“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.

(LAist Blog) From lawsuits to raids, around 20 local marijuana dispensaries today were subject of various law enforcement activities. As the DEA served a search warrant to Organica Collective in Culver City this morning, the Los Angeles City Attorney’s office announced the filing of lawsuits against three medical marijuana dispensaries, including Organica, which has been subject of raids in the past.

Somebody's pants are on fire, Mr. Attorney General...

“It’s a separate thing,” explained Sarah Pullen with the DEA. “We were aware of each other’s operation today.” Pullen could not elaborate further than that search warrants being served. Witnesses tell the LA Times that three men were seen detained in handcuffs.

Los Angeles City Attorneys said nuisance and narcotics abatement lawsuits were filed against Organica and two Holistic Caregivers locations for violating the Narcotics Abatement Law, Public Nuisance Law and the Sherman Food, Drug and Cosmetics Law. Organica’s owner, Jeffrey Joseph, is the subject of an arrest warrant for sales of marijuana.

The recent medical marijuana ordinance passed by the Los Angeles City Council has nothing to do with today’s activities as that law has not been finalized. However, the City Attorney’s office contends the sale of marijuana is illegal under state law. Collectives, where the costs of cultivation are shared, are legal, they say.

City Attorneys also “sent eviction letters to owners of 18 different dispensaries and owners of the properties engaged in the sale of marijuana by dispensary employees,” according to a press release.

What was that Attorney General Eric Holder said?

Click here to view the embedded video.

What was that President Obama said?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.  We don’t want to hear word parsing excuses – oh, but they aren’t legal under state law; oh, they’re not a collective, etc.  The results are the same: medical marijuana patients being terrorized by federal authorities as they try to get their medicine.

Will you send the armed agents when California votes for outright legalization this November?  Will you cling so desperately to another failed prohibition that you’re willing to pit the federal government against its largest state?

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Hemp Headlines

1. DARE is debunked by the LA Times in response to DARE chairman’s plea to keep MJ illegal.
2. YouTube Citizen’s Forum for President Obama ignores marijuana legalization, once again the top ranking question.
3. Hemp legislation clears assembly in Wisconsin

Daily Toker Tunes

Brought to you by Sahra Kant Photography and Girls4Ganja.com

• Electric Tuesday: Slotty Bandit – “Mary Jane”

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• Don Lattin, author of “The Harvard Psychedelic Club”

California Marijuana Report with Eric Brenner

• Mieko Hester-Perez, mother treating her son with medical marijuana for autism.

Rated R... just like "Ninja Assassin"

(LA Times) A minor ruckus has erupted in Hollywood over the R rating assigned to the Meryl Streep romantic comedy, “It’s Complicated,” as reported in The Times’ Dec. 10 post on the Company Town blog, “It’s complicated, but ‘It’s Complicated’ will be released with an R rating.” According to The Times, those familiar with the Motion Picture Assn. of America’s hearing on the movie say a scene featuring “pot smoking with no bad consequences” was key to the decision.

The ratings board made its intentions clear when it slapped an R rating on “It’s Complicated” for including a brief, realistic depiction of adult marijuana use. The movie also briefly bares the buttocks of a double for Alec Baldwin. But according to industry insiders, the reason for the R rating is marijuana: The film dares to show beloved stars Baldwin and Streep casually using marijuana and enjoying it, followed by Streep dangling a joint in front of Steve Martin, all without suffering any adverse consequences.

In the Golden Age of Hollywood, a male and female character could not be shown in bed together.  Early television sit-coms featuring married couples, like I Love Lucy, had to have the husband and wife sleeping in separate beds.  There was even a rule that if a male and female were on a bed, even married and fully clothed, that each had to have one foot on the floor at all times..

That’s what this story sounds like to me as I read it.  The MPAA, protecting our children from images of adults using cannabis without adverse consequences, when survey after survey shows well over four out of five teenagers find it easy to get marijuana, easier than beer, and one out of eight teenagers will use marijuana this year.  Over half of all adults aged 18-49 have tried marijuana and about a third aged 50-65 have done so.  Meryl Streep and Alec Baldwin giggling over a joint in bed is hardly the opening of Pandora’s Box here.

(LA Times) Two medical marijuana groups are threatening to sue the city of Los Angeles if the City Council passes an ordinance that bans the sale of medical marijuana. Two council committees are meeting today to try to finish drafting an ordinance that contains the controversial provision.

Dispensary operators have consistently said they are uncertain they could stay open with such a restriction. Most collectives, which are required to be not-for-profit, sell marijuana to their members, but they consider it a donation to reimburse their costs.

The prohibition on sales was written by the city attorney’s office. In a lengthy analysis of state law and court decisions, City Atty. Carmen Trutanich concluded that over-the-counter sales of medical marijuana are not allowed. Instead, he said, collectives are shielded from prosecution only when they are growing it.

Both medical marijuana organizations, the Union of Medical Marijuana Patients and Americans for Safe Access, take issue with Trutanich’s view, saying he has misinterpreted the law and the court decisions.

In other news, City Attorney Trutanich and the City Council have announced plans to close the barn door after the horse has bolted.  Creating some regulations that clearly spelled out the rights and responsibilities of collectives in Los Angeles County is a great plan for 2006 or 2007.  But it is almost 2010 and there are almost 1000 retail outlets selling marijuana in the city.  What do you expect the backlash will be when tens of thousands of Los Angelenos can no longer browse and pick up their marijuana is a safe, indoor, controlled retail outlet, and instead must return to the back alleys and city parks of the black market marijuana dealer?  What will happen when customers accustomed to convenience and quality have to return to waiting for a call-back from “their guy” for a bag of questionable quality and light weight?

For one thing, most of the successful dispensaries will go semi-underground and become delivery services.  The rest will go back to the way things used to run, dealing in the street and through clandestine networks.  The prices will increase, access will decrease, and truly sick and disabled patients will suffer needlessly.

The proliferation of dispensaries in Los Angeles and the unseemly nature of a few of them is not the fault of the entrepreneurs who want to run a legitimate and lawful business and help satisfy a community need.  It is the fault of cowardly and moralistic politicians who refused to take action to implement the will of the people as expressed in Prop 215.

I can’t do any better than MPP’s Bruce Mirken on this one:

(LA Times) Bruce Mirken, spokesman for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, ridiculed the effort. “Let me guess, they set a record number of plant seizures and marijuana has now been eradicated from California?” he quipped.

Mirken said the campaign has caused growers to move from private lands into wilderness areas. “This is an annual exercise in futility. Not only does it not do anything meaningful, it actually makes the problem worse,” he said.

It’s all part of California’s CAMP – Campaign Against Marijuana Planting – which over 27 years has been funding law enforcement to take helicopters into the hills so police can get paid triple time to pull weeds and then fly them all over the wilderness blowing their seeds across the land so the cops can go weeding again next year.  According to the report:

Los Angeles County, which has seen a whirlwind expansion in medical marijuana dispensaries this year, has notched another marijuana milestone. The county has moved to No. 5 for the amount seized in the state’s annual eradication campaign, with 340,187 pot plants uprooted — more than a fourfold increase.

Statewide, the 27-year-old effort, known as the Campaign Against Marijuana Planting, found and destroyed almost 4.5 million plants in 41 counties, up from 2.9 million seized in each of the two prior years’ growing season. The amount has climbed steadily since 1996, when California voters approved the nation’s first medical marijuana law.

State officials put the wholesale value of this year’s eradicated marijuana at $17.8 billion.

Let’s see, the standard California sales tax, minus any county or local taxes, is 8.25%, so that eradication represents about $1.46 billion dollars in tax revenues.  Obviously marijuana has not been completely eradicated by CAMP and I think even the cops will tell you they’re only scratching the surface.  Let’s be generous and suppose they’re pulling up 10% of California’s outdoor crop.  That would be $14.6 billion in taxes going uncollected.  It’s even more money if we include indoor grows and figure they’re catching much less than 10% of the crops.

Barneys New York in Beverly Hills is celebrating the Woodstock spirit by selling $78 “Hashish” candles in Jonathan Adler pots with bas-relief marijuana leaves; Hickey offers $75 linen pocket squares or $120 custom polo shirts bearing the five-part leaf; and French designer Lucien Pellat-Finet is serving up white-gold and diamond custom pot-leaf-emblazoned wristwatches for $49,000 and belt buckles for $56,000.

After decades of bubbling up around the edges of so-called civilized society, marijuana seems to be marching mainstream at a fairly rapid pace. At least in urban areas such as Los Angeles, cannabis culture is coming out of the closet.

Public sentiment is more than anecdotal; earlier this year, a California Field Poll found that 56% of California voters supported legalizing and taxing marijuana. Last month, voters in Oakland overwhelmingly approved a tax increase on medical marijuana sales, the first of its kind in the country, and Los Angeles Councilwoman Janice Hahn has proposed something similar for the City of Angels. “In this current economic crisis, we need to get creative about how we raise funds,” Hahn said in a statement.

Smoking pot used to be the kind of personal conduct that could sink a U.S. Supreme Court nomination (Douglas H. Ginsburg in 1987) and embarrass a presidential candidate (Bill Clinton in 1992). Today, it seems to be a non-issue for the current inhabitant of the Oval Office; Barack Obama issued his marijuana mea culpa in a 1995 memoir.

Richard Laermer, a media and pop culture trend watcher and author of several books, including “2011: Trendspotting for the Next Decade,” points to Bill Maher as a bellwether of change. “Ten years ago, he would have been taken off the air.” (“Real Time With Bill Maher” airs on HBO.) Now, he’s “a totally mainstream comic who consistently talks about how much pot he smokes.”

(LA Times) After one week on the air, a series about “the merits of the cannabis plant” has departed KDOC-TV Channel 56 in Orange County after the producer said station executives told him they weren’t comfortable with the content.

“Cannabis Planet” producer Brad Lane said Wednesday that after agreeing to run the paid programming, KDOC executives declined to list it in their program lineup and wouldn’t accept ads to promote the show for fear of alienating existing advertisers. The first 30-minute episode ran in late-night slots last Friday and Saturday.

KDOC officials did not return calls and e-mails seeking comment.

Lane said he had purchased time for “Cannabis Planet,” intended as a weekly series about the medical, agricultural and industrial benefits of the marijuana plant, to run on KJLA-TV Channel 57 on Thursdays and Saturdays at 11:30 p.m., beginning Aug. 13.

And who do you suppose those alienated advertisers would be?  I don’t get Los Angeles television, but I’m willing to bet KDOC runs many beer and pharmaceutical ads.

I suggest that anyone in the LA area who is sick and tired of mainstream media suppressing the truth about cannabis to contact KDOC and let them know you will no longer watch their channel.  Then make a second call to KJLA and let them know you’ll be watching “Cannabis Planet” and will support their advertisers.

KDOC-TV 625 N Grand Ave. Santa Ana, CA 92701 (949) 442-9800 (949) 261-5956 Fax info@kdoc.tv

KJLA TV 2323 Corinth Ave West Los Angeles, CA 90064 (310) 943-5288 (310) 943-5299 Fax info1@kjla.com

By the way, supreme fan of irony that I am, I enjoyed seeing that on Monday, August 17, KDOC will be showing The Who’s rock opera, “Tommy”, the story of the deaf, dumb, and blind pinball wizard who is taken to “The Acid Queen” (Tina Turner) for treatment, a movie chock full of drug references.  Apparently the executives aren’t uncomfortable with that content and advertisers aren’t alienated by the lyrics “My work is done now look at him / He’s never been more alive. / His head it shakes his fingers clutch. / Watch his body writhe / I’m the Gypsy – the acid queen.”

I suppose as long as Tommy sticks to pinball, drops acid, and doesn’t talk about legalization of marijuana, he’s OK by KDOC.

(LA Times Blog) The Los Angeles City Council has denied applications from 28 medical marijuana dispensaries that wanted permission to operate despite a moratorium, clearing the way for the city to shut down any that have opened.

Since the council started to consider applications last month, it has denied every one, ruling against 43, including the 28 on Tuesday.

The council is struggling to assert control over the sale of medical marijuana in the city after its moratorium on new dispensaries proved toothless. Hundreds have opened despite the 2007 ban.

The city has stopped accepting applications for exemptions, but 883 were filed before the council closed the loophole. Until it adopts a permanent ordinance to control dispensaries, a task that has confounded the council for years, it intends to plow through the applications.

I am a supporter of dispensary access to medical marijuana (as long as the right to grow your own is maintained) even despite the same-as-street-dealer prices, because I understand that the reason the legit dispensary market must be so expensive is because of the illegitimate black market.  A dispensary can’t sell a legit $50 ounce only to have someone turn it into a black market $300 ounce, and they have to pay the growers’ inflated wholesale price lest the grower just sell it on the black market.  I get that.

The problem is that the gold mine of profitability that this black market pricing scheme entails attracts all manner of “entrepreneurs” from all over the country looking to cash in.  While most dispensaries are well run, clean, have the patients’ best interests at heart, are run by patients and caregivers, and some even offer other services that truly reveal their effort to engage in holistic caregiving, a few of these dispensaries don’t make much effort to distinguish themselves from being just a pot dealer with a dingy, hole-in-the-wall storefront.

I worry about the image of the California dispensaries and how it plays on legalization politics across the country and I don’t want to see the bad apples spoil the bunch.  Richard Lee’s Oaksterdam, the Farmacy, and other well-run, professional dispensaries make for fantastic public relations, but when the media can point to LA County and say, “there are more dispensaries than McDonald’s”, no matter how well-run they are, the shock factor makes legislators want to tighten new medical marijuana laws to the point where nobody can grow at home and dispensaries are a tightly-run limited state non-profit monopoly (MN, NH, NY, NJ, and AZ, for examples).

I hope Los Angeles does come up with reasonable zoning and business standards, and I would hope they would consult with people like Richard, Debbie Goldsberry, and others with experience in the matter

Terry Nelson - Federal agent for 30 years with the U.S. Border Patrol, the Customs Service and the Department of Homeland Security

Despite the obvious failure of our drug control strategy, the public discourse surrounding this issue has focused primarily on continuing to wage the “drug war.”

We won’t be able to expand treatment and prevention efforts until we stop spending so much money enforcing ineffective penalties, building new prisons and buying fancy cars and helicopters for law enforcement agencies. As we begin to treat problematic drug use as a public health issue, it will become much easier to prevent the death, disease and addiction that have expanded under the criminal justice mentality of prohibition.

My years of experience as a federal agent tell me that legalizing and effectively regulating drugs will stop drug market crime and violence by putting major cartels and gangs out of business.

If what we’ve been doing worked at all, we wouldn’t be battling Mexican drug dealers in our own cities or anywhere else. There’s one surefire way to bankrupt them, but when will our leaders talk about it?

Alejandro Gonzalez Iñarritu – Mexican film director (“Babel,” “21 Grams” and “Amores Perros”)

I have always thought that the only possible way to eradicate this plague is to legalize drugs. While the United States keeps consuming these amounts of drugs and selling guns the way it does, there’s no way our country will win this war.

Once the tons of drugs cross the border into the U.S., there has to be a huge web of people involved in distributing and selling all these drugs. Where are these people? Who are they? Where are these “American cartels” and their leaders?

Fernando Rospigliosi – Former interior minister of Peru

The narco-trafficking problem in Peru has gotten worse in all aspects: the production of cocaine, violence and the corruption that comes from that. One of the aggravating factors was the launching of the [U.S.-financed] Plan Colombia, which started to work in the last decade and that has unleashed greater demand for Peruvian coca and cocaine. In addition, you have the increasingly strong entrance of Mexican cartels into Peru, and they have brought a kind of violence never before seen here.

Sergio Fajardo – Former mayor of Medellin, Colombia

The doors into the drug world are very wide for the unemployed and the youth living in the poor barrios. You have to close or reduce the size of that doorway. How do you do that? With opportunities, creating jobs in those barrios with education and by establishing the state’s presence in each community. We learned that many who entered criminality because they had no opportunity will return to society if they can go to work.