A bill in Washington state asking for the DEA to re-classify marijuana has gone an important step forward. Senate Joint Memorial 8017 is just the very latest pressure that the states are using to try and get the door open to more sensible medical marijuana laws.

Earlier this week, Washington State Governor Chris Gregoire joined the chorus of governors in asking the Federal Government, namely the Drug Enforcement Administration, to change marijuana from a Schedule I substance that would define it as having no medicinal value to a Schedule II substance.  The Schedule I classification at the federal level conflicts with state medical marijuana laws, and in Washington State has caused a rift in public policies around the state.

The measure passed with unanimous approval from the Senate Committee on Health and Long Term Care and will now move on to the Rules Committee, where if passed there would be scheduled for a floor vote. In testimony before the vote, several members of the public testified to the committee on the benefits of medical cannabis in their lives and Sen. Jeane Kohl-Welles testified before the committee saying that she believes that other much more harmful drugs are able to be prescribed and regulated. She also joined 41 other legislators in signing Gregoire’s letter earlier this week, seven Republicans and thirty-five Democrats.

While many of these measures might not effectively convince the government to reclassify marijuana to lift the pressure off of the medical marijuana programs in the states that have them, together, governors, state sponsored bills and individuals have been continuing to put pressure on them to change –  may be the best tactic we have.

External Links:
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-northwest-news/index.ssf/2012/01/washington_legislators_ask_rec.html

http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/02/marijuana_reclassification_bil.html

The state of Colorado has been very progressive when it comes to medical marijuana regulations. They have pages and pages of codes that describe every process from growing to transporting to processing and distributing. Now, the agency that oversees much of that regulation, the Colorado Department of Revenue, has asked the DEA change the definition of Marijuana.

The Colorado Department of Revenue’s executive head, Barbara Brohl, wrote a letter last month asking the DEA to reschedule marijuana so that the definition of the plant include potential medicinal value. As a Schedule I substance defined by the Federal government, marijuana is considered dangerous with a high level of addiction potential and zero medicinal value, something that is an obviously incongruent with states that have passed medical marijuana laws.

The letter was expected; it was part of a law passed last year in Colorado in the legislature that required the state to ask for the rescheduling by the end of 2011. Brohl’s letter detailed Colorado’s regulation for medical marijuana sellers and argued that the current federal laws that make any distribution and possession illegal make her job as a state regulator of the state’s medical marijuana laws difficult to administer. The letter suggests that moving marijuana from a Schedule I substance to a Schedule II category, that keeps the dangerous warning about the substance, but allows some medicinal value.

Even with the move, marijuana would still be in a class of drugs like methamphetamine, opium and cocaine, still highly addictive, but with some medical value. A Schedule II categorization would allow doctors to prescribe marijuana, but still leave the strict controls on it for the feds, a compromise that seems obvious to many but has been lost on the DEA in the past.

Governor Gregoire from Washington and Governor Chaffee from Rhode Island have also sent letters to the DEA asking for the reclassification. The DEA has repeatedly either denied, or ignored similar requests for the last few decades. If Colorado and the increasing pressure from other state officials do get the DEA to change the classification it may still mean a host of other complicated issues for Colorado and other medical marijuana states. The tight controls of schedule two classification would now allow patients to grow and cultivate their own medicine.

External Links:

http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_19636149

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2017113218_apcomedicalmarijuana1stldwritethru.html

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Our Executive Director has posted the latest salvo of propaganda from the Drug Enforcement Administration on the NORML Blog and provided a very thorough rebuttal to the notion that Alaskans “legalized” marijuana in the 1970s, freaked out over the carnage and, my god, the children!!, and in the 1990s made it illegal again.  This “failed experiment” with “drug legalization” is supposed to be a dire warning to those on the West Coast who are trying to regulate the third-most popular recreational substance somewhat like the first, but Allen St. Pierre tells you the history of Alaskan constitutional privacy rights the DEA would like you to forget.

Left there hanging on the vine, though, are the other nine “facts” the DEA are presenting, a la David Letterman (but not as funny), in something we’re calling the…

“These here, Paul, from our own government, from somewhere deep in Dick Cheney’s secret bunker, the Top Ten Facts About Legalization from the DEA…”

Fact 1: We have made significant progress in fighting drug use and drug trafficking in America. Now is not the time to abandon our efforts.

The Legalization Lobby claims that the fight against drugs cannot be won. However, overall drug use is down by more than a third in the last twenty years, while cocaine use has dropped by an astounding 70 percent. Ninety-five percent of Americans do not use drugs. This is success by any standards.

Actually, two out of three Americans use drugs if you include alcohol and one out of ten Americans use cannabis (National Survey on Drug Use & Health 2008) every year, so I’m not sure how you can say 95% of Americans do not use drugs.  If we were to include prescription and over-the-counter drug use, I’m sure something close to 95% of Americans actually use drugs.

But we weren’t talking about “legalizing drugs”, we’re talking about regulation of cannabis.  Whether cocaine or other drug use has risen or fallen is beside the point.  Fierce marijuana criminalization laws haven’t stopped the United States from leading the world in lifetime marijuana use and open tolerance of cannabis coffeehouses in The Netherlands haven’t moved the Dutch from having half the lifetime use rates and one-third the young teen (<=15) use rates of cannabis as Americans.  Portugal has decriminalized drugs to a large extent and the international community calls it “a resounding success”.  Singapore and Indonesia have some of the harshest anti-cannabis laws in the world, and yet they still have to keep executing the smugglers who won’t stop bringing it in to the country.  We can’t even keep drugs out of our SuperMax federal prisons; what makes the DEA think it can succeed in keeping drugs out of free adult hands?

Lifetime cannabis use = 31% in 1988 to 41% in 2008

Drug use rates have very little to do with drug laws.  And even the DEA’s claim that drug use is down a third in twenty years is suspect.  If we define “drug use” as the lifetime rates that have been tracked by the National Surveys on Drug Use and Health over the past twenty years (1988-2008), then cannabis use has risen dramatically in the past twenty years, from 31% to 41% of the population aged 12 and older who have tried cannabis.

Lifetime crack use = more than double; heroin use = almost double; hallucinogen use = almost double; coke, meth, and inhalants = all increased >20%

In fact, when you take a look at the lifetime use of illegal drugs (cocaine, crack, meth, heroin, hallucinogens, and inhalants), you find that all those figures have risen over the past twenty years, too.

Annual alcohol consumption = steady; annual cigarette consumption = 38% in 1988 to 28% in 2008

The most interesting figures appear when you look at lifetime, annual, and monthly use of the legal drugs, alcohol and cigarettes.  Alcohol use has remained steady but declining, while cigarette use has plummeted.

What this all tells us is:

• People that want to use substances will;
• Maintaining prohibition over marijuana and drugs hasn’t stopped anyone; in fact use has risen;
• Regulating dangerous and addictive drugs like alcohol and tobacco hasn’t encouraged greater use; in fact use has decreased.

Fact 2: A balanced approach of prevention, enforcement, and treatment is the key in the fight against drugs.

A successful drug policy must apply a balanced approach of prevention, enforcement and treatment. All three aspects are crucial. For those who end up hooked on drugs, there are innovative programs, like Drug Treatment Courts, that offer non-violent users the option of seeking treatment. Drug Treatment Courts provide court supervision, unlike voluntary treatment centers.

Almost twice as much of your tax money goes to trying to arrest you for drugs as trying to help you quit them

That’s a nice sentiment, but it is not how the government actually prosecutes the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs.  49.8% of all drug arrests are for marijuana violations, with 89% of those marijuana arrests made for possession alone.  The “balanced approach” in President Obama’s FY 2011 Budget makes the DEA the fat kid on the see-saw, with $9.9 billion appropriated for law enforcement and interdiction vs. $5.6 billion appropriated for treatment and prevention.

Fact 3: Illegal drugs are illegal because they are harmful.

There is a growing misconception that some illegal drugs can be taken safely. For example, savvy drug dealers have learned how to market drugs like Ecstasy to youth. Some in the Legalization Lobby even claim such drugs have medical value, despite the lack of conclusive scientific evidence.

Once again, I haven’t seen any movement on the West Coast to put legalization of MDMA on the ballot; we’re talking about regulating marijuana.

Remember, this is a graph on a logarithmic scale. Cannabis is actually 2,000 times safer than alcohol.

However there is a way of measuring how safe a particular substance is to ingest; it’s called a “therapeutic index“.  It’s the ratio of “ED-50″, that is, a  minimum dose that will have the desired effect in 50% of test subjects, to the “LD-50″, which is the size of a lethal dose that will kill 50% of test subjects.  For example, half the people who cop a buzz on a “dose” of alcohol – whatever amount that is – will die if they drink ten times that amount.  That’s a “therapeutic index” of 1:10.

When measured by therapeutic index, most “illegal” drugs are technically safer than alcohol and cannabis is the safest of all with a therapeutic index that’s practically immeasurable.  Cannabis is so non-toxic that it’s ratio is estimated to be 1:20,000 to 1:40,000.  The DEA’s Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young concluded it would take a man smoking 1,500 lbs. of cannabis in 15 minutes to die of an overdose.

Fact 4: Smoked marijuana is not scientifically approved medicine. Marinol, the legal version of medical marijuana, is approved by science.

According to the Institute of Medicine, there is no future in smoked marijuana as medicine. However, the prescription drug Marinol—a legal and safe version of medical marijuana which isolates the active ingredient of THC—has been studied and approved by the Food & Drug Administration as safe medicine. The difference is that you have to get a prescription for Marinol from a licensed physician. You can’t buy it on a street corner, and you don’t smoke it.

"The DEA's doing research like it's 1999..."

Nice of the DEA to reference the 1999 Institute of Medicine report.  That was the report that concluded, as every report on the subject has, that marijuana use “does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse.”

That report also noted that only 9% of marijuana users develop “dependence”, compared to 15% for alcohol, 17% for cocaine, 23% for heroin, and 32% for tobacco.

It also noted that “A distinctive marijuana and THC withdrawal syndrome has been identified, but it is mild and subtle compared with the profound physical syndrome of alcohol or heroin withdrawal,” which can cause seizures, hallucinations, and severe cravings.  According to the report, “the symptoms of marijuana withdrawal include restlessness, irritability, mild agitation, insomnia, sleep EEG disturbance, nausea, and cramping.”

So if sometime later in the Top Ten list the DEA wants you to believe that legalization of marijuana will lead to increased addiction, remember that they were the ones using this report to argue against the medical efficacy of smoked marijuana.

However, it is interesting that the DEA makes no mention of the 2009 statement by the American Medical Association which concluded “Results of short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis…. To the extent that rescheduling marijuana out of Schedule I will benefit this effort [to develop cannabinoid medicines], such a move can be supported.

It’s also interesting how the DEA never mentions vaporization, tinctures, and edibles, which have been proven to eliminate the major harm of cannabis use – smoking.

And I never tire of the DEA that warns us about the super-potent Schedule I “Pot 2.0: Not Your Father’s Woodstock Weed” that approaches average THC potencies of 10% with maximums in the 30% range, then turns around and tells us how Schedule III 100% potent Marinol is so safe and effective.

Fact 5: Drug control spending is a minor portion of the U.S. budget. Compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction, government spending on drug control is minimal.

The Legalization Lobby claims that the United States has wasted billions of dollars in its anti-drug efforts. But for those kids saved from drug addiction, this is hardly wasted dollars. Moreover, our fight against drug abuse and addiction is an ongoing struggle that should be treated like any other social problem. Would we give up on education or poverty simply because we haven’t eliminated all problems? Compared to the social costs of drug abuse and addiction—whether in taxpayer dollars or in pain and suffering—government spending on drug control is minimal.

The "Legalization Lobby's" budget, in green, vs. the DEA's budget, in red. What's that, you don't see much green? Yeah, neither do we!

Finally, something sort or true from the DEA: “Drug control spending is a minor portion of the U.S. budget.”  At $15.5 billion compared to the overall fiscal year budget of $3.7 trillion, they’re right.  The entire drug war budget doesn’t even equal  the single “Military Construction” line ($16.9 B) in the Pentagon’s $548 billion budget.

But then they pivot that fact to the falsehood that saving money on law enforcement and making money in tax revenues by regulating marijuana markets would not match the gross expenses we’d suffer from our kids becoming slaves to drug addiction.  Never mind that they just ignored the previous point from the 1999 IOM Report about the gateway theory – what they are telling you is that legal marijuana users will cost society more than it saves and earns from taxation.

Canadian study of costs per substance user per year

To bolster this point, drug warriors like to point out that “sin” taxes on alcohol and tobacco only bring in a fraction of money compared to the measurable social costs of alcoholism and tobacco cancers.  It’s another example of starting from a fact and pivoting to a falsehood.  Alcohol and tobacco cost society a lot of money because (a) they’re addictive (see 1999 IOM Report above) and (b) they can kill you (see therapeutic index above).  A Canadian study on the annual health costs of one tobacco, alcohol, or cannabis user were $800, $165, and $20, respectively, while the enforcement costs on tobacco, alcohol, and cannabis per user were $0, $153, and $328, respectively.  In essence, Canada is spending $328 per toker to save $20 in health care costs!  Those numbers must be worse in America.

But set aside the numbers for a moment and just use some common sense.  If cannabis users cause such a great social harm that they are a cost burden to society, we are costing society right now.  It’s not as if nobody smokes pot now and suddenly legalization on the West Coast will create a country full of 22 million pot smokers imposing a new burden on society.  I’ve broken down this cost argument before, but basically whatever we cost now (some number far less than alcohol or tobacco, certainly), we’d cost less once you’ve made some tax revenue off of us.  The California Board of Equalization estimates $1.4 billion in revenues from legalization, so there would have to be $1.4 billion-worth of new pot smokers recruited and old tokers puffing more for this theory to make any sense at all.  If California doubled its current 2.3 million tokers after legalization, those 2.3 million new tokers would have to cost the state $608 each to eat up the tax revenues.

For comparison’s sake, according to the UC San Francisco Institute on Health and Aging, alcohol abuse costs California $17.8 billion and kills 13,000 Californians annually.  The NSDUH State Reports tell us that 62.5% of Californians 18 and older use alcohol, which works out to 17.1 million drinkers.  That division works out to a drinker costing California $1,041 each.

So in order to swallow this whopper, we need to believe that a legalized toker will cost California 60% as much as a legal drinker, when the studies show that in Canada a legalized toker would cost about 6% as much as a legal drinker.

Fact 6: Legalization of drugs will lead to increased use and increased levels of addiction. Legalization has been tried before, and failed miserably.

Legalization has been tried before—and failed miserably. Alaska’s experiment with Legalization in the 1970s led to the state’s teens using marijuana at more than twice the rate of other youths nationally. This led Alaska’s residents to vote to re-criminalize marijuana in 1990.

Again, see Allen St. Pierre’s deconstruction of the Alaska story, and remember that the same DEA that cited the 1999 IOM Report above that said marijuana use doesn’t lead to hard drug addiction is now telling you West Coast legalization of cannabis will lead to increased addiction.

When we look at the experience of thirteen states that have decriminalized marijuana and the fourteen states that have legalized medical use of marijuana, we find the DEA’s theory blown to bits.  In fact, that same 1999 IOM Report cited by the DEA above even concluded, “In sum, there is little evidence that decriminalization of marijuana use necessarily leads to a substantial increase in marijuana use.”

Fact 7: Crime, violence, and drug use go hand-in-hand.

Crime, violence and drug use go hand in hand. Six times as many homicides are committed by people under the influence of drugs, as by those who are looking for money to buy drugs. Most drug crimes aren’t committed by people trying to pay for drugs; they’re committed by people on drugs.

60% of the revenue for Mexican murderers comes from marijuana prohibition

Drugs, drugs, drugs… what does this have to do with cannabis?  The notion of a cannabis user deprived of weed and jonesing so bad he commits a crime to get the money for weed is ridiculous and the idea that cannabis users are driven to crime by the effects of cannabis is ludicrous.  Every study (like this one) that looks at violence and marijuana finds that cannabis use tends to inhibit violence by its users.

The only violence commonly attributed to marijuana is directly caused by its prohibition.  Mexican drug syndicates are not murdering 18,000 people over a three year span to protect their breweries, vineyards, beer and wine trucks, and hops and tobacco crops.  The only crime commonly attributed to marijuana use is the plundering of munchies from the fridge.

Fact 8: Alcohol has caused significant health, social, and crime problems in this country, and legalized drugs would only make the situation worse.

The Legalization Lobby claims drugs are no more dangerous than alcohol. But drunk driving is one of the primary killers of Americans. Do we want our bus drivers, nurses, and airline pilots to be able to take drugs one evening, and operate freely at work the next day? Do we want to add to the destruction by making drugged driving another primary killer?

No, I actually claim that cannabis is far safer than alcohol, see the therapeutic index data above.  This is another talking point that pivots from a fact (drunk driving is a serious problem) to a falsehood (the implied threat that legalization of cannabis would lead to more highway fatalities).

Nobody's suggesting you hot-box your ride and see how well you do on the test... but you will out-perform a drinker.

First of all, the US Dept. of Transportation fact sheet on cannabis states, “Effects from smoking cannabis products are felt within minutes and reach their peak in 10-30 minutes. Typical marijuana smokers experience a high that lasts approximately 2 hours.”  So if the bus driver, nurse, and airline pilot want to smoke a joint before bed and drive, nurse, or fly me the next day, I’m not at all worried; no more so than if they decide to have a glass of wine the night before work.

Then we have to remember that if cannabis smokers are driving, they are driving now.  If pot smoking were such a threat on our roadways we’d have seen the bodies pile up by now.  Numerous studies have confirmed what we all know:

• Drivers under the influence of cannabis tend to follow less closely to the vehicle in front of them;
• Drivers tend to decrease speed following cannabis inhalation;
• Drivers with blood alcohol levels of 0.05% were three times as likely to have engaged in unsafe driving activities prior to a fatal crash as compared to individuals who tested positive for marijuana;
• Drivers with low levels of alcohol present in their blood (below 0.05%) experienced a greater elevated risk as compared to drivers who tested positive for high concentrations of cannabis (above 5ng/ml).

In other words, even the highest cannabis-using driver is less dangerous than an alcohol-buzzed driver who is still below the per se impairment limits (0.08%) for alcohol.

Fact 9: Europe’s more liberal drug policies are not the right model for America.

The Legalization Lobby claims that the “European Model” of the drug problem is successful. However, since legalization of marijuana in Holland, heroin addiction levels have tripled. And Needle Park seems like a poor model for America.

Compared to Americans, Dutch teenagers use marijuana at half the rates, even though it is sold openly in coffeehouses

The Dutch began their policy of cannabis tolerance in 1976.  According to the 2008 EMCDDA National Report for The Netherlands, lifetime prevalence of heroin use was 0.3% in 1997 and 0.2% in 2001.  I looked all over the DEA’s website and press releases for 2001 looking for them to claim that Dutch cannabis tolerance has led to a one-third decrease in heroin use, but I never found it.  Prevalence of heroin use in 2005 was reported to be 0.6%, which would be triple the 2001 figure, but only double the 1997 figure.

But once again, the DEA cited the 1999 IOM Report above that tells us smoking pot doesn’t lead to heroin addiction, so I’m not sure what the DEA’s point is.  It also doesn’t help their case that their heroin use rates are less than half of American heroin use rates (1.52% lifetime prevalence).

Fact 10: Most non-violent drug users get treatment, not jail time.

The Legalization Lobby claims that America’s prisons are filling up with users. Truth is, only about 5 percent of inmates in federal prison are there because of simple possession. Most drug criminals are in jail—even on possession charges—because they have plea-bargained down from major trafficking offences or more violent drug crimes.

"The fact is that finding a first-time. non-violent offender in prison for marijuana is like finding a unicorn." -- John Walters, former drug czar, on the 11,200 Marijuana Unicorns in a cage right now.

Oh, only 1 out of 20 of the 2.3 million people we imprison are there for simple possession?  My math tells me that’s 115,000 Americans in a cage for their personal use of drugs.  The Sentencing Project determined that 11,200 of those Americans are in a cage for simple marijuana possession alone.  Of course, this is just federal prison we’re talking about, when most marijuana users are processed through city and county jails and housed in state prisons.

Another bit of falsehood pivoted to from these imprisonment facts is that pronouncement that most “drug criminals” are plea-bargaining down from more serious charges.  Often those are “intent to distribute” charges filed when a cannabis user makes the mistake of keeping separate strains in separate bags (multiple bags in the eyes of the law means you must be selling), “conspiracy” charges filed against cannabis users who “go in” with other cannabis users to split the cost of expensive cannabis, and “manufacture” charges filed when a cannabis user grows his own instead of participating in the black market.

But whether people are serving a day, 29 years, or 93 years for marijuana charges is irrelevant; it is the the arrest for marijuana possession itself that causes the harms to the user irrespective of any stay in a jail cell:

• If you’re convicted or enter a plea, you’ll be on probation and mandatory Urinalysis Tests will be performed.
• A conviction could impact child custody issues in family court.
• An arrest for Possession with Intent to Distribute or an arrest for the Manufacture of plants may result in the State attempting to Forfeit your home, your car, your cash and other assets which they can do even if charges are later dismissed or you are acquitted at trial! This heinous law is know as “Asset Forfeiture”.
• A conviction can impact Federally insured student loans
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to vote
• A felony conviction deprives you of the right to possess firearms
• A conviction can get you tossed out of government subsidized housing
• A conviction can impair your ability to obtain food stamps and other welfare benefits
• Your ability to ever adopt children will be jeopardized
• You will be denied entry into Canada and possibly other countries
• A misdemeanor conviction remains on your record and available to the public for three years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment
• A felony conviction remains on your record and available to the public for five years before it can be expunged, which may have an impact on current or future employment.

The DEA is terrified because there is a legitimate shot for the voters to legalize marijuana use, manufacture, and sales in one, possibly two, and maybe even three West Coast states this year.  If this bit of reefer madness is the best counter they have to offer, I really like our chances!

To be fair, Wal-Mart is just one of many employers that terminate medical marijuana patients for their failed urine screens

BATTLE CREEK, Mich. (WZZM) – Now that medical marijuana is legal in Michigan, can an employer fire a worker who tests positive for the drug?

WalMart says it can, so it did. “I was terminated because I failed a drug screening,” says former WalMart employee Joseph Casias.

In 2008, Casias was the Associate Of The Year at the WalMart store in Battle Creek, despite suffering from sinus cancer and an inoperable brain tumor.

At his doctor’s recommendation, Casias says he legally uses medical marijuana to ease his pain.

“It helps tremendously,” he says. “I only use it to stop the pain. To make me feel more comfortable and active as a person.”

During his five years at WalMart, Casias says he went to work every day, determined to be the best.

“I gave them everything,” he says. “110 percent every day. Anything they asked me to do I did. More than they asked me to do. 12 to 14 hours a day.”

But last November, Casias sprained his knee at work. Marijuana was detected in his system during the routine drug screening that follows all workplace injuries. Casias showed WalMart managers his state medical marijuana card, but he was fired anyway.

“I was told they do not accept or honor my medical marijuana card,” says Casias.

In an e-mail from headquarters, WalMart spokesman Greg Rossiter explained the company policy. It states: “In states, such as Michigan, where prescriptions for marijuana can be obtained, an employer can still enforce a policy that requires termination of employment following a positive drug screen. We believe our policy complies with the law and we support decisions based on the policy.”

Casias says he never used marijuana before work.

“No, I never came to work under the influence, never,” he says. “I don’t think it’s fair. Because I have a medical condition I can’t work and provide for my family?”

Casias has been collecting unemployment compensation since he was fired in November but this week he says he was notified WalMart is challenging his eligibility for benefits.

“It’s not fair,” he says.

Sorry to have to defend Wal-Mart, but they are no different in this regard than hundreds or even thousands of employers in the fourteen medical marijuana states.  Your recommendation for medical marijuana is just words – it’s not a prescription – so you aren’t protected by the Americans With Disabilities Act for your medical marijuana use.  You are not protected against discrimination for your medical marijuana use.  An employer may refuse to hire you and an employer may terminate you if you fail a workplace urine screening for marijuana metabolites.

So choose – your job or your health?

Many patients in medical marijuana states ask their doctor for a prescription for Marinol, the legal Schedule III 100%-potent THC pill, in order to have a defense for turning up positive for THC metabolites.  Since that is a prescription drug, it is covered in many cases by insurance and provides a legal “out” for companies with drug testing policies.

However, while the most commonly-used marijuana screening techniques cannot distinguish the THC metabolite from whole plant cannabis use and Marinol use, there are now new screening techniques than can distinguish other metabolites from plant cannabis that would not be present in Marinol-only use.  It costs a whole lot more money, but if employers are determined to ensure you’re not using actual plant marijuana, they can figure that out.

What makes this even more infuriating is that nearly every state makes exceptions for prescription drugs in the workplace, even ones that can cause severe impairment.  The federal laws on commercial driver’s licenses, for example, state the following:

(b) (12)(i) Does not use a controlled substance identified in 21 CFR 1308.11 Schedule I, an amphetamine, a narcotic, or any other habit-forming drug.

(b)(12)(ii) Exception. A driver may use such a substance or drug, if the substance or drug is prescribed by a licensed medical practitioner who:

(b)(12)(ii)(A) Is familiar with the driver’s medical history and assigned duties; and

(b)(12)(ii)(B) Has advised the driver that the prescribed substance or drug will not adversely affect the driver’s ability to safely operate a commercial motor vehicle; and

(b) (13) Has no current clinical diagnosis of alcoholism.

So long as your doctor knows you’re a trucker and doesn’t think you’re a drunk, you can use your Schedule II doctor-prescribed Cocaine, Dexedrine (speed), Dilaudid, Demerol, Desoxyn (meth), Oxycodone, Ritalin, and Seconal.  You can drive an eighteen-wheeler on our roads using your Schedule III doctor-prescribed Codeine, Ketamine (Special K), Secobarbital, Anabolic Steroids, and, ironically, the synthetic THC in Marinol.  So long as your doctor doesn’t think it will affect your duties, you’re free to use your Schedule IV Xanax, Klonopin, Valium, Ativan, and Ambien, because all of these drugs have medical uses and are safe to use under a doctor’s recommendation.

But not medical cannabis.  It’s Schedule I.  No medical value (no matter what the AMA says).  High potential for abuse (worse than cocaine, meth, and oxycontin).  No safe use under a doctor’s supervision (no matter what fourteen states say).

Feel free to contact Wal-Mart if you’d like to express your opinion:

Officers:

• Michael T. Duke – President & Chief Executive Officer
• Thomas M. Schoewe, MBA – Chief Financial Officer & Executive Vice President
• Rollin L. Ford – Chief Information Officer & EVP
• Thomas A. Mars – Chief Administrative Officer & EVP-US
• Eduardo Castro-Wright – Vice Chairman-US Wal Mart Stores

Address:

702 Southwest 8th Street
Bentonville, Arkansas 72716

Telephone:  +1 479 273-4000
Fax: +1 479 273-1917

(Washington Post) The Justice Department says it’s backing off the prosecution of people who smoke pot or sell it in compliance with state laws that permit “medical marijuana.” Attorney General Eric Holder says “it will not be a priority to use federal resources to prosecute patients with serious illnesses or their caregivers.” Party hardy! I mean — let the healing begin!

I don’t think the federal government should be spending a whole lot of time on small-time druggies, and I’m undecided about legalizing pot, which enjoys 44 percent support among the general public, according to a recent poll. Recreational use is not the wisest thing — and if my 12-year-old son is reading this, that means you! — but it’s no more harmful than other drugs (e.g., alcohol) and impossible to eradicate. On the other hand, I worry it’s a gateway to harder stuff. So I think we probably should have an open debate about decriminalization.

The Institute of Medicine in 1999 and every peer-reviewed study since has concluded that there is no such thing as a “gateway effect” from marijuana to “harder stuff”.  What this writer, Charles Lane, wants is the government acting as parent to keep his 12-year-old off of pot by saying “don’t do it, it’s illegal”.  Which, by the way, has been a colossal failure; almost forty years into the War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs™ and kids still say it is much easier to acquire weed than whiskey and blunts than beer.

But it should be a real debate, about real decriminalization, and not clouded — pardon the expression — by hokum about “medical marijuana.” … I do not deny that for some people, including some terminal cancer patients and pain-wracked AIDS sufferers, marijuana is a blessed relief. Let ‘em smoke, I say, just as the Justice Department has usually ignored such cases since long before Holder spoke up. But if you believe there is any scientific evidence that smoked marijuana has the multiplicity of therapeutic uses that advocates claim — well, I’ve got a bag of oregano I’d like to sell you.

There are over 17,000 peer-reviewed studies documenting the bona fide medical uses of cannabis and cannabinoids for a variety of conditions.  Would that count as enough “scientific evidence” for Charles Lane of the Washington Post?

Usually, drugs have to pass exacting testing by the Food and Drug Administration before they go on the market. There’s a good reason for this: we don’t want people spending money on products that might be ineffective or actually harmful. In California and elsewhere, however, snake oil — sorry, “medical marijuana” — got on the market via a different route: popular referendum.

Then it is a good thing that medical marijuana isn’t ineffective or seriously harmful, huh?  There are no recorded overdoses on cannabis because it is impossible; cannabis is non-toxic.  By contrast, many people die from over-the-counter aspirin overdoses every year.  You can actually die from drinking too much water, but too much cannabis will just put you to sleep.

What other substances should we handle this way? Cocaine? Laetrile? Didn’t President Obama just sign a bill authorizing the FDA to regulate the nicotine content of tobacco? And I thought he promised to “restore science to its rightful place.”

I don’t know… do you think you can get more than 50% voter support for medical cocaine or medical Laetrile, Charles?  Enough people have personal experience with marijuana’s medical efficacy — or at least marijuana’s lack of serious harms — to know that the FDA / DEA /NIDA stonewalling on medical marijuana is bullshit.  So the people legalized their medical access to marijuana by the only avenue available: taking it to the people by ballot.

By the way, we already do have medical cocaine; it is a Schedule II substance any doctor in any state can prescribe, so nobody ever considered handling it by ballot measure.  If President Obama restored science to its rightful place, do you think marijuana would still be considered to have no medicinal value while cocaine (and methamphetamine, by the way) are considered medicinal?

A few years ago, a California woman called Angel Raich took her defense of medical pot all the way to the Supreme Court. She lost on the legal issue, which had nothing to do with the medical effectiveness of pot. Along the way, though, she claimed that she was suffering from “life-threatening” scoliosis, temporomandibular joint dysfunction, bruxism, endometriosis, headache, rotator cuff syndrome, uterine fibroids, and Schwannoma. The Latin names might have snowed some judges, but physicians recognized each of these conditions as a common, non-life-threatening problem for which conventional treatments were available. Raich listed a cornucopia of potent drugs, from Vicodin to Methadone, that she had tried previously and gotten no satisfaction. I’m not a doctor, but I thought she might consider a consultation for hypochondria, or perhaps marijuana dependency.

Angel Raich's "hypochondriacal" brain tumors (courtesy of AngelJustice.org)

And you sir, have never met Angel Raich, and I have.  Perhaps you’d like to address the hypochondria in these brain scans that show the life-threatening tumors she is battling.

Charles Lane suffers from a form of Reefer Madness called Medicine of Last Resortism™.  As a man, I doubt he understands the pain of endometriosis, but maybe he’d like to join me in my special DeLorean to travel back in time to 2004, before my wife became a medical marijuana patient and she was crippled with pain, sobbing for days, from endometriosis.  This writer would prefer my wife to take Vicodin for that rather than smoke a joint, even though she is deathly allergic to Vicodin and most other opioid drugs, even though the cannabis is safe, non-toxic, works better on her pain and cramps than anything she’s ever tried, and doesn’t come with the typical opioid side effects of lethargy, constipation, and nausea.

This is not an isolated instance. According to a survey by NORML, the pro-”medical marijuana” organization, which can be expected to emphasize the desperate health of users, only 22 percent of California medical marijuana users suffer from AIDS-related disease. Most of the rest have more subjective maladies such as “chronic pain” or “mood disorders.”

For the people like Charles Lane suffering from Medicine of Last Resortism™, marijuana is an evil thing, dangerous and forbidden, and only those people who are deathly ill with only months to live and nothing to lose should be allowed to use it.  If you have something subjective, like pain or mood disorders, and you subjectively believe marijuana has been helping you treat that, why, you’re nothing but a dirty desperate drug addict lying to get a fix.  Here, take some Vicodin…

Raich’s physician was Frank Lucido, a well-known Berkeley doctor and pro-pot activist — he also makes money as an expert witness on “medical marijuana” — whose Web site boasts that he was “investigated by the Medical Practices Board of California for cannabis evaluation practices in 2003, and fully exonerated.” The case involved his recommendation of marijuana to treat attention deficit disorder in a 16-year-old boy, but, as I say, he was fully exonerated.

And you sir, have never met Dr. Frank Lucido, and I have.  I’m boasting that Charles Lane, opinion columnist for the Washington Post, was investigated by me just now on a Google Search of registered sex offender databases.  I found no record of Charles Lane as a registered sex offender, so, for now, he has been fully exonerated.  I did the search because I had my own personal suspicions about Charles Lane having a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy, but, as I say, Charles Lane has been fully exonerated.

In a brilliant article (requires subscription) on this subject in the Hastings Center Report, a bioethics journal, lawyer and anesthesiologist Peter J. Cohen noted that “medical marijuana” groups have been notably passive about demanding FDA testing and approval for this purported elixir. Instead, they took their case to the people. As Cohen argued, this is no way to make health policy: “medical marijuana,” he wrote, should be “subjected to the same scientific scrutiny as any drug proposed for use in medical therapy, rather than made legal for medical use by popular will.” The “medical marijuana” movement may not be a threat to our civilization, but it is an insult to our intelligence.

By all means, medical marijuana should be approved by the same FDA that gave us the scientific scrutiny to approve thalidomide, phen-fen, and Vioxx.  Here’s the thing: when we ask NIDA for the permission to put medical marijuana through scientific scrutiny so we can approach the FDA, the DEA and NIDA reject us.

But should non-toxic cannabis be forced to undergo FDA scrutiny when it is said that over-the-counter aspirin, if it had to go through the FDA today, would not be approved for use?  The real insult to intelligence is suggesting that “the safest therapeutically-active substance known to mankind” (according to a DEA judge) needs to be studied, restricted, and prohibited in the same way a toxic, addictive, side-effect-laden drug like Vicodin is.

Oregon Senate Bill 728 passed the Senate by a vote of 26-2, the House passed it 58-1, and the Senate concurred on amendments 26-3.  It now awaits Gov. Kulongoski’s signature.  The measure adds new sections to Oregon’s law on controlled substances:

SECTION 2. The State Board of Pharmacy shall classify marijuana as a controlled substance in Schedule II, III, IV or V.

SECTION 4. (1) The State Board of Pharmacy shall classify marijuana in accordance with section 2 of this 2009 Act no later than 180 days after the effective date of this 2009 Act.

Oregon’s drug scheduling definitions mirror those of the federal government, so what this means is that Oregon no longer considers marijuana to be a drug with “a high potential for abuse” that “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and no “accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.”

Instead, no matter where Oregon places marijuana on the scale from II to V sometime in early 2010, the state recognizes that marijuana “has a currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”

This doesn’t mean that Oregon doctors will begin prescribing marijuana; the federal Schedule I classification will still be in effect and doctor’s ability to prescribe narcotics usually requires a federal license.  However, it does mean that the entire sentencing structure for “crimes” involving marijuana changes in Oregon.  It also provides another point for those who challenge the federal assertion that marijuana has no recognized medical use in the United States – one of your states has written it into the law!

Oregon activist Laird Funk notes:

While the bill’s author, Sen Prozanski, opined at hearings that mj should probably end up in schedule 3, the Board will make its decision based on the result of evidence presented at a hearing or hearings. There is significant evidence that mj should be lower than schedule 3 and part of that evidence is contained in SB 728 itself, where it discusses schedule 4 substances which cause death. If schedule 4 substances can cause death, and cannabis has never caused death, (a fact I pointed out in the House hearings on 728) then logically it should be in schedule 5, given the mandate of the bill to place it in 2 thru 5.

I am asking all folks involved in cannabis reform efforts nationwide to take advantage of this opportunity and help Oregonians prepare the needed convincing evidence to place mj as low as possible. To that end, I am asking all who read this, who are on other lists to please re-post this to those lists so that all might be best prepared to make this opportunity to reschedule work best for us all.

I will be contacting the Board of Pharmacy soon to ascertain their thoughts on the scheduling of the hearings and other parts of the process and will keep all informed as to the results of that contact. With a collaborative approach, we may be in a position to guide the Board to the right conclusion.

(WOAI.com) SAN ANTONIO — Controversy is brewing over a patch used for pain relief. At least two people in San Antonio have died after using the Fentanyl patch, and their families are blaming what they say is a defect.

Like most medicinal patches, Fentanyl is used by peeling off a sticky side and placing it against the skin of a patient. The patch is left on the skin for up to 72 hours and is supposed to provide the exact amount of medication needed.

However, the families of two San Antonio women who died say the patch they were prescribed to relieve their pain ended up killing them.

According to lawsuits filed by family members, both women suffered chronic pain. So, their doctors suggested Fentanyl patches.

Fentanyl is stronger than morphine. When it is applied to the skin, it then delivers a certain amount of Fentanyl into the patient.

While wearing the patches, Donna Singleton and Ellen Burks died. Their families say both suffered an overdose of Fentanyl because the patches were defective.

Similar patches have been recalled before because a cut along the side of the patch allowed too much Fentanyl to leak and cause a possible overdose.

Wait a minute, didn’t the Food & Drug Administration approve the use of these Fentanyl patches?  Why, doesn’t that mean it’s safe?  We know for sure that the FDA wouldn’t let people stick a patch on their body loaded with a Schedule II drug if it weren’t safe, even if this Fentanyl is just one isomer short of being Schedule I “China White” heroin.

We know this because they protect us from that evil Schedule I medical marijuana that never killed anybody in 5,000 years.

"Rethink and Decriminalize..." Doesn't everybody want to be NORML? (credit K.B.)

This is your chance to tell the White House what you think about the Government’s long-standing refusal to acknowledge the medical benefits of cannabis and its obstruction of medical cannabis research.

Visit http://www.safeaccessnow.org/ScientificIntegrity and choose one of the following three options to comment on:

1. The U.S Department of Health and Human Services must correct statements disseminated on federal websites and in the Federal Register that falsely declare that cannabis “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”
2. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration must accept the Administrative Law Judge Bittner’s February 2007 Opinion and Recommended Ruling in the matter of Lyle E. Craker, Ph.D., Docket No. 05-16, to grant a competitive bulk-manufactures license to establish a privately-funded facility to cultivate cannabis exclusively for clinical research.
3. The U.S. Department of Justice must remove cannabis from the list of Schedule I controlled substances in light of a growing body of research, including four double-blind placebo controlled clinical trials, which supports the therapeutic use of cannabis and in accordance with DEA’s own 1988 Administrative Law ruling in which Judge Young opined that “the provisions of the CSA permit and require the transfer of cannabis from schedule I to schedule II.”

Tell Obama to Stand for Scientific Integrity in Medical Cannabis, Too!

“President Obama has made it clear that his administration will hold science over political ideology and value the input of people like you.

Last month, the President signed a Memorandum on Scientific Integrity affirming that policy decisions that are made are done so with facts and data, not political agendas. And now the Office of Technology and Science Policy (OTSP), the agency responsible for overseeing the scientific integrity pledge, created a way for you to provide feedback.

There is a scientific consensus that cannabis can control symptoms of serious and chronic illness. In the past decade alone, clinical research has demonstrated that cannabis and its constituents can safely and effectively treat nausea and vomiting, loss of appetite, pain and spasticity. And a growing body of literature suggests that cannabis may hold the key to unlocking new treatments for HIV/AIDS, Multiple Sclerosis, cancer, and many other conditions. Year after year, the research has been twisted or ignored to suit a political ideology.

The federal government is lying when it states that the therapeutic use of cannabis has no accepted medical value in treatment in the United States.”

via This is your chance to tell the White House… | Gather.

It is almost beyond dispute that the federal laws are unjustified by science or common sense. Under the 1970 Controlled Substances Act, cannabis is a Schedule 1 drug, meaning it has no medical use and cannot be prescribed by a physician. The many medical uses of marijuana are well documented, and it is not nearly as addictive or intoxicating as less-restricted Schedule 2 drugs such as cocaine and methamphetamine. Moreover, the active ingredient in marijuana, THC, can be sold in pill form as a Schedule 3 drug. So what makes the plant so dangerous?

via Editorial: Reefer-tax madness – Los Angeles Times

It is quite refreshing to see a major media source like the LA Times bringing up one of the things that frustrates me the most about the War on US Citizens. Why is marijuana a Class 1 drug with ‘no medicinal value’ if the The United States of America, as represented by the Department of Health and Human Services holds US Patent 6630507 titled “Cannabinoids as antioxidants and neuroprotectants”?

The patent claims that “Cannabinoids have been found to have antioxidant properties, unrelated to NMDA receptor antagonism. This new found property makes cannabinoids useful in the treatment and prophylaxis of wide variety of oxidation associated diseases, such as ischemic, age-related, inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. The cannabinoids are found to have particular application as neuroprotectants, for example in limiting neurological damage following ischemic insults, such as stroke and trauma, or in the treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and HIV dementia.”

via Digital Journal US Government Holds Patent For Medical Marijuana, Shows Hypocrisy