In the late-1980s heyday of the anti-drug “Just Say No” campaign, a man calling himself “Jerry” appeared on a Seattle talk radio show to criticize U.S. marijuana laws.

An esteemed businessman, he hid his identity because he didn’t want to offend customers who — like so many in those days — viewed marijuana as a villain in the ever-raging “war on drugs.”

Now, a quarter century later, “Jerry” is one of the main forces behind Washington state’s successful initiative to legalize pot for adults over 21. And he no longer fears putting his name to the cause: He’s Rick Steves, the travel guru known for his popular guidebooks.

“It’s amazing where we’ve come,” says Steves of the legalization measures Washington and Colorado voters approved last month. “It’s almost counterculture to oppose us.”

A once-unfathomable notion, the lawful possession and private use of pot, becomes an American reality this week when this state’s law goes into effect.

Thursday is “Legalization Day” here, with a tote-your-own-ounce celebration scheduled beneath Seattle’s Space Needle — a nod to the measure allowing adults to possess up to an ounce of pot. Colorado’s law is set to take effect by Jan. 5.

How did we get here? From “say no” to “yes” votes in not one but two states?

The answer goes beyond society’s evolving views, and growing acceptance, of marijuana as a drug of choice.

In Washington — and, advocates hope, coming soon to a state near you — there was a well-funded and cleverly orchestrated campaign that took advantage of deep-pocketed backers, a tweaked pro-pot message and improbable big-name supporters.

Good timing and a growing national weariness over failed drug laws didn’t hurt, either.

“Maybe … the dominoes fell the way they did because they were waiting for somebody to push them in that direction,” says Alison Holcomb, the campaign manager for Washington’s measure.

Washington and Colorado, both culturally and politically, offered fertile ground for legalization advocates — Washington for its liberal politics, Colorado for its libertarian streak, and both for their Western independence.

Both also have a history with marijuana law reform. More than a decade ago, they were among the first states to approve medical marijuana.

Still, when it came to full legalization, activists hit a wall. Colorado’s voters rejected a measure to legalize up to an ounce of marijuana in 2006. In Washington, organizers in 2010 couldn’t make the ballot with a measure that would have removed criminal penalties for marijuana.

Since the 1970 founding of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, reform efforts had centered on the unfairness of marijuana laws to the recreational user — hardly a sympathetic character, Holcomb notes.

That began to change as some doctors extolled marijuana’s ability to relieve pain, quell nausea and improve the appetites of cancer and AIDS patients.

The conversation shifted in the 1990s toward medical marijuana laws. But even in some states with those laws, including Washington, truly sick people continued to be arrested.

Improved data collection that began with the ramping up of the drug war in the 1980s also helped change the debate. Late last decade, with Mexico’s crackdown on cartels prompting horrific bloodshed there and headlines here, activists could point to a stunning fact: In 1991, marijuana arrests made up less than one-third of all drug arrests in the U.S. Now, they make up half — about 90 percent for possession of small amounts — yet pot remains easily available.

“What we figured out is that your average person doesn’t necessarily like marijuana, but there’s sort of this untapped desire by voters to end the drug war,” says Brian Vicente, a Denver lawyer who helped write Colorado’s Amendment 64. “If we can focus attention on the fact we can bring in revenue, redirect law enforcement resources and raise awareness instead of focusing on pot, that’s a message that works.”

With a potentially winning message, the activists needed something else: messengers.

Steves, who lives in the north Seattle suburb of Edmonds, was a natural choice — the “believable, likeable nerd,” as he calls himself. Known for his public television and radio shows, as well as his “Europe through the Back Door” guide books, he openly advocated in 2003 for a measure that made marijuana the lowest priority for Seattle police.

He already knew Holcomb, who had been the drug policy director at the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state. The ACLU chapter recognized that voter education would be crucial to any future reform, especially after polling revealed that many voters didn’t even know Washington had a medical marijuana law.

Holcomb helped recruit Steves to star in a 2008 infomercial designed to get people talking about marijuana law reform. The video was aired on late-night television and at forums held across the state, during which experts in drug policy answered questions from audiences.

In November 2009, John McKay, the former Seattle U.S. attorney, agreed to appear on one of those panels. McKay was well respected, from a prominent Republican family and had served as the Justice Department’s top prosecutor in western Washington — charged with carrying out U.S. drug laws.

He called for a top-to-bottom review of the nation’s drug war and endorsed regulating marijuana like alcohol.

Suddenly, the legalization movement had traction.

Over the next year, a voter initiative drive and legislative efforts gained steam but ultimately failed. California’s Proposition 19 legalization measure also failed in 2010. But even with little money and no significant editorial endorsements, in an off-presidential election year with lower youth turnout, Prop 19 received more than 46 percent of the vote.

Holcomb thought: Imagine what Washington could do in a presidential year, with an endorsement from McKay and some money.

So, with the backing of the ACLU’s state chapter, Holcomb formed New Approach Washington. In June 2011, the group announced Initiative 502, to legalize up to an ounce of marijuana and to create a system of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores. It was tailored to gain mainstream support: There would be no home-growing, and there would be a DUI standard designed to be comparable to the 0.08 limit for blood-alcohol content.

The drug also would be taxed at every stage, from growing and processing to selling. State studies were done showing legalization could bring in half a billion dollars a year for schools, health care and substance-abuse prevention.

The list of co-sponsors was unimpeachable: Steves, McKay, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, the former top public health officer for Spokane County, two past presidents of the state bar association, a top University of Washington addiction expert. The Seattle Times’ editorial page offered its own endorsement.

National drug-policy reform groups also were focusing on 2012. The New York-based Drug Policy Alliance saw campaigns developing in three states — Washington, Colorado and Oregon — and it had the money on-the-ground advocates so desperately needed. The alliance is funded in part by billionaire and longtime liberal political donor George Soros, who came out in favor of marijuana legalization in 2010.

The organization chipped in more than $1.6 million in Washington. The Washington, D.C.-based Marijuana Policy Project gave $1 million in Colorado.

Then came another big donor. Peter Lewis, the founder of Progressive Insurance, had used marijuana after a leg amputation and had been a big contributor to medical marijuana campaigns. His people initially told Holcomb they didn’t think I-502 would pass, but then he offered a match: If they could raise $650,000, he’d kick in $250,000. New Approach Washington met the goal, and Lewis became the campaign’s biggest donor, responsible for more than $2 million of the $6 million raised.

The money ensured that Washington’s activists could keep their message on air, and they did so effectively.

The first television ad, which aired last summer, featured a middle-aged mom saying that she didn’t like marijuana, but that taxing it would bring in money for schools and health care and free up police resources. Among women aged 30 to 50, Holcomb says, support for regulating marijuana jumped about 18 percent.

The next ads featured McKay, former Seattle U.S. Attorney Kate Pflaumer and Charles Mandigo, the former head of the FBI office in Seattle, urging approval of I-502.

Colorado’s measure didn’t have the big-name endorsements that Washington’s did, but the state had other things going for it. For one, it already had the most highly regulated medical marijuana market in the country. There, organizers were careful to appear before news cameras in suits and ties. Ads featured middle-aged women, or schoolchildren who could benefit from marijuana taxes.

Opponents tried to fight back, mounting a $543,000 campaign in Colorado, with backing from a Florida-based anti-drug group and an evangelical Christian group.

In Washington, a small group from the medical marijuana community raised $6,800 to oppose I-502. They criticized the DUI standard as arbitrarily strict and said the measure didn’t go far enough because it wouldn’t allow home-growing.

A group of nine former heads of the Drug Enforcement Administration urged U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to publicly oppose the measures, but the DOJ and the White House remained silent.

Instead, Kevin Sabet, a former White House drug policy adviser, served as a counterpoint to the legalization campaigns. The ills of prohibition — the racial disparities in who gets busted, the lifelong consequences of a conviction for landing jobs or student loans — could be solved without legalization, which would increase the availability of marijuana for teens who are most susceptible to becoming addicted, he contended.

Yet such arguments found little support.

“When you hammer away at that message, saying we can save education and make better use of police resources and get rid of cartels, and there’s nothing to oppose that, that sounds sensible to people who aren’t hearing the other side,” Sabet says.

On Nov. 6, I-502 passed with nearly 56 percent. Colorado’s Amendment 64, which allows home-growing and does not include a drunken driving standard, passed with 55 percent.

Oregon’s Measure 80 ultimately failed. But even with little campaigning behind it, that proposal got nearly 47 percent of the vote.

As they await word about whether the Justice Department will try to block the measures from taking effect, national drug-law reform groups are salivating over their chances in 2014 and 2016.

California? Nevada? Massachusetts?

“Something is happening, and it’s not just happening in Washington and Colorado,” says Andy Ko, who leads the Campaign for a New Drug Policy at Open Society Foundations. “Marijuana reform is going to happen in this country as older voters fade away and younger voters show up. Legislators see this as something safe to legislate around.

“They see the writing on the wall.”

Kristen Wyatt contributed from Denver

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Gene Johnson, Associated Press
Published: December 2, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The Associated Press

New Mexico has had a medical marijuana program since 2007. But the
question of how the legalization of medical pot could affect workplace
policies against drug use is just now coming to the fore.

In August, a woman who worked in the state government

In New York magazine, Benjamin Wallace-Wells has a long article about the failure of the War on Drugs, in which he says, “Without really acknowledging it, we are beginning to experiment with a negotiated surrender.” This is in reference to the recently passed marijuana legalization initiatives in Colorado and Washington, which will likely be followed by other states in upcoming elections. Hanging over these policy changes is the still-to-be-determined reaction of the Obama administration, which hasn’t yet said whether it plans to send DEA agents to crack down on the businesses these laws allow for, or the growing operations they’ll produce. And I’m beginning to suspect that the administration will try to set some kind of policy course intended to be as low-key and neutral as possible, neither giving the two states the green light to proceed as their new laws envision, nor embarking on some kind of dramatic and visible crackdown.

Why? Because that’s what Barack Obama appears to want. One of Andrew Sullivan’s readers noted a video from 2007 in which candidate Obama evaded and hedged in his response to a question about legalization; the reader said, “the sense I got was that whatever Obama’s actual position on marijuana is, he’s not about to let that be the issue that he wastes political capital on. That’s not going to be the issue that prevents him from becoming president and fixing everything else that he cares more about.” That sounds about right to me: While Obama may believe that the War has been a failure and it’s absurd to lock up hundreds of thousands of people for possessing, buying, or selling small amounts of marijuana, it just isn’t all that high on his priority list. If making a major policy change is risky, he’s not going to bother. On the other hand, he doesn’t want to alienate the 50 percent of the country that now supports legalization, many of whom are his staunch supporters, so his preferred outcome would be that no one pays much attention to the issue for the next four years.

Obama has been a continuing disappointment to his supporters who favor legalization, but there’s a kind of inverse Nixon-to-China thing going on with him. As the first president who admits to being an enthusiastic pot smoker in his youth (and of course the first black president), he’ll be the last person to begin the dismantling of the War on Drugs. But maybe, bit by bit, it’ll happen without him.

Source: American Prospect, The (US)
Author: Paul Waldman
Published: November 27, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The American Prospect, Inc.
Contact: letters@prospect.org
Website: http://www.americanprospect.com/

Thank you to the show Parenthood for your portrayal of someone becoming a medical marijuana patient.

During the Thanksgiving holiday, my procrastination on home projects
led me to getting caught up on the fall season of a few shows, including
NBC’s Parenthood.
I was moved to watch the main characters Kristina and Adam Braverman
and their family struggling with her cancer and all that the disease
brings. At my patients’ advocacy organization, Americans for Safe Access (ASA),
we see thousands of our members and families embark on a similar
struggle. The story of Kristina Braverman’s cancer spills into several
story lines as the family experiences the news in their own ways.

In the episode "One More Weekend with You," aired November 20,
Kristina Braverman’s character, played by Monica Potter, tries to stay
strong for her family, but becomes violently ill after receiving
chemotherapy. Her husband Adam, played by Peter Krause, finds her on the
bathroom floor and panics. He cleans her up and then packs all the kids
into the car to visit his musician-producer brother, the first person
he could think of who might have marijuana. His brother produces some
from his sock drawer and warns that it was not the same pot from when
they were kids, it was "genetically engineered" (a common
misunderstanding of the decades of modern breeding of the plant for
human consumption).

In the next scene Kristina Braverman’s character is laying in bed
smoking a joint. She is visibly better. She says it is strong and puts
it out, saying "Save that for later." Her husband asked if it helped,
and he is visibly relieved to see her smile. She acknowledges the relief
she’s found from marijuana, and says her husband will need to get "a
lot more." She settles back into her pillow and finally sleeps.

This episode reflects a situation that thousands of cancer patients
and their caregivers are experiencing, but not always with the same
ending. As a medical cannabis advocate I see this story play out in many
ways. Many caregivers don’t have a pot-smoking brother and instead find
themselves asking for marijuana from friends, family members or even
their children. Over the past decades I have heard heartbreaking stories
of people having no idea where to look and who to ask for this
medicine.

But even for those patients who can find a supply of marijuana for
their needs, many questions still arise. What if their source runs out?
What if their source gets into a legal entanglement? What if there is
mold or mildew on the medicine? What should they do if they live in
public housing?

These experiences and these questions are what voters and legislators
are trying to answer by passing laws in 18 states and the District of
Columbia. These laws don’t make marijuana medicine — cannabis is a
plant that has been used medicinally for thousands of years. The laws
are an attempt to reconcile the legal system with the reality of sick
patients seeking effective medicine. For patients and government
officials in medical cannabis states, it is now federal law that is
creating the most significant hurdle.

As 2012 comes to a close, there is a focus on what the government can
accomplish in the coming years. As Americans become more aware of the
struggles patients must go through in order to find relief, it is time
for the federal government to bridge the gap, with science and
overwhelming public support on one side and our current, harmful federal
policy on medical cannabis. Instead of denying there is any medical use
for cannabis, trying to dismantle state programs that are creating
access, and throwing providers like Montanan Chris Williams
in jail for life, the federal government should be figuring out how to
get doctors to recommend this treatment before their patients end up on
the bathroom floor.

This is not the first time we have seen medical cannabis as a
sideline topic on television or in the movies and it won’t be the last.
The arts tell the stories of our society, and with one million legal
medical cannabis patients and over one hundred million Americans living
in states with medical marijuana laws, there are many stories to tell.

I’ve told my own story of becoming a medical cannabis patient and
struggling with a lack of safe access to medicine in Washington D.C.,
most recently to the Washington Post.
If you are a medical cannabis patient or caregiver, I invite you to
tell your story in the comments, and to bravely tell your story to your
friends, family, and to your local, state and federal representatives.
Another way to get the word out is by joining Americans for Safe Access in our effort to change public health laws across the country.

Join me as well in thanking the writer of the Parenthood episode
that dealt with medical cannabis, Monica Henderson, for her thoughtful
portrayal of this difficult experience. We will encourage Hollywood to
tell more of these stories. Cancer is not going away, and neither is
cannabis. What we can change is the federal government’s lack of
compassion, and telling our stories is one way to do that.

In an attempt to get some regulation on the
books, the Los Angeles City Planning Commission on Thursday adopted a
measure granting limited immunity from enforcement to some medical
marijuana clinics in the city.

The panel’s 5-0 vote keeps in place restrictions prohibiting
dispensaries from being within 1,000 feet of residential areas, schools
and religious institutions. The city approval will allow some clinics
not in those areas to operate with immunity from local enforcement.

Special assistant city attorney Jane Usher, however, said it
would not prohibit enforcement by federal or state law enforcement
agencies.

"This is no way interferes or alters other law enforcement practices," Usher said. "It is the city standing down."

Usher said the measure was developed at the direction of the
City Council, which passed a total ban on pot shops in July but then
rescinded the law in October after dispensary supporters qualified a
referendum for the ballot seeking to overturn the ban.

Now, medical marijuana supporters are collecting signatures to
put two other initiatives on the May 21 ballot that would adopt more
lenient dispensary requirements, which could be changed only by a future
vote of the public.

Under the proposed ordinance passed by the Planning Commission
on Thursday, the city would allow dispensaries that have been in
operation since September 2007, have registered with the city, pay taxes
and agree to limits on hours of operation and location.

Fewer than 182 dispensaries meet those requirements, according to the City Attorney’s Office.

In addition, collectives of three or fewer people would be exempt, as are the caregivers of patients needing medical marijuana.

The Planning Commission agreed to allow the City Attorney’s
Office to make some technical changes to the measure before submitting
it to the City Council for consideration.

The medical marijuana community praised the Planning Commission’s decision.

"We think this is the best way to go," said Don Duncan,
California director of Americans for Safe Access. "We would urge there
be more time granted to relocate the clinics."

Aaron Green, who represents Angelenos for Safe Access that
includes 97 dispensaries, called it a "quality ordinance" that provides
access to medical marijuana for those who need it, but warned it could
be overruled this spring by voters in favor of more lenient dispensary
rules.

Usher said the measure took into consideration all the legal
actions filed against the city on medical marijuana over the past
several years.

And, she cautioned that another element could upend all the work on the issue.

"At this point, we are disappointed that the California
Supreme Court has yet to schedule arguments," Usher said. "So this is an
awkward time to bring you legislation. If it is adopted, I still would
expect it to be subject to lots and lots of lawsuits."

The city has been grappling with how to manage medical
marijuana dispensaries since the number of pot shops exploded several
years ago. It has been estimated there are between 700 to 1,000
dispensaries operating in the city, although the federal government and
the Los Angeles Police Department have sought to close many.

L.A.’s attempts to draft a law regulating when and where
dispensaries may operate have been stymied by lawsuits and court
rulings.

In the wake of our victory in Colorado — where 54.8 percent of the voters passed Amendment 64, a constitutional amendment to regulate marijuana like alcohol — good people are understandably clamoring to pass similar measures in their states.

Here is a listing of the ingredients of the recipe that led to the historic victory in Colorado on November 6.

1. Presidential Election: Given that no one had ever previously legalized marijuana in the history of the world, we assumed that the election in Colorado would be close — win or lose. So we intentionally chose to place our initiative on the ballot during a presidential election, which always attracts a larger proportion of young voters, who are more supportive. …

To read more, please visit The Huffington Post.

 

Washington, D.C. — District voters overwhelmingly passed the
Legalization of Marijuana for Medical Treatment Initiative nearly 15
years ago in 1998, but after passing several hurdles the law will
finally go into effect early next year, only weeks away. In
anticipation of this quickly approaching milestone, the country’s
leading advocacy group, Americans for Safe Access (ASA), and its D.C. chapter are teaming
up with the District Department of Health for a Town Hall forum to
answer questions about implementation of the law. Patients, in
particular, will benefit by finding out how they can speak to their
doctor about medical marijuana therapy, and whether they are
qualified to become patients under the new program.

What: Town Hall Meeting — D.C. Medical Marijuana
Patients Forum
When: Wednesday, December 12, 2012 at 7:30pm
Where: National City Christian Church, 5 Thomas
Circle NW, Washington D.C. (in the Community Room)

The D.C. Medical Marijuana Patients Forum will feature ASA Executive
Director Steph Sherer and Dr. Feseha Woldu from District Department
of Health, and will cover such topics as: what conditions are
eligible for medical cannabis therapy, how an eligible patient
registers with the Department of Health, how registered patients are
expected to acquire medical marijuana legally in the District, and
how patients can work with the local government to make the program
work best for District residents.

"It’s important to have medical marijuana patients, the ones most
affected by the law, be directly involved in the implementation
process," said Steph Sherer. "Patients should not only begin a
dialog with their doctors about medical marijuana, they should also
clarify their needs and contribute to the development of the program
— this is one of their chances to do that."

In addition to the December 12th Town Hall forum, patients will have
another opportunity to assist with the implementation of the program
through an online patient survey that is being conducted by ASA. The
survey asks prospective patients about their current knowledge and
previous experience with the therapeutic use of marijuana. Survey
data is collected confidentially and only anonymous survey results
will be shared with the Department of Health as well as local medical
marijuana cultivators and providers so they can best tailor and
modify the program to suit the needs of District patients.

The survey can be accessed at: http://www.AmericansForSafeAccess.org/DC-survey.

After a Congressional ban was lifted in 2010, implementation of the
D.C. medical marijuana law began in earnest. First, the District
Council approved a new law and set of regulations, which allowed the
Department of Health to start accepting proposals for the production
and distribution of medical marijuana. Now, more than two years
later, with six cultivators and four dispensaries granted
conditional permits, the program is close to operational, and the
ability of local patients to utilize the District’s medical
marijuana law is finally in sight.