When L.A.’s marijuana dispensaries launched a campaign recently to
repeal the city’s "gentle ban" on pot shops, they hired the best
political consultant they could find: Rick Taylor.

Taylor, who
has also been a lobbyist for dispensaries, took the lead in managing the
referendum effort, which has already succeeded in suspending enforcement of the ban. But if the measure makes it to the ballot, the dispensaries will need to hire somebody else.

That’s because Taylor recently went to work for the marijuana community’s sworn enemy: City Attorney Carmen Trutanich.

Trutanich has been fighting to crack down on marijuana dispensaries
since he was sworn into office three years ago. Even before the ban was
enacted, he argued that sale of marijuana were illegal and dangerous to
public health. Though enforcement of the ban is on hold, Trutanich
warned today that pot shops are still an "unpermitted land use."

Taylor
has argued, by contrast, that the city should establish regulations to
allow 182 collectives to be grandfathered in. In an interview, he said
he still believes that, though he is now running Trutanich’s re-election
campaign.

"What the council passed was not good law," Taylor
said, adding that he does not speak for Trutanich on the issue. "We need
to protect patients and we need to protect neighborhoods."

Taylor
said he would not be lobbying Trutanich on the dispensaries’ behalf.
Several marijuana activists said that Taylor disclosed he would be
working for Trutanich, and said that he could not continue to run the
referendum effort. Yami Bolanos, a representative of the referendum
effort, said that Taylor’s work for the group will officially end on
Sept. 30.

"It is disheartening for folks who are thinking he is
on their side and supporting their cause when in fact he’s making sure
our worst enemy is being re-elected as city attorney," said Kris Hermes,
a spokesman for Americans for Safe Access.

Trutanich’s spokesman, John Schwada, said that Trutanich had no problem with Taylor’s affiliation with the marijuana community.

"Rick
understands the dual roles that he plays," Schwada says. "I’ve never
seen him lobby anyone on this issue, much less the city attorney."

Taylor said the situation does not pose a conflict of interest.

"It’s more of a conflict for people in the media," he said.

Update: Trutanich issues a statement:

"I don’t apply an ideological litmus test when I hire professionals to
work for me," Trutanich said. "Their talents are what I’m looking for,
not their beliefs about controversial issues of the day." Trutanich
added that Taylor told him beforehand about his clients, including the
dispensary owner. "I went into this arrangement with Rick with my eyes
wide open," Trutanich said. "Rick laid all his cards on the table. I
know who his clients are and we have an explicit understanding that as
long as he’s my consultant he’s not going to lobby me or my office
regarding his clients – and he has been true to his word."

Trutanich
also said he wanted to clear the air about his views on medical
marijuana. "There’s been some misunderstanding about where I am coming
from on this issue. I do not have any personal angst about medical
marijuana. I and my staff, as professionals, are obligated to give our
client, the city of Los Angeles, our best legal advice, based on the
law, not our personal opinions, and we have done that in a very tricky
and confused legal landscape."

Suppose voters decided that they’ve had it with federal drug rules that make marijuana an illegal substance akin to heroin or cocaine, and they change Washington state law to make marijuana legal.

Not in all instances, not for everyone, not at any time.  But for adults, in regulated quantities, for limited uses.

While that might be a fair shorthand description of what Initiative 502 proposes this November, this isn’t just a hypothetical scenario about the future.  It’s also a description of the past.  In 1998, Washington voters “legalized” marijuana for medical uses, even though the federal government said at the time, and still does, the drug belongs on the list of controlled substances that have no legal medical use.

Fourteen years later, state officials still struggle with developing a system to regulate medical marijuana production and sale, while the U.S.  Justice Department continues to prosecute “dispensaries” under federal drug trafficking statutes for selling pot to state-approved medicinal smokers unwilling or unable to grow it for themselves.

Supporters of I-502 — which would allow for the possession and consumption of small amounts of marijuana by adults but keep it illegal for minors and anyone operating a vehicle — say it will free local law enforcement and state courts from the cost of marijuana enforcement.  The prosecution, defense, court and jail costs of those cases cost Washington governments more than $200 million between 2000 and 2010, the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington recently estimated.

Spokane City Council President Ben Stuckart said the chance to lighten the load on local police and avoid filling local courts and jails makes I-502 a good choice.  While there’s no guarantee what federal drug agents and prosecutors will do, the chance to begin discussions also would be a plus, he said.

“If nobody acts, nothing’s going to happen,” he said.

I-502 won’t stop federal officials from enforcing the law, most concede.  But it will spark discussions on how to shift from individual users to large criminal organizations bringing drugs across state and national borders, said Pete Holmes, the Seattle city attorney and a supporter of the initiative.

“It would take a great deal of hubris to just brush it aside,” Holmes said.

The state’s federal prosecutors won’t even talk about what they would do if voters approve I-502.

“We’re not making plans right now,” said Mike Ormsby, U.S.  attorney for Eastern Washington, adding he’s had no discussions with supporters of the initiative and “I don’t intend to have any.”

Jenny Durkan, U.S.  attorney for Western Washington, hasn’t had any official discussions on what actions federal law enforcement would take if the ballot measure passes, a spokeswoman said.  “We are prohibited from commenting on Initiative 502,” Emily Langlie said.  “It’s possible, between now and the election, the Department of Justice will provide further instructions.”

Last year, Ormsby warned dispensaries in Spokane that they faced federal prosecution if they didn’t shut down.  A letter from Ormsby and Durkan to Gov.  Chris Gregoire prompted the governor to essentially gut a bill that legislators had hammered out to regulate the production and sale of medical marijuana, which was called for in the 1998 ballot measure.

“Growing, distributing and possessing marijuana in any capacity, other than as part of a federally authorized research program, is a violation of federal law regardless of state laws permitting such activities,” they wrote in April 2011.

I-502 calls for the state to regulate the production, processing and sale of marijuana — and collect taxes on it — through the state Liquor Control Board.

Holmes believes the passage of I-502 could actually ease the federal pressure on medical marijuana dispensaries.  It was the proliferation of those facilities and readily available “prescriptions” that helped spur the federal crackdown, he said.

“There are a lot of sham users of medical marijuana,” he said.  “The number of dispensaries you see is quite a bit beyond what’s needed for medical marijuana.”

I-502 would likely preclude the need for dispensaries because medical patients could find the drug relatively easily, he added.

State Attorney General Rob McKenna, who is running for governor this fall on the same ballot as I-502, said passage of the measure will create “a serious conflict between state law and federal law.” If state and local officials don’t prosecute marijuana cases, federal prosecutors likely will, he said.

“It’s not a state’s rights issue,” McKenna said: It’s an issue where federal law rules under the Constitution’s supremacy clause.

Like his Democratic opponent for governor, Jay Inslee, Republican McKenna opposes I-502.  If the measure passes, one or the other would be faced with dealing with the fallout, although neither has specific plans.

Inslee’s campaign said simply that he would “work with legislators and stakeholders to implement the new law.”

McKenna said he believes the initiative will fail, so he won’t deal with a hypothetical like how he would deal with the U.S.  Justice Department.  “I don’t want to comment on what could happen on a law that won’t pass.”

Source: Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)
Copyright: 2012 The Spokesman-Review
Contact: editor@spokesman.com
Website: http://www.spokesman.com/
Author: Jim Camden

The recent acquittal of a Saskatchewan driver on impaired driving charges — even though she admitted using marijuana before hitting the road and bungled a number of coordination tests — is raising questions about the ability of law enforcement to go after drugged drivers.

Some advocates say that Canada’s drug-impaired driving laws introduced in 2008 are deficient and that federal lawmakers should move to adopt drug-intake thresholds similar to the 0.08 blood-alcohol limit.

The judge in the Saskatchewan driver’s case said police and prosecutors failed to convince him that her use of marijuana actually affected her ability to operate a vehicle.

Saskatoon police set up a roadside checkpoint on June 19, 2011. An officer approached a vehicle and smelled an overwhelming odour of marijuana.

The driver admitted to the officer that she had smoked marijuana about 2-1/2 hours earlier. The officer, who was a trained drug recognition evaluator, had the driver perform a number of coordination tests. During the walk-and-turn test, the driver missed a number of heel-toe steps and failed to turn, as instructed. During the finger-to-nose test, she was able to touch her nose only once during six attempts.

The officer also noticed eyelid tremors and reddening of the drivers’ eyes.

Following these and other tests, the officer concluded the driver had marijuana in her system, which was later confirmed by a urine analysis.

But in a court ruling Aug. 21, provincial court Judge Daryl Labach said the evidence presented in court only showed that the accused had used marijuana prior to being stopped and that some of it was still in her system when she was evaluated by police.

“What (the officer’s) evidence does not convince me of is that at the time she was driving, her ability to operate a motor vehicle was impaired by marijuana,” he said.

The judge said he was left with many questions: What signs of impairment would one expect to see in someone who has been using marijuana? How long after using marijuana would you expect to see these signs and how long would they last? Was the accused’s performance in some of the tests just as consistent with someone who has poor balance or poor coordination as it was with someone who had used marijuana?

The lack of answers, and the lack of evidence of erratic driving, raised reasonable doubt the driver was driving impaired, the judge said.

There have been similar acquittals in other jurisdictions. Labach referred to a 2010 case out of Ontario.

A man had hit a mailbox with his car and went off the road. Police observed that the driver had droopy eyes, slow and thick speech, and was unco-ordinated.

A police drug-recognition expert concluded that the driver was likely impaired by a central nervous system depressant, which was later confirmed by a urine analysis.

But Ontario Justice Stephen J. Fuerth acquitted the driver, saying evidence of the driver’s impairment was “far from compelling,” and that the Crown had failed to show beyond a reasonable doubt that the drug had caused the driver to be impaired at the time he was driving.

Source: Calgary Herald (CN AB)
Copyright: 2012 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/calgaryherald/letters.html
Website: http://www.calgaryherald.com/
Author: Douglas Quan

Jay Lassiter, a onetime New Jersey politics blogger who would use profanity to drive home a point, texted one word to describe his feelings about becoming one of the state’s first patients eligible to smoke medical marijuana: “Wow.”

“Just registered. . . . Shouldn’t be long now,” the advocacy consultant from Cherry Hill then told his Facebook followers. Lassiter is among the more than 100 people who signed up last month as the state’s long-stalled medical marijuana program advanced.

Lassiter, 40, who previously wrote for the liberal website BlueJersey, wants to obtain marijuana to stimulate an appetite ravaged by HIV/AIDS and the side effects of a cocktail of potent medications. The drug requires a prescription from a registered doctor.

Whether the patient registry is “the sweet victory” Lassiter anticipates or just another step in the program’s bumpy road remains to be seen. There are still hurdles and confusion as the state Department of Health takes a firm stance in checking and double-checking every detail.

No marijuana dispensary has received final approval to open for business, despite years of planning and review. So far, only one – the Greenleaf Compassion Center in Montclair, Essex County – has been licensed to grow the crop.

Greenleaf is expected to begin selling the drug to patients this month “assuming they meet all the criteria,” Health Commissioner Mary O’Dowd said.

But the government and dispensary seem to have a different understanding about what’s left to be done before Greenleaf opens.

Greenleaf chief executive officer Joe Stevens said his nonprofit company already had harvested the crop and was ready to sell as early as this week, once the state conducts a final inspection of his storefront dispensary and reviewed his security plans. State Health and Agriculture Department inspectors already have checked the plants for mold, pesticides, and other contaminants and found them to be clean, he said.

“Now that patients are registering, we’ve been getting calls as to our opening date. . . . We’re hoping for the first or second week in September,” Stevens said.

But O’Dowd said the inspection of the plants was only preliminary. The marijuana still needs to undergo further inspection and laboratory testing before it can be sold, she said.

Plus, a daylong inspection of the dispensary would include computer and employee training and security checks. “We are asking for security to make sure [marijuana] is not diverted for inappropriate illegal purposes,” O’Dowd said.

Some patients have vulnerable immune systems, she said, and the Department of Health needs to ensure that the drug won’t harm them.

So far, more than 100 patients who have cancer, Crohn’s disease, multiple sclerosis, HIV, or other afflictions that qualify for marijuana treatment have begun the registration process. About 8,400 people visited the state’s medical marijuana website the day patients were allowed to sign up.

Stevens said he had cultivated enough marijuana at his 5,000-square-foot facility to serve only 60 patients the first month. Since more than 100 people have registered, he said, he may ask patients to “limit their purchases in the beginning so that everyone who is sick can get their medication.”

Stevens, a former funeral director who will run the dispensary with a childhood friend, Julio Valentin Jr., a former Newark police detective, said he did not expect to have the only dispensary to open in the state.

In March 2011, the Department of Health selected six nonprofit companies to grow marijuana and operate dispensaries, two for each of three geographic areas. The others have been stymied either by local opposition to their businesses or the rigorous state approval process.

Until the others open, registered patients across the state are free to travel to Greenleaf.

Stevens said his company initially had difficulties because “the start dates kept being pushed back” by the state, but now, “if there were differences in the past, there are none now.”

Compassionate Care Foundation, one of two dispensaries chosen to serve South Jersey, has been paying $25,000 a month in rent on a vacant warehouse in Egg Harbor, near Atlantic City, since April.

Chief executive officer William J. Thomas said he did not anticipate that the state background checks of his board members and lenders would take eight months. He had hoped to be ready to serve patients this month, but since the investigations are continuing, he now expects to see a December opening at the earliest.

“We are being held to the same standard as a casino owner,” he said, noting that investigators had asked his associates, doctors, and lenders for three years’ worth of IRS statements, bank accounts, mortgage information, and job history, and for personal interviews.

“We have no revenue, and if it goes on any longer, we’ll just have to walk away from this,” Thomas said.

Some lenders have dropped out because the process is so time-consuming and intrusive, he said.

“We are being treated like a hot potato,” he said.

Thomas said he could not apply for a permit to begin growing until the investigation was complete. Cultivation then takes about three months.

O’Dowd said that Department of Health conducts in-depth investigations to make sure no one associated with a dispensary has laundered money, has ties to organized crime, or has a criminal record.

“This is an illegal operation in the eyes of the federal government, so we want to make sure there are no concerns that would bring into question the integrity of the investors and the board as a whole,” she said.

In other states, notably California, federal agents have raided dispensaries when they discovered the improper sale of medical marijuana to people who were not sick. O’Dowd said she wanted to ensure that New Jersey’s program “will withstand the scrutiny of federal law enforcement.”

New Jersey is one of 17 states and the District of Columbia that permit medical marijuana despite the federal government’s ban on cannabis sales. The Obama administration has issued memos saying it will look the other way when dispensaries follow a state’s regulations.

Ken Wolski, who heads the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey, a patient advocacy group, said New Jersey’s program was unnecessarily the strictest in the nation, depriving very sick and terminally ill patients of a drug that could help them cope.

The program has focused more on bureaucratic requirements and less on the suffering of the patients, he said.

Gov. Christie has said that he wants to make sure there are “sufficient legal safeguards so we don’t turn into California and everybody with a headache is going out and getting high.”

Lassiter said that was not why he needed marijuana. “A big part of my strategy for staying well is keeping my appetite robust,” he said. “The alternative is dying.”

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Author: Jan Hefler, Inquirer Staff Writer
Published: September 4, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc.
Contact: Inquirer.Letters@phillynews.com
Website: http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/