I was a progressive talk radio host during the Bush Administration.  One of the most frustrating issues I had to comment on dealt with embryonic stem cell research.  These proto-cells are the blank slate from which bone, muscle, nerve, and other cells are formed in our body.  They hold amazing promise in the treatment of injuries and illness.  You may remember the late Christopher Reeve fighting for stem cell research to help those paralyzed by spinal injury like he was.

You may also remember Al Gore during that era, warning the world of the Inconvenient Truth of global climate change.  Since the beginning of the industrial era, the pollution we’ve created has led to a global rise in average temperature.  We face a man-made crisis that could threaten our existence on earth.

In each of these cases the Bush Administration opposed moving forward on the research of these issues.  The pressure of religious organizations led Bush to stifle all federal research on stem cells.  The pressure of energy industries led Bush to withhold and censor information on global climate change.  And a majority of Americans, like myself, could not believe we’d be so superstitious and short-sighted as to reject the science that could help us heal our bodies and our planet.

We rejoiced when Barack Obama was elected and early in his administration, issued the following proclamation:

Science and the scientific process must inform and guide decisions of my Administration on a wide range of issues, including improvement of public health, protection of the environment, increased efficiency in the use of energy and other resources, mitigation of the threat of climate change, and protection of national security.

The public must be able to trust the science and scientific process informing public policy decisions.  Political officials should not suppress or alter scientific or technological findings and conclusions.  If scientific and technological information is developed and used by the Federal Government, it should ordinarily be made available to the public.

Indeed, Mr. Obama’s commitment to science has been felt on most scientific issues.  He overturned Bush’s ban on funding stem cell research.  He has strongly addressed the issues of global climate change.  However, on one issue of scientific  integrity, Mr. Obama has been no different than his predecessor.  In fact, when it comes to marijuana policy, Mr. Obama may be worse than Mr. Bush.

There are 25 million American adults who will use cannabis this year, 15 million this month, and an estimated 1.5 million Americans using medical marijuana legally under state law.  The federal government even delivers over a half pound of marijuana every month to four Americans who still remain on a 33-year-old federal medical marijuana program.  Nevertheless, as far as the Obama Administration is concerned, marijuana has “no accepted medical value in the United States”.  They admit there are only fourteen researchers approved by the federal government to study cannabis’ effect on humans and the government, to date, has never once surveyed or studied the federal medical marijuana patients.

It’s not as if we don’t have plenty of science to show marijuana’s medicinal effect.  As far back as 1974 the government has known that THC applied to cancer cells in the lab kills them and not the surrounding healthy cells  It’s the “magic bullet” type of cancer treatment that we’ve been looking for!  The government itself has even patented the medicinal effects of cannabinoids.  Despite all this and more, just this year Obama’s DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart (a Bush hold-over) denied yet another petition by legitimate researchers to study the medicinal effects of marijuana, saying, “[T]here are no adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy.”

There are no studies according to Leonhart, so then why stop research that would provide those studies?  The government isn’t even coy about the political reasons they use to justify rejecting the science of marijuana.  The National Institutes on Drug Abuse told the New York Times that “[O]ur focus is primarily on the negative consequences of marijuana use. We generally do not fund research focused on the potential beneficial medical effects of marijuana.”  So what exactly are those fourteen approved researchers trying to learn about marijuana?  It’s not that the science has no good news about marijuana, it’s that our government doesn’t want you to hear it.

This isn’t just an issue concerning the narrow medical uses of cannabis.  Every government that has ever studied the social ramifications of marijuana prohibition has agreed that the prohibition does more harm to the user and to society than the marijuana does.  Every study has recommended decriminalization and regulation… and every president since Richard Nixon (except Jimmy Carter) has ignored those recommendations.

Even when real world results show our policies to be ineffective, Mr. Obama continues to uphold the prohibition status quo.  Adults and teens in the Netherlands, where adult use of cannabis is tolerated, have half the use rates of marijuana and other drugs as Americans.  Dutch 15-year-olds are one third as likely to have tried marijuana compared to Americans.  Portugal, which has decriminalized all drugs since 2001, has seen dramatic declines in use, abuse, overdose, and crime.

Yet when asked this week by a student whether he’d look into a policy of decriminalization like Portugal, Mr. Obama flat refused to even consider the possibility, instead retreating into platitudes about “reducing demand” through “treatment and prevention”.  Not much of a reassurance for medical marijuana patients who can’t “reduce demand” and responsible adult users who don’t need “treatment and prevention”.  Since “reduce demand” is not “eliminate demand”, it appears Mr. Obama is content to continue to imprison those who demand drugs (well, drugs without bar codes, that is).

Our politics is infected by a terrible strain of Reefer Madness.  Republicans who shout about states rights, limited government, and individual responsibility seem to have no problem superseding state law, fostering massive bureaucracy, and intruding on the individual if he smokes a joint.  Democrats who shout about government surveillance, racial justice, and environmental protection seem to have no problem spying on people, locking up blacks disproportionately, and rejecting an alternative to trees and oil in order to stop an individual from smoking a joint.  And the president who is a Constitutional law professor, who reveres scientific inquiry, and has some personal experience on the issue seems to have no problem perverting the Bill of Rights, rejecting science, and locking up or forcing into rehab people just like him who smoked a joint.

Apparently there is only one cure: leaving office.

Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart... you've been Kohl-blocked!

As NORML has warned, President Obama has nominated Michele Leonhart to head the Drug Enforcement Administration. Leonhart has been serving as Acting DEA Administrator since her appointment by the Bush Administration. Now during confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has placed a hold on the nomination.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Kohl was upset about DEA restrictions on how nursing homes are allowed to dispense pain medications to elderly patients. New regulations intended to stem the diversion of addictive painkillers to the underground market would require nursing homes to have doctors, not nurses or other staff, to dispense medications like Oxycontin and Vicodin. The economic realities of the nursing home market do not allow these facilities to always have the necessary doctors on staff, leading to long wait times, under-treatment of pain, and suffering for elderly patients in pain.

Sen. Kohl placed the hold, an privilege of senators that prevents Leonhart’s nomination from proceeding to the full Senate, “until we have made more progress towards our goal of ensuring that nursing home residents get timely access to the prescription drug care they need,” said Kohl. “Every day nursing home patients continue to suffer from agonizing pain and we need an interim solution as soon as possible.”

NORML applauds any reason to prevent Leonhart from assuming the role of DEA Administrator.  However, we hope Sen. Kohl and the remainder of the Judiciary Committee also consider the nominee’s positions on medical marijuana and the Mexican Drug War as further indications she is unfit for the position.

If Sen. Kohl is concerned about nursing home patients continuing to suffer in agonizing pain, then Leonhart’s opposition to the fifteen states that provide medical marijuana to elderly patients should also be of concern.  As Acting Administrator, Leonhart has green-lighted at least thirty raids of medical marijuana dispensaries.  These raids run contrary to the directive of her boss, Attorney General Holder, who specified that scarce federal law enforcement resources should not be expended on medical marijuana operations running lawfully under state laws.  The medical marijuana from these dispensaries has been shown to relieve neuropathic pain as well as stave off the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and lessen the effects of arthritis – all beneficial for the elderly nursing home community.

All members of the committee should be wary of Leonhart’s views of the rapidly destabilizing Mexican state due to the drug war.  Just today the WikiLeaks dump of foreign diplomatic cables reveals a Mexican drug war plan that “lacks a clear strategy” and “suffers from infighting among security agencies” according to the Washington Post.  The leaks have insiders calling the $1.4 billion “Merida Initiative” of aid to Mexico “ill-conceived and doing little so far to fight drug traffickers.”

Yet Acting Administrator Leonhart, when questioned about the now 31,000 Mexicans now dead in the drug-trafficking wars since 2006, said “Our view is that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having. The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.”  Where WikiLeaks reveals American and Mexican officials secretly doubting the effectiveness of our $1.4 billion strategy, Leonhart is selling it lock, stock, and barrel to the taxpayers.

Of further concern in the Leonhart nomination to head the DEA is her opposition to the science on cannabis.  She has refused to act on an eight-year-old petition supported by NORML to reschedule cannabis out of Schedule I where it is deemed to have “no medicinal value”; this is inexcusable stonewalling in the face of fifteen US states that recognize cannabis’ medicinal value, the calls from the American Medical Association for its rescheduling, and the federal government’s own patent on the medicinal properties of cannabinoids.  Leonhart has even refused to heed the declaration of a DEA judge in the petition of Professor Lyle Craker, whom the judge said should be allowed to grow cannabis for scientific research.

You can still write or call your Senator about Ms. Leonhart’s nomination process – to do so click here and here.  Tell your Senator to support Sen. Kohl’s opposition to Michele Leonhart for DEA Administrator and demand President Obama nominate an administrator who will be open-minded on the science of medical marijuana and willing to reasonably discuss the end of the drug war altogether.

The Head of the DEA, Michele Leonhart, will be officially confirmed today by the Senate Judiciary Committee. Leonhart was nominated by President George W. Bush

Here is the original post:
Obama Administration Finally Moves to Confirm Leonhart DEA Head

The FBI Uniform Crime Report shows marijuana arrests increased by 10,000 to the 2nd highest-levels ever recorded

The 2009 FBI Uniform Crime Report has been released.  Last year’s report showed a decrease of nearly 25,000 from 2007, but this year we find marijuana arrests increased by over 10,000 to 858,408, the 2nd-highest total ever recorded.

Over the eight-year period of the George W. Bush Administration, state and federal governments arrested over 6.4 million marijuana users, sellers, and growers.  Over the span of the Clinton Administration, another 4.9 million were arrested.  However, Mr. Clinton’s administration fueled the massive increase in marijuana arrests, starting with only 381,000 as he took office and ending with 724,000 as he left, an increase of over 90%.  Mr. Bush, while maintaining arrests between 700,000 and 900,000, only increased the arrests by over 18%.

Marijuana IS the drug war - almost 52% of all drug war arrests are for marijuana

For the first time ever recorded, marijuana now makes up more than half of all drug arrests – 51.6%.  Overall drug arrests actually declined by 2.29% over the past year and have seen a steady five-year decline from 1.84 million arrests in 2005 to 1.66 million in 2009, an overall decline of almost 10%

Meanwhile, marijuana arrests increased this year by 1.24% and have increased over 9% from the 2005 total of 786,545.  Marijuana possession makes up 88% of all marijuana arrests – or just about 7 in 8 people busted for pot are just smoking it, not selling or growing it.  By comparison, 6 in 8 people busted for all other drugs are users, not sellers or manufacturers.

Does arresting pot smokers make violent crime decrease... or does more people smoking pot make violent crime decrease?

As drug arrests have increased steadily over the past two decades, violent crime has decreased in America.  The rate of violent crime in 1995 was 684.5 crimes per 100,000 people and now it has decreased to 429.4, the lowest rate ever recorded.  Compared to violent offenses known, police seem to make an arrest in 42%-44% of all violent crimes.

This has led to only 582,000 arrests for violent crime, also the lowest number recorded.  Since 1998 there have been more arrests for marijuana than violent crime and since 2000 there have been more arrests for marijuana possession than violent crime (save 2002).

As marijuana use has gone up, violent crimes have gone down. Coincidence?

Since arrests for drugs other than marijuana have dropped 10% in five years as violent crime arrests have dropped, we suppose one could argue that locking up more potheads has brought down violent crime… if one was ignorant enough to believe cannabis consumers are some great source of crime and violence.

We believe – and studies confirm – that cannabis use does not lead the user to commit violent acts (but that legal drug, alcohol, sure does!)  As we’ve seen the ranks of monthly marijuana users swell from 10 million to 15 million since 1991, we’ve also seen violent crime drop both overall and from a rate of 758.2 to 429.4 per 100,000 persons.

How many more murderers, rapists, batterers, thieves, molesters, burglars, frauds, cheats, and vandals would our police forces have time to investigate and our courts have time to prosecute if they weren’t spending nine hours on every marijuana possession offense?

First, do no harm...

(Change.org) Last week President Obama quietly announced that he would nominate Michele Leonhart to lead the Drug Enforcement Agency. Ms. Leonhart, who was appointed and promoted by George W. Bush, oversaw the Bush administration’s tactic of raiding the homes of desperately ill individual medical marijuana patients in California.

Ms. Leonhart also has a record of adamantly fighting against allowing scientific research of the potential medicinal value of marijuana. Ignoring the ruling of a federal judge, Ms. Leonhart single-handedly blocked applications from respected university researchers studying medical marijuana.

Tell your Senator not to confirm Ms. Leonhart.

We need a DEA leader who understands the potential value of medical marijuana — not a Bush-era holdover who thought raiding the homes of cancer patients was a good idea.

Surf over to Change.org and sign the petition (click the big medical marijuana caduceus on the left).  We may not be able to stop Leonhart’s appointment, but we don’t have to be silent about it.  You’ll make an even bigger impression if you write, call, or fax your senator, and if you have the means to do so, visit them in person.  (While you’re at it, check out our state and federal Action Alerts at NORML.)

The illegality of marijuana makes our constituency much less powerful politically than our numbers should merit.  There are 4.3 million people in the National Rifle Association (NRA).  There are 1 million people in the National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL).  There are a half a million people in the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).  Their political power means Washington never succeeds in restricting gun rights, abortion rights, and free speech rights.

There are 22 million people who will smoke marijuana this year.  That’s about equal to total number of adult African-Americans in America.  12.5 million of us will partake at least once a month.  That’s about equal to the total number of adult Asian-Americans in America.  There are 3.5 million people who will smoke marijuana daily this year.  That’s about equal to the total number of adult Mormons in America.  Can you imagine appointing to the head of a federal law enforcement agency a person who believed we should arrest all black or Asian or Mormon people?

Yet probably only 1 out of 100 daily marijuana smokers belong to a political cannabis reform organization like NORML.  It’s no wonder Washington laughs at us.  You cannot hide in the closet anymore if you expect to no longer be treated as a criminal.  Join NORML Today!

Days before President Bush left office in January, his administration fired a parting shot at Professor Lyle Craker’s eight-year quest to cultivate marijuana for medical research by abruptly denying him a federal license despite a nearly two-year old Drug Enforcement Administration law judge’s recommendation that he receive one.

But the new administration led by President Obama, who has publicly backed the use of marijuana for medical purposes to stave off pain, might reverse the decision and keep Craker’s license application from going up in smoke.

A source familiar with the case said the White House will likely demand that the decision be reviewed.

“Basically they want to do an autopsy of what occurred and have it go through a proper review,” the source said.

Craker, who is based at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, is cautiously optimistic Obama will do to the denial of the marijuana license what he has done to other Bush administration decisions on such hot-button cultural issues as embryonic stem-cell research and the abortion “gag rule” affecting overseas family planning groups.

via – National Journal “Obama Administration Likely To Review UMass Scientist’s Bid To Grow Marijuana“

This would be outstanding news and, in my opinion, an even better indicator than the cessation of the medical marijuana dispensary raids in CA and CO that the Obama administration is seriously putting science back in our government.

Last month, 16 House members wrote Attorney General Holder asking him to amend or withdraw the DEA’s final order on Craker’s application so the president’s new head of DEA could review the application. They wrote that the administrative law judge’s decision “left no doubt” that Craker is qualified to cultivate marijuana for research purposes.

The members, led by Rep. John Olver, D-Mass., said they were concerned the Bush administration’s ruling violated the “spirit” of a Jan. 20 memorandum from White House Chief of Staff Emanuel that essentially froze all “11th hour” final orders. The memo distributed shortly after the inauguration asked agency officials to reconsider final rules and regulations that have been published in the Federal Register, but have yet to take effect.

I normally do not include this much text from another site [don't sweat it, MrSpof, this is good stuff! --"R"R] but this was also an eye opener. I knew the Obama administration was going through all of former President Bush’s executive orders/rullings with a fine tooth comb but this is the first time I’ve heard of this ruling in particular being mentioned.

The libertarian magazine Reason will be featuring an excellent piece on drug paraphernalia laws in its February issue.  I had never stopped to consider it, but laws against drug paraphernalia are like laws against pornography.

A few weeks before Barack Obama was elected president, Mary Beth Buchanan, the U.S.  attorney for western Pennsylvania, filed criminal charges against the makers of the Whizzinator, a fake penis used to deliver clean urine for drug tests.  …

It was fitting that one of Buchanan’s last prosecutions before the election involved drug paraphernalia disguised as a penis.  Taking up causes championed by the Bush administration in response to the demands of social conservatives, she has shown a conspicuous enthusiasm for attacking both paraphernalia and pornography, areas that were of little interest to the Clinton administration and are not likely to be high priorities under President Obama.  …

It’s no coincidence that Buchanan and her former bosses, John Ashcroft and Alberto Gonzales, are known for worrying about pornography as well as drug devices.  At bottom, both kinds of prosecutions aim to punish offensive speech.  Just as pornography implicitly endorses recreational sex, drug paraphernalia implicitly endorses recreational drug use.  Both are an affront to the moral values of the officials who choose to crack down on them. 

Like obscenity prosecutions, paraphernalia cases often target people for conduct they believed was legal.  The law in both areas is fuzzy, and drug paraphernalia, like obscenity, tends to be judged by the “I know it when I see it” method.  When they go beyond gut reactions, police and prosecutors often focus on the expression of opinions about drug use or the drug laws: A pipe is more likely to be deemed illegal, for example, if it is sold next to High Times or a “Legalize It” T-shirt.  It makes a kind of perverse sense that antiprohibitionist speech can earn you a conviction on paraphernalia charges, since it was the message sent by drug paraphernalia that led governments to ban it in the first place. 

via NORML.ORG US: Bongs Away!.

It is a long read, but very worthwhile.

Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2009-01-19.mp3)

Today’s Stash celebrates the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, the end of the Bush Administration, and the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama.  Despite some misgivings over Change.gov and cabinet appointments, I am so excited to see the new day dawning in America.  Yes, there are dark clouds hovering over us and worse storms ahead, but I can’t help but see the silver lining – that we just can no longer afford to arrest and lock up taxpayers for their cannabis use anymore, and we can no longer overlook an untaxed ecofriendly fuel-producing billion dollar crop anymore.  As Obama has said, this wasn’t about him, it was about us.  As Change.gov and Change.org have shown, we are ready to talk about legalization of marijuana!

It’s as if enough people who think the war on drugs is stupid have realized that enough people think the war on drugs is stupid.  We’ve realized that it’s OK to ask “Why are we arresting potheads?” and “How come we don’t just sell and tax pot?” without everyone thinking we, too, are potheads and even if we are, realizing that nobody gives a damn if you are so long as you do your job, pay your taxes, and be civilized.  Enough people have either smoked it, do smoke it, or know someone who smokes it to know the government is peddling nothing but lies to prop up a failed bureaucracy.  People know that one slacker stoner, but they also know ten more who are just regular working folks who toke.  People also know alcoholics and know they’d rather hang out with the slacker stoner, given a choice, and figure if we can tolerate alcohol, we can tolerate weed.

My guest today is Tom Daubert from Montana Patients and Families United (check ‘em out at http://mtpfu.org*) who is here to warn Big Sky listeners and rally Montanans to contact their state legislator to protest Senate Bill 212, which would strip medical marijuana patient protections for life if convicted of new cannabis DUI standards so strict no patient could ever pass.  In short: choose your drivers license or your marijuana license.

Then my full reading (with music and everything!) of my Cannabis Civil Rights essay posted below, if I may indulge, and in doing so, thank George Rohrbacher for inspiring me…

*That URL always cracks me up because the show Meet the Press is often abbreviated “MTP” on progressive lefty blogs I inhabit.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Bush administration struck a parting shot to legitimate science today as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) refused to end the unique government monopoly over the supply of marijuana available for Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved research. DEA’s final ruling rejected the formal recommendation of DEA Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) Mary Ellen Bittner, issued nearly two years ago following extensive legal hearings.

The DEA ruling constitutes a formal rejection of University of Massachusetts at Amherst Professor Lyle Craker’s petition, filed initially June 24, 2001, to cultivate research-grade marijuana for use by scientists in FDA-approved studies aimed at developing the drug as a legal, prescription medication.

Professor Craker’s petition was rejected despite the opinion of DEA ALJ Bittner that granting Craker a license to grow marijuana “would be in the public interest.” Judge Bittner issued a comprehensive, 88-page nonbinding recommendation to DEA Deputy Administrator Michele Leonhartt on February 12, 2007, following nine days of hearings, testimony and evidence presented by the ACLU and others on both sides of the issue.

DEA failed to take action on Judge Bittner’s recommendation until now, continuing the strategy of delay and pattern of unresponsiveness that has characterized the process since Professor Craker first filed his initial petition seven-and-a-half years ago.

Judge Bittner’s recommendation was based largely on the fact that marijuana is the only Schedule I drug that the DEA prohibits from being produced by private laboratories for scientific research, which has resulted in a unique government monopoly that fundamentally obstructs appropriate research and regulatory channels. Other controlled substances, including LSD, MDMA, heroin and cocaine, are available to researchers from DEA-licensed private laboratories.

In contrast, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) remains scientists’ sole source of marijuana, despite the agency’s repeated refusal to make marijuana available for privately-funded, FDA-approved studies that seek to develop smoked or vaporized marijuana into a legal, prescription medicine.

Forty-five members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Massachusetts Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Edward Kennedy (D-MA), and a broad range of scientific, medical and public health organizations have written in support of Professor Craker, including the Lymphoma Foundation of America, the National Association for Public Health Policy, the Multiple Sclerosis Foundation, as well as several state medical and nurses’ associations.

Despite contradictory federal policy, 13 states have enacted legislation protecting patients who use medical marijuana with a physician’s recommendation from prosecution under state law, and national polls consistently find that roughly 75 percent of Americans support the use of medical marijuana.

Shorter:

US: We’d like to use marijuana as a medicine.

THEM: Marijuana is a dangerous drug.  You cannot use it.

US: But our experiences show it is a medicine!

THEM: For something to be a “medicine”, it has to be scientifically studied and proven.

US: OK, then we’d like to scientifically study marijuana.

THEM: No, you can’t have any to study.

US: Why not?

THEM: Because marijuana is a dangerous drug.

Judge Bittner’s final recommendation in support of Professor Craker’s petition is available at: www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/medmarijuana/28341lgl20070212.html

The DEA’s rejection of Professor Craker’s petition is available at: www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/medmarijuana/38298lgl20090112.html

Complete background on the case, including client profiles, hearing transcripts, a full selection of legal documents, media reports, and letters of support from lawmakers and scientists can be found at: www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/medicalmarijuanafeature/index.html and www.maps.org/mmj/DEAlawsuit.html

An interview with Prof. Craker can be found at http://www.marijuanaconversation.org/interviews/

The Bulletin of Cannabis Reform
1. Failure to Reduce Marijuana Use

The Bush Administration has failed to reduce or control marijuana use in the United States. Marginal changes in marijuana and other drug use have been distorted to support inflated claims of progress in reducing marijuana and other drug use. Marijuana use is fundamentally the same as when the Bush Administration took office, and illicit drug use overall has increased.

• In 2007 there were 14.5 million current users of marijuana in the United States, compared with 14.6 million in 2002. From 2002 to 2007 annual use of marijuana declined slightly from 25.9 to 25.1 million. The number of Americans who have used marijuana at some point in their lives actually increased, from 95 million in 2002 to over 100 million in 2007.

• Teenage marijuana use remains a serious problem in the United States. One in nine (12%) 14- and 15-year-olds and one in four (23.7%) 16- and 17-year-olds used marijuana in 2007.

• There were 35.7 million annual illicit drug users in the United States in 2007, 14.4% of the population. Individuals who only use marijuana account for 41% of all annual illicit drug users. While 10.5 million people used marijuana and at least one other illegal drug (29% of all illicit drug users), there were 10.6 million people (30%) who used illegal drugs but did not use marijuana.

• There were 472,000 12- and 13-year-olds and 627,000 14- and 15-year-olds who did not use marijuana in 2006 but still used illegal drugs. Nearly half of these individuals used inhalants and illegally obtained pain relief drugs.

2. Diversion of Treatment Resources

Increases in drug treatment admissions for marijuana, often cited by officials as evidence that marijuana is dangerously addictive, are driven by criminal justice policies rather than medical diagnosis. These policies increase public costs for providing drug treatment services and reduce funds for and availability of treatment of more serious drug problems.

• The percentage of admissions in which marijuana was the primary substance of abuse referred by the criminal justice system increased from 48% in 1992 to 58% in 2006.

• When marijuana was the primary substance of abuse, just 45% of the admissions met the DSM criteria for marijuana dependence.

• Almost three-fifths (58%) of all admissions involving marijuana also involved alcohol, and where marijuana was the primary substance of abuse alcohol was an additional factor in 47%.

• Non-intensive outpatient treatment is the most likely treatment for patients in which marijuana is the primary substance of abuse, accounting for 68% of these admissions. Use of residential detox — a clear sign of a serious addiction problem — is used for 24% of heroin admissions and 21% of alcohol admissions, but just 2% of marijuana admissions.

• Government programs will pay for the treatment of 62% of admissions where marijuana is the primary substance of abuse, and 60% of the admissions referred by the criminal justice system. In thousands of cases, taxpayers appear to be funding treatment for non-addicts whose only problem is that they got caught with marijuana.