House and Senate negotiations for the 2010 Appropriations bill have been completed.  This is the huge federal budget bill and it just so happens that Washington DC is a federal district and its spending is controlled by Congress.

In 1998, DC passed a medical marijuana bill overwhelmingly, but Congressional drug warriors led by Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia prevented DC from spending any federal money to count the votes (that’s right, in our democracy’s capital, our leaders conspired to prevent citizens from counting votes in a legal election).  When that was deemed unconstitutional, they spent the money to count the votes, showing that 69% of DC supported medical marijuana.  So Rep. Barr created the “Barr Amendment” that prevented DC from spending any money to implement the medical marijuana program they had voted in.

Well, today’s 2010 Appropriations bill changes all that.  In addition to removing bans on abortion, domestic partnerships, and needle exchange, Congress has given the go-ahead to begin implementing DC medical marijuana!

(US Senate) Removing Special Restrictions on the District of Columbia: Eliminates a prohibition on the use of local tax funds for abortion, thereby putting the District in the same position as the 50 states. Also allows the District to implement a referendum on use of marijuana for medical purposes as has been done in other states, allows use of Federal funds for needle exchange programs except in locations considered inappropriate by District authorities, and discontinues a ban on the use of funds in the bill for domestic partnership registration and benefits.

DC’s medical marijuana bill was written with the same sort of open language as was passed in California… will we be seeing marijuana dispensaries on K Street anytime soon?

Sec. 1.  All seriously ill individuals have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes… [for any] other serious or chronic illnesses for which the recommending physician reasonably believes that marijuana has demonstrated utility.

So, no restriction to a list of cancer, AIDS, MS, etc. for medical marijuana, like every other medical marijuana state except California.  DC docs will be able to recommend for anxiety, depression, PTSD, insomnia, or any condition they think marijuana will alleviate.

Sec. 5 (a)  …In determining a quantity of marijuana that constitutes a medical supply, this act shall be interpreted to assure that any medical patient protected by the act shall have access to a sufficient quantity of marijuana to assure that they can maintain their medical supply without any interruption in their treatment or depletion of their medical supply of marijuana.

Similar to Washington State’s vague language of a “60-day supply”, which has recently been determined to be 24 ounces of usable medicine and 15 live plants.

Sec 6.  A medical patient may designate or appoint a licensed health care practitioner, parent, sibling, child, or other close relative, domestic partner, case manager/worker, or best friend to serve as a primary caregiver for the purposes of this act.  A designation under this act need not be in writing; however, any written designation or appointment shall be prima facie evidence that a person has been so designated. A patient may designate not more than four persons at any one time to serve as a primary caregiver for the purposes of this act.  For the purposes of this subsection, the term ‘best friend’ means a close friend who is feeding, nursing, bathing, or otherwise caring for the medical patient while the medical patient is in a weakened condition.

Four caregivers, all of whom are exempt from prosecution for marijuana!  Four people who need not be designated in writing!  Somehow I think anytime a medical marijuana patient in DC is confronted by police, the people in his car or home will suddenly be “best friends”.

Sec. 7  Residents of the District of Columbia may organize and operate not-for-profit corporations for the purpose of cultivating, purchasing, and distributing marijuana exclusively for the medical use of medical patients…. The Director of DCRA shall issues such corporations exemptions from the sales tax, use tax, income tax, and other taxes of the District of Columbia in the same manner as other nonprofit corporations.

So not only will there be dispensaries on K Street, they will be tax-free dispensaries! Imagine Sen. Charles Grassley of Iowa or Rep. Mark Souder of Indiana forced to walk down the streets with legal marijuana users buying legal marijuana in legal dispensaries!  How will they continue to sell the scary threat of California pot shops when they’re forced to see how banal the shops are in practice?  And if we see, as I expect, DC violent crime stats to fall following implementation, their demonization of medical marijuana will sound even sillier to their constituents.

In other good news for our side, the drug czar’s ad budget was slashed by over a third:

National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign: $45 million, $25 million below 2009 and the budget request, for a national ad campaign providing anti-drug messages  directed at youth. Reductions were made in this program because of evaluations questioning its effectiveness. Part of the savings was redirected to other ONDCP drug-abuse-reduction programs.

The “questioning its effectiveness” refers to congressional studies that showed that kids exposed to the ads were more likely to try drugs!

Heroin Legalization Program Approved By Swiss Voters
GENEVA — The world’s most comprehensive legalized heroin program became permanent Sunday with overwhelming approval from Swiss voters who simultaneously rejected the decriminalization of marijuana.

The nearly 1,300 selected addicts, who have been unhelped by other therapies, visit one of the centers twice a day to receive the carefully measured dose of heroin produced by a government-approved laboratory.

They keep their paraphernalia in cups labeled with their names and use the equipment and clean needles to inject themselves _ four at a time _ under the supervision of a nurse, and also receive counseling from psychiatrists and social workers.

Sixty-eight percent of the 2.26 million Swiss voters casting ballots approved making the heroin program permanent.

By contrast, around 63.2 percent of voters voted against the marijuana proposal, which was based on a separate citizens’ initiative to decriminalize the consumption of marijuana and growing the plant for personal use.

Jo Lang, a Green Party member of parliament from the central city of Zug, said he was disappointed in the failure of the marijuana measure because it means 600,000 people in Switzerland will be treated as criminals because they use cannabis.

“People have died from alcohol and heroin, but not from cannabis,” Lang said.

The government, which opposed the marijuana proposal, said it feared that liberalizing cannabis could cause problems with neighboring countries.

Talk about “sending a wrong message to the children”!  Don’t use cannabis, or we’ll arrest you, but if you get into heroin, we’ll give you a nice place to shoot up some free smack.  In a strange way, the Swiss voters just said that cannabis use isn’t addictive.  They had to take action against heroin because those people got addicted and would shoot up in the city parks, but apparently cannabis isn’t enough of a problem for the Swiss people to think it needs a harm reduction solution.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for clean needle exchange programs and maintenance heroin programs and I really don’t even mind if the government pays for it.  But to accept that treatment of heroin while maintaining a prohibition against cannabis seems insane to me.  I’d bet if you legalized the cannabis, you’d end up with less heroin addicts over the long term, too.

Maia Szalavitz: Obama Drug Czar Pick: No Recovery from War on Drugs?
Unfortunately, Ramstad may be a drug warrior in recovering person’s clothing. There is one issue that has consistently separated those who put science and saving lives in front of politics. That is needle exchange programs for addicts to prevent the spread of HIV and other blood borne illnesses.

Even President Clinton now says he was “wrong” when he ignored the recommendations of every scientific and medical organization in the world that has examined the question — from the AMA to the World Health Organization — and refused to lift the federal ban on funding.

While Obama has said that he favors federal funding, the last thing we need is another drug czar to talk him out of it.

Ramstad looks like that person. I am awaiting comment from his office to see if he has changed his position, but his history on the issue isn’t good. In 1992, he said, “Federal funds should be used to get people off drugs not facilitate drug abuse…let’s support programs that save lives, not destroy lives.” By then, dozens of studies from around the world already suggested that clean needle programs not only reduce HIV, but attract addicts into recovery.

Ramstad also — again, against the evidence — opposes medical marijuana and supports federal policing and prosecution of providers and patients in the states that have made it legal. These states have not seen the rise in teen drug use that opponents like the Congressman predicted.

There’s simply no evidence that allowing sick people to get needed medication conflicts with helping addicts. Obama has said he does not support these prosecutions — will Ramstad push him in the wrong direction here, too? In an economic crisis, do we really want to spend federal time and money locking up medical marijuana providers and sick people?

While Ramstad has opposed some interdiction efforts and called for more treatment funding, someone who doesn’t even believe that addicts have a right to life if they aren’t in treatment is not the kind of recovering person that I want representing me as drug czar.

That’s not change, President Obama — that’s more of the same. Don’t make the mistake that Bill Clinton did and install a drug czar who will ignore science and push dogma.