"Radical" Russ Belville is a blogger, podcaster, and host of The Russ Belville Show, a daily two-hour talk radio show focused on the evolution of the legal marijuana industry in the United States. The program is airing live at 3pm Pacific Time from Portland, Oregon, on CannabisRadio.com, with podcast available on iTunes and Stitcher Radio. Russ began his marijuana activism in 2005 with Oregon NORML, then in 2009 went on to work for National NORML, and found and direct Portland NORML.in 2015.
Big thanks to the office of my congressman, Earl Blumenauer. They have put together a matrix of all the marijuana bills still circulating in the 114th Congress (H.R. = House Resolutions, S. = Senate):
R. 262 – States’ Medical Marijuana Property Rights Protection Act – Prevents the Department of Justice from initiating civil asset forfeiture proceedings against property owners of state-sanctioned medical marijuana treatment centers.
R. 1774 – Compassionate Access Act – Directs Administration to schedule marijuana at a place other than Schedule I; removes CBD from the definition of marijuana; includes research related provisions.
R. 1635 – Charlotte’s Web Medical Hemp Act – Excludes “therapeutic hemp” from the definition of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act. Therapeutic hemp is defined as marijuana with less than 0.3% THC.
R. 667 – The Veterans Equal Access Act – Requires the Secretary of Veterans Affairs to authorize physicians and other health care workers employed by the VA to provide recommendations and opinions regarding the participation of a veteran in a state medical marijuana program. This includes authorizing them to fill out any forms involved in the process of recommending medical marijuana.
683 / H.R. 1538 – CARERS Act of 2015 – Compilation of a number of medical marijuana related provisions, including provisions relating to veterans access, state rights, CBD, medical marijuana research. Also includes banking provision for both medical and adult use.
R. 1014 – Marijuana Tax Revenue Act – Creates a federal excise tax on federally legal marijuana sales.
R. 1013 – Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act – Removes marijuana from the CSA Schedule; creates a federal regulatory framework for marijuana.
134 / H.R. 525 – Industrial Hemp Farming Act – Amends the Controlled Substances Act to exclude industrial hemp from the definition of marijuana, and for other purposes.
R. 3124 – Clean Slate for Marijuana Offenses Act – To permit the expungement of records of certain federal marijuana-related offenses.
987 / H.R. 1855 – Small Business Tax Equity Act – Amends Internal Revenue Code to allow for tax deductions for normal business expenses for marijuana businesses operating in compliance with state law.
1726 / H.R. 2076 – Marijuana Businesses Access to Banking Act – Creates protections for depository institutions that provide financial services to marijuana-related businesses.
Make sure you get in contact with your representative and your senators and tell them to support these acts!
Rachel Alexander is a columnist at the conservative web site Town Hall. Today, in a piece entitled, “No One Serves Jail Time for Smoking Pot”, this former county prosecutor and editor of The Intellectual Conservative explains that “Smoking pot has actually been ‘de facto’ legalized across the U.S. The police look the other way, even if a neighbor rats on someone.”
For evidence, Alexander links to a report by the ONDCP’s office from John Walters’ tenure. He was George W. Bush’s Drug Czar from 2001-2009. According to that report:
In 1997, the year for which the most recent data are available, just 1.6 percent of the state inmate population were held for offenses involving only marijuana, and less than one percent of all state prisoners (0.7 percent) were incarcerated with marijuana possession as the only charge, according to the U.S. Department of Justice’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). An even smaller fraction of state prisoners in 1997 who were convicted just for marijuana possession were first-time offenders (0.3 percent).
Ignore for a moment that if her data were a person, it would be of legal age to vote by now. The statistics now aren’t that different. Those numbers do sound small; just 1.6 percent of state prisoners are there for marijuana, just 0.7 percent only for marijuana, and 0.3 percent for first-time marijuana charges.
Until you realize that as of 2005, there were 1,284,428 inmates in state correctional facilities in the United States. So that’s an estimate of 20,551 serving time for marijuana, 8,991 of them with marijuana as the only charge, and of them, 3,853 are first-time offenders.
So “No One Serves Jail Time For Smoking Pot” is just factually inaccurate. But Alexander attempts to deflect even those numbers by arguing that “the only time someone is sentenced to jail for smoking pot is if there is a more serious crime they are clearly guilty of, and the prosecutor or judge wants to give them a lighter sentence.” She describes repeat offenders who go free on technicalities and judges who want to go easy on thieves and burglars by slapping them on the wrist for pot possession.
I’ve been convicted of marijuana possession in Utah. The “more serious crime” I was guilty of was riding in a car which had window tinting too dark a shade under Utah law. That was the pretext for the freeway stop that actually began eight miles earlier when we stopped at the gas station. A sheriff parked there noticed the dreadlocked Rastafarian who was traveling with us. For my first time, non-violent marijuana offense I got to spend eight hours in jail and $5,000 bailing us out, despite the fact that I was not in possession of marijuana. Luckily, I’m self-employed, or my conviction could have meant the end of my job, followed by difficulty finding new work since I’d have to check the “have you been convicted of crime” box on the job application, and who knows, homelessness?
This argument by Alexander is a well-worn tactic by prohibitionists I call the Marijuana Minimization. Cops don’t look for it, nobody really gets busted for it, and if they do, it’s a slap on the wrist. But there are two main problems with this tactic. One, we see 700,000 arrests for marijuana every year in this country; obviously cops are looking for it. Two, if nobody’s really enforcing marijuana laws, why do we bother keeping them on the books?
Well, the reason why is because marijuana prohibition is a culture war that provides police with an extra-constitutional tool to investigate crimes and reap financial rewards. Are you a cop with a hunch that group of young black men on the street corner look suspicious? Claim you smell weed, stop and frisk them, and there may be a chance you find some. Then that weed rap can be used as a bargaining chip to get him to rat on someone else. Do you think that driver is up to no good? Pull them over for some pretext and use the K-9 to alert – whether there are drugs present or not – and you can then rummage through their car and potentially get to seize their cash and property. If you find them with some weed, now you get to collect their mugshot and fingerprints for the future.
It’s not that marijuana prohibition is leading to prisons packed with pot smokers; that’s the strawman Alexander wants to fight. The problem is that marijuana prohibition leads to arrests, sitting in jail, being booked, paying bail, going to court, being on probation, submitting to urine screens, paying fines, doing community service, paying for rehab, and being a “drug criminal” for the rest of your life, judged to be a risk by potential employers, landlords, governments, even your kid’s Little League team or Boy Scout troop when you apply to be a leader of youth.
I have to laugh every time I read a small-government, fiscally-conservative, individual-responsibility, states-rights, strict-Constitutionalist, pro-liberty right-winger voice such support for the big-government, multi-billion-dollar budgeted, nanny-state, Federalist, anti-freedom war on marijuana.
My conversation yesterday with prohibitionist author Dr. Ed Gogek MD included one portion where he made the claim that alcohol itself was no more dangerous than black tar heroin or crystal meth, but so many more people die from alcohol because it is legally accessible. So, apparently, because alcohol is legal and kills thousands of people, we must keep prohibited the marijuana that never kills anybody.
That bit of logical fallacy inspired today’s sharable graphic on a study released just this year comparing the relative risks of drugs of abuse. Previous studies had compared the ratio of effective dose (ED50) to lethal dose (LD50) to calculate a so-called therapeutic ratio. This method was criticized by some as failing to account for real-world use of these drugs, overemphasizing the dangers of some while minimizing the dangers of others.
The new methods is one called “Margin of Exposure”. It calculates the ratio between the “typical use” of a drug versus the “benchmark dose” at which adverse effects are felt. Thus, typical use might be more or less than the effective dose where a “high” is felt; infrequent users may not reach that point and users with tolerance may surpass that point. Benchmark dose doesn’t have to be the point at which drug users die; it can be the point at which they’re having an adverse reaction.
Measuring with Margin of Exposure, the researchers could drill down to the effect of individual daily drug use and compare that with the aggregate use by an entire population, from infrequent to chronic users.
Comparing alcohol, heroin, cocaine, nicotine, MDMA (ecstasy), meth, methadone, amphetamines, diazepam (Valium), and marijuana, here’s what the researchers found:
On yesterday’s episode of The Russ Belville Show, I interviewed Dr. Ed Gogek MD. He is a thirty-year addiction specialist and author of “Marijuana Debunked: A handbook for parents, pundits, and politicians who want to know the case against legalization.”
It’s rare to get a real live prohibitionist to talk about why we should keep ticketing, arresting, and imprisoning marijuana consumers. During the interview, I asked why I should be punished for my marijuana use and why I should be forced to buy marijuana from criminals. Dr. Gogek was prepared to argue about harm to teens and the addictive qualities of marijuana. He wasn’t at all prepared to discuss the actual results of legalization over the past three years in Colorado and Washington. He definitely wasn’t ready to discuss why his love of prohibition doesn’t extend to alcohol, a far more harmful substance.
But the piece of the discussion I most enjoyed was a blast from the past. Dr. Gogek conjured the ghosts of former president Richard Nixon and late TV variety host Art Linkletter to explain how many drinkers just drink alcohol to be social and for their love of the taste of it, while marijuana consumers only smoke pot to get high. Here’s how Nixon and Linkletter explained it over four decades ago:
NIXON: Well, you know, I suppose they can say that alcoholics can’t think straight, too, can’t they?
LINKLETTER: Yeah, but they’re different [inaudible] very different. The thing with marijuana and alcohol is that when people smoke marijuana, they smoke it to get high, in every case. When most people drink, they drink to be social.
NIXON: That’s right, that’s right.
LINKLETTER: They sit down with a marijuana cigarette to get high…
NIXON: A person does not drink to get drunk.
LINKLETTER: That’s right.
NIXON: A person drinks to have fun.
LINKLETTER: Most marijuana users…
NIXON: …you wanna get a charge…
LINKLETTER: Right now.
NIXON: …you wanna get a charge, smoking this and that and the other thing.
What I love about prohibitionists making what I call The Linkletter Gambit is that it is a tacit admission that their anti-drug crusade is nothing but a culture war. To claim drinkers are being social, but the group of strangers passing a joint around a circle are not is ludicrous on its face. If you want to see how social a group of drinkers really are, replace all the beer with O’Doul’s (non-alcoholic beer) and replace all the wine with grape juice, and see just how social that party becomes.
The fact is that many experienced cannabis consumers partake of marijuana at many different levels for many different reasons. While a can of beer, a glass of wine, or a shot of whiskey will each get you equally drunk, smoking an indica, a sativa, or a hybrid can have vastly different effects. With the instantaneous onset of inhaled cannabinoids, marijuana consumers actually have a better means of adjusting their dosage to match their activity level., whether it be a huge bongload of indica to relax muscles after a long workday or a small puff of sativa to prime the creative juices before writing this article.
I asked Dr. Gogek why all his arguments for ticketing, rehabbing, arresting, and imprisoning marijuana consumers and cannabis growers isn’t a better argument for re-prohibiting alcohol and banning tobacco. Dr. Gogek said he’s all for criminal bans on tobacco, but rationalized not prohibiting alcohol because drinking has been a part of all cultures for thousands of years and is only legal “by accident”.
Officials in Waller County, Texas, have released the toxicology report from the autopsy of Sandra Bland, the woman who died in police custody following traffic stop, showing no illicit drugs in her system, aside from 18 nanograms of active THC, the psychoactive molecule in marijuana.
According to experts, such a high reading either indicates that Bland was a consistent heavy user of marijuana with already high THC levels that released over time, or she had access to and used marijuana within the Waller County jail. However, Robert Johnson with the Tarrant County medical examiner’s office told Associated Press, “I have never seen a report in the literature or from any other source of residual THC that high three days after someone stops using the drug.”
Bruce Goldberger, president of the American Board of Forensic Toxicology, said Bland had a “remarkably high concentration” of THC for someone who had been abstinent for three days. Indeed, research by Dr. Erin Karschner backs up that assertion.
Karschner’s work, “Do Δ9-Tetrahydrocannabinol Concentrations Indicate Recent Use in Chronic Cannabis Users?”, was published in the journal Addiction in 2009. She took 25 frequent marijuana users, including 11 African-American females, and subjected them to seven days of monitored abstinence. The greatest reading for THC levels after three days was 3.2ng/mL.
Dashcam video of Bland at her traffic stop showed no indication of someone currently high on marijuana. She maintains lane integrity and a lawful speed. After she’s stopped and exits the vehicle, she does not appear to be impaired to any degree. She’s then arrested and presumably searched, with no marijuana found on her person. None of the police reports or jail paperwork gives any indication that cops or jailers found her to be high.
How does one ingest marijuana in a county jail and not get caught? It’s hard imagining how smelly, bulky marijuana got missed in a search of Bland’s person. It’s harder still to imagine how Bland would smoke that without detection when police claim to have checked her at 7am and she died around 9am.
Perhaps it was marijuana in an edible form. She couldn’t have just eaten marijuana buds; without decarboxylization (heating the bud) it wouldn’t get her high. More likely it was some form of marijuana edible. Unless Bland hid that in her clothes and found a hiding place for it in the cell before she was stripped and changed into the orange jail clothing, it would have to be smuggled into the jail by a third party. Who was that third party who got marijuana edibles to Sandra Bland in her cell?
The assistant district attorney made a huge deal about how Bland’s ligature wounds were consistent with self-hanging and not any sort of violent homicide. But who says homicides have to be violent? Large doses of THC in marijuana edibles have been known to render users unconscious. Could Bland have been slipped a megadose THC cookie? Could that small paper cup in one of the jail photos have been one that held a couple 20ng Marinol (synthetic THC) pills?
If we dismiss the conspiracy thinking about her death, we’re left with the reality that Sandra Bland likely acquired and used marijuana while in the Waller County Jail, in addition to inexplicably being given access to a plastic trash bag long and strong enough to hang oneself with, after having supposedly mentioned suicidal ideation in her past. We’re supposed to believe that a vibrant young activist against police brutality, who just landed her dream job at her alma mater, who couldn’t wait for her day in court to address her police mistreatment, after three days in jail without bail somehow got ahold of marijuana in jail, got depressed, and hanged herself in a cell conveniently out of camera view.
Right. Sure. Uh-huh. The marijuana that made Trayvon Martin aggressive, made Michael Brown impervious to bullets, and made Jared Loughner shoot a congresswoman, made Sandra Bland depressed enough to suicide shortly before she could have been bailed out of jail.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have issued a dire warning about the potential dangers of marijuana edibles death after a nineteen-year-old who consumed marijuana products died from a fall last April.
According to the National Survey on Drug Abuse & Health (NSDUH) figures for 2013, over one-in-eight Americans aged 12 and older (12.6 percent) consumed a marijuana product that year. Of those 33 million Americans, consumption was greatest in the 18-to-25-year-old age group. Almost a third of young adults (32 percent) consumed marijuana in 2013, or about 11 million people.
Levy Thamba was a nineteen-year-old student from Wyoming who visited Colorado last year with some friends. One friend over the age of 21 purchased marijuana-infused cookies legally from a marijuana store. The clerk instructed the friend that the cookie was six servings, or a cookie containing 60mg of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana (it was actually 65ng). The clerk also told him to consume only one-sixth of the cookie and to wait to feel the effects.
Thamba ate his one-sixth portion, but upon not feeling effects up to an hour later, he ate the rest of the cookie. For the next two hours, he behaved erratically and bizarrely, leading to his leap off of the hotel balcony, falling to his death four floors below. Thamba’s autopsy showed him to have 7.2ng of active THC per milliliter of blood in his system. Colorado’s presumptive stoned-driving limit is 5ng of active THC.
“This case illustrates a potential danger associated with recreational edible marijuana use,” writes the CDC about the estimated 2014 rate of 0.000003% annual deaths per marijuana consumer, a rate that triples to 0.000009% annual deaths per 18-25-year-old marijuana consumers. “Consuming a large dose of THC can result in a higher THC concentration, greater intoxication, and an increased risk for adverse psychological effects,” concludes the CDC, suggesting, “a need for improved public health messaging to reduce the risk for overconsumption of THC.”
In comparison, according to the World Health Organization, “alcohol is involved in up to 30% of adult hospital admissions, particularly those to emergency rooms.” The CDC reports that “alcohol is a main factor in one of seven deaths among Colorado adults between the ages of 20 years old and 64 years old.”
Let’s make sure we really amp up the fear over the death of one student who over-consumed marijuana products and fell off a balcony, so we can drive home the message that you must consume marijuana edibles in small doses over lengthy periods of time. Maybe we could place that message in-between a couple of the beer ads during televised college sporting events.
The Danish National Institute of Public Health has released new figures showing that high school students are rejecting alcohol and hard drugs in favor of marijuana.
Over the past two decades, marijuana use among male high school students has almost doubled and use among female high school students has increased by half. In 1996, about one-in-four male teenage Danes (26 percent) had tried marijuana and about one-in-five female teenage Danes (19 percent) had tried marijuana. Today, half of all males (50 percent) and almost one-third of all females (31 percent) have tried marijuana.
Among the Danish teens, about one-in-eight (12 percent) report using marijuana in the past month. Over one-in-five males say they’ve used marijuana at least ten times. Overall, among all Danes of any age, over one-third (35.6 percent) say they have tried marijuana. That’s the greatest rate of marijuana experience among the entire European Union, even besting the famously cannabis-tolerant Dutch with their legal cannabis coffee shops.
For the sake of comparison, the Monitoring the Future (MTF) survey of US 12th graders shows that half of teens of both sexes have tried marijuana, a figure that’s shown a decline since the 2000 high of 57 percent. However, current monthly use is greater in America, at over one-in-five (21.2 percent).
While marijuana use among the youth has increased in Denmark, their drinking rates have shown a decline. The final figures haven’t been released yet, but project leader Pernille Bendtsen told Danish broadcasting that “There are a little bit fewer who drink often while there are more who have tried smoking cannabis. Therefore you could say that there has been a shift in the use of drugs and alcohol.”
Among US teens, drinking is also on a downward trend. For US 12th graders according to MTF, three-quarters were drinking monthly in the early 1980s. That dropped to half by the late 1990s and now, monthly drinking among high school seniors is below two-in-five (40 percent) for the first time ever. Binge drinking (five or more in a row) has also dropped by half, from over 40 percent in the 1980s to under 20 percent now.
The figures for use of drugs other than marijuana by Danish youth have shown a recent drastic decline. About one-in-twenty-five Danes aged 16-24 (3.9 percent) had used a drug other than marijuana in the past year, down by more than half since just 2008.
In the US, according to the annual National Survey on Drug Use & Health, about one-in-six Americans aged 16-25 (16.2 percent) have used a drug other than marijuana in the past year. That’s down from 18.4 percent from 2008, and from a full one-quarter (25 percent) since 1982.
In other words, despite the great differences in these two countries, over time young people have shifted their drug choices from alcohol and hard drugs to marijuana. It’s almost as if they realize it’s a far safer alternative. We’d prefer minors not use any drugs, but if they’re going to, at least they’re increasingly choosing the one that cannot kill them.
The Blue Ribbon Commission on Marijuana Policy, led by California Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, released its “Pathways Report: Policy Options for Regulating Marijuana in California”. The report has been eagerly awaited by the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, or ReformCA, to serve as a guiding document for the language of their forthcoming marijuana legalization initiative.
According to the Commission’s statement, “the report draws from the research and public forums of the Blue Ribbon Commission to provide a comprehensive view of the strategies, policy goals, and policy options available to Californians as they consider the legalization and taxation of marijuana policy.” Some of those principles of guidance include:
Promote the public interest by… protecting California’s youth and promoting public health and safety.
Reduce the size of the illicit market to the greatest extent possible.
Offer legal protection to responsible actors in the marijuana industry who strive to work within the law.
Capture and invest tax revenue through a fair system of taxation and regulation.
The Commission also recommends the following goals for any group seeking to legalize marijuana by ballot initiative in California:
Limit youth access to marijuana, including its concurrent use with alcohol and tobacco, and regulate edible products that may appeal to children.
Ensure that our streets, schools and communities remain safe, while adopting measures to improve public safety.
Meet the needs of California’s diverse populations and address racial and economic disparities, replacing criminalization with public health and economic development.
Protect public health, strengthen treatment programs for those who need help and educate the public about health issues associated with marijuana use.
Protect public lands, reduce the environmental harms of illegal marijuana production and restore habitat and watersheds impacted by such cultivation.
Ensure continued access to marijuana for medical and therapeutic purposes for patients.
Provide protections for California consumers, including testing and labeling of cannabis products and offer information that helps consumers make informed decisions.
Extend the same health, safety and labor protections to cannabis workers as other workers and provide for legal employment and economic opportunity for California’s diverse workforce.
Ensure that small and mid-size entities, especially responsible actors in the current market, have access to the new licensed market, and that the industry and regulatory system are not dominated by large, corporate interests.
Considerations for DUID policy, whether medical and recreational systems should be merged or separate, regulating marketing and advertising, methods and amounts of taxation, questions on vertical and horizontal industry integration, local control to opt out, place of consumption vs. California clean air laws, and data collection are all addressed in the 93 page report.
Now that marijuana is becoming re-legalized, expect to see a flurry of new studies showing us some things we’ve always known about cannabis and some things we never would have suspected, like…
CBD helps heal broken bones
Israeli scientists broke some rat bones and then injected them with cannabidiol (CBD). “We found that CBD alone makes bones stronger during healing,” said Dr. Yankel Gabet, one of the lead researchers. “After being treated with CBD, the healed bone will be harder to break in the future.” They also tried injecting the rats with THC + CBD. It didn’t improve the results, but the rats were a lot more mellow about their broken legs.
Cannabis users are less obese and have less diabetes risk
Canadian scientists studied the Inuit, the native people of Nunavik, the northern Arctic province of Canada, and found the marijuana consumers among them had lower body-mass-index measurements, lower body-fat percentages and less insulin resistance. Previous studies have confirmed that correlation between cannabis use and lower insulin resistance, suggesting cannabis could help treat or prevent diabetes.
THC may help prevent the spread of HIV
For seventeen months, Louisiana State University Researcher Dr. Patricia Molina injected THC into monkeys infected with a simian virus similar to HIV. She found that the virus spread slower in those monkeys, corroborating her earlier research showing that THC-treated monkeys had a better survival rate from the simian virus.
Medical marijuana dispensaries reduce opiate overdose deaths
Prescription opiate painkiller abuse is described as “an epidemic” by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Overdoses on these drugs like Oxycontin killed 16,000 people in 2013 – more people than were killed in car crashes. Researchers with the National Bureau of Economic Research have found that access to medical marijuana dispensaries (not merely a medical marijuana law) was associated with a 15 to 35 percent decrease in opiate overdose deaths.
Legalizing marijuana’s message to the kids? Don’t use it.
Despite a doubling in the number of medical marijuana states and legalization of marijuana in two states, between 2002 and 2013, marijuana use among kids went down and their disapproval of marijuana use among their peers went up. The changes were most drastic for the youngsters aged 12 to 14 years. Meanwhile, logically, disapproval among young adults aged 18 to 25 decreased, but use did not appreciably increase.
All eyes are on California as the 2016 election looms large. Legalization of marijuana in the Golden State, many observers believe, will be the tipping point for eventual nationwide legalization. If California prohibition falls, the rest of the states will tumble like dominoes. However, if California legalization fails, it could derail or forestall other states’ legalization efforts.
Last week I detailed the legalization efforts already underway in California and noted that ReformCA, the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, is gearing up to be the best supported and funded effort to legalize in 2016. But I also noted, neutrally, the other six efforts gearing up for legalization, with a short summary of each and a link to its ballot language.
Some have criticized my article as backing ReformCA without yet seeing its unreleased language and that may be fair. Who knows, they could come out arguing for unlimited possession and cultivation by anyone over the age of twelve with mandatory toking and driving! But knowing the people backing ReformCA, I know that what they submit will be sensible, conservative language that will probably allow for amounts similar to what’s legal in four other states now.
What I do know will not pass is language that would allow for recreational use of 1.5 pounds, 5 pounds, or as the perennial Jack Herer Initiative, CCHI, proposes, 12 pounds and 99 flowering plants. Of course, whenever I reject CCHI, I am reminded by its zealots that Californians support CCHI by 56 percent, according to polls!
Ah, yes, the 2013 Field Poll of the summary of the 2014 CCHI which (shock!) didn’t ever come close to making the ballot. Let’s just look this up, shall we?
“When read a summary of the initiative’s official ballot description, 56% say they are inclined to vote yes, while 39% would vote no. Just 5% have no opinion.”
So, what was that official ballot description?
“A new statewide ballot initiative calls for decriminalizing the possession, use and cultivation of marijuana in California…”
The word “decriminalizing” already adds points, as voters perceive that as less allowance than “legalizing”.
“…It also would require a case-by-case review of all persons charged with or convicted of nonviolent marijuana offenses for possible sentence modification or release…”
So far so good.
“…Fiscal impact: Reduced costs in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually to state and local governments. Potential net additional tax revenues in the low hundreds of millions of dollars annually related to the production and sale of marijuana…”
According to the footnote, “Approximately half of the voters interviewed were read a summary of the initiative’s official description with its fiscal impact statement, while the other half were read a summary without the fiscal impact statement.” So, you’ve got half of them enticed to support the measure by the fiscal impact, boosting the numbers.
“…If the election were being held today and you were voting on this marijuana legalization initiative, would you vote YES or NO?”
So, no indication that the legalization they’d be voting for would allow for 12 pounds and 99 plants? So, in 2013, just after Colorado and Washington had legalized a mere ounce and only three mature plants in Colorado, we asked a bunch of Californians if they’d like to legalize, and we told half of them it would make hundreds of millions of dollars? Do you suppose they assumed we’re talking about a mere ounce and a handful of plants, or do you suppose they told the pollster “Wait a second,” ran to the internet, looked up CCHI 2014, saw 12 pounds and 99 plants, and returned to say “YES!” in a 56 percent majority?
If CCHI had any money, they could commission a fair poll that asks “A California initiative for 2016 proposes to legalize marijuana in the amounts of 12 pounds of personal marijuana possession and cultivation of 99 marijuana plants for all adults, would you vote YES or NO?” But they won’t even if they had the money, because they wouldn’t like the numbers they got back.
The only reason I bring this all up is because there is a lot of enthusiasm and effort being put toward CCHI that is also geared up to demonize whatever realistic legalization actually makes the ballot. They’ll say idiotic tripe like passing realistic legalization is “prohibition lite” – seriously, I get people who’ll react to proposed legalization of X amount with “yeah, but people with X+1 amount will still be busted!” Never mind that following legalization of “just” an ounce in Washington and Colorado, arrests for ALL amounts of marijuana declined dramatically (down 63 percent in Washington, down 80 percent in Colorado).
Or they’ll bark “it’ll be an Oakland monopoly!” or “it’ll be corporate weed!” when describing a legalization that requires licensing and regulation and taxation (you know, like every other commodity in the United States). In other words, the same kind of circular firing squad they formed in 2010 to help defeat Proposition 19 – medical marijuana profiteers, greedy growers, and the politically naïve.
Whatever the argument, there’s always a reason for Stoners Against Legalization to vote against anything that isn’t True Legalization™. These guys would be the slaves in 1859 calling for immediate emancipation, civil rights, and the election of the first black president while fighting the other efforts to end slavery because those wouldn’t result in True Freedom.
Support whatever legalization you prefer, but don’t oppose any legalization that makes the ballot. Progress takes steps – it took Jim Crow to get to the Civil Rights Act, it took a six-day work week to get to paid vacations and minimum wage, and it took civil unions to get to gay marriage. Prohibition wasn’t built in a day and it won’t be ended by a single ballot initiative.
The Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform in California has announced the hiring of political consultants Joe Trippi and Jim Gonzalez, as well as the company Progressive Campaigns Inc. to handle the gathering of petition signatures for what will be the ninth initiative filed regarding marijuana laws in California.
Trippi is currently a FOX News commentator who was an adviser for the campaigns of California Gov. Jerry Brown and former presidential candidates Howard Dean and John Edwards. Gonzalez served on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and was instrumental in helping to pass Proposition 215 in 1996, the groundbreaking medical marijuana initiative.
Coalition chairwoman Dale Sky Jones says the campaign has raised almost a half-million dollars from their near 70,000 supporters and plans to raise four million dollars from their supporters, as well as larger donations from drug reform, institutional, and industry supporters to match the ten-to-fourteen million dollars the campaign is estimated to cost.
ReformCA is expected to be the largest, best-funded organization putting forth a plan for California marijuana legalization. Eight other initiatives have already been filed, but it is expected that some of those will fold if their concerns are absorbed within ReformCA’s still-unreleased initiative language, and others will lack the financial support necessary for a robust statewide campaign.
In addition to Jones, who is the chancellor of Oaksterdam University and the prior campaign head for the failed Prop 19 legalization initiative from 2010, ReformCA also has strong institutional support. California NORML and California US Representative Dana Rohrabacher already have endorsed the ReformCA campaign, and it is working closely with Marijuana Policy Project, Drug Policy Alliance, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, Students for Sensible Drug Policy, and Americans for Safe Access — in other words, every major marijuana reform organization.
ReformCA’s proposal is likely to be far more conservative than some of the other initiatives already filed.
The Marijuana Control, Legalization and Revenue Act of 2016 (MCLR) seems to place no limit on how much cannabis one can possess and cultivate, leaving that to be determined by a Cannabis Control Commission set up by the initiative.
The California Artisan Cannabis Initiative of 2016 (CACI) places no limit on how much useable cannabis a person could possess, but does limit a personal garden to six cannabis plants. This initiative takes great care in providing for “craft cannabis” growers who are producing fewer than 100 plants.
The California Cannabis Hemp Initiative of 2016 (CCHI) would allow adults to cultivate 99 mature plants and possess 12 pounds of useable marijuana.
The California Bipartisan Decriminalization of Cannabis Act of 2016 (CBDCA) proposes that adults 21 and older be allowed five pounds of marijuana, a pound of concentrate, and a 500 square foot personal garden. All medical dispensaries would become recreational shops with a 15 percent excise tax and localities could not ban them.
The Responsible Use Act of 2016 (RUA) would allow 1.5 pounds and 12 mature plants. Like CBDCA, RUA would make all medical dispensaries become recreational shops and forbid local bans, but the tax would be $8 per ounce plus up to a 2 percent local tax.
The Community Restoration Act of 2016 to Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis (CRA) has been filed by Alice Huffman of the California NAACP. It may be more conservative than what ReformCA will propose, offering just one ounce of possession in public and a 25 square foot garden, from which adults may possess all their harvest at home.
Plus there are two initiatives dealing solely with amending California’s medical marijuana laws:
The Compassionate and Sensible Access Act of 2016 (CSA) amends California medical marijuana law to end the practice of local bans on medical cultivation and dispensary access.
The Right to Medical Marijuana Act of 2016 (RMMA) adds a simple statement to the California Constitution that “any resident, having obtained the age of 18 years has the right to grow, own, purchase, and obtain a permit from the State to sell organic marijuana for medical use, without a licensed physician’s recommendation or prescription.”
While four US states and the District of Columbia have begun treating marijuana as a legal commercial and personal crop, other nations in the Western Hemisphere are feeling the pull toward marijuana law reform. The South American country of Uruguay lead the way with its legalization plan, followed by Jamaica’s plan to decriminalize marijuana use and cultivation.
Now the west coast country of Chile, which has the greatest marijuana use rates in South America, has embarked on a path toward marijuana legalization for adults.
Chile’s lower house last week voted 68-39 in favor of laws that relax the country’s marijuana laws, some of the most severe on the continent. Currently, cultivating, selling, and trafficking marijuana is punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Under the approved law, adult Chileans will be allowed to cultivate six cannabis plants and possess in public up to ten grams of usable marijuana.
The law isn’t settled yet. It still needs to go through a Chilean health commission for approval. If successful, it will then be voted on by the Chilean Senate. If passed, leftist President Michelle Bachelet is expected to sign it into law.
No, not THAT chili. Chile!
Chile has already begun a government-approved test plot of cannabis grown in one region to investigate the potential for treating cancer with cannabis. However, the proposed law will allow for the use of cannabis for medicinal, recreational, and spiritual purposes.
Chilean Communist politician Karol Cariola was ecstatic about the future of marijuana in Chile, telling Reuters, “It is a historic day for medicinal users who wish to stop being persecuted and be able to access a medicine that they can grow in their gardens.”
But some politicians ask the same question prohibitionists in America often ask, what about the children? There are fears among some that legalization will lead to a rise in use by youths, even though the opposite trend has been seen in the US states of Colorado and Washington.
Sergio Espejo with the Christian Democratic Party explained to Associated Press, “This is a bad project and authorities have been largely absent. It hides the country’s public health tragedy with the increase in the consumption of marijuana among young students.”
Last year, thousands of protestors took to the streets of Santiago, Chile’s capital, to call for the legalization of cannabis, noting the example of Uruguay, which legalized marijuana last May and has not seen any of the dire consequences predicted by Uruguayan prohibitionists.
Last month, the Flandreau Santee Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota legalized the sale and use of marijuana on tribal land. Now the tribe is poised to convert a bowling alley into a marijuana cultivation and processing facility with an adults-only onsite lounge for cannabis consumption.
Marijuana is strictly illegal in South Dakota. It is the only state in the union whose voters have rejected a medical marijuana initiative not once but twice. Possession of marijuana is a misdemeanor with a year in jail and possession of hash is a felony with ten years in prison. Even being in a room where there is marijuana stored can subject South Dakotans to a year in jail!
The Flandreau Santee Sioux are exercising their right as a sovereign nation to legalize marijuana, however, thanks to the Wilkinson Memo. That directive from the Bureau of Indian Affairs stated that sovereign Indian tribes will be as free from federal interference as the individual states when it comes to legalizing marijuana, so long as they follow the eight tenets laid out in the Cole Memo. That memo is what is allowing Colorado, Washington, Oregon, and Alaska to move forward with strictly-controlled legalization that minimizes exposure to minors, interstate trafficking, and criminal activity.
Tribal President Anthony Reider tells KELOLAND TV that the Flandreau tribe has always been “trail blazers” on controversial topics. “We were with the casino,” Reider notes, “we were the second compacted tribe in the United States, the first and largest casino in between Atlantic City and Las Vegas, so [controversy is] something that’s not new to us.”
South Dakota’s Attorney General Marty Jackley has been in talks with the Flandreau and questions their authority to legalize marijuana. Jackley wants guidance from the federal government on his belief that the Wilkinson Memo only gave a green light for legalization of marijuana to the tribes that exist in the states that have legalized marijuana, though nothing in the memo makes that stipulation.
The converted property will still contain a functional bowling alley, game arcade, and bar. Admittance will be limited to adults over 21 and medical marijuana patients over 18. Marijuana and its containers will be tracked with RFID tags. Customers will be limited to a one gram purchase that must be consumed within the lounge area. Reider believes the operation could eventually generate up to a million dollars a month for the tribe.
Citizens of Southern Oregon’s Rogue River Valley have been complaining since 2007 about helicopters spraying herbicides far too close to drinking water sources and residences. In 2011, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rebuked Oregon’s haphazard and shoddy handling of the complaints. But the powerful timber industry continued spraying their forest clear-cuts, sometimes in windy conditions that guaranteed drift into residential and farm areas.
In October 2013, 15 citizens of the Southern Oregon coast town of Cedar Valley complained of health complications after being illegally sprayed with herbicides. The Oregon Department of Agriculture (ODA) bungled the investigation and refused for six months to tell the people what exactly they had been sprayed with that was making them so ill.
Eventually the State of Oregon found that a helicopter pilot, Steve Owen, lied to ODA about what he was spraying on clear-cut forests near the citizens of Cedar Valley, claiming to spray only glysophosphate (Monsanto’s popular RoundUp brand herbicide), when he was actually spraying that plus sulfometuron methyl; imazapyr; triclopyr; and 2,4-d ester. Triclopyr is one of the few herbicides absorbed through skin, leading to rash and sensitization. 2,4-d ester is one of the prime ingredients in Agent Orange that has debilitated so many veterans of the Vietnam War where it was sprayed. It’s also highly toxic to dogs.
The result of ODA’s investigation was a settlement, where ODA dropped the $20,000 fine it levied against Steve Owen and his company, Pacific Air Research, in exchange for not disputing that he lied about what he was spraying too close to people, pets, livestock, and drinking water. For actions ODA found to be “gross negligence and willful misconduct,” they also revoked Owen’s commercial pesticide applicator’s license for one year. By this time next year, Owen can re-apply for his spraying license and by this time in 2018, ODA will remove any trace of the incident from its records.
Enter Oregon State Senator Jeff Kruse, who represents the people who have been poisoned from above by timber companies hiring pesticide sprayers like Pacific Air Research. Last week, the Senate heard the third reading of House Bill 3549, a pesticide buffer-zone bill prompted by these aerial poisonings that now awaits the governor’s signature. Senator Kruse rose to give the following statement (emphasis mine):
“Those people of the South Coast who complained,” Kruse said, “I know for a fact that the chemicals sprayed could, in no way, shape or form, could have caused the reactions they (said they) caused.
“I also know, those people have a long history of substances and adult beverages that might have contributed to it,” he added. “The two chemicals sprayed did not cause the reactions they have, could not have killed their dogs. They were herbicides; I know this for an absolute fact.”
It seems like Senator Kruse has more belief in Monsanto than his own constituents. It’s no surprise that as counties in Southern Oregon began petitioning for local bans on genetically-modified (GMO) crops, Senator Kruse was a key co-sponsor of the so-called Monsanto Protection Act in 2013 that overruled any local bans on GMOs. During his elected career of 19 years, Senator Kruse has accepted 54 campaign donations totaling $35,172 from the forestry industry, which perhaps best explains his views. That haul is bested only by the $47,000 he’s accepted from the pharmaceutical and $54,900 from medical industry, which may explain some of his views on medical marijuana.
I was tagged on Facebook by some of the Washington Medical Marijuana Drama Queens I wrote about last column. The post contained a video of King County Sheriff Urquhart and reps from the state Liquor Control Board having a press conference to discuss how the unlicensed, unregulated dispensaries in the county are going to be shut down.
The No-on-I-502 types showed up to form an angry mob around the press conference, shouting down the sheriff, claiming how terribly the patients will suffer and how the sheriff was “the Mafia” just trying to force the sick to fund “his stores”. Screaming about how the sheriff is taking her “business”, a business that has always been illegal and funded by patients, but it’s the state who’s wrong for making a buck on patients.
Like I said, drama queens. So, once again, I wade into the comments to explain to the boys who’ve cried wolf far too many times that since I-502:
It’s not patients you’re worried about, it’s your profits
So sorry, shouting illegal dispensary owner, that you no longer have your own special rules to play by that required people like me to be arrested and imprisoned. Well, by that I mean “healthy”, not “white”, since proportionally more black people were being arrested and imprisoned. Not that you cared much about that, because nobody else’s suffering compares to you making money on the sick.
Oh, wait, I’m sorry, you and your customers, er, patients, STILL get your own rules to play by in Washington. You get to grow 6 plants (or more if your doctor says so), I get to grow none. You get to form four-person co-ops to grow 60 plants, I don’t get to. You don’t have to pay sales tax, I do. You get to possess three ounces, I only get one.
Comprehensive comparison of state medical marijuana programs, sorted by plant and possession limits
Your new patient limits, by the way, drop you from having the best medical marijuana program of 24 states to about 6th. You’re one of just over half the states (13/24) that allow all patients to home grow. Only five states allow more possession, only three have a voluntary registry like yours, and you’re one of just over half the states (13/24) that cover the Big 8 conditions (cancer, HIV/AIDS, glaucoma, cachexia, spasms, seizures, nausea, and pain).
And the price? Shit, the price of weed, even with your ridiculous 25%+25%+25% I-502 tax, is the second-lowest in the nation! I just saw a $225 ounce of primo Skunk #1 in Vancouver – with tax. Patients in 22 other states wish the weed was as cheap. Sorry, that should’ve read 19 states, since the last three medical marijuana states don’t allow you to have bud. Or, it should have read 48 states, since every other state in the nation has higher weed prices except Oregon.
Now the legislature dropped your tax to one 37% tax. Economic analysts predict at least a 25%, perhaps a 50% drop in price as that tax relief at the production level is eliminated and retailers can reduce markup thanks to how the tax restructuring changes federal tax filing. Oh, how the patients will suffer with $125 ounces!
Then there’s Oregon. As of October 1, we’re likely to be selling marijuana tax-free to all adults from our medical marijuana dispensaries, of which there are over 250. That will absolutely crash the price and all those Vancouver shops making money on Portlanders will wither, forcing them to cut their price, and a ripple effect will work northward (and eastward) as Oregon and Washington compete over the pot market.
Achieving Political Ends By Shouting Really Loudly
Did you ever stop to think about optics during the I-502 campaign? Imagine your average soccer mom who is generally ambivalent about politics and cautiously against marijuana solely because she worries about her kids.
She’s watching the news one day when a raven-haired professional-looking lady comes on the screen, claiming to be the campaign director for legalizing marijuana. Her? Why, she looks like me, thinks the soccer mom.
Soccer mom listens awhile and is beginning to believe the lady’s message. Yeah, drug dealers don’t check ID. Taxes for schools would be nice. Maybe legalization will work.
Then the lady is followed by a tall, boyishly good looking man. Say, isn’t that the Europe travel guy from PBS? He’s a nice fellow. I can’t believe he’s for marijuana legalization. Maybe there’s something to this, she thinks.
Then the county sheriff appears, and he, too, is for this legalization. Soccer mom is impressed and is now considering she’ll vote for I-502. But there’s still a doubt in her mind. After all, this is marijuana and what about the children?
Hi, soccer mom, I want you to vote against legalization.
Just then, the nice lady, the nice man, and the sheriff are interrupted by the shouts and catcalls and some profanity by a bunch of people in blazing red t-shirts. They’re fervently against this legalization. They’re screaming how it will kill medical marijuana patients. They’re rudely trying to position their red NO signs in front of the blue YES signs for the TV cameras at YES’s press conference. They’re kind of rag-tag looking, some tattoos, some piercings, some long hair — to soccer mom, a bunch of raggedy stoners.
Wow, if the stoner types I’m afraid my kids might turn into don’t like this I-502 thing, soccer mom thinks, then there MUST be something good about it. And in that moment, No-on-I-502 turned another swing vote into a YES.
Just like shouting at a sheriff at his own press conference is turning swing votes against any of the protests by the illegal unlicensed untaxed pot shops in Washington State.
Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge…
Now, you can keep slagging me for supporting the end of my own criminality and voting contrary to what the DEA prefers, that’s fine. The problem is that in doing so, you fail to take any responsibility for the mess medical marijuana finds itself in, leaving yourself vulnerable to bigger messes.
Yes, we’re all very, very sick.
Medical marijuana claimed it was for helping the truly sick and disabled, and then the public was treated to naturopaths in a tent at Hempfest serving a line of mostly under-30, healthy-looking men on their way to a Kottonmouth Kings concert.
Medical marijuana ignored the fact I-692 never created retail storefronts for marijuana sales, and winked at the public claiming “This isn’t a storefront and I’m not a clerk, I’m a caregiver. That’s not a line of customers; the first guy in line is a patient whom I’m a caregiver for. Then when he leaves, I’m a caregiver for the next patient. But there’s no storefront here.”
Medical marijuana then ignored the legislature when it closed that caregiver loophole, exploiting the new loophole of collective gardens. “This isn’t a storefront and I’m not a clerk. I’m one of the members of the collective and that’s not a line of customers. The first guy is a patient who wishes to join our collective. Then when he leaves, he quits the collective and the next patient in line joins the collective. But there’s no storefront here.” Wink wink, nudge nudge, know what I mean?
What Makes Washington Differ From Oregon and Colorado?
Washington is a special case, no doubt about that. Have you asked yourselves why there was no corresponding patient revolt over Amendment 64 in Colorado? Because there were no corresponding medical marijuana shenanigans in Colorado; they kept their shit tightly regulated from the beginning.
Or Oregon, why no corresponding patient revolt over Measure 91 here? We had the same 24 ounce limit as you and a big plant allotment for patients. We had dispensaries that cropped up before they were legal, with winking going on about “reimbursements” allowed by law. Why do we still have our medical marijuana system mostly intact, and, in fact, improved on in the wake of legalization here?
Because for one, we had a mandatory patient registry and a stricter system of approving cards, so there were less bad optics for the public and the legislature (no doc-in-a-tent at Hempstalk). Two, our leaders were working with the legislature in good faith to create a regulated dispensary system instead of screaming that registering patients is like registering sex offenders (what an insult to patients in 18 states). Three, the shenanigans that did occur, like a 104-patient garden serving only Californians, didn’t find our leaders slavishly rationalizing the shenanigans, but rather working in good faith with the legislature to address the excess without harming the majority.
So keep tagging me, I’m endlessly entertained by the drama of weed dealers wailing about having to finally follow regulations. But if you want to slander me with “he doesn’t give a damn about patients, and has loudly trumpeted his support for I-502 and for shutting down medical on numerous occasions,” you first need to travel with me to Georgia, where my sick friends there still have to buy baggies in parking lots from shady dudes and constantly worry that getting caught with even a gram means going to jail. You need to visit my sick friends in Pennsylvania who can’t get a highly-limited medical marijuana law passed because legislators point to the West Coast medical marijuana states and declare THAT won’t happen here! You need to visit my sick friends in New York, Minnesota, and Louisiana who only get non-smokable forms of cannabinoids and can’t grow their own plants because the West proved to them that home grow medical will be abused. I’ve been trying to help establish medical in Texas, Missouri, Florida, and many other states that would kill to be Washington right now.
