The nation’s drug czar said Wednesday the legalization of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado won’t change his office’s mission of fighting the country’s drug problem by focusing on addiction treatment that will be available under the federal health overhaul.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, released President Barack Obama’s 2013 strategy for fighting drug addiction Wednesday at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. The strategy includes a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons.

“The legal issue of Washington and Colorado is really a question you have to go back to the Department of Justice,” Kerlikowske said when asked about the impact the two states would have on national drug policy.

The key to the administration’s efforts to deliver health care to drug addicts is in the federal health care overhaul because it will require insurance companies to cover treatment for substance abuse disorders, as they currently do for chronic diseases like diabetes. That change could lead to addiction treatment for several million more people.

“Treatment shouldn’t be a privilege limited to those who can afford it, but it’s a service available to all who need it,” Kerlikowske said.

The strategy outlined by Kerlikowske also supports a greater emphasis on criminal justice reforms that include drug courts and probation programs aimed at reducing incarceration rates. It also will include community-based policing programs designed to break the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration while steering law enforcement resources to more serious offenses.

Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, said addiction needs to be acknowledged as a disease that can be diagnosed and treated. He said the debate over the nation’s drug problem has become locked in a highly charged ideological debate in which there are no simple answers.

“We’re not going to solve it by drug legalization, and we’re certainly not in my career going to arrest our way out of this problem, either, and these two extreme approaches really aren’t guided by the experience, the compassion or the knowledge that’s needed,” Kerlikowske said.

Kerlikowske was joined by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Anthony Batts, Baltimore’s police commissioner; and Dr. Eric Strain, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Batts noted that Maryland lawmakers this year showed signs of becoming more lenient on laws relating to marijuana, and he expressed his opposition to leniency. The state Senate passed a bill to decriminalize the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana, but the bill did not pass in the House of Delegates.

Batts said he views marijuana as a “starter drug.”

“I’m seeing more takeover robberies — people breaking into houses — surrounding marijuana, and it is dealing with younger people who are doing these takeover robberies that are resulting in murders, shootings and killings,” Batts said.

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Brian Witte, The Associated Press
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

Believe me, I’ve heard all the pot jokes, and some of them are true. Public support for legalizing marijuana use is at an all-time high. Some state-level marijuana laws are going up in smoke. And yes, Washington and Colorado are embarking on a historic joint venture.

Puns aside, discussions about marijuana legalization are getting serious. In November, voters in Colorado and Washington made the unprecedented decision to allow commercial production, distribution and possession of marijuana for nonmedical purposes. Not even the Netherlands goes that far.

Policymakers in both states are confronting some new and tricky issues that have never been addressed. For them, and for anyone else thinking about changing their pot laws, here are seven key decision areas that will shape the costs and benefits of marijuana legalization:

1. Production. Where will legal pot be grown — outdoors on commercial farms, inside in confined growing spaces, or somewhere in between? RAND research has found that legalizing marijuana could make it dramatically cheaper to produce — first because producers will no longer have to operate covertly, and second because suppliers won’t need to be compensated for running the risks of getting arrested or assaulted. After lawmakers decide how it will be grown, production costs will be shaped by the number of producers and other regulations such as product testing.

2. Profit motive. If there is a commercial pot industry, businesses will have strong incentives to create and maintain the heavy users who use most of the pot. To get a sense of what this could look like, look no further than the alcohol and tobacco industries, which have found ingenious ways to hook and reel in heavy users. So will private companies be allowed to enter the pot market, or will states limit it to home producers, non-profit groups or cooperatives? If a state insisted on having a monopoly on pot production, it could rake in a decent amount revenue — but for now, that possibility seems far off in the United States since marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

3. Promotion. Will states try to limit or counter advertisements in the communities and stores that sell marijuana? U.S. jurisprudence against curtailing what’s known as “commercial free speech” could make it tough to regulate the promotion of pot. While a state monopoly system could help control promotion, those advertisements you see for state lotteries should give you pause.

4. Prevention. If pot is legal for adults, how will school and community prevention programs adapt their messages to prevent kids from using? While some proposals to legalize marijuana would divert tax revenues to prevention efforts, the messaging and strategy should probably be in place before legal marijuana ever hits the streets.

5. Potency. Marijuana potency is usually measured by its tetrahydrocannabinol content, or THC — the chemical compound largely responsible for creating the “high” from pot, as well as increasing the risk of panic attacks. Much of the marijuana coming into the U.S. from Mexico is about 6% THC, while the marijuana sold in medical dispensaries in California ranges from 10%-25% THC. Meanwhile, the Dutch are now considering limiting the pot sold at their famed coffee shops to no more than 15% THC.

While THC receives the most of the attention, don’t forget other compounds like cannabidiol, or CBD — which is believed to counter some of the effects of THC.

6. Price. With marijuana, like any other commodity, price will influence consumption and revenues. A growing body of research suggests that when marijuana prices go down, the probability that someone might use marijuana goes up. So retail prices will largely be a function of consumer demand, production costs and tax rates. If taxes are set too high, pot will become expensive enough to create an incentive for an illicit market — exactly what legalization is trying to avoid. The way taxes are set will also have an effect on what’s purchased and consumed — that is, whether pot is taxed by value, total weight, THC content, or other chemical properties.

7. Permanency. The first jurisdictions to legalize pot will probably suffer growing pains and want to make changes later on. They would do well to build some flexibility into their taxation and regulatory regime. For example, while it may make sense to tax marijuana as a function of its THC to CBD ratio, 10 years from now we may have research suggesting a better way to tax. Just in case they change their minds, some pioneering jurisdictions may want to include a sunset provision that would give them an escape clause, a chance — by simply sitting still — to overcome the lobbying muscle of the newly legal industry that will no doubt fight hard to stay in business. As the sunset date approaches, legislators or voters could choose either to keep their legalization regime or to try something different.

Of course, these aren’t the only decisions facing those who are thinking about legalizing marijuana. But if we want to move away from the puns and abstract discussions to serious policy debates, these “Seven Ps” are a fine place to start.

Source: USA Today (US)
Author: Beau Kilmer
Published: April 25, 2013
Copyright: 2013 USA Today, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
Contact: editor@usatoday.com
Website: http://www.usatoday.com/

On Thursday, a Colorado Court of Appeals panel ruled that a quadriplegic medical marijuana patient fired for off-the-job marijuana use had no expectation of job security, creating a disquieting legal situation in the state.

Brandon Coats

Despite lacking evidence that he was impaired on the job, the Dish Network fired telephone operator Brandon Coats after he tested positive for marijuana. Coats took his employers to court, arguing that his termination violated Colorado’s Lawful Off-Duty Activities Statute, which states employees cannot be fired for engaging in legal activities when off-the-clock.

Unfortunately for Coats and the thousands of patients like him, a trial court ruled against him, citing a previous case that declared Colorado’s medical marijuana law only exempts patients from prosecution.

The decision makes it clear: Colorado’s Lawful Off-Duty Activities Statute does not cover legal state activities that conflict with federal law. Meaning, employees may smoke tobacco, drink alcohol, and risk developing a myriad of ailments, but if those employees opt to use a safer substance by following a doctor-recommended course of treatment, they must do so with the knowledge that their voter-approved choice could mean losing their source of income.

Employers are prevented from discriminating against employees based on medical conditions or treatments. Medical marijuana patients should be treated equally, not worse than people who use dangerous narcotics at the direction of their physicians.

The push to legalize Marijuana is going Gangham style. In the past several months, 55 percent of voters in Colorado and Washington approved a ballot measure making it legal for medical and nonmedical uses, and a slew of polls indicate that a majority of Americans now support making Marijuana as legal as cigarettes and alcohol.

Changing public attitudes is a big reason why the drive to let people legally “toke” up is gaining traction. But the question on the minds of politicians and business leaders is how much money can be made from this new industry?

Earlier this month Fortune magazine ran an unusual cover story attempting to answer this question. The article featured a group of West Coast Cannabis entrepreneurs who are seeking investments from prominent venture capital firms. These entrepreneurs want to produce and market products that will make smoking pot easy, sexy, and appealing. What’s their selling point? Cannabis could represent a $47 billion industry opportunity.

A broader selling point is that legalizing marijuana could help state governments cut their enforcement budgets and generate tax revenue. Since 1970, state and federal authorities have spent billions enforcing marijuana laws, but pot continues to be ubiquitous. Police have not reduced production, and laws are applied inconsistently across the spectrum of socioeconomic and minority populations.

The economic argument carries great weight for proponents. As revelers lit up last weekend to mark 4-20, the annual celebration of all-things weed, it’s tough to argue that consumer demand isn’t there. Legalizing an already booming black-market industry means the potential for job creation and a fresh source of income for state treasuries scrambling in the age of the sequesters.

However, once you clean the bong, this line of thinking goes up in smoke.

First, just because public opinion and economic arguments indicate otherwise, Congress must ask some hard questions before it changes 50-years of national drug policy. Questions like: why has marijuana enforcement failed? Is the Controlled Substances Act of 1970 fundamentally flawed? And if so, what can be done to reform it?

Finding the answers to these questions is not at the top of the political agenda. Attorney General Eric Holder testified recently about federal policies in relation to the newly passed Colorado and Washington initiatives, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) promised that the panel would discuss federal policies in light of the country’s patchwork of state marijuana laws. But there has been no concerted push for broad scale reform similar to the activities associated with the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act of 2009 or the Tax Reform Act of 1986.

Second, legalizing cannabis for profit is simply a bad idea. It flies in the face of social responsibility. The acquisition of profit is driven by self-interest, not the common good. Business decisions are made based on how the outcome will improve the bottom line.

It wouldn’t be long before marijuana companies – likely backed by big tobacco, with its in-place marketing and distribution teams – started aggressive efforts to win consumers. They’ll develop attractive packaging, new and interesting flavors and strains, optimal paper to enhance the smoking effect, and compelling advertising campaigns all designed to get consumers hooked.

There will be messages appealing to long-time pot smokers and new pot smokers. There will be brands for youths, college kids, minorities, the poor, women, and urbanites. Smokers will come to believe they can’t live without their daily “wake & bake” just as they believe they can’t live without their smartphones or iPads. The mass-market consumption of marijuana will bring with it the same negative and ubiquitous effects we’ve seen with alcohol and cigarettes: health problems, driving under the influence, and addiction.

Once the industry gets rolling, those celebrated tax revenues will probably evaporate. Just in the last few days, Colorado State University released a study indicating that the tax revenues expected from the Centennial State’s newly legal industry will not pay for its regulation. Nor will it bring in a windfall of money proponents promised would pay for new school construction and other social benefits.

Even if the tax projections do pan out, as the industry grows in size and influence, lobbyists will exert pressure on politicians to lower taxes and loosen regulations, just as the tobacco industry has done in the past, to maximize profitability. This is the nature of the interplay of business and politics; for the most part, business has the upper hand.

Other advocates point to the potential of a diminished drug trade – growers, particularly Mexican drug gangs, will no longer have as lucrative a demand for their wares, and dealers won’t be engaging in criminal activity because their sales have dried up. But this too doesn’t factor in the flip side of business: where one market opportunity ends, another one begins. Drug lords may see a short-term curtailment of their revenue upon legalization, but they’ll branch out to sell other illegal substances, like some new designer drug or some drug that has been out of vogue.

Legalizing marijuana isn’t a simple, creative way to fill up the government’s depleted bank account or strike it rich in a new industry. It will only add to the cacophony of big businesses jockeying for your dollar and competing for politicians’ favor. The public needs to take a long-pause before it starts clamoring for the legal right to buy marijuana at the local 7-Eleven. Social responsibility dictates caution.

Source: Topix LLC
Link: http://politix.topix.com/homepage/5760-legalizing-marijuana-for-profit-is-a-bad-idea
Author: Jamie P. Chandler and Palmer Gibbs
Date: April 23, 2013

The nation’s drug czar said Wednesday the legalization of marijuana in Washington state and Colorado won’t change his office’s mission of fighting the country’s drug problem by focusing on addiction treatment that will be available under the federal health overhaul.

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the National Drug Control Policy, released President Barack Obama’s 2013 strategy for fighting drug addiction Wednesday at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in Baltimore. The strategy includes a greater emphasis on using public health tools to battle addiction and diverting non-violent drug offenders into treatment instead of prisons.

“The legal issue of Washington and Colorado is really a question you have to go back to the Department of Justice,” Kerlikowske said when asked about the impact the two states would have on national drug policy.

The key to the administration’s efforts to deliver health care to drug addicts is in the federal health care overhaul because it will require insurance companies to cover treatment for substance abuse disorders, as they currently do for chronic diseases like diabetes. That change could lead to addiction treatment for several million more people.

“Treatment shouldn’t be a privilege limited to those who can afford it, but it’s a service available to all who need it,” Kerlikowske said.

The strategy outlined by Kerlikowske also supports a greater emphasis on criminal justice reforms that include drug courts and probation programs aimed at reducing incarceration rates. It also will include community-based policing programs designed to break the cycle of drug use, crime and incarceration while steering law enforcement resources to more serious offenses.

Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief, said addiction needs to be acknowledged as a disease that can be diagnosed and treated. He said the debate over the nation’s drug problem has become locked in a highly charged ideological debate in which there are no simple answers.

“We’re not going to solve it by drug legalization, and we’re certainly not in my career going to arrest our way out of this problem, either, and these two extreme approaches really aren’t guided by the experience, the compassion or the knowledge that’s needed,” Kerlikowske said.

Kerlikowske was joined by Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; Anthony Batts, Baltimore’s police commissioner; and Dr. Eric Strain, director of the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment and Research at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center.

Batts noted that Maryland lawmakers this year showed signs of becoming more lenient on laws relating to marijuana, and he expressed his opposition to leniency. The state Senate passed a bill to decriminalize the possession of less than 10 grams of marijuana, but the bill did not pass in the House of Delegates.

Batts said he views marijuana as a “starter drug.”

“I’m seeing more takeover robberies — people breaking into houses — surrounding marijuana, and it is dealing with younger people who are doing these takeover robberies that are resulting in murders, shootings and killings,” Batts said.

Newshawk: The GCW
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Brian Witte, The Associated Press
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

Two leading experts on marijuana legalization squared off Thursday on the implications, merits and economic effects of legalizing the substance in a debate hosted by the Janus Political Union Debates, a sub-group of the Janus Forum. Alex Friedland ’15, fellows director of the Janus Forum, moderated the debate and began by asking the two speakers to present 15-minute opening remarks.

Aaron Houston, executive director of Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and decade-long proponent of marijuana legalization, said illegality has created a stigma around marijuana use. He said the majority of marijuana users in the United States are “silenced,” but the country is now at a “tipping point” for discussion about legalization.

Houston repeatedly said young people are being “locked in cages” for marijuana possession, an aspect of the criminal system that needs reform.

Houston also cited the benefits of being able to regulate the market for marijuana if the substance were legalized, adding that the underground market is currently largely controlled by drug cartels.

“We can tax it, regulate it and control it, like alcohol, and take profits away from those people,” Houston said.

Kevin Sabet, former senior adviser to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and Houston’s opponent in the debate, agreed that the criminal processing of marijuana possession needed improvement, but said legalization is “a step too far.”

Though “controlling something in the black market on its face sounds appealing,” the feasibility of this would be “a lot more complicated and scary,” Sabet said. If marijuana were legal, it would become cheaper and therefore easier to obtain, especially for young people, he said. Because marijuana is much easier for vendors to grow than alcohol or tobacco, these dealers could more easily avoid paying taxes on the substance, he said.

Sabet also emphasized the capitalization and advertising market that would stem from marijuana’s legalization. He compared the potential marijuana advertising industry to that of tobacco in the 1980s, when companies’ advertising campaigns directly targeted youths. He added that there are “eight times as many liquor outlets in poorer communities of color,” and these groups would be targeted as well.

Friedland asked Houston to discuss health concerns, pointing to studies that link prolonged marijuana use from a young age to lower IQs and schizophrenia.

Houston said alcohol and tobacco were much more dangerous than marijuana and questioned the validity of marijuana’s connection to schizophrenia.

“The (Drug Enforcement Administration) said in 1989 that marijuana is one of the therapeutically safest substances known to mankind,” Houston said.

Thirty minutes were allotted at the end of the debate for questions from the approximately 30-person audience. Audience member Benjamin Koatz ’16 asked Sabet why he thought a black market for marijuana would be less harmful than a legalized, regulated market.

Sabet responded that if marijuana were legalized, the black market would exclusively target young people. He added that “when a drug is normalized,” it is more difficult to conduct education and prevention programs.

Audience members posed questions to both speakers about how personal liberty fit into the discussion around marijuana legalization.

Houston said the continued war against marijuana use has been an “assault” on personal liberty. He reiterated that many young people are arrested and — in rare cases — charged with felonies for small possessions.

Sabet emphasized that “when your behavior affects other people,” the drug is no longer safe, citing a statistic that confirms driving under the influence of marijuana is the second highest cause of car-related accidents in the United States, after incidents caused by driving under the influence of alcohol.

Sabet said the vast majority of marijuana users are not arrested, and less than 0.1 percent of inmates are in state prison for smoking marijuana. Because the use of marijuana may affect other people, not legalizing the drug does not infringe on personal liberty, he said.

Maya Manning ’14, an audience member, said she supported legalizing marijuana use before attending the debate, but after listening she is now the “closest” she has been to “swinging the other way.”

“The psychological aspect of doing something that is illegal concerned me initially, so I supported legalization,” Manning said. “But the idea of capitalism and advertising taking a hold of this is horrifying.”

Source: Brown Daily Herald, The (Brown, RI Edu)
Author: Maggie Livingstone, Senior Staff Writer
Published: April 24, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Brown Daily Herald
Contact: editorials@browndailyherald.com
Website: http://www.browndailyherald.com/

Rep. Jeff Irwin

Michigan Rep. Jeff Irwin (D-Ann Arbor) introduced a bipartisan bill Wednesday that would decriminalize small amounts of marijuana.

Currently, possession of any amount of marijuana in Michigan could result in a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000 . House Bill 4623 would re-label the offense as a civil infraction punishable by a fine based on whether it was a repeat offense.

Rep. Mike Shirkey

“We know, and the people here in Michigan know, that marijuana prohibition is not working,” Rep. Irwin said today during a press conference at the state Capitol, where he was joined by the bill’s Republican co-sponsors, Rep. Mike Shirkey (R-Clarklake) and Rep. Mike Callton (R-Nashville).

“This is the right time to have this debate in Michigan,” said Rep. Shirkey. “We’re using a lot of money, energy and resources in Michigan and across the nation to accomplish something we’ve failed at.”

If you live in Michigan, please ask your legislators to support marijuana decriminalization!

In a Washington Post video posted today, two families discuss their search for effective treatments for their children’s chronic and debilitating seizures and how they arrived at medical marijuana as the best option. Unfortunately, there is little understanding as to how and why medical marijuana works so well for certain conditions, but more and more researchers are starting to look into it.

These particular cases, and those like them, illustrate the need for greatly expanded research into the potential medical benefits of marijuana. If only the government agencies in charge of authorizing such studies would allow them to proceed…

While San Diego city leaders work on balanced
regulation providing access while protecting neighborhoods, federal
agents raided a downtown collective.

The move was described as intimidation by the city

A new bill to regulate California’s $1.3 billion medical marijuana industry cleared its first hurdle yesterday: the Assembly’s public safety committee.

Assemblymember Tom Ammiano‘s AB 473
would license everyone in the commercial medical marijuana supply chain