• Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Vancouver Injection Site Becomes Election Issue

    Vancouver’s controversial safe injection site became an election issue Monday after yet another published study showed it has saved lives, prompting the study’s author to say Conservative policy on the site has no basis in fact.

    Critics demanded Prime Minister Stephen Harper drop his government’s opposition to the clinic and abandon efforts to have it shut down.

    Harper was in Yellowknife on Monday where he touted his government’s national drug strategy, saying it is based on prevention and treatment.

    But the Conservative government has said in the past that it doesn’t condone the safe injection site and claims it fosters addiction.

    The latest study was published this week in the influential medical journal The Lancet. It was written by Dr. Thomas Kerr, along with his colleagues from the Urban Health Research Initiative at Vancouver’s St. Paul’s Hospital.

    “Canadians should be concerned about how the federal government is approaching problems like drug addiction — that they’re really not basing their decision on science, they’re basing it on ideology,” Kerr said.

    Marc Townsend, manager of the Portland Hotel Society, enters Insite

  • Letter of the Week

    Letter Of The Week

    DRUG FIRMS AGAINST PATIENTS GROWING MEDICINE

    Did you know the U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved pill form
    of marijuana (Marinol) only contains one of the compounds or
    cannabinoids that are found in the marijuana plant? That compound is
    tetrahyrdocannabinol or THC.

    Recent research in marijuana has shown it has many therapeutic
    compounds or cannabinoids in it, such as CBD, a nonpsychoactive
    cannabinoid that has been clinically demonstrated to have analgesic,
    anti-spasmodic, anxiolytic, anti-psychotic, anti-nausea and
    anti-rheumatoid arthritic properties. Along with CBD, there are
    other naturally occurring terpenoids (oils) and flavonoids (phenols)
    that also have been clinically demonstrated to possess therapeutic utility.

    If you are wondering why this information has not been in the
    mainstream, you need look no further than Sunday’s Birmingham News
    (“Doctors rethink ties to drug industry”). The drug industry is rich
    and powerful. It pays doctors to promote its products and to not
    promote products. The drug industry doesn’t want you to be able to
    grow your own medicine. Where’s the profit in that?

    Obviously, there is merit to marijuana helping to relieve symptoms
    for various illnesses or 15 states would not have legalized it for
    medicinal purposes, nor would the Veterans Administration have
    relaxed its policies concerning marijuana.

    This legislative session, Alabamians could have the chance to try
    this medicine with a recommendation from their doctor. Let your
    legislators know to vote yes for House Bill 386, the Michael Phillips
    Compassionate Care Act.

    Dawn Palmer

    Tarrant

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Drug Policy Research

    Download over 650 peer-reviewed journal articles and significant reports on Harm Reduction and Drug Policy Reform!

    This comprehensive (and amazing) collection of references includes the following categories of papers:

    Alcohol harm reduction
    Cannabis
    Drug Education / prevention
    Drug policy documents – the need for change
    Drug policy history
    Economic issues
    Entheogens and psychedelics
    Health and social consequences of drug prohibition
    Incarceration
    Needle Exchange
    Policing and drug law enforcement
    Positive or non problematic relationships with drugs
    Post prohibition options
    PowerPoint presentations
    Ranking of drug harms
    Science is trumped by ideology
    Sex trade work
    Supervised injection facilities
    United Nations and human rights
    Violence and drugs

    The download time is approx 10 minutes and the file you receive will need to be unzipped.

    https://rcpt.yousendit.com/1096089053/7d1dc1ae510268bbd237f32729feb17d

  • What You Can Do

    Tell Attorney General Holder: Stop Raiding Medical Marijuana Dispensaries

    28 raids in 24 hours. That’s the unfortunate reality for medical marijuana patients in Montana and California.

    Federal agents shutdown 26 dispensaries across Montana and 2 in the medical marijuana sanctuary city of West Hollywood, California this month in their latest attack on patients and legitimate businesses.

    But back in 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder issued a memo ordering an end to federal raids of medical marijuana dispensaries. Despite his memo, federal agents have continued these operations sporadically for years, without regard for patients’, states’ or business’ rights.

    Attorney General Eric Holder clearly doesn’t have control of his own cavalry. This assault on patients rights has to stop now.

    Sign our letter telling Attorney General Holder to enforce his memo and prohibit federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries.

  • Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    By Huge Margins, Voters Want Drug Penalties Reduced

    A whopping 72% of California voters support reducing the penalty for possession of a small amount of illegal drugs for personal use from a felony to a misdemeanor

    A brand new poll this week finds that a whopping 72% of California voters support reducing the penalty for possession of a small amount of illegal drugs for personal use from a felony to a misdemeanor, including a solid majority who support this reform strongly. The March 21-24 survey of 800 California general election voters was conducted by Lake Research Partners and commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance, the ACLU of Northern California and the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Poll results and analysis are available online.

  • Cannabis & Hemp - Drug Policy - Hot Off The 'Net

    Pot Laws Ruled Unconstitutional

    An Ontario Superior Court judge has ruled that the federal medical marijuana program is unconstitutional, giving the government three months to fix the problem before pot is effectively legalized.

    In an April 11 ruling, Justice Donald Taliano found that doctors across the country have “massively boycotted” the medical marijuana program and largely refuse to sign off on forms giving sick people access to necessary medication.

    As a result, legitimately sick people cannot access medical marijuana through appropriate means and must resort to illegal actions.

    Doctors’ “overwhelming refusal to participate in the medicinal marijuana program completely undermines the effectiveness of the program,” the judge wrote in his ruling.

    “The effect of this blind delegation is that seriously ill people who need marijuana to treat their symptoms are branded criminals simply because they are unable to overcome the barriers to legal access put in place by the legislative scheme.”

    Taliano declared the program to be invalid, as well as the criminal laws prohibiting possession and production of cannabis. He suspended his ruling for three months, giving Ottawa until mid-July to fix the program or face the prospect of effectively legalizing possession and production of cannabis.

    Continues: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v11/n241/a08.html

    Pubdate: Wed, 13 Apr 2011
    Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
    Copyright: 2011 The Toronto Star
    Contact: [email protected]
    Website: http://www.thestar.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
    Author: Jennifer Yang
    Referenced: The Decision http://mapinc.org/url/Q7Itqn7O
    Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis – Canada)

  • Letter of the Week

    Letter Of The Week

    LEGALIZE MARIJUANA AND BE DONE WITH IT

    So the new legislation “that would allow those caught with small
    amounts of marijuana to avoid punishment altogether if they can
    convince a judge that they used the drug out of medical necessity” is
    supposed to be a “middle ground on marijuana?” Get real. This is yet
    another excuse to put off what should have been done long ago:
    legalization, not just for medicinal use, but for all citizens.

    The fact of the matter is that marijuana is safer than alcohol or
    tobacco, yet its use can cause one to lose their job, be expelled from
    schools and universities, and even land in jail. We spend an enormous
    amount of money to enforce marijuana laws, as evidenced by the 759,593
    arrests for possession alone in 2009. That translates to huge sums of
    money spent on unnecessary law enforcement and a prison population
    filled with people who are hardly criminals (and are forced to survive
    in a system that only creates more criminals). Regulation would also
    bring in a new source of tax revenue, as well as taking a huge cash
    crop away from drug cartels that terrorize Mexico and other parts of
    the world.

    So please, don’t insult our intelligence by telling us that the
    proposed legislation is a “middle ground.” We shouldn’t even have to
    establish a middle ground. The support for legalization is based in
    fact, while its opponents have long used fear and lies at a great cost
    to our society.

    Joel Beller, Owings Mills

    Pubdate: Wed, 30 Mar 2011

    Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)