A common refrain in politics is that if you want to find the root cause of certain policies or stances, simply follow the money. Last week, U.S. News & World Report did just that.

Peter Bensinger

Robert DuPont

Early last week, a group of former DEA administrators released a statement calling on the Department of Justice to prevent Colorado and Washington from implementing new marijuana regulations in accordance with laws passed in those states in November. In an article published later that week, the magazine explored the possibility that some of the signatories of that statement may have something to gain from keeping marijuana illegal:

Two of the former Drug Enforcement Agency officials who came out this week urging the federal government to nullify new state pot laws in Washington and Colorado are facing criticism for simultaneously running a company that may profit from keeping marijuana illegal.

Robert L. DuPont, who was White House drug czar under Presidents Nixon and Ford, and Peter Bensinger, who was administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration in the 1970s, today run Bensinger, DuPont & Associates, a company that specializes in workplace drug testing, among other employee programs.

Eight Former Directors of the Drug Enforcement Administration, As Well As Other Assorted Big Names Associated With National Drug Policy, Are Turning Up the Heat on Attorney General Eric Holder to Crack Down on Colorado and Washington for Legalizing Marijuana Last Fall.

Even the United Nations is getting into the act.  A U.N.based agency, the International Narcotics Control Board, claimed this week that the Obama administration will violate treaties if it doesn’t take action to stop the two states from forging a new marijuana policy.

So far, Holder continues to say the administration is close to announcing its policy, but is not quite there.  On Wednesday, for example, he told a Senate panel his department was “still considering” how to proceed.

We hope Holder and his advisers take a deep breath and consider the source of these increasingly shrill attempts to persuade Washington to try to reverse the will of Colorado and Washington voters – and then ignore them.

Is it really surprising that former leaders of the war on drugs want to perpetuate their legacy rather than see another approach aimed at suppressing the black market in marijuana take root?

As Holder knows, the federal government cannot force states to enforce federal pot laws – so like it or not, the drug’s possession will likely remain legal here and in Washington unless, in a colossal waste of resources, DEA agents are ordered to target recreational possession.  However, the president himself has already said prosecuting recreational users is not a “top priority.”

So whether a U.N.  agency likes it or not, legalization is not going away.  No treaty trumps our federal system.

Meanwhile, the big question is what attitude the federal government will take toward growing and selling marijuana commercially – activities the DEA could readily shut down.

That’s what the former DEA chiefs want, of course, and in a letter this week to senators they asked, “Why isn’t the Department of Justice enforcing the Controlled Substances Act in Colorado and Washington?”

Let’s hope Holder understands that it’s no small matter for the federal government to trample on state prerogatives when the consensus that once supported the nation’s drug laws has utterly broken down.  He should let Colorado and Washington implement their laws in the coming months just as their voters intended.

Source: Register Citizen (CT)
Copyright: 2013 Denver Post
Contact: editor@registercitizen.com
Website: http://www.registercitizen.com

For years, patients in Maryland with intractable pain, chronic diseases or terminal diseases have lobbied lawmakers to legalize the medical use of marijuana to ease their symptoms. And for years the state has been torn between compassion and caution about whether the purported benefits of medical marijuana outweigh the potential dangers of a drug that has not been subjected to rigorous scientific testing to determine its safety and effectiveness.

As a result, Maryland law on the issue has remained an inconsistent jumble. In 2003, the legislature approved a law allowing people charged with possession of small amounts of marijuana to claim “medical necessity” as a defense and, if they convince a judge their case has merit, to pay a $100 fine rather than go to jail.

But even under that law a conviction still leaves patients with a criminal record, and, paradoxically, despite having proven their claim in court, it is still illegal for them to buy the drug.

Last week, Maryland moved a step closer to resolving that dilemma when Gov. Martin O’Malley withdrew his opposition to a bill that would allow doctors and nurses to dispense marijuana for medical use through academic medical research centers such as John Hopkins Hospital and the University of Maryland Medical Center. Mr. O’Malley refused to support medical marijuana legislation last year after Maryland Attorney General Douglas F. Gansler expressed concerns about possible liability for those who dispense the drug under federal law.

The governor reversed his previous stand this year after seeing that the U.S. Department of Justice, while prosecuting some medical marijuana cases in other states, had not been going after state government workers who were involved in the programs. Now the O’Malley administration is backing a bill that would give Maryland the strictest medical marijuana law in the nation, and it is insisting that the bill must give the governor the flexibility to suspend the program if the federal government threatened legal action.

The approach was shaped in large part by state health secretary Joshua M. Sharfstein, who last year suggested the idea of a research-based medical marijuana system to allow the state to gather more clinical data on the drug’s usefulness. Dr. Sharfstein has opposed broader legalization efforts on the grounds that marijuana’s medical efficacy remained unproven.

We think the go-slow approach endorsed by Dr. Sharfstein is a reasonable compromise between those who oppose any legalization of marijuana for medical use and those who want to see a total decriminalization of the drug.

Maryland certainly has learned from the experience of California, which legalized marijuana for medical use in 1996 and immediately saw a proliferation of lightly regulated head shops spring up to sell the drug, along with cadres of physicians willing to prescribe it on the flimsiest of pretexts. The state later amended the law in 2003 by issuing more restrictive guidelines regarding the kinds of illnesses for which medical marijuana could legally be sold and used after it became clear that many people were abusing the drug for purely recreational purposes. Given the controls built into the Maryland bill, however, that is unlikely to be a concern here.

Indeed, the legislation, sponsored by Baltimore Democrat Del. Dan K. Morhaim, who is also a physician, has come under fire not just from law-enforcement groups that oppose any legalization of marijuana but also from advocates who claim that it doesn’t go far enough or fast enough to help people suffering from severe chronic pain. Delegate Morhaim, who has been a driving force behind the push for medical marijuana in this state, was also a sponsor of a bill that would have created a much more wide-ranging program.

But he has wisely recognized the value of the administration’s support and is withdrawing his other bill. Other advocates in the legislature should follow suit. The governor’s backing greatly increases the chances that those who are legitimately suffering and can benefit from the drug will finally be able to get it without risking jail time. And if Maryland’s program provides rigorous, scientific data on the drug’s effectiveness, this cautious step could set the stage for greater acceptance nationwide.

Our view: The O’Malley administration is right to favor a controlled, academic approach to legalizing medical use of cannabis.

Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Published: March 11, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Baltimore Sun
Contact: letters@baltsun.com
Website: http://www.baltimoresun.com/

Tomorrow, the Texas State House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence will hold a hearing on legislation that would remove the possibility of jail time for possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. MPP’s executive director Rob Kampia will be testifying at the hearing.

Rep. Harold V. Dutton Jr.

H.B. 184, which was introduced by Rep. Harold V. Dutton Jr. (D-Houston), would remove the threat of jail and set the maximum penalty for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana at $500.

If you are a Texas resident, you can help influence the fate of this sensible legislation by contacting your representative now!

No one deserves to go to jail for marijuana, but under current Texas law, possession of two ounces or less can get you up to 180 days in jail and up to $2000 in fines.

San Diego law enforcement officials have written us that they

A New Report Also Shows That 20 Percent of the Drug Arrests Are Cannabis-Related Despite a City Law That Makes Pot the Lowest Law Enforcement Priority.

Until US Attorney Melinda Haag launched her much-criticized crackdown on Oakland’s medical marijuana dispensaries last year, the city was held up as a beacon of level-headed tolerance toward cannabis in the pot-friendly Bay Area.  And even when the statewide campaign to legalize pot for recreational use failed in 2010, city officials were still among the most outspoken in California for large-scale medical pot cultivation.  Casual weed smokers have also found Oakland to be a welcoming place: The successful 2004 ballot initiative Measure Z made adult recreational use of marijuana the lowest law-enforcement priority for the Oakland Police Department.

However, a report released last week by the city commission that monitors OPD’s compliance with Measure Z includes troubling findings about the racial composition of Oaklanders arrested for marijuana-related crimes.  According to the Cannabis Regulatory Commission’s biennial report, roughly 20 percent of Oakland’s narcotics arrests in 2011 were for marijuana offenses – and 95 percent of arrestees were black or Latino.

“In a city as diverse as Oakland, the committee needs to take to heart that the vast majority of marijuana offenses are being enforced against minorities,” said Sierra Martinez, an environmental attorney who has been a member of the Oakland Cannabis Regulatory Commission since 2011.  “There is a history of the Drug War being enforced against low-income communities and communities of color, and this is recent evidence of that reality.”

Nationally, marijuana use is more prevalent among whites than blacks or Latinos, yet people of color are arrested far more frequently for cannabis use.  And even though more and more states are legalizing medical marijuana – and in the cases of Colorado and Washington, recreational adult use of pot – someone is arrested for pot-related offenses in the country every 42 seconds, according to an FBI report issued last fall,

Of the 452 people arrested for marijuana offenses in 2011 in Oakland, 74.5 percent were African American, 13 percent were Latino, 5 percent were white, 3.7 percent were Asian American, and 0.4 percent were Native American.  According to 2010 census data, Oakland’s population is 28.0 percent black, 25.9 percent white, and 25.4 percent Latino.

The 452 arrests in 2011, however, represented a significant drop from 711 arrests in 2010 and 736 arrests in 2009.  The lion’s share of arrests in each year was for possession of marijuana for sale – 275 in 2011, 517 in 2010, and 571 in 2009.  The arrest data was provided to the commission by Oakland Lieutenant Michael Poirier.

However, the commission’s report noted that OPD’s dramatic reduction in staffing, Oakland’s spiking violent crime rate, and the passage of SB 1449, which decriminalized the possession of less than an ounce of cannabis in California as of January 1, 2011, as other potential reasons for the numerical drop in arrests.

Michael Wilson of the Alameda County Public Defender’s office told the Cannabis Regulatory Commission in October 2012 that his office rarely sees marijuana-related offenses.  The few cases the Public Defender’s Office does deal with, Wilson told the commission, “often have several other factors involved,” and marijuana use in public spaces such as a street corner or in a vehicle often provides officers with probable cause to further engage or search that individual.

Anecdotal evidence over the years indicates that OPD officers have used marijuana offenses as a form of leverage to bring charges against suspected gang members, either through criminal court or the mechanisms of parole or probation violations.  Court documents from the city’s gang injunctions in North Oakland and the Fruitvale district showed that several of the defendants in both cases, including Abel Manzo, one of the main defendants who contested his gang status in front of Alameda County Superior Judge Robert Freedman in 2011, were contacted initially by OPD for marijuana-related crimes.

“If we detain somebody, they have numerous baggies of weed on them, they’re on probation for selling weed, we don’t consider that a medical cannabis offense and they’ll go to jail,” Assistant Police Chief Anthony Toribio told the city council Public Safety Committee on February 26.

OPD also has to contend with numerous illegal large-scale grow operations in the city.  Several grow operations are discovered each year, and some involve heavily armed individuals with links to larger criminal organizations.  In late April of last year, OPD arrested eleven people in a raid on a fortified East Oakland warehouse.  Officers seized 2,500 marijuana plants, 50 pounds of dried pot, $40,000 in cash, 7 firearms, and body armor from a building that had interior doors that were reinforced with steel.

Still, Martinez and other members of the Cannabis Regulatory Commission believe OPD is still overly concerned with a substance that Oaklanders have made clear is not a threat.  Martinez noted that 20 percent of all narcotics arrests in recent years have been cannabis-related.  “At a time when violent crime in on the rise, it’s a waste of resources to be enforcing the marijuana offenses,” he said.

The cannabis commission also recommended that the city council modify its anti-smoking ordinance to let property owners allow pot smoking “in designated rooms of hotels, restaurants, clubs, cannabis dispensaries, and other facilities, so long as they are properly ventilated and do not pose objectionable odor hazards to neighbors.” Commission members have noted that there is no evidence that smoking marijuana causes cancer or emphysema, nor is there evidence of harm from second-hand smoke.

Source: East Bay Express (CA)
Copyright: 2013 East Bay Express
Contact: http://posting.eastbayexpress.com/ebx/SubmitLetter/Page
Website: http://www.eastbayexpress.com/
Author: Ali Winston

Attorney General Eric Holder is getting plenty of conflicting advice as he tries to figure out how the federal government should respond to the decision by voters in Washington state and Colorado to legalize marijuana for recreational use.

The latest came Wednesday from Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, who told Holder to focus on prosecuting larger federal crimes as he deals with the fallout of automatic spending cuts ordered by Congress.

If you’re going to be  because of budget cuts  prioritizing matters, I would suggest there are more serious things than minor possession of marijuana, but it’s a personal view, Leahy told Holder, adding that other states are sure to follow the lead of Washington and Colorado.

While Leahy urged leniency, others want Holder to use his job as the nation’s top law enforcement official to get tough with states that want to ignore federal drug laws.

On Tuesday, eight former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs said the Obama administration should move aggressively to nullify the state legalization laws.

And on the same day, a United Nations agency said the United States would be violating international drug treaties by allowing the state laws to stand.

Holder told senators that he’s reviewing the states new laws and plans a quick decision after having already met with governors of both states.

We’ve had good communication. . . . I expect that we will have an ability to announce what our policy is going to be relatively soon, Holder said.

With the state and federal laws clearly at odds, Holder is sure to face heat no matter what he decides. And so far, he has given little public indication of what he will do.

Marijuana advocates, however, are hoping that Holder’s boss, President Barack Obama, is on their side.

When the president was asked about the new state laws in an interview with ABC’s Barbara Walters in December, Obama suggested that the federal government would be unlikely to take a hard line, saying: We’ve got bigger fish to fry.

As both Washington and Colorado continue with their plans to open marijuana dispensaries later this year, the legalization issue promises to get more attention on Capitol Hill in coming weeks.

Leahy announced earlier that he wants his committee to conduct a hearing into the differences among state and federal laws governing marijuana. He said he wants to make sure that state laws are respected and that state officials in Washington and Colorado who are charged with the licensing of marijuana retailers will not face federal criminal penalties.

Under federal law, marijuana remains a controlled substance, and possession or distribution of the drug is a criminal offense that can result in prison time.

In December, Leahy wrote a letter to the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, saying that his committee had a significant interest  in the issue and that Congress could act to end the uncertainty facing residents in Washington and Colorado.

As one option, Leahy said, the Federal Controlled Substances Act could be changed to allow for the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana, at least in places where it’s already legal under state law.

In the House, two bills were introduced last month that would end the federal prohibition against marijuana and create new regulatory systems to deal with its legalization.

One, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Jared Polis of Colorado, would remove marijuana from the list of controlled substances and allow it to be regulated much like alcohol at the federal level. The second, sponsored by Democratic Rep. Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, would create a federal excise tax on the sale of marijuana.

Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Author: Rob Hotakainen, McClatchy Newspapers
Published: March 6, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Miami Herald
Contact: heralded@herald.com
URL: http://drugsense.org/url/RmrlXUKN
Website: http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/

San Diego plans to make medical marijuana available to patients through the installation of vending machines at local dispensaries. Many of the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries were shut down in 2011 and new ones re-opened or newly built will support patented vending machines from Medbox.

Medical marijuana advocates are still trying to get dispensaries to re-open after they were shut down in the wake of a federal crackdown. The U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Diego shut most of them down due to zoning violations.

The Medbox machines are high-tech security machines, unlike machines that dispense snacks or DVDs.

Patients will be required to have a prepaid card and verify their fingerprint to gain access to the machine and browse for medication.Security doesn’t appear to be a concern for the vending machine providers.

"It’s armor-coated. Second, it’s 800 pounds," said Dr.Bruce Bedrick, CEO of Medbox, as ABC10 News reports. Software built into the vending machines will confirm all prescriptions and dosage amounts.

Since the closing of many of San Diego’s medical marijuana dispensaries, new policies have been put into place by San Diego’s Mayor Bob Filner.  The police department, city attorney’s office and the Neighborhood Code Compliance Department were ordered by Finer to stop the crackdown.

Within the coming weeks, the San Diego Council will decide if it will issue permits for the dispensaries, with Filner’s support. Throughout San Diego, vending machines will be available in as many as 30 newly built dispensaries. The vending machines are valued at $50,000.

"Our technology is not a vending machine that is sitting out on the street corner. This type of technology really helps regulate the industry," said Bedrick.

"I think the key is for patients to get their medicine safely and securely, and if this is a means for them to do that, then by all means, that’s wonderful," said Eugene Davidovich, a medical marijuana advocate with Americans for Safe Access.

Bedrick said all 150 dispensaries that use the machine nationwide and in Canada were safe and free of crime for the past four years.

“DON’T book ‘em, Danno.”

Tuesday, the Hawaii Senate unanimously voted to approve a decriminalization bill, sending it to the House of Representatives. S.B. 472, SD 1, would replace Hawaii’s current criminal penalties — including possible jail time — for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana with a civil fine of $1,000. The bill originally called for a fine of $100, but it was amended up in committee.

If you live in Hawaii, please email your representative and ask that she or he work with marijuana policy advocates to bring the fine back down to a more reasonable level and craft a bill that will be agreeable to all parties.

While the Senate was passing S.B. 472, SD 1, the House was also approving legislation to improve Hawaii’s marijuana policies. The House passed H.B. 667 (allowing out-of-state patients and making other improvements) and H.B. 668 (transferring the medical marijuana program from the public safety department to the health department). The two bills now move to the Senate for committee hearings.