Today, there are at least 17 states, including the District of
Colombia, where cannabis is legal. Ohio, South Carolina, Colorado, New
Jersey, California, and Michigan are just a few states that garnered
strong support in the legalization of  medical cannabis. In Illinois, a
bill legalizing the use of  cannabis needed the signature of Gov Pat
Quinn. The legislation was approved by House and Senate, permitting
doctors to prescribe cannabis for cancer and patients with HIV/AIDS and other diseases.

Dr Suzanne Carlber-Racich, a Master of Public health program
professor explains that the new legislation does not permit doctors to
write prescriptions without providing written clarification indicating
that the patient is allowed to take it for treatment. The patient must
then submit it to the Illinois Department of Public Health to receive an
ID card and obtain the medical cannabis through a state run dispensary.

In California, independent run dispensaries are increasing amid
relentless federal government

Despite obeying state law, several Michigan marijuana patients are
heading to prison because they violated federal marijuana laws.

As WWJ

A $2.2-million federally funded study soon will help answer the question: Does medicinal marijuana really help? The grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse funds a four-year project that began this monthat the University of Michigan. Researchers will track the progress of 800 recipients of medicinal marijuana prescriptions.

Michigan, where more than 135,000 patients are now in a 4-year-old statewide registry of approved medical marijuana users, is one of 20 states in which medical marijuana is used to ease pain and symptoms from cancer, seizures, glaucoma and other conditions, according to the researchers. Michigan voters approved a measure allowing medical marijuana in 2008.

Past research on medical marijuana’s effect has mostly focused on lab studies where participants are given different levels of marijuana or a placebo, then report whether their pain is lessened.

But those studies tend to last hours or a few days, and they fall short of determining whether the marijuana has a long-term effects on their lives in more practical ways — at work, with family or in social settings, said the U-M study leader Mark Ilgen,whose past research includes substance use, abuse, suicide and post-traumatic stress disorder.

Results show that pain was reduced, he said.

Experts, however, disagree about the magnitude of the pain reduction and how it compares with other pain medications, he said.

Still, he added, any pain reduction for the sufferer is welcome.

Just as important as pain mitigation is whether that change helps the sufferer with everyday life. The longer term functioning of medical marijuana users is really unknown, he said.

“Maybe they’re functioning better because of a better (pain) control, or maybe they’re … withdrawing socially because of the marijuana use,” he said.

Part of the study will be based on participants’ reports of how they’re faring; other data will include results of drug screens for other substances or arrest records, for example, Ilgen said.

The goal is to determine who does better and who does worse with medical marijuana, and what factors make the difference, he said.

The study eventually may be used by policy makers still struggling to understand the impact of the medical marijuana laws.

Just as important, Ilgen noted, “I see this as a starting point for more research.”

Participants cannot sign up. They must be approached by research staff at their first doctor’s appointment that is part of the process to become a registered medical marijuana user in Michigan.

Source: Detroit Free Press (MI)
Author: Robin Erb, Free Press Medical Writer
Published: May 26, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Detroit Free Press
Website: http://www.freep.com/
Contact: letters@freepress.com

A pair of bills that would
enhance the legal standing of medical marijuana providers have advanced
in the Legislature following this month’s landmark court ruling that
affirmed the rights of local governments to ban dispensaries.

The bills are two components of the ongoing and often passionate
arguments between Californians who support brick-and-mortar marijuana
dispensaries and those who oppose such storefront operations as "pot
shops" that often provide marijuana to people lacking serious medical
problems.

On one side, two of the Legislature’s leading Democrats are backing
the bills in the face of opposition from Republicans and law enforcement
leaders. The California Police Chief’s Association has pledged to
oppose the bills, which would create new regulations and protections for
medical marijuana providers within state law. The federal government’s
ban on marijuana would remain in force.

The more ambitious of the two bills, from San Francisco Assemblyman
Tom Ammiano, passed the Assembly Appropriations Committee on Friday.
Ammiano’s bill would establish Division of Medical Marijuana Regulation
within the state’s Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control. The new
bureaucracy would have power to set standards for growing, transporting
and selling medical marijuana. Providers would be able to register with
the state and marijuana products would be required to meet labeling and
quality standards.

The bill, A.B. 473, can now be considered by the entire Assembly.

"I think we’re turning a corner on marijuana regulation," Ammiano said in a statement Friday.

The second bill, from Senate President pro tem Darrell Steinberg,
would give marijuana collectives that operate according to the state
Attorney General’s guidelines immunity from prosecution for selling or
possessing marijuana. The bill would also allow dispensary operators and
employees to receive "reasonable compensation," but would not overturn
local governments’ power to ban dispensaries.

Steinberg’s bill, S.B. 439, passed a Senate floor vote on Monday over
opposition from the chamber’s Republican minority. A hearing date has
yet be scheduled in the Assembly Public Safety Committee, which Ammiano
chairs.

The California Police Chiefs Association will lobby against both
bills as they continue to move through the Legislature, said Kim Raney,
the group’s president.

Raney, chief of the Covina Police Department since 2001, said he and
other chiefs are concerned by the lack of clarity between the state law
and the federal prohibition of marijuana, as well as the ease of which
some people can obtain medical marijuana recommendations without
necessarily having serious medical conditions.

"If you’re going to have serious conversation about marijuana, in a
medical forum, it needs to be done through a legitimate medical
process," Raney said.

As opposed to Alcoholic Beverage Control, Raney said medical
marijuana policies could be better overseen by the state’s medical or
pharmacy boards, which respectively bear the responsibilities to license
and regulate physicians and pharmacists who practice in California.

Americans for Safe Access, which lobbies in support of medical
marijuana, is supporting both bills. The group would also prefer that
Alcoholic Beverage Control would not be the agency placed in charge of
medical marijuana regulation, although its reasons are different from
those of police chiefs.

Don Duncan, California director for Americans for Safe Access, said
Alcoholic Beverage Control is perceived as an enforcement-focused
agency. He suggested the state departments of Public Health or Consumer
Affairs as superior options.

"We don’t want to see it regulated like alcohol, or tobacco, because there are issues like patient rights," he said.

Although Duncan acknowledged he was unsure if the Legislature would
accept such a major amendment to Ammiano’s bill, he said he is
optimistic both bills will become law.

California’s medical marijuana laws have beset law enforcement and
patient advocates alike with several uncertainties since voters approved
Proposition. 215, also known as the Compassionate Use Act in 1996.

That law exempted medical marijuana patients and their doctors from
punishment, and campaign supporters advocated for medicinal marijuana
use as a way to relieve the sufferings of patients suffering from
diseases like cancer, AIDS and glaucoma.

The 2004 Medical Marijuana Program made it possible for patients to
obtain identification cards and collectively grow marijuana with other
patients and caregivers for medical purposes.

But state laws, however, did not provide a crystal clear definition
of what a proper medical marijuana collective would be. Confusion over
the law allowed numerous storefront dispensaries to establish themselves
over the past few years and even operate openly in cities where their
existence is illegal under local ordinances.

The state Supreme Court ruled early this month in a unanimous
decision that cities have an absolute right under existing law to forbid
dispensaries. In San Bernardino, for example, officials quickly
followed the ruling raiding and shutting down dispensaries.

In Los Angeles, by contrast, city voters decided in the May 21
election to allow the city to regulate and tax as many as 135
dispensaries. Although the measure would allow dispensaries to exist in
the state’s largest city, there are hundreds of other marijuana
providers who could be shuttered as a result of the ballot measure.

The personal use of illegal drugs, including heroin and crack cocaine, should be decriminalized as part of a federal-provincial strategy to tackle drug abuse, a B.C.-based national coalition of drug policy experts argue.

In a report to be released Thursday, the coalition denounces the Harper government’s aggressive war on drugs, which puts the emphasis on law enforcement while steering money away from harm-reduction initiatives like Vancouver’s supervised injection site.

“While countries all around the world are adopting forward-thinking, evidence-based drug policies, Canada is taking a step backwards and strengthening punitive policies that have been proven to fail,” states a summary of the 112-page report from the Canadian Drug Policy Coalition, which is based at Simon Fraser University’s Centre for Applied Research in Mental Health and Addiction.

The “stunning display of unimaginative thinking” has failed to decrease the flow of drugs into Canada while hampering efforts to deal with drug-related health problems.

“Despite Canada’s significant investment in drug control efforts, drugs are cheaper and more available than ever,” the report notes.

Among the recommendations is a call to legalize, regulate and tax the sale of marijuana to adults, taking advantage of an underground business that generates an estimated $357 million in annual sales in B.C. alone, according to the authors.

By far the most controversial recommendation calls for the end to prohibition of not only “soft” drugs like marijuana, but products like heroin, cocaine and methamphetamines.

The report notes that at least 25 jurisdictions in the world have moved to decriminalize at least some drugs, with Portugal (in 2001) and the Czech Republic (in 2010) ending criminal bans for all drugs.

“After decriminalization and similar to Portugal, drug use (among Czechs) has not increased significantly but the social harms of drug use have declined,” the report stated.

“In Portugal, decriminalization has had the effect of decreasing the numbers of people injecting drugs, decreasing the number of people using drugs problematically, and decreasing trends of drug use among 15 to 24 year olds.”

The coalition lists as its “partners” more than 70 organizations, including the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, the Central Alberta AIDS Network Society, the Canadian Cancer Survivor Network, and the Canadian Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.

Its report is harshly critical of the federal government’s anti-drug and tough-on-crime policies introduced since Stephen Harper became prime minister in 2006, including minimum mandatory sentences for certain drug offences.

Among the targets is the five-year National Anti-Drug Strategy, which was renewed for another five years in 2012 at a cost of $528 million. The program devotes most of its money (roughly 70 per cent) to law enforcement, according to the report.

It also goes after the Canadian Forces’ substantial investment in counter-narcotics missions in the Caribbean Sea and the eastern Pacific, involving warships and aircraft operating with U.S. forces.

It complains about the lack of support of, and in the case of the Vancouver supervised injection site aggressive opposition to, “harm-reduction” programs like needle exchanges that “save lives and protect everyone’s health,” according to the Newfoundland AIDS Committee.

The Harper government has never flinched from its strong support for get-tough measures against drug offences, often sneering at academic studies suggesting that its measures, while popular among many Conservative party supporters, had debatable or even counterproductive results.

In 2007, for instance, then-health minister Tony Clement declared that the “party’s over” while speaking of his party’s contempt for the former Liberal government’s approach to illicit drug use.

The coalition report cites 2011 Health Canada statistics indicating that B.C. has the highest percentage of people who have used marijuana at least once in their lives, with the B.C. rate of 44.3 per cent well above the national average of 39.4 per cent.

Health Canada said 12.1 per cent of British Columbians said they smoked pot over the past year, second to Nova Scotia’s 12.4 per cent and well above the national average of 9.1 per cent.

 

Source: Vancouver Sun (CN BC)
Copyright: 2013 The Vancouver Sun
Contact: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/477
Author: Peter O’Neil

At Leela European Cafe, a quirky, 24-hour coffee shop and bar in the heart of downtown, a bartender was quick with her thoughts on Colorado’s experience with the legal sale of medical marijuana.

“It’s really easy to get,” said Cara Wanek, 25, who says she uses it to calm her anxiety, boost her appetite and help her sleep. “And it’s delicious.” That’s exactly what Illinois is trying to avoid. While Colorado is not quite the Wild West of medical marijuana, it offers a window into the opportunities and consequences that arise when a state allows the legal sale of a long-banned drug.

The state’s therapeutic cannabis industry launched in earnest in late 2009, triggering a “green rush” that boosted the state’s economy. Big Marijuana added thousands of new jobs, revitalized aging industrial warehouses and shuttered storefronts, and generated millions of tax dollars for the federal, state and local governments.

At the same time, state officials acknowledge they were unprepared to license, inspect and regulate medical marijuana businesses, leaving millions of fees and taxes uncollected and a significant swath of the industry unchecked. And recently released police data show a modest uptick in certain crimes near marijuana businesses in Denver.

But as the nation’s first highly regulated, for-profit market, Colorado has served as a model for other states seeking to get in on the action.

In crafting legislation that would allow for the legal sale of the drug to certain patients beginning in 2014, Illinois lawmakers looked to build upon the experience in Colorado, where pretty much anyone with a long-ago injury can get a doctor’s approval to purchase up to 2 ounces of pot at a time — enough to stuff two small sandwich bags.

Illinois’ proposed statute is far more restrictive, placing tighter limits on who can legally purchase the drug and where it can be grown and sold.

The bill, which would allow people with 42 defined conditions to purchase the drug legally over a four-year trial period, was approved by the Senate on May 17. It awaits the signature of Gov. Pat Quinn, who has said he is “open-minded” about the prospect.

As the governor contemplates a decision, experienced pot entrepreneurs in and around Denver are watching closely with the hope that the time and money they’ve spent shaping and supporting the Illinois bill will pay off.

“Everyone is looking at Illinois and New York because that’s where the population is,” said Kayvan Khalatbari, a 29-year-old Nebraska native who was one of the pioneers in the Denver marijuana scene. “The ball is rolling, and with more and more states coming on all the time, we see opportunities everywhere.”

If Quinn signs the bill, Illinois would become the 20th state, plus the District of Columbia, to allow the sale of medical marijuana. Dispensaries could open as soon as next year.

In Colorado, legalization of the drug for medicinal purposes was approved by voters in 2000. But because the drug remained illegal at the federal level, most users remained underground, growing as many as six plants each for their own medical needs.

The industry didn’t emerge until 2009, after an Obama administration memo suggested that federal authorities would not aggressively challenge state laws.

Almost overnight, Colorado was swamped with retail dispensaries and large-scale operations to grow the plants. The state, which didn’t have an adequate regulatory or tax structure in place, soon had more weed shops than Starbucks.

By the next spring, when lawmakers scrambled to pass regulations, more than 2,000 companies had filed with the state to sell medical marijuana.

“We didn’t get off to a great start because we didn’t have the time or the staff to tool up,” said Ron Kammerzell, the Colorado Department of Revenue’s enforcement director. “We’re still, in a way, playing catch-up.”

At the end of 2010, the first year of regulated medical marijuana in Colorado, the state’s industry had more than 1,100 businesses, including dispensaries and manufacturers of marijuana-infused products, according to state statistics.

Today, there are 675.

“A majority of the people who came in in 2009 to make a quick buck are either broke or in jail,” said Norton Arbelaez, a tall, loquacious Oklahoma native who practiced medical malpractice law in Louisiana before he and a friend founded River Rock Wellness, a two-store medical marijuana operation in Denver.

“There were a lot of bozos in this business in the beginning,” Arbelaez said. “For the most part, those of us still around are the ones who are doing it right.”

In the roughly three years since the regulations took effect, sales have ballooned to nearly $200 million, generating $5.4 million in state sales tax in 2012.

In addition, operators have paid the state more than $10 million in application and licensing fees.

The most successful of Colorado’s 479 registered retail dispensaries log annual sales greater than $3 million.

Kayvan Khalatbari’s venture, Denver Relief, started with $4,000 and a half-pound of marijuana.

Wedged between a salon and an urgent care center on Denver’s near south side, the 25-employee operation expects sales of $1 million to $2 million this year. It has made money from day one, Khalatbari said.

But even as the legal sale of the drug emerged from rogue growers’ basements, retail owners and growers said they still operate in an environment of fear.

Because state laws run counter to a 43-year-old federal law that classifies cannabis as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, companies say they face hurdles that other businesses typically don’t encounter.

Banking is difficult, insurance is hard to come by, and operators fret that their nascent enterprises could be shut down at any time by federal regulators.

Operators say most banks won’t lend to enterprises that handle a product that is illegal under federal law. As a result, the vast majority of Colorado’s marijuana enterprises are financed solely with their own and private investors’ money.

Many lack business bank accounts and pay all of their bills — workers’ paychecks, utilities, contractor fees and mortgages — with cash or money orders.

Another issue is taxes. On average, small businesses pay an effective tax rate of about 20 percent on net income, according to the Small Business Administration. Marijuana purveyors, by contrast, say they pay an effective tax rate of 60 to 70 percent.

That’s because the federal tax code prohibits the deduction of standard business expenses for those who deal in controlled substances — marijuana included — even in states where it is legal.

“It’s a very heavy-overhead business that requires a lot of capital,” said Rhett Jordan, co-owner of Native Roots Apothecary, an upscale medical marijuana shop on the 16th Street Mall, Denver’s answer to Michigan Avenue.

Inside the spa-like shop, 30 airtight glass jars filled with buds sit behind a counter. A “bud-tender” helps patients choose the product best suited for their ailment. Chocolates, candies, tinctures and tiny jars filled with concentrated cannabis, called hashish, are arranged much like jewelry inside a glass case. Cameras are everywhere.

Customers range from local business magnates to musicians and construction workers.

Jordan, who said he has relatives in Illinois, has a keen interest in opening a dispensary in Chicago.

If and when Illinois opens the door to medical marijuana, weed retailers like Native Roots will face a much different regulatory environment. The number of dispensaries will be limited to 60 statewide and the number of growers to 22, one for each state police district.

Illinois also will be more restrictive on what diseases can be treated with medical marijuana. Of the roughly 108,000 Coloradans who hold state-issued medical marijuana cards, more than 101,000 reported using cannabis in part to treat “chronic pain,” a catchall category that will not be recognized in Illinois.

While the tighter restrictions in Illinois likely mean a smaller pool of potential customers, industry veterans in Colorado are confident the law eventually will loosen.

Colorado law, just like the one proposed in Illinois, requires growers to raise their plants indoors, under tight security. Installing robust security systems, which include high-definition cameras, automatically locking doors and shock sensors, can cost more than $100,000.

The state’s marijuana cultivation centers range in sophistication, security, employment and quality of product. Some have a thousand plants; some have more than 30,000. Most are grown indoors in modified warehouses; some use greenhouses surrounded by 10-foot-high electrified fences.

To prevent theft and diversion of the product to the black market, operators are required to invest in sophisticated software that tracks the plant from “seed to sale,” a Colorado mandate that Illinois’ legislation adopted.

Each crop, on average, takes about four months to grow. Monthly electric bills range from $3,500 to more than $15,000. The retail value of the inventory inside can easily stretch to several million dollars.

The plants are finicky and prone to mold and mildew, so temperature, humidity levels and air circulation are closely regulated.

Some operators grow their plants hydroponically, some prefer dirt, and others such as Gaia Plant-Based Medicine use a dirtlike product made of crumbled /coconut husks.

The company’s indoor cultivation center, a single-story brick building with barred windows, sits across the street from a Denver Police Department outpost in an industrial area on the northeast side of town between the airport and downtown.

A few years ago, many of the aging buildings here were empty. Today, they’re the headquarters for metropolitan Denver’s marijuana growers. The fragrant, unmistakable aroma of pot plants wafts down the street.

“If you look all around Denver, we came in and rented undesirable spaces,” said Meg Sanders, Gaia’s co-owner and chief executive. After Gaia opened a retail dispensary in east Denver, a Starbucks and a grocer moved in, Sanders said. “It becomes a hub.”

Anecdotes like this abound in Denver, running contrary to what many feared would happen to their neighborhoods once the marijuana industry moved in. Visions of drug-addled stoners and nefarious pushers flooding the city’s streets never materialized.

Two Denver City Council members and the head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce said complaints to their offices about marijuana dispensaries and growing operations are rare.

Colorado’s medical marijuana experiment has gone well enough, in fact, that voters in November were emboldened to push forward another constitutional amendment that will allow anyone 21 or older to buy the drug for recreational or “adult use” purposes as early as 2014.

It represents a major opportunity for Sanders, 47, who left the financial world in late 2010 to ride the marijuana wave.

Inside her discreet cultivation center, a Zen-style front waiting room makes way to an open warehouse, where tattooed workers trim marijuana plants, separate leaves from flowers and weigh product.

One-thousand-watt sodium lights cast a bright glow through ajar doors that lead to separate grow rooms.

Sanders had just returned from Illinois, where she spent time in Chicago meeting with potential growers and retailers and a day in Springfield to “help with the legislative process.”

She wants to ensure Illinois doesn’t make the same mistakes as Colorado, and that those who participate in the industry can learn from her company’s initial struggles. When she and other investors took over Gaia two years ago, it was hemorrhaging money.

The company finally turned the corner and became profitable this quarter, she said. For the full year, the three-store company projects revenue of $5 million to $7 million.

“It’s been far more challenging than anyone thought because the rules kept changing,” Sanders said. But with more than $3.5 million of their own money financing the venture, she and her investors remain bullish.

“There are few other industries that have insatiable demand,” she said. “Every single product we put on the shelves is sold each month. It pays for itself very quickly, and that’s what makes it so appealing.”

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Author: Peter Frost, Chicago Tribune Reporter
Published: May 26, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

People who had used marijuana in the past month had smaller waists and lower levels of insulin resistance – a diabetes precursor – than those who never tried the drug, in a new study.

The findings, based on surveys and blood tests of about 4,700 U.S. adults, aren’t enough to prove marijuana keeps users thin or wards off disease. And among current pot smokers, higher amounts of marijuana use weren’t linked to any added health benefits, researchers reported in The American Journal of Medicine.

“These are preliminary findings,” said Dr. Murray Mittleman, who worked on the study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“It looks like there may be some favorable effects on blood sugar control, however a lot more needs to be done to have definitive answers on the risks and potential benefits of marijuana usage.”

Although pot smoking is a well-known cause of “the munchies,” some previous studies have found marijuana users tend to weigh less than other people, and one suggested they have a lower rate of diabetes. Trials in mice and rats hint that cannabis and cannabinoid receptors may influence metabolism.

The new study used data from a national health survey conducted in 2005-2010. Researchers asked people about drug and alcohol use, as well as other aspects of their health and lifestyle, and measured their insulin and blood sugar levels.

Just under 2,000 participants said they had used marijuana at some point, but not recently. Another 600 or so were current users – meaning they had smoked or otherwise consumed the drug in the past month.

Compared to people who had never used pot, current smokers had smaller waists: 36.9 inches versus 38.3 inches, on average. Current users also had a lower body mass index – a ratio of weight to height – than never-users.

When other health and lifestyle measures were taken into account, recent pot use was linked to 17 percent lower insulin resistance, indicating better blood sugar control, and slightly higher HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels.

However, there was no difference in blood pressure or blood fats based on marijuana use, Mittleman’s team found.

A Causal Link?

Mittleman said that in his mind, it’s still “preliminary” to say marijuana is likely to be responsible for any diabetes-related health benefits.

“It’s possible that people who choose to smoke marijuana have other characteristics that differ (from non-marijuana smokers),” and those characteristics are what ultimately affect blood sugar and waist size, he told Reuters Health.

Dr. Stephen Sidney from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California, said he wonders if cigarette smoking may partially explain the association. Marijuana users are also more likely to smoke tobacco, he told Reuters Health.

“People who use tobacco oftentimes tend to be thinner,” said Sidney, who has studied marijuana use and weight but didn’t participate in the new study. “So I really wonder about that.”

Another limitation with this and other studies, Sidney and Mittleman agreed, is that all of the data were collected at the same time, so it’s unclear whether marijuana smoking or changes in waist size and blood sugar came first.

“The question is, is the marijuana leading to the lower rate (of diabetes) or do they have something in common?” said Dr. Theodore Friedman, who has studied that issue at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles.

He and his colleagues think the link is probably causal. “But it’s really hard to prove that,” Friedman, who also wasn’t involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

One possibility is that the anti-inflammatory properties of marijuana help ward off diabetes, he said. But he agreed that more research is needed to draw out that link.

“I want to make it clear – I’m not advocating marijuana use to prevent diabetes,” Friedman said. “It’s only an association.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/10Ty3La — The American Journal of Medicine, online May 16, 2013.

Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Genevra Pittman
Published: May 23, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Thomson Reuters

When New Jersey

This week, the Colorado General Assembly put the finishing touches on legislation aimed at taxing and regulating the commercial distribution of marijuana for recreational use.  The process has been haunted by the fear that the federal government will try to quash this momentous experiment in pharmacological tolerance — a fear magnified by the Obama administration’s continuing silence on the subject.

Six months after voters in Colorado and Washington made history by voting to legalize marijuana, Attorney General Eric Holder still has not said how the Justice Department plans to respond.  But if the feds are smart, they will not just refrain from interfering, they will work together with state officials to minimize smuggling of newly legal marijuana to jurisdictions that continue to treat it as contraband.  A federal crackdown can only make the situation worse — for prohibitionists as well as consumers.

Shutting down state-licensed pot stores probably would not be very hard.  A few well-placed letters threatening forfeiture and prosecution would do the trick for all but the bravest cannabis entrepreneurs.  But what then?

Under Amendment 64, the Colorado initiative, people 21 or older already are allowed to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, grow up to six plants for personal use and keep the produce of those plants ( potentially a lot more than an ounce ) on the premises where they are grown.  It is also legal to transfer up to an ounce “without remuneration” and to “assist” others in growing and consuming marijuana.

Put those provisions together, and you have permission for various cooperative arrangements that can serve as alternative sources of marijuana should the feds stop pot stores from operating.  The Denver Post reports that “an untold number” of cannabis collectives have formed in Colorado since Amendment 64 passed.

Washington’s initiative, I-502, does not allow home cultivation.  But UCLA drug policy expert Mark Kleiman, who is advising the Washington Liquor Control Board on how to regulate the cannabis industry, argues that collectives ostensibly organized to serve patients under that state’s medical marijuana law could fill the supply gap if pot stores never open.

It is also possible that Washington’s legislature would respond to federal meddling by letting people grow marijuana for personal use, because otherwise there would be no legal source.

With pot shops offering a decent selection at reasonable prices, these alternative suppliers will account for a tiny share of the marijuana market, just as home brewing accounts for a tiny share of the beer market.  But if federal drug warriors prevent those stores from operating, they will be confronted by myriad unregulated, small-scale growers, who will be a lot harder to identify, let alone control, than a few highly visible, state-licensed businesses.

The feds, who account for only 1 percent of marijuana arrests, simply do not have the manpower to go after all those growers.  Nor do they have the constitutional authority to demand assistance from state and local law enforcement agencies that no longer treat pot growing as a crime.

Given this reality, legal analyst Stuart Taylor argues in a recent Brookings Institution paper, the Obama administration and officials in Colorado and Washington should “hammer out clear, contractual cooperation agreements so that state-regulated marijuana businesses will know what they can and cannot safely do.” Such enforcement agreements, which are authorized by the Controlled Substances Act, would provide more security than a mere policy statement, although less than congressional legislation.

Taylor, who says he has no firm views on the merits of legalization, warns that “a federal crackdown would backfire by producing an atomized, anarchic, state-legalized but unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers could neither contain nor force the states to contain.” Noting recent polls finding that 50 percent or more of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, he says the public debate over that issue would benefit from evidence generated by the experiments in Colorado and Washington.  That’s assuming the feds do not go on a senseless rampage through these laboratories of democracy.

Source: Odessa American (TX)
Copyright: 2013 Odessa American
Contact: oaletters@oaoa.com
Website: http://www.oaoa.com/
Author: Jacob Sullum

A ballot measure to sharply limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the Los Angeles was approved by voters Tuesday night. The measure won with 62% of the vote, according to the latest results.

Proposition D would reduce the number of pot shops in the city from about 700 now to about 130 by allowing only those that opened before the adoption of a failed 2007 city moratorium on new dispensaries to remain open. A rival initiative, Measure F, which would have allowed an unlimited number of dispensaries to operate, failed. Both measures would raise taxes on medical marijuana sales 20%.

Yami Bolanos, a Proposition D supporter who opened PureLife Alternative Wellness Center in 2006, cried with happiness as the first election results came in, saying she felt as though years of uncertainty about the future of medical marijuana in the city were coming to an end. “Voters had the heart to stand up for the patients like the city council never did,” Bolanos said.

City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a cancer patient and medical marijuana user who backed Proposition D, said the measure “takes us out of chaos.” He said the dispensaries that have been in the city since 2007 have showed that they are good actors. “They have lived with us,” he said.

Backers of Measure F, which called for additional regulations on dispensaries such as city audits and tests of cannabis for toxins, said they weren’t ready to give up.

David Welch, an attorney who supported that measure, said he was prepared to sue if Proposition D was declared the winner. He said the proposition was unconstitutional because it favored dispensaries based on an arbitrary date. He also predicted that Proposition D would be difficult to enforce, saying that many shops that opened after 2007 probably would continue to operate until the city identifies them and orders them closed. “The city has no idea who qualifies and who doesn’t,” Welch said.

The contentious campaign over how to regulate medical marijuana shops divided the city’s dispensaries, employees and customers, as well as the city council.

Measure F supporters warned that Proposition D would create a monopoly for older shops and allow the rise of “pot superstores.” Backers of Proposition D, including a coalition of older shops and a labor union that has organized workers at many of them, cautioned that Measure F could lead to thousands of new dispensaries.

A third measure, Initiative Ordinance E, would have permitted only the older shops to remain open but without raising taxes. It was put on the ballot by a coalition of older shops and the dispensary employees union, but that coalition shifted its support to Proposition D after the city council voted to put that measure on the ballot.

The stakes were raised this month when the California Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to ban dispensaries.

Supporters of both initiatives warned that if voters failed to pass one of the ballot measures, the city would be left with no law regulating medical marijuana and might be tempted to enact a total ban.

The city council attempted such a ban last year, voting 14 to 0 to outlaw over-the-counter sales of marijuana while allowing small groups of patients to grow the drug for their own use. It reversed the action after the coalition of older dispensaries and union workers qualified a measure for the ballot that would have repealed the ban.

At least one city council member, Jose Huizar, has spoken of revisiting the ban now that cities have been given the authority to outlaw dispensaries.

L.A. has struggled for years to regulate dispensaries, in large part because of contradictory court rulings. The city is battling more than 60 lawsuits over its earlier attempts at regulation.

Los Angeles voters have generally supported the availability of medical marijuana.

In 1996, California became the first state to legalize the medicinal use of pot, although subsequent state laws failed to make explicit how the drug should be distributed. In 2011, L.A. voters approved a ballot measure to tax sales.

Still, a USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll conducted this month found strong support for more regulation of pot shops, with 61% of respondents saying they felt the city should regulate dispensaries more than it currently does. In contrast, 13% said the city should regulate less, and 19% said regulation should not change.

The poll also found that 54% of voters supported a 20% tax increase on medical marijuana sales and 33% opposed it.

Many voters confessed to confusion over the differences among the ballot measures. “The pot stuff was hard,” said Sue Maberry, 64, of Silver Lake. She voted yes on Measure F because she believed Proposition D would create a monopoly.

Early returns also suggested voters favored a measure aimed at overturning Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruling that corporations and unions have a 1st Amendment right to spend their money to influence voters.

The measure would “instruct” members of Congress from the Los Angeles area to support a constitutional amendment to change the law, although the lawmakers would not be bound by it.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Kate Linthicum
Published: May 22, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
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