Police Look To Crack Down On Synthetic Marijuana

RYAN BRAY

Law enforcement officials in Barnstable are working on an ordinance to stop the sale of synthetic marijuana that could serve as a model for other towns on Cape Cod. Barnstable Police Chief Paul MacDonald made a presentation to county commissioners on Wednesday, July 29, outlining the dangers of synthetic marijuana, which is more commonly known as “spice.” While marketed as potpourri, spice is laced with unknown chemicals and many users smoke it like marijuana. Unlike marijuana, however, it is legally sold in stores.

In the past year, police in Barnstable have run into increasing problems with the use of spice, specifically by homeless people in downtown Hyannis. The drug has numerous potential side effects including agitation, anxiety, nausea, high blood pressure, seizures, hallucinations, psychosis, and suicidal thoughts, among others. The use of spice by persons in and around the downtown Hyannis area has become problematic for residents and local businesses, Chief MacDonald told commissioners.

Spice is sold under numerous brand names including “Joker,” “Atomic Bomb,” “Geeked Up,” and others. These products are sold largely in mom and pop stores as opposed to major chains, with the cost of a package ranging anywhere from $2 to $20.

“This is a big problem,” Chief MacDonald said. “It’s in every community.”

Spice, which is brought into the United States from overseas countries including Pakistan and Iran, is difficult to criminalize due to the flexibility of its chemical makeup.

Chief MacDonald said the federal Drug Enforcement Agency has outlawed 17 different chemical combinations for the sale of spice. However, manufacturers can legally remarket their product by slightly altering the formula, he said.

“The problem is no one knows what chemicals are being used,” he told commissioners. “A chemist doesn’t make this, and people who use it have no idea what they’re taking.”

Using an ordinance recently passed by the police in Berlin, New Hampshire, as its model, the Barnstable police are working to pass an ordinance banning the sale of spice in stores. Barnstable County Commissioner Leo C. Cakounes said that if implemented, other towns on the Cape could adopt similar ordinances for their towns.

“Once there’s a model out there, the other towns can pick it up,” he said.

Because spice is legal, police on the Upper Cape say they have not had many incidents regarding the use of the product in their communities. Detective Sergeant Jonathan MacDougall of the Bourne Police Department said the department has had two cases relative to spice in the past year, while police in Sandwich asked businesses in town to voluntarily stop selling the product three years ago, according to Sandwich Police Chief Peter Wack.

Still, the accessibility and low cost of spice is problematic, Barnstable County Commissioner Sheila E. Lyons said.

“The thing that’s disturbing is that this is very attractive to children,” she said of the packaging of spice products.

Raymond V. Tamasi, who is the president and chief executive officer of Gosnold on Cape Cod, said he would support local towns adopting ordinances banning the sale of spice in stores.

In light of the region’s growing substance abuse problem, making products such as spice more readily available will not put communities on the right path toward a solution, he said.

“When you ease access, you run the risk of increasing use,” Mr. Tamasi said.

“There’s a low number of people taking these fringe substances, but people need to ask themselves, ‘What do these products do to better our communities?’ ” he added.

Interim Chief Scott W. Carline of the Mashpee Police Department, for one, said he would support an anti-spice ordinance in Mashpee similar to the one being proposed in Barnstable.

“It’s a major concern, the reason being it can easily get into the hands of kids,” Chief Carline said. “I’d be glad to review any and all ordinances that will help keep our kids safe.”

Chief MacDonald said he hopes to pass an ordinance banning the sale of spice in Barnstable by September.

Cannabis credit union in Denver sues Federal Reserve over rejection

A marijuana plant grows at a Minnesota Medical Solutions greenhouse in Otsego, Minn. (Photo: Glen Stubbe/Star Tribune via AP)

 

Michael Walsh

A cannabis-centric credit union is going after the Federal Reserve after its application to open a “master account” was rejected.

Fourth Corner Credit Union (TFCCU) in Denver wants to be the first to provide financial services to the marijuana industry in Colorado, where recreational use of the drug is legal under state law.

The credit union, which was quietly notified of its rejection in July, filed a lawsuit in federal court against the central banking system for the setback, the New York Times reported Thursday. It accuses the Fed of preventing “equal access” to the financial system.

Mark Mason, an attorney from South Carolina, had a leading role in founding TFCCU, which cannot officially start business before securing an account.

Mason said he was not surprised by the decision and thinks the Fed had been looking for reasons to reject the credit union’s application.

“I felt all along like they were trying to figure out a way to deny our application,” Mason told the Times, adding that a “federal judge who is only concerned in applying the law can [now] make the decision.”

Mason confirmed the lawsuit in an email to The Denver Post later that night.

“TFCCU looks forward to having this matter ruled upon by a federal judge,” he wrote.

Most banks have refused to open accounts for cannabis proprietors because the substance is still banned under federal law as a Schedule I drug alongside far more dangerous substances, including heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

Bear Westerlind, an employee at the medical marijuana dispensary Kaya Shack in Portland, Ore., displays different types of marijuana flowers sold at the shop. (Photo: Gosia Wozniacka/AP)

This forces them to rely exclusively on cash, which renders businesses particularly vulnerable to theft.

Dan Riffle, the director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, told Yahoo News that legislation like the CARERS Act or the Respect State Marijuana Laws Act, which are pending in Congress right now, would resolve the disconnect between state and federal marijuana laws.

“Congress has to act. Forcing marijuana businesses — which are on pace to do almost $1 billion in sales in Colorado alone — to operate entirely in cash puts a bullseye on those businesses, their employees, their customers and everyone around them,” Riffle said. “State, federal and local law enforcement have rightly called it a public safety nightmare.”

The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2013, sponsored by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., would amend the Controlled Substances Act so that anyone acting in compliance with state law would not be punished.

Similarly, the CARERS Act of 2015 (also known as the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion and Respect States Act), sponsored by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., would protect those acting in compliance with state law while moving cannabis from a Schedule I to a Schedule II substance.

Riffle criticized Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., the chairmen of the Senate and House Judiciary Committees, for refusing to hold hearings on these bills.

“It’s almost as if they want these businesses to get robbed, and for violent drug cartels to continue to control the marijuana industry,” he said.

Neither the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, which covers Colorado and several other states, nor Mason responded to Yahoo News’ request for comment.

Why marijuana legalization is the rare issue that divides the 2016 Republican presidential field

Illustration by Sarah Eberspacher | Photos courtesy Getty Images, iStock

Paul Waldman

Republicans, as everyone knows, are advocates of "states' rights," the theory being that power residing in the hands of the federal government is inherently suspect, while power spread out among 50 smaller governments is inherently virtuous — or at least more so. After all, aren't states "laboratories of democracy," where all kinds of interesting experimentation can take place and the best ideas can then bubble up to the rest of the country? Well...sometimes.

The truth is that conservatives like states having independence when they like what the states are doing, and liberals feel the same way (the difference is that liberals don't claim they have a philosophical commitment to states' rights over federal rights in the abstract). When states' rights collide with a policy objection, the policy objection is going to win.
Usually, that is. But there's at least one area where the GOP is divided on the whole states' rights issue. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie earlier this week highlighted the disagreement with some blunt words about legalized marijuana.

"If you're getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it," he said. "As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws." Chris Christie, in other words, is coming to harsh your buzz — or he would be, if he had any chance of actually becoming president.
His position isn't an unreasonable one. While the Justice Department has discretion in how vigorously it enforces the law, and can decide to allow state legalization to take effect unimpeded, federal law is supreme over state laws, and marijuana is still illegal under federal law.

And it's not just Colorado — Washington, Oregon, and Alaska also have legalized recreational marijuana use, and there's a good chance that half a dozen other states will follow them via ballot initiatives in the 2016 election, the most notable of which is California.
While this issue hasn't gotten much attention in the presidential race so far, it's one of the few where you'll actually find some diversity of opinion among the GOP candidates. Marco Rubio seems to agree with Christie; though he's a little vague, he says that "we need to enforce our federal laws.

"Scott Walker's position is essentially the same. Ted Cruz thinks it's all right for the federal government to leave states alone on this issue, but he says that should be Congress' decision, not the president's. Jeb Bush has said about legalization in those states, "I thought it was a bad idea, but states ought to have the right to do it." Rick Perry says much the same thing: States that legalized "will look back and they will find that it was a huge error that they made," but his commitment to the Tenth Amendment is such that he'll "defend it to my death, if you will, to allow them to make those decisions."

 America's economy is doing much better than you think Rand Paul has gone the farthest: While he doesn't support legalization, he has co-sponsored a bill to end the federal ban on medical marijuana and has advocated an end to harsh criminal penalties for possession. With the sort-of-but-not-really exception of Paul, all the Republicans want to make clear that they're opposed to anyone smoking pot. That might be perfectly sincere, but it also reflects their party's demographics and its role in the culture war.

To the prototypical Republican — particularly the Republican primary voter — marijuana is something hippies do.
But within the party, that feeling is far from universal. In a recent Pew Research Center poll, 39 percent of Republicans favored legalization. That's significantly less than the 59 percent of Democrats who agreed, but it's still a substantial chunk of the party — and up 15 points from what Pew showed just five years ago. So as strange as it may seem, within a few years a majority of Republican voters might actually favor legalization.

As I wrote last week, Hillary Clinton has been somewhat tentative in her remarks on this topic, saying that we should wait and see how things turn out at the state level before we decide whether it's a good idea to legalize pot on a broader scale (Bernie Sanders takes the same position). That shows how politicians often lag behind public opinion, and it's not unexpected; a few years ago, the idea that a serious presidential candidate might come out in favor of marijuana legalization would have been considered crazy.

But if more and more states legalize cannabis, it could mean that even today's most common Republican position — I don't like it, but I'm not going to fight it — could wind up being de facto support for legalization, at least in the half of the country where liberals are in charge. And if public opinion keeps moving in this direction, don't be surprised if the Democratic nominee in 2020 — and the Republican nominee within another election or two after that — actually comes out in favor of legal pot.

The high road – An Irishwoman’s Diary on medicinal cannabis

The great pot experiment

“Medical use of cannabis is legal for licensed users in California and 23 other states. Instead of full legalisation, we have the world’s loosest medical licensing.” Photograph: Thinkstock

 

Elgy Gillespie

Last time I got stoned was by accident, I swear . . . I was at a Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in Golden Gate Park, listening to Loudon Wainwright. A vendor in pink frills passed with a tray of chocolate truffles. For $2.50 they looked delicious and couldn’t be spiked, could they?

Alice-in-Wonderland-like, I took a bite and felt okay. And ate more. Big mistake. It’s the notorious no-no with pot “edibles” that happens only to idiots. Unlike swifter-acting “joints,” edibles absorb slowly and erratically. 

Some time later, I was kisser-down in the grass and a) paralysed, b) paranoid, and c) feeling so silly. I couldn’t locate my head, let alone my phone.

The same thing happened to journalist Maureen Dowd, who intentionally ate a “magic” bar in Denver, where legal edibles are all the rage. “I barely made it from desk to bed . . . I was curled up in a hallucinatory state.”

“Not your dad’s Summer of Love spliff!” is a common take-away from official reports, many finding damage to developing teen cognition. 

 

Oddly, though, some paediatric disorders – notably seizures – improve with marijuana use. US government studies are finally under way, following years of underfunding.

Yes, medical use is legal for licensed users in California and 23 other states. But nobody has firm control here. Ongoing state, local and federal face-offs make business unmanageable. Stores open and close like weeds.

Instead of full legalisation, we have the world’s loosest medical licensing. Street pot is cheap; bud starts at $12.85 per gram.

Medical pot

California pioneered medical pot 20 years ago, after grandmotherly activist “Brownie Mary” was jailed three times for giving hash brownies to Aids patients.

Results showed joints and “medibles” (baked goods, “tinctures” or concentrates for the very sick) worked better than THC pills (Marinol), and were potentially therapeutic.

Mary Jane Rathbun and her friend Dennis Peron turned the district attorney and governor around. By 1996 “compassionate” licences were granted for nausea and pain relief. Pot “pharmacists” multiplied. 

Growers in Humboldt County’s Emerald Triangle prospered. Prices dropped. 

A friend with prostate cancer takes it. “Let’s see. A quarter of an ounce a month is half a joint a day, 15 joints a month, $6 a joint or $3 a night. Cheaper than alcohol.” Two friends take it for breast cancer, one for glaucoma. It’s a boon for alcoholics and chainsmokers trying to quit, too.

But dispensaries vary and California borders on anything goes. “Cities and counties don’t know what to do, police are unsure how to respond,” complains San Francisco Congressman Tom Ammiano, who wants the Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control to monitor sales and licensing, which is anathema to tokers. 

Confusion adds to ineffectual enforcement. Recently I passed a Yelp-hyped medical cannabis store downtown, with darkened windows and “License Holders Only” over the door. Two twentysomethings were buzzed in. They looked robust – suffering from a deep-seated need to party, maybe?

If California is the adolescent pot rebel, Washington is the grey liberal, Maine the contrarian, and Oregon a feisty newcomer. But Colorado, especially Boulder, nails the “Napa Valley of Cannabis” label, with 160 edible purveyor permits from their Marijuana Enforcement Division. Originally opposed to it – like 70 per cent of his own state – Governor John Hickenlooper changed sides after 2014’s $76 million windfall in pot taxes.

Colorado is ground central for edibles and medibles. Boulder’s top-selling “canna-bakery” is Sweet Mary Jane Edibles, where “Queen of the Munchies” Karin Lazarus employs eight bakers. Creator of Alice B Toklas cookies and prize-winning OMG Cheesecake, Karin gives her secrets away in Sweet Mary Jane: 75 Delicious Cannabis-Infused High-End Desserts. Here, she tells how to infuse canna butter, sugar or coconut oil (heat first, braise tenderly).

“Colorado is way ahead in terms of control,” Karin says. An idealist who came to Sweet Mary Jane from medibles, she gladly embraces limits to prevent overdosing.

“I don’t want anybody to have a bad time – that’s not the idea.” Nor does she worry about tastiness. She taste-tests with and without. “I have ‘tasty’ down!”

She still bakes only medibles. “As medical bakers, we’re allowed to dose with more TNC than the recreational 10mg limit. But we have to state the cannabis dose, so we lab-test everything.” “Tinctures” (drops) and “concentrates” for liver or breast cancer can be very strong.

Sweet Mary Jane Edibles is in constant contact with tough and savvy Marijuana Enforcement Division (MED), whose vigilance derives from conflicts within the state, with its large Republican majority.

Karin’s bakery is on continuous live feed. Although anyone can grow up to six plants for personal use, bakers are tracked from seed to sale on METRC (Marjiuana Inventory Tracking System).

Working for a medible producer requires background checks, fingerprints, no loans or felonies. MED recently charged couriers delivering marijuana.

“The real challenge is labelling and packaging with nutrient lists and revisions.” It’s complicated. Different strains work for pain or sleeping. ”

Cash

Add “impossible to finance”. Banks won’t work with dispensaries or bakers because banks depend on federal law and insurance. Colorado bakeries are run on cash, making them dangerous and difficult to tax.

The hassle is worth it to Karin (who never tokes, except for migraines).

“For me this is the ideal blend of philanthropy and delicious. What I hope to see is nationwide legalisation. It would be a beautiful thing to have the federal government on board.” In Ireland too – from Emerald Triangle to Emerald Isle, she laughs.

Karin’s best shot – send the Supreme Court her OMG Cheesecake.

On a mission to change how family doctors view medical marijuana

MIKE HAGER
For the past year and a half, David Hepburn has been travelling Canada, educating his fellow family doctors on why and when to prescribe medical marijuana. Speaking at conferences, sometimes sponsored by the commercial growers licensed by Health Canada, Dr. Hepburn runs through the history of cannabis prohibition and the research that has been done on the plant. He says he is trying to change the minds of a medical establishment loath to endorse a drug that has vast amounts of anecdotal evidence, but scant clinical trials, to support its use.

He said cannabis can be a suitable medicine for patients suffering migraines, nerve-related pain, neurodegenerative conditions, such as MS, and symptoms such as insomnia or anxiety.

In an interview, he describes his efforts to change how many Canadian doctors – gatekeepers for the federal medical marijuana system – view the drug.

Why did you first become involved in prescribing cannabis about a decade ago?

I was in the group that wanted nothing to do with cannabis, and it actually came from a physician [friend] in Ontario whose mother had cancer. He phoned me up and said, ‘My mom is in Victoria, she is an octogenarian, cancer-stricken and her doctor won’t help her. My mom would never miss a tax date or jaywalk, and yet the one thing that’s helped her with both her pain and her chemo-related symptoms is cannabis.’ And would I help her out? Finally I capitulated and said, ‘Okay, I will help her apply for the [federal medical marijuana] program.’

I began to explore more into that and I watched this sort of explosion I guess the same way [American neurosurgeon and media personality] Sanjay Gupta would have.

He’s made a 180 and I have too.

Why are Canadian doctors are so reluctant to prescribe?

They don’t want to be recommending something that we’ve all been taught is bad for you. The reticence is legitimate, I think that it’s normal. ‘Hey, listen, I don’t know anything about it, I’m not keen on prescribing it.’ The standard things that I would hear is, ‘We want to see more research into it, etc. etc.’ That’s a vicious circle – there isn’t the research being done because of the fact that the government has made it unresearchable.

So you recommend cannabis for conditions and symptoms without the clinical trials that back up such prescriptions?

There remains a lot of good studies to be done. But because it is safe and tolerable and we know it works for a lot of people for conditions in which the research is lacking, that doesn’t mean we neceassarily rob the person of the opportunity to use it now. We sit in our office day after day and year after year and we hear patients who sit down and say, ‘Doc, the thing that really works for me, to be honest with you, is cannabis.’ We trust these patients and we know them not to be jaywalkers. When you hear it long enough, you begin to realize that it’s something that is working for these people.

Is it right for commercial cannabis growers to pay for educating doctors who are the gatekeepers to the clients that buy their products?

That goes on all the time with Big Pharma, they’re the ones who sponsor all the big [continuing medical education] events. This is virtually how we do 90 per cent of our education. Routinely on a week-to-week basis, we probably get invitations through the week to two, three, four dinners put on by a specialist and sponsored by a drug company. It’s nothing untoward, so to speak. There are other avenues for education – reading journals – but the journals are all supported by pharmaceutical companies, right?

What do you think about clinics specializing in pot prescriptions which say they are charging patients fees because they are helping them navigate the confusing federal medical marijuana regulations?

It’s all smoke and mirrors, jiggery-pokery is being done. Personally I think it’s unethical, so I charge patients nothing. What I do is I give them the options. I say, ‘Here’s the list of Health Canada’s licensed producers, you can select one based on anything you find interesting on their Web page. Be it the fact that some of [them] offer certain deals with respect to a vaporizer and some require less amount purchased at one time.’ Different LPs have different advantages and that is what the patients like.

Are cannabis oils more dangerous than vaporizing the drug?

There are those advantages to it, you can encapsulate them, however there are some disadvantages to them as well. And this is where it’s very important to caution people to the appropriate uses of oral or edible or ingestible cannabinoids, and that there is a high variability to absorption rates. One of the things I heard down in Colorado is people were coming in and they were taking more and more derivatives of one sort or another. Next thing you know it all kicks in because it can take an hour or two to really take effect. People ask me the dose and I say, ‘Just a little bit. Start low and go slow.’

There has been a lot of talk recently about the dangers of ‘edibles.’ What happens when someone is sent to hospital with an overdose?

They might give them IV, saline, tell them to go home and they’d be fine. It’s not toxic. In fact, it’s incredibly nontoxic, however it gives them an unpleasant experience that may sabotage the use of it. I probably would never start people on an oil, but what I like about the vaporizers is that you can titrate the dosage easily. You know in 95 seconds if it’s going to work and it doesn’t last very long.

You know the actual best form of cannabinoids to me is, believe it or not, suppositories? They are far and away the best delivery mechanism over all.

Why?

They go through a different absorption system, you know within 15 minutes you have it absorbed in there and it’s actually done through the intestinal mucosa. You get a longer lasting effect than you would get for the vaporizer, but you also get a quicker response than you would get from the ingestibles.

Bill that would have allowed medical pot in hospitals dead

AUBURN, Maine (NEWS CENTER) -- Maine's medical marijuana program has been legal for 15 years, but there are key areas where state and federal laws collide, especially in houseplant.
Parents of very sick children are fighting to legally use medical marijuana in Maine hospitals. But hospital officials said allowing patients to use medical pot within their walls jeopardizes federal certifications and funding.
This legislative session, a bill protecting both patients and hospitals appeared to be the solution, but it died on the floor of the Maine Senate last month.

medical marijuana (Photo: NEWS CENTER)

Twelve-year-old Cyndimae Meehan and 4-year-old Kaylee Brown have the same rare disease. Dravet Syndrome, a form of epilepsy which is resistant to most medications. Their moms said medical marijuana has allowed their girls to wean off of power narcotics and it reduced their seizures significantly.

The process has landed both girls in the emergency room, where their parents are forced to choose between following federal law, which bans medical marijuana from hospitals, or doing what they believe is best for their children.
This spring, the moms pleaded their case to lawmakers, which resulted in a bill that would allow children with severe epilepsy to use medical pot in the hospital, in exchange those facilities would get legal protection from the feds. The bill passed both the House and Senate, only to be vetoed by Gov. Paul LePage.

The bill then failed by just two votes to override the veto in the Senate. Parents said if they would have been able to meet with the governor beforehand, the outcome might have been different.
"We asked multiple times to meet with LePage and have him listen to our stories and have him understand our feelings and how it affects our children," said Samantha Brown, Kaylee's Mom.

Parents plan to work DHHS and come up with a workable language in a bill that would protect the hospitals also protect medical marijuana patients. There was one bright spot for these families - a bill that would allow parents or caregivers to give children medical marijuana in a smokeless form on school grounds did pass.

UK petition for parliamentary debate to legalise marijuana

Will the UK parliament entertain the idea of legalising marijuana? Source: AP

THE movement to legalise marijuana has been gaining significant momentum and the United Kingdom is set to be the next big battle ground for advocates.

A petition launched last week calling for the full legalisation of the drug across the UK has attracted an influx of signatures. The notable size of the response means that the UK government will have to officially respond to the appeal.
After launching the petition last Wednesday, at the time of writing it has garnered over 173,000 signatures. Under a newly introduced scheme, any petition that receives over 100,000 signatures must be considered for debate in parliament.

The Petitions Committee has said any petition with over 100,000 signatures are “almost always” debated.
The online appeal makes the claim that legal marijuana could bring in £900m in taxes annually, and save £400m in policing and legal costs.
It also claims the move would create over 10,000 new jobs — something which has been the experience in certain US states that have legalised the drug.

The petition describes it as “a substance that is safer than alcohol, and has many uses. It is believed to have been used by humans for over 4000 years, being made illegal in the UK in 1925.”
However the demands are a far cry for the current status of the drug in the country. Marijuana is classified as a Class B drug in the UK which means the drug comes with prison terms as long as 14 years for sale and production and five years for possession.
But James Richard Owen who lodged the petition believes the timing is right for a new approach to be adopted.

“With Uruguay legalising, a lot of states in the US legalising, government cuts, people don’t want to spend the money on policing something they find is harmless,” the 25-year-old told the Guardian.
Mr Owen’s sentiment was reflected by three UK police commissioners who said the prosecution of marijuana-related crimes should not be a priority for police forces.
While Jason Reed, executive director of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP) said criminalising marijuana users was now viewed as a “barbaric idea” by many in society.

The relaxation of laws around medicinal marijuana is commonly seen as a stepping stone to recreational legalisation. However medicinal cannabis also remains outlawed in the UK, despite experts urging the government to relax the laws claiming the restrictions mean British patients are “suffering unnecessarily”.
In the US, 23 states have moved to legalise medicinal marijuana while four of those have done the same for recreational use.

Many in the UK want to see the drug become legal. Source: Supplied

WHERE IS AUSTRALIA ON THE ISSUE?
Outside of the enduring efforts of the HEMP party, few actors are calling for recreational legalisation with any sort of impact. However advocates for medicinal marijuana have enjoyed growing traction in the past year and look set to usher in laws governing its use.
Buoyed by Tony Abbott’s proclaimed support in September 2014, legalisation campaigners have found increasing support in government.

It was revealed this week that a tripartisan committee made up of Coalition, Labor and crossbench senators is expected to strongly support a bill to establish a medical marijuana regulator later this year.
Led by Greens Leader Richard Di Natale, the committee is due to deliver its report on August 10, and sources told Fairfax that it will back the legislation despite legal and practical concerns expressed by the Health Department.

Meanwhile, PhytoTech Medical completed a merger with MMJ Bioscience in a move that will allow the Australian-listed group to become a farm-to-pharmaceutical medical marijuana company. The merger was completed yesterday and leaves the company primed to supply a potential future market in Australia.
Whether medical marijuana takes hold this year remains to be seen, but as the debate around the status of the drug continues to unfold, any dramatic changes to the law in the UK will be heard loud and clear down under.

Greens New Leader Richard Di Natale at Parliament House in Canberra. Source: News Corp Australia

Do You Use Marijuana? A Record Number of Americans Say ‘Yes’

Sam Becker 

Andrew Burton/Getty Images

Marijuana legalization is in full swing in some parts of the country, and it’s clear that both laws and attitudes toward cannabis and prohibition are changing rapidly. With the past two election cycles producing four states with full recreational marijuana legalization laws, and 2016 set to bring us even more, marijuana is set to be a hotly debated topic among regulators and politicians for years to come.
With the release of a recent Gallup poll, the only thing going up in smoke faster than dank nugs of Green Crack in Portland are people’s support for the continuation of prohibition laws. Not only that, but the number of Americans who are willing to admit that they have had a toke or two is as high as it’s been since 1969.

Take a quick glance at the chart from Gallup to see how after a long, long time of roughly a third of the population having responded “yes” to the question of whether they had tried marijuana, the number has jumped 10 percentage points since the dawn of the new millennium — and spiked 6 percentage points in the past two or three years alone. This shouldn’t be all that surprising, considering that marijuana use is no longer being viewed on the same level as heroin or methamphetamine use (thanks Reefer Madness. In fact, it’s become painfully obvious that marijuana presents no real threat to health or safety at all — and can be, in many cases, beneficial.

Marijuana only became a problem when it was made illegal, and billions upon billions were spent hunting down, prosecuting, and subsequently locking up those who were caught using or selling it. But now that voters are having a change of heart, including President Obama himself, more people are comfortable with admitting that they’ve had a brush with the Devil’s Lettuce.
What’s still surprising is that the vast majority of Americans are still reluctant to admit they currently use cannabis, or cannabis products. Only 11% of respondents answered in the affirmative to that question, which is still a considerable leap from the 7% who answered “yes” to the same question in 2013.

It is understandable why almost 90% of respondents would still be unwilling to admit that they currently use marijuana. For one, people have jobs. Most employers still have strict anti-drug use rules, and many screen their employees for drug use — even in states in which marijuana has been legalized. Also, there is still some significant stigma around using marijuana. In many people’s minds, it’s still a very dangerous drug, or something that only bored teenagers and reckless youngsters toy around with.

With that said, if you were to take a walk around office building clusters in Portland, Seattle, or Denver, you’d likely witness many people using vape pens or other instruments to consume cannabis. They’re still just unwilling to admit it to Gallup.
But even so, what’s undeniable is that marijuana, and ending prohibition more specifically, has become a major political issue. With ties to business, the economy, and the criminal justice system, marijuana legalization can and will effect every American in some way — whether directly or indirectly. Jobs are being created, people are either being released or kept out of jail, and millions of people dependent on the medicinal properties of cannabis can use it without fear of punishment from the state and federal government.

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As this recent Gallup poll goes to show, stigma is waning, and attitudes are changing. Fairly rapidly, too.

If the dominoes fall as expected, and states like California and Massachusetts — both with sizable populations, and legalization bills in the pipeline — go on to vote down prohibition laws in 2016, it may be too late to pull the plug, even if a sitting president decides to reverse course from Obama’s strategy. One Republican candidate has continuously been outspoken about his opposition to marijuana legalization, with New Jersey governor Chris Christie promising to use the full power of the federal government if he is elected.

“If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it,” Christie said at a town hall in New Hampshire, per a Politico report. “As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws.”
But his attitude and views toward cannabis are on the way out, as we can see from Gallup’s work. So rest assured, cannabis connoisseurs, the only thing more unlikely than a Christie presidency, at this point, is the American public reversing course on their feelings about marijuana legalization.

UK Police In Cannabis 'Climbdown' And Other Countries' Approach To Marijuana Use

By George Bowden 
Three police forces have acknowledged that growing and using cannabis is no longer to be treated as a priority crime.
While cannabis remains a Class B drug in the UK, police chiefs including Durham’s Crime Commissioner Ron Hogg, say they will not actively pursue those growing or using leaves for personal, recreational use.
And Alan Charles, Derbyshire's PCC, told the Daily Mail: "When we are faced with significant budget cuts we cannot keep turning out to every single thing reported to us."

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Yet as the strength of feeling around the full decriminalisation of cannabis appears to grow in the UK, here are other countries where innovative drug policy has produced broadly positive results.

• Washington, U.S.
   
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  Washington state effectively decriminalised cannabis in July 2014. In the first year, over $70 million in tax revenues have been taken by the state, generated by marijuana sales. The state’s control board says that dispensaries sold $257 million worth of the drug.
• Colorado, U.S.
   
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  Colorado legalised recreational cannabis use at around the same time. It has even legalised advertising, subject to strict audience prescriptions. Although, the first-ever marijuana advert was pulled from schedules last week. But federal laws prohibiting cannabis use plague those states which have legalised the drug. For example, national banks cannot allow cannabis purchases on their platforms, necessitating the use of cash and heavy security as a result.
• The Netherlands
   
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  Amsterdam has a long-standing tradition of tolerance, acceptance – and moderation. While production remains illegal, its ‘coffee shop culture’ allows the freedom to enjoy the drug with minimum risk.
• Switzerland
   
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  The famously neutral country voted to legalise cannabis in January 2015. With Swiss teenagers most likely to experiment with drugs, according to Unicef. The new laws create a regulated, legal marketplace.
• Spain
   
  3dom/Flickr
  Several less conservative Spanish regions have allowed the creation of ‘cannabis clubs’ including Barcelona, Valencia and the Basque County. These clubs operate much like those in Amsterdam. A legal clause allowing the growing of marijuana for personal use allows their continued operation.
• Portugal
   
  ASSOCIATED PRESS
  Since becoming the first European country to scrap criminal penalties for the personal possession of cannabis, Portugal has led the way in drug policy. It has not seen significant increases in the use of drugs. Drug induced deaths have fallen, too.
• Chile
   
  AP Photo/Luis Hidalgo
  Chile has experimented with granting permission to growers who cater for the medicinal marijuana market -- allowing production for non-personal use. The municipality of Santiago is harvesting legal medical marijuana as part of a pilot program aimed to help ease the pain of cancer patients.

Our View: Maine shouldn’t adopt government by referendum

Representative democracy and compromise don’t fit with winner-take-all ballot questions.

By The Editorial Board

The 2016 election is more than a year away, but it’s already shaping up to be historic.
Maine Republicans have announced plans to put one or maybe two questions on the ballot to eliminate the state income tax and curtail spending on social services.

A long list of competing citizen initiatives promises to turn Maine’s 2016 ballot into a confusing maze for voters. This is not how representative government is supposed to work. Associated Press Photo/Shawn Patrick Ouellette

 

In addition, there may be two separate questions that each would legalize recreational marijuana use, along with one that would reform state elections, including party primaries, by instituting ranked-choice voting in all state races.
There also may be a referendum to increase the minimum wage to $9 an hour, raising it $1 a year until it reaches $12. After that, it would be tied to inflation.

They will also be electing all 186 members of the Maine House and Senate, but so what? With so many major issues being decided by popular referendum, there won’t be much left for any of the legislators to do.
Maybe Maine should have a referendum on whether it should do all of its governing by referendum. Then when someone files a bill to make Labrador retrievers the state dog or to reduce sentences for some classes of drug offenses, we can wait until Election Day and let the people decide. It would be like one big town meeting.

That’s not practical, but some of these referendums are not necessarily about making sensible laws.
The bill to eliminate the income tax by statute would have dubious value as a law. It would rob the state treasury of nearly half of the $6.3 billion it takes to run the state for two years and replace it with … nothing.
But it makes for a great campaign platform. Rhetoric would soar, offering plenty of opportunities for politicians to pontificate about tax freedom and putting money back in people’s pockets. But without massive increases to property and sales taxes or massive cuts to state schools, hospitals, nursing homes and other social services, the budget will not balance.

Even a governor like Paul LePage, who counts himself as an enemy of the income tax, has never submitted a budget that did not rely heavily on the income tax, or even one that would have spent less overall than the one that preceded it.
If Republicans hate the income tax so much, why didn’t they try to eliminated it in three of the last five years, when they had the governor and at least one house of the Legislature in their control?

It’s one thing for a group of voters to put a proposal on the ballot when they think the Legislature is not listening, but it’s another entirely when a political party, which has been setting the agenda in Augusta, resorts to this kind of approach.
So why bother spending all the time and money it takes to put one of these questions on the ballot?
The answer may be in last year’s unsuccessful attempt to outlaw some bear-hunting techniques. According to some analysis of exit polling data, bear hunters and their supporters turned out in greater numbers than might have been expected in a typical year, contributing to a good year for conservatives, including Gov. LePage.

It may be that the state Republican Party is looking for ways to keep its voters enthusiastic in a presidential year, when Democrats tend to vote in greater numbers than at other times.
Now the political operatives will have to sort through all the permutations of these overlapping questions. Would a pro-marijuana, anti-income tax Trump voter – assuming he’s running as an independent – tick the box for a Republican House candidate? How about an anti-pot, pro-minimum wage Clintonista? Or a ranked-choice-loving, tax-reforming, cannabis consumer?

Maine should not go down this route. A representative democracy that governs through compromise is better than government by referendum. Voters should pay more attention to who’s on the ballot than what.

New DEA Leader: Pot Probably Not as Bad as Heroin

'I'm not an expert,' he adds.

Chuck Rosenberg, pictured in 2007, says the Drug Enforcement Administration will still enforce federal marijuana laws, but that the drug is a relatively low priority.

By Steven Nelson 

The new leader of the Drug Enforcement Administration said Tuesday heroin probably is more dangerous than marijuana, diverging in tone from his embattled predecessor.
Acting Administrator Chuck Rosenberg, a former prosecutor whose stance on drug reform is somewhat of a mystery, also said his agents are not prioritizing marijuana enforcement -- though he's not ordered them off it.
The statements, made on a morning conference call, were far from an endorsement of marijuana, which four states allow for recreational use and many others do for medical purposes.

“If you want me to say that marijuana’s not dangerous, I’m not going to say that because I think it is,” Rosenberg said. “Do I think it’s as dangerous as heroin? Probably not. I’m not an expert.”

[WATCH: McCain Says 'Maybe We Should Legalize' Marijuana]
He added: “Let me say it this way: I’d rather be in a car accident going 30 miles an hour than 60 miles an hour, but I’d prefer not to be in a car accident at all.”

It’s a seemingly unremarkable answer and cautiously made. But it’s a significant break with his predecessor, Michele Leonhart, who said comparisons of pot to crack cocaine or heroin would be “subjective” and that it’s an “insidious” drug.
Dan Riffle, director of federal policies at the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, says he appreciates Rosenberg’s candor.

“This is not a matter of opinion,” he says, “It's far less harmful than heroin and it's encouraging that the DEA is finally willing to recognize that.” Riffle notes thousands of overdose deaths each year result from opioid abuse compared to none from marijuana, which also is less likely to result in dependence.

[FLASHBACK: DEA Leader Fumes About White House Playing Softball With Pot Legalizers]
"That's a great improvement over the previous administrator who was incapable of distinguishing heroin from marijuana," agrees Rep. Steve Cohen, D-Tenn., a consistent thorn in the side of Leonhart. "The real question that one day will be asked and correctly answered is: Is marijuana a more dangerous drug than alcohol?"
Leonhart resigned in May in the wake of a scandal involving agents participating in sex parties.

Her colorful opposition to marijuana last year saw her chastise President Barack Obama for saying alcohol is more harmful than marijuana and unload on White House staffers playing softball matches against drug policy reformers.
Rosenberg's expected to be less vitriolic.
In his new role, Rosenberg said, he asked leaders of DEA branches across the country “to focus their efforts and the resources of the DEA on the most important cases in their jurisdictions, and by and large what they are telling me is that the most important cases in their jurisdictions are opioids and heroin.”

Rosenberg said, “I’ve also told them we are not going to shy away from doing marijuana cases where appropriate. We want to do the biggest and most important cases there are.”

[DATA: Colorado Pot Arrests Still Have Racial Disparity]
But as a general matter, he said, “Typically it’s heroin, opioids, meth and cocaine in roughly that order and marijuana tends to come in at the back of the pack.”
A reporter for a Spanish-language news outlet attempted to extract more information from Rosenberg about how the agency will respond to the spread of state laws that allow marijuana possession for medical or recreational use in violation of federal law, under which almost all pot possession remains illegal.

“If it’s marijuana, that’s illegal under federal law and I’ve told them not to shy from that,” he said. “More to come on that.”
Rosenberg was on the call to promote a DEA prescription drug take-back program that aims to reduce the number of unused prescription opioids in households in a bid to cut down on their misuse and address a common gateway to heroin use. A study last year found states that allow medical marijuana for treatment of conditions like pain have fewer opioid overdose deaths.

Marijuana Legalization 2015: United Kingdom Could Legalize Weed After 150,000 Brits Sign Petition

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More than 150,000 people have supported a petition to legalize cannabis in the United Kingdom. GETTY IMAGES 

 

By Jackie Salo 

United Kingdom lawmakers may consider a bill that would legalize cannabis for recreational use, after an online petition garnered the support of more than 150,000 people. The petition asks for lawmakers to allow the sale, production and recreational use of marijuana.

Petitions that exceed more than 100,000 signatures require a formal response from the government, and the House of Commons must consider putting the item to debate. Those which receive the required number of signatures are "almost always debated," according to the site. The petition, which was introduced last week, has amassed more than 158,000 signatures.

The creator of the petition, James Richard Owen, argues that the U.K. is wasting money by keeping marijuana criminalized. "Legalizing cannabis could bring in £900m in taxes every year, save £400m on policing cannabis and create over 10,000 new jobs," Owen wrote. He said marijuana is a "substance that is safer than alcohol and has many uses. It is believed to have been used by humans for over 4,000 years, being made illegal in the U.K. in 1925."

Marijuana is classified as a Class B drug in the U.K., which means the drug comes with prison sentences as long as 14 years for sale and production and five years for possession. The drug costs the country £500 million, or more than $555 million, in law enforcement costs each year and involves a black market worth £6 billion, approximately $6.7 billion, according to Politics.co.uk.
Cannabis legalization has won support in other countries in recent years. The U.S. has legalized marijuana entirely in four states -- Alaska, Colorado, Oregon and Washington -- and in 2013, Uruguay passed legislation to legalize the drug countrywide.

 

Bipartisan Bill May End Marijuana Prohibition In America

According to the latest figures available from the ACLU, the cost of enforcement of laws for pot possession alone is more than $3.6 billion a year.

By Claire Bernish

 
(ANTIMEDIA) Washington, D.C. — A bill with bipartisan support introduced in Congress this week is finally tolling the death knell for cannabis prohibition. By removing a notorious legal contradiction, the legislation would give precedence to state marijuana laws—making federal enforcement a thing of the past in states where medical and recreational weed are legal.
While its brevity is astonishing—without the obligatory title pomp, it would struggle to take up a single page—the legislation is capable of ending perhaps the most contentious provision in the ubiquitous War on Drugs.

Simply titled the “Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2015,” the bill introduced by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher has incredible potential for substantial reform that makes its passage of paramount importance.
Like a pebble thrown into a still pond, once federal cannabis law is essentially nullified, states where lawmakers were previously reluctant to approve medical or even recreational use will be far likelier to approve decriminalization.

As ripples go, once constituents see neighboring states end prohibition, the chance exists for those states with even the harshest pot penalties to succumb to public pressure and follow suit. It’s entirely feasible to expect the death of cannabis prohibition altogether, resulting from this single-sentence legislation.
From there, the ripples become waves.
If the de facto elimination of prohibition passes, the true beauty of the legislation will begin to shine.

Consider the U.S. claim to fame as the world’s leading jailer of its citizens—a notorious achievement resulting from the insanity of sentencing due to the plant’s inexplicable designation as a Schedule I substance (Could there be any clearer evidence the War on Drugs is purely for government profit than lumping pot with heroin? But I digress). Removing the possibility for such penalties would immediately ease prison overcrowding and free court dockets to begin to deal with more serious criminal cases.
And that’s not all.

Besides the legal benefits, there are myriad beneficial economic corollaries stemming from passage of this little bill. Consider Colorado. In the state’s first year of legal weed, tax and licensing revenue alone topped $60 million—most of which the state devoted to school construction. That figure—though less than the anticipated $100 million—sharply contrasts the estimated $145 million Colorado had previously been spending to enforce cannabis laws, according to a 2010 Harvard study.

With America’s seriously sketchy infrastructure in desperate need of repair and improvement, schools around the country in total disrepair, and countless other improvements in every state waiting to happen, there are endless possibilities. Ending cannabis prohibition would benefit everyone—ironically enough, even those who somehow still believe negative propaganda.
If ending prohibition takes away any possible legal consequences, people whose only ostensible criminal activity involves cannabis suddenly aren’t able to incur a related arrest record.

This would make employment possible for countless people, not to mention better jobs for those who were previously constrained by a “dubious” criminal history. It’s even feasible to expect consequent additional legislation to stem from the original bill that would expunge past offenses related to cannabis. The total effect is destigmatization of the consumption and cultivation of a plant.
And that still isn’t it.

According to the latest figures available from the ACLU, the cost of enforcement of laws for pot possession alone are simply inexcusable—more than $3.6 billion each year. New York City is a prime example of the inanity of arrests resulting from unnecessary laws. In 1991, there were less than 800 total arrests for pot—but by 2010, less than two decades later, that number was a whopping 59,000. And the bias against minorities for those arrests is stunning, too—though cannabis use remains rather even regardless of race, black people are almost four times likelier to be arrested for possession.

While ending cannabis prohibition won’t end institutionalized racism in America, it’s certainly a significant step forward in the effort.
There are plenty of other positive repercussions should this bill become law. It might just be time to get to know your Congresspeople a little better.

Chris Christie Vows Crackdown On Legal Weed As Soon As He's Prez

He'd have to do it without Republicans' support.

 

Matt Ferner 

 

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is once again threatening marijuana users in states that have legalized the drug, telling them to "enjoy it" while they can because, if he becomes president, there'll be a crackdown.
“If you’re getting high in Colorado today, enjoy it,” Christie said Tuesday during a Newport, New Hampshire, town-hall meeting, Bloomberg reports. “As of January 2017, I will enforce the federal laws.”
Christie, one of 16 Republicans campaigning for the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, has made no secret of his long-held opposition to cannabis.

As governor of New Jersey, he has opposed even his own state's limited medical marijuana program and has called similar laws in 22 other states a "front" for full recreational legalization. He has described taxes generated from the sale of marijuana as "blood money." And earlier this year in no uncertain terms, he said that, as president, he would "crack down and not permit" recreational cannabis in states that have legalized it.
To date, four states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for adult use -- although D.C. still bans sales.

As many as 10 more states are expected to consider legalization in the next several years.
But marijuana, be it medical or recreational, remains prohibited under federal law, and states rely on guidance from the Department of Justice urging federal prosecutors to refrain from targeting state-legal operations.
The kind of federal crackdown that Christie espouses does not appear to be popular with most Americans, as multiple recent polls have found a majority in support of legalizing marijuana.

Even Christie's fellow Republicans don't seem to favor such a hard-line stance. According to a recent Pew survey, while most GOP voters do not support legalization, they do support states' rights when it comes to marijuana -- with 54 percent saying that the federal government should not interfere with states that have already legalized cannabis. Among millennial Republicans, support for legalizing marijuana is significant -- with 63 percent in favor.

In New Hampshire, the state that hosts the nation's first primary election, a recent WMUR Granite State poll found wide backing for legalization -- 60 percent -- with an even higher percentage favoring decriminalization.
"Gov. Christie is either totally clueless or utterly careless," Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told The Huffington Post. "If Gov. Christie is trying to distinguish himself from the other Republican candidates, he’s doing a good job. He clearly has the least respect for states’ rights and the most desire to maintain our federal government’s failed program of marijuana prohibition."