The New Hampshire Senate voted 18-6 last week to pass HB 573 and send it back to the House. Unfortunately, after hearing a number of objections from Gov. Maggie Hassan, the Senate had little choice but to amend the bill in ways that will be bad for patients. The Senate removed home cultivation from the bill, gutted the affirmative defense provisions that would have immediately given patients a defense they could raise in court, and adopted other changes that are detailed here (some of which would actually render the bill unworkable if not corrected).

Gov. Hassan

The bill will now return to the House, which we expect will disapprove of the Senate’s amendments. This means a “committee of conference” will be formed, in which a special committee of representatives and senators will work to agree on a final version of the bill that will move forward to the governor’s desk.

Gov. Hassan has been quoted saying she is still open to listening and learning more, so if you are a New Hampshire resident, please call Gov. Hassan’s office and politely urge her to reconsider her insistence on these provisions that will harm patients!

Governor John Hickenlooper signed the first bills in history to establish a regulated marijuana market for adults and initiate the development of a regulatory framework for the cultivation, distribution, and processing of industrial hemp. The four measures were approved by the General Assembly earlier this month in accordance with Amendment 64, a ballot measure approved by 55% of Colorado voters last November.
The Huffington Post reports:

“We applaud Gov. Hickenlooper for the initiative he has taken to ensure the world’s first legal marijuana market for adults will entail a robust and comprehensive regulatory system” said Mason Tvert, director of communications for the Marijuana Policy Project, who served as an official proponent of Amendment 64 and co-director of the campaign in Colorado…

Tvert added: “Colorado is demonstrating to the rest of the nation that it is possible to adopt a marijuana policy that reflects the public’s increasing support for making marijuana legal for adults.”

The Colorado Dept. of Revenue now has until July 1 to develop the specific regulations necessary for implementation, and voters will need to sign off on the proposed tax levels in the upcoming November election. If all continues to go smoothly, state-regulated marijuana retail stores will begin opening their doors to adults 21 and older in January 2014.

For nearly a century, the United States has been one of the fiercest advocates and practitioners of marijuana prohibition in the world. At the height of the America’s anti-pot fervor in the 1950s and ’60s, one could even receive life imprisonment for simple possession of the drug.

But the puritanical fervor that once dominated the national discussion surrounding cannabis has been conspicuously absent of late. Earlier this month, the Colorado State legislature, by order of a November referendum, passed bills to implement the legalization and regulation of recreational marijuana use. Washington State voters also approved legalization by referendum on election day. And these events have recently been followed by more good news for supporters of cannabis law reform.

The Organization for American States recently suggested that marijuana legalization could be a way to cut down on drug-violence in the western hemisphere. Perhaps most important, the movement has finally found a voice on Capitol Hill, as representatives Earl Blumenauer and Jared Polis submitted legislation earlier this year that would end federal prohibition of the drug, and allow states to tax and regulate it as they see fit. As Bill Keller put it recently in the New York Times, “Today the most interesting and important question is no longer whether marijuana will be legalized — eventually, bit by bit, it will be — but how.”

Indeed, the feeling that the further liberalization of marijuana laws is inevitable is backed up by the polling trends. According to Gallup, as recently as 2005, two-thirds of Americans opposed legalization of marijuana. Now 48% percent of the population supports it. And a similar poll from Pew puts the number even higher – at 52%. But what exactly explains this sudden change in American attitudes towards pot?

Undoubtedly, part of the reason for the increased acceptance is demographic. It might make you feel old to read this, but on Friday, both Bob Dylan and Tommy Chong celebrated birthdays, turning 72 and 74 respectively. The aging of these counterculture icons hasn’t directly changed American attitudes towards marijuana, of course, but it does underscore the fact that the vast majority of Americans living today came of age during a time when marijuana was widely in use. The data bear out the prevalence of marijuana use in today’s society, with 48% of Americans claiming they have tried the drug at least once.

But familiarity with marijuana isn’t by itself going to drive changes in the legal code. Political consensus is necessary too. And while national political leaders aren’t necessarily falling over themselves to endorse marijuana legalization, there isn’t a lot of room in the current political climate to defend it, either. The political right has done an excellent job over the past thirty years convincing the American public of the limitations of government. They have argued that even when the government has the best of intentions it can be astoundingly ineffective at achieving its stated goals, and often creates unintended and pernicious consequences to boot. This is the same argument that has led to deregulation of industry, historically low tax rates, and legislative efforts like welfare reform. It’s only logical to extend it beyond social welfare programs to something like drug policy.

And supporters of ending marijuana prohibition do indeed point to the unintended consequences of the policy as reason to legalize. According to the FBI, in 2011, 1.5 million people were arrested on drug charges, and roughly half of those were for marijuana, costing billions per year in law enforcement and court costs. And that doesn’t count the human toll on those arrested, like potential loss of work, government benefits, the right to vote, and student aid. Meanwhile, the government simply hasn’t come anywhere close to achieving the stated goal of marijuana prohibition, which is to prevent drug addiction. According to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, since the beginning of the so-called war on drugs, the addiction rate in America has remained steady at 1.3%, despite the fact that each year state and local governments spend more and more money – over $1 trillion in total – fighting the drug war.

What’s more, the unintended consequences of marijuana prohibition do not stop at our borders. In fact, the brunt of the side effects may be being felt in places like Mexico. And as my college Tim Padgett wrote this week, it would appear that America’s allies in the Western hemisphere are looking seriously at ending marijuana prohibition as a strategy for reducing the drug violence that is ravaging much of Latin America. A study issued this month by the Organization of American States declared that it’s now time to seriously consider legalizing pot in order to cut down on this violence. It’s estimated, for instance, that legalizing marijuana in America could eliminate one-third of Mexican cartel’s $30 billion annual haul.

We are in a political moment where social conservatism has been somewhat sidelined as a political force by the growing influence of libertarianism in the Republican party. This dynamic emphasizes the tension between liberty and morality that has been with us since the founding of our country, and at this moment liberty appears to be ascendant. But make no mistake, the puritanical impulses that once made America the leading voice in marijuana prohibition haven’t gone anywhere — and advocates of reform should know that pendulums, once set it motion, swing back again.

Source: Time Magazine (US)
Author: Christopher Matthews
Published: May 28, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Time Inc.
Contact: letters@time.com
Website: http://www.time.com/time/

In the face of public pressure, the Department of Justice will allow
Jerry Duval, a seriously ill medical marijuana patient, to serve his
10-year sentence for marijuana-related offenses in a federal facility
capable of meeting his medical needs, Duval told HuffPost Monday. The
DOJ originally sentenced Duval to standard federal prison despite a judge’s recommendation that
his medical condition be taken into account. Duval had been barred from
presenting his medical condition, or any discussion of state law,
during his trial, according to court documents.

Duval, whose juvenile diabetes led to both a kidney and a pancreas
transplant, also lives with glaucoma and neuropathy. He has a strict
medical regime, which prior to his arrest had included medical
marijuana. That regime will now be the responsibility of taxpayers and
the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Mass., where Duval may stay in a
cell similar to the one currently occupied by Boston bombing suspect
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: a 10-by-10 foot steel room. The DOJ confirmed its
decision to move Duval to the federal medical facility rather than
standard federal prison, and Duval has been "ordered to surrender" and report to the facility by June 11.

"I’ve never even been out east," Duval told HuffPost.

Despite his conviction for marijuana distribution, court documents
indicate that Duval, 53, has followed medical marijuana laws in his home
state of Michigan that have been in place since 2008.

The threat to Duval’s health is real. In August, Richard Flor, a
seriously ill 68-year-old Montana man, died in federal custody while
serving a five-year sentence. The DOJ did not heed his attorney’s
health-related warnings. "It is anticipated he will not long survive
general population incarceration," his attorney had said.
Flor was swept up in a series of federal raids just as the Montana
legislature was debating reforms to the medical marijuana law. The raids
tilted the politics of the debate in the DOJ’s favor as it lobbied to roll back the law.

A HuffPost/YouGov poll
conducted in December found that 58 percent of Americans think the
federal government should exempt from federal drug law enforcement any
adults following state laws in the states that have legalized medical
marijuana. Only 23 percent said the federal government should enforce
its drug laws in those states the same way it does in any other state.

The cases against Duval and Flor are part of a broader use of power by the DOJ.
Under Attorney General Eric Holder, the department has managed a string
of victories against the elderly, sick and infirm, though it has been
less successful prosecuting Wall Street executives. Beyond Flor and
Duval, an 82-year-old nun
protesting nuclear power and a young Internet activist accused of
attempting to share academic journal articles are among the targets
Holder’s DOJ has pursued with vigor. The department has also targeted a
Fox News journalist for acts of reporting, issued a sweeping secret
subpoena for a large swath of Associated Press phone records and
prompted young men with radical inclinations to confess to undercover FBI agents that they would be willing to participate in a terrorist plot.

In the case of Duval, Michigan law allows a medical marijuana
caregiver to grow up to 72 plants for five registered patients. Duval
had two greenhouses on his property, where exactly 174 plants were
seized, according to federal court filings. Those greenhouses were run
not by Duval, but by his children, Jeremy and Ashley Duval, who were
registered as caregivers and served five patients each. Their father was
one patient.

Jeremy has been prosecuted and is currently serving a five-year
sentence in a federal prison in Morgantown, W.Va. He was offered a
reduced sentence if he would testify against his father, Duval said, but
Jeremy declined. Ashley was not charged, despite openly admitting to
her involvement. Meanwhile, the DOJ is attempting to seize the Duval family farm.

"Prosecutorial discretion was used" in not charging his daughter,
said Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s office that
handled the case. She said she could not comment on whether a reduced
sentence was offered to Jeremy, Duval’s son, in exchange for testimony.

"The US Supreme Court ruled that state laws are not relevant to
federal narcotics laws," Balaya said in an emailed statement to The
Huffington Post. "Ignoring this rule and the law, Gerald Duval