The state law under which Rick and I were prosecuted has since been modified by a voter initiative last fall removing all criminal penalties, and setting a $100 civil fine, for the possession of up to one ounce of pot in Massachusetts. Nonetheless, it would be great if we could convince the court of appeals that the private use of marijuana in Massachusetts, as it is in Alaska, is constitutionally protected conduct.
Check it out on http://live.norml.org – Rick Steves coming up soon, plus discussions from the founder of Oaksterdam, Richard Lee; Dr. Harry Levine on race and marijuana arrests; and California NORML’s Dale Gieringer on the current legal landscape there.
Three hours of live audio from Thursday’s panels at NORML National Conference are now available at our archive of NORML SHOW LIVE. You’ll hear NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano on the science and medicine of marijuana, followed by a panel on patients, caregivers, and small patient collectives moderated by William Panzer, one of the co-authors of Prop 215.
Chris Goldstein and Russ Belville are collecting all the photos, audio, and video from the conference for upload as the day continues.
NORML’s new talk radio program, NORML SHOW LIVE, will be streaming for three days at the 2009 NORML National Conference, “Yes We Cannabis”, live from the Grand Hyatt Hotel in San Francisco. These special three-hour episodes will be available at live.norml.org at the following special times and archived for download later just fifteen minutes after broadcast:
Thursday, September 24
11:00am – 2:00pm Pacific Time
Friday, September 25
11:00am – 2:00pm Pacific Time
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.
Iowa, America’s breadbasket, home to liberal scion Tom Harkin and conservative contrarian Charles Grassley, is vetting the issue of medical marijuana politically like no other previous state has by conducting a series of public testimonies, convened by the Iowa Pharmacy Board (who was ordered by a Polk County judge to do so in April in response to lawsuits brought by medical marijuana patients in Iowa against the IPB).
Two of the first four public hearings have already happened (August 19 in Des Moines and Sept. 2 in Mason City); the next hearings are:
October 7 in Iowa City and November 4, Council Bluffs
At the Mason City hearing on September 2, eight speakers, all but one in favor of medical marijuana law reforms, spoke out against the prohibition of medical marijuana in Iowa.
Des Moines resident and multiple sclerosis patient Ray Lakers, 42, who was jailed for possessing less than a gram of medical marijuana in 2005, spoke of medical marijuana’s utility and benefit to his life. Conversely, Maedene Sappenfield of Mason City spoke out against it in the Globe Gazette, “I have a son-in-law in North Carolina who has MS and he functions without marijuana very well, so it is possible.”
The IPB does not have the authority to legalize marijuana for medical use, but it could suggest to lawmakers to move marijuana to a schedule lower than I. In turn, Iowa lawmakers would have to pass amending legislation. An AP article indicates an interesting legislative challenge (some would say ‘poison pill’): “the [IPB] said that the drug [marijuana] would have to be used as treatment in all states for Iowa to reclassify it.”
Hempfest’s massive crowds last weekend spurred Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Wells and former state Rep. Toby Nixon to pen a bipartisan letter in the Seattle Times on the need for Washington State to join the other 13 states that have ‘decriminalized’ possession of cannabis–as well as the state’s largest population center, King County (Seattle), which effectively decriminalized possession by popular vote in 2003. Checkout this CNN iReport about this year’s Hempfest here (and kudos for the closing shot on the wrap).
Time for Washington state to decriminalize marijuana
By Jeanne Kohl-Welles and Toby Nixon
Special to The Times
Once again, the Seattle Hempfest drew tens of thousands to parks along the waterfront this weekend. In its mission statement, the all-volunteer organization that produces the event says, “The public is better served when citizens and public officials work cooperatively in order to successfully accomplish common goals.”
We agree. That is why we, as a Democratic state senator and former Republican state representative, support state Senate Bill 5615. This bill would reclassify adult possession of marijuana from a crime carrying a mandatory day in jail to a civil infraction imposing a $100 penalty payable by mail. The bill was voted out of committee with a bipartisan “do pass” recommendation and will be considered by legislators in 2010.
The bill makes a lot of sense, especially in this time of severely strapped budgets. Our state Office of Financial Management reported annual savings of $16 million and $1 million in new revenue if SB 5615 passes. Of that $1 million, $590,000 would be earmarked for the Washington State Criminal Justice Treatment Account to increase support of our underfunded drug-treatment and drug-prevention services.
The idea of decriminalizing marijuana is far from new. In 1970, Congress created the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. A bipartisan body with 13 members — nine appointed by President Nixon and four by Congress — the commission was tasked with conducting a yearlong, authoritative study of marijuana. When the commission issued its report, “Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding,” in1972, it surprised many by recommending decriminalization:
Possession of marijuana in private for personal use would no longer be an offense; and distribution of small amounts of marijuana for no remuneration or insignificant remuneration not involving profit would no longer be an offense.
Twelve states took action and decriminalized marijuana in the 1970s. Nevada decriminalized in 2001, and Massachusetts did so in 2008. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, states where marijuana possession is decriminalized represent more than 35 percent of our nation’s population.
These states have not seen a corresponding increase in use. Nor have the 14 states that have adopted legal protections for patients whose doctors recommend the medical use of marijuana. Nor the several cities and counties that have adopted “lowest law enforcement priority” ordinances like Seattle’s Initiative 75, which made adult marijuana use the city’s lowest law enforcement priority in 2003.
On the flip side of the coin, escalating law enforcement against marijuana users has not achieved its intended goals. From 1991 to 2007, marijuana arrests nationwide tripled from 287,900 to a record 872,720, comprising 47 percent of all drug arrests combined. Of those, 89 percent were for possession only. Nevertheless, according to a study released earlier this year by two University of Washington faculty members:
• The price of marijuana has dropped;
• Its average potency has increased;
• It has become more readily available; and
• Use rates have often increased during times of escalating enforcement.
We now have decades of proof that treating marijuana use as a crime is a failed strategy. It continues to damage the credibility of our public health officials and compromise our public safety. At a fundamental level, it has eroded our respect for the law and what it means to be charged with a criminal offense: 40 percent of Americans have tried marijuana at some point in their lives. It cannot be that 40 percent of Americans truly are criminals.
We hope that the citizens of this state will work with us to help pass SB 5615, the right step for Washington to take toward a more effective, less costly and fairer approach to marijuana use.
State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Seattle, left, chairs the Senate Labor, Commerce & Consumer Protection Committee. Toby Nixon was state representative for the 45th legislative district, 2002-2006, and served as vice-chair of the House Republican Caucus and ranking member of the House Committee on State Government Operations and Accountability.
During a time of immense cannabis law reforms and major shifts in public opinion in favor of such, emerges now a throwback to the dark ages of America’s war on some drugs from the 1980s: The Congressional Anti-Cannabis Caucus.
Escaping any real media attention last week was the formulation of a new anti-marijuana caucus in the House of Representatives. As reported in Roll Call on July 13, a press conference was held with former Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) and Darrell Issa (R-CA) that seeks to re-commit the Congress to the status quo of ‘fighting a war on drugs’.
The photograph displayed on Roll Call(which is a subscription publication) of the press conference prominently featured an anti-medical marijuana prop (made from a shoe box).
Heard on the Hill: Issa clutched a prop, a box that represented a shipment of medical marijuana. On the box was the handwritten phrase “Medical Rx” and a drawing of a pot leaf. …
The newly formed House Drug Task Force elected ardent anti-cannabis congressman John Mica (R-FL), who, according to the Deseret News, complained that the Obama administration “seeks to shut the war on drugs down.” And that, “the record to date is dismal with the demotion of Drug Czar’s office to a sub-Cabinet position, the announced support for needle exchange programs, the decriminalization of illegal narcotics and other measures that would weaken current national anti-drug efforts.”
Deseret News reports that the task force–which currently only has Republican members–has four core initiatives: stopping drug use before it starts through education and community action; healing drug users; disrupting the narcotics market; and stringent narcotics enforcement.
In other words, this ‘new’ anti-cannabis caucus would like to continue wasting taxpayers’ money, keep twisting the Constitution into knots, and continue killing innocent bystanders and drug users–while at the same time–hypocritically supporting government regulatory schemes that allows for the production, sale and taxation of more dangerous and addictive drugs such as tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceuticals products.
Two relevant points: 1) As this so-called ‘House task force’ is only populated with Republicans, it is hardly a ‘House’ task force, and 2) back in the overzealous ‘anti-drug’ 1980s, there was a large, powerful and bi-partisan ‘Select House Subcommittee On Narcotics’, chaired by uber-powerful Charles Rangel (D-NY), and strongly supported by the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). This committee dubiously helped champion the creation of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Partnership for a Drug-America campaign, DARE program in public schools, civil forfeiture laws, mandatory minimum sentencing, mass drug testing in the workplace, etc…..
Where is the CBC and Way and Means Committee Chairman Charlie Rangel these days on the so-called war on drugs?
While Congress debates health care, handles the economic downturn, and the quagmire in Afghanistan, Congressman Barney Frank is eyeing America’s draconian pot policies. Read Esquire’s exclusive interview.
By: John H. Richardson, Esquire Magazine
To my shame, I started my interview with Congressman Barney Frank about the legalization of marijuana by apologizing to my subject. “I know you guys have a lot on your plate these days, so I’m sorry to be calling you about something kind of trivial…”Then I did a rapid midcourse correction. “But it’s not trivial, because people go to jail over it.”
“That’s exactly right,” Frank said.
We were talking about the Personal Use of Marijuana by Responsible Adults Act of 2009, Frank’s latest attempt to bring sanity to the federal marijuana laws. Currently, pot is classified as a Schedule I Controlled Dangerous Substance under federal law, which makes it worse than morphine, cocaine, amphetamine, and PCP. Possession of a single joint carries a penalty of $1,000 and a year in prison – a charge faced by about 800,000 American citizens every year. This is the government whose judgment on war and economics we are supposed to respect.
So I started the interview over.
ESQUIRE: Could you tell me why you’re doing it at this time? Everybody says you guys have got so much to handle right now.
BARNEY FRANK: Announcing that the government should mind its own business on marijuana is really not that hard. There’s not a lot of complexity here. We should stop treating people as criminals because they smoke marijuana. The problem is the political will.
ESQ: That’s my second question. There’s already been a lot of change in the country. Thirteen states have decriminalized pot. What’s holding up Congress?
Originally published, July 1, 2009, by University of Pittsburgh Law School publication, The Jurist.
Despite the glamorization on the hit Showtime series ‘Weeds’, flashy documentaries on CNBC delving into the business side of California’s multi-billion dollar annual cannabis industry derived from Californian’s unprecedented 13-year old legal access to medical cannabis products—qualifying patients in the state (and there are hundreds of thousands of them currently) can access high-quality medical cannabis via 24/7 vending machines in cities like Los Angeles—is Rhode Island the little state that is saying ‘yes we cannabis’ the loudest via their legislature?
‘Californication’ Of Cannabis
While California is clearly at the vanguard of implementing major legal and policy changes in seeming conflict with the federal government’s 72-year old cannabis prohibition laws, in fact little ol’ Rhode Island is on the precipice of effectively breaking the federal government’s ban on the cultivation and sale of cannabis by joining New Mexico as the only states favoring medical cannabis laws to have state-sanctioned medical cannabis cultivators and retail outlets for qualifying medical patients.
While there are an estimated 1,800-2,000 medical cannabis dispensaries (or in the new post Mentch parlance, cannabis wellness centers) in California alone, few of them are genuinely, legally sanctioned under state laws to sell cannabis in a retail environment. However, this blooming of cannabis wellness centers in California has happened under the full view of law enforcement, state policy makers and the public health community. Californians have ‘Main Street’ access to cannabis in many parts of the Golden State, which has evolved entirely organically—in other words, the mores and values of most Californians largely accept cannabis use, whether for recreational or medicinal purposes.
A recent Field poll of California voters affirms this with 56% support for outright legalization.
In Rhode Island, there is no highly refined ‘cannabis culture’, or longstanding public cannabis law reform efforts to speak of—unlike Californians that have publicly debated ‘legalizing’ cannabis on numerous statewide ballot initiatives and legislative proposals going back to the early 1970s—yet, Rhode Island’s legislators, from both parties and chambers, in opposition to the Governor and numerous federal government’s anti-drug bureaucracies (i.e., DEA, ONDCP, NIDA, DOJ, FBI, etc…) first passed a ‘self-preservation’ medical cannabis law two years ago [a ‘self-preservation’ medical cannabis model is defined as a qualified patient, for which a severely limited number of medical ailments qualify for cannabis use (i.e., Cancer, AIDS, Glaucoma, Epilepsy and MS), can legally possess or grow a small amount of cannabis; there is no legal retail access to cannabis, seeds or plant cuttings (clones)].
The Little State That Says To Washington: ‘Yes We Cannabis!’
However, Rhode Island legislators, only two years after passage of the original medical cannabis laws, recognized that a self-preservation model is inadequate to serve the needs of sick, dying or sense-threatened patients who need whole-smoked cannabis and edibles. Again, in full opposition to the Governor and federal agencies, overrode their second veto to establish Rhode Island as the first bona fide state to legally sanction and license third parties to cultivate and sell cannabis (in the case of Rhode Island, the recent medical cannabis legislation has provided initial approval to three medical cannabis wellness centers for the entire state).
For nearly 40 years, NORML has provided a voice in the public policy debate for the tens of millions of Americans who enjoy cannabis responsibly. NORML is and has always been the ‘marijuana’ consumers’ lobby.
In the short run, NORML favors the elimination of all criminal and/or civil penalties prohibiting the possession of cannabis for personal use, regardless of whether one is using it for medical purposes or for personal pleasure. Further, NORML opposes sanctions that presently prohibit the not-for-profit transfer of small amounts of cannabis between adults. This policy, called “decriminalization”, was the recommendation of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse in their groundbreaking 1972 report, Marijuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding. Versions of cannabis decriminalization have now been adopted in 13 states.
Cannabis consumers are ordinary Americans who work hard, raise families, pay taxes and contribute in a positive way to their communities. We are not criminals. Just as millions of Americans enjoy a beer or a glass of wine at the end of the day, we enjoy sharing a joint (or, for that matter, a vapor bag) when we relax in the evening. Of the nearly 900,000 marijuana arrests in America each year, about 90% are for possession of small amounts for personal use. Continuing with this Draconian policy makes no sense. That is why three out of four Americans now support decriminalizing the personal possession and use of cannabis.
NORML’s ultimate political goal is the establishment of a legally regulated market where consumers can obtain their cannabis in a safe and secure environment. This policy is generally called “legalization”. As our country discovered when we experimented with alcohol prohibition, it is only by providing a legally regulated market that we can significantly reduce the crime, corruption and violence associated with a criminal black market.
NORML supports the imposition of state and/or federal age and quality controls governing the commercial production, sale, and use of cannabis to assure public safety and to advise the consumer of the strength of the variety of cannabis being purchased.
And, importantly, we support the imposition of a reasonable tax on commercial cannabis sales that could raise substantial revenue for the various states, to be used for drug education and other programs to encourage responsible use and to discourage abuse. But as we work toward these goals, it is crucial that we underscore the importance of permitting consumers the option to grow their own cannabis.
Alcohol consumers possess the legal right to create their own home brew, free from government interference. Although the vast majority of alcohol drinkers never utilizes this freedom, and prefers the convenience of purchasing alcohol at a retail outlet, that option remains available to those who wish to use it. We believe that similar regulations should govern the non-retail production of cannabis.
The cultivation of cannabis for personal use is the single most important element of the NORML legalization proposal. Allowing for the legal, personal cultivation of cannabis provides consumers with the option to grow their own product should commercially available sources offer cannabis that fails to meet the consumers’ needs because it is excessively expensive, too heavily taxed, or of inferior quality. The mere threat of consumers exercising this option should be sufficient to assure that the legal market for cannabis will be responsive to the needs of consumers, and will not be exploitive.
So when any organization or any state or federal legislator proposes legalizing cannabis, either for medical use or for personal pleasure, but forbids the consumer from growing their own cannabis, those of us who lobby on this issue must insist on amendments to permit personal cultivation.
Otherwise we, cannabis law reformers, trade away our only leverage to keep the big corporations and the government honest and responsive to cannabis consumers.
