DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart - the last remaining member of the Bush Administration working for the Obama Administration.

In a move preceded by its Governor Chris Gregoire and other governors like Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee and Vermont’s Peter Shumlin, 42 Washington State Legislators today petitioned the DEA’s Administrator Michele Leonhart to reschedule marijuana at the federal level to recognize medical use.

We write in support of the petition that Governor Chafee and Governor Gregoire recently submitted to initiate rulemaking proceedings for the reclassification of medical cannabis (also known as marijuana) from Schedule I to Schedule II of the CSA.

We are also concerned that qualifying patients with serious medical conditions who could benefit from medical use of cannabis do not have a safe and consistent source of their medicine that has been recommended by a licensed health care professional in our state. The divergence in state and federal law creates a situation Where there is no regulated and safe system to supply legitimate patients who may need medical cannabis. More to the point, it is clear that the long-standing classification of medical use of cannabis in the United States as an illegal Schedule I substance is fundamentally flawed and should be changed. The federal government could quickly solve the issue if it were to reclassify cannabis for medical use from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule II drug so that it can be prescribed, which we believe the petition provides substantiated peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support.

The solution lies ultimately with the federal government. We urge the DEA to initiate rulemaking proceedings to reclassify medical cannabis as a Schedule II drug so qualifying patients who follow state law may obtain the medication they need through the traditional and safe method of physician prescribing and pharmacy dispensing.

Reacting to the news, NORML’s Allen St. Pierre replied to an activist who’d asked if this was the first time a state legislature has initiated such a rescheduling petition.  ”While 36 states from 1980-1994 passed numerous toothless medical cannabis reforms (most of these bills took the form of the legislature and governor ’memorializing’ Congress and the Executive Branch to change cannabis’ scheduling to II or below),” St. Pierre noted, “I think you maybe right that a state legislature itself to date has not formally petitioned the feds for down scheduling.”

Note to self: make sure to put that "non disclosure" sig on the bottom of my emails!

(Denver WestWord) The focus of this dust-up is “Allen St. Pierre on Medical Marijuana,” published by Steve Bloom’s Celebstoner.com website on January 5. The piece, on view in its entirety below, begins with a bold statement: “Defending the ‘medical’ cannabis industry is so yesterday. Why not acknowledge the political and legal farce it is and focus on the real problem at hand: ending cannabis prohibition?” From there, St. Pierre describes medical marijuana as a “sham” on par with prescription alcohol during the 1920s liquor-prohibition era, accuses the MMJ industry of opposing broader legalization efforts like California’s Proposition 19, and maintains that cannabis consumers should be able to get “good, affordable cannabis products without having to go through the insult and expense of ‘qualifying’ as a ‘medical’ patient by paying physicians and/or the state for some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card.”

In the wake of these words, Edson, his wife Georgia and Mile High NORML director Scott Greene have resigned from the organization. But while the post makes it seem as if St. Pierre wrote an essay on the topic with the intention of widely disseminating his views, these remarks were never meant for public consumption. Instead, they were written as a note to James Clark, a California-based attorney who’s part of a LISTSERV for the NORML legal committee — an electronic mailing list whose members include approximately 450 lawyers across the country.

After receiving the material from Edson, Bloom says he got in touch with St. Pierre to make sure the comments were genuine, and gave St. Pierre the opportunity to edit them.

“I wrote back and said, ‘I don’t want to edit something people have seen. It would make it look like I was changing what I said,’” St. Pierre recalls.

Nonetheless, some edits were made — but by Bloom, not St. Pierre. Bloom took out small portions that specifically referred to Clark, including this line: “James, you can certainly choose to defend a system that benefits those who are largely gaming the system.” The original document is also on view below, providing the opportunity to compare and contrast.

“I also said I’d rather [Bloom] not publish it, because it was an internal discussion — just a dashed-off note,” St. Pierre continues. “And he said, ‘I think I’m going to publish it as is.’ And I said, ‘I hope you put it in the proper context.’ But then it gets published, and it has my name on it and the note, and that’s all. So a reader would probably think I was trying to be unnecessarily provocative.”

Here is the LISTSERVE piece in its entirety.  I’ve used strikeout to indicate the portions that Bloom removed and boldface to indicate the additions Bloom made… you can decide if the edits changed the tone of this private email response on a specific topic to a specific lawyer:

Allen St. Pierre on Medical Marijuana

Hello James,

Kicking my friends or encouraging them to please wake up from their hazy field of dreams?

Defending the ‘medical’ cannabis industry is so yesterday (unless you’ve been hired to legally defend a dispensary or to establish one…). Why not acknowledge the political and legal farce it is and focus on the REALreal problem at hand…: ending Cannabis Prohibition?

The law and court precedents are fairly clear here.…Self-preservation (yes)…., large scale cultivation and sales (no).

It is just this simple.

The numerous actions by the feds and state govts in the last two weeks make this abundantly clear:

*ATF memo (no Second Amendment rights for patients)
*Feds crack down on banks doing business with CBCs (cannabis buyer’s clubs)
*Feds send forfeiture notice to CBC landlords
*Feds send warnings to local CBCs that they must move or shut because they’re within 1,000 of federally subsidized school
*IRS 280E decision against HHC (can the current retail industry survive this blow?)
*Feds send shut down notices to 25% of the CBCs in San Diego

And what MOREmore re-assertion of primacy will we get today from the feds?

If this were the 1920s, your advocacy of thetoday’s ‘medical’ cannabis industry of today would sound like a lawyer back then fronting for the legal sellers of ‘prescription’ alcohol during Alcohol Prohibition.(whoThe med-pot industry, of course, opposedopposes actual legalization…just likesuch as last year’s Prop 19, which was also opposed by the pot prohibition profiteering communities in the state’s northern ‘grow’ counties).

Prescriptive alcohol was a sham then, the ‘medical’ cannabis industry (not medical cannabis itself) is largely a sham now.

Is this news? NORML, and lawyers like Bill Panzer, have been warning ganjapreneurs and their legal counsel at our seminars and conferences about this political and legal box canyon since at least 2002.

Cannabis consumers, who NORML represents, want good, affordable cannabis products without having to go through the insult and expense of having to ‘qualify’qualifying as a ‘medical’ patient by paying physicians and/or the state for some kind of ‘get out of jail free’ card.

How intellectually honest is all of this?

James, you can certainly choose to defend a system that benefits those who are largely gaming the system, however, NORML prefers to take a more honest and transparent approach that advocates that cannabis should be legal for all adult consumers, including healthy ones.

;D)

KIND regards,

– Allen
NORML

Allen St. Pierre is the executive director of NORML

So what you have here is Allen writing a response on a private LISTSERVE to a lawyer who questioned Allen’s posting of an op-ed by a California cop that described medical marijuana in California as a farce and a sham.  Then another lawyer in Colorado who defends the medmj industry took offense, feeling Allen was demeaning his clients.  This is back in October.  Then that Colorado lawyer takes the text off the private LISTSERVE and begins distributing it to as many people as he can as part of his own agenda to discredit Allen.  Steve Bloom finally takes takes the bait this month and splashes the edited, out-of-context email all over his website as if it were a public pronouncement from NORML, leading to re-posts on other cannabis websites and countless angry denunciations and spirited defenses in the comments sections.

These actions were taken by people who considered themselves proponents of legalization and big supporters of NORML.  Gosh, with friends like these…

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Dr. Oz and Montel Williams image from oprah.com

Diane Fornbacher is the Vice-Chair of the NORML Women’s Alliance who will be our guest on today’s NORML SHOW LIVE, airing live at 1pm Pacific and replaying at 5pm and 9pm on The NORML Network.  She contributed this piece to the Freedom is Green blog, the source for East Coast marijuana activism, where she notes that professional prohibitionists are a rude and arrogant lot:

Montel shared his very emotional story, and at times had to pause to collect himself. He stressed the importance of patients being allowed to choose to use what works best.  However, at his most candid moments Montel was rudely interrupted by  prohibitionist David Evans of Flemington, NJ and two of his cohorts. They were placed in the audience just to heckle the pro-medical marijuana guests. Dr. Oz himself was cut off several times along with anyone in favor of medical marijuana.

I was angered and appalled at the lack of manners by these prohibitionists. Those of us who came to advocate and educate waited our turns to speak and were very respectful. But being polite and logical was a disadvantage for getting time on the air during this show.

Dr. Oz and guests like Dr. Donald Abrams went on to discuss the difference between the medical marijuana laws in the west specifically California and Colorado versus the east and especially in my home state of New Jersey. Allen St. Pierre, the Executive Director of NORML elaborated on how the laws aren’t perfect in California but before he could continue Allen was interrupted by rude outbursts coming from incredibly arrogant individuals on the prohibitionist side.

Diane Fornbacher, Vice-Chair, NORML Women's Alliance

Read the whole piece at Freedom is Green.  I will echo what Diane wrote, “being polite and logical was a disadvantage for getting time on the air”.  These afternoon talk shows and cable talking head shows are about conflict and battle, not civil discourse.  It’s about emotion, not logic.  And since the prohibition of cannabis is completely illogical and very emotional, prohibitionists are right at home.

Follow Montel’s lead.  It’s not that delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol has been shown in randomized double-blind placebo-controlled zzzzzzzzzz….  It’s that YOU are going to force ME to suffer!  The format needs a good guy and a bad guy, a hero who saves the victim from suffering at the hands of the villain.

That’s not to say we abandon polity and logic.  However, you can’t get to the rational facts until you’ve gotten on the air and it’s the tears or anger that’s going to attract the camera.

Tue, Mar 29, Dr. Oz show asks "Medical Marijuana: Is it Time to Make it Legal?" (click image for promo video, available to Mar 30, 2011)

On Tuesday’s edition of The Dr. Oz Show NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre appears along with Montel Williams and Dr. Donald Abrams, as well as an audience loaded with NORML activists from around the Tri-State area.

The show, “Medical Marijuana: Is it Time to Make it Legal?” also brings in former ONDCP staffer Andrea Barthwell (now a consultant for a firm she created called EMGlobal Public Health) and audience members from a heroin rehab center to examine the issue of medical marijuana.

Because, after all, medical marijuana could lead to heroin addiction (*face palm*).

Click the image to visit the Dr. Oz website and watch the promotional video – you’ll hear St. Pierre telling Barthwell “you’re wrong!” and you” hear Williams respond with righteous indignation in support of medical marijuana.  (That video will be gone by Wednesday.)  Check the Dr. Oz website or your local listings to find if and when the Dr. Oz show airs in your area.

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