The Schedule I federal classification of cannabis — which states that, by law, the marijuana plant and its natural compounds have “no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” — has long since passed the point of farcical. Nevertheless, defenders of the so-called “Schedule I lie” have possessed, for nearly 30 years, one prestigious ally that they could always rely on to endorse their absurd position: the American Medical Association.

Not anymore!

Today the AMA voted to reverse its longstanding endorsement of cannabis’ Schedule I prohibitive status. The vote took place during the organization’s annual Interim Meeting of the House of Delegates in Houston, Texas, and marks the first time that the AMA has revisited its position on cannabis in eight years.

As newly amended, the AMA’s official position (see specifically pages 12, 13, and 14) regarding the medical use of cannabis no longer “recommends that marijuana be retained in Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act.” Rather, the Association now resolves “that marijuana’s status as a federal Schedule I controlled substance be reviewed with the goal of facilitating the conduct of clinical research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines.”

The AMA also today demolished long-held pot prohibitionist claim — frequently publicized by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy and others — that “no sound scientific studies have supported medical use of smoked marijuana for treatment in the United States, and no animal or human data support the safety or efficacy of smoked marijuana for general medical use.” To the contrary, the AMA has adopted a report drafted by its Council on Science and Public Health (CSAPH) entitled, “Use of Cannabis for Medicinal Purposes,” which states, “Results of short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis.”

Now that the AMA has finally acknowledged reality, is anyone else wondering if David Evans (or the DEA) will finally update their talking points?

(Huffington Post) A group of civilly-disobedient hemp farmers and business leaders were arrested Tuesday morning while digging up the lawn to plant industrial hemp seeds at the headquarters of the Drug Enforcement Administration.

David Bronner, the president of Dr. Bronner’s Magic Soaps, a more than 60-year-old company that does tens of millions of dollars of business annually, was among those arrested.

Bronner buys the hemp used in his soaps from Canadian farmers. He was arrested outside the DEA museum, which shares space with the headquarters.

“Our kids are going to come to this museum and say, ‘My God. Your generation was crazy. What the hell is wrong with you people?’” he said as Arlington County Police handcuffed him and walked him to a waiting car.

Wayne Hauge and Will Allen, farmers from North Dakota and Vermont respectively, brought shovels and seeds to the protest, where they were joined by representatives of Vote Hemp, which advocates for federal legislation that would allow states to craft their own hemp policies.

Currently [eight nine] states — Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, [Oregon,] Vermont, and West Virginia — allow industrial hemp production or research, but federal law, which requires nearly-impossible-to-obtain-permits to grow hemp, trumps those state laws. A bill introduced by Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) and Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) would allow states to craft their own policies.

Of all the insanities in the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs, the ban on industrial hemp is the looniest. We have the Drug Enforcement Administration enforcing a ban on something that is not a drug! They’ll tell you that by strict interpretation of the law, hemp does contain THC, so it has to be banned, even though the THC contained in hemp is so minute that you could literally burn a field of the stuff and not catch the slightest of buzzes.

They’ll tell you that if hemp were legal, growers of illicit high-THC pot would hide their crops in-between the rows of hemp. Any farmer can tell you that what you’d get is cross-pollination; the hemp would ruin the high of the pot and the pot would ruin the strength of the hemp.

Then they’ll tell you that if hemp were legal, law enforcement would be burdened trying to determine which fields were hemp and which were pot. This doesn’t seem to be a problem for the police in China, Australia, Canada, or most of Europe, however, as they seem to be able to tell the difference between a tall, reedy hemp plant and a short bushy pot plant without much difficulty. Maybe our American cops are just too stupid to handle basic botany.

The ban on hemp remains for two reasons. One is to protect the entrenched business interests that would stand to lose market share to legal hemp crops. Hemp can produce anything you can make from a tree or a barrel of oil, and do it cheaper, make it better, and cause less environmental damage along the way. Hemp paper resists oxidation far better than wood paper. Hemp pressboards are as strong as steel and save our forests. Hemp seed oil has the highest energy value of any seed oil crop – all current diesel engines can run on hempseed oil with no modifications required. Hemp seed is one of nature’s highest protein foods and a source of important anti-oxidants. Hemp cloth is impervious to mildew, repels water, and holds heat better, and requires no pesticides. Can you begin to imagine all the companies that would lose money if forced to compete fairly with hemp?

And the second reason is psychological. If hemp is legal, cannabis is just a plant. It’s a subtle thing, but under the current framework, the government can tell us cannabis is an evil drug. But if hemp is legal, then sometimes cannabis is an evil drug and sometimes it is just a plant. Once cannabis is sometimes just a plant, it is harder to scare people into thinking it can be evil.

We are approaching the 400th anniversary of the first colonial hemp plantations in North America. Hemp is our American heritage – this country exists because of hemp and our entire history is infused with its cultivation and use. The forces that combined to ban hemp in the 20th Century have stolen our very birthright and declared nature itself to be illegal.

Just over four years ago, former U.S. DEA administrator Karen Tandy announced to the world that her agency had struck “a significant blow … to the marijuana legalization movement” by indicting Canada’s so-called ‘Prince of Pot,’ Marc Emery.

For nearly two decades Emery operated a successful marijuana seed bank operation in Vancouver, British Columbia — a venture which he used to directly fund cannabis law reform efforts around the globe, including the magazine Cannabis Culture, the internet site Pot TV, and the founding of the British Columbia Marijuana Party.

Emery’s seed business was hardly a secret. For many years, Emery mailed copies of his seed catalogue to Canadian politicians. A Canadian court convicted him in 1998 and sentenced him to a $2,000 fine. Undeterred, Emery continued to sell seeds — and pay federal taxes on his profits — up until his arrest. Canadian authorities were happy to accept his tax money, and officials at Health Canada, which oversees Canada’s legal medical marijuana program, often recommended that patients contact Emery for grow advice. Nevertheless, when the Feds came calling, the Canadian authorities were swift to throw Marc Emery to the wolves.

Even though Emery’s alleged crimes would have warranted, at most, a month in jail in his home country, Canadian authorities yesterday placed Marc into custody so that he can be extradited to the United States. Once here, he faces up to five years in prison for pleading guilty to one count of conspiracy to manufacture marijuana (more than 100 plants) in violation of 21 USC 841(a)(1) and 841(b)(1)(B).

But lets not kid ourselves. Marc Emery was hardly a high level target because he sold marijuana seeds to the U.S. — a simple google search will yield dozens of listings of competitors that presently engage in similar activities. No, it wasn’t so much what Marc did (”There isn’t a single victim in my case, no one who can stand up and say, ‘I was hurt by Marc Emery.’ No one,” he told the Vancouver Sun) as it was what he did with his money that aroused the ire of U.S. anti-drug officials.

And we have Karen Tandy’s own words to prove it.

While the government contract to date has been pro forma–the University of Mississippi/Oxford has won the contract every year since the late 1960s and MAPS’ and Prof. Lyle Craker’s successful lawsuit against the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) to effectively break Ol’ Miss’ monopoly on cultivating cannabis for research and approximately five Compassionate IND patients, and allow the University of Massachusetts/Amherst to cultivate research and therapeutic grade cannabis, is being appealed by DEA–competition can only help science, and the free market place of ideas and research.

Production, Analysis, & Distribution of Cannabis & Marijuana Cigarettes
Solicitation Number: N01DA-10-7773
Agency: Department of Health and Human Services
Office: National Institutes of Health
Location: National Institute on Drug Abuse

Synopsis:
Added: Aug 05, 2009 9:03 am
The National Institute on Drug Abuse is soliciting proposals from qualified organizations having the capability to (1) grow, harvest, analyze, store and distribute GMP grade cannabis (marijuana) on large and small scales; (2) extract cannabis to obtain purified phytocannabinoids including delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (delta-9-THC), analyze, and store; (3) prepare marijuana cigarettes and related products; and (4) distribute marijuana, marijuana cigarettes and cannabinoids, and other related products for research and other Government programs upon NIDA authorization.

Offerors must possess suitable and secure DEA approved outdoor and indoor growing facilities, research laboratory with appropriate analytical instruments, and experienced personnel to conduct the project tasks. Appropriate DEA approved secure facility for manufacturing of marijuana cigarettes, and their storage, and DEA Schedule I registration for marijuana and THC are essential. NIDA anticipates a 1-year with four 1 year options cost reimbursement type contract will be awarded. Additional quantity options for manufacturing cigarettes may also be required. In order to handle substances under the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, it is mandatory that offerors possess a DEA Research Registration for Schedules II to V and demonstrate the capability to obtain a DEA registration for Schedule I controlled substances. All studies must be carried out under pertinent FDA regulations, such as current Good Clinical Practice (cGCP) and current Good Laboratory Practice (cGLP) regulations. The pertinent FDA’s guidelines/guidance shall be followed. RFP No. N01DA-10-7773 will be available electronically on or about August 25, 2009. You can access the RFP through the FedBizOpps:

http://fbo.gov or through the NIDA website at the following address: http://www.nida.nih.gov/RFP/RFPList.html.

The electronic RFP contains all information needed to submit a proposal. No printed version of the solicitation document or source list is available. NIDA will consider proposals submitted by any responsible offeror. Proposals will be due on or about October 9, 2009. This advertisement does not commit the Government to award a contract. Based upon market research, the Government is not using the policies contained in Part 12, Acquisition of Commercial Items, in its solicitation for the described supplies or services. However, interested persons may identify to the contracting officer their interest and capability to satisfy the Government’s requirement with a commercial item within 15 days of this notice.

Contracting Office Address:
6101 Executive Boulevard
Room 260 – MSC 8402
Bethesda, Maryland 20892
Primary Point of Contact.:
Amy Sheib
ap370t@nih.gov

by Gary Fields, (Source:Wall Street Journal)

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.”

Score one for the good guys!

Earlier this month, new U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder promised a clean break from the policies of the Bush administration. Yesterday, during a live interview on C-Span, he affirmed that this change includes ending the DEA raids of state-authorized medical marijuana providers!

Responding to a reporter’s question regarding the DEA’s recent actions against several California medical cannabis providers, Holder stated: “What the President said during the campaign . . . will be consistent with what we will be doing here in law enforcement. . . What [President Obama] said during the campaign . . . is now American policy.”

You can watch the video of Attorney General Holder’s remarks here.

Holder’s statement marks a dramatic shift in U.S. drug policy, and is a major victory for the 72 million Americans who reside in states where the use of medical cannabis is legal! It also lends support to the ongoing efforts in Minnesota, New Jersey, and Rhode Island — each of which are debating legislative proposals to make the production and distribution of medical cannabis legal under state law.

At this time, NORML would like to personally thank those of you who responded to our request to contact the Attorney General’s office and urge Eric Holder to call off the DEA raids. Your phone calls and e-mails have helped to change U.S. marijuana policy!

So go ahead and give yourself a pat on the back. And while you’re at it, click here to thank the new Attorney General for supporting the will of the people and the health and welfare of seriously ill patients.

“Change we can believe in?” Yes it is, and it’s about time.

Okay, try and stay with me if you can.

While campaigning for the US presidency, Barack Obama pledged not to “use Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state (medical marijuana) laws.”

Nearly three-quarters of the American public agrees with this position. According to a new national poll of 1,053 likely voters by Zogby International and commissioned by the NORML Foundation, seventy-two percent of voters say that President Obama should “stop federal raids against medical marijuana providers in the 13 states where medical marijuana has become legal.”

But since President Obama took office two weeks ago, the US Drug Enforcement Administration has undertaken at least seven separate raids of state-authorized medical marijuana providers in California and Colorado. Most recently, on Wednesday DEA officials — acting without the cooperation of state or local law enforcement agencies — served federal search warrants on at least four Los Angeles based medical marijuana collectives. Agents seized medicine, cash, financial records, and computers, but did not make any arrests.

Still with me? Good, because things are about to get even more confusing.

Today, in a front page article in The Washington Times White House spokesperson Nick Shapiro said, “The president believes that federal resources should not be used to circumvent state laws, and as he continues to appoint senior leadership to fill out the ranks of the federal government, he expects them to review their policies with that in mind.”

Huh?

Okay, maybe I missed something but last time I checked Barack Obama is, in fact, the 44th President of the United States — which means he has the authority to tell both the US Department of Justice and DEA Acting Administrator Michele Leonhart: “No more raids. Period!” (NORML podcaster Russ Belville has already drafted Obama the requisite memo here.)

Or, if Obama doesn’t want to be the one who personally rains on the DEA’s eight-year parade, then he can demand his newly sworn in U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder to tell Ms. Leonhart and the DEA: “When President Obama says ‘no more raids,’ he means no more raids! Any more ’smash and grabs’ in California — or any other state that’s legalized the medical use of cannabis — and you’re all out of your jobs. Got it?”

Of course, given the likelihood that President Obama won’t be making such demands of his new Attorney General any time soon, why don’t you?

Click here and tell US Attorney General Eric Holder to uphold the will of the President and the public. It’s time for the DEA to stop circumventing state medical marijuana laws. It’s time for the raids to come to an end.

Just days after November’s Presidential election I outlined various ways that President-Elect Obama could use the power of the executive branch to shape U.S. marijuana policy. One of my top suggestions was:

As president, Obama can also support scientific, clinical research into the medical properties of cannabis by encouraging the DEA to abide by the February 2007 ruling of the agency’s own administrative law judge, which found that it would be “in the public interest” to allow private entities to grow medical-grade cannabis for FDA-approved trials.

Thanks to a parting shot by outgoing DEA Deputy Administrator Michele Leonhart, the new administration may never get that opportunity.

On Wednesday, January 7th, Ms. Leonhart published a 118-page decision setting aside DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner’s 2007 ruling. The DEA’s decision constitutes a formal rejection of University of Massachusetts at Amherst Professor Lyle Craker’s petition, filed initially June 24, 2001, to cultivate research-grade marijuana for use by scientists in FDA-approved studies aimed at developing the drug as a legal, prescription medication.

To those not wholly familiar with this case and Judge Bittner’s ruling, here’s how I initially reported on it:

Full Story

Capitol Hill Cannabis Law Reform Lobby Highlighted

Since the election of Barack Obama to the presidency, despite the government’s best, but utterly feckless efforts to suppress cannabis culture and use in America, the ‘buzz’ in Washington D.C. and nationwide these days about alternatives to cannabis prohibition is palpable.

One interesting tea leaf for me to gather in this evolution towards cannabis law reforms at the national level is to see otherwise staid, Capitol Hill-based print publications such as The Hill and most recently Roll Call taking interest in the cannabis law reform lobby’s efforts in Washington—after decades of ignoring us.

Is real change afoot here as indicated by these mainstream, political publications casting needed public and political attention towards NORML’s nearly 40-years of grassroots advocacy?

Time, and increased public efforts by reformers, will tell…

Read a scanned version of Roll Call’s ‘Vested Interests’ article, here.

The purpose of the Christmas Eve medical cannabis activists protest held in downtown Los Angeles was to deliver bags of coal for Christmas to the DEA because they were bad this past year by raiding medical marijuana dispensaries, stealing money and medicine along with items like cars and jewelry all under the so-called ‘color of authority’. Activists called on “President-elect Obama to keep his campaign promise and end the raids on the medical marijuana dispensaries here in California. To stop this wave of ‘domestic terrorism’ by President Bush’s Drug Enforcement Administration against California medical marijuana patients and providers.”

Full Story