Liberals and libertarians are sometimes uneasy bedfellows, but both have
no shortage of reasons to fear, loathe and otherwise vote against
mainstream Democrats, as the current imbroglio over the National
Security Agency’s spying program displays.

Here’s another one:
Under the administration of President Barack Obama, more money has been
spent and nearly as many Americans thrown in prison over medical
marijuana than was done under onetime favorite liberal punching bag
George W. Bush, according to a pair of studies conducted by Americans for Safe Access and California NORML, both released today.

In
that span, federal prosecutors have amassed a remarkable record: 90
percent of medical marijuana cases have resulted in convictions, an
effective use of the $300 million spent on enforcing federal drug laws
in medical marijuana states.

While
current Attorney General Eric Holder’s October surprise is credited
with helping to derail California’s marijuana legalization ballot
initiative in 2010, mainstream Democrats rallying against medical
cannabis began with then-U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno in 1996. Reno
then warned doctors in California that they’d lose their licenses to
prescribe medication and be banned from Medicare and Medicaid programs.
Those penalties were eventually blocked by a federal court, but the
message was clear.

And it’s getting clearer. Though Obama has
said that the federal government has "bigger fish to fry" than medical
marijuana, and while Holder and others have repeatedly said that
dispensaries and cannabis growers obeying state law have nothing to fear
from the feds, the fact is that the feds are shutting down state
law-abiding dispensaries. Just this week, hundreds of dispensaries in
Southern California received the same letters from United States
attorneys that shut down a dozen pot clubs in the Bay Area.

Not to say we told you so, but
we told you so. Prior to the federal Justice Department’s coordinated
crackdown on state-legal pot clubs, we noted in April 2011 that
Obama’s Justice Department was continuing medical cannabis prosecutions
that began under Bush — and opening up new cases and new prosecutions.
Recall that Obama on the campaign trail, Obama in office and a
just-installed Holder all said the same thing: they wouldn’t do what
they ended up doing.

This comes at a time when about one-third of
the country’s citizens live in a state with some kind of medical
cannabis law on the books. That’s 100 million Americans, about 1 million
of whom are card-carrying medical cannabis users, the reports estimate.

Meanwhile,
an effort to reform California’s inconsistent laws on medical cannabis
— which were left up to local jurisdictions by the state that is now
taking control back under federal pressure — is stalled in the state
Legislature, after a reform bill authored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano,
(D-San Francisco),  was shot down by fellow Democrats from Southern
California as well as the Assembly’s Republican obstructionists.

Read the reports for yourself here and here.

A Southern California city that won a recent case in which the state Supreme Court ruled local municipalities can ban medical marijuana dispensaries is taking its efforts one step further by going after delivery services.

Earlier this week, the Riverside City Council approved an emergency ban
to ensure existing mobile marijuana businesses or clinics that have
closed aren’t trying to skirt local law.

The city’s decision is the latest blow to the medical marijuana industry
which has thrived in California for years but has been decimated by an
ongoing crackdown by the federal government and the effects from the
ruling that has empowered cities and counties to get rid of storefront
dispensaries.

Riverside officials decided to amend an ordinance because it didn’t
include mobile pot operations. The number of delivery services that
advertise and operate within 20 miles of Riverside has grown from more
than 30 to about 50 since the state Supreme Court ruling, according to a
city report.

Attorney James DeAguilera, who represents about 15 marijuana collectives
that operate in Riverside, doesn’t believe the City Council can ban
delivery services, let alone enforce the ordinance.

"Would Riverside set up checkpoints all around the city and have police
confiscate marijuana?" DeAguilera asked. "It doesn’t make a lot of
sense."

Riverside was among dozens of cities that had unsuccessfully implemented
bans because they were met with lawsuits until last month’s ruling by
the state’s highest court. Since then, those cities have been closing
pot shops.

About 200 municipalities in California have banned retail pot sales,
according to estimates from the national medical marijuana advocacy
group Americans for Safe Access, while more than 40 have laws allowing
dispensaries.

Kris Hermes, a spokesman for the organization, said Riverside is taking the wrong approach with its ban.

"Banning all kinds of distribution and allowing patients to cultivate
themselves is severely restricting when it comes to people who don’t
have the skill or money to cultivate," Hermes said. "Perhaps this is a
new area that will result in litigation."

Hundreds of door-to-door pot businesses are estimated to operate in
California. Critics say delivery services attract crime because drivers
can be targets for armed robbers who seek cash and drugs.

Last year, a civil grand jury report in San Luis Obispo County noted the
delivery services created a "gray market" that local government was
ignoring. As a result, the city of Arroyo Grande decided to prohibit
mobile medical marijuana.

State law doesn’t specifically mention delivery services but advocates
believe the businesses are allowed if they work under the cooperative or
collective model. However, no agency is regulating the delivery
services and some legal experts believe Riverside’s decision will lead
to more litigation.

"Can you stop commerce that is crossing jurisdictional lines?" asked
Marsha Cohen, a law professor at the University of California, Hastings
College of the Law. "It’s a constant pushing of the legal envelope. Who
knows where it will end."

It’s been rough waters for the medical marijuana industry in the first
state to legalize marijuana for medical use. Many dispensaries have been
targeted by federal authorities for nearly two years.

More than 100 pot clinics across Los Angeles County received warning
letters this week from the government to shut down as part of a
coordinated effort by the state’s four federal prosecutors. Many of the
more than 600 pot shops in the seven-county Central District of
California have closed, authorities said.

With the widespread enforcement combined with no longer permitting
delivery services, the result could mean those who need medical
marijuana will have to look far and wide, possibly at great expense, to
get their medicine.

"I think inevitably areas that are undergoing law enforcement measures
will definitely be forced to travel longer distances to get their
medicine or they will go to the illicit market or more tragically do
without," Hermes said.

Other observers believe that other cities that have taken a hard-line against dispensaries will follow Riverside’s lead.

"They recognize the delivery system is an end-around on the law and if
cities are resolute to ban marijuana sales in their city, it would be a
wise step to take," said John McGinness, a former Sacramento County
sheriff and consultant for the California Peace Officers’ Association.

"It could be an interesting opportunity for an enforcement effort," he added.

On Tuesday, Vermont moved to decriminalize the possession of marijuana for quantities up to an ounce, replacing potential prison time for arrests with fines.

Peter Shumlin, the state’s governor, made a telling distinction between weed and “harder” drugs when he announced the move. “This legislation allows our courts and law enforcement to focus their limited resources more effectively to fight highly addictive opiates such as heroin and prescription drugs that are tearing apart families and communities,” he said.

The idea that weed isn’t that big a deal and that governments need to readjust their priorities is pretty common. There’s little vocal anti-pot government outcry, no temperance movement analog for cannabis. Recent polls have found that a majority of Americans think marijuana should be legalized.

Even our mainstream faces of stoner culture are generally silly, harmless and amiable (Jeff Spicoli, Cheech & Chong, Harold & Kumar, and whatever Snoop is calling himself these days) except when they’re revered and saintly (read: Bob Marley). On TV, there was Weeds, a dramedy about an upper-middle-class widow who starts selling marijuana to make ends meet. Change the drug to something else like heroin or meth, drugs with more sinister reputations, and it becomes something much darker. You’d pretty much have to go all the way back to Reefer Madness to find a widely seen film that portrayed pot as dangerous or threatening. (And the whole reason we all know about that movie is because the concerns at its center are often mocked as kitschy and histrionic.)

Mona Lynch, a professor at the University of California, Irvine who studies the criminal justice system, says that stereotypes of marijuana usage in popular culture don’t come across as very threatening. “There’s not a lot of uproar around marijuana [as] a crushing problem,” she says.

But this image of weed use as benign recreation or banal nuisance doesn’t square with another great fact of American life — the War on Drugs. And more and more, that War on Drugs means marijuana.

Ezekiel Edwards, the director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Criminal Law Reform Project, says that 10 years ago, marijuana possession arrests made up 37 percent of all drug arrests. And now? “Half of all drug arrests are now marijuana-related,” he says — and 9 in 10 of those are for possession.

The focus of the continuing law enforcement battle on marijuana lands disproportionately on people of color. The ACLU crunched some Justice Department numbers on drug arrests, and released a much-discussed report last week on their findings. The upshot: African-Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for possessing marijuana than whites, even though blacks and whites consume weed at about the same rate.

For blacks — and black men in particular — marijuana is a gateway drug into the criminal justice system.

“The thing that was shocking about the report was the pervasiveness, that this [disparity in arrests] is happening everywhere,” Lynch tells me. “It’s happening in small towns, big towns, urban and rural.”

Both Edwards and Lynch say that part of the reason marijuana is getting more attention from law enforcement agencies is that police departments are being subsidized with lots of federal dollars to stop drugs, but the crack epidemic has since waned. “Institutions don’t like to shrink,” Lynch says. “It’s actually a reverse kind of pattern — drug arrests are going up [even] as crime drops.”

At the same time that marijuana’s become a more central focus of the War on Drugs, there are plenty of business types who are already making their plans for selling marijuana after, uh, all the smoke clears. They’re trying to give pot an altogether new face: as a widely available commercial product backed by big business. No one knows what that market might even look like quite yet, but it could be incredibly lucrative.

Might you be able to cop some weed at your supermarket behind the counter with cigarettes? Would your favorite coffee shop start selling some “extra special” lattes? What about an over-the-counter headache medicine packaged in a box with a little green leaf in the corner?

Seriously — it might not be that far-fetched.

Don Pellicer, a company that hopes to open marijuana stores in Washington and Colorado, is looking for investors. Vicente Fox, the former president of Mexico, was a guest speaker at a Don Pellicer event last week, and has said that he would grow marijuana if weren’t against the law. “Once it’s legitimate and legal, sure, I could do it,” he told reporters. “I’m a farmer. Producers of all types can participate.” (Fox, it’s worth noting, used to run Coca-Cola in Mexico, and its sales jumped by 50 percent during his tenure.)

There are already vending machine companies working on cannabis-dispensing kiosks for retail stores for the people who don’t want the hassle of humoring those talky connoisseur types. “The way we see it, when you walk into a shop, you don’t need the expert or aficionado to help with selection,” says the head of one such vending company. “The people who are using this in the recreational space — they know what they want, and they don’t want to hear the whole spiel every time.”

And there are all the industrial, non-psychoactive applications. Hemp fiber, which is especially strong, is already used in all sorts of textiles. One researcher told writer Doug Fine that a decade after weed became legal, a domestic hemp industry would sprout up in the United States to the tune of $50 billion a year — which would outpace the estimates of what smokable reefer would bring in.

“When America’s 100 million cannabis aficionados (17 million regular partakers) are freed from dealers, some are going to pick up a six-pack of joints at the corner store before heading to a barbecue, and others are going to seek out organically grown heirloom strains for their vegetable dip,” Fine wrote.

So now we have to reconcile the many different faces of marijuana — a jokey, pop-culture staple, a continuing fascination of law enforcement agencies whose attentions fall disproportionately on people of color, and the potential cash crop of a bright, green future.

Which of these will give way? Or will any of them?

Source: National Public Radio (US)
Author: Gene Demby
Published: June 12, 2013
Copyright: 2013 National Public Radio
Website: http://www.npr.org/
Contact: http://www.npr.org/contact/

A federal judge struck down a provision of Colorado’s legalization law on Tuesday, which would have required marijuana-themed magazines to be treated like pornography and sold behind the counter.

Magazine publishers and local bookstores filed a lawsuit against the state in early June, arguing that such restrictions were not in place while marijuana use was illegal.

The ruling follows last week’s statement by anti-marijuana Attorney General John Suthers that the provision is unconstitutional.

The Colorado Department of Revenue, which is in the process of setting up the law’s regulatory framework, announced that it will not enforce the provision.

Mason Tvert, MPP’s communications director and a campaigner for Colorado’s 2012 referendum, said, “The idea that stores can prominently display magazines touting the joys of drinking wine and smoking cigars, yet banish those that discuss a far safer substance to behind the counter, is absolutely absurd. It is time for our elected leaders to get over their reefer madness.”

In the latest issue of Nature Reviews Neuroscience, leading scientists argue that the UN conventions on drugs in the 1960s and 1970s, which outlawed drugs with psychoactive substances such as marijuana, is hindering research into potentially significant medicinal uses, estimating that research in key areas such as consciousness has been set back by decades.

Report authors Professor David Nutt and Professor David Nichols contend that the illegal status of psychoactive drugs makes it almost impossible to examine their mechanisms of action and potential therapeutic uses.

Prof. David Nutt

Nutt, a professor of neuropsychopharmacology at Imperial College London, stated that the ban is “motivated by politics, not science” and characterized it as “the worst case of scientific censorship since the Catholic Church banned the works of Copernicus and Galileo.”

Nutt and Nichols, a professor at UNC Chapel Hill, have called for a more rational approach to drug regulation that would empower researchers to make advancements in the field of neuroscience and uncover new treatments in areas such as depression and PTSD.

The call for reform has been endorsed by the British Neuroscience Association and the British Association for Psychopharmacology.

A recent poll found that a majority of New Jersey voters believe people who are caught with small amounts of marijuana should pay a fine, but not go to prison.

Commissioned by the Drug Policy Alliance, the poll of 604 registered voters determined that 61 percent support the elimination of criminal penalties for minor possession (under two ounces).

The poll also found that 82 percent of voters either favor, or are neutral to, politicians who advocate for reducing criminal penalties for possession.

Rosanne Scotti, the New Jersey State director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said, “More than 22,000 individuals were arrested for marijuana possession in New Jersey in 2010 at a cost of more than $125 million dollars. New Jerseyans understand that current penalties for marijuana are unfair and wasteful.”

Despite this wave of public support, NJ Gov. Chris Christie has stated that he will veto any decriminalization bill.

MPP is happy to announce that Troy Dayton will be joining our board of directors later this month! He will serve a three-year term, during which time he will help guide the overall direction of the organization. Troy will be replacing Richard Miller, Ph.D., who has served since 2010 and done an outstanding job.

Troy Dayton was one of MPP’s first volunteers when MPP was founded in 1995. Since then, he has raised over $1 million to support MPP’s work — which is the second-largest sum of money that anyone has raised for MPP.

He also co-founded Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the National Cannabis Industry Association. And Troy made national headlines when he organized religious leaders to endorse MPP’s ballot initiative to end marijuana prohibition in Nevada.

Troy is currently the CEO of The ArcView Group, which was the focus of a recent cover story in “Fortune” magazine. He is quoted often in major media outlets on the topic of marijuana legalization.

The final results showed that Troy secured over 75% of the popular vote from MPP’s members, with Michael Kirshner (16.8%) and Jason Fien (7.1%) placing second and third in the voting.

Federal
prosecutors are targeting more than 100 marijuana shops in Los Angeles
County this week, threatening prosecution if dispensary owners stay in
operation. Officials also moved to seize two properties in Long Beach
catering to marijuana users.

Letters from the federal government were sent to
dispensaries in Los Angeles, Long Beach, Lancaster, and Pearblossom,
U.S. Attorney’s Office spokesman Thom Mrozek said. The letters informed
dispensary owners they are operating in violation of federal laws.

In Los Angeles, 71 dispensaries in South L.A., downtown, and the Harbor area were sent notices, Mrozek said.

The government’s actions represent the latest effort
to enforce federal laws and the newest challenge to California’s
17-year-old, voter-approved law allowing the sale of marijuana as a
medicinal treatment. Federal authorities contend the 1996 legislation
approved by California voters was intended to allow small, nonprofit
collectives for sick patients, and not result in an explosion of pot
stores.

"Anyone who has spent any time in a marijuana store
can tell these are drug-trafficking businesses," Mrozek said. "All the
stores we have seen are generating significant amount of profits."

The letters sent Tuesday come weeks after Los Angeles voters approved Measure D, which allows 135 dispensaries — those facilities
that were already open and registered with the city before a 2007
moratorium — to stay open. All other dispensaries must shut down.

While the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office is
finalizing the list of 135 dispensaries, and expects to release the list
in about 10 days, Mrozek said he expects some overlap between
facilities ordered to shut down and those on the city’s list allowed to
stay open.

Deputy City Attorney William Carter said his office
will be informing any dispensary on the city’s list they must comply
with federal laws.

Such is the confusing state of marijuana laws in
California, where federal and state rules often conflict with one
another as local governments take a piecemeal approach to regulating
pot.

Kris Hermes, spokesperson for the Americans for Safe
Access, a medical marijuana advocacy group, criticized the federal
government’s actions Tuesday, saying that he believes stores targeted by
the U.S. Attorney’s Office should be allowed to operate because they
are in compliance with state laws.

"Thousands of people will be left without safe and legal access to medical marijuana," Hermes said.

In Long Beach, where dispensaries have been illegal
since last year, the city’s police chief praised the crackdown, saying
that shops have been a problem for the city.

"We always welcome the opportunity to partner with
federal authorities in an effort to address these illegal operations
that affect the quality of life in our community," Long Beach Police
Chief Jim McDonnell said in a statement.

The federal government has also filed two asset
forfeiture lawsuits in Long Beach where officials said marijuana stores
are currently operating.

The forfeiture lawsuits allege the owners of the
properties allowed commercial marijuana stores or growing operations.
The dispensaries named by the U.S. Attorney’s Office are the Healing
Tree Holistic Association on East Anaheim Street and the Naples Wellness
Center on East 2nd Street.

Messages left for owners at the two stores were not immediately returned.

When Barak Obama became president in 2008, there was
hope among marijuana activists that federal authorities would not
concern themselves with medical marijuana facilities and individuals in
states that legalized the plant for medical use.

After all, this
was a president who had admitted to smoking pot and inhaling (the last
three presidents have smoked marijuana, although Bill Clinton claimed he
didn

It’s a brave new pothead world. Until fairly recently, even a year ago, I would not have guessed that we would be at the place we are now – with 18 states legalizing medical marijuana and, according to one recent poll, a whopping 85 percent of the nation supporting medical use. For all our political rancor, it turns out, what ultimately unites us is pot. Weed is one of the few things that both hillbillies and hippies like. Rappers smoke pot, and country artists smoke pot. There’s just as much pot on Willie Nelson’s tour bus as there is on Snoop Dogg’s tour bus. Marijuana is bridging the red and blue divide and becoming a purple issue.

For those who worry that we will become a nation that sits on the couch eating Cheetos all day, relax. Smoking pot does not equal laziness. Weed was something I could always justify because it excited my brain. Some people it puts to sleep, others it turns paranoid. Some it makes creative, and we’re the lucky ones, because if it has done any damage to us, at least we have a receipt. I’ve gotten a lot of good ideas from pot. Including smoke more pot.

Legalization is another one of those issues, like gay marriage, that drives the Tea Bag people crazy. That Leave It to Beaver black-and-white 1950s image that Mitt Romney fit into so well is going away, and one big reason is marijuana. Bill Clinton once said, “If you look back on the Sixties and think there was more good than harm, you’re probably a Democrat. If you think there was more harm than good, you’re probably a Republican.” Well, for those people who loved the Fifties, pot played a huge role in the cultural revolution that they detest.

The Next Seven States to Legalize Pot: http://www.cannabisnews.org/the-next-seven-states-to-legalize-pot/2012/12/20/

Republicans have always been an uneasy alliance of Jesus freaks, gun nuts, generic obese suburbanites and the super-rich, but what binds them is this idea that life was perfect in Appleton, Wisconsin, in 1958. As soon as President Obama was elected, this visual of a black guy who liked smoking pot walking into the White House was too much. Whenever you hear them say, “I want my country back” – from what? Did Blackmanistan invade us? They may want it back, but that America is gone forever.

Of course, there’s a big economic incentive to legalizing marijuana. More than a decade ago, there was a county in Georgia where the people fired the sheriff because he was busting pot farmers. The crop was their lifeblood, so they got rid of the hardass and elected a sheriff who pledged to look the other way. That’s the kind of sea change that’s happening in America right now. If 40 years of abject failure of the War on Drugs has taught us anything, it’s that the customer base is large, strong and loyal. So as in everything, money talks. And money is there to be made. There’s no going back. We’ve reached the tipping point, legal marijuana is here to stay – it’s just a matter of how fast it will happen across the country.

This story is from the June 20th, 2013 issue of Rolling Stone.

Newshawk: John Tyler
Source: Rolling Stone (US)
Author: Bill Maher
Published: June 10, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Straight Arrow Publishers Company, L.P.
Contact: letters@rollingstone.com
Website: http://www.rollingstone.com/