A bill to allow New Hampshire residents to use medical marijuana in the treatment of their debilitating medical conditions moved one step closer to becoming law Thursday when it was approved 14-1 by the House Committee on Health, Human Services, and Elderly Affairs. It will now be considered by the full House of Representatives.

Rep. Donna Schlachman

House Bill 573, sponsored by State Rep. Donna Schlachman (D-Exeter), would allow seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana if their doctors recommend it. Patients would be able to grow up to three mature marijuana plants in their homes or obtain marijuana through one of five non-profit, state-licensed alternative treatment centers. Gov. Maggie Hassan has expressed support for passing medical marijuana legislation. A similar medical marijuana bill that passed with bipartisan support last session was vetoed by then-governor John Lynch.

Rep. Patrick Culbert

Prior to the vote, Rep. Patrick Culbert (R-Pelham) made an emotional plea to his colleagues, sharing his experience caring for his wife, Judy, as she slowly died of cancer. He recounted how she found relief from her “agonizing” symptoms the sole time she tried using medical marijuana, but did not use it again because she feared being arrested.

“People like Judy shouldn’t have to die like that,” Rep. Culbert said. “She should have died with dignity and she didn’t.”

This overwhelming showing of legislative support provides great relief to many seriously ill patients and their families, who have been waiting years for medical marijuana to become legal in New Hampshire. Patients should not have to live in fear of arrest in the ‘Live Free or Die’ state.

If you are a New Hampshire resident, please write your representatives, and forward this to your friends in New Hampshire.

They dispense snacks and movies, but vending machines in San Diego may soon be kicking out a different product — marijuana.

Those medical marijuana dispensaries shut down during a crackdown in 2011 could soon reappear in San Diego, along with some high-tech help.

"It’s armor-coated. Second, it’s 800 pounds," said Bruce Bedrick, CEO of Medbox.

The Medbox system is a patented machine that resembles a vending machine with one big difference.

Medical marijuana patients swipe a prepaid card, press their fingerprint and browse for medicine.

Bedrick hopes to build up to 30 dispensaries containing the machines in San Diego.

Meanwhile, advocates are continuing their efforts to re-open the dispensaries that have been shut down across the city.

In a few weeks, with Mayor Bob Filner’s backing, the San Diego City Council will consider an ordinance that would issue permits for dispensaries.

"Have we started taking deposits on … locations … yes, we have," said Bedrick.

Unlike machines that dispense movies or snacks, the major difference with the Medbox is security. The fingerprinting helps prevent fraud, and the software also validates prescriptions and dosage.   

10News reporter Michael Chen asked, "Isn’t this inviting for thieves?"

"Actually, no. It’s actually the opposite," said Bedrick.

In Medbox dispensaries, there are no large containers of medical marijuana that thieves could target, according to Bedrick.

Bedrick said by law, the machine must be placed behind a locked, secure door, which means an ATM-style haul away would be less likely.  

Ashley Graddy, who lives in North Park near the former site of a dispensary, said, "If that whole new system prevents robberies, then I would feel safer in this area."

"I think they key is for patients to get their medicine safely and securely, and if this 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.

In the past four years, Bedrick said the 150 dispensaries nationwide and in Canada that use his machine have remained crime-free.

The Medbox dispensing machine costs about $50,000.

Last week, the Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) slapped former middleweight champion boxer Julio Cesar Chavez, Jr. with a $900,000 fine and nine-month suspension. Why? Not for using a performance-enhancing drug or throwing a match, but simply because he tested positive for marijuana. Such an excessive punishment should not go unanswered, and fortunately Chavez is planning to appeal the decision. We need to get behind him and take this opportunity to send a message to the sporting world that it’s time to revisit their marijuana policies.

Take action now and call on the NSAC to grant Chavez’s forthcoming appeal, drop the penalties, and change their policy regarding marijuana so this does not happen to athletes in the future. 

The NSAC would never punish a fighter so severely for using alcohol, yet marijuana is an objectively less harmful product. It is less toxic, less addictive, and it does not contribute to assaults and other violent crimes like alcohol does. The commission’s harsh marijuana penalties do nothing to promote the health and safety of athletes. If anything, they put them in danger by steering them toward using alcohol and away from making the safer choice to use marijuana instead.

Send a message to the head of the NSAC today and tell him the commission should drop the penalties against Chavez and change their policy regarding marijuana. Let him know it is time to stop driving athletes to drink!

Rep. Lou Lang

This morning, the House Human Services Committee voted 11-4 in favor of legislation that would make Illinois the 19^thmedical marijuana state. HB 1, sponsored by Rep. Lou Lang (D-Skokie), now moves to the full House of Representatives.

Last year’s bill, H.B. 30, came up just short of passing in the House. This year, prospects are brighter, thanks to a record supermajority of Democrats, who tend to support medical marijuana more than their Republican colleagues, and changes to the bill to satisfy law enforcement concerns.

Despite fears that the new bill might grant one company a monopoly on cultivation, thanks to input from MPP and our allies, the new bill will allow up to 22 growers and 60 dispensaries. Other changes make the new bill even more restrictive than H.B. 30, but it’s expected that improvements will be made after a four-year pilot program, as has happened in other states.

Let’s make this the year this bill finally passes. If you live in Illinois, please ask your legislators to support HB 1, and help spread the word by forwarding this email to friends and family in Illinois.

Last fall, voters for the first time approved the legalization of marijuana for recreational use at the state level – in Colorado and Washington. Since then, much attention has focused on the conflict between state and federal law, which still classifies the drug as illegal. But state legalization also raises important questions at the personal level. Many of them center around the family.

As attorneys practicing family law in Colorado, we feel it’s important to consider these questions, especially since the push is on for recreational legalization in other states. Oregon, California, and Maine may be next. (Eighteen states plus the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana.)

Colorado’s constitutional amendment states that individuals can purchase marijuana from authorized retailers and that licensed growers can produce commercial quantities for retailers. The intent is to treat marijuana like alcohol. That’s not so easy in practice.

Based on our legal experience, we’d like to offer a scenario – fictional, but realistic – to illustrate how consequential Colorado’s change will be for families, and how far the state still needs to go to address unresolved issues.

Consider Michael and Elizabeth Jones who have two children, Ashley, age 16, and Monica, age 13. The parents are no longer such a happy couple, although they all still live in a lovely home in Highlands Ranch, a well-off suburb of Denver. Ashley is a rebel – hanging out with the wrong boys, sneaking out of the house late at night, and thumbing her nose at her parents’ authority now that she has a driver’s license and a car. Monica is just the opposite of her big sister, struggling at school socially.

‘But Honey, It’s Legal Now.’

Three to four nights a week, Michael quietly steps into the backyard or goes to the basement to smoke a joint. Elizabeth has never approved of his marijuana use, and as the children get older she has increasing concerns about their exposure to it. Michael says: “What’s the big deal? It’s legal here now. You don’t hear me complain when you have wine after dinner.”

The final straw comes when Michael decides to make some extra money to pay down credit-card bills (the perfect family vacation to Hawaii is expensive). He starts a small grow operation in the basement to sell marijuana. Elizabeth files for divorce – and she doesn’t want Michael to have the children at all because she believes that the grow operation and his recreational marijuana use are dangerous to the children.

What happens to families when pot is involved? Drug use is often an issue in divorce and parenting cases. Usually, one parent does not approve of the other’s drinking or use of illegal drugs – or addiction. Historically, it’s been fairly easy to take a case to court with proof that a parent is illegally using drugs and limit that parent’s contact with the children.

That all changed with marijuana legalization. The courts do not routinely take children away from a parent because that parent legally consumes a reasonable quantity of alcohol – a legal substance. Will the courts take the same approach with marijuana?

Nobody knows. On one hand, judges tend to represent a more conservative demographic and may continue to be shocked by a parent’s recreational marijuana use (not to mention the state law’s conflict with federal law). Yet the intention of the new Colorado law appears to be to treat marijuana as much like alcohol as possible: Legalize it, but regulate production, sale, and use to mitigate any dangers associated with it.

If we don’t penalize a parent for having a glass of wine or two after dinner while the kids are in bed, why should we penalize a parent for smoking a small quantity of pot? Can a parent handle a crisis while high? For example, what if one of the Jones children has a medical emergency in the middle of the night after Michael has smoked pot; could he handle the crisis? Are there varying degrees of intoxication from marijuana, ranging from mild (like a drink or two of alcohol) to incapacitating the user, to the point at which a court should say: “No, you can’t parent when you’re stoned!”

These are precisely the arguments raised by Michael and Elizabeth in their now-contentious custody case. Meanwhile, Ashley is invited on a camping trip with friends (including teens her mother doesn’t approve of). When Elizabeth refuses to allow it, Ashley runs away to her father’s and refuses to speak to her mother.

But Michael comes home from work one evening and finds Ashley and her car gone, along with half of his crop of marijuana. He soon receives a call from the Nebraska police. Ashley has been arrested for possession of an illegal substance. Even if she were of age, marijuana isn’t a legal substance in Nebraska.

Monica has also helped herself to her father’s stash, and is expelled from school. She didn’t use it, she says. She just wanted to show it around so kids would stop bullying her.

All Those Tricky Questions

Can safeguards be fashioned so that a parent can still have his or her children at home where marijuana is being grown? So that marijuana does not make its way across state lines? So that it does not end up in schools or other inappropriate arenas? Are locks on basement doors good enough? Parental guidance and supervision? What is good enough?

And what about drug testing? Marijuana remains in the user’s system much longer than alcohol, and there is no test available to definitively establish when or how much of the drug was used. Blood testing may be one option, but it is costly and requires a laboratory setting and trained professionals to draw blood.

And how does one determine if someone who tests positive for marijuana used it legally in Colorado – while not operating a vehicle and inside state lines – given the difficulties of testing?

One place to start answering the vast range of questions we raise is with research that aims to produce a method of testing that easily determines level of impairment. Until then, Colorado will have to work through these issues on an ad hoc basis. Other states considering legalization should realize that treating marijuana like alcohol is not as easy as it sounds.

Alexandra White and Carolyn Witkus are shareholders at Gutterman Griffiths PC in Littleton, Colo. Both attorneys specialize in high-conflict parenting litigation, including cases involving substance abuse.

Source: Christian Science Monitor (US)
Author: Alexandra White and Carolyn Witkus
Published: March 4, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Christian Science Publishing Society
Contact: letters@csmonitor.com
Website: http://www.csmonitor.com/

Eight former Drug Enforcement Administration chiefs say the federal government needs to act now or it might lose the chance to nullify Colorado and Washington’s laws legalizing recreational marijuana use.

The onetime DEA heads plan to issue joint statements Tuesday saying the Obama administration has reacted too slowly and should immediately sue to force the states to rescind the legislation. The Associated Press received an advance copy of the statement Monday.

One of the former DEA administrators, Peter Bensinger, told the AP that the more time goes by, the harder it’ll be to stop the two states. Marijuana is illegal under federal law.

Bensinger, who lives in the Chicago area, said the government must immediately sue the states or risk creating “a domino effect” in which other states follow suit.

“My fear is that the Justice Department will do what they are doing now: do nothing and say nothing,” said Bensinger. “If they don’t act now, these laws will be fully implemented in a matter of months.”

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told a meeting of state attorneys general last week that he is still reviewing the laws but that his review is winding down. Asked Monday for a comment on the criticism from the former DEA administrators, Holder spokeswoman Allison Price would only say, “The Department of Justice is in the process of reviewing those initiatives.”

The department’s review has been under way since shortly after last fall’s elections. It could sue to block the states from issuing licenses to marijuana growers, processors and retail stores, on the grounds that doing so conflicts with federal drug law. Alternatively, Holder could decide not to mount a court challenge.

The ex-DEA heads are issuing the statements though the Florida-based Save Our Society from Drugs, a national group lobbying against legalization. One of the group’s spokesmen is based in Chicago.

The former DEA administrators are Bensinger, John Bartels, Robert Bonner, Thomas Constantine, Asa Hutchinson, John Lawn, Donnie Marshall and Francis Mullen. They served for both Republican and Democratic administrations.

Holder is scheduled to appear Wednesday before a U.S. Senate judiciary committee hearing. The former DEA chiefs want senators to question Holder on the legalization issue.

Advocates of legalization have welcomed Colorado and Washington’s new laws, arguing that criminalizing drugs creates serious though unintended social problems. The ex-DEA heads say they disagree with that view.

After votes last fall, Colorado and Washington became the first states to legalize marijuana’s recreational use – putting federal authorities in a quandary over how, or whether, to respond.

Washington state officials responsible for creating a regulated marijuana system have said they are moving forward with a timetable of issuing producer licenses by August.

Bensinger – who served as DEA administrator under Presidents Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan – said the supremacy of federal law over state law when it comes to drug laws isn’t in doubt.

“This is a no-brainer,” he said. “It is outrageous that a lawsuit hasn’t been filed in federal court yet.”

Source: Huffington Post (NY)
Author: Michael Tarm, Associated Press
Published: March 5, 2013
Copyright: 2013 HuffingtonPost.com, LLC
Contact: scoop@huffingtonpost.com
Website: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/

When is someone too stoned to drive? The answer, it turns out, has been anything but simple in Colorado, which last fall became one of the first states in the country to legalize marijuana.

Prosecutors and some lawmakers have long pushed for laws that would set a strict blood-level limit for THC, the key ingredient in cannabis. A driver over the limit would be deemed guilty of driving under the influence, just as with alcohol.

Such legislation has failed several times in recent years in the face of fierce opposition from marijuana advocates and defense lawyers, who claim a one-size-fits-all standard doesn’t work for marijuana because it affects the body differently than alcohol.

On both sides, passions run high.

“I haven’t had a car accident since I was 18, and I’ve had marijuana in my system for most of that time,” said Paul Saurini, 39, one of numerous weed activists, or “wactivists,” who spoke out against setting a firm blood-level limit during a public hearing in the state capital this week.

“We have to create some standards to protect public safety. Not doing so, in my opinion, is reckless public policy,” said John Jackson, the police chief in nearby Greenwood Village. “Any time you legalize things like this, you’ll have more of it on the roadway. If we had vending machines with Oxycontin, there’d be more people on Oxycontin driving on the roadways. And that’s not safe.”

Since the passage of Amendment 64 in November, Colorado has been wrestling with the many questions of how to regulate the new marijuana reality, from how to tax it and monitor its growth to where people can buy it, sell it, smoke it and advertise it.

But drugged driving looms as one of the most critical and controversial issues. The outcome of Colorado’s struggle to shape marijuana-related DUI laws could have far-reaching implications, as a growing number of states approve marijuana for medical use and others consider legalizing the drug altogether.

State Sen. Steve King, a Republican who supports a THC limit, insists that driving high is no different than driving drunk. “You’re a threat and a hazard,” he said. “The consensus should be to err on the side of safety for the traveling public.”

Michael Elliott and other marijuana advocates argue that marijuana affects different people differently, and that setting a THC limit would free prosecutors from having to prove their cases and could lead to wrongful DUI convictions.

“When it comes to criminal law, we err on the side of protecting the freedom of our citizens and holding the criminal justice system to the highest standards of proof,” said Elliott, a lawyer and executive director of the Colorado-based Medical Marijuana Industry Group.

Though research and opinions vary widely, studies have shown that smoking marijuana tends to affect spatial perceptions. Drivers might swerve or follow other cars too closely, as well as lose their concentration and suffer from slowed reaction times. Such findings have led some researchers to conclude that driving high doubles the chances for an accident, and that smoking pot and drinking before driving is a particularly dangerous mix.

Every state bars driving under the influence. But convictions in drugged-driving cases generally rely on police officers’ observations rather than blood tests. The White House in a drug policy paper last year called on states to adopt blood-limit laws in an effort to reduce drugged-driving incidents by 10 percent by 2015.

But different states have taken different approaches.

In Ohio and Nevada, where medical marijuana is legal, the limit for driving is two nanograms per milliliter of blood. In Washington state, that limit is five nanograms. A dozen other states, including Illinois, Iowa and Arizona, have zero-tolerance policies for driving under the influence of marijuana and various controlled substances.

In Colorado, both sides agree that people shouldn’t drive impaired; the fight is over what should be used as proof of impairment.

Marijuana advocates argue that, unlike with alcohol, traces of the drug remain in the bloodstream long after an individual has smoked pot, and that a THC test can mistakenly suggest a person is high, especially in a regular smoker who has built up tolerance to the drug. But officials who favor a blood-level limit say tests exist that can pinpoint “active” THC in the bloodstream in the hours immediately after marijuana usage.

People on both sides cite the work of Dutch researcher Jan Ramaekers, who found that marijuana users generally are impaired at a level of five nanograms, but that many cannabis users do develop higher tolerances.

Ramaekers, in an interview, said he supports the five-nanogram limit, noting that lawmakers have long set a legal limit for alcohol in the name of public safety, even though people have different tolerances and impairment varies by person.

“Who should the law serve? The individual or the population?” he asked.

Still, some in Colorado are concerned about drawing a bright line between impaired and unimpaired when it comes to marijuana. The state Senate’s majority leader, Democrat Morgan Carroll, said research suggests that impairment can occur with anywhere from two to 20 nanograms per milliliter of blood. “My number one problem is that you could convict someone at five nanograms who wasn’t actually impaired,” she said.

Lawmakers are working on a compromise to break the long-standing impasse. A bill backed by King and other legislators would set five nanograms as the legal limit, but a test indicating that level would not automatically result in a DUI conviction. Instead, people accused of driving under the influence would be able to argue in court that they weren’t impaired. The measure is working its way through the statehouse and appears likely to pass.

Carroll is still not fond of the five-nanogram limit but says she and others might be swayed by the provision that would allow defendants to make their case in court. “It gives the accused the opportunity to come in and offer proof,” she said.

At Tuesday’s hearing, a string of law enforcement officials and a state toxicologist testified in favor of the legislation. Ed Wood, whose son was killed in a car accident caused by a drugged driver, said he supported the bill but wants an even tougher standard. “We believe Colorado deserves better,” he said.

But Saurini and other “wactivists” voiced their opposition, with some arguing that marijuana often induces paranoia and causes people to drive abnormally slowly, as opposed to alcohol, which can provide the “liquid courage” to drive irresponsibly.

King, the lawmaker who has long pushed for a legal limit, grows agitated at the suggestion by some marijuana advocates that they drive as well or even better high. It’s a reason, he said, to put a limit in place as soon as possible.

“I heard that [argument] 25 years ago with alcohol,” he said. “If you want to smoke marijuana, smoke marijuana. But smoke and walk, smoke and get a ride, smoke and take a cab. Don’t smoke and drive — that’s the point we’re trying to make.”

Dennis reported from Washington.

Source: Washington Post (DC)
Author: Brady Dennis and T.W. Farnam
Published: March 1, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Washington Post Company
Contact: letters@washpost.com
Website: http://www.washingtonpost.com/

Earlier this week, while more than 200 citizen lobbyists were meeting
face-to-face with their Congressional legislators in Washington, D.C.
to change federal policy on medical cannabis, a series of events
occurred in Florida, making that state the next political battleground
on this issue.

On Monday, a Miami Herald article
cited a recent poll indicating 81 percent of Florida voters said
approve of doctors recommending cannabis to patients, with only 14
percent opposed. As many as 70 percent of voters said they supported a
state constitutional amendment legalizing medical cannabis, a full 10
points higher than what Florida requires to pass such amendments.

Then, tragically, later that afternoon, the home of Americans for
Safe Access member and Sarasota resident Cathy Jordan and her
64-year-old husband Robert was raided
by the Manatee County Sheriff’s Department. With black ski masks and
guns drawn in an intimidating fashion that has become all-too familiar
for medical cannabis patients across the country, sheriff’s deputies
came into their home and seized all 23 of Cathy’s plants, which she uses
to treat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS, also known as "Lou
Gehrig’s disease"), a terminal illness.

Cathy was diagnosed in 1986 with ALS,
a progressive neurodegenerative disease that affects nerve cells in the
brain and spinal cord, leading to loss of limb control, breathing,
swallowing, and speech. However, after trying cannabis in 1989, she was
able to better manage her symptoms and significantly improve her quality
of life. Now, more than 20 years later, Cathy has outlived five of her
support groups and four of her neurologists.

As you can see from her medical history and the positive impact that
cannabis has had on her life, Cathy is a shining example of why public
policy must be changed, not only in Florida but at the federal level as
well. Therefore, it was no surprise (except maybe to the Manatee County
Sheriff’s Department) that she was chosen as the lead spokesperson for
SB1250, the "Cathy Jordan Medical Cannabis Act," a Florida bill introduced the very next day by State Senator Jeff Clemens (D-Lake worth).

And, if SB1250 fails to get the necessary votes for passage, there is another effort afoot by People United for Medical Marijuana to put an initiative
on the 2014 ballot in Florida that would amend the state constitution
in order to protect patients from exactly the type of raid that Cathy
and her husband had to endure.

This type of aggressive enforcement effort is not unique to Cathy or
to other patients in Florida. It happens virtually every day across
America, even in states that have adopted medical cannabis laws. One of
the main reasons for this is an outdated policy at the federal level.
For decades now, the federal government has refused to recognize the
medical efficacy of cannabis, maintaining the position that it is a
dangerous drug with no medical value. In July 2011, the Obama
Administration denied a 9-year-old petition
filed by ASA and other groups aimed at reclassifying cannabis for
medical use, in an effort to overturn the federal government’s draconian
policy. This bittersweet denial, however, gave ASA the opportunity to
bring the issue of medical cannabis into the federal courts by appealing
the denial to the D.C. Circuit. Cathy Jordan was one of the lead
plaintiffs in this appeal, ASA v. DEA. Unfortunately, last month, the D.C. Circuit sided with the government’s position, denying our appeal and refusing to usher in a new compassionate policy toward patients.

However, advocates are not giving up and the medical cannabis patient
community is now more ardent than ever. ASA will soon be filing for En
Banc review of the appeal with the full D.C. Circuit, but advocates are
not putting all of their eggs in the federal court basket. With last week’s introduction
of two Congressional bills, HR689, the "States’ Medical Marijuana
Patient Protection Act," and HR710, the "Truth in Trials Act," advocates
are hard at work convincing their members of Congress that federal
policy must be changed. Indeed, it was the support for these bills that
brought more than 250 people to Washington, D.C. this past weekend for
the ASA-hosted, first-ever national medical cannabis conference
in Washington, D.C. More than half of the conference participants took
to Capitol Hill Monday to show that they’re a force to be reckoned with.

Given the historical and widespread support for medical cannabis in the U.S., consistently polling at up to 80 percent,
Congress has been woefully out of step with their constituents on this
issue. Yet, that’s about to change. It has to change, unless we want to
be known as a society that favors attacking our most vulnerable citizens
for using a medication that improves — and, in many cases, extends —
their lives. I know we’re better than that. We just have to show
Congress that there will be consequences for ignoring the will of the
people and the plight of patients.

A poll released Wednesday found that a majority of California voters favor the legalization of marijuana.

The poll, conducted by the Field Research Corporation, revealed that Californians support the legalization of marijuana by a margin of five to four, with nearly 54 percent in support.