Synthetic marijuana has already killed 4 people, while the natural herbal form has never killed anyone. See Does the pot pill work?

There is Hope for 2012 ~ Rocky Anderson is running for President, and supports medical marijuana, ending the drug war, and an improved Medicare for all ~ leaving no one out. He also doesn’t think much of Mitt.

Go here for a selection of his recent TV appearances.

Vote Rocky

Rocky’s Wikipedia page

Rocky on Twitter

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MontanaPBS’s new documentary, Clearing the Smoke, reveals how cannabis acts on the brain and in the body to treat nausea, pain, epilepsy and potentially even cancer. Extensive interviews with patients, doctors, researchers and skeptics detail the promises and the limitations of medicinal cannabis.

If you’re in a hurry, here is a shorter version which aired on PBS Newshour:

Source: Huffington Post

President Obama came into office promising to reverse George W. Bush administration practices and elevate science over politics. He explicitly applied that principle to drug policy, an area long driven by ideology and prejudice. He quickly began to make good on the pledge by promoting three evidence-based drug policies: eliminating the ban on states using federal funding for syringe exchange programs to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS and hepatitis; reforming the racially unjust crack-cocaine sentencing disparity that punished crack offenses more harshly than powder offenses; and vowing to end years of federal interference in the implementation of state medical marijuana laws.

But as a recent L.A. Times article makes dismayingly clear, the White House is putting the “science-free zone” sign back up.

Two weeks ago, the U.S. Department of Justice issued medical marijuana guidelines to U.S. attorneys that are at best confusing and at worst a flip-flop on administration policy. The department’s much-heralded 2009 memo on the subject fulfilled candidate Obama’s campaign promise and established a principle that federal resources would not be wasted prosecuting medical marijuana patients and providers who are in “clear and unambiguous compliance” with state medical marijuana laws. The department’s update reiterates that the feds won’t target individual medical marijuana patients but might bust large-scale, commercial medical marijuana providers. The memo unequivocally threatens federal prosecution of large-scale medical marijuana providers even if they are in compliance with state law, a significant step away from the principle at the heart of the 2009 policy. Disturbingly, the new “clarification” doesn’t explain what the federal government considers to be the line between small and large-scale production — likely an attempt to slow state-sponsored medical marijuana distribution programs while sowing anxiety and confusion for patients.

Most recently, the Drug Enforcement Administration rejected a formal citizen petition filed nine years ago to reschedule marijuana to make it available for medical use. When the DEA considered a similar petition during the Reagan administration, the agency’s administrative law judge concluded, “Marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people.” The Obama administration’s rejection of the petition claims marijuana “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States … lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision… [and] has a high potential for abuse.” Lest one think the DEA’s ruling is just law enforcement run amok, the White House released its 2011 National Drug Control Strategy earlier this week, calling marijuana ”addictive and unsafe.” That document devotes five pages attacking marijuana legalization and medical marijuana.

The administration’s disconnect from science is shocking. A federally commissioned study by the Institute of Medicine more than a decade ago determined that nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety “all can be mitigated by marijuana.” The esteemed medical journal the Lancet Neurology reports that marijuana’s active components “inhibit pain in virtually every experimental pain paradigm.” The National Cancer Institute, part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, notes that marijuana may help withnausea, loss of appetite, pain and insomnia. Sixteen states and the District of Columbia, home to 90 million Americans, have adopted laws allowing the medical use of marijuana to treat AIDS, cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and other ailments. The federal government itself cultivates and supplies marijuana to a handful of patients through its “compassionate-use investigative new drug program,” which was established in 1978 but closed to new patients in 1992.

Marijuana use, like any drug, certainly carries risks. When it comes to policy, however, these risks should be weighed against the harms associated with current marijuana laws. It is notable that every comprehensive, objective government commission that has examined marijuana throughout the past 100 years has concluded that criminalization of adult marijuana use does more harm than marijuana use itself. Moreover, the risks associated with marijuana use are demonstrably far less than those associated with Oxycontin, methamphetamine, morphine and other drugs currently available for medical use. It defies not just science but common sense for the Obama administration to be so aggressively anti-marijuana, especially for medical use.

It is not too late to reverse this science-phobic trend. The Department of Justice’s recent medical marijuana guidance is vague enough that the administration can clarify it intends to scrutinize only massive, rogue medical marijuana operations and that the DEA won’t waste resources going after most providers in most states. The administration should clearly support responsible state and local regulations designed to make marijuana legally available to patients while enhancing public safety and health. If the federal government is unable to provide leadership in this area, then the very least it can do is get out of the way and allow local governments to determine the policies that best serve their interests. The president who promised change rooted in rational reflection shouldn’t stand in the way of it.

This piece was co-written by Stephen Gutwillig, California State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Bill Piper is Director of National Affairs of the Drug Policy Alliance.

This article first appeared in the L.A. times on July 14th.

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Judge Gray on the 6 groups that benefit from the war on drugs:

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This is the US government's own medical marijuana farm.

Without medical marijuana, Scott Rozman swears, he wouldn’t be alive today.

At 30, Rozman was the youngest documented case of teratoma and angiosarcoma, a rare and aggressive cancer that his doctors treated in the middle of his chest with equally aggressive rounds of chemotherapy. The chemo was so intense that he would throw up 40 to 50 times a day during treatment, unable to keep any food down. He lost 60 pounds during the first two months alone, making him potentially too weak to finish out his treatment

“The doctors thought I was a dead man,” Rozman, now 46 and a life coach in Guttenberg, N.J., said.

But then Mary Jane came into his life.

As a last-ditch effort, his doctors prescribed him marijuana because of its purported ability to stave off chemotherapy nausea. Not only was he able to keep food down again, the marijuana calmed him and helped him cope psychologically with the harrowing experience of the chemotherapy sessions. Weed had done for Rozman what no traditional anti-nausea medication could.

The Department of Justice’s Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), however, would beg to differ.

Although 16 states recognize marijuana as a drug with important medicinal properties, the DEA has shot down a petition to reclassify marijuana as such, citing that it has “no accepted medical use.” The result is that marijuana will remain within the strictest categorization of restricted substances, alongside heroin and LSD.

“As a doctor and medical researcher, I find the DEA’s decision unfortunate,” said Dr. Igor Grant, a neuropsychiatrist and director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California-San Diego. “It looks like they underplayed what positive information there is in the literature about marijuana. This policy is guided more by certain kinds of beliefs in the dangers of marijuana, at the expense of advance of medical knowledge for patients.”

The DEA’s refusal, laid out in a June 21 letter from DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart to the organizations who filed the petition back in 2002, marks yet another bump in the road for patients, doctors and activists fighting for improved access to what they deem a vitally therapeutic medication.

“The statement ‘it has no accepted medical use‘ is simply wrong as a statement of fact,” said Rob MacCoun, psychologist and professor of Law and Public Policy at University of California Berkeley Law School. “There is now considerable evidence showing medical benefits, at or exceeding standards of evidence for many other pharmaceuticals. Prescribing physicians in over a dozen states clearly see an accepted medical value for their patients.”

Americans for Safe Access, one of the organizations petitioning the DEA, already has plans to appeal the decision, taking the federal government to court, and if necessary, the Supreme Court, in order to argue for the medicinal value of marijuana.

“Frankly, we’re ready to go head to head with the Obama administration on this issue,” said Kris Hermes, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access. “We have science on our side and we’re hopeful the court will see it that way.”

Calls made to the DEA for comment were not returned.

Why Reclassify?

The original petition sent to the DEA in 2002 called for reclassifying marijuana into schedule III, IV, or V, all of which would acknowledge its potential for medical use and place its threat as a potentially harmful and/or addictive substance as less severe than class I and II drugs such as heroine, cocaine, amphetamines and morphine.

Such a change means that marijuana would remain a controlled substance, but that its use in medical contexts would not be considered illegal under federal law, as is the case now.

It would also make it easier for studies on marijuana’s medicinal properties to take place. Grant of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research said that even with federal compliance with his research on medicinal marijuana, each study takes at least a year to even garner approval because of all the regulatory red tape surrounding use of a schedule I drug in trials.

Berkeley’s MacCoun said, “Schedule I is a barrier to research and to physician practice. Under federal law, it precludes physician prescriptions, putting state and federal laws in conflict for [those] states that have legalized medical marijuana.”

War on Medicinal Marijuana?

The DEA’s decision comes on the coattails of another move by the Department of Justice to reinforce federal restrictions on marijuana. U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole released a memo June 29 that reaffirms the department of justice’s right and intention to prosecute large-scale medical marijuana cultivation operations and dispensaries even in states where they are operating in compliance with state laws.

The Cole memo purportedly “clarifies” the landmark memo written in 2009 by then Deputy Attorney General David Ogden, which suggested that the DOJ would not bother to prosecute those involved in state-sanctioned medicinal marijuana distribution.

Cole’s clarification puts everyone from growers to pro-medicinal marijuana public officials within the DOJ’s sights for prosecution. Only patients with prescriptions escape possible legal action from the government.

This regulatory dance emerges because the states that allow medicinal marijuana are in conflict with the federal drug laws that criminalize possession of marijuana, regardless of its intended use and these federal laws trump those of the states.

Obama campaigned with the promise not to interfere with states’ rights in this area, so the Cole memo has been seen by marijuana advocates as the administration’s backpedalling in response to the rapid proliferation of cannabis providers and distributors cropping up in recent years.

“The government’s position is very clear,” Hermes said. “The number of raids on medical marijuana distributors is staggering, far beyond what the Bush administration was doing. And because the federal government won’t acknowledge marijuana as a medicinal substance, those arrested have absolutely no defense they can bring in federal court.”

Hermes said be believes the “whole point” of the Cole memo was to create a “culture of fear” among growers, distributors, and patients.

Mitch Woolhiser, 43, happens to be all three. Diagnosed with seizure disorder in 1995, the medicinal marijuana distributor from Edgewater, Colo., got his prescription after reading studies suggesting that marijuana has anti-seizure properties.

He was able to wean himself slowly off the seizure meds that were straining his liver and today, years later, is seizure free. Now he provides medicinal-grade marijuana for at least 100 regular customers in the Denver area.

“The Ogden memo kind of opened the floodgates here in Colorado and that’s what brought people into the industry of distributing marijuana, including me,” he said. “It’s very regulated, we do lab tests for THC levels [the major active compound in cannabis] and that makes everything more regulated for the patients.

“But if you go after the distributors, you’re really just hurting the patients,” he said. “You’re taking away their ability to safely and conveniently get their medicine, and instead pushing them to buy it on the street.”

Comment from source:

I’m alive today because of marijuana; probably to the chagrin of the DEA. I’m sure they don’t like reading negative things about their organization in the blogs I’ve participated in.Seriously, about 25 years ago I was feeling very suicidal and if not for finding mental relief by smoking marijuana I’m sure I would have killed myself. One more thing I’d like to add as far as medical benefits are concerned is that my Doctor says I am in excellent health. I’m 55 years old and have been using cannabis since age 15. I’ve never had any problems with the law beyond a couple of speeding tickets. I am an ex-marine and worked many years in computer electronics and programming. You have to wonder why the DEA would want to lock up someone like me. I’m a good American! I’m not unlike many thousands that have been locked up because of prohibition. This failed policy should be repealed immediately and the DEA should have its assets kicked for all the pain and suffering they have needlessly caused. Let us not forgot that the last 3 Presidents of the United States smoked marijuana; although Bill Clinton doesn’t admit to inhaling… Even if he didn’t, he certainly had friends that did!!!

Raw Story  Just days after the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) insisted that there is no medical value to marijuana, the White House appeared to contradict the position, saying in a report that there may actually be “some” medical value to “individual components of the cannabis plant” after all.

The statement was just a small part of the Office on National Drug Control Policy’s yearly update on the progress of the drug war and its goals moving forward. Overall, the document only serves to affirm the federal prohibition of marijuana and what it calls “‘medical’ marijuana,” which it still views as illegitimate.

But a single passage, under their “facts about marijuana,” seems to loosen a bit from the generation-old line that there is no value to cannabis whatsoever.

“While there may be medical value for some of the individual components of the cannabis plant, the fact remains that smoking marijuana is an inefficient and harmful method for delivering the constituent elements that have or may have medicinal value,” the report says.

Still, today’s medical marijuana patients and proprietors don’t have much to cheer in the report, as it goes on to insist that smoking the marijuana plant itself is harmful and dangerous, especially for teens, and perpetuates the largely discredited “gateway drug” theory.

Critics are likely to see the passage as offering a bit of wiggle room for major pharmesutical producers looking to grow marijuana to extract its psychoactive ingredient, THC, or other cannabinoid compounds that have been demonstrated to help abate symptoms of some chronic diseases, like wasting syndrome in AIDS patients or nausea in cancer patients.

In 2007, GW Pharmaceuticals announced that it partnered with Otsuka to bring “Sativex” — or liquefied marijuana — to the U.S. The companies recently completed Phase II efficacy and safety trials testing and began discussion with the FDA for Phase III testing. Phase III is generally thought to be the final step before the drug can be marketed in the U.S.

Sativex is the brand name for a drug derived from cannabis sativa. It’s an extract from the whole plant cannabis, not a synthetic compound. Even GW defines the drug (.pdf) as marijuana.

Yet as the FDA is poised to approve the drug for Big Pharma, state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries that provide relief for thousands of Americans are under attack by other federal agencies.

The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) has warned just as much, claiming that federal authorities may be looking to shift policy slightly, if only to legalize marijuana-based medicines for Big Pharma only, which could step in and  potentially eradicate the medical marijuana market.

The Obama administration said in a recent memo that it fully intends to enforce the federal ban on marijuana, regardless of whether individual states have legalized its use for medical purposes.

It added that a 2009 memo, which seemed to take the pressure off state-authorized medical marijuana clinics and patients, was merely a guidance on the best uses of federal funds and not actually a change in policy.

An ABC News poll found last year that eight in 10 Americans favor legalizing medical marijuana.

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CNN Editor’s note: Gary Johnson is a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination and served as governor of New Mexico from 1994-2003.

(CNN) – In 2002, I became aware of a woman who had already served more than six years of a 25-year prison sentence. Her crime? She was addicted to codeine, and she had fraudulently written herself more than 100 prescriptions for Tylenol III.

It seemed to me that this woman had already served far too much time in prison — in fact, more than a person would likely serve if convicted of second-degree murder — so I used my authority as governor of New Mexico to release her.

This sort of real-life example might have been difficult to envision 40 years ago, when President Richard Nixon publicly declared his intention to wage “a new, all-out offensive” against drugs. Back then, many Americans believed that tougher enforcement of drug laws would put an end to drug abuse in the United States once and for all.

But some, even within his own party, thought Nixon was going too far by involving the federal government in personal, private behavior. Raymond Shafer, for example, was the former Republican governor of Pennsylvania and Nixon’s choice to lead his handpicked National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. Composed almost entirely of anti-drug conservatives, this commission was expected to issue a report supporting Nixon’s new policies.

However, that isn’t what happened. When the commission released its report in 1972, it recommended, in particular, against the criminalization of marijuana, arguing as follows: “The criminal law is too harsh a tool to apply to personal possession even in the effort to discourage use… the actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion of the law into private behavior, a step which our society takes only with the greatest reluctance.”

This report received little media attention, and unfortunately, it had no impact on public policy. By the mid-1980s, virtually 100% of elected politicians from both parties supported the war on drugs in its entirety. Intellectual arguments against prohibition, however, did not die with the Shafer Commission.

William F. Buckley and Milton Friedman, two of the most respected conservative intellectuals of the late 20th century, were among the drug war’s high-profile critics. These great thinkers did not argue that recreational drug use should be celebrated — far from it! Instead, they argued that the prohibition of drugs was causing far greater harm to society than drug abuse itself. And they were right.

When I ran for governor of New Mexico in 1994, I promised to bring a common-sense business approach to government. Everything was going to be a cost-benefit analysis — how much of taxpayers’ money are we spending, and what are we getting for the money we spend?

As governor, I was astonished to learn that half of what we were spending on law enforcement, courts and prisons was drug-related, and yet illegal drugs were cheaper, stronger and more available than ever. After further study, it became obvious to me that the drug war had created a lucrative black market and was enriching and empowering violent gangs and cartels. In many ways, it was like alcohol prohibition all over again, with similarly disastrous results.

I decided I simply couldn’t allow the status quo to continue unchallenged, so in 1999 I became an advocate for legalizing marijuana and adopting harm reduction strategies for dealing with abuse of harder drugs (including prescriptions). I’ve been making these arguments ever since, and in recent months they have been resonating more strongly than ever.

The drug reform movement got a big boost last month when an international commission released a report criticizing the war on drugs. The Global Commission on Drug Policy was a 19-member commission that included Kofi Annan, a former U.N. secretary general; George Shultz, President Ronald Reagan’s secretary of state; and Paul Volcker, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve.

The report’s conclusions are clearly stated: “The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world. Fifty years after the initiation of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the U.S. government’s war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed.”

Study these issues and I bet you’ll agree that the Global Commission on Drug Policy is right. The Department of Justice reported that, in 2008, 2.3 million people were in our country’s jails and prisons. Yet it is clearer than ever that the worldwide supply of drugs can never be wiped out — no matter how strongly prohibitions are enforced.

If Republicans are truly serious when they talk about liberty and fiscal responsibility, and if they truly do their homework on the drug war, many will soon join me in my call for rational drug policy reform in the United States.

The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Gary Johnson.

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From Raw Story

Republicans were not the only ones flooding President Barack Obama with questions during his “#AskObama” Twitter town hall; the event also generated a huge response from those opposed to the war on drugs.

Data gathered by TwitSprout showed the most retweeted question for Obama was about the legalization of marijuana.

“Would you consider legalizing marijuana to increase revenue and save tax dollars by freeing up crowded prisons, court rooms?” was retweeted 4911 times, according to the analytics service.

A question about letting the Bush tax cuts expire came in second place, with only 1800 retweets.

Although marijuana legalization was an overwhelmingly popular question with Twitter users, Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who moderated the online town hall, focused on questions pertaining to the economy, education and space exploration.

“#AskObama why they will answer Rep. Boehner’s question, but won’t talk about #CannabisJobs! Legalize it, start a new job creating industry,” the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws complained in tweet, which was itself retweeted more than 100 times.

During his YouTube Q&A in January, Obama was asked what his plan was to help alleviate the detrimental effects of America’s drug war.

He responded by saying that while he’s not in favor of legalization, he did see room for adjusting the drug war to focus less on incarceration and enforcement and more on medical treatment and other forms of interdiction.

The position expressed by President Obama was largely unchanged from 2009, when he told a community driven Q&A that he did not believe legalizing marijuana was a good strategy to grow the economy. He did not, however, crack a joke about the question, calling the debate over drug policy “legitimate.”

With prior reporting by Stephen C. Webster

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Notes:

#6 mentions industrial Hemp, but medicinal use of cannabis goes back to at least 2737 BCE .

#7 is an enormous understatement. Cannabis has never directly killed anyone. We all know someone who has been killed by tobacco. Are the two substances even comparable?

Deputy Atty. Gen. James M. Cole: "The Ogden Memorandum was never intended to shield such activities from federal enforcement and prosecution, even where those activities purport to comply with state law"

Photo: The Washington Examiner

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From RT
Lawmakers in DC will be presented with a bill today that could legalize marijuana across the US. When the legislation is introduced to the House, it will mark the first ever bill proposed to Congress to end federal marijuana prohibition.

Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) are spearheading the legislation, with Reps Steve Cohen (D-TN), John Conyers (D-MI), Jared Polis (D-CO) and Barbara Lee (D-CA) all co-sponsors of the proposal.

Though it is being billed as “bipartisan legislation,” Ron Paul is the only Republican that has so far signed-on. He has made the legalization of marijuana one of the priorities of his 2012 presidential run.

Speaking on Wednesday, Congresswoman Lee said, “The human cost of the failed drug war has been enormous – egregious racial disparities, shattered families, poverty, public health crises, prohibition-related violence, and the erosion of civil liberties.”

Lee added that in the 40 years since President Richard Nixon launched his “war on drugs,” the US has spent over a trillion dollars to incarcerate millions of young people on drug charges.

An average of 800,000 people are arrested each year on marijuana charges.

“I co-sponsored this bipartisan legislation because I believe it is time to turn the page from this failed drug war,” Lee added.

Speaking to LA Weekly, former cop and head of law Enforcement Against Prohibition Neill Franklin says, “Making marijuana illegal hasn’t prevented anyone from using it, but it has created a huge funding source that funnels billions of dollars in tax-free profits to violent drug cartels and gangs.”

“More and more cops now agree: Legalizing marijuana will improve public safety.”

If legislation passes, the federal government will still be able to enforce cross-border and inter-state smuggling, however, they will have no say in the growing or selling or marijuana in the states that allow it.

Sixteen states across America and the District of Columbia have so far legalized marijuana usage for medical purposes, but the planting, selling and commercial distribution of pot is still a federal crime.

Earlier this month authorities raided five medical marijuana dispensaries in Fresno County, California, leaving many patients with legitimate pot prescriptions smoking mad.

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LAGUNA WOODS, Calif. — Source: Seattle Times June 11, 2011

Joe Schwartz is a 90-year-old great-grandfather of three who enjoys a few puffs of pot each night before he crawls into bed in the Southern California retirement community he calls home.

The World War II veteran and stroke sufferer smokes the drug to alleviate debilitating nausea and is one of about 150 senior citizens on this sprawling, 18,000-person gated campus who belongs to a thriving – and controversial – medical marijuana collective operating in the middle of one of the largest retirement communities in the United States.

The fledgling collective mirrors a nationwide trend as more and more senior citizens turn to marijuana, legal or not, to ease the aches and pains of aging. But in Laguna Woods Village, tucked in the heart of one of the most conservative and wealthiest counties in California, these ganja-smoking grandparents have stirred up a heated debate with their collective, attracting a crackdown from within the self-governed community.

Many members of the 2-year-old collective keep a low profile, but others grow seedlings on their patios and set up workshops to show other seniors how to turn the marijuana leaves into tea, milk and a vapor that can be inhaled for relief from everything from chemotherapy-related nausea to multiple sclerosis to arthritis.

The most recent project involves getting collective members to plant 40 seeds from experimental varieties of marijuana that are high in a compound said to have anti-inflammatory properties best suited for elderly ailments. The tiny plastic vials, each containing 10 seeds, are stamped with names like “Sour Tsunami.”

Under California law, people with a variety of conditions, from migraines to cancer, can get a medical marijuana card with a doctor’s recommendation and join a pot collective to get what they need. All the members of Laguna Woods Village’s collective have medical marijuana cards and are legal users under state law, but the drug is still banned under federal law.

Lonnie Painter, the collective’s president and perhaps most activist member, worries daily about his high-profile position within the tiny community of pot users. The 65-year-old grandfather supplements regular painkillers with marijuana tea for osteoarthritis and keeps stacks of marijuana collective applications on a desk in the living room, just a few feet from the Lego bricks his 7-year-old grandson plays with on his frequent visits.

“We’ve got people who don’t like it here, they don’t like marijuana and they still have that `communism’ and `perversion’ and `killer weed’ attitude,” said Painter, who has shoulder-length gray hair, a white goatee and wears several gold necklaces. “What I get more worried about is myself getting put in jail. If you were just a patient you’d be safe, but if you are active and involved in any way in making it available for others, the federal government can come and scoop you up.”

In the first two years of the collective’s life, however, Painter and other members have had more trouble from their fellow residents than from the government.

When things first got under way, Painter and three others were growing about two dozen plants with names like Super Silver Haze in the Laguna Woods Village community garden. Photos show his 800-square-foot plot overflowing with marijuana plants taller than a grown man butting up against the staked tomatoes and purple flowering clematis of other gardeners.

But the Golden Rain Foundation, the all-volunteer board that governs the community, cracked down and prohibited the cultivation of marijuana on all Laguna Woods Village property. The vote followed the report of the theft of two marijuana plants, tangerines and a rake and shovel from the community garden, according to meeting minutes of the Community Activities Committee’s Garden Center Advisory Group.

The foundation, which maintains the 3-square-mile community’s 153 acres of golf courses, seven clubhouses and other amenities, adopted the policy late last year after a lengthy legal review.

“We thought that it was not proper. It sets a precedent. Our gardens are for flowers and vegetables, and that’s all, and it’s been that way since 1964 or 1965 when this was started,” said Howard Feichtmann, who was chairman of the Garden Advisory Group. “We thought that’s what it should remain and not get involved with medical marijuana or anything else that is considered on the fringe.”

Those with medical marijuana cards can still grow the state limit of six mature plants per person in their private residences.

Susan Margolis, who sat on the Garden Center Advisory Group, said the debate has divided people along generational lines in a community where the average age is 78 but new residents can move in at 55. She estimated that up to 10 of her younger neighbors take medical pot for ailments but said many older residents are fiercely opposed.

“This did stir up a lot of feelings,” said Margolis, 67, who said those opposed the public pot plots had valid safety concerns. “There are a lot of people that have never used marijuana and there are younger people who have used marijuana who say, `Come on now, this is just ridiculous.’”

After the vote, the collective had to rip its plants out and has struggled to produce the pot it needs for its members.

At first, the senior citizens tried to run their own grow site by creating a greenhouse in a rented facility off-site, but they lost thousands of dollars of crop when someone plugged a grow light into the wrong outlet, giving the plants 24 hours of light a day during the critical flowering period instead of 12 hours. Then, they gave seedlings to a grower operating a greenhouse in Los Angeles, but that ended just as badly: The place was busted by police, and all the plants were confiscated and destroyed.

Now, a fellow Laguna Woods Village resident and collective member recently started growing for the group in two off-site greenhouses whose location Painter and others declined to provide. The all-organic supply is distributed to members on a sliding scale, from $35 an ounce to about $200 an ounce based on ability to pay and need. Many members also grow their legal limit of six seedlings on private patios or in space-age looking indoor tents designed to coddle the growing weed.

The collective’s website, which includes three albums of photos of the pot plants growing alongside regular produce, dresses down the community’s board members for the collective’s rocky path, calling them “ill-informed, intolerant tyrants” who have violated members’ rights.

“It’s just so difficult and it shouldn’t be because it makes me feel like I’m doing something criminal but I’m not,” said Barbara Ayala, a Laguna Woods Village resident and collective member who says she received nasty emails when she organized a daylong medical marijuana workshop. “I’m only trying to provide people with medicine … that is the best quality that we can provide.”

From Democracy Now:

A high-level international panel has concluded the so-called “war on drugs” has failed and that governments should consider legalizing substances, including marijuana. The Global Commission on Drug Policy is comprised of 19 members, including several former heads of state. The Office of National Drug Control Policy at the White House has refuted the findings of the commission’s report. We speak to Dr. Gabor Maté, a Canadian physician and bestselling author of four books, including In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. “On any level you care to name, the war on drugs is a failure,” Dr. Maté says.

From RT:

A report by the Global Commission on Drug Policy concluded the global war on drugs has been an abysmal failure and that governments should consider legalizing marijuana and other controlled substances.

The commission, made up of experts, former heads of state, a former UN secretary-general, and business moguls, found that the drug war has done more harm than good.

“[The] global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world,” the report said. “Political leaders and public figures should have the courage to articulate publicly what many of them acknowledge privately: that the evidence overwhelmingly demonstrates that repressive strategies will not solve the drug problem, and that the war on drugs has not, and cannot, be won.”

The commission is made up of 19 members, boasting such individuals as former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan and Ronald Reagan administration and Richard Nixon administration official George P. Schultz. Others include former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker, and former presidents of Mexico, Brazil and Colombia, business mogul Richard Branson and George Papandreou, the current prime minister of Greece.

The report argued that governments should end the criminalization of some substances and/or decriminalize them as opposed to punishing those who use controlled substances at no harm to others. Nations should experiment with legal models that undermine organized crime, but legalize drugs and allow for health and treatment services for drug-users in need of such services. It argued that legalization would hurt crime and helping users as opposed to criminalizing them is the better methodology.

The overall position of the report was for governments to seek new approaches to drug usage that cuts down on crime but improves overall societal health and economic wellbeing – legalization options, they found, were the best way forward. Much of the report targeted the United States, citing America’s anti-drug policies are particularly harmful. The US must lead the change in global policy by changing it’s own laws, the commission report indicated.

“We hope this country [the US] at least starts to think there are alternatives,” former Colombian president Cesar Gaviria told The Associated Press. “We don’t see the U.S. evolving in a way that is compatible with our [countries'] long-term interests.”

The White House has already scoffed at the report, ruling out its recommendations. Gil Kerlikowske, the Obama administrations drug czar called the report ‘misguided’.

“Drug addiction is a disease that can be successfully prevented and treated. Making drugs more available – as this report suggests – will make it harder to keep our communities healthy and safe,” Rafael Lemaitre, spokesperson for the US Office of National Drug Control Policy, reiterated.

The US Office of National Drug Control Policy claimed current US laws and drug policy approaches are working, regardless of what the report shows. Lemaitre argued that US drug use is down compared to 30 years ago – a sign the office cites as success – even though the report was on global drug use and the US backed global war on drugs, not merely US consumption.

The commission report found that global opiate usage rose 34.5 percent, with cocaine up by 27 percent. The use of cannabis or marijuana climbed 8.5 percent.

Related articles

• Global Drug Panel Says War on Drugs a Failure (theworld.org)
• Panel: Global drug war has utterly failed (salon.com)
• Organized crime has won the war on drugs (cnn.com)
• Major panel: Drug war failed; legalize marijuana (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• Global war on drugs has ‘failed’ say former leaders (bbc.co.uk)

Recorded at Professor Chomsky’s office at MIT on April 14, 2009.

Filed under: cigarettes ]]> http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2011/06/06/obama-cigarettes-and-marijuana-with-noam-chomsky/feed/ 2 editors http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/but-remember-marijuana-is-not-medicine/ http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2011/06/05/but-remember-marijuana-is-not-medicine/#comments Sun, 05 Jun 2011 22:08:58 +0000 99% http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/?p=4847 ]]>

Source: REASON Magazine
Jacob Sullum | May 25, 2011

MSNBC – August 18, 2010

CNN – “Marijuana is a lot safer than alcohol” – April 11, 2011 (listen at 5:04)

Hannity interview – May 27, 2011 (listen at 13:48)

“The situation with drugs is that it is ALWAYS made worse by making them illegal.”

“From my own experience, marijuana is safer than alcohol.”

“Citizen’s are ahead of the politicians on this issue, but it’s still gonna happen.”

“People seem to be embracing this notion of, ‘Gee [prohibition is] not working, we’ve really got to do something different’.”

“This is a health issue, not a criminal justice issue.”

“When half of what we spend on law enforcement, on prisons, and on courts is drug-related, that’s a waste of money.”

- Gary Johnson

Editor’s note: The level of cannabinoids in the system that would cause impairment similar to alcohol would need to be determined.  Simply testing for any presence of THC would land you in jail for smoking a month ago!

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Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Dr. Mechoulam describes the role of Cannabinoids as anti-inflammatory for arthritis, as neuroprotectant for brain injury and as a possible treatment for PTSD. Dr. Mechoulam first isolated THC in 1964.
Conference hosted by Patients Out of Time. DVDs are available.
http://MedicalCannabis.com

As a sign that reefer madness may be subsiding; attitudes about the criminalization of marijuana may be changing among the elders of our society, as the more than 70 million of the baby boomer generation, one to widely experiment with recreational drug use, have and will become grandparents.

GRAND Magazine, the online magazine for today’s grandparents, released today results from their poll question which appeared in the March/April issue. It asked readers if it was time to legalize marijuana. 85% responded that they agreed it was.

The pot proponents argued that it is hypocritical to outlaw pot when cigarettes, alcohol and fat-laden foods are legal but account for so many health issues among our population. They point out that marijuana is used to treat medical symptoms such as pain and nausea, and that in some states it is legal for shops to dispense medical marijuana. The billions that are spent in the U.S. on policing and courts related to this issue could be spent on better schools or infrastructure.

Circa the 1960s began a time with widespread experimentation with many recreational drugs. Grandparents who are part of the baby boomer generation (those born from 1946 to 1964) have a unique perspective on marijuana, having come of age during a time when pot use became mainstream. 21st century grandparents are a group with a growing influence on the country’s youth as 5,000 adults each day in the U.S. becomes a grandparent, and are the primary caregivers for nearly 6 million children. In fact 75 percent of all non-parental care of children is provided by a grandparent, representing a large shift in family dynamics. Now it seems that as they guide and influence new generations, they view marijuana use increasingly as a harmless indulgence rather than a gateway to a lifetime of drug abuse.

Among the reader response comments were:

“I am a grandparent strongly in favor of decriminalization. I would much rather my grandkids smoke pot than use cigarettes or alcohol. I expect I will need cannabis for my health soon and don’t want (it) to be illegal. The whole charade needs to stop; we are blowing far too much money on the drug war and have no positive results to show for it. The whole approach is counterproductive,” said D.W., Guysville, OH.

“I am a grandparent of a 17 year-old granddaughter who has been struggling with drug addiction since she was 14 years old. I believe that marijuana is a gateway drug and it has always been her reluctance to give up pot that has brought her back again and again to more dangerous drugs. I understand that the same arguments that have been used for years with the responsible adult consumption of alcohol apply to responsible adult use of pot. … I would vote against legal sale of marijuana…,” said A.C.

To read additional reader responses, click here

The link to the page in the GRAND magazine March/April online edition op-ed reader poll that asks, ‘Is it time to legalize marijuana?’ is: http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/grand/20110304_v3/index.php#/51/OnePage

Related articles

• Obama Courts Old Republican Church Ladies (reason.com)
• Connecticut Shows Overwhelming Support for Medical Marijuana and Decriminalization – Change in Law Could Come Soon (justsaynow.firedoglake.com)
• The One Thing That Baby Boomers Got Right (themoderatevoice.com)
• SJC: Police can’t order motorists from car because of marijuana scent (boston.com)
• Medical-marijuana outlets out with bill (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• The 5 “Highest” Countries In The World [MARIJUANA] (coedmagazine.com)
• “Willie Nelson’s prosecutor wants to see marijuana decriminalized” and related posts (alterx.blogspot.com)
• Jamaica government to weigh pot decriminalization (sfgate.com)

Image via Wikipedia

Reprinted with permission from the author. Source: Current

My name is Michael Dancheck; I am a 40 year old Network Engineer that has been recently disabled due to severe nerve pain caused from overuse of my right arm. I also happen to fall into the 1% – 4% of people that experience serious side effects from all of the medications that can help alleviate my pain. I found that on occasion marijuana would help with several of my symptoms and didn’t understand why it didn’t work all of the time. I immersed myself in the subject and began extensive research. I was intrigued by all the information I found and taught myself how to cultivate legally under Colorado law. I want the public to understand all I have learned about marijuana and my thoughts of why the FDA really wants to keep this plant illegal.

What does not make sense to me is that the marijuana plant is deemed as having NO medicinal value by the FDA. Through my research, I found each strain has a different chemical composition which is why we experience different effects with each one. Marijuana is mostly comprised of THC, Cannabinoids, and Flavonoids. THC helps to relieve pain and has psychoactive properties. Cannabinoids have different effects for each type ranging from: pain relief, nausea relief, anxiety relief. One type, CBN, shrinks and kills tumors. Flavonoids are proven to protect against heart disease.

Currently, the drug companies are producing Marinol which is 100% THC. Why does the FDA allow them to make this drug if the plant has no medicinal value? Now, they are trying to synthetically make each type of identified cannabinoid. Their plan is to make several types of pills. Each of which will contain different levels and combinations of THC and Cannabinoids so they can target specific ailments/diseases with each pill.

This brings us to the question which should be presented to the FDA. Why are the drug companies permitted to make Marinol if marijuana is classified as having no medicinal value? Since these drugs are mimicking every element of the marijuana plant why is this plant still illegal? Although you can not patent a plant, you can however patent a process or chemical. As long as this plant remains illegal the drug companies stand to make billions if they can perfect these pills. America deserves to know who’s being paid off

Please consider my story.

Regards,
Mike Dancheck

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Is this the real reason for prohibition?

“When We Grow…This Is What We Can Do” is an educational documentary concerning the facts about cannabis. In this feature length documentary we explore everything there is, from industrial hemp to medicinal cannabis use, from the origins of cannabis prohibition to the legality of growing equipment.
A film by Seth Finegold and presented by Luke Bailey.

Featuring Interviews with:
Professor David Nutt
Peter Reynolds (Head of the Legalize Cannabis Alliance)
Sarah Martin

‘Change we can believe in?’ Not when it comes to medical marijuana policy.

From Alternet April 16 2011

It was just three years ago when President Obama (then candidate Obama) famously pledged to no longer use federal “Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws” regulating the physician authorized use of medical cannabis. And it was in the fall of 2009 that the administration issued the Ogden memorandumto federal prosecutors directing them to not “focus federal resources … on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

Yet in recent days the administration has seen fit to interject itself in the ongoing legislative debate to establish and regulate medical marijuana dispensaries in Washington state. Last week, on the eve of a final House vote regarding Senate Bill 5073, the U.S. attorney for Eastern Washington issued a statement warning landlords that they could face forfeiture of their properties if they rent to licensed medical marijuana facilities. Undeterred, the House passed SB 5073 (the Senate had previously passed an earlier version of the bill), setting up a potential showdown between lawmakers and Democrat Gov. Chris Gregoire.

In an April 14, 2011 letter to Gov. Gregoire from the U.S. Department of Justice, U.S. Attorneys Jenny Durkan of Seattle and Michael Ormsby of Spokane wrote, “[W]e maintain the authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act vigorously against individuals and manufacturing and distribution activity involving marijuana, even if such activities are permitted under state law.”

The letter continues: “The Washington legislative proposals will create a licensing scheme that permits large-scale marijuana cultivation and distribution. This would authorize conduct contrary to federal law. … Accordingly, the Department [of Justice] could consider civil and criminal legal remedies who set up marijuana growing facilities … or who knowingly facilitate the actions of the licensees. … [S]tate employees who conducted activities mandated by the Washington legislative proposals would not be immune from liability under the Controlled Substances Act.”

Predictably, Gov. Gregoire is now shying away from the proposal. As reported by the Seattle Times, the Governor stated “In light of the Department of Justice’s guidance, it is clear that I cannot sign a bill that authorizes our state employees to license marijuana dispensaries when the department would prosecute those involved.” The Times noted that Gregoire “pledged to work with lawmakers on a new proposal.”

Is the Governor using the Feds’ letter as political cover to denounce a measure that she never intended to sign in the first place? Maybe. But the bigger picture is that the federal officials still seem content to selectively interject in the state lawmaking process as it pertains to the medical access to marijuana.

Will the Feds most recent threats have a potential chilling effect on pending legislation in Delaware, Illinois, and Vermont — additional states where lawmakers recently voted in favor of establishing similar state-licensed medical marijuana dispensaries? And what, if anything, do these threats imply for states like Colorado, Maine, New Mexico, and Rhode Island where such facilities have already been authorized by the state? Time will tell, but at present time it’s not looking good.

‘Change we can believe in?’ Not when it comes to medical marijuana policy.

The feds have come down – hard – on the Legislature’s plans to expand medical marijuana far beyond the voters’ original mandate. Marijuana enthusiasts have only themselves to blame.

Gov. Chris Gregoire did the state a favor Wednesday by trying to clarify how the U.S. Department of Justice might react to the free-wheeling dope industry many lawmakers having been pushing to legalize with a new bill.

The two U.S. attorneys who cover Washington quickly spelled out their likely response: fines, property forfeitures, lawsuits and possible criminal prosecutions. Individual state officials might be targeted if they licensed grow operations and dispensaries, as the measure proposes.

Later Thursday, Gregoire said she would veto the legislation as written.

Read the U.S. attorneys’ letter and you’ll see where they’re coming from. The Justice Department, they said, isn’t interested in pursuing “seriously ill individuals who use marijuana as part of a medically recommended treatment regimen in compliance with state law.”

But marijuana profiteers – be they enabling doctors, retailers, wholesalers, processors or growers – are a different story.

In Washington and elsewhere, they have defied both state and federal law to turn medical marijuana into a commercial industry replete with marijuana shops, festive farmers markets and clinics that do nothing but prescribe marijuana – often quite loosely. The City of Tacoma alone has recklessly licensed 35 dispensaries, with seven more on the way.

Thumb your nose at the feds often enough and openly enough, and sooner or later you wind up in their cross hairs. It was foolish to extrapolate the Justice Department’s sympathy for legitimate patients to a tolerance of any kind of trafficking that labeled itself “medical marijuana.”

For lawmakers, it’s back to the drawing board. Sick people who genuinely need marijuana should be able to get it, legally, without having to grow it themselves.

Shared gardens, nonprofit dispensaries and co-ops might not have triggered federal scrutiny if big money hadn’t been changing hands – and they would have reflected the spirit of the 1998 initiative that legalized medical marijuana under tight restrictions.

The state Senate would have addressed some of the federal concerns. Its version of the marijuana bill would have banned for-profit dispensaries and dope docs. It also wouldn’t have forced dispensaries on unwilling cities and counties.

The House bill leaned more toward the Hempfest vision of medical marijuana; it would have licensed profit-driven dispensaries, let medical enablers keep on enabling and forbidden local communities from saying no.

Both bills envisioned large-scale commercial pot farms, which were never going to happen.

Congress ought to amend the Controlled Substance Act to permit bona fide therapeutic use of the cannabinoids in marijuana, which can help patients with a narrow range of medical conditions. But the Justice Department was already permitting such use; it drew the line only after traffickers started operating as if they were immune from the law.
To the extent that “medical marijuana” reflects actual medical practices and controls, it’s not likely to run into trouble. But if the industry walks and talks like a grand drug-dealing scheme, it shouldn’t be surprised to find itself treated like one.

Related Articles

• Obama Administration Warns It May Prosecute State Employees if Gregoire Signs Medical Pot Bill (slog.thestranger.com)
• Feds question drive to revise state medical pot law (seattletimes.nwsource.com)
• DOJ warns of crackdown if Wash. changes pot law (seattletimes.nwsource.com)