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• Colorado Legalization Effort Comes up 2400 Valid Signatures Short
• Washington State Bill Asking Government To Reclassify Marijuana Moves Forward
• Ballot Measures Competing for Funds from Big Backers
• Firefighters Mistake Butane Hash Oil Extraction Equipment for Pipe Bomb
• “Fast and Furious” Program Sparks Lawsuit and House Hearing for the Attorney General

Daily Toker Tunes

Rockin’ Friday: Brought to you by Urb Thrasher from Urb Age Designs

• Lionize – “Superczar”

Legislative Update with NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano

• ALABAMA: The Michael Phillips Compassionate Care Act (HB 25) which seeks to enact legal protections for authorized medical marijuana patients, has been marked for reintroduction in the Alabama Legislature for the session starting on February 7th. It is currently assigned to the House Committee on Health. A separate medical cannabis bill, House Bill 66, has also been prefiled in the House and is also before to the House Committee on Health, while a third measure that seeks to reduce penalties on adult cannabis possession is anticipated to be introduced shortly. You can learn more about these efforts via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.
• INDIANA: Senate lawmakers heard testimony on Tuesday, January 24, in favor of legislation, SB 347, to decriminalize marijuana possession penalties in Indiana. Lawmakers on Senate Committee on Corrections, Criminal, and Civil Matters did not vote on the measure. Therefore, there is still time for constituents to contact their Senate members and encourage them to support marijuana law reform. You can do so via NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here. A separate House measure, HB 1370, that seeks to legalize the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes, is pending before the House Committee on Public Policy.
• KANSAS: House Bill 2330, which seeks to enact legal protections for authorized medical marijuana patients, was heard by the House Committee on Health and Human Services on Tuesday, January 24th. You can read media coverage of the hearing here and here. You can track the progress of this measure and contact your state elected officials regarding HB 2330here.
• NEW HAMPSHIRE: Members of the House Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony on Thursday, January 25, in favor of House Bill 1705, which seeks to allow adults age 21 or over to use marijuana legally in their home. The measure also seeks to establish a regulated cannabis market governing the wholesale production and sale of marijuana. Non-commercial transactions involving less than one ounce of cannabis would not be subject to state taxation or regulation under the measure. You can watch clips from the hearing here and you can contact your elected officials in support of the measure here.
• The House Criminal Justice Committee is also scheduled to hear testimony this Thursday in favor of separate legislation, HB 1526, which seeks reduce the penalties on minor marijuana possession offenses (up to one ounce) from a criminal misdemeanor punishable by up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine to a nominal monetary penalty of no more than $100.00. To contact your House representative regarding HB 1526, please visit NORML’s ‘Take Action Center’ here.
• VIRGINIA: Legislation seeking to establish a joint study committee to investigate the fiscal impact of regulating the production and sale of marijuana to adults 21 and over is anticipated to be heard by the Virginia House Committee on Rules as soon as this Thursday. You can read NORML’s published op/eds in support of this measure here and here. To learn more aboutHouse Joint Resolution 140, please visit Virginia NORML or contact your state officials here.

NORML Newsmakers

• Mark Pedersen from Sensible Missouri and Show-Me Cannabis Regulation

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

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1. NYPD has 7th straight year of marijuana arrest increase, over 50,000 busted for pot
2. Veterans for Weed groups sparks outrage from POW likeness in logo, similarity to Veterans of Foreign Wars acronym
3. Fort Collins lawsuit challenges ban on dispensaries
4. FBI chainsaws through wrong apartment in raid, terrifying mother and toddler
5. Joan Rivers smokes pot on camera in her new reality show

Daily Toker Tunes

Irie Wednesday: Brought to you by NorCalPurps in the California Bay Area

• Winstrong & DJ Jacques – “Free Weed”

Cannabis Science with Dr. Mitch Earleywine

• Israeli study shows promise of cannabinoids in treatment of cancer

Radical Rant

• Big Pharma’s lobbying power shows incentive to oppose medical marijuana in Washington

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1. I-502 makes the Washington ballot, would legalize marijuana
2. Mexican drought affecting marijuana crops
3. Hawaiian legislature may take chronic pain out of medical marijuana
4. New Hampshire legalization bill
5. Vermont may limit patients to 1,000 total

Daily Toker Tunes

Roots Monday: Brought to you by “Radical” Russ

• Bessie Smith – “Gimme a Pigfoot (And a Bottle of Beer)”

Grassroots Activism

• Glen Schwarz from Arkansas NORML

Radical Rant

• President Obama, “Legalize It” Times Nine – Stop Ignoring Us!

Today I got a negative comment on the Washington State I-502 initiative, which has just now officially been sent to the legislature that can make it law, send it to the people, or offer a different version along with the initiative to the people.  For those who don’t know, I-502 proposes to legalize possession of an ounce of marijuana, maintain the ban on home growing, establish state-run marijuana stores as the only legal outlet, establish a 5 ng/mL THC in blood per se DUID (automatic DUI, like a 0.08 blood-alcohol level), and establish zero-tolerance DUI standards for people under 18 under 21.

It’s still a tough thing for me.  What is “legalization”?  I grew up reading Isaac Asimov and was reminded of his “Three Laws of Robotics” when I formulated my “Three Laws of Legalization” below.  It is not an inclusive list (all conditions must be met), it is a hierarchical list (1 supersedes 2 supersedes 3):

1. An adult must be allowed to possess cannabis for personal use.
2. An adult must be allowed to cultivate cannabis for personal use.
3. An adult must not be discriminated against because of cannabis.

We can quibble about how old an “adult” is and what limits, if any, are reasonable for “personal”, but that’s the general outline.  If an adult can possess some cannabis for personal use legally, it is legalization.  But if they can cultivate, it is “legalization-er” and if they aren’t discriminated against it is “legalization-est”.  So, when I’m presented with an initiative that improves #1, then maintains #2 and makes worse #3, it puts me in a bit of a quandary.  I love legalization and I like home grow and I dislike state monopoly and I hate per se DUID… so now what?

Fortunately, Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson has a proposal to modify the initiative by establishing protection for medical marijuana patients against the  per se DUID provision, but that’s still only 10% of Washington State’s tokers.  Still, all tokers now can get marijuana DUIDs if they demonstrate impairment; all per se does is make the case a slam dunk for the prosecutor.  If you were driving poorly and test at any ng/mL, that can be used against you to get the DUID conviction.  The problem is the toker not driving poorly and not even having recently toked being convicted of being impaired behind the wheel when he or she was not impaired (a.k.a. innocent).

But is protecting that toker worth voting down freedom for all tokers to hold an ounce?  That same innocent toker can be arrested driving, walking, riding, standing, or sleeping anywhere in the State, even his own bed, just for having marijuana.  So do we continue to sacrifice every marijuana smoker to the injustice of merely having any pot anywhere to save the tiny minority of marijuana smokers from the injustice of merely having a certain amount of pot in their system while they’re driving?

Most frustrating is being put in this quandary in the first place, for this fear-mongering about the stoned drivers is more prohibitionist reefer madness. From The Natural Mind by Dr. Andrew Weil (last half of chapter four pg. 86-97) (hat tip to DeOxy.org)

Dr. Andrew Weil

Because marijuana is such an unimpressive pharmacological agent, it is not a very interesting drug to study in a laboratory. Pharmacologists cannot get a handle on it with their methods, and because they cannot see the reality of the non-material state of consciousness that users experience, they are forced to design experimental situations very far removed from the real world in order to get measurable effects. There are three conditions under which marijuana can be shown to impair general psychological performance in laboratory subjects. They are:

1. by giving it to people who have never had it before;
2. by giving people very high doses that they are not used to (or giving it orally to people used to smoking it); and
3. by giving people very hard things to do, especially things that they have never had a chance to practice while under the influence of the drug.

Under any of these three conditions, pharmacologists can demonstrate that marijuana impairs performance. And if we look at the work being done by NIMH-funded researchers, all of it fulfills one or more of these conditions. In addition, the tests being used by these scientists are designed to look for impairments of functions that have nothing to do with why marijuana users put themselves in an altered state of consciousness. People who get high on marijuana do not spontaneously try to do arithmetic problems or test their fine coordination.

What pharmacologists cannot make sense of is that people who are high on marijuana cannot be shown, in objective terms, to be different from people who are not high. That is, if a marijuana user is allowed to smoke his usual doses and then to do things he has had a chance to practice while high, he does not appear to perform any differently from someone who is not high. Now, this pattern of users performing better than nonusers is a general phenomenon associated with all psychoactive drugs. For example, an alcoholic will vastly outperform a nondrinker on any test if the two are equally intoxicated; he has learned to compensate for the effects of the drug on his nervous system. But compensation can proceed only so far until it runs up against a ceiling imposed by the pharmacological action of the drug on lower brain centers. Again, since marijuana has no clinically significant action on lower brain centers, compensation can reach 100 percent with practice.

This reminds me of the marijuana and driving study* from 2010.  It studied 85 people with an age range of 18 to 31, with a mean** age of 20.5 (so we’re talking more young twenty-somethings and adult teens than the pushing thirty crowd) who described themselves as “occasional” marijuana smokers, defined as strictly 1-10 times per month.  They also couldn’t be recent users of other illicit drugs or anti-depressants or anti-anxiety meds.

The point of the study was to investigate differences in simulated driving by gender for those young people who smoke pot.  What they found was not much difference, not just between men and women, but between people who smoke pot and people who don’t.

As shown in Table 2, participants receiving the active and placebo cigarettes performed similarly on the baseline “uneventful” segment of the driving task and no sex differences were observed. No group differences were seen in the means or standard deviations of the mean speed or steering wheel position.

Translated from geekspeek: During regular driving simulations, people who smoked pot and people who didn’t drove similarly.  There was no difference between men and women, either.

The next portion explains how “eventful” driving (or “PASAT performance”) – a sudden yellow stoplight, a dog running into the road, a driver running an intersection, an emergency vehicle, and being distracted by stuff in your car – differs between pot smokers and non-pot smokers who drive in a simulator.

During the “eventful” segments of driving, a within-subjects comparison of PASAT performance prior to smoking and during driving showed a trend in the interaction between placebo vs. active marijuana and practice vs. driving PASAT performance [F = 3.36, p = 0.07)]. Persons smoking the placebo cigarette showed an improvement in performance of the PASAT during the driving task, likely attributable to practice effects. Under the influence of marijuana, however, no differences were found between PASAT performance during practice testing and while driving.

It’s a weird logic train to follow.  What they are saying is when they put the pot smokers through the simulator in “eventful” driving situations, they did just as well on the test high as they did in practice sober, while the non-pot smokers did better on the test sober than they did in practice sober.  In other words, pot smokers drove just as well after smoking pot as they did before smoking pot, while non-pot smokers drove a little better.

That brings me back to Dr. Weil’s point – it’s not like we’re lighting up to see how well we do on the “oh shit, dog in the road!” test later.  There are no “practice” runs in real driving; you assume every drive could be “eventful” but the reality is almost all drives are “uneventful”.  Few drivers are actively thinking, “OK, I know I must be ready for a dog to run out, because it happened on the previous drive I took,” so how in real life would they benefit from this “practice effect”?

Participants who smoked active marijuana decreased their speed during this section of the drive, suggesting additional compensatory skills were used. While women performed significantly worse than men on the PASAT during both practice and driving administrations***, no sex differences were observed in respect to driving performance or practice effects. No differences during the PASAT were seen in the standard deviation of speed, the mean steering wheel position or the standard deviation of the steering wheel position, suggesting the decrease in speed allowed participants to successfully compensate for the effects of marijuana.

So the high drivers slowed down in order to drive as safely as the people around them?  Do we want people to be driving faster when there are the threats of dogs, yellow lights, emergency vehicles, bad drivers, and things bugging them in the car?

All participants safely went through the Go/No-Go task intersection while the light was yellow. No group differences in speed, steering position, time to first reaction or type of reaction were observed in response to passing the emergency vehicle. The frequency of dog and car incursions and the tactics used to avoid collisions were similar between groups, as was the mean speed of impact for those colliding. No sex differences or interactions of sex and drug were observed.

Now, while this all makes the “What About the Stoned Drivers?!?” scaremongering out to be much ado about nothing, it should be noted that

• we’re talking about US Gov’t schwag weed of 2.9% THC in 0.8 gram joints;
• we’re talking about smoking just one or less-than-one joint****;
• we’re talking about video game driving;
• nobody’s mixing the weed with booze, which multiplies the impairment.

Nobody should smoke pot and drive impaired, but nobody should drive impaired, period.  This crusade to set per se limits to catch stoned drivers seems like a solution in search of a problem, and that problem isn’t catching impaired drivers, it’s winning votes.  People who smoke pot know when they are too impaired to drive and generally do not.  Alcohol, in contrast, deludes its users into believing they are not impaired when they are.

Plus, there is a reliable dose-dependent correlation between one’s blood alcohol level and one’s impairment.  Yes, the alcoholic will drive better at 0.08 BAC than the social drinker will at 0.08 BAC, but both of them will drive better at 0.00 BAC as well.  Meanwhile, stoned drivers present as much risk on the road as drivers at 0.05 BAC – a level we do not automatically deem a crime if you’re driving home after wine at dinner or a beer at a ballgame and don’t demonstrate impairment.  Stoned drivers are no more a risk factor than retired persons.

To date, “[The] role of [illicit] drugs as a causal factor in traffic crashes involving drug-positive drivers is still not well understood.”[6] While some studies have indicated that illicit drug use is associated with an increased risk of accident, a relationship has not yet been clearly established regarding the use of psychoactive substances and crash severity.[7] Some reviews of traffic fatality data indicate that, in general, drivers with the presence of illicit drugs in their system possess an enhanced fatality risk compared to sober drivers. However, this risk is far lower than the fatality risk associated with drivers who operate a vehicle with the presence of alcohol in their system above or near the legal limit for intoxication.[8] According to one review of the literature: “The risk of all drug-positive drivers compared to drug-free drivers is similar to drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. The risk is also similar to drivers above age 60 compared to younger drivers [around age 35].”[9]

* Sex differences in the effects of marijuana on simulated driving performance.

** Not “mean” angry, by “mean” average (though average is, technically, something different.)

*** “Significantly worse”… to the delight of every “women are bad drivers” joke writer alive.  This writer is married to a woman with a poorer driving record and, thus, will withhold judgment for my own well-being.

**** This was the only sex-related difference they could find.  Almost all men smoked the entire real joint but only a little more than half of the women did.  Interestingly, all the men and all but one woman smoked the entire fake joint.  I think the real joint difference probably attributes to body weight (lighter bodies – women – feel high sooner and stop).  That everyone but one completes the fake joint makes me wonder how something that doesn’t get you high can be a placebo for something that does?

DEA Administrator Michele Leonhart - the last remaining member of the Bush Administration working for the Obama Administration.

In a move preceded by its Governor Chris Gregoire and other governors like Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chafee and Vermont’s Peter Shumlin, 42 Washington State Legislators today petitioned the DEA’s Administrator Michele Leonhart to reschedule marijuana at the federal level to recognize medical use.

We write in support of the petition that Governor Chafee and Governor Gregoire recently submitted to initiate rulemaking proceedings for the reclassification of medical cannabis (also known as marijuana) from Schedule I to Schedule II of the CSA.

We are also concerned that qualifying patients with serious medical conditions who could benefit from medical use of cannabis do not have a safe and consistent source of their medicine that has been recommended by a licensed health care professional in our state. The divergence in state and federal law creates a situation Where there is no regulated and safe system to supply legitimate patients who may need medical cannabis. More to the point, it is clear that the long-standing classification of medical use of cannabis in the United States as an illegal Schedule I substance is fundamentally flawed and should be changed. The federal government could quickly solve the issue if it were to reclassify cannabis for medical use from a Schedule I drug to a Schedule II drug so that it can be prescribed, which we believe the petition provides substantiated peer-reviewed scientific evidence to support.

The solution lies ultimately with the federal government. We urge the DEA to initiate rulemaking proceedings to reclassify medical cannabis as a Schedule II drug so qualifying patients who follow state law may obtain the medication they need through the traditional and safe method of physician prescribing and pharmacy dispensing.

Reacting to the news, NORML’s Allen St. Pierre replied to an activist who’d asked if this was the first time a state legislature has initiated such a rescheduling petition.  ”While 36 states from 1980-1994 passed numerous toothless medical cannabis reforms (most of these bills took the form of the legislature and governor ’memorializing’ Congress and the Executive Branch to change cannabis’ scheduling to II or below),” St. Pierre noted, “I think you maybe right that a state legislature itself to date has not formally petitioned the feds for down scheduling.”

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1. Colorado Initiative Will Require a Detailed Review of Signatures
2. St. Louis Police Sergeant Arrested for Selling Seized Marijuana
3. California Supreme Court Agrees to Review Dispensary Cases
4. Washington Dispensary Bill Moves Forward

Daily Toker Tunes

• Groovin’ Thursday: Fusion Unlimited – “Smoke, Drink & Cut”

Southern California Scene with Hollywood Hemptress Tere Joyce

• Red Beard from 420 Grow Solutions

Radical Rant

• Get Well, Ralphie May!

Senate Bill 6265 would legalize non-profit medical marijuana dispensaries, but kick the regulation aspect to the cities of Washington. If passed, the bill could clear up what has been a legal limbo for dispensaries in the state that are left alone in some places and prosecuted in others. Storefront cannabis shops are not explicitly allowed under state law, but most dispensaries are operating under legal loopholes and faith that they will not be raided. Under the new law, there is discussion that the dispensary business would boom in the state, especially in some cities that have refused to allow them.

Sen. Kohl-Welles’ medical marijuana bill may also have implications for the legalization bill I-502 if passed. Initiative 502 would legalize marijuana possession and distribution for adults, but it also spells out the language that would convict an adult from driving while high; specifically, if they were caught with more than 5 nanograms of THC  in their blood. She has language that would require police and prosecutors to have proof of actual impairment in order to convict a medical marijuana patient of a DUI – meaning: they would need more than the nanogram limit proposed in I-502 to convict a patient with a state medical marijuana card.

Sen. Kohl- Welles says she is optimistic that the legislature can make improvements to the system and allow the local governments to regulate non-profit patient cooperatives. She did contend though, that the bill is young and will likely undergo changes, as it has support and opposition.  They will try to work together to get the bill passed.

Gov. Gregoire vetoed so much of last year’s Bill SB 5073 that was sponsored by Kohl-Welles that the plans to regulate a medical marijuana dispensary system were blacked out entirely. However, this time around, Gregoire’s policy staff members have been working with Kohl-Welles on her bill, although the Governor’s office hasn’t officially endorsed it. The dismissal by a federal judge of Arizona’s lawsuit (to clarify if state employees would be prosecuted for taking part in a regulated market by issuing business licensees) has taken the legs out from much of the Governor’s argument about regulating dispensaries.

External Links:

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Washington-state-lawmakers-seek-new-path-for-pot-2612671.php#ixzz1jrDdTy00

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2012/01/pot_proposals_advance_in_olymp.php

This K2 will only hurt you if you try to climb it.

The proven dangerous chemical compound of synthetic marijuana that is sprayed on potpourri and marketed as a legal drug has been outlawed in many states, much of that legislation passing in 2011. Some form of synthetic marijuana, sometimes marketed as incense called “Spice” or “K2″, is outlawed in 38 states now. This drug that was created due to the limit on research allowed on actual marijuana has made thousands sickened nationwide after consuming the substance sold in smoke shops and truck stops in grams with a label on it warning it is not for human consumption.

The latest data from the National Institute on Drug Abuse says that synthetic marijuana is now the number two most frequently used illicit substance among high school seniors behind actual marijuana. The adverse affects reported to hospitals after smoking synthetic marijuana have been seizures, vomiting, anxiety and accelerated heart rate and a handful of deaths have been linked to the substance.

However, the problem with the law is that it cant keep up with science. The state of Virginia made it illegal to sell or possess 10 different compounds that were marketed as the synthetic drug. One of the largest busts in the nation was in Virginia where they confiscated almost a million dollars worth of the product, packaged and ready for sell, but after testing the product, it turns out it didn’t contain one of the banned products listed in state law.

Authorities in other states that have went through the arduous task of outlawing these products have had similar stories. Cases in states where Spice and K2 are illegal have also confiscated products that have outpaced the laws. Authorities in Florida, Indiana, Illinois and Alaska have confiscated legal products they thought they had banned. Savvy Spice manufacturers have been altering their recipes enough to skirt the state bans and are now marketing the latest generations of chemicals as more potent than original formulas.

Web sites are also opening, marketing the new formulas, letting those in restricted states know that new formulas are legal for about $10 to $25 a gram. To those who fought to get the products off the market, it is frustrating to see they are still there. The case in Virginia, where almost 2000 packets of Spice was seized at a tobacco shop near a school in a raid-style fashion, is set to go to court next month. But now that samples have been tested to show only non-restrictive active ingredients, prosecutors aren’t saying whether they will go forward with the case.

External Links:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/07/09/AR2010070903554.html

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/spice-makers-alter-recipes-to-sidestep-state-laws-banning-synthetic-marijuana/2011/11/30/gIQA6gpHNP_story.html

The sponsor, Mimi Miewes, says that their initiative was in response to the already filed Initiative 502 – another initiative to legalize marijuana for adults in the state. The reason why Miewes and other medical marijuana patients have gotten behind a second initiative was because I-502 contains what they see as an overly strict blood limit test for drivers under the influence of marijuana.

In the Safe Cannabis Act Initiative, the move would be to decriminalize marijuana for patients, and provide patients with protection from arrest. It also included a provision to classify hemp as an agricultural product. The new initiative will need to be approved by the offices of the state code reviser along with a passage by the state attorney general. This next stage in the Initiative’s journey will take a few weeks, then they will begin to collect even more signatures.

External Links:

http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Medical-marijuana-patients-file-counter-initiative-2446150.php#ixzz1iiRInnZO