Here’s Why Legalizing Marijuana Makes Sense

Guest editorial: Here’s why legalizing marijuana makes sense
By Alex Newhouse
For the Yakima Herald-Republic

The call to legalize cannabis continues to grow louder despite all of the other problems our country is currently facing. Mainstream polls indicate almost 50 percent of Americans favor full-out legalization, and nearly 80 percent believe that marijuana should be available for medicinal purposes.

No one has ever died from simply using marijuana. In 1972, then-President Richard Nixon appointed the Shafer Commission to study the nation’s rising drug problem. It reported the following: “Neither the marihuana [sic] user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety.” The commission’s findings have withstood the test of time.

The more we learn about marijuana, the more benign it becomes. Marijuana does not cause cancer. Sound scientific studies, such as those done by UCLA’s Dr. Donald Tashkin, have clearly demonstrated this. We also know that marijuana is legitimate medicine. If marijuana has no medicinal benefit, why are so many terminally ill patients turning to it to improve their quality of life? Why, after countless legislative hearings and initiatives, have 16 states and our nation’s capital legalized marijuana for medicinal use? And why does an expensive prescription drug called Marinol, which is a synthetic form of the active ingredient in marijuana, exist? Even the federal government owns a patent for the medicinal use of marijuana. (The patent number is 6630507.)

Marijuana is medicine to many people. The Drug Enforcement Administration’s own administrative law judge, Francis L. Young, held that “marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record.” Studies done by the California Center for Medical Cannabis Research and the recent breakthroughs highlighting the antibacterial properties of cannabis extracts also clearly demonstrate marijuana’s potential as a natural and inexpensive medicine.

Unlike most medicines, it is quite safe for marijuana to be used recreationally by responsible and healthy adults. According to the White House’s Office of National Drug Control Policy, over 100 million Americans have tried or use marijuana. If this market were taxed and regulated, crime rates would go down and agriculturally based communities would profit. We easily forget how much disrespect for the law vanished when alcohol prohibition was repealed, or that well over 30,000 Mexican citizens have died since 2006 as a direct result of a drug war fueled in large part by demand for marijuana, or that the U.S. has spent approximately a trillion dollars and 100,000 lives on a drug war that could be reined in considerably with marijuana legalization.

Regulating marijuana would also protect our children. It is easier for kids today to get marijuana than it is for them to get alcohol or tobacco, which is a fact supported by the National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse. Drug dealers simply do not ask for ID. Regulation would also lessen the burden on the criminal justice system, making it easier to keep violent criminals behind bars. Washington currently has mandatory minimum sentences for marijuana possession, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports more people are being court-ordered into treatment for marijuana than ever before under threat of incarceration. This is a huge waste of resources.

The legalization movement is not about persuading people to use marijuana, but for giving the sick and responsible the liberty to consume a relatively benign product. Proposed policies within the spirit of the movement are worthy of our consideration.

 

* Alex Newhouse is a lawyer who lives in the Sunnyside area.

Latest DOJ Brief Provides Security For State Employees Enforcing Medical Marijuana Laws

by Noah Mamber

A funny thing happened on Monday. The Department of Justice filed a brief regarding state medical marijuana laws in Arizona . . . and it was a good thing, and was met with appreciation from the medical marijuana movement! Seriously. After the disappointments of the vague, not very helpful Cole memo, and the expected but still disappointing DEA denial of marijuana’s medical value, it was great to see the Department of Justice (DoJ) doing the right thing regarding medical marijuana, even if it was only in a limited way.

As you may know, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, last seen promoting states’ rights and vowing to fight on when it comes to illegal immigration, and her Attorney General, Tom Horne, had filed a suit as plaintiffs against the federal government, requesting permission to move ahead with Arizona’s medical marijuana program implementation. This was ridiculous, since no other governor has needed federal permission to move ahead with medical marijuana implementation, even though some others have also tried to use the red herring threat of federal action to slow implementation. Apparently, the DoJ also thinks Brewer’s claims are ridiculous, and it said as much in its withering Motion to Dismiss brief, in which it took apart each of the state of Arizona’s arguments, urging the court to dismiss the case. If the court dismisses the case, Brewer’s logical course of action would be to fully implement Arizona’s medical marijuana law, including licensing more than 100 dispensaries, though given her intransigence, that course of action is sadly not a given.

Throughout its brief, the DoJ basically said that the state of Arizona has no case and that plaintiffs Gov. Brewer and AG Horne have invented a controversy where none exists. Further, the brief notes that a state is not allowed to bring a case asking two sides to fight it out, without taking a position on the law in question, belying Gov. Brewer’s claims upon the suit’s filing of being a neutral party seeking “clarity.” The American judicial process simply does not work that way. In its brief, the DoJ’s criticism of the plaintiffs’ complaint was often direct and sometimes even slightly mocking, which was definitely appreciated by this reader.

The brief attacks the premise of Arizona’s suit in several ways. It says that the suit does not raise a substantial federal question (which it must in order to be heard first in federal court) because it asks for a declaratory judgment on the validity of a state law. It is amusing to watch the federal government explain Constitutional Law 101 to Gov. Brewer, noting that, “there is no federal jurisdiction of a suit by a state to declare the validity of its regulations despite possibly conflicting federal law” (p. 6). The brief also states directly that Arizona has not asserted any “actual, concrete controversy” in its complaint. The brief criticizes the plaintiffs for not identifying a controversy between the parties in the suit and notes the plaintiffs’ failure to take a side as a fatal flaw in the lawsuit, accusing the state of Arizona of “attempt[ing] to manufacture disputes among other parties” (p. 9). The brief criticizes Arizona’s decision to create twenty fictitious defendants, ten on one side of the law and ten on the other, states its doubts about the existence of the hypothetical defendants, and notes definitively that “parties cannot have ‘adverse legal interests’ necessary to establish a live controversy, when one party (particularly the plaintiff) professes to take neither side of the dispute” (p. 10). Finally, the brief denies that Arizona even has standing to raise such a claim, as it has not suffered any “injury in fact.” Basing standing on the idea that some Arizonans disagree about federal law’s effect on Arizona’s medical marijuana law will not work, nor will an unspecific suggestion about a “supposed risk that Arizona citizens will lose revenue or property” (pp. 11-12).

More importantly on a national level, this DoJ brief appears to affirm the following interpretation of the Ogden and Cole Memorandums, along with other relevant case law and actual enforcement: that there has been no demonstration that the federal government is interested in prosecuting state employees for implementing state medical marijuana programs and issuing dispensary licenses. The DoJ cites the lack of any “genuine threat that any state employee will face imminent prosecution under federal law” (p. 2) and notes that “plaintiffs can point to no threat of enforcement against the State’s employees” (p. 10). The brief notes that Arizona has no “concrete plan to act in violation of the Controlled Substances Act,” as it has refused to accept dispensary applications and issue licenses (an act that MPP believes, based on relevant court precedent, would clearly not be such a violation). The brief notes that Arizona was not able to produce any threat, generalized or specific, directed towards its state employees, and it points to the omission of any state employee threats in Arizona U.S. Attorney Dennis Burke’s letter on the issue (p. 14). The brief dismisses Arizona’s suggestion that Arizona state employees are subject to federal prosecution as “mere speculation” (p. 15). It sums up this argument when it says:

Plaintiffs identify no prior instances in which the federal government has sought to prosecute state employees for the conduct vaguely described in Plaintiffs’ complaint. Without evidence of such prior prosecutions, Plaintiffs cannot credibly show a genuine threat of imminent prosecution in this case. (p. 15)

This message from the DoJ is heartening, along with U.S. Attorney Burke’s clear statement that going after state employees “is not a priority for us, and will not be.” This brief also comes on the heels of the statement of former U.S. Attorney and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who said definitively about his decision to implement the state’s medical marijuana program:

I don’t believe the United States Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, given the narrow and medically based nature of our program, will expend what are significantly lessening federal law enforcement resources in the context of the federal budget, on going after dispensaries in New Jersey, our Department of Health or other state workers who are helping to implement this program.

These recent events all suggest that the Department of Justice is interpreting its guidance to mean that state employees can fully implement medical marijuana programs, like those in Arizona and Rhode Island, with no fear of prosecution. So let’s get it done, Governors Brewer and Chaffee! Time is wasting, and people are hurting and need their medicine now.

From Marijuana Policy Project

Washington DC Medical Marijuana Program Finally Making Progress

The District Of Columbia will begin accepting formal applications to grow or dispense medical marijuana Aug. 5, a significant step toward establishing the long-awaited program to aid the sick and dying, reports Tom Howell Jr. of The Washington Times.

Earlier this year, the D.C. Department of Health received 170 letters of intent — 64 for dispensaries and 106 for cultivation centers — from more than 80 separate entities, said agency Director Dr. Mohammad Akhter. City agencies vetted the letters of intent Tuesday, disqualifying 14 dispensary letters and 18 cultivation letters, Dr. Akhter said. That leaves 50 dispensary and 88 cultivation candidates to vying for five and 10 permits, respectively. Qualifying candidates have until Sept. 9 to submit their applications.

In February, Akhter promised the system would be up and running in 60 to 90 days. But concerns about federal or congressional intervention have slowed down the process.

“We’ve received information from the USDOJ, USAO expressing their concerns about this and we want to frankly be sure we acknowledge all the concerns that exist so that when we have a program to move forward it is sound as we can possible make it,” Mayor Vincent Gray said.

“The bottom line is we will be issuing licenses in the middle of December,” Akhter says.

Advocates counter that the process has stretched on too long and the regulations are too restrictive.

“The patients who are going to benefit from this program are fed up and are sick and tired of waiting. They’re sick of it. They want their medicine now,” says Adam Eidinger of the Medical Marijunana Service.

It’s been 13 years since D.C. voters approved medical marijuana, but legal blocks have slowed progress.

Federal Forfeiture Laws Punish Legal Medical Marijuana Businesses

If you are involved in marijuana legalization or the marijuana industry, you need to read this

BY EAPEN THAMPY

The federal government is after you. They do not care if your state government has passed laws allowing you to conduct business, whatever facet of the cannabis business you might be in. They do not care if your customers are patients with Ehler-Danlos Syndrome, multiple sclerosis, or terminal cancer. They do not care if you’ve never been involved in a “real” crime in your life, if you pay your taxes on time, or if you go to church. They do not care if you are the mayor of your town or the hobo on the street.

The only thing that these federal law enforcement agencies care about is their money. Because when they raid you, your house, your business…they are looking for cars, houses, and cash.

When they raid you, they will have a chase car on scene. When the jackbooted thugs break down your door, guns blazing, they will search your house and the entirety of your personal effects. If they find any evidence, any mention, of a bank account, of personal wealth…they will take it.

They will take your money before you can hire an attorney to defend you in a court of law, and they will actively try to keep you from using the federal law that allows the provision of counsel for people who can’t afford it.

They will bankrupt you before they charge you with a crime.

If your mother wrote you a check or sent you a bank note, they will seize your mother’s bank account.

If your child has a piggy bank, or perhaps received a large cash gift for a birthday…they will take that too.

If they suspect you are a “drug dealer” they will time their raid to the best of their abilities to catch you with cash. I have found that law enforcement across the country will routinely and uniquely delay the service of warrants in “drug” crimes to maximize seizure revenue, rather than prevent the “drugs” from being sold to the community.

If you are innocent and you have had your property seized, they will threaten you if you attempt to get your property back. I know dozens of people who were hit with criminal charges after they challenged the civil seizure of their property. They will threaten your citizenship status if you look like an immigrant or associate with anyone who is an immigrant.

If you challenge their seizure of your property, they will use a labyrinth of tricks and pitfalls to undermine your efforts.

They will use the law of the high seas, laws designed to deal with violent pirates and terrorists, to persecute you in public and in private.

They will use the law of the high seas, laws designed to deal with violent pirates and terrorists, to persecute you in public and in private.

If you have the temerity to use the money you earn from providing products and services to consenting adults to purchase a nice car or any kind of visible luxury, you are a target.

They will laugh at you when you mention the Constitution or “rights”. Indeed, you may be reported to the FBI or Homeland Security for a “preliminary” assessment that the government does not have the legal obligation to keep a record of. In other words, they can punitively investigate you without telling you or anyone else, and you will have no way to prove what they are doing to you.

They can use the Patriot Act to stalk you and find your property. Because to them, you’re not an American…you’re a cash cow that they can slaughter under the name of “public safety”.

These are people who have no decency, yet occupy positions of power and respect. They will lie, bold-faced and brazen, to a state legislature. Not even the attentions of Congress will provoke respect from them. Agency heads who are invited by Congress to testify on forfeiture abuses have a track record of declining the invitation and sending a subordinate.

These are people who have no problem shredding subpoenaed documents that might prove damaging to them.

They will pay their salaries from the money and property they take from you. They will also buy weapons from the military, because they have the money and the power. They will use tanks and men wearing back masks and machine guns to raid you at night, like the KGB in the Soviet Union.

Some federal agencies have even paid judges directly from forfeiture funds. Impartial justice? I think not.

You will not have a proper record of the property that is taken or who has it. If your property is damaged or destroyed during their raid, they will deny the allegation. If you win your claim, they will claim that they are protected by qualified and absolute immunity.

If you do file a civil rights lawsuit against the government for violation of your rights, get ready for a 5-10 year ordeal. If and when you win your lawsuit, the government will fight the judgment and the payment of attorney’s fees. This is so that other attorneys will think twice before challenging the government.

The issues surrounding marijuana legalizers are not issues of marijuana legalization. They are issues of mercenary law enforcement, people who put on the blue uniform and the badge and go looking for plunder.

eapen.thampy@gmail.com

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‘New Approach Washington’ Files Initiative To Legalize Marijuana

Photo: Don Skakie

Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes: “Ending marijuana prohibition and focusing on rational regulation and taxation will free up law enforcement resources to combat violent and property crimes, and it will restore respect for government and the law”

​There’s a new move afoot to legalize cannabis in Washington state. The newly formed political action committee New Approach Washington on Wednesday filed an initiative to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in the state. Sponsoring the measure are prominent civic leaders, along with members of the public health and legal communities.

The initiative would authorize the Washington State Liquor Control Board to regulate the production and distribution of marijuana for sale to adults 21 and older through state-licensed stores. A new marijuana excise tax would be earmarked for prevention, research, education, and health care. State and local retail sales taxes would be directed to the general fund and location budgets.

Unfortunately, the initiative would not allow the cultivation of marijuana by recreational users (medical marijuana patients in Washington are already allowed 15 plants). Cannabis users would be required to buy their supply at state-licensed stores. Another possible sticking point is the codification a THC blood level of of 5 ng/ml as per se driving under the influence; that would criminalize any driving by most medical marijuana patients, although very few daily medicinal users would be impaired at that level.

Photo: Don Skakie

From left, Mark Johnson, Bob Wood, Rick Steves, and Alison Holcomb are among the sponsors of the New Approach Washington initiative to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in Washington state

​Sponsors of the initiative are:

• Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes

• John McKay, former U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Washington, 2001-2007

• Travel writer Rick Steves

• Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, Washington state legislator, 36th District

• Kim Marie Thorburn, M.D., MPH, former director of the Spokane Regional Health District, 1997-2006

• Salvador A. Mungia, immediate past president of the Washington State Bar Association

• Mark Johnson, past president of the Washington State Bar Association, 2008-2009

• Robert W. Wood, MD, former director of the HIV/AIDS Program of Public Health – Seattle & King County, 1986-2010

• Roger Roffman, DSW, professor emeritus, University of Washington School of Social Work

• Alison Holcomb, New Approach Washington campaign director

The campaign has until December 30 to collect 241,153 signatures to qualify for the ballot. If and when those signatures are filed, the initiative will go to the Legislature for consideration during the 2012 session. If the Legislature takes no action, the proposal will go before the voters in the November 2012 election.

Photo: Don Skakie

Alison Holcomb, New Approach Washington campaign director

​
“Ending marijuana prohibition and focusing on rational regulation and taxation will free up law enforcement resources to combat violent and property crimes, and it will restore respect for government and the law,” said Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes.

More than 8,200 Washington adults were arrested for simple possession of marijuana in 2008 — more than 20 a day — with more than 3,200 convictions, costing the state millions of taxpayer dollars.

Marijuana is already one of Washington’s largest cash crops — second only to its famed apples — and billions of dollars go into the illegal market untaxed.

“We cannot afford to ignore an enormous source of untaxed revenue, and we must stop the financing of drug cartels,” said Mark Johnson, former Washington State Bar Association president.

“These are revenues we could capture and direct to effective programs that protect youth from risk factors that contribute to early use of alcohol, tobacco and marijuana,” said Roger Roffman, a “marijuana dependency” treatment expert.

“As a parent and as someone who cares deeply for my community, I’ve seen how Europe treats drug use as a public health issue rather than a criminal one,” said travel writer Rick Steves. “The fascinating result: per capita, Europeans consume far less marijuana and have far fewer people in prison than we do.”

Initiative sponsors pointed out the serious impacts that current marijuana laws have on people. “Criminalizing marijuana use disrupts families and cannot be justified when marijuana is compared to alcohol and tobacco,” said public health doctor Kim Thorburn.

“The public health impacts of alcohol and tobacco and more serious than marijuana, but we do not criminalize the use of those substances,” said Bob Wood, a public health doctor. “It is time for Washington to take a new approach to marijuana focused on regulation and education rather than punishment.”

Further, marijuana laws are enforced disproportionately against people of color. In Washington, an African American is three times as likely to be arrested, three times as likely to be charged, and three times as likely to be convicted for marijuana possession as a white Washingtonian, despite the fact that whites use cannabis at higher rates.

“Even a misdemeanor conviction for marijuana possession can permanently alter the trajectory of a person’s life,” former bar association president Sal Mungia said.

The campaign expects petitions to be ready for signature gathering beginning in August, giving New Approach Washington a five-month window within which the gather the 241,153 signatures.

Key Features of New Approach Washington
2012 Marijuana Law Reform Initiative

• Distribution to adults 21 and over through state-licensed, marijuana-only stores; production and distribution licensed and regulated by Liquor Control Board (LCB)
• Severable provision decriminalizing adult possession of marijuana; possession by persons under 21 remains a misdemeanor
• Stringent advertising, location, and license eligibility restrictions enforced by LCB
• Home growing remains prohibited; except, initiative does not affect Washington’s medical marijuana law
• Estimated $215 million in new state revenue each year¹, with roughly $40 million going to state general fund (B&O and retail sales tax) and $175 million (new marijuana excise tax) earmarked:
  • Evidence-based prevention strategies targeting youth, chosen in consultation with UW Social Development Research Group²
  • Dedicated funding stream for Healthy Youth Survey³
  • Washington’s Building Bridges program for at-risk youth⁴
  • Science-based public education materials regarding health risks of marijuana use hosted by UW Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute⁵
  • Research by UW and WSU into the short- and long-term effects of marijuana use, including driving impairment
  • Dedicated marijuana Quitline analogous to tobacco Quitline operated by state Department of Health⁶
  • Additional marijuana-related public health educational programs administered by Department of Health at the state and local level
  • Biennial evaluation of impacts of law by Washington State Institute for Public Policy⁷
  • Washington’s Basic Health Plan
  • Community health centers
• THC blood concentration  of 5 ng/mL  or higher  is per se Driving Under the Influence⁸
• Remedy provision that stays implementation of any provision found to be preempted by federal law until federal law changes

 

Download the complete text of the initiative.

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¹ See Fiscal Note for HB 1550 (2011)
² http://www.sdrg.org/
³ http://www.hys.wa.gov/
⁴ Chapter 28A.175 RCW
⁵ http://depts.washington.edu/adai/
⁶ http://www.quitline.com/
⁷ http://www.wsipp.wa.gov/
⁸ See http://www.aclu-wa.org/blog/blood-cannabis-content-considering-legal-limit-driving-under-influence-cannabis for more information.

For more information, visit New Approach Washington.