This 2011 Reefer Madness propaganda is Anslinger Approved!

It’s end-of-year retrospective time!  While my colleagues on the NORML Blog (go check out the new look that matches the new site) are going to bring you the biggest marijuana news stories of 2011, here at The Daily Stash Blog we’re going to bring you stories that may have fallen through the cracks of other drug policy 2011 remembrances.

Today we bring you the Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011.  ”Reefer Madness”, of course, is the 1936 anti-pot propaganda film showing young people becoming crazed and violent on the effects of “reefer”.  Today, we use “Reefer Madness” as shorthand to describe the hysterical warnings by the anti-drug zealots as reported unchallenged by a complacent media.

Tomorrow we’ll look at the Top Ten Cannabis Science Stories of 2011.  Thursday we’ll cover the Top Ten “Stupid Stoner Stories” of 2011.  Friday we’ll cover the Top Ten People in Marijuana of 2011.

Top Ten “Reefer Madness” Stories of 2011 (audio mp3)

10. Oregonian editorial board hypes fears of medical marijuana and teen pot smoking

(The Oregonian – “Seeing through the smoke” editorial) It’s about time someone took action on the increasing number of medical marijuana dispensaries. … Right now, anyone, including teenagers, can apply [for a medical marijuana card]. A study done by Oregon Partnership found, for example, that 35 percent of students at Wilson High School and 46 percent at Marshall High School knew someone with a card.

Unlike the Oregonian editorial board, I check sources (I work for NORML: I have to.) The survey they refer to was addressed at a Marshall High community town hall meeting. The poll was conducted by students as part of a project called “SMASH” in a “confidential, random, peer-to-peer” survey – meaning one high school kid asking another high school kid. We have no control group, no control for confounding variables, not even a mention of the survey size or the randomness of those polled (maybe the SMASH kids are more likely to “randomly” speak to their friend, for instance, or stood in the hall and talked to anyone passing by who would answer.)

But besides all the methodological issues arising from trusting the polling data of high school kids talking to their friends, it’s important to note what their survey actually said:

PERCEPTION: Students surveyed believed that 8 out of 10 students smoke marijuana

REALITY: 7 out of 10 students DO NOT smoke marijuana

Kids surveyed thought 77.3% of others were smoking marijuana.  76.07% of kids never smoked marijuana, another 12.27% smoked it once or twice a month.  So, kids think 3 out of 4 other kids smoke pot when 3 out of 4 kids actually don’t.  Where, oh, where could the kids be getting the message that youth cannabis smoking is out of control, when, in fact, Oregon’s 12th grade monthly cannabis use rates have declined 14% (before | after) since 1999, when medical marijuana got underway in Oregon?

9. Papa John’s Pizza supports driver who reported medical marijuana patient to police

You would think that pizza delivery companies would understand who their customers are and that a great number of them smoke marijuana.  If you’re a pizza delivery company in Colorado, you’d understand that many of the marijuana smokers in your delivery area may be legally using cannabis for medicinal purposes.  But apparently Papa John’s pizza in Colorado doesn’t care too much about its drivers violating the privacy of its customers who are medical marijuana patients.

(9News) The man was smoking medical marijuana just before the pizza arrived on Friday evening. The delivery driver smelled the marijuana and called the cops. The Papa John’s employee, who was not identified, was concerned because the customer’s 9-year-old daughter was in the house.

8. The annual scaremongering about marijuana-laced Halloween treats begins now

L.A. County Sheriff’s Department Sgt. Glen Walsh said parents should definitely inspect the candy their children bring home after trick-or-treating.

Walsh said a pungent smell or an odd taste can serve as indicators on whether the food contains marijuana. As for the potency of the marijuana-laced prodcuts, Walsh said the level of THC, the chemical found in marijuana, can vary from zero to over 90 percent.

OK, so watch closely, parents.  You don’t want your kid getting a candy with 0% THC in it.  But if you find any of that 90% THC stuff, you can send it my way for proper disposal.

How stupid is this?  First off, if there is a person out there who would intentionally hand THC-laden treats to children, they are a criminal.  They’d be just as likely to poison Halloween treats or put pins or razor blades in them.. which is an urban legend with no truth to it whatsoever.

Second, if you are a person who uses THC-laden treats for medical or recreational purposes, why are you handing out a $20 “Buddafinger” when you could pass out a 20-cent “Butterfinger”?  You want to be so sure some kid you don’t know and won’t see gets high that you’ll spend 10 times more on Halloween candy?

7. Portland Reporter Anna Canzano: A medical marijuana-hating sheriff’s best friend

[Oregon Sheriff's Association President] Tom Bergin said at the rate Oregon is going, he believes Oregon is three times sicker than California. Why? Well, more than 90 percent of cardholders say they’re using pot to treat pain — not glaucoma or cancer — as the bill was initially marketed.

Here are the facts from the state’s medical marijuana program registry:

• There are 49,220 medical marijuana patients
• There are 44,756 patients who indicate chronic pain as a qualifying condition

So Canzano, Bergin, and every prohibitionist who scoffs at people in serious pain treating it with a non-toxic herb pull out their calculators and exclaim “90% of cardholders are using it for pain, not glaucoma or cancer!”  (The number is actually 90.9%.)

What Canzano distorts lies in the word “not”.  Under Oregon law, a registry cardholder can qualify under more than one condition.  The state even puts “A patient may have more than one diagnosed qualifying medical condition” right there on the website where you got the numbers to crunch.  Are we to believe people with cancer and glaucoma don’t suffer chronic pain as well?

6. Florida Woman Sues Over Being Arrested for Sage

A woman in Florida who was arrested for felony marijuana possession is suing for wrongful arrest. She might just have a case, she was charged with marijuana possession even though the bag they caught her with turned out to be Sage. 49 year old, Robin Brown says a Broward County Sheriff’s deputy caught her while she was bird watching back in March of 2009. He used his field kit on the herb she had in a bag, and said that in the field it tested positive for marijuana. The deputy sent the 50 grams of substance to a state crime lab.

Her lawsuit says that she was arrested before the test was performed. Her arrest was ordered by the Assistant State Attorney, Mark Horn, in June of 2009. She was arrested at her place of business, Massage Envy in Weston. She said that she was arrested in front of co-workers and her customers and subjected to a full body cavity search during her overnight stay in jail. When her lawyer discovered the herbs had not been tested a second time, he used the courts to force the tests which determined what Ms. Brown was contending all along, her sage was completely marijuana free.

5. Teen dies after plastic fumes scar lungs, media blames synthetic pot

The boy smoked the fake marijuana out of a plastic PEZ candy dispenser. The chemicals in the drugs caused extensive damage to his lungs. Brandon was put on a respirator in June and had a double lung transplant in September.

So, we’re to assume here it was the K2 that scarred the boys lungs and not the freakin’ fumes from the melting plastic of a PEZ dispenser?!?

Tonya Rice told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review newspaper Brandon was put on a respirator in June after smoking Spice fake cannabis, which is said to be ten times more dangerous than cocaine.

Not to be cruel or insensitive about the boy’s death, but he didn’t suddenly die from the acute effects of K2 use.  He used it in June, fell very ill, was given a double lung transplant, and died from an infection because of his lowered immune system in October.  So, to compare, we have cocaine, which can give you a heart attack by overdose and kill you the minute you snort / smoke / inject it, versus a synthetic cannabinoid smoked through plastic, requiring a double lung transplant, leading to a fatal infection four months later in the hospital that kills one boy.  We’re not trying to say K2 is safe – it isn’t – but it’s not “ten times more dangerous than cocaine”.

4. CASA’s Joe Califano blames marijuana for Arizona shooter

I haven’t seen press reports or talking heads discuss their concern about how easy it has been for this mentally ill young man to get marijuana. And there has been no mention of the potential of marijuana to spark latent psychosis and exacerbate schizophrenia and other mental illnesses.

So as we continue to think about this killer and his deranged mind, we should be asking this question: Is Jared Loughner an individual whose psychosis was prompted or exacerbated by the use of marijuana?

Gee, Joe, what do you think we ought to do?  Make marijuana illegal?  Lock up people who use it?  Break down their doors at night and shoot their dogs?  Use helicopters and infrared to eradicate the plant wherever it’s grown?  Throw billions at American and Mexican law enforcement for armor and weapons to fight its traffickers?  Train dogs to sniff it out?  Drug test employees, high schoolers, even middle schoolers to detect its use?

The facts are that 1% of the population exhibits schizophrenia, whether it is 1979 and 60% of high school seniors have tried marijuana or it is 1992 and 33% have tried it.  A study of 186 UK mental hospitals found no increase in schizophrenia or psychosis admissions, despite use rates of cannabis increasing greatly during that decade.

3. UK Daily Mail: Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

Cannabis ‘kills 30,000 a year’

Oh, dear.  From zero deaths* in 5,000 years of human use to ’30,000 a year’.  That sounds serious.  Let’s read on…

More than 30,000 cannabis smokers could die every year, doctors warn today.

Wait, “could die”?  We’ve gone from the active headline verb “kills” to the lede adverb “could”?  Usually you bury that wiggle room somewhere in paragraph umpteen.  Continue…

Professor John Henry, a leading authority on the drug, said the change – due to take place this summer – had undermined doctors’ efforts to highlight the risks.

He said: “Cannabis is as dangerous as cigarette smoking – in fact, it may be even worse – and downgrading its legal status has simply confused people.”

“May be” worse?  Where are the wards full of cannabis smokers?  Britain actually has some level of health care worthy of a civilized (civilised) people.  You’d think the National Health Service would bring these figures up.  It sounds like quite a cost to the government.

2. American Cancer Society says marijuana use can lead to amputation

Although it is rare, severe shutdown of blood circulation to the arms or legs has been reported in young people who smoked marijuana. In some cases, it was so severe that amputation was required.

In all my years beating back reefer madness, this is a first.  I have never heard a story of someone’s marijuana use leading to amputation.  I have covered stories of people who use marijuana for their already-existing amputation, since it is a superior medication for “phantom” pain, and I’ve covered one double-amputee diabetic’s eviction for her medical marijuana use, though.

1. Butt-chugging, vodka tampons, drinking bleach, and other parent-frightening urban legends

(KPHO) [School Resource Officer Chris] Thomas spends his days patrolling the halls of a Valley high school. He’s heard first hand how kids are getting tipsy.

“What we’re hearing about is teenagers utilizing tampons, soak them in vodka first before using them,” Thomas said.

“This is definitely not just girls,” Thomas said. “Guys will also use it and they’ll insert it into their rectums.”

Rather than the traditional beer bong you’d find at a college party, kids are sticking the tube elsewhere to get wasted.

They’re calling it “butt chugging.”

Rrrighttt… young teenage males, typically the most homophobic and self-conscious creatures on the planet, are dropping trou in front of their peers and inserting plastic tubes up their ass to chug beer.  And the vodka tampons?  Huffington Post reports that “the practice remains unverified despite multiple reports of incidents in the U.S. and elsewhere” and that a blogger “conducted her own informal trial to see whether the purported method worked“, where she notes the alcohol dissolves the glue and consistency of the tampon so much it couldn’t be inserted and that even if it were inserted, the burn you’d feel on your sensitive lady parts would not make this an enjoyable drunk.  Plus, the idea that it would help teens avoid detection with no alcohol on their breath is false, as alcohol metabolizes in your breath no matter how you ingest it.

Reporter Erica Heartquist visited RoLLaJaY Studios to record an interview with me for our local Portland NBC affiliate KGW. This appeared on their “Live @ 7″ show that airs from Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square studios.

A patient may have more than one diagnosed qualifying medical condition. Like "pain and cancer" or "pain and multiple sclerosis". (From OMMP Stats online)

In her latest “report” on medical marijuana in Portland, Oregon (“Sheriff’s Association: Medical marijuana program out of control“), local KATU reporter Anna Canzano (née Song) once again distorts and selectively edits her story to favor the anti-medical marijuana views of law enforcement.

[Oregon Sheriff's Association President] Tom Bergin said at the rate Oregon is going, he believes Oregon is three times sicker than California. Why? Well, more than 90 percent of cardholders say they’re using pot to treat pain — not glaucoma or cancer — as the bill was initially marketed.

Here are the facts from the state’s medical marijuana program registry:

• There are 49,220 medical marijuana patients
• There are 44,756 patients who indicate chronic pain as a qualifying condition

So Canzano, Bergin, and every prohibitionist who scoffs at people in serious pain treating it with a non-toxic herb pull out their calculators and exclaim “90% of cardholders are using it for pain, not glaucoma or cancer!”  (The number is actually 90.9%.)

An expanded calculation of OMMP numbers, indicating the difference between "patients with cards for pain" and "patients with cards ONLY for pain". (OMMP Stats + Excel)

What Canzano distorts lies in the word “not”.  Under Oregon law, a registry cardholder can qualify under more than one condition.  The state even puts “A patient may have more than one diagnosed qualifying medical condition” right there on the website where you got the numbers to crunch.  Are we to believe people with cancer and glaucoma don’t suffer chronic pain as well?  I just spoke at a meeting in Eastern Oregon where one young mother discussed the excruciating pain she suffered batting multiple sclerosis, another young lady described the torment that accompanies vomiting up tumors as she fought cancer, and a woman given 300 joints a month since 1988 by the federal government for glaucoma described the lifelong pain of her condition and multiple eye surgeries.

If you total the number of conditions Oregonians are legally treating with cannabis, you get 69,033 conditions among those 49,220 patients, so obviously there are 19,813 more conditions than patients.  The fewest mathematically-possible single-condition patients in the program, then, is 29,407, but that’s assuming the rest of the patients only indicate two conditions.  Since someone with HIV/AIDS, for instance, may also experience nausea, cachexia, and pain, it is hard to estimate how many cards are “pain-only cards” there are.  I can tell you that pain makes up 64% of the conditions treated by cannabis and that greatest possible number of “pain-only cards” is 24,943, or a bit more than half of all cardholders.

Canzano’s emphasizing the talking point of law enforcement that medical marijuana “was initially marketed” only for cancer and glaucoma.

Dispensaries were rejected last November by Oregon voters, but overall, the popularity of the state’s medical marijuana program is skyrocketing. The program, which was once billed as something that would apply to 500 people, has ballooned to more than 50,000.

I’ve debunked this as well when Canzano’s rival in yellow journalism, Hannah Hoffman of the McMinnville News-Register, brought it up earlier this year.  The “500 patients a year” figure was an estimate of financial impact by the Secretary of State’s office, not anything proposed by proponents of Measure 67 (read the ballot arguments for yourself).  Ironically, Hoffman even quotes the measure’s co-chief petitioner, paraplegic Stormy Ray, as saying, “There are thousands of patients like me…” in her ballot argument.

As for Canzano’s parroting of Bergin’s “Oregon is three times sicker…” line, one would have to assume if Oregon has 50,000 patients, California must only have 16,666 patients if we’re three times sicker.  The fact is there are an estimated 750,000 to 1,250,000 medical marijuana patients in California.  Based on those numbers, about 1.2% of Oregon’s population are cardholders, compared to estimates of 2% – 3% for California.

We’ve reported on Canzano’s “fair and balanced” medical marijuana “reports” before (“Portland TV reporter goes “undercover” to “easily” get medical marijuana card [video]).  She even references her last undercover “report” in this latest hit piece:

Last year, KATU Reporter Anna Canzano went undercover to see how easy it was to get a medical marijuana card. She hit up a clinic, paid $200 and explained the massage therapy she was receiving for back and neck pain wasn’t working.

She walked out with a prescription for medical marijuana and even got a free sample from a grower who happened to be in the clinic at the time.

What she leaves out here is that she has extensive medical records of her scoliosis and pain from three car accidents.  In other words, she absolutely legally qualifies for medical marijuana for her pain, regardless if she lied about the therapeutic effects she receives through massage therapy.

The problem law enforcement has with the rapid rise in medical marijuana’s popularity, something Canzano helps characterize as “abuse” with her one-sided hit pieces, is that so many people tired of addictive pharmaceuticals with toxic side effects are choosing to go the natural route and medicate legally with cannabis.  They mock people with serious pain for choosing cannabis as a first resort instead of Vicodin, Demerol, Oxycontin, Dilaudid, or even acetaminophen and aspirin (click for lists of fun side effects!) as if they are merely faking and defrauding the medical marijuana program.  A survey by the Arthritis Foundation found that 42% of adults suffer some kind of pain daily and 89% suffer pain monthly, with a mean prevalence of chronic pain at 35.5% of the adult population.  The real problem for law enforcement is that more legal patients makes it more difficult for cops to figure out which cannabis consumers are healthy enough to arrest, fine, and imprison, to seize assets and driver’s licenses from, to break down their doors and kill their dogs, ruin their scholarship and job search prospects, and otherwise scare the hell out of.

Bless that grower who offered free medicine to Canzano.  Because we live in a state that recognizes marijuana as medicine but refuses to provide a legal way to purchase it, a person in pain like Canzano is left at the mercy of drug dealers.  There is no Walgreen’s for medical marijuana patients and when we tried through initiative multiple times to institute a well-regulated dispensary system, voters rejected the proposal because of… well, fears of drug dealers.  Odd, then, that we’d provide drug dealers 50,000 customers who can legally possess their product instead of putting those customers under the protected, regulated watch of legal stores.  Also, how many of you know a coworker, relative, or friend who’s slipped you one of their prescription pain pills when you complained of a worse-than-usual pain?

Two activists I know personally, Angela Fairless and Madeline Martinez, are selectively quoted by Canzano to make it seem as if “the biggest supporters of medical marijuana said the program operates in a gray area, with some pushing the envelope too far.” Yes, some people are taking advantage of patients, and they couldn’t do so as easily if there was a regulated distribution system.  Canzano’s editing makes it seem as activists feel, like the sheriffs, that the medical marijuana program is out of control, when the solutions they propose aren’t to tighten restrictions on medical marijuana as the sheriffs would prefer, but to institute a dispensary system (Fairless) or just outright legalize cannabis for everyone (Martinez).  In other words, Canzano “reports” that both sides think medical marijuana operates in a gray market, but fails to mention cops want sick and disabled patients to go back to a black market and activists want to make it a legal market.

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(The Oregonian – “Seeing through the smoke” editorial) It’s about time someone took action on the increasing number of medical marijuana dispensaries. The dispensaries are ignoring both the law and the will of Oregonians, who voted in November to defeat Measure 74, which would have legalized state-regulated dispensaries.

Of course, technical violations of the law may not really be the issue here. The original medical marijuana law was full of flaws. Lawmakers who are inclined to try to fix it could start with age restrictions on who can hold a card. Right now, anyone, including teenagers, can apply. A study done by Oregon Partnership found, for example, that 35 percent of students at Wilson High School and 46 percent at Marshall High School knew someone with a card.

Holton has done a good job in pointing to the proliferation of marijuana dispensaries, which may help nip it in the bud, so to speak. But, if Oregon is to continue allowing medical marijuana, then, at least, legislators must work harder to tighten up the rules.

Shame on the Oregonian for parroting the baseless “What About the Children?!?” scare tactic of US Attorney Holton and the majority of Oregon law enforcement. “35 percent of students at Wilson High School and 46 percent at Marshall High School knew someone with a card.” Knew a fellow student or knew someone with an OMMP card? A friend’s parent? A local store clerk? Their own parent? Their parent’s friends? The Oregonian cleverly places the stat in the context of implying high schools are overrun with cardholding minor students.

Unlike the Oregonian editorial board, I check sources (I work for NORML: I have to.) The survey they refer to was addressed at a Marshall High community town hall meeting. The poll was conducted by students as part of a project called “SMASH” in a “confidential, random, peer-to-peer” survey – meaning one high school kid asking another high school kid. We have no control group, no control for confounding variables, not even a mention of the survey size or the randomness of those polled (maybe the SMASH kids are more likely to “randomly” speak to their friend, for instance, or stood in the hall and talked to anyone passing by who would answer.)

But besides all the methodological issues arising from trusting the polling data of high school kids talking to their friends, it’s important to note what their survey actually said:

PERCEPTION: Students surveyed believed that 8 out of 10 students smoke marijuana

REALITY: 7 out of 10 students DO NOT smoke marijuana

Kids surveyed thought 77.3% of others were smoking marijuana.  76.07% of kids never smoked marijuana, another 12.27% smoked it once or twice a month.  So, kids think 3 out of 4 other kids smoke pot when 3 out of 4 kids actually don’t.  Where, oh, where could the kids be getting the message that youth cannabis smoking is out of control, when, in fact, Oregon’s 12th grade monthly cannabis use rates have declined 14% (before | after) since 1999, when medical marijuana got underway in Oregon.

One could argue that when authority figures are telling kids youth pot smoking is rampant, kids believe “everyone’s doing it” and that peer pressure makes them more likely to want to try it.

REALITY: Almost 1 in 2 students surveyed knows someone who has a medical marijuana card.

Do you know anyone who is prescribed* medical marijuana? 46.63% YES

*Nobody is prescribed medical marijuana; it is “recommended”. Federal prohibition forbids “prescription” of marijuana.

Another REALITY? Of the 40,000 registered medical marijuana patients in Oregon, less than fifty are under the age of 18. That’s one-eighth of one percent of all patients in Oregon. I’ve met one minor on the program in all my six years working with patients in Oregon – a 16-year-old young man with a painful congenital disorder accompanied by his very clean-cut white-bread middle-class non-pot-smoking parents who only allow him to use medicated edibles; no smoking. There simply is no crisis of youth marijuana smoking in Oregon and certainly not one that can be attributed to a medical marijuana program with very strict requirements for qualification.

If the Oregonian is really concerned about the children, these existing cannabis clubs provide much more protection than the unregulated market they and US Attorney Holton seem to be advocating. I’ve visited a number of these clubs and each one – despite me being very well-known to them as a marijuana advocate at the national level – required that I show my Oregon ID and valid medical marijuana program card prior to entry.

US Attorney Holton and 33/34 county D.A.’s would like to you to believe that teens can walk into the state OMMP, complain about a headache, get an OMMP card, walk into a cannabis club and walk out with a pound and a half of marijuana. The truth is that the card is much more difficult to get here and the over 3,000 doctors who have recommended cannabis as medicine in Oregon are especially stringent in reviewing the records of minors for medical marijuana qualification.

Furthermore, these clubs pull the patient community away from the unregulated market’s back alleys, parking lots, and apartment living rooms. There is nothing that a prohibition profiteer hates more than regulated legal competition. Legality removes the prohibition risk tariff, drives down prices, and improves access and quality for patients. It creates jobs in the community, controls the distribution of cannabis far better than prohibition, contributes local tax revenue, and protects patients from unscrupulous growers taking advantage of their desperate need for medicine they can’t just buy at Walgreen’s or CVS.

If the Oregon county D.A.s outside of Multnomah are lacking for better things to do than harass sick and disabled adults trying to be legal consumers in a state with no legal retailers, perhaps they could work on the 72.4% of sex crimes and 80.4% of property crimes that didn’t lead to an arrest in 2009 in Oregon.

Russ Belville, OMMP Caregiver
Outreach Coordinator & Talk Radio Host
National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws
Portland, Oregon

(PORTLAND, Ore.) – Fees for registering with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program will double, from $100 per year to $200 per year, due to a Budget Bill that passed out of the Joint Ways and Means Committee and into the main chambers late Wednesday. The increase in fees was included in one of the over 30 bills that the Committee “barreled through” on Wednesday.

Bob Wolfe, Director and Spokesperson for the Oregon Marijuana Policy Initiative (OMPI), agrees. He describes the increase in fees as a “de facto tax” and questioned those behind the increase. “Medical marijuana patients are ill, disabled, and often poor. This stealthy budget item is a de facto tax on vulnerable people. I’d like to know which scurrilous legislator or bureaucrat is responsible for this disgusting maneuver,” he said.

OMPI is a coalition of twelve large patient organizations, including Oregon Green Free, Mama’s, The Human Collective, and Oregon NORML, as well as many other independent advocates of medical marijuana. OMPI represents thousands of patients in Oregon, and has been active working at the legislature to protect Oregon Medical Marijuana Patients protection under the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act.

While Oregon is slashing its many aspects of its budget, the Oregon Health Authority will receive an increase over current spending to its budget of nearly 11%, reports OregonLive. The increased fees for OMMP patients are expected to contribute about $7 million dollars over the biennium, and will go towards a program for drinking water and emergency medical services.

OregonLive further reports: “Conspicuously absent Wednesday was the public safety budget, which includes money to run state prisons. Lawmakers are still struggling for ways to stem the escalating cost of incarceration.”  Continue reading…