BISMARCK, North Dakota — In this February 6, 2007 file photo,
North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner Roger Johnson (left)
gets ready to sign the state’s first commercial hemp farming
licence for Represetnative David Monson (right) at the Capitol
in Bismarck. Neither Monson nor farmer Wayne Hauge, who
were issued the nation’s first hemp production licences, has
grown a crop, after failing to get approval from the Drug
Enforcement Administration and losing a court battle against
the federal government. (PHOTOS: AP)
In a former colonial mansion in Jamaica, politicians huddle to discuss
trying to ease marijuana laws in the land of the late reggae musician
and cannabis evangelist Bob Marley.
In Morocco, one of the world's top
producers of the concentrated pot known as hashish, two leading
political parties want to legalise its cultivation, at least for medical
and industrial use.
And in Mexico City, the vast metropolis of a country ravaged by horrific
cartel bloodshed, lawmakers have proposed a brand new plan to let
stores sell the drug.
From the Americas to Europe to North Africa and beyond, the marijuana
legalisation movement is gaining unprecedented traction -- a nod to
successful efforts in Colorado, Washington state and the small South
American nation of Uruguay, which in December became the first country
to approve nationwide pot legalisation.
Leaders long weary of the drug war's violence and futility have been
emboldened by changes in US policy, even in the face of opposition from
their own conservative populations. Some are eager to try an approach
that focuses on public health instead of prohibition, and some see a
potentially lucrative industry in cannabis regulation.
"A number of countries are saying, 'We've been curious about this, but
we didn't think we could go this route'," said Sam Kamin, a University
of Denver law professor who helped write Colorado's marijuana
regulations. "It's harder for the US to look at other countries and say,
'You can't legalise, you can't decriminalise,' because it's going on
here."
That's due largely to a White House that's more open to drug war alternatives.
US President Barack Obama recently told The New Yorker magazine that he
considers marijuana less dangerous to consumers than alcohol, and said
it's important that the legalisation experiments in Washington and
Colorado go forward, especially because blacks are arrested for the drug
at a greater rate than whites, despite similar levels of use.
His Administration also has criticised drug war-driven incarceration
rates in the US and announced that it will let banks do business with
licensed marijuana operations, which have largely been cash-only because
federal law forbids financial institutions from processing pot-related
transactions.
Such actions underscore how the official US position has changed in
recent years. In 2009, the US Department of Justice announced it
wouldn't target medical marijuana patients. In August, the agency said
it wouldn't interfere with the laws in Colorado and Washington, which
regulate the growth and sale of taxed pot for recreational use.
Government officials and activists worldwide have taken note of the more
open stance. Also not lost on them was the Obama Administration's
public silence before votes in both states and in Uruguay.
It all creates a "sense that the US is no longer quite the drug
war-obsessed Government it was" and that other nations have some
political space to explore reform, said Ethan Nadelmann, head of the
non-profit Drug Policy Alliance, a pro-legalisation group based in New
York.
Anxiety over US reprisals has previously doused reform efforts in
Jamaica, including a 2001 attempt to approve private use of marijuana by
adults. Given America's evolution, "the discussion has changed", said
Delano Seiveright, director of Ganja Law Reform Coalition-Jamaica.
Last summer, eight lawmakers, evenly split between the ruling People's
National Party and the Opposition Jamaica Labour Party, met with
Nadelmann and local cannabis crusaders at a hotel in Kingston's
financial district and discussed next steps, including a near-term
effort to decriminalise pot possession.
Officials are concerned about the roughly 300 young men each week who
get criminal records for possessing small amounts of "ganja".
Others in
the debt-shackled nation worry about losing out on tourism dollars: For
many, weed is synonymous with Marley's home country, where it has long
been used as a medicinal herb by families, including as a cold remedy,
and as a spiritual sacrament by Rastafarians.
Influential politicians are increasingly taking up the idea of loosening
pot restrictions. Jamaica's health minister recently said he was "fully
on board" with medical marijuana.
"The co-operation on this issue far outweighs what I've seen before,"
Seiveright said. "Both sides are in agreement with the need to move
forward."
In Morocco, lawmakers have been inspired by the experiments in
Washington, Colorado and Uruguay to push forward their longstanding
desire to allow cannabis to be grown for medical and industrial uses.
They say such a law would help small farmers who survive on the crop but
live at the mercy of drug lords and police attempts to eradicate it.
"Security policies aren't solving the problem because it's an economic
and social issue," said Mehdi Bensaid, a legislator with the Party of
Authenticity and Modernity, a political party closely allied with the
country's king. "We think this crop can become an important economic
resource for Morocco and the citizens of this region."
In October, lawmakers from Uruguay, Mexico and Canada converged on
Colorado for a first-hand look at how that state's law is being
implemented. They toured a medical marijuana dispensary and sniffed
bar-coded marijuana plants as the dispensary's owner gave them a tour.
"Mexico has outlets like that, but guarded by armed men," Mexican Congressman Reni Fujiwara Montelongo said afterward.
There's no general push to legalise marijuana in Mexico, where tens of
thousands have died in cartel violence in recent years. But in liberal
Mexico City, legislators last Thursday introduced a measure to let
stores sell up to five grams of pot. It's supported by the mayor but
could set up a fight with the conservative federal Government.
"Rather than continue fighting a war that makes no sense, now we are
joining a cutting-edge process," said Jorge Castaneda, a former Mexican
foreign minister.
Opponents to legalisation worry that pot could become heavily
commercialised or that increased access will increase youth use. They
say the other side's political victories have reawakened their cause.
"There's been a real hunger from people abroad to find out how we got
ourselves into this mess in the first place and how to avoid it," said
Kevin Sabet of Project Smart Approaches to Marijuana.
Washington and Colorado passed recreational laws in 2012 to regulate the
growth and sale of taxed pot at state-licensed stores. Sales began
January 1 in Colorado, and are due to start later this year in
Washington. Twenty states and the District of Columbia already have
medical marijuana laws.
A number of US states are considering whether to try for recreational
laws. Voters in Alaska will have their say on a legalisation measure
this summer. Oregon voters could also weigh in this year, and in
California, drug-reform groups are deciding whether to push a ballot
measure in 2014 or wait until 2016's presidential election. Abroad,
activists are pushing the issue before a United Nations summit in 2016.
While some European countries, including Spain, Belgium and the Czech
Republic, have taken steps over the years to liberaliae pot laws in the
face of international treaties that limit drug production to medical and
research purposes, The Netherlands, famous for its pot "coffee shops",
has started to pull back, calling on cities to close shops near schools
and ban sales to tourists.
There is, however, an effort afoot to legitimise the growing of cannabis
sold in the coffee shops. While it's been legal to sell pot, it's not
to grow it, so shops must turn to the black market for their supply,
which may wind up seized in a raid.
In Latin America and the Caribbean, where some countries have
decriminalised possession of small amounts of drugs, from cocaine to
marijuana, there is significant public opposition to further
legalisation. But top officials are realising that it is nevertheless on
the table, despite the longstanding efforts of the US, which has
provided billions of dollars to support counter-narcotics work in the
hemisphere.
Current or former presidents in Colombia, Mexico, Guatemala and Brazil
have called for a re-evaluation of or end to the drug war, a chorus
echoed by Argentina's drug czar, Juan Carlos Molina, a Roman Catholic
priest who has long served in the nation's drug-wasted slums.
Molina said he's following orders from President Cristina Fernandez to
change the Government's focus from enforcing drug laws against young
people to getting them into treatment. He also said after Fernandez
appointed him in December that Argentine society is ready to openly
debate legalising marijuana altogether.
"I believe that Argentina deserves a good debate about this. We have the
capacity to do it. The issue is fundamental for this country," Molina
said in an interview with Radio del Plata.
The pace of change has put American legalisation activists in heavy
demand at conferences in countries weighing their drug laws, including
Chile, Poland and The Netherlands.
The advocates, including those who
worked on the efforts in Washington and Colorado, have advised foreign
lawmakers and activists on how to build campaigns.
Clara Musto, a spokeswoman for the Uruguayan campaign, said meeting with
the Americans helped her group see that it would need to promote
arguments beyond ensuring the liberty of cannabis users if it wanted to
increase public support. "They knew so much about how to lead," she
said.
John Walsh of the Washington Office on Latin America, a non-governmental
organisation that works to promote social and economic justice, was
among the Americans who visited Uruguay as the president, the ruling
party and activists pushed their proposal to create a
government-controlled marijuana industry.
"This isn't just talk," he said. "Whether Colorado is going to do it
well, or Washington, they're doing it. If you're going to pursue
something similar, you're not going to be alone."
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(IRB)-approved protocol for a study
of marijuana for symptoms of PTSD in U.S. veterans, sponsored by the
non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS),
has been on hold for over 3½ months, as researchers wait for the PHS to
respond to their request to purchase marijuana for the study.
10. Prohibition has failed to control the use and domestic production of marijuana.
MANY
people have heard the story of Charlotte Figi, a young girl from
Colorado with severe epilepsy. After her parents began giving her a
marijuana strain rich in cannabidiol (CBD), the major nonpsychoactive
ingredient in marijuana, Charlotte reportedly went from having hundreds
of seizures per week to only two or three per month. Previously, her
illness, Dravet Syndrome, was a daily torture despite multiple high
doses of powerful anti-seizure drugs. 
If your vibratory rate is higher, you
will most likely experience paranoia and other unwanted side effects
from the medicine. 2) Because cannabis is extremely responsive to
intention. It enhances the truth of this reality, which is that
intention directs energy and intention creates your experience. If you
set an intention for what you want cannabis to help you do, it will have
that effect. If you do not, it will respond according to the intention
of your subconscious. This means if your subconscious wants you to know
about something that is plaguing it, or if your subconscious fears the
loss of personal boundaries, taking cannabis will enable your
subconscious to fulfill it’s intention and you will come face to face
with your fears.
As
a spiritual teacher, I cannot fully support nor fully condemn a
spiritual medicinal such as cannabis because the issue of using vs. not
using these medicines is not black and white. It is a case-by-case
scenario. And, all beings, including plants are teachers. If a person
tries to escape their resistance by using a tool like cannabis, they
have learned nothing but to be dependent on the tool. They may have
increased their awareness
of what is beyond this dimension, but they have not learned anything
about how to access states of consciousness beyond the 3-D consciousness
on their own, without the use of an external substance/tool. 
Also, with a
decrease in resistance, you will simultaneously experience a decrease in
desire. This decrease in desire causes a decrease in the dopamine
levels in your brain. Dopamine is responsible for the motivation
response within your body. This is why motivation dissipates and apathy
increases when someone uses pot often. Desire is the basis of expansion.
With decreased desire, there is decreased expansion, so it must be said
that chronic pot use thwarts both personal and universal expansion. This is why I am not a person who advocates recreational drug use of any
kind. It is a better idea that a person change their life for the
better (so they no longer feel the desire or need to escape from their
life) than to escape from their life by using cannabis or any other drug
for that matter. However, there is an exception to this rule.
