NORML Thanks America’s Military Veterans!

A recent phone call from a returning serviceman from Afghanistan pained by the recent suicide of a fellow Marine who was given a dishonorable discharge after failing a drug test for cannabis, along with his own harassment from Veteran Administration officials and medical personnel who ‘didn’t get the memo’ for his lawful, physician-recommended use of medical cannabis to help cope with his Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) was a harsh and bitter reminder of the tribulations facing military personnel who’re still falling victim – both while serving and post service – to America’s longest war—the federal government’s 73-year-old war against adult cannabis consumers.

For the support of Vietnam vets in the early 1970s embracing NORML’s important advocacy work…

U.S.S. Inchon Sailors In 1978 Showing NORML's Colors and Logo!

To today’s Iraq and Afghanistan military personnel…

NORML thanks the men and women of America’s all-volunteer armed forces for their commitment and sacrifices made for the country’s safety, prosperity and freedom…

Air Force, Army, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard…Thank You ALL!

Proposition 19 Is No Threat To Workplace Safety

Redding Record Searchlight

September 12, 2010

by Dale Gieringer (Dale Gieringer is director of California NORML)

Opponents of marijuana legalization complain that Proposition 19 could endanger workplace safety. Employers, such as Ed Rullman of the Best Western Hilltop Inn in his Aug. 15 Op-Ed, object that Proposition 19 has a clause protecting employees against discrimination for private, adult use of marijuana. However, this is qualified by an important provision protecting employers’ right “to address consumption that actually impairs job performance.”

Why then should Proposition 19 be a problem for employers? Because they want to test employees for behavior that doesn’t affect job performance by using the inherently flawed and inaccurate technology of urine testing.

Contrary to popular misconception, urine tests don’t measure the active presence of marijuana in the system, but rather non-active chemical by-products that linger for days or weeks after any impairing effects have faded. Urine testing routinely flags the most harmless, weekend use of marijuana, while completely ignoring the No. 1 cause of drug abuse, alcohol.

Urine testing is therefore a highly unreliable indicator of impairment or job fitness. In fact, it is perfectly possible to be high as a kite and still pass a urine test with flying colors because marijuana doesn’t show up in the urine until hours after smoking. Such problems can be avoided by other, more accurate screening methods, such as blood tests, which detect the active presence of drugs in the system, or the field sobriety checks used by law enforcement in DUI stops.

But aren’t urine tests still helpful in protecting workplace safety? Scientific evidence for this is conspicuously lacking. Urine testing has never undergone the kind of rigorous FDA “safety and efficacy” studies that are required for other medical devices and drugs.

Numerous studies have found that subjects who test positive for marijuana are no more accident-prone, and in some instances even safer, than those who don’t.

A recent expert review by the Canadian Center for Addictions Research recommended against use of drug urinalysis, concluding that “urinalysis has not been shown to have a meaningful impact on job injury/accident rates.”

A study of high-tech companies found that drug testing was associated with reduced productivity, apparently because it undermines worker morale and trust. Drug urinalysis may thus be an indicator of sloppy management by large corporations who exercise poor oversight over workers.

Until recent years, it would have been laughable to suppose that American workers should be forced to submit urine samples to prove their job worthiness. The U.S. is alone among developed countries in regarding urine testing as a routine practice. In the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available to all adults, drug testing is hardly used, yet workplace safety is substantially better than in the U.S.

The bottom line is that marijuana residues in urine pose no risk to workplace safety. In many cases, it is even preferable to let employees use marijuana for medical purposes at home so as to help avoid pain and other problems that can impair their performance.

Of course, there may exist situations where some kind of drug testing is useful in protecting workplace safety. If so, Proposition 19 specifically permits it. In no case would Proposition 19 override existing federal drug testing rules, anymore than did Proposition 215.

In general, however, Proposition 19 would benefit countless workers — pot users and non-users alike — by sparing them the degrading indignity of submitting to intrusive, misleading urine tests that have no bearing on job fitness.

Pain Clinics Test Patients for Marijuana Use

By Dale Gieringer, Director, CA NORML

Like many medical marijuana users, Kristin Redeen needed additional prescription medications for her severe chronic pain. For seven years she had been treated at a private pain clinic in the Central Valley, where a doctor maintained her on Percocet, a semi-synthetic opioid. One day Kristin was unexpectedly asked to submit a urine sample.  

“They already knew about my medical marijuana use,” says Kristin, who contacted California NORML. “I didn’t think I was doing anything wrong.”

When the test  came back, Kristin was informed that the clinic would no longer renew her prescription because she had tested positive for an illegal controlled substance. Her doctor at the clinic cited legal concerns, claiming –falsely– that DEA regulations forbid giving prescription narcotics to users of marijuana or other illegal drugs.

Kristin was cut off from her Percocet and began suffering seizures. She finally found a physician who was willing to prescribe her another opioid, Vicodin, but only at low doses insufficient to relieve her constant pain.

Kristin is one of a growing number of medical marijuana patients discriminated against by pain clinics. “I must have heard of 25 cases this year,” says Doug Hiatt, an attorney in Washington state. “It’s Jim Crow medicine.”

NORML has received a surge of complaints within the last six months.  Many medical marijuana users report that they can’t find a clinic willing to take them on.  Others, like Kristin, have been abandoned by clinics that suddenly adopted aggressive drug-screening policies.

Clinics say they are legally compelled to drug-test chronic pain patients so as to avoid liability for overdoses and diversion of prescription drugs, particularly opioids such as oxycontin –which have nothing to do with cannabis.

Chronic pain patients have good reason to object to being denied medical access to cannabis. Chronic pain is the leading indication for medical cannabis use, accounting for 90% of the patients in Oregon’s medical marijuana program.   More than 60 studies have shown cannabinoids to be effective in pain relief, according to a compilation by the International Association of Cannabis Medicine which includes four controlled studies of smoked marijuana by California’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research. (more…)

Labs Testing For Marijuana Use By Marinol Patients

By Dale Gieringer, Ph.D, Director, California NORML

California NORML has recently heard increasing reports that Marinol patients are being drug tested and denied employment for use of marijuana. In particular, we have heard from legal Prop. 215 patients who were denied jobs despite presenting Marinol prescriptions after being re-tested specifically for marijuana. Until recently, Marinol and marijuana were indistinguishable on the standard drug tests, so that patients with a Marinol prescription had a valid medical excuse under federal law for testing positive for marijuana.

However, special testing techniques have been developed that make it possible to distinguish the two by testing for non-standard cannabinoids that appear in marijuana but not Marinol. Until recently, these tests were expensive and rarely used except in high-profile criminal cases. However, it appears that they are now being routinely used by certain laboratories in cases where Marinol use is claimed. In particular, we have heard reports of such testing being used to disqualify Marinol-using Prop 215 patients by the transportation industry and by Walmart.

California NORML has accordingly altered its drug testing information to warn against relying on Marinol RXs as a screen for marijuana use: http://www.canorml.org/healthfacts/testing.tips.html

There is of course no valid scientific or health justification for allowing patients to use Marinol but not marijuana. The only purpose is to enforce compliance with the law. It is a tribute to the power and influence of the drug testing industry that they have prevailed in foisting the costs of this unnecessary and obnoxious procedure on employers.

California NORML, 2215-R Market St. #278, San Francisco CA 94114

(415) 563-5858 / www.canorml.org

Breaking News: Federal Law Enforcement Raids Companies Nationwide That Sell So-Called ‘Detoxification’ Kits; Also Confiscated From One Business Were The Unreleased DVD ‘A/K/A Tommy Chong’

A number of phone calls and emails to NORML this afternoon strongly indicated that federal law enforcement raided a number of companies yesterday and today that manufacture and/or market what are commonly known as ‘detoxification’ products. The target of SWAT-like teams was records and computer equipment.

That is story #1 as there are no federal laws that ban ‘detoxification’ products.

However, more oddly in my view is the reported confiscation of the unreleased DVD ‘A/K/A Tommy Chong’. How is that possible? Even if Tommy (a member of NORML’s Advisory Board) agreed in his 2005 plea bargain on federal paraphernalia charges to ‘not profit from his past criminal activities’ it seems unlikely to me federal confiscation of otherwise First Amendment-protected speech and expression could possibly be legal. Especially, on the heels of Tommy already publishing a best-selling book detailing his nine month incarceration in federal prison, the humorous and insightful ‘The I Chong: Meditations From The Joint’.

So, if I understand correctly, the federal attorney who first prosecuted Tommy in 2005, Mary Beth Buchanan, authorized some of these raids and the confiscation of the Chong DVDs, which are about…well, her prosecution of Tommy and his resulting incarceration.

OK… (more…)