The path to changing the world requires us to walk the longest journey - the journey within - to change ourselves. When 500,000 of us pledge to live 3 simple but powerful values in 2015, we’ll invite world leaders to join us:
SIGN THE PETITION
Dag Hammarskjöld, the great UN leader, once reflected that we’d never make sustainable progress in our world until we all “walked the longest journey”. The journey within.
Each of our capacities to create the world we dream of depends on our own journey, from fear to love, towards believing in ourselves, and leaving our demons behind.
We’ve come together as a community hundreds of times in campaigns, and created magic. At this most reflective time of a new year, let’s come together around this, most important campaign of all - the campaign for ourselves, to “be the change we wish to see” - for us, and for all the people we love and the planet we call home.
Our community has chosen 3 simple but powerful values to support each other to follow in 2015. When 500,000 of us pledge, we’ll invite world leaders to join us, and we’ll check in 3 times this coming year to see how we’re all doing—click to see them and sign a new year’s pledge to ourselves:
https://secure.avaaz.org/en/three_principles_loc/?bGFoMgb&v=51145
Our journeys within are profoundly individual. But it’s amazing how similar we are in what we love and fear and hope for. Over 97% of our community strongly support every one of the 3 principles in our petition!
Being part of a community can be a powerful influence, for better or worse. Avaaz is an extraordinary community of hopeful, practically idealistic people who choose to sign a petition or donate money when no one is looking. I’ve been blown away by the wisdom and humanity of the people in this community. Seems like we’re a good influence on each other :) .
Show Kindness and Respect
We will show kindness and respect towards ourselves and others whenever possible. And it’s always possible, because everyone we meet is fighting a battle we may know nothing about.
Strive for Wisdom
We will seek to be wise in our decisions, listening deeply to ourselves and others, and balancing our heads, hearts and intuitions in a harmony that feels right.

Practice Gratitude
We will regularly reflect on what we’re grateful for, because it brings perspective, dissolves negativity, and grounds us in what’s most important.

Our community has overwhelmingly voted for these 3 simple, powerful principles to support each other to follow in 2015. Join thousands of others in this New Year’s pledge to ourselves, and then share stories and insights from our “journeys within” on a live chat tool. When 500,000 of us pledge, we’ll invite world leaders to personally join us, and we’ll all check in 3 times this coming year to see how we’re doing.
xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/UKoNqgzX
Copyright: 2015 Postmedia Network Inc.
Contact: sunletters@vancouversun.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Authors: Peter O’Neil and Tracy Sherlock
Page: A7

LIBERALS DENY JODIE EMERY’S CANDIDACY
Party’s ‘Green Light’ Committee Didn’t Say Why They Wouldn’t Let Her Name Stand
Jodie Emery, the wife of controversial marijuana legalization
activist Marc (Prince of Pot) Emery, will not be a Liberal candidate
in the next federal election.

The party’s “green-light” committee sent Emery an email on Friday
afternoon that it would not be recommending her as a nomination candidate.
“I am disappointed I won’t be on the ballot, but I do respect their
decision,” Emery said, adding that the committee did not give their
reasons in the email and she didn’t ask for further details.

Party rules give the committee “unfettered discretion” to determine
“whether it is in the best political interests of the party” to
approve the candidate.

Emery is an activist for pot legalization and has run for the B.C.
Marijuana Party and the B.C. Green party.

“I am mostly known for marijuana legalization, but I’ve always
emphasized that marijuana legalization means job creation, it means
saving billions in tax dollars that are being spent on law
enforcement, prisons and policing that could be spent elsewhere,”
Emery said. “There are a lot of issues related to marijuana
legalization that aren’t just about getting high.”

Party spokesman Olivier Duchesneau said that the Liberals are
committed to open nominations, but that doesn’t mean anyone can have
their name on the ballot at the nomination meeting.
“We have always said that candidates need to follow a rigorous
process and that they need approval from our green-light committee to
go forward. Canadians are expecting a high level of diligence and
rigorousness from the party during the process. The important thing
is that everyone is treated fairly during the process and I can
reassure you that is the case,” Duchesneau said.
Emery said she decided to try for the nomination about a year ago, when the Vancouver East Riding was a “no-hope” riding for the Liberals because longtime NDP MP Libby Davies was so popular.
However, since Davies announced she would not seek re-election, “the
stakes are very high in Vancouver East. That’s very different from
when I intended to run initially.”
She said she is still encouraging people to vote and that she will
continue to support the Liberal party.

“I am receiving a lot of messages of support from many people who are
deeply disappointed,” Emery said.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: Herb Couch
Pubdate: Mon, 12 Jan 2015
Source: Toronto Sun (CN ON)
Copyright: 2015 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: http://www.torontosun.com/letter-to-editor
Website: http://torontosun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/457
Author: Kevin Connor
Page: 20

SNIFF, SNIFF - WHO LET THE DOGS IN!
Oakville trainer’s canine detector crew exposes drugs, bombs and other
contraband
Whether it’s trying t o expose an ex for drug use during a custody
battle, finding residue of a stash in your kid’s bedroom or sweeping a
stadium for explosives, there is a canine sniffer company offering to
help.
For years, law enforcement agencies have relied on
professionally-trained dogs to detect all sorts of contraband,
including drugs, explosives and firearms.

Oakville’s Dave Walker, of Command Response Dogs, has spent 30 years
in the private detector dog service industry working for clients that
include private schools and large stadium operators.
“With the recent escalation in terrorism events in Canada and
continued rise in illegal drug use and trafficking, detector dog teams
continue to be one of the most effective search tools for law
enforcement and security agencies across North America,” said Walker,
a trainer and judge with the United States-based Police Canine
Association - an international certified dog-sniffing testing
organization.

“Specialized detector dog g teams are depended upon by y these
agencies in providing g continued safety and secuurity to our schools,
businesses, s, workplaces, special events and d public places in our
society.”
Parents, school administrators, CEOs, event planners and employers are
among those who can turn to caninee detector companies to address
concerns about drugs, weapons, explosives, or fear of terrorists.
“These facilities and homes are turning to detector dog teams to
provide added security as well as an effective deterrent to illegal
behaviour,” said Walker, a former Ontario correctional services officer.

“In this day and age, routine, random detector dog team searches are
being conducted on regular basis in manufacturing facilities,
transportation companies, service firms with vehicle fleets, airlines,
schools, and homes every day in North America - as well as abroad.”

One of the smaller aspects of Walker ‘s job is being hired by someone
who’s going through a divorce and involved in a custody battle.
“One side may suggest the other has a drug problem and shouldn’t have the kids. I could state if I found any residue (from a location of the ex’s) and that could be taken to court,” Walker said.
One of his newest and largest clients is Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment (MLSE). He routinely takes his dogs to check for bombs at the Air Canada Centre by sniffing seats and other areas, including locker rooms, prior to Maple Leafs and Raptors games.
On Saturday, Walker swept the ACC before the Raptors-Celtics game and, as usual, stayed for the duration of the game.
MLSE admits to using Walker’s services, but won’t discuss security
issues, spokesman Dave Haggith said.
In the past, MLSE has used the Toronto Police Dog Services for
security, but the force couldn’t commit to patrolling every game.

“For us, it is a manpower issue. (Paid-duty officers) can’t attend
every game so they have to turn to other companies,” said Staff-Sgt.
James Hung, with the Toronto canine unit.
Walker does sweeps for private educational institutes, which he didn’t
name because of confidentiality reasons,
“I’m not the police, I’m just an agent working for the principal,” he
said.

But there are others, such as the Toronto District School Board, which
do don’t use private companies.
“We wouldn’t consider hiring a private canine service as we have a
close working relationship with Toronto Police and their canine unit,
which assists with specific concerns,” TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird said.
Private dog detector services also are not on the radar for many
throwing exclusive bashes.

Spectacular Spectacular, one of Toronto’s high-end event planners -
which put on gatherings attended by former U.S. president George W.
Bush - never had the need to hire a private canine firms.
“(High-profile guests such as Bush) travel with their own security and search details and many times people don’t know they are coming,” said Melissa Haggerty, of Spectacular.
In Ontario, dog sniffing agencies or security firms offering canine
detector services for drugs or explosives don’t have to maintain
certification or training standards by law.

“It is an unregulated business, so buyer beware,” said Andrew
Morrison, of the Ontario Ministry of Community Safety and Correctional
Services.
Hung added that in Ontario, only the police would have access to the
drugs and explosives needed to train a scent detecting dog.
It is imperative when hiring dog detector services to ensure the
company has recognized training and certification, said Alan Bell, of
Globe Risk International, which has experience dealing with security
issues in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“There is a grey area in the industry because of the legislation. You
need references and certification from a reputable association so you
know you aren’t dealing with someone and the family pet,” Bell said.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Matt
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: Today’s Zaman (Turkey)
Copyright: 2015sFeza Newspaper Publishing Co.
Contact: editor@todayszaman.com
Website: http://www.todayszaman.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4547
Author: Salim Avci, Ankara

PKK MAKES USE OF LEGAL LOOPHOLES TO MAINTAIN DRUG PRODUCTION
A General Directorate of Security (EGM) report on the fight against
drug-trafficking and production has revealed that the outlawed
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) makes millions of dollars growing
marijuana in the southeastern provinces by exploiting the lack of
effective legal measures to tackle illegal drug production in areas
that are not monitored by the government.

The report also indicated that mines are placed around the fields and
that snipers occupy high positions to protect the marijuana fields
from outside intruders.
Speaking to Sunday’s Zaman, Anadolu Atayun, a former chief police
inspector and one of the officials who took part in the preparation
of the EGM report, said that there are legal loopholes that serve to
encourage the PKK to cultivate marijuana in these vast fields.

“The cultivation of marijuana is only punished with prison sentences
of less than a year. Furthermore, the penal code lacks provisions for
prosecutors to investigate the assets of individuals who are
suspected of having acquired wealth through illegal gains. ... We
spoke to prosecutors, gendarmerie forces and police who all
complained about the lack of regulations deterring individuals from
cultivating marijuana,” said Atayun.

Atayun went on to say that if the fields were registered to
individuals, the PKK’s drug production would be hampered. He pointed
out that as the fields that are not registered to anyone, no one is
held responsible for the illegal use of the land, and the PKK
continues to evade effective surveillance by the police.

Atayun went on to say that attempts by local state officials to
conduct land surveys in the fields were prevented by the headmen of
the villages where the marijuana fields are located.
He said that the village chiefs petitioned the state authorities not
to open those areas to any activity.

When local officials informed Ankara of their inability to conduct
land surveys in the villages, the government suggested that the local
officials scrap their plans to open those lands for use, according to Atayun.
He said that the reason the government is not pushing for the opening
of those unregistered fields to use is related to its desire to keep
the settlement process on track.
In the EGM report, a village chief was quoted as saying in his
petition: “We do not want any subsidy from the state. If the
government registers [the lands in question] then the village as a
whole will take to the mountains and join the PKK.”

Police unresponsive to illegal drug production
In the report, the EGM levels criticism against the Diyarbak r and
Bingoel Security Directorates for continuing to remain unresponsive,
despite knowing locations where the PKK stores illegal drugs.
It was acknowledged by the EGM that police forces fear that
interfering with the PKK’s management of marijuana fields would lead
to a clash with PKK forces and consequently hamper the settlement
process. Thus, police prefer to launch operations that are small in
scale, rather than raiding the major locations where the PKK stores
drugs, the report says.
“An in-depth inquiry has revealed that [in Turkey] only 1 percent [of
drugs produced domestically] were seized. In particular, it was
uncovered that in 2014, 10 to 12,000 tons of heroin substances were
produced. All of this production is consumed in the domestic market,”
stated the report.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 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: David Barrett
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Testing)

DRUG DRIVERS LICKED
On-The-Spot Saliva Test for Cannabis and Cocaine Use Approved for Use by Police
Police will be able to test drivers for drugs on the roadside after
the first mobile checking device was approved.
The “Drugwipe” can trace cocaine and cannabis in a saliva sample
within three minutes. Drivers will be tested on the spot, rather than
at a police station, meaning convictions are likely to soar as the
device is increasingly adopted by forces. Mike Penning, the police
minister, said chief constables would now be able to roll out the
Securetec DrugWipe 3S after the technology was rubber-stamped by Home
Office scientists. “Drug drivers are a deadly menace and must be
stopped,” said Mr Penning. “Those who get behind the wheel while
under the influence of drugs not only put their own lives at risk,
but also those of innocent pedestrians, motorists and their
passengers.” The test can detect cocaine and cannabis, the substances
most commonly used by drug drivers. The manufacturers also produce a
test for other drugs including heroin, amphetamine and Ecstasy, but
this version has not yet won Home Office backing. A positive test
will show red lines, similar to a pregnancy test.
In March a new drug driving law comes into force with penalties of up
to six months’ jail and UKP5000 fines.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/jriHAZhS
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: Suzanna Caldwell

ALASKA OFFICIALS HEAR LAW ENFORCEMENT VIEW OF LEGAL MARIJUANA AT
COLORADO CONFERENCE
More than 500 people from 38 states packed a conference center just outside Denver on Wednesday for a crash course in “lessons learned” when it comes to marijuana legalization.
Of the 500, 40 claim Alaska as home. They include members of local governments from Fairbanks and Anchorage as well as members of state government who in less than six weeks will begin making marijuana rules.
The conference, “Marijuana Impact on Public Health and Safety in
Colorado,” is hosted by the Colorado Association of Chiefs of Police.
A contingent of Alaska officials on Tuesday also toured several
marijuana businesses in the Denver area, coordinated by the law firm
Vicente Sederberg, which specializes in marijuana legalization.
Partner and founding member Brian Vicente said the tour sites
included marijuana grows and facilities that make edibles. The law
firm often leads such tours, he said, in an effort to help people
understand the effects of legalization.

“At the end of the day, Colorado’s law and Alaska’s law are very
similar,” Vicente said in a telephone interview Wednesday. “... I
think perhaps it’s a glimpse into the future for those Alaskans that
were able to come down here and see how regulated marijuana works.”

Vincente said he hoped the tour offered a counterpoint to the law
enforcement conference. He was critical of organizers, noting law
enforcement has consistently opposed marijuana legalization.

“I think there is absolutely a degree of bias (at the conference),”
Vicente said. “We think its important regulators meet with a diverse
set of stakeholders, and law enforcement is an important voice, but
when you have people who have opposed and imprisoned people over
marijuana, it’s tough to say you’ll get correct information out of
that meeting.”
The conference, which costs $325 per person, is open only to law
enforcement personnel, regulators and policymakers. Media and the
public aren’t allowed in the sessions, which run through Friday. The
conference sold out, with only a waiting list available Wednesday
morning, according to Marco Vasquez, chief of police in Erie,
Colorado, and marijuana director for the Colorado Association of
Chiefs of Police. He is also the former chief of investigations for
the Colorado Department of Revenue’s medical marijuana enforcement division.

A spokesperson for the conference said the audience was limited
because some of the information presented involves ongoing law
enforcement actions and other information that cannot be shared with
the public.
Vasquez, who helped plan the conference, said he and about a
half-dozen other police chiefs approached the conference with a
“lessons-learned approach.” He said the goal is to share what
Colorado officials have learned so far about marijuana legalization
in the state.

“Whatever is going to happen with marijuana legalization, you don’t
necessarily want to be the first, but that’s what happened with
Colorado,” Vasquez said in a telephone interview Tuesday. “Alaska can
now really benefit from some of our lessons and do things better than
we did, simply because they are able to learn from our experience.”
Vasquez said he was proud of some of the things the state did right,
but there were other areas he felt needed work. Better data
collection, especially in public health and safety, would help, he said.
He also noted Colorado’s Amendment 64, which legalized recreational
marijuana, had a built-in timeline he described as “strict.” Alaska’s
Ballot Measure 2 also includes a strict timeline, giving the state
nine months to craft rules after the ballot initiative goes into
effect Feb. 24. Vasquez said that makes it difficult for government
to respond, especially when there’s limited funding. He suggested
Alaska officials slow the timetable as much as possible, though he
added marijuana supporters would undoubtedly disagree, saying they
wanted it done “yesterday.”
“There are a lot of moving parts (in the regulatory process) and if
you’re rushed and don’t have adequate resources and don’t have
adequate funding you’re creating a recipe for where you may fail,” Vasquez said.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/6qgADuHW
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: Zaz Hollander

FROM INSURANCE AGENTS TO ENTREPRENEURS, MAT-SU CROWD EAGER TO TALK POT
PALMER—Tracking with the Valley’s farm roots and small business
spirit, entrepreneurial drive and agriculture dominated a crowded
marijuana forum in Palmer Thursday night.
At least 150 people turned out for the packed but civil work session
hosted by the four mayors in the Matanuska-Susitna Borough. The
officials told the crowd they wanted feedback as they craft local
strategies from taxes to business regulations and work with
legislators on statewide policy.

Many in attendance urged them to let legitimate pot businesses thrive
in a fair taxation atmosphere that replaces the borough’s humming black market.
The Valley is already world-renowned for its marijuana, one audience member noted. Another tossed out some big albeit unsourced numbers.
“I can’t tell you how many people are growing pot here in Alaska, but
judging from the quality of pot that I see, I’m going to guess that a
good bit of the 20 tons of marijuana smoked in Alaska is grown right
here,” said Keith Searles, author of the denalismoke.com blog. “If
that’s the case, there’s at least 1,000 people surreptitiously
growing top-quality dope here in the Mat-Su.”

Sarah Williams said she’s the CEO of a new company called Midnight
Greenery that hopes to settle in Wasilla as a “seed to sale” facility
cultivation, production and dispensing.

Wasilla insurance agent Jason Spracher was already working the crowd
in expectation of cannabis entrepreneurs springing up around the
Mat-Su to handle production, manufacturing, distribution and security.
“If anybody wants any help setting up their business, please give me
a call,” he said, to laughter. “I know it is a business pitch, but at
the same time, you guys have to think about it from a legitimate
business standpoint.”

A number of people told the officials they want a local preference
that gives Alaskans first crack at the state’s fledgling industry
growing and selling cannabis for recreational, medical and industrial markets.

“We are a state that didn’t vote this in because we wanted to bring
in Outside entrepreneurs,” Williams said. “We wanted to grow from the inside.”
She, like a number of others, pressed for a contaminant testing requirement and permitting of grow operations several months ahead of dispensaries to avoid supply bottlenecks like those in Washington state.
Some in the crowd were more cautious about the Valley’s latest
potential cash crop.

A number of people urged the local officials to make sure edible
marijuana candies or cookies carry child warning labels. Some
wondered if their jobs could be threatened by second hand smoke that
turns up in drug tests.
Yukon Tanner, a power theft investigator with Matanuska Electric Association, recommended special inspections to cut down on power theft.
“We collected as much as $278,000 from one individual who had a
grow,” Tanner said.

But Bruce Schulte, spokesman for the pro-initiative Coalition for
Responsible Cannabis Legislation, countered that power theft should drop.
New regulations done right will “allow black market operations to
move their $100 million-plus industry to a regulated legitimate
business model,” Schulte said.

The idea of differentiating cannabis bound for recreational and
medicinal markets also came up throughout the night. Advocates for
medical marijuana pressed for a lower tax rate.
Palmer counselor Susan Whitefeather said she supports lower tax rates
for medical marijuana but not differentiation by chemical makeup.
Research is a “moving target” on which of the five known alkaloids in
marijuana have what effects on medical patients, Whitefeather said.
“Trying to be chemists and medical professionals about it isn’t
probably going to serve out best interests in the long term.”

Several people told the mayors they were medical marijuana users but
Alaska makes it almost impossible for them to get their medicine. A
Houston resident said she went without it for six months last year
after Alaska State Troopers seized her plants.
Several people pressed for the separation of industrial hemp into a
totally different category.
“This part of the state is uniquely set up to capitalize on that
commodity,” Schulte said.

The Mat-Su as a whole voted down Ballot Measure 2, the initiative
that legalizes marijuana for recreational use next month and retail
sales next year, though voters in the cities of Palmer and Houston
backed it. Voters in Wasilla didn’t.

The borough Assembly will discuss a draft resolution addressing the
Mat-Su stance on marijuana regulation at a regular meeting Tuesday
night. Assembly member Jim Sykes has also proposed another resolution
calling for the creation of a new Marijuana Advisory Committee.
Local governments like the borough will have the power to prohibit or
adopt regulations governing marijuana cultivation and manufacturing
facilities, as well as retail stores and testing facilities.
The initiative established only a framework for legalization, Sykes’
resolution notes.

There is still a lot of uncertainty about what laws the state will roll out.
What role will unorganized boroughs play? Sykes asked the mayors Thursday night. If contaminant testing becomes law, how will growers in Tununak or Arctic Village get their product to a lab?
“I believe we do need a lot of advice,” he said.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK)
Copyright: 2015 Fairbanks Publishing Company, Inc.
Contact: letters@newsminer.com
Website: http://newsminer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/764
Author: Amanda Bohman

INTERIOR ALASKA ENTREPRENEURS, POLICYMAKERS PREPARE FOR MARIJUANA BOOM
FAIRBANKS - Alaska’s marijuana laws begin to get a lot more
permissive in about five weeks: Recreational marijuana use will be
legal for people older than 21 on Feb. 24.

Voters statewide made that choice in November when they approved a
broad state initiative that also allows for the legalized but
regulated sale of marijuana, marijuana products and marijuana
accessories beginning next year, following the required adoption of
regulations later this year.

But the new law allows local governments to ban or limit marijuana
businesses such as retailers and smoking clubs. That has led to
discussions in Fairbanks, North Pole and elsewhere in the state about
where people ought to be allowed to buy, sell, grow, process and
consume marijuana.
Entrepreneurs, meanwhile, are busy thinking about ways to capitalize on the new industry.
Getting ready to cash in
Charlie Lester, a 48-year-old heavy equipment operator and general
foreman on the North Slope, said opening a marijuana club and
eventually a retail store are part of his retirement plan. The Delta
Junction resident said he has a name picked out, a Facebook page up
and is having a logo designed so he can have T-shirts and sweatshirts made.
Lester said he has lined up locations inside and outside of Delta
Junction city limits to open a private club where people will be able
to smoke pot. He said he would prefer to establish his club within
the city but he’s waiting to see if the City Council will allow it.
His goal is to open by May.

His plan for a retail store will have to wait until state lawmakers
decide how to regulate marijuana sales.

In Fairbanks, some real estate agents have been receiving calls from
people looking for warehouse space for marijuana-related businesses.
Kelli Powers, an associate broker with Century 21 Gold Rush, said she has had a couple of calls and showed a space to someone looking for a location for a marijuana-related business.
David Pruhs, owner of Pruhs Real Estate Group, said he has fielded some calls about commercial space for marijuana-related businesses.
But he has a message for prospective buyers: “Do not buy a location
until you see the statutes out of the state of Alaska.”
Pruhs is also a member of the Fairbanks City Council and the borough
Planning Commission. He said people should pick out a site but do a
lease option, which means leasing a property but having an option to
buy it. That way buyers are not stuck with a building that turns out
to have the wrong zoning for a marijuana business.
Local laws in the works
The Fairbanks North Star Borough Assembly will see its first
ordinance related to the new state marijuana law at the end of the
month. The ordinance doesn’t do much policy-wise, but it does sets up
a framework in borough code for future marijuana policy decisions.
Assemblyman Lance Roberts sponsored the measure, which is scheduled to be introduced on Jan. 29.
“There are no teeth,” Roberts said. “All that it does is that it
creates a title section and it lists purposes and definitions. I am
trying to make sure this is organized well in the code.”

Borough Mayor Luke Hopkins said he is putting together an advisory
panel to help draft an ordinance about where marijuana can be grown,
processed, bought, sold and consumed in the borough. The panel will
begin its work by taking a close look at zoning, he said.
“Before we have our laws from the state, what’s important to our
community?” Hopkins said.

The advisory panel is scheduled to hold its first meeting at 10 a.m. Jan. 28.
Hopkins will draw from multiple sectors of the community, including
the business sector, education and the military, to round out the
panel. He will invite some Borough Assembly members and
representatives of the cities of Fairbanks and North Pole, he said.

Brandon Emmett, of the Coalition for Responsible Cannabis
Legislation, said he wants to help draft local policy dealing with
marijuana. He believes marijuana should be regulated like alcohol.

“Something we are working on right now is to make sure that there are
avenues for people to consume cannabis responsibly,” Emmett said.
“There have to be areas where people can not only purchase marijuana
but where they can use it as well.”
The new voter-approved marijuana laws prohibit smoking marijuana in public. But one of the issues that remains unclear is the definition of a public space.
Hopkins said he has asked for a legal analysis from the borough
attorney about what defines a public space.

Other communities are formulating their responses to the legalization
of marijuana. Locally, the North Pole City Council soon will consider
a measure prohibiting the sale of marijuana in city limits.
City officials in Sitka will hold a town hall meeting Monday to hear
from residents about how or whether to regulate marijuana use.

The Juneau Assembly voted last week to not consider issuing any land
use permits for marijuana farms or documentation related to marijuana
businesses until Oct. 19, or six months after the legislative session
ends, according to the Juneau Empire newspaper. The Legislature will
be writing regulations for marijuana businesses this session, which
begins Tuesday.
The municipality of Anchorage is considering an ordinance that would
ban marijuana use in public, fining offenders $100. The Anchorage
measure defines public places to include streets, sidewalks, parking
areas, sports arenas, places of business, shopping centers,
playgrounds, schools, prisons, lobbies and certain areas of apartment buildings.
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Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK)
Copyright: 2015 Associated Press
Contact: letters@newsminer.com
Website: http://newsminer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/764

LEGISLATOR SEEKS DELAY IN MARIJUANA-CONCENTRATES REGULATIONS
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) - A Homer legislator has proposed delaying
regulations for marijuana concentrates to allow officials to focus
this year on rules for the sale and growth of legalized pot and
licensing of marijuana businesses.

But Timothy Hinterberger, the chairman of the Campaign to Regulate
Marijuana like Alcohol in Alaska, said the bill would “defy the will
of the voters” and open the state to litigation, “which it would surely lose.”
Republican Rep. Paul Seaton, the incoming chair of the House Health and Social Services Committee, said Friday that he wants regulations taken up in manageable units so there can be adequate time for consideration.
The delay proposed in the legislation, HB 59, would apply to
marijuana concentrates and the chemical extraction of the
psychoactive ingredient THC, he said. It would delay regulations
related to the manufacturing, delivery, possession, sale, packaging
or display of marijuana concentrates, calling for those rules to be
finalized by November 2016 “in response to the difficulties other
jurisdictions have found in unintended consequences of regulations
permitting marijuana concentrates,” according to the text of the bill.

The bill also says in a section outlining its intent that during the
delay, activities related to marijuana concentrates would remain
illegal and may form the basis for revoking an establishment license
or for the seizure or forfeiture of assets.

Alaska voters last year approved legalizing the recreational use of
pot by those 21 and older. While the initiative takes effect Feb. 24,
the state has until this November to write regulations.

Alaska is one of four states where voters have approved legalizing
recreational marijuana.
Hinterberger said in a statement that the Legislature has important
roles to play in creating effective marijuana policy “but delaying
implementation of the initiative is not one of them, nor is changing
the definition of marijuana that the voters approved in November,” he said.

“The state should move forward with implementing what Alaska voters
approved, not try to roll it back,” he said. Marijuana concentrate is
included in the initiative’s definition of marijuana.
Similar concerns were raised by the Coalition for Responsible
Cannabis Legislation.

Seaton said he spoke with pot-initiative supporters at a recent forum
who did not oppose splitting marijuana concentrates for separate
consideration of regulations.
The bill was part of a second group of bills filed ahead of the start
of the legislative session and released on Friday. The scheduled
90-day session begins Tuesday.

Other bills include:
HB 57, from Rep. Bob Lynn, R-Anchorage, calling for voters to
provide photo identification or two forms of ID that do not have
photos, such as a certified copy of a birth certificate. Lynn was a
sponsor of a similar bill in 2013 that failed to gain traction.
HB 60, from House Democratic Leader Chris Tuck of Anchorage, related to the reporting and handling of sexual assault cases in the Alaska National Guard.
SB 12, from Sen. Bill Wielechowski, D-Anchorage, calling for minimum
paid sick leave for employees of certain businesses with at least 15
workers. Currently, lower-wage workers often do not get paid sick
time, he said.
SB 17, also from Wielechowski, would require signed, written
responses and rationales for denials of requests for public records.
He said this is a response to requests that he and others made under
the prior administration that he said were not responded to by the state.
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/BZyZmHlL
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: Zaz Hollander

MAT-SU MAYORS WANT PUBLIC’S INPUT ON IMPLEMENTATION OF ALASKA’S NEW
MARIJUANA LAW
PALMER—The Matanuska Valley is Alaska’s source of a notorious
marijuana strain known in polite circles as Matanuska Tundra—the
more common name starts with “Thunder” and ends with an F-bomb.
But despite the statewide success of a ballot measure that made
Alaska one of four states to approve the legalization of recreational
marijuana, Valley voters in November at best were evenly divided and
may have narrowly rejected the initiative, according to a
district-by-district analysis by the borough’s attorney.
Now, as state legislators and other policymakers start working on how to regulate the nascent industry, the Matanuska-Susitna Borough joins communities throughout Alaska trying to get out ahead of legalization with a public forum in Palmer on Thursday night.
The Mat-Su Borough mayor says the forum doesn’t involve any kind of a ban, a tax or other limits.
Instead, Thursday night’s event is part of the borough’s efforts to
press state policymakers for clarification on numerous gray areas in
the voter-approved initiative, Mayor Larry DeVilbiss said Tuesday.
The four Mat-Su mayors—DeVilbiss and the mayors of Palmer, Wasilla
and Houston—will host the forum slated for 6 to 8 p.m. at the
borough building in Palmer.
“There’s been quite a bit of interest in it,” DeVilbiss said. “I’m
kind of hoping it isn’t just a crowd of insane people that think it’s
about whether we’re going to ban it or not. We’re trying to make it
clear that’s not the focus right now.”

The forum will help the Mat-Su Borough Assembly craft a resolution
asking state officials for clarity on numerous aspects of the state’s
budding laws, he said.
A working draft of the three-page resolution includes a request for
clarification on whether cities within the borough will have
authority over local commercial regulation as the borough will. Other
sections wonder if agricultural farm-use tax exemptions will apply to
growers, or if the state will try to create regulations that
differentiate among cannabis destined for the recreational, medical
and industrial markets.

The borough may seek restrictions on packaging that entices minors,
according to the draft document, which also references a state ban on
public advertising and a need to solidify just what constitutes a
public space: a car or pickup? Private baseball fields or smoking
clubs? The edge of your own property?

The draft resolution also makes a pitch for an Alaska-grown-only
requirement for any pot grown or sold here, since international
transport and shipping is illegal, and “to curb the black market
sales and support Alaskan agriculture and business.”

Borough staff will fine-tune the resolution after Thursday’s forum to
reflect public opinion, DeVilbiss said. The Assembly will consider it
at a meeting next Tuesday night.
A frequently-asked-questions section of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control Board website appears to answer some of the borough’s other questions about how the state plans to measure an ounce of pot and whether personal-use amounts apply to an entire household or to each person.
Borough attorney Nick Spiropoulos last month made a presentation to
the Assembly detailing some early findings about the issues facing
the borough as legalization rolls toward a day next month when
personal possession for recreational use becomes legal.
Nothing in the initiative’s language bars a local excise tax,
Spiropoulos pointed out.

He attended a statewide Alaska Municipal League meeting soon after
the November election and said a number of municipal attorneys said
their Assembly and council members had asked about the Mat-Su’s plans
for local policies.
“Whatever reasons, that I won’t get into, people are waiting to see
what Mat-Su is going to do,” Spiropoulos said last month.
“Professional colleagues said, ‘What are you doing? Let me know.
We’re looking at you guys.’”

Other municipalities are now further along in that process. Anchorage
is contemplating a ban on marijuana consumption in public places
after a more general ban failed last month. The Juneau Assembly on
Monday approved a moratorium on marijuana-related businesses until
October. Anchorage and the Fairbanks North Star Borough are forming
pot-specific committees; the Mat-Su is considering one.
The Alaska Municipal League is planning a summit on marijuana at its
February meeting in Juneau “so we can help provide, especially the
smaller communities, the questions and the answers that we need,”
executive director Kathie Wasserman said. The summit will include
representatives from Colorado and Washington, where recreational
marijuana is already legal, as well as Alaskans such as ABC Board
head and former Anchorage prosecutor Cynthia Franklin.
The initiative directs the state board to adopt regulations for
marijuana-related entities and then regulate the new industry, unless
the Legislature creates a different body. Several state legislators
are said to be working on marijuana legislation.
At this point, however, it’s unclear what form any of those efforts will take.
“Municipalities need to start talking about it,” Wasserman said. “It would be nice if we wouldn’t have to be reactive, but in a way we have to be.”
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Fairbanks Daily News-Miner (AK)
Copyright: 2015 Fairbanks Publishing Company, Inc.
Contact: letters@newsminer.com
Website: http://newsminer.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/764
Author: Amanda Bohman

NORTH POLE TO CONSIDER BAN ON MARIJUANA SALES
FAIRBANKS - The North Pole City Council will soon be considering a ban on the sale of marijuana in city limits.
Marijuana retail stores do not reflect the values of the
Christmas-themed community, a draft ordinance states.

North Pole Councilwoman Sharron Hunter is behind the measure, which
will be the subject of a workshop at 6:30 p.m. Thursday at North Pole
City Hall. The workshop is a public meeting, but public testimony
won’t be accepted at that time, City Clerk Kathy Weber said.
The ordinance is a draft and has not yet been formally introduced
before the City Council.

Hunter, who has worked with youths as a drug prevention specialist,
said she wants to avoid sending a message to young people that using
marijuana is OK.
“It’s a subtle message that happens when you have a retail store,” she said.
Hunter also said she is concerned that marijuana enforcement might
cost the city more than it could recuperate from a tax on sales of
marijuana products.
Under the new state law, approved by the voters and going into effect
on Feb. 24, communities can opt out of the marijuana industry.
The draft ordinance says marijuana sales would be prohibited in North Pole but that personal use of marijuana would not be affected.
North Pole Mayor Bryce Ward said he is still considering the proposed ban on marijuana sales and looks forward to discussing the matter with other local leaders next week.
In the Fairbanks North Star Borough, Mayor Luke Hopkins is convening a task force to discuss marijuana policy for the borough.
While the initiative legalizing recreational marijuana use passed
statewide and in the borough, the measure failed in voting precincts
in North Pole.
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Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2015
Source: Alaska Dispatch News (AK)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/qiXcud0X
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

PRE-FILED BILL AIMS TO MAKE INDUSTRIAL HEMP A CASH CROP IN ALASKA
Will Industrial Hemp Find a Home in the Last Frontier?
A bill pre-filed Friday by Sen. Johnny Ellis, D-Anchorage, seeks to
make hemp an agricultural crop in Alaska. Ellis had been considering
proposing an industrial hemp bill for several years, he said, and
after seeing bipartisan support for hemp in the U.S. Congress’ 2014
Farm Bill, he decided to introduce legislation.
Ellis said he had planned to file the bill regardless of whether
Alaska’s Ballot Measure 2 -- which legalized recreational marijuana
use—passed in November.
“This is industrial hemp ... it’s not marijuana at all,” Ellis said.
Hemp is a type of cannabis plant that lacks the high levels of the
psychoactive ingredient THC present in marijuana. Industrial hemp is
defined as having no more than 0.3 percent THC, an “infinitesimally
small amount,” Ellis said.
The seeds and fibers of hemp can be used to create a wide variety of
products, including paper, clothing, fuel and food. Today, the U.S.
imports most of its hemp products from Canada, according to the
Agricultural Marketing Resource Center.

“The previous marijuana hysteria sort of cut off our farmers, and I
want to see if we can get back on track ... that’s the conversation I
want to start with this bill,” Ellis said.

Under Ellis’ proposal, licenses to grow, process, sell and purchase
industrial hemp would be issued by the state Division of Agriculture.
Regulations would be developed by the commissioner of the Department
of Natural Resources.
“I want see if Alaska farmers can experiment with Alaska hemp ... and possibly benefit from a new crop,” Ellis said.
Should the bill become law, Alaska would join 19 other states that
allow the production of hemp in some capacity, according to the
National Conference of State Legislatures.

But the actual scope of what would be allowed in Alaska is still up
in the air due to restrictions in federal law.

A provision in the 2014 Farm Bill allows higher education
institutions and state departments of agriculture to grow hemp in
pilot programs, but hemp is still considered a controlled substance
by the Drug Enforcement Administration, and one must receive a permit
from the DEA to cultivate it.
Whether Alaska would issue hemp permits to individuals, like Colorado has, or allow only the institutions laid out in the 2014 Farm Bill to grow hemp remains to be seen.
Given the conflicts with federal law, Ellis said that was “an open question” that would need to be discussed during the committee process.
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Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2015
Source: Arizona Republic (Phoenix, AZ)
Copyright: 2015 The Arizona Republic
Contact: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/opinions/sendaletter.html
Website: http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/24
Author: Larry Brophy
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v15/n022/a01.html

POT IS HURTING KIDS? OH, GO TAKE A PUFF
The Saturday Viewpoints centerpiece on marijuana picks some facts and ignores others (“Why ‘Big Marijuana’ must be stopped”). That’s neither smart nor accurate.
California leads the way. In October 2010, voters passed a law
decriminalizing marijuana use. Possession of up to an ounce is
treated like a parking ticket, with a maximum $100 fine. The result?
Overall youth crime is down by nearly 30 percent.

And it didn’t lead to any of the harms prohibitionists predicted.
Quite the opposite: Since the law passed in 2010, the rate of both
high-school dropouts and youth drug overdoses are down by 20 percent.
Non-marijuana drug arrests for California youth are also down 23
percent, fully debunking the gateway theory.

Even in Colorado pot use itself has hardly budged. A working paper
released in October by a Cato Institute professor reveals that
essentially none of the harms that opponents claimed would accompany
legalization have materialized.
Instead of spreading hysterical fear about marijuana, why not take a
puff, kick back and chill?
Larry Brophy, Payson
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: North Coast Journal (Arcata, CA)
Copyright: 2015 North Coast Journal
Contact: letters@northcoastjournal.com
Website: http://www.northcoastjournal.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2833
Author: Grant Scott-Goforth
Column: The Week in Weed

BOWL GAME
Just weeks after the Obama Administration announced it would take a
hands-off approach to marijuana cultivation on tribal lands, a
Mendocino County Pomo tribe announced it will build a $10 million
cannabis farm with help from Kansas and Colorado investment firms.
The Press-Democrat reported that the Pinoleville Tribe, which has a 99-acre rancheria north of Ukiah, will build a 110,000-square-foot indoor marijuana grow in anticipation of legalization in California.
Some county officials have expressed concerns, as the tribe will be
exempt from the county’s marijuana zoning ordinance.
Two other agreements to build cannabis grows have been reached
between the investment corporations and California tribes, though the
locations haven’t been announced, according to the Press-Democrat.
One of the out-of-state investors in the project, Kansas-based
FoxBarry Farms, invests in tribal casinos as well as cannabis.

Mega-investment is coming, and fast. CBS News reported that two
billion-dollar firms are publicly investing in marijuana around the U.S.
“Privateers Holdings is the parent company of three cannabis brands:
Tilray, which grows marijuana in Canada; Leafly, an online database
of different pot strains and stores; and Marley Natural, from the
family of reggae star Bob Marley, which aims to become the ‘Marlboro
of marijuana,’” CBS News reported.
60 Minutes ran a 14-minute segment reflecting on Colorado’s first
year of legalization, and it contains some interesting tidbits,
including the suburban mother who runs an $18-million marijuana
outlet chain, the growing acceptance of pot among young
professionals, and cannabis businesses’ continuing inability to find
banking. “Colorado’s billion-dollar marijuana industry is conducted
almost entirely in cash,” said 60 Minutes reporter Bill Whitaker.
Forcing marijuana shops to keep cash on hand for payroll, payment to
vendors and services makes for the largest public safety threat
associated with the industry, argued one owner.
Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, who opposed legalization, said he’s
petitioned the U.S. government to relax its banking laws to allow the
state to set up a cannabis credit union. The massive exchange of
cash, Hickenlooper told 60 Minutes, is a way to “guarantee that
fledgling industry goes corrupt.”

In the leadup to college football’s Jan. 12 national championship
game, University of Oregon wide receiver Darren Carrington and
special teamer Ayele Ford tested positive for marijuana - a terrible
misstep by two stars that cost them a chance to play in one of the
biggest American sports events of the year. (Oregon lost to Ohio State 20-42.)

Sad, no doubt, and frustrating, too. Was it worth missing a bowl game
for a bowl?
Still, as SI.com columnist Pete Thamel points out, marijuana is
becoming more and more acceptable on campuses (as if it isn’t easier
to get than alcohol on many campuses already). Oregon just legalized
cannabis (it doesn’t go into effect until later this year), yet its
student athletes are held to stricter standards for THC than the NFL,
MLB or airline pilots (by a factor of 10).
While lax regulations of performance-enhancing substances may demand
more immediate attention, I’ll join Thamel in saying the NCAA’s
ridiculously low threshold for a non-performance enhancing, pain
relieving, increasingly accepted drug also needs re-examination.
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact: sactoletters@newsreview.com
Website: http://newsreview.com/sacto/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540
Author: Ngaio Bealum

DEALING WITH DANK’S STANK
Hi, Ngaio. Can you ask the people who smoke pot regularly to take a
shower or hang an air freshener around their neck? One of the
downsides of the changing attitudes about pot is having to smell it
daily, regardless of whether you want to or not. It may be the smell
of freedom for some but it’s really not making any friends among
those who are on the fence about weed’s acceptance. I also think it
hurts the credibility of the entire weed scene. Prohibition wasn’t
ended by people who reeked of booze.
M.

High yourself! I have been wrestling with this issue for a while. Pot
is a stinky drug. A wonderful, fantastic, stinky, stinky drug. I
personally enjoy the smell of weed, but I may be an outlier. Many pot
smokers don’t really notice the smell. I get the side-eye from random
people all the time, and not just when I walk into the coffee shop
all fresh roasted from a nice session. Just having some good weed in
your pocket will stink up a room. It usually takes me a minute to
realize why people are smirking, and it often leads to a conversation
about marijuana, so I generally don’t mind, unless I am in line at
the food truck when the cops walk up.
I get what you are saying, although I am not sure I have a solution
for you. Maybe the smell of marijuana is just one of the petty
annoyances of big-city living, along with the occasional aroma of
tobacco smoke, random garbage cans and dog shit. You are right that
some people could be better at being more aware of their personal
scent, but I would rather smell like weed than Axe body spray. Maybe
you could start a business that sells a weed-odor neutralizer.
I have a question for you: Looking at your email, you imply that the
smell of marijuana is a reason to be “on the fence” about weed
acceptance. Really? I think we can all agree that marijuana laws
should be reformed. And to your comment, “Prohibition wasn’t ended by
people who reeked of booze.” I disagree. I am fairly sure that the
people who ended alcohol prohibition, a.k.a. the United States
legislature, reek way more of booze than they reek of weed. Congress
would probably do a better job if they smoked more weed and drank
less booze, but I digress. Anyway, sorry you have to smell weed every
once in a while.
High, Ngaio, I am debating leaving my career working with autistic teens to work in the cannabis industry. Thoughts? Am I jumping on the wagon?
A Man Called Quest

First of all, thank you for working with autistic teens. I would say
it’s not too late but don’t just jump in. Have a plan. Find a niche.
And try not to reek of weed when you show up to work.
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Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 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
Column: Chem Tales

Instagram’s Shutdown of Marijuana -Laced Accounts Is Bad for Business
DELETING THE WEED
Coral Reefer has no problem posting naked pictures of herself on the
internet. Neither do Twitter or Vine, where the 26-year-old Alameda
woman and internet celebrity has been posting images of herself and
some of her 35,000-plus followers taking dabs or pulling tubes in the
nude under the #”nakedbonghits” hashtag.
Beyond her willingness to partake au naturel, there are two reasons
why Reefer (an alias; her real name is a guarded secret) was able to
quit her job waiting tables two summers ago and focus all her time on
her personal brand. One is her deep-seated affection for marijuana,
which she consumes in some form every day. The other is her
willingness to share her cannabis habit with the many dedicated fans
following her on social media. That she’s an attractive blonde with a
famous feature - type “Coral Reefer” into Google and the word “booty”
pops up, along with numerous shots of her rear, identifiable by the
matching marijuana leaf tattoos on the back of her thighs - also
boosts her profile on every social media network.

But not Instagram. The Facebook-owned photosharing utility deleted
her account last month as part of a movement to purge weed accounts.
Legal cannabis dispensaries, marijuana-smoking musicians, and normal
people with an affinity for snapping and sharing filtered photos of
weed have all been removed from the app’s roll of 200 million users.
This is a big deal in 2015, when media entrepreneurs’ livelihoods
depend on their ability to connect to fans, business partners, and
customers via social media. “[Instagram] definitely took my career to
the next level,” says Berner, the San Francisco member of Wiz
Khalifa’s crew and brand ambassador of the Girl Scout Cookies weed
strain, whose account was shuttered in December. “Whenever we have a
show, we post about it on Instagram - and it sells out.”
Coral Reefer still isn’t sure why her account was kicked offline. She claims Instagram won’t tell her and the company didn’t respond to my email seeking comment. She guesses it could be the partial nudity on her account, including the skin flashed during naked bong rips.
But plenty of other fully clothed cannabis accounts, including the accounts of San Francisco dispensaries Barbary Coast and Grassroots and that of Matt Rize, a maker of ice wax rollups, were also deleted.
Berner was told his account was booted because it promoted drug use “and solicited the sale of marijuana, which is not true,” he says. “I don’t sell marijuana on my page, nor do I promote drug use.”
Indeed, Instagram’s terms of service ban nudity as well as the
promotion or solicitation of drug use. That would be an easy
explanation as to why those accounts were removed from the app’s
servers. But it would not explain why Instagram’s war on weed is both
selective and erratic. Many other weed-related accounts, including
those aimed to connect cannabis businesses with consumers, such as
WeedMaps-owned Marijuana.com’s @themarijuana, are still freely posting away.
It’s entirely possible that Instagram is just responding to feedback
from users. It is extremely easy for anyone to flag an account for
terms-of-service violations in the hopes that Instagram will shed it.
Some belive that the anti-drug group Narconon is spending its time
flagging accounts it doesn’t like. Others suspect a turncoat from
within the marijuana community’s own ranks, guessing that a competing
cannabis business is flagging prominent accounts in a fit of jealousy.
As of the new year, Coral was still trying to contact Instagram in an
attempt to at the very least get an explanation if she’s not able to
get her Instagram reinstated. As for @berner415, he’s back on, thanks
to the intercession of a well-connected friend (he won’t say who,
just that he’s a “well-known recording artist”) - but with one notable change.
Less weed.
For Berner, self-censorship of his cannabis lifestyle is a worthwhile
trade for keeping Instagram as a promotional platform for his other
ventures: his music, his Cookies clothing line and attendant store
set to open up in the Haight.

“I went through and deleted a bunch of stuff... I’m calming down on
it a lot,” he says. “Instagram is valuable to a lot of people... all
we can do is respect Instagram’s terms.”
From now on, whenever he has a dab or bud he wants to share, he’s
doing it on the “Instagram for marijuana,” a new social network
hosted on WeedMaps’ Marijuana.com. As of the new year, the network
most closely resembles a Pinterest, with a collage of images showing
dab hits, clouds of smoke, and stoned people. This would
differentiate it from MassRoots, the first social network to declare
itself the Facebook alternative for the cannabis set upon its launch in 2013.

Not that Instagram would ever be able to remove marijuana from its
servers even if it wanted to. There are simply too many posts of
buds, bongs, and blunts to count, let alone delete. As for whether a
cannabis-centric social network can compete for space on users’
phones and attention spans, Berner pledges a big push. In the coming
weeks, Marijuana.com’s network will hire a team of programmers and
rent office space in San Francisco, he says. Maybe they could score
Instagram’s old digs in South Park.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 08 Jan 2015
Source: Sacramento News & Review (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Chico Community Publishing, Inc.
Contact: sactoletters@newsreview.com
Website: http://newsreview.com/sacto/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/540
Author: Ngaio Bealum

FIGHTING OFF THE CAPITALISTS
Hello. I am all for legalizing marijuana, but I worry about gigantic corporations trying to monopolize the marijuana industry. What can I do?
Khan Cerned

You can relax a little. Big Marijuana may be on the horizon, but it
is not here yet. The capitalists and the corporations are definitely
looking to get in on the marijuana legalization movement. I take that
back. The capitalists don’t really care about the legalization
movement, they just want to be there when marijuana is legalized so
they can jump in and take the money. They will try to make it so that
when the marijuana laws are changed, the costs to open a
cannabis-based business (licensing fees, insurance requirements,
etc.) will be so expensive that all the mom-and-pop growers will be
unable to go start their own businesses.
It won’t work. What “the suits” fail to realize is that they are
dealing with outlaws (I use the word “outlaw” as a term of affection
when it comes to pot growers). Washington and Colorado both have
legalized weed, and the underground pot market is still going strong.
If these businesspeople think that passing a bunch of restrictive
regulations to give themselves an unfair advantage will stop people
that have been growing marijuana illegally for decades, they are deluded.
The marijuana industry has always been a decentralized marketplace,
mostly by necessity. No one wants to draw too much attention or get
too big, lest they draw the ire of the feds. That has changed a
little in states where recreational cannabis is legal, as people are
creating brands and getting celebrity endorsements, but the fact
remains: You can’t regulate marijuana like it’s tobacco or Sudafed.
We need to regulate weed less like some sort of super-dangerous
narcotic and more like tomatoes or wine. Oregon’s new marijuana laws
do a really good job of keeping the costs of starting a cannabis
business low, and there’s no lottery for pot licenses, like there was
in Washington.
One last thing: Even if some giant corporations go ham and start
trying to corner the market, they may get good business from the
squares and newbs, but the true chronnissuers will stick to their
artisanal, small batch, “micro-grow” cannabis brands. I mean,
Budweiser is cool, I guess, but I would rather have an Anchor Steam
or a Ruhstaller.
When I smoke weed I get paranoid. I am also schizophrenic. I love the
taste of the bud and I love the high feeling. I get raps in my head
sometimes but after two minutes I get paranoid and do crazy things.
The smoke feels smooth so I smoke most of the blunt or all of it, I
take more than two hits. I wanted to avoid asking you ‘cuz you might
tell me to quit and I dont want to. What should I do?
JH

Dude. Quit. Or at least take two hits and stop. You may want to try
strains with less THC and more CBD. Maybe you should talk to your therapist.
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Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 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
Column: ChemTales

Is Edible Cannabis Too Strong for Safety, or Much Weaker Than Advertised?
THE TROUBLE WITH EDIBLES
The scariest things to eat in America today seem to be cookies and
chocolate bars. Fourteen children between the ages of 3 and 7 were
admitted to the emergency room in Colorado last year after eating
marijuana-laced goodies.
Just over a dozen hospital visits isn’t as threatening as an Ebola
epidemic, but it’s almost double the eight stoned kids who showed up
at the ER in 2012. It was also more than enough for anti-legalization
coalition Smart Approaches to Marijuana to sound the alarm. “We need
to stop many of these products from being sold,” SAM chairman Kevin
Sabet, a former Obama drug policy bureaucrat, told Reuters.
In the Bay Area, local radio news leader KCBS jumped on the story. In San Mateo County, where cannabis dispensaries are banned, cops were quick to confirm that this “phenomena is hitting our emergency rooms.” San Mateo Police Chief Sue Manheimer did not present any data to back this up, but the available anecdotes were enough to convince her that “clearly [edibles] are not done in the auspices of public health.”
Reefer madness has a new name. And it is edibles.
It was a rough 2014 for edible marijuana, the preferred method of
medicating for many seniors and other people who don’t have the
option to smoke weed (and the only method most “respectable”
physicians will accept).

Authorities linked edibles to two deaths last year: a college student
who jumped off a hotel balcony after eating a cookie, and a man who
shot and killed his wife after eating THC-infused candy (it was later
revealed that the couple had been fighting for weeks; in court, the
man’s attorney used his weed intake as a defense, saying it had
rendered him incapable of pulling the trigger). However, the biggest
splash came when New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd published her
account of an unseemly encounter with a cannabis chocolate bar.
Unimpressed with the initial effects, Dowd made a rookie mistake: She
ate too much, too quickly. In the ensuing all-night ordeal, Dowd
thought “I had died and no one was telling me.”
Edibles are no joke. They can bend the minds of the cannabis plant’s most devoted fans. Only a handful of people, alive or dead, can outdo Snoop Dogg in a smoke session. Willie Nelson is one of them. “That’s the only motherfucker that ever smoked me out where I had to say, ‘Time out,’” the rapper told San Francisco’s own Berner during a 2013 episode of Snoop’s blunted-out Web series GGN. “He’s a real player.”
And Nelson cannot handle edibles. “I don’t enjoy the high that the
body gets,” he told Dowd last year, describing the feeling after he
ate a plate of pot cookies for the hell of it as if “the flesh was
falling off my bones.”

The only man in the world who has out-smoked Snoop Dogg thinks
edibles are too much. No wonder Dowd lost her mind.
Edibles are a problem for local cannabis connoisseurs, too, but for a
very different reason: They’re not strong enough. Specifically,
they’re not as strong as advertised. All of the top-shelf cookies,
candies, and other treats entered in the San Francisco Patients
Choice Cup in November tested well below their advertised THC content
in lab results. For example, noted brand Bhang’s triple-strength
chocolate bars, advertised at 180 milligrams of THC - roughly the
same amount of psychoactive punch in an entire gram of
dispensary-bought bud - clocked in at “only” 127.2 milligrams.

The root cause of the edible problem, cops and prohibitionists say,
is that they are unregulated. This is partially true. No government
agency inspects edibles for quality or potency. The same is true with
everything else sold in dispensaries, though nearly every cannabis
store has its medicine lab—checked for potency and contaminants, a
rare instance in which market forces led to regulation.
But there are some rules. Under San Francisco law, edibles must be
sold in opaque packaging in order to discourage children from
confusing a store—bought cannabis cookie for a Chips Ahoy. An
edible’s packaging must be clearly marked “medicine” and must have
warning labels telling kids to stay away. In other words, in San
Francisco at least, packaging and labels for edibles receive more
scrutiny than the psychoactive drugs inside.

But the most important number here is zero. That’s how many people
have died from cannabis consumption in recorded history. Meanwhile,
300 people died of a drug overdose last year in California. And if
recent trends hold steady, another 300 will die this year, the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says. This deadly trend
warranted only a brief write-up in the Chronicle, because the drug in
question is alcohol.

More than 2,200 people visited the San Francisco General Hospital
emergency room for acute alcohol toxicity or for alcohol withdrawal,
hospital spokeswoman Rachael Kagan said. Alcohol is the second-most
cited reason for an ER visit in the city, she said.
Cannabis doesn’t even make the list.
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Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 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: Evan Halper

FEINSTEIN ADAMANTLY AGAINST POT
A Harsh Critic of Leniency at the Federal Level, She Has Not Been
Swayed by Shifting Public Views.
WASHINGTON - As the majority of California voters grow comfortable with the idea of pot legalization, their senior senator in Washington is making it clear that she most certainly is not.
Dianne Feinstein is emerging as one of Washington’s toughest critics
of the Obama administration’s tolerance for marijuana use. Long a
strident supporter of the government’s War on Drugs, the 81-year-old
Democrat is showing no sign of bowing to the shifting views of
constituents in California and colleagues on Capitol Hill.
Feinstein’s resolve was on full display in two letters she and Sen.
Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), her co-chair on a Senate panel that
oversees international narcotics control, fired off this month to the
administration.

In dispatches to Atty. Gen. Eric Holder and Secretary of State John
Kerry, the senators expressed bewilderment at the administration’s
leniency with states that permit the sale of pot to any adult who wants it.
“We are already seeing signs that the United States’ position on drug
control issues has been weakened,” they wrote to Holder.
“It is our understanding that no one in the Justice Department has initiated a centralized effort to measure the overall effect of these laws.”
The letters warned that legal recreational pot sales appear to
violate a United Nations treaty the U.S. signed that is a linchpin of
international drug control efforts.

They protested that the federal government appears to be doing
nothing to monitor the impact in states where recreational sales are underway.
“The administration should account for remarks and policies that send
a message of tolerance for illegal drugs,” Grassley said in a
statement. Feinstein declined to discuss the letters, which reflect a
sentiment that is going out of style back home.
Administration officials said Holder and Kerry will answer the
senators’ concerns in writing in coming weeks.

Marijuana for recreational use has been legalized in Colorado,
Washington state, Alaska, Oregon and Washington, D.C. Activists are
confident that California will join them next year, when its ballot
is planned to anchor a multi-state initiative push.
Polls over the last 18 months show most California voters favor
legalization. Support has reached as high as 60%.

The anti-pot role, meanwhile, is not new for Feinstein, who
co-chaired the campaign against the 2010 ballot measure that would
have allowed recreational cannabis use in California.
Drugs are one of those issues where the famously contrarian Bay Area
Democrat has strong convictions that diverge from the thinking of
many of her supporters.
Feinstein’s position on pot is in sync with her strident support for
law enforcement, dating to her time at the center of San Francisco
politics amid the social turmoil of the 1960s and ‘70s.

It was then that she sat on the California Women’s Board of Terms and
Parole, where she saw that the drug contributed to wrecked lives, she
recently told the Associated Press.
“I saw a lot of where people began with marijuana and went on to hard drugs,” Feinstein said.
But the legalization proponents who were once infuriated by
Feinstein’s antipot crusading now treat it as a minor inconvenience.
Coming off a banner year when legalization spread through the West and into the nation’s capital, and Congress passed a historic measure in support of medical marijuana operations, advocates are confident the momentum is with them and not with Feinstein.
“She is still living in the 1980s,” said Bill Piper of the
pro-legalization Drug Policy Alliance. “Everyone we have ever talked
to who knows her says she is probably not going to change her views.
I still have hope she will come around. You can’t be on the losing
side of history forever. But maybe she intends to be.”
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Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 2015
Source: San Diego Union Tribune (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/0Ir1LqX2
Copyright: 2015 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@utsandiego.com
Website: http://www.utsandiego.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/386
Note: Seldom prints LTEs from outside it’s circulation area.
Author: David Garrick

KEY HURDLE PULLED FOR 11 PROPOSED POT SHOPS
Environmental Appeals Rejected by San Diego Council
Maximum Number of Medical Marijuana Dispensaries Allowed in Each Council District.
SAN DIEGO - The City Council on Tuesday removed a key approval hurdle facing 11 proposed medical marijuana dispensaries that could be among the first legal pot shops to open in the city.
The council rejected environmental appeals filed against each of the
dispensaries that marijuana advocates have described as strategic
attempts to stymie applicants by further complicating an already
turbulent approval process.
Councilman Todd Gloria endorsed that characterization during a
two-hour council session focused on the appeals.

“I don’t think it’s about environmental quality or it’s about land
use, it seems that other motives are at work here,” Gloria said.

Because four other dispensaries received environmental approvals
before such appeals began being filed, the appeals have allowed those
four to surge well ahead in the race to become the city’s first legal
dispensaries.
Those four dispensaries have reached the final stage of approval, a
hearing before the San Diego Planning Commission this winter.
The 11 dispensaries given environmental clearance on Tuesday will be
scheduled for approval by City Hearing Officer Kenneth Teasley - one
step before a potential Planning Commission hearing - in the order
that their environmental exemptions were issued last fall.
The appeals didn’t dispute that the dispensaries are exempt from
state environmental rules. They claimed instead that city officials
cited the wrong section of the law when asserting the exemption.

Similar appeals have been filed against five additional proposed
dispensaries. The council is scheduled to handle those on Feb. 10.

Marijuana opponents used Tuesday’s hearing as an opportunity to
reiterate their concerns about dispensaries increasing drug use and
making it easier for young people to get highly concentrated edible
marijuana and hash oil.
Scott Chipman, leader of San Diegans for Safe Neighborhoods, said dispensaries affect the environment around them in ways the city hasn’t studied.
“Pot shops are not the kind of businesses we need in San Diego,” he
said. “They attract crime and send the wrong messages to our
children. We need to be considering San Diego as a family-friendly
tourist destination, not a drug-use tourist destination.”
There’s a sense of urgency among dispensary applicants, because complex regulations approved last winter by the council allow a maximum of four dispensaries per council district.
Of the 38 proposed dispensaries in the approval pipeline, 16 are in District 2, eight are in District 6 and six are in District 8 - creating fierce competition in those areas.
Among the other districts, no dispensaries have been proposed in
Districts 5 or District 9, one each has been proposed in Districts 1
and 4, two in District 3 and four in District 7.

In addition to the four-dispensary maximum per district, the rules
prohibit a dispensary from opening within 1,000 feet of another dispensary.
That regulation jeopardizes nearly a dozen proposed dispensaries in
the Midway District near the Valley View Casino Arena, because one of
the four applicants leading the pack is within 1,000 feet of many
other applicants - including several that got environmental approvals
on Tuesday.
Other proposed dispensaries clearing environmental hurdles on Tuesday include two in the Midway District, two near the international border, one in Mira Mesa and one in Pacific Beach.
For the four leading applicants, one in Otay Mesa will go before the Planning Commission on Jan. 29 and three others - in Clairemont, the Midway District and San Ysidro - have been scheduled for Feb. 10.
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Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/D16BISP1
Copyright: 2015 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Brooks Mencher

MALIGNED AND BANNED
Industrial Hemp: America’s ‘Billion-Dollar Crop’
Industrial hemp somehow survived America’s narcotic age. Despite
today’s uncertain politics and incomplete laws, it’s poised to become
a major agricultural and industrial force. The manufacturing
infrastructure is being built. Its penny stocks reflect hope,
conviction and volatility. Research and development is under way,
especially in construction materials and cannabidiol (CBD)-based medicines.

Oddly, however, hemp has been at a similar juncture before.
In the 1930s, hemp promised to change America. It had survived severe
competition from cheaper fibers like jute, flax, sisal, abaca and
vast quantities of imported Russian hemp. Technology had advanced and
scientists had discovered that, besides rope, fabric and paper, hemp
could be used in plastics, foods, fuel, dynamite - thousands of
different uses from all parts of the plant: stalks for fiber; seeds
for oil, hulls and mash; and high-cellulose hurds, the broken-up bits
of the stem’s core, for making building materials and plastics. Henry
Ford created a car whose body was processed from hemp; it ran on hemp
ethanol. And hemp was sustainable, unlike America’s already vanishing
forestland.
With a sort of nouveau Industrial Revolution at hand in the midst of
the Great Depression, hemp was reintroduced with fanfare to the
beleaguered American public by Popular Mechanics magazine, which had
found in Cannabis sativa linneaus America’s industrial salvation:
farm jobs, manufacturing employment, raw resources, innovation and
independence from imports.
In February 1938, the magazine dramatically predicted that hemp would
become America’s “New Billion-Dollar Crop,” a forecast linch-pinned
to a new version of the decordicator, a machine that separates fiber
from the rest of the plant. Hemp, said Editor Henry Haven Windsor
Jr., could produce four times the amount of paper pulp per acre as a
forest, and it could be done every year as opposed to every 20. Yet,
just as hemp seemed to reach its place in industry, a long-brewing
fear rose from the shadows of urban America, and, caught in the glare
of its flashier, frightening twin, marijuana, and the wake of
Prohibition evangelism, hemp became a victim of an ascendant narcotic
age. Its future vanished before it could arrive.
Today, however, the tenor has changed. Generations have come and gone, and hemp is no longer seen as a narcotic. Its new beginning may seem like deja vu, but it’s not history repeating itself.
Tobacco-free hemp
Today, hemp returns not to its point of exile when it was essentially
banned from America by the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937, but to a point
far earlier: There is no economic infrastructure. There are no trade
routes. There are no seed stocks, just feral hemp growing here and
there, “ditchweed” left from World War II’s “Hemp for Victory”
campaign, or from America’s more distant hemp past, which saw more
than 400,000 acres under cultivation in the 1800s (before the Civil
War, Kentucky alone had 160 hemp factories and employed several
thousand workers).
Hemp Inc. 2014
And, there have been no decordicators, the powerful (and hugely
expensive) fiber-processing machines until a peculiar series of
events last year.

This revival tale begins in the 1990s, when the truth about tobacco’s
health impacts became known after decades of concealment by the
industry. A lawsuit by the attorneys general of 46 states culminated
in the landmark 1998 Master Settlement Agreement hugely affecting the
tobacco giants: A payback was in order - a $200 billion fine, a
medical fund and major hits to marketing strategies. Demand dropped
and farmers suffered. Part of the settlement was to establish another
crop for tobacco farmers. Hemp, of course, was illegal.
The agricultural replacement was kenaf, a stalky plant in the
hibiscus genus known for producing coarse fiber much like jute. As
part of the agreement, Raleigh-headquartered Alliance One, a major
global tobacco player, bought a German-made decordicator to process
thousands of new acres of kenaf in North Carolina. The crop also was
established in foreign tobacco grounds of U.S. corporations,
including Malaysia.
According to David Schmitt, who worked on the machine and is now Hemp
Inc.’s chief operating officer, it took the German maker, Tamafa, a
year to build the $15 million machine system, a year to install it in
North Carolina for Alliance, and a year to debug it because it was
originally engineered for hemp, not kenaf.

It was mothballed after five years, Schmitt said. “They made premium
horse bedding ... and fulfilled the penalty requirement. Then they walked off.”
Hemp Inc.’s Bruce and Craig Perlowin of Florida bought the
decordicator last year “for a song.” This family enterprise, with its
made-in-America emphasis, also involved another brother, Jed; a
sister, Karen Hammett; and Bruce Perlowin’s two sons. With two
semi-trucks that were part of the deal, they’re in the process of
moving the machine to Springfield, N.C., about 30 miles from Raleigh.

Along for the ride will be 15 million pounds of baled kenaf, also
part of the deal and which they’ll mill during their first year of
operation as they await a hemp crop after this year’s growing season.
Much of the kenaf will be powdered for a slurry mix used in oil
drilling. The third Perlowin brother, Jed, is spearheading a
hemp-farming business and organizing other farmers to supply the
decordicator, which will be retooled for hemp.

“We’ll be up and running by March,” said CEO Bruce Perlowin. In
phases, he said, the company will be processing tow (short fiber used
for cellulose fill) and longer fiber used for textiles, hempcrete (a
building material that includes lime), cellulose-rich hurds from the
woody core for plastics such as car parts, CDB extracts (medicines
that use the “other” cannabinoid, which counteracts the psychotropic
THC in marijuana), and other products.

“Research,” Perlowin said, “has been so suppressed, it’s just amazing
what we can come up with now. Bulletproof vests, graphite
alternatives,” and numerous medicines and dietary supplements.
The company will soon operate the only decordicator in the United
States. There are five such high-capacity machines in the world: two
in South Africa and two in France. Canada, Schmitt said, has several
decordicators, though they’re smaller.
Much of Hemp Inc.’s grist will come from North Carolina and Kentucky,
the latter of which is trying to legally reestablish a hemp industry
that dates to 1775 and which rose to prominence by the Civil War. The
state is at the forefront of today’s hemp movement. Its pilot
programs result from what Hemp Industries Association attorney
Patrick Goggin attributed to “everything lining up,” with Kentucky
Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch McConnell, state agriculture Commissioner
James Comer and the state university system all working in tandem.
California’s hemp future
Political coordination was key to getting Kentucky’s six major pilot
programs running last year, and mutinous chutzpah has been Colorado’s
driving force. (Colorado farmers, so enthusiastic to start
cultivating hemp, planned 1,800 acres last year - illegally, because
they couldn’t get legal seeds.) The Golden State, however, has
neither coordination nor chutzpah. It is not on the cutting edge of
hemp’s golden dawn.

That’s no fault of state Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, and Gov.
Jerry Brown. Brown signed Leno’s bill, SB566, in 2013. They faced an
uphill battle and capped a 15-year legislative effort, potentially
ending a hemp drought in the state.
Leno, whose interest in hemp as a viable California crop and industry
dates to his time as a San Francisco supervisor, has watched the
state’s hemp bill fall victim to five vetoes - four from Gov. Arnold
Schwarzenegger.

A sponsor of the last two bills, he suggested the politics were, at
times, “frustrating.” Twelve years of legislative efforts for What?
“Hemp is a plant that has never been a drug,” Leno said. “You can
legally make thousands of products, from per to fuel to foods, and
it’s renew every 90 days. It takes no fungides or pesticides and less
water than owing corn. ... The politics have been national.” The
cultural tenor changed drastical-between the last veto, in 2011, and
own’s approval of the measure two ars later. It is perhaps best
exemplid by letters to the Legislature from enforcement agencies. A
2011 memo Leno from the California Police chiefs Association cites
many of the criticisms of the drug czar-sponsored SDA report of 2000
(see Part I), and hoes ominously that, “To begin with, mp is illegal
in the United States,” d has “no real economic viability.” e
association urged Leno - and not ntly - to vote against his own bill,
676. Yet by 2013, the California State Sheriffs’ Association, in a
letter to Leno and state. Cathleen Galgiani, D-Modesto, was eased to
support SB566,” a redux of the earlier bill that revised the
definition of hemp, allowing county law enforcement wide to
“concentrate on marijuana adication efforts while allowing for
law-cultivation of industrial hemp.”

Bureaucratic progress in California, Leno said, has been “less than
inspiring.” However, the senator is holding initial stakeholder
meetings this month in Sacramento, involving academic and
administrative representatives from CSU and UC, the state Department
of Food and Agriculture, and farmers. He remains as optimistic about
hemp in California as he has been for more than a decade.
Alta California
Despite the rough reintroduction of industrial hemp in California,
the herb has a history here. The need to equip Spain’s 18th century
Pacific armada focused on its colony, Alta, or Upper, California, and
the crown called upon California’s missions to grow hemp. Mission San
Jose, the second of the missions, became the center of
experimentation in 1796, but the yield was so meager the crown began
subsidizing the crop.
A change of venue resulted, and hemp growing was moved south to La Purisima, Santa Inez and San Luis Obispo missions. Hemp flourished in California: 1,800 pounds were produced in 1805, increasing exponentially to 220,000 pounds by 1810.
Unfortunately for hemp, unrest in Europe fomented Mexico’s drive for
independence, and Alta California’s governor cut back production,
allowing only enough for domestic use, not Spain’s. California hemp
faded into a vestigial crop of about 5,000 acres by 1920, grown
largely in the San Joaquin Delta region. Only four states were
producing at that time: Kentucky, which supplied almost all U.S.
seed; Wisconsin, California and North Dakota.

Politics and hemp’s future
Hemp faced other curtain calls in its peculiar American history: the
1937 taxation ban; the 1957 closure of the last American hemp mill;
the 1946 end to the brief Hemp for Victory campaign; and the final
curtain in 1970 with the Controlled Substances Act.

But there’s a game-changer in hemp’s future: S134, which would define
hemp - for all purposes, pilot program or not - as cannabis with 0.3
percent THC or less, dry weight, separating it from the other
cannabis, marijuana. Marijuana would remain on the Controlled
Substances Act list, while industrial hemp would be removed.

It’s still an uphill fight. The bill, sponsored by Sen. Ron Wyden,
D-Ore., is the 114th Congress’ reincarnation of bills dating back a
decade. The most recent was last year, as S359, also sponsored by Wyden.

Hemp legalization was originally sponsored in the House by Ron Paul,
R-Texas, (father of Kentucky’s Rand Paul) in 2005. The senior Paul
resubmitted its next incarnation in 2007, again in 2009, and yet
again in 2011. It never made it out of committee. The most recent
House bill, the Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2014, HR525, was
sponsored by Tom Massie, a Kentucky Republican, last year. He will
reintroduce it this week for the current Congress.

His co-sponsors are likely to be the same this year as last: 33
Democrats and 17 Republicans. Twelve of the co-sponsors were from
California: nine Democrats, including Bay Area Reps. Barbara Lee,
Mike Honda and Zoe Lofgren; and three Republicans, including Reps.
John Campbell, Tom McClintock and Dana Rohrbacher.
S134 has three co-sponsors: Republican Sens. Rand Paul and Mitch
McConnell of Kentucky and Democrat Jeff Merkley of Oregon. It was
assigned last week to the Judiciary Committee.
There are no California senators on board. We should ask: Why not?
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Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Ukiah Daily Journal, The (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/NxGHYhgD
Copyright: 2015 The Ukiah Daily Journal
Contact: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/feedback
Website: http://www.ukiahdailyjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/581
Author: Adam Randall

MENDOCINO COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS TO TALK MARIJUANA
Executive Office Wants to Prepare for Legalization of Marijuana
The Mendocino County Executive Office wants to be prepared in case marijuana is legalized in the near future.
The County Executive Office has agendized a request for Tuesday’s
meeting for the Board of Supervisors to discuss, and take possible
action, in the formation of an ad hoc committee to prepare for
possible state legalization of marijuana.
The proposed ad hoc committee, comprised of 2nd District Supervisor
John McCowen and 3rd District Supervisor Tom Woodhouse, would
oversee, research and prepare for potential economic impacts of
marijuana legalization.
The committee would report back to staff, and the board, with findings and recommendations, according to the Executive Office’s request.
“While we acknowledge the uncertainty of good data to review the
economic impacts, it is relevant to create a starting point,” the
CEO’s office request states. “Mendocino County has a unique
opportunity to be an active participant in the discussion, creation
and implementation on statewide and local marijuana policy.”

The California State Legislature proposed two bills during the
2013-14 session seeking regulatory control over medical marijuana,
along with state regulation and enforcement. However, both Senate
Bill 1262 and Assembly Bill 473 stalled. Now in the 2015-16 session,
both bills have been reintroduced.
Currently, the American Civil Liberties Union Marijuana Legalization
Task Force, led by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, is reportedly studying
related policy issues in order to get another legalization of
marijuana initiative on the November 2016 ballot.

“There is a need for greater certainty and uniformity regarding
marijuana facilities, and the need for the imposition and enforcement
of regulations to prevent unlawful cultivation and diversion of
marijuana for non-medical use, while at the same time not preempting
local government ordinances,” states the CEO’s office in its agenda request.
In previous years, the Board of Supervisors had adopted a county ordinance to permit residents with documented medical needs to grow a maximum of 25 marijuana plants.
Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Oregon are the only states that have passed initiatives to legalize marijuana.
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Appeal-Democrat (Marysville, CA)
Copyright: 2015 Appeal-Democrat
Contact:
http://www.appeal-democrat.com/sections/services/forms/editorletter.php
Website: http://www.appeal-democrat.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1343
Author: Eric Vodden

POT LAW ENFORCEMENT MAY BE SHORT $1M IN YUBA COUNTY
Whatever supervisors do to change Yuba County’s medical marijuana cultivation ordinance, an estimated $1 million would be needed to boost enforcement, the county’s top administrator said.
County Administrator Robert Bendorf provided the informal cost
estimate during the latest discussion before county supervisors on
tightening up the ordinance. Supervisors have emphasized that
increased enforcement needs to go hand-in-hand with a more
restrictive marijuana growing ordinance.

“Unfortunately, using that much for enforcement will have to come
from somewhere else,” Bendorf said. “There is a very limited pot we
can draw from without it having an effect elsewhere.”
More than 350 people crowded into the board chambers Tuesday in a session that included applause, booing, finger-pointing and fist shaking.  Thirty-two people spoke during the session that lasted just under three hours.
Bendorf said Wednesday the $1 million estimate comes from meeting
with departments involved in 215 criminal or civil compliance checks
over the past year. The bulk of the cost would be for additional
sheriff’s department personnel, though there would also be a need for
increases in code enforcement and the district attorney’s office, he said.
“This is a minimum level of additional resources needed on top of
what they already have,” Bendorf said.

Sheriff Steve Durfor said during the meeting his department does not
have the resources to monitor large marijuana grows. “We have a long
list of large grow sites that clearly need to be visited,” Durfor
said. “We don’t have the ability to do that.”
In addition, Yuba County’s code enforcement division has only three
enforcement officers for the entire county. Only one of those is
assigned to look into complaints of possible marijuana cultivation violations.
Supervisors on Tuesday directed staff to develop a draft ordinance
along the lines of one used in Shasta County. While Yuba County
allows 18 outdoor plants on an acre or less and as many as 99 on 20
acres or more, the Shasta ordinance allows no outdoor grows and a
dozen indoor plants.
Also being looked at is a requirement that growers register with the
county and pay an annual fee.
Supervisors will consider the draft at 3 p.m. Feb. 10.
Supervisor Mary Jane Griego acknowledged the board is facing a tough issue, in effect penalizing those who comply with the ordinance while trying to stop those who grow commercially.
“I have compassion for the medical marijuana user, but there has to
be room for a middle ground,” she said.

Some of those supporting a more restrictive ordinance wore Families
Against Cannabis Trafficking (FACT) badges. They complained of
alleged criminal activity and odors stemming from marijuana grows.
“Three years ago things started to go downhill,” said Gene Weckman of the increasing number of grows. “It started going down and we have seen it go down and down and down.
“I don’t care whether anybody has marijuana in their home, but not
when they are infringing on my rights.”
Some supporting the existing ordinance talked about the possibility
of a voter referendum or seeking a recall election against supervisors.
Medical marijuana patient Chris Ashe told the board that increased
enforcement should be the focus.
“Let people register,” he said. “Let people have their gardens in a
regulatory way. There are people doing things responsibly, so let
them do things responsibly.

“Don’t create another class of criminal.”
[sidebar]
$115K in fines upheld by board
Nearly $115,000 in fines stemming from an allegedly illegal Yuba County foothills marijuana grow were upheld Tuesday by the Board of Supervisors.
Supervisors unanimously assessed the fine on property owner Karen Ungles Robins and cultivator Gary McQuary for growing 72 marijuana plants without a required residence on Clark Ranch Way, Dobbins. The county’s ordinance requires a home occupied by the grower be located on any parcels where outdoor cultivation is taking place.
Robins and McQuary were not challenging whether the garden
constituted a nuisance, but only the amount of the fine. Along with
violating the ordinance related to residential structures, they also
were accused of having unpermitted accessory structures on the
property and illegal occupancy of a travel trailer.

The fine amounted to $100 a day per plant for each violation until
the plants were removed. The notice of violation was served last July
29 and the plants were removed Aug. 12.
Along with upholding the fine, supervisors approved recording an
abatement lien on the property.

While Robins and McQuary had obtaining a building permit for the
residence, the ordinance requires it to be built and occupied before
marijuana growing can occur.
The hearing came just before supervisors held a workshop on a
proposal to tighten restrictions on the county’s existing ordinance.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: San Francisco Chronicle (CA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/li4KaQuB
Copyright: 2015 Hearst Communications Inc.
Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1
Website: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/388
Author: Barbara Spindel

HUNDRED YEARS’ WAR
President Nixon declared a “war on drugs” in 1971, but the war has in
fact been raging in the United States for a century, since the 1914
passage of the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act. Johann Hari’s “Chasing the
Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs” opens with
portraits of three of its early combatants. Harry Anslinger was the
zealous head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics from 1930 to 1962; he
kept his department well funded by inventing nightmarish visions of
African Americans and Mexicans on drug-fueled rampages and, later, of
Communists flooding the nation with opiates in a plot to weaken the
United States. Singer Billie Holiday, a longtime heroin addict, was
hounded for years by Anslinger’s agents, who, in a final indignity,
made sure she was handcuffed to the hospital bed in which she died of
liver and heart disease at age 44. Arnold Rothstein was a fearsome
mob kingpin who, during the 1920s, established a brutal reputation in
order to secure control of the New York trade in prohibited alcohol and drugs.

Anslinger, Holiday and Rothstein - the prohibitionist, the addict and
the gangster. Hari returns to them as archetypes as he travels the
world researching the global war on drugs and encountering familiar
patterns. Prohibition creates a lucrative industry for criminals who
rely on violence to maintain dominance. Addicts who would benefit
from treatment and compassion are instead shamed, incarcerated and
rendered unemployable, responses that further consign them to
addiction and criminality. Although more than half of all American
citizens are estimated to have violated the drug laws, the penal
system continues to target racial and ethnic minorities and the poor.

In New York, Hari spends time with Chino, a former crack dealer who
controlled his street corner in a rough part of Brooklyn the same way
Rothstein controlled his more substantial territory: by building “a
name for being consistently terrifying so nobody tries to take your
property or turf.” When a Texas prison guard, charmed by Hari’s
British accent, lets him spend four extra hours with an inmate named
Rosalio, an American who crossed the border to work for the dread
Mexican cartel the Zetas, the author hears a similar story but on a
more horrific scale. The cartel “captured the market by violence and
maintained it by terror,” with gangs of teenagers like Rosalio, known
as the Expendables, doing the killing. It’s estimated that 60,000
Mexicans have been murdered in drug-related violence in the last five
years alone, but as Hari, citing the work of sociologist Philippe
Bourgois, notes, under prohibition, “the most insane and sadistic
violence has a sane and functional logic.”

Hari seeks to learn what happens when cities and countries take a
different path. He interviews politicians, reformers and addicts in
Vancouver, British Columbia, whose progressive drug policies,
including a supervised heroin injection facility, resulted in a
10-year jump in life expectancy in the city’s indigent Downtown
Eastside neighborhood. He details the promising outcomes in
Switzerland, where addicts are given free methadone and clean
needles; Uruguay, where cannabis has been fully legalized; and
Portugal, where all drugs have been decriminalized. The chief of the
police’s drug division in Lisbon, who had initially opposed
decriminalization, told Hari, “The things we were afraid of didn’t happen.”

Along the way, Hari speaks to scientists and other experts about why
so many people can enjoy drugs recreationally while roughly 10
percent of users are susceptible to addiction. Many have noted a
strong correlation between childhood trauma and addiction, concluding
that chemical hooks are only a small part of the story. “What if the
discovery of drugs wasn’t the earthquake in [an addict’s] life, but
only one of the aftershocks?” a Vancouver doctor suggests.

Hari notes at the outset that he has been close to several addicts -
that they “feel like my tribe, my group, my people” - and he
confesses that, while not narcoleptic, he for years took “fistfuls”
of narcolepsy pills because they enabled him to write for weeks
without rest. He structures the book as a personal journey, weighing
the pros and cons of legalization himself as he presents them to his
readers. (In one typical passage, assessing the rise in addiction to
Oxycontin and Vicodin, he writes that this increase “seemed to blast
a hole in the case for providing legal access to the most potent
drugs in the United States, and I was sent into a spiral of confusion.”)

This approach is ultimately to the book’s detriment, coming off as
naive or, worse, manipulative - a gamble for the British journalist,
who was fired as a columnist for the Independent and forced to return
the prestigious Orwell Prize after admitting to plagiarism and other
egregious professional misconduct in 2011. (Knowing that his work
here will be heavily scrutinized, Hari has uploaded audio of his
interviews to the book’s website and has asked readers to e-mail him
with any corrections or errors.)

“Chasing the Scream” is a riveting book, and Hari is an effective
storyteller; he would have been better off keeping the focus off of
himself and entirely on Chino, Rosalio and the others.

Barbara Spindel has covered books for the Daily Beast, Salon, Details
and Spin. E-mail:books@sfchronicle.com
Chasing the Scream
The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs
By Johann Hari
(Bloomsbury; 389 pages; $27)
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Orange County Weekly (CA)
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.ocweekly.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.ocweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/322
Author: Nick Schou

THINK THE KUSH EXPO MEANS POT IS LEGAL?
You Must Be Ana-High!
EVERY SUMMER FOR THE PAST FIVE YEARS, the Anaheim Convention Center,
a swirly tower of concrete and blue-tinted glass, transforms itself
into a mecca of marijuana. This magical event, the world’s largest of
its kind, lasts exactly two days and happens just across the street
from the Disneyland Resort. It’s called the Kush Expo.
On display inside the four-hall, football field-sized facility are
dozens of vendors hawking products ranging from the latest vaporizers
to bongs, soil nutrients and hydroponic growing equipment. There’s
the annual Kush Cup Awards, offering recognition for best indica,
sativa and hybrid strains; oil; wax; hash; edible chocolate; vape
pen; and tube bong-to name but a few categories. Then there’s the Hot
Kush Girl Contest, in which bikini-clad lasses with green numbers
spray-painted on their thighs compete for up to $500 and a gift bag.
If all the bare flesh and bong raffles aren’t enough to keep you
entertained, you can step inside an open-air white tent out back,
where folks with a doctor’s recommendation for medical marijuana can
smoke pot while guarded by Anaheim police officers. Doctors are
on-site and available to help out the poor souls who forgot their
cards. For a small fee, they can figure out what ails you, and presto
change-o, you’re a certified medicinal-marijuana patient.

It’s a toker’s paradise, one that makes Colorado seem as libertine as
a Mormon party, and is fully approved by the city, which owns the
Convention Center. But during the other 363 days of the year, Anaheim
is as anti-pot as you can get. The city first banned
medical-marijuana dispensaries in 2007, and it has extended and
strengthened that ban every year since, adding delivery services to
the prohibition in 2013. Last October, council members ordered staff
to begin cutting electricity and water services to anyone violating the ban.

As with many other cities in California, however, Anaheim knows that
bans that exist on paper can only do so much to fight the rapid
growth of dispensaries that occurred following the Obama
administration’s so-called Ogden Memorandum (or Ogden Memo) of 2009,
which (falsely, as it turned out) indicated the Justice Department
wouldn’t interfere with states that had legalized medical marijuana.
So city officials eagerly turned to the U.S. Attorney’s office,
inviting it to threaten landlords in their city with asset-forfeiture
lawsuits and DEA raids.

On Aug. 21, 2011, the feds obliged, filing lawsuits against six
dispensaries in Anaheim and sending letters to more than 60 property
owners and dispensaries in the city, as well as neighboring La Habra,
threatening seizures and raids to anyone still open within 30 days.
One of those lawsuits targeted a collective called Releaf Health &
Wellness, located in a nondescript, twostory, multi-unit building at
2016 W. Ball Rd. The city also sued the landlord, Tony Jalali.

This particular pair of lawsuits was pointless: Releaf had closed
days before the city sent the notice, and Jalali had sent a certified
letter to the city informing it that his property was now officially
pot-free. Yet Anaheim refused to back off, perhaps hoping to make an
example out of Jalali and his tenant.
Backed by Best, Best & Krieger (BBK), the largest anti-marijuana law
firm in California-the lawyers there literally wrote the book on how
municipalities could ban pot clubs-Anaheim worked with the feds to
seize his $1.5 million building, citing exactly one $37 pot sale to
an undercover police officer that was perfectly legal under state
law. Yet in the face of an unprecedented legal and publicity campaign
(spurred in part by the Weekly’s coverage), the feds ultimately
backed out of the battle, promising to never threaten to seize the
building again.

Now, three years later, Anaheim continues its quest to punish Jalali
and the hapless former operators of the long-defunct Releaf
collective. Meanwhile, despite the city’s continued ban on pot clubs,
largescale marijuana dispensaries continue to operate within the
city, too deep-pocketed to worry much about fines or lawsuits. In
other words, weed continues to flow freely in the land of the Kush
Expo while Anaheim officials have wasted a small fortune in taxpayer
money going after a sympathetic property owner and his long-evicted
tenant, neither of whom has been convicted, much less charged with a
crime, and who, by all accounts, had no intention of violating state law.
As it turned out, Anaheim had picked the wrong landlord to mess with.
In early 2010, Steve (who asked to remain anonymous) was driving on the 91 freeway when he saw a billboard advertising Anaheim’s inaugural Kush Expo, scheduled to arrive in the city that July.
“I thought, ‘Wow, what is all this about?’” he recalls.
Curious, Steve purchased a ticket to the event. “There was a
medicating area out back, and there were Anaheim police officers
monitoring the people going in, and everyone was out there smoking,”
he says. “As an outsider coming in, it was really cool. They set it
up for someone like me to feel comfortable.”
At the time, Steve’s elderly father was suffering from degenerative
arthritis and couldn’t stomach the pain medication his doctors had
prescribed. Steve’s wife had also recently been diagnosed with
scoliosis of the spine. Steve knew that there were already about 60
collectives operating in the city, but he didn’t feel as though many
of them were truly working on behalf of patients. They advertised
strains with names such as Green Crack and charged up to $70 per
eighth of an ounce. Steve wanted to open a small collective that
would help his family and other legitimately sick patients in Anaheim.

“We had a detailed conversation with one of the lawyers [at the Kush
Expo],” recalls Bobby Holley, who attended the event with Steve that
day and later became his partner at the Releaf collective. “We wanted
a clear answer as to whether Anaheim was cool with [dispensaries],
and he told us Anaheim was in the clear because there were so many
operating at the time.”
The lawyer offered to help Steve draw up legal paperwork that would
ensure his collective was obeying state law and told Steve that
Anaheim wouldn’t interfere with his efforts. “By the time I left that
place, I was sure it was okay,” he says. So Steve paid the lawyer to
draw up articles of incorporation for a mutual-benefit, nonprofit
corporation. “We paid him a few grand, which I thought was high, but
I wanted it to be as legal as possible,” Steve explains.

Then Steve obtained a state seller’s permit from the California Board
of Equalization (BOE). The woman who helped Steve over the telephone
at the BOE warned him that Anaheim might deny his application for a
city business license, but she advised him to apply anyway, so he
could at least document a paper trail showing he had notified the
city about his collective.

That turned out to be unnecessary: Anaheim quickly mailed Steve the
license, although it stated that selling medical marijuana at his
location was prohibited under federal law. For a month, Steve and
Holley scouted possible locations. After noticing a “For Rent” sign
at a building near the intersection of Ball Road and Magnolia Avenue,
Steve called the number and spoke to Jalali, who agreed to rent one
of his vacant units to them. “He was a good guy,” Steve says of
Jalali. “He believed in patients’ rights and already had two other
dispensaries there. We provided him with all the proper
documentation, and he accepted us.”

Jalali is a highly intelligent, fast-talking, somewhat-intense man.
An Iranian-born software engineer who holds a government security
clearance-which is partly why he refused to be photographed for this
story-he carries himself with the self-confidence and borderline
impatience of a successful businessman. The longtime resident of
Irvine had purchased the Anaheim building that eventually housed
Releaf in 2003 as a retirement nest egg. His wife, Morgan, a dentist,
had a practice located there, and when the building went on the
market and the first buyer’s loan fell through, the Jalalis were able
to negotiate a good deal, buying the property for about $900,000.

In 2009, after seven years of working out of the Ball Road building,
Morgan wanted to work closer to home, so she opened a new practice in
Lake Forest. When the Jalalis sold the Anaheim practice, they were
able to put $400,000 toward the $600,000 loan on the building. He
then refinanced his home loan to pay off the remaining $200,000 on
his mortgage.
Jalali says that as soon as he paid off the loan, he began to have
problems with Anaheim officials who seemed eager to make being a
landlord in the city as difficult as possible. At the time, Jalali
had several tenants on his first floor: a dental office, an insurance
company and an immigration services business. Upstairs, he rented to
a business that sold cars. But the city stepped in and told him that
even though several of his units were empty, he didn’t have enough
parking spaces. “So they stopped accepting applications from my
tenants,” Jalali says. When he complained to the city, officials told
him that if he paid a $2,000 waiver fee, he could get around the
parking restriction.”It was ransom money,” Jalali says. He refused to
pay and instead rented the unit to an ultrasound medical company, but
the city once again refused to allow him to take on any more tenants
unless he paid the fee.
“For probably two years, my building was empty upstairs,” Jalali
recalls, fuming. “So I go to the city and asked who I could rent to,
and the guy tells me a shoeshine business. I have 12 units upstairs.
It was an insult to me for him to say that.”

By 2011, Jalali had written several letters to various city officials
complaining about his treatment, without any response. So when a
medical-marijuana collective asked about renting a unit upstairs, he
gladly accepted. As far as Jalali was concerned, dispensaries were
legal under state law and Anaheim had allowed the Kush Expo to
operate for two years running. What could possibly go wrong?
A lot, as it turned out. After a few months, Jalali’s other tenants
complained that the owner of the collective was smoking pot in one of
the building’s bathrooms. Jalali confronted the man, who promised to
never do it again. When the dispensary was late with the rent a month
later, Jalali says, he refused to extend the club’s lease. Jalali
also rented to another dispensary but soured on that tenant’s style
of operation. “I got a call from the dental office about people in
the parking lot and found out they were operating a happy hour,”
Jalali says. “To me, this was illegal activity. I kicked him out. He
had to leave within 30 days.”

So when Steve called Jalali looking for a rental space for Releaf
Health & Wellness, Jalali was in the process of phasing out the other
two collectives. He insisted that Steve not only stay well within
state law, but also do nothing to bother other tenants, much less
create a public nuisance that would draw police attention. Steve
signed his lease with Jalali on June 11, 2011.

“To be honest with you, Tony was a pain in my ass,” Steve says. Once,
Jalali scolded Steve for allowing teenagers into the collective, so
Steve had to show him proof that the patients were at least 21 years
old. When Jalali complained about the smell, Steve installed an
expensive filtration system to fix the problem.
In fact, Steve and his wife had invested their life’s savings into
fixing up the unit and opening the Releaf collective. It was a
stressful time, he says, complicated by his wife’s cancer diagnosis.
In late 2011, the same week his wife went into the hospital for
surgery and chemotherapy, he suffered a heart attack. But, Steve
says, the experience only strengthened his resolve to make Releaf a
model dispensary.

“We went above and beyond the guidelines to regulate ourselves,” he
insists.”Our whole goal was to provide safe access to patients. We
were not pot dealers out to make money.”
According to both Steve and Holley, the city never sent them a single
letter telling them they were operating illegally. And the only time
uniformed police officers visited Releaf was when a burglar broke a
window at the shop and triggered an alarm. “The cops showed up and
called [Steve] and said we needed to go down there,” Holley says. “We
didn’t know what to expect, but sure enough, a guy had broken in and
stolen a few little things.”
According to Holley, the obvious fact that he and Steve were operating a marijuana dispensary never came up in conversation with the officers. “The cops were actually really cool about it,” he says.”It wasn’t a secret what we were.”
Unbeknownst to Steve or Holley, Anaheim police were already
investigating Jalali’s tenants, including Releaf. According to files
obtained by the Weekly, the investigation began with a tenant whom
Jalali was in the process of evicting. Detectives had used Weedmaps
to view a Jan. 1, 2011, message by a reviewer named Filiblunt 420.

“Happy New Year my fellow potheads!!!” the post reads. “Man, [the
collective] gots it goin on [sic]. . . . I picked up some Platinum
Kush, some Blackberry and they hooked me up with some Plain Wreck!! I
just toked on a gram of each and every hit was an adventure!! I am SO
LIFTED right now . . . Even as I am typing this review.”
Because Jalali evicted that dispensary, officers turned their
attention to Steve’s collective. Late in 2011, an undercover police
officer showed up at the Releaf Health & Wellness asking for
marijuana. Because the cop didn’t have a doctor’s note, he wasn’t
even allowed inside the dispensary, in accordance with California
law. So on Dec. 2, the officer posing as a patient returned with a
legitimate doctor’s recommendation for cannabis- and according to
police notes, he was able to purchase “4.2 net grams of marijuana for $37.”

At other collectives, that amount would sell for an average price of
$65, according to Steve. “We gave it to him for wholesale,” Steve
says. “That’s nonprofit in my book. But that’s how we did business.
It was for the patients.”

Despite the cheap price, the $37 marijuana transaction, which was not
only perfectly legal under state law, but also a heck of a bargain,
became the linchpin for Anaheim’s civil lawsuits against Jalali and
Releaf, as well as the federal government’s attempt to seize Jalali’s
building. The Weekly broke the story in a Feb. 7, 2013, article that
noted that Jalali had evicted Steve as soon as he received his first
letter from the city warning him that his tenant was violating federal law.

But neither Anaheim nor the feds would drop the case.
For Anaheim, part of the explanation for this may lie with the law
firm it has paid to prosecute medical-marijuana cases for the past
several years. BBK is based in Riverside, but it has offices
throughout California and even a lobbying wing in Washington, D.C.
Originally formed in 1915, it represents private business interests,
particularly those seeking to privatize public services (especially
water agencies) at the same time it represents public sector
agencies, especially cities.

BBK works on behalf of dozens of cities in California-including
Anaheim, Westminster and Lake Forest in Orange County alone-as well
as numerous public agencies including county governments and school
districts. The amount of billable hours is mind-boggling; a Weekly
public records request for all invoices submitted to the city by BBK
during the past four years turned up no less than 1,317 pages asking
for payments for legal work.
Among BBK’s more controversial clients in recent years is the city of
Bell, whose top officials illegally granted themselves six-figure
salaries and bloated pensions, leading to a nationwide scandal and
the arrest of several city officials. BBK lawyer Edward Lee (who also
worked for the cities of Downey and Maywood) escaped criminal charges
but was fired by BBK, which ended up being sued by Bell for providing
bad legal advice.
“They were the attorneys for Bell when it became a charter city in
2005, which Bell officials thought gave them a way to avoid salary
limits,” says Jeff Gottlieb, the Los Angeles Times reporter whose
reporting on Bell with Ruben Vives won the 2011 Pulitzer Prize for
public service. “In fact, their new charter screwed up and didn’t
allow that, which is one of the reasons the city council members
could be charged.”

In the war on marijuana, BBK not only has helped specific cities such
as Anaheim to draft ordinances to ban collectives, but one of its
lawyers, Jeffrey Dunn, has successfully argued on behalf of the
League of California Cities for the right to ban dispensaries before
the California Supreme Court in the so-called Riverside decision.
(Dunn did not respond to interview requests.) That 2013 case stemmed
from a challenge to Riverside’s ban on marijuana dispensaries, an
ordinance drafted by-you guessed it-BBK lawyers hired by Riverside
city officials.

It might seem like a conflict of interest for a law firm to help
businesses profit from the same government entities it represents in
court, but not according to BBK. Denise Nix, BBK’s marketing
communications manager, sent the Weekly an email saying the firm
wouldn’t comment for this story. Sonia Carvalho, a BBK partner who is
also Santa Ana’s city attorney and who co-wrote a 2010 paper with
Dunn titled “The Legal Basis for Banning Medical Marijuana
Dispensaries,” didn’t respond to a Weekly interview request. But in a
2009 article for the now-defunct Inland Empire Weekly, she provided a
written statement to that paper insisting that BBK plays no role in
crafting public policy.
“We advise cities on what the law says,” Carvalho wrote. “We are
always ever sensitive to understanding our role and not becoming
involved in the public policy debates.”

After Anaheim, with help from BBK, sued Jalali, crusading
medical-marijuana attorney Matthew Pappas offered to represent the
property owner pro bono. Both Pappas and his researcher, Sergio
Sandoval, had done similar legal work on behalf of marijuana
collectives throughout Orange and Riverside counties, and BBK had
always been there in the courtroom.

“I first became aware of BBK because of Dunn’s constant presence at
various court hearings involving the establishment of medical
marijuana in California,” Sandoval says. “His attendance was often to
monitor key hearings, while other times, he was arguing on the side
of prohibitionist cities. . . . For the past four years, every person
involved in our law firm has wondered why it is that BBK is so
obstinately opposed to the implementation of the state laws regarding
medical marijuana.”
“It’s a money thing with them,” Pappas says. “There’s a ton of money
to be made, and that’s what they do.”
In October 2013, two years after Anaheim sued Jalali and invited the
federal government to try to seize his building, that effort failed
with an exclamation point. Alerted to the case by the Weekly’s
coverage of the story, the libertarian law firm Institute for Justice
took on the case, also pro bono. Before agreeing to drop the case,
the U.S. Attorney’s office had tried to pressure Jalali to agree to
surprise inspections and to never rent to another dispensary. When he
refused, the feds caved in and withdrew its case with prejudice,
essentially promising it would never attempt to take the building again.
Anaheim is still suing Jalali and his former tenants, Steve and
Holley, for violating Anaheim’s ban on marijuana dispensaries. The
suit was filed by Dunn on behalf of the city on Aug. 22, 2012; the
trial started Jan. 13.
Meanwhile, the weed world anxiously awaits the release of tickets for
Anaheim’s next Kush Expo, which rankles Steve and Jalali.
“I never would have opened the collective if I hadn’t visited the
Kush Expo,” says Steve, who declined to be photographed out of fear
of retaliation by the city. “Now, my wife has cancer, we lost our
life’s savings, we are on the verge of losing our house, and Anaheim
wants another $25,000 from me. There is no way I can pay that.”
With his collective gone, Steve has to go to other dispensaries that
continue to operate in the city to find medicine to help his wife.
“We get her medication from different places, but some are sketchy, a
bunch of thugs or hoods running them,” he says. “I don’t want them
shut down because I want access, but I want safe access, not just
punks slinging pot to anyone who walks through the door.”
Jalali, apparently emboldened by his victory over the feds, is now
renting space to a brand-new marijuana collective. He says he won’t
evict the tenant until Anaheim closes down the Kush Expo. “During all
this time, we kept pushing the federal government, saying that if
this dispensary is illegal, go after the source, the city of Anaheim
promoting the Kush Expo with show girls,” he says. “I am willing to
stop it in my building if the city is willing to stop the Kush Expo.”

“I would like to have a trial,” says Pappas. “I believe the city’s
purpose in attacking [Jalali] was to obtain the forfeiture money and
not to abate nuisances. We asked for all complaints from citizens,
and [the city] sent us two items, one of which was centered on the
Kush Expo. . . . They are like a big dog that has bitten down and can’t let go.”
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Press Democrat, The (Santa Rosa, CA)
Copyright: 2015 The Press Democrat
Contact: letters@pressdemocrat.com
Website: http://www.pressdemocrat.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/348
Author: Glenda Anderson

UKIAH TRIBE TOUTS BENEFITS OF PROPOSED POT FARM
The Pinoleville Pomo Nation anticipates that its planned 2.5-acre
medical marijuana facility outside Ukiah will generate jobs and
revenue that will benefit its members, according to a statement
issued by its chairwoman late Wednesday.

The tribe’s cannabis cultivation operation - which includes a
partnership with Colorado and Kansas-based corporations - will help
pay for the tribe’s social programs, including elder care, child
care, health care and education, tribal Chairwoman Leona Williams said.
The tribe has about 250 members, including about 70 members who
reside on the Rancheria property, which is comprised largely of
individually owned parcels. The cannabis operation is expected to
employ between 50 and 100 people, tribal representatives said earlier.

Williams’ statement focused primarily on safety and legal issues. She
said the tribe will establish oversight procedures that will ensure
the cannabis cooperative is legal and secure and does not generate
significant off-reservation impacts.
“The tribe will actively monitor and oversee the operation to ensure
compliance with the law and any employee or other person found in
violation of state law will be turned over to the local law
enforcement to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible,” she stated.
The tribe first announced its plans for the 110,000-square-foot
facility last week. It’s believed to be the first large-scale
cannabis production facility on Indian lands in California and
possibly the country. U.S. Justice Department officials have declined
to comment on the plan.

It’s the first of three such facilities planned in California by
United Cannabis and Fox Barry Farms. FoxBarry President Barry
Brautman last week told The Press Democrat the greenhouses will be
fenced and patrolled by security officers.
Growing inside will be thousands of brand-name pot plants developed by United Cannabis, a marijuana research and development company, Brautman said. FoxBarry has entered an agreement by which it is the exclusive distributor of United Cannabis products in California.
The facility is expected to be operational in February.
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Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 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: Jack Healy, New York Times

BUSTING THE BURN
Colorado Must Decide How to Deal With Home Hash Oil Efforts That Go
Up in Flames
DENVER - When Colorado legalized marijuana two years ago, nobody was quite ready for the problem of exploding houses.
But that is exactly what firefighters, courts and lawmakers across
the state are now confronting: amateur marijuana alchemists who are
turning their kitchens and basements into “Breaking Bad”-style
laboratories, using flammable chemicals to extract potent drops of a
marijuana concentrate commonly called hash oil, and sometimes
accidentally blowing up their homes and lighting themselves on fire
in the process.

The trend is not limited to Colorado - officials from Florida to
Illinois to California have reported similar problems - but the
blasts are creating a special headache for lawmakers and courts here,
the state at the center of legal marijuana. Even as cities try to
clamp down on homemade hash oil and lawmakers consider outlawing it,
some enthusiasts argue for their right to make it safely without
butane, and criminal defense lawyers say the practice can no longer
be considered a crime under the 2012 constitutional amendment that
made marijuana legal to grow, smoke, process and sell.

“This is uncharted territory,” said state Rep. Mike Foote, a Democrat
from northern Colorado who is grappling with how to address the
problem of hash-oil explosions. “These things come up for the first
time, and no one’s dealt with them before.”

During the past year, a hash-oil explosion in a motel in Grand
Junction sent two people to a hospital. In Colorado Springs, an
explosion in a third-floor apartment shook the neighborhood and
sprayed glass across a parking lot. And in an accident in Denver,
neighbors reported a “ball of fire” that left three people hospitalized.

The explosions occur as people pump butane fuel through a tube packed
with raw marijuana plants to draw out the psychoactive ingredient
tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, producing a golden, highly potent
concentrate. The process can fill a room with volatile butane vapors
that can be ignited by an errant spark or flame.

There were 32 such blasts across Colorado in 2014, up from 12 a year
earlier, according to the Rocky Mountain High-Intensity Drug
Trafficking Area, which coordinates federal and state drug
enforcement efforts. No one has been killed, but the fires have
wrecked homes and injured dozens of people, including 17 who received
treatment for severe burns at the University of Colorado Hospital’s
burn center.
The legal complexities played out one snowy morning in a Denver
courtroom as a district judge puzzled over the case of Paul
Mannaioni. Mannaioni, 24, was charged with committing fourth-degree
arson and manufacturing marijuana after explosions ripped through a
marijuana cooperative in Denver.
When emergency responders showed up, they found Mannaioni and two other people with severe burns “all over their arms and legs,” according to a police affidavit.
To prosecutors, a crime had taken place. Legalization may have given
licensed and regulated marijuana manufacturing facilities the ability
to extract hash oil legally in controlled environments, but officials
say dangerous, homemade operations using flammable butane - a fuel
for lighters, portable stoves or heaters - are still illegal.
Mannaioni’s lawyer, Robert Corry, a prominent marijuana advocate, had
a different take. When Colorado’s voters passed Amendment 64 to
legalize marijuana for personal use and recreational sales, Corry
told the judge, they called for a fundamental shift in how Colorado
treated marijuana. It is no longer an issue for the police and
courts, he said, but for the regulators and bureaucrats who enforce
the civil codes surrounding marijuana growers and dispensaries.

The legal system has not budged. The state attorney general has
weighed in to say legalization does not apply to butane extraction.
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Newshawk: DrugSenseBot http://drugpolicycentral.com/bot/
Pubdate: Mon, 12 Jan 2015
Source: Durango Herald, The (CO)
Copyright: 2015 The Durango Herald
Contact: http://durangoherald.com/write_the_editor/
Website: http://durangoherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/866
Author: Kristen Wyatt, Associated Press

COLORADO DOCTORS: MARIJUANA HEALTH RESEARCH SKIMPY
DENVER - A year after legalizing recreational pot sales, Colorado has more questions than answers about the health effects of legal marijuana.
A panel of doctors concluded months of meetings Monday about the
health effects of marijuana and how people are using it. Instead of
reaching many conclusions, though, the doctors agreed the bulk of
their recommendations should be calls for more research on the
mind-altering drug.

For example, the doctors looked at research on maternal pot use, or
whether marijuana use by pregnant or nursing women affects their children.
They concluded there is “mixed evidence” that marijuana use by
pregnant women results in birth defects. But their recommendation
calls only for better education and surveys to find out more about
maternal pot use, not a ban on selling pot to pregnant women.

The head of the physician panel, Mike Van Dyke of the Colorado
Department of Public Health and Environment, said the doctors wanted
to be careful not to call for health restrictions in light of
extremely limited data on marijuana’s health effects.
“We’re a year into it. We don’t have the answers yet,” Van Dyke said.
“We don’t know what the health effects of legalization are.”
The panel included pediatricians, toxicologists and an addiction
psychiatrist.

Among the gaps the doctors identified was pot use by adults. Doctors
have years of survey data on how schoolchildren use drugs including
pot, but not much on how adults use pot.
Dr. Laura Borgelt, a pharmacologist at the University of
Colorado-Denver, pointed out that there’s little known about adults
aged 18 to 25, people old enough to be out of the house but young
enough to be trying pot for the first time.

“I don’t know that those questions have been asked of that age group,”
Borgelt said.
The panel also plans to ask for a study about the health effects of
marijuana use by skiers, or whether pot use increases ski accidents.
It’s a topic of interest in Colorado.
The doctors will send their recommendations to lawmakers by Jan. 31.
Despite the scanty data, some lawmakers aren’t waiting to suggest new
curbs on marijuana use for health reasons
Rep. Jack Tate, R-Centennial, has suggested a bill requiring pot shops to post warnings about marijuana use by pregnant women, and to ban doctors from recommending medical marijuana to pregnant women. That measure awaits its first hearing.
The physician panel plans to keep working, meeting quarterly to review health data and new studies about marijuana.
Colorado recently approved almost $8 million for medical marijuana
research, the money coming from medical marijuana patient fees, but
doctors agreed much more research is needed.
“If we do nothing else, we need to make clear how much more research is needed,” Van Dyke said.
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Westword (Denver, CO)
Copyright: 2015 Village Voice Media
Contact: http://www.westword.com/feedback/EmailAnEmployee?department=letters
Website: http://www.westword.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1616
Author: William Breathes
Column: Ask a Stoner

DOES THE MED TRACK RECREATIONAL SALES?
Dear Stoner: DOES THE MED TRACK RECREATIONAL SALES? to customers?
I’ve seen a few people online recently claiming it does, but I don’t
know what to believe anymore.

I just don’t want to be in some computer somewhere as a criminal
because I buy a joint after work on Friday.

Perry N. Oid
Dear Perry: Relax, man. The state doesn’t keep any record of who
purchases what. As far as we can tell, the current rumor stems from
the marijuana-use study that the state released last July. Someone
got it in their head that because the Medical Enforcement Division
did a study in which it estimated the marijuana usage in Colorado,
the state was tracking all purchases.

But the report was merely an estimate based on a number of different studies.
For example, the number of moderate, light and heavy users in this
state came from estimations based on the federally funded National
Survey on Drug Use and Health. A 2011 Canadian report also provided
some stats, as did a web-based study conducted by the Marijuana
Policy Group. The only research on actual Colorado customers was done
by a single shop in Denver, which only kept track of whether someone
buying marijuana was from in state or out; the shop didn’t even keep
the customers’ names or records on what they bought - or how much.
Amendment 64 made it clear that the state can’t keep a database of
patients; that’s why the receptionist at every recreational shop
we’ve visited simply gave our ID a look much like a bar bouncer would
and then let us in the door. Nobody kept any information, and I’m
pretty sure the more-baked-than-us doorman wasn’t remembering
anyone’s names to enter into a database at the end of the day. While
we have heard that some of the high-volume shops keep a record in
their own computer system so that they won’t sell more than an ounce
a day to someone or for marketing campaigns like those of Safeway or
Argonaut, we wouldn’t give those kinds of shops our business anyway.
You are on camera, though.
In fact, on lots of cameras - with images fed straight to the MED.
And law enforcement can access those cameras. Sound scary?

It’s really not. Cops are only going to watch those vids if there’s a
robbery, and logistics and dwindling budgets mean that unless there
is something like a robbery, the video data is going to be deleted as
soon as legally possible.
But if you’re so far down the rabbit hole that you think Colorado law
enforcement is going to start watching tapes of legal pot purchases
and arrest people for buying legal pot, probably nothing we’ve said
above is going to sway you. In that case, we highly suggest growing your own.
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Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 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

LOCAL COMPANY TAKES ON WEEDMAPS.COM, CANNABIS CUP APPROACHES, MORE
Skunk surfaces
Though there’s a handful of options for online dispensary reviews,
including our website, California-based weedmaps.com has been winning
the Internet. Last year, the company generated $25 million in
revenue, according to an October report from the Orange County
Register, and it’s poised for what looks like unlimited growth as the
industry expands.

But into that arena now steps 27-year-old Colorado Springs man Ted
Bryant, who, with his partners, has built weedskunk.com from the
ground up and launched it three weeks ago. The website now lists over
8,000 locations - and not just dispensaries - for every medical- and
recreational-marijuana state in the country.
“We have doctors, we have the head shops, grow stores and the smoke
lounges,” says Bryant. “And we’re really just making sense of this
industry,” he adds, through clear labeling of locations that sell the
different levels of legal cannabis. Customers can rate individual
products, as opposed to the whole location only, which in turn
generates notifications for the page’s owner. Bryant is also proud of
a custom search engine that returns results for products, events and
anything else related to a location query.

“The coolest thing is, we’re trying to create jobs in this industry,”
the site co-founder says. “All these locations can post job listings
to find employees that are related to the marijuana industry.”

Though local web traffic is much lower than in places like California
and Michigan, Bryant says weedskunk.com is “really off to a great
start, just with how much information we have. There’s really no
other place you need to go. We’ve pretty much done the hard work for you.”

A free, 21-and-up grand-opening celebration will be held Jan. 30 at 8
p.m. at Studio A64 (332 E. Colorado Ave.).
Reduction reminders
Brent Lang, a graduate student at Bowling Green State University in
Ohio, wants help studying “the effectiveness of sending marijuana
users text messages that encourage reduction in use of this substance.”
Each participant has a shot at winning a $100 online gift
certificate, and needs to be in possession of a cell phone, a
resident of Colorado or Washington, and have smoked cannabis at least
three days per week for the last three months. You’ll send and
receive texts with the researchers about four times a week. See
tiny.cc/cx9csx for details.

Cup calling
Tickets to High Times’ three-day U.S. Cannabis Cup
(cannabiscup.com/denver) in Denver are now on sale. The April party
will feature “700-plus vendors, three levels of VIP experiences and
travel experiences ... world-class musical entertainment [including
Snoop Dogg], our heralded Awards show and the biggest 4/20 party on
the PLANET!” A one-day pass currently starts at $30.
Keep your eyes on this space for additional April events.
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Boulder Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2015 Boulder Weekly
Contact: letters@boulderweekly.com
Website: http://www.boulderweekly.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/57
Author: Leland Rucker

NATIONAL NEWS FINALLY TAKING CANNABIS LEGALIZATION SERIOUSLY
Colorado cannabis was all over mainstream news last weekend. Former
Coloradan Harry Smith ran down some of the stories of the first year
of legalization on his CNBC Saturday night special, Marijuana
Country: The Cannabis Boom. Meanwhile, over at 60 Minutes, Bill
Whitaker weighed in with Gov. John Hickenlooper and Colorado pot czar
Andrew Freedman, among others. And rotating across the top of the
online Politico site over the weekend was a story about Amendment
64’s consequences for the state and those along our borders.

Last year at this time, most of what passed for coverage of
Colorado’s legalization efforts were guestimates of how much money
the state might get in tax revenue, camera shots of the long lines at
stores, rumors of product shortages and endless pondering of the
infinite problems facing the state. The best part of watching the
CNBC and CBS specials this year was that they didn’t start with a
general bias against cannabis, a refreshing about-face. Perhaps even
mainstream media are figuring out that, after a year, the experiment
seems to be working pretty well.
On 60 Minutes, Hickenlooper changed his tune from just two months
ago. It’s no secret that the governor opposed legalization,
especially when Coloradans voted for it early on his watch as governor.
“I think even after the election, if I’d had a magic wand, and I
could wave the wand, I probably would’ve reversed it and had the
initiative fail,” he admitted to Whitaker. “But now I look at it, and
I think we’ve made a lot of progress. I think we might actually
create a system that can work.”

That’s quite a shift from a debate in October (during his campaign),
when the governor deemed the experiment “reckless,” then dialed that
down a day later to “risky.” Given that he’s not running for anything
anymore, his latest comments are encouraging. He admitted his
frustration over the lack of a cohesive banking system for many
cannabis businesses. “If you want to guarantee a fledgling industry
becomes corrupt ... make it all cash, right? That’s as old as Al
Capone, right? Cash creates corruption.”
Both stories included segments, not surprisingly, on edibles, which
are very popular and a rallying point for those who oppose
legalization. Both outlined how the state, after a couple of
highprofile cases, has begun to take steps to change the packaging
and help educate people about the differences in ingestion methods.
Smith pointed out that though a few more children and adults have
shown up in emergency rooms, edible overingestion is hardly epidemic.

Smith, a Denver broadcaster before moving up to CBS News in 1986,
demonstrated a healthy skepticism about he subject. At one point he
picked up a cannabis-infused candy bar and asked Dixie Elixers’ Chuck
Smith how a child could tell the difference if he or she found it on
a living room table. Not missing a beat, Chuck Smith said that, like
alcohol or anything else you don’t want your kids to have, it
shouldn’t be on your living room table in the first place.
Smith was at his best reporting on the influx of parents coming to
the state because their children have been diagnosed with Dravet
syndrome and they’re seeking the high-in-demand, high-in-CBD
Charlotte’s Web strain, which a Denver doctor admits needs more study
but is showing promise for 20-30 percent of those who use it.
The Politico piece, written by Jonathan Topaz, looks at the lawsuit
recently filed in the U.S. Supreme Court by Nebraska and Oklahoma
against Colorado. Using the argument that Amendment 64 is preempted
by the Controlled Substances Act, it seeks to force the U.S. to
enforce federal cannabis laws in Colorado because legalization here
harms neighboring states and may increase crime.
The story missed the latest wrinkle in that particular legal action.
Last week a group of state Republican lawmakers petitioned Oklahoma
Attorney General Scott Pruitt to drop the federal lawsuit. This is
particularly interesting since none of the signees are pro-cannabis.
But each one well understands the Pandora’s box opened if the Supreme
Court were to rule in favor of the federal government over state’s
rights. They have even threatened to side with Colorado if the case
is ever actually heard.
“Oklahoma has been a pioneer and a leader in standing up to federal
usurpations of power on everything from gun control to Obamacare and
beyond,” they write. “We believe this lawsuit against our sister
state has the potential, if it were to be successful at the Supreme
Court, to undermine all of those efforts to protect our own state’s
right to govern itself under the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

No word on whether or when the Supremes might take up the case.
You can hear Leland discuss his most recent column and Colorado
cannabis issues each Thursday morning on KGNU.
http://news.kgnu.org/category/features/ weed-between-the-lines/
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Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/EnrvIjS3
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: David Migoya

SCHOOL ADDS A NEW POT CLASS
The Sturm College of Law Will Teach Students to Represent Marijuana Clients.
University of Denver Sturm College of Law senior Madalyn McElwain
said she was relieved to hear the school was offering the nation’s
first class on representing marijuana clients.
The third-year lawyer-to-be wanted to practice in the intricate and
quickly changing world of marijuana law, one that for years has
ping-ponged between the criminal and civil sectors, but couldn’t talk about it.

“I had to keep my intent quiet because it still wasn’t seen as
legitimate,” McElwain said. “But now, it’s like, ‘Yeah! I can talk
about it now.’ It’s legitimate.”

McElwain joined about 35 other DU law students in the inaugural
class, Representing the Marijuana Client, the first of its kind
designed to train would-be lawyers to work directly with the cannabis industry.

The law school is among about six nationally to offer a class
specific to the weed, although the first to take it head-on.
Marijuana has long been part of law school curriculum but is
typically relegated to classes that deal with national drug policy
and criminal law.

And most that are offering marijuana-specific classes this semester
are still keeping it to legal theory and policy.
“Very few lawyers don’t have questions about how marijuana law will
impact their practice,” said DU law professor Sam Kamin, who
considered the class a necessity, especially in Colorado, where
recreational production, sale and consumption of pot is legal.

Kamin’s students - there’s a long waiting list to get into the class
aren’t just those interested in weed.

“I have one who is interested in the tax-law implications and another
who is to be a criminal defense attorney. There are many perspectives
here,” Kamin said. “To have a class about what the law is, the
pitfalls of running that type of business and what it is for lawyers
to have such a client are critical questions across the board.”
It’s not Oaksterdam University, the Oakland, Calif.-based site of
America’s “first cannabis college,” as it promotes itself, which
offered classes for careers in the medicinal cannabis industry, from
horticulture to business management.
“Legalizing the conduct has made it a more complicated area of law,” Kamin said. “From the conflicts of state and federal law, to securities law, to ethics, it’s all in play.”
And it’s playing out across the country as more schools treat the
matter with a greater air of legitimacy.
Before allowing weed-related classes to sit alone in curriculum
catalogues, professors dipped their toes into marijuana issues
tangential to the classroom.
“It had been the attention in the war on drugs and the classes on
drug policy and criminal justice,” said Douglas Berman, a professor
at Ohio State University’s Mortiz College of Law, who taught the
nation’s first marijuana-specific class in late 2013 and repeats it
this semester.
Marijuana is illegal in Ohio.
“The dramatic turning point was the 2012 election (in Colorado) with
the approval of recreational sales. It immediately exacerbated the
legal tensions that were always there,” he said.
His class, Marijuana Law, Policy & Reform, tracks national
developments about business, banking and taxation, all of which “are
changing as we speak,” Berman said.
At prestigious Harvard University Law School, a ground-breaking
seminar, “Tax Planning for Marijuana Dealers,” was held in spring
2014, hosted by Benjamin Moses Leff, an associate professor at
American University Washington College of Law.

In it, Leff dealt with the incongruity of federal laws that prevent
marijuana businesses from deducting legitimate business expenses from
their taxes, a problem he suggests could be averted by establishing a
nonprofit enterprise.
That Harvard would take on the topic raised a few eyebrows.
“What makes this distinctive is it is going from something
disreputable to something with a jokable rebel vanguard, with
lectures from characters such as Cheech and Chong,” Berman said.
“It’s still significantly prohibited and socially stigmatized. But
this is the transition period, and it’s moving very quickly.”

It was the Harvard seminar that New York City attorney Marc Ross said
offered the legitimacy he sought to convince the dean at Hofstra
University’s Maurice A. Deane School of Law that such a class
specific to marijuana could succeed.

“They were reluctant at first then cautiously optimistic,” Ross said.
“This is the next wave. And good or ugly, it is here, and law schools
have to pay attention to it.”
With medical marijuana about to be approved by voters in New York
last summer, a client last summer asked Ross to venture to Colorado
to look into a marijuana business, “a due-diligence trip,” he called it.
“I wasn’t at all interested. But when I got there, I was sold,” Ross
said of his trip to Denver. “I was just blown away with how
mainstream and professional it all was.”

A conversation with the dean made it clear a class could work.
“The clashes between marijuana and law make it a classic training ground for young lawyers,” Ross said. “Things that look so simple are not, with so many implications many haven’t thought about.”
Ross’ class at the Hempstead, N.Y.,-based school, Business and Legal Issues Related to Marijuana, was limited to 25 students and filled immediately. There’s a waiting list of 50 more.
By using a fictional business, Cannabis Inc., Ross hopes to explore
the various issues at play, from regulatory and ethical to planning
and enforcement.
“Right now it still has taint to it because it’s a new industry,”
Ross said. “But this is a time that’s ahead of the curve.”

At Vanderbilt University School of Law in Nashville, Tenn., professor
Robert Mikos said marijuana’s growing legalization made it a natural
fit for its own class. Previously marijuana-related material was in
the school’s class on drug law and policy, appropriate as marijuana
remains illegal in Tennessee.
“I discovered over time that the rules governing marijuana had
morphed into a separate and distinct body of law, and there are more
disagreements and authority disputes,” said Mikos, who directs the
school’s program in law and government.
In California, assistant professor David Ball is teaching a “mini
think tank” at Santa Clara University School of Law, focusing on the
impact recreational legalization could have on that state. Although
only medical marijuana is legal in California, recreational sales
could be on ballots by 2016.

To that end, Ball’s class will offer its analysis to the American
Civil Liberties Union, which is running a panel studying the
ramifications of legalized marijuana.

The panel is led by Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom.
“Every five years there is something hot that has the range of controversy and reticence to make interesting and important,” Berman said. “Casino gambling, same-sex marriage and the intellectual property of the Internet all rose to that very same level.”
Although the first legal medical marijuana sales were approved in
1996 in California, pot remained in the shadows of classroom
discussion. That’s changed.

“The moves by voters in Colorado and Washington to legalize
recreational sales put the debates on warp speed,” Berman said.

For McElwain, the DU student, marijuana law carries a double-edged
meaning: Her mother was a cancer victim, and her boyfriend works in
the industry’s infused-products sector.
“It’s history in the making and changes by the moment,” she said.
“It’s a chance as a lawyer to get in from the beginning. It’s exciting.”
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/JyMTszkp
Copyright: 2015 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: David Migoya

SURVEY TO HELP CREATE FIRST POT CREDIT UNION
An online survey is gathering information about where the pot
industry currently banks and what the world’s first marijuana credit
union can do to lure its business.

The 20- question survey for the Fourth Corner Credit Union appeared
late Friday on the website SurveyMonkey.com.
“It’s to ensure the products are designed for the industry and that
the pricing is competitive,” said Mark Mason, an attorney
instrumental in helping the Fourth Corner form and obtain its state charter.

Fourth Corner has leased space in a bank building at the corner of
West Colfax Avenue and Tremont Place, across from the Denver Justice
Center and the U. S. Mint. But it cannot open until the Federal
Reserve Bank in Kansas City approves a master account.
The survey was developed, Mason said, as a better way to answer
questions from the National Credit Union Administration, which is
deciding whether to issue the deposit insurance Fourth Corner needs
to operate a fullservice credit union.
“Basically it’s to help answer, if you build it, will they come?”
Mason said. “We needed to create a vehicle to gain the information
about what exactly is going on.”
“NCUA wanted to know that if the estimated number of accounts doesn’t play out that they’ve not offered insurance to a credit union likely to fail,” he said.
There are questions about how businesses have been treated at other
institutions, about the fees they are charged and how compliance
issues - federal reporting rules for deposits tied to marijuana- are
being handled.

The survey also asks for information marijuana business owners have
refused to discuss openly-or even - with each other, specifically
where they bank. Banking relationships are hard to come by, so that
information is often treated like a trade secret. Several businesses
have said their accounts were closed shortly after sharing the
information with competitors.

“Some banks have even asked them to sign non-disclosure agreements
before agreeing to take their deposits,” said Martin Keeney, a
national expert on anti-money-laundering who is working with Fourth
Corner. “Our future membership is not that open and transparent to
the world at large about their banking needs and where they are banking now.”
The survey has raised an eyebrow among mainstream bankers.
“Many businesses, including banks, will conduct a feasibility study
when looking to start up or to open a new location,” said Jenifer
Waller, vice president of the Colorado Bankers Association. “However,
we are not aware of any bank conducting this type of survey of
potential customers before opening its doors.”
Once word got out about the credit union’s creation, its founders
were inundated with inquiries that ranged from potential depositors
to suppliers.
“We were getting up to 40 a day, for jobs and for those wanting to
provide goods and services,” Mason said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Register Citizen (CT)
Copyright: 2015 Register Citizen
Contact: editor@registercitizen.com
Website: http://www.registercitizen.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/598
Author: Ed Stannard

BOARD REJECTS MARIJUANA TO TREAT TOURETTE’S
Tourette’s disorder, which is actually a group of related syndromes,
does not have a treatment that helps all patients, and medical
marijuana would be a hopeful addition to the arsenal, according to a
specialist at the Yale Child Study Center.
Tourette’s was turned down unanimously by the Department of Consumer Protection’s four-member Board of Physicians at this week’s meeting, however, largely because of a lack of studies, according to Consumer Protection Commissioner Jonathan A. Harris.
Three new medical conditions may be added to the list of those
treatable with medical marijuana: sickle cell disease,
post-laminectomy syndrome with chronic radiculopathy (a specific type
of back pain) and severe psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.
Dr. James Leckman, who has treated Tourette’s since the 1970s, said
adolescent boys are most likely to develop the disorder but that
adults at times cause themselves a great deal of pain to perform
their particular tic. “Some of them have actually very severe
syndromes that require very invasive procedures,” he said. “We
literally have to bore holes in the skull,” and yet that does not
help all patients.

“I really am worried ... for those very severe patients we need
better treatments than what we have.”

There have been studies done in Germany have shown that marijuana can
reduce symptoms among Tourette’s patients, Leckman said, although he
said they are not definitive. He added that he’s known patients who
have moved to Rhode Island, where medical marijuana is available for seizures.
“I think it’s unfortunate and I think medical marijuana definitely
helps people with Tourette’s syndrome and I hope that in the future
that can be reconsidered,” said Joanne Cohen of Simsbury, a patient
of Leckman’s who testified in November in favor of adding Tourette’s
to the list of 11 conditions covered by the medical marijuana program.
Patients with the approved conditions, which include glaucoma,
epilepsy, cancer, HIV, Parkinson’s disease and Crohn’s disease, can
receive a registration certificate from their doctor, which permits
them to be prescribed marijuana.
There are six dispensaries in the state, including one in Branford.
During the physicians board meeting Wednesday, “They discussed in general whether it has a positive effect on alleviating pain” and the “safety and effectiveness between marijuana and use of opioids,” Harris said.
“There also was discussion of whether the evidence of efficacy is
just anecdotal or whether there are studies” on marijuana’s ability
to alleviate symptoms.

The petition for post-laminectomy syndrome was approved unanimously
by the doctors on the board, Drs. Jonathan A. Kost, Deepak Cyril
D’Souza, Godfrey D. Pearlson and Vincent R. Carlesi, Harris said.
D’Souza voted against the other conditions, citing lack of studies,
resulting in 3-1 votes for sickle cell disease and psoriasis, he said.

Harris is an ex officio member of the board. He did not vote because
it is now up to him to draft a regulation recommending any or all of
the approved conditions. The drafts then will then go to a public
hearing before being reviewed by the General Assembly’s Regulation
Review Committee.
Harris said he is not bound by the votes of the physicians board as
to whether to submit a regulation, but “the recommendations of the
physicians and the discussion carry a lot of weight in the
decision-making process.”
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Petula Dvorak

A SIDE EFFECT OF ADULT DRUG USE IS LONELY KIDS
Inside the camp activity room there were cheerful posters on the
wall, long windows that opened to sweeping, wintry views of the
Chesapeake Bay and a couple dozen boisterous tweens.

There were pictures of childhood icons: Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Cookie
Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Scooby-Doo. On day two of their weekend
adventure at Camp Mariposa, the kids had composed a camp song and
were eager to get to the next activity: the indoor climbing wall.
But first, a discussion group. “How many people think that it’s your
fault that your parent uses drugs?” asked Roberta Rinker, one of the
counselors.
At least five hands shot up into the air.
“How many of you don’t think it’s your fault when your parents use
drugs?” Rinker asked. Maybe 10 hands went up. The rest of the kids
looked at the long stretches of snow outside or fiddled with their
jacket zippers, and a couple of them curled up into little balls
under their chairs.

Camp Mariposa is about a lot more than making lanyards. Those
characters they were identifying? “What do they all have in common?”
the counselors asked. “Addiction!” the kids screamed. Only, carrots,
spinach, cookies, garbage and Scooby Snacks were a lot more fun to
talk about than what their parents are addicted to: booze, marijuana,
heroin, cocaine, meth.
In this space, which looks like it’s out of a Pottery Barn catalogue
and feels like a vacation, a 9-year-old talked about the time the
police came, a 10-year-old described the bottles all over the house
and a 13-year-old talked about doing hard drugs with his parents.

It’s an extraordinary experiment that started last weekend, when a
small group of kids from around the Washington area who are directly
affected by the addictions of the adults around them gathered to see
that they are not alone.
Because that’s how it feels. Too often, kids can’t imagine that other
kids go through this, or that other parents use drugs or that they
aren’t total freaks for not having a perfect family. And none of them
could imagine that they are among 8.3 million American children who
live with a parent who needs treatment for a drug or alcohol
addiction, according to the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health
Services Administration.
There is Al-Anon for adults. And Alateen for teenagers whose lives are affected by someone else’s addiction. But what does a 10-year-old have?  These kids were picked by social workers, counselors and therapists.
The program is being funded by the Moyer Foundation, which was
founded by major league pitcher Jamie Moyer and his wife, Karen,
whose sister struggled with addiction. The foundation runs a Camp
Mariposa in six other states, mostly in cities Moyer played for or lived in.
When the foundation expanded to the Washington area, it put the call
out to the National Center for Children and Families for a couple
dozen kids who could do well at the free camp. They will return to
the camp for six weekends spaced throughout the year.

These are kids who live every day with the demons that haunt adults.
Some are already in foster care, or D.C.’s shelter for homeless
families or bouncing between Auntie’s and Grandma’s houses. A few
also are dealing with drug use that has bled from the adults in the
family to their older siblings. And they are watching addiction bear
down on them, with no place to go, no way to understand that what’s
going on in their family isn’t normal, isn’t okay.

It was a little heartbreaking to hear the kids explain the way they
understand the addictions destroying their parents.

“I think it’s our fault they do drugs because we don’t pay
attention,” one bouncy 9-year-old explained.

“We stress them out, so they need them to calm down,” another child said.
“They do drugs because we stress them out, and they don’t want to
yell at us,” another offered.
Excuses, excuses. And these kids have been hearing them for years.
Rinker, a social worker from Silver Spring, Md., asked the kids who
disagreed to stand up.
“Let’s have a debate, y’all,” she said. “I want to hear from the other side.”
“It’s not my fault because they were on it before I was born,” said a
9-year-old, twirling her pink and green scarf around her hand.
“I know it’s not my fault because they choose to do it,” said the
12-year-old who’d already taken on a role of den mother, holding
hands with some of the stressed-out younger girls.

Then a commanding little 11 year-old, a boy who shook everyone’s hand
around the circle as they were getting their seats, stepped in.
“I’m the best son I could be. If they want to go and smoke and do
stupid stuff, it’s not my fault,” he said, and a round of applause
fluttered across the room.

“When you live in a family with addiction,” Rinker said, kids
“sometimes try to be the perfect child.”

Or you might be the family clown, to take the attention off the
addicted, dysfunctional parent, she said. Or you might be the
scapegoat, the kid always getting in trouble to take the focus off
the addicted parent. “Or you might be the Enabler. You might say,
‘Oh, she wasn’t drunk. She wasn’t high,’ “ Rinker said. The room grew
a little quieter and there were nods all around.
These are the kids who suffer when we talk about cutting programs and
slashing funding and holding adults accountable for all their bad
choices. Sure. Hold them accountable. But as a nation, we can’t
afford to forget about the kids, who asked for none of it and are
trying to survive.

The camp song? It starts out like this: “I didn’t CAUSE it, I can’t
CONTROL it, I can’t CURE it.”
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Gale Curcio

HOW COULD JUST A BITE OF CANDY PUT ME IN THE HOSPITAL?
Considering that chocolate is part of my daily diet, it was no
surprise that I took a bite out of a random piece that I found
sitting on my kitchen counter that day. It tasted terrible - kind of
minty - so I spit out most of it.

It was a busy day: Not only was I preparing for a large Labor Day
party at my home, but I also planned to spend a few hours helping my
church get ready for a huge Labor Day yard sale. When I started
feeling a little dizzy and lightheaded, I ignored it and kept on
working. I had felt similar to this a few weeks earlier because of
dehydration, so I figured it would pass. I continued setting up for the party.

The feeling persisted and increased a little in intensity. I thought
back to my morning regimen and checked to make sure I hadn’t taken
the wrong pills, but everything seemed okay there.
As the dizziness and lightheadedness increased, I remembered the
candy bar. I also recalled that I had thrown away a wrapper before I
came across that piece of candy. I remembered seeing the words “Liquid Gold.”
“Oh, my gosh, I’ve eaten a bar of furniture polish,” I thought to
myself. I tried to find the wrapper in the trash, but things were not
making much sense at this point. I called Poison Control; the people
there thought that I would be okay, given that I had swallowed barely
any of whatever it was. They said they would check with me
periodically for the next four hours.
Things were getting hazier and everything seemed to be in slow
motion. I knew that I would be okay if it didn’t get any worse, but I
wanted somebody to know what was going on in case I became
incapacitated. I called my husband’s office, but he was in a meeting.
I went to my neighbor’s house and asked him to check on me in an hour.

As time slowed down more and more, the hour seemed interminable. I
was still standing, but I was barely functioning. I couldn’t find my
phone. Things didn’t make sense.
I was relieved when my neighbor came over. He took one look at me
trying to stand up and said we should go to the hospital. I readily
agreed. He wasn’t sure exactly how to get there, but I assured him I
knew the way. However, everything was a blur and very distorted, and
I kept falling asleep. When I saw a row of cars, I thought it was a
parade. I felt as though I was hallucinating.
We made it to the hospital, but the short ride seemed very long to me. My husband met us at the emergency room. I was having trouble staying awake, and I was losing control of my arms and legs. The staff had to put me a wheelchair to get me back to a room.
I could barely speak at that point, but I had been cognizant enough
earlier to tell my neighbor about Poison Control and Liquid Gold. The
hospital contacted Poison Control, but nobody could understand why I
was having the symptoms that I was. Poison Control said that Liquid
Gold furniture polish doesn’t come in a bar. Also, I wasn’t
nauseated; instead, I was semiconscious and barely verbal. The nurse
suggested that my husband go home and try to find the wrapper.
The doctor thought I was having a stroke and sent me for an MRI scan
in a room where some of the ceiling tiles had been replaced with
pictures of flowers. I thought I was in heaven. The whir of the MRI
machine was very peaceful, and I just wanted to float away.

As they put me on the gurney to take me back to the emergency room, I
started emerging slowly out of the fog.
About then, my husband arrived with the wrapper. This Liquid Gold was not furniture polish. It was a Cookies n’ Cream candy bar - with marijuana in it. I wasn’t having a stroke, I was tripping.
I was still very groggy when I spoke to my 26-year-old son just after
finding out it was marijuana. At first he thought it was funny, but
then he realized the seriousness and kept apologizing. He wasn’t sure
exactly how the candy bar had gotten into the house; a friend of a
friend of a friend had brought it from California, where medical
marijuana is legal.

While we laughed about it at first, the story has its frightening
aspects. The first is that I had such a small piece of the candy bar
yet had such severe symptoms. I was also thankful that none of our
pets or a child found it.

This particular candy bar came from G Farma-Labs, which describes its
products as aimed at the medical and recreational market, where legal.
Even with the wrapper, it would be easy to overlook the fact that
this was no normal candy bar. Last year, Hershey sued Tincturebelle,
a Colorado manufacturer, and Conscious Care of Seattle for trademark
infringement, demanding that the companies stop selling marijuana
products that resemble Hershey items. Although the packaging of the
candy bar I ate displayed an image of a marijuana plant and warned
that it contained cannabis, the chocolate image dominated. On the
back it said, “Warning: This Product contains a high level of THC.
Not a food. Keep away from children.”
There was no description of the possible reactions that people can
experience after digesting marijuana candy. John Nicolazzo, coowner
of Marijuanadoctors.com, a Web site that helps patients find doctors
who prescribe marijuana, said reactions can include shallow low
breathing, dry mouth, anxiety, paranoia, dizziness, slow reaction
time, red eyes and/or dilated pupils, depression, short-term memory
loss, distorted sense of time and increased appetite.

These are important issues as more and more states legalize marijuana.
In November, District voters overwhelmingly approved Initiative 71,
legalizing the limited possession and cultivation of marijuana by
adults who are 21 or older. Congressional Republicans, however, are
trying to prevent implementation of this measure, using the federal
budget bill to ban use of tax money to administer the law. Some D.C.
leaders are trying to outmaneuver Congress and put the law into effect.
Colorado, Washington state and, most recently, Alaska and Oregon have
legalized recreational use. The District and 23 states have laws
allowing medical use of marijuana. Medical use is tightly controlled
in the District: While California patients can get their supplies at
many different places with minimal paperwork, for example, D.C.
patients can use only the licensed commissary where they have registered.
Metropolitan Wellness Center is one of the dispensaries licensed to
provide cannabis to registered patients and caregivers in Washington.
The center’s dispensary near Eastern Market in Southeast sells
marijuana in smokable and edible forms - flowers, prerolls, tinctures
and concentrates - but not chocolate bars.
Nicolazzo said that the labels on the same candy bar vary greatly
from state to state. A label on one candy bar in California says the
bar contains six servings and describes each section as one serving
size, adding that a dose is 35 milligrams.

Washington state requires a warning label: “CAUTION: When eaten the
effects of this product can be delayed by as much as two hours.”
William Stage, a child and adolescent psychiatrist in Alexandria,
said that while smoked marijuana goes to the brain in 20 seconds, it
takes longer for marijuana in food to take effect. Also, marijuana
can have more of a psychedelic effect when eaten.
And marijuana candy bars may contain more THC, the drug’s main active
ingredient, than marijuana cigarettes do. And it’s possible, Stage
said, that even a small amount could have a strong effect on someone
new to marijuana.
“If you use drugs a lot, you build up tolerance,” he said.
As for me, I’m grateful I didn’t like the taste of that candy bar.
What if I had eaten the entire thing?
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Aaron C. Davis

D.C. DEFIES HILL ON POT
The District of Columbia defied the new Republican Congress on
Tuesday, challenging the House and Senate to either block or let
stand a voter-approved ballot measure to legalize marijuana in the
nation’s capital.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson (D) sent the measure to Capitol
Hill, starting the clock on a 30-day review window that Congress has
used only three times in 40 years to quash a local D.C. law.
If Congress or President Obama do not act to block it, the ballot
measure permitting possession of up to two ounces and home
cultivation of pot could become law in the District as early as March.

Another possible scenario, however, is that Tuesday’s move would
launch a rocky year of legal battles - and thrust a final decision on
pot legalization in the city into the hands of federal courts.
Mendelson took the provocative step of sending the marijuana measure
to Congress despite a federal spending bill passed last month and
signed by the president that explicitly prohibits the District from
enacting new laws to reduce penalties for drug possession.

Conservative House Republicans boasted at the time that the paragraph
tucked into the 900-page, $1 trillion spending bill halted the city
from following Colorado and Washington state into a closely watched
experiment to legalize marijuana.
“That issue has come and gone,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz last month.
The Utah Republican is the new chairman of the powerful committee
with oversight of D.C. issues and is an outspoken opponent of
marijuana legalization. In a December interview, Chaffetz warned that
any attempt by the District to move forward on legalization would be
“ill-advised and fruitless.”
But Mendelson - backed by the new mayor, Muriel E. Bowser (D) - vowed to carry out the will of the 7 in 10 D.C. voters who supported Initiative 71.
Mendelson, Bowser and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D), the District’s
nonvoting House member, said they have a solid legal basis for
pressing forward with implementing the ballot measure. The spending
bill, they said, prohibits the District from using taxpayer funds to
“enact” new laws that loosen drug restrictions - but not to implement
official acts.

Under D.C. law, ballot measures are considered official acts - equal
to bills passed by the D.C. Council - once election results are
certified. The city’s Nov. 4 election results were certified Dec. 3,
a week before Congress passed the spending bill that included the
restriction on any new laws.

In letters dated Tuesday and addressed to Vice President Biden and
House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-Ohio), Mendelson noted the dates,
saying the pot law was a done deal before the federal spending bill was passed.
In an interview this week, Mendelson played down the issue, saying
there was “nothing special” about transmitting the measure despite
warnings from Republicans in Congress. He also stressed that he
wasn’t seeking a confrontation with Congress.
“I have no choice,” Mendelson said. “The law says that I must
transmit the measure. That is all I am doing.”

The business-as-usual stance is key because in 1998, Congress
similarly restricted the expenditure of taxpayer funds in order to
block a ballot measure legalizing medical marijuana. Once Congress
acted, D.C. election officials declined to spend even $1.64 to finish
counting ballots, fearing retribution from Congress. The city’s
medical marijuana law ultimately stalled for more than a decade.
To underscore that the District was making no special expenditure
this week to take the final steps to make Initiative 71 law,
Mendelson did little to draw attention to Tuesday’s effort to get the
measure to Congress. Legislative staffers bundled it in manila
envelopes with 20 other acts of the D.C. Council that were due before
Congress for a standard 30-day review. The city also did not alter
the monthly schedule to send the package to Congress. Legislative
staffers said they could not single out any particular cost for the
envelope, printing or other packaging of the ballot measure.
In a statement after the initiative reached Congress, Rep. Andy
Harris (R-Md.), a leading opponent of marijuana legalization,
cautioned that the District was attempting to subvert the intent of
Congress and to rewrite the definition of when a bill becomes law -
in the District’s case, always following congressional review.

“Despite attempts to misconstrue the language of the omnibus bill, it
is clear that if D.C. chooses to proceed with enactment of marijuana
legalization, they will be in violation of the law,” Harris said.
The District faces a host of other challenges should its effort to
implement the ballot measure succeed.

Mendelson said there is no doubt that the federal prohibition on
looser drug laws will prevent the District from adopting a system for
legal sales and taxation of marijuana, like in Colorado and Washington state.
Before she pledged to fight the congressional interference, Bowser,
the new mayor, said she feared that moving forward with one but not
the other could lead to open-air drug markets and tie the hands of police.
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
xxx
Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Author: Peter Hermann
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/corrupt.htm (Corruption - United States)

FBI FILES TELL HOW AGENT WAS ABLE TO GET THE DRUGS
FBI agent Matthew Lowry checked out Item 1B4 from the evidence room at the bureau’s Washington field office on an August morning in 2013.  He wrote “to lab” on a log sheet to explain why he was taking drugs that had been seized in an undercover operation dubbed Midnight Hustle.
But it was nearly a year later when he delivered the drug package to
the lab. For 10 months, court records show, the heroin had gone
unaccounted for and unmissed. When the package made it back to the
FBI office in September, it weighed 1.1 grams more than when it had
been seized.
Someone had tampered with the contents, prosecutors said later.
The package is one piece of a tale that has unfolded in recent months
the case of an FBI agent who, by his own admission, repeatedly stole heroin from evidence bags for his personal use. In the process, he sabotaged drug cases that he and his colleagues had labored on for months. Prosecutors have dismissed charges against 28 defendants in three cases, many of whom had already been convicted, and they say it could affect 150 other defendants.
The revelations have exposed a system of weak checks and balances
that allowed Lowry’s thefts and drug use to go undetected for at
least 14 months as he worked on a task force focusing on heroin
traffickers along the borders of the District, Maryland and Virginia.
The problems were discovered only after the agent disappeared after
work Sept. 29 and was found by colleagues incoherent, standing next
to his disabled bureau car in a construction lot near the Washington Navy Yard.
FBI documents say the agency vehicle, which had run out of gas, was
littered with bags of heroin “sliced open and drugs removed,” along
with a shotgun and a derringer pistol seized during a drug raid but
never logged into evidence.
An examination of court records and more than 600 pages of internal
FBI documents obtained by The Washington Post - including statements
Lowry made to investigators describing his actions - provides a
detailed look at his elaborate deception and downfall. The case has
prompted an exhaustive review of how drug evidence is handled in one
the largest and most prestigious of the bureau’s 56 field offices.
“It’s shocking that there was such little oversight,” said Steven H.
Levin, a private lawyer in Baltimore with 10 years’ experience as a
federal prosecutor, much of it overseeing the violent-crimes section
in Maryland. “It’s something you would expect to see on a made-for-TV
movie. ... You’re thinking, there is no way that could ever happen.
And that’s what happened.”
Lowry, 33, remains the target of a criminal investigation that is
being led by federal prosecutors in Pennsylvania to avoid any
conflict of interest. He has not been charged with a crime, but he
was suspended from his job and entered into drug counseling
immediately after he was found in September. His attorney, Robert C.
Bonsib, declined to comment for this article, but he has said his
client is cooperating with authorities. In the documents, which were
provided to defense attorneys in the drug cases under review, Lowry
said that he turned to heroin after becoming addicted to prescription
painkillers because of an illness and that he started taking heroin
from evidence in the summer of 2013.
A spokesman for the FBI’s Washington field office, Andrew Ames,
issued a statement saying protocols for handling evidence are being
tightened. “The incident has brought to light certain vulnerabilities
the office is addressing to reduce the likelihood of this type of
misconduct happening again.”

Levin said Lowry’s conduct “should have raised questions right way.”
He added, “How many people share blame for allowing this to be
perpetrated, and for it to continue for as long as it did?”

The system
Lowry’s system was basically quite simple, according to the FBI documents and a summary of his statements to investigators, in which he told them how he took drug evidence from cases with code names including Broken Cord, Family Matters, Tequila Shot and Smellin Like a Rose.
He checked out drugs from cases he had worked on the pretense of
taking them to a lab to be tested for trial. He kept the drugs -
sometimes for days or weeks, other times for months - and used a
little bit nearly every day, he told investigators. He eventually
submitted the drugs to the lab and took them back to the FBI office
when testing was done.

Lowry described for investigators a painstaking process used to
circumvent rules and procedures and avoid detection, court documents
state. He said he forged signatures of supervisors to authorize
withdrawals and of colleagues to reseal evidence bags he had cut
open, taking time to practice the signatures. He often targeted cases
that were already resolved, making it less likely another agent would
need the drugs and notice that evidence was missing.

Lowry told investigators he routinely used a filler to repackage bags
of heroin. He said he often added an over-the-counter laxative but
also used creatine, a chemical commonly mixed with heroin before it
hits the street. An FBI memo said Lowry used a digital scale - taken
from a drug house - to ensure that he repackaged the drugs at close
to their initial weight.
An agent told investigators that Lowry had “stated that the ‘system was messed up’ and that ‘anybody can check out anything,’ according to the court papers..
The 21.3 grams of heroin Lowry took from the Midnight Hustle evidence
had been bought for $1,800 by an undercover FBI agent in a June 2013
street deal on Rhode Island Avenue NE in the District, according to
the court papers. Lowry checked out the drugs two months later. The
FBI documents say he broke the evidence seal on the bag and kept the
drugs in the trunk of his Chevrolet Impala, where he stored it “between uses.”
On June 30, Lowry took the drugs to the lab, according to the
documents. He added Purelax, a powdered laxative, “to offset the
weight of the drugs he used,” the documents state. He obtained a new
evidence bag and an evidence seal. He forged the signatures of the
two agents who had seized the heroin the previous year, and he tried
“to mimic the hand-writing on the original sealing sticker,” the
documents state.
Lowry peeled a bar code off the original evidence bag, put it on the
new bag and then sealed the bag with heat. He told investigators that
he didn’t sign the same drugs out twice because he recognized the
forged signatures as his handwriting. A few times, he took guns,
drugs or other items from crime scenes and did not log them into evidence.
One agent interviewed by investigators said that “drug evidence is
controlled very tightly, as you guys know. There’s very stringent
rules on how you handle it. They’re pretty robust.” But, the agent
said, “if somebody is actively trying to subvert the process, then
they can defeat the rules. And that’s apparently what happened in this case.”

A high error rate
An internal audit by the FBI, completed last month, found that every
one of the nation’s field offices had problems tracking gun and drug
evidence and that in some cases, drugs disappeared for months without
notice. The Washington field office was among those with the highest
error rates; 90 percent of drug evidence examined had been mishandled
or had record-keeping problems.
In the Washington field office, a single agent could check drugs out
of the lab, even from cases the agent had not worked. All that was
needed was a supervisor’s signature. When an agent is taking drugs to
a lab, protocol dictates that the trip is made immediately, with no
stops. But two senior law enforcement officials interviewed said no
one checks to ensure that the packages are dropped off. It can take
months or even a year for evidence to be tested, so it’s not unusual
for packets of cocaine or heroin to be gone for long periods of time.
Also, the Washington field office is one of the few in the country
whose agents take drugs to the lab in their cars.

One FBI official said small variations in the weight of drug evidence
after testing are often a result of repackaging. Supervisors are
supposed to review agents’ quarterly log sheets, documenting progress
on investigations and listing drugs signed out from labs. It is
unclear whether Lowry’s log sheets were thoroughly reviewed.
As a result of the case, the Washington field office “is re-examining
certain policies and processes for how drugs are checked out,
transported, tracked and checked into the lab,” according to a senior
law enforcement official who discussed the case on the condition that
he not be identified because of rules that forbid publicly discussing
pending criminal cases.
In one significant change, two agents will be required to check out
evidence, the official said, describing what is considered a best
practice. That exceeds requirements in place across the entire bureau.

Michael Bromwich, a retired inspector general with the Justic
Department, said even when strict controls are in place, compliance
can weaken over time. Requiring two agents to sign out drugs, for
example, “is an administrative burden.” He said, “I think that over
time the controls begin to loosen. It never occurs to them that
somebody would make off with the drugs and steal the money.”

Cases upended
The Lowry investigation has stunned police and prosecutors, upended their cases and returned men who had admitted or been convicted of felony drug crimes to the streets of the District and Maryland.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Darlene Soltys told a federal judge how hard
she worked to “salvage” a drug case Lowry had worked. “My agents
invested their hearts and souls in investigating this case,” she said
during a closed-door hearing in a judge’s chambers. The transcript
was recently unsealed.
In that hearing, Soltys meticulously explained Lowry’s role in the
search of an apartment from which 2.2 pounds of heroin was seized. It
was a stash and packaging house for drugs, with “powder everywhere,”
authorities said.
Lowry and another agent moved together through the apartment, with Lowry hanging evidence signs and the other agent taking photographs.
The procedure is intended to ensure that no one is alone with
evidence. “They moved from room to room to room,” Soltys said. But
she said agents could not conclusively testify that Lowry was never alone.

It appears that nothing was taken or tampered with during that
search, the prosecutor told the judge. But FBI agents also searched
the same defendant’s house in Accokeek, in Southern Maryland, where
they reported finding expensive watches and jewelry, two guns, and
$780,000 in cash split into bags. Soltys said the bags were brought
to Washington, and Lowry was among the agents who helped recount the
money. The prosecutor said authorities initially thought that one bag
was missing and that the final count was $130,000 short.
It was determined later, after the case had been dropped, that an
honest miscount of the money had occurred, but as investigators
sorted through the stolen drug evidence, the count became suspect.
Just the suspicion of misconduct tainted the case.

“So now, I can no longer demonstrate the integrity of the money that
was seized,” Soltys said in the hearing. Pressed by the judge, she
said that evidence in the case gathered at three locations ended up
spread out in an office where Lowry and others worked.
Soltys told the judge that because Lowry “is going to be portrayed as
a heroin junkie” and as “drawn to that heroin like moth on a flame,”
she could not at the time vouch for the money they thought was
missing. “Can anybody say that they had their eyeballs on the
evidence that we brought back from the safe house?” she said.

She added, “The integrity of my prosecution is undermined by the
presence of this bad agent.”

The prosecutor told the judge that “it is not a question about saving
the FBI the embarrassment. They’re already embarrassed by this. The
question is, can I, on behalf of the United States of America, stand
up and argue to a jury that my evidence is pristine, that there is
any doubt that my agents are credible?”

Charges against four drug defendants in the case were dismissed.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 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

LEAD OR BE ECLIPSED ON MEDICAL MARIJUANA
Those who opposed last year’s push to legalize medical marijuana in
Florida raised several concerns. They feared it would allow children
to get medical pot from their doctor. They feared it would be
prescribed for just about anything, including a hangnail. They feared
caregivers would become drug dealers. And above all else, they said
it had no business as an amendment to the state constitution.
In November, Amendment 2 came close to passing with 58 percent of the
vote, just shy of the 60 percent needed. At the time, its principal
backer, Orlando trial attorney John Morgan, promised he’d be back.
And Monday, he filed paperwork to start the process for placing a
revised initiative on the 2016 ballot.

This time, Morgan says he’s better organized and better financed.
More importantly, he says he’s tweaked the ballot language to address
critics’ concerns.
With regard to children, the referendum would require the Department
of Health to verify parental consent. With regard to caregivers, the
department would have to conduct appropriate background checks and
ensure qualifications are met. And with regard to debilitating
diseases, doctors could face lawsuits if they prescribe marijuana for
such non-debilitating conditions as a hangnail.
Morgan believes he has overcome the objections - all except that one about the state constitution.
On that point, there’s an alternative to this petition drive - a form
of direct democracy that lets people be heard on issues their
representatives refuse to address.

Rather than watch a citizens’ push take shape, the Florida
Legislature could pass a law that legalizes medical marijuana for
people with debilitating conditions, such as cancer, multiple
sclerosis or post-traumatic stress disorder. The question is, will
it? It should. For medical marijuana gives doctors a tool to help
patients undergoing chemotherapy or fighting to live another day.
Because for some patients, smoking marijuana relieves nausea, pain
and anxiety like nothing else.

Morgan says that because of contacts made in last year’s campaign, he
expects to secure the 700,000 signatures he needs for the petition by
the time the Republican-led Legislature convenes in March.
Knowing that a majority of Floridians support legalization of medical
marijuana, lawmakers face a political calculation: Should they
acquiesce and follow the lead of 23 states and the District of
Columbia? Or should they let the question reach the 2016 ballot, when
the presidential election is expected to boost turnout - along with
the measure’s chances of success?
“You don’t have to be a political genius to understand that this will benefit the Democratic nominee more than the Republican nominee,” Morgan says.
It’s worth noting that also on Monday, Jeff Kottkamp, the former
Republican lieutenant governor under Charlie Crist, registered to
lobby for new legislation to legalize medical marijuana, called the
Florida for Care bill.

“Like so many other Floridians who back medical marijuana, I have my
own story,” he told Nancy Smith of Sunshine State News. “I watched my
mother suffer with cancer for 10 years. I think when we have loved
ones and think there is any way to alleviate their suffering, how can
we not do whatever it takes?
“We have a unique opportunity to shape public policy with our
legislation, and to fix some of the glitches inherent in (Amendment
2) and bring something very compassionate to the table,” he said.

Last year, partly motivated by the constitutional amendment drive,
Florida lawmakers dipped their toes into legalizing medical
marijuana. They passed a law that allows use of a non-euphoric strain
of marijuana oil, called Charlotte’s Web. But enactment of the law,
which was supposed to take effect Jan. 1, is a balled-up mess. An
administrative law judge says the Florida Department of Health
overstepped its authority in creating regulations, including a
proposed lottery to award five manufacturing licenses. When it comes
to running government like a business, DOH clearly missed the memo.
In the meantime, people who could benefit, particularly children with
intractable seizures, are waiting and suffering.
Action is needed at the top. Gov. Rick Scott and state lawmakers must
step in to ensure enactment of the Charlotte’s Web law
At the same time, they should re-evaluate past objections, many of
which have been addressed in the new initiative, and lead on a
compassionate measure supported by a majority of Floridians.
Rather than let a petition drive push them aside, the governor and state lawmakers should lead the band and make sure we get the notes down right.  Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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Newshawk: Jim
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Jan 2015
Source: Albany Herald, The (GA)
Copyright: 2015 The Albany Herald Publishing Company, Inc.
Contact: letters@albanyherald.com
Website: http://www.albanyherald.net/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1747
Author: Jim West

ALBANY NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH GROUP GETS DRUG EDUCATION
ALBANY - Neighborhood watch representatives got a basic education on illegal drugs, their effects and where they come from Saturday at the Community Room of the Albany downtown Law Enforcement Center.
The short course delivered by Maj. Bill Berry, of the Albany-Dougherty
Drug Unit gave eager members of the Community Council of Watch
Associations an earful of information on familiar drugs including
ecstasy or “Molly,” crack cocaine and prescription pain pills.
But they learned about some new threats too, including yaba (a blend
of caffeine and methamphetamine), powdered alcohol, synthetic
marijuana and even “Krokodil,” a drug so devastating it destroys skin
and muscle tissue from the inside out.
Heroin, the popular scourge from decades past has made a comeback,
Berry said, with a purity like never before combined with prices so
competitive that it’s driving pain pills and prescription drugs out of
demand.

Methamphetamine, or “meth,” also is more popular, Berry said, and is
seen in area drug busts three times more often than crack cocaine, the
former leader. According to Berry, meth dealers of the past often
“cooked” their own products in small private laboratories, which were
prone to explode.
The majority of meth on the street today is “fronted” to the dealers -
supplied without initial payment to the Mexican cartel - so the drug
is plentiful, of a higher quality with more available to sell, Berry
said.

While not yet prevalent in Southwest Georgia, a new and briefly legal
drug that worries Berry is Palcohol, or powered alcohol. Water is
added to the powder produce the equivalent of a mixed drink in a
“juice” type foil container, Berry said.

“The product could be abused by anyone,” Berry said, “but particularly
our youth. What happens if just to get a bigger high, someone adds
alcohol to the mix instead of water, or if someone is dared to just
‘snort’ the powder? That can’t be good.”
The Community Council of Watch Associations is an umbrella group
meeting quarterly with representatives of neighborhood watch
organizations throughout Albany and Dougherty County. Judy Bowles, who
acts as a liaison between city government and the group, said the
organization’s goal is to gather watch groups from every neighborhood
in the city and county.
“This larger group invites all types of relevant speakers,” Bowles said, “so the neighborhood members and representatives can attend and deliver that information to their home groups, or even invite the speakers.”
Group president Chuck Mitchell said the whole purpose of having neighborhood watch groups is to keep the neighborhoods safe and free of crime.
“I want to get this out to the people of Albany that they can make a
difference,” Mitchell said. “You can make this city - your city - the
Good Life City once again.”

For more information on free membership in the Community Council of
Watch Associations or for help in forming a neighborhood watch, call
Judy Bowles at Keep Albany-Dougherty Beautiful, (229) 430-5257.
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Newshawk: Jim
Pubdate: Sat, 10 Jan 2015
Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution (GA)
Webpage:
http://www.ajc.com/ap/ap/georgia/poll-most-ga-voters-back-legalizing-medical-mariju/njkdd/
Copyright: 2015 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Contact: letters@ajc.com
Website: http://www.ajc.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/28

POLL: MOST GA. VOTERS BACK LEGALIZING MEDICAL MARIJUANA
A clear majority of Georgia voters support legalizing medical
marijuana, but they appear more closely split on whether to permit its
recreational use, according to a poll by The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution.
The poll (http://bit.ly/1AGI8hY ) showed 84 percent of registered
voters agreed the General Assembly should legalize marijuana-based
medication. Lawmakers debated - but did not adopt - legislation last
year that would have made cannabis oil legally available for the ill.
The oil is harvested from marijuana plants and used to treat people
with some seizure disorders.

Voters were more closely divided on whether to legalize recreational
marijuana use. The poll indicted 46 percent of voters support
legalization, while 52 percent opposed it.
State Rep. Allen Peake, R-Macon, has filed legislation to allow the
use of cannabis oil in medical treatment. That bill, however, would
legalize only the use of a marijuana derivative that does not produce
the high sought by recreational users. House Speaker David Ralston, a
Republican, has said he supports the plan.
“The people are ahead of the politicians on this one, especially on the medical marijuana issue,” said state Sen. Curt Thompson, D-Tucker.  Thompson has proposed allowing the sale of marijuana at licensed shops and permitting its use by medical providers for treating cancer, glaucoma, HIV and AIDS. “Elected officers should not be afraid of what this will do politically because Georgians are ready for it.”
New York-based Abt SRBI conducted the poll Monday through Thursday.
The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage
points. Live operators called a mix of landlines and cellphones.

POLL METHODOLOGY:
Conducted by Abt SRBI in New York.
Weighted, statewide sample size of 905 Georgians. Pollsters
conducted 541 interviews by landline and 364 by cellphone.
Margin of error of plus or minus 4.2 percentage points.
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MAP posted-by: Jo-D
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 2015
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/ugkhIAyA
Copyright: 2015 The Associated Press
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122

Obituary
MAN WHO FOUGHT TO USE POT OIL
Iowa Man Says Self- Treatment Prolonged Life.
Long Grove, Iowa (AP) - An Iowa man who was convicted late last year of growing marijuana that he used to treat his rare form of cancer has died.
Benton Mackenzie, 49, died Monday at his home near Davenport, his mother, Dottie, confirmed Tuesday.
He had been growing marijuana to create cannabis oil that he consumed and applied to tumors caused by angiosarcoma, a rare cancer of the blood vessels that was diagnosed seven years ago.
Mackenzie said his self-treatment from the oil had prolonged his life
and made some of the skin lesions disappear.
Little research has been conducted on the effect of cannabis oil on
this form of cancer, although doctors don’t discredit Mackenzie’s
claims. But Iowa allows medical marijuana to be used to treat
intractable epilepsy only, meaning further research of the drug’s
benefits is obstructed in the state.

“He didn’t ask for this fight,” Dottie Mackenzie said. “It came to him.”
Benton Mackenzie and his wife, Loretta, were charged with conspiring
to grow marijuana after a June 2013 raid of their home in which
authorities found 71 marijuana plants, growing equipment and drug
paraphernalia. Their son, Cody, was charged and convicted of drug
possession when police found a small amount of marijuana in his room.
Benton Mackenzie was sentenced in September to three years of
probation, and his wife and son also received probation.

Following his sentence, Benton Mackenzie was warned to spend the
remainder of his life marijuana-free to meet the terms of his
probation and avoid being sent to prison.
The Quad- City Times reported that Mackenzie’s parents faced
misdemeanor charges in the case of hosting a drug house, but the
charges eventually were dropped.
Dottie Mackenzie told the newspaper she hopes her daughter-in-law and grandson also will be shown leniency as they move forward with appeals.  Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Copyright: 2015 Chicago Tribune Company
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/IuiAC7IZ
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/82

LIFT THE SMOKESCREEN ON POT LICENSES
Gov. Pat Quinn created all sorts of mischief in his final days in
office, but he got one thing right: He didn’t sign off at the last
minute on licenses to grow and sell medical marijuana in Illinois.

He left that to his successor, and his successor said Tuesday he’s in
no rush to act.
There is every reason for Gov. Bruce Rauner to be careful about this.
The public knows almost nothing about the applicants for the coveted licenses to run 21 growing facilities and 60 dispensaries across the state.
By law, the applicants’ names are secret. So are the details of the
369 applications filed. We don’t know how those applications have
been scored by state evaluators. What little we know comes from local
zoning requests, business permit applications and other state records.
This is a state with a long and rich history of awarding lucrative
licenses and government contracts through cronyism.

Rauner said his staff needs to learn how the approval process has
been managed and whether changes need to be made. He’s asking the
right questions.
We understand that people want to have access to medical marijuana.
We supported legalizing it. But the secrecy built into this process
creates suspicion. Let’s air this out - and if that requires a change
in law, let’s do it.

Growers could reap an estimated $17 million a year and more. The
lucky license holders are likely to keep those licenses for a long time.
Illinoisans should know who’s in the running, and with whose
financial and political backing. In December, the Tribune reported
that Jack Lavin, a former chief of staff for Quinn, is a lobbyist for
one applicant. The Tribune found that two other applicants have
criminal convictions. Another applicant was linked to a corporate
shell known for hiding assets and owners. How that will affect the
scoring of license application is ... anyone’s guess.

This week disappointed lawmakers and potential patients criticized
Quinn for failing to award the medical marijuana licenses on his way
out the door.
“He just left the sick and the dying hanging,” said Jim Champion, an Army veteran with multiple sclerosis who was named to the governor’s medical cannabis advisory board.
This is a new industry in Illinois, one that is supposed to benefit
people’s health. The best way to serve patients is to award licenses
to growers and operators proven to be above reproach. That requires a
process that is fully transparent, so that everyone can see the
applicants’ credentials, and how these licenses are scored and awarded.
Defenders of the secrecy say the rules are designed to keep clout out of the vetting. Even staffers at the Department of Agriculture and the Department of Financial and Professional Regulation charged with evaluating applicants aren’t supposed to see names on applications.
And yet, people in and around state government seem to know something about who is applying for these licenses.
Rauner goes into this with his eyes wide open. In his campaign for
governor he said the medical marijuana licensing process was
“rigged.” He proposed disclosing the applicants’ financial information.

If there’s a game here, it looks like the game is up.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Wichita Eagle (KS)
Copyright: 2015 The Wichita Eagle
Contact: http://www.kansas.com/604
Website: http://www.kansas.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/680
Author: Bryan Lowry

KANSAS SENATOR: LEGALIZED MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS INEVITABLE
Legalization of medical marijuana in Kansas is inevitable, Sen. David
Haley told a crowd of about 30 supporters at a rally in the rotunda
of the Capitol on Thursday afternoon.
Haley, D-Kansas City, and Rep. Gail Finney, D-Wichita, have introduced companion bills in the House and Senate, SB 9 and HB 2011, that would allow medicinal use of marijuana.
Haley pointed out that 23 states and the District of Columbia have
already approved medical marijuana.

“We have to get this done,” Haley said. “Everyone in this Capitol
knows that one day, one day, medical marijuana will be available in
every one of the 50 states. We know that. The question is ... will
Kansas be the 24th state or the 50th?”
Haley called medical marijuana common sense. He and Finney have
introduced the legislation every year since 2009 and in previous
years have struggled to find any support, but this year they’re a bit
more optimistic. Haley noted that the policy would receive an
informational hearing next week.

Finney said legalizing medical marijuana and taxing it would generate
an additional $1.3 million in revenue for the state.
They have at least one Republican lawmaker on board. Rep. J. Basil
Dannebohm, R-Ellinwood, spoke in favor of the legislation at the
rally. Dannenbohm, a freshman Republican, said one of his
constituents has a child who suffers seizures who could be helped by
medical marijuana.

“I don’t know if it’s breaking party lines. I don’t know if this is a
party issue. You know I had a young constituent come to me with a son
. who has 30 seizures a day. They’ve tried everything,” he said. “A
child deserves to live a semi-normal life. How can I in good
conscience not at least explore the opportunity?”

“It’s about getting voices heard. It’s about getting the data. It’s
about getting over the stigma. I mean, my goodness gracious, alcohol
was considered evil for quite a time in Kansas history,” Dannebohm
said. “Let’s start a dialogue. Let’s start a conversation.”
A few other Republican lawmakers observed the rally and said they
were keeping open minds. Rep. Steve Anthimides, R-Wichita, said he
would welcome a hearing on the issue, and Rep. Joseph Scapa,
R-Wichita, said he opposes recreational use of marijuana but is
interested in learning more about medical uses.

The bill will still face an uphill battle. House Speaker Ray Merrick,
R-Stilwell, and Senate President Susan Wagle, R-Wichita, have both
voiced opposition to medical marijuana in the past.
David Mulford, a 56-year-old Hutchinson resident, said he already uses marijuana for medicinal purposes and credits it with saving his life.
“I’m here today because of it. Since the ‘80s I’ve suffered from
massive debilitating muscle spasms. ... Those spasms, the only thing
that would stop them was cannabis and it’s just been a miracle,” said
Mulford, who suffers from cardiovascular spasmic angina and uses a wheelchair.
“What this does, though, is let me live a life that’s not totally
encumbered by pain,” Mulford said.

Jennifer Winn, who is mounting a campaign for mayor of Wichita after
previously running for governor, also attended the event.
Haley and Finney were presented with green felt M’s from Esau Freeman, a Wichita activist, in recognition of their commitment to the issue.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Boston Globe (MA)
Copyright: 2015 Globe Newspaper Company
Contact: http://services.bostonglobe.com/news/opeds/letter.aspx?id=6340
Website: http://bostonglobe.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/52
Author: Kay Lazar

PRIVACY CONCERNS RAISED ON MASS. MEDICAL MARIJUANA E-MAILS
The subject line left little doubt about the contents of the e-mail sent by the Massachusetts health department. “Confirmation of Patient Certification in the Medical Use of Marijuana Online System,” it stated.
More than 6,800 patients received the e-mails over the past three
months telling them they had been approved for the state’s medical
marijuana program. The e-mails contained detailed personal
information - a practice specialists say constituted a clear
violation of privacy standards.

Now, after inquiries from the Globe, the state’s health department
has begun altering its e-mails, stripping references to the medical
marijuana program from the subject line and removing patients’ full
names and unique program registration numbers from the body of the message.

Patient advocates expressed dismay over the original e-mails, and
data security specialists said they were surprised by the state’s
handling of such sensitive information. Amid instances of identity
theft and breaches of corporate computer systems, governments and
private companies have moved to protect personal information in
layers of encryption and other security measures.
Nichole Snow, deputy director of the Massachusetts Patient Advocacy
Alliance, a group that supports access to medical marijuana, was
among the patients who received an e-mail with the none-too-subtle
subject line.
“I was shocked to see that,” Snow said.
She said some patients do not have access to computers in their
homes, or through their cellphones, and log in to e-mails from public
places, such as libraries, highlighting the need for discretion.
“This information should be treated . . . sensitively,” Snow said.
The health department’s e-mail slip-up is the latest misstep in the
agency’s quest to roll out the medical marijuana program. Questions
have plagued the department for the past year about the review of
companies hoping to win dispensary licenses, hampering the opening of
facilities.
David Szabo, a Boston lawyer with Locke Lord Edwards, who specializes
in health care law, privacy, and data protection issues, said the
health department’s original e-mail notification system appeared to
violate a 2008 executive order by former governor Deval Patrick.
“They are supposed to protect the privacy of medical information,” Szabo said.
The order directed state agencies to comply with consumer protection
rules that require anyone who owns or licenses personal information
about Massachusetts residents to take steps to protect that
information. Those measures include encryption of personal
information stored on computers or e-mailed, and guidelines for
limiting use of nonencrypted personal information in electronic messages.

A recipient of the marijuana program’s earlier e-mails - or anyone
who happened to walk by the recipient’s computer screen - would know
instantly the subject. Once opened, the e-mails revealed a patient’s
full name, e-mail address, and state-assigned program ID number, much
of what is needed to make it past the first security level in gaining
access to the state’s database, which contains sensitive patient information.
The health department’s revised e-mails still show that they were
sent from the “Medical Marijuana” program, but that is in the process
of being changed to a more generic account “to meet best practices,”
according to a statement from the agency.
Tim Buckley, communications director for Governor Charlie Baker, said
in an e-mailed statement that the administration “is reviewing the
medical marijuana program from top to bottom, including concerns
regarding patient privacy.”
He declined to comment further.
Before patients can get medical marijuana, they must receive a
doctor’s approval. New state rules require patients and physicians to
register with the health department’s computerized database.
At many of the state’s big teaching hospitals, doctors and patients
have been sharing sensitive information online for more than a
decade. Executives in charge of securing those systems say that even
in the early days, administrators required nondescript subject lines
on e-mails to protect patient information.
“I would assume there would be some patients signing up for the
state’s program who would consider the information private,” and the
blunt, but now-removed, medical marijuana subject line would have
disregarded their privacy preferences, said Dr. John Halamka, chief
information officer at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and a
professor at Harvard Medical School.
When Beth Israel Deaconess launched its online communication system in 1999, subject lines to patients read “important information from your doctor,” Halamka said.
No personal patient information, passwords, or identification numbers
are sent in hospital e-mails, he said. Instead, patients must click a
link in the e-mail that connects them to a secure hospital website,
accessed with a password, so that even if the patient’s computer is
lost or stolen, there is no record of the communication on that
device, Halamka said.
To further tighten security a few years ago, Beth Israel Deaconess
added a device that scours all outgoing e-mail from the hospital, and
if it senses any hint of patient information, including a patient’s
name or identification number, it will block the communication and
alert the patient in a generic e-mail that a “secure message” awaits.
The e-mail contains a link to the hospital’s encrypted database,
which the patient can access only with a password.

At Partners HealthCare, which includes Massachusetts General Hospital
and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, physicians use a system that sends
the generic subject line “new patient gateway message” in e-mails to
patients, according to Cynthia Bero, director of Partners’ information systems.
E-mails from Partners do not include personal information or ID
numbers, but instead direct patients to the hospital’s
password-protected website to retrieve their physician’s
communication, Bero said.

Patients receive their password for the system at their physician’s
office, or can apply for a password on the hospital’s encrypted
website, which uses a system similar to one employed by banks and
other financial institutions.

“Most providers are very much aware of how important and sensitive
health care information is,” Bero said, “and they go to great lengths
to protect it.”
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Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: Daily Tribune, The (Royal Oak, MI)
Copyright: 2015 The Daily Tribune
Contact: editor@dailytribune.com
Website: http://www.dailytribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1579
Author: Dave Phillips

STATE SUPREME COURT HEARS MEDICAL MARIJUANA ARGUMENTS
Justices of the Michigan Supreme Court spent Thursday morning
listening to oral arguments in three medical marijuana cases that
began in Oakland County.

Up first was the case of Richard Hartwick, who was accused of
illegally growing and possessing marijuana in September 2011 in Pontiac.
“There’s no evidence he sold to anyone else,” Hartwick’s attorney, Fred Miller, told the court. “There’s no evidence he was doing anything wrong.”
Hartwick, who has a medical marijuana card, believes that he is
immune due to his status as a cardholder.

“My client’s got under four ounces,” Miller said. “He’s got six
people he provides for. I think under Section 4 this case should have
been dismissed.”
Section 4 refers to a portion of t he state’s medical marijuana act,
which states, i n part, that a qualifying patient with a registry
identification card cannot be arrested or prosecuted if the patient
possesses less than 2.5 ounces of usable marijuana and 12 marijuana
plants. Caregivers may not possess more than 2.5 ounces of usable
marijuana and 12 marijuana plants for each patient they have.
“He has cards and he’s got an amount of marijuana (under the limit),
I believe that’s all he’s got to prove,” Miller said.
Prosecutors said Hartwick had 78 marijuana plants (si x more than the
limit for six people) in his home, in a room that was not locked (the
law requires plants to be kept in a locked area). Hartwick said si x
of those plants were stems in cups and should not count.

In its appellee brief, prosecutors also said Hartwick did not know
what his patients’ conditions were.

“Marijuana remains illegal in the state of Michigan,” Oakland County
Assistant Prosecutor Jeffrey M. Kaelin said.
Thursday’s session spent a large amount of time on Section 4, as well as Section 8 of the act, which states that a patient and/or caregiver “may assert the medical purpose for using marihuana as a defense to any prosecution involving marihuana,” as long as they meet certain requirements.
The court also heard arguments in two other cases: Robert Tuttle,
who, like Hartwick, believes his possession of a medical marijuana
card entitled him to immunity and an affirmative defense, and Cynthia
Mazur, whose husband was a medical marijuana caregiver when their
home in Holly was raided in 2011. Mazur said she “did not help her
husband grow, transfer, deliver, feed or otherwise care for or deal
with the medical marijuana plants,” according to her application for
leave to appeal.
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Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Minneapolis Star-Tribune (MN)
Copyright: 2015 Star Tribune
Contact: http://www.startribunecompany.com/143
Website: http://www.startribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/266
Author: James Roettger

EMBRACE INEVITABLE: LEGALIZE, TAX POT
Gov. Mark Dayton’s proposals this year include a half-cent metro-area
sales tax increase to pay for transit. In my industry as a jeweler,
our sales tax is already high enough to drive a very high percentage
of diamond buyers online to avoid many hundreds of dollars in tax on
their once-in-a-lifetime, expensive engagement ring purchase.
Instead of raising the sales tax, how about embracing the inevitable
and legalizing and taxing recreational marijuana? New taxes collected
could be designated for infrastructure renewal without raising sales
taxes and driving more business out of state. This could be quite a
boon to our economy, provided lawmakers strike a good tax rate
balance to avoid driving pot sales underground.
James Roettger, Minneapolis
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Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 2015
Source: Lincoln Journal Star (NE)
Copyright: 2015 Kirk Muse
Contact: oped@journalstar.com
Website: http://www.journalstar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/561
Author: Kirk Muse

JUST SAY COLORADO
If I were arrested in Nebraska or Oklahoma for possessing a small
amount of marijuana, and the arresting officer asked where I got the
marijuana, I would say Colorado, and 99 percent of others would
probably do the same. Would we rat out a friend, neighbor or
co-worker? No.

Kirk Muse,

Mesa, Ariz.
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Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Trentonian, The (NJ)
Copyright: 2015 The Trentonian
Contact: letters@trentonian.com
Website: http://www.trentonian.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1006
Author: Edward Forchion, NJWeedman.com For The Trentonian

ADVENTURES IN NEW JERSEY FAMILY COURT
In the past year, to my great satisfaction, the NJ family court has
taken a beating in both the federal and state appeals courts.
In Malhan vs Malhan, five parents filed a class action lawsuit in
federal court alleging that the NJ family court system fails to
provide adequate “due process” rights to parents in child custody
proceedings. Surender Malhan, the father, lost his custody rights on
a mere two hours’ notice based on a bogus accusation from the mother
without him having an opportunity to refute his estranged wife’s allegations.
“For years now, NJ family courts have been, in effect, a
‘Constitution-free zone’ where family court judges have run roughshod
over the rights of parents, children, and outsiders. To make matters
worse, judges routinely impose gag orders to hide their actions from
public scrutiny. In May of 2014 a decision by Federal U.S. District
Judge William Martini made it clear that New Jersey family court
judges may not violate fundamental constitutional rights in the name
of ‘children.’ Judge Martini’s decision affirmed that family courts
are not Constitution-free zones.” said Paul Clark, attorney for Malhan.

On Dec 23, 2014, the NJ appeals court made a historic mountain-moving
decision in a NJ family court case: NJ Division of Child Protection
vs C.W. 20-2-5337. (C.W. is a mother whose name has been concealed to
protect the child’s identity; she had her child taken away for
admitting to using marijuana.) Not only did the NJ appeals court rule
that C.W.’s verbal admissions about cannabis use were insufficient
evidence for an emergency removal of her child, it also found that
the state failed to provide any evidence that simply using cannabis
constituted child abuse or neglect.
In today’s age of the mainstreaming of marijuana and the fact that 22
states and the District of Columbia now allow some degree of cannabis
use, this is a common-sense ruling. But for many potheads and those
who use marijuana medically, this is a major victory over the common
goofy practices of the NJ family court system that have existed for
decades. Thousands of pot-toting parents like me have had their
parental rights negated simply for using cannabis.

While plenty of people know me for publicly resisting and not
complying with the NJ marijuana laws, very few realize how my public
advocacy started: I got into a child visitation case in Burlington
County in 1996. Between my two wives I had a child out of wedlock,
and when the relationship soured the scorned mother tried to
eliminate me from my child’s life. This was my first experience in
any kind of court.

While we were together my marijuana smoking wasn’t an issue other
than I had to smoke outside when I was at her house. But once the
court case started she was allowed to lie without fear of perjury
charges. She came to court arguing that I used marijuana and claiming
that she didn’t know this until after we broke up. I was never
allowed to refute anything.
At one point she hired a private eye to investigate me and gave the
report to Burlington County family court Judge Gaytoes, who limited
my visitation, and that report ended up with the Camden County Drug
Task Force. Six months later on Nov. 24, 1997, I was arrested in
Bellmawr for receiving a package of marijuana delivered by Fed-Ex from Arizona.
I and my opinions became known statewide when instead of taking the
prosecution’s deal to rat on others and accept a prison term, I
fought the case with the truth about marijuana. I began publicly
trying to reach my future jurors with a “jury nullification defense
of truth” as a means to fight those charges. The family court used my
public admissions to keep me from my child even though I wasn’t
convicted of anything yet. (Yeah, innocent until proven guilty didn’t
exist in family court.)

In 1999 my scorned ex came to family court and said that she was a
Christian and I was a follower of Rastafari, so she didn’t want me
around “her daughter,” and Judge Bell took my visitation. You see,
freedom of religion in America is really “freedom of religions
acceptable to Christians.”
Family court became one bizarre accusation after another from the ex.
These were all blatant lies that were instantly given credibility by
the family court because I admitted to smoking marijuana.

Throughout that decade I appeared before Judges Bell, Schlesinger,
Lihotz, Schlosser, and finally Judge Morley. All I wanted was a
simple visitation order. I never got one. In 2006 Judge Morley even
ordered a name change for my daughter from my last name Forchion to
her mother’s name solely because of my public advocation (free
speech) of marijuana legalization.
Judge Morley was eventually fired by Gov. Christie in 2010 for ruling
a Moorestown cop’s sexual relations with a cow didn’t constitute
animal abuse. Yeah, for real.
In 2006 I gave up: My daughter was 12 at the time and I decided to
stop fighting the “due processless” NJ family court and just wait
until my daughter reached 18. I was defeated. Well she’s 20 now and
doesn’t see or talk to me - years of scorned motherly influence.
These family court judges claimed my “due process” denials were in
the “best interests of my child,” supposedly to benefit my child but
as usual the denials just ended up doing the opposite for us.
It was irrelevant that I was publicly telling the truth about
marijuana. The state’s criminal marijuana laws are based on proven
lies, and the judges and law enforcement officers continue to enforce
these lies. Nothing I was saying in 1998 has changed, except that
nearly 20 years later most of America knows the laws are lies. In
fact, NJ passed the Medical Marijuana Compassionate Use Act in 2010,
which recognizes marijuana’s medical value and which should nullify
our state’s 2C:35 criminal laws that claim cannabis is an illegal
Schedule 1 drug with no medical value. Gov. Christie and law
enforcement refuse to acquiesce but as these rulings show, the courts
are becoming cannabis friendly.
In 2007 I had another daughter and for four years her mother allowed visitation and I paid child support. In 2011 I lost my business, got sick with bone cancer, and was prosecuted by Burlington County for 1 pound of my medicine. I couldn’t pay child support, so she too stopped allowing me to see this daughter.
Knowing how NJ family court would treat “NJWeedman,” I didn’t ask the
courts for visitation until last week. I only did it because of my
knowledge of these two rulings in the past year. Last week I asked
for visitation with my youngest child, and to my delight the request
was granted.
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Pubdate: Wed, 14 Jan 2015
Source: Asbury Park Press (NJ)
Copyright: 2015 Asbury Park Press
Contact: yourviews@app.com
Website: http://www.app.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/26
Author: Joseph Galeani

DRUG POLICY HAS HAD DEVASTATING SIDE EFFECTS
Everyone’s talking about America’s racial problems without mentioning the armor-plated Humvee in the room.
America’s drug policy is the leading cause of the animosity between
the police and the communities they’re charged with protecting.
Everyone cheers the police when they arrest a burglar or arsonist,
but it’s hard to see how institutionalizing locals for weed does
anything other than harm a community.

The police are not racist, the laws are. From its Jim Crow origins to
the racially coded language of Nixon and Reagan to different
sentencing for cocaine and crack, the war on drugs is, and has always
been, a racist enterprise.
The laughably disproportionate statistics bear this out, yet no one
links racial strife to prohibition. Why not?

Our drug laws also escape criticism for their role in the
militarization of the police, the rise of gangs, the overpopulated
prisons and the destabilization of nations in Latin America and
around the world.

How much more damage must our society sustain before we embrace the
inevitable and end this ill-conceived war on drugs?
Joseph Galeani
Middletown
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Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2015 Albuquerque Journal
Contact: opinion@abqjournal.com
Website: http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10

HIGH COURT WEIGHS AERIAL SURVEILLANCE
SANTA FE - The state Supreme Court is set to hear arguments in the case of northern New Mexico man who claims his privacy rights were violated after a flyover prompted a ground search.
That search turned up more than a dozen marijuana plants on his
remote property.

The outcome of the case could affect the ability of law enforcement
agencies to use drones and other means of aerial surveillance.
The home of Norman Davis, now 79, in the Carson area of Taos County
was checked during a 2006 joint operation of New Mexico State Police,
National Guard and state Game and Fish. Authorities were looking for
pot-growing operations.
A search was conducted with Davis’ reluctant consent after a spotter in a helicopter saw vegetation in Davis’ greenhouse and plants outside.
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Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Albuquerque Journal (NM)
Copyright: 2015 Albuquerque Journal
Contact: opinion@abqjournal.com
Website: http://www.abqjournal.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/10
Author: Elaine D. Briseno

RRPS BOARD HEARS SHOW OF SUPPORT
English Teacher Who was Forced to Resign Praised; Now at an ABQ Charter
A handful of people showed up to Monday’s Rio Rancho school board
meeting to support former V. Sue Cleveland High English teacher
Katrina Guarascio, who resigned last month amid controversy over a
writing assignment and how she conducted herself in class.
The district accused Guarascio of being unprofessional, repeatedly
using profanity and sexually explicit language in her class. They
said “numerous parents” raised concerns about her and her classroom.
In October, Guarascio instructed her students to pick a classic story
and retell it in a unique way. One student chose to retell Jesus
giving loaves of bread and fish to the poor by having him instead
distributing marijuana to the sick. As part of the assignment,
students read each other’s stories and offered critiques. It was
during this process that a student found the Jesus story offensive
and complained to her parents who then went to school administrators.

The school placed Guarascio on leave for three weeks while they
reviewed the complaint. She was given the option of making changes to
how she taught or resigning. She resigned Dec. 3 but several parents
and students protested her departure, calling her a good teacher.
The Albuquerque Talent Development Academy Secondary charter school has since hired Guarascio as an English teacher. She said Tuesday she misses her students but is excited about her new teaching job.
“I would like to say that I’m grateful for the continued support I
have received from both parents and students,” she told the Journal
in a phone interview. “I still know how those students are doing in
every class even though they are not in my class anymore.”
The parents, and one student, at Monday’s meeting wrote a letter to Rio Rancho Public Schools Superintendent V. Sue Cleveland requesting a meeting with her to express their concerns. They said they decided to attend the board meeting instead because she had not responded to their request.
Sophomore Isabel Schuman was in Guarascio’s pre Advanced Placement
English class and told the board that she’s had to deal with a string
of substitute teachers and left with busy work while the district
looks for a replacement.
“I was cheated of nearly a quarter’s worth of quality education,” she
said. “I had weeks filled with crossword puzzles and cranky subs and
other busy work that had nothing to do with my English class. ...The
needs of the majority were not taken into consideration ... I feel
the situation could have been handled better.”
The district said Tuesday that Guarascio’s permanent replacement
started immediately after the winter break.
Parent Myron Saldyt said Guarascio inspired his children “beyond what I thought possible.”
“I feel a teacher who made a difference in my children’s education
leaving sends the students and probably also teachers the wrong
message without some clarity... “ he said. “I appreciate my free
speech and I feel that teachers should also be allowed their free speech.”

Cleveland told the speakers that she and the board were not allowed
to respond during public comment or to discuss personnel matters.
Guarascio will be the featured speaker for the South Broadway Cultural Center’s RESOLANA HEARTFIRE poetry reading on Jan. 21 at 7 p.m. The center is at 1025 Broadway SE in Albuquerque. In other board news:
Happy Miller, the district’s executive director of research,
assessment, data and accountability, told the board that students in
grades three and four will take the new statewide test that measures
proficiency in math, writing and reading on paper instead of online.
This spring the New Mexico Public Education Department will replace
its Standards Based Assessment, which is administered on paper, with
the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.
Miller said at least 80 percent of students must take the test
online. The test will be given to students in grades three through 11
in public schools across the state.
The district recognized Maggie Cordova Elementary art teacher Mehrzad Banihashemi for being selected as the New Mexico Art Education Association Elementary Art Teacher of the Year. Banihashemi told the board that teaching was her dream job.
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Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Columbus Dispatch (OH)
Copyright: 2015 The Columbus Dispatch
Contact: letters@dispatch.com
Website: http://www.dispatch.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/93
Author: Alan Johnson

POT BACKERS’ PLAN INCLUDES SAFETY TESTS
Backers of a prospective investment-based marijuana ballot issue said
yesterday that they would set up five “testing centers” throughout
Ohio to verify for consumers the chemical content of marijuana for
sale for personal use.

ResponsibleOhio said the testing program would end the uncertainty
about dangerous drugs purchased on the black market.
The centers tentatively would be established in Athens, Lorain,
Mahoning, Scioto and Wood counties, according to a source familiar
with the proposal.
“We’ve heard too many stories of families who have lost children,
siblings and loved ones because marijuana they purchased was laced
with dangerous drugs like heroin or PCP,” said ResponsibleOhio
spokeswoman Lydia Bolander.
“The consumer should be confident that they are buying marijuana that is safe because it has been tested, labeled and is being sold in sealed packaging.”
Jon Allison, representing the Drug Free Action Alliance, said of the
testing commitment, “No amount of talk about drugtesting centers can
mask the fact that ResponsibleOhio’s No. 1 goal is to create
constitutionally protected drug cartels. There isn’t enough lipstick
in Ohio to make this pig look pretty. Just ask the other Ohio groups
pushing for marijuana legalization.”

The proposal would allow only 10 individuals or companies to grow
marijuana. The testing sites would operate independently of growers
and retailers, Bolander said.
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Pubdate: Fri, 16 Jan 2015
Source: Express-Times, The (PA)
Copyright: 2015 The Express-Times
Contact: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/opinion/sendaletter/
Website: http://www.lehighvalleylive.com/expresstimes/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1489
Author: David Rose

DA’S NEWSLETTER DOESN’T ACKNOWLEDGE FAILURE OF THE ‘WAR ON DRUGS’
I received the “District Attorney’s Drug Task Force Newsletter” and
noticed the fact that it was paid for by drug forfeiture money, not
taxpayer dollars. Considering this “newsletter” is largely an account
of activities of District Attorney John Morganelli, I had the thought
the “war on drugs” might be just a cover to fund the re-election
campaigns of district attorneys.

While I do not want to question the sincerity of the district
attorney in informing us about initiatives that are “keeping your
community safe,” we need to keep in mind the war on drugs is largely
a failed public policy that has led to massive incarceration of
nonviolent offenders, disproportionately targets minorities and the
poor, and cost the taxpayer an estimated $15 billion in 2010. When an
elected government official finds an unlimited amount of money from
drug forfeiture to fund what should be considered an election
campaign expense, we can be sure we’ll never hear any comment from
him about the failures or cost to taxpayers of such a policy.
Morganelli recently expressed his opposition to a moratorium on
executions pending a study of the death penalty, saying there is no
need for another study since one was commissioned by the state
Supreme Court in 2003, and he proudly served on the commission. He
didn’t mention that the study, the “Supreme Court Commission on
Racial and Gender Bias in the Criminal Justice System,” recommended a
moratorium on executions until problems noted in the report were addressed.
Morganelli supported Tom Wolfe for governor. It will be interesting to see how he responds to Wolf’s support of a moratorium on executions.
David Rose
Easton
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Pubdate: Sun, 18 Jan 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: Evan Halper

GREEN MOUNTAIN HIGH?
Vermont Is Exploring Whether to Become the Center of Legal Pot Sales in the East. If It Does, a Tourism Boom May Follow.
Forget ski resorts and prize-winning maple syrup. The big tourism
draw for tiny Vermont could soon be marijuana.

Led by Gov. Peter Shumlin, state lawmakers are exploring legalizing a
drug that has been as much apart of local culture as tie-dyes,
psychedelic music and hippie farmers.
The state commissioned Rand Corp. to look at what it would mean for the Green Mountain State to become the official beachhead of legal recreational pot sales on the East Coast.
If nothing else, Rand’s report predicts a tourism boom.
Vermonters already have a considerable taste for marijuana, smoking or otherwise consuming15 to 25 metric tons last year- as much as $330 worth of pot per resident.
But many, many more consumers of cannabis live within a couple of
hundred miles of the state’s borders. One million of them, to be
precise, or 40 for each Vermonter who regularly consumes marijuana,
according to Rand.
“An influx of tourists can be expected immediately after stores
open,” Rand’s report said, noting that the expected influx would
dwarf the experience of the Western states that have already
legalized recreational sales.

“This is a much larger pool of potential visitors than in the areas
surrounding Colorado or Washington, even in absolute terms, and
massively larger relative to the in-state population,” which is just
626,000, the report says.

All those tourists could mean tens of millions of dollars in tax
revenue for the state. But a huge number of pot consumers crossing
state lines could also antagonize federal drug authorities,
triggering a crackdown, the report’s authors warned.
Moreover, hordes of potheads driving long distances to get high would also bring predictable public nuisance and traffic problems, Rand said.  Voters in Washington, D.C., already beat Vermont to legalization, approving a ballot measure in November that would make the nation’s capital the first jurisdiction in the East to permit recreational pot use.
But the law may not take effect since Congress, which has the power
to manage the affairs of the district, is trying to block it.
Moreover, the D.C. measure legalizes possession, but does not allow
for sales of pot.
Thus, Vermont could be in the pole position as the East Coast venue
for recreational pot sales.
Rand expressed no opinion on whether Vermont should go ahead with
full legalization. The report presented extensive analysis of
potential public health risks, pointing to “some clear acute and
chronic health effects, especially of persistent heavy marijuana use.”

The authors also noted that the state could take a different approach
than Colorado and Washington state. Vermont could, for example, keep
tight control over the pot trade by requiring marijuana to be sold
through state stores or by licensing only cooperatives or nonprofit businesses.
The state could also choose to limit the potency of marijuana sold
legally and ban cannabis products that can particularly appeal to
children, such as fruit-flavored candies and sodas.

Should Vermont choose to legalize, Rand suggests it may want to
follow the Western states by taxing the drug heavily. Otherwise, the
report said, the cost of pot would plunge - which would appeal to
pots mokers but would not be a great idea as a matter of state policy.
“For most consumer goods, lower prices are a cause for celebration, but, if consumers are vulnerable to overindulging, low prices might be problematic,” the report said.
“Some view innovation that has led to very low prices for soda pop, junk food, and candy to be a curse, not a blessing, for the American public.” Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
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Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Herald, The (Everett, WA)
Copyright: 2015 Associated Press
Contact: letters@heraldnet.com
Website: http://www.heraldnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/190
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press

GROWERS STRUGGLE WITH A PLETHORA OF POT
High Taxes and Not Enough Stores Is Creating an “Economic Nightmare” for Farmers.
SEATTLE (AP) - Washington’s legal marijuana market opened last summer to a dearth of weed. Some stores periodically closed because they didn’t have pot to sell. Prices were through the roof.
Six months later, the equation has flipped, bringing serious growing
pains to the new industry.
A big harvest of sun-grown marijuana from Eastern Washington last
fall flooded the market. Prices are starting to come down in the
state’s licensed pot shops, but due to the glut, growers are -
surprisingly - struggling to sell their marijuana. Some are already
worried about going belly-up, finding it tougher than expected to
make a living in legal weed.

“It’s an economic nightmare,” says Andrew Seitz, general manager at
Dutch Brothers Farms in Seattle.
State data show that licensed growers had harvested 31,000 pounds of
bud as of Thursday, but Washington’s relatively few legal pot shops
have sold less than one-fifth of that. Many of the state’s marijuana
users have stuck with the untaxed or much-lessertaxed pot they get
from black market dealers or unregulated medical dispensaries -
limiting how quickly product moves off the shelves of legal stores.
“Every grower I know has got surplus inventory and they’re concerned
about it,” said Scott Masengill, who has sold half of the 280 pounds
he harvested from his pot farm in central Washington. “I don’t know
anybody getting rich.”
Officials at the state Liquor Control Board, which regulates
marijuana, aren’t terribly concerned.

So far, there are about 270 licensed growers in Washington - but only
about 85 open stores for them to sell to. That’s partly due to a
slow, difficult licensing process; retail applicants who haven’t been
ready to open; and pot business bans in many cities and counties.

The board’s legal pot project manager, Randy Simmons, says he hopes
about 100 more stores will open in the next few months, providing
additional outlets for the weed that’s been harvested. Washington is
always likely to have a glut of marijuana after the outdoor crop
comes in each fall, he suggested, as the outdoor growers typically
harvest one big crop they continue to sell throughout the year.

Weed is still pricey at the state’s pot shops - often in the $23- to
$25-per-gram range. That’s about twice the cost at medical
dispensaries, but cheaper than it was a few months ago.

Many growers have unrealistic expectations about how quickly they
should be able to recoup their initial investments, Simmons said. And
some of the growers complaining about the low prices they’re getting
now also gouged the new stores amid shortages last summer.
Those include Seitz, who sold his first crop - 22 pounds - for just
under $21 per gram: nearly $230,000 before his hefty $57,000 tax
bill. He’s about to harvest his second crop, but this time he expects
to get just $4 per gram, when he has big bills to pay.

“We’re running out of money,” he said. “We need to make sales this
month to stay operational, and we’re going to be selling at losses.”
Because of the high taxes on Washington’s legal pot, Seitz says stores can never compete with the black market while paying growers sustainable prices.
He and other growers say it’s been a mistake for the state to license
so much production while the rollout of legal stores has lagged.
“If it’s a natural bump from the outdoor harvest, that’s one thing,”
said Jeremy Moberg, who is sitting on 1,500 pounds of unsold
marijuana at his CannaSol Farms in north-central Washington. “If it’s
institutionally creating oversupply ... that’s a problem.”

Some retailers have been marking up the wholesale price three-fold or
more - a practice that has some growers wondering if certain stores
aren’t cleaning up as they struggle.
“I got retailers beating me down to sell for blackmarket prices,” said Fitz Couhig, owner of Pioneer Production and Processing in Arlington.
But two of the top-selling stores in Seattle - Uncle Ike’s and
Cannabis City - insist that because of their tax obligations and low
demand for high-priced pot, they’re not making any money either,
despite each having sales of more than $600,000 per month.

Aaron Varney, a director at Dockside Cannabis in Shoreline, said
stores that exploit growers now could get bitten in the long run.

“Right now, the numbers will say that we’re in the driver’s seat,” he
said. “But that can change. We’re looking to establish good
relationships with the growers we’re dealing with.”
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2015
Source: News Tribune, The (Tacoma, WA)
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/dWK3Bdfm
Copyright: 2015 Tacoma News, Inc.
Contact: http://blog.thenewstribune.com/letters/submit/
Website: http://www.thenewstribune.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/442
Author: Adam Lynn

PIERCE COUNTY JUDGE: STATE CAN’T BAN DOCTORS FROM ADVERTISING
MARIJUANA SERVICES
A Pierce County Superior Court judge has ruled unconstitutional a
state law that prohibits doctors and other medical professionals from
mentioning medical cannabis in their advertisements.
In a ruling filed Friday, Judge Elizabeth Martin said the law
violates both the state and federal constitutions by curtailing free
speech. The state might have an interest in regulating such
advertising, but banning it outright is unacceptable, Martin said.

“I find the statute impermissibly overbroad as it chills even
informational speech aimed solely at public education,” Martin said
in a written decision.
The ruling came in a case brought by Pierce County osteopath Scott Havsy.
He took the state to court last year after the state Department of
Health sanctioned him for advertising on the Web and in printed
publications his willingness to authorize patients’ use of medical marijuana.

The sanctions have been on hold while the court case plays out.
Havsy, who’s practiced for more than 30 years, has developed a
reputation as a go-to guy for people seeking cards that authorize
them to possess marijuana for medical reasons.

His attorney, Mark G. Olson of Everett, argued in pleadings that the
state’s ban hindered patients’ ability to find doctors willing to
provide authorization cards to people seeking to use cannabis for
medicinal purposes.

“The only restrictions that should be placed on professional
advertising are to be sure the advertising is not false or
misleading,” Olson argued. “Other than that, when the government
restricts advertising by professionals, it places a chilling effect
on the free flow of information, especially on the Internet.”
The state was represented by assistant attorney general Joyce A. Roper.
“Dr. Havsy cannot claim constitutionally protected commercial speech
in his advertisement for the medical use of marijuana because
marijuana is illegal under federal law and the medical use of
marijuana remains illegal under state law,” Roper argued in her own pleading.

“Free speech protections do not extend to advertisements for an
illegal product or activity.”

Martin sided with Havsy.
“I find that the restriction set forth in the statute at issue is far
more extensive than necessary as it bars any advertisement in any
form, regardless of the message, format, context, etc.,” the judge
wrote in her decision.
“The result of this statute is that the public cannot be informed by
any health care provider, including Dr. Havsy, as to whether that
provider is even available or willing to perform the required medical
exam for the certificate of use.”

Martin went on to say that she recognizes “the state of Washington
and its citizens have embarked on what the state has characterized as
a ‘grand national experiment’ “ with regard to the legalization of
marijuana and further recognizes that the existing medical marijuana
laws are not entirely reconciled with the recreational use of
marijuana legalized by Initiative 502.
“I do not take lightly the import of this decision and expect that
this ruling will not be the final word on the subject,” Martin said.
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Newshawk: Kirk
Pubdate: Tue, 13 Jan 2015
Source: Columbian, The (WA)
Copyright: 2015 The Columbian Publishing Co.
Contact: letters@columbian.com
Website: http://www.columbian.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/92
Author: Eric Hafner

AVOID MISTAKES OF NEW JERSEY LAW
New Jersey’s system of medical marijuana regulation, which requires
all patients obtain a state-issued patient identification card to
possess and purchase medical marijuana, in tracked sales, is unconstitutional.
Federal law still criminalizes marijuana. New Jersey medical
marijuana patients must not be forced to incriminate themselves
federally in order to obtain their medicine and be protected from
prosecution under state medical marijuana statutes.

In 1969, the United States Supreme Court struck down the federal
Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 on the grounds that payment of the tax was
a violation of the constitutional right against self-incrimination
(Leary v. United States).
It is fine if the state of New Jersey wishes to offer voluntary
patient registration. But forcing patients to create criminal
evidence against themselves that could later be used against them in
a federal prosecution, to be able to purchase state-legal medical
marijuana and have a defense against state-level marijuana charges,
is blatantly unconstitutional.

A valid physician’s recommendation is the only document that should
be required for a patient to be protected under New Jersey’s
Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act.
Washington and Oregon should take note of this legal conflict and avoid repeating the same mistakes in their medical marijuana programs.
Eric Hafner
Toms River, N.J.
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Newshawk: http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm
Pubdate: Sat, 17 Jan 2015
Source: Washington Post (DC)
Copyright: 2015 The Washington Post Company
Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/mUgeOPdZ
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/491
Authors: Robert O’Harrow Jr., Sari Horwitz and Steven Rich

HOLDER CURBS ASSET-SEIZURE PROGRAM
Federal Law Had Netted Billions That Were Split With Local, State Police
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Friday barred local and state
police from using federal law to seize cash, cars and other property
without warrants or criminal charges.
Holder’s action represents the most sweeping check on police power to confiscate personal property since the seizures began three decades ago as part of the war on drugs.
Since 2008, thousands of local and state police agencies have made more than 55,000 seizures of cash and property worth $3 billion under a civil asset forfeiture program at the Justice Department called Equitable Sharing.
The program has enabled local and state police to make seizures and
then have them “adopted” by federal agencies, which share in the
proceeds. It allowed police departments and drug task forces to keep
up to 80 percent of the proceeds of adopted seizures, with the rest
going to federal agencies.
“With this new policy, effective immediately, the Justice Department
is taking an important step to prohibit federal agency adoptions of
state and local seizures, except for public safety reasons,” Holder
said in a statement.

Holder’s decision allows limited exceptions, including illegal
firearms, ammunition, explosives and property associated with child
pornography, a small fraction of the total. This would eliminate
virtually all cash and vehicle seizures made by local and state
police from the program.

While police can continue to make seizures under their own state
laws, Equitable Sharing was easy to use and required most of the
proceeds from the seizures to go to local and state police agencies.
Some states have higher standards of proof for forfeitures and some
require seized proceeds to go into the general fund.

A Justice Department official, who spoke on the condition of
anonymity to discuss the attorney general’s motivation, said Holder
“also believes that the new policy will eliminate any possibility
that the adoption process might unintentionally incentivize
unnecessary stops and seizures.”

Holder’s announcement drew praise from some groups who have denounced
the seizures and criticism from some police organizations.
The decision follows a Washington Post investigation published in September that found that police have made cash seizures worth almost $2.5 billion from motorists and others without search warrants or indictments since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The Post found that local and state police routinely pulled over
drivers for minor traffic infractions, pressed them to agree to
warrantless searches and seized large amounts of cash without
evidence of wrongdoing. The law allows such seizures and forces the
owners to prove their property was legally acquired in order to get it back.
Police spent the seizure proceeds with little oversight, in some
cases buying luxury cars, high-powered weapons and military-grade
gear such as armored cars, according to an analysis of Justice
Department data obtained through Freedom of Information Act requests.
News of the policy change surprised advocates who have for a long
time unsuccessfully sought to reverse civil asset forfeiture laws,
arguing that they undermine core American values, such as property
rights and due process.
“It’s high time we put an end to this damaging practice,” said David
Harris, a constitutional law scholar at the University of Pittsburgh.
“It has been a civil-liberties debacle and a stain on American
criminal justice.”

Holder’s action comes as members of both parties in Congress are
working together to craft legislation to overhaul civil asset
forfeiture. On Jan. 9, Sens. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) and Mike
Lee (R-Utah), and Reps. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.) and John
Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.) signed a letter calling on Holder to end
Equitable Sharing.
Grassley praised Holder’s decision on Friday. “We’re going to have a
fairer justice system because of it,” Grassley said. “The rule of law
ought to protect innocent people, and civil asset forfeiture hurt a
lot of people.”

He said he planned to continue pressing for legislative reforms.
“I commend the department for this step and look forward to working with them on comprehensive forfeiture reform that protects Americans’ property rights,” Sensenbrenner said. “Equitable Sharing has become a tool too often used to bypass state law. “
The new policy could become one of the more notable pieces of
Holder’s legacy. Holder has already announced that he is leaving the
department, and it is clear that he is taking steps to burnish his
place in history. On Thursday, he pushed in a speech for better
tracking of police use-of-force incidents.

But Friday’s action is sure to engender its share of controversy.
The policy will touch police and local budgets in every state. Since
2001, about 7,600 of the nation’s 18,000 police departments and task
forces have participated in Equitable Sharing. For hundreds of police
departments and sheriff ‘s offices, the seizure proceeds accounted
for 20 percent or more of their annual budgets in recent years,
according to a Post analysis.
The action comes at a time when police are already angry about
remarks that Holder and President Obama made after the police
killings of unarmed black men in Ferguson, Mo., and New York City.
Some have accused them of being “anti-cop.”

“It seems like a continual barrage against police,” said John W.
Thompson, interim executive director of the National Sheriffs’
Association. “I’m not saying there’s no wrongdoing, but there is
wrongdoing in everything.”

Critics of the decision say that depriving departments of the
proceeds from civil asset forfeitures will hurt legitimate efforts to
fight crime, drug smuggling and terrorism.

Bill Johnson, executive director of the National Association of
Police Organizations, said, “There is some grave concern about the
possible loss of significant funding while local police and state
police are being asked to do more and more each year.”
Over the past decade, thousands of people have had to fight the
government to get their cash and property back, often hiring lawyers
and spending more than a year in the process, The Post found. Many of
them were people of color and immigrants swept up in police dragnets
on the nation’s highways aimed at stopping drug dealers, money
launderers and terrorists.
That includes people such as Mandrel Stuart, who was stopped in 2012
by Fairfax County police, detained without charges, handcuffed and
stripped of $17,550 in cash that was to be used for equipment and
supplies for his barbecue restaurant in Staunton, Va. He eventually
hired a lawyer, and a jury gave him his money back in 2013. But he
lost his restaurant while fighting the government, because he had no
working capital.
“A lot of people won’t be harassed the way they are harassing them now,” Stuart said Friday after he heard about Holder’s action. “It’s some justice at last on our side.”
Civil asset forfeiture is one of the most powerful - and unusual -
law enforcement tools. Police do not need to prove a crime to use it,
because it is a civil action against an object, such as currency or a
car, rather than a person.
As a consequence, protections common in criminal law do not apply. In
fact, owners who want to recover their cash or property generally
must show it is theirs and demonstrate it is not tied to crime.
Forfeiture has its basis in British admiralty law, but it became a
part of the fight against drugs in the United States beginning in
1970, when Congress allowed police to seize aircraft, boats and other
property used to transport narcotics or bought by drug lords with
ill-gotten gains.
In the 1980s, the law was expanded to include cash. About the same
time, the Justice Department created its Asset Forfeiture Program and
began allowing federal agencies to adopt seizures made by state and
local authorities. Those changes led to a massive increase in money
deposited into the federal forfeitures fund as seizures by local and
state police surged. Allegations of police abuses also increased.
Searing reports by the Orlando Sentinel and other newspapers about
abuses spurred Congress to pass the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act
in 2000. But a key change - ending the sharing of seizure proceeds
between local police and federal agencies - was cut from the bill
after fierce opposition from police and prosecutors. Some lawmakers
called the sharing of money a “perverse incentive” for overly
aggressive police tactics.
After Sept. 11, 2001, the use of the asset forfeiture law and the
Equitable Sharing Program rose to new heights as federal authorities
called on local, county and state police to help keep watch on the
nation’s highways, not only for drug smugglers but also for terrorists.
The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security paid private firms
millions to train local and state officers in the techniques of an
aggressive brand of policing known as “highway interdiction.” That
training, developed by the firms, included methods for ferreting out
suspicious drivers and coaxing them into granting warrantless
searches of vehicles, according to internal company training
documents obtained by The Post. The files emphasized the importance
of targeting cash.
The federal government also encouraged police to collect and share
intelligence about drivers. One training firm started a private
intelligence system called Black Asphalt that enabled thousands of
police to share tips about drivers across state lines and funnel raw
reports about drivers to federal authorities.
Civil asset forfeiture has become one of the few public policy and
social issues that united activists and lawmakers across the
political spectrum.

After The Post series, John Yoder and Brad Cates, two directors of
the Justice Department’s asset forfeiture office under President
Ronald Reagan, said the program should end. In an opinion piece, they
said the program began with good intentions. “Over time, however, the
tactic has turned into an evil itself, with the corruption it
engendered among government and law enforcement coming to clearly
outweigh any benefits.”
The Institute for Justice and other libertarian-leaning groups teamed
up with the American Civil Liberties Union and left-leaning groups to
press for changes in the wake of The Post’s investigation.
“This is a profoundly important and path-breaking change in the
ability of the government to take property of Americans,” said Scott
Bullock, a senior attorney at the Institute for Justice, which
produced a study about civil asset forfeiture five years ago called
“Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture.”

In recent months, Grassley, the new chairman of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, and Sen. Patrick J. Leahy ( Vt.), the panel’s ranking
Democrat, joined the effort, along with Sensenbrenner and others.
Holder said seizure adoptions will continue to be employed by local
and federal authorities, but only in limited circumstances when
public safety is at risk and where local and federal authorities are
collaborating in cases clearly involving criminal activity.

Most of the money and property taken under Equitable Sharing since
2008 - $3 billion out of $5.3 billon - was not seized in
collaboration with federal authorities, The Post’s analysis found.
In announcing the new Justice Department policy Friday, Holder said
there is also less need for federal seizure adoptions. In the 1980s,
when the policies took effect, few states gave police the authority
to make civil seizures and forfeit the assets of criminals in the way
that federal law allowed.

“Today, however, every state has either criminal or civil forfeiture
laws, making the federal adoption process less necessary,” Holder’s
statement said. “Indeed, adoptions currently constitute a very small
slice of the federal asset forfeiture program. “
Some police departments have shown an apparent preference for federal
law over state laws. Equitable Sharing allowed many departments to
make or benefit from seizures in ways they could not have under state
law. The program required the seizure proceeds to go back to the
departments, while some state asset forfeiture programs mandate that
the money go into general funds.
The Treasury Department is also changing its asset forfeiture program to follow the same guideline included in Holder’s order, the statement said.
Federal agencies make larger seizures of cash and property through
avenues other than Equitable Sharing, typically in cases involving
defendants ranging from drug cartel kingpins to Bernard L. Madoff,
whose fraud case has resulted in more than $9 billion in forfeitures
in recent years.

Those programs are not affected by the changes to Equitable Sharing,
but Holder also said the new policy is the first step in a
“comprehensive review” of civil forfeiture in general.
Justice Department officials noted that civil asset forfeiture has
hurt criminals and their organizations. It also has enabled the
government to refund money to crime victims - about $4 billion over
the past 15 years.

“Asset forfeiture remains a critical law enforcement tool when used
appropriately - providing unique means to go after criminal and even
terrorist organizations,” Holder said. “This new policy will ensure
that these authorities can continue to be used to take the profit out
of crime and return assets to victims, while safeguarding civil liberties.”
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Newshawk: Kirk
Pubdate: Thu, 15 Jan 2015
Source: Rolling Stone (US)
Copyright: 2015 Rolling Stone
Contact: letters@rollingstone.com
Website: http://www.rollingstone.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/373
Author: Tim Dickinson

THE WAR ON DRUGS IS BURNING OUT
Leading at the Ballot Box From Alaska to Washington, D.C., Americans
Are Charting a Path to a Saner National Drug Policy
The conservative wave of 2014 featured an unlikely, progressive
undercurrent: In two states, plus the nation’s capital, Americans
voted convincingly to pull the plug on marijuana prohibition. Even
more striking were the results in California, where voters
overwhelmingly passed one of the broadest sentencing reforms in the
nation, de-felonizing possession of hard drugs.
One week later, New York Mayor Bill de Blasio and the NYPD announced
an end to arrests for marijuana possession. It’s all part of the most
significant story in American drug policy since the passage of the
21st Amendment legalized alcohol in 1933: The people of this country
are leading a dramatic de-escalation in the War on Drugs.
November’s election results have teed up pot prohibition as a potent
campaign issue for 2016. Notwithstanding the House GOP’s contested
effort to preserve pot prohibition in D.C., the flowering of the
marijuana-legalization movement is creating space for a more rational
and humane approach to adjudicating users of harder drugs, both on
the state level and federally. “The door is open to reconsidering all
of our drug laws,” says Alison Holcomb, who led the pot-legalization
push in Washington state in 2012, and has been tapped to direct the
ACLU’s new campaign against mass incarceration.

On the federal stage, the Justice Department continues to provide
what Ethan Nadelmann, director of the Drug Policy Alliance, calls “a
discreet form of leadership” on state experiments in drug reform
giving tax-and-regulate marijuana laws broad latitude, and even
declaring that Native American tribal governments can also experiment
with marijuana law, opening a path for recreational pot on
reservations in, potentially, dozens of states.
Congress, in the same legislation that sought to derail D.C.
legalization, carved out historic protections from federal
prosecution for state-legal medical-marijuana operations. And in
November, in a signature reform for outgoing Attorney General Eric
Holder, the Obama administration lightened prison sentences for
federal drug offenders.
This reform, modest on its face, nonetheless marks a striking-
departure from three decades of ever-harsher federal enforcement. For
the first time since Ronald Reagan took office, the federal prison
population is shrinking. “We are witnessing a historic sea change,”
Holder said in a speech this fall, “in the way our nation approaches
these issues.”

The trajectory of the citizen-led drawdown of the Drug War is
clearest in California  where four years ago the pot-legalization
movement’s biggest stumble, ironically, helped clear a path for one
of the anti-Drug War movement’s most transformational successes this
past November.
Pushing the envelope back in 2010, California activists qualified a
ballot initiative to legalize recreational marijuana.

At the time, Holder warned the Justice Department would “vigorously
enforce” federal marijuana prohibition in California. Eager to
pre-empt a constitutional crisis over fully legal weed, then-governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger steered passage of a half-measure  an October
2010 law decriminalizing marijuana use.
The Governator’s gambit worked.
Decriminalization helped take the wind out of the sails of the
legalization campaign, which failed at the ballot box. But having
spurred the legislature to action, pot activists indirectly scored a
huge victory for criminal and racial justice. Possession of up to an
ounce of marijuana became an infraction, like a parking ticket, with
a maximum $100 fine. And the California law applied to users of any
age not just tokers 21 and over.

The impact of this tweak has been remarkable: By removing low-level
youth pot offenses from the criminal-justice system, overall youth
crime has plummeted by nearly 30 percent in California  to levels not
seen since the Eisenhower administration. And decriminalization
didn’t lead to any of the harms foretold by prohibitionists. Quite
the opposite: Since the law passed in 2010, the rate of both high
school dropouts and youth drug overdoses are down by 20 percent,
according to a new research report from the Center on Juvenile and
Criminal Justice. Non—marijuana drug arrests for California youth,
meanwhile, are also down 23 percent  fully debunking the gateway theory.

Decriminalization in California, the report concludes, has reduced
the harms of prohibition for thousands of California teens. “Fewer
young people,” its authors write, “are suffering the damages and
costs of criminal arrest, prosecution, incarceration, fines, loss of
federal aid and other punishments.” Perhaps most important, the
Darren Wilsons of California have one less pretext to disrupt the
lives of the state’s Michael Browns.

In November  building on the success of decriminalization and on
public disgust at the state’s criminally overcrowded and ruinously
expensive prison system  California voters took an even bolder leap
with Proposition 47, which reduced possession of hard drugs including
cocaine, heroin and meth from a felony to a misdemeanor. (Prop 47
also de-felonized nonviolent theft of less than $950.)
In a year of record-low voter turnout, Prop 47 passed with 59 percent
support, thanks in part to endorsements from nationally prominent
Republicans like Rand Paul and Newt Gingrich. The new law is expected
to affect 24,000 drug convictions a year. And the reduction in the
ranks of the incarcerated will create savings, the state estimates,
in the “low hundreds of millions of dollars annually.” Innovatively,
Prop 47 captures those savings and steers them into community
programs. “This is the first voter initiative to literally take money
out of the prison budget and put it into prevention and treatment,”
says Lenore Anderson, executive director of Californians for Safety
and Justice, which spearheaded the campaign for Proposition 47.

The new law also allows current convicts to petition to get their
sentences-reduced retroactively. In the cases of some convicts under
California’s notorious “Three Strikes” laws, this will mean the
difference between a continued life sentence and freedom.
Additionally, as many as 1 million Californians will qualify to have
felony records expunged  removing what Anderson calls the “Scarlet-
F” from their chests  opening doors to fuller integration in society,
with fewer obstacles to getting a job, finding an apartment or
enrolling in public assistance.

“We’re not only stopping overincarceration,” Anderson says. “We’re
also going to clean up its legacy.”
As California moves dramatically, the federal government is taking
more modest steps to stem a tide that has swollen the number of
federal inmates imprisoned for drug crimes by more than 2,000 percent
since 1980. In 2013, 100,026 inmates  roughly the population of
Boulder, Colorado  languished in federal prison for drug crimes,
accounting for half the federal prison population.

Under federal law, sentences are doled out according to a complex
formula in which a given quantity of a trafficked drug is punishable
at one of 38 levels of increasing severity.
Under sentencing reforms that took effect in November, Holder’s Justice Department has stepped down those sentences by two degrees.
Someone convicted for trafficking five grams of meth, for example,
will now be sentenced at level 24 instead of 26  a maximum of 63
months, instead of the previous 78  knocking more than a year off the sentence.
The Justice Department is also making these sentencing guidelines
retroactive. Beginning in November 2015, more than 46,000 federal
inmates can appeal to shorten their prison terms, with the average
beneficiary receiving a two-year reduction.
The move is expected to save taxpayers more than $2 billion.
Federal drug sentencing remains draconian: Locking a person in a cage for five years for possessing five grams of an intoxicant is not a rational policy.
But the Holder reforms may signal that the flood of Drug War
incarceration has reached its high-water mark. For the first time in
34 years, the federal inmate population is falling, down 4,800 in the
past year. By 2016, a drop of 12,200 is projected  equivalent to more
than six federal prisons filled to capacity.

Holder, who will be leaving office upon the confirmation of his
successor, views this as a legacy issue. “For far too long,” he said
in a September speech focused on the harms created by the Drug War,
“our system has perpetuated a destructive cycle of poverty,
criminality and incarceration that has trapped countless people and
weakened entire communities  particularly communities of
color.?.?.?.?We are bringing about a paradigm shift.”
In fact, the federal government is moving into political space
created by voters, most recently in November’s election.

Top drug reformers had been wary about putting marijuana initiatives
on midterm election ballots  worried that younger, pot-friendly
voters might stay home, dealing the anti-Drug War movement a costly
setback. “The midterm electorate in 2014 represented a wave of
anti-progressive, pro-conservative voters,” says the ACLU’s Holcomb.
Voters under 30 comprised just 12 percent of the national electorate,
while voters over 60  seniors are the one demographic that strongly
opposes legalization  made up a whopping 37 percent.
Nonetheless, each legalization measure passed, easily.
In red-state Alaska, 53 percent endorsed legal pot. In Oregon, the
tally was 56 percent  35,000 more votes than any statewide elected
official received. In Washington, D.C., legalization romped with 65
percent of the vote, carrying 142 out of the city’s 143 precincts.
In substance and salesmanship, Alaska’s pot proposal, Measure 2, was
much like Colorado’s  seeking to “regulate marijuana like alcohol.”
The campaign’s backers led with a pot-is-safer message because
alcoholism looms large as a destructive force in Alaskan life,
particularly among the state’s tribal populations.

Measure 2 faced opposition from political heavyweights like former
Republican senator and governor Frank Murkowski. But the “no”
campaign stumbled when a spokesperson conceded in a debate that pot
is, indeed, less harmful than booze  a point the “yes” campaign
seized on, plastering stickers reading our opponents agree! on
billboards touting cannabis as safer than wine, beer or whiskey.

Beginning in mid-February, it will become legal for anyone over 21 to
possess, transport or give away up to an ounce of pot in Alaska.
Measure 2 expands the oversight powers of the Alcoholic Beverage
Control Board to regulate marijuana from seed to store, but the law
gives ample lead time to state authorities to license pot shops, and
commercial sales aren’t expected until mid-2016.
Pot in Alaska will be taxed at $50 an ounce, at the wholesale level, padding the state’s general fund. By the time the market matures, Alaska expects to reap about $24 million a year in pot revenue.
In Oregon, meanwhile, taxation and regulation were marketed with a
stronger criminal-justice bent. Proponents highlighted not only the
wasted law enforcement resources of arresting and citing 12,000
people a year for marijuana  a bust every 39 minutes  but also the
racial inequities in a state where people of color make up less than
a quarter of the population but are twice as likely to be arrested for pot.

“There are lots of good arguments for [pot] legalization,” Says
Burnett. “But the argument that enforcement is racially biased is undeniable.”
Oregon’s new law is more far-reaching-than other states, and
Nadelmann has lauded it as “the new gold standard.” Beginning in
July, Oregon residents can legally possess up to eight ounces -
that’s right, half a pound - of marijuana.

Oregonians can grow at home; commercial sales will be overseen by the
same state agency that regulates liquor sales, and retail outlets are
expected to open in 2016. In an overture to more conservative
communities in eastern Oregon, the measure also legalized hemp as a
new cash crop.
Aiming to compete with the black market on price alone, taxes in
Oregon will be significantly lower than across the Columbia River in
Washington. That state taxes pot at 25 percent three different times
at wholesale, at distribution and at retail.
Oregon will charge a single tax of $35 an ounce, levied on producers.
Forty percent of this new weed revenue goes to schools, 25 percent to
abuse prevention and treatment, with the remaining 35 percent funding
state, county and local law enforcement. Localities can vote to ban
marijuana commerce, but at the cost of cutting themselves off from
this new revenue stream.
The measure is expected to raise close to $40 million a year.
D.C.’s campaign took a strikingly different approach.
By law, the initiative process couldn’t be used to create a new tax regime there. Without new revenues to tout, the capital’s campaigners almost exclusively emphasized the racial disparities of marijuana enforcement, with the slogan “Legalization Ends Discrimination.”
A 2013 ACLU report showed that D.C. was second only to Iowa in the
racial disparity of marijuana enforcement  with blacks eight times
more likely than whites to be arrested for pot; this in a city where
blacks make up half the population. In March 2014, the D.C. city
council responded by passing a sweeping decriminalization bill,
making up to an ounce of pot punishable by just a $25 fine. But it
quickly became apparent that, even so, racial bias persisted, with
black residents accounting for nearly two-thirds of those cited.

“There are lots of good arguments for legalization,” says Dr. Malik
Burnett, a top organizer of D.C.’s legalization campaign. “You can
argue that it’s safer than alcohol, or that regulation helps keep it
out of the hands of kids. But the argument that enforcement is racially biased?

That’s undeniable!”
In no small irony, the greatest resistance to legalization was
centered in the black community itself  where conservative elements,
in particular churches, remained wary of condoning pot use. But
working through African-American religious leaders and community
groups, legalization campaigners swung support in the black community
from just 33 percent in early polling to 63 percent at the ballot
box. On Election Day, the racial and criminal-justice argument cut
across color lines. “Both blacks and whites, when asked why they
voted for the initiative, said the racial-justice argument was the
number one reason they voted in favor,” says Nadelmann.

In December, the House GOP attempted to block D.C.’s legalization
through the appropriations process, denying funding to the district
to “enact” marijuana legislation at odds with federal law. But
anti-prohibition forces believe this legislative language still
provides a path forward  on legalization that they argue was already
enacted by voters.

The spending bill “does not block D.C. from ‘carrying out’ enacted
marijuana policies,” said Eleanor Holmes Norton, D.C.’s
congresswoman. District lawmakers are now blocked from creating new
laws to tax and regulate commercial pot, as they had intended. But it
may yet become legal, in the coming months, to stroll down
Pennsylvania Avenue with two ounces of marijuana in your pocket, or
to grow up to six plants in an apartment a stone’s throw from the
drug czar’s office.
Citizen-led criminal-justice reform is already having an effect
outside of the states where voters put the issue on the ballot.
California’s de-felonization model is taking root in the West  even
in deep-red strongholds. In the days after the November election,
Utah unveiled a proposal to reclassify most drug-possession felonies
as misdemeanors, and to try small-fry dealers, particularly those
selling drugs to support their own habits, under lesser felonies. “We
are not in any way going soft on crime,” said state Rep. Eric
Hutchings, a Republican member of the justice commission that
recommended the reform. “We are going smart on crime.”

And in New York, Mayor de Blasio has finally followed through on his
campaign commitment to stop arresting residents for pot possession.
Pilloried for statistics showing marijuana busts had actually
increased under his tenure, de Blasio announced in November that
public marijuana possession will now be punished with a court summons
and a $100 fine.
That’s a dramatic improvement in a city where 28,000 residents were
arrested for weed last year  86 percent of them black or Hispanic
wasting nearly $75 million in taxpayer funds to adjudicate. But top
drug reformers warn that New York’s system is far from fixed.

Unlike an open-container violation, a ticket for pot possession can’t
be resolved by paying a fine by mail. Violations require a court
appearance  and historically, about 25 percent of residents don’t
show up for their court dates, resulting in a bench warrant for their arrest.

Worse, police do not collect racial data when issuing citations,
making future disparities harder to track. “There’s still a sneaky,
insidious aspect to the de Blasio reform,” says Nadelmann.

For opponents of the Drug War, prospects are bright for 2016. Any
rational examination of the experiments in Washington and Colorado
leads to one conclusion, says Holcomb of the ACLU: “The sky didn’t
fall.” In Colorado, legal pot has brought in close to $19 million in
tax revenue  and few other discernible changes.
Harvard professor Jeffrey Miron, the director of economic studies at
the Cato Institute, released a working paper in October revealing
that essentially none of the harms opponents claimed would accompany
legalization have materialized. Even pot use itself in Colorado has
hardly budged.
Assuming the rollout of commercial cannabis is similarly banal elsewhere, 2016, with its younger, more progressive electorate, could produce a wave of legalization victories.
The Marijuana Policy Project is targeting ballot measures in five
states: California, Maine, Massachusetts, Arizona and Nevada.
Nadelmann, whose Drug Policy Alliance provides funding and legal
support for state initiatives, suggests that even Missouri could be
on the table. “What I tell the activists is: Show me 55 percent in
favor and a significant edge of those who feel strongly about this
issue,” he says, “and I’ll look at any state.”

The biggest story for 2016 is shaping up to be California - where
full legalization of marijuana now has an air of destiny.

The state’s next-generation leadership is already moving out in front
of the issue. Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom has come out forcefully  “It’s
time to legalize, it’s time to tax, it’s time to regulate marijuana
for adults in California,” he has said  as a step toward ending the
War on Drugs, which he describes as “a war on people of color, and a
war on poor people.” Even the state’s Attorney General, Kamala
Harris, admitted in November that she does not oppose pot
legalization and sees it as “inevitable.”

A successful legalization vote in California, advocates believe,
would force a national reckoning on marijuana law  and a cultural
tipping point similar to what we’ve seen in the acceptance of gay
marriage. “When California goes in 2016, that will be the
determinative moment,” says Holcomb. “I don’t think Congress can
ignore the issue.” In the December spending bill, Congress took the
historic step of blocking the Justice Department from busting
state-level medical-marijuana operations. Similar protections,
Holcomb says, could be extended to state-legal commercial pot.

Legal weed on the West Coast, from Calexico to Kodiak Island, would
also give cover to governments in states without ballot initiatives
places like Rhode Island, Vermont and Hawaii  to begin passing
tax-and-regulate through the normal legislative process.

California remains a challenge, in part because the current
quasi-legality of pot robs the issue of urgency for some consumers,
while the state’s larger medical-marijuana business may fight reforms
that would bring an influx of commercial competition. For longtime
activists, the biggest danger is that a sense of inevitability  75
percent of Americans believe weed will be legalized nationally  may
translate to complacency. “One of my greatest challenges is to guard
against overconfidence,” says Nadelmann. “This is not yet a lock.”

Democrats would do well to get as many states as possible on the
legalization bandwagon.

This past November, marijuana provided a strong updraft for blue
candidates: In Oregon, pro-pot voters went three-to-one in favor of
incumbent Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley, who beat his Republican
challenger  a charismatic pediatric neurosurgeon  with a comfortable
56 percent of the vote. Merkley became the first senator to vote,
himself, for legal marijuana, telling reporters his decision was
based on justice reform: “We spend a lot of money on our
criminal-justice system in the wrong places,” he said.

In Alaska, the marijuana initiative appeared to give Democratic Sen.
Mark Begich a fighting chance in what might otherwise have been a
red-state rout. Pro-pot votes swung for Begich 71 to 29. He didn’t
win, but Begich kept the margin close enough that his concession
speech didn’t come until 13 days after election night.

The Alaskan waged a much closer battle than blue-state Senate
candidates in places like North Carolina. Had pot been on the ballot
in the Tar Heel State in 2014, Kay Hagan might still be a U.S. senator.
The issue of pot could prove more complicated on the presidential
stage in 2016, where the big question, says Holcomb, is: “Will
Democrats grab the issue as strongly as Rand Paul?”

Among likely 2016 contenders, of either party, the Kentucky senator
is the most progressive on marijuana.
He’s sponsored legislation to make medical marijuana fully legal in states that have adopted it. In the last election, Paul championed the right of D.C. voters to decide on legalization for themselves.
Paul has also been a vocal advocate for decriminalization, decrying
the practice of booking kids for cannabis. “I don’t want to encourage
people to do it,” he has said. “I think even marijuana is a bad thing
to do. But I also don’t want to put people in jail who make a mistake.”
If Paul were to face off in a contest with Hillary Clinton, pot could
emerge as an unlikely wedge issue for the Republican  particularly in
libertarian-leaning swing states like Arizona and Nevada, where
legalization initiatives are expected.
That’s because Clinton has continued to talk like a 1990s drug
warrior, recently fretting over the dangers of marijuana edibles to
children in Colorado, and even declaring that “the feds should be
attuned to the way that marijuana is still used as a gateway drug.”

The political logic here is not mysterious. White male independents
those most open to a Paul candidacy  are firmly in the legalization
camp. (In Oregon, this slice of the electorate voted 65 percent to
tax and regulate.) Female voters, Clinton’s base, are generally more hesitant.

A 2014 CBS poll found that majority support for legalization
nationally had a strong gender gap, with just 46 percent of women
saying they support commercial pot.

Regardless of the final presidential matchup, pot initiatives in
battleground states will make it impossible for the 2016 candidates
to ignore, or to simply laugh off, the marijuana issue as they’ve
done so often in the past, says Tom Angell, chairman of the advocacy
group Marijuana Majority. “The road to the White House,” he says,
“travels through legal-marijuana territory.”
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
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