(Elle Magazine) A thimbleful is all it takes. After a day’s work, I pinch off a small amount of marijuana and put it in a steel-tooth grinder. The flowers, covered in tiny white diamonds of THC, release a piney scent when crushed. I turn on the TV, and instead of taking a glass of wine with my evening news, I take out my vaporizer and set it on the coffee table.

One could say I diagnosed myself in high school, when I recognized my symptoms in a psychology textbook. Finally, I had “generalized anxiety disorder” to describe the dread I felt of some future event that was overtaking my present. I usually sensed the panic attacks first in my chest. Then my vision would start to go to static, and my body would crumple to the floor. There I’d ride it out until the adrenaline ran its course.

Soon after I started to suffer several of these episodes a day (and so often that fear of another one kept me indoors), I sought out a psychiatrist. I told her about the times I’d be driving and convince myself that I was about to spin off the road—the looping, invented terrors. A little talk therapy and a prescription later, I discovered that Zoloft only exacerbated my panic and depression. I stopped taking the little white pills and cut out caffeine instead; I exercised and practiced meditation. For years I abstained from medication, and aside from the occasional pot smoking with friends, I swore off drugs entirely.

About four years ago, another psychiatrist put me on lithium for what he described as my “Paxil-induced hypomania.” When it made me violently sick, I decided I needed to replace pills altogether and turn to a regimen that relied on what was, to me, the only proven drug. I headed down to the five-block stretch of marijuana advocacy groups known as “Oaksterdam.” There, I explained to an understanding doctor, wearing Lennon glasses and cargo shorts, that marijuana eased the symptoms of what studies showed and I knew to be a genetic disorder. (My two younger brothers have been diagnosed as bipolar, and my grandmother suffered from anxiety and depression.)

The writer continues by explaining how she is able to keep her job and be productive thanks to marijuana, and that her friends that use marijuana are all successful productive people she’s proud to know. She worries about the legal complexities, especially how the California Ragingwire decision still allows employers to fire people for their medical use.

From a media standpoint, I believe when you’re having women speak favorably of marijuana in Marie Claire, the Today Show, and Elle Magazine, you’re winning the hearts and minds.

Marie and her son J. live in Rhode Island, a state where the legislators have both the chutzpah and foresight to have overridden two vetoes from the Governor (and pressure from the federal government anti-drug officials and law enforcement) in the last 24 moths to create the legal and public health framework necessary for Ms. Young and her physician to be able to effectively and safely treat J. with cannabis-oil cookies.

This essay, and others by women for whom cannabis plays an important role in their lives, are becoming more and more common in the mainstream media to the point where a forum or advisory body about ‘women and cannabis’ is certainly warranted.

NORML wants to convene such a confab in 2010 and seeks input from cannabis consumers and the general public about what kind of topics should be discussed and who should the speakers be. Please send your suggestions and feedback to: conference@norml.org

This essay was originally published at Doublex.com.

Chris Goldstein and Russ Belville are collecting all the photos, audio, and video from the conference for upload as the day continues.

1. Thursday, September 24
   11:00am – 2:00pm Pacific Time
2. Friday, September 25
   11:00am – 2:00pm Pacific Time
3. Saturday, September 26
   3:00pm – 6:00pm Pacific Time

The show will be hosted by “Radical” Russ Belville, but with very limited commercial interruption and the occasional narration.  After the shows broadcast remotely in the difficult wireless environment of Portland’s Kelley Point Park and the noisy backstage of the Boston Freedom Rally, Russ is excited to present an indoor event that will take its audio directly from the conference PA system.

Thursday’s show will begin with a presentation by Dr Brooks J Kelly, Ph.D, Chief science officer for Genovations Laboratory, Cannabis Therapeutics, and then will feature panels on Individual Patients, Caregivers, and Small Patient Collectives in California and other medical marijuana states, including:

Patient and Caregiver rights under 215/SB420

• Possession: current caselaw and statutory law
• Cultivation: current caselaw and statutory law
• Transportation: current caselaw and statutory law
• Obtaining Cannabis: where and how to get it
• Patients Not Authorized to:
  distribute to other patients
  distribute “excess” to clubs
  engage in conduct harmful to others

Cannabis Patient rights (or lack thereof):

• No right to protection from employment discrimination
• No protection from Feds or other states
• Student loans
• Section 8 housing
• Small collectives: formation, cultivating, obtaining of medicine, money considerations
• Interaction with Law Enforcement

Your panelists will include Dr. David Bearman, Chris Conrad, Omar Figueroa, Esq., Zenia Gilg, Esq., Dr. Frank Lucido, and your moderator is William Panzer, Esq.

Friday’s show will begin with a panel on Pot Politics 2009 and Beyond.  A record number of state legislatures debated marijuana law reform in 2009; a nationwide panel of experts discusses our progress.  Our moderator is Keith Stroup, Esq., NORML, speaking on Federal Legislation, and also includes:

• Chris Goldstein, Director, Penn. For Medical Marijuana
• Rob Kampia, Executive Director, Marijuana Policy Project
• Dan Linn, Executive Director, Illinois NORML
• Madeline Martinez, Director, Oregon NORML, member of NORML’s board of directors
• Jesse Stout, former Director of RIPAC
• Ken Wolski, RN, Director, Coalition for Medical Marijuana NJ

We follow with a luncheon with travel author and NORML advisory board member Rick Steves presenting the ACLU DVD: ‘Marijuana: Its Time for a Conversation’, and close by asking “Has support for legalization reached a critical mass/tipping point?”  According to national polls, public support for legalizing marijuana has never been higher. Why now? And how do we mobilize this public support into political change? Leaders in the drug law reform movement discuss these trends, and what they portend for future reform efforts.  Our moderator is Dave Fratello, Coast Campaign Group, and the panel includes:

• Dale Gieringer, Ph.D, Director, CA NORML; member of NORML’s board of directors
• Rich Lee, Proprietor of ‘Oaksterdam University’ and Campaigner for ‘The Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010′
• Harry Levine, Ph.D, Queens College

Saturday’s closing show will feature a look at Marijuana Legalization As a Local, State, Federal Revenue Stream. In today’s sagging economy national, state and local leaders are looking for alternative streams of revenue. They should look no further than to America’s #1 cash crop: cannabis.  Our moderator is Dale Gieringer, Ph.D, Director, CA NORML, and the panelists include:

• Jon Gettman, Ph.D
• Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland City Council
• Mark Kleiman, Ph.D, UCLA

We follow with a panel on Cannabis and Athleticism. Some of the nation’s top athletes discuss why today’s pros are turning to cannabis — and away from alcohol and painkillers — off the field, and question why pro sports leagues are continuing to sanction those who do.  Our moderator is Steve Bloom, Author, Pot Culture; editor, celebstoner.com and the panelists include:

• Toby Grear, MMA fighter,
• Sean Neumann, Documentary Filmmaker; former ESPN producer
• Mark Stepnoski, Former All-Star NFL football player, NORML Advisory Board
• Rob Van Dam, Professional wrestler

Our three-part special show concludes with a talk from Rick Steves, TV host/best-selling travel author, NORML Advisory Board

Please join us for unparalleled access to the heart of marijuana law reform, nine total hours of content from the best and brightest minds in the movement, all absolutely free for you on the internet, courtesy of the donations of stakeholder cannabis consumers and liberty lovers all across this country who donate to and volunteer with NORML.  Mark us as a favorite on BlogTalkRadio and post us on your Twitter and Facebook with the tag #NORML.

Dr. Grinspoon is Associate Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, and served for 40 years as Senior Psychiatrist at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center in Boston. A Fellow of both the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the American Psychiatric Association, he was the founding editor of both the Annual Review of Psychiatry and the Harvard Mental Health Letter.

He is the author or co-author of over 160 journal articles, including his 1995 commentary in the Journal of the American Medical Association entitled “Marihuana as Medicine: A Plea for Reconsideration.” His first book, Marihuana Reconsidered, originally published in 1971 by Harvard University Press, was recently republished as a classic. His latest book, Marihuana, the Forbidden Medicine, co-authored with James B. Bakalar, was published by Yale University Press in 1993 (revised and expanded edition, 1997) and has now been translated into ten languages. Dr. Grinspoon was also a reviewer of the 1999 Institute of Medicine report, “Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base.”

In 1990 Dr. Grinspoon received the Alfred R. Lindesmith Award for Achievement in the Field of Scholarship and Writing from the Drug Policy Foundation (now Alliance) in Washington, DC. He presently serves on NORML’s Advisory Board and maintains www.marijuana-uses.com, which chronicles real life stories of people who have had positive “non-medical” experiences with marijuana.

“When I first began to study marijuana in 1967, I naïvely believed that its only use was as a recreational drug,” says Grinspoon. “I soon came to understand that it also had a second important utility, as a medicine, and I published (along with James B. Bakalar) Marijuana, the Forbidden Medicine.  Just as penicillin, after its discovery as an antibiotic in 1941, was soon hailed as a wonder drug because of its limited toxicity, its versatility in treating a number of different kinds of symptoms and syndromes, and its limited cost, we believe that marijuana, for the same three reasons, will eventually be hailed as a wonder medicine. Over the last decade and a half I have come to believe that there is a third category of marijuana use –enhancement.”

Lester Grinspoon says, “Yes we cannabis” and so should you! Register for NORML’s 38th annual conference, taking place September 24-26 at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown San Francisco. For registration information, please visit: http://www.norml.org/conference.

More about Dr. Lester Grinspoon:

Dr. Lester Grinspoon’s Marijuana Uses webpage: http://marijuana-uses.com/index.html

JAMA: Marihuana as Medicine: A Plea for Reconsideration: http://www.csdp.org/kz/tlcjama.html

Boston Globe: Marijuana as Wonder Drug: http://www.rxmarijuana.com/wonder_drug.htm

According to SAMHSA, what states had the highest and lowest marijuana rates of cannabis use? Rhode Island (16.2%) and Utah (7.17%) respectively.

The New York Times‘ Economix blog created some helpful interactive mapping to illustrate the SAMSHA  data.

If Marijuana Is Legal, Will Addiction Rise?

By The Editors
July 19, 2009, 7:00 pm

A New York Times article on Sunday discussed the debate over whether more and more potent types of cannabis affect the levels of addiction to the drug. This particular issue has become part of the larger debate over whether marijuana should be legalized or decriminalized.

Antidrug activists say that if the drug is legalized, more people will use it and addiction levels, made worse by the increased potency, will rise too. Legalization advocates note that pot addiction is not nearly as destructive as, say, abuse of alcohol. What would be the effect of legalization or decriminalization on marijuana abuse and addiction?

*Roger Roffman, professor of social work

*Wayne Hall, professor of public health policy

*Mark A.R. Kleiman, professor of public policy and author

*Peter Reuter, University of Maryland professor

*Norm Stamper, former Seattle police chief

—————

More Honesty Needed
Roger Roffman

Roger Roffman is a professor of social work at the University of Washington.

Marijuana dependence occurs in 9 percent of Americans who have ever used the drug, and between 33 percent and 50 percent of those who smoke it daily. Approximately 3.6 million Americans are daily or near daily users. In 20 years of marijuana dependence counseling studies at the University of Washington, those who’ve sought help averaged 10 years of daily or near daily use and had unsuccessfully tried to quit more than six times.

Surveys indicate increasingly positive attitudes in the U.S. for liberalizing marijuana policies. Two ways of doing this are: (1) legalization, which would involve lawful cultivation and sale of marijuana, and (2) decriminalization, which would retain criminal penalties for cultivation and sale while removing them for possession of small amounts.

Will more people use marijuana and become dependent if marijuana is decriminalized? Probably not. A number of U.S. studies tell us decriminalization would not likely have an effect on the rates of marijuana use by adults or adolescents.

What if marijuana is legalized? No one can say for certain. Using one country’s reform example to estimate what would happen in another is very risky. How countries differ (cultural, social, political, economic) makes a big difference.

However, the Dutch ‘coffee shops’ example might give us a little insight. The de facto legalization policy in the Netherlands did not, in itself, affect rates of marijuana use among adults or young people. But rates of use among young people increased when the number of coffee shops increased and the age of legal access was 16. Then these rates declined when the numbers of coffee shops was reduced and the age of legal access became 18.

A cautious conclusion, as I see it, is that any consideration of legalization should include careful planning for how those who are most vulnerable to harm from marijuana use, children and adolescents, can be protected.

I support finding alternatives to criminal penalties for marijuana possession. Those penalties have costs (being jailed, having a criminal record, barriers to employment, loss of scholarships, to name a few) and may accomplish little in deterring use.

However, our debates need more honesty. Those favoring liberalizing marijuana policy ought to stop inferring that marijuana is harmless; it is not. Those who believe possession should remain a crime need to acknowledge that most adult occasional users are not harmed, and should be prepared to defend with data the belief that criminalizing possession is the best way to avoid harm.

—————

Mitigating Dependence
Wayne Hall

Wayne Hall is a professor of public health policy at the School of Population Health at the University of Queensland in Australia.

What effect would marijuana legalization have on dependence?

Some people remain skeptical about whether marijuana dependence exists but let’s assume that it does and that it affects around 1 in 10 of those who use marijuana. The effects that legalization has on marijuana dependence depend critically on what we mean by the term.

If we mean replacing imprisonment with a fine as the penalty for using marijuana then legalization would have little effect on dependence. Evaluations of this policy in 11 U.S. states in the 1970s and 1980s found little or no effect on rates of use among adolescents and adults.

There is more debate about the effects of allowing a de facto legal marijuana market as the Netherlands has done since 1983 in tolerating the sale of small amounts of marijuana in coffee shops. Marijuana use increased in the Netherlands in the 1990s, but this was also the case in the rest of Europe, and policy analysts disagree about whether rates of use increased faster in the Netherlands than elsewhere.

If by legalization we mean making it legal to use, grow and sell marijuana then our task becomes more speculative because no modern country has adopted this policy. It seems common sense that legalizing marijuana use and sales would lead to more people using it regularly and this would probably mean more marijuana dependence.

Nonetheless it is difficult to say how much use may increase because there are options for reducing use under a legal market that are not now available. For example, we could tax marijuana to set the price at a level that discourages casual use, regulate its THC content, restrict sales to minors, include a health warning on packs and advise users on ways to reduce dependence risks (e.g. by using less than weekly). These possibilities make it difficult to predict the effect that a legal market would have on rates of marijuana dependence.

Marijuana dependence should be taken into account in considering whether we should legalize marijuana in any of these ways. But this concern also needs to be weighed against the costs of current policy, that is, the creation of perverse incentives to produce more potent marijuana, the widespread disregard of legal prohibition on marijuana use that could contribute to a decline in respect for law and policing; the unregulated access of minors to marijuana; and the social and economic costs of a large marijuana black market.

—————

Not Your Grandfather’s Pot?
Mark A.R. Kleiman

Mark A.R. Kleiman is a professor of public policy at U.C.L.A., the editor of the Journal of Drug Policy Analysis and the author of ‘Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results’. His new book, ‘When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment’ will be published later this summer.

One of the standard arguments against the legalization of cannabis is that ‘this is not your grandfather’s pot: cannabis, say the drug warriors, is much stronger now than it was a generation ago. It is, therefore, much more dangerous, and must remain prohibited.

That argument is a few bricks shy of a full load. Here are some of those bricks.

1. The average gram of cannabis sold today contains much more 9-trahydrocannabinol (THC) than the average gram sold in 1970, though there has always been some highly potent product available.

2. Emergency-room visits and treatment admissions related to cannabis have increased, though the number of self-reported cannabis users hasn’t.

3. If the only change were in potency as measured by THC content, users could (and do) compensate by smoking smaller quantities.

4. But contemporary cannabis also has a much higher ratio of THC (which tends to induce anxiety) to cannabidiol (CBD, which tends to relieve anxiety). That would be expected to create a higher rate of panic attacks.

5. Whether high-THC, high-ratio pot is also more habit-forming than other pot remains unknown. Increased treatment admissions might come from increased enforcement pressure against users. Or perhaps a cannabis habit is harder to live with than it used to be because the cannabis experience is more disturbing.

6. If cannabis were made legal, restrictions could be put both on potency and on the THC/CBD ratio. So rising potency makes no sense as an anti-legalization argument; if anything, less-potent legal pot would be expected to substitute for the more-potent pot that would remain
illegal.

7. Any sort of flat-out legalization would risk a large increase in the number of very heavy users. A legal cannabis industry, like the legal alcohol industry, would derive more than half its revenue from people with diagnosable substance abuse disorders. Telling marketers they can get rich by creating disease is dangerous.

8. Instead we could choose a ‘grow your own’ policy that would allow production for personal use or by small nonprofit cooperatives, but forbid commercial sales.

Cannabis policy is fascinating because so many people smoke the stuff, but whatever we do about cannabis will leave us with most of the nation’s drug abuse problems, which center on alcohol, and most of the nation’s drug-market and drug-enforcement problems, which center on cocaine, methamphetamine and heroin.

—————

Lessons From the Dutch
Peter Reuter

Peter Reuter is a professor at the School of Public Policy and the Department of Criminology at the University of Maryland.

Experimenting with marijuana has long been a normal part of growing up in the U.S.; about half of the population born since 1960 has tried the drug by age 21. Perhaps one out of six has used it for a year or more.

This statement is increasingly true of other Western countries such as Australia and Britain.

Over the last decade most of these countries have seen three trends; sharp increases in the number of marijuana users seeking treatment, in the potency of the marijuana consumed and in the number of arrests. For example, in the European Union the number of people entering treatment programs for marijuana dependence tripled between 1999 and 2005. In the U.S., the potency of seized marijuana has steadily increased since the late 1970s, while arrests for simple possession have tripled since 1991 to 750,000.

Are these trends connected? Given that marijuana research is almost as scarce as drug-free communities, all that is available is moderately informed speculation. A recent book that I co-authored, ‘Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond the Stalemate,’ identifies five other factors that may play an influence in this. There is also no direct evidence that potency makes a difference to how much the drug hurts users’ health; most users titrate their dose with higher THC.

What would happen if the drug were legalized? The Dutch de facto legalization of sale through coffee shops is the closest available experience. The most striking observation is that marijuana use in that country is lower than in many other European countries and a lot lower than in the United States; 6 percent of 15- to 64-year-olds in Holland had used marijuana in the past year, compared to 11 percent in the U.S.

Legalization in the U.S. might be a much more commercial matter than in pragmatic Holland, where the government created a legally ambiguous regulatory system with minimal court oversight. The U.S. might find it hard to prevent producers from using their First Amendment rights to actively promote the drug. A way of avoiding this would be to remove prohibitions on growing for your own use and for gifts to others. No doubt there would still be a black market but it would allow access to marijuana without creating a full commercialization. Probably this would lead to a modest increase in the number of people who use the drug, which needs to be weighed against the elimination of 750,000 arrests for simple possession.

—————

The Tobacco Precedent
Norm Stamper

Norm Stamper was Seattle’s police chief from 1994 to 2000. He is a member of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition and the author of ‘Breaking Rank: A Top Cop’s Expose of the Dark Side of American Policing’.

Any law disobeyed by more than 100 million Americans, the number who’ve tried marijuana at least once, is bad public policy. As a 34-year police veteran, I’ve seen how marijuana prohibition breeds disrespect for the law, and contempt for those who enforce it.

Let’s examine arguments against legalizing marijuana: use and abuse would skyrocket; the increased potency of today’s marijuana would exacerbate social and medical problems; and legalization would send the wrong message to our children.

It’s reasonable to expect a certain percentage of adults, respectful or fearful of the current prohibition, would give pot a first try if it were made legal. But, given that the U.S. is already the world’s leading per capita marijuana consumer (despite our relatively harsh penalties), it’s hard to imagine a large and lasting surge in consumption. Further, under a system of regulated legalization and taxation, the government would be in a position to offer both prevention programs and medical treatment and counseling for those currently abusing the drug. It’s even possible we’d see an actual reduction in use and abuse, just as we’ve halved tobacco consumption through public education–without a single arrest.

Potency? Users, benefiting from the immutable law of supply and demand, have created huge market pressure for ‘quality’ marijuana over the past few decades. Legalization opponents are correct that today’s weed is not your old man’s weed. But the fear-mongers miss the point, namely that stronger strains of marijuana are already out there, unregulated by anything other than market forces. It’s good that responsible consumers know to calibrate their consumption; they simply smoke less of the more powerful stuff. But how about a little help from their government? Purchase booze and you have access, by law, to information on the alcoholic content of your beverage, whether it’s .05 percent near-beer or 151-proof Everclear.

Perhaps the biggest objection to legalization is the ‘message’ it would send to our kids. Bulletin: Our children have never had greater access to marijuana; it’s easier for them to score pot than a six-pack of Coors. No system of regulated legalization would be complete without rigorous enforcement of criminal laws banning the furnishing of any drug to a minor.

Let’s make policy that helps, not handcuffs, those who suffer ill effects of marijuana or other drugs, a policy that crushes the illegal market–the cause of so much violence and harm to users and non-users alike.

50% increase in marijuana treatment admissions in one decade

In 1997, about 200,000 people checked into treatment for marijuana. By 2005, that number has risen to over 300,000 people, though it has tapered off a bit these last couple of years. By any account, this is a huge rise in the number of people seeking rehab for marijuana in just a decade. It would seem like the powerful new “Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” has given rise to a 50% increase in reefer addicts!

Only 15% of marijuana "addicts" admit themselves to treatment

However, when you look behind the numbers, you find that this increase has more to do with the rapid increase of drug courts in the late ’90s, early ’00s. By far, most of the people who are in treatment for marijuana are forced there! 57% are forced into treatment by the criminal justice system, while only 15% admitted themselves to treatment. For comparison’s sake, over all drugs combined, 1/3rd of all admissions are self-admissions, marijuana is the drug with the lowest self-admission rates (lower than meth) and highest criminal justice-admission rates (higher than meth), and for alcohol, self-admission is around 29% and criminal justice (including DUI) admissions are only 42.5%.

37% of all people admitted for marijuana rehab didn't even use marijuana in the past month.

Even more interesting is a look at the actual substance use of the people admitted to treatment. Almost 4 out of ten marijuana smokers who are in treatment haven’t even used marijuana in thirty days! Again, for comparison, only 1 out of 4 alcohol admissions didn’t drink in the past month, and the number is only 1 in 6 for heroin.

Another interesting figure: almost 58% of marijuana admissions are first-time admissions to drug treatment, a number that seems suspisciously close to the 56.9% of admissions from criminal justice. That’s the highest first-time figure of all the common drugs (marijuana, alcohol, heroin, cocaine, and meth). Of those drugs, marijuana and alcohol are the only ones where the majority of drug treatment admissions are not returns to treatment. Also, 31% of marijuana users in treatment are employed, a number twice that of heroin or cocaine admissions, but lower than the 42.5% of employed alcohol users in treatment.

Marijuana rehab is almost exclusively aimed at people under 25

Finally, 3/4ths of marijuana rehabbers are male, half are white, 2/3rds are under age 25. Marijuana has the lowest average age of admittance (24 years old), with all other drugs but inhalants and hallucinogens having average ages in the 30’s. The average alcohol or crack cocaine rehabber is 39 years old.

While we certainly prefer any marijuana smoker caught by law enforcement to be sent to rehab rather than jail, the sentencing of people to rehab who don’t really need it means we are wasting resources that could be better directed to the unfulfilled needs of hard drugs addicts. If alcohol and crack’s average rehab age was closer to 20 than to 40, how much time, money, and misery would we save in this country?

Instead we arrest mostly young people for their marijuana use, then sentence them to rehab, then cite the increasing numbers of young people in rehab for marijuana as proof of the increasing danger of marijuana, which is then used to justify arresting more mostly young people for their marijuana use.

Illinois: On Wednesday, March 4, both chambers of the Illinois legislature will hold hearings to discuss the need to legalize the medical use of cannabis under state law. Members of the House Human Services Committee will hear testimony in favor of House Bill 2514 at 8am in the Stratton Building, Room D-1. Later that afternoon, members of the Senate Public Health Committee are also scheduled to hear testimony in favor of Senate Bill 1381. You can contact your elected officials in support of these measures by going here, or by getting in touch with the good folks at Illinois NORML.

UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! House Bill 2514 was voted out of Committee on a 4 to 3 vote. This marks the first time a House Committee has approved legislation regarding the medical use of cannabis. For more information, please visit here.

Maine: Members of the the Joint Standing Committee on Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee heard testimony last week in favor of LD 250, which seeks to amend state law so that the possession of up to four ounces of marijuana would be classified as a civil violation. Predictably, local law enforcement are opposing this effort. That is why Maine legislators need to hear from you. Contact members of legislature here, and tell them to vote ‘yes’ on LD 250.

Texas: Anyone who follows the marijuana law reform issue knows that change in the Lone Star State is long overdue. That’s why it is important that members of the Texas cannabis community get behind House Bill 902, which would reduce minor marijuana possession penalties to a fine-only offense. Over 60,000 Texans are arrested for pot possession violations annually. Half of these defendants are under 25 years of age. It makes no sense to saddle these young people with a criminal arrest record or to put them in jail. Tell your representatives to support HB 902 by going here, and by becoming involved with Texas NORML.

Rhode Island: This Wednesday, March 4, both chambers of the legislature will hear testimony in favor of legislation to mandate the Department of Health to establish rules governing the licensing of non-profit compassion centers “to acquire, possess, cultivate, manufacture, deliver, transfer, transport, supply, or dispense marijuana, or related supplies and educational materials, to registered qualifying patients.” To learn more about this effort, or to attend these hearings, please visit our allies at the Rhode Island Patient Advocacy Coalition.

New Hampshire: Next Monday, March 9, members of the House Health, Human Services & Elderly Affairs Committee will hear testimony at 10am in favor of House Bill 648, which seeks to legalize the use of medical cannabis is New Hampshire. Two years ago the House narrowly rejected (186-177) a similar bill, so it vital that you contact your House members and urge them to support HB 648. You can write them here. And if you wish to attend next week’s hearing, our allies NH Compassion have all the information you need here.

To learn about additional pending legislation in Alabama, California, Connecticut, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, Oregon, Tennessee, and Washington, please visit NORML’s Legislative Action Alerts page here.