This Week in Weed: Oct. 30th – Nov. 5th

The latest installment of “This Week in Weed” is now streaming on NORMLtv.

This week, even more elected officials speak out against the federal government’s marijuana crackdown and call for rescheduling. We also look at the results from two of the latest cannabis-related studies.

Be sure to tune in to NORMLtv each Thursday afternoon to catch up on the latest marijuana news. Subscribe to NORMLtv or follow us on Twitter to be notified as soon as new content is added.

Online Debate — US News & World Report: “Should federal authorities be able to close medical marijuana dispensaries in California?”

US News & World Report‘s ‘Debate Club’ is hosting an online forum right now regarding the question: “Should federal authorities be able to close medical marijuana dispensaries in California?”

The forum includes rational commentaries from various drug policy reformers, including myself and MPP‘s Morgan Fox. Predictably, the debate also features several irrational essays from professional drug warriors such as Kevin Sabet, Peter Bensinger, and John Redman — who make claims like “We have seen that dispensaries have increased drug use and crime, and they are linked to numerous robberies, muggings, and murders” and “Marijuana, with 468 different chemicals and more cancer-causing agents and tar than tobacco cigarettes, is also a dangerous highway and workplace hazard.”

Fortunately, visitors can not only respond to these allegations on the US News & World Report website here, but they can also vote ‘down’ the commentaries that they disagree with. (Not surprisingly, the present point total of the Sabet/Bensinger/Redman essays is a combined total of -1031.) Conversely, ‘Debate Club’ visitors can vote ‘up’ the viewpoints they support.

To join the debate, click here.

An excerpt of my commentary appears below.

Obama Should Keep Promise on Medical Marijuana

As a presidential candidate, Barack Obama stated, “The basic concept of using medical marijuana … [is] entirely appropriate,” and pledged, “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try and circumvent state laws on this issue.”

As president, Obama promised, “Science and the scientific process must inform and guide [the] decisions of my administration.”

Yet recent actions of the administration belie these assurances.

… If the federal government is truly concerned about the diversion of medical marijuana or its potential abuse in California then it would be better served to encourage–rather than to discourage–local and statewide efforts to regulate this industry accordingly. The Obama administration’s proposed actions in California will only result in limiting patients’ regulated, safe access to medicine. It will also cost California jobs and needed tax revenue.

Legislating medical marijuana operations and prosecuting those who act in a manner that is inconsistent with California law and voters’ sentiment should be a responsibility left to the state, not the federal government. It is time for this administration to fulfill the assurances it gave to the medical cannabis community and to respect the decisions of voters and lawmakers in states that recognize its therapeutic efficacy.

Week in Weed: October 9th-22nd

There was a slight delay due to the website relaunch, but the latest episode of “This Week in Weed” is now streaming on NORMLtv.

After a decidedly negative installment last week, we bring you good news! Our stories this week include a new Gallup poll that shows over 50% of Americans support marijuana legalization for the first time ever and one of the largest physicians’ groups in the country calls to legalize and regulate cannabis.

Be sure to tune in to NORMLtv each Thursday afternoon to catch up on the latest marijuana news. Subscribe to NORMLtv or follow us on Twitter to be notified as soon as new content is added.

MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell: “I Really Don’t Know How [Prohibitionists] Sleep at Night…Without the Booze.”

Tuesday night, on his program “The Last Word,” Lawrence O’Donnell took an impassioned stance against marijuana prohibition while reporting on the recently released Gallup legalization poll.

O’Donnell, who formerly served as Staff Director of the Senate Finance Committee, notes the disconnect between the public opinion on this issue and policy coming from elected officials.

“In a democracy,” he stated, “we should expect such a dramatic shift in public opinion to be reflected in our public officials, but support for marijuana legalization in the United States Senate…has gone from 0% in 1968 to 0% in 2011.”

O’Donnell then rightfully attacked the Obama Administration’s insistence on keeping marijuana a schedule I substance.

“Now we know that no one in the Obama Administration is stupid enough to actually think [marijuana is as dangerous as heroin], but we also know politicians have no intention of facing reality anytime soon when it comes to marijuana. Politicians will continue to allow young lives to be ruined for mere possession of marijuana; politicians will continue to allow people to be arrested. [They will] allow people to go to jail, allow people to be arrested, allow people to get criminal records, get kicked out of school, be turned down for jobs just because they’ve used marijuana, something more than one president has done and gotten away with.”

In the conclusion to his segment, he unabashedly calls out our country’s elected officials for their hypocrisy on the issue, as many of them have no hesitation to indulge in the legal, more dangerous alternative.

“Senators, members of Congress, presidents, vice presidents, and Supreme Court justices are going to continue to get high, many of them every day and every night. Many of them will do it publicly, and loudly, and legally at restaurants and campaign fundraisers and at state dinners,” O’Donnell said, “They will raise their glasses and get high and they will continue to put people in jail for using a harmless, non-liquid way of getting high like marijuana. Such hypocrisy carries an even stronger stench than the alcohol-drenched breath of those politicians and judges and prosecutors and DEA officials. I really don’t know how they can sleep at night…without the booze.”

If more mainstream media journalists begin embracing the issue with the same intensity and comprehension as Lawrence O’Donnell displayed on his program last night, the end of the war on cannabis might be closer than we think.

You can view the segment in its entirety below:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Tell Congress: ‘More Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana Than Oppose It’

In the wake of Monday’s watershed Gallup poll showing that for the first time more Americans support the notion of legalizing marijuana than oppose it, I have a new op/ed online at TheHill.com’s Congress Blog.

As many of you know, this is the website where Washington DC insiders, members of Congress, and their staff go to blog.

Want to send Washington, DC a message that the American public is fed up with the criminalization of cannabis? Then click the link below to read my entire commentary and the be sure to leave a comment (polite, respectful comments only please) on The Hill website.

More Americans support legalizing marijuana than oppose it
via The Hill.com

[excerpt] Since 2005, public support for legalizing cannabis has grown among every single demographic polled. That’s right, today a greater percentage of Americans of every age, political ideology, and from every region of the country back marijuana law reform than did just six years ago.

… Gallup pollsters analyzed the data and concluded the obvious, “If this current trend on legalizing marijuana continues, pressure may build to bring the nation’s laws into compliance with the people’s wishes.”

Of course, public pressure has been building for some time now. Since 1996, 16 states and the District of Columbia have initiated statewide laws to allow for the limited legal use of marijuana when recommended by a physician. Laws are also changing in regards to the broader use of cannabis. In fact, in 2011, four states – Arkansas, California, Connecticut, and Kentucky – enacted new laws significantly lowering the penalties for marijuana use and possession. In California and Connecticut, lawmakers took the dramatic step of making such activities non-criminal offenses.

Nonetheless, federal officials don’t yet seem to be hearing the public’s message – even when it is made clear to them on the White House’s own ‘We the People’ website. … But the Administration’s failure to heed public opinion is a gross political miscalculation.

Rather than rebuff the public’s calls for cannabis policy reform, the Administration ought to be embracing it.

… The bottom line: marijuana law reform should no longer be viewed by federal legislators as a political liability. For those lawmakers willing to advocate for common-sense reforms, this issue represents a unique political opportunity. The public is ready for change; in fact, they are demanding it. Lawmakers can either get with the program, or suffer the consequences.

After you have done so, please also take a moment to contact your members of Congress and urge them to support HR 2306: The Ending Federal Marijuana Prohibition Act of 2011. You can do so quickly and conveniently via NORML’s Take Action Center’ here. You can also contact the White House here.

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