Leading up to the promotion of their new Discovery Channel reality show, Weed Wars, brothers Steven and Andrew DeAngelo appeared on the Dylan Ratigan Show (on the left-leaning MSNBC) and on The O’Reilly Factor (on the right-leaning FOX News Channel).  Steven and Andrew run the world’s largest cannabis dispensary, Harborside Health Center, serving over 98,000 patients and grossing in excess of $20 million annually.

First, Dylan Ratigan asks Steven whether he would be “presumptuous in suggesting that you guys would be in favor of legalization?”

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Steven DeAngelo: “Yes, you would. I don’t believe that any psychoactive substance should be used for recreation.“

Hmm.  That sounds like a problematic stance in a society that recognizes the recreational use of the psychoactive substance called “wine”.  So is all wine use “wellness”, now, too?  Do we all need to tell our doctor we’re using red wine for its anti-oxidant benefits for healthy hearts, when, really, we just want a light after-dinner buzz?  Do we need to repeal the 21st Amendment and go back to “medical whiskey” prescriptions?

Speaking of wine (hat-tip to Cannabis Warrior), California’s Steve Kubby is promoting the “Regulate Marijuana Like Wine” initiative in California.  He asked Steve DeAngelo about it while backstage at Seattle Hempfest in August:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Steven DeAngelo: “Wine and cannabis… you know, I support any effort to change the cannabis laws that’s going to get the people who are in prison out of there, and if we can do it by repeal, great, if we can do it with a wine analogy, great.”

So… uh… you do support comparing cannabis to wine, a psychoactive substance, all of which you believe should not be used recreationally, but only for “health and wellness”?  I’m confused… does this mean wine should be treated like medical marijuana or that marijuana should be treated as wine and both require a doctor?

Next on The O’Reilly Factor, Bill O’Reilly pushes the brothers on the medical aspect of California’s Prop 215, with his familiar bloviating about his “undercover report” that showed how easy it is to get a medical marijuana recommendation.  He acknowledges Steven’s degenerative disc disease and Andrew’s glaucoma as serious ailments in need of cannabis treatment, but points out that cannabis in California can be recommended for anxiety and that it is ludicrously easy to find a doctor who will find you anxious enough to need a weed card.  O’Reilly dangles the fish-hook of “isn’t this quasi-legalization?” and Andrew takes the bait (cue video to 3:35):

Andrew DeAngelo: “We will say right here on this show, Bill, that we do not support the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes.“

As you can imagine, a statement like this has drawn some heat.  In response, Harborside has posted a clarification:

“The mission of Harborside Health Center is to advocate for full access to cannabis for purposes of health and wellness. While it is not our mission to advocate the legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes, we do feel criminal penalties for cannabis are unjust and should be repealed.”

Did that clarify anything?  OK, so people who use cannabis for “health and wellness” ought to granted full access.  People who use cannabis for recreational purposes should not be criminally penalized.  So, does that mean cops leave all pot smokers alone, but only ones who claim “health and wellness” uses get to shop at Harborside?  And what do you call it when there are no criminal penalties for recreational marijuana use, other than legalization?

It doesn’t get any clearer when you read Steven’s latest treatise, “Wellness, not Intoxication“:

Rather than positioning recreational cannabis as being in opposition to medical cannabis, my fellow activists might instead recognize that promoting recreation is one of the many health and wellness benefits provided by cannabis. Recreation itself has long been recognized in America as an essential ingredient for health and wellness….

The soccer moms of America are never going to buy the argument that their kids need one more thing to get high on, no matter how safe or natural that thing is. But they might vote in favor of allowing adult citizens to make their own health and wellness decisions. Legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes–a strategy that emphasizes cannabis as an intoxicant– plays right into the hands the prohibitionists, who are itching for another opportunity to portray cannabis users as decadent hedonists. And at this time, in this place, the legalization strategy is not merely misguided-it is dangerous.

…Instead, advocates of legalization should recalibrate their understanding of medical cannabis from the illness model to the wellness model; and focus their energies on expanding the umbrella of medical cannabis to include all users of the plant.

…Instead of accepting the limitations and inaccuracy of the illness model of medical cannabis; our movement should ensure that all legislation embraces the wellness model of medical cannabis, and is therefore expansive enough to bring all adults under its protection.

So, cannabis promotes recreation, recreation is good for wellness, all adults who want to use it for recreation as part of their wellness should be entitled to do so, so long as they don’t call the use recreational?

Apparently it is only “misguided” and “dangerous” to be campaigning for recreational use of marijuana in 2011.  In 2010, on the other hand…

Click here to view the embedded video.

Steven DeAngelo: “As someone who has dedicated his life to the cause of medical cannabis, Prop 19 is going to advance the cause of medical cannabis and not set us back.”

Now I truly believe that Steven and Andrew DeAngelo think deep inside that cannabis should be as legal for me to access as anybody.  But $2.5 million in tax attacks from the IRS and threats of raids and prison time growing more real, combined with the spotlight of Weed Wars, have the DeAngelos parsing “legalization”, “recreational”, “medical”, and ”wellness” to a degree Bill Clinton would applaud.

Click here to view the embedded video.

And that, my friends, is the real misguided and potentially dangerous mistake for our movement – blowing any shred of credibility we may have with the general public.  Medical support does still outweigh legalization support, but that medical support number has stayed constant since Prop 215 in 1996, while legalization support has doubled now to 50% in that time.  But polls are also showing that a majority of Americans believe “most medical marijuana is used for something else” (52%) and that only 31% believe it is being used for “serious medical illnesses”.

It is too much to expect the world to completely redefine their concept of “medical” to fit uses of marijuana that are clearly recreational. As every other state after California has shown, “medical” means restrictive condition lists, doctors harassed by medical boards, ridiculously low possession limits, and dispensary monopolies with tight government security and controls. We have a world that understands and supports recreational use of alcohol. Won’t it be easier to convince someone an adult can be trusted with an intoxicant safer than alcohol than to convince them the Prop 215 area at the Cypress Hill show is something “medical”?  Instead of “Wellness, not Intoxication”, how about “Honesty, not Euphemisms”?  A path of “health and wellness” always leads to a place where someone gets to decide if I’m not sick enough to keep out of a prison cell.  A path of full legalization includes all medical (and all spiritual and all industrial) uses along with recreational.

Compassionate Idaho volunteers Lindsey Rinehart and Isaias Valdez were featured in coverage of their campaign to pass a medical marijuana initiative by Boise’s KTVB, the top-rated news channel in the largest metropolitan area in the state.  KTVB should be ashamed of the biased, scaremongering piece they have produced.

First they frame our volunteer activists as people looking to exploit Idahoans’ natural compassion for the sick and dying.

The Treasure Valley – a family community – is where people help their neighbors and compassion is common.

Isaias Valdez hopes to capitalize on Idaho’s compassion. He’s a volunteer for Compassionate Idaho, a grassroots group working to legalize medical marijuana.

Note the use of capitalize: a verb meaning “to take advantage of” according to the dictionary.  This opening could have been “Isaias Valdez believes Idaho’s compassion for others will lead them to support legalizing medical marijuana.”  But capitalize is such a competitive word, conjuring frames of opportunities and business and capitalism.

Lindsey Rinehart works with Valdez, gathering support across the state at places like the farmer’s market in Boise. They need 47,500 signatures to get a medical marijuana initiative on the November 2012 ballot.

“This is about giving people the compassion they deserve. This is about caring about your neighbors, your church, your co-workers,” said Rinehart.

And here we end the reporting on the people trying to pass medical marijuana, about one fourth of the way through this six minute report.  Interestingly, they asked Isaias what his reason was for supporting medical marijuana, but not Lindsay.  See, Isaias is a healthy young man, but Lindsay suffers from multiple sclerosis.  I personally watched her testify to the public in Ontario this summer where the pain was writ large on her face from the three hours she had to abstain from cannabis use.  It’s not as if Idaho television stations aren’t aware of this; KTRV reported in May:

Rinehart says she takes more than a dozen pills for pain, nausea, and nerve damage caused by her multiple sclerosis.  She questions the long-term side-effects of that medication, including opiates and narcotics that have been proven to cause damage to the liver and kidneys in patients.

What’s more, Rinehart says independent research shows evidence that the medical use of cannabis — or high grade marijuana — helps curb the symptoms of multiple sclerosis, helping to eliminate nausea and other pain-related conditions.

Would it cut down on her use of painkillers?

“If I could use medical marijuana, I could probably eliminate or significantly reduce my intake of narcotics,” Rinehart said.

So KTVB ignores an incredibly salient point – one of the people they’re interviewing about passing medical marijuana is a poster child for the kind of legitimate patient Idahoans are currently willing to throw in prison for using the most effective and safest medication to ease their pain.  Instead they spend almost all of the remaining 70% of the piece reporting from Fort Collins, Colorado, interviewing cops and addiction specialists and school teachers about the perils that await should Idaho “open the door to medical marijuana.”

Fort Collins is a college town in Larimer County, Colorado. There, marijuana cards have increased 1,400 percent in the county in just three years, going from 500 users to 7,500 people who now hold medicinal marijuana cards.

“There was no change in the health of our community, but the number of users, when the supply showed up commercially, we saw the users go up,” said Larimer County Sheriff Justin Smith.

“We’ve had an epidemic of chronic pain amongst our 20-40 year old males. A public health concern unprecedented,” said Scoot Crandall, Executive Director for Team Fort Collins.

Hmm, that’s interesting sarcasm, Scoot.  Kinda like erectile dysfunction affects just 2.6% of middle-aged men but once Viagra hit the market, up to 9% of men aged 18-31 had used it.  Yet I rarely hear any county sheriffs or drug counselors concerned about that recreational use of a medicine by healthy young men, despite the fact that Viagra abuse can kill, unlike marijuana.

Indeed, there probably was no change in the health of the community.  Like other communities, it likely has many people suffering from some form of chronic pain.  The Institute of Medicine reported this year that “Chronic pain affects at least 116 million American adults—more than the total affected by heart disease, cancer, and diabetes combined.”

So the thousands in Fort Collins who suffer from pain didn’t change, but their ability to access a safer, non-toxic alternative did.  It is no more surprising that medical marijuana would be popular when dispensaries open than we’d be surprised that a water fountain in the Sahara has a huge line.

Area schools have noticed an increase. In a letter to the Fort Collins City Council, Jerry Wilson, Superintendent of the Poudre School District said, “The district has seen the number of drug related expulsions increase from 13 to 40 since 2008, a 300 percent increase.” Wilson went on to say that “Students were expelled for either purchasing, selling or possessing marijuana.”

Well, that’s a junk statistic.  How much more have you been shaking kids down for pot?  Have you increased drug dog patrols?  Have you instituted drug testing?  Because you seem to be inferring that medical marijuana dispensaries have led to a tripling of marijuana use among teens.

Now the latest NSDUH numbers show an increase in monthly teen (12-17) cannabis use from 9.10% to 10.19%, the greatest rate found in any state and an increase of almost 12%.  However, it is difficult to pin this on medical marijuana in general or dispensaries in particular.  Nationally the rate of such use increased 4.6%.  In California, a state with dispensaries, saw a 12% increase similar to Colorado, but Montana, until recently a state with dispensaries, saw only a 2.3% increase, below the national rate.  Arizona, which didn’t have medical marijuana at the time, saw an 11% increase and Maine, which does have medical marijuana, saw a 6.7% decrease.

Statistics from the Colorado Department of Public Health show over 121,000 Coloradans hold marijuana cards. Sixty-eight percent are men with the average age of 40. Ninety-four percent say they need the marijuana for severe pain.

Junk statistic number two.  This is the same trick they pull in Oregon to convince people that almost all the medical marijuana patients are faking pain to get cards.  As the department’s website notes, “Severe pain accounts for 94 percent of all reported conditions; muscle spasms account for the second-most reported condition at 19 percent.  Note that percentages do not add up to 100 percent because some patients have more than one condition.”  Cancer causes pain.  Cachexia causes pain.  Multiple sclerosis causes pain.  People using medical marijuana in Colorado for conditions other than pain total 45,527.  That’s up to 37.5% of the patients saying they need medical marijuana for reasons other than severe pain.

As for the 62.5% or more who use medical marijuana solely to treat pain… so what?  They had to visit a doctor and get documentation of their condition.  They had to show chart notes to a clinic to verify three years worth of treatments for that pain.  They paid $90 to the state (that’s almost $11 million this year).  As we mentioned above, millions of Americans suffer from pain and they’re consuming 30 billion doses a year of over-the-counter NSAIDs like Advil and Aleve, including 70 million prescriptions for stronger NSAIDs like Celebrex.   It is estimated that more than 100,000 Americans are hospitalized each year and between 15,000 and 20,000 Americans die each year from ulcers and gastrointestinal bleeding linked to NSAID use.

University freshmen were open about the issue.

“How hard is it to get marijuana around here, even if you don’t have a card?” asked KTVB’s Scott Evans. “It’s pretty easy,” said Julia Waterhouse, a CU Boulder Freshman.

“Are people that sick?” asked Evans. “I don’t know. I don’t think so,” said Marella Alioto, a CU Boulder Freshman. “What do you think it is?,” asked Evans. “Recreational,” replied Alioto.

Yes, let’s ask a bunch of 18-year-old college kids what they think.  As if any college kid on any campus in America has any difficulty scoring a dime bag.  As if CU Boulder wasn’t already the site of the nation’s largest 4/20 smokeout long before any dispensaries existed.

“If you open the door on the medicinal, what’s sold as medicinal, be aware, it was opening the door to recreational use,” said Smith.

Be afraid!  If you allow a suffering person like Lindsay to ease the excruciating pain she feels from multiple sclerosis by using medical marijuana without threat of arrest, why, a freshman at Boise State might smoke pot!  Never mind that one in three of those freshman are smoking marijuana this year anyway - it doesn’t matter how many more people suffer if we can stop one young adult from lighting a doobie.

Idaho’s initiative, the Idaho Medical Choice Act, would provide people with a debilitating medical condition to possess marijuana. They would be allowed to possess two ounces or less of usable marijuana. The law would also allow them to own nine plants.

Oh, we’re talking about Idaho again?  Gee, with 70% of the story dedicated to Fort Collins, it was hard to tell.  Thanks for pointing out the differences between Idaho and Colorado regarding medical marijuana.  Let us help you with a few of the more important details you left out:

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1. Mexican drug war update
2. Fontana Sheriff sends threat letters to dispensary landlords
3. MedMJ advocates protest Obama’s San Francisco visit
4. Colombia’s president calls for global drug legalization

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Electric Tuesday: Brought to you by Cannabis Cure UK – the reform podcast for the United Kingdom

• Glebstar – “Breed”

Todd’s Toker Topics

• Hypocrisy

Behind the Headlines with NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano

• On Russia TV discussing DEA efforts to reclassify plant THC for Big Pharma

Radical Rant

• Stephen DeAngelo of Harborside points fingers of blame for federal crackdown, except at mirrors

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1. KGW News covers Russ Belville in studio on the Gallup poll results for legalization
2. Lawrence O’Donnell slams the hypocrisy of prohibition
3. West Hollywood dispensary busted is linked to B2K’s Lil Fizz

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Groovin’ Thursday: Brought to you by John Doe Radio.com

• Everlast – “I Get By”

Southern California Scene with Hollywood Hemptress Tere Joyce

• Degé Coutee from Patients Advocacy Network on the California US Attorneys crackdown on medical marijuana

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1. Federal and state law enforcement serve 56 warrants on grow ops in Vancouver, WA
2. First New Jersey town rejects dispensary
3. Colorado dispensary workers unionize with UCFW
4. Poison control took 5,000 calls on K2/Spice

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• Rockin’ Friday: Slightly Stoopid – “Slightly Stoopid”

High Times Magazine preview with Senior Editor Dave Bienenstock, author of The Official Pot Smoker’s Handbook

• Danny Danko previews the Detroit Medical Cannabis Cup

Radical Rant

• Why aren’t 16 attorneys general protesting the Obama medical marijuana crackdown?

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1. Prospective DC medical marijuana dispensary owners given three days to submit plans
2. Shoot out on Mexican border highlights the prohibition violence
3. Colorado Supreme Court may decide whether medical marijuana is a “right”
4. LA seniors eat pot brownies at a funeral, become disoriented
5. Victim of Papa John’s Pizza calling cops on his medical marijuana use receives free pizza per month from competitor pizza parlor Sexy Pizza.

Daily Toker Tunes

• Electric Tuesday: Titanoz – “Marijuana (Original Mix)”

Grassroots Activism

• Robert “Black Tuna” Platshorn on the The NORML Seniors Tour to educate older Americans on the issue of marijuana prohibition

Todd’s Toker Topics

• The Stoner Diet

Radical Rant

• Quest Diagnostics drug test data show pot positives down 20% while oxycodone positives have doubled”

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1. Washington State Democrats endorse I-502 to legalize marijuana
2. In Harmony Wellness changes business model to get around dispensary bans
3. Gov. Jerry Brown signs AB 1300, expected to allow cities to ban dispensaries
4. Two people shot by man defending medical marijuana garden

Daily Toker Tunes

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• Electric Tuesday: Ganja White Night – “Confession”

Grassroots Activism

• Isaias Valdez from Idaho NORML on this Sunday’s Idaho H.O.P.E. Fest

Todd’s Toker Topics

• Weed Around the World

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1. LA Dispensary raided, found to also have $27 million in cocaine plus Oxycontin and assault weapons
2. Arizona attorney claims police are illegally harassing and arresting lawful medical marijuana patients
3. Department of Justice moves to dismiss lawsuit by Arizona Gov. Brewer intended to thwart medmj program; DOJ pledges no prosecution of state employees in dispensary operations
4. Gov. Gary Johnson op-ed in Washington Times calls for marijuana legalization to help deal with border violence

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• Roots Monday: Jim Miller – The Legal Medicine Blues

Cannabis Community

• Portland Comedian Todd Armstrong talks about marijuana and empathy, growing up with Cletii, and Portland comedy

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• Separating the “Rev’s” from the Reverends

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1. Miracle Gro tells Wall Street Journal it is moving into the indoor medical marijuana growing market
2. ACLU of Michigan suing city of Livonia for forbidding medical marijuana under federal law
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Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

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1. Oregon dispensaries threatened by US Attorney and 33/34 Oregon District Attorneys
2. Michigan judge rules patient records from dispensary turned over to feds
3. Arizona “medical marijuana death” a case of prohibition violence, not marijuana violence
4. California sheriff cleared in shooting death of man with pellet gun guarding an outdoor marijuana grow on forest land

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• Roots Monday: Morgan Davis – “Reefer Smokin’ Man”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

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Radical Rant

• Threatening Oregon dispensaries is a stunning ignorance of the law of supply and demand