Acting DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart... you've been Kohl-blocked!

As NORML has warned, President Obama has nominated Michele Leonhart to head the Drug Enforcement Administration. Leonhart has been serving as Acting DEA Administrator since her appointment by the Bush Administration. Now during confirmation hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Herb Kohl (D-WI) has placed a hold on the nomination.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Sen. Kohl was upset about DEA restrictions on how nursing homes are allowed to dispense pain medications to elderly patients. New regulations intended to stem the diversion of addictive painkillers to the underground market would require nursing homes to have doctors, not nurses or other staff, to dispense medications like Oxycontin and Vicodin. The economic realities of the nursing home market do not allow these facilities to always have the necessary doctors on staff, leading to long wait times, under-treatment of pain, and suffering for elderly patients in pain.

Sen. Kohl placed the hold, an privilege of senators that prevents Leonhart’s nomination from proceeding to the full Senate, “until we have made more progress towards our goal of ensuring that nursing home residents get timely access to the prescription drug care they need,” said Kohl. “Every day nursing home patients continue to suffer from agonizing pain and we need an interim solution as soon as possible.”

NORML applauds any reason to prevent Leonhart from assuming the role of DEA Administrator.  However, we hope Sen. Kohl and the remainder of the Judiciary Committee also consider the nominee’s positions on medical marijuana and the Mexican Drug War as further indications she is unfit for the position.

If Sen. Kohl is concerned about nursing home patients continuing to suffer in agonizing pain, then Leonhart’s opposition to the fifteen states that provide medical marijuana to elderly patients should also be of concern.  As Acting Administrator, Leonhart has green-lighted at least thirty raids of medical marijuana dispensaries.  These raids run contrary to the directive of her boss, Attorney General Holder, who specified that scarce federal law enforcement resources should not be expended on medical marijuana operations running lawfully under state laws.  The medical marijuana from these dispensaries has been shown to relieve neuropathic pain as well as stave off the progression of Alzheimer’s disease and lessen the effects of arthritis – all beneficial for the elderly nursing home community.

All members of the committee should be wary of Leonhart’s views of the rapidly destabilizing Mexican state due to the drug war.  Just today the WikiLeaks dump of foreign diplomatic cables reveals a Mexican drug war plan that “lacks a clear strategy” and “suffers from infighting among security agencies” according to the Washington Post.  The leaks have insiders calling the $1.4 billion “Merida Initiative” of aid to Mexico “ill-conceived and doing little so far to fight drug traffickers.”

Yet Acting Administrator Leonhart, when questioned about the now 31,000 Mexicans now dead in the drug-trafficking wars since 2006, said “Our view is that the violence we have been seeing is a signpost of the success our very courageous Mexican counterparts are having. The cartels are acting out like caged animals, because they are caged animals.”  Where WikiLeaks reveals American and Mexican officials secretly doubting the effectiveness of our $1.4 billion strategy, Leonhart is selling it lock, stock, and barrel to the taxpayers.

Of further concern in the Leonhart nomination to head the DEA is her opposition to the science on cannabis.  She has refused to act on an eight-year-old petition supported by NORML to reschedule cannabis out of Schedule I where it is deemed to have “no medicinal value”; this is inexcusable stonewalling in the face of fifteen US states that recognize cannabis’ medicinal value, the calls from the American Medical Association for its rescheduling, and the federal government’s own patent on the medicinal properties of cannabinoids.  Leonhart has even refused to heed the declaration of a DEA judge in the petition of Professor Lyle Craker, whom the judge said should be allowed to grow cannabis for scientific research.

You can still write or call your Senator about Ms. Leonhart’s nomination process – to do so click here and here.  Tell your Senator to support Sen. Kohl’s opposition to Michele Leonhart for DEA Administrator and demand President Obama nominate an administrator who will be open-minded on the science of medical marijuana and willing to reasonably discuss the end of the drug war altogether.

The Pulitzer Prize was awarded recently for outstanding work in the field of journalism. We’re happy to note that one of the four Pulitzers awarded to the Washington Post has gone to Kathleen Parker. Ms. Parker is a participant in the new NORML Women’s Alliance and has written favorably about the mainstreaming of marijuana law reform in the pages of the Post:

Kathleen Parker (Photo by Washington Post)

(Washington Post) The highest level of support, not surprisingly, is in the Western states and among self-described liberals, with 78 percent of liberals favoring decriminalization. But the shift toward a more sensible national policy is no longer confined to the left. Nor is the long-haired stoner the face of the pro-pot lobby. Today’s activist, more likely, doesn’t have facial hair, but she does have kids.

Lately to the smallish conservative crowd, notably once led by anti-prohibitionist William F. Buckley, is Jessica Corry of Colorado, a married, pro-life Republican mom, soon to be “freedom fighter of the month” in High Times magazine.

States’ rights and conservatism are old friends — except when they’re not. While many Republicans nurse a libertarian streak, the party has been selective in its support of federalist principles. George W. Bush’s administration refused to honor states authorizing medical uses of cannabis, for instance, but aimed to return abortion and marriage issues to state jurisdictions.

The prize for editorial cartooning went to Mark Fiore from the San Francisco Gate, whose Flash animations like this one often focus on the insanity of the Drug War.

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Hemp Headlines

1. Washington State Senator pulls medical marijuana dispensary bill
2. California GOP Chairman comes out against TaxCannabis 2010 with scaremongering about “dope” and “drugs”
3. National Alcohol Awareness leads students to call for right to use marijuana; Univ. of Maryland NORML featured in Washington Post piece.

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I have a sig line on my email I acquired from somebody somewhere that reads:

The amazing thing about marijuana is its ability to addle the brains of people who don’t smoke it.

A perfect example of this is Washington Post blogger Charles Lane.  I’ve covered Lane before in the story “Washington Post opinion article on medical marijuana is an insult to our intelligence” back in October.  Lane’s preconceived notions and opposition to medical marijuana are well known, so it is no surprise that Lane would rush to his word processor when the news surfaced that John Patrick Bedell, the so-called “Pentagon shooter”, was a medical marijuana user.

But in his rush to condemn medical marijuana, Lane takes complete leave of all common sense and logic.  For example, he writes in the beginning of his post:

It might have been avoided if Bedell had received timely and effective treatment for his obviously serious mental illness. The fact that he did not is a cause for soul-searching by all of us. Advocates of “medical marijuana” should be especially chastened. As I have insisted previously on this blog, the legalization of physician-recommended pot in California is a prescription for disaster because it authorizes the “treatment” of a wide range of real maladies with a spurious “medicine” — marijuana — that might be ineffective or actually harmful.

Then follows that in the closing with this:

Let’s debate legalizing marijuana as a recreational drug. If smoking pot makes terminally ill AIDS and cancer patients feel better, give it to them.

But, for the most part, “medical marijuana” is a pseudo-scientific myth, and a dangerous one at that.

So Lane thinks medical marijuana is a prescription for disaster, but is willing to debate full legalization?  Would Bedell have been better served seeing a doctor for his cannabis acquisition than a clerk at a legal pot store, or not?  He thinks it will make terminal AIDS and cancer patients feel better, but it’s a spurious “medicine”?  And what about those doctors in the American Medical Association who declared last year that smoked cannabis is medically effective… are they spreading a “dangerous pseudo-scientific myth”?

In the middle of the piece we get gems like these:

Back in December 2006, Bedell went to see a San Francisco physician, R. Stephen Ellis, complaining of chronic insomnia. As any doctor worth his salt will tell you, this symptom often reflects an underlying physical or mental condition, including depression, bipolar disorder or even schizophrenia.

So proper care for chronic insomnia requires careful screening for, and appropriate treatment of, these ailments. “It would be incomplete treatment to give someone a sleeping pill and send him on his way,” [a Wisconsin doctor who specializes in sleep disorders] told me.

Yes, and chronic insomnia is, like you said, possibly indicating physical and mental conditions other than depression, bipolar, and schizophrenia.  Could be chronic pain, sleep apnea, or restless leg syndrome.  Hindsight is 20/20, Charles.  Furthermore, someone seeking relief from insomnia could have gotten all manner of prescriptions that have side effects like:

Lunesta: Tell your doctor immediately if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur: mental/mood changes (e.g., worsening depression, hallucinations, agitation, or rare thoughts of suicide), memory problems, loss of coordination, signs of infection (e.g., fever, chills, persistent sore throat).

Rozerem: Tell your doctor immediately if any of these rare but very serious side effects occur: mental/mood changes (e.g., depression, strange thoughts, thoughts of suicide).

Sonata: Tell your doctor immediately if any of these unlikely but serious side effects occur: mental/mood changes (e.g., agitation, seeing/hearing things that are not there, rare thoughts of suicide), unusual behavior.

Now if it had been revealed that Bedell had been using these drugs prior to the suicide mission to the Pentagon, do you think Charles Lane would be writing 500 words on the dangers of these potent prescription insomnia drugs?  I doubt it.

To take the actions of one violent mentally ill man gone berserk and declare that as a reason to eliminate medical marijuana is as spurious a conclusion as blaming Christianity for Timothy McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing or Islam for Maj. Hasan’s Fort Hood shooting spree.

New Jersey has become the 14th medical marijuana state

Since fourteen states have legalized the use of cannabis for sick and disabled people we here at NORML have reported on numerous stories of medical users harassed, arrested, and jailed by police.  We have also reported on healthy adults in all fifty states whose lives are turned upside down by an arrest, sometimes losing student loans, jobs, children, pets, dignity, property, and freedom over a single joint, seed, or even a cannabis stem.  When we and others bring up these insane injustices to the police who are making these arrests, we often hear the platitude that “cops don’t make the laws, we just enforce the laws.”

So why do we consistently see representatives of law enforcement opposing medical marijuana, marijuana decriminalization, and marijuana legalization efforts in state legislatures?

In California, the California Narcotics Officers Association schools police officers to believe the public “have been misled… into believing there is merit to their argument that smoking marijuana is a safe and effective medicine.” This is in direct contradiction of the stated position of the American Medical Association otherwise that “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.”

In New Jersey, the medical marijuana law was severely curtailed when the Assembly heard the unfounded assertion by a representative of New Jersey’s Fraternal Order of Police that “I’ve heard in California there’s a lot peripheral crime around these centers [medical marijuana dispensaries], I get that from the different law enforcement agencies around the country who I have regular contact with.”  This is in direct contradiction of the findings of the Chief of the LAPD who stated: “Banks are more likely to get robbed than medical marijuana dispensaries.”  The Chief was responding to the notion that there is greater crime around dispensaries and said “I have tried to verify that because that, of course, is the mantra.  It doesn’t really bear out.”

And in Oklahoma, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics & Dangerous Drugs Control publishes a “fact sheet” on marijuana that states: “Today’s new cultivation methods are producing a drug with up to 30 percent THC, or 3,000 percent higher than the old 1960’s-1980’s available marijuana.” This is in direct contradiction to the DEA’s own figures on marijuana potency which find that today’s average cannabis seizure may have doubled in THC potency (a 100% increase, not a 3,000% increase.)  Oklahoma’s bureau doesn’t address why 30% THC marijuana is to be feared, but 100% THC Marinol pills are FDA-approved.

ABC News / Washington Post Poll on public medical marijuana support

The attitudes of most in law enforcement are also contrary to the attitudes of the public.  A recent ABC News / Washington Post poll found that support for medical marijuana is now at 81% nationwide, with a majority overall (62% nationwide) who support a system at least as open as Oregon’s OMMA where not-necessarily terminal patients can only qualify if they suffer a specific condition from a list and a majority of those who support medical marijuana (56% of the 81% who support it) supporting an open system like California’s Prop-215 where “doctors should be able to prescribe medical marijuana to anyone they think it can help”.

POLICE Magazine survey on police medical marijuana support

But according to a June 2009 survey in POLICE Magazine, even though a majority (54.6%) of police say they support medical marijuana, almost all of those who support it (88%) say it must be only under stricter regulation than we have currently in the medical marijuana states.

Support in 2009 for marijuana legalization ranged from 38%-53%, depending on the poll.

When asked about marijuana legalization overall, even for healthy adults, the American Public are also contrary to the opinions of law enforcement.  The latest Angus Reid poll is the first to show majority American support for legalization (53%), while the latest Gallup poll puts support at 44%, its best mark in forty years of polling.

POLICE Magazine survey of police opinions on legalization

But according to the same POLICE survey, marijuana legalization has less than half the support among cops than among the public they protect and serve.  Only 23% of police supported re-legalization of cannabis.

When asked why, specifically, those police who opposed re-legalization felt that way, eight in ten said that marijuana is a “gateway drug”, there was the danger of “people driving high”, and seven in ten cited the “harm to user and society”.  Longtime NORML readers know that the gateway drug theory has been debunked by the Institutes of Medicine in 1999 and every reputable study over the past ten years.  While everybody, especially NORML, discourages driving under the influence of cannabis, we understand that there are people behaving irresponsibly now and re-legalization would not encourage less responsibility, but more.  Under re-legalization, money raised from taxes could sponsor anti-stoned-driving campaigns like the ones that have successfully reduced drunk driving.

Majority of Americans believe Marijuana is Safer

As for the “harm to user and society”, POLICE readers still felt by a margin of 3-2 that alcohol was “more of a threat to the community” than marijuana.  (The survey does not record the support among police for reinstating alcohol prohibition to prevent alcohol’s “harm to user and society”, however.)  This 39% of police who believe marijuana is safer than alcohol comes closest to matching public opinion, which shows now a slim majority (51%) believe marijuana is safer than alcohol.

If marijuana users are to be punished, 3 in 4 support no more than a civil fine

While the general public is barely approaching majority support for outright marijuana legalization, the public has long held the belief that any punishment for adult marijuana possession should be a fine only.  Three out of four Americans (76%) believe that if marijuana users are to be punished, they should only be fined and not arrested and sent to jail.  Yet the POLICE Magazine survey finds that two out of three cops (65%) think it is “worth law enforcement’s time to bust marijuana users”.

Another area where police opinions differ from the public is on the issue of the murderous Mexican drug gangs that have assassinated, kidnapped, murdered, tortured, and beheaded over 15,000 Mexicans in just two years.  The Arizona Attorney General has cited that “marijuana sales make up 75 percent of the money that Mexican cartels use for other operations, including smuggling other drugs and fighting the Mexican army and police.” But in the POLICE Magazine survey, two-thirds of cops (68%) believe marijuana legalization would have no “favorable impact on problems associated with gangs and cartels.”

So do the police know something about the dangers of cannabis use that the American Medical Association, the American people, and the Arizona Attorney General do not?  A cynic might think that police are merely acting in their own best interest, protecting their source of easy statistic-padding arrests and asset forfeiture bounty, but I’m more inclined to believe many of these front-line soldiers in the War on Marijuana are acting in good faith based on terrible misinformation about cannabis.

(Washington Post) A House subcommittee has unceremoniously tabled a pair of bills that would have liberalized Virginia’s marijuana laws, in effect killing them. One measure would have made possession of under one ounce of pot a civil infraction punishable with merely a $500 fine. The other would have allowed doctors to prescribe marijuana for any medical condition, if the Federal government ever allows it. Virginia already has a law that says if FDA changes its rules on pot, doctors could prescribe marijuana for cancer and glaucoma.

Republican Majority Leader Morgan Griffith announced to the subcommittee that though he opposed the bill to decriminalize marijuana possession he had, in fact, drafted the bill to allow for medical marijuana and he supported its passage.

He then gave a fairly impassioned defense of the idea that doctors should be allowed to prescribe cannabis, arguing it is no more dangerous than many drugs already allowed for medical use. “I truly believe that if we allow the use of morphine, opiates and oxycotin, we ought to allow for this,” Griffith said.

(Washington Post) The District would have up to five medical marijuana dispensaries where seriously ill patients could go to obtain the drug from a licensed vendor under a bill proposed Tuesday by D.C. Council member David A. Catania.

Under Catania’s proposal, the District would have what he calls “a closed system to regulate the cultivation, distribution and possession of marijuana.”

The legislation, which has been referred to both the Health and Public Safety and Judiciary committees, would allow the dispensaries to distribute up to a month’s supply of marijuana to either to patients or their registered caregivers. Although patients would have to pay for the drug, the legislation requires providers to supply low-income patients with marijuana at a reduced price.

Once implemented, the District would be the 15th location in the nation to permit medical marijuana. On Monday, his last day in office, New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed the law legalizing medical marijuana in that state.

Catania said it would most likely have to be grown somewhere in the District to avoid local drug laws in neighboring Maryland and Virginia.

How I relish the idea that Sen. Chuck “I Hate” Grass-ley and Rep. Mark “Me Too” Souder will have to go to work every day in a city where marijuana is being legally grown, sold, and used.

Rob Kampia, center, poses with Tommy Chong, left, and Richard "Cheech" Marin at last Wednesday's Marijuana Policy Project gala. (Ben Droz / Wash. Post)

From the Washington Post…

The co-founder of the influential Marijuana Policy Project announced Tuesday that he is stepping down in the wake of a sexual misconduct scandal.

Executive director Rob Kampia said he is taking a three-month medical leave, starting this evening, to get therapy for his attitudes toward women. “I just think I’m hyper-sexualized,” he told us.

In August, Kampia slept with a female subordinate after an employee happy hour at a Capitol Hill pub. News of the hook-up sparked seven staff resignations — including the woman’s. “It is true I had consensual sex with a female employee and I exhibited poor judgment in doing so,” Kampia said.

Board chairman Peter Lewis told us Kampia was “encouraged” to take the leave and his return is subject to “convincing the board he has dealt with his issues.” Lewis is bringing a outside management team to MPP’s Washington office Wednesday to “see where we are.”

Some staffers described the incident as a final straw after years of witnessing Kampia’s “predatory behavior” in the office, said former director of membership Salem Pearce. “He was known as someone who made crude and inappropriate comments about and to women,” she said. “The No. 1 perk for Rob about MPP was the access to young women.” Pearce was one of the women who resigned because she was convinced that Kampia and MPP’s board were not going to address the matter. “I realized Rob was more interested in keeping his job than the good of the organization,” she said.

Medical marijuana is even more popular than replacing the BCS with a college football playoff!

(ABC News) Eight in 10 Americans support legalizing marijuana for medical use and nearly half favor decriminalizing the drug more generally, both far higher than a decade ago.

With New Jersey [becoming] the 14th state to legalize medical marijuana, 81 percent in this national ABC News/Washington Post poll support the idea, up from an already substantial 69 percent in 1997. Indeed the main complaint is with restrictions on access, as in the New Jersey law.

Click here for PDF with charts and questionnaire.

Fifty-six percent say that if it’s allowed, doctors should be able to prescribe medical marijuana to anyone they think it can help. New Jersey’s measure, which is more restrictive than most, limits prescriptions to people with severe illnesses. State health officials can add to the list.

Nationally, this survey finds 46 percent support for legalizing small amounts of marijuana for personal use the same as it was last spring, and well above its level in past years, for example 39 percent in 2002 and 22 percent in 1997.

Again I’ll ask my proud partners in marijuana law reform: With support for medical marijuana peaking past four out of five, why are medical marijuana policy proposals becoming more restrictive and covering fewer conditions?  Support has risen twelve points in twelve years, so why do many people plea away the right to home growing and drop the chronic pain patients?

When it comes to medical marijuana, not only do four out of five support it, but a majority of those who support it actually support very liberal “California Prop-215-style” medical marijuana where a doctor can recommend for any condition.  Let’s see, 56% of 81% works out to about 45% of the whole, doesn’t it?  45% of Americans surveyed think your doctor should be able to recommend medical marijuana to you without restriction:

There are similar divisions on whether medical marijuana should be restricted or made available to anyone a doctor thinks it would help. Overall, 56 percent, as noted, prefer no restrictions, while 21 percent say it should be limited to terminally ill patients and an additional 21 percent say it should be limited to those with serious but not necessarily terminal illnesses.

So if I get this correctly, of the 81% of folks who support medical marijuana nationwide, 56% support a California model (trust a doctor), 21% support an Oregon model (a qualifying list), and 21% support a Minnesota model (only terminal cases).  That means (and please, check my math) 77% of the 81% of the whole support an Oregon-or-better model, which makes that 62% of Americans overall that think you should get medical marijuana for serious-but-not-terminal conditions and 45% of Americans think your doctor should be able to recommend it to you without limitations.

So again, my policy people, why are we negotiating down to terminal cases only and no home growing?

(Washington Post) Medical marijuana advocates are seeking to put on the November ballot a measure to create a system in which state-licensed pot growers would distribute their crops to dispensaries where people could buy the drug to treat their ailments.

On Monday, backers of the initiative turned in 61,000 petition signatures in hopes of qualifying the issue for the ballot. A total of 82,769 valid signatures are needed to qualify the measure, and backers have until July to collect up the remainder.

Oregon is one of 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana. On Monday, the New Jersey Legislature approved a bill that would make it the 14th state to allow chronically ill patients access to marijuana for medical reasons, and Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, who supports the legislation, could sign it before leaving office next week, making it law.

Of the 13 states that have legalized medical marijuana, five of them – including California – make provision for dispensaries where patients can get the pot.

Keith Stroup, spokesman for the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws in Washington D.C, said that the Obama administration’s stance will prompt other states to also consider marijuana dispensaries.

“Within a very few years, any state that has legal medical marijuana will certainly have a legal supply. They will all allow some kind of regulated dispensary,” said Stroup, who founded NORML and is the group’s legal counsel.

I hate to be a wet blanket, but there are two quick points I should note:

• When you are pursuing a ballot initiative, you usually need 150%-200% of the required signatures, because so many will be declared invalid due to technicalities.  So, realistically, about 120,000 signatures will be needed.  I-28 backers have been gathering signatures for over a year and only have half that, expecting to gather the other half in six months with no funding.  Good luck with that.
• Backers of this initiative tried another initiative – Measure 33 in 2004 – that sought to establish dispensaries in Oregon and it was defeated by voters 58% – 42%.

Dispensaries are a very contentious topic among Oregon’s marijuana activists.  Backers like Voter Power, Southern Oregon NORML, and Willamette Valley NORML feel that only through dispensaries can patients truly have the access they need to medicine.  Others like Oregon NORML believe that dispensaries run while marijuana is still illegal for 95% of the Oregonians who use marijuana merely lock patients in to black market pricing and open up the program to fraud and abuse by entrepreneurs.  Proponents say the current “Mother Teresa” system of grow your own or find a grower does not serve well the close to 27,000 patients now registered in the state.  But critics point out that if you’re a poor person with a medical marijuana card, $300-$450 per ounce doesn’t grant you any better access than not being able to find a grower to provide medicine at cost (which usually works out to $50/ounce in electricity, water, and supply costs).

One thing for sure is that Oregonians by-and-large dislike anything Californian.  “Don’t Californicate Oregon” is a common refrain here.  I feel that even if this initiative does make the ballot, the specter of California pot shops with marijuana vending machines will haunt our televisions in ads from anti-drug forces.

On the other hand, with the pace being set for full legalization here on the West Coast, perhaps dispensaries will be a moot point in a couple of years, since patients will be able to buy marijuana just like everyone else over 21.