New Jersey’s medical marijuana law has shown itself to be overly restrictive and flawed in many ways, but fortunately, the legislature has approved a bill that would make a few significant improvements.

S2842/A4241 was drafted on behalf of two-year-old patient Vivian Wilson, who suffers from a severe form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome but has not been able to benefit from the state’s the program. The bill, which has been supported by our allies at the Drug Policy Alliance, would make three significant changes to New Jersey’s law:

* It would remove the requirement that an alternative treatment center may only grow three strains of marijuana.
* It would allow medical marijuana to be distributed in edible forms and other forms approved by the Commissioner of Health.
* It would remove the requirement that minor patients with serious illnesses must receive a recommendation from a pediatrician and psychiatrist in addition to the treating physician.

This bill passed the Assembly Monday in a 55-13 vote after having previously been approved by the Senate, 24-14. However, Gov. Chris Christie has not indicated whether he will sign the bill, and in an interview last month, he said he’s “not inclined to allow” minors to have access to medical marijuana.

If you are a New Jersey resident, please call Gov. Christie today and urge him to sign this bill.

Most people don’t think “cops” when they think about who supports marijuana legalization. Police are, after all, the ones cuffing stoners, and law enforcement groups have a long history of lobbying against marijuana policy reform. Many see this as a major factor in preventing the federal government from recognizing that a historic majority of Americans – 52 percent – favors legalizing weed.

But the landscape is changing fast. Today, a growing number of cops are part of America’s “marijuana majority.” Members of the non-profit group Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) say that loosening our pot policy wouldn’t necessarily condone drug use, but control it, while helping cops to achieve their ultimate goal of increasing public safety. Here are the five biggest reasons why even cops are starting to say, “Legalize It!”

1. It’s about public safety.

While marijuana is a relatively harmless drug, the black market associated with it can cause significant harm. Much like the prohibition of alcohol, marijuana’s illegality does not erase the profit incentive – instead, it establishes a risky, unregulated market in which violence and intimidation are used to settle disputes.

“When we ended the prohibition of alcohol, Al Capone was out of work the next day,” says Stephen Downing, Los Angeles’ former Deputy Chief of Police. “Our drug policy is really anti-public safety and pro-cartel, pro-street gang, because it keeps them in business.”

Marijuana trafficking represents a significant chunk of business for black-market cartels. Though the exact percentage of cartel profits from pot is disputed, lowball estimates fall at around 20 percent.

“During my time on the border, I saw literally tons of marijuana come over the border from Mexico,” says Jamie Haase, a former special agent in the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement division. “Competition over the profits to be made from this illicit industry has led to the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals in that country, and an ever-increasing amount of violence spilling over into the United States, where the Justice Department estimates Mexican cartels now operate in more than 1,000 American cities.”

2. Cops want to focus on crimes that hurt real victims.

In the past decade, police made more than 7 million marijuana arrests, 88 percent of them for possession alone. In 2010, states spent $3.6 billion enforcing the war on pot, with blacks nearly four times as likely as whites to be arrested. That’s a lot of police time and resources wasted, says former Seattle Chief of Police Norm Stamper, who had an “aha moment” about marijuana policy while working for the San Diego Police Department in the late 1960s.

“I had arrested a 19-year-old in his parents’ home for the possession of a very small quantity of marijuana, and put him in the backseat of a caged police car, after having kicked down his door,” recalls Stamper. While driving the prisoner to jail, he says, “I realized, mainly, that I could have been doing real police work, but instead I’m going to be out of service for several hours impounding the weed, impounding him, and writing arrest, impound, and narcotics reports. I was away from the people I had been hired to serve and in no position to stop a reckless drunk driver swerving all over the road, or to respond to a burglary in progress, or intervene in domestic violence situation.”

Cops have limited resources, and spending them on marijuana arrests will inevitably divert them from other policing. Adds Stamper, “In short, making a marijuana arrest for a simple possession case was no longer, for me, real police work.”

3. Cops want strong relationships with the communities they serve.

Baltimore narcotics veteran Neil Franklin says the prevalence of marijuana arrests, especially among communities of color, creates a “hostile environment” between police and the communities they serve. “Marijuana is the number one reason right now that police use to search people in this country,” he says. “The odor of marijuana alone gives a police officers probable cause to search you, your person, your car, or your home.”

Legalizing pot, says Franklin, could lead to “hundreds of thousands of fewer negative police and citizen contacts across this country. That’s a hell of an opportunity for law enforcement to rebuild some bridges in our communities – mainly our poor, black and Latino communities.”

Franklin adds that this would increase citizens’ trust in police, making them more likely to communicate and help solve more serious crimes. Building mutual respect would also protect cops on the job. Adds Franklin, “Too many police officers are killed or injured serving the War on Drugs as opposed to protecting and serving their communities.”

4. The war on pot encourages bad – and even illegal – police practices.

Downing says that monetary incentives for drug arrests, like asset forfeiture and federal grants, encourage an attitude where police will make drug arrests by any means necessary, from militarized SWAT raids to paid informants who admit to lying. “The overall effect is that we are losing ground in terms of the traditional peace officer role of protecting public safety, and morphing our local police officers into federal drug warriors,” Downing says.

Quotas and pressure for officers to make drug arrests – which profit police departments via federal funding and asset forfeiture – also encourage routine violations of the Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches and seizures. The NYPD, for example, stops and sometimes frisks well over 500,000 people a year, the vast majority of them youths of color – the basis for a pending federal lawsuit challenging the policy on constitutional grounds. While New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg has defended stop-and-frisk as a way to get guns off the street, in fact, it’s more often used to arrest kids with small amounts of weed. Stamper adds that legalization would allow police officers “to see young adults not as criminals, but members of their community” – and start respecting those young people’s civil liberties.

5. Cops want to stop kids from abusing drugs.

Marijuana’s illegality has done very little to stop its use. A recent survey by the National Institutes of Health found that 36 percent of high school seniors had smoked marijuana in the past year. Legalization would most likely involve age restrictions on marijuana purchases, while at the same time providing quality control over product. “The only way we can effectively control drugs is to create a regulatory system for all of them,” says Stamper.

“If you are truly a proponent of public safety, if you truly want safer communities, then it’s a no-brainer that we have to end drug prohibition and treat [marijuana] as a health issue, like we did with tobacco,” says Franklin. “Education and treatment is the most effective and cost-efficient way to reduce drug use.”

On the other hand, adds Franklin, “If you support a current system of drug prohibition, then you support the very same thing that the cartel and neighborhood gangs support. You might as well be standing next to them, shaking hands. Because they don’t want an end to prohibition, either.”

Source: Rolling Stone (US)
Author: Kristen Gwynne
Published: June 27, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact: letters@rollingstone.com
Website: http://www.rollingstone.com/

Cancer patients who Google the words “chemotherapy nausea” today get a host of advertisements for treatment, including pills, skin patches and folk remedies used to prevent vomiting. Next month, however, the same search will turn up an ad for something a bit more controversial: medical marijuana.

The change comes courtesy of the charitable unit of Google, which last week gifted a Michigan medical marijuana advocacy group $120,000 worth of its services. As part of the grant, the group, Michigan Compassion, will be able to promote medical marijuana use through Google’s popular AdWords platform — the plain-text advertisements that pop up to the right side of any given search result.

Michigan Compassion does not sell marijuana but connects patients and growers, and it says the ads will appear alongside searches likely to be made by chemotherapy patients.

“The goal is to link the negative effects of chemotherapy and the positive effects of cannabis,” Amish Parikh, vice-president of Michigan Compassion, told The Huffington Post.

The ads’ value is small in the scheme of Google’s AdWords program, which brings in over $40 billion per year in revenue, but they represent a change for the Mountain View, Calif. firm, which has a strict policy against hosting ads for marijuana-related searches.

Google’s new generosity toward marijuana advocates fits neatly in Silicon Valley, however, where tech companies and their employees have been quietly contributing to cannabis activism, an area attorney involved in the marijuana legalization movement told The Huffington Post.

“They’re not the ones coming to the city council meetings to protest, but they quietly send in their donations,” attorney Lauren Vazquez said. “And they’re definitely consuming the cannabis,” she added.

A spokeswoman for Google declined to comment on whether the grant made to Michigan Compassion meant the company was taking an advocacy position in favor of medical marijuana.

AdWords has a policy against allowing advertisements for drugs and drug paraphernalia, but is allowing the Michigan Compassion ads since the organization does not directly supply such products. Google does not allow advertisers to link their ads to searches with words like “cannabis” and “marijuana.”

The spokeswoman said the ads would not appear in web searches done by those using a “family safe” filter, and text would show up only in states where medical marijuana is legal. (While legal for medical use in 19 states and the District of Columbia, possessing marijuana for any purpose remains a federal crime.)

It’s been noted before that the culture inside California tech companies is highly supportive of marijuana use, with on-the-job drug testing extremely rare. According to a Businessweek article on the topic earlier this year, the city of San Jose, where many industry workers live, has more than 100 pot clinics, and it’s considered normal for programmers to soothe the stress of long days hunched over a computer with a visit to one of those retailers.

“I think Silicon Valley is very supportive,” said Michigan Compassion’s Parikh. “There’s a lot of testing the waters, though.”

LinkedIn, the professional social networking company also based in Mountain View, is providing Michigan Compassion with free services to help reach potential donors and board members, according to Parikh.

An email requesting comment from LinkedIn was not returned.

Michigan Compassion has also received donated equipment and software from other tech companies channeled through San Francisco-based TechSoup Global. And Vertical Response, an email marketing firm also based in San Francisco, provided the group with several thousand dollars’ worth of free marketing technology.

A spokeswoman for Vertical Response, Connie Sung Moyle, said Michigan Compassion was not given a grant specifically due to the nature of its work but as a result of its non-profit status. Moyle said Vertical Response has provided in-kind donations to some 2,600 charities since 2005. “We don’t really discriminate either way as long as what they’re doing is above the law,” she said.

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Eleazar David Melendez
Published: June 27, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: scoop@huffingtonpost.com
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

The past month has seen the state of Maine take some notable steps toward positive marijuana policy reform. On June 7, a bill to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol, LD 1229, was narrowly defeated. Despite losing this time, this marked one of the best votes in a state legislature for a legalization bill. The sponsor, Portland Democrat Rep. Diane Russell, has vowed to continue pushing for this legislation.

MPP’s David Boyer

Even if statewide change may be slow in coming, activists aren’t waiting around to promote policy alternatives at the local level. Earlier this month, petitioners submitted the signatures required to propose a ballot initiative in the city of Portland that would make possession of marijuana legal for adults. MPP and other groups have been taking every opportunity to educate voters about this initiative, including at a recent beer festival, where Maine political director David Boyer informed attendees about the objective safety of marijuana compared to alcohol.

And on Wednesday, the Maine Legislature approved a bill that would add post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of qualifying conditions for its medical marijuana program. Maine will now join California, Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, and New Mexico in allowing marijuana to be used to treat PTSD.

The National Lawyers Guild, a public interest and human rights bar organization, released a report on June 25 highlighting the failures of marijuana prohibition and suggesting strategies for legalization initiatives.

The report, “High Crimes: Strategies to Further Marijuana Legalization Initiatives,” recommends both alternative policies for the U.S. government to pursue and strategies for drug-reform advocates to employ. The key recommendations are: reframe drug use as a social and public health issue; revisit international drug treaties; reclassify marijuana from its status as a Schedule I substance; support the right of states to legalize marijuana for adult use without federal interference; end civil asset forfeiture by law enforcement; and connect legalization efforts to the abolition of the for-profit prison industry.

“Marijuana legalization will create new jobs, generate millions of dollars in tax revenue, and allow law enforcement to focus on serious crimes,” said Brian Vicente, an NLG member and one of the primary authors of Colorado’s legalization amendment. “It would be a travesty if the Obama administration used its power to impose marijuana prohibition upon a state whose people have declared, through the democratic process, that they want it to end.”

Gov. Kitzhaber

On June 25, the Oregon Legislature sent two bills that would make sensible changes to Oregon’s marijuana laws to Gov. Kitzhaber for his approval. If enacted, these proposals would reduce the severity of the punishment for certain marijuana crimes. SB 40 would reduce the penalties for possession of marijuana. Possession of under an ounce of marijuana is currently punished by a civil violation. This bill reduces the criminal penalty for possession of between one and four ounces, as well as the penalty for possession of more than four ounces. If you are an Oregon resident, please ask the governor to support these reasonable changes. SB 82 would eliminate the requirement to suspend a person’s driver’s license if he or she is found in possession of under an ounce of marijuana. Possession of under an ounce is not a criminal act in Oregon; it makes no sense to add draconian measures like suspension of driving privileges for the non-violent act of simple possession. Urge Gov. Kitzhaber to end this heavy-handed practice.

Yesterday, the House and Senate granted final approval to the compromise version of New Hampshire’s medical marijuana bill. HB 573 will soon be printed and transmitted to the governor’s desk, and Gov. Maggie Hassan has already promised to sign it into law. The Senate approved the bill in a voice vote, with no discussion, and the House voted 284-66 in favor, also with no discussion.

Many of us have mixed feelings about the details of HB 573 (summary is available here), but we should all agree that its passage represents a major step forward for marijuana policy reform in New Hampshire. It’s unfortunate that patients will have to wait up to a year until ID cards are issued before they can receive legal protection, and it’s unfortunate that patients will not have legal access to medical marijuana until alternative treatment centers are open. However, we will strongly encourage the state health department to begin issuing ID cards and registering alternative treatment centers as soon as possible.

With Gov. Hassan’s signature, New Hampshire will become either the 19^th or 20^th state to pass an effective medical marijuana law. (A similar bill is awaiting the governor’s signature in Illinois.) MPP will continue working on this policy until New Hampshire patients have safe, legal access to medical marijuana!

With just one day left to pass it this session, the New Hampshire Legislature has given final approval to a measure aimed at legalizing medical marijuana – including state licensed dispensaries.

After much back anmedical-marijuana-symbold forth between the House and Senate, HB 573 has finally made it through – Governor Maggie Hassan will sign the legislation at any time, stating prior to its passage that: “I encourage the full legislature to pass this compromise so I can sign this legislation into law”.

“This legislation has been a long time coming and is a much-needed victory for those with serious illnesses who find significant relief in medical marijuana,” said Matt Simon, a legislative analyst for the Marijuana Policy Project.

Once signed, the law will go into effect immediately, and a commission will begin the process of establishing a dispensary system. Patients will be allowed to possess up to 2 ounces, and dispensaries will be allowed up to 80 ounces and 80 plants (with 160 seedlings), plus an additional three plants, 12 seedlings and 6 ounces for every patient who designates the dispensary as their primary access point.

The measure mandates that at least two licenses must be issued for dispensaries within the first 18 months of the law’s passage.

The New York Legislature adjourned its regular session early Saturday morning without passing two important marijuana policy reform bills. Both bills passed the Assembly, but ultimately stalled in the Senate: a bill legalizing medical marijuana for seriously ill patients and a bill that would have fixed the “public view” loophole in New York’s decriminalization law.

Although the Senate failed to take up the medical marijuana bill once again, there is still reason for hope. Over 600 New York physicians recently came out in support of medical marijuana, the Assembly passed medical marijuana legislation for the fourth time, and a recent statewide poll found 82% support for medical marijuana.

If you are a New York resident, please email leadership, including Gov. Cuomo, Sen. Skelos, and Sen. Klein, and ask them to support medical marijuana patients.

The Senate also failed to vote on legislation to fix the public view exception to New York’s decriminalization law. A6716 would have eliminated the false justification police are using to make tens of thousands of marijuana arrests each year.

Champlain Valley Dispensary

Vermont’s medical marijuana patients have finally been afforded a safe, legal option that doesn’t require the hassle of cultivating marijuana plants! As reported by The Burlington Free Press, two dispensaries have now opened their doors to patients: Vermont Patients Alliance held a “soft opening” late last week in Montpelier and Champlain Valley Dispensary opened Monday in Burlington.

The Free Press reported that both dispensaries are now open three days a week. A third dispensary has been approved and plans to locate in Brandon. A total of four dispensaries are allowed under the law MPP and our allies worked hard to pass in 2011.

These dispensaries will expand access and make life much easier for many patients. However, there is still room for improvement in Vermont’s medical marijuana law. For example, it only allows a maximum of 1,000 patients to be served by dispensaries. Additionally, patients who designate a dispensary are no longer permitted to cultivate their own plants.

State-regulated dispensaries are now open in the following seven states: NM, ME, CO, AZ, NJ, RI, and VT. State-regulated dispensaries are allowed, but have not yet been selected, in four additional states: MA, CT, NV, and DE. In the District of Columbia, dispensaries should be serving patients soon.