Marijuana Law Reform in 2010 (March Update)

With New Jersey recently becoming the 14th medical marijuana state, activists in marijuana law reform have been celebrating.  After all, over 82 million Americans now live in states where medical use of marijuana is legal – that’s 27% of the US population! Last election, Massachusetts became the 13th decriminalization state, which means over 107 million Americans live in a state where possession of small personal amounts of marijuana no longer merit an arrest – that’s 35% of the US population.

Population of States with Medical Marijuana Laws

However, after watching fourteen years of marijuana activism focused solely on those who use cannabis for medicine, I must warn activists that medical marijuana is not getting any better and the time for re-legalization of cannabis for all adults – even the healthy ones – is now.

Population of States that have Decriminalized Marijuana

Medical marijuana was a great 20th century strategy to get the sick and dying off the battlefield in the war on drugs.  It was the perfect vehicle to enlighten the public, who for so long have been indoctrinated into the reefer madness that classifies cannabis like LSD and heroin.  But in the 21st century the idea that marijuana is only a medicine is beginning to take hold and governments and voters are crafting ever-more-restrictive medical marijuana laws.  For the vast majority of cannabis consumers this threatens to move us from the category of “illegal drug users” to “possessors of medicine without a prescription” – a step up, perhaps, but still left facing criminal prosecution.

Comparison of five core rights found in existing medical marijuana law

California legalized medical marijuana in 1996.  That initiative, Prop-215, established what is clearly the most liberal medical marijuana statute to date:

• A doctor can recommend for any condition;
• You needn’t have a “bona fide” doctor/patient relationship;
• Dispensaries are allowed;
• Self cultivation is allowed;
• Patients are protected from arrest.

Comparison of plant and possession limits and qualifying conditions in medical marijuana law

If we consider these five attributes of the law the baseline, then in the past fourteen years, all thirteen medical marijuana states that have followed have failed to achieve all five.  Eight states only offer three or four of those liberties and the rest offer two or only one.  Most disturbingly, the right of patients to grow their own medicine (or have a caregiver do it for them), which has been a bedrock principle in medical marijuana law, was taken away from patients in the most recent medical marijuana state, New Jersey.  Bills that were considered but vetoed in 2009 in Minnesota and New Hampshire, and those moving forward in New York, Pennsylvania, as well as an initiative in Arizona, all sacrifice this core right.

New Jersey - The (No Medical Marijuana) Garden State

A comparison of plant and possession limits also shows the decline from the original starting point in California, where 12 plants and 8 ounces are allowed.  Oregon and Washington passed their laws next and have the highest statutory limits: 24 plants and 24 ounces in Oregon and 15 plants and 24 ounces in Washington.  (To be fair, all the West Coast states started with lower limits or more vague limits that were modified by the legislature.)  But since then, only one state has allowed more than 3 ounces (New Mexico with 6 ounces) and average number of plants allowed is a little less than ten.

The "Big 8" Conditions for which marijuana is recommended in the states

Another decline in medical marijuana freedom appears when we look at the conditions for which medical marijuana protection is afforded in the various states.  There are eight conditions which could be considered the “standard” ones: cancer; HIV/AIDS; seizure disorders, like epilepsy; spastic disorders, like multiple sclerosis; glaucoma; chronic nausea; cachexia; and chronic pain.  Most medical marijuana states recognize all eight conditions; a couple (Vermont and Rhode Island) recognize seven of eight.

Other conditions recognized in state medical marijuana laws (not a complete list)

The latest law in New Jersey, however, eliminated chronic pain, chronic nausea, and cachexia, making it the most restrictive list in the nation.  The bill proposed but vetoed in New Hampshire required one to try all other remedies for chronic pain before trying medical marijuana.  The vetoed Minnesota bill wouldn’t even allow cancer and HIV/AIDS patients to use medical marijuana unless they could show they were terminal (about to die).  The lists in the latest proposed bills continue to become more restricted.

Until we do have legalization for all, every medical marijuana law is going to fail to adequately serve all medical users and subject them to increasing restriction and scrutiny.  Additionally, medical marijuana laws make patients an attractive target for criminals because prohibition maintains huge profits for stolen medical cannabis, as well as becoming targets for overzealous anti-marijuana cops and prosecutors.

The reason the recent medical marijuana laws are losing ground is not a failure of the medical marijuana strategy, but rather due to its success.  Medical marijuana has portrayed the herb as “powerful and effective medicine”.  Well, what do we do with powerful and effective medicines?  We keep them under lock and key.  We require people to visit doctors.  We strictly monitor prescription pads.  We bust people who have them without proper papers.

Rather than justifying the prohibitionists’ shibboleth of medical marijuana as “the camel’s nose under the tent” for legalization, I’m arguing it’s the opposite: that continuing the medical marijuana strategy further cements the “powerful and effective medicine” frame and takes us farther away from treating cannabis as a personal choice of relaxant.  We’ll get to a point where the public accepts “powerful and effective cannabis medicine” and looks upon personal use like we look at someone getting fraudulent scrips for painkillers.

If one of the West Coast states doesn’t pull off legalization soon, the pendulum is going to swing back the other way on marijuana.  The economic incentives may fade if the economy recovers and then the tax & regulate argument fizzles.  And if we are going to continue working on medical marijuana, the bills and initiatives need to get better, not worse.  The way it’s looking now is that the Northeast and upper Midwest are going to institute chronic conditions-only, 2 oz limit, strict registry, only personal doctor, no home grow, state-run dispensary medical marijuana for $15/gram in the next six years.  How then do we approach those people and say, “Hey, you know that powerful and effective medical marijuana that you only let a few hundred really sick people use after jumping though a mile of hoops?  We think everybody should have it and jump through no hoops!”

Medical marijuana would never have passed in any state if it were not for the votes of non-medical users of marijuana.  I do believe it is time for medical marijuana patients in the states that have programs to “repay the favor” and fight as hard for legalization as social tokers fought for medical.  Only patients can best make the argument that while prohibition exists, they will always face job discrimination, loss of child custody, high black market prices, housing discrimination, and the sneers of the Bill O’Reillys who think 99% of medical marijuana patients are faking.  So long as the prohibition profit exists, there will always be these CBS Undercover investigations casting a pall on all legitimate medical marijuana because of the irresponsible acts of a few.

Maybe I’m just too much of a dreamer.  I imagine acres and acres of hemp fields, huge indoor hydroponic cannabis warehouses, thriving cafes and coffeehouses, some folks growing their own in a garage or closet, regular outdoor festivals and special indoor events where cannabis smoking is permitted, buying and selling all varieties of cannabis from ounces at a farmer’s market to bulk bales at CostCo… and none of that is done with “powerful and effective medicines”.

I don’t think that it is reformer’s job to pass medical marijuana in all fifty states first and then worry about legalization in one.  I think states that have medical should be moving forward on legalization, states without should focus on better medical laws by calling prohibitionists’ bluff on “marijuana outta control!” in the Western states with liberal medical laws.

End the Rockefeller Drug Laws

The hold up on repeal of the harsh Rockefeller Drug Law is the end of mandatory sentencing for second time non-violent violators. The editorial board of New York Times has taken the stand that the end of mandatory sentencing for non-violent offenders is necessary to restore judicial discretion to drug cases. The holdouts are well to familiar to us in the reform community.

Mr. Paterson and his allies in law enforcement believe that would send the wrong message to the communities where drug crimes are committed and to the police officers who have worked hard to make these cases. They also fear that without mandatory sentences, some offenders might ignore treatment sanctions.

The Times editorial board thinks the Assembly Bill adequately addresses this issue.

The Assembly bill provides for judicial discretion for a well-defined group of second-timers while preserving lengthy, mandatory sentences for second-timers with either histories of violence or records of having committed sex crimes or sold drugs to children. The provision protects the public safety by making sure that dangerous offenders go to jail.

If you live in New York, contact your state chapter of NORML and help make your voice for reform heard.

The time has come!  Registered Stashers have been enjoying a sneak peek at my favorite ads from NORML’s $10,000 Pro-Cannabis Ad Contest all week long, but now the 25 finalists have been announced and you can vote for your three favorites.

Click here to vote!

Get This Contest Dug on Digg!
Please, tell all your like-minded friends, family and co-workers about NORML’s Ad Contest and encourage them to:

1. Vote once for their top three choices
2. Join NORML!

Voting online for the winners will last one week and end at midnight (PST), Sunday, February 7, 2009.

There is a terrific variety of videos, artistic creativity and passion for marijuana law reform represented in these top #25 contest submissions, and I want to personally thank the hundreds of NORML supporters who submitted videos and flash animations into NORML’s ad contest for consideration.

Advice for watching and judging NORML Ad Contest Videos:

Mindful that you can vote one time and only choose your top three picks for winners, my recommendation is to watch the videos a number of times this week—possibly in different states of consciousness—and then hone in on your top three video choices for NORML’s best pro-marijuana reform ads.

Like last year’s winning ad, and because of the generous financial support of NORML’s members, this year’s winning ad(s) will air in selected, local television markets in the United States, including President Obama’s new neighborhood here at the end of 16th Street, in the northwest section of Washington, D.C.

Thanks again to this year’s contestants for standing up for what is right and for the many online voters who’ll pick this year’s winning pro-marijuana ad contest video or flash animation.

VOTE NOW!

Kind regards,

Allen St. Pierre
Executive Director
NORML / NORML Foundation
Washington, D.C.
director@norml.org

“You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.”

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.”

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Letter from a Birmingham Jail
April 16, 1963

Today our nation honors what would’ve been this week the eightieth birthday of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., on the eve of the inauguration of Barack Hussein Obama as the 44th president of these United States.  I was sixty-four days old when an assassin’s bullet cut down Dr. King in the prime of his life.  Today I am six-hundred forty days older than Dr. King when he was killed.  Tomorrow I will see something few people my age and older thought we’d ever see, yet something Dr. King had dreamed from the start.

There remains a grave injustice to be battled, the most unjust of laws to be disobeyed, a law that by its definition is not rooted in eternal law and natural law: the man made code that declares nature itself to be illegal, the prohibition on cannabis.  Yet when I mention marijuana law reform in the context of the great civil rights struggles in America, so many are quick to dismiss me with snickers of derision.  ”You just want pot legal so you can get high!” is a common refrain.

Marijuana law reform is a civil rights struggle.  I will not attempt to equate this struggle to those of minorities, women, or gays and lesbians; however, there are some parallels among our fight and theirs and, indeed, some threads of drug law injustice are woven directly into the struggles of these groups.  The prohibition of drugs was one of the tools of oppression – the “Negroes” for their cocaine, the “Chinamen” for their opium, and the Mexicans for their marihuana.  It remains so today – while people use drugs at about the same rate regardless of race, African-Americans and Hispanics are disproportionately arrested, convicted, and serve longer sentences for drug use than white people.

Aside from the racist nature of the origins and applications, cannabis prohibition itself is an unjust law.  First consider that it isn’t merely against the law to possess, cultivate, traffic, buy, and consume marijuana – it is against the law to be marijuana.  Federal and state law enforcement spend millions of dollars and thousands of hours flying helicopters attempting to spot cannabis growing out in the wild.  Ninety-eight percent of what is seized is known as “feral hemp”, which is wild ditchweed with unsmokably-low levels of THC.  Officials rip up and destroy every plant they see whether it is owned or tended by any human, whether or not it could possibly intoxicate any human.   Logically, then, the ultimate goal of marijuana prohibition is not to simply stop humans from using it for intoxication, but to eradicate the species cannabis sativa L. from the earth!

Think of that: our official policy is the extinction of a species of life.  Certainly that’s not entirely new.  We’re dedicated to the extinction of all manner of microscopic life, after all, but that is a justifiable policy for self-preservation – we kill bugs that kill us.  I cannot think of another plant or animal we treat like cannabis.  Deadly plants like nightshade and belladonna are legal, annoying plants like poison ivy and poison oak are legal, even intoxicating plants like coca and poppy are legal when cultivated for prescription medications.  But the cannabis plant, the plant that cannot kill you is completely illegal*.  The plant that can provide the food, clothing, shelter, and medicine humans need to survive is illegal.  Nature itself is illegal.  How much more contrary to eternal law and natural law could this unjust prohibition law be?

The fight against cannabis prohibition, against this unjust law, is a civil rights fight.  This declaration will offend some people who will point to four centuries of slavery and Jim Crow, to lynchings and cross burnings, and to beatings and firehoses and condemn my declaration as making light of the plight of those who were truly oppressed.  I do not make light of those struggles, but I also recognize that civil rights are not a zero sum game and the degree and manner in which one is being oppressed are not what make the fight against oppression a just one.  Dr. King dreamed of a day when children would be judged by not by the color of their skin but the content of their character; I dream of a day when workers are judged not by the metabolites in their urine but the quality of their work.

Later in King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he writes:

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. …

I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. …

The unjust law of marijuana prohibition is difference made legal.  The majority compels our minority to forgo our intoxicant, but does not bind itself to forgo their intoxicant.  The majority compels our minority forgo our medicine, but does not bind itself to forgo their medicine.  The majority compels our minority to forgo their religious sacrament, but does not bind itself to forgo their religious sacrament.  The majority compels our minority to forgo our source of food, fuel, and fiber, but does not bind itself to forgo their sources.

The majority may argue that they do not prohibit intoxication, medication, religious sacrament, or food, fuel, and fiber cultivation, so long as it doesn’t involve marijuana.  This to me sounds like the argument against same-sex marriage rights, that gays and lesbians are just as free to marry someone of the opposite sex as everybody else.  If we are given a right, but then proscribed from exercising that right in the manner that benefits us without a valid reason from the majority, it is not really a right.  When intoxication, medication, and sacrament are legal rights, but we are proscribed from using a demonstrably safer intoxicant, medicine, and sacrament, that is difference made legal.

No, we do not face the firehoses and the dogs and the lynchings, nor do we suffer in as great of numbers as did the African Americans Dr. King so graciously led in the years before my birth.  Our oppression is more subtle and codified into laws that restrict our housing, employment, and educational opportunities.  We do not tremble in fear of the midnight ride of white-robed vigilante Klansmen; our terror comes in the form of midnight no-knock raids of body-armored SWAT teams.

Like the civil rights struggles of the past, we work to change laws that oppress people, laws that enjoy support from the majority and are rationalized by tradition, religion, and junk science.  Unlike the civil rights struggles of the past, our constituency is an invisible group defined by lifestyle, not genetics.  That choice to use cannabis should not disqualify our fight to be treated as equals under the law.  After all, the choice to worship the God of your understanding is not genetic, it is a lifestyle choice as well, and our law recognizes that one cannot be discriminated against for that choice.  In fact, it is a bit ironic that one’s choice of God, a belief that cannot be proven by science to beneficial, is a protected right, yet one’s choice of cannabis, a plant that can be proven by science to be beneficial, is a federal crime.

The freedom to worship, of course, is an explicit right recognized by our First Amendment, but its foundation is in the inalienable rights given to us by our Creator, among them being Life, Liberty, and The Pursuit of Happiness.  If that last one – the Pursuit of Happiness – doesn’t give me the right to smoke a joint so long as I don’t affect anyone else’s Life and Liberty, then the Constitution isn’t worth the hemp paper on which it was drafted.

Also from King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, he writes:

We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws.

Today’s freedom fighters are the people like Eddy Lepp and Charles Lynch, providing aid and comfort to the sick and dying by growing and supplying them with medicine, only to face the rest of their natural lives behind bars because what they did was “illegal”.

Today’s “whites-only” establishments are the “drug-free” workplaces keep cannabis users confined to low-paying part-time or temp service jobs, while the rest of the workers are allowed all the alcohol, nicotine, and prescription medications they desire.

Today’s lynchings are the Rachel Hoffmans and Jonathan Magbies who are murdered by police negligence, solely over their use of cannabis.  Today’s institutionalized discrimination is the over 20 million in my lifetime whose lives are marked with the scarlet letter of a drug conviction, affecting their child custody, government assistance, college financial aid, employment opportunities, professional licenses, voting rights, and liberty.

The prohibition of cannabis ultimately degrades human personality and is against moral law.  It is an unjust law that cannot stand, and we have a moral responsibility to disobey it.  In doing so, we express the highest respect for the law.  On this day when we recognize the greatness of Dr. Martin Luther King’s Dream, and on tomorrow, when we see part of that dream fulfilled, remember that we don’t fight to “make pot legal so you can get high”; we fight because the Pursuit of Happiness is our right and caging us for our method of pursuit is unjust.

Smoking pot is our civil right!

Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.

Yours for the cause of Peace and Brotherhood,
Martin Luther King, Jr.

* I recognize that marijuana is legally grown at ElSohly’s lab at the University of Mississippi.  But consider that marijuana’s two purposes – to supply five people grandfathered in to the IND program and to provide marijuana for studies to prove how awful marijuana is to justify its prohibition.  In this metaphor it would be akin to saving a few vials of polio virus so you could use them to make vaccines.

The final tallies are in at Change.org:

Winners of the Ideas for Change in America Competition

After 656,991 votes for 7,847 ideas, we present the top 10 ideas for change

1. Legalize the Medicinal and Recreational Use of Marijuana (19,530)
2. Appoint Secretary of Peace in Department of Peace and Non-Violence (14,994)
3. Free Single Payer Health Care (13,928)
4. Make the grid green in 10 years (12,913)
5. Get FISA Right, repeal the PATRIOT Act, and restore our civil liberties (12,285)
6. Save Small Business From the CPSIA (12,280)
7. Health Freedom IS Our First Freedom (12,062)
8. Pass the DREAM Act – Support Higher Education for All Students (12,010)
9. Pass Marriage Equality Rights for LGBT Couples Nationwide (11,889)
10. Develop & Implement a National Strategy for Sustainability (9,644)

Legalizing marijuana was the top idea at Change.org by almost 5,000 votes.  It beat the next closest competitor by 30%.  It took almost a full 3% of all the votes cast and 15% of the Top Ten votes.

Now, I’ve been scouring then net all morning to find reporting on this story.  I found a press release on MSNBC announcing the press conference, but no actual coverage of the press conference.  The first hit I pull up on the announcement was from media in the UK!

WASHINGTON, DC — (Marketwire) — 01/16/09 — Change.org today announced the winners of its Ideas for Change in America competition at an event at the National Press Club and attended by nonprofit leaders, grassroots activists, and members of the Obama campaign and incoming administration.

The ideas were accepted on behalf of the transition team by Macon Phillips, Director of New Media for the Presidential Transition Team, who spoke about the importance of citizen-led efforts like Ideas for Change in America for increasing civic participation.

Ben Rattray, founder and CEO of Change.org, followed the announcement by introducing the launch of a national advocacy campaign behind each winning idea in partnership with leading nonprofit organizations, including 1 Sky, Health-Care NOW, and The Peace Alliance.

“The crowd-sourcing of ideas through a nationwide voting process was only the first half of this project,” explained Rattray. “The second half will focus on mobilizing the grassroots energy behind each idea to translate it into policy. Our intention is not for these to be mere suggestions for the administration, but to represent an agenda for change that we will help drive within the administration and Congress over the next year.”

After the announcement, the event featured a panel of leading thinkers on how the government, nonprofit organizations, and grassroots groups can take lessons from the Obama campaign and initiatives like Ideas for Change in America to deepen civic participation. 

Change.org is an online hub and media network for social issues and collective action. The San Francisco-based social entrepreneurship venture operates a network of blogs covering more than a dozen major social issues and has partnered with more than 3000 leading nonprofit organizations to provide outlets for powerful action. Change.org was founded by two former classmates from Stanford, Ben Rattray and Mark Dimas, in 2006.

Marijuana law reform was the #1 issue at Change.org, the #1 question at Change.gov Round 1, the #4 question at Change.gov Round 2 (and 1st in “National Security”), and is currently #1 in the “Citizens Briefing Book” again at Change.gov (currently at 68,290 “points” vs. 58,910 for bullet trains in #2).  The notion of discussing legalization as a policy option has recently been broached by the Attorney General of Arizona, the El Paso City Council, and just this morning on my local progressive talk radio show by an incoming Oregon freshman legislator Jefferson Smith.

No wonder Change.org got blacked out in the US media – it’s not as if any Americans are talking about the issue of legalization.  Apparently a jet plane crash landed in the Hudson River.  Move on, nothing to see here…

Our Deputy Director, Paul Armentano, has another piece posted on the influential Capitol Hill blog, “The Hill”, read by the Beltway-insiders.  His posts on marijuana legalization are consistently the most-commented-on posts on that blog.  Surf on over and leave your own comment for our elected officials to read.

Is it at all surprising to see that the Obama team has decided to hide their collective heads in the sand when it comes to the issue of reevaluating America’s ineffective and antiquated marijuana policies? Not at all. But by doing so, the President-Elect and Congress are missing the bigger picture.

The overwhelming popularity of the marijuana reform issue — as manifested on Change.gov, Change.org (which is conducting its own online poll of the top issues facing America; the legalization of marijuana tops the list), and even here on the Hill (where my most recent blog posts have each garnered several hundreds of readers’ comments, almost all of them supportive) — illustrate two important points.

One: there is a significant, vocal, and identifiable segment of our society that wants to see an end to America’s archaic and overly punitive marijuana laws. Two: the American public is ready and willing to engage in a serious and objective political debate regarding the merits of legalizing the use of cannabis by adults.

via The Hill Blog» Blog Archive » Marijuana Law Reform No Longer a Political Liability, It’s a Political Opportunity.

The popularity of the topic was also picked up on the FOX “News” Channel:

Click here to view the embedded video.