Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access
Standard Podcast Feed (27.5MB 64Kbps) | High-Def Podcast Feed (82.5MB 192Kbps)
Download audio file (NORML_SHOW_LIVE_2012-02-03.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

• Colorado Legalization Effort Comes up 2400 Valid Signatures Short
• Washington State Bill Asking Government To Reclassify Marijuana Moves Forward
• Ballot Measures Competing for Funds from Big Backers
• Firefighters Mistake Butane Hash Oil Extraction Equipment for Pipe Bomb
• “Fast and Furious” Program Sparks Lawsuit and House Hearing for the Attorney General

Daily Toker Tunes

Rockin’ Friday: Brought to you by Urb Thrasher from Urb Age Designs

• Lionize – “Superczar”

Legislative Update with NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano

• ALABAMA: The Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act (HB 25) which seeks to enact legal protections for authorized medical marijuana patients, has been marked for reintroduction in the Alabama Legislature for the session starting on February 7th. It is currently assigned to the House Committee on Health. A separate medical cannabis bill, House Bill 66, has also been prefiled in the House and is also before to the House Committee on Health, while a third measure that seeks to reduce penalties on adult cannabis possession is anticipated to be introduced shortly. You can learn more about these efforts via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.
• INDIANA: Senate lawmakers heard testimony on Tuesday, January 24, in favor of legislation, SB 347, to decriminalize marijuana possession penalties in Indiana. Lawmakers on Senate Committee on Corrections, Criminal, and Civil Matters did not vote on the measure. Therefore, there is still time for constituents to contact their Senate members and encourage them to support marijuana law reform. You can do so via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here. A separate House measure, HB 1370, that seeks to legalize the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, is pending before the House Committee on Public Policy.
• KANSAS: House Bill 2330, which seeks to enact legal protections for authorized medical marijuana patients, was heard by the House Committee on Health and Human Services on Tuesday, January 24th. You can read media coverage of the hearing here and here. You can track the progress of this measure and contact your state elected officials regarding HB 2330here.
• NEW HAMPSHIRE: Members of the House Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony on Thursday, January 25, in favor of House Bill 1705, which seeks to allow adults age 21 or over to use marijuana legally in their home. The measure also seeks to establish a regulated cannabis market governing the wholesale production and sale of marijuana. Non-commercial transactions involving less than one ounce of cannabis would not be subject to state taxation or regulation under the measure. You can watch clips from the hearing here and you can contact your elected officials in support of the measure here.
• The House Criminal Justice Committee is also scheduled to hear testimony this Thursday in favor of separate legislation, HB 1526, which seeks reduce the penalties on minor marijuana possession offenses (up to one ounce) from a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine to a nominal monetary penalty of no more than $100.00. To contact your House representative regarding HB 1526, please visit NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.
• VIRGINIA: Legislation seeking to establish a joint study committee to investigate the fiscal impact of regulating the production and sale of marijuana to adults 21 and over is anticipated to be heard by the Virginia House Committee on Rules as soon as this Thursday. You can read NORML’s published op/eds in support of this measure here and here. To learn more aboutHouse Joint Resolution 140, please visit Virginia NORML or contact your state officials here.

NORML Newsmakers

• Mark Pedersen from Sensible Missouri and Show-Me Cannabis Regulation

We have a drug test here at NORML... "Do you recognize this leaf?"

A Republican member of the Indiana General Assembly withdrew his bill to create a pilot program for drug testing welfare applicants Friday after one of his Democratic colleagues amended the measure to require drug testing for lawmakers.

The Supreme Court ruled drug testing for political candidates unconstitutional in 1997, striking down a Georgia law. McMillin said he withdrew his bill so he could reintroduce it on Monday with a lawmaker drug testing provision that would pass constitutional muster.

McMillin’s bill would overcome constitutional problems, he said, by setting up a tiered screening scheme in which people can opt-out of random testing. Those who decline random tests would only be screened if they arouse “reasonable suspicion,” either by their demeanor, by being convicted of a crime, or by missing appointments required by the welfare office.

I’m sure that “demeanor” will be judged fairly and without respect to someone’s race, education, and appearance. Certainly no prejudiced state welfare office bureaucrat wouldn’t misinterpret someone’s physical disability as being under the influence of drugs. There’s no way someone might miss a welfare appointment thanks to a broken down bus or missed ride.

Being poor is not reasonable cause to suspect someone may be using illegal drugs and, in fact, it has been shown time and again the people applying for assistance are less likely to test positive for drugs than the general populace.

Furthermore, drug testing disproportionately singles out marijuana users since it remains in one’s system the longest. Rather than discouraging a pot-smoking welfare recipient to stop, it gives incentive to switch to “synthetic pot” (K2 or Spice) that isn’t tested for or switch to alcohol and other hard drugs that eliminate from the system more quickly.

Finally, the proper response to the unnecessary, invasive, disgusting, offensive testing of poor people’s urine is not to institute unnecessary, invasive, disgusting, offensive testing of legislator’s urine. The proper response is to reject drug testing of all citizens without cause.

This K2 will only hurt you if you try to climb it.

The proven dangerous chemical compound of synthetic marijuana that is sprayed on potpourri and marketed as a legal drug has been outlawed in many states, much of that legislation passing in 2011. Some form of synthetic marijuana, sometimes marketed as incense called “Spice” or “K2″, is outlawed in 38 states now. This drug that was created due to the limit on research allowed on actual marijuana has made thousands sickened nationwide after consuming the substance sold in smoke shops and truck stops in grams with a label on it warning it is not for human consumption.

The latest data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse says that synthetic marijuana is now the number two most frequently used illicit substance among high school seniors behind actual marijuana. The adverse affects reported to hospitals after smoking synthetic marijuana have been seizures, vomiting, anxiety and accelerated heart rate and a handful of deaths have been linked to the substance.

However, the problem with the law is that it cant keep up with science. The state of Virginia made it illegal to sell or possess 10 different compounds that were marketed as the synthetic drug. One of the largest busts in the nation was in Virginia where they confiscated almost a million dollars worth of the product, packaged and ready for sell, but after testing the product, it turns out it didn’t contain one of the banned products listed in state law.

Authorities in other states that have went through the arduous task of outlawing these products have had similar stories. Cases in states where Spice and K2 are illegal have also confiscated products that have outpaced the laws. Authorities in Florida, Indiana, Illinois and Alaska have confiscated legal products they thought they had banned. Savvy Spice manufacturers have been altering their recipes enough to skirt the state bans and are now marketing the latest generations of chemicals as more potent than original formulas.

Web sites are also opening, marketing the new formulas, letting those in restricted states know that new formulas are legal for about $10 to $25 a gram. To those who fought to get the products off the market, it is frustrating to see they are still there. The case in Virginia, where almost 2000 packets of Spice was seized at a tobacco shop near a school in a raid-style fashion, is set to go to court next month. But now that samples have been tested to show only non-restrictive active ingredients, prosecutors aren’t saying whether they will go forward with the case.

External Links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070903554.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/spice-makers-alter-recipes-to-sidestep-state-laws-banning-synthetic-marijuana/2011/11/30/gIQA6gpHNP_story.html

EVERY demographic has increased its support for marijuana legalization since 2005

Yesterday we revealed The Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011.  Today we continue our Year-End Retrospective with a look at the biggest news stories of scientific research into cannabis, public opinion polls on legalization, and statistical research on cannabis consumers.  We call it The Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011.  Tomorrow we’ll continue with The Top Ten “Stupid Stoner Stories” of 2011 and Friday we conclude with the The Top Ten People in Cannabis of 2011.

The Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011 (audio mp3)

10. The Carbon Footprint of Cannabis

Cannabis Karri reported on a study that measured just how much electricity we’re using to grow cannabis indoors.

A new report conducted and published by Even Mills, PhD, a respected and long time energy analyst along with Staff Scientists at the Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory has concluded that Americans spend an amazing 1% of the entire national electricity consumption, or the equivalent of the output of seven large power plants on growing cannabis.

Since medical marijuana use has become so much more popular, and most of those states do not have a dispensary program, many more people are learning to grow marijuana indoors. The 20 terawatt-hours per year that marijuana growers use is due to the bright, often 24 hours a day lighting and an air change rate 60 times higher than a norml home. Even a modest indoor garden can have the same energy consumption rate of an entire data center. Since indoor cultivation of cannabis is a necessity to hide operations from authorities and others the energy bill to growers is about $5 billion each year. That extra energy to produce American cannabis is equal to the energy consumption of an extra 2 million average US homes. It also, unfortunately, produces greenhouse gas pollution equal to 3 million cars according to the new research.

9. Pot smokers are thinner and smarter than average

We have all suffered through jokes about cannabis consumers being fat, stupid couch potatoes.  So it was a joy in 2011 when two international studies found us to be thinner than our non-toking counterparts…

“We found that cannabis users are less likely to be obese than non-users,” [researchers said]. “We were so surprised, we thought we had [made] a mistake. Or that our results were due to the sample we studied. So we turned to another completely independent sample and found exactly the same association.”

…and smarter, too!

A new British study finds … men with high childhood IQs were up to two times more likely to use illegal drugs than their lower-scoring counterparts. Girls with high IQs were up to three times more likely to use drugs as adults. A high IQ is defined as a score between 107 and 158. An average IQ is 100. The study appears in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.

None of this means taking up pot smoking is going to shed points and boost IQ.  It does mean that some popular stereotypes about us are completely unfounded.

8. Two-thirds of patients surveyed substitute marijuana for prescription medications

Many a medical marijuana activist can tell anecdotes of patients who’ve reduced or eliminated their need for opiate pain killers by substituting cannabis.  This year, Berkeley Patients Group surveyed their patients and found two-out-of-three had done just that.

In an anonymous survey, 66% of 350 clients at the Berkeley (Calif.) Patients Group, a medical marijuana dispensary, said that they use marijuana as a prescription drug substitute. Their reasons: Cannabis offered better symptom control with fewer side effects than did prescription drugs.

Those with pain symptoms said that marijuana has less addiction potential than do opioids. Others said marijuana helped to reduce the dose of other medications.

Speaking of the addiction potential of opioids…

7. Oxycontin is five times the “gateway drug” as marijuana

Prohibitionists have been using the “Gateway Drug” scare for years to frighten the public about legalization.  Despite every study blowing the concept out of the water, it still resonates with a large segment of the voters.  So I decided to take a look at the data to find out which drug is really the one with the greatest correlation to hard drug use, and it definitely wasn’t cannabis!

We cross-referenced the NSDUH numbers based on whether someone had ever tried marijuana. We found that only 1.5% of people who have toked became monthly cocaine users. For ecstasy, crack, meth, heroin, LSD, and PCP, less than 1% of the people who’ve tried pot are using those drugs regularly. Meanwhile, 2.9% of the people who’ve ever tried an legal analgesic (pain reliever) are regular cocaine users. For ecstasy, crack, and meth, more than 1% of who tried analgesics are regular users. People who tried analgesics are more than twice as likely as people who tried pot to use heroin regularly and three times more likely to use LSD regularly.

But if opponents want to cling to the idea that we should do everything in our power to stop someone from smoking that first marijuana joint, lest they become illegal drug addicts, then it is time to prohibit Vicodin, Lortab, Lorcet, and Oxycontin, those powerful legal opioid pain killers. The first Vicodin/Lortab/Lorcet leads to almost three times the risk of becoming a non-pot illegal drug user than the first joint and almost the same risk as smoking a joint every month. That first Oxycontin is more than five times the risk for drug abuse than the first joint.

6. Drug testing is still unreliable, inaccurate, unnecessary, invasive, and counter-productive

We drug test our citizens when we suspect they’re committing a crime, when they’re applying for a job, when they’re going to school, and when they’re in an accident.  Yet drug detection for marijuana is so unreliable and unscientific that its use is an affront to all free people.

First it is the “drug dog” that police and courts believe are akin to infallible scientific instruments instead of animals with instincts to please their human masters.

The accuracy of drug- and explosives-sniffing dogs is affected by human handlers’ beliefs, possibly in response to subtle, unintentional cues, UC Davis researchers have found.

The study, published in the January issue of the journal Animal Cognition, found that detection-dog teams erroneously “alerted,” or identified a scent, when there was no scent present more than 200 times — particularly when the handler believed that there was scent present.

Next it is the “drug lab” that may mishandle as many as one in ten tests.

An Indiana state lab wrongly reported 1 in 10 marijuana cases as positive, including some that were deliberately manipulated, an audit report indicated.

The audit’s findings showed errors in about 200 of 2,000 marijuana tests reported to law enforcement as having positive results, the Star said. This includes about 50 results the report said were consciously manipulated by lab workers.

Part of the justification for testing us for employment is workplace safety.  Yet, in medical marijuana states where tens or hundreds of thousands of citizens are legally using cannabis, we’ve seen drastic declines in workplace danger.

Prior to the beginning of the medical marijuana program [in Oregon], workplace injuries and illnesses that contributed to a lost workday stood at 3.4 per 100 full-time workers; in 2009 that rate is 2.3 per 100, a decline of 32%.  No-time-lost injuries and illnesses declined 40%, from 3.5 to 2.1 per 100.  Fatalities are down from 3.3 to 1.9 per 100, a drop of 42%.

These declines occurred while the medical marijuana patient registry grew by an average of a little more than 50% per year.

Another egregious use of drug testing is to make it a requirement of citizens seeking welfare assistance.  Florida’s law to do just that has been blocked while its (un-)constitutionality is determined, but in the time it was in effect, it cost Florida more than it saved.  It also found that welfare recipients were less likely to turn up positive than the general public.

The Department of Central Florida’s (DCF) region tested 40 applicants and only two tested positive for drugs, officials said. One of the tests is being appealed.

DCF said it has been referring applicants to clinics where drug screenings cost between $30 and $35. The applicant pays for the test out of his or her own pocket and then the state reimburses him if they test comes back negative.

Therefore, the 38 applicants in the Central Florida area, who tested negative, were reimbursed at least $30 each and cost taxpayers $1,140.

Meanwhile, the state is saving less than $240 a month by refusing benefits to those two applicants who tested positive.

Finally, the unintended consequences of drug testing became more apparent.  When marijuana is the drug that is the hardest to conceal on a drug test, people will turn to drugs that are easier to conceal.

As I looked at the data, I noticed that in the span from 2005 to 2011, the positive test rate for marijuana for all workplace drug tests (pre-employment, random, and post-accident) declined 20%, from 2.5% of approximately 2.4 million tests to 2.0%.  That’s about 12,000 fewer cannabis consumers who were caught by a pee test.

Meanwhile, oxycodone positives have increased 96% for all urine testing, although these tests are administered about one tenth as often (280,000) for oxycodone as for cannabis (2,400,000).  This despite the facts that while marijuana metabolites may be detected in urine for weeks, oxycodone metabolites are flushed from one’s system in two or three days.  Furthermore, random positives for oxycodone (1.20%) are almost twice as great and post-accident positives for oxycodone (1.80%) are nearly three-times greater than pre-employment positives for oxycodone (0.65%), which suggests to me that the pre-employment screens don’t work very well at keeping oxycodone users out of the workplace.

5. For past two years, more Americans arrested for marijuana than all other drugs combined despite arrest protection for America’s One Million Legal Marijuana Users

When somebody mentions “The War on Drugs”, remind them what we’re really talking about is a “War on Marijuana”.

Nationally, there were 1,638,846 drug arrests reported to the FBI, with 52.1% of those arrests for marijuana charges.  Last year, 51.6% of all drug arrests were for marijuana, showing a slight increase in marijuana as the majority of all drug arrests.  The last time marijuana made up a majority of the “War on Drugs” was 1985, when 55.6% of all drug arrests were for marijuana.

Keep in mind that these annual marijuana arrests continue to climb even as we reduce the number of marijuana users eligible for arrest in the medical marijuana state, users who grow and use the most marijuana.

Between one to one-and-a-half million people are legally authorized by their state to use marijuana in the United States, according to data compiled by NORML from state medical marijuana registries and patient estimates.  Assuming usage of one-half to one gram of cannabis medicine per day per patient and an average retail price of $320 per ounce, these legal consumers represent a $2.3 to $6.2 billion dollar market annually.

4. Drug Czar claims medical marijuana makes more young people smoke pot, despite fewer teens smoking pot

A popular refrain of the Drug Czar is that by calling marijuana “medicine”, we lead young people to think it is less dangerous, and therefore, use goes up.

“Emerging research reveals potential links between state laws permitting access to smoked medical marijuana and higher rates of marijuana use,” said Gil Kerlikowske, Director of National Drug Control Policy. “In light of what we know regarding the serious harm of illegal drug use, I urge every family – but particularly those in states targeted by pro-drug political campaigns – to redouble their efforts to shield young people from serious harm by educating them about the real health and safety consequences caused by illegal drug use.”

Except that medical marijuana’s been around on the West Coast for over a dozen years.  Between 2003 and 2009, as more states have adopted medical marijuana, nationally the rate of monthly teen use is on the decline.

In fact, eleven of the thirteen states that had medical marijuana as of 2009 saw declines in teen marijuana use, and the five that added it after 2003 saw double-digit declines.

From 2003 to 2009 in California, monthly teen use is up only 0.26%.  In Colorado, teen use is up 3.77% in that time frame.  Yet Wyoming, a state without medical marijuana, saw the greatest increase of 5.18%.  Furthermore, looking back before 2003, to 1996 and 1998 when the West Coast legalized medical marijuana, teen use is lower now than then.

3. The people really, really want to ask the President about the legalization of marijuana that half of them support

This year, the esteemed Gallup Poll finally recorded half of the US population in support of legalizing marijuana.

Gallup reports that the 50% nationwide support for legalization also represents the first time support has outweighed opposition.  Only 46% of Americans believe marijuana should remain criminalized, with 4% undecided.

Support for marijuana legalization remains greatest in the Western states (55%) and majorities support legalization in the Midwest (54%) and East (51%).  Only voters in the South still oppose marijuana legalization (44%).  Men still support legalization at a much greater rate than women (55% vs. 46%).

Support is also greatest among younger Americans (62%), Democrats (57%), and liberals (69%).  However, support for legalization has increased even in demographics generally opposed to legalization.  Compared to Gallup’s poll last year, support increased 4% points in the South, 12% points in the Midwest, and 6% points among 50-64, but fell 1% among 65+.  Support rose 6% points among Republicans, and 4% points among conservatives. Marijuana legalization is becoming more popular with just about everyone.

President Obama, seeking input from the people on policy questions, was stunned once again to find…

On the “We the People” petitions site of Whitehouse.gov, as of this writing, NORML’s “Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol” petition is #1 by a long shot.  It has garnered over 42,000 signatures.  It needed 5,000 signatures in 30 days to generate an official response from the administration, a figure it had topped in just over three hours.

And when he asked for videos from citizens on policy issues, another stunning result…

The top question, submitted by Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, garnered 13,842 votes – over 1% of all votes cast (people could vote for more than one question).

As a police officer, I saw how waging the war on drugs has cost a trillion dollars and thousands of lives but does nothing to reduce drug use. Should we discuss legalizing marijuana and other drugs, which would eliminate the violent criminal market?

Of the 193,060 people who voted more than 7% voted for the LEAP question.  That’s about one in fourteen people who took the time to Ask Obama.

2. National Cancer Institute drama over anti-tumoral effects of cannabis

A very high-profile battle over scientific integrity played itself out on the webpage of Cancer.gov, the government’s site for the National Cancer Institute.  It began when the site surprisingly updated its summary page on cannabis and cannabinoids.

The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. In the practice of integrative oncology, the health care provider may recommend medicinal Cannabis not only for symptom management but also for its possible direct antitumor effect.

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumor angiogenesis and metastasis. [9-11] Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death. These compounds have been shown to induce apoptosis in glioma cells in culture and induce regression of glioma tumors in mice and rats.

Then it appeared that somebody pressured NCI to revise its update to better align with the government’s prohibition of cannabis.  The paragraphs above were removed and replaced with:

The potential benefits of medicinal Cannabis for people living with cancer include antiemetic effects, appetite stimulation, pain relief, and improved sleep. Though no relevant surveys of practice patterns exist, it appears that physicians caring for cancer patients who prescribe medicinal Cannabis predominantly do so for symptom management.

Then NCI updated the “clinical studies” portion of the website to again highlight the anti-tumoral effects:

One study in mice and rats suggested that cannabinoids may have a protective effect against the development of certain types of tumors.

Decreased incidences of benign tumors(polyps and adenomas) in other organs(mammary gland, uterus, pituitary, testis, and pancreas)were also noted in the rats.

Cannabinoids may cause antitumor effects by various mechanisms, including induction of cell death, inhibition of cell growth, and inhibition of tumorangiogenesis and metastasis.

Cannabinoids appear to kill tumor cells but do not affect their nontransformed counterparts and may even protect them from cell death.

1. Colorado’s 5ng/mL per se DUID bill dies again as new research backs higher thresholds for regular users

We tackled drug testing above in #6, but this story takes #1 for showing how science and the scientific method can actually beat back prohibition.  Colorado had proposed a 5ng of THC per milliliter of blood (5ng/mL) per se DUID, meaning: if you test positive on a drug test above 5ng/mL, you’re automatically guilty of DUI, whether you were impaired or not.

Naturally, many medical marijuana patients in Colorado complained that they are such frequent and heavy users of cannabis that they would never be under such a threshold.  Furthermore, most of them have developed a tolerance to cannabis’ effects that allows them to drive under its influence without impairment, much as we understand an “until you know how [Pill X] affects you, do not drive or operate heavy machinery” warning on a pharmaceutical.

The “pot critic” of Denver’s WestWord, William Breathes, decided to become the experiment by abstaining from cannabis use under controlled conditions.  After sixteen hours and a night’s sleep, upon awakening, presumably clean and sober, Breathes was tested at 13ng/mL.  This anecdotal report, splashed all over the Denver media, was also backed up by the latest scientific research:

It concludes: “A threshold of 2-3ng/ml THC as an indicator of recent drug use (i.e, smoking within the previous 6 hours) as recommended by Huestis et al appears to be valid only for occasional users. Heavy users might exhibit measurable cannabinoid concentrations in blood, even if the last cannabis use was more than 24 hours ago.… Therefore, cannabinoid concentrations in heavy users’ blood from a later elimination phase might not be distinguished from an acute use of an occasional user.”

Earlier this week, the US Supreme Court ruled that all cops need to break down a citizen’s door is the smell of burning marijuana and the sound of somebody moving.

Following that ruling, news broke yesterday of the Indiana Supreme Court ruling 3-2 in Barnes v. Indiana that even if they don’t have that tenuous legal standing to break down your door, even if the police intrusion into your home is 100% illegal, citizens have no right to resist the intrusion.

(Front Page Mag) The case involved a domestic dispute and the Court ruled 3-2 that police can force their way into a person’s home without a warrant if they deem such entry is necessary. Writing for the majority, Justice Steven David said that “a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence. We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest.”

While noting that the right to resist unlawful police action “existed for over three hundred years” and possibly as far back as the “Magna Carta in 1215,” the Court cited numerous precedents, one of which was the contention that, in the 1920s, “legal scholarship began criticizing the [Fourth Amendment] as valuing individual liberty over physical security of the officers,” noting that such resistance in earlier times “did not involve the serious dangers it presents today.” The Supreme Court contended that the Appeals Court was wrong when “it ultimately focused on the heightened expectation of privacy in one‘s home” instead of those dangers. Furthermore, the Court ruled that the defendant had other legal remedies to address the officer’s unlawfulness, including “bail.. prompt arraignment and determination of probable cause..the exclusionary rule…police department internal review and disciplinary procedure…and civil remedies.”

After the cops break down your door in the middle of the night on the hunch you might be a criminal, with no warrant, probable cause, or knocking, you can ask the police department to internally review the situation – certainly they will be fair and unbiased.  After the cops illegally enter your home and shoot your dog as it instinctually defends its territory, the police’s internal review can issue disciplinary procedures against the dog killer, like administrative leave without pay.  Once you’ve been rousted from your slumber and your family terrorized, your wife can try to arrange a 3am bail bond paid by the enormous bankroll you keep on hand as the 4am shift supervisor at an IHOP.  After you’ve not been able to afford bail and lost your job waiting around in a cell all weekend for that prompt arraignment to determine probable cause, your public defender can use the exclusionary rule to squelch any evidence found in the illegal search, assuming they actually found something illegal.  Finally, after you’ve been freed to your new life of unemployment and homelessness, you can pursue a civil remedy by suing the cops who violated your rights, because plenty of lawyers will work for you for free.

At least two justices dissented, recognizing that the 4th Amendment doesn’t have an “unless people might get hurt” clause:

Justices Brent Dickson and Robert Rucker dissented from the decision, with Dickson stating that “the wholesale abrogation of the historic right of a person to reasonably resist unlawful police entry into his dwelling is unwarranted and unnecessarily broad,” insisting that the Court could have taken “a more narrow approach, construing the right to resist unlawful police entry, which extends only to reasonable resistance, by deeming unreasonable a person’s resistance to police entry in the course of investigating reports of domestic violence.” Justice Rucker who called the decision a “breathtaking” erosion of the Fourth Amendment, contended there is is “simply no reason to abrogate the common law right of a citizen to resist the unlawful police entry into his or her home.”

Here’s what the majority in this case and the majority in the Kentucky v. King case fail to consider: many of us live in places where police may not be the only ones who want to break down our doors and terrorize us.  Some of us live in neighborhoods where you don’t bother calling 911 after dark because they won’t come.  It’s bad enough that I can’t seem to train my dog to bark aggressively at thugs breaking down the door but sit obediently for cops doing the same.  Now we both have to sit obediently when anyone breaks down the door claiming to be police.  How do I know in that split second waking up to a ruckus in my home at 3am that the black clad flashlight-pointing men are actual police breaking in legally, actual police breaking in illegally, or smart thugs who yell “police” when they are breaking in illegally so I won’t fight back?

While some police departments in Indiana have asserted this won’t at all change how they go about their investigations, there is one Indiana Sheriff Don Hartman Sr. who can’t wait to begin random door-to-door searches.

(Mike Church Show) CROWN POINT, Ind. – According to Newton County Sheriff, Don Hartman Sr., random house to house searches are now possible and could be helpful following the Barnes v. STATE of INDIANA Supreme Court ruling issued on May 12^th, 2011. When asked three separate times due to the astounding callousness as it relates to trampling the inherent natural rights of Americans, he emphatically indicated that he would use random house to house checks, adding he felt people will welcome random searches if it means capturing a criminal.

Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a local city Police Chief with 30 years experience in law enforcement directly contradicted the Newton County Sheriff’s blatant disregard for privacy & liberty, stating that as an American first, such an action is unconscionable and that his allegiance is to the Indiana and federal Constitutions respectively. However, he also concurred that the ruling does now allow for police to randomly search homes should a department be under order by state or federal officials or under a department’s own accord.

Most people have only a hazy understanding of their civil rights and maybe only a few can even bullet-point them as “Free Speech!”, “Freedom of Religion!”, and “Right to Bear Arms!”.  But one of those bullet points nearly every American will feel in his gut, even if it’s not an exact summary of the 4th Amendment, is “A Man’s Home is His Castle”.  But now, this Indiana ruling disarms the parapets.  The Supreme Court ruling lowers the drawbridge and invites in the king’s constables.  Earlier rulings about drug-sniffing dogs and infra-red scanning technologies tear down the castle walls.  Rulings on GPS tracking technology and drug testing place the king’s agents in supervisory positions over us 24 hours a day, surveilling and recording our every movement and consumption.  A man’s home is no more than his fish bowl.

Download Link: Secret Stash - Register to access
Download audio file (NORML_Daily_AudioStash_2011-04-11.mp3)

Hemp Headlines

Brought to you by Cannabis Fantastic

1. Nevada introduces bill to create medical marijuana dispensaries
2. Maine introduces marijuana legalization bill
3. Indiana discovers over 200 mistakes in drug testing cases from 2007-2009
4. Maryland set to pass bill for true affirmative defense for medical marijuana

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by CannaBob and The Viper Hour on The NORML Network

• Roots Monday: Kevin O’Grady – “Marijuana Australiana (live in an Irish pub)”

Cannabis Conversations

• Alison Holcomb from ACLU of Washington and Kevin Oliver from Washington NORML on Washington’s SB 5073 to create legal dispensaries and voluntary registry cards

NORML Activism Alerts

• Connecticut judiciary committee set to vote on decriminalization measure tomorrow

Not only is Indiana considering medical marijuana, there are also looking at decriminalizing the possession of small amounts and controlling marijuana with regulated sales and taxation, as alcohol is regulated.  The Legalization Train Rolls On.

(pal-item) The Indiana Senate this week approved a study on Indiana’s marijuana policies, including costs for the state’s criminal justice system and the potential for regulation and taxation options. Senate Bill 192 was approved on a vote of 28-21.

State Rep. Tom Knollman, R-Liberty, testified last week before a Senate committee on the issue of medical uses for marijuana. Knollman, a Union County farmer who has multiple sclerosis, told the committee he’d like the opportunity to try marijuana to relieve the pain he suffers. Prescription pain medications often don’t provide much relief, he said.

If the Indiana House agrees with S.B. 192, the Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee would review the issues later this year and make recommendations on the medical use of marijuana, decriminalizing the possession of small amounts and controlling marijuana with regulated sales and taxation, as alcohol is regulated.

Indiana would not be the first state to consider loosening state regulations of marijuana. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use and 13 states have decriminalized possession of small amounts.

INDIANAPOLIS, Feb. 3 (UPI) — An Indiana state lab wrongly reported 1 in 10 marijuana cases as positive, including some that were deliberately manipulated, an audit report indicated.

The audit’s findings showed errors in about 200 of 2,000 marijuana tests reported to law enforcement as having positive results, the Star said. This includes about 50 results the report said were consciously manipulated by lab workers.

The audit, conducted by outside scientists, was originally going to cover every case with a positive lab result from 2007 to 2009 — more than 10,000 overall.

But the initial findings are so troubling [officials] will probably extend the audit back to 2006.

Read more: http://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2011/02/03/Errors-found-in-Ind-state-drug-test-lab/UPI-12581296750524/#ixzz1DXNh9gBy

Every positive marijuana case falsely reported is someone who was wrongly suspected, wrongly convicted, or wrongly charged with a probation or parole violation.  No drug detection technology is perfect, but a 10% failure rate and 2.5% manipulation rate is an unacceptable measure for revoking someone’s liberty.  How many swore to loved ones they had stopped using cannabis only to have their trust shattered with a 1-in-10 mistake from the drug lab?

Prohibitionists will read this story and say the problem is solved by improving the technology and verifying the procedures, never pausing to consider whether it’s right or necessary to inspect people’s bodies for evidence of cannabis use.

Hemp Headlines

1. Rhode Island dispensaries predicted to sell at $200-$500 per ounce
2. Whidbey Island, Washington man sets plants ablaze in protest
3. Company offers “raid insurance” against medical marijuana raids by state and local police
4. Indiana legislature discusses proposal to study legalization of marijuana

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Cannabis Cure UK

• Electric Tuesday: Lore Crew – “Analyst on the Cannabis”

Government at Work

• REPLAY: Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) on marijuana law reform

Radical Rant

<embed src="http://player.stickam.com/flashVarMediaPlayer/190856967"
type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" scale="noscale"
allowFullScreen="true" width="400" height="300" allowScriptAccess="always"></embed>

• Egypt uprising sparked by cops’ murder of suspect over pot

Senate Bill 192, sponsored by State Senator Karen Tallian (D-Portage), calls for a legislative review to be conducted by the Criminal Law and Sentencing Policy Study Committee later this year. In a prepared statement, Sen. Tallian said:

“The legislative review will compliment the ongoing work to reform Indiana’s sentencing laws by concentrating state correctional resources on the most violent criminals and taking a smarter approach to those who commit lesser offenses. In light of the state’s budget crisis, we need to make every effort to find more effective uses of taxpayer dollars.”

“Every year, we spend countless dollars pursuing these non-violent offenders. This study would provide an assessment of the actual costs to our criminal justice system including the impact on law enforcement, prosecution, and sentencing. It will also provide members of the public with the opportunity to voice their opinions on the state’s current policies and other options for regulating marijuana.”

“Indiana would not be alone in this effort, but in fact is behind most states in considering alternative policies. Fifteen states and the District of Columbia have legalized marijuana for medical use. Thirteen states have decriminalized possession of small amounts. Many other states are expected to consider medical marijuana or decriminalization of possession in small amounts this year. While Indiana may not be prepared to take steps in this direction, a complete study would provide the data and facts needed to make more informed decisions in the future.”

Under present state law, a minor marijuana possession offense is classified as criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $5,000 fine.

Additional information on this and other marijuana law reform efforts in Indiana is available from Indiana NORML here.

More here:
Lawmakers To Debate Measure To Review Indiana Marijuana Laws