The Denver Post

Until a few months ago, J.B. Woods was your standard-issue insurance agent. Auto, home, life. Would you like flood coverage with that?

Then, in the middle of 2009, his phone rang: “I need insurance for my medical-marijuana dispensary,” the caller said. And since that moment, few of the policies Woods has set up for clients have been standard-issue.

Instead, Woods has become the guru of ganja insurance. Property insurance, theft insurance, liability insurance. Woods is now even offering crop insurance, in case a medical-marijuana harvest isn’t as bountiful as expected.

“They needed an insurance agent who specializes in this area because of all the complexities involved,” Woods said.

“We just realized that the market was unserved in many ways,” said Woods’ wife, Mary.

The Woodses aren’t the only ones. Across Colorado, as the medical-marijuana industry has boomed, so too have the businesses providing services to it. And as state lawmakers look to regulate the dispensary business, that outward economic ripple has resulted in a widening ring of people watching to see what happens to an industry they are connected to.

Real estate agents scout locations for dispensaries. Contractors do remodeling work. Security companies install cameras and locks. From insurance companies and law firms to growing-supply stores and ventilation companies, thousands of business owners and employees have jumped into the medical-marijuana economic vortex, Denver lawyer Warren Edson said.

And there are still Prohibitionists that doubt the money that would be generated by legal marijuana sales? This article doesn’t even touch on products bought by end consumers of cannabis; everything from dining at restaurants to buying bottled drinks at the Quikie Mart can be marketed specifically to cannabis users.

President Obama said in his recent State of the Union address that success and expansion of small businesses will be key to getting us out of the recession Wall Street put us in. So why are we letting outdated racist and morality-based laws governing cannabis use stand in the way of getting America back to work?

Huffington Post

Our friend Mason Tvert at SAFER penned an excellent op-ed at HuffPo letting retailers know the peril of alienating responsible adult marijuana consumers:

Late last month, Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER) — the organization I run — called for a nationwide boycott of Starbucks Coffee after it and other companies appeared on the “sponsor” page of the Colorado Drug Investigators Association (CDIA), a shady group of law enforcement officials lobbying to wipe out the state’s voter-approved medical marijuana system and keep marijuana as illegal as possible. With a board of directors composed almost exclusively of narcotics agents, along with a website and merchandise decorated in a skull motif with images of the grim reaper, military helicopters, and the slogan “Death on Drugs,” it’s safe to say these guys are not so much concerned with public safety as they are with fighting — and maintaining — an endless war against marijuana and other drugs. After all, it provides them with job security, and marijuana enforcement is their bread and butter.

Word of the boycott spread quickly across the web, and with a boost from some traditional media coverage (including some in Starbucks’s hometown of Seattle) resulted in thousands of Americans contacting CEO Howard Schultz to let him know they would not be giving their business to his company until it did some explaining. Not long after, Starbucks issued a formal statement in which it distanced itself from the CDIA and assured the Starbucks faithful it does not support such anti-marijuana crusaders. Another business listed as a “sponsor” on CDIA’s website was The North Face, one of the leading producers of hiking and mountain sports equipment and apparel. After receiving messages from people swearing off their products, the company took action to ensure everyone knows they are not actually a sponsor of the CDIA and do not support the group’s mission. In light of all the bad publicity and these major companies disputing any tie to the CDIA, the organization removed its Web site entirely. Apparently they do not have quite the level of support from the business community that they were suggesting.

As Mr. Dylan once said, “The times, they are a changin’”. Yes, they are indeed. This brings to mind what Admiral Yamamoto said of America after the Imperial Japanese fleet attacked Pearl harbor in 1941: “”I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve.” Cannabis consumers are legion in our country. We must never give up or surrender in the fight against this incredibly wasteful and tragic War on the American People.

The Shad Plank

700 carefully chosen words make up this opinion piece by analyst Robert Sharpe of Common Sense for Drug Policy. I have nothing to add to it and will post it in its entirety as I hope Virginians will read it and strongly urge their representatives to sponsor the bills.

“It’s not just left coast states like California and Washington that are considering marijuana law reforms to help balance state budgets. For the first time in years, the Virginia General Assembly will consider common sense marijuana law reform. House Bill 1134 would replace criminal penalties for simple marijuana possession with a civil penalty of $500. The bill’s sponsor is no dope-smoking hippy, in fact he is uniquely qualified to push the envelope. Delegate Harvey Morgan is a Republican member of the Virginia General Assembly and an Assistant Clinical Professor of Pharmacy at Virginia Commonwealth University’s medical school. His bill is grounded in legitimate clinical expertise and much needed fiscal conservatism.

Marijuana decriminalization would reap tens of millions of dollars, saving the jobs of police, firefighters and teachers in the process. There were 19,911 marijuana arrests in Virginia in 2008. Those arrests would have generated $9,955,500 in revenue if a civil penalty of $500 were in place. Instead, almost twenty thousand people were burdened with criminal records. The opportunity costs associated with the zero tolerance approach are tremendous. Police, Court and jail time, not to mention the the lost tax revenue from busted users who now face lifelong diminished employment opportunities, together represent untold millions of tax dollars down the drain.

Culture warriors who favor criminalizing Virginians who prefer marijuana to martinis will no doubt oppose HB 1134. They’ll claim that marijuana use will skyrocket if the bill becomes law. Not true. Studies show that states that have decriminalized marijuana do not have higher rates of use than states that penalize users. Marijuana penalties have little, if any, impact on rates of use. The U.S. actually has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available to adults over 18.

Opponents will further claim that drug treatment programs are filled with marijuana “addicts.” This claim is a subtle form of modern reefer madness. The truth is that record numbers of citizens arrested for marijuana possession have been forced into treatment by our criminal justice system. The resulting distortion of treatment statistics is used by shameless drug warriors to make the claim that marijuana is “addictive.”

The jail-threat coercion of marijuana consumers into treatment says a lot about government priorities, but absolutely nothing about the relative harms of marijuana. If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms, marijuana would be legal already. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Like any drug, marijuana can be harmful if abused, but criminal records are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents.

Of course, the biggest drug war ruse of all is the infamous “gateway” theory. Opponents of marijuana law reform will inevitably claim that marijuana is a “gateway” drug, the use of which leads to heroin and crack addiction. HB 1134 contains incentives for small scale personal cultivation that would lead consumers to grow their own. That’s a good thing. Organized crime would take a big hit.

We should be undermining drug cartels, not subsidizing them. The drug war’s distortion of immutable laws of supply and demand causes big money to grow on little trees. And as long as drug cartels control marijuana cultivation and distribution, consumers will come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. This “gateway” is a direct result of marijuana prohibition. HB 1134 is a long overdue step in the right direction. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, Virginia continues to squander scarce public resources criminalizing otherwise law-abiding marijuana consumers who hold jobs, pay taxes and raise families.

Fiscally conservative Republicans who believe in liberty and limited government support marijuana decriminalization. Democrats who privately support marijuana law reform but live in fear of the soft-on-drugs label need to get smart-on-drugs, grow a spine already and get behind this bill. They’ve got a Republican leading the way for them. HB 1134 deserves broad bi-partisan support. Looming budget cuts threaten public safety, education and health. Virginia can no longer afford to subsidize the prejudices of culture warriors.

SF Weekly

Oaksterdam takes its name from a bastardization of Oakland, where the university began, and pot-friendly Amsterdam. Here, new growers and dispensary operators are being trained like whole legions of Johnny Appleseeds, soon to spread pot’s blessings from one coastline to the other. Not that anywhere is truly virgin ground, but consider: The pro-marijuana movement has never had an army so large, politically sophisticated, and well-funded, even if supporters downplay the millions that roll in. Nor has it enjoyed such a frenzied period of media exposure, a startling amount of it positive.

Never has there been such a concerted thrust to legalize the drug nationwide — for medical purposes, for the plain old joy of getting stoned, and for a gold mine in profits to be reaped by those who control the multipronged industry. Together with a rapidly shifting public attitude toward pot and a White House willing to accept state medical-marijuana laws, legalization seems as inevitable today as it was unthinkable a generation ago. “We’re almost at a zeitgeist,” says one of the high-profile lobbyists who is making it happen, Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) in Washington, D.C.

Zeitgeist has become one of the buzzwords of the campaign — meaning, in context, a sort of coming together of favorable forces. St. Pierre, who can call on advisory-board input from the likes of Willie Nelson and Woody Harrelson, is a glib former altar boy and preppy from Massachusetts who likes to wear a marijuana-leaf lapel pin. He says that in the past year, NORML has seen an unprecedented escalation of Web-page hits, podcast downloads, new memberships, and media calls. “We monitor [newspaper] columns, and editors have swung in favor of reform,” he says. “I will go give a lecture in Des Moines, Iowa. The questions people are asking come right out of watching Weeds on Showtime. It’s quite remarkable.”

Badgering newspapers and television programs to pay attention to the subject used to be one of the critical challenges for people like St. Pierre. Getting a meaningful dialogue started was half the battle. Now the buzz is self-sustaining, indicating a willingness of America, as a whole, to engage the subject.

“The first time, nearly eight years ago, I attempted to pitch a marijuana-related story to CNN, they literally laughed at me,” remembers Bruce Mirken, a San Francisco–based spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project. “The person who answered the phone burst out laughing. Now they’re calling us. We’ve been on various broadcasts and cable network shows 21 times [in 2009] — at least a couple on CNN. We’ve also been on the Today show, ABC World News, really all over.”

A fantastic article from columnist Dave Ferrell which I highly recommend readers check out. It is our time: don’t let up the pressure on elected officials, news organizations, and (possibly most important) everyday people you speak to. I had the opportunity to speak with some of my work colleagues including several conservatives over the holidays about marijuana legalization. What brought them to our side of the argument was a simple question: is what we’re doing now vis-à-vis the War on Drugs working? The answer is very clear: no.

HILO, Hawaii (The Honolulu Advertiser) — A resolution to ask the Legislature to decriminalize marijuana is to be debated by the Hawaii County Council.

The resolution to be discussed Tuesday was authored by North Kona Councilman Kelly Greenwell.

It says “marijuana should be decriminalized and not treated as an illicit substance.”

Greenwell says it’s not so much about marijuana, as about criminal activity associated with what he calls a “harmless” drug.

He says having marijuana illegal only drives up the price on the black market, enticing organized crime to take it over.

If approved, copies of the resolution would be sent to the Honolulu, Maui and Kauai councils in hopes they can pass similar resolutions and approach the Legislature together to ask for a new law.

Hawaii has two NORML chapters: one on Hawaii, the other on Maui. I’ll see if Radical Russ can provide more information on this great breaking story.

Antiwar.com

But there’s one war the president may stop – in fact, his election has motivated developments toward this end at a pace not seen in decades. We’re talking about the War on Drugs, and ending it could change the lives of millions of Americans – as well as Mexicans, Colombians, and others in places that feed America’s illicit drug habits.

While it might sound a little fantastic, consider this: in the last year, the White House has ordered its Justice Department to stop prosecuting medical marijuana growers, users, and dispensaries, as long as they are operating within state law. That has led the 13 states with medical marijuana laws to push forward more assertively in establishing public dispensaries and encouraged legislation in other states to relax marijuana statutes and allow medical marijuana.

Draconian minimum sentencing for drug arrests has finally been reversed in New York, and sentencing reform has pushed ahead in other states, too. Just last week, Congress ended a restriction on a District of Columbia medical marijuana law passed by voters in 1998. Ironically, former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) helped put that restriction into place, but since then, the former federal prosecutor has reexamined his position on marijuana as a states’ rights issue and has been helping to push back against further federal intrusion.

In February, Obama appointed Gil Kerlikowske as drug czar. Ostensibly, he’s quite the antithesis of drug czars past, since he is no ideologue. In fact, he faithfully implemented decriminalization efforts as Seattle’s police chief despite his own opposition, pragmatically working with community activists to keep nonviolent drug offenders out of jail.

A really sound and concise article from Kelley B. Vlahos. Check out the rest of it here.

(The Canadian Press) Sen. Dennis Meadows, a deputy general secretary of the Jamaica Labor Party, issued a statement on Saturday saying that relaxing laws against marijuana cigarettes – commonly referred to as “spliffs” – would free up the island’s courts and police to focus on violent street crime and harder drugs.

“What I am advocating is that ganja, at the level of spliffs for private use, be treated similarly to a traffic ticket,” Meadows said.

Previous efforts in Jamaica to legalize small amounts of marijuana have been scuttled because officials feared they would violate international treaties and bring sanctions from Washington.

The U.S. has spent millions of dollars trying to eradicate the crop on Jamaica and has consistently opposed efforts to loosen its marijuana laws.

This is great news for the people of Jamaica! It’s a sad state of affairs when the US can impose their will in the War on Drugs to the point of denying use of cannabis in religion in other sovereign countries. Look to Portugal, the Netherlands, and Mexico for more sensible approaches to personal use of marijuana.

Damsker, a board member of the Jewish Social Policy Action Network in Philadelphia, testified in favor of House Bill 1393. Rabbi Eric Cytrin of Temple Beth El in Harrisburg, a Conservative congregation, also testified that medical marijuana was consistent with Jewish values.

In fact, medical marijuana enjoys significant support in the Jewish world. In addition to JSPAN, which has a chapter in Pittsburgh, the Union for Reform Judaism adopted a resolution at its 67th General Assembly supporting its use.

The Conservative movement, has yet to endorse medical marijuana but Rabbi Elliot Dorf, one of the movement’s leading scholars has come out in favor, as have several Orthodox rabbis.

“In terms of Judaism, we would see this as part of our charge by God to be compassionate and merciful and respond to our neighbors’ distress,” Cytrin said. “That’s where we’re coming from ultimately.

“There’s no indication in scripture whether this (marijuana) should be legalized or not, but when we think of the commandments to treat our neighbors with kindness, love and compassion, this is one way to do it.”

In supporting medical marijuana, the Reform movement cited several talmudic sources for its stance including this commentary by Maimonides: “God created drugs and compounds and gave us the intelligence necessary to discover their medicinal properties; we must use them in warding off illness and disease. (Mishneh P’sachim 4:9).

In Israel, people with cancer, multiple sclerosis or certain other conditions can apply for a license to receive a free supply of medical marijuana. It is provided by a charitable organization, Tikkun Olam, which supplies it to some 700 patients.

Tikkun Olam is a Hebrew phrase that means, “repairing the world” or “perfecting the world.” I don’t think I can better that as a general comment on this article. Please give your support to House Bill 1393 to give patients in Pennsylvania their deity-given right to use marijuana as medicine.

The compromise legislation, which must go before the full House and Senate and could be voted on by week’s end, would end decades of prohibitions that city officials and activists say increased the number of impoverished children, expanded the number of people infected by HIV and AIDS, and blocked a District referendum 10 years ago that allowed the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

“This is a great triumph for the District,” Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-D.C.) said Wednesday. Although two votes remain, Norton said, “we think it’s over.” The financial services legislation that governs District spending is contained in a large package of bills, “and it will be hard to take this one out,” she said. “We’re almost home free.”

In 1998, D.C. voters overwhelmingly approved a measure to legalize the possession, use, cultivation and distribution of marijuana if recommended by a physician for serious illnesses. Initiative 59 passed with 69 percent of the vote, but before the law could go into effect, the Republican-controlled Congress enacted an amendment that blocked the city from setting its own drug policies.

It has taken a decade to persuade Congress to remove the impediment, said Bruce Mirken, communications director of the Marijuana Policy Project.

“It’s 11 years overdue,” Mirken said. “It’s about time the citizens of the District of Columbia had their own health policies respected.”

If the compromise bill is passed and signed into law by President Obama, the District would join 13 states in legalizing marijuana for medical use.

This is about about allowing DC residents to have the same rights as other US citizens to determine their own future. For too long, Congress has used the District’s budget as a club to enforce their own antiquated and morality-based views. The voting residents of the District have spoken (in the case of medical marijuana, they’ve spoken since 1998); it is time for Congress to step back and let the democratic process work.

A synthetic chemical similar to the active ingredient in marijuana makes new cells grow in rat brains. What is more, in rats this cell growth appears to be linked with reducing anxiety and depression. The results suggest that marijuana, or its derivatives, could actually be good for the brain.

In mammals, new nerve cells are constantly being produced in a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is associated with learning, memory, anxiety and depression. Other recreational drugs, such as alcohol, nicotine and cocaine, have been shown to suppress this new growth. Xia Zhang of the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon, Canada, and colleagues decided to see what effects a synthetic cannabinoid called HU210 had on rats’ brains.

They found that giving rats high doses of HU210 twice a day for 10 days increased the rate of nerve cell formation, or neurogenesis, in the hippocampus by about 40%.

Zhang says more research is needed before it is clear whether cannabinoids could some day be used to treat depression in humans.

Excellent, this means further government research into this begins immediately! Or it would, if the scheduling of cannabis as a Schedule 1 drug didn’t stop ANY government research into cannabis which has ‘no medical applications’. Oddly enough, the DEA lists cannabis as a narcotic. It isn’t. I’ll save you the click: Any of a group of highly addictive analgesic drugs derived from opium or opium-like compounds. Narcotics can cause drowsiness and significant alterations of mood and behavior. They can’t even tell the truth in the definition of what cannabis is.

The AMA has called for a re-scheduling of cannabis from it’s current Schedule 1 to something a bit more in line with reality. How long must we wait while the people are denied one of nature’s most wonderful medicines? How many more people should die for others twisted ideas of morality?