House and Senate negotiations for the 2010 Appropriations bill have been completed.  This is the huge federal budget bill and it just so happens that Washington DC is a federal district and its spending is controlled by Congress.

In 1998, DC passed a medical marijuana bill overwhelmingly, but Congressional drug warriors led by Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia prevented DC from spending any federal money to count the votes (that’s right, in our democracy’s capital, our leaders conspired to prevent citizens from counting votes in a legal election).  When that was deemed unconstitutional, they spent the money to count the votes, showing that 69% of DC supported medical marijuana.  So Rep. Barr created the “Barr Amendment” that prevented DC from spending any money to implement the medical marijuana program they had voted in.

Well, today’s 2010 Appropriations bill changes all that.  In addition to removing bans on abortion, domestic partnerships, and needle exchange, Congress has given the go-ahead to begin implementing DC medical marijuana!

(US Senate) Removing Special Restrictions on the District of Columbia: Eliminates a prohibition on the use of local tax funds for abortion, thereby putting the District in the same position as the 50 states. Also allows the District to implement a referendum on use of marijuana for medical purposes as has been done in other states, allows use of Federal funds for needle exchange programs except in locations considered inappropriate by District authorities, and discontinues a ban on the use of funds in the bill for domestic partnership registration and benefits.

DC’s medical marijuana bill was written with the same sort of open language as was passed in California… will we be seeing marijuana dispensaries on K Street anytime soon?

Sec. 1.  All seriously ill individuals have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes… [for any] other serious or chronic illnesses for which the recommending physician reasonably believes that marijuana has demonstrated utility.

So, no restriction to a list of cancer, AIDS, MS, etc. for medical marijuana, like every other medical marijuana state except California.  DC docs will be able to recommend for anxiety, depression, PTSD, insomnia, or any condition they think marijuana will alleviate.

Sec. 5 (a)  …In determining a quantity of marijuana that constitutes a medical supply, this act shall be interpreted to assure that any medical patient protected by the act shall have access to a sufficient quantity of marijuana to assure that they can maintain their medical supply without any interruption in their treatment or depletion of their medical supply of marijuana.

Similar to Washington State’s vague language of a “60-day supply”, which has recently been determined to be 24 ounces of usable medicine and 15 live plants.

Sec 6.  A medical patient may designate or appoint a licensed health care practitioner, parent, sibling, child, or other close relative, domestic partner, case manager/worker, or best friend to serve as a primary caregiver for the purposes of this act.  A designation under this act need not be in writing; however, any written designation or appointment shall be prima facie evidence that a person has been so designated. A patient may designate not more than four persons at any one time to serve as a primary caregiver for the purposes of this act.  For the purposes of this subsection, the term ‘best friend’ means a close friend who is feeding, nursing, bathing, or otherwise caring for the medical patient while the medical patient is in a weakened condition.

Four caregivers, all of whom are exempt from prosecution for marijuana!  Four people who need not be designated in writing!  Somehow I think anytime a medical marijuana patient in DC is confronted by police, the people in his car or home will suddenly be “best friends”.

Sec. 7  Residents of the District of Columbia may organize and operate not-for-profit corporations for the purpose of cultivating, purchasing, and distributing marijuana exclusively for the medical use of medical patients…. The Director of DCRA shall issues such corporations exemptions from the sales tax, use tax, income tax, and other taxes of the District of Columbia in the same manner as other nonprofit corporations.

So not only will there be dispensaries on K Street, they will be tax-free dispensaries! Imagine Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa or Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana forced to walk down the streets with legal marijuana users buying legal marijuana in legal dispensaries!  How will they continue to sell the scary threat of California pot shops when they’re forced to see how banal the shops are in practice?  And if we see, as I expect, DC violent crime stats to fall following implementation, their demonization of medical marijuana will sound even sillier to their constituents.

In other good news for our side, the drug czar’s ad budget was slashed by over a third:

National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign: $45 million, $25 million below 2009 and the budget request, for a national ad campaign providing anti-drug messages  directed at youth. Reductions were made in this program because of evaluations questioning its effectiveness. Part of the savings was redirected to other ONDCP drug-abuse-reduction programs.

The “questioning its effectiveness” refers to congressional studies that showed that kids exposed to the ads were more likely to try drugs!

(Washington City Paper) A measure to once again ban D.C. from implementing a 1998 medical marijuana initiative failed in a House appropriations committee vote this evening.

The D.C. budget made it out of its appropriations subcommittee without the so-called Barr amendment—a rider, first introduced by Georgia Republican Bob Barr, which has graced the District budget since 1998. But this evening Missouri Republican Jo Ann Emerson attempted to put it back on.

After a short debate, with Jim Moran (D-Va.) standing up to defend District home rule, the Emerson measure failed by a voice vote. The bill still has to survive the House floor, Senate consideration, and conference committee.

This really isn’t so much about medical marijuana as it is about letting the citizens of the district determine their own laws.  For too long, the people in our nation’s capital have been taxed but not represented in the House, and too often Congress pulls funding stunts like the Barr Amendment to squelch their democratic urges.  These so-called “riders” have also been used to prevent the District from using funds for abortion and to curb firearm rights as well.

Shouldn’t the people living in the capital of the world’s leading democracy have the right to vote for their own laws?

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Hemp Headlines

1. The Importance of Permitting Consumers the Right to Cultivate Marijuana for Personal Use
2. FDA recommends lowering dosages of acetominophen, “the leading cause of liver failure”
3. Congress lifts “Barr Amendments” forbidding DC from medical marijuana and decriminalization
4. Annual Ontario Hempfest festivities will cease this year due to police harassment

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• A look at the human relationship with cannabis throughout history

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• 2009 AMMA Best Reggae Song – ‘Cassava’ by Andrew Mystic aka ‘PZ’

NORML Newsmakers

• Former Guatemalan boys national and George Washington University swimmer Juan Bocanegra, on cannabis use, athletics, and training for the Ironman Triathlon

Update: I’ve modified the headline from “Congress lifts…” to better reflect the story — “R”R

A House appropriations subcommittee has lifted a long-standing budget rider banning the District government from spending any money to decriminalize marijuana.

The Financial Services panel, which has oversight of D.C., has removed from the 2010 budget 11-year-old language outlawing the District’s use of federal or local funds to legalize marijuana or reduce penalties for its possession or distribution.

Rep. Jose Serrano, the subcommittee chairman, said … the budget bill “allows the District to conduct and implement a referendum on use of marijuana for medical purposes as has been done in various states.”

The District voted on medical marijuana once before, in 1998, but the votes were declared invalid. Former Rep. Bob Barr raced to have his anti-legalization language added to the budget two weeks before the initiative vote was held. When the ballots were unofficially tallied nearly a year after they were cast, it was learned that 69 percent of voters backed legalization.

It has always struck me as ironic that in the Land of the Free, our capitol was built by slaves, and that in a country born from a revolution because of “taxation without representation”, the citizens in the capital are taxed but get no vote in the House or Senate.  Add to that irony that the people in the seat of democracy were unable to exercise self rule on the matter of marijuana because the Congress wouldn’t allow them to count their votes.

Also ironic: that former Rep. Bob Barr, who introduced these democracy-killing amendments against marijuana, is now a paid lobbyist for the Marijuana Policy Project.  The author of these anti-marijuana bills came around faster than the Congress has!

When Susan Axelrod tells the story of her daughter, she begins like most parents of children with epilepsy: The baby was adorable, healthy, perfect. Lauren arrived in June 1981, a treasured first-born. Susan Landau had married David Axelrod in 1979, and they lived in Chicago, where Susan pursued an MBA at the University of Chicago and David worked as a political reporter for the Chicago Tribune. (He later would become chief strategist for Barack Obama’s Presidential campaign and now is a senior White House adviser.) 

The Axelrods didn’t know anything about epilepsy. They didn’t know that seizures were the body’s manifestation of abnormal electrical activity in the brain or that the excessive neuronal activity could cause brain damage. They didn’t know that two-thirds of those diagnosed with epilepsy had seizures defined as “idiopathic,” of unexplained origin, as would be the case with Lauren. They didn’t know that a person could, on rare occasions, die from a seizure. They didn’t know that, for about half of sufferers, no drugs could halt the seizures or that, if they did, the side effects were often brutal. This mysterious disorder attacked 50 million people worldwide yet attracted little public attention or research funding. No one spoke to the Axelrods of the remotest chance of a cure.

At home, life shakily returned to a new normal, interrupted by Lauren’s convulsions and hospitalizations. Exhausted, Susan fought on toward her MBA; David became a political consultant. Money was tight and medical bills stacked up, but the Axelrods had hope. Wouldn’t the doctors find the right drugs or procedures? “We thought maybe it was a passing thing,” David says. “We didn’t realize that this would define her whole life, that she would have thousands of these afterward, that they would eat away at her brain.”

via PARADE Magazine | I Must Save My Child.

I hope that someone close to the Axelrods has pointed out that there is a wonderful medicine that will help halt the seizures, with no “brutal” side effects… the only problem is that Congress won’t let the people of Washington DC use that medicine for epilepsy, even though 69% of them voted for that privilege.  Maybe Susan Axelrod should read the testimony of grand mal epilepsy sufferer Valerie Corral of WAMM, who’s lived with her epilepsy for 36 years now.

You can contact the White House and encourage President Obama to pressure Congress to overturn the Barr Amendment and allow the residents of our nation’s capital to finally have their will recognized and their votes respected, so maybe Susan and David Axelrod could find some relief for their daughter.