Some people might cheat the medical marijuana system to smoke pot! They'll pay the state fees and shop at taxed dispensaries! And we won't be able to lock them up and pay their food, clothing, and shelter costs! Horrors!

When you follow the reporting on marijuana reform issues every day for three years, you get a feel for the way reporters and editors can slant a story.  Today the Arizona Medical Marijuana Program went online… literally, as in, the only way you can apply for the program is online, they do not accept paper applications, phone calls, or walk-ins.  This is quite a significant development as it is the only medical marijuana state of fifteen that has a mandatory online registration.

The Associated Press and reporter Amanda Lee Meyers reported that as their lede (the opening paragraph in a news report that gives you the who, what, where, when, and how) and follow-up paragraphs:

Arizonans to begin applying for medical marijuana today

(Arizona Capitol-Times / AP) Arizona’s medical marijuana program is hitting a milestone Thursday as patients start turning in applications for the drug to help treat cancer and other diseases in what officials believe is the only completely electronic application system in the country.

Since the application for a medical marijuana card is electronic, anyone hoping to apply in person or by phone with the Arizona Department of Health Services will be turned away. And if there are any kinks in the online system, they also will need to report the problem online.

Think of what you take away from those – treating cancer and diseases, only online system.

The shorter version of the AP story is showing up in other news outlets:

Arizonans to begin applying for medical marijuana

(San Jose Mercury News) PHOENIX—Medical marijuana is online in Arizona.

Beginning Thursday morning, patients can begin applying to get the drug to help treat cancer and other diseases.

Same basic info – treat cancer and diseases, online system.

For the Arizona Republic, however, the lede of the story isn’t about the opening of the country’s first e-medical marijuana state program.  It’s a piece by Mary K. Reinhart warning of the impending hordes of pot zombies roaming the streets of Phoenix in search of sttrraaiinns… sttrraaiinns!!!

Arizona’s medical-marijuana law takes effect

Health officials are concerned about certification mills

(Arizona Republic) Arizona’s medical-marijuana law takes effect today, but patients already have been lining up to pay hundreds of dollars in some cases for pot recommendations from clinics that opened in recent weeks for just that purpose.

Health officials are concerned that so-called certification mills could quickly turn a medical program into a recreational one, but they have limited recourse.

The “pot zombies” is a shorthand reference for the frame employed by prohibitionists to portray medical marijuana as rife with abuse.  You hear it in their “only 3% of medical pot users have cancer and AIDS” rhetoric and when they complain about “all those young healthy men” who are seen frequenting dispensaries.  You also hear it when they use the word “pot”.  Check those first two excerpts above and you’ll find “marijuana” and “drug”, but not “pot”.  (To be fair, the Capitol-Times and the Republic stories both use the word “pot” four times in the entirety of the articles, but three of those in the Capitol-Times story are references to “pot shops”.)

Consider for a moment that we aren’t talking about cannabis.  Suppose Astra-Zeneca comes out with a brand new pill, let’s call it Curezitol.  Curezitol can treat symptoms of nausea, pain, spasticity, seizures, glaucoma, wasting, anxiety, depression, loss of libido, inflammation, digestion, lesions, cancers, infections, and more.  Curezitol’s common side effects are red eyes, dry mouth, and euphoria and its rare worst side effects are anxiety or panic, paranoia, and racing heart.  Curezitol is non-habit-forming with low risk of dependence and absolutely non-toxic.  Best of all, Astra-Zeneca sells Curezitol in pill form for a very reasonable price or they’ll sell you a Home Curezitol Kit and you can manufacture your own Curezitol for pennies on the dollar.

Would Curezitol not quickly become the most popular and best-selling prescription on the market?  Would doctors not get flooded with requests from patients for a prescription for Curezitol?  So why is it so shocking when a medical marijuana state provides a legal way for people to use cannabis and that state’s registry grows into the tens of thousands?

The “pot zombies” frame depends on the demonization of the non-medical cannabis user.  It maintains the idea of cannabis as “medicine of last resort”, a drug so dangerous and unpredictable that we must try all manner of addictive and toxic pharmaceuticals first… and then only if none of them have the desired effect do we dare allow people to try this inconsistent, impure, smoked herb… and then only for those suffering the most wretched agony and soon to meet the Grim Reaper!

The way we flip the frame is portraying cannabis as “medicine of first resort”.  If I suffer from pain, why wouldn’t I take safer non-toxic cannabis instead of addictive toxic opiates?  If I suffer from insomnia, why wouldn’t I wind down with some relaxing cannabis instead of an Ambien that could lead to sleep-driving?  If I’m puking from nausea, why wouldn’t I inhale cannabis smoke or vapor instead of trying to swallow and keep down a pill and wait 45 minutes for it to take effect?  With so few and such mild side effects, low risk of dependence, and non-toxicity, why wouldn’t cannabis be the first thing we try for a whole host of ailments?

Reinhart’s story in the Arizona Republic makes only a passing reference to “The online-only application” and the rest of the entire story is scare quotes from the DHS Director Will Humble warning about “a handful of physicians writing casual recommendations [exploding] the program.”  The director of the Arizona Medical Board says doctors are “arriving at the answer before they’ve even met the patient.”  An owner of a chain of brick-and-mortar clinics complains carpetbagging clinics are “putting doctors in a hotel room and not even giving you a physical.”

The other re-framing is to pivot on the idea of the “abuse” itself as “compliance”.  Large numbers of patients on a registry are a sign of a program successfully serving people who are eager to be compliant with the law.  Many of these patients are people who have been illegally using cannabis medically for years and now they are coming above ground.  Former clandestine cannabis users are now registering with the state and complying with the law.  Money they used to spend in untaxed and unregulated markets are now providing revenue and new jobs through specialty clinics and a dispensary industry.

Might someone who is purely a “recreational” cannabis user end up with a medical marijuana card?  Certainly, as there is no bureaucratic system that cannot be gamed.  But Arizona’s law is not California’s law and has within it strict regulations regarding qualifying conditions that must be documented in medical records.  The rare exception who games the system will still be a current cannabis consumer who has visited a doctor, registered with the state, paid fees, and taken his underground purchases to a taxed and regulated market.  He will have agreed to a 2.5 ounce possession limit that would only have been a likely misdemeanor with probation and a drug treatment sentence anyway, so now our law enforcement and judicial system would be burdened with him.

The little red police cars show you the zero-tolerance states. If there is a time next to it, like 24h, that's the mandatory jail time you serve immediately.

(UPDATED with helpful research from Paul Armentano.)

The headline from the Associated Press reads “Gov’t: Drugs were in 1 in 5 drivers killed in 2009“.  The lede for the story is:

About 1 in 5 drivers who were killed last year in car crashes tested positive for drugs, raising concerns about the impact of drugs on auto safety, the government reported Tuesday.

Other outlets like USA Today give it a more chilling headline “U.S.: Third of tests on motorists killed shows drug use“.  The discrepancy results from the AP considering all drivers who were killed when not every driver killed was drug tested.  The USA Today considers the “tests on motorists killed”, thereby discounting the roughly 40% of killed drivers who were never drug tested.  Whatever – 20% of all drivers or 33% of all drivers tested – they’re dead, they drove, there’s drugs, be afraid!

The AP then follows with a second paragraph that points out the obvious logical fallacy of “correlation = causation” – just because dead drivers had drugs in their system doesn’t mean drugs caused the accident that killed them - something the USA Today article never addresses:

Researchers with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said the new data underscored a growing problem of people driving with drugs in their systems. But they cautioned that it was not clear that drugs caused the crashes and more research was needed to determine how certain drugs can hinder a person’s ability to drive safely.

However, while AP doesn’t get around to distinguishing what exactly “drugs” refers to until paragraph seven, USA Today opens by explaining we’re talking about all drugs, prescription and recreational:

One-third of all the drug tests done on drivers killed in motor vehicle accidents came back positive for drugs ranging from hallucinogens to prescription pain killers last year — a 5 percentage point increase since 2005, the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration reported Tuesday.

Nobody recommends driving while impaired by drugs – legal or illegal.  NORML has maintained this as a core Principle of Responsible Use for years.  But there are many legal prescription drugs that will cause impairment that bear the warning “Until you know how you may be affected by this drug, do not drive or operate heavy machinery,” which suggests to me that once you do know how it affects you, it’s your judgment call.  In fact, one of those drugs is prescription dronabinol, the synthetic cannabinoid THC marketed as “Marinol”.

AP’s seventh paragraph also points out that presence of a drug in your system may have no bearing on whether that drug was impairing you in the first place:

The tests took into account both legal and illegal drugs, including heroin, methadone, morphine, cocaine, methamphetamine, marijuana, LSD, prescription drugs and inhalants. The amount of time the drug could linger in the body varied by drug type, the researchers said, so it was unclear when the drivers had used the drugs prior to the fatal crashes.

Cannabis metabolites can be detectable in urine for weeks and THC itself can be detected blood for at least six hours.  Most illegal drugs can be detected for a few days in urine and a few hours in blood.  Prescription drugs are just as varied.  So we’ve got 20% or 33% of killed drivers who had a drug in their system that may or may not have contributed to the crash that killed them and they may or may not have taken that drug before driving.

For comparison’s sake, USA Today links to the stat that drowsiness was a factor in 17% of all fatal crashes.  You just may be more likely to die in a crash caused by lack of a nap as by taking the pill to get a good night’s sleep.  Are you scared yet?  Well, you should be, because the whole point of scaring you about the drugged drivers is the push for nationwide zero-tolerance DUID laws.  Back to the USA Today:

Gil Kerlikowske, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, called the numbers of fatalities involving drugs “alarmingly high,” and called for more states to pass laws making it a crime to have illegal drugs in the body while driving, no matter how much. Seventeen states already have such laws.

The lack of research also presents a problem for lawmakers to develop laws. They can outlaw the use of all illegal drugs while driving, but what about someone who took a prescription sleeping pill a few hours ago?

Since they can outlaw the illegal drugs and there is no political cost in doing so, they will.  These “zero tolerance” laws means if they detect any metabolite of any illegal drug, you are guilty of driving impaired.  Since that joint you smoked could be detectable long after its effects had worn off, you’d be an impaired driver in the eyes of the law even if you were completely sober and unimpaired.  Since marijuana is detectable for much longer periods than most any other drug, legal or illegal, “zero tolerance” laws amount to witch hunts for cannabis consumers behind the wheel.

The irony here is that compared to the threat from drinking drivers, drowsy drivers, texting drivers, and prescription drugged drivers, the threat from drivers using cannabis is negligible.  Just last week we took a look at a study in the Netherlands that showed that experienced users can develop a tolerance to the psychomotor impairing effects of cannabis.  This summer we examined a study performed in Iowa and Connecticut that showed cannabis-using drivers performed as well on a driving simulator after smoking marijuana as they did before smoking marijuana.  (If you’d like the full examination of marijuana and driving, please see Paul Armentano’s impeccable white paper, Cannabis and Driving: A Scientific and Rational Review.)

As for the prescription drugs, there isn’t much political benefit in threatening a majority of your constituents, especially the older ones who do most of the voting, with a DUI charge for the pills they’re required to take every day.  Also consider the lobbying money and clout of Big Pharma that won’t look kindly on strict new driving laws that might cause people to use less pills.

No, the per se limit on prescription drugs isn’t coming to your state anytime soon… but maybe the end of driving privileges for cannabis consumers in your state is.  The seventeen states with current per se DUID laws are:

• Arizona (except for medical marijuana patients), Utah, South Dakota, Illinois, Indiana, Delaware, and Georgia already have these zero tolerance laws for any THC or metabolites of THC – if you toked within the past week, you could already be an impaired driver.
• Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Rhode Island have zero tolerance for THC in the blood – if you toked before bed you might be an impaired driver in the morning.
• Nevada and Ohio consider you impaired if they detect 2 nanograms (2 billionths of a gram) of THC per milliliter of blood (2ng/ml) and Pennsylvania raises that limit to 5ng/ml.
• Virginia, Minnesota, and North Carolina have zero tolerance laws for drugs that do not include cannabis or its metabolites.

Learn what the DUID laws are in your state.

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1. Protests in Canada over Marc Emery’s extradition include joint rolling on the MP’s desk!
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$15.5 billion this year alone, almost 2/3rds for ineffective law enforcement.

(Huffington Post – click it and leave a comment – help push NORML’s content on HuffPo to the front pages! — “R”R) Just days after the White House released their inherently flawed 2010 National Drug Control Strategy (Read NORML’s refutation of it on the Huffington Post here and here.), and mere hours after Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske told reporters at the National Press Club, “I have read thoroughly theballot proposition in California; I think I once got an e-mail that told me I won the Irish sweepstakes and that actually had more truth in it than the ballot proposition,” the Associated Press takes the entire U.S. drug war strategy and rakes it over the coals.

It’s about damn time!

AP IMPACT: After 40 years, $1 trillion, US War on Drugs has failed to meet any of its goals
After 40 years, the United States’ war on drugs has cost $1 trillion and hundreds of thousands of lives, and for what? Drug use is rampant and violence even more brutal and widespread.

Even U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske concedes the strategy hasn’t worked.

“In the grand scheme, it has not been successful,” Kerlikowske told the Associated Press. “Forty years later, the concern about drugs and drug problems is, if anything, magnified, intensified.”

Seriously, if you care at all about drug policy and marijuana law reform, you really must read theentire AP analysis. It’s that good.

In 1970, hippies were smoking pot and dropping acid. Soldiers were coming home from Vietnam hooked on heroin. Embattled President Richard M. Nixon seized on a new war he thought he could win.
“This nation faces a major crisis in terms of the increasing use of drugs, particularly among our young people,” Nixon said as he signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act. The following year, he said: “Public enemy No. 1 in the United States is drug abuse. In order to fight and defeat this enemy, it is necessary to wage a new, all-out offensive.”

His first drug-fighting budget was $100 million. Now it’s $15.1 billion, 31 times Nixon’s amount even when adjusted for inflation.

Using Freedom of Information Act requests, archival records, federal budgets and dozens of interviews with leaders and analysts, the AP tracked where that money went, and found thatthe United States repeatedly increased budgets for programs that did little to stop the flow of drugs. In 40 years, taxpayers spent more than:

– $20 billion to fight the drug gangs in their home countries. In Colombia, for example, the United States spent more than $6 billion, while coca cultivation increased and trafficking moved to Mexico — and the violence along with it.

– $33 billion in marketing “Just Say No”-style messages to America’s youth and other prevention programs. High school students report the same rates of illegal drug use as they did in 1970, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says drug overdoses have “risen steadily” since the early 1970s to more than 20,000 last year.

– $49 billion for law enforcement along America’s borders to cut off the flow of illegal drugs. This year, 25 million Americans will snort, swallow, inject and smoke illicit drugs, about 10 million more than in 1970, with the bulk of those drugs imported from Mexico.

– $121 billion to arrest more than 37 million nonviolent drug offenders, about 10 million of them for possession of marijuana. Studies show that jail time tends to increase drug abuse.

– $450 billion to lock those people up in federal prisons alone. Last year, half of all federal prisoners in the U.S. were serving sentences for drug offenses.

At the same time, drug abuse is costing the nation in other ways. The Justice Department estimates the consequences of drug abuse — “an overburdened justice system, a strained health care system, lost productivity, and environmental destruction” — cost the United States $215 billion a year.

Harvard University economist Jeffrey Miron says the only sure thing taxpayers get for more spending on police and soldiers is more homicides.

“Current policy is not having an effect of reducing drug use,” Miron said, “but it’s costing the public a fortune.”

The so-called ‘war’ on some drugs — which is really a war on consumers of certain temporarily mood-altering substances, mainly marijuana, can not survive if continually faced with this kind of scrutiny. Even the Drug Czar — when faced with the actual evidence and data above — folds his cards immediately, acknowledging that U.S. criminal drug enforcement “has not been successful.” Yet apparently neither he, nor the majority of Congress, the President, the bulk of law enforcement officials, or any of the tens of thousands of bureaucrats in Washington, DC have the stones to stand up and put a stop to it.

And that is — and always has been — the problem.

And so the drums of war beat on, and the casualties mount.

Isn’t it about time that we all said: “Enough is enough?“

(AP) EL PASO, Texas — The eight bullets that leveled Jose Daniel Gonzalez Galeana outside his home just doors from the city’s police chief were fired at close range and left little doubt about their message.

Gonzalez, a Juarez cartel lieutenant shot on his quiet El Paso cul-de-sac this spring, was working for U.S. officials as a confidential informant, sources told The Associated Press, and experts suspect his slaying may be the first time assassins from one of Mexico’s violent drug gangs have killed a ranking cartel member on American soil.

Cartel-affiliated hit men have violently, and fatally, disciplined low-level, American-based drug dealers in the U.S. But El Paso police said Gonzalez was a lieutenant in the Juarez cartel, which traffics in marijuana, cocaine and heroin. The cartel was once among the most dangerous in Mexico, but has recently lost some standing because of arrests, deaths and infighting.

El Paso police don’t yet have an official motive in Gonzalez’s slaying, but chief Allen said detectives are working on the assumption that a cartel colleague discovered he was discussing their illegal activities with federal agents.

How many gangland-style executions will have to take place on American streets before we get serious about legalizing these murderers right out of business?  I hear a few people complain about taxing and regulating marijuana as a legal substance because then the big bad ol’ government will have its hands on it, but last I checked the IRS doesn’t send hit men out to quiet residential neighborhoods to deliver a “message” about delinquent tax payments.

Bursting with indignation, legions of legalize-marijuana advocates are urging a boycott of Kellogg Co., including all of its popular munchies, for deciding to cut ties with Olympic hero Michael Phelps after he was photographed with a pot pipe.

The leader of one of the biggest groups, the Marijuana Policy Project, called Kellogg’s action “hypocritical and disgusting,” and said he’d never seen his membership so angry, with more than 2,300 of them signing an online petition.

“Kellogg’s had no problem signing up Phelps when he had a conviction for drunk driving, an illegal act that could actually have killed someone,” said Rob Kampia, the group’s executive director. “To drop him for choosing to relax with a substance that’s safer than beer is an outrage, and it sends a dangerous message to young people.”

Also urging a boycott were the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, Students for Sensible Drug Policy and the Drug Policy Alliance. They encouraged their members to contact Kellogg to vent their views.

via Pro-pot group smokes Kellogg for axing Phelps – Olympic Sports- nbcsports.msnbc.com.

That’s exactly the message the general public needs to see – that a drunk driving conviction didn’t even merit a second thought, but a bong photo required immediate termination.  This story is on the Associated Press now and it’s beginning to feel like that moment when the little boy cries out that the Emperor is naked.  The company that makes pot smokers’ favorite munchies is dropping the world’s greatest athlete for smoking weed because the kids need the message that smoking weed will ruin your life.  It’s really a hypocrisy wrapped in an irony wrapped in serendipity, isn’t it?

The reason this story won’t die (other than I won’t let it!) is because it’s vibrating on the same resonance frequency as the public’s overall rejection of this moralistic hypocrisy in general.  We’ve suffered through a prostitution ring-busting governor of New York being caught with a prostitute, an anti-gay senator caught in a bathroom soliciting gay sex, and bankrupt CEOs throwing parties and paying bonuses off taxpayer bailout money while their companies tank and 3.6 million jobs have disappeared.  No matter where you stand, conservative, liberal, or politically independent, there is some issue where you can no longer stand the hypocrisy.  No matter where you vote, Democrat, Republican, or Other, there is someone in your own party representative of another hypocrisy.

Another thing that makes this story different than other athletes-caught-with-weed stories is that Michael Phelps, more than just about anyone in any sport you can name, is the Greatest Ever (sorry, Ali).  Santonio Holmes and Plaxico Burris may be stoners who caught the last two Super Bowl winning touchdowns, but nobody is confusing them with Jerry Rice (yet).  Ricky Williams runs good, but nobody’s forgotten Emmitt Smith or Walter Payton.  Josh Howard is pretty good on the court, but he’s no Michael Jordan (or, perhaps, LeBron James… in a few years…).  When these guys are caught, somebody can always play the “I wonder how good they might have been” card with respect to weed smoking.  What do you say to the pot smoker who follows up 6 gold, 2 bronze at age 19 with 8 gold and 7 world records at age 23?  (“Don’t get caught!”)

And to follow this story up with a macho sheriff going after eight people for the bong misdeeds and another Major League Liar admitting to steroid use?  Please, Universe, keep it comin’

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Olympic great Michael Phelps has acknowledged ”regrettable” behavior and ”bad judgment” after a photo in a British newspaper showed him smoking marijuana.

In a statement released to The Associated Press, the swimmer who won a record eight gold medals at the Beijing Games conceded the authenticity of the exclusive picture published Sunday by the tabloid News of the World.

Phelps said: ”I engaged in behavior which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment. I’m 23 years old and despite the successes I’ve had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again.”

via Phelps Apologizes for Marijuana Use – NYTimes.com.

Youthful and inappropriate.  Childish things, as our president might say.  ”It will not happen again.”  Not to get all Clintonian on you, Mike, but does “it” refer to “smoking marijuana” or does “it” refer to “photos surfacing in newspapers showing you smoking marijuana”?

I’ll never understand the mindset that accepts as rational the idea that these world class athletes – Michael Phelps, Ricky Williams, Ross Rebagliati, those Russian sumo, etc. - can dedicate their entire lives to eating right, working out, honing their bodies and minds to the pinnacle of their sport, but should they wish to relax and unwind, they’re forced to ingest a hard liquid drug that has noticably deleterious effects on health and athletic ability (Max McGee notwithstanding) rather than a mild herb that doesn’t seem to  have affected their abilities whatsoever.

Even more perplexing is the notion that, in the name of “sports medicine”, these athletes are accustomed to taking all manner of narcotic pain killers and other pharmaceutical cocktails that aid performance or mitigate injury, but are addicting (Brett Favre, *cough*,) and wreak havoc on the liver and kidneys, yet if we catch them smoking weed we have to mete out severe punishment (Santonio Holmes, notwithstanding).

As I look at the coverage on Huffington Post (admittedly, a liberal website) almost all comments are “it’s well past time to legalize it” and “so what” and “didn’t hurt Phelps’ performance any”.  Oh, an Obama brother pot bust and an eight-time gold medalist bong photo following ten days of growing drumbeat over President Obama’s non-response to the Tahoe Raid… somebody really did get me a swell birthday present!