• Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Just Say Now! – NORML Conference 2010 Footage Now Available

    The leaves are starting to change color, harvest season is upon us, and fall has officially begun. As the days grow shorter and the temperature gets a bit cooler it is a good time to reflect on the year that was in cannabis law reform.

    2010 turned the steady momentum we had built in previous years and amplified it to a near unstoppable force. Nowhere was the enthusiastic spirit more prevalent than at this years annual NORML Conference in Portland, OR. The theme, “Just Say Now!”, was perfectly encapsulated in both the mood and tone of speakers and attendees. With the addition of states such as New Jersey and the District of Columbia to the list of localities legalizing some form of medical use and Proposition 19 only five weeks from the polling booth, there is much to be optimistic about.

    NORML invites to you visit our site at www.youtube.com/natlnorml and experience some of the conference’s best moments. For now, treat yourself to speeches from show stealers Alice Huffman and Greta Gaines, as well as a recap of the first day of the conference. More will continue to be posted in the coming days.

  • What You Can Do

    Help Fix Our Failed Drug Laws

    You stopped a sneaky drug war expansion! DPA’s work and phone calls from our supporters got Congress to cancel the vote that was scheduled for a bad drug war bill. Now you can help again by urging the Senate to reexamine our criminal justice system. Call Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and urge him to schedule the National Criminal Justice Commission Act for a floor vote!

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Federalism and Medical Marijuana

    Let the states serve as experimental laboratories.

    By Patri Friedman

    Since medical marijuana was legalized in California in 1996, use has been widespread. And once the Obama administration reduced the harassment, the number of dispensaries has grown rapidly. Not that pot was ever that hard to get out West, but it is now fair to say that the “medical” qualification is close to irrelevant.

    So marijuana is now de facto legal in California, requiring only a couple hundred bucks and a short doctor’s visit to become a qualified purchaser. Perhaps as a result, a ballot initiative to fully legalize marijuana is polling at about even odds in the Golden State, and marijuana initiatives are in the pipeline elsewhere.

    Now, any libertarian must raise a cup, pipe, vaporizer (or whatever) to finally seeing a little bit of progress in the demented War On People Who Use Some Kinds Of Drugs. Combined with the resurgence in research on medical uses of psychedelics—which often find positive benefits—it looks like this may be the beginning of a positive shift in America’s drug policy. Slow, partial, and late, but in the right direction.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Hot Off The 'Net

    Public Forum: Where is Marijuana Reform Heading?

    The ACLU-WA presented a discussion on the history, current status, and future of marijuana-law reform in Washington and the United States. Local and national panelists included travel writer Rick Steves; Keith Stroup, founder of, and legal counsel to, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws; Washington state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles; Rob Kampia, co-founder and executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project; and Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. Moderated by ACLU-WA Drug Policy Director Alison Holcomb.

  • Drug Policy

    Harm Reduction Advocates Target Addicts And Critics

    On the heels of
    yet another study     which found that supervised injection sites encourage patrons to seek treatment, the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, an organization funded by the Drug Free America Foundation, whose mission is, among other things, “To advocate no use of illegal drugs and no abuse of legal drugs” and “To oppose legalization of drugs” is complaining to sympathetic media that they are being bullied by harm reduction advocates.

    Specifically, the DPNOC’s “Director of Research,” Colin Mangham is upset that his reputation is being damaged by a lawsuit filed against him for “publishing” lies and distortions about InSite, Vancouver’s supervised injection facility, and harm reduction in general, in an online “journal” owned by the DFAF.

    I am reminded of Ben Stein’s move “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed,” in which Stein whined that proponents of “intelligent design” and critics of evolution are being discriminated against in colleges, universities and anywhere else empirical evidence and the scientific method are still respected. At least we know we have them on the back foot for a change.

    Supervised injection site epitomizes warped philosophy in Downtown Eastside

    By Mark Hasiuk, Vancouver Courier September 15, 2010

    [snip]

    “The best thing you can say about harm reduction advocates is that they are reductionists–they are reducing a complex human problem to a simple thing,” said David Berner, the newly appointed executive director of the Drug Prevention Network of Canada, an abstinence-based organization (soon-to-be headquartered in Vancouver) founded by former Conservative MP Randy White. “We need to get money and human energy back into prevention, education and treatment.”

    [snip]

    But criticizing Insite can come with a price. In the high stakes world of harm reduction, where government grants provide vital lifeblood, reputations are brutally defended. Critics targeted and bullied.

    Just ask Colin Mangham.

    Last September, the Portland Hotel Society, co-operators of Insite, slapped a defamation and slander lawsuit on Mangham, a 60-year-old research scientist and addictions expert whose 2007 RCMP-funded report published in the Journal of Global Drug Policy and Practice questioned the findings of Insite researchers. “Statements made about improving public order, saving lives and getting people into detox are misleading and based on data that just isn’t there,” said Mangham, during a recent phone interview from his home in Langley.

    [snip]

    Where are the transitional fossils? The evidence for common ancestry and decent with modification just isn’t there.

    Ten years in, Vancouver’s great harm reduction experiment keeps rolling along, leaving rows of victims in its wake. Addicts get sicker, critics assailed, while an entire neighbourhood rots from the inside out.

    Wonder if this is what Philip Owen had in mind?