Date: Tue, 12 Jan 2010 03:54:48 -0800
Subject: #425 New Jersey Becomes A Medical Marijuana State

NEW JERSEY BECOMES A MEDICAL MARIJUANA STATE

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #425 – Tuesday, 12 January 2010

Within a few days Governor Corzine is expected to sign New Jersey’s
law, making the state the 14th to have a workable medical marijuana
law. New Jersey will become the fifth state to pass a law through
legislative action.

The New York Times report, below, is just one of many about this
story.

Writing letters to the editor to your local newspapers about New
Jersey’s action may help advance the issue. Contacts for many
newspapers may be found at http://mapinc.org/media.htm

Updated facts you may wish to use are at http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/54

Articles and opinion items are about medical marijuana are being
posted daily at http://www.mapinc.org/find?253

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Pubdate: Tue, 12 Jan 2010

Source: New York Times (NY)

Page: A1, Front Page, New York edition

Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company

Contact: [email protected]

Author: David Kocieniewski

NEW JERSEY VOTE BACKS MARIJUANA FOR SEVERELY ILL

Both Houses Pass Bill

TRENTON — The New Jersey Legislature approved a measure on Monday
that would make the state the 14th in the nation, but one of the few
on the East Coast, to legalize the use of marijuana to help patients
with chronic illnesses.

The measure — which would allow patients diagnosed with severe
illnesses like cancer, AIDS, Lou Gehrig’s disease, muscular dystrophy
and multiple sclerosis to have access to marijuana grown and
distributed through state-monitored dispensaries — was passed by the
General Assembly and State Senate on the final day of the legislative
session.

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has said he would sign it into law before leaving
office next Tuesday. Supporters said that within nine months, patients
with a prescription for marijuana from their doctors should be able to
obtain it at one of six locations.

“It’s nice to finally see a day when democracy helps heal people,”
said Charles Kwiatkowski, 38, one of dozens of patients who rallied at
the State House before the vote and broke into applause when the
lawmakers approved the measure.

Mr. Kwiatkowski, of Hazlet, N.J., who has multiple sclerosis, said his
doctors have recommended marijuana to treat neuralgia, which causes
him to lose the feeling and the use of his right arm and shoulders.
“The M.S. Society has shown that this drug will help slow the
progression of my disease. Why would I want to use anything else?”

The bill’s approval, which comes after years of lobbying by patients’
rights groups and advocates of less restrictive drug laws, was nearly
derailed at the 11th hour as some Democratic lawmakers wavered and
Governor-elect Christopher J. Christie, a Republican, went to the
State House and expressed reservations about it.

In the end, however, it passed by comfortable margins in both houses:
48-14 in the General Assembly and 25-13 in the State Senate.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton who sponsored the
legislation, said New Jersey’s would be the most restrictive medical
marijuana law in the nation because it would permit doctors to
prescribe it for only a set list of serious, chronic illnesses. The
law would also forbid patients from growing their own marijuana and
from using it in public, and it would regulate the drug under the
strict conditions used to track the distribution of medically
prescribed opiates like Oxycontin and morphine. Patients would be
limited to two ounces of marijuana per month.

“I truly believe this will become a model for other states because it
balances the compassionate use of medical marijuana while limiting the
number of ailments that a physician can prescribe it for,” Mr.
Gusciora said.

Under the bill, the state would help set the cost of the marijuana.
The measure does not require insurance companies to pay for it.

Some educators and law enforcement advocates worked doggedly against
the proposal, saying the law would make marijuana more readily
available and more likely to be abused, and that it would lead to
increased drug use by teenagers.

Opponents often pointed to California’s experience as a cautionary
tale, saying that medical marijuana is so loosely regulated there that
its use has essentially been decriminalized. Under California law,
residents can obtain legal marijuana for a list of maladies as common,
and as vaguely defined, as anxiety or chronic pain.

David G. Evans, executive director of the Drug-Free Schools Coalition,
warned that the establishment of for-profit dispensaries would lead to
abuses of the law. “There are going to be pot centers coming to
neighborhoods where people live and are trying to raise their
families,” Mr. Evans said.

Keiko Warner, a school counselor in Millville, N. J., cautioned that
students already faced intense peer pressure to experiment with
marijuana, and that the use of medical marijuana would only increase
the likelihood that teenagers would experiment with the drug.

“There are children at age 15, 14 who are using drugs or thinking
about using drugs,” she said. “And this is not going to help.”

Legislators attempted to ease those fears in the past year by working
with the Department of Health and Senior Services to add restrictions
to the bill.

But with Democrats in retreat after Mr. Corzine’s defeat by Mr.
Christie, some supporters feared that the Democratic-controlled
Legislature — which last week failed to muster the votes to pass a
gay marriage bill — would balk at approving medical marijuana.

Mr. Christie added to the suspense Monday, just hours before lawmakers
were scheduled to vote, when he was asked about the bill during a
press conference within shouting distance of the legislative chambers.
He said he was concerned that the bill contained loopholes that might
encourage recreational drug use.

“I think we all see what’s happened in California,” Mr. Christie said.
“It’s gotten completely out of control.”

But the loophole Mr. Christie cited — a list of ailments so
unrestricted that it might have allowed patients to seek marijuana to
treat minor or nonexistent ailments — had already been closed by
legislators. In the end, the bill received Republican as well as
Democratic support.

“This bill will help relieve people’s pain,” said Senator William
Baroni, a Republican.

Supporters celebrated with hugs and tears.

Scott Ward, 26, who said he suffered from multiple sclerosis, said he
had been prescribed marijuana to alleviate leg cramps so severe that
they often felt “like my muscles are tearing apart.” “Now,” he said,
“I can do normal things like take a walk and walk the dog.”

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PLEASE SEND US A COPY OF YOUR LETTER

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list (
[email protected] ) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

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

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

=.

Date: Thu, 31 Dec 2009
Subject: #424 2009 In Review

2009 In Review

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #424 – Friday, 1 January 2010

The Media Awareness Project archived about 14,500 news clippings
during 2009. Here is our annual list of the ones most frequently
accessed by our users.

http://mapinc.org/find?370 Asia

http://mapinc.org/find?369 Australasia

http://mapinc.org/find?366 Canada

http://mapinc.org/find?368 South America

http://mapinc.org/find?367 United Kingdom

http://mapinc.org/find?365 United States

2009 saw 2,294 pro reform letters to the editor published, our best
year since 2005. See http://www.mapinc.org/lte/ The prohibitionists
had 520 published.

The top 10 Topical Shortcuts

http://mapinc.org/find?999 Top 100

http://mapinc.org/find?420 Cannabis – Popular

http://mapinc.org/find?1042 Stories

http://mapinc.org/find?134 Cannabis

http://mapinc.org/find?102 Opinion

http://mapinc.org/find?204 Cannabis – Medicinal

http://mapinc.org/find?176 Cannabis – Canada

http://mapinc.org/find?185 Decrim/Legalization

http://mapinc.org/find?115 Cannabis – California

http://mapinc.org/find?180 Cannabis – Medicinal – Canada

The top 10 reform organization referring domains for 2009; i.e, the
websites which most frequently send folks to the MAP website.

http://norml.org/

http://csdp.org/

http://www.leap.cc/

Students for Sensible Drug Policy

http://november.org/

http://hemp.org/

Homepage

http://cjpf.org/

http://www.mpp.org/

Home

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

=.

Date: Thu, 17 Dec 2009
Subject: #423 War Without Borders

WAR WITHOUT BORDERS

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #423 – Friday, 18 December 2009

The Media Awareness Project has archived almost 14 hundred articles
that mention Mexico so far this year.

Today’s front page article, below, is one of them. Taking a page from
the Los Angeles Times series ‘Mexico Under Siege’ the New York Times
calls it’s series War Without Borders.

It is that. No single issue of the drug war is costing more in lives
and resources. None leads to more corruption. None better illustrates
the costs of the prohibition of some drugs.

News clippings referencing Mexico are found at http://www.mapinc.org/topic/Mexico

Many may be appropriate targets for your letters to the
editor.

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Page: A1, Front Page

Source: New York Times (NY)

Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company

Contact: [email protected]

Author: Randal C. Archibold

War Without Borders

HIRED BY CUSTOMS, BUT WORKING FOR THE CARTELS

SAN DIEGO — At first, Luis F. Alarid seemed well on his way to
becoming a customs agency success story. He had risen from a childhood
of poverty and foster homes, some of them abusive, earned praise and
commendations while serving in the Army and the Marines, including two
tours in Iraq, and returned to Southern California to fulfill a goal
of serving in law enforcement.

But, early last year, after just a few months as a customs inspector,
he was waving in trucks from Mexico carrying loads of marijuana and
illegal immigrants. He pocketed some $200,000 in cash that paid for,
as far as the government could tell, a $15,000 motorcycle, flat-screen
televisions, a laptop computer and more.

Some investigators believe that Mr. Alarid, 32, who was paid off by a
Mexican smuggling crew that included several members of his family,
intended to work for smugglers all along. At one point, Mr. Alarid,
who was sentenced to seven years in federal prison in February, told
investigators that he had researched just how much prison time he
might get for his crimes and believed, as investigators later
reported, that he could do it “standing on his head.”

Mr. Alarid’s case is not the only one that has law enforcement
officials worried that Mexican traffickers — facing beefed-up
security on the border that now includes miles of new fencing,
floodlights, drones, motion sensors and cameras — have stepped up
their efforts to corrupt the border police.

They research potential targets, anticorruption investigators said,
exploiting the cross-border clans and relationships that define the
region, offering money, sex, whatever it takes. But, with the border
police in the midst of a hiring boom, law enforcement officers believe
that traffickers are pulling out the stops, even soliciting some of
their own operatives to apply for jobs.

“In some ways,” said Keith Slotter, the agent in charge of the
F.B.I.’s San Diego office, “it’s like the old spy game between the old
Soviet Union and the U.S. — trying to compromise each other’s spies.”

James Tomsheck, the assistant commissioner for internal affairs at
Customs and Border Protection, and other investigators said they had
seen many signs that the drug organizations were making a concerted
effort to infiltrate the ranks.

“We are very concerned,” Mr. Tomsheck said. “There have been
verifiable instances where people were directed to C.B.P. to apply for
positions only for the purpose of enhancing the goals of criminal
organizations. They had been selected because they had no criminal
record; a background investigation would not develop derogatory
information.”

During a federal trial of a recently hired Border Patrol agent this
year, one drug trafficker with ties to organized crime in Mexico
described how he had enticed the agent, a close friend from high
school in Del Rio, Tex., who was entering the training academy, to
join his crew smuggling tons of marijuana into Texas.

The agent, Raquel Esquivel, 25, was sentenced to 15 years in prison
last week for tipping smugglers on where border guards were and
suggesting how they could avoid getting caught.

The smuggler, Diego Esquivel, who is not related to the agent, said he
told her that her decision to enter the academy was a good career move
and, he said, “I thought it was good for me, too.”

Under the Bush administration, the United States has spent billions of
dollars — $11 billion this year alone for Customs and Border
Protection — to tighten the border between the United States and
Mexico, building up physical barriers and going on a hiring spree to
develop the nation’s largest law enforcement agency to patrol the area.

But the battle for survival among cartels in Mexico, in which
thousands of people, mostly in the drug trade or fighting it, have
been killed, has only led drug traffickers to redouble their efforts
to get their drugs to market in the United States.

Along the border, many residents have family members on both sides.
Generations of residents have been accustomed to passing back and
forth relatively freely, often daily, and exchanging goods, legal or
not.

Federal officials believe that drug traffickers are seeking to exploit
those ties more than ever, urging family and friends on the American
side to take advantage of the hiring rush for customs agents. The
majority of agents and officers stay out of crime. But smuggling can
be appealing. The average officer makes $70,000 a year, a sum that can
be dwarfed by what smugglers pay to get just a few trucks full of
drugs into the United States.

Right now, only a fraction — 10 percent or so — of Customs and
Border Protection recruits are given a polygraph screening that
federal investigators say has proved effective in weeding out people
with drug ties and other troublesome backgrounds. Officials say they
do not have the money to test more recruits.

In years past, new hires rarely served in the areas where they had
grown up, but recently that practice has been relaxed somewhat to
attract more recruits, said Thomas Frost, an assistant inspector
general at the Department of Homeland Security. Mr. Frost and other
internal affairs veterans say that has made it easier for
traffickers.

Mr. Tomsheck said that several prospective hires had been turned away
after investigators suspected that they had been directed to Customs
and Border Enforcement by drug trafficking organizations, and that
several recent hires were under investigation as well, though he
declined to provide details.

As one exasperated investigator at the border put it, “There is so
much hiring; if you have a warm body and pulse, you have a job.”

The F.B.I. is planning to add three multiagency corruption squads to
the 10 already on the Southwest border, and the Department of Homeland
Security’s inspector general, the department’s primary investigative
arm, has also added agents. But such hiring has not kept up with the
growth of the agency they are entrusted to keep watch over.

Over all, arrests of Customs and Border Protection agents and officers
have increased 40 percent in the last few years, outpacing the 24
percent growth in the agency itself, according to the Department of
Homeland Security inspector general’s office. The office has 400 open
investigations, each often spanning a few years or more.

Keith A. Byers, who supervises the F.B.I.’s border corruption units,
said corruption posed a national security threat because guards seldom
verify what is in the vehicles they have agreed to let pass, raising
concerns “they could be letting something much more dangerous into the
U.S.”

Most corrupt officers gravitate to smuggling illegal immigrants,
rationalizing that is less onerous than getting involved with drugs,
investigators say.

But Mr. Byers and others point to a string of drug-related cases that
make them wonder if the conventional wisdom is holding.

Margarita Crispin, a former customs inspector in El Paso, pleaded
guilty in April 2008 and received a 20-year prison sentence in what
the F.B.I. considers one of the more egregious corruption cases.

Through a succession of boyfriends and other associates with ties to
major drug trafficking organizations in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, Ms.
Crispin helped smuggle thousands of pounds of marijuana over three
years, almost from the time she began working for the agency.

She waved off drug-sniffing dogs in her lane, complaining she was
afraid of them, although investigators later learned she had had dogs
as pets.

“She is someone who from the beginning said this would be a good job
to help the people I am associated with,” Mr. Byers said.

Just last month, Martha Garnica, a 12-year Customs and Border
Protection employee near El Paso, was charged with bribery and
marijuana smuggling in concert with traffickers in Ciudad Juarez.

Ms. Garnica’s 21-year-old daughter had also sought a job with the
Border Patrol, in what investigators deemed a suspicious move given
her mother’s alleged involvement in the drug trade. The daughter,
testifying in court last week, admitted she had lied on the
application both about being a United States citizen and about owning
property in Mexico. A spokesman for the United States Attorney’s
Office in El Paso declined to comment.

Mr. Alarid’s history in the military probably made him seem like a
good candidate for the customs job. But he had a tangled family
history. According to court papers, both his parents were drug addicts.

Mr. Alarid was born in Tijuana, Mexico, but raised largely in foster
homes in Southern California. He emerged from high school a track star
and, over the next 10 years, did stints in the Marines and the Army,
drawing praise from commanders for his dedication and service.

“I would willingly trust Luis with my life,” Sgt. Maj. Michael W.
Abbey of the Army wrote in a letter to the judge before Mr. Alarid was
sentenced in February.

Mr. Alarid began working at the border in San Diego in October 2007.
In his guilty plea, he admitted that he had started smuggling in
February 2008. He was arrested three months later.

Mr. Alarid would wave in vehicles that should have raised suspicion,
either because their license plates were partly covered or because the
plates did not belong to the vehicle, something he would have seen on
the computer screen in his inspection booth.

Before reporting to his lane, he would go out to the employee parking
lot to use his cellphone, which federal agents believe was his way of
telling the smugglers which lane to approach.

At his sentencing, all involved — the prosecutors, the judge, his
lawyer — expressed bewilderment at the turn in Mr. Alarid’s life. But
in an interview, a family member who was not part of the case said Mr.
Alarid had mounting gambling debts and, despite it all, had always
sought a bond with his biological mother.

Still, Judge Janis L. Sammartino accepted the government’s argument
that a deterrent message needed to be sent.

“I do think that the public, for a while at least, needs to be assured
that who we have at the border are 100 percent individuals of
integrity,” she said. “I think you were at one time. I don’t know what
went wrong for you, sir, and I hope that you attain that again.”

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

=.

Date: Tue, 15 Dec 2009
Subject: #422 Californians To Vote To Legalize Marijuana

CALIFORNIANS TO VOTE TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #422 – Tuesday, 15 December 2009

Today newspapers across California are printing articles about the
initiative which will be on the November, 2010 ballot for voters to
consider legalizing marijuana.

Details about the initiative may be found at the initiative website
http://www.taxcannabis.org/

Below is the article about the initiative from the state’s largest
circulation newspaper.

The San Francisco Chronicle’s article is at http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09.n1117.a05.html

Additional articles about California and marijuana, now and in the
months ahead, are found at http://www.mapinc.org/find?115

Many may be appropriate targets for your letters to the
editor.

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Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)

Page: A12

Copyright: 2009 Los Angeles Times

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

Author: John Hoeffel

Cited: The Tax & Regulate Cannabis Initiative http://www.taxcannabis.org/
Cited: California NORML http://www.canorml.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?115 (Cannabis – California)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/people/Richard+Lee

MEASURE TO LEGALIZE POT MAY BE ON NOV. BALLOT

California voters could decide whether to legalize marijuana in
November after supporters announced Monday that they have more than
enough signatures to ensure that it qualifies for the ballot.

The petition drive has collected more than 680,000 signatures, said
Richard Lee, the measure’s main proponent, about 57% more than the
433,971 needed.

“It was so easy to get them,” Lee said. “People were so eager to
sign.”

The initiative would allow cities and counties to adopt laws to allow
marijuana to be grown and sold, and to impose taxes on marijuana
production and sales. It would make it legal for anyone who is at
least 21 to possess an ounce of marijuana and grow plants in an area
of no more than 25 square feet for personal use.

Steve Smith, a political consultant who has run many California
initiative campaigns, said that as a rule of thumb, supporters assume
that about 30% of the signatures on petitions will be
invalidated.

“I’ll be very surprised if they don’t qualify,” he
said.

The measure, the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, is one of
four initiatives in circulation to legalize marijuana use, but it is
the only one that appears to have the financial support to make the
ballot.

Lee’s firm, one of the state’s most successful marijuana businesses,
has spent at least $1.1 million so far on the measure. Lee owns half a
dozen businesses in Oakland, including Coffeeshop Blue Sky, a medical
marijuana dispensary, and Oaksterdam University, which teaches about
marijuana.

Lee said he expected that the campaign will cost between $7 million
and $20 million, but he hopes to raise the money from across the country.

“We feel like we’ve done our part,” he said.

Lee has hired consultants to run an Internet-based campaign that he
said already has a mailing list of about 30,000.

In a news release, the campaign announced that it had more than
650,000 signatures, but Lee said that the firm he hired to collect
signatures put the number at more than 680,000. Lee said volunteers
would continue to gather signatures until the campaign turns in the
petition early next year.

Polls have shown support among California voters for legalization. A
Field Poll taken in mid-April found that 56% of voters in the state
and 60% in Los Angeles County want to make pot legal and tax it. A
poll taken for the initiative’s proponents in August found that 51% of
likely voters supported it when read language similar to what will be
on the ballot, but that increased to 54% when they were read a less
technical synopsis.

Smith said those numbers suggest proponents face tough
odds.

“Generally, you are at your high point when you start,” he said. “The
no side just has to come up with one good reason to vote no.”

But Smith said that a lot will depend on how much money is spent by
both sides and whether the electorate tilts toward left or right on
election day.

“I think it’ll probably be a very close vote,” he said.

Law enforcement organizations are likely to oppose the measure, but
several contacted Monday said they had not yet adopted an official
position.

Some marijuana advocates have criticized Lee for pushing his measure,
arguing that they would have a better chance in 2012, a presidential
election year when the electorate tends to be more liberal.

“I think things have turned our way so much that we have a good chance
of winning,” Lee said. “This is the time to bring up the issue and
talk about it. Who knows what will be going on in 2012.”

Dale Gieringer, the director of California NORML, was one of the
skeptics, but he said his pro-legalization organization would endorse
the ballot measure.

“I’d like the initiative to pass,” he said, “but I’m not holding my
breath necessarily for this to happen.”

Lee said he believes that the increasing acceptance of medical
marijuana has changed the dynamic. He said voters are aware that it is
easy to obtain a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana, but he said
most believe that is “a good thing.”

“Medical marijuana in California has been accepted as legalization in
some ways by a lot of the population,” he said. “To me this is
codifying what it happening.”

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

=.

Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009
Subject: #421 George Will’s Rocky Mountain Medical Marijuana High

GEORGE WILL’S ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL MARIJUANA HIGH

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #421 – Sunday, 29 November 2009

Today the Washington Post Writers Group syndicated columnist George
Will’s column about Colorado’s medicinal marijuana law, below,
appeared in many newspapers.

The issues and the spin in the column should provide fodder for any
letter to the editor writer.

Below is a list of newspapers we know printed the column with the
newspaper’s title, the article title used, the date printed if not
today, and the contact for sending your letters.

Norman Transcript (OK) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009

Rocky Mountain Medical High

[email protected]

Columbia Daily Tribune (MO) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009

Legal ‘Medical’ Pot A Dangerous Farce

[email protected]

Abilene Reporter-News (TX)

Rocky Mountain Medical High

[email protected]

Houston Chronicle (TX)

Medical Marijuana Mocks The Idea Of Lawful Behavior

[email protected]

Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)

A Dubious Medical High

http://www.heraldtribune.com/section/opinion04

State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)

Pitfalls of Legalizing Medical Marijuana

http://service.sj-r.com/forms/letters.asp

Post-Star, The (Glens Falls, NY)

The Leaf Offers False Hopes

http://www.poststar.com/app/contact/?form=letter

Dayton Daily News (OH) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009

Are Medical Marijuana’s Customers Really Sick?

http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/send-a-letter-to-the-editor-65916.html

Tribune Review (Pittsburgh, PA)

Rocky Mountain Medical High

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letters/send/

Washington Post (DC)

Rocky Mountain High

[email protected]

San Angelo Standard-Times (TX)

The Rocky Mountain Medical High

http://www.gosanangelo.com/forms/lettertoeditor/

Grand Forks Herald (ND)

Drop ‘Medical’ From Medical Pot Laws

http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/contactForm/email_id/2/

If MAP’s Newshawks find additional newspapers that printed this column
they will appear here http://www.mapinc.org/author/George+Will

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

DENVER — Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a marijuana
leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that most
transactions in the store — which is what it really is — involve
medicine.

The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws
against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana
that conforms to states’ laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical
marijuana. Since Justice’s decision, the average age of the 400
persons a day seeking “prescriptions” at Colorado’s multiplying
medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new
customers are college students.

Customers — this, not patients, is what most really are — tell
doctors at the dispensaries that they suffer from insomnia, anxiety,
headaches, premenstrual syndrome, “chronic pain,” whatever, and pay
nominal fees for “prescriptions.” Most really just want to smoke pot.

So says Colorado’s attorney general, John Suthers, an honest and
thoughtful man trying to save his state from institutionalizing such
hypocrisy. His dilemma is becoming commonplace: 13 states have, and
15 more are considering, laws permitting medical use of marijuana.

Realizing they could not pass legalization of marijuana, some people
who favor that campaigned to amend Colorado’s Constitution to legalize
sales for medicinal purposes. Marijuana has medical uses — e.g., to
control nausea caused by chemotherapy — but the helpful ingredients
can be conveyed with other medicines. Medical marijuana was legalized
but, Suthers says, no serious regime was then developed to regulate
who could buy — or grow — it. ( Caregivers? For how many patients?
And in what quantities, and for what “medical uses.” )

Today, Colorado communities can use zoning to restrict dispensaries,
or can ban them because, even if federal policy regarding medical
marijuana is passivity, selling marijuana remains against federal law.
But Colorado’s probable future has unfolded in California, which in
1996 legalized sales of marijuana to persons with doctors’
“prescriptions.”

Fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization, and Roger
Parloff reports (“How Marijuana Became Legal” in the Sept. 28
Fortune) that they essentially have this. He notes that many
California “patients” arrive at dispensaries “on bicycles, roller
skates or skateboards.” A Los Angeles city councilman estimates that
there are about 600 dispensaries in the city. If so, they outnumber
the Starbucks stores there period.

The councilman wants to close dispensaries whose intent is profit
rather than “compassionate” distribution of medicine. Good luck with
that: Privacy considerations will shield doctors from investigations
of their lucrative 15-minute transactions with “patients.”

Colorado’s medical marijuana dispensaries have hired lobbyists to seek
taxation and regulation, for the same reason Nevada’s brothel industry
wants to be taxed and regulated by the state: The Nevada Brothel
Association regards taxation as legitimation and insurance against
prohibition as the booming state’s frontier mentality recedes.

State governments, misunderstanding markets and ravenous for revenues,
exaggerate the potential windfall from taxing legalized marijuana.
California thinks it might reap $1.4 billion. But Rosalie Pacula, a
RAND Corporation economist, estimates that prohibition raises
marijuana production costs at least 400 percent, so legalization would
cause prices to fall much more than the 50 percent the $1.4 billion
estimate assumes.

Furthermore, marijuana is a normal good in that demand for it varies
with price. Legalization, by drastically lowering price, will
increase marijuana’s public health costs, including mental and
respiratory problems and motor vehicle accidents.

States attempting to use high taxes to keep marijuana prices
artificially high would leave a large market for much cheaper illegal
– — unregulated and untaxed — marijuana. So revenues ( and law
enforcement savings ) would depend on the price falling close to the
cost of production. In the 1990s, a mere $2 per pack difference
between U.S. and Canadian cigarette prices created such a smuggling
problem that Canada repealed a cigarette tax increase.

Suthers has multiple drug-related worries. Colorado ranks sixth in
the nation in identity theft, two-thirds of which is driven by the
state’s $1.4 billion annual methamphetamine addiction. He is loath to
see complete legalization of marijuana at a moment when new methods of
cultivation are producing plants in which the active ingredient, THC,
is “seven, eight times as concentrated” as it used to be.
Furthermore, he was pleasantly surprised when a survey of nonusing
young people revealed that health concerns did not explain nonuse.
The main explanation was the law: “We underestimate the number of
people who care that something is illegal.”

But they will care less as law itself loses its dignity. By mocking
the idea of lawful behavior, legalization of medical marijuana may be
more socially destructive than full legalization.

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

=.

Date: Mon, 23 Nov 2009
Subject: #420 Please Help Reform Marijuana Laws

PLEASE HELP REFORM MARIJUANA LAWS

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #420 – Monday, 23 November 2009

Today the Washington Post printed a short summary of the current
status of marijuana law reform efforts in the United States.

The article is not perfect as the statement “Anti-drug advocates
counter with surveys showing high school students nationwide already
are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco — and that the five
states with the highest rate of adolescent pot use permit medical
marijuana.” is less than accurate. The government’s own studies show
that adolescent marijuana use actually decreased after the passage of
many of the state medicinal marijuana initiatives. See
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/adolescents

The International Drug Reform Conference received a prominent
mention. Many hundreds of supporters of DrugSense and it’s Media
Awareness Project were there. Mary Jane Borden, the Business Manager
for DrugSense and MAP, participated in a very well attended training
session ‘Making the News: How to Get the Media to Cover Your Issue.’

As a service organization for the drug policy reform community
DrugSense is keenly interested in the reform of marijuana laws. We
host 136 websites for reform organizations, supply over 200 email
lists and discussion forums, and provide news feeds to over 200 reform
websites. Our volunteers make the Media Awareness Project possible.

But in these hard economic times we, like all reform organizations,
are in need of financial support to keep all of our activities going.
Please consider donating. Please visit our Why Donate to DrugSense
webpage http://drugsense.org/why_donate.htm

And please do what you can to support the efforts of all the
organizations working to reform our marijuana laws. Remember, it’s not
what others do, it’s what YOU do.

Please forward this alert to others who may be interested.

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Copyright: 2009 The Washington Post Company

Contact: [email protected]

Author: Karl Vick, Washington Post Staff Writer

SUPPORT FOR LEGALIZING MARIJUANA GROWS RAPIDLY AROUND U.S.

Approval for Medical Use Expands Alongside Criticism of
Prohibition

The same day they rejected a gay marriage ballot measure, residents of
Maine voted overwhelmingly to allow the sale of medical marijuana over
the counter at state-licensed dispensaries.

Later in the month, the American Medical Association reversed a
longtime position and urged the federal government to remove marijuana
from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act, which equates it
with heroin and cocaine.

A few days later, advocates for easing marijuana laws left their
biannual strategy conference with plans to press ahead on all fronts
— state law, ballot measures, and court — in a movement that for the
first time in decades appeared to be gaining ground.

“This issue is breaking out in a remarkably rapid way now,” said Ethan
Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Public
opinion is changing very, very rapidly.”

The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in
October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of
marijuana — a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if
public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year,
“the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as
little as four years.”

A 53 percent majority already does so in the West, according to the
survey. The finding heartens advocates collecting signatures to put
the question of legalization before California voters in a 2010 initiative.

At last week’s International Drug Reform Conference, activists gamed
specific proposals for taxing and regulating pot along the lines of
cigarettes and alcohol, as a bill pending in the California
Legislature would do. The measure is not expected to pass, but in
urging its serious debate, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) gave
credence to a potential revenue source that the state’s tax chief said
could raise $1.3 billion in the recession, which advocates describe as
a boon.

There were also tips on lobbying state legislatures, where measures
decriminalizing possession of small amounts have passed in 14 states.
Activists predict half of states will have laws allowing possession
for medical purposes in the near future.

Interest in medical marijuana and easing other marijuana laws picked
up markedly about 18 months ago, but advocates say the biggest surge
came with the election of Barack Obama, the third straight president
to acknowledge having smoked marijuana, and the first to regard it
with anything like nonchalance.

“As a kid, I inhaled,” Barack Obama famously said on the campaign.
“That was the whole point.”

In office, Obama made good on a promise to halt federal prosecutions
of medical marijuana use where permitted by state law. That has
recalibrated the federal attitude, which had been consistently hostile
to marijuana since the early 1970s, when President Richard Nixon cast
aside the recommendations of a presidential commission arguing against
lumping pot with hard drugs.

Allen St. Pierre, the executive director of the National Organization
for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he was astonished recently to
be invited to contribute thoughts to the Office of National Drug
Control Policy. Obama’s drug czar, Gil Kerlikowske, was police chief
in Seattle, where voters officially made enforcement of marijuana laws
the lowest priority.

“I’ve been thrown out of the ONDCP many times,” St. Pierre said.
“Never invited to actually participate.”

Anti-drug advocates counter with surveys showing high school students
nationwide already are more likely to smoke marijuana than tobacco —
and that the five states with the highest rate of adolescent pot use
permit medical marijuana.

“We are in the prevention business,” said Arthur Dean, chairman of the
Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America. “Kids are getting the
message tobacco’s harmful, and they’re not getting the message
marijuana is.”

In Los Angeles, city officials are dealing with elements of public
backlash after more than 1,000 medical marijuana dispensaries opened,
some employing in-house physicians to dispense legal permission to
virtually all comers. The boom town atmosphere brought complaints from
some neighbors, but little of the crime associated with underground
drug-dealing.

Advocates cite the latter as evidence that, as with alcohol, violence
associated with the marijuana trade flows from its
prohibition.

“Seriously,” said Bruce Merkin, communications director for the
Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group based in the District,
“there is a reason you don’t have Mexican beer cartels planting fields
of hops in the California forests.”

But the controversy over the dispensaries also has put pressure on
advocates who specifically champion access for ailing patients, not
just those who champion easing marijuana laws.

“I don’t want to say we keep arm’s length from the other groups. You
end up with all of us in the same room,” said Joe Elford, counsel for
Americans for Safe Access, which has led the court battle for medical
marijuana and is squaring off with the Los Angeles City Council. “It’s
a very broad-based movement.”

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

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

=.

Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009
Subject: #419 Congress Is Set To Stick It To Clean-Syringe Programs

CONGRESS IS SET TO STICK IT TO CLEAN-SYRINGE PROGRAMS

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #419 – Tuesday, 10 November 2009

Today the Washington Post printed the editorial below.

Yesterday the New York Times printed an in-depth article “Bill Would
Limit Needle Exchanges” http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1009/a05.html

Please contact your Senators about this legislation.

The Harm Reduction Coalition has set up a Take Action page “Needle Ban
Fight Moves to Senate!” at http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/1627/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=27789
which may also be accessed via this shortcut http://drugsense.org/url/yvrS3vTu

Please forward this alert to others who may be interested.

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Source: Washington Post (DC)

Copyright: 2009 The Washington Post Company

Contact: [email protected]

BLUNTED NEEDLES

Congress Is Set to Stick It to Clean-Syringe Programs

PROGRAMS THAT allow drug addicts to swap their dirty needles for
sterile syringes are effective in reducing the transmission of HIV,
the virus that causes AIDS. A 2008 report from the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention notes that an 80 percent reduction in the
incidence of HIV in intravenous drug users over the past 20 years can
be attributed in part to such programs funded by private organizations
and localities. But Congress appears intent on gumming up the works.

At first glance, the congressional goings-on seem promising: The
promise is to lift a 21-year-old ban on federal funding of
needle-exchange programs. But the small print makes this promise all
but worthless, because Congress would prohibit those programs from
operating within 1,000 feet of a school, library, park, college, video
arcade or any place where children might be present. In other words,
just about anywhere.

Pending legislation is particularly punitive to the District. Just
last year, Congress finally allowed the District the spend its own
money on clean-needle programs. Now a bill would apply the same
1,000-foot restrictions to District programs both with federal money
and with its own. This would effectively shut down the District’s four
needle-exchange programs.

Thank Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) for hobbling this city’s efforts.
He’s “concerned for the safety of schoolchildren and the negative
impact of sending them mixed messages when it comes to drug
prevention,” his spokesman told us. Mr. Kingston’s concern doesn’t
jibe with the facts. The CDC, the American Medical Association, the
National Institutes of Health and the World Health Organization concur
that needle-exchange programs reduce the spread of HIV without
increasing drug use.

The bills have already passed the House. It’s now up to the Senate to
strip the restrictions from the legislation. We urge it to do so.
Cities need every resource at their disposal to fight the HIV/AIDS
epidemic.

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

=.

Date: Tue, 3 Nov 2009
Subject: #418 Science Clashes With Politics In The United Kingdom

SCIENCE CLASHES WITH POLITICS IN THE UNITED KINGDOM

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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #418 – Tuesday, 3 November 2009

The British government faces a revolt of its scientific advisers after
it fired the chair of its independent Advisory Council on the Misuse
of Drugs (ACMD) last week. At least two members of the ACMD have
already resigned in protest.

The ACMD is an independent expert body that advises on drug-related
issues including recommendations on classification under the 1971
Misuse of Drugs Act. It’s website is at http://drugs.homeoffice.gov.uk/drugs-laws/acmd/

Home Secretary Alan Johnson demanded the resignation of Professor
David Nutt on Friday. Professor Nutt’s views which resulted in his
firing resulted from the release of this report http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/opus1714/Estimating_drug_harms.pdf

You may follow the scandal at this link http://www.mapinc.org/people/David+Nutt
Please let the British press know what you think by sending letters
to the newspapers.

Monday The Times published Professor Nutt’s OPED, below, presenting
his view.

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Source: Times, The (UK)

Copyright: 2009 Times Newspapers Ltd

Contact: [email protected]

Author: David Nutt

PENALTIES FOR DRUG USE MUST REFLECT HARM

How Can True Scientists Advise This or Any Other Government?

In July this year I gave a lecture on the assessment of drug harms and
how these relate to the legislation controlling drugs. According to
Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary, some contents of this lecture meant
I had crossed the line from science to policy and so he sacked me. I
do not know which comments were beyond the line or, indeed, where the
line was, but the Government has lost its major expert on drugs and
drug harms and may indeed lose the rest of its scientific advisers in
the field.

All drugs are potentially harmful and many of the harms can be
measured. We can use scientific methods to estimate these and produce
a ranking, and compare our scores with their location in the Misuse of
Drugs Act. Heroin and cocaine appear to be in the correct place
(Class A), whereas Ecstasy (Class A) and cannabis do not (Class B).

The reason for making drugs illegal is to let society reduce harms by
punishing their sale and use. The purpose of having the ABC classes
is to scale penalties according to relative harms. Possession of a
class A drug for personal use can lead to seven years in prison, for
class B, it is five years and for class C, two years.

The classes are also important in educating the public about the
relative harms of drugs. So it is imperative that the classification
of drugs truly reflects their harms, otherwise injustices may occur
and the educational message be undermined. Scientific inquiry into
drug harms must also be honest and accurate so that the best quality
evidence is available to the experts and government. Legal drugs such
as alcohol and tobacco are as harmful as many illegal drugs and
currently score highly on our ranking list.

What are appropriate penalties for drug use? This question has moral
and practical aspects, but the penalties must reflect the real and
relative harms of drugs.

My sacking has cast a huge shadow over the relationship of science to
policy. Several of the science experts from the Advisory Council on
the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) have resigned in protest and it seems
likely that many others will follow suit. This means the Home Office
no longer has a functioning advisory group, which is very unfortunate
given the ever-increasing problems of drugs and the emergence of new
ones. Also it seems unlikely that any “true” scientist – one who can
only speak the truth – will be able to work for this, or future, Home
Secretaries.

Others have suggested a way forward: create a truly independent
advisory council. This is the only realistic way out of the current
mess.

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PLEASE SEND US COPIES OF YOUR LETTERS

Please post copies of your letters to the sent letter list
([email protected]) if you are subscribed.

Subscribing to the Sent LTE list will help you to review other sent
LTEs and perhaps come up with new ideas or approaches.

To subscribe to the Sent LTE mailing list see

http://www.mapinc.org/lists/index.htm#form

Suggestions for writing LTEs are at our Media Activism
Center

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

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

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