Why Synthetic Cannabis Is Stupid

Breaking news out of Australia, specifically Joondalup, reports that five  people were hospitalized after inhaling a new form of Kronic, the most popular synthetic marijuana available (or not available–depending on the country). We’ve warned you about this before, but now I have to tell you again with more of an emphasis on just how idiotic these synthetic compounds are. STOP SMOKING IT! There’s more chastising to come after the break because if five random people in Australia had been HMJ readers or had friends that read it, they would have avoided a miserable trip to the hospital.

If you’re unfamiliar with my obvious disdain for these cheap (AND LEGAL!) offshoots of our beloved marijuana, then you can read these posts. Or read this, and bang your head against the wall for being a sycophantic tool vulnerable to the whims and fancies of the most diabolical of species: the ad-copy writer:

The Auckland-based manufacturing company believed to be importing the product into Australia describes the product on its website as ‘the height of innovation’ and that the new Kronic was developed ‘in response to demand.’

‘Containing no banned substances, the latest in our line of premium home-grown smoking blends will deliver you a smooth, haze-filled blaze,’ it reads.

Which is utter horseshit. The same type of horseshit that all manufacturers of synthetic products espouse so you’ll buy their product and they can make money off your lemmings-based consumerism. Conspicuous idiocy more than showing off the hip, new drug available. FourLoko is one thing, but this shit just isn’t right.

If you’re smoking this hooey because real marijuana is illegal, then you need to start thinking a little bit about synthetic vs. organic. Marijuana buds come from the ground. If you’re religious, you could say God created marijuana. If you’re a vegan or a tree-hugger, you could say Mother Nature created herb. If you’re a secular anarchist, you could say fuck “the man” and smoke REAL marijuana to do just that (it’s still prohibited on a federal level).  Regardless, don’t mess with the crappy man-made shit. Man made war, and strife and all the shit. We’ve fucked our planet up, but our abused world still grows delicious herb without our prodding. Man-made idrugs always lose.

Smoke marijuana instead of its followers. No one is going to the hospital for that. If you get sick or die from synthetic marijuana you’ve lost all my sympathy. I’ve warned you enough. Now call all your buddies in Australia and tell them the same.

I’d rather go blind then smoke that crap.

- http://www.hailmaryjane.com

Couple Held In Death Of Medical Marijuana Distributor

Photo: Long Beach Post

Police say they’ve identified the man in this security camera footage from a Beverly Hills convenience store as Marcel Mackabee, who has been arrested for the murder of medical marijuana distributor Philip Williamson.

​A husband and wife have been arrested in the March 24 Long Beach slaying of a medical marijuana distributor.

Marcel Mackabee on Tuesday was charged with one count of murder, and his wife, Rosemary Sayegh, was charged as an accessory in the shooting death of Philip Victor Williamson, according to police, reports Greg Mellen at the Long Beach Press-Telegram.

Robbery was the motive for Williamson’s murder, according to police, who said the victim may have had $500,000 and seven pounds of marijuana at the time of his death.

More arrests are expected, according to police.

The couple, both of Granada Hills, were arrested over the weekend. Sayegh, 32, was apprehended in Granada Hills and his wife Mackabee, 29, was arrested in Chico.

Photo: OC Weekly

Philip Victor Williamson, 29, was gunned down in a Long Beach alleyway.

​

Mackabee is being held on $1 million bail and Sayegh on $500,000. Both are scheduled to return to Long Beach Superior Court on Tuesday.

Williamson, 29, was gunned down in an alleyway off the 1500 block of Pine Avenue in downtown Long Beach, according to police.

Long Beach Police Department homicide detectives learned that Williamson, who lived in Los Angeles, delivered marijuana grown in Chico throughout the L.A. area.

The murder was committed for the sole purpose of robbery, police believe.

Williamson was found about 10:30 p.m. on March 24 by police, suffering from a gunshot wound to his upper body. He died less than 24 hours later from his injuries.

Long Beach police said they traveled to Chico several times for evidence during their investigation. That led to a tip that Williamson was seen with a man in a black Toyota 4Runner around the time of his death.

Security camera footage from a Beverly Hills convenience store showed a man in a black sweatshirt and black pants making a purchase and leaving in a black Toyota 4Runner on the day Williamson was murdered. A receipt from that store was found in the victim’s home.

Police now say the man in black was Mackabee, and that the receipt was his.

In late July, police traveled to Chico and Granada HIlls with search warrants and later made the arrests; the investigation is ongoing.

Sayegh was arrested Friday, and her husband, Mackasbee, was arrested on Saturday in connection with Williamson’s killing, reports My FOX LA.

The marijuana and cash have not been recovered, according to police.

A $10,000 reward offered by the L.A. County Supervisors’ Office has “generated information,” according to police, but they still want help from the public.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Detectives Scott Lasch and Donald Goodman at 562-570-7244. Anonymous tips may be submitted at www.tipsoft.com.

Stephen Colbert Needs To Endorse Ed Rosenthal For US President

Presidential Exploratory Committee Update

by Ed Rosenthal

You may have heard, but I am contemplating a run for the White House in 2012. I am still in the exploration process, but Stephen Colbert could be the deciding factor. If supported by the Colbert SuperPac I will almost certainly run.

If you would like to convince Colbert to support me please TELL HIM NOW!

Exploration is a dangerous task. About two months ago my Presidential Exploratory Committee of three, John G., Barbara B. and Dahar W., set out across the country to determine support for my campaign.

John G., was sent to check the electorate pulse along I-10 and I-40. We were receiving encouraging reports for two weeks, until he reached New Orleans. He hasn’t contacted us since.

Barbara B. was sending detailed reports of her meetings along I-80. She was sidetracked and somehow ended up in Billings, Montana, where we last heard from her. Apparently she had an “Aha!” moment and decided on a career change. I hear she is now a successful taste-tester at a popular dispensary.

Dahar W. flew to Atlanta and was supposed to wend his way up the East Coast but met his “life partner” and decided to move with him to his native Halifax, where there are few American voters.

So, after all our efforts at research we only have anecdotal reports on people’s enthusiasm. Still, my hopes are buoyed. When I explained the Party Party’s platform to the diners at my table at the International Cannabinoid Research Society (ICRS) Conference, all venerable scientists, they pledged their support, as did a random group of diners at Cheeba Hut in Denver, CO.

One of my opponents, Michele Bachmann, has claimed that she is getting her info from God, but either He needs a fact-checker or a better connection.

Another, Mitt Romney, claims superior knowledge because he has failed at several businesses. We need someone who has had a good economic season, not a handsome failure at life whose opinions are based on opinion polls, thereby avoiding the fateful thinking process.

Of course, Obama sold a lot of people a good line. But they forgot to remember that if it seems to good too be true, it probably is. His first and last unabashedly good deed as President was his inaugural concert. OK… he has done some gay rights stuff, but he’s still opposed to gay marriage and still thinks Afghanistan and Libya are good wars. I can’t figure it out. Good for what? Afghanistan is not worth one American life.

Obama is showing symptoms of MDS, Marijuana Deficiency Syndrome, a serious condition made all the more dangerous because of the tremendous power he controls over our life and death. Sadly, his attitude toward marijuana is just another symptom of his condition.

Meanwhile, I’ve been pondering domestic and foreign policy frequently. Hopefully, The Party-Party will quickly approve the platform that I have proposed, which is as follows:

1.) Legalize pot. Free the heads. Investigate the period and indict corrupt cops who violated citizen’s rights during the infamous pothibition.

2.) Close all U.S. military bases in the 80 countries where they are maintained. This is a complex operation so we will only close one a week. The first one will be in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This will be a double coup for U.S. foreign policy. We don’t need Guantanamo and if we did an environmental review we’d probably find it is an unsafe “superfund” environmental disaster site. It also houses all those al-Qaeda operatives and the innocents we’ve turned into their supporters. Leave them there so they become the Castros’ problem. The second country we will depart from: Afghanistan! We will have no more American casualties, save lots of dollars and will cease to supply our enemies with weaponry sold to them by the corrupt Afghani government. When the Taliban and al-Qaeda have no foreigners to fight, they will fight each other, even without sophisticated weapons. They will continue to fight to the death, using stones and knives when they run out of our gifts. Remember al-Qaeda’s most sophisticated weapon was a box cutter.

3.) With the military savings from not building weapons and maintaining bases, the U.S. will be able to proceed with the “Culture Inoffensive.” I’ve mentioned it before. Each week, to celebrate our troops coming home triumphantly, we will throw “The Big Cultural Event.” This is a weeklong party with concerts, theater, visual arts and sports. It will be free and will be broadcast worldwide for all the world to enjoy. The party will be held in a different city each week so every part of the country will benefit.

4.) Investigate the cause of the depression using forensic accounting investigators. Seize all tainted money that was illegally obtained by the “too big to fail” banks. Hold the perpetrators personally responsible.

5.) Re-invigorate the anti-trust laws for both domestic and multinational corporations and banks. Re-adopt laws separating banking and investment banking.

6.) Use the tax laws to encourage research and manufacturing in the U.S.

7.) End the deficit by closing corporate and ultra-rich tax loopholes. Make it more expensive for foreign corporations to do business in the U.S. What do you think? Should I buy a hat to throw in the ring? Get in touch with me on facebook. Again if you want to see me run, the best way to make it happen is to Tweet this.

From Cannabis Cuture

Pot Drivers: Stoned Driving Is Uncharted Territory

Officers look for signs of drug impairment. Without a standard in most states for the amount of pot allowable in a driver’s system, police administer a lengthy 12-point examination. (Joe McHugh, CHP / July 3, 2011)

By Ralph Vartabedian, Los Angeles Times

July 2, 2011, 3:46 p.m.

It was his green tongue that helped give away Jimmy Candido Flores when police arrived at the fatal accident scene near Chico.

Flores had run off the road and killed a jogger, Carrie Jean Holliman, a 56-year-old Chico elementary school teacher. California Highway Patrol officers thought he might be impaired and conducted a sobriety examination. Flores’ tongue had a green coat typical of heavy marijuana users and a later test showed he had pot, as well as other drugs, in his blood.

After pleading guilty to manslaughter, Flores, a medical marijuana user, was sentenced in February to 10 years and 8 months in prison.

Holliman’s death and others like it across the nation hint at what experts say is an unrecognized crisis: stoned drivers.

The most recent assessment by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, based on random roadside checks, found that 16.3% of all drivers nationwide at night were on various legal and illegal impairing drugs, half them high on marijuana.

In California alone, nearly 1,000 deaths and injuries each year are blamed directly on drugged drivers, according to CHP data, and law enforcement puts much of the blame on the rapid growth of medical marijuana use in the last decade. Fatalities in crashes where drugs were the primary cause and alcohol was not involved jumped 55% over the 10 years ending in 2009.

“Marijuana is a significant and important contributing factor in a growing number of fatal accidents,” said Gil Kerlikowske, director of National Drug Control Policy in the White House and former Seattle police chief. “There is no question, not only from the data but from what I have heard in my career as a law enforcement officer.”

As the medical marijuana movement has gained speed — one-third of the states now allow such sales — federal officials are pursuing scientific research into the impairing effects of the drug.

The issue is compounded by the lack of a national standard on the amount of the drug that drivers should be allowed to have in their blood. While 13 states have adopted zero-tolerance laws, 35 states including California have no formal standard, and instead rely on the judgment of police to determine impairment.

Even the most cautious approach of zero tolerance is fraught with complex medical issues about whether residual low levels of marijuana can impair a driver days after the drug is smoked. Marijuana advocates say some state and federal officials are trying to make it impossible for individuals to use marijuana and drive legally for days or weeks afterward.

Marijuana is not nearly as well understood as alcohol, which has been the subject of statistical and medical research for decades.

“A lot of effort has gone into the study of drugged driving and marijuana, because that is the most prevalent drug, but we are not nearly to the point where we are with alcohol,” said Jeffrey P. Michael, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration’s impaired-driving director. “We don’t know what level of marijuana impairs a driver.”

A $6-million study in Virginia Beach, Va., is attempting to remove any doubt that users of pot and other drugs are more likely to crash. Teams of federal researchers go to accident scenes and ask drivers to voluntarily provide samples of their blood. They later return to the same location, at the same time and on the same day of the week, asking two random motorists not involved in crashes for a blood sample.

The project aims to collect 7,500 blood samples to show whether drivers with specific blood levels of drugs are more likely to crash than those without the drugs, said John Lacey, a researcher at the nonprofit Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation.

In other projects, test subjects are being given marijuana to smoke and then examined under high-powered scanners or put in advanced driving simulators to gauge how it affects their brains and their ability to drive.

Federal scientists envision a day when police could quickly swab saliva from drivers’ mouths and determine whether they have an illegal level of marijuana, but that will require years of research. Until then, police are in the same position they were with drunk driving in the 1950s, basing arrests on their professional judgment of each driver’s behavior and vital signs.

If police suspect a driver is stoned, they now administer a lengthy 12-point examination. The driver must walk a straight line and stand on one leg, estimate the passage of 30 seconds and have pupils, blood pressure and pulse checked.

Chuck Hayes, national coordinator for the International Assn. of Chiefs of Police based in Washington, D.C., says the system works well to identify impaired drivers, and any future legal limit or medical test would be just another tool rather than a revolutionary change.

“We are not concerned about levels or limits. We are concerned with impairment,” Hayes said.

Indeed, even among law enforcement experts, the need for a standard is debated. Many support tried-and-true policing methods that can ferret out stoned drivers.

“Everybody wants a magic number, because that makes it easy,” said Sarah Kerrigan, a toxicologist at Sam Houston State University in Texas and an expert witness in numerous trials. “To have a law that says above a certain level you are impaired is not scientifically supportable. I don’t think police need the tool, but my opinion may be in the minority.”

But federal officials and local prosecutors argue that the lack of a standard makes convictions harder to obtain.

In October, a San Diego jury acquitted Terry Barraclough, a 60-year-old technical writer and medical marijuana user, on manslaughter charges in a fatal crash that occurred shortly after he had smoked marijuana.

A blood test showed he had high levels of active marijuana ingredients in his blood, but the jury heard conflicting expert testimony from toxicologists about the possible effects.

Martin Doyle, the deputy district attorney who prosecuted Barraclough, said the acquittal showed that the lack of a formal legal limit on marijuana intoxication makes such prosecutions tough.

“We don’t have a limit in California and that made my prosecution very difficult,” Doyle said. “We have a lapse in the law.”

But defense attorney Michael Cindrich said the failed prosecution shows that the San Diego district attorney was targeting medical marijuana users and that any legal limit would be unfair to the people who rely on the drug to treat their problems.

Indeed, Anthony Cardoza, an attorney who represented Flores in the Chico accident, said his client was not impaired and that allegations about his green tongue were ridiculous. Flores’ guilty plea was prompted by other legal issues, including a prior conviction for a drunk driving accident that caused an injury.

Marilyn Huestis, a toxicologist and one of the nation’s top experts on marijuana at the National Institute on Drug Abuse who is directing several research programs, said she believed there is no amount of marijuana that a person can consume and drive safely immediately afterward.

Supporters of marijuana legalization agree that the drug can impair a driver, but argue that the effects wear off in a few hours. Huestis, however, said research was showing that the effects of marijuana can linger.

Marijuana’s main ingredient — delta-9 THC — stays in the blood for an hour or more and then breaks down into metabolites that are both psychoactive and inert. But the impairing effects can linger, even after the THC is no longer in the blood, Huestis said. Because it can be absorbed into body tissue and slowly released for days, Huestis believes that heavy chronic daily users may be impaired in ways that are not yet understood.

A complicating factor is the tendency of many marijuana users to also use alcohol, which can sharply amplify impairment. Very little research has been conducted to determine whether it is possible to set limits on a combination of such substances.

Paul Armentano, deputy director for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said some states had laws that can punish users even when they are not high, pointing to a tough Arizona statute that allows conviction for impaired driving when an inert metabolite is detected in the blood.

Arizona officials said they wrote the law because there was no scientific agreement on how long marijuana impairs a driver. But proponents see something more sinister: an effort to put marijuana users in constant legal jeopardy.

“We are not setting a standard based on impairment, but one similar to saying that if you have one sip of alcohol you are too drunk to drive for the next week,” Armentano said.

ralph.vartabedian@latimes.com

You can read more on this article here: http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-pot-drivers-20110703,0,3288424.story?page=2&utm_medium=feed&track=rss&utm_campaign=Feed%3A%20MostEmailed%20%28L.A.%20Times%20-%20Most%20E-mailed%20Stories%29&utm_source=feedburner

Colorado Medical Marijuana Rules Set To Change July 1st

• 2digg

New DOR Rules Effective July 1

The article below by the Associated Press details some of the new regulations going into effect on July 1 regarding medical marijuana in Colorado. These new regulations have patients very concerned about their
privacy.

MMC-applicants are now required to have video cameras record every transaction in an MMC or a production facility. MMCs are also helping the Department of Revenue track every patient purchase from “seed to sale” in a massive law enforcement database to ensure that patients do not get “too much” medicine.

These videos and transaction records will be available to all law enforcement, including the DEA, on demand, without a warrant, and without notification to patients that their information has been released to the police.

The AP story also details a stunning new revelation that the DOR apparently does not intend on issuing any licenses to MMCs until July 2012. This means that every dispensary in the state will continue to operate in a gray area of the law: MMCs have no state license, and they also have no Constitutional protection. (MMCs revoked their right to be a caregiver under the Constitution in order to apply to become an MMC.)

If an MMC is selling marijuana in Colorado without a license, there is the potential that the DOR will at some point deny them a license and target them as a criminal enterprise. If this happens, anyone that shopped or
worked at the unlicensed MMC may be put under criminal investigation as well.

 

MMC employees are being asked to surrender large volumes of personal and financial information to the DOR and submit to an extensive criminal background investigation, including photographs and fingerprints sent to
the FBI. Westword reported in two articles today about the rush for employees to register with the DOR. But many are questioning the intelligence of this, because none of the MMC-employers have been granted state licenses. This means employees are signing up to work at UNLICENSED, potentially “criminal” businesses, for the next year.

http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/06/medical_marijuana_employees_waiting_licensing.php
http://blogs.westword.com/latestword/2011/06/medical_marijuana_enforcement_division_deadline_employee_licensing.php

CTI encourages all patients and MMC-applicant-employees to CONSULT AN ATTORNEY before they continue to shop or work at an MMC after July 1 to make sure that their privacy rights and 4th and 5th amendment rights are preserved.

The Patient and Caregiver Rights Litigation Project is working to overturn these laws. Please contribute to:
http://www.cannabislawsuits.com/

—————————————–
http://www.cnbc.com/id/43540260

CO pot shops face surveillance, shorter hours

DENVER – Colorado’s marijuana industry will become the nation’s most regulated later this week, and pot shops are scrambling to comply with new seed-to-sale tracking, shorter business hours and mandatory video
surveillance for growing plants and finished products.

Some of the requirements, such as a grow-your-own regulation forcing pot shops to grow 70 percent of the pot they sell, have already taken effect. But most rules will kick in Friday, including background checks for
everyone working around medical marijuana to screen out drug felons.

Other rules include video surveillance of both growing marijuana plants and finished pot products, a move to make sure medical pot doesn’t end up on the black market. The state also plans to enforce a statewide 8 p.m. closing time for pot shops.

Colorado also is imposing registration requirements on caregivers, people who grow for up to five patients. Caregivers fought unsuccessfully in the state Legislature this year to keep their growing sites and what they’re growing private. Some pot growers vow to drop out of the system rather than face state oversight.

“I see the caregiver model pretty much evaporating,” said Adam Mayo, an attorney in Steamboat Springs who advises marijuana patients, growers and shop owners.

Instead, Mayo said, caregivers may choose to stop growing plants for patients and instead offer them warehouse space to grow their own allotment of six plants each. Because patients are not required to tell the state where they’re growing their pot plants, Mayo said a marijuana collective such as a communal warehouse wouldn’t violate state law.

“You could charge them just like you’d charge a tenant,” Mayo said of patients.

It’s an option a few caregivers and even dispensary owners are taking seriously.

“I’m not crazy about going on a registry that might be obsolete in a couple years,” said Bret Kantola, a Denver caregiver who currently raises plants for two people but said he’s getting out rather than register. Kantola cited shifting signals from the federal government on marijuana and a confusing state regulatory framework.

“It’s been very, very turbulent, and it’s been one thing after another,” Kantola said of Colorado’s efforts to regulate the pot business.

The owner of two dispensaries in Lafayette, Veronica Caprio of 420 Highways, said she plans to close her shops and start a collective. She decried Colorado’s regulations as intrusive for marijuana patients.

“It’s complete unknown territory, this Big Brother tracking,” Caprio said.

A spokeswoman for the state’s Medical Marijuana Enforcement Division, which oversees many of the pot regulations, said collectives may be illegal. Julie Postlethwait said a collective growing site would fall under state regulations if the site were under a single person or group’s control.

Caregivers who want to try collective growing say they’re prepared to test the state. Timothy Tipton, a Denver caregiver, says he’s starting a collective and plans to sublease plots to patients who won’t be allowed
to sell or even give away pot they grow so they can avoid state oversight.

“It allows patients who are upset with all the regulation going on here to maintain their constitutional rights” to grow and use pot, Tipton said. “We have the constitutional right to do this, and we’re not giving up.”

Maybe so, but not all caregivers are as outspoken as Tipton. Tipton organizes an annual pot-tasting contest called the Caregivers’ Cup, which planned its final contest in Denver on Sunday. He said about 1,000 patients
a year have shown up at the celebration to sample and rate pot strains but caregivers are wary of public attention and have said they won’t participate after the registration requirements take effect.

Marijuana advocates, along with state officials and lawmakers who approved the rules, are divided about what the oversight will mean for medical marijuana in Colorado. Sponsors of the regulatory bill last year boasted that the rules would drive half the state’s 800 or so dispensaries out of business. But more than 700 of them have applied for state licenses, due to be issued in July of 2012.

Ryan Cook, general manager of three dispensaries in Denver called The Clinic, said patients haven’t complained as much as he feared about increased video surveillance, a mandatory 8 p.m. closing time and a
requirement that patients’ marijuana registry cards be scanned every time they buy pot.

“I get a sense from patients they’re accepting the requirements,” Cook said. “We’ll see how it evolves, but right now, people just want a safe and affordable way to get their meds.”

But at a recent marijuana legalization debate in Denver, pot advocate Rico Colibri of the Association of Cannabis Trades warned that increased tracking and surveillance could turn out badly if the federal government hanges course on deferring to states that allow medical pot.

“There could be scary things happening to people here very soon,” Colibri said.

—
Provided as a Public Service by the:
Cannabis Therapy Institute
P.O. Box 19084, Boulder, CO 80308
Phone: 877-420-4205
Web: www.cannabistherapyinstitute.com
Email: info@cannabistherapyinstitute.com

 

http://www.theweedblog.com/colorado-medical-marijuana-rules-set-to-change-july-1st/

Medical Marijuana Industry Should Have Same Rules As Other Businesses

Don’t Undermine the Medical Marijuana Industry

It’s hard for legal dispensaries to get bank loans, and they can’t deduct expenses from their taxes. Let’s back legislation to fix that

By Scott Shane

Consider two small business owners: One sells a product that medical researchers have shown is a major cause of health problems, from cancer to heart disease. The other provides a medical treatment that doctors prescribe for glaucoma, pain, and the side effects of chemotherapy. Which owner can borrow from a bank and deduct expenses on income tax returns? The answer is the first, who sells cigarettes; the second, who sells medical marijuana, cannot. (To be clear, dispensary owners aren’t prohibited from applying for bank credit. The trouble is anti-money laundering statutes intended to stop illegal drug dealers make banks reluctant to do business with legal dealers.)

In late May, two Democratic congressmen, Jared Polis of Colorado and Pete Stark of California, introduced bills to remedy the federal government’s bias against the owners of medical marijuana dispensaries. Representative Polis’s bill would permit medical marijuana sellers to borrow money from banks, while Congressman Stark’s bill would allow them to deduct business expenses from their taxes. Passage of these bills makes sense for four reasons.

The first is fairness. No small business owners should be denied access to financing or be subject to unfair tax rules simply because they run a business that some in government don’t like. The government should create a level playing field for all business owners. As Polis explained when introducing his bill, “It is simply wrong for the federal government to intrude and threaten banks that are involved in legal transactions.” Using a law designed to root out illegal drug dealers, terrorists, fraudsters, and money launderers as a back-door way to make life difficult for the operators of medical marijuana dispensaries is simply unfair. If Congress doesn’t like state medical marijuana laws, it needs to challenge the legality of these laws directly rather than stack the rules against them.

FAVORING TOBACCO OVER MARIJUANA

But fairness isn’t the only reason I support these bills. I also find it perverse that the government favors the tobacco business over the medical marijuana industry when the former is responsible for several costly medical problems and the latter provides a medically prescribed treatment. Not only does the government’s approach makes it difficult for people who need physician-prescribed marijuana to get the treatments they need, imposing pain and hardship, but the approach is also backwards. The government supports the sale of cigarettes, which cause cancer, but discourages the sale of medical marijuana, which is used to manage the side effects of the chemotherapy that these cancer patients must endure. As for healthy individuals who abuse the system to get high, isn’t that why we spend large sums of money to stop the illegal drug trade?

By blocking the growth of the medical marijuana industry, federal policy makers are missing a golden opportunity to encourage entrepreneurship. Government officials often speak of finding new, high-growth industries, which are rare. Consultancy See Change Strategy in Olney, Md., forecasts that medical marijuana, currently a $2 billion industry, will reach nearly $9 billion in five years. That’s about the same size as the dry cleaning and laundry service industry.

Finally, by opposing the medical marijuana industry, the federal government is missing the chance to cut government expenditures and raise taxes in one of the few areas where such actions would face little opposition by business owners. Unlike virtually every other industry, where higher taxes are vehemently opposed, the medical marijuana industry welcomes higher taxes. In Oakland, for example, the industry drove the effort to impose a 1.8 percent tax on gross sales from medical marijuana sellers.

The potential economic gains from the legalization of marijuana are far from trivial. A 2005 study by Jeffrey Miron, then a visiting economics professor at Harvard, found that government spending could be cut by $7.7 billion and tax revenue increased by $6.2 billion if marijuana sales were legal and taxed at the same rate as alcohol and tobacco. A $14 billion improvement in the government budget isn’t something to ignore, especially in the current environment of paralysis over how to reduce high deficits.

Allowing owners of medical marijuana dispensaries to borrow money and deduct their business expenses from their taxes seems like a way to make policy fairer, encourage a high-growth industry, and reduce government expenditures and raise tax revenues without much opposition. Those seem to me like the kinds of objectives our elected officials should be striving for when introducing bills into Congress.

Scott Shane is the A. Malachi Mixon III Professor of Entrepreneurial Studies at Case Western Reserve University.

Government Forced NCI To Censor Medical Cannabis Facts

Graphic: NORML Stash Blog

Fuck censorship.

​​

In March, the National Cancer Agency (NCI), a component agency of the National Institutes of Health, acknowledged the medicinal benefits of marijuana in its online treatment database. But the information only stayed up a few days, before it was scrubbed from the site.

Now, newly obtained documents reveal not only how NCI database contributors arrived at their March 17 summary of marijuana’s medical uses, but also the furious politicking that went into quickly scrubbing that summary of information regarding the potential tumor-fighting effects of cannabis, reports Kyle Daly at the Washington Independent.

Phil Mocek, a civil liberties activist with the Seattle-based Cannabis Defense Coalition, obtained the documents as a result of a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) request he filed in March after reading coverage of the NCI’s action. Mocek has made some of the hundreds of pages of at-times heated email exchanges and summary alterations available on MuckRock, a website devoted to FOIA requests and government documents.

The treatment database on NCI’s website is called the Physician Data Query (PDQ). The PDQ entry on cannabis and cannabinoids is maintained by the Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Editorial Board. The lead reviewer on the marijuana summary statement is CAM board member Donald Abrams, director of integrative oncology at the University of California-San Francisco cancer center.

Abrams advocates the use of cannabis in cancer treatment, and his wish to accurately portray its medical applications becomes clear early in the documents.

On March 24, just a week after the finished summary had gone online, Susan Weiss — chief of the Office of Science Policy and Communications within the National Institutes on Drug Abuse (NIDA) — sent NCI officials an email saying her agency had just become aware of the summary. Weiss told them the NIDA wanted the summary changed to acknowledge that the FDA hasn’t approved marijuana; to take away any implication that it was recommending prescribing marijuana; to highlight the supposed “addiction potential” of marijuana; and to link to the NIDA’s own page on the supposed “adverse effects of marijuana.”

The NCI balked at the last two requests: ”I am unaware of any convincing evidence indicating that marijuana is addictive,” communications officer Rick Manrow of the the NCI reasonably said.

But the agency agreed the first two requests were fair. The CAM board grappled for days with how to cooperate with the NIDA without compromising its independence or editorial integrity. Meanwhile, yet more federal agencies offered their two cents’ worth.

“[A press officer with the FDA] contacted me this morning because he has been getting calls from FDA staff, as well as at least one high-profile reporter, asking about NCI’s ‘endorsement of medical marijuana.’ I provided him with the background I had,” wrote Brooke Hardison, NCI media relations analyst. “He needs to provide information for staff at the FDA, and they are trying to figure out how to respond to this issue. I suggested that it might be good for him to have a conversation with those more closely involved in this issue.”

Meanwhile, national attention to the story continued to grow, and NIDA, notoriously anti-pot, was worried about this whole “marijuana treats cancer” thing.

On learning that Ethan Nadelmann, founder and executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance had tweeted about the summary, the NIDA’s Weiss wrote to NCI, “We will be contacting our colleagues at ONDCP [Office of National Drug Control Policy] just to give them a heads up about it.”

Weiss also wrote to her NIDA colleagues, saying “We think that ONDCP needs to be informed.”

The ONDCP, of course, is the office of the Drug Czar. Current czar Gil Kerlikowske, as with all drug czars, is bound by law to oppose marijuana legalization for any purpose, even to save cancer patients.

In any event, the NCI caved to the NIDA’s demands by removing any implied support for prescribing marijuana — noting that the FDA hasn’t approved cannabis as as prescription drug — and, much to the consternation of lead reviewer Abrams, removing a reference to marijuana’s anti-tumor properties.

“You know, the epidemiological data from Kaiser and Tashkin do possibly support an anti-tumor effect in humans,” Abrams wrote. “After reflecting for a few hours, I am not happy that NIDA has been able to impose their agenda on us. The text was vetted by the whole Board. I would ask that we [involve] the whole Editorial Board in the discussion before being bulldogged.

“I am considering resigning from the Board if we allow politics to trump science!” Abrams wrote.

All the relevant CAM board members eventually agreed to the version that went up on March 29 and 30. That last day was when Phil Mocek submitted his FOIA request and is thus the last day that appears in the records given to him.

It is interesting to note that, toward the end of the correspondence record, NCI and NIDA officials were discussing the latter agency providing further information on the supposed “adverse effects of marijuana” so that the CAM Board could “take it into consideration” during its May 6 meeting. Several NCI and CAM members said any “convincing evidence” could result in larger changes to the entry.

NIDA prepared a list of anti-marijuana talking points, including the claim that nine percent of cannabis users “become addicted to the drug” and a completely undocumented claim that marijuana use leads to permanent cognitive impairment, in the hopes of causing just such changes in the NCI’s entry.

But, the Independent reports, May 6 came and went without any additional changes being made to the database.

One can only imagine the kinds of behind-the-scenes wrangling that continues as we speak.

Graphic: NORML Stash Blog

“NCI apparently got a talking to from someone” ~ Radical Russ Belville, NORML. Turns out Radical Russ was right, and NIDA was doing the talking.

​