Hang tight, NORML SHOW LIVE fans. A new Mothership PC is on its way to RoLLaJaY Studios. We’ll be back just as soon as possible.

In the meantime, I found this gem on the internet – jamming with Bill Panzer at Hunter S. Thompson’s place in 2010.

Click here to view the embedded video.

See y’all soon! –”R”R

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access
Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2011-06-13.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

1. Utah Attorney General welcomes legislative action to create medical marijuana law, just completed colon cancer treatments and “understands”
2. Korean rapper Crown J. gets 8 months in Korean jail for using marijuana… in Atlanta, Georgia.
3. Michigan reaps $8 million in medical marijuana program profits in just two years
4. Grants Pass woman rolls over in Portland-to-Boston trafficking scheme

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by CannaBob and The Viper Hour on The NORML Network

• Roots Monday: Ian Moore Band – “Champagne and Reefer”

NORML Legal Committee

• Keith Stroup, NORML Legal Counsel and Founder, on Aspen Legal Seminar, Kentucky v. King, Washington State’s employment discrimination case against medical marijuana patients, update on federal legalization bills

Radical Rant

• Oregon legislators sneak 2X-4X fee increase on medmj patients into budget

I am so disappointed that the final recording of Billy Murphy is incomplete. I had a computer glitch that cost me the last 40 minutes of his excellent closing talk. Otherwise, here are the recordings from the last day in Aspen.

New Ways to Voir Dire the Jury in a Drug Case
Marjorie Russell, Thomas Cooley Law School, Lansing, MI
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – Marjorie Russell.mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

New Forms of Electronic Surveillance
Jeralyn Merritt, Denver, CO
(Not recorded by request of presenter)

Important Recent Decisions
Gerry Goldstein, San Antonio, TX
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – Gerry Goldstein.mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Trying The Losing Case (and letting your client down easily)
Billy Murphy, Baltimore, MD
(Partial Recording)
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – Billy Murphy (partial).mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Thank you all for patiently waiting for these.  Between Karri getting in a wreck and all the travel I couldn’t find the time to get them posted as quickly as I would’ve liked.

Inventory Searches
Cal Williams, Colby, KS
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – Cal Williams.mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Federal Habeas
Marvin Miller, Alexandria, VA
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – Marvin Miller.mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Evidence: Identifying and Preparing Evidentiary Issues
Thomas M. Loeb, Farmington Hills, MI
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – Thomas Loeb.mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Medical Marijuana Legal Issues in New Mexico, Michigan, Oregon and Washington
Steven G. Farber, Santa Fe, NM
Matt Abel, Detroit, MI
Leland Berger, Portland, OR
Doug Hiatt, Seattle, WA
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – OR NM WA MI Panel.mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access
Questions and Answers for Panel
Download audio file (Aspen 2010 – OR NM WA MI QandA.mp3)
Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Aspen Legal Seminar - June 10-12

Due to my hectic travel and appearance schedule over the next three weeks, the regular programming of NORML SHOW LIVE will be slightly modified.

As usual, your cyberpass to all these amazing events in Aspen, Colorado; San Francisco, California; and Boise, Idaho costs you absolutely nothing!  Just log in to http://live.norml.org at the times listed above and you can follow it all!

But if you’d like to help support our mission and the cost of the plane tickets to bring you this coverage, feel free to drop by our NORML SHOW LIVE Online Store and make a purchase – $4.20 of each purchase goes straight to our budget.

(It’s 9/9/09! The Day of the Beast and a Half!)

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-09-09.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Multiple raids on collectives and dispensaries in San Diego
2. NORML of Waco making news in first month of existence
3. Reefer Mad in Aspen

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• Urban – ‘Smoke All Day’ by Lionface

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• Research into “cannabis etiquette”

From a Letter to the Editor at the Aspen Times:

As the medical marijuana articles continue to appear in newsprint, I think two points need to be made:

One, a warning to all recreational and medical marijuana smokers: Eagle County Sheriff’s office and State Highway Patrol have trained officers to look for not only DWI alcohol drivers but also DUI marijuana users. The THC chemical making up 60% of each marijuana plant (recreational or medical marijuana) is 10 times stronger since the 1970s per the June 2009 United Nations World Health Report.

Where do I get me some of that 60% THC pot?  Most good bud is around 7%-10% THC with exceptions found as high as 35%.  Even seized hash has been averaging only around 20% THC.  Plus, high-quality pot has always been available, even in the 1970s.  I mean, look at the hairstyles and the clothes; do you think those people were smoking weak marijuana?

THC can stay in your blood for up to 56 days. Guess what that means?

No, THC metabolites can stay in your urine up to 56 (more or less) days.  Guess what that means?

If a cop thinks you’re drug impaired or asks you to take a drug test and you test positive for marijuana, the current state and federal laws say that is a crime.

Yes, they do.  What they don’t say is that you’re impaired.  They say you’re guilty of the crime of driving while impaired, but they do not actually serve to prove any impairment.

Remember if you have an accident and your brain has slowed down due to marijuana use — you are on the way to court and possibly jail.

Brain is slowed down?  Name the game, mister, Jeopardy, Wheel of Fortune, Boggle, Scrabble, logic problems, New York Times crossword, and I’ll give you a good run for your money even while pulling bong rips off a Roor.

Two, recreational or medical marijuana is grown by unregulated medical warehouses in America or in Mexico that have no oversight, quality control, testing, or inspection by the FDA or any other state or U.S. government agency. So to anyone smoking, inhaling, eating brownies, etc., the THC goes to your blood and directly to your brain.

Yes, the THC goes to the blood and the brain; as our president once remarked, that’s the point.

Why would our citizens use a product that has no testing or quality control and could be poisoned?

Well, many of our citizens are growing it themselves or know their grower and know it isn’t being poisoned.  Last time I recall anyone being poisoned by weed, it was the US government spraying Mexican marijuana fields with toxic paraquat in the 1970s.

But there is a point that unregulated marijuana can have molds, fungi, or pesticides, which is exactly why we’re lobbying for legalization.

There are 400 different chemicals in each marijuana plant. Marijuana smokers are actually “rolling the dice” each time they use it. I wonder where the new store owners buy their marijuana and who guarantees its purity for you to use safely.

Eek!  Chemicals!  Over 400 of them!  Uh, just like nearly every plant on earth.

At NORML’s Aspen Legal Seminar this past June I presented on the topic of cannabis pharmacokinetics and explained how an understanding RE: the science surrounding the metabolism and absorption of cannabinoids could be a valuable tool for defense attorneys. Recently I put my theoretical knowledge into practice as an expert witness in a federal evidentiary hearing in L.A. federal court.

At issue: defendant was under three years federal probation (probation period to expire on 8/13/09); defendant had a string of NINE consecutive failed UAs for carboxy THC beginning on 10/27/08 running through 1/08/2009. On four of the nine tests, defendant’s carboxy THC levels were HIGHER than they had been on the previous test. When the samples were normalized, defendant still failed all nine tests. Feds were willing to let the 10/27/08 test slide, as defendant showed a medical marijuana recommendation, but considered all eight positive tests thereafter to be evidence of new/continued use and a probation violation. Defendant alleged she had NOT used cannabis since 10/27/08 and that all the the positive tests since that time were residual (evidence of the use prior to 10/27/08). Feds brought in a toxicologist with 39 years experience who alleged that the string of positive tests as well as the spikes in the defendant’s test results could “absolutely not” be from residual use and instead were indicative of new drug use. Feds asked for 5 months prison time and additional three years probation.

That’s where I came in.
I was initially brought in by the L.A. federal public defenders office as a consultant to this case to explain the facts surrounding carboxy THC, half-life, trends in detection, etc. During this consulting I presented the defenders office with documented evidence that:

1) Carboxy THC is an inactive, lipid soluble metabolite with a slow excretion pattern. Clinical studies have documented that chronic users who have abstained from the drug may test positive for levels of carboxy THC metabolites for durations of time ranging from one month to 100+ days.

2) Because of this variable and long range of detection, there is a consensus in the scientific literature that the detection of presence of carboxy THC in urine, regardless of quantity, is not an accurate indicator of the time of past cannabis exposure.

3) Studies have documented that carboxy THC levels can periodically spike in urine during the terminal elimination phase regardless of the re-initiation of cannabis use. Researchers have commented that this phenomena is to be expected with the persistence of lipid soluble metabolite, and acknowledge that this phenomenon “makes it problematic to determine whether positive results are indicative of new drug use or reflective of previous cannabis exposure,” and “might tend to confuse the proper interpretation of results.”

Three days before the hearing the public defender asked me if I would fly to L.A. and take the stand to present this evidence and challenge the state’s toxicologist’s testimony. I agreed to do so, saying I would elaborate on the findings stated above, and not speculate on the defendant’s actual test results. The attorney said that the state only had to show a preponderance of the evidence (51%) in support of the allegation that her client was still using cannabis, and that chances are we would lose regardless of whatever evidence we presented.

We presented roughly eight separate scientific studies to the judge and discussed them at length in court. We even presented a chart illustrating how THC-COOH levels rise and fall irrespective of use during the terminal elimination phase. The state objected vehemently to my inclusion as an expert, and tried to argue that normalized samples (normalization is a fairly new technology) do not rise and fall in a manner similar to non-normalized samples. This statement, like most everything else they had to say, is false, and fortunately I had the studies with me to prove it.

The judge ruled on the case three days later and to the disbelief of the prosecution, she determined that the state had NOT met its 51% burden to establish that the defendant had continued to use cannabis while on probation — despite the NINE positive tests! She rejected the state’s demand for prison time and additional probation. The defendant will now complete her probation, as scheduled, on 8/13/09.

The public defender was ecstatic and now wants to similarly challenge all of her clients’ alleged ‘probation violations.’ She said that she had never thought there was even a chance that attorneys could successfully challenge a positive UA for cannabis — much less a series of them. (Clearly the state didn’t think it was possible either, as their expert’s arrogance and black-and-white testimony did them no favors.) I was thrilled to be able to assist her both as an consultant and as a witness, but even more thrilled to see my understanding of the cannabis-science and theory be put successfully into practice.

In short, a little understanding of the science can go a long way.

If folks weren’t in Aspen and would like a copy of my ppt presentation, feel free to contact me off-list [at paul'at'norml.org]

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-06-15.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. Wrongfully imprisoned for 27 years, denied $1.35 million compensation, because of teenage marijuana possession 30 years ago
2. MPP sets sights on legalization in Nevada… again
3. Prohibitionists push for 25 Years in Prison for Possession of Kush

Stupid Stoner Stories

• When bailing out friends, leave the stash at home

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• Reed Foehl – “Stoned Beautiful”

Special: Aspen Legal Seminar

• Attorney Robert Vaughn from Nashville discusses drug paraphernalia and the law.

Download Link: NORML Daily Audio Stash for 2009-06-12

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-06-12.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

1. New Jersey medical marijuana has “a good chance” of passing Assembly
2. New Hampshire medical marijuana bill amended to take away home growing
3. Marijuana trafficking equals death by hanging in Malaysia, but child sex trafficking equals tourism dollars

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• Best Pop Song – ‘Steady High’ by Rich Hardesty

Special: Aspen Legal Seminar 2009

• Colorado Attorney Rob Corry on defending high school student kicked out of prom for her date smelling like his legal medical marijuana, and the ethics of dealing with the media as a lawyer.