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1. Study: whites and Native Americans whose youth have the greatest drug use rates
2. San Diego landlords are given the go-ahead to evict dispensary tenants
3. K2 linked to heart attacks in young people
4. Missouri Show-Me Cannabis Regulation gets approval for signature gathering
5. Russian pilot likes getting high

Daily Toker Tunes

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

• Human Revolution – “Stolen Lives”

Cannabis Conversations

• Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann on Obama’s Reefer Madness

Todd’s Toker Topics

• The End of Prohibition

On today’s NORML SHOW LIVE we were thrilled to interview Dr. Ethan Nadelmann, the Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance, for a wide-ranging discussion of drug law reform, beginning with his recent New York Times op-ed on President Obama’s recent “Reefer Madness“.

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Author and Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of Drug Policy Alliance, at 2009 Albuquerque Reform Conference.

Drug Policy Alliance Executive Director Ethan Nadelmann has penned an excellent op-ed appearing in today’s New York Times entitled “Reefer Madness”.

Perhaps not since the civil rights era has law enforcement played such an aggressive role in what is essentially a cultural and political struggle. But this time the federal government is playing the bully, riding roughshod over states’ rights, not to protect vulnerable individuals but to harm them.

At the federal level, there have been few voices of protest. Senior Democrats on Capitol Hill shy away from speaking out. Republicans mostly ignore the extent to which anti-marijuana zealotry threatens core conservative values like states rights, property rights and gun ownership.

Mr. Obama briefly showed a willingness to challenge the drug-war mind-set that permeates the federal drug-control establishment. He needs to show leadership and intervene now, to encourage and defend responsible state and local regulation of medical marijuana.

Dr. Nadelmann will be our guest on Tuesday’s edition of NORML SHOW LIVE, airing at 1pm, 4pm, and 10pm Pacific on The NORML Network.

(Drug Policy Alliance) New York – Yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law bipartisan legislation that seeks to reduce the number of preventable deaths resulting from accidental drug or alcohol overdoses. The bipartisan legislation makes New York the largest state in the country to take aggressive action to curb accidental overdose fatalities by removing barriers to accessing emergency health services.

A national overdose crisis has emerged in recent years as the number of deaths from both illegal and legal drugs has skyrocketed. New York is among the many states where drug overdose fatalities are the number one accidental death, surpassing even motor vehicle deaths. Tragically, most of these deaths are preventable. Although studies indicate that most people overdose in the presence of others, most people do not call for emergency services.

Numerous studies have show that the number one reason that people don’t call 911 in an overdose situation is fear of arrest and criminal prosecution for drug possession. To encourage people to seek emergency health services in the event of an accidental overdose,  New York’s 911 Good Samaritan law provides limited protections from charge and prosecution for possession of small amounts of drugs. Those who sell drugs are not protected under the new law.

Of course I’m happy about this law, but isn’t it a bit strange?  We have a law that says if you have small personal amounts of drugs we need to arrest and imprison you so you don’t overdose.  However, if your friend has drugs and overdoses on them, we won’t arrest you for small personal amounts of drugs if you call 911 to help him.  Well, gee, if the first law was having any effect on preventing overdoses, we wouldn’t need the second law to provide an exception, would we?

How about we just don’t have arrests and imprisonment for small personal amounts of drugs even if nobody nearby is dying from them?  That way, anyone possessing drugs at any time could call 911 for any emergency, not just overdoses.  The advocates behind this law point out how people don’t call 911 during overdose for fear of arrest, so wouldn’t that also apply to calling 911 during a domestic assault, robbery, or non-overdose-related medical emergency?  It’s nice that the overdose victim will now get emergency response but how many other crime victims won’t because a drug-possessing witness won’t call 911?  Where’s their “Good Samaritan Law”?

I find preposterous the notion that you, sir, may be addicted to cannabis. In times previous I have undertaken lubricious endeavors most revolting and unbecoming of a proper gentleman in my servitude to the wicked powder of the coca leaf! Lo, that is an addiction whose chains would bind Hercules! At any point in history could one identify a moment in your life so sullied by your ignominy as a cannabis slave? Methinks not! Boo this man!

I have always maintained that drug courts, while preferable to sending people to prison, are really just a different form of incarceration for cannabis consumers whose only problem with pot was getting caught.  A majority of tokers (57%) who go to rehab for cannabis use were forced to go there by a drug court or other criminal justice situations that gave them the “choice” of rehab or jail.  Over a third (37%) in rehab for cannabis hadn’t even used cannabis for the prior month and another 16% only used cannabis 1-3 times in the prior month.  Because, you know, it’s so grippingly addictive.

Now the Drug Policy Alliance has released a report that shows not only are these forced rehabs for tokers a gilded cage, they are ineffective and worse!

Washington, D.C. – At two briefings on Capitol Hill today, the Drug Policy Alliance released a groundbreaking new report, Drug Courts are Not the Answer: Toward a Health-Centered Approach to Drug Use (www.drugpolicy.org/drugcourts), which finds that drug courts have not demonstrated cost savings, reduced incarceration, or improved public safety; leave many people worse off for trying; and have actually made the criminal justice system more punitive toward addiction – not less.

The Justice Policy Institute today also released its own independent report on drug courts, Addicted to Courts: How a Growing Dependence on Drug Courts Impacts People and Communities (http://www.justicepolicy.org/drugcourts), which finds that providing people with alternatives like community-based treatment are more cost-effective and provide greater public safety benefits than treatment that comes with the collateral consequences associated with involvement in the criminal justice system. For more information on this JPI report, contact Jason Fenster at 202.558.7974 x 306 or jfenster@justicepolicy.org.

You should check out the whole report, it is chock full of great information.  Here are the highlights:

Key Findings of DPA’s Drug Courts Are Not the Answer:

Drug Courts Have Not Demonstrated Cost Savings, Reduced Incarceration, or Improved Public Safety

• Unscientific and poorly designed research has failed to take into account that: drug courts often “cherry pick” people expected to do well; many people end up in a drug court because they are offered the option of jail or treatment for a petty drug law violation, including marijuana; and, as a result, drug courts do not typically divert people from lengthy prison terms. Given drug courts’ focus on low-level offenses, even positive results for individual participants translate into little public safety benefit to the community. Treatment in the community, whether voluntary or probation-supervised, often produces better results.

Yeah, no wonder the Drug Czar’s office can proclaim “Research verifies that no other justice intervention can rival the dramatic results of those produced by drug courts” – you’re successfully rehabilitating a whole bunch of pot smokers who need no rehabilitation!  What do you know, when we force pot smokers to rehab, randomly test their pee, and keep them on probation, surprisingly few of them re-offend!  Because the rehab cured that terrible addiction to cannabis that they never had in the first place!

Drug Courts Leave Many People Worse Off for Trying

• The widespread use of incarceration – for failing a drug test, missing an appointment or being a “knucklehead” – means that some participants end up serving more time behind bars than if they had not entered drug court. And some participants deemed “failures” may actually face longer sentences than those who did not enter drug court in the first place (often because they lost the opportunity to plead to a lesser charge). Even those not in drug court may be negatively affected by them, since drug courts have been associated with increased arrests and incarceration in some cases – because law enforcement and others believe people will “get help” if they are arrested but drug courts’ limited capacity and strict eligibility requirements mean that many of those additionally arrested end up conventionally sentenced.

In my job I have listened to the stories of parents who thought they would “get help” for their drug-using adult child by narcing them out to police.  Tough love, they thought, but not too tough because they thought the drug court would just force him to go to treatment in order to avoid jail.  Too bad their child also kept a legally-owned shotgun at the house and a triple-beam scale and he didn’t qualify for the drug court.

Drug Courts Are More Punitive Toward Addiction – Not Less

• Some people with serious drug problems respond to treatment in the drug court context; not the majority. The participants who stand the best chance of succeeding in drug courts are those without a drug problem, while those struggling with compulsive drug use are more likely to end up incarcerated.

Because here’s the thing about people with drug problems: they are physiologically addicted to a drug.  It is a rewiring of the brain.  When presented with options like “stop doing that” or “go to jail”, you cannot make the sensible choice.  That’s what addiction is.  Relapses are virtually guaranteed, so the threat of prison time for failing to maintain sobriety works against maintaining sobriety in the first place.  People struggling with addiction sometimes make their greatest gains after a relapse.

And here’s the thing about people who smoke pot.  Nearly none of us have any sort of problems resultant from our use.  NIDA claims 9% of users are “clinically dependent”.  Aside from its criminal prohibition, cannabis is a positive in our lives.  It relaxes us.  It heals some of us.  It builds social bonds.  Most of all, it is not hurting you.

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Hemp Headlines

1. Two men overdose on mephadrone, a legal plant stimulant, before one ships out to the Army
2. Montana man evicted from his subsidized housing for his medical marijuana card
3. New movie chronicling the life of UK cannabis smuggler Howard Mark is released
4. RAND Corp. study says that the Mexican drug trafficking organizations don’t get 60% of their revenue from marijuana… even though ONDCP claimed they did

Daily Toker Tunes

• P.A.I.N. featuring Howard Marks – “Let Me Grow More Weed”

Cannabis Conversations

• Stephen Gutwillig, California Director of Drug Policy Alliance, on RAND Study about Prop 19 and Mexican DTO profits

Radical Rant

• LA Weekly blog on Latino support of Prop 19 isn’t just racist, it’s statistically inaccurate

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Hemp Headlines

1. Weed, California, says no to dispensaries and, if Prop 19 passes, weed stores
2. Newspapers cite advertising from cannabusiness as major income source keeping papers afloat
3. Portland Police Bureau resistant to random drug testing in new contract negotiations

Daily Toker Tunes

• Electric Tuesday: Veekey & DJ HOAK – “Take Me Higher (Radio Edit)”

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• Felipe Rose from the Village People on Prop 19

Cannabis Conversations

• Jasmine Tyler from Drug Policy Alliance on The New Jim Crow

Radical Rant

• Portland Police thinks that random drug testing is an invasion of privacy? Yeah, so do we!

Gov. Gary Johnson at NORML National Conference (Cannabis Culture Magazine)

More of the NORML National Conference Audio can be found at Thursday Plenary Audio and Friday Plenary Audio.  The Special Events RSS Feed is here.

Opening Remarks

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 01 – Allen St. Pierre – The Moral Imperative

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 02 – Gov. Gary Johnson – Keynote Address

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 03 – Dustin Sulak – Medical Marijuana Clinical Applications, Physiology and Patient Education

It Can’t Hurt to Ask — Research on Patient Experiences With Medical Cannabis

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 04 – Amanda Reiman, Ph.D, UC Berkeley, Berkeley Patients Group – Medical cannabis as a drug substitute

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 05 – Jenny Janichek, HHC Harm Reduction Clinical Consultant – Cannabis as an ‘exit’ drug

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 06 – Dale Gieringer, Ph.D, California NORML – Patient experiences with CBD-prominent cannabis strains

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 07 – Frank Lucido, MD, Berkeley – Cannabis and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 08 – Philippe Lucas, Vancouver Island Compassion Society – Research on Patient Experiences With Medical Cannabis

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 09 – Research on Patient Experiences With Medical Cannabis panel Questions and Answers

Not Your Father’s Medical Marijuana — Latest Breakthrough in Cannabis Science

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 10 – Mitch Earlywine, Ph.D (SUNYAlbany) – Cannabinoids therapeutics in psychiatric disorders, pros and cons

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 11 – Jahan Marcu, Temple University – Anti-cancer properties of cannabinoids and implications for clinical applications

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 12 – Paul Armentano, Deputy Director, NORML – Moving beyond symptom management

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 13 – Michelle Sexton, MD, U of WA School of Medicine – Anti-inflammatory properties of cannabinoids and implications for clinical applications

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 14 – Greg Carter, MD, U of WA School of Medicine – Cannabinoids as neuroprotectants

The Future of Medical Cannabis Distribution

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 15 – Rielle Capler, Canadians for Safe Access – Proscons of Canadian government distribution model

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 16 – Bill Panzer, Esq., NORML Board of Directors – Latest developments in CA, esp. LA ordinance and QPA v Anaheim

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 17 – Leland Berger, Esq., NORML Legal Committee – Procons of proposed Oregon dispensary measure

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 18 – Warren Edson, Esq., NORML Legal Committee – Proscons of Colorado dispensary regulations

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 19 – Matt Abel, Esq., NORML Legal Committee – Grey market for medical dispensaries in Michigan

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 20 – Cisco McSorley, New Mexico State Senator – Improvements needed in the NM distribution system

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 21 – Jill Harris, Director of Public Policy, Drug Policy Alliance – East coast, state regulated dispensary models (RI, ME, NJ)

Which Way For Medical Marijuana?

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 22 – Stephen Gutwillig, Drug Policy Alliance, California – Medical marijuana law reform inherently moves forward broader reform efforts

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 23 – Russ Belville – Do medical marijuana laws pose a ‘boxed canyon’ for broader reform efforts

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 24 – Stephen DeAngelo, CEO, Harborside Health Center – Where Is Flip The Switch Now

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 25 – Steph Sherer, Executive Director, Americans for Safe Access – Medical marijuana is, and should remain, a separate issue from broader reform efforts

Closing Remarks

NORML CON 2010 (SAT) 26 – Paul Armentano, Deputy Director, NORML – The Future of Medical Cannabis Moving Forward and Countering Our Critics

NORML Founder / Legal Counsel Keith Stroup and California NAACP Executive Director Alice Huffman (Photo: NORML Conference 2010 and David Sygall www.e-shot.com)

See Thursday Plenary Audio post for more MP3s from NORML Conference.  The Special Events RSS Feed is here.

Opening Remarks

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 01 – Rick Steves – Marijuana The European Perspective

The New Jim Crow: Marijuana Prohibition

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 02 – Dr. Harry Levine – Queens College, New York

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 03 – Jasmine Tyler – Drug Policy Alliance

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 04 – Neill Franklin – Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 05 – Alice Huffman – California NAACP

NORML Women’s Alliance: Women, Cannabis and Respect

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 06 – Marsha Rosenbaum – Drug Policy Alliance

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 07 – Greta Gaines – Nashville Musician

California Legalization Initiative: Prop. 19’s Current Impact and Future Implications For American Marijuana Policy

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 08 – Allen St. Pierre – Prop 19′s Current Impact and Future Implications

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 09 – Matt Welch – Editor, Reason Magazine

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 10 – Michael Whitney – Communications Director, FireDogLake

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 11 – Paul Armentano – NORML Deputy Director

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 12 – Ethan Nadelmann – Executive Director, Drug Policy Alliance

NORML CON 2010 (FRI) 13 – Prop 19 Panel Questions and Answers

US Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR) at NORML National Conference (©2010 by L.K.)

[UPDATE: Added Thursday Break-Out Audio] I’m editing and compressing the audio from NORML Conference as fast as I can. Below are links to our Thursday Plenary audio files, which you can also get by subscribing to our Special Events Feed with iTunes or other MP3 player.

Sabrina Fendrick has also posted a new set of conference photos from the NORML Flickr account here.

Opening Remarks

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 01 – Steve Dillon

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 02 – Allen St. Pierre

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 03 – US Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR)

Panel: Just Say Now: Full Legalization, Full Steam Ahead

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 04 – Craig Reinarman, Ph.D, Univ. of California/Santa Cruz

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 05 – David Nott, Executive Director, Reason Foundation

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 06 – Neill Franklin, Executive Director, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP)

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 07 – Michael Whitney, FireDogLake.com

Panel: Pot Politics 2010 and Beyond

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 08 – John Sajo, VoterPower (OR Measure 74)

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 09 – Chris Conrad (CA Prop 19)

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 10 – Matt Abel, NORML Legal Committee, Detroit decriminalization initiative

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 11 – Dale Gieringer, CA NORML, CA SB 1449 (decrim)

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 12 – Chris Goldstein, Pennsylvanians for Medical Marijuana, PA medical use legislation

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 13 – Bill Piper, Drug Policy Alliance, Washington, DC dispensary system

Breakout Panel: Tools for Activists

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 14 – Russ Belville, NORML Outreach Coordinator, Using Data to Make Your Case for Legalization

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 15 – Garret Overstreet, Executive Director Tulsa NORML – Leveraging the Power of the Internet and Social Networks

NORML CON 2010 (THU) 16 – Anthony Johnson, Co-Chief Petitioner Oregon Measure 74 – Ballot Initiatives, Local and Statewide, from Concept to Ballot