Fake Medical Marijuana Advertisement Used To Promote Anti-Cannabis Mayor’s Brewery In Denver

In what has to be one of the more unique advertising campaigns currently found in the United States, a notable Denver brewery takes great advantage of the changing mores and values in Colorado that have ushered in hundreds of medical cannabis dispensaries throughout the state.

Kudos to the Wynkoop Brewery (and their ad firm) for seizing upon the current cannabis reform zeitgeist in the country, and for not necessarily being threatened by the presence (and competition) of commercially available retail cannabis sales in the greater Denver-area.

BTW, ironically, Wynkoop Brewery was founded by Denver’s anti-cannabis mayor, John Hickenlooper, who, after Denver’s voters overwhelmingly approved a 2005 voter initiative that would have reduced the penalty for possessing one ounce of cannabis from a $100 fine to zero, decided to stiff the voters and not implement their will. Mr. Hickenlooper is no longer an owner of the Wynkoop Brewery.

Currently, however, Mr. Hickenlooper is running to be the next governor of Colorado. Voters there should remind Mr. Hickenlooper (and the media) of his supreme arrogance towards the will of voters and hypocrisy regarding his parochial views of alcohol use vs. cannabis use. Apparently, in his mind, it is ‘OK’ to own and operate a drug-making business regarding a dangerous and addictive product like alcohol–but not cannabis (which, unlike alcohol products, cannabis can’t deliver lethal overdoses and does not cause any where near the same degree of physical and mental impairment, addiction, cravings and withdrawals).

NORML Deputy Director Speaks About The Failure Of Prohibition On Fox News’ Freedom Watch

Below is the video from my most recent appearance (yesterday) on the Fox News.com broadcast Freedom Watch with Judge Andrew Napolitano.

Judge Napolitano has long been one of the mainstream media’s most vocal and consistent critics against the so-called ‘war on drugs.’ In recent broadcasts, he has profiled how U.S. marijuana prohibition is fueling violence and murder in Mexico, and has called for the arrest and prosecution of several police officers involved in a violent SWAT raid in Columbia, Missouri.

In this segment, Judge Napolitano questions the White House’s recent call to expand so-called ‘drugged driving’ laws to punish non-impaired, former cannabis consumers (and he is no doubt the first national commentator to do so), and asks whether the war on marijuana consumers is less about pot, and more about expanding budgets and job opportunities for law enforcement. (Answer: Absolutely!)

You can watch our full conversation below.

Latest Research On Pot and Schizophrenia Runs Contrary to Mainstream Media Hype

The mainstream media loves to spill ink hyping the allegation that marijuana causes mental illness, particularly schizophrenia. In fact, it was in March when international media outlets declared that cannabis use ‘doubled’ one’s risk of developing the disease. Yet when research appears in scientific journals rebuking just this sort of ‘reefer madness,’ it generally goes unreported.

Such is the case with a pair of just-published studies slated to appear in the journal Schizophrenia Research. The first study, conducted by a team of researchers at various New York state hospitals, the Yale University School of Medicine, and the National Institutes of Mental Health assessed whether there exists a causal association between cannabis use and the age of onset of psychosis in patients hospitalized for the first time for an episode of schizophrenia.

Despite previous media claims to the contrary, researchers concluded:
“Although the onset of cannabis use disorder preceded the onset of illness in most patients, our findings suggest that age at onset of psychosis was not associated with cannabis use disorders. Previous studies implicating cannabis use disorders in schizophrenia may need to more comprehensively assess the relationship between cannabis use disorders and schizophrenia, and take into account the additional variables that we found associated with cannabis use disorders.”

A separate study slated for publication in the same journal assessed the cognitive skills of schizophrenic patients with a history of cannabis use compared to non-users. Authors reported that patients with a history of marijuana use “demonstrated significantly better performance on measures of processing speed, verbal fluency, and verbal learning and memory” compared to abstainers. Marijuana use was also associated with better overall GAF (Global Assessment of Functioning) scores compared to those of non-users.

Authors concluded: “The results of the present analysis suggest that (cannabis use) in patients with SZ (schizophrenia) is associated with better performance on measures of processing speed and verbal skills. These data are consistent with prior reports indicating that SZ patients with a history of CUD (cannabis use disorders) have less severe cognitive deficits than SZ patients without comorbid CUD. … The present findings also suggest that CUD in patients with SZ may not differentially affect the severity of illness as measured by clinical symptomatology.”

Both study’s findings are in line with previous (though virtually unreported) research indicating that marijuana is unlikely to instigate incidences of schizophrenia in the general population, that cannabis use among patients with the disease is associated with higher cognitive function, and that at least some schizophrenics find subjective relief from symptoms of the illness by using pot. Nonetheless, odds are the nobody from the mainstream media will be champing at the bit to report on them.

Bottom line: marijuana’s complex relationship with schizophrenia is far from understood, and likely won’t be for some time. But that doesn’t give the MSM a free pass to only promote one side of the story.

Marijuana Arrests Continue To Drive Drug ‘Treatment’ Boom

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for NORML's free e-zine here.

You can also read my previous commentary on the subject, "The Feds Are Addicted to Pot -- Even If You Aren't," available from Alternet.org here.]

Nearly six out of ten people admitted to drug ‘treatment’ for marijuana are referred there by the criminal justice system, according to a just-released report by the US Department of Health and Human Services, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Association (SAMHSA).

In 2008, 57 percent of persons referred to treatment for marijuana as their ‘primary substance of abuse,’ were referred by the criminal justice system. For adolescents, nearly half (48 percent) were referred via the criminal justice system.

By contrast, criminal justice referrals accounted for just 37 percent of the overall total of drug treatment admissions in 2008.

“Primary marijuana admissions were less likely than all admissions combined to be self-referred to treatment,” the study found.

Since 1998 the percentage of individuals in drug treatment primarily for marijuana has risen approximately 25 percent, the report found. This increase is being primarily driven by a proportional rise in the percentage of criminal justice referrals. According to a previous federal study, the proportion of marijuana treatment admissions from all sources other than the criminal justice system has been declining since the mid-1990s.

Commenting on the study, NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano said: “These statistics make it clear that it is not marijuana use per se that is driving these treatment admission rates; it is marijuana prohibition that is primarily responsible. These people for the most part are not ‘addicts’ in any true sense of the word. Rather, they are ordinary Americans who have experienced the misfortune of being busted for marijuana who are forced to choose between rehab or jail.”

According to federal figures compiled by SAMHSA in 2009, some 37 percent of the estimated 288,000 thousand people who entered drug treatment for cannabis in 2007 had not reported using it in the 30 days previous to their admission. Another 16 percent of those admitted said that they’d used marijuana three times or fewer in the month prior to their admission.

Full text of the report, “Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) 1998-2008: National Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment Services,” is available online here.

Saginaw Cops And DEA Reflexively Destroy Medical Marijuana Patient’s Property

Unfortunately, what happened to medical marijuana patient Edward Boyke, Jr last month in Michigan is hardly an aberration as NORML still receives calls and emails nearly every day from lawful medical marijuana patients being terrorized by local and federal drug agents, often destroying their legal supply of medical cannabis and cultivation equipment–effectively making the arresting cops prosecutor, judge and jury.

Thankfully, in Saginaw Michigan, post this embarrassing incident with Mr. Boyke, police seem to now ‘get it’.

Only patients and advocacy groups (like the nearly 30 NORML chapters in Michigan and other pro-reform organizations in the state, such as Americans for Safe Access) are working to keep law enforcement honest and respectful of the needs of medical cannabis patients.

Question: Is the Saginaw County Sheriff’s Department and DEA going to compensate Mr. Boyke to the tune of $7,000 after they illegally destroyed his private property?

Medical marijuana grower releases photos of basement after police visit; Saginaw County sheriff’s officials say destruction policy will change

By Gus Burns
The Saginaw News

May 20, 2010

Photo taken by Edwyn W. Boyke Jr., 64, of Saginaw Township, after police raided his home and destroyed his grow setup.

—–

SAGINAW — In response to the new medical marijuana laws, Saginaw County sheriff’s deputies will discontinue their policy of destroying grow equipment when they serve search warrants at the homes of medical marijuana patients or caretakers, Saginaw County Sheriff’s Detective Randy P. Pfau said.

“Instead of destroying property, we’ll take everything in a forfeiture and let a judge make a decision on whether they’re allowed to have that property back or not,” Pfau said.

The second look at the policy is a response by the department to the public concern regarding action taken by deputies and federal Drug Enforcement Agency agents in the basement of the home owned by Edwyn W. Boyke Jr., 64, of Saginaw Township, Pfau said.

Police raided Boyke’s home on April 15, because they say he violated drug laws, and destroyed his grow operations, which Boyke said cost him $7,000.

“It’s so new to us, this new law, so we’re acting on protocol that’s been in place… forever with manufacture of marijuana,” Pfau said.

Pfau said the old norm was to take a portion of the grow equipment to present as evidence and document with rest with photographs and inventory sheets, so they didn’t need to confiscate sometimes large setups.

Because the possession and farming of marijuana is no longer inherently illegal, due to the new state medicinal laws, Pfau said deputies will adjust their procedures.

Columbia Missouri Police Chief Favors Alternatives To Marijuana Prohibition

From Missouri NORML:

Missouri NORML’s and local attorney Dan Viets spoke with Columbia Police Chief Ken Burton yesterday about the need to reform cannabis laws in Missouri and to stop violent home raids (Columbia is where two dogs were recently shot in a marijuana raid that was captured on video, causing great public revulsion and concern nationwide–not only in Missouri).

In the past Chief Burton has alluded to the need for alternative policies to straight out prohibition. The exchange yesterday between Viets and Burton–where Chief Burton acknowledges the importance of NORML’s advocacy work–was recorded and transcribed below .

Columbia Police Chief Kenneth Burton Quote:
“If I had a chance to catch someone breaking into a warehouse and someone with marijuana (Dan and Chief crosstalk) I applaud your effort, I mean, if we could get out of the business I am sure there would be a lot of officers happy to do that.

You may make the argument that it is because it is illegal, and hey, you may be right.

I don’t have anything against it except it is against the law.

And as a police officer I have sworn to uphold the law. So prioritizing, when we can, you are absolutely right. We should concentrate on meth or something more serious, but we come across marijuana it is still against the law.

I am with you on the fight, and I hope you are successful at some point and we will see how that goes.”

Thanks to MO NORML and Chief Burton!

Also, more good news from MO: Mayor Francis Slay of St. Louis, who announced yesterday that another member of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen is working on a marijuana decriminalization ordinance, and Slay seems to like the idea!

He’s currently doing a poll on legalization, and reformers are winning big time!

Please make sure you’re working with your local chapter of NORML in MO or nationwide to reform our country’s antiquated cannabis laws.

America Must Wean Law Enforcement From Their Marijuana Arrest Addiction

By George Rohrbacher, Member, NORML Board of Directors

In America since 1965, there have been 21 million arrests for marijuana, 9 out of 10 for quantities of an ounce or less. Over 800,000 were arrested for pot last year, with people of color and the young being arrested and incarcerated in hugely disproportionate numbers. Under current Washington State law, if arrested for possession of even the tiniest amount of cannabis, a person faces a mandatory night in jail, handcuffs, mugshots, fingerprints, and a criminal record that, thanks to the internet and data-mining, might follow a person for the rest of their life.

The Mexican Cartels have murdered tens of thousands of people in their own country and now their violence is spilling over the boarder into America. Sales of marijuana in the US are estimated to account for half of the Cartels’ revenue stream. By simply legalizing pot, by taking the business and the profits of marijuana out of the hands of these criminals, taxing and regulating cannabis would be a devastating blow to organized crime. And at the same time, regulation would ensure our citizens that standards of purity and potency had been met.

California, Oregon and Washington have all had marijuana legalization initiatives filed this year. California’s initiative already has enough signatures to qualify for the ballot, and recent polling of likely voters found that 56% plan to vote, “Yes”, on the measure come November. California’s Board of Tax Equalization has estimated that the legalization of cannabis will bring $1.4 billion in new tax revenues to the state’s cash-strapped municipalities.

This month, a Pew Charitable Trust poll found that 73% of all Americans are in favor of legal access to marijuana as medicine. Used as medicine for over 4,500 years, the DEA’s own Chief Administrative Law Judge, Francis L. Young ruled: “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man…” Without even holding a hearing, and over the objections of the American Medical Association, all uses of cannabis were outlawed by Congress in 1937. Since California’s passage of Prop 215 in 1996, 14 states have now taken back their medical marijuana rights from the Feds. Much safer than aspirin (gastric bleeding, death) or Tylenol (liver damage, death), marijuana is safer than virtually every other over-the-counter and prescription medicine for sale in America. Cannabis is also far safer, as a recreational drug, than either the very speedily deadly alcohol or the slowly lethal tobacco. Marijuana is not only safer for the individual, but it is safer for the society, too. A Seattle Police Sgt. patrolling Seattle Hempfest’s cannabis-imbibing 100,000 person crowd told me, “…compared to the crowds coming out of Safeco or Quest field after a game, patrolling Hempfest is like patrolling a Girl Scout picnic.”

Through my own recreational use, I discovered marijuana the all-natural non-toxic pain medicine with far less severe side-effects than the prescription alternatives. I believe cannabis should be legal for medical, recreational, food and fiber uses. Cannabis should be legal for American farmers to grow. If cannabis is legal for all, sick people will be able to get it. Ending this prohibition, America must also wean law enforcement from its 70-year-old marijuana arrest addiction. Cannabis use didn’t turn either Michael Phelps or Barack Obama into a couch potato or a loser. It’s time to legalize it. Tax and regulate marijuana…Now.

George Rohrbacher is a retired cattle rancher, former WA state senator (R), former Commissioner of Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area, currently serving on the NORML Board of Directors (For additional information please review the titles of two of the blogs I’ve written for the NORML blog: “Confessions of a Medical Marijuana Patient” and “Marijuana Prohibition and Fatherhood”)

This essay was originally published in the Peninsula Daily News on May 4th.

Marijuana May Extend Life Expectancy Of Lou Gehrig’s Disease Patients, Study Says

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for NORML's free e-zine here.]

Cannabis therapy may reduce symptoms and prolong survival in patients diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS aka Lou Gehrig’s disease), according to a scientific review published online last week by the American Journal of Hospice & Palliative Medicine.

Investigators at the University of Washington Medical Center in Seattle and Temple University in Pennsylvania reviewed preclinical and anecdotal data indicating that marijuana appears to treat symptoms of ALS as well as moderate the course of the disease.

Authors wrote: “Preclinical data indicate that cannabis has powerful antioxidative, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective effects. … Cannabis also has properties applicable to symptom management of ALS, including analgesia, muscle relaxation, bronchodilation, saliva reduction, appetite stimulation, and sleep induction. … From a pharmacological perspective, cannabis is remarkably safe with realistically no possibility of overdose or frank physical addiction. There is a valid, logical, scientifically grounded rationale to support the use of cannabis in the pharmacological management of ALS.”

They added, “Based on the currently available scientific data, it is reasonable to think that cannabis might significantly slow the progression of ALS, potentially extending life expectancy and substantially reducing the overall burden of the disease.”

Investigators concluded, “There is an overwhelming amount of preclinical and clinical evidence to warrant initiating a multicenter randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of cannabis as a disease-modifying compound in ALS.”

Writing in the March 2004 issue of the journal Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis & Other Motor Neuron Disorders, investigators at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco reported that the administration of THC both before and after the onset of ALS symptoms staved disease progression and prolonged survival in animals compared to untreated controls. To date, however, no clinical trials have assessed the use of marijuana or any of the plant’s cannabinoids on patients diagnosed with ALS.

Lou Gehrig’s Disease is a fatal, progressive neurodegenerative disorder that is characterized by the selective loss of motor neurons in the spinal cord, brain stem, and motor cortex. An estimated 30,000 Americans are living with ALS, which often arises spontaneously and afflicts otherwise healthy adults. An estimated 70 to 80 percent of patients with ALS die within three to five years following the onset of disease symptoms.

Marijuana Prohibition Corrupts; Absolute Marijuana Prohibition Corrupts Absolutely

One of the indirect though no less serious consequences of marijuana prohibition is the mischaracterization of clinical research in order to support the federal government’s bankrupt policy.

For example, last week the Obama administration called for the expansion of states to enact laws criminalizing motorists who drive with the residual presence of drug or inactive drug metabolites in their body. In the case of marijuana, these policies are especially egregious because its metabolites may remain present in urine for weeks or months after past use. Further, studies have consistently reported that the presence of marijuana metabolites is not associated with psychomotor impairment or an elevated risk of motor accident — a result that should be self-evident given that cannabis metabolites only form in urine after the drug’s primary psychoactive compound, THC, has been broken down and converted by the body over a period of several hours.

So how does the federal government justify its call for implementing such an inane and discriminatory policy? Simple. By claiming that supposed ‘marijuana and driving menace’ is so prevalent and severe that lawmakers have no other choice but to enact such inflexible and nonsensical policies to halt it.

Now I’ve written on the subject of cannabis use and psychomotor performance numerous times, including recently authoring the white paper Cannabis and Driving: A Scientific and Rational Review. In short the science says this: there appears to be a positive association between very recent cannabis exposure and a gradually increased risk of vehicle accident; however, this elevated risk is below the risk presented by drivers who have consumed even small (read ‘legal’) quantities of alcohol.

Does this conclusion support the blanket criminalization of marijuana or the enactment of the sort of zero-tolerant per se driving laws outlined above? No more so than such a conclusion advocates for a return to alcohol prohibition.

So what’s the administration to do? That’s easy — just fund more research. And what to do when that federally funded research fails to produce the results they were looking for? That’s even easier: just claim that they do anyway.

Such is the case with a just-published study in the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs assessing the psychomotor skills of subjects on a battery of off-road driving simulator tests both before and after smoking marijuana (and/or placebo).

During the course study, subjects were asked to respond to various simulated events associated with automobile crash risk — such as avoiding a driver who was entering an intersection illegally, deciding to stop or go through changing traffic lights, responding to the presence of emergency vehicles, avoiding colliding a dog who entered into traffic, and maintaining safe driving during a secondary (in-the-car) auditory distraction. Subjects performed these tests sober, and then shortly (30 minutes) after smoking a single marijuana cigarettes (or placebo).

So how did the subjects perform? Much to the apparent chagrin of the investigators, just fine.

“No sex differences or interactions of sex and marijuana were observed for any of the driving tasks. Participants receiving active marijuana decreased their speed more so than those receiving the placebo cigarette during a distracted section of the drive. An overall effect of marijuana was seen for the mean speed during the distracted driving (PASAT section). [N]o other changes in driving performance were found.”

In short, subjects had no greater likelihood of responding adversely to any of the simulated events after smoking marijuana than they had prior to consuming cannabis.

Of course, these are not the sort of results that NIDA — who provided funding for the study — or the Drug Czar’s office are looking for. Therefore, the authors are required find some outcome — any outcome — supporting the administration’s claim that driving under the influence of cannabis is a serious and significant threat. How do they do that in this case? Simple; by stating subjects lack of impairment was, in fact, implicit evidence of their impairment!

“Persons smoking the placebo cigarette showed an improvement in performance of the PASAT during the driving task, likely attributable to practice effects. Under the influence of marijuana, however, no differences were found between PASAT performance during practice testing and while driving. Participants who smoked active marijuana decreased their speed during this section of the drive, suggesting additional compensatory skills were used.”

In other words, the authors are claiming that because subjects on one specific test (the auditory distraction test) drove more slowly when completing the task after smoking marijuana than they did prior to consuming cannabis, but otherwise manifested no difference in the outcome of said test — or on any other test for that matter — that this is somehow strong evidence that marijuana has a significant and adverse impact on driving.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS

Under the influence of active marijuana, participants exhibited increased drowsiness, although this did not appear to affect their driving [emphasis mine]. Participants under the influence of marijuana failed to benefit from prior experience on a distracter task [what the authors want the reader to emphasize] as evidenced by a decrease in speed and a failure to show expected practice effects. This study supports the existing literature that marijuana does affect simulated driving performance [ditto], particularly on complex tasks such as divided attention. It is anticipated that many teenagers and young adults driving under the influence of marijuana are doing so while conversing with friends in the car, listening to music, talking on the cell phone and/or text messaging others. These behaviors divide the driver’s attention and are particularly dangerous under the influence of marijuana [what the authors really, really want the reader to emphasize].”

And that, my friends, is just the latest example of how marijuana prohibition corrupts, and how absolute marijuana prohibition corrupts absolutely.

Confirmed: Marijuana Legalization To Be Discussed Today On ABC News

NORML has been invited to appear this afternoon (Monday, May 17) to participate in a debate, ‘Should Marijuana Be Legalized?’, on the digital channel ABC News Now, which is also broadcast online.

[Editor's note: Archived video of the debate is now available free online here.]

The discussion will air live from 12:30PM-1PM (eastern) with portions possibly re-broadcast tonight on ABC’s Nightline.

Check local cable programming re ABC’s digital channels or go online here.