Green Art Rocks  -  Available at:  http://www.Green Art Rocks.com
Art Studio located at Karma Konnections Boutique – 1123 E. Douglas, Wichita, Kansas  (Gorilla on roof of building to the east of KK Boutique.)  Karma Konnections also sells Les Balm in .05 oz Trial Twist Tube, 2 oz Jar or Tin, & 2.65 oz. Twist Tube.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 29 Apr 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Copyright: 2015 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Contact: letters@adn.com
Website: http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July ‘14
Author: Bill McCord

POT SCARE TACTICS ARE FALSE
Alaska’s politicos and various allied morality police betray a prevailing public trust: they presently sabotage voters’ intent to decriminalize production and use of marijuana. The current soapboxing and grandstanding about control and regulation increase corruption opportunities; likewise, massive regulation invites furthered criminalization.
Anyone who’s lived more than a couple decades will recognize the contrived health scare tactics: Protect consumers, and their children, from the long-term effects. First of all, there is no established scientific research, primarily because the government refused to permit legitimate research, or relax federal prohibitions.  In fact, there is substantial anecdotal “research” generated by desperate medical needs that makes the current health scares look silly.
The only palpable signs of addiction in this controversy are politicians’ attachments to myths and fabrications. They cannot give up their intoxication with power and control - in spite of the facts.
? Bill McCord   Haines
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: chip
Pubdate: Wed, 22 Apr 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: Jess Baravin

SUPREME COURT CURBS DRUG-SNIFFING DOGS DURING TRAFFIC STOPS
Justices continue on path of strengthening constitutional protections
against ‘unreasonable search and seizure’
WASHINGTON-The Supreme Court ruled 6-3 on Tuesday police can’t prolong a routine traffic stop to allow a drug-sniffing dog to search the vehicle unless they have a reasonable suspicion of uncovering contraband.
The case is the latest to see the justices reinvigorate constitutional protections against “unreasonable searches and seizures,” following recent decisions that rejected warrantless cellphone searches and installation of GPS trackers.
Tuesday’s ruling tightens the parameters police should follow when using drug-sniffing dogs during a traffic stop, building on a 2005 precedent allowing the drug searches while stressing such procedures become unlawful if a motorist is detained solely to conduct the search.
“We hold that a police stop exceeding the time needed to handle the matter for which the stop was made violates the Constitution’s shield against unreasonable seizures,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority. She was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
The case came from Valley, Neb., where in March 2012 a K-9 officer, Morgan Struble, stopped a Mercury Mountaineer carrying two people after it briefly veered onto a highway shoulder.
It took Mr. Struble about 22 minutes to make his routine checks of the driver’s license, auto registration and proof of insurance, pulling up no outstanding warrants or other reason to delay the vehicle. After giving the driver, Dennys Rodriguez, a warning ticket, Mr. Struble asked permission to walk his drug-sniffing dog, Floyd, around the vehicle.
When Mr. Rodriquez declined, Mr. Struble ordered him out of the car and had him wait until a backup officer arrived. On a walk around the Mountaineer, the dog led the officers to a bag of methamphetamine.
A federal magistrate judge found that Mr. Struble had nothing more than a “large hunch” to justify the search, but admitted the evidence anyway because the procedure imposed only a minimal delay on Mr. Rodriguez.
Federal district and appellate courts upheld that decision. The Supreme Court faulted lower courts.
“A seizure for a traffic violation justifies a police investigation of that violation,” Justice Ginsburg wrote. While the court has allowed police to take certain actions in a traffic stop that go beyond its narrow purpose, such as requiring motorists to exit their vehicles, those have been closely tied to officer safety or other practical needs, she said.
The decision returns the case to the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, in St. Louis, to consider whether Mr. Struble had a reasonable suspicion that justified use of a drug-sniffing dog.
Justice Clarence Thomas dissented, joined in part or whole by Justices Anthony Kennedy and Samuel Alito.
Twenty-nine minutes “is hardly out of the ordinary for a traffic stop by a single officer of a vehicle containing multiple occupants even when no dog sniff is involved,” Justice Thomas wrote.
In 2013, the court ruled that police conducted an unlawful search when they brought a narcotics dog to the porch of a private home without a warrant.
Police have won some recent Fourth Amendment cases, however. In December, the court unanimously upheld a search conducted after an officer stopped a car on the mistaken belief that it was unlawful to drive with a broken brake light. The justices found that to be a reasonable mistake.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Thu, 23 Apr 2015
Source: Maple Ridge Times (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Lower Mainland Publishing Group Inc
Contact: editorial@mrtimes.com
Website: http://www.mrtimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1372
Author: Bob Groeneveld

THAT’S NOT A SKUNK, IT’S GRASS
There’s not much that you can experience that’s more satisfying than sitting in your own backyard on a sunny weekend like the one just past.
You can just sit in your lawn chair, drinking in the sights and sounds and smells of spring bursting all around you.
The grass is as green as the sky is blue... greener, indeed, as the whole Fraser Valley sky has become tinged with a bit of city.
Speaking of blue, the grape hyacinths and the woodland bluebells are
peaking out my way right now, albeit several weeks earlier than usual
? if you count usual as the times they used to bloom 20 and 30 years ago.

There are yellows and reds... even the greys and browns of the tree-trunks seem more vibrant at this time of year.
Maybe a few weeks earlier out of a globally warmed winter isn’t so bad.
The sounds aren’t quite what they used to be, either.
We’re seeing more and different birds in our backyard, and enjoy indulging in the pleasantry of their songs and antics.
Not the least of the benefits they bestow on us - in exchange for a few bags of sunflower seeds and finch mix to tide them through the cold and hungry months, they offer us organic protection from various pests that try to ravage our garden.
I only wish we could attract birds that eat slugs. In the days when possums and raccoons made forays into our yard, the slimy beasts were barely a problem, but a division of houses between ourselves and the ravine have made them skittish.
Although there does seem to have been a modest resurgence in the local bee population in the past couple of years, their mind-gentling buzz in the backyard rarely out-competes the mind-numbing rumble of increasing traffic past the front yard.
And then there is the wonderful array of smells that liven up the spring air - the subtle apple blossoms, the heady lilacs... and the powerful aroma of... what the heck is that!
That’s not a skunk, dear, it’s the neighbourhood marijuana production facility.
First I wonder why the smell is suddenly so strong. But it’s certainly an indoor hydroponics operation, and on a warm day like today, the build-up of heat requires opening the vents.
Some folks want to deny marijuana exists, or maintain it is an evil influence, a temptation from Satan.
Others begrudgingly allow that that nasty pot may be of benefit to handful among us - who should pay dearly for society’s indulgence in allowing them to partake of its healing (but still somewhat evil) powers.
That latter view is taken by the current government, which allows the virtually secret construction of medical marijuana plantations that are carefully regulated... and almost universally abused - not the “drug,” but the multi-million-dollar business opportunities.
Consequently, we have everything from neighbourhoods consumed with mindless fear of roving gangs of grow-rip artists mistaking their homes for the industrial pot farm building next door, to legitimate concerns about dwindling groundwater supplies - and that overpowering skunkweed stench.
How is it that I can ferment as much wine as I wish to in my basement, but the guy who prefers to toke on a bit of homegrown instead can’t grow a relatively innocuous plant among the hyacinths and roses and apple trees in his backyard?
With a massively diminished need for those industrial plants?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sat, 25 Apr 2015
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/gsem95FR
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: sunletters@vancouversun.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Shelley Fralic
Page: A5

MARC EMERY? CALL HIM IRRESPONSIBLE
Marijuana: Pot Prophet Needs to Lay Off the Kids
Now that the smoke has cleared, it’s safe to say that Marc Emery is officially the poster boy for reefer madness. No disrespect intended.  Wait. The disrespect is intended.
Because as much as Vancouver pot proselytizer Marc Emery, crowned our very own messiah of marijuana after serving five years in a U.S. jail for selling mail-order cannabis seeds, has every right to preach the virtues of legalizing weed, he needs to get off his high horse when it comes to selling his bill of goods to teenagers.
We get it. Adults, in a free society, are allowed to pick their poison. And marijuana is but another diversionary vice - like alcohol and cigarettes and opium before it - and thus its acquisition and consumption is irresistible to those who like a side of blur with their life.
The movement to legalize marijuana, for medicinal and recreational pursuits, has been around since Donovan was mellow yellow, but over the past decade has gathered enough steam that even federal politicians are promising to make it legit.
Vancouver councillors, in the choppy wake of Monday’s well-organized and utterly unregulated annual 4/20 “protestival” at the Vancouver Art Gallery, also promised Wednesday to look at regulating medical marijuana shops (and, one hopes, sending the bill to Emery’s army for cleanup and policing of future 4/20 gatherings).
So, fear not stoners, because it looks like all those brownies and slushies and hash cookies and tightly rolled joints will soon be changing hands in a regulated, above board marketplace.
And that’s a good thing. Let’s tax it, regulate it and legislate it, and if Mr. Spliff wants to sell $80,000 worth of smoke from a booth outside the VAG, as one vendor estimated his Monday take, then let’s legally pick his pocket.
Such details we’ll leave for the big brains to sort out.
And we’ll also leave the scientists and researchers to refute the universally touted pothead thesis that cannabis is harmless. Because how could smoking or ingesting an illegal drug impair one’s judgment?  How could that purple haze possibly affect our driving, much less our ambition? How could filling our lungs with marijuana smoke ever cause cancer?
But, Mr. Emery, all bets are off when it comes to the kids.
On Monday, it was reported that 64 people who attended the 4/20 rally ended up in hospital, suffering variously from nausea, vomiting, heart palpitations and decreased levels of consciousness.
A bunch of dopey adults, to be sure. But, also, according to health officials, teenagers.
If you made it through the media interviews Emery gave earlier this week without gagging on his gall, you were surely confounded, if not outraged, by his recommendation that teenagers should join the ranks of their “pot people” peers in high school, because laid-back dopers are far less dangerous than, you know, athletes.
Or, as Emery put it in a CKNW interview, in which he admitted to smoking pot with some under- age kids at the 4/ 20 event: “Nothing bad is going to happen to your son or daughter if they smoke marijuana, unlike if they hang out with people who are into athletics, or into alcohol, or into a number of things, fast cars. I say that pot makes your teenager a lot safer.” Well, thanks, Dr.  Spock. Would that we could introduce Emery to the world where reality lives, where many of us, though not always without our own vices, think it highly inappropriate to encourage adolescents to do any kind of drug experimentation.
Join us, Marc, in the real world, where many right-minded citizens think it’s perfectly normal, preferable even, not to go through every day artificially anaesthetized.
And get this, Mr. Emery. The unaddled brain is sometimes the best place to find common sense, represented by three Surrey high school students who were recently chastised by their vice-principal for wearing T-shirts bearing an anti-pot message.
The boys belong to an organization called Smart Approaches to Marijuana Canada, which focuses on the science of pot use, and were wearing the tees to promote their opposition to the use and legalization of pot, which they don’t think is a smart choice for anyone, let alone teenagers.
School officials asked them to remove the shirts ( they declined, noting that marijuana leaf iconography has pretty much replaced the maple leaf in schools today), expressing worry that the image of a pot leaf with a red slash mark through it would confuse younger students.
Well, thank heavens that the irrepressibly irresponsible Marc Emery and the nonsense spouted from his misguided soapbox are around to set all those kids not so straight.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 30 Apr 2015
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact: letters@chicoer.com
Website: http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Note: Letters from newspaper’s circulation area receive publishing priority
Author: Steve Landeros
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n231/a10.html
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n201/a01.html

LETTER IN FAVOR OF GROWERS FILLED WITH EXAGGERATIONS
I read Garry Cooper’s April 15 letter to the editor, which caused me to re-read the article regarding Measure A enforcement on April 8.
Cooper’s letter is filled with inaccuracies and exaggerations. If Cooper is going to quote people or articles, then he should quote them correctly.
I also wish Cooper would show the same consideration for the law-abiding citizens that have to live next door and around these illegal pot grows.
Finally, I would like to see Cooper admit to what he really is - a shill for the illegal pot growers “industrial complex.”
? Steve Landeros, Chico
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: Orange County Register, The (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/kwfq19ir
Copyright: 2015 The Orange County Register
Contact: letters@ocregister.com
Website: http://www.ocregister.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/321
Author: John Seiler

ROHRABACHER WANTS FEDS TO STOP MEDICAL POT PROSECUTIONS
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is trying to get President Barack Obama to keep his 2008 campaign promise to ease medical-marijuana laws. Ironically, the Orange County Republican, one of the most conservative members of Congress, is advancing an issue usually championed by liberal Democrats, such as the president. Both men acknowledge burning a few joints in their youth  and not for medicinal purposes.
On the stump in 2008, Obama pledged of state medical-marijuana laws, “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” Once Obama was in office, his attorney general, Eric Holder, affirmed that stance in 2009: “It will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers who are complying with state laws on medical marijuana.”
That didn’t last long as Obama and Holder soon began to crack down.
To cite just one example, in August 2012, the Associated Press reported that Richard Flor, a “convicted Montana medical marijuana provider with a history of serious illness died ... after his transfer to a federal prison that could give him proper medical care was delayed for months.”
At issue is the Rohrabacher-Farr Amendment to the fiscal 2014-15 federal spending bill. The amendment denied Justice Department funds to “prevent” the states “from implementing” their own medical-marijuana laws.
On April 2, the Los Angeles Times ran a story which reported, “Patrick Rodenbush, a spokesman for the Justice Department, said in a statement Wednesday that it did not not believe the amendment applies to cases against individuals or organizations.
“Rather, he said, it stops the department from ‘impeding the ability of states to carry out their medical marijuana laws,’ contrary to some claims from people being prosecuted that the amendment blocks such prosecutions.”
The Rohrabacher-Farr letter was dated April 8 and read, “As the authors of the provision in question, we write to inform you that this interpretation of our amendment is emphatically wrong.” It demanded the prosecutions cease.
Rohrabacher told me his fellow Republicans are not mad with him for pushing the marijuana issue. He also has called for legalization for recreation use, which now is legal in four states and the District of Columbia. Medical marijuana is allowed by state law in 24 states.  California was the first state to legalize medical marijuana, with Proposition 215 in 1996.
“I have not had any animosity,” Rohrabacher said. In his conservative 48th Congressional District, which stretches along the coast from Seal Beach to Aliso Viejo, “No voters have said I was horrible.  Dozens of people said they appreciate it.”
He said it was ironic so many other Republicans favor limited government and federalism  letting the states do what they want - but still back tough federal marijuana laws that supercede state laws.
As to Obama reneging on his campaign pledge, the congressman charged, “That dramatically exposes the lie [that] he is in any way for a freer and more open society. People were led to believe he would respond in exactly the opposite way. He’s trying to undo the progress we have made. This is an issue the American people don’t want him to do. He is destroying the well-being of people who are suffering” from such ailments as cancer, for which medical marijuana can restore the desire to eat.
And by siding with Obama on the issue, that also “puts my Republican friends on the spot about their principles” advocating limited government.
He sees legalization activists as “a Third Force out there,” opposed to both “Big Government Leftists and the Republican Personal Controllers.”
My colleague Alan Bock, who died in 2011, wrote many editorials in the Register pushing the passage of Prop. 215 and authored the 2000 book, “Waiting to Inhale: The Politics of Medical Marijuana.” Bock was a friend of Rohrabacher, who also is a former Register editorial writer.
Despite the difficulties thrown up by Obama and many Republicans, the Third Force is winning on this issue.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Fri, 24 Apr 2015
Source: Coast Reporter (CN BC)
Copyright: 2015 Coast Reporter
Contact: editor@coastreporter.net
Website: http://www.coastreporter.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/580
Author: Jacob Roberts

EVERYBODY MUST GET STONED
International Marijuana Day (April 20) was last Monday, and potheads around the world all got really high at 4:20 p.m. to celebrate. Or protest. Or something. Probably they just wanted to get high.
What is this tradition? Where did it come from? And why is it so popular?
There are a lot of myths about where it came from. Until recently, I was under the impression that section 420 of the California penal code referred to marijuana possession, but that’s not true. Section 420 refers to obstructing the entrance to public land. Not even close.
Some good things have happened on April 20. In 1534, Jacques Cartier set out from the Old World to eventually land on what is now the coast of Eastern Canada. In 1657, freedom of religion was granted to the Jews of New Amsterdam (today New York City). And in 1902, Pierre and Marie Curie refined radium chloride. Those two probably could have used some medical marijuana.
So have some bad things. The CIA’s 1961 Bay of Pigs disaster was on 4/20. So was the Columbine massacre in 1999, and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010.
And quite famously, 4/20 was Adolf Hitler’s birthday in 1889.  Interestingly, April 20, 1945 is also reported as the last day that Hitler saw daylight before retreating into his bunker.
Although none of these things are the reasons that stoners get together and smoke pot publicly with what they hope is impunity.
The truth, it would seem, is actually pretty mundane. A group of high school kids in the 1970s calling themselves the Waldos started the 420 tradition by meeting at a statue of Louis Pasteur at around 4:20 p.m.  Probably because it was right after class let out.
They started the code of saying “420” to mean “let’s go get high in front of the Louis Pasteur statue.”
It caught on, and now 420 is used all over the place as a code for marijuana, and April 20 is a widely celebrated pseudo-holiday.
Coincidentally, Louis Pasteur and Claude Bernard successfully falsified the theory of spontaneous generation on April 20, 1862. Up until then it was a scientific theory that things like maggots could spontaneously appear on rotting meat.
Did the Waldos know this? Uncertain - it doesn’t seem like they spent a lot of time in class.
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MAP posted-by: Matt
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/zFBoc9Xe
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Jessica K. Peck
Note: Denver attorney Jessica K. Peck (www.JPDenver.com) is cofounder of the Women’s Marijuana Movement.
SMOKE CLEARS ON 4/20 FESTIVITIES
What would it take for Colorado - and the entire nation - to finally put an end to the failed war against marijuana?
It was April 18, 2009. Mere hours remained before thousands of pot enthusiasts would descend upon designated locations in Denver and Boulder to do what they’d always done each April 20. At 4:20 p.m., they’d each light up a joint.
In the meantime, I was concluding my presentation as the opening speaker to the University of Colorado at Boulder’s National Forum on Marijuana.
“What will it really take?” I paused and pondered.
How simple things seemed then as we hardly dared to bet aloud that, just maybe, Colorado could really lead the nation in legalizing this curious little plant that continued to bewilder federal agents and antidrug homeroom moms alike.
“They’re laughing at us,” I cautioned. It was true. Heads began nodding in agreement. This was a movement desperately in need of a public relations overhaul after nearly 60 percent of Colorado voters had defeated a measure to extend marijuana rights to non-patients six months earlier as part of the November 2008 election.
To move past - and to finally build upon - 2000’s voter-approved medical marijuana experiment, we’d need to drop the peace-love-and-sativa schtick and get serious.
“Just because close to six out of 10 people voted against the [2008] initiative doesn’t mean all six of those people are against us,” I instructed. “It means we haven’t gone out there and done our jobs. We need to lawyer up. We need to .... start playing with the big boys down at the Capitol.
Since that day, all things marijuana have melded together to become a sophisticated $300 million industry eager to crush its competitors.  It’s every capitalist’s dream.
For each year in between 2009 and 2015, organizers say 4/20 festivities grew, substantially in some cases. Most telling was the record turnout for the 2014 collective inhale at Civic Center.  Apparently, the fact that 2013’s festivities were marred by gunfire just moments after the 4:20 p.m. countdown provided no deterrent value.
But then 2015 arrived, and mostly paid weekend events on April 18 and 19 drew more than 100,000 pot enthusiasts from their sold out Denver hotels. Participants engaged in marijuana-related events, concerts, competitions, forums, investor speed dates and tastings. The feeling was far more corporate than Denver had ever previously seen from the quickly corporatizing cannabis industry.
Then it got quiet. There would be no massive 4 /20 countdown. No plume of pot smoke inching its way up into the atmosphere above the Capitol. In spite of reporters lining the perimeter, there was no denying it: Things were a little boring.
While organizers blame bureaucratic nonsense and mounting pressure by city officials as primary culprits behind the inability to obtain a proper event license, a lack of motivation or interest was also inevitably at play.
Media reports allege that negotiations between the city and the organizers sputtered to a halt after the city threatened to far more aggressively enforce civil and criminal sanctions against would-be violators. In prior years, this tough talk would have only inspired a larger event. This year: a quiet collapse of the rebel forces.
By the time the clock struck 4:20 p.m. on Monday, crowds in Denver’s Lincoln Park had reportedly dwindled to less than 1,000. In Boulder, officials didn’t even bother closing the campus as they had done in prior years.
With yesterday’s protest placards now lining recycle bins across Denver, and shiny corporate logos towering above South Broadway’s myriad pot shops, could it be that the pot movement is finally growing up?
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 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: Mike Gallagher

TASK FORCE TARGETS ILLEGAL PAINKILLER SALES
NM Is No. 2 in the U.S. for Overdoses From Heroin, Opioids
At the age of 53, barely literate and morbidly obese, Crystal Staggs hardly cut the figure of a drug dealer as she drove her white 13-year-old BMW around Albuquerque.
But in June 2012, Staggs, who has a host of medical problems, was cashing in on her access to prescription Oxycodone, selling 245 of the 30-milligram pills for $4,000 to a man she had recently met through a friend.
The man was actually an undercover agent for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, part of an anti-diversion task force set up to keep prescription opioids from reaching the black market in Albuquerque.
On her third sale to the undercover agent, Staggs was arrested.
U.S. Attorney Damon Martinez said resources, like undercover federal agents, are being directed at illegal prescription pill sales as part of a federal/state initiative because, “We have a public health crisis in New Mexico.”
New Mexico, Martinez said in a recent interview, is No. 2 in the country for overdoses from heroin and opioid painkillers like Oxycodone.
Nearly one in 11 high school students in the state reports having abused prescription painkillers, and New Mexico ranks third-highest in the nation for teen nonmedical use of pain relievers, at 6.8 percent, compared with 5 percent nationwide, according to the state Human Services Department.
“As part of the initiative, we may take cases that we used to turn down,” Martinez said. “When we examine cases, we’re looking for distributors. Who is a distributor has morphed in recent years; it’s a new challenge.”
Staggs, who may have been too low a level drug distributor to warrant federal attention in the past, pleaded guilty this month to federal drug charges and ultimately agreed to a sentence of five years in federal prison.
As a “career offender,” she could have faced a sentence of between 12 and 15-1/2 years because of her previous state convictions for drug trafficking.
Unlike trafficking in heroin, there are no mandatory minimum sentences for illegally distributing Oxycodone or other prescription medications. So, prison sentences tend to run the gamut from probation to more than 10 years.
Factors like the number of pills and a person’s criminal history are taken into account in federal sentencing guidelines.
History of pain
In Staggs’ case, court documents show she has criminal drug convictions dating back to the 1990s. Most recently, she pleaded guilty in state District Court for Bernalillo County to trafficking in a controlled substance in 2007 in two separate cases. She received probation in both cases and had a series of probation violations that never led to time in state prison.
While her state cases were pending, according to court records, Staggs qualified for Social Security disability payments for back problems that led to spinal fusion surgery.
After her latest arrest by DEA agents, she had a hip and both knees replaced while on pretrial release to her mother’s home.
Her attorney, Assistant Federal Public Defender John F. Robbenharr, wrote in sentencing documents that Staggs’ “host of physical problems provides a hint into why Ms. Staggs became addicted to pain killers and other controlled substances and hence how in 2012 Ms. Staggs could have access to large quantities of narcotic painkillers to sell.”
Her physical ailments aside, Robbenharr said in court documents, Staggs has also been found to be mildly mentally retarded, with a history of emotional and psychological problems.
Santa Fe ring
Tracking the source of prescription painkillers on the streets isn’t always easy.
“We see a little bit of everything,” said Sean Waite, assistant special agent in charge of the DEA Albuquerque District Office.  “Everything from the family medicine cabinet to overprescribing or illegal prescribing by physicians, nurse practitioners. Prescription fraud rings. Pharmacy robberies. Occasionally, we seize Oxyc odone produced in Mexico, sometimes heroin made to look like oxy.”
The DEA diversion task force combines law enforcement agents with civilian regulators to track the sources of painkillers hitting the street.
It also gives them access to the federal law enforcement tool box - wiretaps, remote camera surveillance, GPS trackers and the like. In a pending case against a Santa Fe prescription fraud ring, investigators relied heavily on wiretaps, and remote video cameras mounted on telephone and light poles to track the alleged conspirators.
In 2013, the DEA diversion task force worked with local law
enforcement agencies in Santa Fe on the investigation that resulted in the seizure of 7,300 milligrams of Oxycodone and the arrests of five alleged members of the ring.
According to court documents, federal agents believed the ring was
obtaining fraudulent prescriptions from a medical professional made out in the names of people who were not patients. The ring then filled the prescriptions at local pharmacies and sold the pills illegally.
A single 30-milligram pill of Oxycodone can cost as much as $30. The
more pills a person buys, the lower the price.
Side Bar:  If you do the math, 2,433  - would be the count of 30 milligram pills seized by the DEA – How much money did that  cost tax payers?
Earlier this month, one of the defendants in the case, Phillip Anaya, 38, was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison for trafficking in Oxycodone.
Anaya admitted his role in the ring was to distribute painkillers obtained by the group to other addicts in Santa Fe.
Anaya’s attorney in court documents attributed Anaya’s criminal behavior to his own addiction to painkillers.
Two other members of the ring - Daniel Trujillo, 32, and Sarah Romero, 35 - have been sentenced to 18 months each following their guilty pleas.
Ashraf Nassar, 31, and Krystal Holmes, 28, have pleaded not guilty and their cases are pending trial. The case has been ruled complex because of the extensive use of wiretaps.
Educating teens
One of the big concerns federal and local officials have is a perception among teens that prescription painkillers are safer than heroin.
According to several surveys of New Mexico teens, only marijuana use ranks higher than that of prescription painkillers when it comes to drug use. “A real challenge is that young people don’t believe pills are dangerous like heroin,” Martinez said. “But nationwide we’re seeing more overdoses from prescription pills than heroin.”
He and other federal officials also say they are not the only player.  The state Board of Pharmacy, the state Medical Board and Medical Society, the University of New Mexico School of Medicine, the state Department of Health, the state Human Services Department and local law enforcement are involved.
In 2012, the New Mexico Legislature passed a bill that mandated continuing medical education for pain and addiction for all clinicians.
Last week, the state Department of Human Services issued three public service advertisements called “A Dose of Reality” in a campaign to educate youth and their parents about the serious risks of addiction and overdose from prescription painkiller abuse.
The Medical Society has produced DVDs for doctors and other drug prescribers about how to detect people who “shop” for doctors in order to obtain prescription painkillers.
State Behavioral Health Services Division Director Wayne Lindstrom said in a release on the ad campaign that “12- to 17-year-olds abuse prescription drugs more than they abuse heroin, crack and cocaine, ecstasy and methamphetamine combined. Prescription drugs most commonly abused by teens are prescription painkillers.”
Martinez said the cases directed at the illegal distribution of painkillers are part of the Heroin Prevention and Education Initiative (HOPE Initiative), which is directed at reducing opioid-related overdose deaths in New Mexico. The initiative includes efforts directed at prevention and education.
“Education is a big part of this,” Martinez said. “Not just young people, but professionals. People have to know how dangerous it is to abuse prescription drugs.”
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Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The Associated Press
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Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
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WASHINGTON STATE REVISITS RULES ON USE OF MARIJUANA AS MEDICINE
OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Nearly two decades after voters passed a medical marijuana law that often left the police, prosecutors and even patients confused about what was allowed, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill on Friday that attempts to clean up that largely unregulated system and to bring it in line with Washington’s new recreational marijuana market.
Among the law’s many provisions, it creates a voluntary registry of patients and, beginning next year, eliminates what have become in some cases large, legally dubious “collective gardens” providing cannabis to thousands of people. Instead, those patients will be able to buy medical-grade products at legal recreational marijuana stores that obtain an endorsement to sell medical marijuana, or they will be able to participate in cooperatives of up to four patients.
And those big medical marijuana gardens will be given a path to legitimacy: The state will grant priority in licensing to those who have been good proprietors.
The proliferation of medical dispensaries has long been a concern for the police and other officials who denounce them as a cover for black-market sales. Washington in 1998 became one of the first states to approve the use of marijuana for medical purposes, but the initiative passed by voters did not allow commercial sales.
Medical marijuana growers repeatedly sought legislation that would
validate their businesses, coming closest in 2011, when the
Legislature approved a bill to create a licensing framework for
medical dispensaries. But Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed much of the measure.
This time, with the state seeking to support its nascent recreational
marijuana industry after the passage of Initiative 502 in 2012, there was a financial impetus to pull the medical users into the recreational system.
Under the new law, patients who join the voluntary registry will be
allowed to possess three ounces dry, 48 ounces of marijuana-infused solids, 216 ounces liquid and 21 grams of concentrates.
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Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The New York Times Company
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Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
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Author: Joe Cochrane

DESPITE PROTESTS, INDONESIA MOVES FORWARD TO EXECUTE DRUG CONVICTS
JAKARTA, Indonesia - Two are young Australians portrayed back home as generally good lads. One is a Brazilian who is mentally ill. There are four Nigerian men, a female migrant worker from the Philippines and an Indonesian laborer.
They come from diverse backgrounds and circumstances, but all nine were convicted of drug crimes in Indonesia. And all are scheduled to die soon in a mass execution on a remote island off the southern coast of Java.
In what is believed will be the largest such execution in Indonesia in decades, firing squads could start the job as early as 12:01 a.m.  on Wednesday.
A 10th convict, a French citizen, had been part of the group but won a last-minute, two-week reprieve late Saturday night, according to a spokesman in the attorney general’s office, Tony Spontana. Mr.  Spontana said the decision involved “an issue with the high courts” but provided no further explanation.
The executions, if carried out as planned, will follow those of five foreign drug convicts shot to death - along with one Indonesian convicted of murder - in the same spot in January, and are part of a campaign by President Joko Widodo to combat what he calls a “national emergency” of drug abuse.
He has rejected appeals for clemency from 64 drug convicts on death row, the vast majority of them foreigners, and plowed ahead with plans to execute them by the end of the year.
The effort has angered allies and set off diplomatic disputes on three continents.
Some countries, like France and Australia, oppose the death penalty under any circumstances. Others have attacked Indonesia’s judiciary as corrupt and incompetent.
Christof Heyns, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, has called for an immediate halt to executions in Indonesia because it was not following international norms.
He said in February that the six people executed in January and that nearly all of those to be executed in the next batch did not get fair trials.
Mr. Joko has rebuffed such criticism as foreign interference, and has demanded other nations respect Indonesia’s “sovereign right to exercise our laws.”
How those laws will be exercised is explained in minute detail in national police regulations.
On the day of the executions, sometime after midnight, the prisoners will be driven through the gates of Pasir Putih prison on Nusakambangan Island, where they have been held in semi-isolation, to a wooded site far enough away that other inmates will not hear the gunshots.
The first two of the prisoners, all of whom will wear special white uniforms, will be escorted to metal poles, where they will be bound at the hands and feet. They will be given the option of being blindfolded and of standing, sitting or kneeling.
Separate 12-member firing squads from a special mobile brigade of the national police - one squad for each prisoner - will stand 16 to 30 feet away.
After the condemned are given a few minutes to compose themselves, a police commander will draw a sword, signaling the two firing squads to raise their rifles and take aim at their respective prisoners.
The commander will then thrust the sword downward, giving the order to fire. Only three members of each squad will have live rounds in their rifles.
The same procedure will be repeated for the others.
The two prisoners with the highest profiles are Andrew Chan, 31, and
Myuran Sukumaran, 34, members of the so-called Bali Nine group of
Australians who were arrested in 2005 trying to smuggle 18.5 pounds
of heroin out of the Indonesian resort island and back home.
While Mr. Chan and Mr. Sukumaran have admitted guilt, their lawyers
have said that the judges who handed down the death sentences had offered to impose lighter penalties in exchange for money.
The Indonesian wife of one of the Nigerian convicts, Silvester
Obiekwe Nwolise, 47, says the judges at his 2004 trial for smuggling
more than two and half pounds of heroin into the country offered him a 20-year sentence if he paid a bribe of $22,000.
Lawyers for Rodrigo Gularte, a 42-year-old Brazilian, continue to demand that Indonesia’s attorney general remove him from the execution list and transfer him to a mental health facility because he has suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder since he was a teenager. They have released medical documents from Brazil dating back more than 20 years, as well as evaluations by Indonesian doctors after his 2004 arrest to support their claim.
Under Indonesian law, any person with a confirmed mental illness cannot be criminally prosecuted.
The attorney general’s office, however, recently sought an opinion from police psychiatrists who it said found Mr. Gularte to be mentally fit. The prosecutors have not released the evaluation or shared it with his legal team.
Mary Jane Veloso, a 30-year-old from the Philippines, was unable to understand what was taking place during her 2011 trial after, her family maintains, she was duped into carrying nearly six pounds of heroin concealed in a suitcase from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta the previous year.
At the trial, she was assisted by a young interpreter who spoke little English. Though Ms. Veloso spoke little English herself, she spoke no Indonesian.
The lone Indonesian in the group, Zainal Abidin, 50, a burnisher at a furniture workshop in South Sumatra Province, sought a review from the Supreme Court in 2005 after getting a death sentence for trafficking 129 pounds of marijuana.
The court is required by law to respond to such requests within six months, but did not do so until January, nearly 10 years later, and only after Mr. Joko’s execution policy began. The court has not ruled on the appeal, but is expected to do so on Monday.
Jamiu Owolabi Abashin, 41, another Nigerian, did not have a lawyer when he appealed his death sentence. His appeal was rejected.
“For those countries that exercise the death penalty, they have to make sure that the best mechanisms of the judicial system should be open to and exercised by the convicted person,” said Haris Azhar, coordinator of the Commission for Missing Persons and Victims of Violence, an Indonesian human rights group.
“That’s not the case in Indonesia,” he said. “In fact, it’s the other way around.”
The attorney general’s office, in announcing the reprieve for the French convict, Serge Atlaoui, 51-year-old a father of four, said there would be another review of his case in a state court but offered no details.
Questions about the integrity of Indonesia’s judicial system, and pressure from some of its largest aid donors, have not shaken the government’s resolve.
Mr. Joko has refused to take phone calls from Prime Minister Tony Abbott of Australia, who among other things has proposed a prisoner swap between the two nations to bring Mr. Chan and Mr. Sukumaran back home. He later offered to pay the cost of their incarcerations in Indonesia.
Mr. Joko’s government also rebuffed requests for clemency by a delegation from the European Union in March.
While state prosecutors have criticized some of the convicts for trying to “buy time” by launching legal appeals, the government has created its own delays.
Attorney General H. M. Prasetyo said the executions would go forward, but not during the 60th commemoration of the Asia-Africa Conference, which Indonesia is hosting through Sunday.
“You wouldn’t execute people during a high-profile government event with lots of visitors,” he was quoted as saying by The Jakarta Post.
Correction: April 26, 2015
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of this article misstated the number of drug convicts shot to death in January. It was five, not six. (One of the six was convicted of murder.) The article also mischaracterized a step in the execution process. The prisoners will be given the option of being blindfolded; they will not be automatically blindfolded.
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Pubdate: Sat, 30 Apr 2005
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)
Copyright: 2005 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact: sactoletters@newsreview.com
Website: http://newsreview.com/sacto/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540
Author: Ngaio Bealum

NO-HEART LEONHART
Now that Michele Leonhart is retiring, do you have opinions on who should be the new head of the Drug Enforcement Administration?
? Erik

Indeed I do. But first I would like to say this to Leonhart: So long, farewell and don’t let the door hit you on your disingenuous ass on the way out. Leonhart, a holdover from the Bush administration, is retiring after DEA agents were caught sleeping with Colombian prostitutes. In many cases, the women were supplied by Colombian drug cartel members. And if you think I am being unduly harsh, here is a bit of the press release from Tennessee Senator Steve Cohen’s office:
“It is appropriate that Michele Leonhart resign; she has not prioritized or concentrated on drugs that actually lead people to commit crimes, like heroin and methamphetamine, and she was insubordinate to the president when she criticized his acknowledgment of the fact that marijuana is no more harmful than alcohol. Hopefully her successor will help lead the effort to reschedule marijuana from Schedule I, where it is currently restricted at the same level as heroin and at a higher level than more harmful drugs like cocaine.”
Woo-hoo, Steve Cohen! In my opinion, she should have been let go long before this. This is the person that battled with President Barack Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder over reducing mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent drug crimes. This is the same person that couldn’t admit that crack cocaine is a more harmful drug than marijuana. This is the person that told a room full of sheriffs that one of the lowest points in her career was when the White House flew a flag made of hemp on the Fourth of July a few years back. It is way beyond time for her to have a seat. Seeing as all they do is waste money and ruin lives, I think that the DEA should be disbanded and replaced with an agency dedicated to harm reduction and social health. Of course, this has no real chance of happening, but a fella can dream.
I would nominate Neill Franklin as the new head of the DEA. He is the head of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and a former police officer. Maybe someone should start a petition ...
How was Denver?
? Blucifer

Denver was great! I was a judge at the High Times Cannabis Cup! Woot woot! I had to judge 18 different high-CBD strains. CBD-heavy strains can be hard to figure out because CBD isn’t psychoactive like THC is, but we had a great time, and smoking all those CBDs has made me want to add more CBD to my cannabis regimen. I definitely had way less anxiety, and my knees felt great! Overall, the cannabis in Denver is good, but I think commercial pressures and lack of any real mom-and-pop or artisanal small-batch producers creates a lack of premium “head stash” top-notch flowers, although I did smoke a Tangie and a Thunderbud Haze that were both phenomenal.
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Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2015 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Alan Schwarz

MICHAEL BOTTICELLI IS A DRUG CZAR WHO KNOWS ADDICTION FIRSTHAND
BALTIMORE - Six recovering substance abusers sat in an inner-city
treatment center, sharing their stories. When Michael’s turn came
around, he spoke of his former drug of choice, alcohol, and mentioned
the night years ago when he drove drunk on the Massachusetts
Turnpike, caused an accident and was arrested before passing out.
Michael then pulled out a picture of a friend’s brother who recently
died from mixing prescription painkillers with alcohol. He described his grief and visceral connection with the struggles of substance abusers in recovery.
“You are my people,” he said, wiping one eye.
Catharsis is common in treatment centers, but Michael is not the
typical former substance abuser: He is Michael Botticelli, the director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, informally known as the drug czar. Mr. Botticelli is the first person in substance-abuse recovery to hold the position.
His history, far from the liability it once may have been, is
considered evidence that the government is moving toward addressing drug abuse more through healing than handcuffs.
“Every other drug czar has had a military, political or police
background,” said Tom McLellan, a founder of the Treatment Research
Institute in Philadelphia and an expert in substance abuse. “Nothing
against them, but it’s time to have that new perspective, and Michael brings it. He is the living example of what should be an expectable result of treatment - recovery.”
Mr. Botticelli’s agency, created during the Reagan administration’s
war-on-drugs initiatives, devises and controls the budget for
national drug policies. It assists the State Department and Drug
Enforcement Administration in dealing with governments of countries
from which drugs are exported - such as Mexico, India and China - and works with domestic health and law enforcement officials on strategies to stem the supply and abuse of drugs, from heroin to prescription opioids.
Heroin abuse and deaths in the United States have risen drastically in recent years, particularly among the middle class and in rural communities. About 23,000 Americans died from overdoses of prescription painkillers and tranquilizers in 2013 -roughly double the total of a decade earlier, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Other federal data shows that in 2013, 1.8 million people ages 12 or older received treatment at a facility for abuse of either alcohol or drugs.
Mr. Botticelli lived it himself: In 1988, after being arrested on charges of causing an accident while driving drunk on the Massachusetts Turnpike, he woke up the next morning handcuffed to a hospital bed. (He had previously used marijuana a few times, as well as cocaine, he said, “on a somewhat occasional basis.”) He spent four months in a court-mandated outpatient treatment program for alcohol abuse, and soon left his job as an administrator at Brandeis University to work at a substance-abuse treatment center.
Mr. Botticelli, 57, has remained abstinent for 26 years, his only synapse-soothing substance being an occasional cigarette. He even refused a prescription for opioid painkillers after a significant medical procedure for fear they might awaken addictive behavior.
Raised in Waterford, N.Y., outside Albany, Mr. Botticelli directed the Bureau of Substance Abuse Services in Massachusetts for 10 years before joining the Office of National Drug Control Policy in November 2012 as deputy director under Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle chief of police. Mr. Kerlikowske left the position last year to become commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, leaving Mr. Botticelli to succeed him.
John P. Walters, who served as the agency’s director from 2001 to 2009 under President George W. Bush, said he supported Mr.  Botticelli’s focus on improving treatment for abusers but expressed concern that it might distract from efforts to keep illicit substances like heroin and methamphetamine from entering the country.  He criticized the Obama administration for removing the director from the cabinet in 2009, and said Mr. Botticelli would need to enlist more support from the Drug Enforcement Administration, the F.B.I. and the State Department to negotiate with foreign governments.
“Yes, we need to make treatment resources available to more people, but our goal is not to just treat victims but deal with supply reduction in a way that gets foreign countries and governments involved,” said Mr. Walters, the chief operating officer of the Hudson Institute, a think tank.
Mr. Botticelli said he embraced his office’s more traditional charges, like combating the flow of heroin across the United States border with Mexico. (This role explains his round-the-clock protection by United States marshals.) Yet some of his primary objectives do not attempt to stem substance abuse - they accede to its reality.
He wants police officers nationwide to be trained to use naloxone, a nasal spray or injection that can almost instantly resuscitate people who overdose on opiates; better education for prescribers of painkillers and other drugs so that they can recognize signs of abuse or addiction; and the distribution of clean syringes for intravenous drug users to stem the spread of infectious diseases like H.I.V. and hepatitis C.
“Locking people up for minor drug offenses, and especially people with substance-use disorders, is not the answer,” Mr. Botticelli said. “It’s cruel. It’s costly. And it doesn’t make the public any safer.”
Mr. Botticelli said that as the social stigma associated with drug abuse dissuaded people from seeking treatment, the substance-abuse field should take cues from the gay rights movement. He lived that, too - he is gay and married his partner in Massachusetts in 2009.
“I almost found it easier to come out as being a gay man than a person in recovery,” Mr. Botticelli said. “We’re doing an amazing job decreasing the shame and stigma surrounding gay folks. There is a playbook for this.”
Regarding the issue of medical marijuana, which 23 states and the District of Columbia have authorized despite its federal ban, Mr.  Botticelli has said he opposes the legalization of cannabis unless it is formally approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Even if Mr.  Botticelli had mixed feelings, the statute that created his agency, in 1988, specifically forbids the office to support legalizing any substance classified in Schedule I by the Drug Enforcement Administration.
Reporting primarily to Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, Mr. Botticelli splits time between his Washington office and touring the country visiting treatment centers, making speeches and consulting with local officials on how to improve services for those with substance abuse disorders. In late March, he went to Baltimore - sometimes called the heroin capital of America - for a typical tour.
Mr. Botticelli stopped first at Reach, an outpatient treatment
facility that serves primarily patients covered by Medicaid. When he
sat down with five adults recovering from abuse of various substances
? heroin, alcohol, painkillers, marijuana - they were reticent about sharing their experiences and opinions. Only after an awkward 10 seconds did he say with a smile, “O.K., I’ll start,” detailing his own abuse history and allowing the others to open up.

“It means a lot to know there’s somebody who understands,” said Ashley Grimes, 22, who is in her second year of recovery from heroin abuse. “He’s walked in the shoes we’ve walked.”
After Mr. Botticelli spent an hour with doctors at the Johns Hopkins Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research, he rode with a police officer from Anne Arundel County, Nick Tackett, who used naloxone to save the lives of two people who had overdosed on heroin.
“You’re doing something that police don’t normally do - administering a drug,” Officer Tackett said as they passed an abandoned one-car garage in which one of the overdoses occurred. “And two or three minutes later the person’s alive.”
As heartened as Mr. Botticelli was at that story, on the way home he shared a more somber one. Last year, he heard about a Virginia man whose 23-year-old son died in his arms from a heroin overdose. Mr.  Botticelli invited the grieving father to lunch in the West Wing, where the father lamented that the death was his responsibility.
“It isn’t your responsibility,” Mr. Botticelli responded. “It’s my responsibility.”
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Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2015 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Jeff Jacoby

WHAT PRICE IS TOO HIGH FOR A MIRACLE DRUG?
Naloxone isn’t magic, but its power to rescue a heroin user from the brink of death can certainly seem miraculous. The anti-overdose drug, also known by the brand name Narcan, is easy to administer and has saved thousands of lives. First responders are often awestruck at how swiftly it can revive a dying addict.
“It’s just incredible,” the deputy fire chief in Revere marveled in a public-radio interview last year. “There’s somebody who’s on the ground who’s literally dead. They have no pulse. Sometimes they’re blue, sometimes they’re black. And you administer this stuff and sometimes in a minute or two or three, they’re actually up and talking to you.”
Free markets aren’t magic either. Yet their ability to generate a life-saving drug like naloxone, supplying quantities sufficient to make it widely available even when the need is great, can seem even more miraculous. That miracle is not enhanced when politicians rebuke the entrepreneurs who manufacture or distribute such wonder drugs for charging a price that the market will bear.
Politicians, for instance, like Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey. She lists opiate abuse among her most urgent public concerns, yet is going out of her way to pick a fight with vendors who actually help make things better.
In recent years, drug overdoses have surpassed automobile accidents as the leading cause of death from injury in the United States.  According to the Centers for Disease Control, opiate painkillers alone account for 16,000 fatalities annually; deaths involving heroin have increased fivefold since 2001.
Amid this grim crisis of opioid overdoses, naloxone has been a godsend. While public-health experts debate the causes of the epidemic, officials nationwide have been moving rapidly to expand access to the drug. The National Conference of State Legislatures reports that 30 states and the District of Columbia have adopted a variety of measures to facilitate the use of naloxone. Among those measures: allowing it to be administered by non-medical personnel, paying for police and firefighters to carry supplies of the drug, and permitting pharmacies to dispense naloxone without a prescription.
Of course, with demand for the medication skyrocketing, the price has climbed as well. The workings of economics apply to pharmaceuticals just as they apply to housing, bourbon, iPhones, or tickets to NFL playoff games. When demand for a product or service rises, the price of that product or service can’t help but rise in response. That is especially true when the growth in demand has come about quickly or in unexpectedly short order. Heroin overdose rates have increased markedly since 2010, and only in the last year or two has there has been such a strong push by state and local authorities to equip first responders - police officers, sheriffs, firefighters, and even civilian bystanders - with naloxone kits.
In the midst of an opioid epidemic, naloxone is saving lives. So why attack the entrepreneurs who make and distribute it?
So it stands to reason that in Massachusetts, as in most other states, the price of naloxone is up sharply. A 2-milliliter dose that used to cost the state $19.56 has more than doubled to $41.43. That’s a sizeable increase, and it is putting a strain on public-safety and drug-treatment budgets.
The price jump may be unwelcome - no one likes to pay more for vital supplies - but it is hard to see anything unfair or unethical, let alone unlawful, about it. That hasn’t stopped Healey from demanding that companies selling naloxone in Massachusetts provide detailed explanations for the higher costs of the drug, and account for “any changes in prices over time” since the opioid crisis was declared a public emergency. Healey’s spokesman insists the attorney general “isn’t suggesting anything nefarious,” and is simply conducting “a fact-finding mission.” But the innuendo is hard to miss.
Healey has said she is just being “aggressive” and wants to be sure “that nobody is out there unnecessarily profiteering from a public health crisis.” Yet who is the real “profiteer” here? The drug maker who responds to an unprecedented surge in demand for a critical medication by raising prices to ensure that inventories of the drugs aren’t immediately depleted? Or the ambitious politician, who sees a chance to score political points by posing as a defender of the public against the very suppliers who are making available what the public needs?
Demand for naloxone is way up; consequently the price of naloxone is up. Eventually the price will fall, as new supplies come on line. In the meantime, thanks to the workings of the market, more lives are being saved.
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Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/V6g8m1po
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.

MARIJUANA: THE NEW ALMONDS? AMID DROUGHT, IS MARIJUANA THE NEW ALMONDS?
The drought blame-debate has brought out just about every political
whipping boy you can imagine. Farmers, developers, politicians, environmentalists, almonds and, yes, that crazy little madcap, the Delta smelt.
Even unauthorized immigrants have been hauled into the
finger-pointing gallery in some quarters.
Now a new water-abusing villain emerges: legal marijuana.
A panel met in Los Angeles on Tuesday to consider what legalizing
marijuana would mean to California. Voters are expected to weigh in on legalization next year.
Discussion focused on the issues of taxes, crime and the environment
? particularly how much water pot plants require. Quite a bit, it turns out.

Paul Gallegos, a former district attorney in Humboldt County, where
they know a thing or two about the crop, said a pot plant needs six gallons of water each day over its 150-day growing cycle, according to The Associated Press.
It takes more than a gallon of water to grow a single almond, the
drought’s reigning bad boy.
Double down on Brown
It sure seems like a setup to me.
The Assembly recently passed a bill that prohibits fining residents for not watering their lawns, which has been a practice in some cities. AB 1 (“Brown is the new green”) was authored by San Bernardino Assemblywoman Cheryl Brown.
Inzunza’s back
Well, Ralph Inzunza has been back, or out, for a while but has been keeping a low profile. Still, the former San Diego City Council member is being seen more in public these days, about a year-and-a-half since he’s been out of federal custody after a conviction on corruption charges.
On Friday, Inzunza joined with fellow former council members to celebrate the 10th anniversary of their passage of San Diego’s living wage ordinance.
In January, he appeared at a gathering to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Logan Heights Library.
Inzunza was convicted of extortion, honest services wire fraud and conspiracy by a federal jury in 2005 for trading political favors for campaign contributions from Michael Galardi, then-owner of Cheetahs strip club in San Diego and several clubs in Las Vegas. The case became known as “Strippergate.”
The stadium drive
The folks at carson2gether, the Chargers-Raiders front group, made a
splash last week with renderings of a new design for their proposed stadium outside Los Angeles. Much of the local attention was focused, with smirks all around San Diego, on the plan to have a huge glass tower shooting lightning bolts high into the sky.
The stadium also would have a burning caldron to honor Al Davis, the
late Raiders owner. That largely got a pass here, but maybe they chewed on it a bit in Oakland.
The most peculiar thing - I know, tough competition - was the
inspiration for the stadium’s design. Part of it, according to U-T
San Diego’s Roger Showley, came from the Los Angeles Coliseum.
“Another inspiration came from a luxury sports car, shown as a
Porsche parked in front in one of the drawings,” he wrote.
Tweet of the week
Goes to John Nienstedt (@CompetitivEdge), reflecting on the chatter about how you’ll get phantasmagorical lightning bolts when the Chargers play in Carson.
“And when the Raiders play you get mugged.”
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Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/XpWncdt1
Copyright: 2015 Alaska Dispatch Publishing
Contact: letters@adn.com
Website: http://www.adn.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/18
Note: Anchorage Daily News until July ‘14
Author: Laurel Andrews

WHAT TO WATCH FOR AS ALASKA’S MARIJUANA LAWS TAKE SHAPE
On the last day of Alaska’s regular legislative session, the state Senate voted on a bill that would clarify municipal regulation of marijuana.
“This is our last marijuana bill,” Sen. Lesil McGuire, R-Anchorage, said before the vote. “I think members are relieved by that fact.”
The bill wasn’t controversial, she said. It had come about at the request of city governments looking for guidance.
The bill went to a vote. It failed, 10-10.
The next day, the bill was sent back to the Senate Rules Committee, where it will remain until legislators gavel in next year, Sen. John Coghill, R-North Pole, confirmed Wednesday.
That signaled the end of the Legislature’s efforts this year surrounding marijuana.
Lawmakers spent many hours discussing cannabis this session.
“Marijuana just demanded time,” Coghill said, and the issues were so broad that they were difficult to come to consensus on.
Gov. Bill Walker has also signaled that he will not introduce any more pot-related bills as the Legislature limps along past its regular session. He “would like to see (the) regulation process through before making a decision about additional legislation,” spokeswoman Grace Jang wrote.
So, now that it appears the Legislature has wrapped up its efforts this session, what passed, what didn’t and what’s next for Alaska’s legalization landscape?
What passed?
Of the five pot bills introduced, legislators passed only one, on the last day of the regular legislative session—a bill that creates a Marijuana Control Board.
The option of creating a Marijuana Control Board was written into Alaska’s Ballot Measure 2. A bill establishing the board was requested by Gov. Bill Walker, and the day after the bill passed, he said that he supported the final version.
Once signed into law, the bill will create a five-member volunteer board. The board has seven months left to craft marijuana regulations. It will address a wide array of issues, from the amount of THC allowed per edible product to business license types to security and safety requirements.
The board will share the staff, resources and director of the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board. Most of the $1.57 million in funding included in the capital budget will go toward the expansion of the ABC Board, which has already hired several new employees.
The bill also gives explicit enforcement authority to the ABC Board
? meaning that it may use peace officer powers to shut down businesses acting illegally, as it does with alcohol businesses acting out of compliance.

ABC Board director Cynthia Franklin has reiterated many times the importance of having enforcement power, as businesses have already begun operating without licenses.
Once the bill is signed into law, “we’re ready to rock and roll” and crack down on those businesses, Franklin said.
What stalled?
Four bills were introduced that didn’t pass.
The most closely watched was Senate Bill 30, which attempted to modify Alaska’s criminal statutes.
The bill is currently in the House Judiciary Committee. Rep.
Gabrielle LeDoux said Friday that it would not be addressed this session.
So what does it mean that no criminal bill was passed? In a nutshell:
All criminal statutes that are not explicitly changed by the initiative are left in place.
The initiative carves out legal activity around marijuana—all else remains the same. That means, for instance, that it’s still a felony to have 25 cannabis plants or more in one’s home.
Anchorage Police Chief Mark Mew put it this way: “If we have criminal statutes that are still on the books and they have not been rendered moot ... then they’re still available to be used, and we probably will be put in the position of using them from time to time.”
Franklin, Coghill and Coalition for Responsible Cannabis Legislation spokesman Bruce Schulte all said they wished a criminal statute bill had passed.
“Bringing those criminal statutes in line with the initiative is huge,” Schulte said.
The Legislature “made a good stab at it,” Schulte said, but “there wasn’t enough time to wade through the issues.”
Another bill that stalled in the Legislature was House Bill 75, which would clarify municipality processes for marijuana.
House Bill 75 made it through the House and to a vote on the Senate floor in the last day of the regular legislative session only to get kicked back to the drawing board.
The deal breakers? First, a 24-plant limit that some in the Senate thought was too high, Coghill said.
The second was whether communities in the “unorganized borough”—a huge swath of land not in any borough that includes much of Southwest Alaska—should have to opt in or out of allowing marijuana businesses.
These questions had “a little more complexity than many of us wanted to deal with when we thought we were going to be leaving Sunday,” Coghill said, referring to April 19, 90 days after the Legislature went into session.
Coghill said that bill would be one of the first the Legislature tackles next session.
Two other bills stalled out as well. A bill that would make marijuana
concentrates illegal in the first year of the regulatory process
stopped in the House Judiciary Committee. A bill that would set up
business license types—including home grower and boutique licenses
? was introduced in the Senate Judiciary Committee and then didn’t budge for the entirety of the session.

What’s next?
Expect to see draft regulations within a week. The ABC Board meets April 29 and 30 and draft regulations will be introduced then. If approved, those drafts would be opened to public comment.
Franklin said the initial regulations will focus on testing
facilities and local option laws.

The governor will appoint the members of the volunteer board—“we are hoping very soon,” Franklin said—who will use the remaining seven months to figure out all the details.
Here’s the board’s timeline:
By Nov. 24, marijuana regulations must be adopted by the board.
By Feb. 24, marijuana business applications will be accepted.
March 2016: Regulations expected to go into effect.
May 24, 2016: First marijuana business licenses expected to be awarded.
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This one                             Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 26 Apr 2015
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact: letters@chicoer.com
Website: http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Note: Letters from newspaper’s circulation area receive publishing priority
Author: Chris Sommers

FREEDOMS RESTORED BY PASSAGE OF MEASURE A
This is in response to Andrew Merkel’s letter Tuesday headlined
“Freedoms being taken by our government,” specifically regarding Measure A.
Contrary to Merkel’s assertions, many normal, law-abiding citizens are finally having their freedoms restored, not curtailed. These include: freedom from nuisance (smells, traffic, vicious dogs, shady characters); freedom from fear and danger (armed guards, home invasions, exploding butane honey oil labs); and freedom to enjoy peace and quiet in the country.
And guess what - many of us are very grateful that the county government is protecting us from “terrorists,” i.e. scofflaw pot-profiteers, who snuck their illegal activities into our communities inside a trojan horse, named “Prop 215.” Compared to the last two years, I am already seeing a notable reduction in seasonal vehicular traffic and shady out-of-towners here to make a fast illegal buck.
Word on the street is, many are moving out now that Measure A passed and code enforcement is cracking down. Criminal operations are being busted as a side benefit. Former grower properties are suddenly for sale. You can even find “215-friendly” properties advertised on Craigslist, complete with generator and water tank (but no PG&E or septic).
Because of this turnabout, I and many others are no longer contemplating leaving Butte County for safer venues. Thank you supervisors, thank you Butte County Sheriff’s Office, thank you code enforcement, thank you district attorney, and thank you voters.
? Chris Sommers, Bangor
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 27 Apr 2015
Source: Chico Enterprise-Record (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Enterprise-Record
Contact: letters@chicoer.com
Website: http://www.chicoer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/861
Note: Letters from newspaper’s circulation area receive publishing priority
Author: Garry Cooper

BUTTE COUNTY WILL SOON REGRET MARIJUANA SEARCHES
It’s unfathomably ignorant and abusive what the county officials have done.
They get Measure A passed to enforce pot cultivation rules, which may or may not be upheld in court.
Instead of just getting complaints from the public and investigating them, the county code enforcement and sheriffs teamed up and barged into what is estimated to be at least hundreds of properties without so much as obtaining a specific allegation of a violation of that ordinance, and in most cases, the actual complainant is the sheriffs themselves it is believed - a warrantless search.
Basically, what they did is hire an army of seven new code enforcement officers and teamed them up with carloads of sheriffs to carry on a campaign of terror and intimidation against a particular class of people. The judge issuing these erroneous “inspection” warrants, the code enforcement and sheriffs, the supervisors, the DA, and any other county staff involved seem very well guilty of conspiracy.
All could have been fine and the ordinance reasonably enforced in a constitutional and nonabusive manner but now Butte County, along with every official involved, have opened themselves up to millions upon millions in damages.
Read the following article online where a current federal court case was upheld to continue against the county officials in Lake County for conspiracy and civil rights issues: www.courthousenews.com/2015/02/04/medical-marijuana.
Butte County’s abuse and terror campaign makes that one look like child’s play.
I can’t grasp why they didn’t just leave well enough alone.
Childish.
? Garry Cooper, Durham
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 27 Apr 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/2e7N8eZL
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Carlos Illescas

DOUGH ROLLS IN FOR POT
Six Months In, Aurora’s Venture into Recreational Marijuana Slow but Good
Six months into Aurora’s venture of recreational marijuana sales, city officials say after a slow start everything is going about as well as could be expected.
In January, the city collected about $103,000 in tax revenue and another $109,000 in February. In the last three months of 2014, as a few stores opened, Aurora earned a little over $100,000 total.
By the end of 2015, the city expects to have between $1.5 million to $2 million in revenue from legal pot sales.
And those who waded through the process and claimed one of the city’s 24 licenses are starting to see big dividends.
With no previous pot sales, Aurora used a point system to rank and issue 24 recreational marijuana business licenses - four in each City Council ward or district - and so far 23 licenses have been awarded.  The point system led some to criticize the city, saying it was squeezing out the mom-and-pop pot shops. Maybe they were right.  “There’s always room for improvement if you look back, but overall I am very proud of the way we implemented our ordinance,” said City Councilman Bob Roth, chairman of a committee that created rules for recreational marijuana. “I think we did get some heat from some people saying ‘Why are you micro-managing it?’ But I don’t think we wanted the mom-and-pop shops, at least initially.”
Recreational marijuana stores were allowed to open in Aurora on Oct.  1, but it took a few weeks before the first store, Euflora, opened near Southlands mall.
Since then, 11 recreational pot shops have opened in the city, and there are two grow operations currently in business, including one that is 20,000 square feet.
It’s not known whether Aurora has seen an increase in criminal activity, including public consumption, because of recreational sales.
Sgt. Scott Pendleton of the Aurora Police Department said that one or two retail pot stores have had attempted break-ins. Police responded to one shop that reported a disorderly person inside.
“Those places do a pretty good job of policing themselves,” Pendleton said. “They don’t want any trouble.”
Police are seeing more illegal home-grow operations, but that’s been happening for about four years, he said. Last year, police responded to 144 home-grow calls, and the majority of them were illegal, Pendleton said.
The Aurora City Council has moved to ban all types of hash-oil production in homes. The city has seen at least six explosions or fires due to hash oil production since October 2013, injuring three people and damaging several buildings.
The most recent opening of a recreational store, Good Chemistry on East Iliff Avenue, is certainly no mom and pop; think more Apple store. It is modern, spacious and has four kiosks with iPads so customers can research pot.
Meg Collins, vice president of business development for Good Chemistry, said Aurora was a natural fit for the company, which also has a store in Denver.
The Aurora shop has been open since April 9, so sales numbers are still coming in. But Collins, former executive director of the Cannabis Business Alliance, said expectations are high for the company’s new location.
“So far, the store is doing very well,” she said.
At Starbuds on Del Mar Parkway, owner Brian Ruden said it was a slow process getting approval for a license but it is paying in a big way.
He wasn’t able to open by the Oct. 1 start date, but he said the business is in a good location in Original Aurora and is setting sales records each month. In March, Ruden said, sales totaled roughly $200,000.
“It’s a really exciting trend now that people are finding us,” Ruden said. “All the headache and strife and nightmare to get open ... now looking back I’m so glad we did it.”
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This one              Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 27 Apr 2015
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2015 Associated Press
Contact: opinion@abqjournal.com
Website: http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Sudhin Thanawala, Associated Press

LAWYERS TURN TO BUSINESS OF MARIJUANA
Legalization Brings Need for Advisement
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Lawyers and pot dealers have long intersected in criminal court, but as marijuana goes mainstream, attorneys have been working to keep sellers and growers legit.
Marijuana divisions are popping up at law firms to advise pot shops on where they can locate, what their websites can say and how to vet new clients.
“It’s definitely something that established firms are dipping a toe into, though they are being very cautious, and rightly so,” said Sam Kamin, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law who teaches a class about representing the marijuana industry.
Kamin said the firms see marijuana as a lucrative new industry, but still worry about the potential ethical and legal pitfalls - and how it will affect their reputations.
Marijuana has become a multi-billion-dollar industry. California and more than 20 other states have legalized the drug for medical use, and the pot business has gotten a boost from more recent approvals of recreational use in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and Washington, D.C. Pot advocates hope growth continues, as they push for voters to approve recreational pot in California, Arizona, Nevada, Maine and Massachusetts next year.
The drug remains illegal under federal law, however, and the American Bar Association’s rules of professional conduct prohibit lawyers from assisting in criminal conduct.
With this in mind, attorneys say they focus on providing advice about what state marijuana laws do and don’t allow, and decline to answer questions about how clients can bend the rules.
“We’re not your consigliere. We’re not an organized crime family,” said Khurshid Khoja, a legalization advocate and founder of San Francisco-based Greenbridge Corporate Counsel. “We’re legitimate business people.”
Khoja’s firm is among a new crop dedicated solely to marijuana clients, including packaging companies and investors. But for law firms with other practice areas, there is also concern about how non-pot clients will view their marijuana work.
At the Seattle, Washington-based law firm of Harris Moure, the marijuana practice group has a completely separate brand - Canna Law Group - with its own website.
“It was a calculated defense mechanism against the potential legal and reputational concerns,” said Hilary Bricken, who heads up the group and boasts a unique accolade on her website - DOPE Magazine’s attorney of the year.
Bricken started the practice group in 2010 and now brings in roughly $1 million of revenue to the firm each year, she said.
Marijuana law, in many ways, is no different from other legal practices, attorneys say. It involves contracts, real estate transactions, trademarks and regulatory compliance. What is unique, though, is the constant prospect of running afoul of the law.
For marijuana entrepreneurs, legal guidance can bring peace of mind.
Shy Sadis, 42, who has medical and recreational marijuana stores throughout Washington state, said Bricken has helped him trademark “The Joint,” one of his store names, locate properties that would comply with the state’s recreational marijuana rules and create forms that new patients must fill out.
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This One                  Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 27 Apr 2015
Source: Sun-Sentinel (Fort Lauderdale, FL)
Copyright: 2015 Sun-Sentinel Company
Contact: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sfl-letters-to-the-editor-htmlstory.html
Website: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/159
Author: Scott Powers

PROFESSOR PROPOSES TEST OF MEDICAL MARIJUANA
As the state’s efforts to get a noneuphoric medical-marijuana oil to severely epileptic children move forward, the University of Florida is proposing a study to answer a key question: Does it even work? Dr.  Paul Carney, professor at the UF Department of Pediatrics and Neurology, has sent a research proposal to the Florida Department of Health to start finding out.
The department is reviewing the requests.
Carney has proposed enrolling 50 Florida children with epilepsy in an experiment to see whether a particular brand of medicinal oil drawn from marijuana, called Epidiolex, can reduce their seizures after other drugs were found to be ineffective.
The proposal calls for treatment through a statewide network of hospitals, including Orlando Health, which was selected for Central Florida.
He’s seeking $1 million in state money to pay for the study.
Epidiolex, manufactured in Great Britain by GW Pharmaceuticals, has something no other non-euphoric medical-marijuana product has for this kind of treatment: federal approval as a trial “orphan” drug.
That makes it available for clinical studies in the United States.
Epidiolex has some differences from the non-euphoric medical-marijuana oil likely to be produced under Florida’s limited medical-marijuana law adopted last year.
It is almost a pure extract of the marijuana chemical cannabidiol, while the products produced in Florida need be only at least 10 percent CBD, and commercial products produced in other states rarely exceed 60 percent CBD.
The Epidiolex also does not contain more than trace amounts of other marijuana chemicals that some medical-marijuana advocates believe help in controlling seizures.
Some advocates of medical marijuana, such as parents of epileptic children Seth Hyman of Weston and Holley Moseley of Gulf Breeze, are skeptical of Epidiolex, noting that its reputation is that it is less effective than other, less-purified CBD extracts.
Still Hyman, who has tried to get his daughter Rebecca into other Epidiolex studies, and Moseley welcome it.
Moseley is a Florida business representative for a competing brand of CBD oil called Charlotte’s Web. But Carney is her daughter’s doctor.
And Moseley also is a leader in a network of parents desperate for a CBD oil to treat their children debilitated by seizures, such as her daughter RayAnn.
Florida’s 2014 medical-marijuana law, bogged down by bureaucratic and legal issues and currently being challenged in court, is months past due and still perhaps months away from taking effect.
Meanwhile, the Florida Senate is debating a new law that would expand and fast-track the program, but debate on the measure was delayed Wednesday but could re-emerge.
“Research, that’s what we need right now, to help medical community come around,” Moseley said. “I think human research is essential.  We’re moving in the right direction. I have nothing but support for it.”
The University of Florida also is proposing a second project to create a database that would track all Florida patients who use medical marijuana.
That project would be run by the school’s College of Pharmacy, which is asking for $1.2 million from Tallahassee.
The university and its researchers declined to comment to the Orlando Sentinel about their proposals, except to provide brief, written synopses.
The Department of Health released the full proposals to the Sentinel.
The latest research suggests that Epidiolex may work better than its critics believe.
This month, Dr. Orrin Devinsky, a scientist from New York University,
released preliminary findings from a study with 137 people that found seizures were reduced 54 percent.
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This One           Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Mon, 27 Apr 2015
Source: Chicago Sun-Times (IL)
Copyright: 2015 Sun-Times Media, LLC
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/5QwXAJWY
Website: http://www.suntimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/81
Author: Frank Main

TAKING A PUFF OUT OF CRIME
Narcotics Offenders in Treatment Programs Funded by Medicaid and the
Affordable Care Act Could Double to 12,000 a Year Under State’s
Attorney Anita Alvarez’s Policy to Reduce Pot Prosecutions
Shoplifting and other petty crime associated with narcotics abuse could decrease because of Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s new policy to stop prosecuting minor drug cases, according to her office and the head of a large drug treatment referral agency.
Under the policy announced last week, Alvarez’s office will no longer prosecute most misdemeanor marijuana cases and will send nonviolent offenders charged with low-level felony heroin, marijuana and cocaine possession to drug treatment instead of jail.
Pam Rodriguez, CEO of Treatment Alternatives for Safe Communities Inc., said the expanded treatment could keep more people from turning back to drugs and committing property crimes to feed their habits.
“Everything I have read says crime will not go up - it will stay the same or go down because of this,” she said.
Sally Daly, a spokeswoman for Alvarez, agreed, saying that driving down retail theft, burglary and other property crime is one of the long-term goals of the policy.
Rodriguez said her employees met with Alvarez’s staff Thursday to discuss their expanding role under the policy. TASC places people in drug-rehab programs and monitors their progress.
Rodriguez said she believes the number of narcotics offenders diverted to “drug school” or community-based treatment could double to more than 12,000 a year because of the policy. Alvarez says Medicaid and the Affordable Health Care Act will pay for the additional treatment.
Alvarez is getting ready to send a memo to prosecutors outlining how they are supposed to carry out the policy. Daly said drug-case dismissals will begin “soon,” possibly as early as next week.
Alvarez’s office has been meeting with judges and the public defender’s office and plans to reach out to suburban police chiefs, Daly said.
About half of the people TASC assists have a primary substance abuse problem involving marijuana, Rodriguez said.
“Their treatment is very much focused on behavioral change and self- management,” she said. But heroin is a huge problem, too. “We have one of the longest lasting love affairs with heroin addiction in Cook County and Chicago,” Rodriguez said. For heroin users, “we have medications to treat the addiction and there are effective behavioral interventions.”
In 2011, 259 people out of every 100,000 people in Chicago visited emergency rooms for heroin use, compared with 145 per 100,000 in New York City, according to the latest federal statistics. Cook County Commissioner Larry Suffredin is scheduled to oversee a hearing this week on ways to curb heroin abuse in Cook County.
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This One         Newshawk: http://www.drugwarfacts.org
Pubdate: Mon, 27 Apr 2015
Source: Queensland Times, The (Australia)
Copyright: 2015 APN News & Media Ltd
Contact: letters@qt.com.au
Website: http://www.qt.com.au/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4953
Author: Robert Sharpe
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n219/a02.html

DRUG WAR ‘DOESN’T FIGHT CRIME, IT FUELS CRIME’
RE EDITORIAL by Andrew Korner: Police Can’t Turn Blind Eye To
Cannabis (20/4/15).
Ice is the latest illicit drug to make headlines, but it won’t be the last until politicians acknowledge the drug war’s inherent failure.
Drug policies modelled after the United States’ disastrous experiment with alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth-oriented black market.
Illegal drug dealers don’t ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences.
Throwing more money at the problem is no solution.
Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking.
For addictive drugs like ice, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits.
The drug war doesn’t fight crime, it fuels crime.
Taxing and regulating cannabis, the most popular illicit drug, is a cost-effective alternative to a never-ending drug war.
As long as cannabis distribution remains in the hands of organised crime, consumers will continue to come into contact with hard drugs like ice. Cannabis may be relatively harmless compared to legal alcohol, but cannabis prohibition is deadly.
ROBERT SHARPE Policy analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 28 Apr 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/2n7WpxAA
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Chhun Sun, The Gazette

CANDIDATE OFFERS “POT FOR POTHOLES”
Colorado Springs - Mayoral candidate Mary Lou Makepeace said Monday she supports the sale of recreational marijuana in Colorado Springs and suggests proceeds could be used to address persistent and widespread pothole problems.
“I say it’s time for Pot for Potholes,” she said in a news release Monday.
Later in the day, Makepeace said she also believes legal sales will help marginalize the black market, and she wants to regulate marijuana sales in the same way as cigarettes and alcohol.
“By refusing to regulate, we are allowing the underground trade to flourish,” said Makepeace, who faces former Colorado Attorney General John Suthers in a May 19 runoff election.
She added, “The reality is that there is marijuana available in Colorado Springs in the black market, which totally isn’t regulated.  The cartels are active in our community. And this will make our community safer by marginalizing the black market.”
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 28 Apr 2015
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2015 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Authors: Sylvia M. Burwell, Charlie Baker and Marylou Sudders Note: Sylvia M. Burwell is US secretary of health and human services.  Charlie Baker is the governor of Massachusetts. Marylou Sudders is the state secretary of health and human services.
A UNITED FRONT IN THE OPIOID BATTLE
LAST MONTH, one North Shore community was rattled by the news of six heroin overdoses, three of those resulting in death, in just 48 hours. Sadly, this is just more evidence indicating that we are in the midst of an opioid epidemic.
The numbers are staggering. Figures that will be released Tuesday estimate there were 1,008 deaths from opioid overdoses in the Bay State in 2014, a 33 percent jump from 2012. Opioids kill more people in Massachusetts than car accidents and guns combined.
West Virginia has the highest drug overdose rate in the United States, more than double the national rate. In that state, prescription drugs and opioids are major drivers of the drug overdose deaths.
Still, this epidemic isn’t limited to any one state or socioeconomic background. Its tragic impact touches Americans from both rural and urban communities and families from every walk of life. Nationally, drug overdoses have become the leading cause of injury death in the United States. In 2012 alone, 259 million opioid prescriptions were written - enough for every American adult to have a bottle.
The prescription opioid and heroin epidemic requires coordinated and comprehensive action from federal, state, and local leaders. It requires multi-faceted efforts in the area of prevention, intervention, treatment, and recovery - and a dedicated focus on public awareness and education.
Fortunately, this is an area where we have significant common ground
? and there is strong bipartisan work being done in Massachusetts and across the country to stop the tide and to save lives.

That’s why we are coming together Tuesday to discuss specific, targeted, and tangible recommendations to curb overdose deaths and reduce the rate of addiction in the Commonwealth and nationwide.
Fighting back against the opioid crisis helps our families, our businesses, our economy, and our communities.
The efforts of Massachusetts clearly align with the federal government’s strategy to focus on areas where there will be a significant impact: informing opioid prescribing practices, increasing the use of naloxone, and using medication-assisted treatment.
Altering the trend of prescription opioid abuse must begin by ensuring these powerful medications are prescribed appropriately.  Nationally, we are focusing on ensuring that medical professionals have the training and tools they need to make informed prescribing decisions. The Baker Administration has also called on insurers and the medical community to develop a set of best practices for opioid management.
In addition, we believe in the power of electronic prescription tracking programs, which allow pharmacists and providers to share information and can help identify those at risk for dependence, addiction, and overdose. At the federal level, investments are increasing for programs like Massachusetts’ prescription drug monitoring program - a strong example of the potential of federal and state collaboration in this area that is making great progress changing prescribing methods.
We also know that naloxone, a life-saving overdose reversal treatment, is a critical tool in preventing opioid related deaths.  That’s why we are providing federal support to states to help get naloxone into the hands of more first responders so they can administer this treatment. Massachusetts passed a law permitting all first responders to carry and administer naloxone, an important step that has already saved hundreds of lives. Expanding the use of medication-assisted treatment, to help more people access the services and treatment they need to move out of addiction and into recovery, is another way we can make a real impact. Not only is this a priority at the federal level, but Massachusetts has shown real progress in this area - integrating Suboxone treatment for addiction and funding 16 qualified community health centers to provide it.  Building upon these efforts, the Baker administration convened a working group to identify additional strategies going forward. Their recommendations are due later this spring.
Fighting back against the opioid crisis helps our families, our businesses, our economy, and our communities. With the help of extensive research, evidence-based treatment, and smart partnerships, we can reverse these trends and save lives. We all have a stake in this fight, and we are committed to finding common ground to end the opioid crisis.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 28 Apr 2015
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2015 Associated Press
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52

PATIENTS WANT HOSPITALS TO ALLOW MARIJUANA USE
(AP) - Medical marijuana patients in Maine are urging state lawmakers to allow use of smokeless forms of the drug in hospitals. Patients, their caregivers, and dispensary representatives told lawmakers Monday that many patients are denied the drug or have to use it discreetly because most hospitals do not allow it. The bill is getting pushback from hospital officials and doctors, the Portland Press Herald reported. They say they could lose federal funding if they allow medical marijuana. Samantha Brown told lawmakers that her 3-year-old daughter uses marijuana to treat seizures but has been denied access to it during hospital visits. Brown said that left her in the “uncomfortable position” of having to use it covertly.
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Pubdate: Tue, 28 Apr 2015
Source: Oregonian, The (Portland, OR)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/2uNRN3w2
Copyright: 2015 The Oregonian
Contact: letters@oregonian.com
Website: http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/324
Author: Jeff Mapes

OREGON LAWMAKERS MOVE TOWARD NEW LIMITS ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA GROWERS
Oregon legislators moved Monday toward putting new limits on medical marijuana growers as they shrugged off opposition from some activists who worried that they would lose access to low-cost supplies of the drug.
Members of a House-Senate marijuana committee said they expected to hold a vote Wednesday on the measure. It is is aimed at more tightly regulating medical marijuana growers to reduce diversions to the black market as they move toward implementing recreational marijuana sales.
“We are getting this bill out Wednesday,” vowed Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, the committee’s co-chair, as she and other members hastened to assure activists that they could still readily get medical marijuana.
“There’s not a single person on this panel that wants to take medicine away from patients,” said Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland.
The proposal—contained as an amendment to Senate Bill 844 -- places new limits on the number of plants in medical marijuana farms that would, at least at first, affect only a small number of the largest growers in the state.
However, it would put tighter restrictions on new growers and it would also put particularly strict limits on grow operations in urban residential areas. Committee members said they wanted to reduce the impact of these farms on nearby neighbors.
At the same time, the measure would prohibit cities and and counties from barring medical marijuana dispensaries, growing operations and processors. Local governments would still have the ability to regulate their operations.
Here are some of the major limits included in the proposal:
Existing medical marijuana growers in most areas would be limited to no more than 96 plants, while newer growers would face a 48-plant limit.
Growers in residential areas within cities would have a 24-plant limit if they were in operation before Jan. 1 of this year. Newer growers would be limited to 12 plants.
Medical marijuana growers would also have to comply with new reporting requirements and could face lower limits if they violate the rules. Existing growers could also face lower limits if they lose patients.
The new legislation, first unveiled Friday afternoon, led several medical marijuana activists to urge patients to bombard committee members with phone calls and emails complaining about the measure.
“It’s going to take medicine away from the sickest and most disenfranchised patients,” said Alex Rogers, who owns a medical marijuana dispensary in Ashland and used using social media to build opposition to the proposal.
The marijuana legalization measure approved by voters in November says that the state’s medical marijuana program would continue to operate separately. But legislators on the committee said it became increasingly clear they need to put additional regulations on medical marijuana to make sure it doesn’t undercut the recreational market.
Under Measure 91, adults who are 21 and over will be able to legally possess and grow small amounts of marijuana starting July 1. Retail sales aren’t expected to start until late 2016, although legislators are considering a proposal to temporarily open dispensaries to all adults.
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Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Fri, 24 Apr 2015
Source: Pakistan Observer (Pakistan)
Copyright: Pakistan Observer 2015
Contact: observer@best.net.pk
Website: http://www.pakobserver.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1680
Page: 4

CANADIAN HC HANDS OVER OPERATIONAL EQUIPMENT TO ANF
QUETTA- Canadian High Commissioner, Ms. Heather Cruden, and UNODC Representative in Pakistan, Mr. Cesar Guedes Thursday handed over essential operational equipment to the ANF Balochistan. The assistance package comprising of high powered binoculars, night vision devices and personnel safety equipment was received by Brigadier Adnan Azim, Force Commander ANF Balochistan.
Staff from UNODC Pakistan and Canadian High Commission Islamabad were also present on the occasion. The Canadian High Commissioner acknowledged the challenges of drug trafficking being faced by Pakistan as the main transit country and first line of defence.
“I sincerely hope that the equipment will add strength to the ANF’s operational capacity against drug trafficking in the country, which will have a greater impact on the world at large,” she added.  Recognizing ANF’s recent achievements and contributions in the international fight against drug trafficking, Mr. Cesar Guedes retriated UNODC’s resolve to closely work with government of Pakistan.
“We look forward to our continuing efforts to address the challenges
of drug trafficking, through all available means of international
support”, said Mr. Guedes. Thanking the Canadian High Commission and
UNODC Pakistan for their assistance, Brigadier, Adnan Azim reaffirmed
ANF’s commitment in combating the menace of drug trafficking in
Balochistan. “The ANF’s operational staff is gaining enormous
technical advantage due to the equipment and interagency specialist
training courses being pro-vided by UNODC”, he stated. The equipment
has been supplied by UNODC as part of its Pakistan Count! ry Programme
which has been co-funded by the Government of Canada. The broad based
assistance programme of UNODC helps the ANF in improving its drug
inter-diction capacity particularly covering Pakistan’s border with
Afghanistan- APP
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MAP posted-by: Matt
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Pubdate: Wed, 29 Apr 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Robyn Dixon

INDONESIA EXECUTES EIGHT
Seven Foreigners Are Among Drug Convicts Killed. a Filipina Is Spared for Now.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Ignoring international pressure and heart-wrenching last-minute family pleas for clemency, Indonesia executed eight men on drug charges early Wednesday, Indonesian news media reported.
However, authorities said they had spared for now a female prisoner from the Philippines who had been scheduled to die.
Officials did not release an immediate statement confirming the executions of seven foreigners and an Indonesian. News reports cited unnamed officials, and Amnesty International said it had received confirmation of the executions. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said its one citizen among the condemned had been put to death.
Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer for the two Australian prisoners sentenced to death, issued a statement on Twitter. “I failed. I lost,” he tweeted. In a later tweet, he added: “I’m sorry.”
Gunshots were heard about 12:30 a.m. from Nusakambangan island, where executions take place, the Associated Press reported.
The European Union and governments of France and Australia had urged President Joko Widodo on Tuesday to halt the proceedings.
“It is not too late to change your mind,” they said in a statement.  “Forgiveness and rehabilitation are fundamental to the Indonesian judicial system as well as in our system.”
A spokesman for Indonesia’s attorney general confirmed that one of the prisoners, Mary Jane Veloso, had been granted a temporary stay of execution to allow her to testify at a trial in the Philippines. “The execution of Mary Jane has been postponed due to the request of the Philippines president in relation to an alleged human trafficker who recently gave herself up in the Philippines,” Tony Spontana told reporters.
The delay was to allow testimony at the trial of Maria Kristina Sergio, who is accused of having lured Veloso into unknowingly smuggling heroin into Indonesia.
Veloso said she was going there for work and was given a suitcase.
Although it seemed heavy, she said, she checked inside and found nothing.
On Tuesday afternoon, before Veloso received a stay of execution, family members met with the nine condemned prisoners and later pleaded for Joko to spare their lives.
“I saw today something that no other family should ever have to go through,” Michael Chan of Australia, the brother of Andrew Chan, told journalists after saying farewell to his brother in prison. “Nine families inside a prison saying goodbye to their loved ones. Kids, mothers, brothers, cousins, sisters, you name it, they were all there. To walk out of there and say goodbye for the last time, it’s torture.
“There has to be a moratorium on the death penalty,” he said.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the “ghastly process” endured by the families of the condemned Australians underscored how chaotic the leadup to the executions had been.
“They do deserve respect and they do deserve to have dignity shown to them at this time of unspeakable grief, but that doesn’t seem to have been extended to them at this time,” Bishop said on Australian television shortly before the executions.
Earlier Tuesday, Australian Atty. Gen. George Brandis called on Indonesia to halt the executions while legal proceedings relevant to the cases of Chan and countryman Myuran Sukumaran were continuing, including allegations that judges in their trial demanded a bribe for a sentence of less than 20 years.
“These proceedings raise serious questions regarding the integrity of the two men’s initial sentence and the clemency process,” Brandis said in a statement Tuesday. “It is important that these actions are heard in full before any further steps are taken.”
Sukumaran’s mother, Raji, and sister Brintha wept uncontrollably as they begged for clemency after saying farewell to him in Besi prison.  “I just had to say goodbye to my son, and I won’t see him again,” the mother told reporters between sobs. “Please, Mr. President, please don’t kill my son. Please don’t.”
Supporters held candlelight vigils and circulated online petitions calling for mercy.
Chan was recently ordained as a pastor. Sukumaran took up painting in jail and gave art lessons. Nigerian gospel singer Okwudili Oyatanze recorded songs in prison.
Lawyers for Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte said he should be spared because he suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.  Indonesian laborer Zainal Abidin was arrested after an acquaintance arrived at his home with sacks he said held rice. Police raided the house and found marijuana in the bags.
Indonesia has this year seen a sharp increase in executions for drug crimes under Joko, who has declared that the country is suffering from a drug emergency and in recent months has rejected all clemency bids by drug offenders.
In January, Indonesia executed five foreigners and one Indonesian for drug offenses, sparking international condemnation.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 29 Apr 2015
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Robyn Dixon

INDONESIA EXECUTES EIGHT
Seven Foreigners Are Among Drug Convicts Killed. a Filipina Is Spared for Now.
JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - Ignoring international pressure and heart-wrenching last-minute family pleas for clemency, Indonesia executed eight men on drug charges early Wednesday, Indonesian news media reported.
However, authorities said they had spared for now a female prisoner from the Philippines who had been scheduled to die.
Officials did not release an immediate statement confirming the executions of seven foreigners and an Indonesian. News reports cited unnamed officials, and Amnesty International said it had received confirmation of the executions. The Brazilian Foreign Ministry said its one citizen among the condemned had been put to death.
Todung Mulya Lubis, a lawyer for the two Australian prisoners sentenced to death, issued a statement on Twitter. “I failed. I lost,” he tweeted. In a later tweet, he added: “I’m sorry.”
Gunshots were heard about 12:30 a.m. from Nusakambangan island, where executions take place, the Associated Press reported.
The European Union and governments of France and Australia had urged President Joko Widodo on Tuesday to halt the proceedings.
“It is not too late to change your mind,” they said in a statement.  “Forgiveness and rehabilitation are fundamental to the Indonesian judicial system as well as in our system.”
A spokesman for Indonesia’s attorney general confirmed that one of the prisoners, Mary Jane Veloso, had been granted a temporary stay of execution to allow her to testify at a trial in the Philippines. “The execution of Mary Jane has been postponed due to the request of the Philippines president in relation to an alleged human trafficker who recently gave herself up in the Philippines,” Tony Spontana told reporters.
The delay was to allow testimony at the trial of Maria Kristina Sergio, who is accused of having lured Veloso into unknowingly smuggling heroin into Indonesia.
Veloso said she was going there for work and was given a suitcase.
Although it seemed heavy, she said, she checked inside and found nothing.
On Tuesday afternoon, before Veloso received a stay of execution, family members met with the nine condemned prisoners and later pleaded for Joko to spare their lives.
“I saw today something that no other family should ever have to go through,” Michael Chan of Australia, the brother of Andrew Chan, told journalists after saying farewell to his brother in prison. “Nine families inside a prison saying goodbye to their loved ones. Kids, mothers, brothers, cousins, sisters, you name it, they were all there. To walk out of there and say goodbye for the last time, it’s torture.
“There has to be a moratorium on the death penalty,” he said.
Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said the “ghastly process” endured by the families of the condemned Australians underscored how chaotic the leadup to the executions had been.
“They do deserve respect and they do deserve to have dignity shown to them at this time of unspeakable grief, but that doesn’t seem to have been extended to them at this time,” Bishop said on Australian television shortly before the executions.
Earlier Tuesday, Australian Atty. Gen. George Brandis called on Indonesia to halt the executions while legal proceedings relevant to the cases of Chan and countryman Myuran Sukumaran were continuing, including allegations that judges in their trial demanded a bribe for a sentence of less than 20 years.
“These proceedings raise serious questions regarding the integrity of the two men’s initial sentence and the clemency process,” Brandis said in a statement Tuesday. “It is important that these actions are heard in full before any further steps are taken.”
Sukumaran’s mother, Raji, and sister Brintha wept uncontrollably as they begged for clemency after saying farewell to him in Besi prison.  “I just had to say goodbye to my son, and I won’t see him again,” the mother told reporters between sobs. “Please, Mr. President, please don’t kill my son. Please don’t.”
Supporters held candlelight vigils and circulated online petitions calling for mercy.
Chan was recently ordained as a pastor. Sukumaran took up painting in jail and gave art lessons. Nigerian gospel singer Okwudili Oyatanze recorded songs in prison.
Lawyers for Brazilian Rodrigo Gularte said he should be spared because he suffered from schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.  Indonesian laborer Zainal Abidin was arrested after an acquaintance arrived at his home with sacks he said held rice. Police raided the house and found marijuana in the bags.
Indonesia has this year seen a sharp increase in executions for drug crimes under Joko, who has declared that the country is suffering from a drug emergency and in recent months has rejected all clemency bids by drug offenders.
In January, Indonesia executed five foreigners and one Indonesian for drug offenses, sparking international condemnation.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 30 Apr 2015
Source: Daily Telegraph (UK)
Copyright: 2015 Telegraph Media Group Limited
Contact: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
Website: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/114
Author: Ian Birrell

IT’S CONSERVATIVE TO WANT TO LEGALISE DRUGS
Decriminalisation Would Safeguard Families and Drive the Gangs Out of Business
Outside of their families and friends, few tears will have been shed for the eight heroin smugglers just executed by firing squad in Indonesia. They may have claimed to have become reformed characters in jail, but they knew the Indonesian penalty for trafficking drugs.  Yet the pantomime of death played out in the full glare of the global media reminded us of two things: first, the hideous barbarity of the death penalty; and second, the dreadful futility of the war on drugs.
The gang was caught attempting to smuggle heroin from Bali to Australia. Their seizure demonstrated that even the most draconian penalties are no deterrent to those seeking fortunes from the UKP200 billion drugs trade. Despite the death penalty, Bali is renowned as both a party place and an important Asian transit point for the distribution of narcotics, with traffickers slipping in and out of the island among its three million tourists.
Yet even as Indonesia upsets allies with its hardline stance on drugs, there is a shift going on around the world. Slowly but surely, countries are coming to their senses and realising that the prohibition of drugs is just as damaging and self-harming as the prohibition of alcohol once was in America, widely broken by otherwise law-abiding citizens and only serving to enrich crooks  as we all know from those old black-and-white gangster movies.
Like it or not, there is a massive market for drugs and many people enjoy them without coming to any harm, some even going on to become presidents and prime ministers. Just as with alcohol, there are casualties  although rather fewer with some widely used drugs than with booze. But as one country after another is starting to realise, the best way to protect users is not to create a lucrative black market controlled by lethal gangsters with little concern for the safety of customers. It is to do precisely the opposite: legalise and regulate the use of drugs.
This is a big step for any state to take, an admission that the absurd war first unleashed by President Richard Nixon has been both wrong and wasteful of resources. But in the past few days Ireland has become the latest nation to contemplate reform, appointing a minister with special responsibility to examine the relaxation of drug laws.  “Someone who has an addiction issue should be dealt with through the health system and not the criminal justice system,” said the minister Aodhan O Riordain, adding that the police would agree with him.
Mr O Riordain was echoing President Barack Obama, who has encouraged the tilting of US policy away from prohibition by rightly saying he supports science over ideology. Already 23 states have sanctioned medical use of marijuana and four have legalised cannabis for recreational use; several more, including California, could follow suit after ballots of voters.
Cannabis is said to be the fastest-growing US industry, worth about $3billion and creating tens of thousands of jobs, with states finding a new source of revenue while enabling police to concentrate on more serious criminals than student potheads.
Now the impact can start to be seen across the border, where drug cartels created bloody havoc for decades as they fought over huge profits from supplying North American drug users. In Mexico, the number of murders fell from a high four years ago of almost 23,000 deaths to 15,649 last year. Meanwhile, Mexican security forces have seen a sharp drop in cannabis seizures, down by almost one third in a year, while prices have halved. “If the US continues to legalise pot, they’ll run us into the ground,” one man in the trade told a radio station recently.
The Central American countries sandwiched between southern suppliers and wealthy users to the north have been devastated by drug gangs, turning cities into the world’s most dangerous urban zones outside of war. Similar corrosion can be seen in West Africa, as new trade routes to Europe opened up, undermining struggling states, corrupting politicians and enriching terror gangs. Drug-trafficking was a key reason for the collapse of Mali three years ago, which allowed militant Islamists to grab two-thirds of the country.
Little wonder the world is slowly waking up to the stupidity of prohibition. More than 20 countries from the Czech Republic to Uruguay have brought in forms of decriminalisation, which makes sense on economic, social, political and moral grounds. Yet Britain, with the highest rates of drug use in Europe, still gives 80,000 people a criminal record each year for doing something some Cabinet ministers have confessed to enjoying in their youth. It’s one more reason for the disconnect between Westminster and the electorate, especially younger voters, while victims die needlessly from the uncontrolled market in narcotics.
In this election, both the Greens and Liberal Democrats propose decriminalisation, while a pro-reform party is standing in 32 constituencies. But it should really be the Tories leading the way by demanding legalisation of drugs  and not just to connect with sections of the electorate they struggle traditionally to reach.  After all, this reform is tough on crime, fiscally responsible, safeguards families and strengthens global security. It is a policy that is highly conservative while also potentially transformative to the party brand - something to ponder as those smugglers’ corpses are placed in their coffins, symbols of a war that can never be won.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 29 Apr 2015
Source: Anderson Valley Advertiser (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Anderson Valley Advertiser
Contact: editor@theava.com
Website: http://www.theava.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2667
Author: Fred Gardner

BIG PhRMA SEEKS STONER CRED
Candy Bergen has just published a memoir called “A Fine Romance.” According to the New York Times, the actress “parses the nation’s infatuation with the CBS sitcom ‘Murphy Brown,’ in which she starred for a decade as a take-no-prisoners, formerly booze-guzzling television reporter.” (If Cockburn didn’t send the verb parse to the guillotine, let’s do so now.)
It was November 5, 1997 -a year to the day after California voters legalized marijuana for medical use-that Murphy Brown, diagnosed with breast cancer, smoked marijuana to deal with the effects of chemotherapy. Today, with the media totally marijuana-infused, the episode on prime time TV seems insignificant. But back then it was unprecedented, a cultural milestone.
And how far we have come! Today we have drug companies deploying stoner types in prime time advertisements for their potentially fatal products! As I write this, Kevin Nealon is pushing a blood thinner called Xarelto, aka Rivaroxaban, which is made by Bayer and distributed by Jansen. Xarelto is the first drug approved by FDA without there being a known antidote. The losers die of internal bleeding. The other side effects are not easy to find on the Xarelto site. You have to go deep into the product information to find that Xarelto caused back pain in 22% of users (vs. 7% of placebo users) in the biggest clinical trial.
Kevin Nealon is featured in the Xarelto push alongside golf great Arnold Palmer and NASCAR driver Brian Vickers. Nealon starred on the Showtime hit “Weeds,” playing Doug, the likable accountant who advises Nancy (Mary Lousie Parker, a housewife who becomes a dealer) to set up a legitimate small business as a front.
In an early episode Doug comes over to Nancy’s house, she’s not there, and he and her stoner brother-in-law go into her personal stash, only to discover that a rat has found it, too. They get loaded and hunt for the rat, which they intend to shoot with a pellet gun.  They use peanut butter as bait and get it all over the furniture.
They trash the living room and kitchen, then crash in a stoned stupor.
In the next episode, Nancy shows up at Doug’s office to make a delivery and he tells her he doesn’t need anything. He takes out his wallet and shows her the reason why.
DOUG: It’s my medical marijuana card. I got a note from a clinic doc for a hundred bucks. Went down to the pot store and mama, I was home!  It’s a weed wonderland, Nancy. It’s like Amsterdam, only better, because you don’t have to visit the Anne Frank house and pretend to be sad and stuff. See this lollipop?
NANCY: It isn’t...
DOUG: (Medium shot of Doug sucking) Yes! I’m getting high right now.
You can’t even tell.
NANCY: How is it possible?
DOUG; The genius of Prop 215: medical marijuana for sick people. And seriously, who couldn’t use a little medication, right? My friend’s friend’s friend gave me the address of the clinic, I went down there, and loaded up. [From his desk he takes a baggie full of big colas.] I love California! I can’t wait to tell the poker game about it. The one buzz kill is you can only buy eight ounces a visit.
NANCY: That’s half a pound!
DOUG: Well, they allow you to make two visits a day, but you know with all the traffic on the 110 it’s practically impossible.
Hats off to the ad agency that booked Kevin Nealon for the Xarelto gig. A celeb so far ahead of the curve on cannabis has automatic credibility when it comes to anticoagulants.
Deadly Drug Allergies
Most fatal allergy attacks in the U.S. are caused not by insect stings or food, but by pharmaceuticals -antibiotics and radiocontrast drugs- according to a recent study in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. And the rate of drug-induced fatalities almost doubled between 1999 and 2000. Here’s Nicolas Bakalar’s summary in the NY Times:
Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, researchers found 2,458 cases of fatal anaphylaxis from 1999 through 2010. Almost 60 percent of the deaths, or 1,446, were caused by reactions to drugs, and in cases where the specific drug was known, half were caused by antibiotics. The rate of drug-induced fatal reactions almost doubled over the period.
Insect stings caused 15.2 percent of the fatalities and food 6.7 percent. The cause was not recorded in a fifth of the cases... Older age was associated with a higher risk for death and that blacks had a higher risk of dying from drugs and food reactions. For insect sting deaths, rates among whites were almost three times as high as rates among African-Americans.
The lead author, Dr. Elina Jerschow, an assistant professor of medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, said, “We are using more imaging studies than other countries, and they’re potentially life-threatening.”
Just imagine how much media attention there would be if every couple of days an American was keeling over dead from an allergy to cannabis (an extremely rare event, as noted in recent correspondence from Stephen Robinson, MD).
Neonicotinoids Kill - Not Just Bees Ever since the ‘50s, when the tobacco companies suppressed and then challenged the scientific evidence that cigarettes cause lung cancer, manufacturers of toxins keep their products on the market by insisting that “more research is needed.” An extended stall in the name of science ensues - and the poisoning of our world.
In 2012 the European Food Safety Authority reported that neonicotinoid pesticides were killing off bee colonies. In 2013 three neonicotinoids were banned in Europe. (Of course they are still applied by the ton by farmers in the U.S.)
The manufacturers -Syngenta and Bayer CropScience-questioned the regulators’ findings in a lawsuit that is still dragging on. Now the European Academies Science Advisory Council has issued a report, based on more than 100 peer-reviewed papers, which concludes that neonicotinoids are killing many species, including earthworms, parasitic wasps, and lady bugs. Since the latter provide organic insect control, Syngenta and Bayer are effectively killing off the competition with their synthetic pesticides. In few more years they’ll be able to say there are no alternatives to neonicotinoids.  It’s a corporate win-win!
How slick and deceitful are the scientists who vouch for the safety of neonicotinoids (in journals reliant on ads from Syngenta, Bayer, et al)? Typically their studies involved testing the ability of bees to survive a single exposure to a given neonicotinoid. But as Dave Jolly pointed out in a New York Times piece about the European Academies Science Advisory Council report, “the effect of the chemicals is cumulative and irreversible, meaning that repeated sublethal doses will eventually be deadly if a certain threshold is passed.”
Cannabis v. Tylenol for Back Pain
A public defender in Nevada was asked by a judge last week for “peer reviewed medical research articles relating to treating back pain with marijuana.” The best we could provide was what Ethan Russo, MD, called “a balanced shot” from the Canadian Arthritis Society:
In a position paper issued today (9/9/14), The Arthritis Society calls for more research into the efficacy and safety associated with the use of medical cannabis as a therapy to alleviate symptoms of pain and fatigue caused by a chronic disease.
“More and more Canadians are accessing medical cannabis as a treatment option for severe arthritis symptoms,” explains Society president and CEO Janet Yale. “We have a duty to the people we serve to ensure that the scientific basis for the use of medical cannabis is clear and appropriate, with patient safety and improved care our foremost priorities.”
Thousands of Canadians have already received authorization from Health Canada to use medical cannabis and as many as two thirds of those people are using the drug to help manage pain due to arthritis...
“For a subject that’s drawing so much public attention, both in Canada and around the world, the paucity of quality scientific research into cannabis is concerning,” explains Dr. Jason McDougall, professor of pharmacology and anaesthesia at the University of Dalhousie, and chair of the scientific advisory committee of The Arthritis Society. “Given the number of people taking cannabis now, or who are thinking about taking it, the need for evidence-based research into efficacy and safety could not be more pressing.”
No sooner had we forwarded the above to the public defender, then we
read about a large study by Australian researchers published in the
British Medical Journal disproving the efficacy of Tylenol (the
corporate alternative to cannabis for back pain). As summarized by
Nicholas Bakalar in the Times, the authors
“found high quality evidence that Tylenol is ineffective in treating low back pain or disability. It also found evidence that the drug quadruples the risk of an abnormal liver function test, but the clinical significance of that finding is unclear. The studies of pain from knee and hip arthritis found a small but clinically insignificant short-term pain-relief effect for acetaminophen compared with a placebo.”
We sent the BMJ item to Russo, who commented, “Acetaminophen is garbage as an analgesic, and is an insidious hepatotoxin responsible for thousands of annual deaths.”
We hope the judge considers the defendant’s real-world options in evaluating his or her use of cannabis.
Wonderful Oliver Sacks
An essay by Oliver Sacks on the time he has left - given a diagnosis of metastasizing liver cancer-left one of our correspondents wondering if maybe the great neurologist hadn’t heard about cannabis concentrates working miracles on occasion. We assume that Sacks is fully informed. One of the people to whom he dedicated “Musicophilia” is Orrin Devinsky, the physician who has been monitoring the use of Epidiolex - GW Pharmaceuticals’ pure CBD concentrate - by epileptic children at NYU.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 30 Apr 2015
Source: SF Weekly (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.sfweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.sfweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/812
Author: Chris Roberts

Despite Law Enforcement Reports, Marijuana Is Relatively Water-Friendly.
DRY HIGH
Last week, 60 law enforcement officers raided a massive and sophisticated illegal marijuana grow operation in Tulare County. The bust - 49 greenhouses, 12,000 plants, 50 pounds of processed product, and 2,600 pounds of “partially processed” marijuana - is one of the biggest in recent memory. It also provided an unwitting preview of what commercial cannabis cultivation will look like in post-legalization California: large farms on cheap real estate in the Central Valley, near highways and population centers, using the sun.
No news report on a drug seizure is complete without a dollar amount for what the drugs are worth. Based on a formula of $1,000 per pound and two pounds per plant, this was a $27 million operation, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told reporters. Those figures are almost always inflated. The temptation may be too much to resist; after all, the bigger the number, the better the bust for the cops.  And the official math is rarely questioned by the public or media.
In this case, the sheriff might have underestimated. If the weed had headed out of state, it could have commanded 200 percent to 300 percent of what Boudreaux reported.
But Boudreaux had something else, something that today registers even more outrage in drought-stricken California. The grow, the sheriff said, also sucked down 61,555 gallons of water a day, almost 1.5 million gallons in April alone, enough water to supply 153 families of four.
It’s not enough to be blamed for the corruption of the youth.  Marijuana is now also responsible for the corruption of California’s environment.
Blaming weed farms for the drought will be the new normal. As the multibillion dollar cannabis industry continues to expand during the driest period in recorded California history, marijuana farmers’ contributions to the drought will be regular features of drug bust reports.
In the parched farm country of Tulare, where for the second year in a row pistachio and almond growers will receive a fraction of the water they normally enjoy, this hits home. Even in the Bay Area, where water use is the stingiest in the state, this will resonate.
Those water use figures are also far too high. They’re based on a formula that gained mainstream traction last year: six gallons of water per plant per day. It’s an easy equation that marijuana experts now deride as absurd, yet it has been repeated in the media with almost no scrutiny, in outlets including Mother Jones.
The number originated with good intentions. Watching streams go dry in pot-growing country in Mendocino and Humboldt counties - with habitat for coho salmon and steelhead trout disappearing along with it - state Fish and Wildlife scientist Scott Bauer sought to quantify the effect cannabis cultivation had on these vanishing waterways.
His was the first serious effort - and he had almost no data to go on. This was uncharted territory for official sources. Even the DEA had only rough estimates for how much water their favorite eradication target uses.
So Bauer used the best estimate available: 22.7 liters per plant per day. That figure comes from the best possible source: marijuana growers, who published the number in never-adopted guidelines for regulating cultivation in Humboldt County.
Those same growers say today that the figure is a “worst-case” estimate that was never meant to be an industry-wide average or representative of typical water use.
A plant in the early stages of development would be drowned by six gallons of water, as would most mature plants in an indoor cultivation operation, where plants are much smaller than the 10-foot-tall monsters Bauer and law enforcement encounter in the Northern California backcountry.
The best way to compute cannabis’s water use, growers say, is to work backwards from its final output.
“We think: one gallon per pound, per day,” says Hezekiah Allen, the Humboldt County native responsible for the six-gallon figure. As a representative for marijuana growers in Sacramento in his role today as executive director of the Emerald Growers Association, Allen has good reason to correct the record. “With a 150-day average growing season, that translates to 150 gallons per pound.”
That would mean the Tulare plants, if fully mature and delivering a two-pound output, used closer to two gallons of water per day, not five as the lawmen contend.
Not every marijuana grower agreed with the one gallon per pound per day formula. Indoor growers interviewed by SF Weekly gave a range of water use, from about 150 gallons per pound to as much as 450 gallons per pound (assuming that the water from three 75-gallon flushing cycles was not recycled).
But even at 450 gallons per pound - or about one gallon per gram of finished product - cannabis is, pound-for-pound, one of the state’s driest highs.
Consider: Three grams of high-grade cannabis is today enough to satisfy a dozen people. Compare that to other treasured California pleasures, like wine (between 14.2 and 15.3 gallons per glass, according to a UC Davis researcher), beef (110 gallons per quarter-pound burger), and almonds (the notorious one gallon per nut).
Not that all cannabis growers are environmentalists. Far from it.  Marijuana cultivation certainly takes an environmental toll, and water wasters should be punished. But the public also needs realistic figures - something that has historically been lacking from law enforcement accounts, and absolutely needed today as the cannabis industry grows during these epic dry times.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Pubdate: Thu, 30 Apr 2015
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
Column: The Week in Weed
Copyright: 2015 North Coast Journal
Contact: letters@northcoastjournal.com
Website: http://www.northcoastjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2833
Author: Grant Scott-Goforth

STONED WILLIE
Pot’s on a lot of minds in Sacramento these days. Our own state senator, Mike McGuire, announced on 4/20 that his proposed medical marijuana bill received the unanimous approval of the Senate Business and Professions Committee.
The bill would create a Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation under the state’s consumer affairs department, which would “license and regulate dispensaries, cultivation sites, transportation systems and manufacturers of all marijuana products,” according to a Press Democrat article.
“The state would have jurisdiction over how doctors advertise medical marijuana recommendation services and quality assurance testing for edibles and other products,” the article continues. “Fees and penalties collected through the license program would go into a Medical Marijuana Regulation Fund that would support the program and its enforcement.”
The bill has some ambitious goals - banning residential grows and requiring certified organic standards by 2022 - but it has support from a couple of notable marijuana advocates. Hezekiah Allen, executive director of the Emerald Growers Association, and Dale Gieringer, director of the California branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, both told the Press Democrat they support the medical regulations, though they will likely suggest some amendments.
The bill joins North Coast Assemblyman Jim Wood’s proposed law that would bring marijuana under the purview of water agencies, as well as a “flurry” of medical marijuana bills surfacing in the capital.
Meanwhile, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom hosted the first of a series of hearings aimed at creating regulations for statewide legalization in 2016. The forum, held at University of California Los Angeles, heard concerns from marijuana advocates and law enforcement officials, including former District Attorney Paul Gallegos, who was there to tell the Gav about environmental problems associated with cultivation, according to the Los Angeles Times.
“We need to see this problem as an opportunity to develop a regulatory scheme,” Gallegos was quoted as saying.
Oregon lawmakers, meanwhile, are getting backlash for circulating a bill that would limit the number of plants that medical marijuana growers can cultivate. The measure is being proposed to limit black market dealings once Oregon’s voter-approved recreational legalization goes into effect in July, but advocates are concerned that limits - 96 plants for established medical growers and 48 plants for new ones - will make it hard for patients to get cheap and reliable access to marijuana.
The rift extends to the marijuana industry. According to the Oregonian, an attorney for an industry PAC has praised the proposed law, saying it will “help Oregon develop a strong legal market.”
Willie Nelson is riding the rising marijuana tide to a resurgence, recently releasing a memoir in which he talks about smoking a joint on the White House roof and discovering the hippie lifestyle. A new duet with outlaw country compatriot Merle Haggard, titled “It’s All Going to Pot,” dropped on 4/20. And, following in the footsteps of high musician icon Bob Marley (or, more accurately, Marley’s still-living estate holders), the “On the Road Again” singer is launching his own personal brand of weed: Willie’s Reserve. Here’s hoping it comes with a bandana.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Pubdate: Wed, 29 Apr 2015
Source: Colorado Springs Independent (CO)
Copyright: 2015 Colorado Springs Independent
Contact: letters@csindy.com
Website: http://www.csindy.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1536
Author: Bryce Crawford
Column: CannaBiz

DISPENSARY WINS AT CANNABIS CUP DAYS AFTER OPENING, AND MORE
Their Cup runneth over
A few years ago, the thought of winning at High Times’ U.S. Cannabis Cup was just a dream for Ryan Moore and his six partners. Most of them were living in Kentucky, and were nowhere near running a dispensary in Colorado Springs.
However, they recently became the proud owners of a first-place finish in the U.S. Indica Flower category for their Granddaddy Purple strain, just four days after their center, Herbal Healing (597-0776, herbalhealingmmj.com), opened at 1785 N. Academy Blvd., #165.
“We all pretty much worked on our own dime,” says Moore, 25. “We’re not getting paid, just kind of creating the dream. We pretty much created this whole thing with our own hands, all the way from construction to growing to everything. Every little last bit of it.
“It’s been pretty tough times. When you work for free for a while it gets tough, and financially it gets tough, and we’re all living under the same roof trying to make ends meet.”
Despite that, they bet on the contest’s $1,000 entry fee, and came out winners for their Purp, which, like all of Herbal Healing’s plants, was hand-trimmed and exhaustively flushed. “It’s hysterical:
It really, really makes you laugh like crazy,” Moore says of the strain’s impact. “I don’t even understand. ... This has its own special, euphoric way. ... If you take it during the middle of the day, it’s not just going to make you go to sleep. It’s going to be a nice mellow, smooth effect.”
The owner estimates the center has around two pounds of the winning strain remaining, and plans to sell it for around $250 per ounce.
As far as Colorado Springs’ MMJ center scene as a whole, Moore has not been impressed. “There’s a few strains in a few places that have good quality, but no place has quality across the board. It’s all too commercialized, it’s all too Big Industry. There’s not enough of the small-time people that really, really care about it. Everybody’s thinking about production costs and how to lower them, and all it does is lower the quality all the way across the board.”
Keef crumbs
Mayoral candidate Mary Lou Makepeace has issued a statement in support of allowing recreational-marijuana stores in Colorado Springs.
The city has unveiled an informational cannabis website at coloradosprings.gov/marijuana.
Last week, Michele Leonhart, head of the Drug Enforcement Administration, announced she will depart in May. She’s faced criticism related to Colombian sex parties involving DEA agents, but is best known in these parts for her hostility toward marijuana. She gained notoriety in 2012 for a Q&A session with U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, who kept asking whether drugs like heroin or meth were worse for your health than cannabis. “All illegal drugs are bad,” she responded.
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Pubdate: Sat, 02 May 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/fxHVcYB2
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122

CRACKING DOWN ON POT PESTICIDES
News that Denver regulators have put millions of dollars of marijuana on hold due to pesticide concerns ought to be welcome information.
This, folks, is exactly what should happen with pot tax revenue - making the product safer while ensuring that it is not illicitly diverted to juveniles or the black market.
The 21.5 percent combined state and Denver tax on retail products is high. For that additional expense, consumers should get peace of mind that the marijuana is clean and free of damaging pesticides.
They should also appreciate that plants grown in legitimate warehouses are likely safer than pot in the black market that was grown with who knows what.
However, there remains more than one glitch in the system.
The city may be flush with tax revenue to investigate claims that the wrong type of pesticides are being used, but the state’s lab that examines the plants does not have commensurate funding.
The Colorado Department of Agriculture lab is funded out of pesticide application fees. The meager staff is about a month behind on testing pot for pesticides.
That means when the city puts thousands of plants on hold - as it did recently at a Denver retail operation - it may take weeks for those plants to be cleared for sale.
Thankfully, a portion of House Bill 1367 is designed to give the Colorado Department of Agriculture $300,000 to step up its pesticide enforcement, including lessening the load on the lab.
Another glitch is that no pesticide is federally approved for use on marijuana, which is still illegal under federal law. Pesticide regulations for every other crop start at the federal level. The lack of guidance creates confusion for the hundreds of pot growers.
The state has developed a list of recommended pesticides. But the state cannot do the same type of risk assessment as the U.S.  Environmental Protection Agency. Such are the problems of an industry trying to invent itself for a crop that is still not entirely legal.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Pubdate: Sun, 03 May 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Kevin Dayton

LEGISLATORS’ UNUSUAL STEPS KEEP POT MEASURE ALIVE
The story of marijuana as medicine at the state Capitol this year was a story of careful preparation, dogged grass-roots politics and compassion for those who suffer from chronic illnesses. And don’t forget the impact of money.
Bills to establish marijuana dispensaries in Hawaii have stalled in the state Legislature for years, but dispensaries suddenly emerged this year as one of the most talked-about issues for lawmakers. It was an issue so important they refused to allow it to die.
When negotiations broke down Friday night over details of the marijuana dispensary bill, the Senate’s Democratic caucus quickly gathered to sign a petition expressing their desire to see a bill pass this year. Senate Health Committee Chairman Josh Green, who was blamed by many for the failure of the dispensary bill, was then stripped of control of the measure.
Yanking control of the bill away from Green was an extraordinary deviation from normal procedure at the Legislature, where committee chairs routinely wield the power to decide which bills live and which die.
The House and Senate then immediately bent yet another rule by reviving House Bill 321, and scheduling a conference committee hearing for noon on Monday to advance the dispensary bill. That contradicted stern warnings earlier Friday by House Speaker Joe Souki and Senate President Donna Mercado Kim that there would be “no exceptions” to a Friday night deadline for positioning all bills for final passage.
That flurry of unusual activity comes nearly 15 years after lawmakers first approved the prescription and use of medical marijuana. Since then, they repeatedly refused to establish marijuana dispensaries for patients, which meant those patients had no legal way of purchasing cannabis.
That state of affairs was acceptable for many years, but suddenly this year, it wasn’t. Now, lawmakers seem determined to act.
Senate Public Safety Committee Chairman Will Espero, who stepped in as lead negotiator for the Senate after Green was removed, said his colleagues seem willing to move forward with the most recent House proposal for the dispensaries bill with mostly technical changes, possibly including adjustments in the timing of when the law would take effect.
“I don’t see anything significantly different,” he said. “I’m hopeful that Monday we’ll be able to pass something.”
Espero said lawmakers are pushing hard to move a bill because they had been working for years on the dispensaries issue, which affects more than 13,000 registered medical marijuana patients. Senators have been approached by constituents who had relatives or friends who use medical marijuana, and the rooms at the state Capitol were packed for each hearing on the issue, he said.
Rafael Kennedy, executive director of the Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, said he doesn’t know the details of what happened Friday in the Senate or why, but he was pleased with the result.
“I think that we’re all really glad to see that the Legislature is taking patient needs seriously, and is willing to take unusual steps to make sure that something happens,” he said.
Kat Brady, coordinator of the Community Alliance on Prisons and a strong advocate of dispensaries, said some key lawmakers had flatly committed to passing a dispensary bill this year, and they are honoring their promise. Efforts to pass a bill were also bolstered this year by the painstaking work of the Legislature’s Medical Marijuana Dispensary Task Force, which issued its final report in January.
That report concluded that a dispensary system is “long overdue,” and that establishing a network of dispensaries could vastly improve the lives of medical marijuana patients. The task force representatives came from agencies ranging from the Attorney General’s Office to the state Department of Health, and offered 38 recommendations detailing how the dispensary system should be established and operated.
Task force members included key leaders at the Legislature, including Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee Chairwoman Rosalyn Baker, House Public Safety Committee Chairman Gregg Takayama and House Health Committee Chairwoman Della Au Belatti, who has been a determined supporter of dispensaries. The task force also included Green.
Another factor that likely figured into lawmakers’ considerations this year are changing public attitudes now that many states have established their own dispensary systems for medical marijuana, Kennedy said.
“This issue is becoming more and more mainstream,” with Drug Policy Action Group data from 2014 showing that 85 percent of Hawaii residents support establishing local dispensaries, he said.
Also helping with the marijuana dispensaries bill this year is an impressive selection of Hawaii’s top lobbyists. One of the bestknown is Bob Toyofuku of Government Affairs Consulting, who has worked with the Drug Policy Action Group. Kennedy said that group is affiliated with the Drug Police Forum of Hawaii.
Funding for Toyofuku’s efforts was provided in part from grants from the late billionaire Peter B. Lewis, a nationally known advocate of marijuana legalization, Kennedy said. According to Forbes, Lewis spent nearly $3 million in 2012 promoting marijuana legalization measures in Washington and Massachusetts.
Another high-powered advocate for the bill is John Radcliffe of Capitol Consultants of Hawaii, who represents a company called Pacific Eclipse. Founded in Southern California in 2006, Pacific Eclipse bills itself as an “an industry leader in producing high-quality and safe medical marijuana products.”
Radcliffe was on hand to watch the tense moments Friday evening as the dispensary bill appeared to be dying. Also on hand for the excitement was Bruce Coppa, executive vice president of Capitol Consultants, who served as chief of staff to former Gov. Neil Abercrombie.
Espero said it is isn’t surprising that lobbyists would be involved.
“We have had a lot of interest from many people because it could provide some economic opportunities for people,” he said. “We want those economic opportunities to be available to local Hawaii residents, for sure. That’s a big thing we are trying to make certain occurs.”
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Pubdate: Thu, 30 Apr 2015
Source: Honolulu Star-Advertiser (HI)
Copyright: 2015 Star Advertiser
Contact:
http://www.staradvertiser.com/info/Star-Advertiser_Letter_to_the_Editor.html
Website: http://www.staradvertiser.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5154
Author: Michelle Kerr

MEDICAL POT FEES ARE ALL ABOUT GREED
Legislators responsible for amendments to House Bill 321, the medical marijuana bill, should be ashamed. The $20,000 application and $30,000 renewal fee for dispensaries was the give-away. It was always about the money.
It started out well-intentioned - to get medical marijuana to those who need it. I have personal experience with a sister who relies on medical marijuana for her multiple-organ cancer to relieve pain, nausea, appetite and sleep issues.
Our one-party-dominated state presents no viable opposition to counter the Democrats’ thirst for taxation and over-regulation. Greed has taken a good and necessary cause and turned it into a money maker for the state. Lawmakers now propose general excise tax rates and surcharges of 25 percent. This is outrageous and confiscatory on sick people. There should be no GET or surcharges on medical marijuana.
Michelle “Mikie” Kerr Waikoloa, Hawaii island
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom