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1. Prohibitionists respond to medical marijuana and driving study
2. Reefer Madness from NIDA on the threat of teen pot use
3. UCSF study shows cannabinoids help opioids kill pain

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• Judgement (with Boomer)

Radical Rant

• DeAngelo Brothers “do not support legalization of cannabis for recreational purposes”

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

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

Click here to view the embedded video.

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

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

Front page of MSNBC on Day Two of NORML CON

MSNBC Deputy Business Editor Al Olson attended the 40th Annual NORML Conference in Denver and it was like watching a twelve-year-old boy covering a video game convention. Every panel, every vendor, and every person elicited wide-eyed wonder and effusive praise from this veteran journalist.

“I’ve covered Super Bowls, presidential elections, Olympic games,” he told me, “but nothing comes close to how honored I am to be covering this conference.”

Al told me he is a daily listener to NORML SHOW LIVE and marveled at the quality production we put together on such a shoestring budget.  I told Al that we’re still hoping for shoestrings – right now we’re getting by hopping on one foot wearing a flip-flop.  It is satisfying to know that someone in the traditional media is listening and is dedicated enough to get our conference on the front page of MSNBC.com last Friday.

Al interviewed many attendees at the conference, including me.  Al apologized that my footage (explaining the drug testing that ended my IT career) wouldn’t be included, as it was a piece on entrepreneurship, but promised there would be much more attention coming our way.  Oregon NORML’s Executive Director, Madeline Martinez, was included on the front page cover photo as well for her entrepreneurial work in the for-profit Cannabis Cafe.  Each interview, with video, is available still at MSNBC.com.

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The number of people willing to admit on the telephone to an anonymous pollster representing the federal government that they are breaking state and federal marijuana laws has increased by 8% this year.

(National Survey on Drug Use and Health 2009) This report presents the first information from the 2009 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual survey sponsored by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). The survey is the primary source of information on the use of illicit drugs, alcohol, and tobacco in the civilian, noninstitutionalized population of the United States aged 12 years old or older. The survey interviews approximately 67,500 persons each year.

Marijuana was the most commonly used illicit drug. In 2009, there were 16.7 million past month users. Among persons aged 12 or older, the rate of past month marijuana use and the number of users in 2009 (6.6 percent or 16.7 million) were higher than in 2008 (6.1 percent).

The rate of current marijuana use among youths aged 12 to 17 decreased from 8.2 percent in 2002 to 6.7 percent in 2006, remained unchanged at 6.7 percent in 2007 and 2008, then increased to 7.3 percent in 2009.

In 2009, the average age of marijuana initiates among persons aged 12 to 49 was 17.0 years, significantly lower than the average age of marijuana initiates in 2008 (17.8 years), but similar to that in 2002 (17.0 years).

I always take these numbers with a grain of salt, because they come from a survey where a total stranger calls you on the phone, tells you he’s doing a survey on drugs for the government, and then asks you which state and federal drug laws you’re violating.  I think increases and decreases in these numbers may have a lot to do with political climate – how safe does someone feel admitting to being a pot smoker?  With the Obama Administration (insincerely) pledging to keep hands off medical marijuana, maybe we just have more people willing to admit to the cannabis use they’ve been enjoying all along.

But our Drug Czar Kerlikowske seems to think it is all the fault of medical marijuana, which is leading more people to smoke the devil’s lettuce:

Gil Kerlikowske, the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, called the 9 percent increase in drug use disappointing but said he was not surprised given “eroding attitudes” about the perception of harm from illegal drugs and the growing number of states approving medicinal marijuana.

“I think all of the attention and the focus of calling marijuana medicine has sent the absolute wrong message to our young people,” Kerlikowske said in an interview.

So reported monthly marijuana use has gone up by 9.8% in 2009… but only Michigan passed a medical marijuana law in 2008.  I wonder what message was being sent in 2006 when use dropped 2.5% in 2007?  And what the hell happened in 2001 and 2002 to see increases of 13.1% and 20.3% respectively?  Was it Washington, Oregon, Alaska, Maine, Nevada, Hawaii, and Colorado passing medical marijuana laws?  Or was it the election of George W. Bush in 2000 and the 9/11 attacks in 2001 that caused 36.1% more people to smoke pot monthly in a two-year span?

However, I do have to agree with the Drug Czar, somewhat, except that it isn’t a “wrong message” but rather a “truthful message” we are sending to our young people:

The survey found the number of youths aged 12-17 who perceived a great risk of harm from smoking marijuana once or twice a week dropped from 54.7 percent in 2007 to 49.3 percent in 2009.

Because there is not a “great risk of harm” from smoking marijuana once or twice a week.  While it is not harmless, it is far less damaging to a teenager to attend a pot party on the weekend than to attend a kegger.  The internet has facilitated the dissemination on truthful information about cannabis, to the Drug Czar’s chagrin.  We can no longer tell young people they’ll be stupid (Carl Sagan) amotivated (Barack Obama) slacker (Willie Nelson) losers (Michael Phelps) if they smoke pot.

If anything, this report shows that cannabis use is very popular and most people start smoking pot before they turn 21.  That’s the result we have gotten after forty years of “war on drugs”.  I’ve never understood why, year after year, the drug czar trots out these survey numbers showing such failure to stop marijuana use among adults and teens, and then uses them as the reason why we need to keep doing what we’ve always been doing – arresting and drug testing people for marijuana use.  Meanwhile, we’ve taken the path of strict regulation and public education with a truly deadly and addictive product that used to be very popular with young people – tobacco.  How has that turned out, Mr. Kerlikowske?

(NSDUH) Between 2002 and 2009, past month use of any tobacco product decreased from 30.4 to 27.7 percent, and past month cigarette use declined from 26.0 to 23.3 percent. Rates of past month use of cigars, smokeless tobacco, and pipe tobacco in 2009 were similar to corresponding rates in 2002.

The rate of past month tobacco use among 12 to 17 year olds remained steady from 2008 to 2009 (11.4 and 11.6 percent, respectively). The rate of past month cigarette use among 12 to 17 year olds also remained steady between 2008 and 2009 (9.1 and 8.9 percent, respectively), but declined since 2002 when the rate was 13.0 percent.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Yes, the wall is crumbling.  We are winning, but it’s not over yet.  It ain’t over ’til the fat lady (can walk into a store in any state, county or municipality, show ID proving they are of legal age, purchase marijuana for recreational use, go home, roll a joint (fill a pipe, bong, vaporizer) fire it up, relax and then) sings.

(MSNBC / Washington Post) WASHINGTON – Andre Hayes’s phone rang one October afternoon, and a mysterious woman was on the line. She had called the wrong number, she told him. But she didn’t hang up. They bantered a bit. They flirted. She said he sounded nice.

Over the next week, they spoke or texted by cellphone more than 100 times. As he drove to meet her on Halloween night, they chatted for 29 straight minutes. And then, as he awaited their rendezvous in a dark suburban driveway, Hayes was shot dead.

Hayes, a slick dresser with a sharp wit, was described as a fun-loving guy who doted on his relatives and three daughters. But close friends said he also had a weakness: women.

Hayes, who lived in Clinton, sold drugs and held odd jobs. During the past 15 years, he had been arrested a few times on charges ranging from assault to drug possession. In January 2007, he was arrested on federal cocaine distribution charges in Virginia.

Soon, he was working out a deal with the Drug Enforcement Administration: He would help them arrest other dealers if they would recommend a lighter sentence for him. By September, he was telling DEA Agent Kendrah Johnson that he knew a guy named “Weldon” who sold marijuana, crack and heroin, according to notes taken by the agent and filed in court.

During the next 11 months, Hayes bought more than 150 grams of crack from “Weldon,” later identified as Weldon Gordon, in three deals — one in Maryland and two in the District, according to court papers filed by the DEA and federal prosecutors.

The woman, Tiffany Reaves, 30, of Upper Marlboro, has been indicted on a federal charge of conspiring to obstruct justice by killing a witness. The charge carries a potential sentence of death. Reaves’s boyfriend, Weldon Gordon, 31, has been indicted on federal drug charges tied to undercover purchases made by Hayes on behalf of federal investigators.

In other news, millions of Americans today will buy and sell alcohol, from 3.2% to 75.5% potency.  Nobody will be arrested for these transactions.  Nobody will be making deals with prosecutors to help arrest others for these transactions.  Nobody will compel their girlfriend to seduce those who help prosecutors.  And nobody will be murdered over these transactions or for helping prosecutors.

Unless you want to address marijuana’s illegality and the lives that are shattered by the effects of marijuana prohibition.  In that case, the corporate media cannot have anything to do with you, even if you want to pay to broadcast the message of ending adult marijuana prohibition.

Case in point: CBS.  At the end of June, CBS’s new internet radio venture, ChatAboutIt.com, contacted NORML.  One of our advisory board, Ann Druyan, advertised her podcast in Talkers Magazine, an industry journal for talk radio.  ChatAboutIt was interested in hosting Druyan’s show, but Druyan wasn’t interested in the offer.

This is where I come in.  I am a talk radio professional, having hosted my show (The Russ Belville Show) on XM Satellite Radio and AM 620 KPOJ in Portland, for almost two years.  I have guest-hosted for the extremely popular Bill Press Show in Washington DC.  For the past year and a half, I have hosted NORML’s Daily Audio Stash, the organization’s daily news and interviews podcast.  I contacted ChatAboutIt to discuss creating a new live talk radio show dedicated to this incredibly popular phenomenon around medical marijuana and marijuana legalization called NORML SHOW LIVE.

Throughout the negotiations, the salesman from ChatAboutIt was fantastic.  He joined me and NORML’s executive staff by conference call.  We emphasized that we are NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.  We told them that we would have advertisers involved with promoting marijuana - legally, as they are co-ops and dispensaries in California and Colorado – marijuana-themed magazines, doctors, clinics, authors, musicians, and so on.  We told them we would be talking about marijuana legalization, our web page would have marijuana leaves on it, callers would be talking about marijuana, and, oh, by the way, did we mention that the show was about marijuana?

It’s all good, we were assured by the salesman.  He said he’d run it all by his VP and this was fine.  He said we’d own all our content and we could run all our ads.  We verbally agreed this was a go and all we needed to do was to raise the $6,000 necessary to pay for the first two months of broadcast.  We explained that we’d need to produce some press releases to raise the money. To be sure we weren’t saying or promoting anything in any way that CBS would not approve, we submitted our release to CBS, which did make some changes.  They approved of our revised release and we posted it on the NORML Blog and front page on Wednesday.

Thursday morning I receive a call from the salesman at ChatAboutIt.  “People higher up” had seen the release “on the blogs” and they “will not green light your show”.

Now, CBS has all the right in the world to decide what to put on their airwaves or cyberstreams; I’m not crying “censorship”.  If they want to pass up affiliation with the most recognized brand in marijuana and a professional live call-in show dealing with the hottest topic in the media, that’s their call.

What I am crying, though, is “hypocrisy”.

CBS's Showtime is airing the fifth season of "Weeds"

See, CBS owns Showtime.  That very same Showtime that’s aired for the past five years the tale of Nancy Botwin, suburban pot-dealing mom on Weeds.  A show that films many scenes in the legal marijuana clinics and dispensaries in California that would be our advertisers.  A show that just this year signed contracts with NORML to allow display of our trademark in the scenes where it is shown in Weeds.

And it cannot be that CBS is OK with airing a dramatic interpretation of marijuana culture, but afraid of airing a serious news program about marijuana culture.  CBS News has an entire web special feature entitled “Marijuana Nation” (not-so-coincidentally the tag line of NORML SHOW LIVE) devoted to all their news coverage about marijuana dating back to Mike Wallace in 1968.

CBS will show Weeds to make money off of people who like marijuana, but won’t allow its banner advertisements for Weeds to be seen on any website trying to keep those marijuana lovers from arrest and a criminal record.  CBS will pepper their news coverage and websites with cannaporn* and cannabusiness, but won’t allow a non-profit organization attempting to legalize those industries to have a voice on their networks.

Case #2:  In addition to hosting NORML’s podcast and social blog, I am NORML’s Outreach Coordinator.  In this position I recruit activists from all across the country (even the US Virgin Islands) to organize NORML chapters.  These independent affiliates host events, gather petition signatures, and provide education to the community to counteract the anti-marijuana propaganda from the government (such as our “drug czar” recently proclaiming – in California, no less – that “Marijuana is dangerous and has no medicinal benefit.”)

I was contacted by the tour manager for the “Blazed and Confused” Tour.  The artists performing in the most pro-marijuana concert of the summer are Mickey Avalon, Bob Marley’s son Stephen Marley, San Diego rockers Slightly Stoopid, and Snoop Dogg, probably the most recognizable person alive associated with marijuana aside from Willie Nelson.  They, particularly Slightly Stoopid, wanted NORML chapters to host marijuana information tables for the concerts and offered us the opportunity for free.

Pot leaf skull at Blazed & Confused tour at NBC Universal's Hard Rock this Saturday

I combed through my chapter listings and got them NORML booths for over half the shows.  At the show in Portland I got to interview Miles from Slightly Stoopid and wander around backstage.  The props for the Stoopid show were two massive five foot skulls with pot leaves on the forehead.  Snoop’s show featured a huge backdrop reading “Tales from the Crip” and marijuana leaves were all around.  Everyone performing at or attending this concert was very pro-marijuana legalization.

Yet this morning I’m contacted by the tour people who tell me they need to cancel the booth we have scheduled for the show last Saturday in Orlando.  It seems the venue is the Hard Rock, and “because they are a Universal owned company they are much more conservative than your typical venue.”

Available from NBC Universal

This Universal, of course, is NBC Universal, the parent company to the MSNBC and CNBC networks that reported their highest ratings ever for their marijuana-themed news reports on the burgeoning cannabis business in California.   The same NBC Universal that is happy to sell you Cheech & Chong’s Next Movie, Dazed & Confused, and Half Baked on DVD.  The same NBC Universal that has no problem allowing Snoop Dogg to get the crowd at the Hard Rock in Orlando to chant “Legalize It”, but somehow can’t let a couple of college kids in NORML T-shirts hand out educational fliers about why we should legalize it.

Case #3: Another marijuana legalization organization, Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), produced an excellent TV ad calling for passage of a bill to tax and regulate cannabis for adults.  The governor had recently called for an open debate about legalization and MPP created this thirty second ad to begin that debate:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Certainly a sober and non-sensational way to debate the issue.  Yet when MPP offered the ad to California stations, Los Angeles’ KABC (ABC) and KTTV (FOX), San Francisco’s KGO (ABC), and San Jose’s KNTV (NBC) refused to accept the ad.  KNTV said their standards department wouldn’t approve the ad.  KGO issued an official “no comment.”  KABC and KTTV didn’t even bother give the courtesy of a “no comment” – they would not respond to MPP’s inquiries.

I’ve detailed NBC’s and CBS’s profiting from cannabis culture.  You’d think ABC, being a part of the Walt Disney Corporation, would generally shy away from profiting from cannabis culture. But a little digging shows they own Miramax films, which this year released Adventureland, a comedy about teenagers smoking and dealing weed while working at an amusement park and in 2001 offered Jay & Silent Bob Strike Back, the adventures of two inveterate stoners who wrote a stoner comic book.  FOX for eight years aired That 70′s Show, a ratings hit whose signature sight gag was teenagers sitting in a smoke-filled basement passing around a joint or bong (never seen, however), with the camera focusing on each character as they “passed the dutchie on the left hand side”.

So it is OK for the corporate parents of CBS, NBC, ABC, and FOX to profit from movies and TV shows that satirize marijuana culture, but they have a “standards and practices” problem with their broadcast affiliates showing 30 seconds of a 38-year-old woman suggesting we should tax and regulate marijuana.

Keep in mind in these cases, we are talking about one part of the big media company raking in huge profits with shows about the marijuana community, while another part of the big media company refuses the free educational fliers, paid advertisements, and pay-to-play broadcasts BY AND FOR the marijuana community. Marijuana is the modern day minstrel show – we’re allowed on the air as long as we keep on our “greenface”, shuck and jive (or would it be “smoke and pass”?), and never forget our proper place.

By the way, the NORML SHOW LIVE mentioned in Case #1 will still be going on the air, as promised, on Labor Day Weekend.  Unlike CBS, we keep our promises to our customers.  The money raised will go into promotions and producing our show through the facilities of BlogTalkRadio.com, which was happy to accept our business, and quite frankly, offers us a better production technology at one-sixth the price.  Tune in every Saturday Night at 9pm Eastern for two hours of intelligent discussion about marijuana legalization.

* Cannaporn is the news specials that like to show lots and lots of pictures of big green sticky buds and the people smoking them, usually the same stock footage they’ve run for years with the most stereotypical “stoner” types they can find, lots of pictures of bongs and tie dyes, some b-roll from a music festival, or body-armored police helicoptering in to chop down marijuana plants, while intoning the reefer madness du jour about increased potency, psychosis, or clandestine cartel grows and violence that wouldn’t exist in a legal market.  In other words, not what you will find on NORML SHOW LIVE.

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