California’s citizens and legislators may be at the vanguard of America’s progressive cannabis policy-making, but, unfortunately, many in the law enforcement community in the Golden State are still uncomfortable with–and resistive of–the will of the voters (their employers) when it comes to physician-sanctioned, patient access to medicinal cannabis.
A ‘white paper’ released to California law enforcement (including prosecutors) in late April by the California Police Chiefs Association is just now being seen by the general public and the cannabis law reform community, and the paper once again reinforces the clear intent of the law enforcement community to continue leading the charge in maintaining the status quo of cannabis prohibition.
In response, later this summer, the NORML Foundation will publish a definitive legal guide to medical cannabis for practicing lawyers and medical cannabis dispensaries. Additionally, NORML seeks to provide complimentary copies of the guide to all of the public defenders’ offices in California.
Meet Hawaii’s Republican Governor Linda Lingle. On Monday, Gov. Lingle vetoedSenate Bill 1058, which called on the legislature to merely study “issues relating to medical cannabis patients and current medical cannabis laws.”
Specifically, SB 1058 called for the formation of a legislative task force to:
(1) Examine current state statutes, state administrative rules, and all county policies and procedures relating to the medical marijuana program;
(2) Examine all issues and obstacles that qualifying patients have encountered with the medical marijuana program;
(3) Examine all issue and obstacles that state and county law enforcement agencies have encountered with the medical marijuana program;
(4) Compare and contrast Hawaii’s medical marijuana program with all other state medical marijuana programs; and
(5) Address other issues and perform any other function necessary as the task force deems appropriate, relating to the medical marijuana program.
In her veto address, Gov. Lingle alleged — laughably — that the mere act of examining the medical marijuana laws of Hawaii and a dozen other statesviolates federal anti-drug laws.
“I am returning herewith, without my approval, Senate Bill No. 1058. … This bill establishes the medical cannabis task force … to review issues related to (Hawaii’s) medical marijuana program and make recommendations for any proposed legislation and rules. … The medical task force is unnecessary because it would attempt to deal with issues raised by medical marijuana users that can only be addressed by circumventing federal law.“
Keep in mind that just days earlier lawmakers in Rhode Island overwhelmingly approved legislation to allow the state to license nonprofit facilities to produce and dispense medicinal cannabis to qualified patients. Yet in Hawaii the Governor would have us believe that just gathering feedback from patients and local law enforcement regarding the state’s nearly ten-year-old medical cannabis program somehow violates federal law. It’s an absurd position and no doubt Gov. Lingle, who vetoed a similar task force bill last year, knows it.
Of course, the true motive behind Gov Lingle’s action — and the similar actions of her fellow prohibitionists — is to silence any sort of public or political debate surrounding America’s failed marijuana policies.
This was the motivation behind President Obama’s decision to ‘laugh off’ the issue of marijuana law reform during his online town hall this past March. Silencing free speech was also the driving force behind the actions of members of Congress who earlier this year threatened to withhold funding from the city of El Paso, Texas, if they so much as dared to hold an “honest, open national debate” regarding US drug policy. And surely this was the motivating force behind a South Dakota Judge’s decision this week to bar longtime NORML advocate Bob Newland from engaging in any public advocacy of marijuana law reform for one year. (Full disclosure: Bob Newland, under the banner of SoDakNORML, had been leading the petition drive to place a medical marijuana initiative on the 2010 state ballot. In other words, Judge Delaney’s decision isn’t simply limiting Mr. Newland’s constitutional rights to free speech, it’s also potentially limiting the voting rights of all South Dakotans.)
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).
Even though California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has joined the calls for a debate on marijuana prohibition itself, there is still a lot of confusion about the legal status of the supposedly less controversial topic of “medical marijuana”.
On April 2nd the Associated Press reported that Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton “called on the City Council to speed up the drafting of stricter regulations on medical marijuana clinics, calling current state law ‘Looney Tunes’.” (Oddly, the story was reported on theSan Jose Mercury-News website, but the LA Times only covered it in a blog.)
Bratton was right, but for the wrong reasons. He claimed, “They pass a law, then they have no regulations as to how to enforce the darn thing and, as a result, we have hundreds of these locations selling drugs to every Tom, Dick and Harry.”
First, if the dispensaries are selling any “drug” other than cannabis, the police do not need any action by the LA City Counsel to raid them. Find any of them selling hard drugs, and the medical cannabis community will support closing down the offenders.
That is not a rhetorical point. It is important to note that one justification for the dispensary system is that it keeps medical cannabis users from having to go to “street dealers” in order to get their medicine. However, in the broader context of cannabis prohibition in general, the California medical marijuana dispensary system does the same thing that the Dutch cannabis “coffee shop” system has been doing for decades. The Dutch call it the “separation of the markets for soft and hard drugs.” One consequence of this “separation of the markets” is that the Dutch have a much lower use of hard drugs, especially heroin, among young people than does the US.
Second, the dispensaries are not selling to just anyone. They require a special form of identification that establishes the fact that a doctor has approved of the patient’s use of cannabis. (That is all that is required by state law, and – critically – all that is allowed by Federal law.)
“Street dealers” do not require any identification, and most teens say it is easier to get marijuana (on the street) than it is to get alcohol from licensed stores.
14 May 2009
——- Kerlikowske Says Analogy Is Counterproductive; Shift Aligns With Administration Preference for Treatment Over Incarceration
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s new drug czar says he wants to banish the idea that the U.S. is fighting “a war on drugs,” a move that would underscore a shift favoring treatment over incarceration in trying to reduce illicit drug use.
In his first interview since being confirmed to head the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, Gil Kerlikowske said Wednesday the bellicose analogy was a barrier to dealing with the nation’s drug issues.
“Regardless of how you try to explain to people it’s a ‘war on drugs’ or a ‘war on a product,’ people see a war as a war on them,” he said. “We’re not at war with people in this country.”
View Full Image Gil Kerlikowske, the new White House drug czar, signaled Wednesday his openness to rethinking the government’s approach to fighting drug use.
Mr. Kerlikowske’s comments are a signal that the Obama administration is set to follow a more moderate — and likely more controversial — stance on the nation’s drug problems. Prior administrations talked about pushing treatment and reducing demand while continuing to focus primarily on a tough criminal-justice approach.
The Obama administration is likely to deal with drugs as a matter of public health rather than criminal justice alone, with treatment’s role growing relative to incarceration, Mr. Kerlikowske said.
Already, the administration has called for an end to the disparity in how crimes involving crack cocaine and powder cocaine are dealt with. Critics of the law say it unfairly targeted African-American communities, where crack is more prevalent.
The administration also said federal authorities would no longer raid medical-marijuana dispensaries in the 13 states where voters have made medical marijuana legal. Agents had previously done so under federal law, which doesn’t provide for any exceptions to its marijuana prohibition.
During the presidential campaign, President Barack Obama also talked about ending the federal ban on funding for needle-exchange programs, which are used to stem the spread of HIV among intravenous-drug users.
The drug czar doesn’t have the power to enforce any of these changes himself, but Mr. Kerlikowske plans to work with Congress and other agencies to alter current policies. He said he hasn’t yet focused on U.S. policy toward fighting drug-related crime in other countries.
Mr. Kerlikowske was most recently the police chief in Seattle, a city known for experimenting with drug programs. In 2003, voters there passed an initiative making the enforcement of simple marijuana violations a low priority. The city has long had a needle-exchange program and hosts Hempfest, which draws tens of thousands of hemp and marijuana advocates.
Seattle currently is considering setting up a project that would divert drug defendants to treatment programs.
Mr. Kerlikowske said he opposed the city’s 2003 initiative on police priorities. His officers, however, say drug enforcement — especially for pot crimes — took a back seat, according to Sgt. Richard O’Neill, president of the Seattle Police Officers Guild. One result was an open-air drug market in the downtown business district, Mr. O’Neill said.
“The average rank-and-file officer is saying, ‘He can’t control two blocks of Seattle, how is he going to control the nation?’ ” Mr. O’Neill said.
Sen. Tom Coburn, the lone senator to vote against Mr. Kerlikowske, was concerned about the permissive attitude toward marijuana enforcement, a spokesman for the conservative Oklahoma Republican said. [drug war]
Others said they are pleased by the way Seattle police balanced the available options. “I think he believes there is a place for using the criminal sanctions to address the drug-abuse problem, but he’s more open to giving a hard look to solutions that look at the demand side of the equation,” said Alison Holcomb, drug-policy director with the Washington state American Civil Liberties Union.
Mr. Kerlikowske said the issue was one of limited police resources, adding that he doesn’t support efforts to legalize drugs. He also said he supports needle-exchange programs, calling them “part of a complete public-health model for dealing with addiction.”
Mr. Kerlikowske’s career began in St. Petersburg, Fla. He recalled one incident as a Florida undercover officer during the 1970s that spurred his thinking that arrests alone wouldn’t fix matters.
“While we were sitting there, the guy we’re buying from is smoking pot and his toddler comes over and he blows smoke in the toddler’s face,” Mr. Kerlikowske said. “You go home at night, and you think of your own kids and your own family and you realize” the depth of the problem.
Since then, he has run four police departments, as well as the Justice Department’s Office of Community Policing during the Clinton administration.
Ethan Nadelmann of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group that supports legalization of medical marijuana, said he is “cautiously optimistic” about Mr. Kerlikowske. “The analogy we have is this is like turning around an ocean liner,” he said. “What’s important is the damn thing is beginning to turn.”
James Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police, the nation’s largest law-enforcement labor organization, said that while he holds Mr. Kerlikowske in high regard, police officers are wary.
“While I don’t necessarily disagree with Gil’s focus on treatment and demand reduction, I don’t want to see it at the expense of law enforcement. People need to understand that when they violate the law there are consequences.”
CNN host Don Lemon examined the growing call in America to legalize cannabis tonight, prompted by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s suggestion this week that the state debate legalizing cannabis and convene a blue-ribbon commission to examine the prospects of such.
I was opposed by prohibitionist Kevin Sabet in a very brief cable news exchange. If supporters of cannabis law reformers want to continue to raise the public discussion level on legalizing cannabis, contact CNN and request that they provide even greater coverage of cannabis-related matters, debates and online surveys; along with MSNBC, CNBC, Fox and C-Span.
Last week NORML reported on the results of a just-released Field Research Corporation poll that found that 56 percent of California voters agreed with the statement: “Legalize marijuana for recreational use and tax its proceeds.”
Today, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger was asked about the Field poll result, which was the third poll of 2009 demonstrating majority support for legalizing pot among west coast voters.
“I think it’s time for a debate (regarding taxing and regulating the sale of cannabis for adults). I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I’m always for an open debate on it. And I think we ought to study very carefully what other countries are doing that have legalized marijuana and other drugs, what effect did it have on those countries? It could very well be that everyone is happy with that decision and then we could look at that.“
What a difference eight weeks makes. After all, this is the same Gov. Schwarzenegger that said in February that he vehemently opposed California Assembly Bill 390: The Marijuana Control, Regulation and Education Act, which seeks to impose a tax on the commercial production and legal retail sale of cannabis.
And today? Well, today the Governor is singing a different tune.
“It’s time for debate. … I’m always for an open debate on it.” (You can watch a video of Schwarzenegger’s remarks here. **Note, the comments come at the very end of the video.)
So are we!
Since March, NORML supporters have sent over 8,000 e-mails to their members of the California state assembly in support of AB 390, sponsored by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. Now it’s time to start directing those thousands of e-mails, phone calls, and letters to the Governor.
Tell Gov. Schwarzenegger: “I am one of the majority of California voters who supports taxing and regulating the use and sale of cannabis by adults. Studies consistently show that countries that have removed criminal penalties for the personal use of marijuana, such as Portugal and the Netherlands, have far lower rates of cannabis use than the united States. I agree that the time has come for an objective and public debate on this topic. I urge you to encourage the legislature to hold hearings on this important issue.”
You can also send an automated e-mail to Gov. Schwarzenegger’s office via NORML’s Take Action Center here.
Writing last week in Time.com, Joe Klein became the latest in a steady stream of media pundits to call for the legalization of marijuana (”Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense”). That’s right, ‘legalization’ — with an “L.”
While the notion of regulating the sale and consumption of cannabis for adults might still induce reflexive giggles from the Oval Office, the issue is no longer a laughing matter among the public.
Lawmakers in two states — California and Massachusetts –- are debating the merits of taxing pot like alcohol, and a pair of recent polls (here and here) indicate that Western voters endorse this proposal by a solid majority. According to statistician Nate Silver, national support for legalization could reach “supermajority” status in just over a decade!
Why this momentum now? Klein sums up three primary reasons.
3) The use of marijuana by adults is objectively less dangerous — both to the user and to society as a whole — than the consumption of alcohol. (Case in point: Drinking alcohol, even low to moderate amounts, was recently associated with elevated incidences of cancer, particularly among women. By contrast, a study published last week in the Clinical Journal of Investigation shows that cannabis kills malignant cancer cells.) It is illogical to endorse a public policy that arbitrarily prohibits the former while embracing the latter.
Of course, Klein is hardly the only mainstream pundit as of late to jump on the marijuana ‘legalization’ bandwagon.
American’s support for marijuana law reform is fast approaching a tipping point — a scenario made all that more remarkable when one considers that the federal government has spent nearly seven decades propagandizing against it. Mainstream America is coming to terms with marijuana, and growing more and more dissatisfied with our nation’s failing pot policies. Writes Klein: “Obviously, marijuana can be abused. But the costs of criminalization have proved to be enormous, perhaps unsustainable. Would legalization be any worse?”
He’s no longer the only one asking.
As always, please post your feedback and comments to The Hill by going here. Congress is listening; tell them what’s on your mind.
As I wrote on NORML’s blog yesterday, let the White House laugh for now but the public knows that the marijuana law reform issue is no laughing matter.
More states are moving forward to reduce or eliminate criminal penalties for marijuana offenses, and this week has been especially busy.
If you have not yet gotten active in your state, now is most definitely the time to start.
Here’s this week’s latest summary of how you can get involved!
Taxing & Regulating Marijuana: As we noted previously this week, a pair of bills — House Bill 2929 and Senate Bill 1801 — seeking to “tax and regulate the cannabis industry” have been introduced in the Massachusetts legislature. You can show your support for these measures here.
Decriminalizing Marijuana: Members of the Connecticut Joint Committee on Judiciary heard testimony this week from NORML and others in favor of Senate Bill 349, which seeks to reclassify the possession of minor amounts of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction. This measure is backed by a solid majority of state voters, and you can urge the Judiciary Committee to support this effort here.
Members of the Rhode Island Senate Judiciary Committee also heard testimony in favor of a similar bill, Senate Bill 320. You can read about the hearing here, and voice your support by going here.
Finally in Montana, members of the House Judiciary Committee deadlocked in a 9 to 9 vote this week on House Bill 541, which seeks to reclassify the possession of thirty grams or less of marijuana from a criminal misdemeanor to a civil infraction. This action does not kill HB 541, as the Committee can reconsider the issue if just one member is persuaded to change their vote. Help them do so by going here.
Legalizing Medical Marijuana: In arguably the biggest legislative news of the week, members of the New Hampshire House of Representatives voted Wednesday 234 to 138 in favor of House Bill 648, which seeks to authorize the physician supervised use of marijuana. The vote marked the first time that either chamber of the legislature had voted in favor of the medicinal use of cannabis. You can learn more about this effort by going here and here.
In other progress, legislative committees in Illinoisand Minnesota also approved medical marijuana bills this week. Key hearings and committee votes are also scheduled in the coming days in Montana and Alabama. You can learn how to support these and other statewide medical cannabis efforts at NORML’s Take Action Center here.
To learn about additional pending legislation in Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, and Washington, please visit NORML’s Legislative Action Alerts page here.
Here’s another way you can let the White House know what you think. The Drug Czar’s blog, Pushing Back, is asking for the public’s feedback regarding Thursday’s Town Hall Meeting. You already know what they think; let them know what you think here.
UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!! UPDATE!!!
Since many of you are writing President Obama on your own, NORML would like to assist the process by providing you with a link for contacting the White House directly. Please log on and send your e-mails by going here.
Also, please check The Hill.com (Read and comment here) and HuffingtonPost.com (Read and comment here) on Friday for updated versions of this commentary, and please post your feedback to those forums as well.
Speaking live moments ago President Barack Obama pledged “to open up the White House to the American people.”
Well, to some of the American people that is.
As for those tens of millions of you who believe that cannabis should be legally regulated like alcohol — and the tens of thousands of you who voted to make this subject themost popular question in today’s online Presidential Town Hall — well, your voice doesn’t really matter.
Asked this morning whether he “would … support the bill currently going through the California legislation to legalize and tax marijuana, boosting the economy and reducing drug cartel related violence,” the President responded with derision.
“There was one question that was voted on that ranked fairly high and that was whether legalizing marijuana would improve the economy and job creation, and I don’t know what this says about the online audience,” he laughed.
“The answer is no, I don’t think that [is] a good strategy.”
Obama’s cynical rebuff was short-sighted and disrespectful to a large percentage of his supporters. After all, was it not this very same “online audience” that donated heavily to Obama’s Presidential campaign and ultimately carried him to the White House?
Second, as I’ve written previously in The Hill and elsewhere, the overwhelming popularity of the marijuana law reform issue — as manifested in this and in similar forums — illustrates that there is a significant, vocal, and identifiable segment of our society that wants to see an end to America’s archaic and overly punitive marijuana laws.
The Obama administration should be embracing this constituency, not mocking it.
Third, will somebody please ask the President: “What is it that you think is so funny about the subject of marijuana law reform?”
Since 1965, police have arrested over 20 million Americans for violating marijuana laws, yet nearly 90 percent of teenagers say that pot is “very easy” or “fairly easy” to obtain. That’s funny?
According to this very administration, there is an unprecedented level of violence occurring at the Mexico/US border — much of which is allegedly caused by the trafficking of marijuana to the United States by drug cartels. America’s stringent enforcement of pot prohibition, which artificially inflates black market pot prices and ensures that only criminal enterprises will be involved in the production and sale of this commodity, is helping to fuel this violence. Wow, funny stuff!
Finally, two recent polls indicate that a strong majority of regional voters support ending marijuana prohibition and treating the drug’s sale, use, and distribution like alcohol. A February 2009 Zogby telephone poll reported that nearly six out of ten of voters on the west coast think that cannabis should be “taxed and legally regulated like alcohol and cigarettes.” A just-released California Field Poll reports similar results, finding that 58 percent of statewide voters believe that regulations for cannabis should be the same or less strict than those for alcohol.
Does the President really think that all of these voters are worthy of his ridicule?
Let the White House laugh for now, but the public knows that this issue is no laughing matter. This week alone, legislators in Illinois, Minnesota, and New Hampshire voted to legalize the use of marijuana for authorized individuals. Politicians in three additional states heard testimony this week in favor of eliminating criminal penalties for all adults who possess and use cannabis. And lawmakers in Massachusetts and California are now debating legally regulating marijuana outright.
The American public is ready and willing to engage in a serious and objective political debate regarding the merits of legalizing the use of cannabis by adults. And all over this nation, whether Capitol Hill wants to acknowledge it or not, they are engaging in this debate as we speak.
Meet Hawaii’s Republican 
Last week NORML 
Via 
As I wrote on NORML’s blog 
