotted coming out of an
Aspen dispensary and tweeting her delight at the experience, is
rumored to be wanting to cash in on the cannabis business. Frankel developed the Skinnygirl ready-to-drink cocktail line, and “insiders” say she wants to sell a special strain that would not induce the munchies.
This is hardly news. Google “munchies and pot” and you’ll find
recommendations for strains that don’t necessarily force the
unsuspecting into wolfing an entire giant bag of jalapeno potato
chips in 15 minutes. Recent studies are indicating that cannabis
opens olfactory receptors, which then helps activate appetite. But
really, “the munchies” concept seems little more than a marketing
device, developed and perfected from the 1970s, when pot was highly illegal yet flourishing and depicted in a long parade of stoner movies and advertising, from Cheech and Chong and Animal House to Jeff Spicola in Fast Times at Ridgemont High up through Seth Rogen’s Pineapple Express.
What this really has to do with is branding, which in this case
involves taking a product nobody is particularly looking for and,
through association with a hypothetically “famous” person (I had
never heard of Frankel or Skinnygirl before this) induce people into spending money on said product.
A similar tactic is being carried out by the family of Bob Marley, who has already been selling men’s, women’s and children’s clothing, bags, hoodies, headwear and other decor under the late reggae star’s name for several years. In November, the family announced it was giving permission to use it on a new line of cannabis- and hemp-based products.
“The brand, dubbed Marley Natural, marks the first time the family’s name would adorn packages of cannabis products ranging from strains similar to those Bob might have smoked in his homeland Jamaica to concentrates, oils and infused lotions sold in countries and U.S.
states that have taken steps to decriminalize and legalize pot use
and sales,” according to a Reuters story.

It will be interesting to see whether Frankel or Marley will be able
to establish a national product line that will distinguish itself
from any of its competitors. Marley would seem to have the edge in
that he is the musician most associated with cannabis. But whether
people will line up and pay premium prices for “strains similar to
those Bob might have smoked” or a chic line of diet pot is still a
question mark.

Every national story I’ve read about Skinnygirl or Marley Natural
says that products will be in stores in states where cannabis is
legal, including Colorado, the latter perhaps by the end of this year
or early in 2016. And while it is possible that Marley Natural will
be available in Washington state - its operations are there - it
probably won’t be on Colorado shelves that quickly, if at all.

That’s because Colorado has fairly strict laws about cannabis
business ownerships. Bob Marley or Skinnygirl or anybody else who
wants to sell their products here would have to obtain a state
license, which requires a two-year state residency, and they must
create their products here.

It’s one of the most important Colorado cannabis regulations that, at least for now, helps keeps big business and out-of-state money at bay and gives local entrepreneurs a leg up while they try to establish their businesses for the longer haul.
That doesn’t mean that the Colorado law will be in place forever, and I’m guessing there are already those who are lobbying legislators for those very changes that would allow outside interests into the state.  But for the time being, Colorado won’t be seeing any national brands, at least for awhile. Besides being good for local businesses, it gives consumers more possibilities and choices that a national brand would most likely eliminate for expediency and efficiency.
An interesting story from Frisco: The Summit Daily in that mountain town reported that a local Holiday Inn tried to stop a cannabis dispensary from opening next door.
The fracas took place at a city council meeting January 13, when councilmembers were reconsidering and updating marijuana codes for retail and medical businesses. The hotel argued that its customers would be turned off by a dispensary and would then look elsewhere for lodging. Representatives said that families were complaining of cannabis odor in the hotel, and many were uncomfortable talking to their children about it. It even asked council to change zoning rules so that the hotel’s temporary quarters for employees would be considered full-time housing, which would disallow the dispensary.
Town officials, while passing some changes in the town’s regulations and code, shot down every one of the hotel’s arguments. More than one person reminded the owners that cannabis is legal in Colorado, and that parents do their children a disservice by not talking to them about it.
And is legal cannabis hurting the lodging business? Being a ski town, frequent users of the hotel include racers, which prompted a response worth repeating from Tom Wilkinson, a former ski coach and now Frisco mayor.
“Believe me, I coached ski racing for a long time,” he said. “And if
you can find a ski racer that doesn’t smoke pot, I’ll give you $100.”

You can hear Leland discuss his most recent column and Colorado cannabis issues each Thursday morning on KGNU.
http://news.kgnu.org/category/features/ weed-between-the-lines/
Respond: letters@boulderweekly.com
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Pubdate: Wed, 21 Jan 2015
Source: Colorado Springs Independent (CO)
Column: CannaBiz
Copyright: 2015 Colorado Springs Independent
Contact: letters@csindy.com
Website: http://www.csindy.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1536
Author: Bryce Crawford

THE HERBAN FARMER DEBUTS, SOUTHERN COLORADO GROWERS UNITE AND MORE
Green acres
Peter Wells is the former owner of a general-contracting company, a former resident of Nebraska farmland, and current owner of the Herban Farmer (2755 Ore Mill Road, #13, verabestura.com), so named after Wells bought Advanced Cure for Vera Bestura and relaunched the business Dec. 18. Former ownership is hanging around to aid the transition, meaning no immediate changes, but Wells knows exactly what he wants to do going forward.
“I love plants,” he says. “Especially this plant.
“The organic method is a big deal to me. I’ve been working on a hot
soil that I’ve been developing, honestly, for probably the last eight
or 10 years to get it dialed in. And then also experimenting and
coming up with, honestly, what I feel is the best compost I’ve ever
come across. We don’t end up ever having to do any supplemental feeding; with the compost, it keeps out diseases and pests, so we never end up needing to treat it.”
Wells says he’s working with a number of breeders to bring in “a lot of very high genetics” and expects to offer two high-CBD strains, as well as what he calls the best OG kush lineup in southern Colorado.  “We’ve got the Skywalker, the Ghost, Face Off,” he says. “Got about 10 strains of OGs running right now, and we should have four or five really rare strains of it in the next month.”
Look for a grand-opening celebration in February.
With our powers combined ...
Growers and center owners in the Pueblo area have banded together to form the Southern Colorado Growers Association.
“The primary purpose of the organization is to push for policies that will bring tougher standards, to professionalize the industry and to keep cannabis out of the hands of kids,” reads a press release from the group.”Members of the organization include dispensary owners and cannabis growers. The growers include farmers growing for the purpose of industrial hemp and extraction of CBD cannabinoid oils for the treatment of epilepsy.”
The group says its organization represents some 1,300 jobs and $122 million in local economic impact. It also supports a state registry of caregivers. “With an impending national cannabis boom, Southern Colorado has the opportunity to be on the forefront and create real sustaining jobs,” says inaugural president Tommy Giodone in the release.
Keef crumbs
Those new to the plant can hit the PILLAR Institute for Lifelong
Learning (202 E. Cheyenne Mountain Blvd., visitpillar.org) from 1 to
3 p.m. on Jan. 29. Regina Wilson will teach “An Introduction to
Medical Cannabis,” focusing on its uses, history and various
legalities. The cost is $25.

Speak Easy Vape Lounge (2508 E. Bijou St., 445-9083) will host a 21-and-up comedy night at 8 p.m., Saturday, Jan. 24. $5 at the door, $2 with a red card.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 20 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/ysoYNLrh
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Jon Murray

FESTIVAL WILL MISS ACTUAL POT HOLIDAY
Organizers Can’t Extend Event to Include Monday.
Before organizers put together Denver’s first permitted 4/ 20 pro-marijuana rally seven years ago, Civic Center served as a magnet for ragtag gatherings of enthusiasts each April 20.
This year, it’s back to that old reality - in contrast to recent expanded 4/ 20 festivals that rolled out the green carpet for tens of thousands of people, plus vendors, for the all-important smokeout in solidarity at 4: 20 p. m.
The 4/ 20 fest likely will be back this year as a weekend event on
Saturday and Sunday, with political speakers and big-name music acts
dialed in with the marijuana culture. But timing- April 20 is a
Monday- and new Denver public event rules will keep the
almost-guaranteed gathering at Civic Center disorganized on the
annual pot holiday.

By that afternoon, the festival’s fences and stages and security
checks, first introduced last year, will be gone. Officials expect
plenty of people to show up Monday regardless.

Lead organizer Miguel Lopez applied to stretch last year’s Saturday/
Sunday festival combo into Monday, but city officials denied that
request. The city cited a moratorium this year on new events in
Denver’s big parks, including Civic Center, because the policy also bars recurring events from expanding their footprints or adding days.  The Denver Post recently reported on the 2015 public event limits.
Unorganized crowds
Denver police and the Office of Special Events say they will be ready for the possibility of unorganized crowds on April 20.
Festival organizers will have a deadline of noon that day to tear down their stages and fences, said Katy Strascina, executive director of the Denver Office of Special Events.
That’s several hours before the moment at 4: 20 p. m. that marks the climax of a day laden with countercultural significance because of pot fans’ focus on the number “4/ 20.”
“Obviously, we expect plenty of people to come down anyway,” despite
the lack of a sanctioned event, Denver Police Department spokesman
Sonny Jackson said. “We’ll be staffed appropriately and will take
appropriate measures that day,” geared primarily toward ensuring
safety rather than mass citations.

Typically, he said, the department shifts schedules before any expected large gathering or event with a need for a police presence to minimize or avoid paying overtime.
Cannabis Cup
Elsewhere in Denver, High Times magazine’s Cannabis Cup is expanding to three days so that it concludes April 20- a change that’s allowed because it’s hosted at the private DenverMart.
While Strascina said moving the two-day 4/ 20 festival to a Sunday/ Monday lineup was an option, Lopez said that change likely would have resulted in lower festival attendance, and lower proceeds for vendors and the nonprofit festival, throughout the day.
Lopez and others sparred with city officials last year in a standoff
over their request, later withdrawn, for the city’s blessing of
public marijuana consumption, despite a city ordinance against it. He says he doesn’t plan to test the issue this year.
But while Lopez says Strascina is treating organizers well as they
work out permit details, he suspects meddling from Mayor Michael
Hancock’s office.

“I don’t think the mayor’s efforts are anything but patronizing,”
Lopez said, citing Hancock’s opposition to Colorado’s marijuana
legalization vote in 2012. “The mayor’s moratorium will give a black eye to the city. ... He can’t change that around to make us look bad just because he lost ( on legalization).”
Mayoral spokeswoman Amber Miller says the 4/ 20 fest isn’t being
singled out, since the new restrictions apply to all events.

Rallies draw scorn
The 4/ 20 rallies have drawn scorn from public officials, especially
as a flashpoint over public pot-smoking. And in 2013, a shooting
injured three attendees.

City Councilman Charlie Brown, long a critic of the 4/ 20 event, said he was glad the organizers weren’t granted a third day.
“It’s still a bad image for our city and, I think, for spreading the
movement ( of marijuana legalization) to other states,” he said.

But Lopez says it’s important to celebrate Colorado’s expanded rights while calling for legalization at the federal level and pressing other civil-rights causes.
Without the festival on April 20, Lopez says he’s been talking with others about an idea for an unofficial gathering that day surrounding the State Capitol, where past requests for permits by marijuana activists have been denied.
He calls it a “big hug” of the state building, timed at 4: 20 p.m.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 21 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/IsB5ekmM
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: David Migoya

FIRM IN OREGON IS OPEN TO COLO.
Mbank’s The First Such Financial Institution to Cross State Lines.
An Oregon bank is openly offering service to the marijuana industry inColorado at a timewhen banks here are lurking mostly in the shadows.
MBank, based outside Portland, is part of a growing number of
financial institutions, mostly Washington based credit unions, that
are banking openly with marijuana businesses.

But it is the first to venture across state lines and the only bank to announce publicly that it is serving Colorado marijuana businesses.
The bank said it also is taking marijuana-related deposits in Washington, the other state where recreational pot is legal and has been serving Oregon-based medical marijuana dispensaries since September.
While some industry analysts see its announcement as somewhat brazen, considering pressure from regulators to keep any participation with the marijuana sector quiet, MBank officials say they’re confident it’s a good idea.
“It’s a bold maneuver and not one for a lot of folks to take on,”
MBank president and CEO Jef Baker said Tuesday.”We looked to
regulators, both state and federal, to help us come to the conclusion that we can do banking in this sector.”
The $ 165 million bank, in business since 1995, is putting trust in
what it said is “tacit approval” - bankspeak for acceptance that
isn’t in writing - from the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.

“We had to vet the program and expose ourselves to additional
audits,” Baker said. “But to be sure, we’ve put together something
that meets without objection, though not necessarily specific approval.”

An FDIC spokesman said the agency does not comment on bank operations.
MBank partnered with Guardian Data Systems to hook marijuana businesses. Already about five in Colorado have established accounts, Baker said, with about 30 other applications pending.
“Finding access to traditional banking services has been one of the
most daunting challenges faced by owners and operators in our
industry” said Lance Ott, principal at GDS, which is handling the
preliminary screening of account applicants.

“To date, there has not been a permanent ( federally) compliant
solution to the cannabis industry. With this partnership, cannabis
industry operators no longer must shield the nature of their business from banking institutions,” he said.
Only medical marijuana is legal in Oregon, although voters in
November approved recreational sales to begin in July.

Federal regulators have offered guidance to bankers willing to work
with the industry, mostly by requiring a restrictive set of rules and
filing reports about account holder transactions. Bankers balked at
opening their doors to the industry, at least publicly.

Some business owners offered anecdotes of account closures if even a hint of their participation became known to others. As a result, banks willing to work with the industry have remained a trade secret that businesses protect.
A number of business solutions - such as point-of-sale ATMs and credit-card processing machines - regularly are offered to marijuana shops, but all require the participation of a bank and the vendors aren’t willing to identify their partner.
For that reason, Colorado bankers doubt that MBank’s openness will work.
“I wonder if this bank will suffer the fate as those in Colorado that
tried to work openly, only to be told to close accounts,” said
Jenifer Waller, vice president of the Colorado Bankers Association.
“I’m not sure Colorado banks will step out again after this since
each test trial has met with the same result: closed accounts.”

Colorado Springs State Bank was the last to openly work with the
marijuana industry here. In October 2011, it closed about 300
industry accounts amid concerns about working with companies that violate federal law.
Marijuana remains on the government’s list of illegal drugs, and no bank has stepped into the light since.
That has not happened in the Pacific Northwest, where others willing to openly bank the pot industry have crept forward, including Washington credit unions in Olympia, Spokane and Seattle.
Although Colorado awaits the opening of the world’s first pot credit
union, that won’t happen until federal regulators approve a master
account for the Fourth Corner Credit Union to operate.

Baker said he wonders whether the institution will ever open.
MBank first took on Oregon based medical marijuana businesses in September after clearing its plan with state and federal regulators, but at the time it remained focused on dispensaries in that state alone.
That changed as the bank saw opportunity in “an underserved sector,” Baker said.
MBank won’t have a physical office or employees in Colorado. Cash deposits are to be picked up by contracted armored-car services and brought to a Federal Reserve System bank, such as the one located in downtown Denver. Deposits are then credited to MBank’s account and further credited to the account of the marijuana business.
“It’s all electronic and never physically crosses state lines,” Baker said.
MBank has established a limit of 35 new accounts for marijuana
businesses each month for the first year, which works out to be a
convenient number: 420.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 22 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/TLc5rNGA
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Ricardo Baca

Marijuana in the Mountains
NOW, X MARKS THE POT
Legalized Cannabis Is on the Map As Fans of Aspen’s Snow Sports Gala Descend on Stores and Ascend Hills.
A long-standing fixture in Aspen’s underground, marijuana will
celebrate a coming-out of sorts this week.

At last year’s Winter X Games in Aspen, the closest recreational marijuana shop to the extreme sporting action on Buttermilk’s slopes was at least 30 miles away.
Today, locals in Aspen, where the X Games run through Sunday, often find themselves giving directions to tourists based on the town’s five downtown pot shops - one of which just opened this week.
“This will absolutely be the stoniest X Games yet,” said Rhett Jordan, who owns six Native Roots pot shops in Colorado - including a just- opened store in Aspen.
While tourists surely will find themselves posing for selfies in front of the town’s pot shops, locals are wondering how the presence of legal cannabis will be felt throughout the region during one of the year’s busiest weeks.
“Aspen has always been a pretty open community, so it’ll be
interesting to see if anything has really changed, or it’s more up
front or what,” Silverpeak Apothecary owner Jordan Lewis said last week from his shop, which was one of the first pot stores open in Aspen. “I haven’t noticed the character of the town changing much. My guess: It’ll be more of a celebration this year for those folks feeling liberated to be able to legally purchase cannabis.”
With the bustling marijuana stores finally open in Aspen and an X
Games concert lineup that includes two of the best-known pot
advocates in pop culture - Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa - the 2015
Games will mark a specific point in history for Pitkin County.

“It symbolizes the change in Colorado over the last two years,” Jordan said.
420- friendly music
But exactly what kind of ganjafication will Aspen undergo in the coming week? In addition to a 420- friendly music lineup that rivals that of any Cannabis Cup, many of the communities surrounding Aspen- Basalt, Carbondale and Glenwood Springs included - also have their recreational stores ready to service visiting athletes, fans and hangers-on with Colorado-grown cannabis.
A private, marijuana-fueled after-party will keep the music pumping
well past closing time for four consecutive nights during the X
Games, with a recognizable guest list of athletes, celebs and pot
industry elite.

Pot’s unprecedented presence in Aspen won’t make for an absolute free- for- all. On one hand, the X Games’ drug-testing policy is nonexistent. The event does not drug test athletes, a representative confirmed to The Denver Post.
On the other, it’s against X Games rules to have or use marijuana
while in the event’s imprint, which includes the concert stage at
Buttermilk’s base. And it’s against Colorado law to use cannabis in any public space, something Aspen’s police department will be keeping an eye on.
“We are emphasizing education,” said Aspen Police Department
spokesperson Blair Weyer, also speaking on behalf of the Pitkin
County Sheriff’s Office. “The goal for law enforcement on the ground is to make sure that safety is being assured. It’s more of a peacekeeping goal.
“In the past, from a safety perspective, marijuana has not been as
big of an issue as alcohol.”

At last year’s games, Aspen police made 38 contacts regarding marijuana-“which is a very small number,” said Weyer, “considering there were almost 40,000 people a day.” That number was up from about 10 pot-related contacts made during previous X Games, but the department hasn’t issued any marijuana citations during the past few years of the sports event, Weyer said.
“Just because it’s a big event does not mean we are out writing a
bunch of citations,” Weyer said. “( The contacts made in the past
were) all educational, just informing visitors that marijuana use is
prohibited at the event. ... It’s a legal substance, and people are
going to use it. We are asking that people do it in the privacy of
their own home.”

It could be argued that the X Games is adding to the mania by booking weed icons Snoop and Wiz as the entertainment, although event organizers say it wasn’t intentional.
“With our booking, we think about our brand and what music we feel will fit with the overall event that we’re trying to produce,” said Tim Reed, ESPN’s vice president of X Games events and content. “The list is pretty big, and we’re ultimately working on a lot of different parameters-who can come, who’s available, who will work- and we’re excited on the lineup we settled on.”
Snoop’s presence at “the stoniest X Games yet” is merely a
coincidence, Reed said.

“The network itself, we’ve done a lot of different things with Snoop
over the years,” Reed said. “He’s a cultural icon, and people know
him. That’s the reason we booked him and wanted him.”

Flooding the streets
With 120,000 taste-making fans flooding Aspen’s streets during the X Games annually, Jordan knew his Native Roots pot shop had to open in time for the rush of tourism. But a late building permit meant he had only two weeks to get the space up and running - a fraction of the time he normally spends on a new storefront.
For now, Jordan is calling his Aspen location a “pop-up shop,” and
he’ll close it down after the ski season in May to build the space
out for next snow season and the next Winter X Games, which will stay in Aspen through 2019.
“The X Games is an international event,” Jordan said. “We’re opening a store here, and we want the world to see what we’re doing - especially because we feel that this genre of consumer is relevant to our industry.”
Jordan’s pot shop is the primary force behind the Native Roots Tree House afterparty at the X Games, a private four-night bash that will have DJ Snoopadelic ( a. k. a. Snoop’s DJ persona) on the decks and plenty of cannabis to share inside a 9,200square-foot space. Tree House organizer Munch and Company will transport three 18- wheelers full of gear, furniture and supplies from Denver to Aspen for the party.
“This is real branding,” said Freddie Wyatt, CEO of Munch and Company. “This would be something that you would see at Sundance or the Super Bowl or at the Grammies or Coachella or the Oscars. We’re playing in those budgets now, and it’s the same thing on talent.
We’re bringing the A- game to Aspen for X Games.”
Of course, an event like the Tree House comes at a substantial expense.
“It’s a very heavy investment,” said Jordan, declining to talk actual numbers. “But the X Games are important, and the crossover between the action sports industry and the cannabis industry is undeniable.
So no investment is too much.”
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: www.flcan.org
Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 2015
Source: USA Today (US)
Copyright: 2015 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/625HdBMl
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/index.htm
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/466
Author: Trevor Hughes

POT-BASED SEX SPRAY FOR WOMEN HITTING COLORADO SHELVES
DENVER a=C2=80” A new pot spray promising to help women have better sex will hit the shelves in Colorado next week.
Foria, which contains marijuana extract, claims the relaxing
properties of cannabis will help women have better and more satisfying
sex. It’s been available for a few months in California, but only to
people with a medical marijuana card and doctor’s recommendation. The
edible coconut oil-based spray a=C2=80” users spritz it on their genitals=
about 30 minutes before sex a=C2=80” goes on sale to the general public i= n Colorado next week at an Aspen marijuana boutique.
Foria, from Aphrodite Group, a California medical marijuana
cooperative, is the latest in a burgeoning line of marijuana-infused
products, from lotions to candies to patches. And while there’s little
scientific evidence to back up their efficacy, scientists say
marijuana’s long history of use gives significant credibility to the
concept.

“Cannabis is an aphrodisiac,” said Genifer Murray, CEO of CannLabs, one of the nation’s largest marijuana-testing companies. “And there’s a lot of nerves down there.”
What sets Foria apart, industry experts say, is its slick marketing
campaign that’s driving significant interest from customers. The
company is launching Foria in Colorado at the X Games in Aspen, which begin Jan. 22. A video on the company’s website features women speaking openly about how they use it and its effects. Foria claims to be the first sexual lubricant designed specifically to improve sex for women.
“We definitely have patients coming in for it, requesting it
specifically. ... A-list celebrities that come in specifically for it.
You’d be surprised who comes in for it,” said Matthew Rosen of the CannaSutra co-op in Studio City, Calif. “Most people have been giving positive feedback on it.”
Among those giving positive feedback: Rosen’s own girlfriend. “We
tried it together and she loved it,” he said.

Foria isn’t cheap. In California, medical marijuana patients “donate” money instead of buying products, and they donate about $44 for a 10ml bottle. Each spritz contains about 2mg of THC, the component of marijuana that normally gets people high. But marijuana plants contain dozens of other chemical compounds, and Foria’s makers say their proprietary blend generates heightened sensation but doesn’t get the user high.
Murray said there’s been an explosion in marijuana-infused product offerings, many of them little more than snake oil trading on the trendiness of legal marijuana.
Colorado and Washington state both allow recreational sales and use of
marijuana, and Oregon, Alaska and the District of Columbia also have
legalized but not yet started recreational sales. Because Foria is a
marijuana product but not a prescription medicine, anyone 21 or older
can buy it over the counter from a legal pot shop. Initially, Foria
will be offered only at the Native Roots chain of marijuana stores in
Colorado.

In Colorado, many of those recreational marijuana stores carry
marijuana-infused lotions, including the “Legalize Lotion” line from
Apothecanna. Users say the lotions can ease pain and relax muscles, which is pretty much what Foria claims to do. Some massage therapists in Denver are even offering “Mile High” massages with pot-infused oil, which customers say is incredibly relaxing.
Murray said she’s tried out several different kinds of pain rubs,
along with Foria.

“If this can help women have orgasms, I’m all about that,” Murray
said.

And did it work for her? “No comment,” she said with a laugh.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 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: Eric Wang
Note: The writer is a lawyer and a senior fellow at the Center for
Competitive Politics.

THE COST OF A POLITICAL OPINION
Civic-minded citizens of the District: Think twice the next time you
write a blog entry, post on Facebook or Twitter or attend a meeting
or rally to support or oppose a ballot initiative. You could be
required to register and report with the city or else pay a large
fine. The Office of Campaign Finance (OCF) at the D.C. Board of
Elections dropped this end-of-the-year bombshell in an enforcement proceeding arising from November’s election, in which District residents voted to legalize marijuana.
In the run-up to the vote on Initiative 71, District resident William V. Jones III created the Web site “Two. Is. Enough. D.C.” Under the premise that having two legal recreational substances (alcohol and tobacco) was enough, the Web site provided opinions and information opposing marijuana legalization. According to the OCF, Mr. Jones also invoked the “Two Is Enough” slogan when he “participated in various meetings and demonstrations” in the D.C. community.
After leaders of the pro-legalization D.C. Cannabis Campaign
suggested that Jones was violating campaign finance laws by not
registering and reporting as a “political committee,” Mr. Jones
registered “No On Initiative 71” to engage in activities opposing the initiative. The D.C. Cannabis Campaign nonetheless filed a complaint with the OCF against the purported group known as “Two Is Enough.”
The OCF acknowledged that Two Is Enoug hwas separate from the No On
Initiative 71 committee. It concluded that Two Is Enough was required
to register and report because D.C. law defines a political committee
as any “individual, committee (including a principal campaign
committee), club, organization, association, or other group of
individuals organized for the purpose of, or engaged in promoting or
opposing, the nomination or election of an individual to office, a
political party, or any initiative, referendum, or recall measure.”
For his civic participation, Mr. Jones was fined $2,000.

The OCF pointed out that Mr. Jones’s Web site asked for donations and likely made expenditures to pay for its operation. But, under the broad language of the municipal code and OCF’s broad application, he would have been required to register and report even if he had received no contributions and made no expenditures.
The District is not alone in approving marijuana legalization, having joined Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington state. Unfortunately, other jurisdictions also have draconian campaign finance laws that have made a mockery of the direct democracy that voter initiatives are supposed to provide citizens. Like Mr. Jones, citizens in Colorado and Arizona have been punished under comparable laws and circumstances, but federal courts recently found those states’ laws unconstitutional.
The District’s law is similarly unconstitutional, and D.C. Council
members shouldn’t wait for a judge to fix it.
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Newshawk: www.flcan.org
Pubdate: Wed, 22 Jan 2014
Source: Tampa Tribune (FL)
Copyright: 2014 The Tribune Co.
Contact: http://tbo.com/list/news-opinion-letters/submit/
Website: http://tbo.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/446
Author: John S.V. Weiss
Page: A14
Note: LETTER OF THE DAY
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n039/a04.html

PUTTING LIPSTICK ON THE MEDICAL POT PIG
Regarding ‘The return of reefer madness’ (Our Views, Jan. 18): The people rewriting the medical marijuana amendment should review the adage about putting lipstick on a pig. No verbiage will ever convince me that their intentions are honorable until such time as medical marijuana distribution is done like other narcotic medications.
There have to be real prescriptions, not ‘recommendations,’ signed by physicians licensed to prescribe narcotic drugs, and include the doctor’s DEA number. Then, medical marijuana has to be dispensed by licensed pharmacies permitted to fill narcotic prescriptions. At time of delivery a photo ID has to be shown, and the prescription signed for. At all times the same tracking mechanisms used for drugs such as opiates and barbiturates have to be employed and reviewed by the proper authorities.
That the advocates of medical marijuana wish to operate outside these
established channels tells me that they have something other than
patient welfare in mind. Either they aim for de-facto recreational
use of the drug, believing that those who oppose this simply aren’t
as enlightened or intelligent as they, or they stand to make a lot of
money. Or both.

Don’t bother putting lipstick on this pig. There’s a saying that no matter how often one stirs a bucket of crap, it’s still a bucket of crap.
John S.V. Weiss, Spring Hill
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Mon, 19 Jan 2015
Source: Capital Press (OR)
Copyright: 2015 Capital Press Agriculture Weekly
Contact: devans@capitalpress.com
Website: http://www.capitalpress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/834
Author: Eric Mortenson

OREGON STATE UNIVERSITY OFFERS A POT POLICY CLASS
Oregon’s upcoming legalization of marijuana has an academic aspect to it.
Talk about higher education. Oregon State University - once known as “Oregon Straight” compared to the supposedly hipper school 40 miles south - is offering a marijuana policy class this winter.
About 50 students are enrolled in “Marijuana Policy in the 21st Century,” a sociology course developed by Seth Crawford, an instructor in the School of Public Policy within the College of Liberal Arts.
Students will produce a collectively-authored paper of their
recommendations on how marijuana should be produced, sold and
distributed when recreational pot use, possession and cultivation
becomes legal in Oregon July 1.

Oregon voters approved a measure in November that legalized possession and sale of pot and pot products, and allows people to grow limited amounts of marijuana as well. The class recommendations will go to the Oregon Health Authority and to the Oregon Liquor Control Commission, which will set the state’s pot rules.
Crawford, the instructor, is considered an expert on policies and the marijuana market structure in Oregon. He’s a member of the state’s Advisory Committee on Medical Marijuana.
In a news release, Crawford said students “will be working with
policymakers and stakeholders to help answer some of the biggest
questions facing the state following the passage of Measure 91.”

No word yet on whether OSU’s Crop Science experts will be involved.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sat, 24 Jan 2015
Source: Standard-Speaker (Hazleton, PA)
Copyright: 2015 The Standard-Speaker
Contact: editorial@standardspeaker.com
Website: http://www.standardspeaker.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1085
Author: Leonard Pitts, The Miami Herald

SOMETHING OBSCENE ABOUT CIVIL ASSET FORFEITURES
Imagine this: You get pulled over by police. Maybe they claim you were seven miles over the speed limit, maybe they say you made an improper lane change. Doesn’t matter, because the traffic stop is only a pretext.
Using that pretext, they ask permission to search your car for drugs.  You give permission and they search. Or you decline permission, but that doesn’t matter, either. They make you wait until a drug-sniffing canine can be brought to the scene, then tell you the dog has indicated the presence of drugs - and search anyway.
Now imagine that no drugs are turned up, but they do find a large sum
of money and demand that you account for it. Maybe you’re going to a
car auction out of state, maybe the money is a loan from a relative,
maybe you just don’t trust banks. This is yet something else that
doesn’t matter. The police insist that this is drug money. They
scratch out a handwritten receipt and, without a warrant, without an arrest, maybe without even giving you a ticket for the alleged traffic violation, they drive away with your money.
You want it back? Hire a lawyer. You might be successful - in a year or two. Or you might not. Either way, it’s going to cost you and if the amount in question is too small, getting an attorney might not be practical. Would you spend $5,000 to (maybe) recover $4,000? No. So the police keep your money - your money - and you swallow the loss.
You find that scenario farfetched? It’s not fetched nearly as far as you think.
Just since 2008, there have been over 55,000 “civil asset
forfeitures” of cash and property totaling $3 billion. And for every
actual drug dealer thus ensnared, there seems to be someone like Mandrel Stuart, who told the Washington Post last year that he lost his business when police seized $17,550, leaving him no operating funds. Or like Ming Tong Liu, who lost an opportunity to buy a restaurant when police took $75,000 he had raised from relatives for the purchase.
So one is heartened at last week’s announcement from Attorney General Eric Holder that the federal government is largely abandoning the practice.
The civil asset forfeiture has been a weapon in the so-called “War on
Drugs” since the Nixon years. Initially conceived as a way to hit big
drug cartels in the wallet, it has metastasized into a Kafkaesque
nightmare for thousands of ordinary Americans. Indeed, the Post
reports the seizures have more than doubled under President Obama.

Now the administration is pulling back. Not that Holder’s
announcement ends the practice completely - state and local
governments are free to continue it on their own. What ends, or at
least is sharply curtailed, is federal involvement, i.e., a program
called “equitable sharing,” under which seized property was “adopted” by the feds, meaning the case was handed off to Washington, which took 20 percent off the top, the rest going into the local treasury.
Ask your local law enforcement officials if they will be following
Holder’s lead. And if not, why not? Because - and this should go
without saying - in a nation with a constitutional guarantee against
“unreasonable searches and seizures” there is something obscene about a practice that incentivizes police to, in essence, steal money from lawabiding citizens and leaves said citizens no reasonable recourse for getting it back.
Yet, this is precisely what has gone on for years without notice,
much less a peep of protest, from we, the people - proving yet again
that we the people will countenance great violence to our basic
freedoms in the name of expedience. The insult compounding the
injury? The expedience didn’t even work and has had no discernible impact on the use of illegal narcotics. To the contrary that usage has thrived under the “War on Drugs.”
Sadly, the Constitution has done less well.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 20 Jan 2015
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: opinion@seattletimes.com
Website: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Chris Marr
Note: Chris Marr is a former state senator from Spokane, and was
appointed to the Washington State Liquor Control Board in 2011. He leaves the board on Jan. 31 for the private sector.
REGULATING MEDICAL MARIJUANA
AS the Legislature moves this session to address the unregulated
medical-marijuana market, all parties must agree on a common
objective: safe, affordable patient access. While stakeholder
concerns should be considered, they must be scrutinized and remain secondary to patient interests.
As a Washington State Liquor Control Board member, I have a bias: I
believe we have established a tightly regulated system that can
provide high-quality, safe medical cannabis for patients, with little
risk of youth access or federal intervention. While many in the
medical-marijuana industry argue that a separate system could be
established to do the same, the need for costly duplication must be proven. An evaluation would be hard-pressed to show that existing licensees, who have invested in good faith in our system, cannot meet the needs of medical cannabis patients.
As part of Initiative 502’s implementation, the Liquor Control Board opened up a new recreational marketplace to many who operated in the gray area of medical marijuana. Given the threat of federal action, as well as the acknowledgment that lack of regulation did not serve the interests of patients, many of these growers and retailers opted into the state’s regulated system.
These new licensees confirm that the existing medical-marijuana
system inappropriately serves many recreational users. Testing,
labeling and quality standards are lax and unverified. The training
of dispensary employees is often poor and lacks the scientific
validity we expect of health-care professionals. There are
responsible operators who abide by what they feel to be the highest of standards. However, many of them acknowledge the need for the Legislature to act quickly to regulate the industry.
This brings me back to our original premise: Any new system of
medical marijuana needs to be focused on safe, affordable patient
access. What does this look like?

Safe means protecting patients with stringent testing, labeling and
quality control regulations. It also assumes that outlets authorized
to sell medical cannabis will be staffed by highly trained
individuals who are knowledgeable about existing research. Developing
these protocols would require the assistance of an objective third
party, preferably a respected instate institution with health science
and research experience - the University of Washington comes to mind.

Safe also means zero tolerance for youth access. This requires
replicating the retailer education, regulatory and enforcement
resources of the Liquor Control Board, as well as creating strong
relationships with the prevention and law-enforcement community.  Safety applies to our community as well. This assumes a system that can block entry to criminal gangs and drug cartels - elements the feds have assured us will invite their intervention.
A regulated medical-marijuana system should also avoid the fire and
explosion hazards that come with large home grows located in
residential neighborhoods. And it should be stated here that any
workable system assumes that local governments would receive the necessary funding to be reliable partners in enforcing these new laws.
A thoughtful evaluation of tax rates applied to medical marijuana is
also in order. Any system that puts safer drugs beyond the financial
reach of patients is poor healthcare policy. If we are committed to
an objective evaluation of legitimate medical use, that should not be
a problem. In truth, if we were to move all recreational users out of
the medical-marijuana marketplace, marijuana could be provided to
qualified patients at little or no cost. That would require a patient
registry, clearer definitions of qualifying conditions (especially
chronic pain), and better training and oversight of authorizations by medical providers.
The debate over the future of medical marijuana in Washington is sure
to reach a fevered pitch this session. Whatever decision the
Legislature makes, let us hope it’s based on the best interests of
patients and the communities in which they live. One thing is for
certain: The unregulated system that currently exists serves neither.
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Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 2015
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Seattle Times Company
Contact: opinion@seattletimes.com
Website: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Amy Herdy

POT GROWERS UP AGAINST FEAR, LOATHING AND SAN JUAN ISLAND PROPERTY VALUES
County Supported I-502 by State’s Widest Margin
Not in This Neighborhood, Some Residents Now Say
SAN JUAN ISLAND - A drug operation is tucked into the trees on a San Juan Island horse farm that neighbors have argued could lead to “home-invasion robberies, thefts and murders.”
The drug in question? Not cocaine, heroin or methamphetamine; rather,
it’s marijuana, which David Rice received a permit in August to
cultivate in one of the island’s first legal grow operations. And
possibly one of its last. In what some consider an appalling turn of
events on an island known for its agriculture, small-town feel and
strong sense of community, Rice laid off his 16 employees and shut down his business, San Juan Sun Grown, in the face of a lawsuit from angry neighbors that also threatens the horse-breeding and riding-lessons business of his sister, Jenny Rice.
Meanwhile, the San Juan County Council is considering regulations on greenhouses, with or without marijuana inside, after an unsuccessful effort to enact an emergency moratorium. Council member Bob Jarman made that proposal the same month his wife complained about her adult children wanting to buy property next to a marijuana grow operation she described as “in your face.”
It’s a surprising conflict in a county where voters in 2012 approved
Initiative 502, the proposal to legalize recreational marijuana, by
68 percent, the largest margin in Washington state. And while the
people may have spoken, the interests of an influential few have
affected this foray into the marijuana

industry here.
Neighbors file suit
The lawsuit against the Rices - by neighbors Tom and Deborah Nolan, Larry Pentz and Mark and Mary Lou Sternitzke - seeks termination of a road easement as well as damages for trespassing, nuisance, attorney’s fees and David Rice’s “unjust enrichment.”
Rice said he shut down his business because he was too disheartened - and too broke - to continue to fight.
“I’ve been blindsided by the magnitude and the viciousness of it,”
Rice, 37, said of the legal battle in which he estimates he’s spent
about $100,000.

“People are very emotional about their property; I get it. There’s something very primal about land. But at some point, reason is gone.  They just wanted us out of there so bad they were willing to do anything.”
At issue in the lawsuit is legal access to the dirt road in and out
of the Rice farm.

“If they succeed in shutting down my sister’s access to that road,
make no mistake, her entire property will lose its agricultural
status as she will not be able to run her farm,” David Rice said.
“These neighbors will effectively be turning 76 acres of ag-status
farmland into a residential parcel.”

Mark Kimball, a Bellevue-based real-estate and business attorney who
reviewed the easement and license documents at the request of The
Times, said, “The easement is very specific - it talks about access
for utilities and one residential structure. (The marijuana
operation) goes way beyond that.”

But the license states access is limited for agricultural use, and under that scope Jenny Rice’s horse business should be allowed, Kimball said.
“It falls under an agricultural purpose,” he said. “And what is the history? The horse pasturing has been going on for a long time there with no objection.”
Fight over horse sheds
Jenny Rice said her farm has been in the county’s farm and
agriculture program since 1974 for purposes of haying, cattle and
horse breeding, and that it was an established farm about 100 years
before that. She continues that agricultural use, she said, with hay
production and by breeding and selling a rare type of horse called
the AkhalTeke.

She began leasing the property in 2009, she said, and bought it in
2012. While the neighbors have never complained about just her
horses, she said, her problems started with Tom Nolan’s strong
objections to her building two 400-square-foot sheds in her 15-acre pasture for her horses - which Nolan acknowledged at an environmental hearing regarding David Rice’s grow operation.
That same hearing also featured testimony from other neighbors
concerned about the noise, light, smell and potential crime
attraction of the marijuana business - including, some said, a
potential for home-invasion robbery and murder.

As for the horse shelters, they obstructed the Nolans’ sweeping view of the San Juan Valley from their home.
The Nolans, who have been the most vocal in this matter, didn’t care so much about her brother’s marijuana operation as they did about having an unobstructed view, Jenny Rice said.
She said that last summer they offered a “view easement” in exchange for a road easement, which would have restricted the location and color of any structures on her land. She turned it down. “The Nolans’ house looks out over our entire property,” Jenny Rice said. “He wanted us to not be able to build anything that would be within view of his house. Restricting building anything at all? No way we could agree to that.”
Deborah Nolan said prior conflicts about farming are not the issue now.
“What they did was try to put this huge factory down the road and they don’t have easements for it, pure and simple,” she said. “We’ve lived here 17 years, and they just moved in and are trying to get access by using our property. It wasn’t about marijuana. It was about commercial access across our property.”
Such access, the lawsuit says, “transformed a quiet, neighborhood residential road and residential area into a commercial/industrial zone.”
Tom Nolan declined to comment for this story. The others who brought the lawsuit also declined, through their attorney, to comment.
David Rice, 37, said he invested his life savings in San Juan Sun Grown, completing the requirements of an extensive background check and an operational and security plan, buying hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment, hiring year-round employees, and building nine greenhouses and a 4,000-square-foot processing building.
As vice president of the Washington Sungrowers Industry Association,
Rice said, he helps advocate for policies on marijuana as a
sustainable agricultural enterprise. San Juan Sun Grown was Certified
Kind, the first such designation in the state, he said, a point that
retailers and customers loved for its commitment to earth-friendly
organic farming.

Despite all that, he says he would rather walk away from the island than put his family through more stress of trying to run a marijuana operation here.
Wider county issue
The fight over marijuana farms in San Juan County extends well beyond the Rice parcel.
In a move that galvanized local residents into organized opposition, County Councilmember Bob Jarman authored a proposed emergency moratorium against marijuana greenhouses within weeks of his wife, Susan Jarman, complaining about a “new marijuana grow/greenhouse” on Telegraph Lane, located next to property her adult children wanted to buy.
“Honestly ... this is going to kill the property values and I know that so far the County can’t do anything about it!” Susan Jarman said in an Aug. 5 email obtained by The Times through a public-records request.
“The price for that property is going to be way out of line,” Susan
Jarman wrote to a real estate agent. “The kids love it ... but it
does not look like a good investment for the future.”

She thanked the agent for his help, adding, “If anything changes
(County can get restrictions, etc.) it could change our outlook.”

The fact that his wife and her children wanted to buy property next door to a marijuana-grow operation the same month he proposed an emergency marijuana-greenhouse moratorium was a coincidence, Bob Jarman told The Times this month.
“It didn’t have anything to do with the decision that I made,” he
said. “My wife is entitled to free speech and her own opinions.”

While there was no legal conflict of interest for Bob Jarman, such actions could erode the public’s trust, said University of Washington public-affairs professor Michael Blake, director of the UW’s Program on Values in Society.
“If in fact there is an appearance of a conflict, there are good moral reasons to not be involved in the decision making,” Blake told The Times.
Jarman said he doesn’t think there is the appearance of a conflict.
“I’ve been talking about this since May,” he said.

Local citizens have formed a group called the Committee for
Diversified Agriculture and urged the County Council to drop the
emergency moratorium, which it did Jan. 12, in favor of asking staff to provide a report by Monday about possible land-use restrictions for greenhouses.
The community group, meanwhile, has started a legal fund for Jenny Rice and is urging residents to show up in force at the council’s Monday meeting to continue the fight.
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Pubdate: Sat, 24 Jan 2015
Source: Herald, The (Everett, WA)
Copyright: 2015 Associated Press
Contact: letters@heraldnet.com
Website: http://www.heraldnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/190
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press

POT-RELATED POISON CONTROL CALLS UP IN STATE, COLORADO
SEATTLE (AP) - Marijuana-related calls to poison control centers in Washington and Colorado have spiked since the states began allowing legal sales last year, with an especially troubling increase in calls concerning young children.
But it’s not clear how much of the increase might be related to more people using marijuana, as opposed to people feeling more comfortable to report their problems now that the drug is legal for adults over 21.
New year-end data being presented to Colorado’s Legislature next week show that the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center received 151 calls for marijuana exposure last year, the first year of retail recreational pot sales. That was up from 88 calls in 2013 and 61 in 2012, the year voters legalized pot.
Calls to the Washington Poison Center for marijuana exposures jumped by more than half, from 158 in 2013 to 246 last year.
Public health experts say they are especially concerned about young children accidentally eating marijuana edibles. Calls involving children nearly doubled in both states: to 48 in Washington involving children 12 or younger, and to 45 in Colorado involving children 8 or younger.
“There’s a bit of a relaxed attitude that this is safe because it’s a
natural plant, or derived from a natural plant,” Dr. Alex Garrard,
clinical managing director of the Washington Poison Center. “But this is still a drug. You wouldn’t leave Oxycontin lying around on a countertop with kids around, or at least you shouldn’t.”
Around half of Washington’s calls last year involved hospital visits, with most of the patients being evaluated and released from an emergency room, Garrard said. Ten people were admitted to intensive care units - half of them younger than 20.
Children who wind up going to the hospital for marijuana exposure can
find themselves subject to blood tests or spinal taps, Garrard said,
because if they seem lethargic and parents don’t realize they got
into marijuana, doctors might first check for meningitis or other
serious conditions.

Dr. Leslie Walker, chief of adolescent medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital, said her facility has had cases where young children needed to be intubated because they were having trouble breathing after consuming marijuana - a terrifically scary experience for parents.
Pot-related calls to Washington’s poison center began rising steadily
several years ago as medical marijuana dispensaries started
proliferating in the state. In 2006, there were just 47 calls. That
rose to 150 in 2010 and 162 before actually dropping by a few calls in 2013, a year in which adults could use marijuana but before legal recreational sales had started.
Calls about exposure to marijuana combined with other drugs spiked in Colorado, too. There were 70 such calls last year, up from 39 calls in 2013 and 49 calls in 2012.
Both states saw increases in calls across all age groups. Colorado’s biggest increase was among adults over 25 - from 40 in 2013 to 102 calls last year. Washington had a big jump in calls concerning teens, from 40 in 2013 to 61 last year.
Many of the products involved in Washington’s exposure cases are found at the state’s unregulated medical marijuana dispensaries, but not licensed recreational shops, which are barred from selling marijuana gummy bears or other items that might appeal to children, Garrard said. Medical dispensaries far outnumber legal stores across the state.
Some especially potent marijuana products - such as hash oil - have become more popular in recent years, which could also factor into the increased calls to poison control centers.
The Washington Legislature is working now on proposals for reining in the medical marijuana industry - and limiting what they can sell.
Both states have taken steps to try to keep marijuana products away from children, such as requiring child-resistant packaging in licensed stores.
In Denver, authorities charged a couple with child abuse last month, saying their 3-year-old daughter tested positive for marijuana. The couple brought the girl to a hospital after she became sick.
Ben Reagan, a medical marijuana advocate with The Center for
Palliative Care in Seattle, said at a recent conference that he had
long dealt with parents whose children accidentally got into
marijuana. It used to be less likely that they would call an official
entity for help, he said.

“Those things have been occurring this whole time,” Reagan said.
“What you now have is an atmosphere where people are much more comfortable going to the emergency room.”
“Before, you’d just look at your buddy and say, ‘Sorry, dude. You’re going to have to deal with it all night,’ “he added. “’We’re not calling nobody.”’
Associated Press writer Kristen Wyatt contributed from Denver.
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Pubdate: Mon, 26 Jan 2015
Source: Scotsman (UK)
Copyright: 2015 The Scotsman Publications Ltd
Contact: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/contactus.aspx
Website: http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/406
Author: John Von Radowitz

CANNABIS CULTURE FEARS AFTER TWITTER GOES TO POT
EXPERTS have raised concerns about a thriving Twitter cannabis culture.
During a single month, researchers identified more than seven million tweets referring to marijuana, with “pro-pot” messages outnumbering those opposed to the drug by 15 to one.
Most of those sending and receiving “pot tweets” were under the age of 25, and many in their teens, said the team.
US psychiatrist and lead author Dr Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, from the Washington University Institute for Public Health, said: “It’s a concern because frequent marijuana use can affect brain structures and interfere with cognitive function, emotional development and academic performance.
“The younger people are when they begin using marijuana, the more likely they are to become dependent. A lot of young people will phase out of marijuana use as they get older, but unfortunately we’re not good at predicting who those individuals are.”
The findings, reported in the Journal of Adolescent Health, follow a computer search of tweets conducted between 5 February and 5 March last year.
Working with social media analytics company Simply Measured, the researchers looked for every tweet that mentioned marijuana.
Using search terms such as “joint”, “blunt”, “weed”, “stoner” and “bong”, the team turned up more than 7.6 million tweets referencing the drug.
An examination of a random sample of almost 7,000 tweets revealed that 77 per cent were pro-marijuana, 5 per cent against, and 18 per cent neutral.
Dr Cavazos-rehg added: “Many people believe marijuana use is harmless, and social media conversations almost certainly drive some of those opinions, making the drug appear socially acceptable.
“Although we can’t yet link pro-pot tweets to actual drug use, we should be worried because many people receiving these messages are at an age when they are most likely to experiment with drugs and develop problems with substance use.”
People tweeting pro-marijuana messages had more than 50 million Twitter followers - around 12 times more than those tweeting anti-marijuana messages.
Pro-pot tweets were most commonly aimed at encouraging use of cannabis and its legalisation, and made claims about the drug’s health benefit.
And 10 per cent of the pro-marijuana tweets were sent by individuals who said they were taking the drug or high at the time.
Anti-marijuana tweets often states that the drug’s users were
“losers” or unproductive, or that taking cannabis is unattractive.

They also stressed that the drug was harmful, or that the person
tweeting was against legalisation.

The scientists focused their analysis on Twitter accounts with more than 775 followers, as well as those with “Klout scores” of 44 and above. A Klout score measures social media influences on a scale of one to 100.
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Pubdate: Mon, 19 Jan 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: Evan Halper, Tribune Washington Bureau

CONGRESS ENDS FED’S BAN ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA
WASHINGTON - Tucked deep inside the 1,603-page federal spending measure is a provision that effectively ends the federal government’s prohibition on medical marijuana and signals a major shift in drug policy.
The bill’s passage last month marks the first time Congress has
approved nationally significant legislation backed by legalization
advocates. It brings almost to a close two decades of tension between the states and Washington over medical use of marijuana.
Under the provision, states where medical pot is legal would no
longer need to worry about federal drug agents raiding retail
operations. Agents would be prohibited from doing so.

The Obama administration has largely followed that rule since last year as a matter of policy. But the measure approved as part of the spending bill, which President Obama plans to sign this week, will codify it as a matter of law.
Pot advocates had lobbied Congress to embrace the administration’s policy, which they warned was vulnerable to revision under a less tolerant future administration.
More important, from the standpoint of activists, Congress’ action
marked the emergence of a new alliance in marijuana politics:
Republicans are taking a prominent role in backing states’ right to
allow use of a drug the federal government still officially
classifies as more dangerous than cocaine.

“This is a victory for so many,” said the measure’s co-author, Rep.
Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif. The measure’s approval, he said,
represents “the first time in decades that the federal government has curtailed its oppressive prohibition of marijuana.”
By now, 32 states including New Mexico and the District of Columbia
have legalized pot or its ingredients to treat ailments, a movement
that began in the 1990s. Even back then, some states had been
approving broader decriminalization measures for two decades.

The medical marijuana movement has picked up considerable momentum in recent years. The Drug Enforcement Administration, however, continues to place marijuana in the most dangerous category of narcotics, with no accepted medical use.
Congress for years had resisted calls to allow states to chart their own path on pot. The marijuana measure, which forbids the federal government from using any of its resources to impede state medical marijuana laws, was previously rejected half a dozen times. When Washington, D.C., voters approved medical marijuana in 1998, Congress used its authority over the city’s affairs to block the law from taking effect for 11 years.
Even as Congress has shifted ground on medical marijuana, lawmakers remain uneasy about full legalization. A separate amendment to the spending package, tacked on at the behest of anti-marijuana crusader Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md., will jeopardize the legalization of recreational pot in Washington, D.C.
Marijuana proponents nonetheless said they felt more confident than ever that Congress was drifting toward their point of view.
“The war on medical marijuana is over,” said Bill Piper, a lobbyist
with the Drug Policy Alliance, who called the move historic.

“Now the fight moves on to legalization of all marijuana,” he said.
“This is the strongest signal we have received from Congress (that) the politics have really shifted. ... Congress has been slow to catch up with the states and American people, but it is catching up.”
The measure, which Rohrabacher championed with Rep. Sam Farr, D-Calif., had the support of large numbers of Democrats for years.
Enough Republicans joined them this year to put it over the top. When the House first passed the measure earlier this year, 49 Republicans voted aye.
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Pubdate: Mon, 26 Jan 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Associated Press
Contact:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154

GROUP OKS MEDICAL POT FOR SICK KIDS AS LAST RESORT
(AP) - With virtually no hard proof that medical marijuana benefits
sick children, and evidence that it could harm developing brains, the
drug should only be used for severely ill kids who have no other
treatment option, the nation’s most influential pediatricians group
says in a new policy.

Some parents insist medical marijuana has cured their kids’ troublesome seizures or led to other improvements, but the American Academy of Pediatrics’ new policy says rigorous research is needed to verify those claims.
The academy’s qualified support might lead more pediatricians to prescribe medical marijuana, but the group says pediatric use should only be considered “for children with life-limiting or severely debilitating conditions and for whom current therapies are inadequate.”
The academy also repeated its previous advice against legalizing
marijuana for recreational use by adults.

Studies have linked recreational marijuana use in kids with ill
effects on health and brain development, including problems with
memory, concentration, attention, judgment and reaction time, the
group’s policy emphasizes.

The policy was published online Monday in Pediatrics.
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Newshawk: chip
Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 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: Devlin Barrett

NEW REVELATIONS U.S. TRACKED AMERICANS’ CALLS FOR OVER A DECADE
Justice Department Arm Collected Metadata on U.S. Calls to Foreign
Countries
The Justice Department secretly kept a database of Americans’ calls to foreign countries for more than a decade, according to a new court filing and officials familiar with the program.
The revelation of another secret government database storing records of Americans’ calls came in a filing Thursday in the case of a man accused of conspiring to unlawfully export electronic goods to Iran.
A Drug Enforcement Administration official said in the filing that the
agency, which is an arm of the Justice Department, has long used
administrative subpoenas - not federal court orders - to collect the
metadata of U.S. calls to foreign countries “that were determined to have a demonstrated nexus to international drug trafficking and related criminal activities.”
The court document only refers to collecting outgoing U.S. calls, though people familiar with the program said it also collected data on incoming calls.
The program didn’t monitor the content of the calls.The document
doesn’t identify the countries or say how many countries were
involved, though it acknowledges Iran was one of the countries. The program began in the 1990s, say people familiar with its operation, and was ended in August 2013 amid reports about the DEA gathering phone records in other ways.
A Justice Department official said the database was deleted and
hasn’t been searched since 2013, and said the DEA is no longer
collecting bulk phone records from U.S. phone companies.

Patrick Toomey, a lawyer with the American Civil Liberties Union, said
the new disclosures show “the government has extended its use of
bulk collection far beyond” terror and national-security cases into
ordinary criminal investigations.

Last March, the then-head of the Senate Judiciary Committee raised
concerns with Attorney General Eric Holder in a private letter. In the
letter, made public Friday, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D., Vt.) wrote: “I
am deeply concerned about this kind of suspicionless intrusion into
American’s privacy in any context, but it is particularly troubling
when done for routine criminal investigations.” He noted the
program has never been reviewed by any court, and no judge had ever placed any controls on how and when the database was searched.
The court document is a sworn declaration by DEA Assistant Special
Agent in Charge Robert Patterson, which came in response to a
judge’s demands for answers in the case of Shantia Hassanshahi, who
was arrested in 2013 in Los Angeles and is fighting the charge against
him. In his case, agents said they used the database to trace a
suspicious number in Iran to a phone linked to Mr.
Hassanshahi.

The database “could be used to query a telephone number where
federal law-enforcement officials had a reasonable articulable
suspicion that the telephone number at issue was related to an ongoing federal criminal investigation,” according to the court document.
The Iranian phone number at issue “was determined to meet this
standard based on specific information indicating that the Iranian
number was being used for the purpose of importing technological goods to Iran in violation of United States law,” Mr. Patterson said in the declaration.
As described in the court papers, the DEA database sounds similar to
one kept by the National Security Agency, though the NSA gathers both
foreign and domestic calls. And the NSA program differs in another key
way: It is authorized and over seen by the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court. The DEA, according to the filing, gathered data
simply though administrative subpoenas that aren’t reviewed by a
judge.

Civil liberties groups have called for an end to the NSA program,
saying it violates Americans’ privacy. Courts are now weighing
several legal challenges to that program.

In court filings in Mr. Hassanshahi’s case, his lawyer, Saied
Kashani, has sought to have the phone evidence suppressed, saying the
database “as described functions entirely like the NSA
database ... which is likely unconstitutional.” After reading the new
filing, he said the government “has converted the war on drugs into
a war on privacy.”

The lawyer said the DEA took a law originally meant to authorize specific, targeted requests for information from drug companies and turned it into a general sweep of millions of Americans’ phone records.
“I think when Congress passed this statute they had no intention
that an agency would use it to generate these vast quantities of
information in a database on innocent Americans,” Mr. Kashani
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: Matt
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 25 Jan 2015
Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2015 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact: inquirer.letters@phillynews.com
Website: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/340
Author: Don Sapatkin

WOULD LEGALIZED POT REDUCE FATAL TRAFFIC ACCIDENTS?
With medical marijuana legal in nearly half the states and a narrow
majority of Americans saying they favor recreational availability as
well, worried medical researchers are scrambling to project the
potential impact on public health issues ranging from addiction to
cognition to traffic deaths.

But here’s a counterintuitive question: Could easier access to
marijuana reduce fatal car crashes?

The answer, according to a new study of traffic fatalities in nine
states - including New Jersey - with high rates of toxicology
testing, is admittedly hazy.

“Increased availability of marijuana to young adults in U.S. states
that have passed medical and recreational use allowance may have
positive spillover effects on alcohol, reducing use to some degree
among young adults,” the authors write in the journal Injury
Epidemiology. But, they hasten to add, that may not reduce traffic deaths.

Still, the paper is intriguing not so much for its conclusions as for how it asks the questions. They are suggested by a combination of traffic fact and economic theory.
Alcohol kills far more drivers than any other drug. The theory has to do with how two goods interact: “When one substance becomes more legally accessible, what happens to the prevalence of other substances?” the authors ask.
In economic terms, if two goods are complements, then demand for one
increases with availability of the other. If they are substitutes,
the opposite happens. Past research findings on the relationship
between alcohol and marijuana have been mixed.

For their new study, the Columbia University scientists examined
toxicology data for 7,191 drivers ages 16 to 25 who died within one
hour of a crash between 1999 and 2011. Nearly 37 percent tested
positive for alcohol alone, 6 percent for marijuana alone, and 8
percent for both.

The analysis looks at how those proportions changed according to age, and particularly the one variable that consistently affects availability of alcohol: turning 21.
Alcohol use increased 14 percent after age 21 compared with before, and marijuana use decreased 24 percent, suggesting the substances are substitutes.
But the trend was up (22 percent) among drivers who tested positive for both drugs, pointing to a complementary relationship there.
Teasing a meaningful conclusion from the varying percentages is
difficult, especially as they represent different starting points.
Many more drivers tested positive for alcohol alone than for either
other scenario.

Another issue in this study is that the independent variable was the legal drinking age.
“This shows the impact of alcohol on marijuana, not necessarily marijuana on alcohol,” said lead author Katherine Keyes, an assistant professor at Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health who studies substance-abuse epidemiology. “It is suggestive.”
Although Washington was one of the states studied, all the data were collected long before the first recreational pot went on sale there last summer. Colorado, where business has been booming for a year, was not part of the study. Researchers are looking at it now, however.
Public opinion on marijuana has been shifting rapidly, with 51
percent of Americans favoring legalization, Gallup reported in
October. Although recreational use has been legalized in just the two states, medical use is allowed in 23, including New Jersey.
In Pennsylvania, a medical marijuana bill overwhelmingly passed the Senate before failing in the House last year. The new House Majority Leader, David Reed (R., Indiana), was co-sponsor of a version of the bill in the House. Gov. Wolf supports legalization for medical use.
The new research paper, while suggesting an increase in marijuana use could lead to a slight decrease in alcohol-related deaths, notes many other factors must be considered and the net result “may be null or even detrimental for fatality rates overall.”
Highly potent marijuana can be just as lethal on the highway, for example, and strong demand would likely mean more people driving high. Once the drug is legalized, state regulators have some control over both.
“The way the laws are implemented are going to matter a lot,” Keyes 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
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