• Hot Off The 'Net

    The Principle of Pot (Part 2 – Segment 1)

    Segment one of Part 2 of Paul McKeever’s two part documentary titled “The Principle of Pot”, concerning individual freedom and the political strategies and campaigns of Marc Emery (dubbed the “Prince of Pot” by American media), who currently faces the possibility of extradition to the USA, and years of imprisoment there.

    In this segment: “The Emperor Wears No Clothes”; marijuana book censorship; The 2 Live Crew (cont’d); why marijuana was made illegal; a failed strategy; Sunday shopping success; good bye London, hello India; from civil disobedience to civil rights movement; millions of law-breakers: the oppression of the marijuana people; morality and heroism: Roark versus Jesus; the Howard Roark of Cannabis?; facts versus warmth and sensitivity; “seething hatred for the state”; Jesus of Nazareth.

  • Cannabis & Hemp

    US CO: Aspen Judge Says Man Can’t Use Pot for Pain


    Medicinal cannabis regulation complicates a whole slew of federal and state laws governing how people under the supervision of the criminal justice system or with criminal records must stay clean and clear of illicit drugs.

    Smack

    Pubdate: Tue, 20 Apr 2010
    Source: Aspen Times Weekly (CO)
    Copyright: 2010 Aspen Times
    Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/zKpMPhQ7
    Website: http://www.aspentimes.com/
    Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3784
    Author: Rick Carroll

    ASPEN — A judge ruled Monday that a local man convicted of a felony drug charge cannot use marijuana for medicinal purposes, although he has a state registry card allowing him to do so.

    Judge James Boyd took up the topic during a sentencing hearing in Pitkin County District Court in Aspen for Keith Timothy Pfeiffer, who pleaded guilty Feb. 8 to attempted distribution of cocaine.

    Boyd said the issue is a “troubling one for the court,” and his remark and ruling come at a time when judges across Colorado are grappling with the conflict between state and federal marijuana laws. An amendment to the state constitution permits marijuana to be used for certain medical purposes.

    But Boyd noted that “no matter what the state of Colorado has decided, the United States of America says that it is not legal.”

    Even so, Boyd said he would entertain a motion arguing that Pfeiffer be allowed to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, along with recommendations from a doctor who “can add the diagnosis it [medical marijuana] goes with.”

    Prosecutor Jonathan Pototsky encouraged Boyd to not allow Pfeiffer, who has a number of physical ailments, to use marijuana for medical purposes as part of his probation. It is standard procedure that those who are given probation are not permitted to use illegal drugs or alcohol; medications they are allowed to use must be taken at
    prescribed doses.

    Pfeiffer has been on the state’s medical marijuana registry since December, his attorney, John Van Ness, told the judge. Pfeiffer uses marijuana to cope with pain from hepatitis and cirrhosis of the liver. Both of his hips were replaced as well, Van Ness said.

    “There are some problems, including pain, that doctors say are helped by medical marijuana,” Van Ness told the judge.

    He added: “I don’t want to take that away from him.”

    Yet Pototsky argued that Pfeiffer “hides behind his illness.”

    “I don’t see why he should have his medical marijuana certificate,” Pototsky told the judge.

    [snip]

    Continues:  http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v10/n306/a03.html

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Marijuana & Money

    Legalizing marijuana is no longer the unthinkable. Many Americans support it and some states have sanctioned it for medical use.
    CNBC looks at the details around this multi-billion dollar industry and how it affects business, government, and the consumer.

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    The Budgetary Implications of Drug Prohibition

    By Jeffrey A. Miron Department of Economics, Harvard University

    Executive Summary

    • Government prohibition of drugs is the subject of ongoing debate.
    • One issue in this debate is the effect of prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs and prevents taxation of drug production and sale.
    • This report examines the budgetary implications of legalizing drugs.
    • The report estimates that legalizing drugs would save roughly $48.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $33.1 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $15.6 billion would accrue to the federal government. Approximately $13.7 billion of the savings would results from legalization of marijuana, $22.3 billion from legalization of cocaine and heroin, and $12.8 from legalization of other drugs.
    • The report also estimates that drug legalization would yield tax revenue of $34.3 billion annually, assuming legal drugs are taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco. Approximately $6.4 billion of this revenue would result from legalization of marijuana, $23.9 billion from legalization of cocaine and heroin,
      and $4.0 billion from legalization of other drugs.
    • State-by-state breakdowns provide a rough indication of legalization’s impacts on state budgets, but these estimates are less reliable than those for the overall economy.
    • Whether drug legalization is a desirable policy depends on many factors other than the budgetary impacts discussed here. Rational debate about drug policy should nevertheless consider these budgetary effects.
    • The estimates provided here are not definitive estimates of the budgetary implications of a legalized regime for currently illegal drugs. The analysis employs assumptions that plausibly err on the conservative side, but substantial uncertainty remains about the magnitude of the budgetary impacts.
  • Cannabis & Hemp

    Assuaging the Opposition

    If you’re from Ohio or interested in its cannabis policies, you may have seen my April 7th interview with the Ohio News Network (ONN):

    http://www.10tv.com/live/content/onnnews/stories/2010/04/07/story-medical-marijuana.html

    Via ONN, this interview made its way across state to Toledo and maybe beyond.

    http://www.wtol.com/global/story.asp?s=12275194

    I was interested to hear the comments made by Patricia Harmon of the Drug Free Action Alliance. For one, Ms. Harmon asserted,

    “In states that have passed medical marijuana laws, the youth use is higher than it is in states that have not passed it.”

    Not so. A 2009 Congressional Research Service review of state and federal policies concerning medical marijuana concluded,

    “No clear patterns [concerning teen use] are apparent in the state-level data. Clearly, more important factors are at work in determining a state’s prevalence of recreational marijuana use than whether the state has a medical marijuana program.” (p. 32)

    In fact,

    “California, the state with the largest and longest-running medical marijuana program, ranked 34th in the percentage of persons age 12-17 reporting marijuana use in the past month during the period 2002-2003.” (p. 32)

    Ms. Harmon also claimed that

    “the federal government has failed to find any positive use for marijuana.”

    I would characterize that to be a failure as well. In 1998, DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] Administrative Law Judge Francis Young recommended,

    “that the Administrator [of the DEA] conclude that the marijuana plant considered as a whole has currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, that there is no lack of accepted safety for use of it under medical supervision and that it may lawfully be transferred from Schedule I to Schedule II.” (p. 68)

    That was over 20 years ago. Further, because cannabis remains in Schedule I in defiance of his recommendation, the federal government has routinely obstructed research.

    According to an April 2010 “Perspective” piece in the New England Journal of Medicine,

    “Restrictive federal law and, until recently, aggressive federal law enforcement have hamstrung research and medical practice involving marijuana.” (p. 1453)

    Thus, it’s a circular argument to on one hand conclude that the federal government has failed to “find any positive use for marijuana,” while on the other hand, have that same government thwart the very research that would find that positive use.

    All in all, I was pleased with the interview, for it served as a great opportunity to meet the opposition and assuage their concerns.

  • Drug Policy

    Take a new look at Drug War Facts

    Those interested in drug policy need to take a new look at Drug War Facts . This long standing project of Common Sense for Drug Policy has been a staple of drug policy research for more than ten years. The resource has recently undergone a thorough review and renovation to not only continue its display of salient Facts and their proper citations, but also now include a link to each Fact’s source, usually a PDF file. The 1,200 Facts (direct quotes) that comprise Drug War Facts place over 400 reports from governments, peer-reviewed journals, think tanks, and other authoritative sources at the fingertips of drug policy researchers. From marijuana to methadone, from drug courts to drug diversion, the 45 Chapters of Drug War Facts, cover all aspects of illicit drugs and the public policies toward them both within the U.S. and across the world.

    The factbase of Drug War Facts continues to be expanded, with new Facts and sources on display at http://drugwarfacts.org/cms/Recent_Facts. A series of flyers entitled “from Chapters of Drug War Facts” have been created to distill Facts concerning specific Chapters or drug policy issues into one page lists that can be found here http://mapinc.org/url/fDCZMZ4O, with the inaugural flyer, “The Federal, State, and Local Price of the Drug War,” at http://mapinc.org/url/8Xg6AK9z.

    Suggestions for sources, corrections to existing Facts, and general comments concerning Drug War Facts are always welcome and should be directed to Mary Jane Borden at [email protected].

  • Hot Off The 'Net

    Fox News slobbers over aged drug-sniffing dog

    Many of the worst tendencies of mainstream journalism’s approach to drug policy issues are highlighted in this Fox News report. It’s about an Arizona woman who bought a retired police drug dog and is trying to convince local parents that they should pay her to drag the dog through their homes. This process, she claims, will alert parents to the presence of any illegal drug in the house.

    You can see the report here: canine p.i. – Fox News

    Where to start? I interviewed a lawyer who pointed out the many flaws of drug-sniffing dogs a few years ago for DrugSense Weekly. Basically, police don’t keep records on the accuracy of drug dogs, and there are many reasons to believe that the dogs are highly inaccurate. Indeed, accuracy decreases with age and when dogs are trained on too many scents – both problems for the pooch on Fox.

    But the interviewers didn’t ask about accuracy, nor did they challenge the entrepreneur’s suggestion that the dog could detect “any” illegal drug. They simply assumed drug dogs are infallible and admired the beauty of the animal.

    This report isn’t really worse than other sycophantic stories on drug-sniffing dogs. Sadly, virtually every story I’ve seen on this topic is done with the same approach and assumptions – and absolutely no sense of skepticism.