Marijuana Testing State Services Applicants: It’s Just Wrong!

[The following blog post was submitted to the NORML Women's Alliance by Anna Diaz.  NORML's commentary appears in italics below.]

Urinalysis, the most common form of non-impairment drug testing, unfairly targets marijuana consumers because it screens for the presence of inert byproducts that may be detectable for days, weeks, or even months in former users. This is a discriminatory policy that sanctions individuals who may have consumed cannabis at some previous, unspecified point in time, while most other forms of illicit substance use to go undetected. Further, most marijuana consumers are responsible, hard-working Americans.  NORML believes that it is arbitrary and counterproductive to single these people out for punishment simply because they fail a urine screen.

By: Anna Diaz

NORML Women’s Alliance Steering Committee

Oregon NORML, Co-Founder

I am a Latina, a forty-year cannabis consumer, a medical cannabis patient and a single mother who has had to use public assistance more than once.  In 2011, Oregon and three other states have introduced bills that would require drug testing for people receiving public assistance.  I am writing to present my unique perspective on this issue, and why individuals should oppose any type of legislation that would require drug testing for all applicants looking to receive state services such as food stamps or unemployment benefits.

Many groups oppose this type of legislation including the ACLU, various associations of health professionals and, not surprisingly, organizations that assist women and children in need.  One in five Oregonians receive state services.  Currently, 79% of Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits – formerly food stamps — in Oregon are awarded to households with minor children.  65% of the children receiving those benefits live in single parent households.  Most of these single parents are women.

The ACLU position states, “Drug testing welfare recipients as a condition of eligibility is a policy that is scientifically, fiscally, and constitutionally unsound.”

Michigan is the only state to attempt to impose drug testing of welfare recipients – a policy that was struck down as unconstitutional in 2003. The ACLU challenged the mandatory drug-testing program as unconstitutional, arguing that drug testing of welfare recipients violates the Fourth Amendment’s protection against unreasonable searches. The case, Marchwinski v. Howard, concluded when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit upheld a lower court’s decision striking down the policy as unconstitutional.

Further, studies show that welfare recipients are no more likely to use drugs than the rest of the population.  70% of illicit drug users are employed.  The ACLU also cites research showing that drug testing is an expensive and ineffective way to uncover drug abuse.

OR NORML's Madeline Martinez (with award) and Anna Diaz with NORML founder Keith Stroup, Esq.

This is an expense our state cannot afford under any circumstances.  The average cost for drug testing in Oregon is $44.00 a person.  According to the Oregon Department of Human Services, there were 361,300 households (682,000 people) receiving SNAP benefits in February 2010.   The caseload is expected to increase until it peaks at 398,000 cases (760,000 people) in April 2011.  That is a 10 percent increase from February 2010.  Even if only one test were administered per household, the cost of drug testing would be roughly $17 million dollars.

While there are several reasons to oppose this type of legislation in all four states, there is one reason that is very unique to Oregon. Oregon is the only state that has a medical marijuana program.  The problem is that the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act does not protect patients who also receive public assistance.  Should this bill pass, many of us would be ineligible for services just because we are legally using our medicine.

The ACLU is right. Drug testing welfare recipients as a condition of eligibility is unsound on all levels for everyone, including taxpayers.  It discriminates against medical cannabis patients, is a waste of money, and will hurt single parent households, which in turn, hurts our children.

Please send a message to the Oregon Legislature and ask them to oppose any type of drug testing legislation.  It only takes a few minutes, and you can do it right now.  Here is an example of what you can say to get you started:

“Please oppose any legislation that incorporates drug testing as a part of the law.  Our state cannot afford the expense, and these bills discriminate against disabled medical marijuana patients.”

November Ballot Picture Shaping Up To Be Historic In The Struggle To End Marijuana Prohibition

The November election is shaping up to be one of the most important in modern history as it pertains to the struggle to end marijuana prohibition.

Voters in several states will have the opportunity this fall to decide on ballot measures to significantly reform their state or municipal marijuana laws. To date, the following initiatives have been certified to appear on the November ballot:

California: In what is arguably the most significant marijuana law reform measure in several decades, California voters will decide on The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010. The measure would allow adults 21 years or older to possess, share or transport up to one ounce of cannabis for personal consumption, and to cultivate the plant in an area of not more than twenty-five square feet per private residence. (Read the full text here.) The act would also permit local governments to authorize the retail sale of marijuana or the commercial cultivation of cannabis to adults and to impose taxes on such sales. Personal marijuana cultivation or not-for-profit sales of marijuana would not be taxed under the measure, nor would it alter or amend any aspect of the California Health and Safety code pertaining to the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

According to the most recent statewide poll on the issue, Californians support the measure 49 percent to 41 percent.

South Dakota: South Dakota voters will decide this November on Measure 13, The South Dakota Safe Access Act — which would exempt state criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana or six plants by authorized patients. (Read the full text here.) If enacted, South Dakota would become the fifteenth state since 1996 to legalize the medical use of marijuana.

Oregon: Voters are anticipated to decide this November on a statewide measure to authorize the creation of non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries, which would be legally able to distribute cannabis provided by private growers. (Read the full text here.) Proponents of the measure turned in over 110,000 signatures in favor of the act to the Secretary of State Elections Division in May, and are awaiting certification.

In 2009, Maine voters became the first to approve a ballot measure authorizing medical marijuana dispensaries. Oregon voters initially approved the legalization of medical marijuana in 1998.

Arizona: Election officials on Tuesday affirmed that proponents of a statewide ballot measure to allow for authorized patients to possess and purchase medical cannabis from state-licensed facilities has qualified for the 2010 November ballot. (Read the full text here.) Under the proposed measure, state-registered patients would be permitted to obtain cannabis legally from licensed dispensaries. Authorized patients who do not have a facility in their local area (defined as within 25 miles of their residence) would be permitted under the law to cultivate their own cannabis for medicinal purposes. Other patients would not be allowed to grow their own marijuana.

The ballot measure is sponsored by the Arizona Medical Marijuana Policy Project, an affiliate of the Marijuana Policy Project.

Detroit, Michigan: Detroit citizens are expected vote this November on a municipal measure to prohibit the criminal prosecution of adults who possess minor amounts of marijuana. If enacted, the measure would amend the Detroit City Code to remove criminal penalties for “the use or possession of less then one ounce of marijuana, on private property, by anyone who has attained the age of 21 years.” Voters have previously enacted similar municipal measures in several other cities, including Denver, Colorado.

Washington: Sensible Washington proponents continue to collect signatures in favor of I-1068, which would remove state civil and criminal penalties for persons eighteen years or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana. (Read the full text here.) To qualify the act for the November ballot, supporters must turn over 241,000 valid signatures by July 2, 2010.

According to a poll of 1,252 registered voters conducted last week, 52 percent of adults support the measure, and only 35 percent oppose it.

Oregon: Proponents of The Oregon Cannabis Tax Act (OCTA) must turn in over 110,000 signatures by July 2 to qualify the measure for the November 2010 ballot. OCTA seeks to permit the state-licensed production and sale of marijuana to adults. Oregon NORML is sponsoring the campaign, and is seeking volunteers here.

NORML will continue to keep you updated as additional statewide or municipal ballot proposals qualify to the November ballot.

NORML Board Member: I’ve Seen A Better Alternative To Marijuana Prohibition

THE FUTURE IS OURS FOR THE MAKING

NORML’s Cannabis Café

By George Rohrbacher, NORML board of directors, medical marijuana patient

The first time I met Madeline Martinez, the executive director of Oregon NORML, she told me about her dream…a meeting place for medical marijuana patients, some space to hold classes, a very different vision of healthcare. I took a drive to Portland last week to see this dream come true; to Oregon NORML’s World Famous-Cannabis Café, a trip to a Future of our own making.

Set in an older blue-collar neighborhood in North East Portland, NORML’s Cannabis Café, occupies a building that was reputed to be a ‘speakeasy’ during Prohibition, alcohol Prohibition, that is. It includes a meeting/concert space upstairs for about 200+ people, in addition to the Café downstairs. Oregon NORML signed a lease this fall with the onsite restaurant operator and took over the business in November. NORML volunteers have been working there non-stop ever since, turning the building into the Cannabis Café. Its opening last month became a world-wide press event…apparently a lot more people than Madeline thought the NORML’s Cannabis Café was an idea whose time had come.

America is currently a crazy-quilt of regulation with the 13 states and counting that have legal medical marijuana. Think what it will look like when all 50 states finally have it! In July, a front page article in the Wall Street Journal announced to the world that the Feds were standing down from enforcement in states with medical marijuana laws, and that MEDICAL MARIJUANA IS NOW OPEN FOR BUSINESS. As I read this, I could imagine entrepreneurs from coast to coast starting to draft their own plans for the medical marijuana businesses, the Next New Thing.

Stephen DeAngelo, the founder of Oakland’s Harborside Health Center, the Bay Area’s largest medical marijuana dispensary, gave one of the most thought provoking speeches at NORML’s 2009 Annual Conference on this very important topic: When marijuana is finally legalized (and new polls indicate America has finally reached the tipping point on this political issue) and the dust has settled, what will the business end of marijuana eventually come to look like? Remember, we are talking about taking an underground multi-billion dollar business and bringing it above ground. This is BIG. There will be huge long-term societal consequences of legalization far beyond the river of tax revenues it will create, many of which will be determined by what physical form legalization takes. So, what will the legal marijuana business in America come to look like? Something big and corporate? Something along the lines of Pepsi, RJ Reynolds, Starbucks, Pfizer, or Budweiser companies that market similar kinds of products??? Big profits, huge advertising budgets and lots of political cash….OR…should legal marijuana be something very different?

Stephen challenged his listeners to see that right now we have the opportunity to shape that marijuana business future, to get something different than the standard corporate outcome …right now, we have the opportunity to create a different cannabis delivery system that isn’t just about the performance on the quarterly bottom line, like it is in the ‘Pepsi’ paradigm, we can create a system that serves the public while at the same time it provides community service…something more along the business lines of Newman’s Own Salad Dressings from whose revenues have come donations of  almost $300 million to charities… Just think of that! The outcome for legal cannabis America could be vastly different, if we choose it…

Pain management is one of the places where the rubber truly meets the road in healthcare, a multi-billion dollar business. Non-toxic cannabinoid therapy has a very real place there. And non-toxic is good, as the very first rule of medicine should always be ‘to do no harm’. So, shouldn’t cannabis, from the get-go, do it differently than the Vicodin/Oxycodone ‘take these pills by yourself’ delivery model? After all, cannabis and all its users, medicinal or not, have been long defined by society as ‘counterculture’, so shouldn’t we be expected to do it differently, when we got our turn to create legal marijuana??? How about creating a non-profit medical cannabis delivery system whose central focus was on the patients, not profits for starters? Patients will have better results in chronic pain relief in the social setting of a Cannabis Café, where having people to talk to makes one’s problems feel lighter and one’s pain (medicated or not) easier to bear. Classes will be starting soon at the Cannabis Café on everything from aerobics, yoga, and weight management to plant propagation. Figuring out ways to provide free medicine to the indigent has been part of the design of the Oregon NORML’s Cannabis Café since its very inception. (Imagine that, the poor thought of first in the NORML model, not dead-last like in the standard corporate model.)  Perhaps a “Buds on Wheels” program for shut-in medical marijuana patients, too…A hemp products emporium, you get it, a place for everything cannabis, and you, too.

At NORML’s Cannabis Café, feel better…get better And then…What if… patients could meet at NORML Cannabis Cafés all over the country and the revenues generated driving a host of programs, in the area of healthcare and post drug war reparations, like freeing the thousands in jail today on pot charges? Think about it. Is that the kind of future you want? We can have it.

About two years ago, to better understand medical marijuana from the patient’s viewpoint, I interviewed the first 45 people waiting to get into one of the bi-monthly Oregon NORML Medical Marijuana meetings. Virtually everyone I asked that morning willingly volunteered his or her medical history. I heard a long litany of construction, car, and motorcycle accidents, of broken bones, dislocated joints, failed surgeries, and cancer… people who made me wonder, “How in the world does this guy/gal sleep at night?” Then it would occur to me, “Oh yes, of course, the cannabis.” For them NORML’s Cannabis Café puts dealing with serious medical issues in social setting…and shows it can be fun, as well. No wonder it’s a raging success.

NORML’s Cannabis Café is getting better by the day, as this new evolving healthcare paradigm kicks in. America can definitely learn something from the good folks who are blazing the Oregon Trail with medical marijuana; the future IS ours for the molding.

I’ve seen it.

NORML Women featured as the secret to legalization

Three of our favorite NORML Women (L-R): Anne Davis (NORML NJ), Madeline Martinez (Oregon NORML), Cheryl Shuman (Beverly Hills NORML 90210)

Daniela Perdomo has written a fantastic piece on Alternet entitled “The Secret to Legal Marijuana? Women” featuring a look at some of our favorite NORML women…

In 2005, only 32 percent of polled women told Gallup they approved legalizing pot, but this year 44 percent of them were for it, compared to 45 percent of men. In effect, women have narrowed what had been a 12-point gender gap.

Women are also smoking more weed. The most recent National Survey on Drug Use and Health shows that current marijuana use increased from 3.8 to 4.5 percent among women, while there was no significant statistical change for men.

…Cheryl Shuman, a 49-year-old optician in Los Angeles, would agree. Up until she started using cannabis therapy to treat her cancer, she was on a daily regimen of 27 prescription drugs, attached to a mobile intravenous morphine pump, and undergoing constant CAT and MRI scans. In 2006, her doctors told her she’d be dead by the end of that year.

This year, Shuman became the founding director of Beverly Hills’ National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) chapter — and she hopes to attract women to the cause.

…Enter Jessica Corry, a pro-life Republican from Denver. A mother of girls aged two and four, this 30-year-old newly-minted lawyer is widely hailed as a rising star in Colorado politics. … Mothers like Corry are drawn to marijuana regulation as part of a larger appeal that encourages the use of harm reduction to more pragmatically deal with substance abuse. … This year, there was a 37 percent increase in teens who said pot is easier to buy than cigarettes, beer or prescription drugs. Nearly one-quarter said they can get weed within the hour.

Those stats matter to women. In light of this, children and family will be included in the mission statement of the Women’s Alliance, a group NORML will launch next year. The coordinator, Sabrina Fendrick, plans to include mention of how current marijuana policy undermines the American family and sends mixed messages to young people.

Be sure to click over and read the entire article, as it also spotlights important female allies like Valerie Corral, Mikki Norris, and Debbie Goldsberry, who have all generously donated their time and expertise to our NORML podcasts and numerous NORML conferences, and my newest acquaintance, Deborah Small, who presented on my panel at the DPA Reform Conference last month. I agree with Perdomo; women will be the key to ending adult marijuana prohibition, just as women were key to ending liquor prohibition.

Ladies, won’t you join us? NORML is always looking for accomplished and confident women to join and lead chapters at the grassroots level all across the country. Send me an email at russ@norml.org and I can put you in touch with Sabrina and the forthcoming NORML Women’s Alliance as well.

NORML SHOW LIVE from Cannabis Café with Ryan Tracy & Steve Bloom

Marijuana Horticulture author Jorge Cervantes with NORML SHOW LIVE host “Radical” Russ at Oregon NORML’s Cannabis Café

Join us this and every Saturday night as we come to you at 6pm Pacific with our new live studio audience at the world famous Oregon NORML Cannabis Café! We stream live at http://live.norml.org for two hours and we feature interesting guests, the latest marijuana news, entertaining audio clips, and 420-friendly advertisers in a live talk radio show made by, for, and about responsible adult cannabis consumers. You can join the conversation by calling 347-994-1810 or by logging in to our live chat window.

Our guest for the first hour is Ryan Tracy, who founded CheechandChong.com in 1998.  Ryan has recently been embroiled in a battle over the website with Live Nation as they are now sponsoring the Cheech & Chong: Get It Legal tour, and he’ll talk about his side of the story from the perspective of a longtime loyal fan.  We’ll also talk about his new site, CheechandChongFans.com.

In our second hour, we visit with the co-author of Pot Culture: the A-to-Z Guide to Stoner Language and Life, Steve Bloom, and his work on the entertainment news site, CelebStoner.com.  Steve will also preview is upcoming book on stoner movies and discuss PayPal dropping his site, California NORML, and others for accepting advertisement from legal medical marijuana businesses.

We’ve also got new specials for holiday advertisers on the live show (10,000 downloads a month), our daily podcasts (50,000 downloads a month), and the Stash blog (100,000 hits per month).  You can focus your advertising dollars on a very specific, well-educated niche of marijuana supporters who are very loyal to brands that support NORML.  Email us at stash@norml.org for details.