I received a call from an Oregonian yesterday who was asking me about our marijuana legalization law. She’s the owner of a mobile home which she has just moved into a mobile home community – a trailer park, in plain English. But before she could do so, she was required by the trailer park owner to sign a document indicating that she would not smoke marijuana insider her home.

“Can they do that?” she asked me. Unfortunately, I had to tell her yes, it is perfectly legal for a landlord to discriminate against cannabis consumers.

We discussed the problem. She, like most people, agrees with the idea that landlords have the right to ban smoking or cultivation in their rental properties. “I can see someone banning smoking in their apartment or duplex or house for rent,” she said. “They don’t want to have to deal with cleaning up the smell of smoke. But what I don’t understand is this is my mobile home – I own it. What right does the park have to stop me from smoking in a home I own?”

That’s a good question that had me pondering my answer. The way I understand it, a property owner has full control over whether marijuana will be smoked on the property. A trailer park is clearly someone’s property, and if he bans marijuana smoking on that property, wouldn’t that include the homes that are located upon that property?

But the question got murkier as I started looking up resources for Oregon tenants concerning smoking in rental properties – any kind of smoking. In 2010, Oregon passed a law requiring the disclosure by landlords of their tobacco-smoking policies for renters. It doesn’t tell landlords whether they should ban smoking, it just requires that whether smoking is allowed, restricted, or banned, the tenant must be made aware of the policy prior to signing the lease.

In reviewing that disclosure law, Smoke Free Housing Info states that there is an exemption in the law for “People who own their manufactured home or floating home [who] often rent the space where their homes sit,” exactly the situation of the lady who had called me. Under the disclosure law, “they are considered homeowners and not renters.”

But does that exemption mean that a mobile home owner is a “homeowner” and the trailer park can’t ban what she does inside her own home? Or does the exemption mean that the trailer park owner isn’t required to disclose a smoking policy to the mobile home owner, but that in no way stops him from coming up with a policy that bans smoking on his property, the trailer park?

In other words, does it mean landlords can ban smoking on any property, but are only required to disclose the ban for non-homeowners, or does it mean landlords can only create bans for rental units and not site-renting homeowners?

Of course, whatever the proper answer is to that question about tobacco smoking may not apply in the case of marijuana smoking. Regardless, legalizing marijuana should include the right to consume it in one’s own home, and people who own mobile homes shouldn’t lose that right because someone else owns the land their home is sitting upon.

UPDATE: Just spoke to someone at Oregon Housing. She agrees with me that if you own a home, nobody can stop you from smoking in it. Outside it on the trailer park grounds, sure, but not in your home. Now, we were talking implicitly about tobacco smoking, but I can’t see how it wouldn’t also cover cannabis smoking, something just as legal for you to do in your own home as smoking a cigarette.

Throughout the fight to end adult marijuana prohibition, there has been a constant refrain of “treat marijuana like alcohol”. The public is increasingly aware that marijuana is safer than alcohol and it seems only logical that if our society can handle the legalization of the most harmful drug people consume for fun, we should be able to handle one of the safest drugs people consume for fun.

The public and our elected officials have largely taken that mantra to heart. Treat marijuana like alcohol, we asked, so now we’re selling it adults-only shops where we check IDs. We’re having marijuana inspected and tested and labeled just as we’d expect a bottle of wine to have an accurate labeling of proof and be free from contaminants. We even have scientists working to create a breathalyzer-style device for roadside sobriety testing to treat marijuana like alcohol, even though in this case, marijuana is nothing like alcohol.

So why does the “treat marijuana like alcohol” concept fail to create venues where adults can gather to consume marijuana? A vapor lounge, a cannabis café, a pot bar, whatever you might call it, analogous to a whiskey lounge, a wine café, or a beer bar? Why the disconnect?

I can think of few things more un-American than recognizing the rights of a citizen while maintaining code that makes exercising those rights impossible or impractical. We fought many battles as a nation to recognize the right of black Americans to vote and then fought more battles to ensure that right could actually be exercised. What good was it to pass the 15^th Amendment when those states seeking to re-disenfranchise former slaves could do so through poll taxes, literacy tests, and other then-legal means? It took almost another century to truly protect those rights through the Voting Rights Act of 1965. (Sadly, today we have a Supreme Court that’s amenable to ratcheting back those protections.)

Today in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, a citizen of 21 years of age has the right to possess cannabis. But what good is that right if its real purpose – the right to consume cannabis – is impossible or impractical? If you don’t own your own residence, you may have no legal place to smoke pot. Landlords may ban that and public housing of all kinds will ban that. Toking up in public is forbidden and no hotels are going to allow it, either.

Imagine the uproar in 1933 if Prohibition had ended and adults were once again allowed to buy, possess, and consume alcohol, but all bars, taverns, and pubs were illegal, and restaurants could not serve alcohol. Preposterous! Especially when you know our country was founded by hard-drinking men who did a lot of their meeting in taverns.

Any argument that can be made for the societal danger of a cannabis café is laughable in a nation where 19 million adults consumed alcohol in over 65,000 taverns last year. In almost every town, we have at least one building designed for the express purpose of allowing adults to consume a deadly impairing drug called alcohol. These buildings often have parking lots where we expect adults will park their cars while they drink, and then we trust them to return to their cars and drive in an unimpaired state. We know for a fact some of them will be impaired when they drive away in the wee dark hours of the morning, and we know statistically that will lead to 30 people per day dying because of an alcohol-impaired driver.

If we can accept that known societal danger as a reasonable trade-off for the freedom of adults to consume alcohol in a public setting, there is no credible reason why we shouldn’t accept buildings where pot smokers can gather and consume, especially when they are far safer drivers afterward.

Of the currently legal states, only Alaska has made the sensible choice to allow for adult-use venues. Colorado does not, but an initiative to allow it in Denver has brought the government to the table to discuss pot lounges. Washington has felonized such clubs to the point where a bar owner who doesn’t shut down incidental pot smoking can be busted. Oregon has shoe-horned vaporization and cannabinoids into a Clean Air Act that was predicated on reducing the proven, known harms of secondhand tobacco smoke, even though secondhand cannabis vapor has never been shown to produce those harms. Washington DC’s city council just briefly – for 30 minutes – legalized private club consumption, only to reverse the decision after the mayor worried about opening this Pandora’s Box.

The tide may be turning for private marijuana clubs, however. The 2016 initiatives to legalize marijuana in California, Arizona, Nevada, and Massachusetts all provide for the possibility of pot lounges, while Maine’s initiative guarantees they will exist. It’s time for the currently legal states to recognize that without cannabis cafes, tourists and renters will just light up in alleys, parks, and other public spaces where we don’t want marijuana consumption.

Almost every day I close the first hour of my weekday live marijuana news/talk-radio show in CannabisRadio.com with a segment I call the Radical Rant. Sometimes I focus my ire on a particular story of the day, other times I just wax poetic about a general concept. Here now are the ten Radical Rants I performed this year that give you the best perspective on my marijuana ideals:

Understanding The Spectrum Of High [2015 – 02 – 23 Mon] – One of the problems we have in selling marijuana legalization to the general public is that most of them have no idea what “high” is. I explain how the public has a completely different vocabulary and framing for alcohol vs. drugs.

Pot Is Not Pornography, Plutonium, Or PCP [2015 – 03 – 06 Fri] – As states legalize, they institute laws to regulate marijuana as if it were a radioactive naked woman on angel dust. I talk about how we can reduce some of the fearmongering about marijuana.

Legalization Is Not To Blame For PacNW MedMJ Reductions [2015 – 05 – 04 Mon] – As the medical marijuana states create recreational marijuana laws, medical advocates blame legalization for the restrictions in their world that were the results of their own excesses, not legalization.

Legalized Theft, The Corruption Of Civil Asset Forfeiture [2015 – 05 – 06 Wed] – A look at the disgusting policing-for-profit system known as civil asset forfeiture and what states are doing to curb its abuse.

Where Does Religious Cannabis Use Leave Atheists [2015 – 06 – 04 Thu] – Inspired by Christian activists who are fighting for a religious right to use ganja as sacrament, I wonder, if they are successful, will atheists be the only marijuana criminals remaining?

Just Split Oregon Into Two Sovereign States Already [2015 – 06 – 15 Mon] – How special interest lobbying in Oregon turned the state into two halves – the west side that has to obey statewide citizen initiatives and the east side that throws a temper tantrum until it doesn’t have to obey statewide laws.

The Insane Quest For A Stoned Driving Standard [2015 – 06 – 23 Tue] – On the news of Washington State researchers working on a marijuana breathalyzer, I discuss what a waste of time and a terrible injustice such a device would become.

No On I-502, Three Years Later [2015 – 08 – 12 Wed] – I examine all of the scaremongering the Stoners Against Legalization in Washington predicted from marijuana legalization that never came true.

Why The Reverence For Illegal Weed Dealers [2015 – 09 – 16 Wed] – I take on the lionization of black market weed dealers as altruistic rebels against “the man” and instead see them as profiteers exploiting the criminalization on marijuana consumers.

Pacific Northwest Cannabis Cafe Bans Are Counter – Productive [2015 – 12 – 03 Thu] – I explain to lawmakers how banning cannabis cafes will leave the region as the only legalized place in America where there aren’t such cafes, killing our potential marijuana tourism.

As a regular segment on my live weekday marijuana news/talk-radio program on CannabisRadio.com, I dig deep into the Drug War Data Mines to find the surveys, polls, studies, and statistics to help you make the case to end adult marijuana prohibition nationwide. Here are the ten most important marijuana data topics I’ve covered in 2015:

1 in 5 Coloradoans Tried Legal Marijuana Last Year [2015-02-24 Tue] – 2015 marked the first year we could see a full year’s worth of data coming in from the first two states to legalize marijuana. Figures from Colorado show that despite almost 1 out of 5 Coloradoans having tried legal pot, the sky did not fall.

Washington State Healthy Youth Survey 2014 Data on Marijuana [2015-03-12 Thu] – One of the only two scary talking points the opposition to marijuana legalization has is “WATC” – What About The Children? In this state survey from Washington, we find out that legalizing marijuana hasn’t had much effect on the kids whatsoever. After all, kids have always had their access to marijuana.

Gallup Poll Shows 1 in 9 Adults Smoke Pot [2015-07-22 Wed] – For the third straight poll, Gallup showed majority support for marijuana legalization at 58 percent. Here we learn that far more people are smoking pot than the opponents of legalization want to admit.

The Data from One Year of Marijuana Legalization [2015-07-28 Tue] – Drug Policy Alliance did a remarkable job compiling all the relevant data from Colorado and Washington a full year into their retail sales of marijuana and found that nothing much has changed except raising $200 million in tax revenue.

How Much Does Marijuana Contribute to California Drought, Really [2015-08-11 Tue] – As California was gripped by record drought for the fourth year straight, mainstream publications lamented how much water pot plants use, ignoring how much more water things like almonds use.

FARS Data Shows Much Safer Roads In MedMJ Era [2015-09-24 Thu] – The Fatality Analysis Reporting System, from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, punctures the other scary talking point of prohibitionists, “SMOF” – Stoned Mayhem On Freeways – by showing how fatalities are at or near record lows, even in marijuana states.

Drug Testing for Welfare, A Cruel Waste [2015-10-09 Fri] – Republicans and some Democrats in statehouses nationwide have decided to drug test poor people in order to receive welfare benefits, a cruel and counterproductive measure that only harms kids and costs the state more money.

Colorado’s Arrest Rate Has Gone Up, but Reported Crimes Have Gone Down [2015-12-03 Thu] – Debunking a prohibitionist who tries to conflate more arrests in Colorado with more crime, when, actually, reported crime has gone down. It’s almost as if not chasing potheads has freed up cops to chase real criminals.

1 in 5 Drug Rehab Beds Is Occupied By a Pot Smoker [2015-12-11 Fri] – The Treatment Episode Data Set – Admissions shows that over half the people in rehab for marijuana alone are forced there by the criminal justice system, thus taking up almost 20 percent of all rehab space.

Fewer Kids Smoke Pot, See Risk in It, Says Monitoring the Future [2015-12-16 Wed] – The Monitoring the Future survey has asked 12^th graders for forty years about marijuana. This year they found fewer kids are smoking pot, fewer kids see risk in smoking pot, and access to pot is harder than ever.

Every weekday from 3pm-5pm I host The Russ Belville Show on CannabisRadio.com. From almost two hundred episodes produced this year, here are my favorite ten marijuana interviews:

Barbara Humphries: I met this young woman in Dallas/Ft. Forth as she was fighting breast cancer with medical marijuana and becoming an outspoken advocate and activist to help others.

JennyRay McGee: This young woman found me in Portland, Oregon, as she was battling her medical conditions with cannabis, only to later travel to Kansas to visit her family and get busted.

Stu Titus: The CEO of Medical Marijuana Inc., embroiled in controversy over the sales of so-called “Real Scientific Hemp Oil”, a CBD-rich product made from industrial hemp that is allegedly legal in all 50 states.

Brandon Krenzler: Also known as “CannaDad”, father of Brave Mykayla, a child leukemia patient who had a terrible reaction to Medical Marijuana Inc.’s “Real Scientific Hemp Oil”.

David Posner: The CEO of Nutritional High, a company in the marijuana space that insists on drug-testing its employees.

Larisa Bolivar: Founder and Executive Director of the Cannabis Consumers Coalition, whose warnings about pesticide-contaminated cannabis products in Colorado turned out to be eerily prescient.

Jay Bakes: Owner of the Fresh Buds PDX dispensary in Portland, Oregon, who averted a weed riot on the first night of legal possession in Oregon by giving away free weed to a huge crowd way after midnight.

Dr. David Bearman: Member of the American Academy of Cannabinoid Medicine and author of the latest guidebook, “Drugs Are NOT The Devil’s Tools”.

Steve DeAngelo: Founder and CEO of Harborside Health Center and author of the new book, “The Cannabis Manifesto”.

Mason Tvert: Communications Director for Marijuana Policy Project, addressing four MPP-backed legalization initiatives for 2016.

UPDATE: I have now linked to the new, amended version of the Sean Parker Initiative at http://rad-r.us/CA-AUMA2.

2016 looks to be a banner year for marijuana legalization. Nevada is already on the ballot and initiatives are expected to make the ballot in California, Arizona, Maine, and Massachusetts as well. There is an outside chance that Ohio may join them in 2016, and Vermont and Rhode Island may enact legalization through their legislatures. Florida is likely to be onboard with a medical marijuana intiative and there may be one coming from Missouri as well. Then there are grassroots efforts in many states aiming for 2016 – visit the Ballotpedia for a full listing.

At Marijuana Politics, I’ve taken the time to peruse the five leading contenders for legalization in 2016. To read summaries of each, visit the links below:

• California Adult Use of Marijuana Act 2016 (Sean Parker)
• Nevada Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act 2016 (MPP)
• Arizona Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act 2016 (MPP)
• Massachusetts Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act 2016 (MPP)
• Maine Marijuana Legalization Act 2016 (MPP & Legalize Maine)

I’ve also produced hyperlinked versions of the full text of each initiative, annotated and re-formatted for easier reading:

• California Adult Use of Marijuana Act 2016 (Sean Parker)
• Nevada Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act 2016 (MPP)
• Arizona Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act 2016 (MPP)
• Massachusetts Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act 2016 (MPP)
• Maine Regulate and Tax Marijuana Act 2016 (MPP & Legalize Maine)

You can also find all those legalization initiatives, and any future postings of legalization initiatives and bills for the 2016 Election, at the shortlink http://rad-r.us/mj2016. Each initiative is also available via shortlinks:

• http://rad-r.us/CA-AUMA2 (California AUMA)
• http://rad-r.us/NV-CRMLA (Nevada CRMLA)
• http://rad-r.us/AZ-CRMLA (Arizona CRMLA)
• http://rad-r.us/MA-CRMLA (Massachusetts CRMLA)
• http://rad-r.us/ME-CRMLA (Maine CRMLA)

Here is my quick table comparison of the initiatives, as well as a comparison table of existing legalization states and DC.

We started our review with the Sean Parker Adult Use of Marijuana California legalization initiative and then moved on to the Marijuana Policy Project’s (MPP) Nevada marijuana legalization initiative, marketed under the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA) and on the ballot for 2016 in Nevada. Then we covered the MPP initiatives for Arizona and Masschusetts, also known as CRMLA.

Today we dig into the Maine Marijuana Legalization Initiative, another CRMLA backed by MPP and Legalize Maine, the authors of the original language. The complete text with hyperlinks and my notations is available as a PDF download. Here are the highlights:

Personal Possession and Cultivation: Adults 21 and older may possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana, which includes concentrate. Adults can also cultivate out of public view 6 mature flowering plants, 12 non-flowering plants over two feet tall, and an infinite amount of non-flowering plants below two feet tall (seedlings), with no limits per household, and legal possession of all the harvest from those plants at the grow site. However, home growers must tag each plant with their name and Maine driver’s license number, which I presume means only residents can home grow.

Illegal Acts: You can’t smoke pot anywhere you can’t smoke tobacco, and it’s a $100 fine if you do. Fines for violations of licensing can range from $500 to $10,000.

Consumer Rights: Landlords have to give written permission for home grows and employers and schools can still ban possession and consumption and being high there, but employment, housing, education, and parental rights cannot be denied solely for consuming marijuana (i.e. drug tests can’t be used to discriminate).

Marijuana Regulation: The state agriculture department will regulate marijuana. If a license is denied for a location, no license may be granted within 1,000 feet of that location for two years. Pot magazines, like HIGH TIMES, can only be sold in retail stores or behind the counter in places kids can enter (this will fail on First Amendment grounds). Additives designed to make marijuana products more appealing to children are banned, which sounds like a way to ban infused candy and other edibles.

Retail Shops: Marijuana is taxed at 10% at the point of sale, but medical marijuana is not taxed. Retailers can sell non-consumable items, like apparel and marijuana accessories, the only consumable items must be marijuana-infused. Social clubs can sell non-consumable items and consumable items (snacks, drinks) but not cigarettes or alcohol. Vending machines are banned. Cultivators can open their own product manufacturing and retail stores, so long as they obtain the licenses.

Commercial Licenses: Maine will specifically have licensed marijuana lounges with onsite consumption. You cannot be a licensee if, within the past ten years, you’ve been convicted of a drug crime that qualifies for a five year imprisonment or longer. Cultivation statewide is limited to a total of 800,000 square feet. 40 percent of all grow licenses must go to grows of 3,000 square feet or smaller, the rest may be 3,000 to 30,000 square feet. All licenses require a $10-$250 application fee. Grows are licensed in 100 square feet “unit blocks” that shall cost $10-$100 each. Testers cost $500, Manufacturers cost $100-$1,000, and Retailers and Social Clubs cost $250-$2,500

Medical Marijuana: The cultivation allowed for personal use is in addition to what is allowed for medical marijuana patients. Medical marijuana licensees get first priority for commercial licenses, especially if they have three or more caregiver registrations, and a 60-day headstart on applications compared to the general public.

Local Control: While the state can’t cap the total number of stores, a locality can limit or prohibit any type of licensee. Localities get half of the licensing fees. Localities can establish their own licensing requirements as well.

Of all the states likely to be voting on marijuana legalization in 2016, Maine stands out as the one that will have the greatest protection for consumers’ rights, greatest limits on personal possession and cultivation, lowest costs for commercial licensing, and its guarantee of marijuana social clubs.

The Transportation Minister of Ireland, Pascal Donohoe, is speaking out in favor of a new per se DUID law that allows the gardaí (Irish police) to test drivers’ saliva for the active THC from recent cannabis use.

On the radio show Morning Ireland, Donohoe was asked if “completely sober” cannabis users could be prosecuted, to which he answered, “Yes.”

Donohoe seems untroubled by the science of THC in the human body. In a 2001 study published in Journal of Analytical Toxicology, researchers had subjects smoke a single joint containing 20 milligrams to 25 milligrams of THC. For comparison’s sake, this article explains how “a one-gram joint of 2% THC cannabis typically contained about twenty milligrams of THC.”

With subjects smoking just one weak joint of Woodstock Weed, researchers found that saliva testing gave positive results following smoked marijuana consecutively for average periods of 13-15 hours, plus or minus 2 hours, depending on testing method. That means for at least half a day, no chance of testing negative.

The last positive test THC detection times were 31-34 hours, plus or minus 9 hours, depending on testing method. So, indeed, someone completely sober the next day could still test positive on a saliva test.

That’s testing positive with a threshold of 0.5 to 1.0 nanograms of THC per milliliter. Ireland’s new law mentions only that the driver needs to test positive – not like Colorado and Washington’s five-nanogram limits. Ireland’s new law is essentially a zero tolerance per se DUID law.

Now consider that nobody these days is smoking 2 percent THC joints. A one gram of modern marijuana “could contain 250 milligrams of THC,” according to the aforementioned article.

This scientific understanding has the Irish media running headlines like “‘Completely sober’ drivers who smoked cannabis in last week could be prosecuted under new laws.” But the Transportation Minister isn’t moved by the plight of unimpaired drivers, believing instead that cannabis users are dangerous by virtue of simply being cannabis users.

“We have a growing amount of evidence that indicates very clearly that the presence of drugs like that can impair your ability to drive a vehicle safely,” Minister Donohoe told Morning Ireland. “Over a 10-year period… just under 10 percent of people who tragically lost their lives did have drugs in their system, and out of that 10 percent of people, between 60-70 percent of them had cannabis in their system.”

That’s the minister conflating the presence of a drug in a traffic wreck victim with an impaired traffic wreck victim. That’s reasonable when you’re talking about alcohol and most drugs, but as we’ve just pointed out, the detection of active THC isn’t always correlated with impairment.

Don’t believe me. Believe the United States’ National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). In their Fact Sheet on cannabis, they state that “It is difficult to establish a relationship between a person’s THC blood or plasma concentration and performance impairing effects” and that “It is inadvisable to try and predict effects based on blood THC concentrations alone.”

NHTSA continues by explaining that “Effects from smoking cannabis products are felt within minutes and reach their peak in 10-30 minutes. Typical marijuana smokers experience a high that lasts approximately 2 hours. Most behavioral and physiological effects return to baseline levels within 3-5 hours after drug use.”

The US government even gives their tacit blessing of driving by people who develop tolerance to THC. The feds recognize synthetic THC pills called Marinol® as a prescribable Schedule III drug. With a bottle of Marinol® is the following warning: “The drug manufacturer suggests that patients receiving treatment with Marinol® should be specifically warned not to drive until it is established that they are able to tolerate the drug and perform such tasks safely.”

The new Irish zero tolerance per se DUID law has nothing to do keeping the roads safe. The Transportation Minister even admits it will prosecute “completely sober” drivers. This law is just another measure of legalized discrimination against cannabis consumers.

We’ve examined the amended Sean Parker Adult Use of Marijuana California legalization initiative and we’ve covered the Marijuana Policy Project’s (MPP) Nevada marijuana legalization initiative, marketed under the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA) and on the ballot for 2016 in Nevada. We’ve tackled the MPP initiative for Arizona, also known as CRMLA.

Today we dig into the MPP’s Massachusetts Marijuana Legalization Initiative, another CRMLA. The complete text with hyperlinks and my notations is available as a PDF download. Here are the highlights:

Personal Possession and Cultivation: Adults 21 and older can possess up to an ounce of marijuana in public, up to 5 grams of that may be concentrate, and up to ten ounces at home, but it must be locked up. Edibles and liquids can have up to an ounce of marijuana in them, rather than being limited by weight or volume. Adults can cultivate 6 plants each with a max of 12 per household and possess the results of the harvest. Marijuana and cannabis plants must remain out of public view.

Illegal Acts: Cultivation in public view is a $300 civil fine. Leaving marijuana unlocked at home or smoking in public or where there are no smoking signs is a $100 fine. Open containers of marijuana in a vehicle are subject to a civil fine of $500, unless they’re in the trunk or locked glove compartment. Possessing or cultivating over the legal limit but under twice the legal limit is a $100 fine and forfeiture of the excess. People under 21 trying to access marijuana is a $100 fine with a mandatory drug awareness program.

Consumer Rights: Landlords can ban tenants from cultivating and smoking marijuana on their properties. Employers can still ban pot smoking at work. Parental custody and visitation rights and necessary medical procedures, like organ transplants, cannot be denied solely for marijuana use.

Marijuana Regulation: There will be a Cannabis Control Commission that regulates all marijuana in the state. It is directed specifically to encourage industry participation for people of color. The CCC can create new licenses, such as pot lounge licensing, special event licensing, and research licensing, and can also restrict advertising.

Retail Shops: Marijuana will be taxed at 3.75 percent at the point of sale, plus a potential 2 percent local tax, but these taxes do not apply to medical marijuana. Medical dispensaries and commercial retail shops can co-locate. Local residents can petition for the right to establish pot lounges. There will be a maximum of 75 retail shops until October 2018.

Commercial Licenses: Licenses will cost a $3,000 non-refundable application fee, plus $15,000 for a Cultivator, Manufacturer, or Retailer license or $10,000 for a Tester license. Licensees must meet the standards required for an alcohol licensee, except that a marijuana conviction won’t bar licensure. CCC can institute an absolute cap on marijuana cultivation statewide. There will be a maximum of 75 manufacturers until October 2018 and a max of 75 cultivators until October 2019. Licensees must be 500 feet from schools.

Medical Marijuana: Existing medical marijuana businesses get priority in licensing, but that preference ends in 2018. If the CCC hasn’t provided for commercial retail by 2018, the existing medical marijuana dispensaries can serve all adults until they do.

Local Control: Localities can regulate time, place, and manner no more restrictively than medical marijuana is regulated. Localities can limit the number of establishments, but complete bans or limits below 20 percent of off-site alcohol sales licenses or limits below the number of medical marijuana establishments must be approved by voters. Localities can establish nuisance ordinances to restrict cultivation and to restrict signage.

With its low taxes, expansive protection of consumer rights, aim of improving communities hardest hit by prohibition enforcement, protection of commercial licensing, including the possibility of pot lounges, the Massachusetts version of CRMLA is the best of the three initiatives written by MPP for the 2016 election.

UPDATE: Rober Nkemdiche released a statement denying the use of synthetic marijuana. I’d say that, too, if the difference between synthetic and natural was a felony vs. a misdemeanor…

The college football world has been rocked by the recent 15-foot-fall and injury of expected first-round NFL draft pick Robert Nkemdiche in Georgia. According to a report from ESPN, Nkemdiche (pronounced “kim-DEE-chee”) fell from a hotel balcony at the Grand Hyatt Atlanta after breaking through a double-paned window.

Nkemdiche, an all-star defensive lineman for Ole Miss, may not be able to make the team’s New Year’s Day Sugar Bowl appearance against Oklahoma State. But that’s not the worst of Nkemdiche’s problems; he may be looking at fighting a felony charge and fifteen years in a Georgia prison.

The ESPN story says Nkemdiche was found to have “seven rolled marijuana cigarettes, rolled in Cigarillo Blunt papers”. While Georgia is a stringent marijuana prohibition state (unless you’re an epileptic child using low-THC / high-CBD cannabis oil), it does only mandate a misdemeanor with a possible one year in jail and $1,000 fine for possession of less than an ounce, which seven blunts likely are.

But another story from Fox Sports “Outkick the Coverage” blog claims that Nkemdiche was reacting not to marijuana use, but the synthetic cannabinoid product called “Spice”:

Outkick has been told that Nkemdiche, after using the synthetic cannabinoids, was paranoid and convinced someone was chasing the 6-foot-4, 296-pound defensive tackle when he broke through his hotel room windows and plummeted more than 15 feet to the ground. Had Nkemdiche not landed on a bush outside the hotel, his injuries would have been much more severe.

And Robert is not the first football-playing Nkemdiche who’s had a paranoid psychosis from synthetic cannabinoids. His older brother, Denzel, a linebacker for Ole Miss, was hospitalized earlier in the year, and Outkick says that was a Spice issue as well:

Denzel, a senior linebacker on Ole Miss, was hospitalized after he was found near the edge of the roof of his off-campus town home, wrapped in a blanket, terrified that someone was after him, Outkick has learned. Denzel missed the final two games of the season.

These synthetic cannabinoids, this “Spice” or “K2” and its equivalents, are often used by people who want to get high but avoid getting caught on a drug test. Unfortunately, these synthetics were meant only for laboratory conditions, where cannabinoid receptors in research animals need to be hyper-stimulated in a short period of time in order to discern potential effects.

They’re not meant for human consumption (the package even tells you this). Where a hit of natural weed is a consistent tickle for your receptors, a hit of Spice or K2 can be anything from a light slap to an unblocked body-slam from Robert Nkemdiche to your receptors. It’s inconsistent. If you enjoyed one Spice packet from a couple hits, the next time you take a couple hits from a different package could be an entirely different and extremely unpleasant experience, even potentially deadly.

The charge now is marijuana possession, but if those blunts are later found to have been rolled with Spice or K2, Nkemdiche could be in a lot more trouble. In 2012, Gov. Nathan Deal signed a new law making possession of synthetic cannabinoids a felony with a potential two-to-fifteen years in prison.

And to add insult to Nkemdiche’s injury, he plays football at the University of Mississippi, the only place in America where it is federally legal to grow natural marijuana.

Two days ago, we looked deep into the latest amendments to the Sean Parker-led initiative to legalize marijuana in 2016 in California. Yesterday, we looked at MPP’s initiative already on the ballot to legalize marijuana in Nevada.

Today, we look at MPP’s Arizona marijuana legalization initiative, which has banked 100,000 signatures so far, about two-thirds of the goal. The complete text with hyperlinks and my notations (as my math teacher would say, “show your work”) is available as a PDF download. Here are the highlights:

Personal Possession and Cultivation: An adult 21 years of age or older may possess one ounce of marijuana in public, of which 5 grams may be concentrates (i.e., if you have 5 grams extract on you, you can only have another 23 grams of flower.) Adults may cultivate 6 cannabis plants at home with a max of twelve per household, and it would seem that this law would override Arizona’s infamous “25 mile halo” rule that forbids medical home growing within 25 miles of a dispensary. Marijuana must be kept out of public view.

Illegal Acts: Processing solvent hash oil is a class 6 felony with up to a year in prison. Public toking or letting people under 21 into a marijuana establishment is a $300 fine. Using a fake ID or trying to get adults to buy marijuana for you if you’re under 21 is a $300 fine with 24 hours community service, as is sharing marijuana between people under age 21 who are within 2 years of each other’s age. Possession between 1oz and 2.5oz for people 21 and older is decriminalized to a $300 fine.

Consumer Rights: Employers can still use metabolite testing (pee tests) to discriminate against marijuana consumers. However, the state is barred from using metabolites as the sole reason for punishing a marijuana consumer, which would seemingly end Arizona’s draconian per se DUID charges based on marijuana metabolites. Landlords can ban cultivation and smoking in their properties, but not possession and non-smoked consumption. Child custody and parental rights for cannabis consumers are protected.

Marijuana Regulation: A new Marijuana Licenses and Control commission is established which shall regulate both medical and commercial marijuana in Arizona.

Retail Shops: There can be only one pot shop for every ten liquor stores (current liquor stores would allow for 149 pot shops statewide.) Existing medical dispensaries can become co-located pot shops. Adult sales begin March 1, 2018, and if the state doesn’t issue licenses by then, existing medical dispensaries can sell to all adults.

Marijuana Deliveries / Pot Lounges: Cannot happen until 2020 at the earliest, if the department decides they should be allowed at all.

Commerical Licenses: Cultivators will be established in tiers, with the largest tier being unlimited-size grows, and applicants not already medical marijuana growers limited to the smallest tier at first. Licensees can have no felonies within the past five years and must locate at least 500 feet from schools. Licenses cost a non-refundable $5,000 application fee plus $10,000 to $30,000 per license. Half of the license fees go to the localities, the rest to the marijuana fund.

Medical Marijuana Priority: The existing medical marijuana licensees get priority in licensing and a three-month head start on applying for licenses, starting September 1, 2017. Other applicants must wait until December 1, 2017.

Tax Revenue: Marijuana shall be subject to a 15 percent sales tax, with revenues covering regulatory expenses first, and then divided 40 percent to all schools, 40 percent to schools with all-day kindergarten, and 20 percent to state drug prevention.

Local Control: Localities can ban any type of marijuana licensee, unless it is an already existing medical licensee that applies for a new commercial license of the same type. Localities can limit the number of establishments but not below the number of existing medical establishments. Localities can ban cultivation and smoking if it bothers enough people. If the state misses regulatory and licensing deadlines, the localities can establish their own regulations and licensing.

How strange is it that MPP is dismantling the 25-mile home grow halo rule in Arizona, only to institute it in Nevada? How odd is it that MPP provides parental rights protections for all consumers in Arizona, but only for medical consumers in Nevada? MPP gives Arizona’s medical marijuana industry just a three-month head start, but gives Nevada’s an eighteen-month head start, and kills Arizona’s per se DUID  while ignoring Nevada’s.

We’ve already taken a look at the freshly amended California legalization initiative from Napster billionaire Sean Parker. With those 35,000+ words out of the way, today let’s look at the far shorter 5,000+ words of Marijuana Policy Project’s (MPP) Nevada marijuana legalization initiative, marketed under the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA). It is already on the ballot for 2016 in Nevada; this will be voted on come November 8.

Personal Possession and Cultivation:  A person 21 or older may possess an ounce of flower or an eighth-ounce of concentrate. While CRMLA allows adults to cultivate six cannabis plants and have up to 12 plants per residence, that is only if the plants are grown more than 25 miles away from a licensed pot shop. (A similar prohibition for medical marijuana home grows in Arizona has resulted in almost every Arizonan living where they have no home grow rights.) CRMLA mandates misdemeanors for such illegal home grows with $600 and $1,000 fines, respectively, for first and second offenses; a gross misdemeanor with a possible year in jail and $2,000 fine for the third offense, and a category E felony for a fourth offense, which includes a mandatory minimum of one year in prison and a possible maximum of four years.

Public Toking: Anybody caught toking in public or in a moving vehicle gets a misdemeanor with a $600 fine. However, localities might be able to allow pot lounges, if the legislature provides for that.

Commercial Marijuana: There will be grow licenses costing $30,000, with $10,000 to renew; store licenses at $20,000, with $6,600 to renew; tester or distributor licenses at $15,000, with $5,000 to renew; and manufacturer licenses at $10,000, with $3,300 to renew. All licenses cost a $5,000 non-refundable fee. Marijuana will be subject to a 15 percent excise tax paid by the growers, based on the fair market value of wholesale marijuana as determined by the state.

Retail Shops: There can be up to 80 pot shops in Las Vegas’ Clark County, up to 20 in Reno’s Washoe County, up to 4 in Carson City, and up to 2 in each of Nevada’s remaining counties, though the state can approve a county’s request to be allowed more. No licensee can be within 1,000 feet of a school or 300 feet of a community center.

Tax Revenues: Windfall from marijuana fees and taxes pay off state and local regulatory expenses first, then the rest goes to an education fund within the state general fund.

Criminal Backgrounds: A class A felony or two of any felonies on your record in the past ten years will disqualify you from getting a commercial marijuana license.

Medical Marijuana: Nevada’s medical marijuana laws are to be unaffected by CRMLA. Medical marijuana dispensaries and commercial pot shops can be co-located. For the first eighteen months of licensing, only the medical marijuana cultivators, manufacturers, and retailers will be able to apply for commercial cultivator, manufacturer, and retailer licenses. During that same period, only licensed liquor distributors will be able to apply for distributor licenses.

Per se DUID: CRMLA makes no changes to Nevada’s existing DUID law, where 2ng of THC in blood or 15ng of metabolites in urine proves guilt automatically, with a mandatory 2 days in jail or 48 hours community service.

Housing: Landlords can ban everything except personal possession and non-smoked consumption. Technically, they’re allowed to ban the “transfer” in their properties, which means landlords can ban you from sharing a joint with someone in your apartment.

Boy, I’ll bet the people in California who are hating the Sean Parker Initiative because it “only” allows home grows of 6 plants per household and institutes a $250 open container infraction will have plenty to say about a 25-mile no-home-grow halo rule and a $600 public toking misdemeanor in the nearby Nevada marijuana legalization initiative.

UPDATE: I have now linked to the new, amended version of the Sean Parker Initiative at http://rad-r.us/CA-AUMA2.

As we reported, the California Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA), the so-called Sean Parker Initiative to legalize marijuana, has now become the de facto front-runner in the state. The organization that had put forth its own activist-supported initiative under the banner ReformCA has moved to withdraw its measure and a majority of the board has now endorsed AUMA.

There are now a few amendments to the AUMA that I have now analyzed and notated in my updated Hyperlinked Text of the California Adult Use of Marijuana Act (Amended). Here are some of the highlights of how California legalization may look in 2017:

Adult Public Possession = One Ounce Flower, Eight Grams Concentrate: AUMA (§11362.1(2)) specifies that eight grams of concentrate isn’t illegal, but section (§11357(a)) maintains punishments for over four grams for people aged 18-20.*

Adult Home Grows = Six Plants and All the Harvest: Localities cannot ban your indoor personal grow, but may ban personal grows outdoors. However, landlords can ban your personal grow and even possession within their properties. Also, that’s six plants per residence, not six plants per adult. But you are allowed to possess at the grow all of the marijuana you harvest from the six plants.

Public Toking Prohibited: That includes any place with a “No Smoking” sign, any place you can be seen in public, within 1,000 feet of a school if it can be seen or smelled, or while driving or riding in a vehicle, but…

Pot Lounges Possible: A locality can allow for the on-site consumption of marijuana in a specially-designated public place. Use in private limos and buses might be allowed as well.

Deliveries Allowed: While localities can ban deliveries within their jurisdiction, they cannot ban deliveries through their jurisdiction.

Hash Oil Blasting Illegal: You have to have a license to make concentrates using any volatile solvents.

Employers Can Still Piss Test: But they don’t have to.

Marijuana Licensing Begins January 1, 2018: Included in the licenses are five cultivation licenses. Type 1 licenses run up to 5,000 sqft; Type 2 up to 10,000 sqft; Type 3 up to 22,000 sqft indoors or 1 acre outdoors; Type 4 are for nurseries providing seeds, seedlings, and immature plants; and Type 5 over 22,000 sqft indoors or over 1 acre outdoors. Also included are Type 6 non-volatile solvent product manufacturers, Type 7 volatile solvent product manufacturers, Type 8 testers, Type 10 distributors, Type 11 retailers, and Type 12 microbusinesses. (There is no Type 9, presumably reserved for future non-profit licenses.) A licensee may hold multiple licenses of any type, except that Testers can only be Testers.

Marijuana Taxation: There will be a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana products, plus a $9.25 / ounce cultivation tax on flower and a $2.75 / ounce cultivation tax on leaves, plus any state and local sales taxes, plus counties may institute a separate tax, subject to a vote of the people. Taxes will cover regulatory costs first, then $10 million will go to public universities, $10 million to business and economic development, $3 million to the California Highway Patrol, $2 million to UC San Diego medical marijuana research, then the remainer will be divvied up 60 percent to youth drug education and prevention, 20 percent to environmental protection, and 20 percent to law enforcement.

Seed-to-Sale Tracking Implemented: Commercial marijuana plants will have unique ID tags in a seed-to-sale tracking system.

Microbusiness Licensing: A special license class is created for small-scale artisan growers who are their own distributors, non-volatile solvent manufacturers, and retailers.

Five-Year Moratorium on Mega-Grows: An amendment to AUMA requires that Type 5 Cultivation Licenses (those indoor grows over 22,000 sqft and outdoor grows over one acre) cannot be issued until 2020.

Inspections of Licensees: Amendments to AUMA took out broad language allowing inspections at any time by almost any authority, replaced with reasonable time and manner requirements and limiting who qualifies as a “peace officer”.

Incentive to Prosecute: The previous AUMA allowed local prosecutors to collect all the bounty from prosecuting violations of AUMA. Amendments added now restrict local prosecutors to collecting reimbursement for prosecution, with the rest of the bounty going to the General Fund.

Licensing Limits: Localities can set what a reasonable ratio of licensees to population may be or completely ban licensees altogether. Licensees must be minimum 600 feet from schools, but localities can set greater buffer sizes. California residency as of 2015 is required until 2020. Existing medical marijuana licensees get priority in licensing until 2020. Certain previous convictions can result in license denial, except that marijuana-related offenses may be given a waiver.

Advertising and Marketing Limits: Marijuana can’t be advertised to kids, use cartoon characters or anything appealing to kids, can’t be on mediums with less than 71.6% adult audience, within 1,000 feet of schools and where kids play, and cannot be on billboards near roadways that cross state borders. Retailers can’t give away marijuana.

Strong Environmental Protection: California agencies regulating fish, wildlife, forests, water, and other natural resources have some authority over marijuana licensing and environmental laws must be obeyed by licensees.

Consumer Protection: Marijuana will be tested and labeled for cannabinoid content and contaminants. Regional appellations (like “Humboldt Grown”) will be protected and state organic certification will be available. Warning labels will advise against use by minors, pregnant or breastfeeding women, and drivers or operators of heavy machinery. Edibles are limited to 10 mg THC per serving.

Prior Marijuana Crime Expungement: Processes are enabled to allow individuals in prison on marijuana charges to get their sentences reduced or eliminated if their “crime” is now legal or just an infraction or misdemeanor. Those with criminal records who’ve served their time also have a path to getting their records sealed and dismissed.

MedMJ Patients Parental Rights Protected: An amendment was made to protect visitation, custody, and other parental rights of medical marijuana users, but apparently no such protection for parents exists for personal marijuana use.

Industrial Hemp: Now treated as an agricultural crop which may be grown on no less than one-tenth of an acre and may not be individually pruned or culled.

Legislative Tinkering: The Act may be amended by a majority of the legislature to lessen penalties or further the intent and purposes of the Act, but they’ll need a two-thirds majority to make it stricter in any way.

There are still many other initiatives filed at the California Secretary of State, but with the backing of the most prominent activists and the money from people like Sean Parker (Napster billionaire), Justin Hartfield (WeedMaps millionaire), and the Pritzker Family (billionaire Hyatt Hotel heirs), the Sean Parker Initiative is the heavy favorite to make the ballot in 2016 to legalize marijuana in California.

*Thanks to reader Chadwick for the eagle-eyed correction in the comments about extract possession. Also updated to remove reference implying amendments were made as concessions for endorsements.

The latest report from the Substance Abuse Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) details the extent of drug rehabilitation in the United States. Rehabs that receive government funding must report to the Treatment Episode Data Set, which includes Admissions (TEDS-A) and discharges (TEDS-D).

The TEDS-A report is out for 2003-2013, containing the most recent data on admissions to drug rehab. It spells out what we’ve all known for a long time – Big Rehab cannot survive without marijuana prohibition.

I’ve long reported that most of the people admitted to rehab for marijuana are forced their by the criminal justice system. Tom Angell notes that the 2013 figure for marijuana admissions shows that 51.9 percent are forced there by the criminal justice system, including parole and probation officers as well as the courts and prisons. Only 18.1 percent feel they have enough of a drug dependence issue to admit themselves for marijuana rehab, compared to over 37 percent who admit themselves for other drugs.

Marijuana admits make up 20.6 percent of all admissions, so the criminal justice system placing over half the marijuana users into rehab works out to over one-in-ten people in rehab who are forced there for pot, taking up a bed a real heroin, crack, meth, or alcohol addict should have.

Clearly, most marijuana rehabbers do not have a problem with marijuana dependence. TEDS-A tells us that 35.5 percent of marijuana rehabbers didn’t smoke pot for a month before entering rehab. Another 16.9 percent used marijuana less than once a week. So, a majority of marijuana rehabbers aren’t even weekly marijuana smokers and only one-in-four (24.3 percent) are daily tokers.

Consider that these are the data from rehabs that receive public money. In order to receive these grants, the rehabs have to show they’re accomplishing some measure of rehabilitation. How much simpler is that when one-in-five of your clients is a pot smoker, half of them don’t even toke weekly, and then you threaten them with jail if they don’t pass a pee test? These non-addicted individuals can go without weed and appear to be cured from their “addiction” far easier than creating a success story for an opiate-addicted individual.

Rehabs, though, don’t categorize their marijuana clients as being non-addicted. According to TEDS-A, 76.6 percent of marijuana rehabbers meet the criteria for substance abuse or dependence, even though over half aren’t even weekly tokers. But TEDS-A also says that only 69.6 percent of crack cocaine rehabbers meet those criteria. Are we really supposed to believe that a pot smoker is more likely to be an addict than a crack smoker?

TEDS-A data also destroy the talking point of Project SAM and pot prohibitionists who warn that legalization will lead to an increase in marijuana dependence and form a gateway to harder drugs. It turns out that marijuana rehabbers have the lowest average number of drugs admitted for than any other drug but alcohol. There are 45.8 percent of marijuana rehabbers there for marijuana alone and 37.8 percent there for marijuana and alcohol.

Marijuana legalization, medicalization, and decriminalization may be having an effect on Big Rehab’s client count. After peaking at over 372 thousand admissions in 2009, primary marijuana admissions dropped to 358 thousand in 2010, 315 thousand in 2012, and are down to 281 thousand in 2013. That includes almost 18 percent fewer 12-to-17-year-olds admitted to rehab, as well as declines in every age demographic but people over age 55.

It’s a start, but only when marijuana is legal nationwide will we see realistic numbers on how many people truly need medical assistance in ending marijuana dependence. It’s not like users of legal drugs won’t seek rehab when they need it, as evidenced by the one-third of alcohol rehabbers, two-fifths of crack rehabbers, and three-fifths of heroin rehabbers who self-admit, according to TEDS-A.

I wrote last week about the impending ban on indoor cannabis consumption in private members-only, all-volunteer, bring-your-own-buds clubs here in Oregon. Combined with Washington State’s legislature recently felonizing any sort of cannabis club, we have the unique irony of having the world’s only shared-border legal marijuana region, yet no place for tourists visiting it to enjoy legal marijuana.

Oregon and Washington are risking being left behind in the emerging world of legal American marijuana. There is one current and five pending legal marijuana states that will be happy to take the Pacific Northwest’s marijuana tourism dollars.

Alaska: A recent 3-2 vote by the amended the definition of “public consumption”, banned by the legalization initiative, to allow for the consumption of marijuana at certain licensed marijuana stores. It also decided against banning the existing private cannabis clubs, ruling that if they did not have the statutory authority to regulate them, they lacked the authority then to ban them as well.

Nevada: The Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) has already placed the first of their three CRMLAs (Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol) on the November ballot in Nevada. It doesn’t explicitly legalize cannabis clubs, but section 14, paragraph 8 of NV-CRMLA says that “the legislature may amend provisions of this act to provide for the conditions in which a locality may permit consumption of marijuana in a retail marijuana store.”

Massachusetts: MPP’s CRMLA in Massachusetts is the only remaining legalization option now, with Bay State Repeal missing its signature goal. MA-CRMLA still faces the legislature, which may approve it for the ballot, or MPP can submit another over 10,000 signatures to force it on the ballot. The initiative allows the marijuana commission to issue “licenses that authorize the consumption of marijuana or marijuana products on the premises where sold [and] licenses that authorize the consumption of marijuana at special events in limited areas and for a limited time…”

Arizona: MPP’s CRMLA in Arizona has consistently turned in high signature counts and will likely make the ballot. While the AZ-CRMLA initially bans the regulation of any cannabis clubs, “After January 1, 2020, the department may adopt and enforce rules to allow for the issuance of licenses to permit the consumption of marijuana within a specified area of a marijuana retailer…”

Maine: MPP folded their Maine CRMLA to get behind the grassroots Legalize Maine campaign, which is close to enough signatures to make the ballot. Maine’s initiative explicitly creates retail marijuana social clubs, defined as “an entity licensed to sell retail marijuana and retail marijuana products to consumers for consumption on the licensed premises.”

California: California has a plethora of initiatives on marijuana, but I’ve been concentrating on the four with the most visible campaigns. Those are the Adult Use of Marijuana Act (AUMA or “Sean Parker Initiative”), Control Regulate & Tax Cannabis Act (CRTC or “ReformCA”), Marijuana Control Legalization & Revenue Act (MCLR), and the California Cannabis Hemp Initiative (CCHI or “Jack Herer Initiative”). All four provide some manner of local allowance or state licensure for cannabis clubs.

With these states poised to allow for adult social-use cannabis clubs and efforts ongoing in Denver, Colorado, to allow for onsite consumption, by 2017 Oregon and Washington may find themselves as the only legal marijuana states that don’t give adult tourists any legal place to consume marijuana.