• Hot Off The 'Net - What You Can Do

    Experts call for new course on illegal drugs in fight against HIV

    VIENNA (June 28, 2010): A team of experts and health organisations on Monday called for a scientific approach to illicit drugs, arguing that their criminalisation has been costly and ineffective and has fuelled a high HIV infection rate among intravenous drug users. The experts made the appeal in the lead-up to the 18th International AIDS Conference, to be held July 18-23 in the Austrian capital Vienna. They are launching a global signature drive for a declaration on a “science-based” approach to illegal drugs.

    “As scientists, we are committed to raising our collective voice to promote evidence-based approaches to illicit drug policy that start by recognizing that addiction is a medical condition, not a crime,” Julio Montaner, conference chairman and president of the International AIDS Society, said in a statement.

    The failure by law enforcement to prevent the availability of illegal drugs where there is demand “is now unambiguous,” the so- called Vienna Declaration says. The declaration – drafted by 32 medical doctors and leading specialists – appeals to governments, the United Nations and other international organisations to review the effectiveness of current drug policies, increase “evidence-based” drug addiction treatments and abolish compulsory drug treatments that violate human rights.
    The declaration also calls for an increase in funding for drug treatment and “harm reduction” measures.

    The consequences of failed drug-enforcement efforts are manifold, the declaration says, pointing to HIV epidemics fuelled by the unavailability of sterile needles, HIV outbreaks among prisoners and record incarceration rates in many countries.

    The massive market for illicit drugs, worth some 320 billion dollars annually, has also destabilised entire countries, such as Colombia, Mexico and Afghanistan. Outside sub-Saharan Africa, intravenous drug use accounts for roughly one in three new cases of HIV, the declaration says. In some areas where HIV is spreading most rapidly, such as Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as many as 80% of those infected with HIV are intravenous drug users.

    Alternative approaches to illicit drug use – such as those implemented in the Netherlands, Portugal, Switzerland and other countries – have proven effective, conference organisers said

  • Drug Policy - What You Can Do

    The truth about cannabis prohibition – Governor Gary Johnson

    Why would I, as a former two-term Republican governor of New Mexico,
    speak out so strongly on behalf of California’s Regulate, Control,
    and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010?

    Because no matter how you look at it, our policy of cannabis
    prohibition has failed — and I couldn’t just sit on the sidelines
    while Californians have an historic opportunity to lead the nation in
    fixing it.

    But I’m not just speaking out — I’m putting my money where my mouth
    is by contributing to this critical effort today. Will you stand with me?

    Please
    join me in contributing $5 to the Control & Tax Cannabis campaign today!

    The results of cannabis prohibition have been disastrous:
    * Half of what the U.S. spends on law enforcement — on courts
    and on prisons — is drug-related. We spend about $70 billion a year
    on victimless crimes.
    * We arrest 1.8 million people per year on drug-related crimes.
    * Over one hundred million Americans have tried marijuana — yet
    we still label them criminals.

    These policies need to end. You know it, and I know it. And if the
    Control & Tax Cannabis Campaign can reach our ambitious $50,000
    online fundraising goal by June 30, we can take a big step toward
    changing these disastrous policies.

    Make
    a generous contribution of $5 or more to the Control & Tax Cannabis
    Campaign — and help us reach our goal of raising $50,000 online by June 30!

    We’ve got a lot of work to do to show undecided voters that this
    initiative is a sensible solution for California.

    We need voters to know that, even after cannabis is legalized, it’ll
    never be OK to get behind the wheel of a car while under the
    influence. We need to tell voters that this initiative will make it
    illegal to sell cannabis to minors — just as it is with alcohol. And
    we need to assure voters that, based on evidence from Holland,
    Portugal, and elsewhere, legalization will likely reduce marijuana
    use, both among adults and youths.

    But the voters will never know these facts unless we tell them — and
    the campaign needs our financial support to get the message out.

    Please
    join me in supporting this truly historic campaign by contributing $5
    or more right now.

    I’m proud to stand with you in this movement. With your support, I am
    confident that California will vote to move us toward more sensible
    marijuana policy in November.
    Sincerely,

    Governor Gary Johnson (R-NM)
    1995-2003

    Tax Cannabis 2010. Sponsored by S.K. Seymour LLC, a Medical Cannabis
    Provider, dba Oaksterdam University, a Cannabis Educator. FPPC 1318272

  • Focus Alerts

    #439 ‘Prince Of Pot’ Is At A Low

    Date: Sat, 12 Jun 2010
    Subject: #439 ‘Prince Of Pot’ Is At A Low

    ‘PRINCE OF POT’ IS AT A LOW

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #439 – Saturday, 12 Jun 2010

    Former DEA administrator Karen Tandy in a press release on the day of
    Marc Emery’s arrest, July 29th, 2005, stated:

    “Today’s DEA arrest of Marc Scott Emery, publisher of Cannabis Culture
    magazine, and the founder of a marijuana legalization group, is a
    significant blow not only to the marijuana trafficking trade in the
    U.S. and Canada, but also to the marijuana legalization movement….
    Drug legalization lobbyists now have one less pot of money to rely
    on.”

    Philanthropist Marc Emery funneled millions of dollars in resources
    and funds to the marijuana legalization movement on both sides of the
    border.

    Today the Los Angeles Times published a front page article about
    Marc.

    To read current and future press items about Marc please use this
    link: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Marc+Emery

    Your letters to the editor are always helpful.

    An anonymous donor has challenged DrugSense and MAP to raise $25,000
    in new donations and/or increases in current periodic donations. Once
    the goal is achieved the donor will provide us with $25,000. Today we
    are about two thirds of the way to this very important goal. Please
    help us meet the challenge! http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

    **********************************************************************

    Pubdate: Sat, 12 Jun 2010

    Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)

    Page: Front Page, continued on page A14 and A15

    Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times

    Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/bc7El3Yo

    Author: Kim Murphy, reporting from Vancouver, Canada

    Column One

    ‘PRINCE OF POT’ IS AT A LOW

    The Canadian Thought His Profitable Seed Sales Could Upend the U.S.
    War on Drugs. But Now He Is Stuck Behind Bars in Seattle.

    For years, his seed catalogs were scrutinized by discerning cannabis
    cultivators across the U.S. and Canada, much like the ladies of
    Cumbria might fuss over Chiltern’s inventories of sweet peas and
    heirloom tomatoes.

    There was Blue Heaven pot, capable of producing a “euphoric,
    anti-anxiety high,” or Crown Royal, whose “flower tops come to a flat
    golden crown, sparkling with gems of THC,” or Hawaiian Sativa, with
    its “menthol flavor that tingles the taste buds and tickles the brain.”

    The difference between Marc Emery’s pot seeds and countless others on
    the market was that if you bought Emery’s, he’d use the money to
    launch a cannabis tsunami across North America that would set the war
    on drugs adrift like a cork on a massive sea of weed.

    “Plant the seeds of freedom, overgrow the government,” Emery urged his
    clients. With a pot plant on every patio, he declared, violent drug
    gangs would see their livelihoods disappear and police would be
    reduced to “running around … chasing all these marijuana plants.”

    Sooner or later, he promised, “they will simply give up and change the
    laws.”

    Well, not yet. Emery, who U.S. authorities fingered in 2005 as one of
    the top 46 international drug trafficking targets, was ordered
    extradited by the Canadian minister of justice last month and
    relinquished to federal marshals in Seattle. He now faces a likely
    five years in U.S. federal prison.

    “In fact I have done these things, so I admit my guilt,” Emery said in
    an e-mail after pleading guilty in U.S. District Court to one count of
    conspiracy to manufacture marijuana. “We are winning, especially in
    the United States, and I can take a lot of credit for that…. When I
    am gone, or even locked up here in the U.S., my historical legacy is
    secure.”

    Here in “Vansterdam,” where cannabis cafes, head shops and even a
    supervised needle-injection site are prominent features of downtown,
    pot is a multibillion-dollar industry. And Emery, a longtime fixture
    at political forums and downtown street rallies, is widely seen as one
    of its titans.

    The extradition of the 52-year-old self-proclaimed “Prince of Pot” has
    sparked a sovereignty outcry across Canada, where supporters, civil
    rights advocates and even several members of parliament have demanded
    to know why he was handed over to the U.S. for an offense that Canada
    seldom prosecutes.

    “It seems like the American war on drugs is just reaching its arm into
    Canada and saying, ‘We’re going to scoop you up,'” said Libby Davies,
    a member of parliament from Vancouver. “The whole thing has struck
    people as being over the top, harsh, unwarranted – and at the end of
    the day, what are they trying to prove?”

    Canada and the U.S. have been on strangely opposite political
    trajectories when it comes to the war on drugs.

    As early as 2003, the Canadian government appeared poised to
    decriminalize marijuana, which is regulated only federally in Canada,
    but backed down under U.S. threats to throw up punitive border controls.

    Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party since 2006 has
    backed a series of bills, one now pending in parliament, that would
    mirror widely criticized U.S. policies and impose for the first time a
    mandatory six-month jail term on anyone convicted of growing six or
    more marijuana plants.

    The U.S., meanwhile, is moving under the Obama administration toward a
    stronger focus on prevention and treatment. Fourteen states now allow
    medical use of marijuana, and California voters will decide in
    November on an initiative that would decriminalize adult possession of
    up to an ounce of marijuana and allow small-scale cultivation for
    personal consumption.

    Emery became a target for police in both nations – in Canada because
    his frequent appearances on international television shows was an
    irritant to police; in America because his seed business, which at one
    point reached revenues of $3 million a year, was supplying
    marijuana-growing operations in at least nine states.

    “Marc Emery happened to be the largest supplier of marijuana seeds
    into the United States,” said Todd Greenberg, the assistant U.S.
    attorney in Seattle who is prosecuting Emery’s case.

    Emery believes he caught the eye of the Drug Enforcement
    Administration not because of his seeds but because of what he did
    with his revenue. Living in a rented apartment with no car and few
    personal possessions, Emery channeled most of the millions he earned
    into marijuana legalization and defense efforts across North America.

    The Prince of Pot’s seed money has helped start “compassion clubs” for
    medical-marijuana users across Canada, launch the Pot-TV Internet
    network, and fund lobbying organizations and political parties in
    North America, Israel and New Zealand.

    Many of the state campaigns to legalize the medical use of marijuana
    in the U.S. did so with donations from Emery. He ran for mayor of
    Vancouver in 1996, 2002 and 2008, finishing a perennial fourth or fifth.

    “When Marc was arrested, he had $11 in his bank account,” said his
    wife, Jodie, 25, who has co-edited Emery’s magazine, Cannabis Culture,
    and served as his deputy in the Marijuana Party of British Columbia,
    which he founded. The party took 3.5% of the vote in the 2000
    elections and made cannabis a must-address issue in every election
    since.

    Emery won few friends in President George W. Bush’s administration
    when former drug czar John Walters, apparently seeking to stamp out
    rumblings of marijuana decriminalization among Canada’s then-ruling
    Liberal Party, addressed the Vancouver Board of Trade in 2002.

    Emery surreptitiously bought a table at the event, and along with
    fellow activists David Malmo-Levine and Chris Bennett, heckled Walters
    mercilessly. The next day, activists blew marijuana smoke in Walters’
    face during a tour of downtown

    Not long after that, they figure, is when the U.S. investigation of
    Emery was launched. But his friends say that only increased his sense
    of mission – and self-esteem.

    “A lot of people take great offense when he gets compared to people
    like Martin Luther King and Gandhi, and they say, ‘Marc, you can’t
    compare yourself to someone like that.’ And he says, ‘These are men
    who stood up for things … who suffered for what they represented,
    and to many, many people, they were the leader of their movement,'”
    Jodie said.

    “Marc does have a gigantic ego,” she said.

    “Majestic,” said Malmo-Levine.

    Cannabis has been Emery’s holy grail, but it would be a mistake, his
    friends say, to think of him as a pothead weaned on tree-hugging and
    the Grateful Dead. To the contrary, he is a libertarian capitalist
    whose politics lean free-market, individual-rights Republican.

    “A lot of people think he’s a leftie, but he’s really a true
    conservative. He wants to get the government out of people’s lives,”
    his wife said.

    As a 17-year-old high school dropout in London, Ontario, he opened his
    own bookstore, City Lights, in 1975, and clashed with the authorities
    there for selling banned copies of High Times magazine and the rap
    group 2 Live Crew’s forbidden CD “As Nasty as They Wanna Be.”

    Emery was arrested not only for selling banned material but for
    repeatedly defying the province’s Sunday closure laws; after years of
    conflict, he moved to Vancouver, where he hooked up with local hemp
    activists who shared his growing fascination with the history of
    cannabis and the governmental campaigns against it.

    “‘Where, oh where, are the hemp professionals?’ He totally slammed all
    these guys in dreadlocks,” Bennett recalled. “I’d say, ‘Who are you to
    criticize anybody? Are you going to get pot legalized?’ And he said,
    ‘Just watch me.'”

    Emery opened his pot paraphernalia store, BC Hemp, in 1994 and started
    up his seed business later that year. Over the years he has been
    arrested more than a dozen times, whether for selling seeds in
    Vancouver or passing a joint in Saskatoon, but hasn’t faced serious
    jail time until now.

    His seed business, he has argued, did more good than harm by
    undermining the criminal cartels that have turned marijuana
    trafficking into a corrupt and violent international business.

    “What I did was make it possible for small home growers to produce
    their own made-in-the-U.S.A. marijuana,” he said. “I stopped millions
    of American dollars from flowing to terrorists, cartels, thugs and
    gangs.”

    The mainstream marijuana legalization movement in the United States,
    however, has been largely silent since his arrest, not lending their
    voices, for example, to the rallies in nearly 80 cities around the
    world that followed Emery’s transfer to the U.S.

    It was largely alone that Emery sat in a Seattle courtroom late last
    month, with only a handful of supporters on the benches.

    He had agreed to plead guilty to the single count of conspiracy to
    manufacture marijuana, Jodie said, largely to ensure that his two
    employees also charged in the indictment would not have to serve jail
    time.

    “It was the most preferable of all the alternatives,” a subdued Emery
    told Judge Ricardo S. Martinez, who asked why he was admitting to the
    charge.

    “Sometimes there are no alternatives, you’re right,” the judge said.
    “There are only bad and worse.”

    Emery was led away not long after that, but nobody really expected
    he’d go quietly.

    The Prince of Pot’s blog posts from the SeaTac detention center go out
    regularly on the Internet to his supporters. What he wants to do next,
    though his attempt to get a recorded phone call out has so far only
    gotten him stuck in solitary confinement: Potcasts.

    **********************************************************************

    Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
    http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

    The cannabis section of Drug War Facts has been extensively updated
    http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

    **********************************************************************

    Prepared by: Richard Lake www.mapinc.org

    =.

  • What You Can Do

    Say No to the DEA

    DEA acting administrator Michele Leonhart has overseen dozens of medical marijuana raids and blocked scientific research. Now she’s denying veterans medical marijuana, but the Senate has the power to stop her. Urge the Senate to demand a new DEA administrator.

  • Focus Alerts

    #438 Little Consensus On Initiative To Legalize Cannabis?

    Date: Mon, 3 May 2010
    Subject: #438 Little Consensus On Initiative To Legalize Cannabis?

    LITTLE CONSENSUS ON INITIATIVE TO LEGALIZE CANNABIS?

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #438 – Monday, 3 May 2010

    Today the San Francisco Chronicle printed a front page article about
    The Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act.

    The actual text of the initiative may be found at http://www.taxcannabis.org/index.php/pages/initiative/

    A DrugSense blog post related to the article is at
    http://drugsense.org/blog/feature/california-marijuana-initiatives-then-and-now

    News clippings specific to the initiative may be found at
    http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Tax+Cannabis+Act

    News clippings specific to California are posted at
    http://www.mapinc.org/find?115

    An anonymous donor has challenged DrugSense and MAP to raise $25,000
    in new donations and/or increases in current monthly donations. Once
    the goal is achieved the donor will provide us with $25.000. Today we
    are about half the way to our goal. Please help us meet the challenge!
    http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

    **********************************************************************

    Source: San Francisco Chronicle

    Copyright: 2010 Hearst Communications Inc.

    Contact: http://www.sfgate.com/chronicle/submissions/#1

    Author: Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer

    LITTLE CONSENSUS ON INITIATIVE TO LEGALIZE POT

    Talk about murky.

    The economic impact, the potential social and legal landscape, even
    the split between the pro and con sides in the squabble over the
    initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot to legalize marijuana for recreational
    use in California – they’re all about as clear as smoke from a bong.

    Most medicinal-marijuana advocates think it would be just fine if
    good-time tokers joined their legal crowd. Others worry it might ruin
    the purity of using pot as medicine.

    Some associated with law enforcement think it’s time to treat weed
    like liquor and give up trying to tamp down the trade. More think this
    approach will just lead to a dangerous explosion of potheads on the
    roads and at work.

    There are illegal-weed growers who are afraid they’ll lose their
    livelihood, and others who think business will boom. A few
    politicians, including Oakland mayoral candidate Don Perata and
    Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, who is floating his own
    legalization bill in the Legislature, are backing the measure. Many,
    including Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the major candidates to
    replace him, oppose it.

    And then there is the money issue – the biggest elephant in a smoky
    room of elephants.

    Proponents of the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 say
    taxing pot could inject $1.4 billion a year in taxes and fees into a
    state general fund that badly needs the money. The annual California
    pot output, according to the state Board of Equalization, is estimated
    to be worth $14 billion, making it the state’s biggest cash crop – and
    if marijuana is legalized, the figure could billow much higher,
    advocates say.

    Opponents counter that the figure is a pipe dream, because even if the
    measure passes, pot use will still be illegal under U.S. law – so
    anyone reporting income will be vulnerable to federal
    prosecution.

    About the only thing both sides can agree on is that if the measure
    passes, nobody knows exactly how it will play out.

    It would be the most sweeping decriminalization of the use and sale of
    marijuana in America.

    Attitudes Changed

    “It’s hard to imagine how the discussion of legalizing marijuana would
    have even gotten off the ground if not for the state budget crisis,”
    said Robert MacCoun, a UC Berkeley law professor who specializes in
    drug policy.

    He noted that opposition to legalization in California polled at
    around 80 percent until voters authorized pot in 1996 for medical use.
    By the early 2000s, those in favor of legalization were polling above
    40 percent. Last year, with the state deep in budgetary crisis, a
    Field Poll cracked the halfway mark and put support in California at
    56 percent.

    Clearly, the desire to aim a new fire hose of cash at the state’s $20
    billion deficit is making the taxation of pot more attractive than
    ever, MacCoun said. But just as significant, most of the momentum to
    legalize pot comes from younger people.

    A KPIX-TV poll by Survey USA, released April 21, found that
    three-fourths of respondents 18 to 34 years old supported
    legalization. Part of that is probably attributable to a more relaxed
    attitude toward pot after its legalization for medical use, MacCoun
    said, but equally important is that the younger generation is more
    accustomed than even their Baby Boomer parents to being around people
    who use marijuana – and to using it themselves.

    UC Davis law Professor Vikram Amar, another expert on marijuana
    policy, summed up the explanation for legalization being taken
    seriously in succinct, nonbudgetary terms:

    “A lot of people like pot now,” he said. “And a lot of other people
    don’t care about pot.”

    Money Issue

    Amar believes that because cannabis will still be illegal under
    federal law, “the state can’t possibly make as much money in taxes as
    some people estimate. It can’t raise the money unless people report
    the income, and if you do that you are serving yourself up to the
    feds, and you could go to jail for a long time.”

    U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in October that the federal
    government would not pursue medical marijuana operations and users if
    they are following state law, but he has not said how his office would
    react to passage of the California initiative.

    Skeptics of legal marijuana’s economic benefits for California such as
    Amar have some unlikely allies – people involved in the illegal trade.
    Some of them say the crop is worth a fortune now, but if it is
    legalized, pot will be easier to get and prices might plummet, along
    with tax revenue.

    Still, the more common sentiment among those in the cultivation trade,
    both legal and illegal – particularly growers in boutique-heavy
    Mendocino County – is that they are itching for legalization so they
    can turn their weed vistas into a dope-tourism draw akin to Napa Valley.

    Medical Pot Backers Weary

    Most purveyors of medicinal herb have cautiously backed the
    initiative, but many are concerned that that health-conscious medical
    approach they’ve been emphasizing will be diffused.

    “I do support the measure, but I am still afraid this could lead to an
    explosion of cannabis shops and different levels of regulation
    everywhere, with some counties being taken by surprise,” said Steve
    DeAngelo, director of the Harborside Health Center in Oakland, the
    nation’s biggest medical marijuana dispensary, with 46,000 clients. “I
    believe adults should be able to use something as safe as cannabis – –
    but it should done responsibly.”

    Expansion in Growth Seen

    The basics of the proposition are that it would legalize the
    possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana for personal, recreational
    use by anybody 21 or older. Each person could also grow weed for
    personal use as long as it was confined to a 5-by-5-foot space.

    But the application of the six-page law could lead to significant pot
    growth and sales from one end of the state to the other.

    Local jurisdictions would be allowed to set their own regulations
    under the proposed law, and that could mean anything from cities or
    counties keeping the recreational ban in place to the spread of large
    farms and the sales of dope, packaged like cigarettes in sprightly
    boxes, in corner stores on every block.

    “My personal favorite is selling in coffee shops,” said initiative
    creator Richard Lee, 47, who founded Oaksterdam University, the
    pot-trade school in Oakland. “But if a city or county wants to put it
    in a liquor store or a grocery store, that’s their choice.

    “I’m a believer in the free market,” he said. “If you have a good
    product, it will sell.”

    The groundwork for such sales has already been set in cities such as
    San Francisco and Oakland, where medical-marijuana dispensaries had
    rocky, sloppily run starts but have generally settled in as part of
    the landscape.

    The picture is less rosy in Los Angeles, whose 500 dispensaries are
    the most numerous of any city in the country. Continual police raids
    and wrangling over nuisance ordinances and complaints suggest that a
    further proliferation of sellers might prove challenging.

    Another fear among some growers and users at a recent forum on the
    initiative in Ukiah (Mendocino) was that big companies might come in
    and supplant the little growers with plantations. But noted
    cannabis-advocacy attorney Omar Figueroa of Sebastopol said that was
    unlikely because they would be vulnerable to federal
    prosecution.

    Bill Phelps, spokesman for Philip Morris – the nation’s No. 1
    cigarette-maker – said the company was not taking a position on the
    initiative, but cautioned against anyone taking seriously rumors of
    big corporations going for the pot trade.

    Most Police Oppose Measure

    Most in law enforcement are predictably unimpressed with
    legalization.

    John Lovell, lobbyist for the California Peace Officers’ Association
    and several other law enforcement groups that oppose the initiative,
    said the measure could bring an escalation of addicts and be “a job
    killer.”

    “Under this initiative, you will be able to come to work high on
    marijuana, and in fact you might even be able to sell it at work if
    you have a local permit,” Lovell said. “You will see many California
    businesses move out of state if they can, because they will face
    increased costs and insurance from this. It could be devastating,
    costing the state money instead of bringing money in.”

    Some in law enforcement, such as retired Orange County Judge James
    Gray and former San Jose police narcotics Detective Russ Jones, are
    pushing for the initiative, likening the current situation to
    Prohibition.

    Gray said he is conservative and has never smoked pot. But he has
    written for years that marijuana could more effectively be controlled
    through regulation and treatment programs, rather than police and jails.

    “It is really clear that what we’re doing with marijuana in our state
    and country simply is not working,” he said.

    But backers like Gray are anomalies, Lovell maintained.

    “I think most people know that if this law passes, this state will
    have gone to pot,” he said. “They will vote accordingly.”

    Changed Political Climate

    Poppycock with overblown fears, said Aaron Smith, California policy
    director of the Marijuana Policy Project.

    Under the proposed law, driving and working regulations will be
    enforced the same way they are for drunkenness, he said. He downplays
    any notion of the state teeming with potheads, and said he doubts the
    weed trade will be dampened by fear of the feds, noting that the
    medical pot trade already generates $100 million annually in local and
    state tax revenue.

    The last time an initiative to legalize pot outright was put before
    California voters, in 1972, it was trounced. But since then has come
    the 1996 initiative that legalized medicinal marijuana, and with it
    the rise of medical pot dispensaries and businesses all over the state.

    With 13 other states having followed California’s lead in legalizing
    medicinal marijuana, Smith said, this state is finally primed and
    positioned to lead the way in ending pot prohibition.

    “It’s clear to me we have the support,” he said. “Victory is just a
    matter of getting those supporters out to vote in November.

    “Some adjustments will have to be made after it passes, but it will
    all work out.”

    **********************************************************************

    Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
    http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

    The marijuana section of Drug War Facts has been updated
    http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

    **********************************************************************

    Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #437 Whiffs Of Change

    Date: Sun, 11 Apr 2010
    Subject: #437 Whiffs Of Change

    WHIFFS OF CHANGE

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #437 – Monday, 12 April 2010

    Dick Polman is a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. His column,
    below, has appeared in five newspapers that we know of.

    Others include California’s Merced Sun-Star
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n270/a06.html , The Rochester
    Democrat and Chronicle in New York
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n269/a01.html , Washington’s
    Bellingham Herald http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n267/a13.html
    and Canada’s Winnipeg Free Press
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n267/a12.html

    News clippings specific to the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act
    are posted at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Tax+Cannabis+Act

    News clippings specific to cannabis in the United States are posted at
    http://www.mapinc.org/find?261

    News clippings specific to California are posted at
    http://www.mapinc.org/find?115

    An anonymous donor has challenged DrugSense and MAP to raise $25.000
    in new donations and/or increases in current periodic donations. Once
    the goal is achieved the donor will provide us with $25,000.00

    Today we are about a third of the way to this very important goal.
    Please help us meet the challenge!

    http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

    **********************************************************************

    Pubdate: Sun, 4 Apr 2010

    Source: Philadelphia Inquirer

    Copyright: 2010 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.

    Author: Dick Polman

    THE AMERICAN DEBATE

    The voters of trendsetting California may well decide this November to
    legalize marijuana – there’s a ballot referendum, and 56 percent of
    Californians are in favor – and no doubt this would be great news for
    the munchie industry, the bootleggers of Grateful Dead music, and the
    millions of stoners who have long yearned for an era of reefer gladness.

    Seriously, this is a story about how desperate times require desperate
    measures. Legalization advocates, including many ex-cops and
    ex-prosecutors, have long contended that it’s nuts to keep
    criminalizing otherwise law-abiding citizens while wasting $8 billion
    a year in law enforcement costs. That argument has never worked. But
    the new argument, cleverly synced to the recession mind-set, may well
    herald a new chapter in the history of pot prohibition.

    It’s simple, really: State governments awash in red ink can solve some
    of their revenue woes by legalizing marijuana for adults and slapping
    it with a sin tax.

    So much of the marijuana debate used to be about morality; now it’s
    mostly about economics and practicality – which is why New Hampshire,
    Massachusetts, and Rhode Island are also floating measures to legalize
    and tax; why similar voter referendums are in the works in Washington
    state and Oregon; why 14 states ( including, most recently, New Jersey
    ) have legalized medical marijuana, and why even Pennsylvania, hardly
    a pacesetting state, is weighing the sanction of medical pot, complete
    with 6 percent sales tax.

    But California is the likeliest lab for a massive toke tax, given its
    dire financial straits and the fact that marijuana is the state’s top
    cash crop, racking up an estimated $14 billion in annual sales – twice
    as much as the number-two agricultural commodity, milk and cream.
    State tax collectors say that pot could put $1.4 billion a year into
    the depleted California coffers, which helps explain why 56 percent of
    Californians like the legalization option, and find it preferable to
    the ongoing layoffs of teachers and other public servants.

    Indeed, marijuana is reportedly the top cash crop in a dozen states,
    and one of the top five in 39 states – valued annually at anywhere
    from $36 billion to $100 billion. That’s a lot of money left on the
    table for the black market. In fact, five years ago, a Harvard
    economist concluded in a report that legal weed nationwide would yield
    at least $6 billion in revenue if it were sin-taxed at rates
    comparable to alcohol and tobacco.

    Actually, I doubt most stoners see themselves as sinners – what’s
    immoral about seeing Avatar three times, or strip-mining a tray of
    brownies, or punctuating the conversation with lines like, “I’m sorry,
    what was I just talking about?” – but most would probably be willing
    to pay a “sin tax” in exchange for the opportunity to imbibe,
    hassle-free, with no fear that they might join the 765,000 Americans
    who were reportedly busted last year for possession.

    Pot smokers have long been bugged by the stigma. When I covered a
    marijuana reform convention in Washington way back in 1977 ( OK, yes,
    I’m old ), a delegate from Illinois named Paul Kuhn spoke for many
    when he complained to me: “You can get rip-roaring, toilet-hugging,
    puking drunk in public, and that’s OK. But if you pass a joint in
    public to a friend, you’re a pusher.”

    But even the reformers of ’77 said it was “naive” to believe that
    Americans would ever buy legalization. Today’s generation is more
    shrewd; the word legalization doesn’t even appear in the California
    ballot proposal. The proponents, including a retired Superior Court
    judge who got fed up with handling pot cases, are calling it the
    “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act.”

    Frankly, California and other cash-strapped states don’t have a whole
    lot of sin-tax options. Cigarettes and booze are already taxed to the
    max, and ( as Philadelphia is discovering ) any attempts to slap
    special levies on sugared water are fiercely resisted by soda
    companies that fear any curbs on their freedom to rot kids’ teeth. By
    contrast, stoners crave the respectability of being taxed; the
    fiercest tax opponents are probably the Mexican drug cartels, which
    would lose market share just as the mob lost out on liquor when
    Prohibition ended in ’33.

    Granted, nobody quite knows whether or how the California pot plan
    would fly in practice. Pot use would still be illegal under federal
    law – the director of the National Drug Control Policy has said that
    “legalization is not in the president’s vocabulary” – and the U.S.
    Constitution decrees that federal law trumps state law. On the other
    hand, the Obama team has stated that it has no interest in hassling
    the medical-marijuana states.

    The big question is how such a sin tax would be structured. Would all
    sellers be licensed? Would it be a point-of-sale excise tax on top of
    the sales tax? It’s worth pondering, because some state is bound to
    take the plunge, even if California’s voters balk in November – which
    could happen because, favorable pot polls notwithstanding,
    conservatives riled up by health reform seem most energized to turn
    out in disproportionate numbers this year.

    The bottom line is that public support for legalizing the crop has
    been building for a very long time. Gallup found only 12 percent of
    Americans in favor back in 1969, but 31 percent said yes in 2000, 36
    percent said yes in 2005, and 44 percent said yes in 2009. The
    economic crisis has put wind behind the sentiment, and it seems
    inevitable that there will come a day — perhaps in the next major
    recession — when a presidential candidate will find it perfectly
    politic to speechify about the audacity of dope.

    **********************************************************************

    Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
    http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

    The cannabis section of Drug War Facts has been updated
    http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

    **********************************************************************

    Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #436 California Will Vote On Legalizing Marijuana

    Date: Wed, 24 Mar 2010
    Subject: #436 California Will Vote On Legalizing Marijuana

    CALIFORNIA WILL VOTE ON LEGALIZING MARIJUANA

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #436 – Wednesday, 24 March 2010

    Today the Los Angeles Times announced that L.A. County petition
    signatures are expected to tilt the balance for putting The Regulate,
    Control, and Tax Cannabis Act on the California ballot for November.

    The initiative statute http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/pend_sig/init-sample-1377-032310.pdf

    The initiative website http://www.taxcannabis.org/

    Opportunities for writing letters will abound in the months ahead.
    News clippings specific to California are posted at
    http://www.mapinc.org/find?115

    An anonymous donor has challenged DrugSense and MAP to raise $25.000
    in new donations and/or increases in current monthly donations. Once
    the goal is achieved the donor will provide us with $25.000. Today we
    are about a third of the way to our goal. Please help us meet the
    challenge! http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

    **********************************************************************

    Pubdate: Wed, 24 Mar 2010

    Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)

    Page: Front Page, continued on page A14

    Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times

    Contact: http://mapinc.org/url/bc7El3Yo

    Author: John Hoeffel

    BID TO LEGALIZE POT USE NEAR BALLOT

    Voters Could Weigh in on Initiative This Fall. Fiscal Crisis May Help
    It Pass, Some Say.

    Fourteen years after California decided marijuana could be used as a
    medicine and ignited a national movement, the state is likely to vote
    on whether to take another step into the vanguard of drug
    liberalization: legalizing the controversial weed for fun and profit.

    On Wednesday, Los Angeles County elections officials must turn in
    their count of valid signatures collected in the county on a statewide
    legalization initiative. The number is virtually certain to be enough
    to qualify the initiative for the November ballot, according to a
    tally kept by state election officials.

    That will once again make California the focal point of the
    long-stewing argument over marijuana legalization, a debate likely to
    be a high-dollar brawl between adversaries who believe it could launch
    or stifle another national trend.

    The campaign will air issues that have changed little over the years.
    Proponents will cite the financial and social cost of enforcing pot
    prohibition and argue that marijuana is not as dangerous and addictive
    as tobacco or alcohol. Opponents will highlight marijuana-linked
    crimes, rising teenage use and the harm the weed causes some smokers.

    But the debate also will play out against a cultural landscape that
    has changed substantially, with marijuana moving from dark street
    corners to neon-lit suburban boutiques. In the months since the Obama
    administration ordered drug agents to lay off dispensaries, hundreds
    have opened, putting pot within easy reach of most Californians.
    Whether voters view this de facto legalization with trepidation or
    equanimity could shape the outcome.

    The measure’s supporters hope that this dynamic will shift the debate,
    allowing them to persuade voters to replace prohibition with
    controlled sales that could be taxed to help California’s cities and
    counties.

    “They already accept that it’s out there. They want to see a smart
    strategy,” said Chris Lehane, a top strategist for the initiative.

    But John Lovell, a Sacramento lobbyist for law enforcement groups,
    said he believes that voters will reject that argument.

    “Why on Earth would you want to add yet another mind-altering
    substance to the legal array?” he asked.

    California is not alone in weighing legalization. Several state
    legislatures have considered bills and two other Western states may
    vote on initiatives. In Nevada, a measure aimed for 2012 would allow
    state-licensed pot stores. And a campaign in Washington hopes to put a
    legalization measure on the fall ballot.

    The 10-page California initiative would allow anyone 21 or older to
    possess, share and transport up to an ounce for personal use and to
    grow up to 25 square feet per residence or parcel. It would allow
    local governments, but not the state, to authorize the cultivation,
    transportation and sale of marijuana and to impose taxes to raise revenues.

    To make the ballot, the measure needs 433,971 valid signatures. By
    Tuesday, it was just 15,000 short. Los Angeles County, where
    supporters collected 142,246 signatures, is expected to put it over
    the top.

    The initiative’s main proponent, Richard Lee, has spent at least $1.3
    million, mostly on a professional signature-gathering effort, and has
    assembled a team of experienced campaign consultants that includes
    Lehane, a veteran of the Clinton White House.

    Lee, who owns half a dozen mostly pot-related businesses in Oakland,
    has said that he hopes to raise as much as $20 million. The last time
    pot was on the ballot, in 1996, proponents raised $2 million, with
    most of it from a few wealthy supporters.

    Lehane said the campaign would have a major Internet component.
    Marijuana has a devoted following on the Web. When President Obama
    held an online town hall meeting after his inauguration, he was
    barraged with questions about legalization.

    “There’s the potential to raise significant online resources,” he
    said.

    Lovell has been assembling a coalition to defeat the measure. He
    thinks that he will be able to recruit business leaders because the
    initiative prohibits discrimination against anyone who uses marijuana,
    unless it affects job performance.

    Lovell said he is not worried about “the deep pockets on that side.”
    He noted that opponents of Proposition 5, which would have let
    nonviolent drug offenders avoid prison, defeated it in 2008 despite
    being outspent.

    “We don’t have to match the other side dollar for dollar,” he
    said.

    In that case, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and four former governors
    denounced the measure. All the major candidates for governor have
    shunned the pot initiative, including Democrat Jerry Brown, who as
    governor signed a law in 1975 that dramatically reduced marijuana penalties.

    Lehane said the legalization campaign would soon roll out radio ads
    with former law enforcement officials.

    Polls have shown that a slim majority of California voters want to
    legalize marijuana. Both sides will shape their arguments to take aim
    at the wavering voters in the middle.

    The measure’s supporters say the undecided are primarily women in
    their 30s and 40s with children.

    Proponents hope to persuade those voters that it is time for a fresh
    approach to a drug that is a fact of life in California, where it
    supports a multibillion-dollar economy. The wisest plan, they argue,
    is to allow cities and counties to regulate sales and impose taxes to
    help them escape their budget disasters.

    Two independent pollsters, Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy
    Institute of California and Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll, said the
    state’s grim financial situation may heighten the measure’s appeal.

    “Whether voters are really there, whether they want to legalize
    marijuana, I would probably tend to say no, but given the drastic
    state of the budget, I don’t know,” said DiCamillo, calling the issue
    a wild card. “The climate may actually help it a bit.”

    Opponents plan to remind voters of the chaos caused by cities and
    counties struggling with California’s medical marijuana law, noting
    that it had led to the explosive growth in dispensaries in Los Angeles
    County, where a quarter of the state’s voters live.

    “It’s going to be a crazy quilt of 500 different marijuana nations,”
    Lovell said.

    Lehane said the legalization campaign will unveil model ordinances to
    show voters how it could work and highlight separate state legislation
    to capture tax revenue from legal sales.

    The adversaries will also debate the social costs, disputing the
    effect prohibition has on marijuana use, drug violence and the role of
    Mexican cartels.

    Stephen Gutwillig, California director of the Drug Policy Alliance,
    said he hoped to highlight the increase in misdemeanor marijuana
    arrests, which tripled between 1990 and 2008.

    “It really is on a scale that we have never seen,” he
    said.

    Opponents will cite a national survey that found an increase in
    teenagers trying marijuana last year. And they are emphasizing the
    danger of drugged drivers. In a recent column, Ventura County Sheriff
    Bob Brooks cited a 2007 accident in which a driver high on marijuana
    crashed into a stopped vehicle, killing its driver and critically
    injuring a California Highway Patrol officer.

    **********************************************************************

    Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism Center
    http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

    The marijuana section of Drug War Facts has been updated
    http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

    **********************************************************************

    Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #435 This Whole Medical-Marijuana Thing Is A Charade

    Date: Sun, 21 Mar 2010
    Subject: #435 This Whole Medical-Marijuana Thing Is A Charade

    THIS WHOLE MEDICAL-MARIJUANA THING IS A CHARADE

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #435 – Sunday, 21 March 2010

    Our headline comes from a column by the managing editor of The Pueblo
    Chieftain which is at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n192.a07.html
    It introduces three news items and a column with a hint that more may
    follow in the future. The items are:

    Medical Marijuana: Remedy or Smoke Screen?
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n192.a04.html

    Doctors Defend or Disparage Medical Marijuana http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n192.a05.html

    Legislature’s Decisions to Guide Local Pot Regulation
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n192.a06.html

    Column: Marijuana Expedition a Real Trip
    http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n193.a04.html

    Is medicinal marijuana a charade? That is for you to
    decide.

    Now and in the future news clippings specific to Colorado appear at
    http://www.mapinc.org/states/CO/ , dispensary items at
    http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries and United Stated medicinal
    cannabis items at http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 . Many of the news
    clippings may be worthy targets for your letters to the editor.

    An anonymous donor has challenged DrugSense and MAP to raise $25.000
    in new donations and/or increases in current monthly donations. Once
    the goal is achieved the donor will provide us with $25.000 which is
    needed within months for us to continue our work. Please help us meet
    the challenge by going http://www.drugsense.org/donate.htm

    **********************************************************************

    Suggestions for writing letters are at our Media Activism
    Center

    http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

    Recently updated facts you may find of value for writing your letters
    are at

    Medical Marijuana http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/54

    and

    Marijuana http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

    **********************************************************************

    Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

    =.

  • Focus Alerts

    #434 The International Narcotics Control Board On Cannabis

    Date: Thu, 25 Feb 2010
    Subject: #434 The International Narcotics Control Board On Cannabis

    THE INTERNATIONAL NARCOTICS CONTROL BOARD ON CANNABIS

    **********************************************************************

    DrugSense FOCUS Alert #434 – Thursday, 25 February 2010

    Today major newspapers across Canada printed articles with headlines
    like ‘Strengthen Medical Marijuana Laws, UN Drug Watchdog Warns’ which
    appeared in the National Post http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10.n140.a11.html
    The key paragraph from the article states “The Vienna-based
    International Narcotics Control Board said Canada is operating outside
    international treaty rules aimed at minimizing the risk criminals will
    get hold of cannabis grown under the program.”

    The Board has only the power to encourage governments to act in
    accordance with the United Nations Conventions on Narcotic Drugs.
    Governments are free to express their sovereignty as their laws allow.
    The media is more often than not clueless about this.

    Understanding this may help you to counter the issues raised in your
    letters to the editor and your other efforts in support of marijuana
    law reform.

    MAP’s news clippings are updated a few times each day at
    http://www.drugnews.org/ Some may touch on this issue, but many will
    not. Most clippings are worthy of consideration for your letter to the
    editor writing efforts.

    **********************************************************************

    The Board’s report is at http://www.incb.org/incb/en/annual-report-2009.html
    and Chapter III, Americas is at http://mapinc.org/url/8FhqCC7M The
    paragraph about the United States and cannabis is below.

    400. While the consumption and cultivation of cannabis, except for
    scientific purposes, are illegal activities according to federal law
    in the United States, several states have enacted laws that provide
    for the “medical use” of cannabis.41 The control measures applied in
    those states for the cultivation of cannabis plants and the
    production, distribution and use of cannabis fall short of the control
    requirements laid down in the 1961 Convention. The Board is deeply
    concerned that those insufficient control provisions have contributed
    substantially to the increase in illicit cultivation and abuse of
    cannabis in the United States. In addition, that development sends a
    wrong message to other countries. The Board welcomes the reaffirmation
    by the Government of the United States that cannabis continues to be
    considered a dangerous drug. The Government has also underscored that
    it is the responsibility of the Food and Drug Administration to
    approve all medicines in the United States. The Board notes with
    appreciation that the Government, following new guidelines on
    prosecution, which stipulate that activities should not focus on
    individuals who comply with “medical” cannabis regulations in states,
    has confirmed that it has no intention to legalize cannabis. The Board
    is concerned over the ongoing discussion in several states on
    legalizing and taxing the “recreational” use of cannabis, which would
    be a serious contravention of the 1961 Convention. The Board
    emphasizes that it is the responsibility of the Government of the
    United States to fully implement the provisions of the 1961 Convention
    with respect to all narcotic drugs, including cannabis (see paragraphs
    61-64 above).

    **********************************************************************

    Suggestions for Writing LTEs Are at Our Media Activism
    Center

    http://www.mapinc.org/resource/#guides

    **********************************************************************

    Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org

    =.