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1. Michigan authorities raid various dispensary operations, calling them “drug houses” and alleging illegal diversion of medical marijuana
2. Rancho Cordova, California, passes $600 / sqft tax on personal grows, $900 / sqft on larger medical grows
3. ReddIt rebels against Conde Nast bosses and flies “Just Say Now” pro-legalization ads for free

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This Month in NORML with Executive Director Allen St. Pierre

• Facebook, Google, ReddIt, Conde Nast, lunch with Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake regarding “Just Say Now” campaign
• Updates on NORML National Conference

Radical Rant

• Calvina Fay’s “pinners” and the costs of marijuana legalization

At Seattle Hempfest, the joint-to-ounce ratio is closer to 1:1

The Christian Science Monitor features a “one minute debate” between our own Paul Armentano and legendary prohibitionist Calvina Fay, executive director of the Drug Free America Foundation.  I have a question: what kind of pinners does Calvina Fay roll?

Legalizing marijuana use would substantially increase its already formidable costs to society. That’s because the initiative would allow individuals to possess up to about 120 joints and cultivate 25 square feet of plants, capable of yielding up to 240,000 joints.

Prop 19 legalizes an ounce of cannabis. 120 joints?  That works out to 236 milligrams per joint.  Seriously, is anyone out there rolling less-than-a-quarter-gram joints?

Calvina Fay likes to use the “joint” as if it is an international standard of measurement (25 square feet produces 240 kilojoints!  Almost a quarter of a megajoint!)  The point is to scare readers into thinking they are legalizing enough marijuana for a shady drug dealer to sell to hundreds of kids.

Prohibitionists use the same tactic when it comes to plant seizures.  Police will snatch up a dozen two-inch seedlings and tell you they would be worth $12 bajillion on the streets… unless they belonged to medical marijuana patients, then they’ll just let them die in an evidence locker.

In the real world, the US government is rolling 400 milligram joints for the four remaining federal medical marijuana patients.  That’s about 70 joints to the ounce.  Tokers I know here in the Pacific Northwest roll them at 750 mg to 1g per joint.  That’s 28 to 38 joints to the ounce.  Unless it’s Seattle Hempfest, and then you’ll find 1 joint to the ounce.

OK, Calvina, if you'll just tell us what "Cost" equals now and how much it will increase under legalization, we can figure our whether it is greater than or less than the $1 billion we're spending on prohibiting cannabis in California now.

Here’s another question: how much are these “formidable costs to society”?  Notice how they never quantify that?  What are the costs now, Calvina, and by what factor would they increase under legalization?  Whatever the costs are now, we’re paying that now.  Add to that the cost of keeping pot illegal that we’re paying now.  Subtract from that total how much we bring in from taxes… oh, wait, that’s zero, so never mind.

Whatever the increased cost equals, it has to be more than what we’d save in enforcement costs plus what we’d earn in taxes for your scare tactic to make any sense.  We’re spending $1 billion failing to stop anyone from smoking pot now.  Do you really think the increase in these mystery costs will equal or beat $1 billion, Calvina?

“The most amazing thing about marijuana is its ability to addle the minds of those who don’t use it.” That’s a quote I picked up somewhere on the net and promptly stole to use in my e-mail signature.  As California gets set to vote on Prop 19 – an initiative to legalize marijuana statewide – some people’s minds are being completely blown, man.  But it’s not the people smoking the stuff, it’s the people trying to keep it banned.

I’ve collected the eight craziest claims about a post-legalization state of California predicted by opponents of Prop 19.  Stunningly, three of these crazy predictions come from people who do use marijuana, proving once again that with enough repetition and scaremongering, you can convince a certain percentage of any group to vote against their own best interests.

8. The federal government will pull all its contracts with California businesses because they won’t be able to drug test employees!

This is a favorite of the California Chamber of Commerce.  The idea is that since the federal government has a Drug Free Workplace Act, when California law no longer allows employers to discriminate based on pee, all these California companies wouldn’t be able to comply and the feds would pull all their contracts and grants.

Never mind that these same opponents predicted the same dire consequence when California was considering Prop 215, the initiative that legalized medical marijuana fourteen years ago, and we haven’t seen any contracts or grants pulled since.  The plain fact is that the Drug Free Workplace Act doesn’t actually require workplace pee tests.  This from “HRHero.com: Your Employment Law Resource” (emphasis mine)…

…employers must certify that they will provide a drug-free workplace. The law doesn’t require alcohol or drug testing, but testing is implicitly authorized as a means to maintain a drug-free workplace.

So what does it mean to provide a “drug-free workplace”?  Certainly that must mean that even if they don’t have to drug-test, they couldn’t comply because Prop 19 would allow employees to possess marijuana, right?  Wrong.

Employers whose companies fall under this category must have a policy prohibiting the unlawful manufacture, distribution, dispensation, possession, or use of a controlled substance in the workplace and specifying what actions will be taken in the event of violations.

When Prop 19 passes, possession of marijuana, up to an ounce, is no longer unlawful.  There is no basis to claim a California company was allowing “unlawful possession”, so they could still maintain an “(illegal) drug-free workplace” and therefore, give no reason for the federal government to pull any contracts or grants.

7. Legalizing marijuana for healthy people will end medical marijuana for sick people!

Try to wrap your mind around the idea that allowing everyone to grow a 25 square foot garden means sick people will not get their medicine.  Then imagine that a court will decide that a public that voted for legal marijuana for healthy people really meant to end medical marijuana for sick people.  If you can manage that, you’ve entered the mind of J. Craig Canada.

Canada’s analysis rests on this bit of Prop 19′s language:

Provide easier, safer access for patients who need cannabis for medical purposes.

The courts will determine that this means Prop. 19 is intended to amend and supersede California’s medical marijuana laws; Proposition 215 (H&S 11362.5) and SB 420 (H&S 11362.7-H&S 11362.9).

Then Canada goes on to criticize the next two paragraphs in the initiative, which provides cities the right to tax and regulate marijuana for adults, “except as permitted under Health and Safety Sections 11362.5 and 11362.7 through 11362.9.”

Got it?  Canada says the first paragraph will supersede – that is, eliminate – California’s Prop 215, and then moves on to the next two paragraphs that specifically provide exceptions under Prop 215.  So I guess Prop 19 makes Prop 215 moot… except when it doesn’t.

6. Legalizing marijuana will never raise any money because the social costs would outweigh any fiscal benefits… look at alcohol and tobacco!

Forget for a moment that in this country, we don’t determine people’s rights based on whether it makes a buck or not.  (I mean, we shouldn’t.) It doesn’t matter whether legalizing marijuana will make a dime; it is simply wrong to lock up adults for smoking pot.  Proponents of Prop 19 have floated the idea that legalizing pot would raise tax revenues for the state and the opponents, like San Mateo Police Chief Susan Manheimer, who is acting president of the California Police Chiefs Association, deny that advantage of the proposition by pointing out that alcohol and tobacco taxes bring in less than what alcohol and tobacco cause in health and safety costs

This is one of the instances where figures don’t lie, but liars figure.  Indeed, the taxes we collect from alcohol and tobacco don’t come close to covering the social costs from those substances.  Lung cancer, cirrhosis, emphysema, drunk driving, cigarette breaks, domestic violence, after a while the costs of smoking and drinking add up… because smoking and drinking are toxic and addictive.

Marijuana is neither toxic nor addictive.  A Canadian study found that a tobacco smoker cost the country $800 per year, each drinker cost $165, and each toker cost $20, and half of that was laundry costs for Cheetos stains (I kid!).  Also, it is not as if nobody is smoking pot now and post Prop-19 we’ll be overrun with tokers.  People are smoking pot now and we’re taking in zero dollars in taxes and we’re spending a billion dollars in California failing to stop it.

5. Big Tobacco will buy up great huge tracts of land in Northern California and mass produce lousy joints pumped full of toxic addictive chemicals!

This is one of the complaints by the people making money growing marijuana now, mostly in Northern California, who have long claimed that “Philip Morris is buying up 400 acres of land in Humboldt County in case legalization passes” and “RJ Reynolds already has the trademark on such names as ‘Acapulco Gold’, ‘Maui Wowie’, and ‘Panama Red’ for their joints once legalization passes”.

These urban legends have been around as long as there have been hippies.  Any in-depth search of news archives from Humboldt, Mendocino, Trinity, and Del Norte counties in California will fail to find the great Philip Morris land buy – you can imagine that would make for an above-the-fold headline in a local “Emerald Triangle” newspaper.  Another search on the US Patent & Trademark Office finds all sorts of interesting trademarks for pot names, but none owned by a cigarette company.

But let’s suppose Big Tobacco wants to get into cannabis production.  Prop 19 gives individuals the right to grow their own marijuana and share it with friends.  This isn’t tobacco, where cigarette companies have a captive audience for an addictive substance with proven toxic results from repeated use.  If Big Tobacco makes a bunch of toxic schwaggy joints, who’s buying them?  They’ll have to produce a product that’s a better deal than growing and rolling your own.

4. Today’s pot is fourteen times more powerful than Sixties weed and will lead to more crack babies!

Credit Los Angeles Bishop Ron Allen for this bit of reefer madness.  “It’s going to cause crime to go up. There will be more drug babies,” he warned the LA Times.  The New York Times reported on Allen describing marijuana as “the most sinister drug,” and asking that “the demonic spirits be cast back into hell.” The good Bishop should know, because he was a former crack addict and the first illegal drug he used was marijuana.

The logical problem with Bishop Allen’s gateway theory is that while nearly all crack addicts have smoked pot, very few pot smokers have ever smoked crack.  The only commonality between marijuana and crack is that they are both illegal drugs (even then, marijuana is more illegal; it is in Schedule I while cocaine is in Schedule II).  Marijuana doesn’t make people smoke crack any more than alcohol or tobacco makes people smoke crack, at least according to the US Institute of Medicine.

I’ve been following the US government’s Potency Monitoring Project for years (yes, there is a federal agency using your tax dollars to prove just how diggity dank your chronic is).  The most potent weed seizure I recall was 37.2% THC.  So if Bishop Allen was smoking weed that was 14x weaker than that, he was smoking 2.65% THC weed, or a grade somewhere between ditchweed and feral hemp at best!  Since the average weed seizure tests at 8.52%, Bishop Allen was smoking the equivalent of a hemp t-shirt.

The Project has shown average potency to have doubled, which means nothing since THC is non-toxic, can’t cause overdose, and is self-titrating, which is a fancy way of saying you smoke til you get stoned then you stop, whether it’s one regular joint or one-quarter of a potent joint.

3. People who smoke marijuana in the same apartment building as a child will be arrested!  (Not that your landlord will let you grow pot anyway.)

There are some marijuana smokers who think that an ounce of cannabis and a 25 square foot garden just aren’t enough.  They’ve taken to sifting through the initiative for every possible flaw, misinterpretation, and slippery slope to muddy the conversation.  Take this 2am-stoned-to-the-gills contemplation of “space”.

…consuming cannabis would be illegal in the same “space” as a minor. Police and judges are free to interpret the word “space” to mean the same room, house, or entire apartment complex.

Well, I suppose police and judges are free to interpret the word “space” to mean the Cosmos, and since there are children in the universe, the vote to legalize marijuana means nobody can smoke pot anywhere!

If that wasn’t enough to dissuade you, renters would have to (*gasp*) ask their landlord’s permission to grow marijuana!  I can’t imagine why property owners would be apprehensive about that…

While growing your own supply is fun as hell, it can also be messy, dangerous, and can easily cause damage if done improperly. (Not to mention homeowners insurance is likely to rise and homes containing cannabis could face seizure by the federal government.)

So, to sum up, you should vote no on being able to grow weed and hold an ounce, even if you own your own home, because some renters wouldn’t be able to grow (but could still hold an ounce) and you couldn’t smoke around kids.

2. Legally home-grown marijuana will lead to outbreaks of toxic deadly molds!

It’s fascinating to me the little niches some prohibitionists stake out.  Canada’s Barbara Kay works the “pot causes schizophrenia” angle (it doesn’t).  Calvina Fay likes to put quotes around “medical” marijuana.  But for sheer 50′s sci-fi horror predictions about legalization, nobody can touch Alexandra Datig of NipItInTheBud2010.org and her dire warnings of toxic mold…

Aspergillus & Stachybotrys

Next Health Nightmare If Marijuana Legalization Takes Place?

In 1996, there was a study of 10,000 cases of Aspergillosis with treatment costs of $633 Million. That means on average, just to try and treat (not cure) the problem, each case accrued average costs of roughly $63,300.

If the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 passes, 1/3 of California will be at risk of serious BLACK MOLD CONTAMINATION as well as Aspergillus exposure. And how will anyone be able to control the contamination when anyone can cultivate marijuana in their home or backyard at any time without supervision? …Well? …Anyone?

Aspergillus is a toxic mold and yes, it does grow on marijuana (if you’re a lousy grower).  It grows on carpets, trees, and drywall, too.  It killed 261 people in 2004 for a death rate of 0.88255 deaths per 1 million people.  You are more likely to die from appendicitis (371 deaths) than aspergillus.

Still, it might be scary until you realize that people are growing marijuana indoors now and because it is illegal, do it in ways that are more likely to cause an outbreak of mold.

1. Workplaces would be overrun by workers smoking marijuana on the job!

We opened up with the California Chamber of Commerce, so it is only fitting we end with their most apocalyptic pronouncement to date:

Imagine a workplace where employees show up to work high on marijuana and there is nothing you can do about it. That’s what employers can look forward to if Proposition 19 passes.

Employers would have to permit to employees to smoke marijuana at work.

Prop 19 does nothing of the sort.  It specifically retains “the existing right of an employer to address consumption that actually impairs job performance by an employee shall not be affected.”  Nobody is going to be working blazed with no fear of being fired – California is an “at will” employment state, anyway.

The Chamber’s real fear – and they’re not even shy about saying so publicly – is that management won’t be able to discriminate against workers who might smoke pot off the job:

Employers would be prohibited from discriminating against marijuana users by taking marijuana use into account when deciding whether to hire an applicant.

When it comes to legal analysis, I prefer the non-partisan California Legislative Analysts Office take on Prop 19 and the workplace:

State and local law enforcement agencies could not seize or destroy marijuana from persons in compliance with the measure. In addition, the measure states that no individual could be punished, fined, or discriminated against for engaging in any conduct permitted by the measure. However, it does specify that employers would retain existing rights to address consumption of marijuana that impairs an employee’s job performance.

So that’s it – if you vote to legalize and tax pot in California, the state will lose all federal contracts, end medical marijuana, cost billions, create toxic addictive schwaggy joints, lead to crack babies, eliminate smoking in the Cosmos, overwhelm us with toxic mold, and fill the workplaces with blazed wastoids.

And they say smoking pot will make you crazy.  Seems like legalizing it makes some people crazier.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Remember the days when the marijuana talk was two or three of them vs. one of us?  Now it’s two of ours vs. one of them as Law Enforcement Against Prohibition’s Neill Franklin and NORML’s Founder Keith Stroup go against (Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Non-Tobacco) Drug Free America’s Queen of Reefer Madness, Calvina Fay on CNN:

I wish Keith could have gotten through at the end there. When Calvina says that the drug gangs aren’t going to just become law-abiding businessmen, I’d absolutely agree! They surely will continue trying to traffic cocaine and heroin and humans and otherwise behaving badly. But the point is they won’t have marijuana profits to fund all that! Sure, they’ll still be criminals, but they won’t be wealthy criminals. There are always going to be criminals, but we shouldn’t turn them into the kind of criminals who can afford rocket launchers and six-figure bribes.

She sure gives it her all with her little catchphrases, though. “Crude marijuana”, “selling drugs to our children”, “fooled into thinking marijuana is medicine” and so forth. It’s so refreshing to see her claim that there really is no change in administration policy because the Bush Administration never went after the sick and dying, just the big bad drug dealers, and to have two people smacking her down, followed by the host showing poll numbers demonstrating rapid increase in support for legalization and super-majority support for medical marijuana.

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Hemp Headlines

1. San Diego cops freak out over Mexico’s decriminalization of drugs
2. Denver marijuana review panel recommends $1 fine for possession
3. Missoula cops ignoring “marijuana as lowest priority” passed by voters
4. Calvina Fay: Queen of Reefer Madness

Southern California Scene with Tere Joyce

• Patrick Duff from Royal Temple of Zion discusses the raid on his temple and allegations of corruption in LA city government and law enforcement

Daily Toker Tunes by Marijuana Music Awards . com

• Rockin Thursday! – ‘Hard Times’ by Rosemary’s Garden

Calvina Fay is the head of the Drug Free America Foundation (formerly known as “Straight, Inc.”, read up on that horror story!) and founded with Betty Sembler a group called “Save Our Society from Drugs”.  One of our readers forwarded to me a plea written by Calvina Fay begging the Steamboat Springs city council to oppose new dispensaries, or as she calls them, “pot shops”.

Dear City Council Member:

I am writing to you on behalf of Save Our Society from Drugs (S.O.S), a national nonprofit drug policy organization with concerned members in your community. It is my understanding that you recently passed a 90-day moratorium on any new marijuana dispensaries, allowing the two existing facilities to remain open while you determine how to regulate such establishments. I am writing to encourage you to vote “No” on any item that could potentially escalate the use and possession of drugs in this community.

Wouldn’t that acronym be S.O.S.F.D.?  Were you high when you came up with it?  Never mind, continue…

As of May 31, 2009, the Marijuana Registry Program has 8918 individuals that legally hold marijuana ID cards. In 2000, when voters in Colorado passed an amendment legalizing marijuana as a so-called medicine, they did so believing that marijuana would only be made available to those who had exhausted all other medical options and/or were suffering from a life threatening illness.

One of my favorite crime-fighting powers of prohibitionists is their ability to read the minds of thousands of voters in the past.  Let’s look at Colorado’s Amendment 20; just what did the voters say “yes” to by a 54% vote?

(Colorado Amendment 20) Ballot Title: An amendment to the Colorado Constitution authorizing the medical use of marijuana for persons suffering from debilitating medical conditions… defined as follows…. Cancer, glaucoma, positive status for human immunodeficiency virus, or acquired immune deficiency syndrome, or treatment for such conditions; A chronic or debilitating disease or medical condition, or treatment for such conditions, which produces…: cachexia; severe pain; severe nausea; seizures, including those that are characteristic of epilepsy; or persistent muscle spasms, including those that are characteristic of multiple sclerosis; or Any other medical condition, or treatment for such condition, approved by the state health agency.

Hmm… I don’t see anything in these definitions about exhausting all other options or one’s illness being not just “debilitating”, but “life-threatening”.  In fact, I see “chronic or debilitating medical condition which produces severe pain or severe nausea”, a lower threshold for pain and nausea treatment than most medical marijuana states’ language calling for “chronic pain” or “chronic nausea”.

(Calvina Fay) To date, only 6% of those using marijuana are using it to “treat” cancer, HIV/AIDS, and glaucoma. The remainder of the users are “treating” much less serious conditions such as muscle spasms, headaches and minor arthritis.

Yes, Calvina, use the scare quotes to convince people that those 6% with cancer, HIV/AIDS, and glaucoma are faking it.  In the previous graf you’re complaining that Colorado really meant marijuana to be used by those with “life-threatening” illness, then you mock those with cancer and HIV/AIDS.  As for the other treatments, the Amendment that 54% of the people voted for includes muscle spasms, migraine pain, and arthritis pain.

Recent articles coming out of the state’s news outlets report that the registration program has seen an increase of 2,000 individuals that have been added to the program just in the past month and that the number is expected to rise to 15,000 by the year’s end. Allowing pot shops where marijuana will be more readily available will only increase the number of applicants to an already widely abused program.

“Widely abused”, and yet all the nearly 9,000 registered patients saw a doctor, had one of the qualifying conditions, got a legal recommendation, and legally acquired medicine.  Calvina suffers from a particularly virulent strain of Reefer Madness called “The ‘So-Called’ Medicine of Last Resort™” – this idea that only people who’ve tried every other possible pharmaceutical unsuccessfully and are on their death bed with two weeks to live should be allowed to use medical marijuana.

Why is it when a state government sets up any other program aside from medical marijuana, a rapid increase in participants statewide is considered a success, but for medical marijuana it is considered “widely abused”?  If we end up with 15,000 Colorado patients by year’s end, that’s a state government successfully protecting 15,000 people from needless prosecutions that cost the state money.  That’s 15,000 marijuana users who’ve paid a fee to the government and registered their name and address with the state to use marijuana.  That’s 15,000 patients the state has given a safer alternative to hepatoxic pharmaceuticals.  By every measure, a success!

ABC Nightline journalist Lisa Ling, in a recent episode titled High Times, illustrates just how easy it is to get a “medical” marijuana recommendation in California. Statistics and the camera show that state “medical” marijuana programs are being widely abused and perfectly healthy individuals are easily able to acquire pot under the guise of medicine. Is this the type of media recognition that Steamboat Springs wants?

And it is exactly NOT that easy to get a recommendation in Colorado.  This is another strain of Reefer Madness, the “You Don’t Want Us To Be Like California, Do You?™”  The way it works is that you note that California’s Prop 215 is worded so doctors can make a recommendation for anything and that Los Angeles has more dispensaries than Starbucks.  Then you use that scary scenario in a state where doctors can only recommend based on fixed list of conditions, where there must be rigorous medical documentation of that condition, in a city where there are two dispensaries.

Before you vote, please examine the attached documents provided by the California Police Chiefs Association. They are dealing with dispensaries and related crime every day. As you can see from California’s experience, dispensaries are not worth the damage they create in communities. Do not allow the community of Steamboat Springs to suffer the same fate.

The attached documents Calvina presents include a 25 page listing of news stories about dispensary robberies, shootings, and raids, all of which are consequences of the illegality of cannabis for non-sick people which drives the price up to levels worth stealing and forestalls any calling of the police or setting in court any disputes which arise from buying, selling, and growing marijuana.  This same listing of robberies, shootings, and raids could have been composed in 1995 before any medical marijuana states existed.

Then there is a 40 page document from the “Friends of the DEA” giving recommendations to the Obama Administration on how to deal with dispensaries.  Lots of scare quotes around the word “medical” when referencing medical marijuana and a whole bunch of justification for locking up sick people who use medical marijuana in order to protect them from the dangers of a “crude plant material” not regulated by the FDA.

The coup de gras is a 56 page “white paper” from the California Police Chiefs Association telling all the sordid tales of how California is going to hell in a handbasket because it has medical marijuana dispensaries.  That’s 121 pages from Calvina & Friends – 122 if you count her letter – designed to scare Steamboat Springs city council about medical marijuana.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla.–(BUSINESS WIRE)–The arrest of the Connecticut Vice President of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws for violent threats against State Senator Toni Boucher has brought to light more incidents of verbal abuse, physical intimidation and harassment by other drug legalization activists.

Dr. Andrea Barthwell, a prominent treatment professional, recently spoke of her experiences. “They are not above using misinformation, intimidation, and retribution to advance their goals. As a long time advocate for the prevention and treatment of drug abuse, I have been harassed and threatened in person and on blogs by people and groups who support the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) agenda,” said Barthwell.

That’s Andrea Barthwell, former Deputy Drug Czar under George W. Bush.  Speaking of misinformation, she once said, “If there were compelling scientific and medical data supporting marijuana’s medical benefits that would be one thing, but the data is not there. The claim of one individual who has used marijuana does not medical data make.”  As a long time advocate for providing marijuana to the sick and dying people who gain relief from it, I have been harassed by Barthwell when she said, “The people who are advancing marijuana as a medicine are perpetuating a cruel hoax that exploits our compassion for the sick. They are using patients’ pain and suffering in an attempt to change America’s drug control policy. Marijuana is a crude plant product that most definitely is not a medicine.”

I’m still waiting for the medicinal marijuana patient to tell me to stop “using” them and repeal Oregon’s medical marijuana law, Andrea.  By the way, Andrea now works for a pharmaceutical company that takes marijuana in “crude plant product” form and makes a spray out of it for medicinal properties (check out Pete Guither’s excellent post on the subject).  The manufacturer touts that the product is a “whole plant extract” that contains all the compounds found in “crude plant product”.  You know, the one that Andrea says “is most definitely not a medicine.”

Roger Morgan, Californians for Drug Free Schools, recalls being cyber stalked by a drug legalization supporter. “My emails were hacked, some files were damaged and erased and obscene emails were sent to colleagues under my name. I was threatened over a telephone relay system by the same individual. This person was traced back to the drug legalization movement. I know many other colleagues who have also been cyber stalked and it’s really a very menacing and costly act,” said Morgan.

That’s Roger Morgan, who believes that states should mandate that their public schools institute universal drug testing of students.  “Even if politically sensitive, the results from universal, non-punitive random drug testing for all students would be so astounding in terms of saved lives, dollars and creation of productive young people that in short order all parents and taxpayers would demand this protection.”

I’m still waiting for Roger to read the District Court’s decision in Tannahill v. Lockney Independent School District, where random, suspicionless drug-testing of all students was considered unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court has only upheld drug-testing for student athletes (Vernonia School District v. Acton) and kids in extra-curriculars (Board of Education of Pottawatomie County v. Earls).  Because, after all, if a kid does have a drug problem, we want to make sure he doesn’t get involved in other, healthier activities involving more responsible adult supervision.  Better that we make him a social outcast to punish him for his drug use.  That’ll get him off the drugs, or at least on to the alcohol we can’t really test for.

Calvina Fay, Executive Director of Drug Free America Foundation (DFAF) concludes, “Advocates for legalizing drugs are known for attempting to silence their critics. We have been subject to all forms of threats and harassment by the pro-drug lobby. Drug legalization is a controversial topic, but we must keep the debate respectful. That the other side is resorting to strong-arm lobbying tactics tells me they don’t have the facts to back up their assertions. They are desperate to win by any means, legal or otherwise.”

That’s Calvina Fay, the woman who wrote, in the most respectful tone possible, about medical marijuana in New Jersey, “Please ensure that your legislators are not misled — it is much more compassionate to ensure sick people are not being exploited by those who just want to make a quick buck peddling snake oil.”  Last year at a world forum on drugs, Calvina respectfully said, “Much of that movement is funded by a name that many of you know – George Soros, a convicted criminal who has publicly labeled himself as an atheist and yet has claimed that he is God… His philosophy is to destroy societies that he does not like and then recreate them using his “open society” model. He destroys by creating chaos. And what better way to create chaos in society than to have a drug-addicted population that dominates.”

Other Calvina Fay moments of respect with facts to back up her assertions:

• “…these advocates have pushed the envelope too far when they began espousing that it is the “human right” of individuals to use drugs and endanger not only their own lives but the lives of others. With rights, come responsibilities and that is something that drug users know or care very little about.”
• “The sad thing is that people smoking pot probably do feel better even if they are not getting better but they could also feel better by smoking crack cocaine or injecting heroin. Will these be the next drugs to legalize as so-called medicine?”
• “The drug legalization movement certainly has more money than we do but, we are on the right side.”

Now, once again, let me point out that the vast majority of folks in marijuana law reform are peaceful, respectful, intelligent adults who behave with the utmost in decorum.  But when a tiny few Americans who’ve had a war declared on them for 39 years, who’ve endured incarceration, loss of property and home, who’ve been frozen out of their career or schooling, who’ve lost custody of a child, who’ve seen a loved one gunned down by a police officer, who’ve returned from the horrors of war and been branded criminals for trying to self-medicate their PTSD; who’ve been lied to repeatedly and obviously by people like Andrea, Roger, and Calvina, when they snap and send a nasty email, yell at a speech, or shove someone, it’s not that hard to understand.  I don’t endorse it, but I understand it.  Honestly, I think the fact that Americans haven’t responded with more violence against a war declared on them testifies to what a good and decent people we truly are.

It’s a tempting idea: Legalize and tax a commodity that a lot of people like, collect the revenues, and reap the budgetary benefits. In economic times like these, that might be just the formula we need to pull us out of the red. In this case, the truth does not live up to the hype.

Now how many examples of Reefer Madness do you think Dr. Sabet can fit within 600 words of newspaper type?  Read on, dear Stasher, for the answer!

Legalizing marijuana will not solve our budget woes, nor will it be good for public health. Introducing marijuana into the open market is very likely to do some other things, however: increase the drug’s consumption, and with it, the enormous social costs associated with marijuana-related accidents, illness and productivity loss.

Legalization will increase the drug’s consumption?

• “In sum, there is little evidence that decriminalization of marijuana use necessarily leads to a substantial increase in marijuana use.” – National Academy of Sciences, Institute of Medicine (IOM). 1999. Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base. National Academy Press: Washington, D.C., 102.

Legalization will increase costs from accidents, illness, and productivity loss?

• Recent research into impairment and traffic accident reports from several countries shows that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts does not significantly increase a driver’s risk of causing an accident.  (Is there any reason to believe, then, that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts off-hours away from the work site would increase workplace accidents?  It hasn’t in Oregon, where 1 in 8 people smoke pot annually and we just recorded the lowest workplace accident rates ever in this state.)
• A pair of studies at Utah Power and Light Co. and Georgia Power Co. purporting to show that drug users pose a high risk of accidents and absenteeism only looked at users who had exhibited problem behavior on the job. Not surprisingly, this population had worse than average work records. Nonetheless, Utah Power found that drug users cost $215 less in health insurance benefits, while Georgia Power found lower rates of absenteeism in workers who tested positive only for marijuana!
• Lost productivity studies claiming that drug users cost up to $100 billion each year are based on vague comparisons of household drug use and income, with no analysis of actual productivity data.

The example of legal alcohol and tobacco reveal an unsettling pattern. Legal drugs are by definition easy to obtain, and commercialization glamorizes their use and furthers their social acceptance.

Legalization of alcohol and tobacco show how legalizing cannabis will make it more acceptable?

• The number of U.S. adults who smoke [cigarettes] has dropped below 20 percent for the first time on record.
• Alcohol use among the underaged and those of legal age has declined steadily since 1990.  Conversely, alcohol use rose to record levels during Prohibition.

Their price is low, and high profits make promotion worthwhile for sellers. Addiction is simply the price of doing business. Any revenue gained from taxing these drugs is quickly offset by the heavy costs associated with their increased prevalence.

I’ve debunked this “increased costs” argument in a previous Stash.  Basically, this argument only works if you ignore the fact that any costs attributable to marijuana use are already being absorbed and that just about everyone who wants to use marijuana is already doing so.

Because today’s high-potency marijuana is much more harmful than once thought, a spike in use from legalization would result in a financial burden California cannot afford to bear.

Today’s high potency marijuana is more harmful?

• Claims made in the public domain about a 20- or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency … are not supported currently by the evidence.

It is almost universally accepted in the medical community that marijuana use is linked with mental illness. Since the appearance of the British Medical Journal’s famous 2002 headline, “Marijuana and psychiatric illness: the link grows stronger,” the research showing marijuana’s link with illnesses like psychosis and schizophrenia has become frighteningly commonplace. In fact, researchers from Kings College in London have shown that eliminating marijuana use would decrease the incidence of schizophrenia in the American population by more than 8 percent. That means that marijuana use is responsible for the schizophrenia suffered by more than 19,000 Americans.

Universally accepted that marijuana use is linked with mental illness?

• Investigators reported no statistically significant “differences in syptomatology between schizophrenic patients who were or were not cannabis users” after controlling for patients’ age, sex, and ethnicity. Researchers also failed to find “any evidence that cannabis users with schizophrenia were more likely to have a family member with the disorder.”  These findings “argue against a distinct schizophrenic-like psychosis caused by cannabis,” authors concluded.

Other research has shown the drug’s connection to lung damage, as well as to head, neck and testicular cancers.

Smoking pot will hurt your lungs, head and neck, and testicles?

• Long-term smoking of cannabis is associated with an elevated risk of respiratory complications, including an increase in cough, sputum production, and wheezing, but not a decline in pulmonary function, according to a review published in the February issue of the journal Archives of Internal Medicine.
• Smoking cannabis, even long-term, is not associated with an increased risk of developing cancers of the head or neck, according to the results of a case control population-based study published in the March issue of the journal Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery.
• Men who self-reported having “ever used” marijuana had no statistically significant risk of testicular cancer compared to healthy controls who never used pot.  Men who reported currently using marijuana at least once per week, and who had started smoking pot prior to age 18, had an elevated risk compared to controls of contracting a type of testicular cancer known as nonseminoma.  However, nonseminomas account for fewer than one half of one percent of all cancers among American men and since the 1970s, the percentage of American males smoking pot has climbed dramatically. By contrast, incidences of nonseminoma have risen only nominally during this same time period.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s justification for AB390 relies on the myth that marijuana laws are costing taxpayers millions of dollars and wrecking the lives of otherwise law-abiding citizens.

Marijuana laws don’t cost taxpayers millions of dollars?

• State and local justice costs for marijuana arrests are now estimated to be $7.6 billion, approximately $10,400 per arrest. Of this total, annual police costs are $3.7 billion, judicial/legal costs are $853 million, and correctional costs are $3.1 billion.

But a closer examination of the facts reveals a very different reality. Although there are thousands of arrests for marijuana possession every year in our state, most of these arrests result in little or no consequences. Most of those who are charged with possession plead down from more serious charges, such as trafficking. Researchers from Rand report that many marijuana arrests result from drinking and driving violations at alcohol checkpoints. “The police also find joints, and then (the offender) is in jail for both offenses. People’s images of the casual (marijuana) user getting hauled off to jail are not true,” a Rand researcher recently commented.

Marijuana arrests have little or no consequences?

• If you’re convicted or enter a plea, you’ll be on probation and mandatory Urinalysis Tests will be performed.
• A conviction could impact child custody issues in family court.
• An arrest for Possession with Intent to Distribute or an arrest for the Manufacture of 5 or more plants may result in the State attempting to Forfeit your home, your car, your cash and other assets which they can do even if charges are later dismissed or you are acquitted at trial! This heinous law is know as “Asset Forfeiture”.
• A conviction can impact Federally insured student loans
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to vote
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to possess firearms
• A conviction can get you tossed out of government subsidized housing
• A conviction can impair your ability to obtain food stamps and other welfare benefits
• Your ability to ever adopt children will be jeopardized
• You will be denied entry into Canada and possibly other countries
• A misdemeanor conviction remains on your record and available to the public for three years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment
• A felony conviction remains on your record and available to the public for five years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment.

Most marijuana arrests are pleaded down from more serious crimes or concurrent with arrest for other crimes and the casual marijuana users are not hauled off to jail?

• Jack Riley, the Rand study’s lead author, said, “We cannot say, however, whether large numbers of low-level offenders may be in jails, as opposed to prisons.“
• “Although many thousands of offenders receive jail sentences for low-level drug offenses, we examine only prison sentences in this report.“
• Of those imprisoned on low-level drug charges… 68 percent were found to have a previous drug conviction. In addition, 72 percent of those imprisoned on charges of drug use or the possession of drugs or drug paraphernalia had previous drug convictions.  (Read: “three strikes” laws that get you prison time for a joint because you were convicted of two other crimes in your past.)
• Researchers found that more than half of offenders possessed hard drugs, including cocaine and heroin, at the time of their arrests. Just 3 percent of the cases sampled involved marijuana only.  (So, then, there are people in prison for marijuana only, right?  Currently, some 68,500 Americans are either incarcerated or on probation for marijuana violations, the Sentencing Project report determined. Of these, an estimated 11,200 were first time marijuana offenders serving time in state or federal prison.)

Rand-sponsored research reveals that in the Netherlands, where the drug is sold openly at “coffee shops,” marijuana use among young adults increased almost 300 percent after a wave of commercialization. The country has also become a haven for producers of high-potency marijuana, and other drugs like ecstasy and methamphetamine. These unintended consequences have led many Dutch officials to advocate for rolling back the status quo.

Once the Netherlands began tolerating marijuana sales, use increased dramatically?

• Amsterdam, the Netherlands: Liberalizing marijuana laws is not associated with increased cannabis use among the general public, according to a scientific review published this month in the journal Current Opinion in Psychiatry.  (Use of marijuana did increase in Holland… as it did everywhere in Europe around the same time as the coffee shops came into existence.  Still, the Netherlands has half the drug use rates as the United States.)

To be sure, restricting marijuana use by law – especially because some people find it extremely pleasurable – is not without its costs. But legalizing this addictive substance would only exacerbate our problems by increasing the harm that greater levels of use will cause. Given the heavy costs associated with our two legal substances, and the relatively minor costs associated with our current restrictive marijuana policy, the case for a commercial market for marijuana remains weak and unconvincing – even in this uncomfortable economic environment.

It seems like the argument for a commercial California marijuana market is convincing at least six out of ten people who hear it.

By my count that’s seventeen examples of Reefer Madness packed into 598 words, for a score of 2.84 Anslingers (an Anslinger is my newly-coined measurement of Reefer Madness, indicating the average number of reefer mad propositions offered per 100 words.  So far, 2.84 is the upper benchmark… but I’m sure Barbara Kay or Calvina Fay or John Walters will top it sometime soon.

Medical marijuana: A user’s smokescreen

I write in response to the guest opinion article “Medical marijuana: Opening Pandora’s box?” (Jan. 20) by Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini, who is right to question the unintended consequences of this New Jersey legislation which seeks to allow medical use of marijuana. Times readers should know that most people with fatal diseases are not smoking pot — they are under the care of legitimate doctors and are receiving valid medicines to treat their ailments. This dangerous bill would allow widespread marijuana use and fraudulent claims of illness for all drug users.

Oh, Calvina, you’re so dramatic!

In cities like San Diego, where this issue has been closely examined, only 2 percent of those smoking marijuana under the guise of medicine have serious conditions such as AIDS, glaucoma or cancer. A full 98 percent are “treating” minor conditions such as back and neck pain, anxiety, muscle spasms, insomnia, headaches and other less significant conditions. But even more troubling is that 12 percent of the users are under the age of 21.

But Calvina, if that “treatment” actually works for those 98 percent and does not cause them harm, why are you so worked up about it?

As for the users under 21, well, the 18, 19, and 20-year-olds can be trusted with a vote and an Army rifle, so I trust them with some medical marijuana.  Those under 18 have their parents’ express permission. Again, why are you so worked up over it?

Crude marijuana is not prescribed by a doctor because it has not been approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Crude marijuana can never pass FDA standards for several reasons: It is neither safe nor stable. In fact, it is particularly dangerous to patients in an already weakened condition. Even marijuana in its FDA-approved pill form is a third-tier medication and not often prescribed by doctors.

Aspirin could not pass the FDA’s standards if it were forced to today.  Cannabis is wonderfully safe, or as the DEA’s own administrative law judge puts it, “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care.”

After researching the efficacy of marijuana for medicinal use, the Institute of Medicine concluded that although there may be value to some compounds found in cannabis, there is no future for smoked marijuana as a medicine.

Calvina, you’ve had to have heard of vaporization and edibles by now.  Don’t make me go to get Paul’s book and school you on the various medical uses of marijuana.

As a drug policy expert with more than 25 years experience in the field, I can assure you that for every symptom of every illness, there is a better medicine, a better therapy than so-called medical marijuana. Please ensure that your legislators are not misled — it is much more compassionate to ensure sick people are not being exploited by those who just want to make a quick buck peddling snake oil.

Really?  Tell me, “Dr.” Fay, what’s the best treatment around for neuropathic pain?  What’s the best anti-emetic when you’re currently vomiting?  What’s the only painkiller you cannot overdose and die from?  I can assure you that for many symptoms of many illnesses, there is no metter medicine, no better therapy than cannabis.

But once again, Calvina, I wish you could show me just one medical marijuana patient complaining of exploitation.  As a medical marijuana activist with four years experience in the field, I have yet to hear one patient say, “Russ, I am sick and tired of you exploiting me by protecting me from arrest for my medical use of cannabis.”  I have yet to hear one patient tell me she is cancelling her medical marijuana card because she’s found a better FDA-approved medication.  And if you could look at my bank accounts, Calvina, I could assure you there are no quick bucks in there, and very few slow bucks.

– CALVINA FAY, St. Petersburg, Fla.

The writer is executive direc tor of Save Our Society From Drugs.

via It hasn’t trickled down and it never will – NJ.com.