ABC News: 46% of Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana

May 1, 2009

In a new nationwide poll conducted by ABC News and The Washington Post, just released today, a record 46% of Americans support legalizing possession of small amounts of marijuana. Support for legalization is more than double what is was just 12 years ago, while the number of people opposed has dropped from 75% in the late 1990s to just over 50% today. This comes just weeks after a poll conducted by EMC Research showed that a majority of Californians support legalization. The question now appears to be when legalization will actually go forward, not if.

Rare first glimpse into only government ran marijuana farm

April 30, 2009

For the first time ever, a camera crew was allowed into the mysterious government grow house located on the campus of The University of Mississippi in Oxford. St. Paul, Minnesota’s local Fox affiliate was granted permission to film the federal government’s one and only marijuana grow house - used to grow marijuana for research and for four remaining patients on the U.S. government’s now defunct medical marijuana program. Yesterday, the Minnesota Senate passed a bill that would legalize marijuana for medicinal use. Thirteen other states have already legalized medical marijuana, with at least 10 more states voting on similar measures by 2010. The video provides an interesting look at the only marijuana grow and research facility that has been sanctioned by the U.S. government.

“This is the only place in the country that actually has the responsibility of producing marijuana for research. We have very good quality material. We can produce any quality that is needed for the research program,” Dr. Mahmoud Elsohly, the program’s director said.

Three times convicted marijuana activist and trafficker avoids jail in Canada

April 11, 2009

On the same day it’s reported that U.S. federal attorneys are going forward with nearly two dozen prosecutions of state-legal dispensary owners who were raided under the Bush administration, Canada lets the well known and three times convicted marijuana activist avoid jail yet again. Justice officials in Manitoba said they will not seek jail time for Grant Krieger, who was convicted of distributing marijuana to hundreds of sick and dying patients across Canada under his Cannabis Research Foundation.

Krieger, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, has been a vocal advocate for marijuana legalization in Canada, and said the plant saved his life. In 2000, a judicial ruling allowed him to start using marijuana for medicinal purposes. A year later he was charged but later acquitted of trafficking marijuana. Two years later, in 2003, he was again convicted of trafficking marijuana but his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court. His most recent run in with the courts came in 2007, when he was sentenced to four months in jail for trafficking.

In yet another startling distinction between the views of Canada and the United States on marijuana policy, even upon his sentencing of jail for selling marijuana, the judge ordered he be allowed to smoke marijuana in prison. Thanks to the Alberta Court of Appeal’s he thankfully will be allowed to do that from the comfort of his own home, though his foundation to help others has been closed down.

“There are no victims in this,” Krieger said outside court. “The only victims are people I can no longer serve.”

- Welland Tribune

Bush-era DEA raids on pot dispensary owners still face jail

April 11, 2009

Nearly two dozen medical marijuana state owners and operators who were shut down by the Drug Enforcement Agency during the Bush administration still face prosecution, despite the new federal policy under the Obama administration of not interfering with dispensaries abiding by state law. Their fate is now up to federal attorneys who represent the regions where the raids took place.

The San Francisco Chronicle writes of one such case:

Top federal prosecutor: we are not interested in users or compassionate providers

April 9, 2009

Medical marijuana users across the country can take a cautious sigh of relieve after U.S. Attorney Joseph Russoniello’s comments in an hourlong forum discussion with Joe Elford, chief counsel of Americans for Safe Access. While Attorney Russoniello was reluctant to concede much, if anything, in the way of federal policy (and the reason it came to be), the federal prosecutor, appointed by George W. Bush, did assure the forum that the federal government was not interested in users of marijuana or even compassionate caregivers.

“We are not interested in users. “… We’re not even interested in people who have a legitimate claim to being compassionate providers,” Russoniello said during the hourlong forum at the University of California Hastings College of the Law. “But we differentiate between those people who are claiming such conduct and those who are cultivating, who are distributing, who are trafficking marijuana for profit.”

Attorney Russoniello also criticized the federal government for ignoring past research and blocking new research, which he believes would help provide and regulate marijuana like traditional prescriptions.

President Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, has stated that Obama’s campaign policies are now public policy, indicating that the federal government would end raids on marijuana dispensaries abiding by state laws. Though there has been some debate recently, as the Drug Enforcement Agency last month again targeted a dispensary in San Francisco. The feds claim the dispensary was violating both state and federal laws, but local authorities have disputed this.

Source: San Jose Mercury News

Report: Obstruction of Medical Cannabis Research in the U.S.

April 7, 2009

Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the nation’s largest organization of patients, medical professionals and scientists supporting safe and legal access to medical marijuana, issued a report today aimed at drawing attention to the federal government’s monopoly on the production of marijuana for medical research. The 14-page report, entitled “Obstruction of Medical Cannabis Research in the U.S.,” highlights the federal effort to impede therapeutic research on marijuana and exposes a conflict of interest for University of Mississippi professor Mahmoud ElSohly, who holds an exclusive cultivation license issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

ASA draws attention to the ways in which the federal monopoly impedes meaningful research and points to the need for a new policy that can be implemented under the Obama Administration. “In the United States, research is stalled,” said Caren Woodson, ASA’s Government Affairs Director. “And, in some cases, research is blocked by a complicated federal approval process, which restricts access to research-grade marijuana.”

Specifically, the report emphasizes the way in which government agencies — namely the DEA and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — selectively delay the process by which researchers obtain marijuana for FDA-approved studies. The report also highlights a federal “double standard” on medical marijuana illustrated by testimony from public officials who concede to marijuana’s therapeutic efficacy as long as it is produced in pill.

The report also emphasizes a 2007 ruling by the DEA’s own Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner that “the existing supply of marijuana [for research] is not adequate” and that an expansion of such research is “in the public interest.” Judge Bittner’s recommendations were in response to an application by University of Massachusetts at Amherst professor Lyle Craker to be another cultivator of marijuana for FDA-approved studies. The application was denied by the DEA in the final weeks of the Bush Administration and is currently being appealed. In March 2009, the Los Angeles Times editorialized that, “The attorney general (Holder) should heed calls to end the DEA’s obstruction of serious research into the medicinal value of marijuana.”

Perhaps most alarming is the report’s exposure of the federal license that enables professor ElSohly to exclusively produce marijuana for the pharmaceutical company Mallinckrodt, a subsidiary of Tyco International. This arrangement appears to be for the purpose of bringing to market a generic form of Marinol (a pill of THC, the active compound in marijuana, suspended in oil) due to go off-patent in 2011, thereby directly enriching ElSohly at a price that he and/or the federal government sets. To enable this scheme, the U.S. government has requested the United Nations increase a quota (from past years) for marijuana production by 900 percent. The request to increase federal marijuana production is a requirement of the U.N. Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs.

Recommendations outlined in the report include, implementation of Judge Bittner’s 2007 recommendations, streamlining the approval process for obtaining research-grade marijuana, and ultimately a removal of marijuana from the list of Schedule I substances, so that it can be made available to all who would benefit from its therapeutic properties. “The current research challenge is to conduct large-scale human clinical trials that evaluate the remarkable range of potential applications for cannabis-based treatments to specific medical conditions,” continued Woodson.

Further information:
- ASA report on the obstruction of medical cannabis research in the US
- DEA Administrative Law Judge Bittner 2007 ruling

Report: Drug legalization could save UK $20 billion annually

April 7, 2009

In a new report titled A Comparison of the Cost-effectiveness of the Prohibition and Regulation of Drugs, the non-profit Transform Drug Policy Foundation finds that legalizing such drugs as marijuana could save England as much as £14 billion (roughly $20 billion USD) annually.

The analysis of current costs is that prohibition of drugs is the root cause of almost all drug-related acquisitive crime, and that this crime constitutes the majority of drug-related harms and costs to society.

The comprehensive report looks at four scenarios in which current black market drugs are legalized, regulated and taxed, and the costs and benefits of each case. Even in the worst case scenario, in which drug usage increases an improbable 100%, the plan would still have a net benefit of over £4 billion.

The conclusion is that regulating the drugs market is a dramatically more cost-effective policy than prohibition and that moving from prohibition to regulated drugs markets in England and Wales would provide a net saving to taxpayers, victims of crime, communities, the criminal justice system and drug users of somewhere within the range of, for the four scenarios, £13.9bn, £10.8bn, £7.7bn, £4.6bn.

The full report:

Poll: For the first time majority of Californians support marijuana legalization

April 5, 2009

A field poll commissioned by Oaksterdam University between March 16th and March 21st shows for the first time a majority of California voters are in favor of taxing and regulating adult cannabis consumption similar to alcohol. 54% of those polled believed cannabis should be legal for adults while 39% are opposed and 7% are undecided.

A majority of voters indicated they would vote for a measure to allow cities and counties the option to tax and regulate cannabis and make adult cannabis consumption legal (53% Support/41% Do Not Support/7% Undecided) The economic benefits of taxing cannabis persuaded many voters to support the proposed ballot initiative.

58% of California voters believe regulations for cannabis should be the same or less strict than those for alcohol.

Poll Results:

The Same as Alcohol - 50%
More Strict Than Alcohol - 40%
Less Strict Than Alcohol - 8%
Undecided - 2%

Polls were conducted from 600 California voters by EMC research.

LA Police Chief: why not regulate marijuana?

April 5, 2009

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton is no stranger to the law. Before being appointed LA’s top cop, he served as military police during Vietnam and later served as the New York City Police Commissioner and Boston Police Commissioner. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Law Enforcement from the University of Massachusetts and was a research fellow at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

In a press conference held this week, Chief Bratton commented on California’s current medical marijuana laws and the recent federal government position of not interfering with states’ rights. In California, a patient must obtain a doctor’s recommendation from a state-approved doctor in order to obtain marijuana from a state-licensed dispensary. While he contends that it’s too easy to obtain a doctor’s recommendation, he recognizes marijuana’s medicinal qualities and questions why it’s not regulated like other drugs are.

“I think that the policy of the federal government at this time is unfortunate. I think the policy of this state is Looney Tunes,” Bratton said Wednesday at a Parker Center news conference.

“While I fully support its use for medicinal purposes, why don’t we regulate it like we do Lipitor or Viagra,” Bratton said. “You can’t buy those two without getting it through a legitimate pharmacy. If this drug is so important and so helpful, why is it not regulated like every other drug?”

While Chief Bratton clearly doesn’t approve of the current system, he brings up a valid point - why are we not regulating marijuana as medicine like we do other drugs?

Carlos Santana tells Obama to legalize marijuana now

April 4, 2009

“Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education. You will see a transformation in America … now we can afford not to be paranoid.”

Hailed as one of the greatest guitarists of all time by Rolling Stone magazine, Grammy Award-winning musician Carlos Santana made headlines this week when he sent a message to President Obama to legalize marijuana. In an interview with the Associated Press, Santana said now we can afford to not be paranoid. Check out the clip below: