Below is this week’s summary of pending state legislation and tips to help you become involved in changing the laws in your state.
California: The state Assembly approved Assembly Bill 2279 this week by a vote of 42-29. The measure now awaits action by the Senate. If passed, AB 2279 would protect patients from employment discrimination on the basis of their state-licensed medical cannabis use in off-work hours. Californians are strongly encouraged to contact their Senators via NORML’s online advocacy system.
California: Voters in Northern California’s Mendocino County will decide on Tuesday whether or not to repeal an eight-year old county law (The Personal Use of Marijuana Initiative, also known as Measure G) which legalized the possession and use of up to 25 marijuana plants. Measure B, a Mendocino County-wide ballot initiative, seeks to overturn the measure. Activists are also challenging the validity of Measure B in court, arguing that a recent state District Court of Appeals decision prohibits municipalities from imposing limits on the quantity of marijuana patients may possess under state law. To learn more about efforts opposing Measure B, please visit California NORML or No on B.
Vermont: Legislation seeking to establish licensing procedures for state farmers who wish to commercially cultivate industrial hemp became law this week. However, as amended, House Bill 267 will not take effect until “such time as the United States Congress amends the definition of ‘marihuana.’”
North Carolina: Legislation seeking to establish a task force to study options for regulating the legal use of medical marijuana for qualified patients was introduced this week and referred to the House Committee on Health. As introduced, House Joint Resolution 2405 would “study whether a public benefit would be derived from making it lawful for physicians to prescribe and patients to possess and use marijuana.” Residents in North Carolina are strongly encouraged to contact their House Members via NORML’s online advocacy system.
One of the only things that makes me madder than seeing the day in, day out waste of public resources and abuse of citizens’ rights associated with pot prohibition are some of the absurd stepchildren born of the government’s zeal in trying to enforce cannabis prohibition laws, quash popular culture and stymie entrepreneurialism.
Case in hand, a federal bureaucracy, the US Treasury Department’s Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is harassing a family-owned microbrewery in Northern California for some creative marketing, while looking the other way regarding the advertising practices of a huge, politically powerful beer company.
Treasury technocrats are taking umbrage with the Mt. Shasta Brewing Company’s use of bottle caps imprinted with ‘Try Legal Weed’, claiming that beer (AKA a drug) can’t have a drug reference, even when the reference is the name of the brewery’s hometown and last name of the city’s (Weed, California) 1880s wood baron founder (Abner Weed).
Mt. Shasta Brewing Company’s already sold 400,000 brews with names like Shastafarian Porter and Mountain High IPA (an additional catchy slogan on these notable craft beers: ‘A Friend in Weed is a Friend Indeed’), and had started printing up an additional 400,000 bottle caps in February when the feds put the kibosh on these funny and effective marketing double entendre.
Vaune Dillmann, Mt. Shasta Brewing Company’s 61-year-old owner and a former cop, irked by the government’s heavy handedness and lack of a sense of humor, is vexed by the obvious double standard that the feds don’t harass Budweiser for their now ubiquitous slogan ‘This Bud’s for you’.
Dillmann tells the LA Times’ Eric Bailey, “They Sell Bud. We Sell Weed”.
“This ain’t your grandfather’s or your father’s marijuana. This will hurt you. This will addict you. This will kill you.”– Mark R. Trouville, DEA Miami, speaking to the Associated Press (June 22, 2007)
Having spent over a decade debunking the ‘potent pot myth‘ — the false yet wildly popular notion that today’s cannabis is dramatically more potent, and thus more dangerous (or as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown likes to say, “more lethal“) than the marijuana of the 1960s, 70s, and 80s, it’s nice to finally get some back up.
Writing in the forthcoming issue of the scientific journal Addiction, researchers at the University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, examined the potency of over 100,000 pot seizures from around the word. They concluded (drum roll please), “Claims made in the public domain about a 20- or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency and about the adverse mental health effects of cannabis contamination are not supported currently by the evidence.”
The investigators also addressed the equally popular myth that ‘potent pot’ is responsible for an increase in the number of people seeking ‘treatment’ for cannabis, finding, “Another reason for increase in treatment seeking could be the introduction of cannabis diversion programmes, some of which involve mandatory treatment for those who have committed a cannabis-related offense” — a point we’ve made here on several occasions.
Want more details? NORML podcaster extraordinaire Russ Belville has an extensive summary of the study here.
Below is this week’s summary of pending state legislation and tips to help you become involved in changing the laws in your state.
Ohio: Legislation was introduced this week in the state Senate to legalize the medical use of cannabis to authorized patients. The Ohio Medical Compassion Act is modeled after existing medical cannabis laws in twelve other states. Tonya Davis of the Ohio Patient Network discusses the new bill on NORML’s Daily Audio Stashhere.
California: Legislation seeking to halt the role of state and local police in assisting in the US Justice Department in carrying out arrests and prosecutions against state-authorized medical marijuana patients and providers is scheduled for a vote by the full Assembly. As amended, Assembly Bill 2743 would prohibit state and local law inforcement personnel from “assisting in federal raids, arrests, investigations, or prosecutions [of] marijuana-related offenses … if the target is … covered under state medical marijuana laws.” A similar resolution is also pending in the Senate. Californians can support both bills via NORML’s online advocacy system.
New Jersey: The state Health Assembly Health and Senior Services Committee held an informational hearing this week on legislation that seeks to allow for the state-authorized use of medical cannabis. NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano and NORML Legal Committee member Alan Silber both submitted testimony. New Jersey activists are encouraged to contact their state elected officials in favor of this measure by visiting NORML’s online advocacy system.
Minnesota: Minnesota Representatives adjourned this week without taking action on House File 655, which sought to authorize the medical use of cannabis by qualified patients. A companion measure had previously passed the Senate. House leadership failed to call the bill for a floor vote after promises by Gov. Tim Pawlenty that he would veto the measure. Medical marijuana proponents can contact the Governor here.
Mainstream Media is Finally Catching On Regarding Law Enforcement Excesses and Human Tragedies Associated With Cannabis Prohibition
I spoke extensively last week with Willamette Weekly’s James Pipkin and on Monday with ABC’s Marcus Baram about NORML’s monitoring and gathering case examples from around the country where medical patients, notably medical marijuana patients, are being denied organ transplants. Marcus’ and James’ articles continue to cast more needed antiseptic light on this disturbing public health practice of official discrimination against otherwise lawful medical cannabis patients.
Heads up: Additionally, the Willamette Weekly has exposed the tragedy that confronts medical patients in Oregon — that no hospital in the state will perform organ transplants on patients who test positive for cannabis, even if they are in compliance with the state’s medical marijuana laws and are in the state’s medical marijuana patient registry.
Like the recent tragedy in Tallahassee regarding the tragic death of 23-year old Rachael Hoffman resulting from her being recruited as a ’snitch’ for the local narcotic officers, the general public and maybe more importantly the general news beat media (AKA, mainstream media) have started to really bore down hard on the human tragedies that arise daily from cannabis prohibition–both in criminal enforcement of the laws, as well as how the prohibition trends upwards into important public institutions, such as in the delivery of medicine to sick, dying or sense-threatened medical patients.
Via our voices, collective consciousness and continued effective uses of employing empowering communication mediums like the Internet (i.e., webpages, podcasts, blogs, online videos and active online social networking), we can advance the long held goal and belief that an informed general public is the best path forward to ending cannabis prohibition may now finally be upon us.
I was heartened to see the Ventura Star editorialize against denying medical marijuana patients access to organ donor banks.
As the saying goes: We are the ones we’ve been waiting for!
Let’s keep the collective pressure on the media, opinion and policy-makers to replace prohibition laws with viable, and common sense-based public policy alternatives.
Forgive me if the headline above sounds slightly exploitive. My intention is not to piggyback on a personal tragedy, but I did want to get your attention.
In the fourteen years I’ve worked in marijuana law reform, few events have struck me as so needlessly tragic as the federal government’s consistent and deliberate stifling of medical cannabis research. Nowhere is the Feds’ refusal to allow this science more overt and inhumane than as it pertains to the investigation of cannabinoids as anti-cancer agents, particularly in the treatment of gliomas.
As noted in today’s wire stories regarding Senator Edward Kennedy’s diagnosis, glioma is an aggressive form of cancer that affects an estimated 10,000 Americans annually. Standard treatments for the cancer include radiation and chemotherapy, though neither procedure has proven particularly effective — with the disease killing approximately half its victims within one year and all within three years.
But what if there was an alternative treatment for gliomas that could selectively target the cancer while leaving healthy cells in tact? And what if federal bureaucrats were aware of this treatment, but deliberately withheld this information from the public?
What do you know? Drug Czar John Walters has been outed as a liar — again. I mean, seriously, let’s hope this guy is more honest when he’s filing his taxes than he is when he’s talking about pot.
The Czar’s latest reefer faux pas? According to a previous, widely distributed ONDCP press release: “Marijuana affects … many of the skills required for safe driving. … These effects can last up to 24 hours after smoking marijuana.”
Twenty-four hours, huh? Well, an Israeli investigative team recently tested Walters’ claim — giving subjects high and low doses of THC and then measuring their driving performance. Their conclusion, “No THC effects were observed after 24 hours on any of the measures.”
This finding is not to say that concerns regarding motorists — especially teens — driving after smoking marijuana are not without merit. For example, the study’s authors found that pot, even at low doses, impaired drivers’ ability to maintain lane position and significantly increased subjects’ reaction time.
Intriguingly, however, the investigators reported that marijuana’s most prominent impact on driving differed dramatically from that of alcohol.
“Average speed was the most sensitive driving performance variable affected by both THC and alcohol but with an opposite effect,” authors concluded. “In particular, subjects seemed to be aware of their impairment after THC intake and tried to compensate by driving slower; alcohol seemed to make them overly confident and caused them to drive faster than in control sessions.”
To hear my expanded thoughts on this study, check out NORML’s 5/19/08 podcast here, or download a copy of NORML’s report, “Cannabis and Driving: A Scientific and Rational Review,” available here.
Below is this week’s summary of pending state legislation and tips to help you become involved in changing the laws in your state.
Rhode Island: The Rhode Island Senate approved Senate Bill 2693 on May 15 in a 29-6 vote. A companion bill to this important measure, which seeks to create a dispensary system for Rhode Island’s state-qualified medical cannabis patients, awaits action by the Rhode Island House of Representatives. According to a new poll, nearly 70 percent of state voters support enacting a medical cannabis distribution system. Rhode Islanders are encouraged to write their state Representatives in support of this effort via NORML’s online advocacy system. To hear an interview with RIPAC’s Jesse Stout about this measure, check out NORML’s Daily Audio Stashhere.
California: In an important victory for medical marijuana patients, the Assembly Committee on Labor and Employment has approved Assembly Bill 2279 in a 6-2 vote. The measure will now go to the Assembly floor. If passed, AB 2279 would protect patients from employment discrimination on the basis of their state-licensed medical cannabis use in off-work hours. Californians are strongly encouraged to contact their Assemblymembers via NORML’s online advocacy system.
California: Voters in Northern California’s Mendocino County will decide next month whether or not to repeal an eight-year old county law (The Personal Use of Marijuana Initiative, also known as Measure G) which legalized the possession and use of up to 25 marijuana plants. Measure B, a Mendocino County-wide ballot initiative, seeks to overturn the measure. To learn more about efforts opposing Measure B, please visit CANORML or No on B. You can also listen to California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer discuss this and other statewide campaigns on NORML’s Daily Audio Stash by clicking here.
Illinois: Senate Bill 2865, which seeks to allow for the therapeutic use of cannabis for qualified patients, continues to await action by the full Senate. This bill was recently amended to address concerns voiced by some of the Illinois law enforcement community. Illinois NORML supporters are urged to contact their state Senators in support of SB 2865 through NORML’s online advocacy system. To listen to Illinois NORML’s Daniel Linn discuss this effort, please click here.
Minnesota: Medical cannabis legislation is anticipated to go before the full House for a floor vote imminently. Passage of this legislation would ensure that medical marijuana patients in Minnesota would no longer have to fear arrest or prosecution from state law enforcement. However, Governor Pawlenty has indicated that he intends to veto this bill if it gets to his desk. You can view an ad urging Governor Pawlenty to rethink his position here. Minnesotans are strongly encouraged to urge their Representatives and the Governor to support these bills via NORML’s online advocacy system. You can also listen to IDFI Executive Director Charles Thomas discuss this effort on NORML’s Daily Audio Stashhere.
What do you know? Drug Czar John Walters has been outed as a liar — 
