The data are in from the first year of drug testing people applying for welfare benefits in Tennessee. Like every other state that pursues this policy, they only ended up wasting money and catching only a tiny fraction of the applicants with a failed drug test.

Florida pioneered this cruel idea by requiring that all people applying for welfare had to take a drug test. The applicant would pay for this test, to be reimbursed if the applicant passed the test. During the four months it was in operation, the program tested 4,086 applicants. Of those, 108 tested positive. That is a positive rate of 2.6 percent, far lower than the national rate of drug use at 9.4 percent. That program cost taxpayers of Florida $118,140, or well over $1,000 per positive test.

When researchers examined the results of the Florida program, they found “the procedures employed by the State of Florida did not produce reliable estimates of the level of drug use among [welfare] beneficiaries”.

It also cost Florida about $1.5 million in legal fees when it lost the resulting lawsuits over the program. The federal courts invalidated the welfare drug testing requirement for not requiring any reasonable suspicion that a poor person applying for welfare is a drug abuser. Searching every person applying for welfare, the courts decided, was an unconstitutional breach of the 4^th Amendment rights that even poor people still have.

So the states that have followed Florida in punishing poor people over unreal stereotypes have added a wrinkle to their scheme. While applying for welfare, applicants answer questions in a small quiz designed to root out those who might be drug users, thus providing the reasonable suspicion needed to pass constitutional muster. In Tennessee, the questions asked are:

• Have you used illegal drugs before?
• Have you lost or been denied a job because of drug use?
• Have you had any scheduled court appearances in the past three months related to drug use?

Of the 28,559 people asked those questions in Tennessee, only 468 answered “yes” to any of them, and therefore tested. That’s a rate of 1.6 percent, which surely must mean some of these people are lying, since the general rate of drug use in America is 9.4 percent and the lifetime use rate is over half. Even if poor people don’t use drugs as much (since they cost money), there’s no way the rate is as low as 1.6 percent.

Then of the 468 people tested, only 55 came up positive for any drug. That’s a rate of almost 12 percent among those tested, but a rate of 0.19 percent among all welfare applicants. Nabbing those 55 cost Tennessee $11,000 in testing, which works out to $200 per applicant caught.

Defenders of the laws will claim that we can’t criticize by the low rates of failed tests because the tests themselves deter drug users from applying in the first place, thus saving the state money. They’ll also claim that the cost of catching the one drug user is supplanted by the savings in not providing welfare to that person.

It’s difficult to prove the first claim. There are many factors that influence the rate of applications for welfare. As the economy improves and people get jobs, the welfare rolls decrease. It’s hard to accept that the three-quiz questionnaire is dissuading many people from applying when only 1.6 percent are caught by it and only 0.19 percent are actually deterred. The second claim may be true in some cases, but the average benefit per family per month on welfare in Tennessee is only about $164.

Regardless, think about what “success” is defined as here: denying welfare to a poor person in need. Are we supposed to celebrate that a poor person and their kids may go hungry and sleep in the streets because some drug test identified her as someone who smoked pot at some recent time in the past? What is the eventual cost of the emergency services they’ll need; will they exceed that $200 spent on denying them $164?

The push for drug testing for welfare is nothing more than grandstanding politicians looking for ways to seem tough on government spending while demonizing the poor and drug users. The idea seems to be that we taxpayers shouldn’t subsidize a poor person’s drug habit, yet nobody proposes testing welfare recipients for their alcohol and tobacco use. Given that most of the people failing drug tests are bound to be failing for marijuana, this amounts to ferreting out the poor who will cost society the least while incentivizing them to use the legal drugs that will cost society more.

It’s somewhat hypocritical, as well, when many of these politicians grandstand all the time about getting big government out of our lives. Apparently, though, if you’re a poor person in need of assistance, big government owns your life and can dictate what you do with it. Witness recent attempts in Wisconsin to ban food stamp recipients from buying shellfish, pickles, and sharp cheddar cheese; in Missouri to ban purchase of cookies, soft drinks, and steak with food benefits; and in Kansas to ban withdrawal of more than $25 cash, going to movies, or spending welfare money anywhere minors aren’t allowed.

And it’s highly selective. Nobody is proposing any rich beneficiaries of government welfare to pee in a cup. You don’t see the CEOs of Boeing or General Electric being quizzed about their drug history for the billions in subsidies and tax breaks they get from the government. Whether or not some white collar executive receiving billions in welfare enjoys some white powder isn’t a concern, but the pot use of a single mom receiving $164 to help pay the rent requires our diligent attention.

Fifty-six percent of voters statewide in 2014 decided to pass marijuana legalization in Oregon. That’s the greatest statewide support for legalization of the four states that have passed it. Every adult may possess an ounce of marijuana, grow four cannabis plants at home per household, possess a half-pound of marijuana at home, and shop in safe retail outlets.

The only problem? If you live east of the Cascade Mountains, there will be no safe retail outlets for you.

As the legislature worked on implementing the will of the majority, representatives of the people living in those eastern counties demanded a compromise. Allow the counties that really, really hate potheads to ban marijuana markets, or they’ll sue to destroy the entire state’s legal marijuana markets.

Measure 91 already contained within it some powerful local control options for those counties. Any county or city could ban marijuana producers, processors, wholesalers, and retailers. But those bans would have to go before the voters in that city or county at the next election. That’s what a majority of Oregon voters decided would be fair.

But the eastern counties didn’t like that idea. Their representatives argued that they had just rejected the statewide vote for legalization, so why should they have to once again muster up a majority in their county to vote against legal pot shops?

Thus, HB 3400 was passed with what I call the “West Idaho Compromise”. Those rural, conservative counties that better resemble Idaho’s culture than western Oregon’s could vote through their city councils or county commissions to ban legal marijuana markets, with no automatic referral to the ballot for voter approval, if their county voted greater than 55 percent against Measure 91.

This has now led to ten counties and 25 cities to enact such bans, and only in two counties and ten cities will the voters be asked to approve those bans.

The problem with the logic in allowing pot-hating counties to automatically ban is that the first statewide vote we held was not about allowing legal pot shops, but ending illegal marijuana. We all agreed to end illegal marijuana. Now, if a county or city wants to ban, the question is different. It is no longer “shall we end prohibition and, in doing so, establish pot shops?” Today it is “like it or not, now that marijuana is legal, should citizens have a local place to buy it?”

It’s a critical difference. If I’m a pot-hating voter in eastern Oregon, maybe I vote no on Measure 91 because I don’t want an increase in pot’s availability. But now that it is legal statewide, as a pot-hating voter, maybe now that choice is a legal pot shop versus illegal dealers who are now legal to grow four plants and possess eight ounces. Maybe I could be persuaded that the pot shop is the lesser of those two evils.

But we’ll never know, because those pot-hating counties and cities make that decision among a handful of elected representatives who are more attuned to what the downtown business owners and the rural land owners want than what the average citizen may want.

Meanwhile, the legislature also passed SB 460, which allows the existing medical marijuana dispensaries to sell to all adults a limited amount of marijuana only, if the dispensary opts in. This has given us over 240 locations where adults can buy marijuana from a licensed, regulated business, rather than the dude who’s using our new legality as a cover for his weed dealing.

Of course, none few* of these legal marijuana outlets exist east of the Cascade Mountains. In West Idaho, prohibition still rules the commerce in marijuana. Unfortunately, starting in January, those counties will still receive a portion of the tax revenues that only western Oregon pot smokers will be paying, and they will continue to receive their unearned tax revenue until July 2017.

* Thanks to commenters who noted that Wasco, Jefferson, and Deschutes counties are east of the Cascades. There are 18 retail marijuana shops in Bend (Deschutes), 3 in Madras (Jefferson), and 1 in The Dalles (Wasco). Those and the four in Brookings are the only retail marijuana shops farther than 65 miles from Interstate 5. An adult resident of Ontario, Oregon, has a shorter drive to buy legal marijuana in Washington State than to drive to the nearest pot shop in The Dalles or in Bend in his or her own state. I wouldn’t advise it, as most of that drive is through Idaho, but it makes the point that citizens in most of Oregon who voted to legalize marijuana are going to keep supporting the black market.

ReformCA, also known as the California Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform, has posted its long-awaited initiative language for 2016 California marijuana legalization.

The group boasts an impressive array of backers and has already amassed some serious funding. The co-proponents are Dale Sky Jones, the chancellor of Oaksterdam University, who was the spokesperson for the 2010 legalization effort that opened up the national discussion of realistic ways to end marijuana prohibition, and Ms. Alice Huffman, a national board member for the NAACP and president of the civil rights organization’s California affiliate.

Here are sixteen things you should know about the 2016 California marijuana legalization initiative, known officially as The Control, Regulate, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2016. Look them up for yourself in the language using the ^{superscripted sections} as your guide:

1. Marijuana will be legal for adults 21 and older. It will be legal to possess, process, share, and transport up to an ounce of marijuana products^[§26011(a)].
2. A California ounce is heavier. ReformCA’s language stipulates that “One ounce of cannabis” means 28.5 grams. That’s 150.5 milligrams heavier than an ounce actually is^[§26000(i)].
3. Home grow will be legal for adults 21 and older. Adults are allowed to cultivate up to a 100 square foot garden and possess all the marijuana that garden produces^[§26011(c)]. It appears that many adults could cultivate collectively, as marijuana licensing specifically “shall not infringe on the rights… [of] cultivation of homegrown cannabis individually or collectively.”^[§26027]
4. There will likely be public consumption “marijuana lounges”. Adults are allowed to consume marijuana at a private “residence or such other location as permitted under this Act”^[§26011(b)]. The Cannabis Commission can place “reasonable conditions upon any cannabis license” for “governing on-site consumption… at licensed retail facilities”^{[§26029(a)(3)]}.
5. Parents can’t lose their kids over pot. Child protective services can’t bring child endangerment charges against adults who are lawfully possessing and cultivating cannabis and even unlawful possession and cultivation on its own is no reason to remove children or bring charges against their parents^[§26012].
6. There will be eight types of commercial marijuana licenses: Cultivator, Nursery, Manufacturer, Distributor, Retailer, Transporter, Tester, and Researcher. You’ll need to be a 21+ adult with two years’ residency in California and no violent or fraudulent felonies in your past. Marijuana crimes older than three years will not count against you. Cultivator licenses will be in tiered categories by size, with a special “craft” tier for farms below one-half acre in size. Existing medical marijuana industries will be granted provisional licenses and given precedence in acquiring the new commercial licenses^[§26028].
7. There will be cultivation, production, and sales taxes^[§31003].
   1. Cultivation tax will be $2 per square foot of canopy, with half going to the city or county where the grow resides and half going to a state environmental protection fund.
   2. Production tax will be $15 per ounce of flowers sold and $3 per ounce of marijuana products, but only $5 per ounce of flowers and $1 per ounce of products for the “craft” tier growers’ first 500 pounds. Ninety percent of that tax goes to the state Cannabis Safety Fund and ten percent goes to the city or county.
   3. The sales taxes will be 10 percent for edibles and extracts and 5 percent for flowers and other products. Those taxes go to the state Cannabis Safety Fund, but will not be charged to medical marijuana patients. There will also be 5 percent local tax benefiting the city or county, but that cannot be charged to medical marijuana patients on Medi-Cal. All the other existing marijuana sales taxes are preempted.
8. Those tax collections will help poor kids. The state will provide $30 million as a start-up loan to get the Cannabis Commission running. After paying back that loan, 50-to-60 percent of the revenues in the Cannabis Safety Fund will go toward preschool reimbursements, infant and toddler care, youth counseling, drug education, youth services, and gang diversion. Another 2-to-20 percent will fund research on legalization’s effectiveness, reliable impairment testing, public education, and for substance abuse and mental health treatment^[§26021].
9. The old criminal marijuana laws are repealed. ReformCA’s language repeals Health & Safety Code Section 11357 (possession), Section 11358 (cultivation), Section 11359 (possession for sale), Section 11360 (trafficking), Section 11361 (furnishing to minors), and Section 11485 (seizure), as well as Vehicle Code Section 23222(b) (possession in a car)^[§26001(a)]. It also replaces those laws with the following new laws:
   1. There will be just two $100 marijuana infractions possible: possession of less than an ounce by people under 21 and sharing marijuana between 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds^[§26002(a)].
   2. There will be nine $500 marijuana infractions possible: adults (21+) sharing or selling with young adults (18-20), possession of one ounce to one pound by people under 21, possession of more than one ounce outside the home or for export, toking in public, toking where prohibited, driving while passengers toke, and growing pot where it can be seen or is insecure^[§26002(b)].
   3. There will be four misdemeanor “wobblers” possible: This “wobbler” means that the crime can be charged as a misdemeanor crime, with possible six months in jail and $1,000 fine, or treated as an infraction with up to $500 fine. These wobblers would be possessing more than a pound, outside your home or with intent to export, selling between an ounce and a pound, cultivating more than a 100 square foot personal garden, or any cultivation by people under 21^[§26003].
   4. There will be two juvenile misdemeanors possible: It is a first offense $250 fine, second offense $500 fine, and third offense ten days in juvenile custody for any minor under 18 to possess marijuana at a school or sell marijuana anywhere^[§26004].
   5. There will be three marijuana misdemeanors: These all come with possible six months in jail and $1,000 fine and include selling more than a pound, possession at a school by someone 18 or older, and toking while driving, piloting, or boating^[§26005].
   6. There will be eight felony “wobblers” possible: These may be treated as six month / $1,000 misdemeanors or as felonies, including furnishing marijuana to minors, exporting marijuana out of state, cultivating on parks and federal land, using marijuana as cover for drug trafficking, use of violence in marijuana distribution, hiring people under 21 for marijuana businesses, greater than $10,000 worth of black market activity, and manufacturing extracts with explosive volatile solvents (BHO, for example)^[§26006].
10. You can petition to have your previous marijuana criminal records destroyed^{[SECTION 5]}. If you are currently on probation, you can petition the court for early termination^{[SECTION 8]}. If a court has required you to register because of violations of the old marijuana laws now repealed, you will no longer have to register once you’ve completed your sentence^{[SECTION 9]}.
11. You have to actually be impaired to get a DUI: The “sole standard” to be used in determining if someone is too high to drive is that “he or she is no longer able to drive a vehicle… with the caution of a sober person.” Thus, arguing about the levels of inactive metabolites or active THC in the blood can’t secure a DUI conviction without showing he or she couldn’t drive cautiously^[§26007].
12. You can be fined for your marijuana overages: You can be fined $50 per ounce in possession and $10 per square foot of cultivation when you exceed the limits of personal possession and home grow. Or it can be a flat $2,000 per day, and these apply to all the new crimes (but not infractions) created by this law^[§26008].
13. You still won’t get all the rights you deserve: Your boss can still fire you for marijuana metabolites in your hair, urine, or saliva. Cities can still deem marijuana a “public nuisance”. You can still be banned from possession in public buildings, private property, and prisons. You’re still subject to environmental protection laws. Your landlord can prohibit your marijuana smoking in his or her property^[§26009(a)].
14. This will not change the medical marijuana laws… The law shall not infringe on Prop 215 or SB 420, the laws that govern medical marijuana in California^{[§26009(b) & (c)]}.
15. …However, medical marijuana patients will gain new rights: Schools, employers, and landlords would be prohibited from discriminating against medical marijuana patients, and child protective services would have to treat marijuana-using patients like patients who use any other prescription medicine^[§26010].
16. It will take a 60 percent vote in the California Legislature to change any of this^{[SECTION 13]}.

There are other 2016 California marijuana legalization initiatives out there, but ReformCA brings the biggest backers and funders to the table. This is just their draft and some of the details may change after hearing from stakeholders. But I believe this is largely what 2016 California marijuana legalization will look like.

Tomorrow at 2pm at the Ohio Statehouse, advocates for medical marijuana research will be announcing their plans to build a $24 million research center in the state of Ohio if Issue 3 should pass in the 2015 election. Speaking at the event will be Dr. Sue Sisley, MD, Principal Investigator for the only FDA-approved randomized controlled trial looking at use of whole-plant marijuana (grown by NIDA) in combat veterans with treatment-resistant post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), who will perform her research in Ohio at ICI’s future research facility.

The drive to legalize marijuana in Ohio in 2015, ResponsibleOhio’s Issue 3, has been attacked for its most controversial section, the designation of just ten approved sites for commercial marijuana cultivation. This has led opponents and even the State of Ohio to designate the plan an Ohio marijuana monopoly; though, technically, a market controlled by a small number of wealthy beneficiaries is more properly called an “oligopoly”. Nevertheless, the idea that all commercial growing would be controlled by ten wealthy interests written into the constitution has even some die-hard supporters of legalization rejecting Ohio’s first-ever marijuana legalization measure.

Now there’s word that the “monopoly” fear promulgated by those who wish to maintain prohibition tickets and arrests at least another year is an intentional misreading of the amendment. The growing of marijuana commercially is not tied to ten licensees – it is tied to ten locations – and that difference is crucial.

Garrett Greenlee represents the International Cannabinoid Institute. Greenlee tells Marijuana Politics that Ohio was chosen by the ICI for its proposed research facility from among all the states with existing or pending legislation for medical or recreational marijuana. “My prediction is Ohio will become the most competitive and highest performing state in the Union – and around the world – as the structure gives opportunities for safety and free market solutions, including advanced research like ours.”

The breakthrough backing Greenlee’s optimism comes from looking past the “monopoly” claims he believes are quite mistaken. “The notion that the organizers of the ResponsibleOhio initiative are greedy opportunists seeking to create their own monopoly is just plain wrong. It’s totally false. Anyone can lease from the landowners who have been granted the right through their property – just read the amendment’s language.”

The language of the amendment says (emphasis mine):

The growth and cultivation of marijuana and medical marijuana, and the extraction of cannabinoids from marijuana and medical marijuana, for sale and medical use within this state shall be lawful only at licensed MGCE facilities. Subject to the exceptions set forth herein, there shall be only ten MGCE facilities, which shall operate on the following real properties:

The amendment goes on to list the ten initial facilities, already owned by the investors in Issue 3, as the:

1. 40.44 acre area in Butler County;
2. 13.434 acre area in Clermont County;
3. 24.948 acre area in Delaware County;
4. 19.117 acre area in Franklin County;
5. 24.466 acre area in Hamilton County;
6. 35.031 acre area in Licking County;
7. 76.83 acre area in Lorain County;
8. 28.459 acre area in Lucas County;
9. 27.18 acre area in Stark County;
10. 29.0052 acre area in Summit County.

Now, that tells us there are indeed just ten “facilities”. But when we look at the definitions in the amendment, we find this (emphasis mine):

“Marijuana Growth, Cultivation and Extraction Facility” or “MGCE facility” means one or more structures in which, or the real property on which, the growth, cultivation, harvesting, processing, packaging, preparation, and labeling of all marijuana and medical marijuana available for sale or medical use within the state, and the extraction of cannabinoids from marijuana plants for use in marijuana-infused products or medical marijuana-infused products available for sale or medical use within the state, is lawful.

And remember that the initial ten facilities were “subject to the exceptions set forth herein”, which include:

No local zoning, land use laws, agricultural regulations, subdivision regulations or similar provisions or governmental consents and approvals applicable to creating transferrable legal descriptions, or to any subsequent assignment of different parcel numbers to the aforesaid real properties shall prohibit the creation of transferrable and recordable legal descriptions or separate tax parcel numbers for any of the aforesaid real properties.

In other words, the owners of the lands that constitute the facilities may subdivide that land to lessees like the International Cannabinoid Institute. Plus, the guarantee that local governments could not interfere with the constitutionally-protected facilities through zoning or land use laws makes Ohio very attractive to scientists who require years of uninterrupted research on cannabis.

The total acreage of the facilities runs about 13.9 million square feet. In Washington, the largest grows are 30,000 square feet; in Colorado, the largest grows are 10,200 plants. How the owners of the facilities decide to parcel their land is unknowable; however, even the smallest facility in Clermont County works out to 585,185 square feet, which could house 19 of Washington’s largest grows, while Lorain County is 3,346,714 square feet, or 111 Tier III Washington grows.

What seems more reasonable – that a land owner with no experience in cannabis cultivation is going to jump right in to a half-million-to-three-million square foot grow, or that a land owner would subdivide his land to lease to a bunch of growers who’ll guarantee him steady lease payments whether or not the crops fail?

By Greenlee’s estimation, it’s the latter. “We met with landowners and offered to lease their properties, just as any farmer might do with a landowner. These Ohioans have been very receptive to our concept, and we’re now in the final stages of site selection.” On The Russ Belville Show, Greenlee said, “I think, Russ, there will be over 100 growers in Ohio.”

It was an amazing day yesterday as adults throughout the state of Oregon visited their local medical marijuana dispensary to make their first legal Oregon marijuana purchases for recreational use. Check out coverage from our own Anthony Johnson and Cyd Maurer.

I was at the grand opening of Cannacea in Northeast Portland. I was representing the cannabis consumers as the head of Portland NORML with our volunteer booth setup. Other vendors, such as Green Leaf Labs, were setup in the parking lot of this converted bank awaiting the first legal customers as they exited the dispensary.

The line at Cannacea stretched to about 300 at its largest. The woman who was first in line had been camping there since midnight for the 10am opening. Local rock station KINK-FM was setup there to broadcast the event and the local news cameras from KATU and KOIN were on hand as well.

Here are my photos, audio, and video from the event. Plus, I have video from my colleague from Portland NORML, Scott “Urb Thrasher” Gordon.

Tomorrow, October 1 at 10:00am, adult Oregonians throughout the state will be making their first legal purchases of marijuana – and Marijuana Politics will be there!

The bill allowing early sales of marijuana to all adults from existing Oregon Medical Marijuana Program dispensaries means that Oregon will have proceeded from legal adult marijuana possession (July 1) to legal adult marijuana sales (October 1) in just three months, far more quickly than Colorado (12 months) and Washington (18 months) adult sales began, and Alaska still awaits its first legal sales.

Oregon also set the record so far for the greatest measure of support statewide for marijuana legalization at over 56 percent of the vote.

Our coverage begins with Anthony Johnson, chief petitioner of Measure 91, who will make his first purchase at Cannabliss & Co at 1917 SE  7th Ave. in Southeast Portland. Cannabliss is located in a historic restored firehouse and owner Matt Price has been a longtime supporter of marijuana reform.

Cyd Maurer will make her first legal purchase at The Greener Side at 1553 Oak St in Eugene. Cyd is a former television anchor for local station KEZI who was fired when a workplace drug test discovered metabolites of marijuana in her system.

I will make my first purchase at the grand opening of Cannacea at 10735 NE Halsey St. in Northeast Portland. I will be live-streaming the event on 420RADIO.org and my @RadicalRuss Periscope account. Anthony Johnson will join me later as the first 100 adult consumers and the first 100 medical marijuana patients will receive free gift bags. Local rock station KINK-FM will also be there broadcasting live. You can hear a replay of the events at 3:00pm on The Russ Belville Show and I’ll have photos, audio, and video on all my @RadicalRuss social media accounts.

I’ve made many marijuana purchases in my life. Most of them happened in the parking lots of bars or the living room of someone I was pretending to like, always with the threat of arrest and jail hanging over me for possessing my purchase. Later in life, I moved to Oregon where I still made those purchases, but with the lesser threat of a ticket hanging over me. Later still, I made those purchases with the protection of a medical marijuana caregiver’s card, no longer afraid of a punishment for possession, but weighed down with a conscience that told me I was abusing a system designed for sick people for my own selfish purposes. Recently, I’ve made completely legal marijuana purchases in Colorado and Washington, free from fear, but burdened by overtaxation and the stress of travel.

Tomorrow, for the first time in my life, I will make a legal purchase of marijuana in my hometown. Not overburdened by taxes, but absolutely free from taxes for the rest of this year.

Yes, the purchase will be limited to just a quarter-ounce of flower, four seedlings, and seeds. No, I won’t be able to purchase concentrates, extracts, tinctures, edibles, or topicals until we get our adult marijuana shops in fall of 2016. Indeed, the tax rate jumps to 25 percent for me at these medical marijuana dispensaries come January. Sure, we still have to work out the transition from medical marijuana dispensaries to adult marijuana shops and we don’t quite know where all these places will eventually locate, aside from virtually nowhere east of the Cascades. Eventually, I’ll be shopping at adult marijuana shops charging 17-to-20 percent tax, the lowest in the nation.

It’s been a hell of a journey and we’re not through yet. The reporters of Marijuana Politics purchase legal cannabis tomorrow in Oregon, then it’s right back to the work we do to bring that same experience to cannabis consumers in the other forty-six states.

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report for 2014 is out and despite the legalization of marijuana in four states, more people were arrested for possession of marijuana and possession of hard drugs this year.

There was an increase in arrests for marijuana law violations for the first time since 2009, breaking the only four-year decrease streak in the history of the War on Drugs. Last year’s marijuana arrest total of 693,482 increased by 7,511 to 700,993, marking a marijuana arrest every 45 seconds in the United States.

The increase in marijuana arrests owes to an increase of 10,385 possession cases nationwide. Marijuana sales and manufacturing arrests actually decreased by 2,874, the only decrease in any drug category for sales and manufacturing or possession. There were 60,188 more drug arrests overall this year, with possession arrests for other dangerous non-narcotic drugs increasing by 24,949, followed by heroin and cocaine possession at 19,238, and possession of synthetic drugs up 5,891. Sales and manufacturing arrests for all other drugs but marijuana combined only increased 2,599.

To put it in perspective, possession arrests for marijuana increased just 1.7 percent, while possession arrests for heroin and cocaine increased 7.8 percent, possession arrests for other dangerous non-narcotics increased 8.0 percent, and possession arrests for synthetic drugs increased 8.5 percent. While arrests for marijuana sale and manufacture dropped 3.4 percent, for all other drugs arrests rose a trifling 1.4 percent.

If Colorado and Washington have made demonstrably fewer marijuana arrests in 2014, the first full year of legal possession and sales in those states, it stands to reason that other states have increased their marijuana possession arrests. Are the police in the states bordering the legal states increasing their arrests, as anecdotes have suggested. Are police nationwide in non-legal states getting in their last possession arrests while they can before legalization comes to their states?

It’s impossible to pinpoint exactly where the increase in marijuana arrests comes from. Table 30 of the FBI UCR breaks down drug abuse violations by region, but its total (1,223,505) doesn’t seem to account for the nationwide total supplied by Table 29 (1,561,231). Furthermore, year-to-year comparisons of state-level data are difficult because of variance in reporting agencies and offense categorization.

However, the FBI Drug Abuse Violations table does break down the percentages of arrests by drug type and shows just how much Western marijuana law reforms have shifted priorities.

Since 2010, the proportion of all drug arrests that were for the possession of marijuana remained slightly stable in the South and Midwest; half or more of all drug arrests there were for marijuana possession. Priorities have shifted slightly in the Northeast, with marijuana possession arrests dropping from 48.3 percent to 44 percent of all arrests, perhaps owing to decriminalization passing in some New England states and a decrease in stop-and-frisk policing in New York City.

The decrease in marijuana possession focus in the Western states is phenomenal. In 2010, the West already had the lowest focus on marijuana possession nationwide at just 33.5 percent. But following the legalization proposal Proposition 19 in California, which forced then-Governor Schwarzenegger to decriminalize possession, arrests in 2011 dropped to just 23.5 percent. Now, after Colorado and Washington have outright legalized possession of marijuana, those arrests make up only 17.1 percent of all Western drug arrests, about half the proportion they were in 2010.

Even with the slight increase in marijuana arrests for 2014, President Obama’s terms in office mark the greatest decrease in marijuana arrests, 17 percent, since President Nixon declared War on Drugs in 1970. About 4.6 million arrests have occurred while Obama has been in the White House, bringing the overall marijuana arrests total in the War on Drugs to a staggering 24.5 million.

Massachusetts passed marijuana decriminalization in 2008. Massachusetts passed medical marijuana in 2012. In the 2016 presidential election, Massachusetts will earn the marijuana reform hat trick by passing marijuana legalization.

But which one – the good legalization or the better legalization?

I just attended the 2015 Boston Freedom Rally, the 26^th annual protest for marijuana legalization in the Bay State. This year, there are two groups attempting to place legalization on the 2016 ballot – Bay State Repeal and the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.

Bay State Repeal (BSR, or “Bee Ess Ah” as the locals pronounce it) proposes the most liberal marijuana legalization yet proposed. Home cultivation and personal possession would be allowed with virtually no limits. A commercial marijuana system would be created with minimal taxation. Best of all, the rights of cannabis consumers in the workplace, in family court, and in medical decisions involving organ transplants would be protected. Bay State Repeal is backed by MassCann/NORML and was heavily promoted throughout the Freedom Rally.

The Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol (CRMLA or “Crim-Lah”) proposes a fairly standard marijuana legalization similar to what has already passed in four states. Personal possession would be capped at one ounce, home possession at ten ounces with up to twelve cultivated cannabis plants per household. A commercial system would be created with additional taxes added on to standard Massachusetts sales tax. Cannabis consumers’ family and medical rights are protected, but employers would still be able to fire people for failing metabolite drug tests. CRMLA is backed by the Marijuana Policy Project.

A similar dichotomy – good legalization or better legalization – exists in Maine, Michigan, Arizona, and especially California. The division usually involves long-time local activists pushing for the better legalization while professional national activists push for the good legalization. Attempts are made in each state to get all marijuana reformers behind one single initiative and these attempts almost always fail for lack of understanding of two simple facts:

Marijuana legalization campaigns cost serious money.

Eighty-six percent of the voters don’t smoke pot.

As much as I would like to see Massachusetts’ Bay State Repeal to make the ballot and pass, as much as I’d like to see the hard work of my friends in Boston come to fruition, without the serious money needed to gather signatures, I question whether the campaign can achieve its goals.

Then, if they are successful at making the ballot, will eighty-six percent of Bay State voters approve of legalization that means their next-door neighbor could plant as many cannabis plants as will fit on their property? Will 2016 political attack ads make hay of the idea that Massachusetts would become New England’s de facto black market marijuana capital, since illegal growers could claim their massive farms are for personal use and their couriers could possess any amount on their person without interference?

It would be so easy for an anti-BSR campaign to point out that the recent Supreme Judicial Court decisions already protect personal users from police interference – the smell and sight and possession of marijuana are no longer probable cause for police to investigate. Why should Massachusetts endorse such a reckless legalization plan, the detractors will ask.

That’s if BSR makes the ballot and CRMLA fails. If both make the ballot, then CRMLA becomes the “Goldilocks option” for nervous voters in that eighty-six percent – Prohibition is too hard, BSR is too soft, but CRMLA is just right.

If CRMLA makes the ballot, whether or not BSR does, I believe CRMLA passes. If BSR makes the ballot and CRMLA fails to, BSR might pass. Most cannabis consumers will vote for either, a liberal voter would likely vote for either, a conservative voter may reject both. If there are any voters on the fence about the issue, they’re going to choose the more conservative option on the ballot, whether that’s CRMLA or maintaining prohibition.

That sets up a dynamic where it is in the best interest of the supporters of BSR to push their initiative and to reject, either overtly or through failure to support, the CRMLA initiative. Since CRMLA will have the money for paid signature gatherers, it shouldn’t affect their ballot chances, but it could cost them if BSR supporters don’t support CRMLA on the ballot. If both make the ballot, it is in BSR supporters’ best interest to vote no on CRMLA, as the initiative with the most votes will become law. CRMLA will attract more of the non-toking voters who support good legalization and BSR will have to offset that with toking voters who support better legalization.

Thus, two initiatives create a situation that guarantees some marijuana smokers will vote to maintain prohibition, either by rejecting the sole CRMLA on the ballot out of spite or by splitting some pro-legalization votes between the CRMLA and BSR on the ballot, increasing the chances neither will pass.

Every marijuana consumer should pledge to support all forms of legalization to make the ballot. They all beat marijuana prohibition and they need every vote from our side. Fight for the better legalization, sure, give the voters that option, but accept that they may have to choose the good legalization before they’re ready for the better legalization.

And who knows, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe by 2016, legalization is so popular more voters end up supporting the better legalization. Thirteen months is forever in politics.

The Portland City Council met yesterday to discuss a proposed ordinance to require all medical marijuana dispensaries in the city to be located more than 1,000 feet from recreational pot shops and vice versa, but tabled the discussion after objections from activists in the marijuana reform community who claimed the ordinance creates more problems and solves nothing.

The current rules keep dispensaries 1,000 feet from each other, as well as schools and other sensitive locations. Rules also forbid soon-to-be pot shops from being 1,000 feet of each other. But there was nothing stopping a medical marijuana dispensary from being located adjacent to a recreational pot shop.

Portland Mercury reported the ordinance was requested by lobbyists representing the existing medical marijuana dispensaries, who fear losing out on the transition to becoming lucrative recreational shops if someone were to open a competing new recreational shop nearby. These dispensary operators feel that they pioneered the legal marijuana market and should be given preference as it adds recreational consumers.

Activist Lindsey Rinehart was at the meeting to testify against the ordinance and tells Marijuana Politics that the council put off the decision on the ordinance until next week’s meeting.

Other activists pointed to the unintended consequences such an ordinance would provoke. Given that medical marijuana dispensaries number over 100 in Portland, the best-trafficked locations that comport with the 1,000’ buffer zone have already been taken. A new recreational pot shop would have to locate in the few allowable zones left. Recreational consumers would have to bypass the numerous dispensaries close by to drive out to some far flung location to purchase legal marijuana.

If many or most of the medical dispensaries convert to recreational sales, however, the opposite will be true. Except this time, it is a sick or disabled person who has to decide whether to pay a likely 20 percent tax on marijuana at the nearby pot shop or find someone to drive them to the far flung location to purchase tax-free medicine.

What terrible consequence befalls society if two or more marijuana stores are near one another? There are places I can go in Portland to find multiple strip clubs, coffee shops, taverns, food carts, theaters, and clothing retailers within 1,000 feet of each other. They provide a comparison shopping benefit for the consumer. Why should we encourage greater traveling distance for marijuana consumers to comparison shop?

City officials say they are leery of pot-saturated locales reminiscent of Hayden Island’s “lottery row”. But under current rules, legalization means an area goes from having one marijuana-selling building within 1,000 feet to two; it would hardly be like “lottery row”. The real question is why should there be two different buildings for selling marijuana?

Oregon has a complete regulatory system for the production, processing, and sales of marijuana to adults who use it for medicine, run by the Oregon Health Authority. Oregon has another complete regulatory system for the production, processing, and sales of marijuana to adults who use it for fun, run by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. So, Oregon has to have two separate buildings for the adults to buy marijuana from, depending on why they are buying it.

Can you imagine if we had one fruit stand that sold oranges to people who like oranges, but a separate fruit stand that sold oranges to people suffering from vitamin C deficiency? How about one car lot that sold cars to people who like road trips, and a separate car lot that sold cars to people who must commute to work? It is because of this ridiculous separation of marijuana markets that ridiculous ordinances exist like the one Portland is considering.

Medical marijuana advocates will tell you that patients need high-quality medicine and well-trained servers to help them select it. Patients should also not be taxed for their medical purchases. Without separate dispensaries, they argue, there won’t be a guaranteed supply of medically-specific marijuana products, like CBD oil, RSO oil, salves, and tinctures.

So, why not have just one system for producing, processing, and selling marijuana? Set the quality regulations and service standards at the point the patient requires; the recreational consumer isn’t going to mind not being poisoned by pesticides and being served by a medically-knowledgeable budtender. Require by regulation that a certain percentage of product produced and sold in pot shops must be medically-specific varieties. Then just don’t press that “tax” button on the cash register or limit a customer to one ounce when it’s a patient making the purchase.

Under this scenario, pot shops could still be kept 1,000 feet from each other without negatively impacting patients or recreational consumers. It’s so damn logical I expect it will be years, if ever, before we see it happen.

Steve DeAngelo, the founder of America’s largest medical marijuana dispensary, Harborside Health Center, and a longtime activist for cannabis legalization, has released his new book, “The Cannabis Manifesto: A New Paradigm for Wellness“. Our Ngaio Bealum sat down with DeAngelo for a video interview; I spoke with DeAngelo yesterday on my live radio stream and podcast.

I asked DeAngelo if this “paradigm for wellness” was just a new take on Dennis Peron’s old line that “all use is medical”; how DeAngelo feels about the Ohio legalization initiative that restricts commercial growing to ten campaign investors; and DeAngelo’s opinion on the use of words like “marijuana”, “pot”, and “weed”.

You can get Steve DeAngelo’s “Cannabis Manifesto” by visiting http://CannabisManifesto.buzz – and you’ll get your own free .buzz domain and other goodies for buying through the CannabisManifesto.buzz website.

You know the dealer, the dealer is a man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he’s not a natural man

I said God damn, God, God damn The Pusher man

–Hoyt Axton, “The Pusher”

There is a drug called Daraprim. It is an anti-parasitic. It is used mostly to treat toxoplasmosis. That is a somewhat benign parasite you can get from eating under-cooked meat or handling cat feces. But if you have a compromised immune system, like an AIDS patient, a chemotherapy patient, or an infant, toxoplasmosis can kill you. Daraprim can also be used to treat malaria, which kills millions in developing countries.

Daraprim has been approved for medical use by our Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for 62 years. From 1953 to around 2010, a Daraprim pill cost about one dollar. Then GlaxoSmithKline, the pharmaceutical giant that owned Daraprim, sold its marketing rights in the United States to CorePharma in 2010. CorePharma immediately raised the price of a Daraprim pill to $13.50. CorePharma got bought out by Impax Labs, then Impax Labs sold Daraprim rights to Turing Pharmaceuticals.

Today, one pill of Daraprim sold by Turing costs $750.00.

Turing is owned by 32-year-old Martin Shkreli, a former hedge fund manager. He became ludicrously rich in his twenties by managing other people’s wealth. One of his wealth-building strategies, according to a 2012 complaint filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, was to publicly disparage the drugs being manufactured by companies that he was short-selling (betting on a company losing money). Shkreli even allegedly inserted himself into the FDA approval process to stop those drugs other companies would manufacture to help sick and dying people, so he could win his short-sell bets.

When CBS News asked Shkreli how he could defend such an excessive price increase that pushed the average cost of treatment from about $1,130 to $63,000, and for some patients over a half-million dollars annually, Shkreli said, “Because the drug was unprofitable at the former price, so any company selling it would be losing money. And at this price it’s a reasonable profit. Not excessive at all.”

Daraprim is by no means an isolated phenomenon; this is common in the pharmaceutical world where pills are just profits, not the lives of people, most of whom are financially struggling because of their medical condition. The New York Times, Bloomberg, and the Wall Street Journal have also listed some of the other recent examples of ghoulish price gouging by Big Pharma:

• Cycloserine (tuberculosis treatment) – Rodelis Therapeutics raises price from $500 for 30 pills to $10,800;
• Doxycycline (antibiotic) – raised from $20 a bottle to $1,849;
• Xyrem (narcolepsy) – 841 percent increase;
• Humulin (diabetes) – 354 percent increase;
• EpiPen (anti-anaphylactic) – 222 percent increase;
• Nitropress or Isuprel (heart medication) – bought by Valeant Pharmaceuticals, immediately raised price 525 percent and 212 percent;
• Ofirmev (pain) – raised from under $500 to $1,024 for 24 vials;
• Vimovo (pain) – raised from about $200 to $1,678 for 60 tablets.

When pressed on these price increases, CEOs will always moan about how unprofitable that drug is and how with their new profits, they’ll invest in better drugs. That’s Shkreli’s line, telling CBS, “With these new profits we can spend all of that upside on these patients who sorely need a new drug, in my opinion,” despite the fact medical professionals treating toxoplasmosis say the old $1 Daraprim pill was working just fine.

The problem with Shkreli’s spin is that pharmaceutical companies are spending far more money on marketing than they are on research and development. John Oliver had a great segment on that, where he showed how Johnson & Johnson spent $17.5 billion on sales and marketing in 2013, compared to $8.2 billion for research and development. Randall S. Olson did a great job illustrating how Big Pharma spends on marketing versus Big Tech and Big Auto spending more on R&D.

Martin Shkreli made $8.2 million in his last gig with Retrophin, Inc.; I can’t find any compensation info for his current gig with Turing, as it is a privately-held Swiss company. While talking with Bloomberg, he absolutely beamed with pleasure over what he thinks is a civil service he has performed. “We’re the first company that really focused on this product. And I think that’s a great thing, because ultimately companies before us were actually just giving it away, almost,” Shkreli complained. “The price that they were pricing it at, $13.50, you only needed less than 100 pills, so at the end of the day the price per course of treatment—to save your life!—was only $1,000.”

Yes, what a shame that we were only charging $1,000 – or roughly Shkreli’s dinner and bar tab – on saving an AIDS patient’s or a cancer patient’s or an infant’s life!

Shkreli is now feeling the heat on social media and traditional media. The Daily Beast called him “Big Pharma’s Biggest Asshole”. He’s been getting into beefs on Twitter, where he quotes Eminem to defend himself and claims the Daraprim price gouging is “a great thing for society.” Hillary Clinton has tweeted in response to the furor that “Price gouging like this in the specialty drug market is outrageous,” adding, “Tomorrow I’ll lay out a plan to take it on,” and the NASDAQ Biotech Index immediately plunged 126 points.

How are these drug companies any different than the pusher, taking advantage of a customer who can’t say no, jacking up the price as high as the market will bear? How is it 34 states have laws against price gouging in natural disasters, but none have laws against price gouging life-saving medicine?

Hoyt Axton was right – Martin Shkreli is a monster; good god, he’s not a natural man. He doesn’t think so, however, bragging recently on Twitter “I donated a total of $5,000,000 to various causes recently. Looking forward to telling you all about it.”

Meanwhile, my favorite herbal medication, while it won’t treat toxoplasmosis, has been dropping in price as our companies begin producing it legally.

Featured Image from @MartinShkreli

Ohio has an initiative to legalize marijuana on the ballot for 2015. Some supporters of legalizating marijuana in Ohio are upset that the initiative only allows for ten commercial marijuana grow sites at first, and those ten sites have already been allotted to the funders of the initiative campaign. Those opponents of 2015 legalization often point to the promise of a better legalization plan sure to be on the ballot in 2016 or some later year.

Despite the fact that the other groups promising to legalize in 2016 and beyond are flat broke and show no realistic probability they can organize a successful ballot campaign next year, it is reasonable to assume that eventually, every state in the Union will have a shot at some sort of marijuana legalization in our lifetime.

Ohio is the state with the greatest decriminalized marijuana amount; 100 grams of marijuana or less (about 3.5 ounces) is considered a minor misdemeanor with no arrest and a $150 fine. That conviction can also carry a driver’s license suspension from six months to five years, even if the possession of marijuana occurred nowhere near a vehicle.

So why not wait another year, or two, or five, or longer to get a more wide-open legalization that allows any adult to participate in the field of commercial marijuana cultivation?

I can give you about ten thousand reasons why.

According to the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services Data Dashboard, in 2012 (the most recent data available), there were 11,988 arrests for adult possession of marijuana and 826 arrests for adult manufacture of marijuana that year. It’s reasonable to assume these figures will be roughly the same for successive years, as possession arrests have fluctuated between 11,000 and 13,000 since 2004 and manufacture arrests were as high as 1,300 before dropping to 2012’s recent low.

In Washington following legalization, all marijuana law violations charged in court dropped by 63 percent. In Colorado, the decline was 80 percent. (I believe the difference in declines is due to Washington not having legalized home grow like Colorado has.) That’s not just the less-than-one-ounce possession cases that got legalized. That’s all marijuana law violations, including possession, growing, trafficking, and selling. That’s because once legal, marijuana’s smell and presence is no longer an automatic probable cause for a police officer to investigate.

In Colorado and Washington (and now, Oregon and Alaska), K-9 officers (drug dogs) can no longer be used to detect marijuana, since it is legal to carry an ounce. Decriminalization, like Ohio has, does not make it legal to carry marijuana, therefore any scent of it detected by man or dog is reason for the cop to keep investigating.

In Ohio, the guy who just came from a party and smells like weed, but possesses none, is going to be harassed by a cop looking to write a ticket or make an arrest. The guy who is in possession of a quarter pound he just bought from his dealer is going to end up with a felony because he smells like weed. But in the four legalized marijuana states, the smell of pot on the driver’s clothes, an eighth ounce of weed in the driver’s pocket, or twelve pounds in the trunk of the car is just the smell of legal pot. It doesn’t smell differently by weight.

If Ohio legalizes in 2015, they will have a situation more akin to Colorado’s than Washington’s legalization. Home grow will be legal, albeit with a state license that costs $50. If Ohio follows suit like Colorado and experiences 80 percent fewer marijuana cases, that’s over ten thousand cases per year where someone will no longer suffer as little as a ticket or as much as a felony prison sentence because he or she smelled like marijuana.

Now, maybe you don’t care about 10,000 other Ohioans. Maybe you’re protected by your Caucasian complexion that means you’re 1/4^th as likely to be harassed by police over weed smell than an African-American (or 1/13^th as likely in Allen, Ohio). Maybe you’re over the age of 30 and are also 1/4^th as likely to be busted for weed smell.

Regardless, a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. For Ohio – a state without medical marijuana – to jump straight to legalization in an odd-year election before California is nothing short of remarkable. To throw that legalization away and condemn 10,000 mostly young black people to police harassment they don’t deserve is a high price for them to pay to await the someday maybe legalization you’d like better.

“I very much hope that I am the only person on this stage who can say this, but I know there are millions of Americans who will say the same thing. My husband Frank and I buried a child to drug addiction. We must invest more in the treatment of drugs.

“We are misleading young people when we tell them marijuana is just like having beer. It’s not. And the marijuana they’re smoking today is not the same marijuana that Jeb Bush smoked 40 years ago. We need to tell young people the truth. Drug addiction is an epidemic and it is taking too many of our young people. I know this sadly from personal experience.”

–Carly Fiorina, Republican Presidential Candidate, at the 9/16/2015 GOP Debate

It is terribly sad when a parent loses a child for any reason, much less the preventable tragedy of drug overdose, Ms. Fiorina.

But marijuana did not kill your step-daughter. According to the account in your book, Lori Fiorina struggled with alcohol and prescription pills, as well as the eating disorder bulimia.

You are misleading young people, ma’am, when you equate your step-daughter’s death from highly addictive substances and mental illness to an herb that is incapable of producing fatal overdose, even in the tiny minority of its consumers who develop psychological dependence on it.

Yes, let’s tell the young people the truth: it is misleading to tell them marijuana is just like having a beer, because it is far less dangerous than that. Objectively, Ms. Fiorina, in every measure, marijuana is safer than alcohol. You cannot continue to peddle this reefer madness hysteria in the age of Google and expect to maintain credibility with young people.

Jeb Bush was a privileged rich white boy; I’m fairly certain he wouldn’t have been smoking low potency ditch-weed back in the 1970s. Ms. Fiorina, people like you who make this potency claim pretend as if potent hashish hasn’t existed for centuries.

Nevertheless, through selective breeding techniques, marijuana growers have doubled to tripled the average potency of cannabis over the past four decades. Jeb Bush probably smoked weaker pot. What you don’t understand, Ms. Fiorina, is that potency doesn’t make pot into a different, more dangerous drug. You can get impaired on beer, wine, or liquor, too – the difference is in how much it takes.

Marijuana, when smoked, has a distinct advantage over alcohol. Marijuana smoke is metabolized almost instantaneously by the lungs. Alcohol has to make a trip through the stomach, taking some time to metabolize. That’s why, Ms. Fiorina, we have this phenomenon called “one beer too many”, where you haven’t yet felt the effects of the first beers, drink some more beers, then realize you’re far more impaired than you intended to be.

But with marijuana, you smoke it to get high. Jeb Bush probably took a puff, felt a little high, maybe another, felt more high, and puffed through the whole joint before he got high high. Today, Ms. Fiorina, Jeb might only have to smoke three puffs to get high high. And that means less harmful smoke in the lungs, so today’s potent marijuana is something of a harm reduction measure.

You wouldn’t down a 12-ounce glass of tequila the way you down a 12-ounce beer. Neither do responsible cannabis smokers power-puff their way through one or two whole joints like they did in the 1970s. It’s a waste of a pricey commodity to do so.

Drug addiction is an epidemic, Ms. Fiorina, but it isn’t marijuana that contributes to that. In fact, there’s a good case to be made that marijuana prohibition and drug testing has incentivized the use of prescription pills and alcohol, since those substances flush from one’s system far more quickly than marijuana’s THC does. Certainly, the recent epidemic of synthetic cannabinoids owes to those factors – people use “Spice” & “K2” because they’re pseudo-legally available and their metabolites don’t trip workplace and academic drug screens.

Furthermore, Ms. Fiorina, numerous reports and surveys of medical marijuana patients show that they are able to reduce or eliminate their need for prescription opioid painkillers, like Oxycontin, that are so dangerous and highly addictive, as well as marijuana being a substitute treatment for alcoholism?

Did you know, Ms. Fiorina, that the DEA has allowed for a massive increase in production of oxycodone over the medical marijuana era, claiming they had to produce an excess of pills so there’d be enough for both illegal addicts and legal patients?

Did you know, Ms. Fiorina, that one of the main factors driving the recent heroin epidemic has been people whose Oxycontin prescriptions have lapsed, leaving them to choose a $5 bag of heroin from the street over the cost and hassle of more Oxycontin?

Respectfully, as a step-parent who lost a daughter to hard drugs (alcohol’s a hard drug, ma’am), it is ironic you’d advocate for the prohibition of marijuana that only exacerbates the problems of drug addiction.

I thoroughly enjoyed last night’s Republican Presidential Debate. There was an obese governor from Arkansas calling for a cure for heart disease that isn’t cutting down on the Chick-fil-A.

There was governor after governor telling 54% of last election’s voters how proud they are of de-funding the Planned Parenthood clinics where they go for routine pap smears and breast cancer screenings.

There was the Florida senator who insisted that the world is a dangerous place and the president needs to be ready on Day 1.

There was the brother of the president whose administration’s Day 234 featured the worst attack on American soil in history, despite being warned about that on Day 198.

There was the obese New Jersey governor once again insisting he was appointed US attorney on 9/10/2001, when, in fact, it wasn’t until 12/7/2001.

There was the megalomaniac who had the best line of the night, rebuffing the brother of the former president who crashed the worldwide economy, “Your brother brought us Barack Obama because [his administration] was such a disaster those last three months that Abraham Lincoln couldn’t have been elected.” The brother replied that his brother “kept us safe”, apparently referring to Day 235 and beyond if you’re not a black person in New Orleans.

But the section of the debate that has us all talking in the marijuana reform world is the back-and-forth between the Kentucky senator and the New Jersey governor over the 10^th Amendment and its application to marijuana legalization in the states. As VICE News reports:

“Governor Christie would go into Colorado, and if you’re breaking any federal law on marijuana, even though the state law allows it, he would put you in jail,” Paul said. “If a young mother is trying to give her child cannabis oil for medical marijuana for seizure treatment, he would put her in jail if it violates federal law.”

Christie tried deflecting this suggestion — “I’m not against medical marijuana. We do it in New Jersey,” he said — but Paul countered that the enforcement of federal cannabis laws means the threat of jail time for all users, since no federal provision for medical marijuana exists.

First of all, the New Jersey governor insisting that he’s “implemented and supported medical marijuana in his state” made me throw up in my mouth a little. This is the guy who obstructed medical marijuana in his state at every turn.

But within that exchange was the core political problem with the recent spate of CBD-only medical marijuana laws that have passed in 15 states, mostly in the South, and no-home-grow or no-whole-plant medical marijuana laws passed recently in the East. They provide a rhetorical shield against the most powerful attack we have against marijuana prohibition, the suffering of patients who use cannabinoid medicines.

Chris Christie gets to say something that is factually true – New Jersey does allow “a young mother… trying to give her child cannabis oil for medical marijuana for seizure treatment”. Not if she wants to attend school and use her non-psychoactive medicine at school like the kids on Adderall get to do. But he still gets a bit of cover from Rand Paul’s attack, as do the opponents of expanding medical marijuana in Florida or any other state with a CBD-only law.

Furthermore, they get to turn the attack back against the marijuana supporter, as CelebStoner reports:

“In New Jersey, we have medical marijuana laws that I supported and implemented… I’m not against medical marijuana… But I am against the recreational use of marijuana.”

CBD-only and no-home-grow and no-plant medical marijuana laws allow people like Chris Christie to say they support the truly medically needy, since what they approve of isn’t the growing of marijuana plants that healthy people harvest to get high.

Thanks to these kinds of laws, the “you support letting epileptics suffer” attack has no bite anymore. Even in a red state without any sort of marijuana reform, the opponents of legalization are becoming willing to cleave away that sympathy-for-the-sick-but-hate-potheads vote away from full legalization.

The political attack Rand Paul used – the 10^th Amendment – is a good one to use on conservatives who consistently want the government out of our affairs, unless the affairs concern our health care choices. Government-run healthcare is a terrible idea to today’s GOP, but government dictating which medical procedures and medicinal herbs we may use sure isn’t.

The attack just needs to stick with Rand Paul’s first sentence about smoking a joint in Colorado – over two-thirds of GOP voters in the early primary states agree with Paul. Don’t give Chris Christie wiggle room to deflect it to medical marijuana.

(Featured Photo Credit: AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill)

The Nevada State Athletic Commission (NSAC) has suspended mixed-martial arts fighter Nick Diaz for five years, a term the commissioner admitted was essentially a lifetime ban, given Diaz’s age of 32 years and the short careers in the brutal sport.

Diaz, an admitted marijuana user with a medical use recommendation from a California doctor, tested positive in one of three urine screenings administered for his fight in the UFC 183 event against Anderson Silva, who tested positive for anabolic steroids in his urine screenings.

Silva was suspended for one year by NSAC for the use of the dangerous performance-enhancing drug – one-fifth the punishment NSAC just handed Diaz for the use of non-toxic munchie-enhancing drug.

The positive marijuana metabolite test was the third failure for Diaz in Nevada. In 2007 Diaz was suspended for six months and in 2012 he was suspended for one year. NSAC chairman Francisco Aguilar alluded to the third strike nature of Diaz’s recent test, saying, “This is not just a marijuana issue. This is an issue of marijuana, a lack of being forthright, a lack of cooperation to make the sport better, a disregard for rules — it hurts other athletes just as much.”

The conditions surrounding the failed test are strange. Before and after the UFC 183 fight, samples from Diaz were tested by the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL). This lab found Diaz to be below the 150ng/mL carboxy THC* limit established by the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), a limit adopted two years ago by NSAC to match Olympic standards and catch only those competitors who have recently consumed marijuana. SMRTL is accredited by WADA and located in Salt Lake City.

But a third test, between the pre- and post-fight SMRTL tests, was administered by Quest Diagnostics, the nation’s leading workplace drug testing corporation. That’s the test Diaz failed, which his lawyers find quite suspicious, according to ESPN:

A box titled “observed” was left unmarked by the collector, which means Diaz might have provided the sample unsupervised. He also pointed out Diaz’s name appeared on the sample. Labs are not supposed to be able to identify whom samples belong to.

Furthermore, Middlebrook argued the failed test was such an outlier when compared with the other two that it had to be unreliable. According to the Quest test, Diaz registered a marijuana metabolites level nearly five times the allowable limit. In the SMRTL tests, however, his levels were well below that allowable threshold.

So, somehow, before the fight Diaz tests at “well below” 150ng, then tests at almost 750ng, then gets in a fight, then tests at “well below” 150ng? (MMA Junkie reports the second test was “in excess of 300 ng/mL, or double the NSAC’s allowed amount of 150 ng/mL.”)

Diaz also reportedly was having trouble submitting a clean specimen in the process of getting licensed for the fight. Diaz’s manager, Lloyd Pierson, allegedly inquired about a therapeutic-use exemption – a waiver sometimes given for medical use of certain pharmaceuticals that will trigger a positive urine screen result for banned substances – for Diaz’s medical use of marijuana.

Athletic commissions have been reticent to offer such exemptions for medical marijuana, even in states like Nevada where it is legal. The commissioners often cite the illegality of marijuana under federal law.

The Nevada State Athletic Commission voted unanimously to end Nick Diaz’s Nevada fight career over medical marijuana. But that didn’t stop commissioner Anthony Marnell III from being a 71 percent owner in a limited liability corporation applying to own and operate a medical marijuana dispensary in Clark County.

Apparently, it is forbidden for fighters in Nevada to benefit medically from marijuana, but the commissioners who ban fighters for marijuana can benefit financially from it.

* Carboxy THC = THC-COOH = inactive marijuana metabolite and should not be confused with the 5ng/mL active THC limit established for impaired driving in Washington and Colorado.