In a down real estate market, landlords who might otherwise wait for more conventional tenants are snapping at the opportunity presented by medical-marijuana dispensaries, said Darrin Revious, a broker with Shames Makovsky Realty.

“I am working a couple of these deals right now,” he said.  “It is absolutely crazy how many of these deals are in the market.  I can’t believe it.”

Since voters approved Amendment 20 in 2000 allowing the use of medical marijuana to treat eight specific conditions, the number of people legally allowed to buy the herb has steadily climbed.  In 2007, 1,955 people held medical marijuana cards; the following year, there were 4,720 people on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment’s Medical Marijuana Registry.  The number has grown to about 13,000, health department spokesman Mark Salley said.

On an average day, the department receives 400 requests for medical-marijuana cards, and some days applications are as high as 600, Salley said.

Revious said he receives at least one request per day from brokers representing people seeking property suitable for grow operations or dispensaries, where medical pot is sold to card-carrying patients.  Over the past three or four months, he said, demand for the properties has soared.

“I need ( 5,000 square feet in ) LoDo, or there about .  .  .  retail,” says one e-mail he received from a broker.  “Wellness center — yes, medical marijuana.  A group expanding out of California — a real one.”

Warren Edson, an attorney who handles medical-marijuana cases and advises people trying to set up cannabis collectives and cooperatives, said he believes the rise in demand is related to the increasing number of patients approved to buy the drug.

“My share of stoners”

Many people became more aware that pot was legal for those with medical conditions this summer, when the state Board of Health rejected a move to cap at five the number of people a medical-marijuana caregiver can supply, he added.

“It was publicity,” Edson said.  “It meant the average Joe was seeing it discussed on the news, and saying maybe I should go to my doctor about this; it isn’t just for crazy people.”

Six months ago, Edson said, many of those seeking the cards were terribly sick, or were “hippies” looking to get high.  “Now we are seeing a greater cross section of individuals.”

Laurel Alterman opened AlterMeds at the Colony Square Shopping Center in Louisville earlier this month, just before the City Council approved a moratorium on new dispensaries.

Alterman abandoned her real estate business, which has done poorly recently, to open the dispensary.  “When the Board of Health expanded the roll of caregivers this summer, the opportunity to open became very attractive, and my son was working in a dispensary in Denver and knew the business,” she said.  “I just jumped off a building without a parachute.”

Paul Tamburello, a broker’s associate with Distinctive Properties, said he gets three calls a week from business people who want to lease a building he owns at West 32nd Avenue and Zuni Street to use as a dispensary.

“Some are really legitimate businesspeople, but I certainly run into my share of stoners,” he said.

There are four dispensaries within a mile of the building, he said.  “There certainly seems to be a plethora of dispensaries trying to open.  I call it the new gold rush.  A lot of these guys are seeing dollar signs.  I don’t know how lucrative it will be if the velocity of growth continues on the path it is on.”

Alterman said she expects to earn twice as much as she made annually in real estate by selling medical marijuana.

One businessman said he has been approached a number of times by people who wanted to rent space for a dispensary in his Colfax Avenue business.  He refused.  “We don’t rent space,” said the man, who asked that his name and business not be published because marijuana has negative connotations for many.

Some Californians who wanted to open a dispensary in the area asked him what he thought his building is worth.  When he said it was appraised at $850,000 they offered $750,000 in cash at closing.

Tighter regulations loom

Concern over the mushrooming number of dispensaries is growing, and some cities and towns are studying regulations to limit them, while others have passed outright bans.

State Sen.  Chris Romer, D-Denver, plans to introduce a bill next year that would clarify regulations involving pot-using patients.

Alterman said she wouldn’t object to some regulation in the industry that could make the shops operate more like licensed pharmacies.  And she sees a need for properly zoning the establishments.

Tight security measures are necessary to operate the shops and grow operations, which are natural targets for thieves, she said.  “Zoning laws are important,” she said.  “This is a business that is inappropriate for a residential area because, yes, it is dangerous.”

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2009 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Author: Tom McGhee, The Denver Post

Check the Web site of the state Department of Public Health and Environment regularly to learn about new regulations and public hearings. Make sure you give your new patients time to tell their story of dealing with a chronic condition that has led them to seek out medical marijuana.

Those are just some of the topics covered in Cannabis Therapy 101, the first in a series of four classes offered by the Cannabis Therapy Institute, a Boulder-based advocacy and education group.

Students who complete all four courses can call themselves certified cannabis therapists, trained in various treatment methodologies, the attributes of some of the 10,000 cannabis strains and the effects of cannabinoids on the body and the mind.

Robert Melamed, a professor of biology at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who has published more than a dozen papers on marijuana’s effects on the body, teaches one of the classes.

The Cannabis Therapy Institute has pushed back strongly against proposed legislation that would regulate the industry (members say they aren’t anti-regulation, but most of what was proposed would restrict patients’ rights). At the same time, its members advocate for increased professionalism among caregivers and dispensary owners. It’s good for patients, and it’s good for the industry, they say.

The class and the certification are part of that effort.

The institute also offers classes taught by lawyers on how to stay on the right side of the law. That’s no small feat in an environment where regulations vary from town to town, court decisions lead to changing interpretations of the constitutional amendment that legalized medical marijuana and the whole business remains illegal at the federal level.

Timothy Tipton, a patient and caregiver with the Rocky Mountain Caregivers Cooperative, and Deanna Gabriel, a certified clinical herbalist and clinical nutritionist, teach the 101 class. In a neat, spare conference room at the Best Western Boulder Inn, more than a dozen students listen closely as they cover topics ranging from which state forms require black ink and which require blue to how to chart patients’ symptoms and find a strain that works best for them.

Women with neatly trimmed white hair and practical fleece jackets take notes beside long-haired, passionate activists. There was a student of Chinese herbalism, another of integrative medicine, a registered nurse, a massage therapist. They came from across the Denver metro area, including Englewood and Highlands Ranch.

Their questions indicate the legal uncertainty that hangs over the industry. Would adding a cannabis therapy certificate to other medical credentials decrease a practitioner’s legitimacy? Is there a risk of federal prosecution? Would my patient records be protected, like other medical records, if there were a raid on my business?

In all cases, the answer boils down to “maybe.”

Tipton, who has testified in court as an expert on medical marijuana and has experience dealing with a wide variety of strains and methods through the caregivers collective, focused on understanding the properties of different types of marijuana.

Indica strains work on the body, but can make some people sleepy. Sativa strains act more on the head and can help patients who need to feel alert and functional in the morning.

Hybrid strains need to be used with caution in patients with bipolar disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder.

“If a patient is having body issues, you want to make sure they’re not having cerebral effects that are uncomfortable or unpleasant,” Tipton said.

Edibles can provide long-lasting symptom relief. Honey oil extractions, sometimes in the form of hard candies, can help stimulate appetite in patients with wasting conditions. Patients in assisted living facilities probably shouldn’t smoke their marijuana because of the oxygen tanks.

“That’s where you as a caregiver come in with really knowing you arsenal of therapies, what preparations and what treatments are most effective,” Tipton said.

Gabriel drew on her experience as an herbalist to talk about developing a patient in-take process, researching diseases common among users of medical marijuana and walking the line walked by all alternative practitioners.

Don’t overstep your area of expertise, maintain a good list of referrals to other specialists and don’t be afraid to say “I don’t know,” she told the students. That protects the patients — and the caregivers.

“There is a real danger of being slapped with a charge of practicing medicine without a license,” she said.

“It’s a loaded word to say you’re healing someone,” she added. “You’re there to help them understand their bodies and the understand the medicine that you understand.”

Link: http://tiny.cc/TSRLt
Source: Media News Group websites
Author: Erica Meltzer

Lyle E.  Craker, a professor of plant sciences at the University of Massachusetts, has been trying to get permission from federal authorities for nearly nine years to grow a supply of the plant that he could study and provide to researchers for clinical trials.

But the Drug Enforcement Administration — more concerned about abuse than potential benefits — has refused, even after the agency’s own administrative law judge ruled in 2007 that Dr.  Craker’s application should be approved, and even after Attorney General Eric H.  Holder Jr.  in March ended the Bush administration’s policy of raiding dispensers of medical marijuana that comply with state laws.

“All I want to be able to do is grow it so that it can be tested,” Dr.  Craker said in comments echoed by other researchers.

Marijuana is the only major drug for which the federal government controls the only legal research supply and for which the government requires a special scientific review.

“The more it becomes clear to people that the federal government is blocking these studies, the more people are willing to defect by using politics instead of science to legalize medicinal uses at the state level,” said Rick Doblin, executive director of a nonprofit group dedicated to researching psychedelics for medical uses.

On Monday, his last full day in office, Gov.  Jon S.  Corzine of New Jersey signed a measure passed by the Legislature last week that made the state the 14th in the nation to legalize the use of marijuana to help with chronic illnesses.

The measure was pushed by a loose coalition of patients suffering from chronic illnesses like Lou Gehrig’s disease and multiple sclerosis who said marijuana eased their symptoms.

Studies have shown convincingly that marijuana can relieve nausea and improve appetite among cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.  Studies also prove that marijuana can alleviate the aching and numbness that patients with H.I.V.  and AIDS suffer.

There are strong hints that marijuana may ameliorate some of the neurological problems associated with such degenerative diseases as multiple sclerosis, said Dr.  Igor Grant, director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego.

But there is no good evidence that legalizing the smoking of marijuana is needed to provide these effects.  The Food and Drug Administration in 1985 approved Marinol, a prescription pill of marijuana’s active ingredient, T.H.C.  Although a few small-scale studies done decades ago suggest that smoked marijuana may prove effective when Marinol does not, no conclusive research has confirmed this finding.

And Marinol is no panacea.  There are at least three medicines that in most patients provide better relief from nausea and vomiting than Marinol, studies show.

Buddy Coolen, 31, of Warwick, R.I., said he tried or continued to use some of those medicines.  “Smoking for me is as good as any medicine I have,” he said.

Eight years ago, Mr.  Coolen contracted gastroparesis and cyclic vomiting syndrome.  He lost 50 pounds and, despite being 5 foot 11, weighed 120 pounds.

His doctors gave him myriad anti-emetics, many of which he still takes.  They also prescribed Marinol, but it did not work for him, Mr.  Coolen said.

“My stepdad is old school and was really against marijuana, but then he saw what it did for me and totally changed his way of thinking,” Mr.  Coolen said.

Some doctors and law enforcement officials say such anecdotes should not drive public policy.  Dr.  Eric Braverman, medical director of a multispecialty clinic in Manhattan, said legalizing marijuana was unnecessary and dangerous since Marinol provided the medicinal effects of the plant.  “Our society will deteriorate,” he said.

Patients who call Dr.  Braverman’s clinic are, when put on hold, told that the clinic may prescribe supplements and other alternative treatments that have even less scientific justification than marijuana.  Dr.  Braverman said such alternatives rendered marijuana unnecessary, but his embrace of alternatives is a reminder that medicine has long been driven by more than science.

About 20 percent of drug prescriptions are written for uses that are not approved by federal drug regulators; about half of the nation’s adults regularly take supplements; herbal and homeopathic remedies are popular.

The nation’s growing embrace of medical marijuana has stemmed from these alternative traditions.

The University of Mississippi has the nation’s only federally approved marijuana plantation.  If they wish to investigate marijuana, researchers must apply to the National Institute on Drug Abuse to use the Mississippi marijuana and must get approvals from a special Public Health Service panel, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Food and Drug Administration.

But federal officials have repeatedly failed to act on marijuana research requests in a timely manner or have denied them, according to a 2007 ruling by an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration.  While refusing to approve a second marijuana producer, the government allowed the University of Mississippi to supply Mallinckrodt, a drug maker, with enough marijuana to eventually produce a generic version of Marinol.

“As the National Institute on Drug Abuse, our focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use,” said Shirley Simson, a spokeswoman for the drug abuse institute, known as NIDA.  “We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”

The Drug Enforcement Administration said it was just following NIDA’s lead.  “D.E.A.  has never denied a research registration for marijuana and/or THC if NIDA approved the protocols for that individual entity,” a supervisory special agent, Gary Boggs, said by e-mail.

Researchers investigating LSD, Ecstasy and other illegal drugs can use any of a number of suppliers licensed by the Drug Enforcement Administration, Dr.  Doblin said.  And if a researcher wants to use a variety of marijuana that the University of Mississippi does not grow – — and there are many with differing medicinal properties — they are out of luck, Dr.  Doblin said.

Law enforcement tends to emphasize the abuse potential of medicines without regard to their positive effects.  Bureaucratic battles between the D.E.A.  and the F.D.A.  over the availability of narcotics – — highly effective but addictive medicines — have gone on for decades.

So medical marijuana may never have good science underlying its use.  But for patients in desperate need, the ethics of providing access to the drug are clear, said Dr.  Richard Payne, a professor of medicine and divinity and director of the Institute for Care on the End of Life at Duke Divinity School.

“It’s not a great drug,” he said, “but what’s the harm?”

Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A14
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Gardiner Harris

Ms.  DeGidio, 69 years old, bought candy with marijuana mixed in.  It worked in easing her neuropathic pain, for which doctors haven’t been able to pinpoint a cause, she says.  Now, Ms.  DeGidio, who had previously tried without success other drugs including Neurontin and lidocaine patches, nibbles marijuana-laced peppermint bars before sleep, and keeps a bag in her refrigerator that she’s warned her grandchildren to avoid.

“It’s not like you’re out smoking pot for enjoyment or to get high,” says the former social worker, who won’t take the drug during the day because she doesn’t want to feel disoriented.  “It’s a medicine.”

For many patients like Ms.  DeGidio, it’s getting easier to access marijuana for medical use.  The U.S.  Department of Justice has said it will not generally prosecute ill people under doctors’ care whose use of the drug complies with state rules.  New Jersey will become the 14th state to allow therapeutic use of marijuana, and the number is likely to grow.  Illinois and New York, among others, are considering new laws.

As the legal landscape for patients clears somewhat, the medical one remains confusing, largely because of limited scientific studies.  A recent American Medical Association review found fewer than 20 randomized, controlled clinical trials of smoked marijuana for all possible uses.  These involved around 300 people in all–well short of the evidence typically required for a pharmaceutical to be marketed in the U.S.

Doctors say the studies that have been done suggest marijuana can benefit patients in the areas of managing neuropathic pain, which is caused by certain types of nerve injury, and in bolstering appetite and treating nausea, for instance in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.  “The evidence is mounting” for those uses, says Igor Grant, director of the Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research at the University of California, San Diego.

But in a range of other conditions for which marijuana has been considered, such as epilepsy and immune diseases like lupus, there’s scant and inconclusive research to show the drug’s effectiveness.  Marijuana also has been tied to side effects including a racing heart and short-term memory loss and, in at least a few cases, anxiety and psychotic experiences such as hallucinations.  The Food and Drug Administration doesn’t regulate marijuana, so the quality and potency of the product available in medical-marijuana dispensaries can vary.

Though states have been legalizing medical use of marijuana since 1996, when California passed a ballot initiative, the idea remains controversial.  Opponents say such laws can open a door to wider cultivation and use of the drug by people without serious medical conditions.  That concern is heightened, they say, when broadly written statutes, such as California’s, allow wide leeway for doctors to decide when to write marijuana recommendations.

But advocates of medical-marijuana laws say certain seriously ill patients can benefit from the drug and should be able to access it with a doctor’s permission.  They argue that some patients may get better results from marijuana than from available prescription drugs.

Glenn Osaki, 51, a technology consultant from Pleasanton, Calif., says he smokes marijuana to counter nausea and pain.  Diagnosed in 2005 with advanced colon cancer, he has had his entire colon removed, creating digestive problems, and suffers neuropathic pain in his hands and feet from a chemotherapy drug.  He says smoking marijuana was more effective and faster than prescription drugs he tried, including one that is a synthetic version of marijuana’s most active ingredient, known as THC.

The relatively limited research supporting medical marijuana poses practical challenges for doctors and patients who want to consider it as a therapeutic option.  It’s often unclear when, or whether, it might work better than traditional drugs for particular people.  Unlike prescription drugs it comes with no established dosing regimen.

“I don’t know what to recommend to patients about what to use, how much to use, where to get it,” says Scott Fishman, chief of pain medicine at the University of California, Davis medical school, who says he rarely writes marijuana recommendations, typically only at a patient’s request.

Researchers say it’s difficult to get funding and federal approval for marijuana research.  In November, the AMA urged the federal government to review marijuana’s position in the most-restricted category of drugs, so it could be studied more easily.

Gregory T.  Carter, a University of Washington professor of rehabilitation medicine, says he’s developed his own procedures for recommending marijuana, which he does for some patients with serious neuromuscular conditions such as amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, to treat pain and other symptoms.  He typically urges those who haven’t tried it before to start with a few puffs using a vaporizer, which heats the marijuana to release its active chemicals, then wait 10 minutes.  He warns them to have family nearby and to avoid driving, and he checks back with them after a few days.  Many are “surprised at how mild” the drug’s psychotropic effects are, he says.

States’ rules on growing and dispensing medical marijuana vary.  Some states license specialized dispensaries.  These can range from small storefronts to bigger operations that feel more like pharmacies.  Typically, they have security procedures to limit walk-in visitors.

At least a few dispensaries say they inspect their suppliers and use labs to check the potency of their product, though states don’t generally require such measures.  “It’s difficult to understand how we can call it medicine if we don’t know what’s in it,” says Stephen DeAngelo, executive director of the Harborside Health Center, a medical-marijuana dispensary in Oakland, Calif.

Some of the strongest research results support the idea of using marijuana to relieve neuropathic pain.  For example, a trial of 50 AIDS patients published in the journal Neurology in 2007 found that 52% of those who smoked marijuana reported a 30% or greater reduction in pain.  Just 24% of those who got placebo cigarettes reported the same lessening of pain.

Marijuana has also been shown to affect nausea and appetite.  The AMA review said three controlled studies with 43 total participants showed a “modest” anti-nausea effect of smoked marijuana in cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy.  Studies of HIV-positive patients have suggested that smoked marijuana can improve appetite and trigger weight gain.

Donald Abrams, a doctor and professor at the University of California, San Francisco who has studied marijuana, says he recommends it to some cancer patients, including those who haven’t found standard anti-nausea drugs effective and some with loss of appetite.

Side effects can be a problem for some people.  Thea Sagen, 62, an advanced neuroendocrine cancer patient in Seaside, Calif., says she expected something like a pharmacy when she went to a marijuana dispensary mentioned by her oncologist.  She says she was disappointed to find that the staffers couldn’t say which of the products, with names like Pot ‘o Gold and Blockbuster, might boost her flagging appetite or soothe her anxiety.  “They said, ‘it’s trial and error,’ “she says.  “I was in there flying blind, looking at all this stuff.”

Ms.  Sagen says she bought several items and tried one-eighth teaspoon of marijuana-infused honey.  After a few hours, she was hallucinating , too dizzy and confused to dress herself for a doctor’s appointment.  Then came vomiting far worse than her stomach upset before she took the drug.  When she reported the side effects to her oncologist’s nurse and her primary-care physician, she got no guidance.  She doesn’t take the drug now.  But with advice from a nutritionist, her appetite and food intake have improved, she says.

Other marijuana users may experience the well-known reduction in ability to concentrate.  At least a few users suffer troubling short-term psychiatric side effects, which can include anxiety and panic.  More controversially, an analysis published in the journal Lancet in 2007 tied marijuana use to a higher rate of psychotic conditions such as schizophrenia.  But the analysis noted that such a link doesn’t necessarily show marijuana is a cause of the conditions.

Long-term marijuana use can lead to physical dependence, though it is not as addictive as nicotine or alcohol, says Margaret Haney, a professor at Columbia University’s medical school.  Smoked marijuana may also risk lung irritation, but a large 2006 study, published in Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention, found no tie to lung cancer.

Source: Wall Street Journal (US)
Copyright: 2010 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Contact: wsj.ltrs@wsj.com
Website: http://www.wsj.com/
Author: Anna Wilde Mathews

Late yesterday, Governor Corzine signed a law making New Jersey the fourteenth state to legalize medical pot.  Four more states and the District of Columbia are expected to follow suit by year’s end.

Many things are driving this sea change.  The federal government last year announced that it would no longer prosecute medical marijuana smokers in states where it is legal, while the National Institutes of Health has begun funding research on medicinal use in a reversal of a long-standing policy.

Gallup Polls show a solid majority of Americans sympathetic to therapeutic marijuana use.

And the usually conservative American Medical Association, along with the Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians, has joined other medical groups in calling for research and development of cannabinoid-based medicines.

Lawyer Keith Stroup, who founded the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ( NORML ) in 1970, rejoiced: “We’ve had more political progress and public support in the past three years than in the previous 30.  We’ve largely won the hearts and minds of Americans.”

Paul Cohen, a physician and lawyer who teaches public health law at Georgetown University, said, “I think we’re pretty close to the tipping point.”

California’s famously liberal medical marijuana law allows the use, possession, and cultivation of marijuana by anyone who possess a “written or oral recommendation” from their physician that he or she “would benefit from medical marijuana.”

In contrast, New Jersey’s version requires patient identification cards and state-monitored dispensaries – easing fears that medical use will fuel illegal sales and teenage substance abuse.

“That’s the exciting thing about New Jersey,” Cohen said.  “Maybe people’s minds will be clearer about the debate.”

Pennsylvania is not expected to pass a similar law anytime soon, although Rep.  Mark B.  Cohen ( D., Phila.  ) last year introduced a bill in the House.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, a Democrat from Princeton who sponsored the New Jersey legislation, thinks his bill strikes the right balance between compassion and caution.

“I’m sure college campuses would prefer the California model,” he said.  “But we made New Jersey’s law illness-specific.  And the prescription has to be from an actual physician.”

New Jersey’s law allows marijuana prescriptions for cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, muscular dystrophy, and other diseases in which patients suffer “severe chronic pain, severe nausea, seizures, or severe and persistent muscle spasms.”

Cannabis preparations have been used to relieve nausea and pain since ancient times.  But over the last 15 years, research on the body’s cannabinoid receptors has begun to decipher the chemistry and biology of these good effects.  More recently, clinical trials have shown that these benefits outweigh the concerns about addiction, heart and respiratory diseases, cancers, and psychoses – at least, with short-term use.

Many questions, however, remain to be answered, experts say.  One of the biggest is whether smoked medical marijuana could be replaced by a pharmaceutical version.

Marinol, a synthetic cannabinoid pill, is approved by the Food and Drug Administration for treating AIDS-related wasting and chemotherapy-related nausea.  But many patients say choking down a slow-acting pill simply doesn’t provide the convenient and immediate relief of inhaling pot.

A new drug, Sativex, made by GW Pharmaceuticals, may renew the question.  A cannabinoid-based oral spray, Sativex is approved in Canada for treating pain in multiple sclerosis and advanced cancer.  The company is now completing the clinical testing needed for approval in Europe and the United States.

“If I were an advocate of medical marijuana, and if Sativex is approved, I would then try to set up a study to show smoked marijuana is better,” said Paul Cohen – who, at 75, said he has never tried pot.

Last year, Cohen wrote a law review article criticizing both the government’s stubborn criminalization of all marijuana use and individual states’ defiant efforts to legitimize medical use.

“Instead,” Cohen wrote, “the FDA should .  .  .  evaluate medical marijuana with the same methodology, standards, and diligence that the agency would apply to any other investigational drug.”

Just one problem: No pharmaceutical company or advocacy group has stepped up to do the rigorous and costly human testing that would give the FDA data to evaluate.

And no one is likely to.  Medical marijuana is winning the war of public sentiment, never mind the war on drugs.

Stroup, 66, attributes this to generational changes.

“My generation believed in ‘Reefer Madness,’ ” he said, referring to the 1937 film in which high school marijuana use led to addiction, murder, suicide, and insanity.  “Over the last 22 years, half of high school graduates have experimented with pot.  The majority don’t smoke when they get married and have kids, but they have smoked, and they know it didn’t turn them into heroin addicts.”

Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, The (PA)
Copyright: 2010 Philadelphia Newspapers Inc
Contact: inquirer.letters@phillynews.com
Website: http://www.philly.com/inquirer/
Author: Marie McCullough, Inquirer Staff Writer

AB390 would overhaul of the state’s marijuana laws and allow possession, sale and cultivation of marijuana for people over 21 while imposing a $50-an-ounce sales tax, much like taxes on tobacco and alcohol.  The billions of dollars in revenue this would generate might be one way for the state to help solve its “chronic” budget problem.

Law enforcement is largely opposed.  Claude Cook, regional director of the National Narcotics Officers Associations Coalition, predicted downright disaster were the bill to pass.  “Use by juveniles will increase,” he warned, “Organized crime will flourish.  The cartels will thrive.”

Sorry, Claude, but what you’re predicting is happening already.  If you legalize it, you’ve decriminalized it, which means criminals will move on to something else, which is why similar warnings never materialized after Prohibition’s repeal in 1933.

Think “free market.” Organized crime traffics where the competition doesn’t.  It sells to whomever it wants, including juveniles, because no incentive exists to restrict sales to adults ( restrictions that a regulated market would impose ).  Crooks can’t compete in the free-market transaction of goods and services that are legal; otherwise they’d be legitimate businessmen, not lawbreaking thugs.

And, should organized crime try to duck the sales tax by selling bootleg buds, they’d face far more serious foes since, as we all know, the one thing more venomous than a drug cartel is the IRS.  ( Just ask Al Capone ).

San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer said she was “disappointed” by the committee’s action, claiming that the state’s approach for handling marijuana has been effective.  Really?

In 2007, California saw 74,000 pot busts – 80 percent for mere possession.  That same year, over 166,000 violent crimes went unsolved in the state.

In 2007, California counties seized 1.9 million outdoor pot plants and 98,000 indoor ones.  In 2009, the unofficial numbers were 7 million and 140,000, respectively.

Try Googling “largest pot bust in history” or “record pot bust.” We get new ones every year, which raises two questions: If each year brings a new record pot bust, how can the war on drugs be working, and second, why haven’t the Guinness Book people called?

The war on drugs, particularly the public policy of marijuana prohibition, is a total failure.  Want a real war on drugs? Start raiding Mommy and Daddy’s medicine cabinet.  ( That is, if their kids aren’t already doing it.  )

Stop wasting money fighting recreational pot use and start making money by decriminalizing it.  It’s the state’s largest cash crop.  Let the private sector grow it, place the same restrictions on it we have for alcohol and cigarettes, let the government tax it, and let law enforcement police the abuse, rather than use, of it.  In addition, you’ll see:

.  A reallocation of interdiction funding towards more serious drugs, like meth.

.  Reduced prison costs by not sending pot smokers to jail.

.  A new job sector as private industry hires people to grow, process, package and market the product ( just as tobacco companies do ).

.  An additional billion dollars which, among other things, would ease police layoffs.

How many officers could Chief Manheimer hire with a billion dollars? More to the point, how many officers’ jobs would be spared? How might such revenue be directed toward prevention, treatment and education, which has proven dramatically successful in reducing, not increasing, teen smoking?

Will usage increase with the passage of AB390? Probably, but probably because regular users who feared buying it illegally will buy it more frequently once it’s legal.  It certainly won’t create a new crop of users since anyone who wants to try it already can, as any teen can tell you.  Parents, not police, can deal with that issue.  They already have, as they have with far more addictive legal drugs, including alcohol and tobacco.  They’ll continue to do so whether pot is decriminalized or not.

Policymakers must distinguish between ideas that sound good and good ideas that are sound.

The war on drugs is an idea that sounds good, but it is not a good idea that is sound.

Frankly, decriminalizing pot would require a level of honesty and pragmatism that is mostly lacking in our elected leaders.  So no matter what you smoke ( or don’t smoke ) don’t hold your breath waiting for lawmakers to address this issue.

Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2010 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: opinion@sacbee.com
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Author: Bruce Maiman

With New Jersey this week poised to become the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana, 81 percent in this national ABC News/Washington Post poll support the idea, up from an already substantial 69 percent in 1997. Indeed the main complaint is with restrictions on access, as in the New Jersey law.

Click here for PDF with charts and questionnaire. – http://abcnews.go.com/images/PollingUnit/1100a3MedicalMarijuana.pdf

Fifty-six percent say that if it’s allowed, doctors should be able to prescribe medical marijuana to anyone they think it can help. New Jersey’s measure, which is more restrictive than most, limits prescriptions to people with severe illnesses. State health officials can add to the list.

Decriminalize?: Apart from medical marijuana, there have been recent efforts to decriminalize marijuana more broadly in some states. A preliminary vote on one such measure is to be held in the Washington state Legislature this week. In California organizers say they’ve collected enough signatures to hold a statewide referendum on the issue next fall.

And a separate proposal in California to legalize and tax the drug cleared a legislative committee last week. A Field poll there in April found 56 percent support for the idea, which its backers say would raise $1.3 billion a year.

Nationally, this survey finds 46 percent support for legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use the same as it was last spring, and well above its level in past years, for example 39 percent in 2002 and 22 percent in 1997.

Groups: Age is a factor. Just 23 percent of senior citizens favor legalizing marijuana for personal use; that jumps to 51 percent of adults under age 65. There are political and ideological differences as well: Thirty percent of conservatives and 32 percent of Republicans favor legalization, compared with 49 percent of independents, 53 percent of Democrats and more than half of moderates and liberals alike (53 and 63 percent, respectively).

Medical marijuana, for its part, receives majority support across the political and ideological spectrum, from 68 percent of conservatives and 72 percent of Republicans as well as 85 percent of Democrats and independents and about nine in 10 liberals and moderates. Support slips to 69 percent among seniors, vs. 83 percent among all adults under age 65.

There are similar divisions on whether medical marijuana should be restricted or made available to anyone a doctor thinks it would help. Overall, 56 percent, as noted, prefer no restrictions, while 21 percent say it should be limited to terminally ill patients and an additional 21 percent say it should be limited to those with serious but not necessarily terminal illnesses.

Liberals are 23 points more apt than conservatives, and Democrats 20 points more likely than Republicans, to oppose restrictions. There’s also a difference between the sexes, with men 10 points more likely than women to say the doctor should decide.

But the main difference is whether people think marijuana should be permitted for medical uses in the first place. Among supporters, 63 percent would rely on the doctor’s discretion. Among those who oppose medical marijuana, 75 percent say that if it is allowed, it should be limited to seriously or terminally ill patients.

New Jersey passed its medical marijuana law this month and outgoing Gov. Jon Corzine is expected to sign it tomorrow morning, his last day in office. Medical marijuana first became legal in California in 1996, followed by Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state.

Methodology: This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 12-15, 2010, among a random national sample of 1,083 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents, with an oversample of African Americans (weighted to their correct share of the population) for a total of 153 black respondents. Results for the full sample have a 3.5-point error margin.

Sampling, data collection and tabulation by TNS of Horsham, PA.

Note: ABC News/Washington Post Poll: 81 Percent Support Legalizing Marijuana for Medical Use.

Source: ABC News (US Web)
Author: Gary Langer
Published: January 18, 2010
Copyright: 2010 ABC News Internet Ventures
Website: http://www.abcnews.go.com/
URL: http://tiny.cc/RxBzi

Nederland resident and former town Trustee Michael “Michigan Mike” Torpie said Monday that he has gathered enough signatures to put a measure on the ballot for the town’s April 6 election asking voters to essentially legalize marijuana.

The question, which Torpie said was certified Thursday, will ask voters to legalize the possession, distribution, consumption, cultivation and transportation of marijuana or any of its derivatives — such as the hashish concentrate — along with possession and use of marijuana paraphernalia for anyone 21 or older.

The town clerk was out of town Monday and unavailable to confirm that the measure is finalized.

Torpie said he was inspired to work toward a ballot question after voters in Breckenridge overwhelmingly agreed in November to legalize the adult possession of up to 1 ounce of marijuana.

“I heard after the fact that Breckenridge had legalized marijuana,” said Torpie, 41. “I said, ‘Wow, you could just do that?’ We should have done it first.”

Torpie, who needed to gather the support of at least 65 of Nederland’s 1,283 registered voters to have the question appear on the ballot, said he’s supporting the movement to promote civil liberties.

“I am about free choice of people,” he said. “Adults should be able to do what they want. We shouldn’t have the government saying what we can and can’t do.”

Still, he said he knows local police can choose to enforce state and federal laws — which still define marijuana as a controlled substance — at their discretion.

“It’s important for people to remember that this measure is largely symbolic,” Torpie conceded. “Really, it won’t change anything.”

Instead, Torpie hopes the town will approve the change and join other municipalities in sending a message to lawmakers that marijuana is becoming more acceptable.

Police Chief: ‘It’s a Bad Idea’

Ken Robinson, Nederland’s chief of police, said he is unequivocally opposed to any such ballot question.

If anything, Robinson warned that doing away with local ordinances — some of which make the possession of pot or pot paraphernalia minor offenses — would leave officers with no choice but to write tickets under state laws. That could mean stiffer penalties and criminal records for possession of even small amounts of marijuana.

“We’re not going to ignore violations of the law,” Robinson said. “If there is no legal consequences (of a ballot measure) except to hurt people that use small amounts, I think it’s a bad idea.”

But Nederland Trustee Sumaya Abu-Haidar said she thinks it’s important for the town to take a stand on marijuana, one way or the other.

“It’s an important issue, and it’s going to be a big one for Nederland,” she said. “It’s a discussion that’s going to happen not only on the state level, but more broadly in the country.”

A Festival of Green

Meanwhile, organizers of the annual Peak to Peak Music Festival are petitioning the town trustees next week to allow a two-day music and art festival that promotes and is centered around medicinal marijuana.

The Peak to Peak Cannabis Festival would be held July 17-18 at the town’s Guercio Ball Field and would draw an estimated 1,500 to 3,000 people a day. It would feature folk music, massage therapists, medical-marijuana dispensaries and an area specifically set aside for patients to use the plant.

Cynthia Davis, one of the organizers of the proposed festival, said Colorado is undergoing a transformation in how marijuana is viewed legally and socially.

“We feel that there needs to be an increasing amount of education to the public regarding the actual uses of cannabis,” Davis said, including its use as an “energy source.”

She said the festival would not allow the smoking of marijuana, or any form of recreational marijuana use. Instead, attendees with medical-marijuana prescription cards would be able to buy the drug from a variety of dispensaries on site and eat it, drink it as a tincture extract or inhale it through a vaporizer in tents set away from the general public.

“It’s geared around art, it’s geared around music and it’s geared around this plant that has 25,000 uses,” Davis said.

The festival would not, she emphasized, become a “pot rally,” as some in the community have feared.

‘As It Is, We’ve Got a Frozen Dead Guy’

Nederland Mayor Martin Cheshes is among those who oppose the festival.

“This is a very pretty town, and it’s got a lot going for it,” he said. “As it is, we’ve got a frozen dead guy, and that’s what we’re known for. I’d hate to add (marijuana) to that reputation.”

The town’s annual “Frozen Dead Guy Days” celebrates the frozen remains of Bredo Morstoel.

Cheshes said he doesn’t think the town should be getting into the business of legislating, or promoting, things that are banned by state or federal laws.

“That’s not our business,” he said.

But Trustee Betty Porter said plans for the festival are well thought out and geared toward education more than the glorification of drugs.

“A lot of people hear the word ‘cannabis,’ and they flare up,” she said. “Personally, I can’t see anything they’re proposing that would justify denying the application.”

If You Go:

What: Nederland hearing on proposed Peak to Peak Cannabis Festival

When: 7 p.m. Jan. 19

Where: Nederland Community Center, 750 Colo. 72 north

How to comment:

Nederland residents may comment about the plans for a two-day Peak to Peak Cannabis Festival by attending the Board of Trustees’ meeting Jan. 19, or by sending comments via e-mail to: Christi@town.nederland.co.us For more information, call 303-258-3266, ext. 23.

Changing the law:

Nederland voters in April will get the chance to vote on legalizing marijuana. Here’s what the question asks:

Shall the electors of the town of Nederland adopt an amendment to the Nederland town code, effective June 1, 2010, removing all criminal penalties under town law to buy, sell, possess, consume, transport, cultivate, manufacture and dispense marijuana and its concentrates and related paraphernalia by persons twenty one years of age or older?

Source: Daily Camera (Boulder, CO)
Author: Heath Urie, Camera Staff Writer
Published: January 11, 2010
Copyright: 2010 The Daily Camera
Website: http://www.dailycamera.com/
Contact: openforum@dailycamera.com

.  Reduce marijuana consumption by children.

.  Stop or reduce the violence that accompanies the growing and distribution of marijuana.

.  Stop or reduce the corruption that accompanies the growing and distribution of marijuana.

.  Stop or reduce crime both by people trying to get money to purchase marijuana and by those under its influence.

.  Reduce the harm to people who consume marijuana.

.  Reduce the number of people we must put into our jails and prisons.

California’s Initiative to Tax, Control and Regulate Cannabis – which will appear on the November ballot will accomplish each of those goals.  Our present policy of marijuana prohibition will never accomplish any of them – prohibition has been pursued since the early 1970s, and the entire situation has gotten demonstrably worse.

As an added benefit ( no small thing during these challenging times ) the initiative will generate billions of dollars in revenue to fund essential services, according to studies by the Board of Equalization and the Legislative Analyst’s Office.

By allowing each city in California the option to devise a program for the regulated sale of cannabis to adults, marijuana would soon become less available for children.  Why? Ask young people and they will tell you that currently it is easier for them to obtain marijuana than alcohol.  That’s because today’s illegal marijuana dealers don’t ask for ID!

The initiative contains significant safeguards and controls: It increases the penalty for providing marijuana to minors, expressly prohibits public consumption, forbids smoking marijuana while minors are present and bans possession on school grounds.

Regulating cannabis will put street drug dealers and organized crime out of business just as the repeal of alcohol prohibition put the Al Capones of booze out of business.  This will allow police to redirect their resources toward protecting the public by preventing violent crime.

Most of the health risks of the usage of marijuana today are caused by its unknown strength and unknown purity.  For example, sometimes the illicit marijuana has been laced with methamphetamines.  But the FDA resolved virtually all of these problems with over-the-counter and prescription drugs years ago, just as the repeal of alcohol prohibition virtually eliminated the “bathtub gin” impurity problems.

Under this initiative, all crimes committed by people under the influence of marijuana would still be prosecuted, just like we do today with alcohol-related offenses.  Holding people accountable for their actions, instead of what they put into their own bodies, is a truly legitimate criminal justice function.

Source: Sacramento Bee (CA)
Copyright: 2010 The Sacramento Bee
Contact: opinion@sacbee.com
Website: http://www.sacbee.com/
Author: James P. Gray

A push by City Council members to regulate the medical marijuana industry and restrict where dispensaries can locate appears to have prompted a surge in sales-tax license applications, city officials say.

As of last week, Denver had issued more than 300 sales-tax licenses for dispensaries.  That number slightly exceeds the number of Starbucks coffee shops in Denver and surrounding areas, calculated within a 50-mile radius.  It is roughly twice the number of the city’s public schools.  It exceeds the number of retail liquor stores in Denver by about a third.

The pace picked up, acting City Treasurer Steve Ellington said, after the council put the public on notice that restrictions are coming on where new dispensaries can set up shop.  ( The increase also followed an opinion from Attorney General John Suthers that medical marijuana was not exempt from sales-tax laws.  )

At least 170 of the dispensaries got sales-tax licenses in December.

Ellington said his office is getting about 25 sales-tax applications a day for dispensaries.

That pace prompted the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws to recently name Denver “America’s Cannabis Capital.”

On a per capita basis, there are now slightly more medical marijuana dispensaries with a sales-tax license in Denver than there are dispensaries in the city of Los Angeles, where medical marijuana has attracted national media attention.

To receive a Denver sales-tax license, dispensaries must show they have a location where they plan to do business and must show they plan to open up within 90 days.

Possessing a license doesn’t mean a dispensary is operating, but that its owners have applied to collect taxes at a specific location within 90 days.

The state constitution’s Amendment 20, passed by voters in 2000, legalized medical marijuana.  The amendment created a patient registry but did not specify how the system of “caregivers” would be set up.  As a result, dispensaries have cropped up across the state, offering medical marijuana with little or no regulation or zoning.

New regulations under consideration could reshape the dimensions of the medical marijuana industry in Denver.

A majority of the Denver City Council seems intent on restricting dispensaries from locating within 1,000 feet of one another.  Most council members also want to ban dispensaries from operating within 1,000 feet of schools or child-care facilities.

The council met in committee recently and grappled with determining a deadline for when those new restrictions should take effect.  The committee ended up forwarding to the full council a proposal that would allow those dispensaries that had a sales-tax license on or before Jan.  1, 2010, to escape the new distance requirements.

Some council members wanted an earlier deadline, which would winnow down the number of dispensaries.

If the council moved the sales-tax deadline up to before Dec.  1, more than 100 of the dispensaries would be in violation of the new distance regulations, the treasury department determined.

Councilman Charlie Brown, who is pushing the package of regulations, said he now wants to move the active sales-tax deadline to Dec.  15 as a compromise between council members wanting a tighter deadline and those who want looser restrictions.  The treasury department is preparing a new analysis that would determine how that Dec.  15 deadline would affect dispensaries.

Brown said he thinks the marketplace will end up thinning out many of those rushing to get into the dispensary business anyway and will bring the number of dispensaries down to a lower level.  He adds that new criminal background checks that the council probably will require also probably will shut down some operators.

The full council is scheduled to meet Monday to give initial consideration to the regulations, which would bar people who have completed any portion of a felony sentence within the past five years from opening a dispensary.

The regulations also would bar on-site consumption of medical marijuana at dispensaries.

The council is scheduled to meet again Jan.  11 for a public hearing and final consideration of the new regulations.

Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2010 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Author: Christopher N. Osher, The Denver Post