pass a drug test

DOESN'T LIKE ASKING SHERIFF FOR MEDICINE

2009-11-09T13:20:00.000-08:00

Well, another week has arrived. Again I will have to ask the sheriff for my medicine. I will be writing him separately. I still must ask you to free our medical marijuana.

I am going to try not to be vulgar or threatening. It has been hard to do of late because I am not even able to get my prescription medication. Can I borrow $50? I really could use my medication. I cannot believe in what was the greatest nation in history I cannot get my pain medication. Oh, have we so fallen.

Here I am in the United States, a U.S. natural-born citizen, and I am unable to get medication. Where is my right to life? How am I supposed to live without my medication that I need to live? Where should I go to get redress of my grievances? Where am I to look for justice?

I know the FBI has said it couldn't do anything. Why don't I believe that? The FBI, I will bet, has hundreds of pounds of medical grade marijuana that has been seized. They could release me my medicine, if they cared about us. As I have said I would keep any info or help to myself. I wouldn't go run out and tell everyone, if said help was offered. I can show you in secret if need be.

What are you waiting for? Do you also not care about being on the right side of history?

Scott Carriere

Springfield

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a03.html
Newshawk: http://www.illinoisNORML.org
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Wed, 4 Nov 2009
Source: State Journal-Register (IL)
Copyright: 2009 The State Journal-Register
Contact: letters@sj-r.com
Website: http://www.sj-r.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/425
Author: Scott Carriere

MEDICAL MARIJUANA SUPPORTERS TO ADDRESS TULARE COUNTY BOARD OF SUPERVISORS

2009-11-08T13:18:00.000-08:00

Some operators of medial marijuana dispensaries in Tulare County said they plan to ask the county's Board of Supervisors to rewrite a series of proposed ordinances that they say could harm their businesses as well as the people who smoke and ingest the plants to treat pain and other ailments.

That may include trying to get the supervisors to better understand how the growing and dispensing of medical marijuana works, said Jeff Nunes, director of the Visalia Compassionate Care, a dispensary south of Ivanhoe.

He said he plans to address the supervisors during their regular meeting Tuesday, during which they may vote to approve the ordinances.

"We're gong to basically insist that the Board of Supervisors tour our [marijuana] farms," some of which are run by professional farmers who also grow nuts, oranges and other large cash crops, Nunes said.

He said he's also hoping to form a group of local experts to further educate the supervisors on the industry and how it helps people.

This follows last week's vote by the supervisors to go forward with the ordinance following some minor revisions. If approved Tuesday, those ordinances would be the first regulating medical marijuana in unincorporated Tulare County.

Among the provisions of the ordinances:

Dispensaries would have to obtain business licenses. Part of that licensing would involve criminal background checks of dispensary operators.

Anyone smoking medicinal marijuana must do so inside a habitable, private residence and not in garages or detached buildings.

Cultivating and storing would be done in fully enclosed, secure buildings with roofs, no visible signage, and monitored alarms. Structural designs would restrict the smell of marijuana from blowing to other buildings and public areas.

An individual, collective or cooperative would be limited to no more than 99 plants.

There could be no more than three collectives or cooperatives in unincorporated Tulare County.

There are five medical marijuana dispensaries in the unincorporated areas, along with two others in the city of Tulare. Those two wouldn't be affected directly by the ordinance, though customers and people growing for the dispensaries outside the city limits might be affected.

Some growers aren't professional farmers producing marijuana as a side crop for extra money. Instead, many are people who grow the plants to treat there own medical conditions and trade some of it to dispensaries for other strains -- which can be more effective against certain illnesses -- or they sell it to the dispensaries.

Nunes said his dispensary alone has more than 3,500 patients, and curtailing how many plants his growers can produce or store could make it difficult to supply his clients, all of whom have doctor's prescriptions for marijuana.

He estimated about 10,000 patients in Tulare County use medicinal marijuana.

Tammy Murray, director of the Compassionate Cannabis Information Center, a dispensary in Goshen, said she believes part of the problem is county officials greatly underestimate the number of people here who depend on marijuana as medicine.

A big reason for that is patients still are leery about getting medical marijuana cards from the county even though it is legal in the state, she said.

The cards are not mandatory for patients.

Unfortunately, Murray said, she believes the county supervisors' decisions also are being driven by misconceptions about people who use medical marijuana and the people who run the dispensaries.

"I do feel the county is being a bit discriminatory of what we're doing because of past taboos that are really unfounded," and paint the patients getting high and posing dangers to the public, she said.

"I have attorneys and all kinds of professional people who come to this dispensary, and a lot of them would be people you would never expect to smoke cannabis."

And about a quarter of those clients are military veterans, Murray said.

"Another problem with this industry is the fear it's being run by thugs," she added. "In my case, at least, that's simply not the case."

All this could be moot, however, because the ordinance states that the county regulation would take effect only if both California and federal laws allow for growing and use of medical marijuana.

No such federal law exists, though federal law enforcement agencies have been directed to avoid arresting people who comply with their states' medical marijuana laws.

Nunes said he's optimistic that could happen within a couple of years.

Strip Clubs

That same set or ordinances includes new rules for strip clubs that include:

Permits and criminal history background checks for dancers.

$60 permit that would include the performers' photos, names, stage names, height, weight and address.

Dancers would be 21 and older and have to cover specified parts of their bodies

Dancers on stage would have to be at least 10 feet from spectators and couldn't make direct physical contact when receiving tips.

[sidebar]

ADDITIONAL FACTS

How to Attend

What: Tulare County Board of Supervisors

When: 9 a.m. Tuesday

Where: Board chambers, 2800 W. Burrel Ave., Visalia

Public comment: 9 a.m.

Get the agenda: Go to www.co.tulare.ca.us, click on "County Government," "Board of Supervisors," "Board Agendas," then the meeting date.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a09.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Webpage: http://drugsense.org/url/5zlP5NpZ
Pubdate: Mon, 9 Nov 2009
Source: Visalia Times-Delta, The (CA)
Copyright: 2009 The Visalia Times-Delta
Contact: http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/customerservice/contactus.html
Website: http://www.visaliatimesdelta.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2759
Author: David Castellon
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - United States)

CONFRONTATION WITH BUSINESS OWNER A MISUNDERSTANDING, GEORGINA COUNCILLOR CLAIMS

2009-11-07T13:17:00.000-08:00

High Street bong shop owners completely misunderstood the intentions and tone of a conversation Oct. 20 with a longtime politician.

That's the message from Councillor Ken Hackenbrook after returning from a Florida vacation last weekend and finding out Shisha shop owner Gurbaksh Dhoofar had filed a police report stating they were "afraid" to do business in town after talking to Mr. Hackenbrook last month.

But scaring them was definitely not the intent of his visit to the shop, Mr. Hackenbrook told The Advocate Monday night.

"Look, they absolutely took me the wrong way," he said, adding his wife, Lorraine, said nothing to them, but came into the store after being across the street to see what was keeping her husband so long.

"I looked around at all the pipes and asked what they are used for. ( Mr. Dhoofar ) said they are for tobacco. I have never seen these products before," Mr. Hackenbrook said.

"I didn't want to threaten anybody and I wasn't about to tell them to get out of the store. My biggest concern is the kids," Mr. Hackenbrook said.

As far as a police report goes, "( police ) are not going to do anything," Mr. Hackenbrook said, adding he has talked to District No. 3 officers confirming this development.

York Regional Police Const. Laurie Perks confirmed there is an investigation under way regarding a police report filed by Dr. Dhoofar Oct. 23.

"Police are looking into ( all the report's allegations ). The investigation has not concluded but we believe there was no criminal incident here," Ms Perks said, adding any statements made do not appear to be "criminal in nature".

"We won't speculate on whether the comments were appropriate but there is no indication of criminal activity" on Mr. Hackenbrook's part, she said.

There is also no criminal activity going on at the shop, she added.

If there is no advertisement along with the bongs regarding their purpose that they are to be used to smoke marijuana and if there is no marijuana found in or around the bongs, there is nothing illegal about the products being sold, she said.

"There is no offence here," Ms Perks said.

Mr. Hackenbrook told the The Advocate the only reason he brought up any family connections to the police ( several family members are officers with the York force and his brother-in-law is a retired staff sergeant ) was to ensure Mr. Dhoofar and his partner that he is community-minded and encourages peaceful relations as a longtime member of York Regional Police Chief Armand La Barge's Canadian Federation of inter-cultural friendship community police liaison committee.

The councillor said he went in to the shop after receiving several complaints and as a part of his welcoming tour of new businesses that day in town, adding he handed Mr. Dhoofar a town pin and a business card.

The councillor said the shop owners told him they close down every day at lunch so as not to entice teenagers from Sutton District High School, which is walking distance to the store.

"The kids are my biggest concern," he said.

Several readers have made comments about how one councillor's actions might reflect on the town and the way it conducts business.

Mayor Rob Grossi had this to say:

"As far as this incident is concerned, although it's a business I would not patronize and I don't necessarily agree with the legality of the products that are sold there, my responsibility as an elected official is to ensure that the rules and regulations and/or bylaws of the municipality are adhered to. As for any new business that is opened anywhere, its success will be based simply on the patronage by the residents of the area."

Mr. Dhoofar is still in town with a "closing soon" sign on his door.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a08.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Thu, 5 Nov 2009
Source: Georgina Advocate (CN ON)
Copyright: 2009 Georgina Advocate
Contact: http://www.yrmg.com/forms/lettertotheeditor.html
Website: http://www.yorkregion.com/news/Georgina
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2433
Author: Tracy Kibble

CONSENT SEEMS LIKELY

2009-11-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

To the editor:

Money, while important, is not all that matters ( Taylor Armerding: "State can fill its coffers by treating pot like gambling," Oct. 24 ). What also matters is that our laws comply with the federal and state constitutions; both suppose the consent of the governed. The vote on Question 2 annihilated the notion prohibition of possession backed by criminal sanction had such consent. The vote on Question 2 and the rampant civil disobedience to the law -- over 10 percent of Massachusetts voters consumed it last month -- establish there is not consent here for the prohibition of its commerce.

According to the U.S. Justice Department's medical marijuana policy memorandum issued Oct. 19, the black market provides "significant source of revenue to large-scale criminal enterprises." So too did alcohol prohibition. The only constitutional policy toward marijuana consists of regulations and a level of taxation reasonable enough so that the people will generally send their money to the state rather than resorting to the black market in their pursuit of their subjective happiness.

Steven S. Epstein

Georgetown

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a07.html
Newshawk: http://www.masscann.org/
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Thu, 5 Nov 2009
Source: Georgetown Record (MA)
Copyright: 2009 GateHouse Media, Inc.
Contact: georgetown@cnc.com
Website: http://www.wickedlocal.com/georgetown/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3519
Author: Steven S. Epstein

LIES ABOUT MARIJUANA DRIVE PEOPLE TO A MUCH MORE HARMFUL DRUG -- BOOZE

2009-11-05T13:15:00.000-08:00

Anti-Pot Propaganda Drives Most People to Drink Alcohol Instead. But Booze Is Far More Dangerous Than Marijuana.

Professor David Nutt didn't play the game. As the chief drug policy advisor in the British Government, an unspoken part of his job description was to help maintain a public fiction about marijuana - or cannabis, as it is known in the U.K. and other parts of the world. Specifically, he was expected to further the misperception of cannabis as a substance worthy of being classified and prohibited in a manner similar to more dangerous drugs like heroin and cocaine.

He made a big mistake at the end of last month. In a lecture at King's College in London, he spoke honestly - and truthfully - about the fact that cannabis is less harmful than alcohol and urged the government to factor the relative harms of substances into their policy-making. Moreover, he accused the British government of ignoring the evidence about the true harms of cannabis in order to reclassify the drug and increase penalties for possession.

Reacting with the logic and reason of pub patron after last call, Home Secretary Alan Johnson immediately demanded that Prof. Nutt resign as the head of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He said Prof Nutt had "crossed the line between offering advice and ... campaigning against the government on political decisions."

More accurately, Prof. Nutt crossed the line between deceiving citizens and being honest with them. The home secretary, a former member of Parliament, is no doubt comfortable with a little verbal jousting over public policy decisions. What he could not abide by was a top ranking official threatening the anti-cannabis mythology embraced at the very top level of government. Based on Nutt's fateful bout of truthfulness, Johnson said he had "lost confidence" in Nutt as an advisor.

In a letter to Professor Nutt, Mr. Johnson explained how the system is supposed to work. He said: "As Home Secretary it is for me to make decisions, having received advice from the [Council] ... It is important that the Government's messages on drugs are clear and as an adviser you do nothing to undermine the public understanding of them . I am afraid the manner in which you have acted runs contrary to your responsibilities."

The Home Secretary's chief medical officer Sir Liam Donaldson put a similar spin on this hostile reaction to fact-based statements to the public. "These things are best sorted out behind the scenes," he said, "so that the government and their advisers can go to the public with a united front."

In the real world, what this means is that advisors are free to provide research or reports based on an honest assessment of the scientific evidence, but when this research is completely ignored in setting policy, they are expected to keep their mouths shut and move on as if nothing ever happened.

This is all part of the game the government plays in order to maintain marijuana prohibition. In the United States, there are many examples of significant advisory opinions related to marijuana being completely ignored - even where the opinions were part of a decision-making process that should have led to action by the federal government.

In 1970, Congress established the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse to study marijuana and make recommendations about how to control its use. The Commission's final report suggested removal of criminal penalties, noting, "The actual and potential harm of use of the drug is not great enough to justify intrusion by the criminal law into private behavior." President Nixon ignored the Commission's findings and launched and all-out war on marijuana users.

In 1988, Francis Young, an administrative law judge at the Drug Enforcement Administration ( DEA ), following hearings to determine whether marijuana should be placed into a less restrictive category under the Controlled Substances Act, wrote that marijuana should be moved from Schedule I ( the most restrictive category ) to Schedule II and it would be "unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious" to conclude otherwise. More than 20 years later, marijuana remains a Schedule I drug.

A recently as February 2007, an administrative law judge at the DEA issued an opinion concluding that it would be in the public interest for the agency to grant a license to the University of Massachusetts to grow a limited amount of marijuana to be used to study its potential therapeutic benefits. Faced with this seemingly rational opinion, the political powers at the DEA sat on it for nearly two years and then rejected it by formally denying the University the license in the very last days of the Bush administration.

Of course, ignoring fact- and evidence-based advice about marijuana is just one part of the game our government has played over the past four decades. It has also gone out of its way to promote and spread myths about the drug - from the "gateway" theory to marijuana's supposed connection to cancer to the notion that "potent pot" is somehow more dangerous than "your father's marijuana." Each one has been debunked or proven wrong or misleading, but there is no doubt that they have helped keep marijuana illegal.

Yet there is one myth more insidious than the rest. And it is one that is as devastating as it is subtle.

You see, whether intentional or not, the government's greatest achievement when it comes to keeping marijuana illegal has been its ability to convince a majority of Americans that marijuana is as harmful as, if not more harmful than, alcohol. By doing so, it has secured alcohol's place as the recreational substance of choice for the vast majority of the public.

Influenced by the government's anti-marijuana propaganda, a large segment of our population is comfortable with a system that bans the use of marijuana but allows - and even celebrates - the use of alcohol, despite the fact that alcohol is objectively far more harmful.

Let's consider just a few facts about the two substances. For starters, alcohol is far more toxic than marijuana. Just ten times the effective dose of alcohol can be fatal. Yet there has never been a recorded marijuana overdose death in history. The highly toxic nature of alcohol is also what leads to the all-too-frequent occurrences of nausea and vomiting from over-indulgence.

Over the long-term, alcohol consumption is also far more likely to lead to the death of the user. According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, between 33,000 and 35,000 Americans die annually from the effects of alcohol. The comparable number for marijuana? Zero. The supposed cancer-causing properties of marijuana? Non-existent.

Perhaps most disturbingly, as almost anyone who has been exposed to the two substances could tell you, alcohol is far more likely to produce dangerous and socially destructive behavior. It is cited as a contributing factor in 25-30 percent of violent crimes in this country and in about 100,000 sexual assaults on college campuses annually. These kinds of negative associations simply don't exist with marijuana.

As mentioned at the beginning, facts like this were quite familiar to Professor Nutt. Even after his firing, he endeavored to spread the truth about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol and urged parents to be especially wary of the one that posed the greatest potential for damage.

"The greatest concern to parents," he said, "should be that their children do not get completely off their heads with alcohol because it can kill them ... and it leads them to do things which are very dangerous, such as to kill themselves or others in cars, get into fights, get raped, and engage in other activities which they regret subsequently. My view is that, if you want to reduce the harm to society from drugs, alcohol is the drug to target at present."

Our nation's leaders might think this is a game, but it isn't. There are children and adults seriously suffering and even dying because of alcohol, and it is time our leaders started being honest and realistic about how it compares to marijuana - both in terms of public education and public policies. Neither propaganda nor policy should be used to steer adults - or teens, for that matter - toward alcohol instead of marijuana. This does not mean that marijuana is harmless; it simply means, and all of the evidence indicates, that it is less harmful than alcohol.

And no one should be fired for saying that.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a06.html
Newshawk: Kirk
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 9 Nov 2009
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2009 Independent Media Institute
Website: http://www.alternet.org/
Author: Steve Fox
Note: Steve Fox is the director of state campaigns for the Marijuana
Policy Project and co-author of Marijuana Is Safer: So why are we
driving people to drink? (Chelsea Green, August 2009).

POT IS MORE MAINSTREAM THAN EVER, SO WHY IS LEGALIZATION STILL TABOO?

2009-11-04T07:55:00.001-08:00

More members of Congress have publicly questioned whether President Barack Obama was born in Hawaii than have endorsed legalizing marijuana.

This comes despite the birth announcements printed in the Honolulu Advertiser in August 1961 and marijuana's deep inroads into the cultural mainstream.

Almost every voter under 65 in this country has either smoked cannabis or grew up with people who did. Among its erstwhile users are the last three presidents, one Supreme Court justice and the mayor of the nation's largest city. The pot leaf's image pervades popular culture, from Bob Marley T-shirts to billboards for Showtime's Weeds.

So why is actually legalizing it still considered a fringe issue? Why haven't more politicians -- especially the ones who inhaled -- come out and said, "Prohibition is absurd and criminal. Let's treat cannabis like alcohol"?

Allen St. Pierre, head of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, blames the hypocrisy of the "baby boomer elite." There are many people in Washington's political and media circles "who know the right end of a joint to light, but are too embarrassed to admit their knowledge," he says. There are members of Congress, he adds, who will greet him at a party with "Allen, got any weed?" but are afraid to go out on a limb for legalization.

Only two current members of Congress have openly advocated ending cannabis prohibition: Reps. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, and Ron Paul, R-Texas.

Even in a Congress inhabited by Republicans Tom "Lesbians Are Terrorizing Our High Schools" Coburn of Oklahoma and Michelle "Carbon Dioxide Is Natural, It Is Not Harmful" Bachmann of Minnesota, the left-liberal Kucinich and the libertarian-conservative Paul might be the two most widely derided as kooks.

A handful of others, such as Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., have given some indications that they would support legalization. Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., has sponsored a bill to end federal penalties for possession of less than 100 grams, but has not explicitly endorsed making marijuana as legal as alcohol.

In contrast, Salon in July identified 17 members of Congress as "birther" sympathizers who had either openly questioned Obama's birth, co-sponsored a bill on the issue or refused to answer yes when asked if they believed he was a natural-born citizen. The 17 included Sens. James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Richard Shelby, R-Ala.

St. Pierre particularly resents the way the media treat the issue as a joke, in which almost any headline has to include a bad pun on "doobie," "high" or "mellow."

It's deadly serious when more than 800,000 people a year are arrested for it, he argues. Obama's "chuckle," he says, was emblematic. When legalizing marijuana was the top issue cited by visitors to Obama's transition Web site, the president dismissed it with a joke implying that there must be a lot of stoned people on the Internet.

"It's still an issue people are giggling about, not taking seriously," says Noelle Davis, former head of Texans for Medical Marijuana.

State legislators who have sponsored marijuana-related bills say that the two biggest obstacles are fear and cultural stereotypes.

"Elected officials are largely very concerned about being labeled 'soft on drugs,'" says New York State Assemblyman Richard Gottfried. Gottfried, a Manhattan Democrat who sponsored the state's 1977 decriminalization law, has introduced several bills to legalize medical marijuana.

Polls have shown medical marijuana to have the support of 70 to 80 percent of New Yorkers, he says, but "many legislators are afraid to touch it."

Washington State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles says that many legislators, particularly in the state's more conservative rural areas, "buy into the cultural stereotypes about marijuana," such as the idea that it's a gateway to harder drugs.

The Seattle Democrat, who is sponsoring a bill to reduce the penalty for less than 40 grams of pot from a misdemeanor to a civil infraction, says that the state's prosecutors' support for legalizing medical marijuana gave conservatives political cover to vote for it but that law enforcement has largely opposed her decriminalization bill.

One reason for the lack of urgent political pressure, says Deborah Small of Break the Chains, is that the people most likely to get busted for pot are the ones who "don't have a political voice" -- young people of color from poor neighborhoods. In Atlanta, Baltimore and New York, which have among the highest marijuana-arrest rates in the nation, three-fourths of those popped are black or Latino and under 25, she points out. Adults and more affluent youths are largely safe from arrest, she adds.

Frontlines of the Debate

California is the one state where legalization is legitimately on the agenda. "Obama might have dismissed it, but we're having the most serious conversation in 35 years," says Quintin Mecke, spokesman for Assemblyman Tom Ammiano. Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat, is sponsoring a bill that would legalize marijuana in California. It would let people grow up to 10 plants for their own use and license commercial cultivation and sales, with a smoking age of 21 and a $50-an-ounce tax.

Hearings on the bill are scheduled for January. It would obviously conflict with federal law, but Mecke says, "the intent is to provoke a states' rights conversation A lot of folks are looking to California to push that issue."

Several factors make legalization politically possible in California, Mecke explains. First, it has had legally regulated medical marijuana for 13 years, and people have "seen that the sky did not fall. California may be in a fiscal crisis, but it's certainly not due to marijuana." Taxes and fees on cannabis could raise $1.4 billion in revenue for the cash-strapped state, the state Board of Equalization estimates. In addition, marijuana cultivation is an integral part of the local economy in many areas, especially the rural north.

"We're not expecting this to happen overnight," Mecke says. "But looking at the poll numbers, it will happen."

A Gallup poll conducted in early October backs that prediction. It found 44 percent of the people surveyed supporting legal marijuana, with 54 percent against. In contrast, previous surveys showed Americans rejecting legalization 73 percent to 23 percent in 1985 and 64 percent to 31 percent in 2000.

An overwhelming majority of liberals supported it, as did more than half of Westerners, Democrats and people under 50. Opposition was strongest among Republicans, conservatives and people over 65, but even in those groups, more than a quarter backed legalization.

"Public mores on legalization of marijuana have been changing this decade and are now at their most tolerant in at least 40 years," the Gallup organization stated. "If public support were to continue growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percentage points per year, as it has since 2000, the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years."

Disconnect Between the Country and Its Capital

There is a "huge disconnect" between the corridors of power in Washington and the rest of America on marijuana, contends St. Pierre.

Today, even the hardest-line prohibitionists rarely argue that people should go to jail for possession. In Washington, says Kohl-Welles, police and prosecutors claimed that decriminalization would be unnecessary because they don't put a lot of resources into making such minor arrests.

In New York, where Mayor Michael "You Bet I Did -- And I Enjoyed It" Bloomberg has continued Rudolph Giuliani's war on pot smokers, a police department spokesperson tried to convince reporters that there was no such crackdown, because the number of summonses issued for marijuana possession declined over the last decade. ( Having less than 25 grams carries only a $100 fine under state law, but possession in public is a misdemeanor. New York City police have been arresting more than 40,000 people a year on that charge, mostly young black and Latino men. )

Liberal politicians who believe that the laws are too harsh but don't want to take the risk of siding with stoners often support decriminalization as a middle ground. Decriminalization has definitely been an improvement -- as Gottfried points out, it's made the difference between spending a night in jail and a year in prison for having a small bag of pot -- but it is actually a harsher regime than alcohol Prohibition was. Under Prohibition, home winemaking and medical use of alcohol were legal, and people could keep liquor acquired before the law went into effect in 1920. ( The New York governor's mansion had one such stash of booze, and the Yale Club in Manhattan stockpiled a 14-year supply. )

Obama's Oct. 19 guidelines that federal prosecutors not pursue medical-marijuana cases in states where it's legal are encouraging. On the other hand, like so much in Obama's tenure, they might also be far more symbolic than real. They contain enough wiggle room to permit federal aid to local prosecutors who go after medical marijuana, such as Steve Cooley in Los Angeles.

In general, Obama's positions have evolved in a typically hypocritical manner. He endorsed decriminalization when he was an Illinois state legislator campaigning on a college campus, but he now states flatly that he does not support legalization -- although he wrote in his autobiography that while pot didn't solve your problems, "it could at least help you laugh at the world's ongoing folly and see through all the bullshit and cheap moralism." ( There are photos of Obama as a straw-hatted college student, smoking an ambiguous cigarette with his thumb and forefinger and looking blissfully slit-eyed. )

"Legalization is not in the president's vocabulary, and it is not in mine," federal drug czar Gil Kerlikowske has reiterated, although he is relatively liberal on other drug issues.

According to St. Pierre, the staff of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., specifically warned the pot-legalization movement not to pressure the Obama administration or congressional Democrats because they were preoccupied with the economy, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and health care. The message, he says, was "We are not going to advance this issue, and you need to cut us some slack."

Change You Can Put in Your Pipe

What can be done? What would change the political climate to enable a reasonable discussion of legalizing and regulating marijuana?

Deborah Small says it would take a society that cared about black and Latino youth instead of criminalizing them in the name of "quality of life" policing.

Politicians talk about keeping young people in school and getting them jobs, but then they support "policing tactics guaranteed to bring them into the criminal-justice system for relatively minor offenses." If Obama had been busted for pot when he was a young man, she asks, would he be president today? "Certainly not."

She finds it remarkable that the hip-hop generation that emerged after the crack epidemic of the late '80s eschewed hard drugs in favor of marijuana -- and the system responded by arresting them more, with policies that rewarded large numbers of petty-possession busts.

Kohl-Welles says legalizing cannabis would take a critical mass of legislators, and that budget issues might help create the climate for that. Gottfried says that it will take "very strong public support for it to become part of mainstream debate, let alone pass the Legislature."

To win that support, St. Pierre says, the legalization movement needs to sustain grassroots activism and become more multiracial instead of being almost all-white and mainly male. Advancing legalization would also need the support of charismatic politicians early in their careers, as "it's impossible to flip a 50- or 60-year-old alpha male in Washington."

Another danger, he says, is politicians who modify their positions to suit their ambitions. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, he notes, was an early and "full-throated" supporter of medical marijuana, but is now running for governor of California and opposes legalization.

In Texas, says Noelle Davis, activists face the daunting task of trying to persuade legislators in the Republican majority -- and the primary voters who elect them. This would require educating them about the safety of marijuana versus alcohol and the economic benefits that cannabis cultivation and sales could bring to the state.

One largely overlooked issue in Texas, she says, is drug violence on the border. Infighting among rival smuggling gangs has claimed hundreds of lives in the Mexican cities of Nuevo Laredo, just across the river from Laredo, and Juarez, across from El Paso.

For all the hype about potent domestic homegrown, commercial-grade Mexican dominates the cheaper end of the cannabis market, and "a lot of marijuana comes up IH-35," from Laredo through San Antonio, Austin and Dallas.

"We're still putting our hands over our ears and saying 'la-la-la,' " she says. "If marijuana were legal on a federal level, it would dramatically reduce the deaths associated with the drug trade."

Meanwhile, she says, the "silent majority" of pot smokers has to overcome their fear and get vocal. "When I was circulating a petition for medical marijuana, often people would giggle and say 'I'm not putting my name on a list,' " she recalls. "Don't be afraid of your legislator. Take time and build a relationship."

St. Pierre agrees. "We have not achieved the political legitimacy of the gay and lesbian community," he concludes. "As long as 0.1 percent of cannabis consumers are involved with their own liberation, reform is unlikely." If just 1 percent of the nation's estimated 36 million pot smokers would get involved, he says, that would be a constituency of 360,000 activists.

Legalizing cannabis may not be as life-and-death an issue as health care, global warming or the war in Afghanistan, but it is not a frivolous cause. Not any more than repealing Prohibition was in the depths of the Depression.

When the nation is mired in an economic and environmental crisis, why should we waste lives and money enforcing repressive, racist and crime-creating laws? In May 1932, thousands of people marched in the streets of New York, Detroit and other cities to demand the legalization of beer. They carried signs reading "We Want Beer and We Will Pay the Tax" and "We Want Beer but We Also Want Jobs."

Later that summer, the Democratic party, battered for being "wet" in the previous presidential election, endorsed the repeal of Prohibition. On Dec. 5, 1933, the 21st Amendment went into effect, and Americans could legally drink again.

Of course, there was a fanatical former Prohibition official named Harry Anslinger, who had recently become head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics -- and was looking for a new way to advance his career.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n983/a07.html
Newshawk: Kirk
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Thu, 29 Oct 2009
Source: AlterNet (US Web)
Copyright: 2009 Independent Media Institute
Website: http://www.alternet.org/
Author: Steven Wishnia
Note: Steven Wishnia is a New York-based journalist and musician. The author of Exit 25 Utopia and The Cannabis Companion, he has won two New York City Independent Press Association awards for his coverage of housing issues. He is looking for a job.

LAWMAKERS HEAR HOW FORFEITURE LAWS WORK IN THEORY, IN REALITY

2009-11-03T07:54:00.000-08:00

After hearing hours of testimony Thursday about how state forfeiture laws are supposed to work, many legislators had vanished by the time two citizens spoke of their problems after police seized their property.

One of them was Terrance Frelix Sr., 34, of Minneapolis. He and a business partner owned some properties and were running behind on a mortgage in 2006, Frelix testified at a hearing. His partner borrowed $4,000 and had just given Frelix the money when a Metro Gang Strike Force officer took them in for questioning.

Police released them without charging them with a crime. The strike force later informed Frelix they were forfeiting the cash and Frelix's truck.

Frelix had been outside his vehicle when police swooped in and -- unbeknownst to him, he said -- a relative was smoking a marijuana joint inside. Police said the small amount of marijuana was the reason they were forfeiting the property.

Frelix went to court but hasn't gotten his property back. He said he's still out the $4,000, plus $3,500 in attorney's fees. His truck is gone, along with the property management equipment inside.

"Even to this day, I'm still frustrated," he said after Thursday's hearing.

Earlier in the hearing, legislators had been walked through flow charts and other documents explaining how the state's forfeiture laws work.

After hearing Frelix's account, Sen. Ron Latz, DFL-St. Louis Park, said the information about what was happening on the streets was "nowhere near what happens on the flow chart."

Thursday marked the fourth joint legislative committee hearing held in the wake of the Metro Gang Strike Force's demise.

An independent review of the now-defunct strike force, released in August, found some officers seized money and property from people never accused of a crime, then took the property for personal use. The FBI is investigating.

The August report said some gang strike force members felt they needed to obtain forfeiture funds to keep the multi-agency task force running after its budget was cut.

The review panel recommended the Legislature "examine whether Minnesota's current forfeiture statute should be revised to provide more protections against the type of conduct described in this report." Legislators heard about how the law works, but Thursday's hearing wasn't intended to cover suggested changes.

In basic terms, under state law, police can seize all money, guns, cars, "precious metals, and precious stones" found in proximity to drugs, drug manufacturing or distribution operations. The property can be seized without drug-or gang-related criminal charges filed against the owner.

The law requires property owners be notified within 60 days of their right to try to get their property back through "judicial determination." If the owner files no claim within that time, the property is considered unclaimed and it's forfeited.

A legislative auditor's report on the gang strike force released in May found the gang unit couldn't document that it had served seizure notices in 202 of 545 cash seizures that auditors tested. Frelix told legislators he wasn't initially served notice and that his attorney had to discover where his property was.

Because it is a civil statute, citizens who challenge forfeiture must prove they acquired the property through legal means.

Police and prosecutors told legislators Thursday about safeguards they take to ensure property is properly seized and forfeited.

Rep. Tony Cornish, R-Good Thunder, questioned whether the forfeiture laws needed to be changed if law enforcement is given proper training and current statutes are followed.

"Do we need to overhaul everything?" asked Cornish, who is the Lake Crystal police chief.

Stearns County Sheriff John Sanner said, "If there are officers that are misusing these tools ... either intentionally or unintentionally, they have got to be held accountable because it's a black eye for everyone in law enforcement."

But he continued by asking legislators to consider that the "overwhelming majority of task forces" are doing things correctly and said sweeping legislative reform would be "unwarranted and damaging."

One problem with the administrative forfeiture process, as was evidenced by the problems with the Metro Gang Strike Force, is it "puts too much authority and too much discretion into the hands of

law enforcement  officers," said Howard Bass, American Civil Liberties
 of Minnesota board member. Because there are no real  checks and

balances, "this creates a potential for abuse," he said.

Because forfeitures are a civil matter, public defenders aren't assigned to such cases. Many people can't afford to hire private attorneys; if they can, attorneys' fees can "vastly ... exceed" the value of property taken, Bass said.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n982/a06.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Thu, 29 Oct 2009
Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press (MN)
Copyright: 2009 St. Paul Pioneer Press
Contact: letters@pioneerpress.com
Website: http://www.twincities.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/379
Author: Mara H. Gottfried
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

A MAN WITH NO-HANDS AND MANDATORY MINIMUM SENTENCES

2009-11-02T07:53:00.000-08:00

Terry Bazzani could star in an ad campaign about the foolishness of mandatory minimum sentences.

Bazzani has no hands and short arms. He has only half of his left foot. He's had a series of surgeries on his face. He has no criminal record.

And he has pleaded guilty to importing heroin. He was a drug mule; he swallowed heroin capsules in Colombia and flew to Toronto. Police had been tipped off and arrested him.

It's a serious crime. It's also the kind of offence that some politicians would like to see linked to a mandatory minimum sentence. Judges would have no discretion. Anyone guilty would receive a guaranteed term in a penitentiary.

Fortunately, the measures aren't in place. Bazzani will be sentenced later this month, based on the judge's analysis.

The politicians think they can decide the appropriate punishment without knowing about the crime or the people sitting the courtroom - not just the criminal, but the victims too.

But crime circumstances vary. For some offenders, serious prison time might be appropriate - a repeat drug trafficking offender or high-volume importer. A strong deterrent sentence might be needed.

Bazzani has no convictions. He said the smuggling wasn't planned. He traveled to Colombia to see a woman he had met online. He was approached in a bar, offered $10,000 to swallow the drugs and fell for the lure of easy money. ( That might not be true of course, but the Crown has offered no evidence to contradict the story. )

And offenders' circumstances vary. Imprisonment is a serious punishment for anyone.

But Bazzani would do spectacularly hard time. No hands, remember? He can't feed himself, except sandwiches. He can't clean himself after going to the bathroom, unless he has a shower. He spent five weeks in pretrial custody and went without brushing his teeth, cleaning himself and ate little food.

And he certainly can't stand up for himself. Which means that in prison he will be a victim, or locked up a protective custody. Bazzani's doctor spends two days a week providing care for inmates at the Vancouver Island Regional Correction Centre. The handless man would be in danger in prison, says Dr. James Henry, who said he treats inmates who are victims of violence.

Bazzani illustrates one problem with mandatory minimum sentences. Some people are going to be punished with sentences far out of proportion to their crimes, because judges are fettered with arbitrary, political sentencing rules.

There are other problems. They don't actually reduce crime, for starters.

And they cost taxpayers a fortune as more prisons are built and staffed to house a growing number of inmates.

B.C.'s jails are already overcrowded. The Solicitor General's Ministry service plan says there are "dangerous levels of inmate overcrowding" and reveals prisons are operating at 185 per cent of capacity. The situation "increasingly compromises community and staff safety," the ministry says.

The federal government has passed legislation to impose mandatory minimum sentences for a wider range of drug offences. The Senate is now reviewing the law and the Conservatives have already complained its not moving quickly enough to "get tough on crime."

The Conservatives won't reveal the cost of imprisoning more people as a result of their changes to the Criminal Code. But the government has doubled the capital budget for building new cells. At a minimum, analysts suggest, it will cost more than $100 million a year to lock up the new inmates.

Which might be fine it reduced crime and made Canadians safer.

But it doesn't. The Americans have been down this road. Thanks in part to mandatory minimum sentences, the U.S., on a per capita basis, imprisons six times more of its citizens than Canada. Crime has not been reduced; it is not safer. Just poorer

And more people like Bazzani have ended up in desperate situations behind bars.

Judges - the people who actually hear the evidence and study the laws - - - are far more likely to impose effective, appropriate sentences than politicians looking for some good headlines.

Footnote: Here in B.C., the problem isn't just jail overcrowding. The Solicitor General's Ministry service plan also notes that the number of offenders under community supervision orders jumped by 10 per cent last year, to 22,000. The increases, without a corresponding increase in staff to ensure offenders obey the rules of their release, are also compromising public safety, the ministry notes.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n982/a07.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 1
Pubdate: Wed, 28 Oct 2009
Source: Nelson Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Nelson Daily News
Contact: http://www.nelsondailynews.com/section/nelson0303&template=letter
Website: http://www.nelsondailynews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/288
Author: Paul Willcocks
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?199 (Mandatory Minimum Sentencing)

STUDENTS FIGHT BACK AGAINST METH

2009-11-02T07:52:00.000-08:00

Boys & Girls Club, COMA offer meth education

In the middle of a white poster were four letters scrawled in purple.

M-E-T-H.

Samantha Caudillo worked with her group to hastily cover up the letters with post-its, pictures from magazines and drawings of their own.

Each one represented something a community could use to battle meth abuse.

"This looks like a good community," Caudillo said, pointing to a picture of children playing in a park. "Let's put this on there, because if you do meth, then you can't have this."

She and her group were in the midst of a seminar Tuesday at the Boys & Girls Club of Craig about meth abuse and its effect on individuals and communities. Communities Overcoming Meth Abuse worked with the club to incorporate educational programs into national Methamphetamine Awareness Week.

Jonathan Judge, a program manager with the Colorado Meth Project, brought a new curriculum and fresh information for the classes he will teach during the week.

On Tuesday, he focused on meth in communities and how the destructive drug can break down not just individuals, but the structure of an entire community.

He began with an exercise that wove a web of colorful string around the room, each of which represented something the community took pride in, like the Moffat County School District, the Craig Police Department and the outdoors.

When Judge cut one string, the entire web fell apart.

"It's not an individual problem," Judge said. "It affects everyone around that person."

He discussed with the students how toxic waste from meth labs can contaminate natural resources and how two thirds of identity theft cases are meth related.

While the class was meant for students as young as 10, many of the students already have experienced the force of meth within their social network.

Tatam Hickman, 10, said she had a family member who was addicted to meth.

"She had two of her teeth fall out," Tatam said. "And she had to get fake ones."

Samantha said she also had a family member who went through a battle with meth.

"We told her she had to stop or we would all go to therapy or something," Samantha said. "She would act all weird and think people were after her."

She said she understood how meth could grab hold of an entire community.

"It would affect people because once they do it will keep spreading," she said. "It will affect the whole environment. People would just hide in their rooms."

However, she said the community can react and support one another.

"We can tell them their lives will be better if they don't do it," she said.

Although meth education tends to focus its efforts on teens and young adults, Judge said it's important to keep children as young as 10 aware and informed of the drug and its consequences.

"We want to give them sound information and reinforce their healthy habits and identify the negative ones," he said. "There's a lot of ignorance and misinformation surrounding the drug, and we just want to equip them with facts."

Judge said he was not well informed when he started his job with the Colorado Meth Project. His background was in education, not substance abuse.

Through working with addicts, their families and communities, he has seen the effect that meth can have on individuals, communities and society.

He admitted that what he saw was worse than he had imagined.

"The drug is worse than I thought," he said. "The consequences of using are worse than I thought. But the hope is greater than I thought, too. When I see the Boys & Girls Club and COMA working together to educate children, that gives me hope."

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n981/a02.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Wed, 28 Oct 2009
Source: Craig Daily Press, The (CO)
Copyright: 2009 The Craig Daily Press
Contact: http://www.craigdailypress.com/site/feedback
Website: http://www.craigdailypress.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2334
Author: Nicole Inglis
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)

WILL TOO MANY POT DISPENSARIES SATURATE THE MARKET?

2009-11-01T07:50:00.000-08:00

Maybe, But Not Yet, Say Owners Of Medical Marijuana Businesses

GLENWOOD SPRINGS - No one seems to know how many medical marijuana dispensaries have opened in Colorado in recent years, although a frequently expressed estimate is that "a lot" of the centers are operating.

And along with that rather vague assessment is the belief that right here in the vicinity of Glenwood Springs -- in the nearby towns of the Colorado and Roaring Fork river valleys -- the density of the dispensaries may be as high, per capita, as anywhere in the state.

Colorado voters approved the medical use of marijuana, for certain ailments, by voting for a constitutional amendment in the 2000 general election.

A continuing federal prohibition against any use of pot slowed acceptance of medical marijuana in Colorado, but a recent policy reversal by the Obama administration changed all that. Attorney General Eric Holder's statement that federal agents are to leave medical marijuana patients and providers alone has spurred a sudden surge in the industry statewide.

According to an informal count by the Post Independent, based on the advertising department's accounts list and other reports, there are as many as 19 or 20 dispensaries serving the area between Aspen, Glenwood and Rifle.

Some, however, are interlopers from outside the immediate area, such as one in Leadville and one in South Park, which are advertising in the Roaring Fork Valley.

The website, coloradomedicalmarijuana.com, in its "dispensaries" section, listed 30 outlets on the Front Range from Fort Collins to Pueblo.

One Carbondale dispensary operator said there are probably "hundreds" operating around the state by now.

In light of what one man called "a modern gold rush," some are asking whether there will be any such thing as saturation of the local market.

"I think about that almost daily," said Billy Miller, co-owner of the LEAF dispensary, which has outlets in Aspen and Carbondale.

It was Miller who likened the valley's newest growth industry to the California gold rush of 1849, when miners known as "49ers" streamed into the state from all over the country and the world.

"I've been calling all of us the '09ers," Miller said.

Cheryl Sullivan and her stepsons, Sean, 26, and Keaton, 19, operate the Green Medicine Wellness dispensary in Glenwood Springs, which opened its doors on Oct. 26.

Green Medicine, said Cheryl Sullivan, is "not just a medical marijuana facility," but also offers different types of massage therapy and, soon, acupuncture -- a diversity of services that is not uncommon in the industry.

As for whether they worry the market is becoming oversaturated, Keaton Sullivan said, "Yes and no. I've noticed some of ‘em are in it just for a quick buck. But we're in it for the mission."

The Sullivans got into the business, they said, after an uncle of the two young men died of cancer and spent the last part of his life in severe discomfort, which they felt could have been lessened if he'd had access to medical marijuana.

"It just didn't seem right," said Keaton, and when they moved to Colorado a couple of years ago they decided to go into the business to keep others from having the same fate.

"My issue is, there are patients out there who are suffering," said Sean. If that remains the case, he predicted, "then there aren't too many dispensaries.

"We believe it's a healthier form of medicine" than pain pills or other, more traditional treatments for ailments, he continued, adding that with "vaporizers" [a less painful inhaling device] and pot cooked into food, "you don't even have to smoke."

Joseph Jones, who said his CMD dispensary in Carbondale was the first on the Western Slope when it opened last July, predicted that "the numbers will continue to grow" but added, "I feel there should be a limit to it at some point."

But, like others interviewed for this story, Jones said the limit will come organically, as competition eliminates some and permits others to thrive.

"We'll weed out the phonies," he joked.

Different operators had differing opinions about how many customers an individual outlet needs to stay in business. Jones said 50 or so; the Sullivans believe it is closer to 100.

The sense of competition that exists seems to be on a friendly basis, to date.

"Everybody in the industry kind of knows everyone else," Jones said.

"We're on good terms with other dispensaries," Keaton Sullivan said. "We're not trying to cut each others' throats. The sandbox is big enough for everyone."

The Sullivans said their marketing plan includes "reaching out" to the American Cancer Society and area physicians, to discuss the benefits of medical marijuana for their constituencies. Cheryl Sullivan said that they have learned of some patients who might qualify for medical marijuana, whose doctors refused to "recommend" them for the treatment.

Concerning the potential for competitive thinning of the ranks among dispensaries, an Aspen attorney who represents a number of dispensaries is optimistic about the survival of those that are open now.

"I think competition has to take care of itself," said Lauren Maytin, whose client-dispensaries can be found from Aspen to Rifle. "I think the market will level out, become stable."

As for the dispensaries closest to her office, two of whom are her clients, she said, "I firmly think the four will survive in Aspen, because they're all a little bit different."

The consensus among the vendors interviewed for this story was that, if there is a saturation point in the local market, beyond which additional dispensaries would become a problem, it has not been reached yet.

"If there's not enough patients, obviously, we [some of the current crop of vendors] don't make it," Sean Sullivan said. "We believe that the patients are here."

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n981/a04.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 30 Oct 2009
Source: Aspen Times Weekly (CO)
Copyright: 2009 Aspen Times
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/zKpMPhQ7
Website: http://www.aspentimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/3784
Author: John Colson, Staff Writer

COLFAX BANS PRESCRIPTION POT SHOPS

2009-10-31T07:50:00.000-07:00

Council Allows Existing Collective To Stay

With the chances dwindling of a medical marijuana dispensary opening in western Nevada County, the Colfax City Council voted 4-0 Wednesday night to ban any more of them there.

The council's vote grandfathered in the city's existing dispensary, Golden State Patient Care Collective, because it is an existing business that was legally approved five years ago and doesn't cause problems in town, city officials said Thursday.

Meanwhile, Nevada City postponed its second reading of a pot shop ban late Wednesday, when City Manager Gene Albaugh pulled it off the City Council agenda for more work. The ordinance will come back for the final reading and vote Wednesday, Nov. 18, Albaugh said.

The city manager did not want to predict the outcome of that vote, but it could be academic because the council already voted 3-2 for the ban during the first reading of the ordinance in September.

The Colfax vote that left Golden State Patient Care intact pleased employee Bob Henry, son of owner and Nevada County resident Jim Henry.

"It's good for people to be able to go somewhere safe to get their medicine," Henry said Thursday. "I'm very happy that Colfax is compassionate."

The dispensary has never had any crime problems because it is run tightly, Henry said. "We don't let anybody in unless they have I.D. and a recommendation" from a doctor.

"The police are right down the street, and we have them on speed dial," Henry said. "People can't use their medicine here or sell it. I'm glad we'll be able to stay here."

Mayor Suzanne Roberts admits she opposes any use of marijuana and does not understand why the dispensary has to exist.

"It needs to be dispensed through a pharmacy like any other drug," Roberts said. "It's not a good image for our community or something I want to promote. I'm anti-drug, and I don't think its' necessarily a benefit for anything."

The Union could not locate other council members for comment.

Golden State still operates because "it was an allowed use at the time it was established," said Colfax Planning Director Gary Price. "The treated it like a grocery store at the time."

When another application for a dispensary surfaced in March, the criteria and outlook had changed, with new members coming to the city council since the 2004 decision, Price said.

Available in Nevada County While no dispensaries are allowed in Nevada County, resident Charles Day has started a medical marijuana co-op called Harmony Holistic Health.

The co-op fits California Attorney General Jerry Brown's idea of medical marijuana availability: A collective of growers and patients is established for distribution among members, and no storefront is used for the general public.

Day could not be reached for comment; the co-op's Web site is HarmonyHolisticHealth.org.

Nevada City placed a year-long moratorium on medical pot dispensaries until Aug. 11, 2010, the same day as Nevada County's moratorium expires. Grass Valley has a moratorium in effect until

April 28, 2010, but is working on an ordinance.

Three people have expressed interest in opening another medical marijuana dispensary in western Nevada County in recent months.

Carole Chapman of Nevada County remains interested in opening a dispensary in Grass Valley and is awaiting word from the city about when its medical pot ordinance will be available for public scrutiny.

The Union could not locate Harry Bennett or Jim Henry of the Colfax dispensary for comment, or to see whether they were still interested.

The medical marijuana situation may become moot soon anyway, Chapman said.

"Legalization ( of marijuana ) will be on the 2010 ballot" in California, Chapman. "It's going to pass."

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n981/a07.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 30 Oct 2009
Source: Union, The (Grass Valley, CA)
Copyright: 2009 The Union
Contact: http://apps.theunion.com/utils/forms/lettertoeditor/
Website: http://www.theunion.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/957
Author: Dave Moller, Staff Writer

COURT UPHOLDS POT GROWER'S CONVICTION

2009-10-30T07:49:00.000-07:00

Longmont Provider Plans To Appeal To State Supreme Court

DENVER - The state appeals court upheld the conviction of a medical marijuana grower Thursday in a ruling that did little to clarify the legal situation for marijuana dispensaries.

Stacy Clendenin of Longmont had appealed her 2006 conviction for marijuana growing, arguing that a Boulder County judge never let her present evidence that she qualified as a "primary caregiver" under the medical marijuana law Colorado voters adopted in 2000.

The Colorado Court of Appeals rejected that argument Thursday.

The decision defines "primary caregiver" for the first time in Colorado case law since medical marijuana became legal, and it specifically excludes people who grow or supply marijuana only for patients. Clendenin was a grower and had never met some of her clients.

The new definition will cause problems for medical marijuana suppliers, Judge Alan Loeb wrote in a concurring opinion.

The 2000 constitutional amendment "has created a system by which qualifying patients and their primary caregivers can legally use medical marijuana ( which includes the act of acquiring it ) but they still have to acquire it from someone who will violate the law by selling or providing the marijuana to them," Loeb wrote.

Loeb agreed with Clendenin's conviction, but the caregiver definition "cries out for legislative action," he wrote.

Dispensary owners breathed easier in August, when the state Board of Health revised medical marijuana rules to include people who provide patients with medical marijuana as primary caregivers.

Thursday's appeals court opinion stands at odds with the Board of Health's new rule.

"We conclude that to qualify as a 'primary care giver' a person must do more than merely supply a patient who has a debilitating medical condition with marijuana," Appeals Judge Robert Hawthorne wrote in Thursday's opinion.

Since Clendenin was convicted before the Board of Health rule took effect, the three-judge appeals panel did not consider how the rule applied to her case. The appeals court also did not take a stand on whether the Board of Health's caregiver definition complies with the state constitution.

Clendenin will appeal to the Supreme Court, said her lawyer, Robert Corry. The district court sentenced her to unsupervised probation, and she is fighting the case as a matter of principle.

Corry represents many of Colorado's medical marijuana suppliers and users, and he's not advising his clients to do much different in light of Thursday's ruling, other than making sure patients and growers meet each other personally.

"I'm not advising anyone to cease operations," he said.

Marijuana dispensaries began cropping up around the state this year, with four in Durango and one in Cortez. The Durango City Council and Mancos Town Board have imposed moratoriums to let city planners figure out how to deal with marijuana stores.

Attorney General John Suthers was happy with Thursday's ruling, and he agreed with Loeb that the Legislature needs to clarify the situation.

"I could not agree more. I hope the Legislature will act and create a regulatory framework that gives substance to the Court of Appeals' findings," Suthers said in a news release.

Corry called the attorney general's statement "desperate," because the case applies only to convictions before the Board of Health rule took effect Aug. 30.

"He's trying to embrace this decision as far-reaching, when it isn't," Corry said.

Corry hopes the Legislature will leave the Board of Health's ruling alone.

Nevertheless, other medical marijuana advocates are working with legislators, said Brian Vicente of Sensible Colorado.

"We've been in talks with numerous legislators about a bill to regulate dispensaries. I think there's a good chance of a bill coming forward," Vicente said.

As of July 31, more than 11,000 Coloradans had joined the registry that lets them legally use medical marijuana, including 111 in La Plata County and 31 in Montezuma County.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n981/a09.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 30 Oct 2009
Source: Durango Herald, The (CO)
Copyright: 2009 The Durango Herald
Contact: http://durangoherald.com/write_the_editor/
Website: http://durangoherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/866
Author: Joe Hanel, Staff Writer
Referenced: The Court of Appeals decision http://drugsense.org/url/Tmf2GEC7

POT DISPENSARIES THRIVING AS STIFFER REGULATION LOOMS

2009-10-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

By all appearances, the people lined up at the handsome oak counter with frosted-glass dividers could be in a quiet suburban post office.

Clerks with scales are answering customers' questions; credit cards are being swiped.

But look closer at the merchandise and the brand names emblazoned on the glass display jars: AK-47, Flying Monkey, Purple Haze, Jack Flash, Kali Mist.

The shop is Patients Choice at 2251 S. Broadway. It is one of dozens of medical-marijuana dispensaries that have sprouted in metro Denver since Colorado legalized the use of pot by patients who hold doctor-approved state permits.

Cannabis clinics are providing relief for clients and serious profits for caregivers, the people authorized by the state to distribute marijuana to patients. Green isn't just the color of the high-end pot that can sell for $350 an ounce. The scent of money in the air is as strong as the herb.

"We're here for the long haul, not to fill our pockets and run," said Jim Bent, co-owner of Patients Choice. "We want to make this a sustainable business."

State and city governments likely will have something to say about that. Colorado legislators have announced plans to more tightly regulate the budding businesses. Court rulings are already tightening the rules for selling legal weed.

While dispensers anticipate stiffer laws -- even in the wake of the federal government banning the prosecution of medical-marijuana users - -- the shops are thriving. And despite the media swirl and pot's longtime status as cultural and legal whipping boy, business at the dispensaries is mellow.

A Wii Set-Up and Bongs

Colin Gordon co-owns Nature's Kiss at 4332 S. Broadway in Englewood. His shop, in a former feed store, has a smoking area that would be at home in a frat house: It has sofas, a piano, a pool table, a big-screen TV with Wii hookup, and bongs. A juice bar is in the works.

Nature's Kiss customers can buy Colorado-grown pot or a pre-rolled $7 cigarette. Card-carrying caregivers and patients can buy plants. Hash brownies and lollipops are also sold.

"We're trying to make this a comfortable environment for everyone," said Gordon, a former professional poker player whose dispensary opened a month ago. "It's quite an interesting dynamic. We have everyone from classic stoners to elderly chemo patients."

Dispensary business is brisk.

Bent said Patients Choice grosses $8,000 to $10,000 a day. Gordon reckons that dispensaries similar to Nature's Kiss can pull in $40,000 a week. Given the revenue, many dispensaries buzz people in through locked doors after mandatory ID checks, under the watch of security cameras.

Start-up costs aren't cheap. Bent estimates that opening a shop -- a nice one with computers, website and quality product -- runs $30,000 to $50,000.

Gordon of Nature's Kiss plans to open another dispensary, Grasshopper, near East 17th Avenue and Williams Street. It will be a walk-up, "fast-food-style" operation, he said.

While their business model is straight out of a textbook, the shops often reflect their origins in the shadow economy.

Rite-Aid It's Not

Names of commercial marijuana strains are a departure from anything found on a Walgreen's or Rite Aid shelf. Varieties such as Black Widow and Trainwreck don't sound like Johnson & Johnson products.

And the industry's marketing can evoke car dealerships more than medical clinics. Skim the seven pages of ads in this week's Westword newspaper, and you find some Barnum-esque pitches: You've tried the rest, now try the BEST ... Sale! Sale! Sale!

By contrast, Patients Choice feels as staid as a bank.

Patrons show their state licenses at the door. At the counter, clerks in polo shirts with the dispensary's logo fetch the glass pot canisters, answer questions, label the product in wallet-sized plastic bags and log sales on computers.

The shop serves 1,500 patients from around the state.

Erica Casperson of Aurora is a client. She has used cannabis for 2 1/2 years to combat abdominal pain from hepatitis C.

Tuesday, Casperson stopped by for a small bag of marijuana. "It provides pain relief that's more comprehensive than over-the-counter or prescription drugs I've taken," she said. "It's not as hard on my body."

Different marijuana strains, many of them grower-engineered hybrids, are touted for different maladies: AK-47 for nausea and depression, Apollo 13 for back pain, Dynamite for Crohn's disease and asthma, Green Queen for epilepsy, and Jack Herer -- named after a legendary West Coast grower -- for anxiety and fibromyalgia.

While hundreds of marijuana strains exist, they can be divided into two major types, sativa and indica, which are the basis of the many hybrids. Sativa is viewed as a lighter strain that allows users more functionality. Indica is a heavier-duty variety for severe pain, the sort of sleep-inducing high where you partake and turn off the phone.

Dosages vary. Most people buy one-eighth of an ounce, which costs $30 to $60 depending on the potency. That is enough to last up to 10 days.

Jeremy Lanouette is a Nature's Kiss client. He uses marijuana "edibles," brownies and the like, to relieve the pain of MRSA staph, a flesh-eating virus that ravaged his torso.

"It's horrible, but the edibles help me deal with it," said Lanouette, who doses daily. "Otherwise I'd have real problems sleeping at night."

"This is a business"

Mainstream doctors question the efficacy of medical marijuana. Their argument: The newest pharmaceuticals offer more effective pain relief minus the mental fog.

But caregivers say that for chronic pain, pot is safer than pharmaceuticals. "How long can you take Percocet and Vicodin before you get ulcers and become a pillhead?" said Nature's Kiss' Gordon, who is licensed to use pot for his back spasms.

Lincoln Herbal at 424 Lincoln St. opened a month ago. The shop offers traditional Korean medicine along with marijuana. A tastefully decorated waiting area leads into the shop proper, where about three dozen jars packed with pot buds the size of jalapeno peppers are displayed. On-site consumption is not permitted.

"If someone's going to be firing up, we want them far away from here," said Brian Reed, a holistic therapist at the shop who wears medical scrubs. "This is a business, not a club."

Reed has used medical marijuana since being diagnosed with multiple sclerosis six years ago. "It seems to have done wonders," he said. "Doctors were wondering whether I'd be walking by this point."

Reed believes in regulation. "You don't want another Los Angeles, with a thousand dispensaries," he said.

Reed is also skeptical about the medical needs of some licensed clients. His 80-year-old patient with terminal cancer is one thing, he said. "But an 18-year-old kid complaining about back problems? I've got to wonder about that."

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n979/a01.html
Newshawk: Horrible Headlines http://drugsense.org/url/FeK8vLLu
Votes: 0
Webpage: http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_13673556
Pubdate: Fri, 30 Oct 2009
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2009 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: William Porter, The Denver Post
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/dispensaries
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - United States)

MARIJUANA GROWERS TURN NASTY

2009-10-28T07:47:00.000-07:00

Crop Protection; Booby Traps, Armed Guards Getting Common

Marijuana growers in Ontario are resorting to an increasing array of brutal tactics to protect their outdoor crops, including bear traps, spike boards and armed guards, warn provincial police.

The alarming security measures were a common discovery during the OPP's annual marijuana eradication program that wrapped up earlier this month. Newly released figures show the eight-week operation, scheduled to coincide with the end of growing season, yielded 118,443 marijuana plants -- 10,000 more than last year -- that police estimate would have amounted to a street value of about $118-million. More than 200 grow-ops were discovered, resulting in 110 charges against 56 people.

"Marijuana grow-ops pose a real threat to both public and police safety. The cultivation of marijuana in Ontario has reached epidemic proportions," OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino said.

Police found grow-ops in the Brockville, Bancroft and Owen Sound areas, some fields with as many as 9,000 plants. At one grow-op near Smiths Falls, a barn was found to contain more than 1,500 kilograms of processed bud ready for sale.

"Since 2002, we've seen a steady increase in outdoor marijuana growth," said Inspector Bryan Martin of the OPP's drug enforcement section. "It's economics. It makes sense to have one large plantation with a single harvest than to have several indoor grow operations to get the same number of plants."

One grow-op discovered by police near Renfrew last summer contained 40,000 plants, with an estimated street value of more than $40-million.

With more tracts of rural Ontario land being taken over by marijuana plantations comes a growing need for organized crime to ward off police, other criminal groups intent on stealing crops and the public.

Insp. Martin said police are encountering an alarming increase in the number of booby traps, cameras, armed guards and other security devices surrounding grow-ops. Common booby traps include hidden animal traps with metal claws and spike boards suspended from trees designed to impale trespassers when they step on trip wires. Armed guards, usually illegal immigrants hired by organized crime, are also becoming increasingly common, Insp. Martin said.

This summer, police discovered an armed guard and several pitbulls at a grow-op in Apsley, near Bancroft. The guard was found with a diary that contained instructions to shoot trespassers.

In another case, two people driving ATVs near Minden last summer stumbled across a grow-op and were pistol-whipped by armed guards. When they managed to escape, the guards opened fire, but no one was injured.

"This isn't a couple of good ole' boys growing a couple of plants in their backyard. This is a criminal operation and they want to protect it at any cost," said Insp. Martin, noting his department spends about 60% of its workload dealing with marijuana grow-ops.

The growth of marijuana production in Ontario has also made for a lucrative trade business with organized crime in the United States, he said. In a criminal operation known as "brown south, white north," marijuana is shipped south in exchange for crystal meth and crack cocaine, which are then imported to this country.

The U.S. Department of Justice now calls Canada a "source country" for marijuana. Police also say gangs are trading Ontario-produced marijuana for cash and guns.

"It's not just grow-op locations that are a public safety threat because if the marijuana makes it south, drugs and guns come back to our local communities," Insp. Martin said. "It's a reciprocal effect."

BY THE NUMBERS

118,443 Number of marijuana plants seized by OPP during this year's eradication program

$1,000 Estimated street value of one marijuana plant

500 Average number of grow-ops discovered by OPP each year

422 Number of grow-ops discovered by the OPP this year to date

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n979/a04.html
Newshawk: CMAP http://www.mapinc.org/cmap
Votes: 0
Webpage: http://www.nationalpost.com/story.html?id=2161970
Pubdate: Fri, 30 Oct 2009
Source: National Post (Canada)
Copyright: 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/O3vnWIvC
Website: http://www.nationalpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/286
Author: Kenyon Wallace, National Post
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)

SUMMIT COUNTY SHERIFF'S OFFICE WASTES ITS RESOURCES ON MEDICAL POT BUSTS

2009-10-27T09:50:00.000-07:00

SUMMIT COUNTY - Sheriff's deputies recently searched a Summit County home where nearly 200 marijuana plants are under cultivation, but the investigation and tax dollars were wasted because the grow operation was legal.

The medical marijuana caregiver has medical records and state-issued registry cards for about 400 people, allowing him to grow up to 2,400 plants.

"The problem with caregivers is the state doesn't tell us who is a caregiver and who is not," Summit County Sheriff John Minor said.

More than 60 man-hours totaling about $3,000 were put into the investigation, which began after someone turned in a misplaced camera containing images of the operation, he said.

And it wasn't the first time.

In the past six months, seven of 10 search warrants served at local marijuana growing operations were for people following the law, said Derek Woodman, undersheriff and Summit County Drug Task Force director.

The caregiver in the recent failed bust, who requested anonymity for security reasons, said officers with guns approached his home the evening of Oct. 16. They "pulled us outside" for their protection, he said.

"Once the police have a warrant, they have a right to take the place apart," he said.

But the caregiver showed them the patients' medical files and cards, and the seven officers were gone an hour later. The plants were left unharmed and the house wasn't dismantled.

Minor said a "low-key search warrant" was issued because of the frequency of legal growers.

"We go there, check to make sure the paperwork's in order and leave," he said.

Woodman said that while law enforcement elsewhere in the state has taken less tolerant approaches, local deputies aim to avoid wasting time on grow operations compliant with state law.

"If you're legal, you're legal," he said.

Verification issues have cops watering pot plants The caregiver said that if he had it to do over, he would've just gone down to the sheriff's office and explained his operation when it began a month and a half ago.

Minor said some have come forward but that others "have that old mindset that they're fearful."

Not all the caregivers are in full compliance; Woodman said some legal growers have been busted for selling marijuana to undercover officers without registration.

Meanwhile there's no way for them to confirm a caregiver's authenticity without serving warrants. The state doesn't track the caregivers, who are named in the patients' documents.

Once law enforcement officers procure a caregiver's patient information, confirmation is made through records available at the Colorado Department of Health in Denver, which is open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

And short staffing for the marijuana registry further stalls efforts, Woodman said.

In Colorado it takes a physician's referral to apply for a card through the registry, but the patient may begin using the drug immediately.

In one instance, sheriff's deputies responded to a call regarding a man growing a few plants ( patients may grow up to six, with half flowering at a time ). The man hadn't received final approval but had submitted an application.

The plants were taken to the sheriff's office where they were watered and kept alive until the man's status was confirmed.

"This is kind of embarrassing, but it's a fact of life," Minor said. "We didn't want to get sued."

He said marijuana plants have been valued as much as $5,000 each in civil court, so the plants were preserved to prevent a potential lawsuit.

Minor said the strange situation had his department probably violating federal law.

"So that's the mess that we're in, and we need some clear guidance," he said.

He said that while he's "not a guy who believes in a lot of regulations," the recent issues with medical marijuana could certainly use them.

State not likely to pass regulations in 2010 While law enforcers grapple with the lack of regulations for caregivers, municipal governments are taxed with developing rules for medical marijuana dispensary businesses.

Local leaders decide whether to regulate the dispensaries like pharmacies, liquor stores or even adult cabarets - as suggested by a Denver councilman in the Denver Post.

Breckenridge dispensary regulations became active earlier this month. They specify location, signage, hours and security measures - including surveillance cameras and permanent, locking safes.

Other communities have banned marijuana dispensaries, and some have allowed them to flourish similar to most businesses.

While some state legislators want to pass regulations in the 2010 session, it appears unlikely anything will happen.

State Rep. Christine Scanlan of Summit County said the state has no money to support the "regulatory framework" and other components to drafting such a bill.

She said Minor's concerns with identifying legal grow operations make sense.

"I understand his frustration with that, and I think there needs to be clarity," she said. "But drafting a new set of regulations is going to be tough in this economic climate."

Minor isn't very hopeful, either.

"I don't even know if ( the legislature ) will touch this in 2010 simply because it's an election year, and politics has a strange way" of affecting such matters, he said.

Medical marijuana has proliferated in Colorado since President Obama's administration announced it wouldn't go after people in compliance with state laws. The local caregiver in the recent incident said he decided to start growing because of that announcement and the Colorado Board of Health's decision not to limit caregivers' patient numbers.

Mark Salley, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Health and Environment, said his office receives an average of 400 applications for marijuana licenses per day. As of July 31, Colorado had 11,094 registered medical marijuana patients, with 149 in Summit County.

Salley said that while today's numbers are "a lot higher," the CDPHE is "dealing with trying to process the backlog" before more accurate statistics are available.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n967/a01.html
Newshawk: The GCW
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 26 Oct 2009
Source: Summit Daily News (CO)
Copyright: 2009 Summit Daily News
Contact: http://apps.summitdaily.com/forms/letter/index.php
Website: http://www.summitdaily.com/home.php
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/587
Author: Robert Allen

GROWTH OF MEDICAL-MARIJUANA DEMAND FUELS COLORADO LAND RUSH

2009-10-26T07:48:00.001-07:00

Real estate brokers say that Colorado's medical-marijuana law has sparked a land rush, as entrepreneurs lured by a growing number of licensed users search for properties for growing or selling pot.

In a down real estate market, landlords who might otherwise wait for more conventional tenants are snapping at the opportunity presented by medical-marijuana dispensaries, said Darrin Revious, a broker with Shames Makovsky Realty.

"I am working a couple of these deals right now," he said. "It is absolutely crazy how many of these deals are in the market. I can't believe it."

Since voters approved Amendment 20 in 2000 allowing the use of medical marijuana to treat eight specific conditions, the number of people legally allowed to buy the herb has steadily climbed. In 2007, 1,955 people held medical marijuana cards; the following year, there were 4,720 people on the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment's Medical Marijuana Registry. The number has grown to about 13,000, health department spokesman Mark Salley said.

On an average day, the department receives 400 requests for medical-marijuana cards, and some days applications are as high as 600, Salley said.

Revious said he receives at least one request per day from brokers representing people seeking property suitable for grow operations or dispensaries, where medical pot is sold to card-carrying patients. Over the past three or four months, he said, demand for the properties has soared.

"I need ( 5,000 square feet in ) LoDo, or there about . . . retail," says one e-mail he received from a broker. "Wellness center -- yes, medical marijuana. A group expanding out of California -- a real one."

Warren Edson, an attorney who handles medical-marijuana cases and advises people trying to set up cannabis collectives and cooperatives, said he believes the rise in demand is related to the increasing number of patients approved to buy the drug.

"My share of stoners"

Many people became more aware that pot was legal for those with medical conditions this summer, when the state Board of Health rejected a move to cap at five the number of people a medical-marijuana caregiver can supply, he added.

"It was publicity," Edson said. "It meant the average Joe was seeing it discussed on the news, and saying maybe I should go to my doctor about this; it isn't just for crazy people."

Six months ago, Edson said, many of those seeking the cards were terribly sick, or were "hippies" looking to get high. "Now we are seeing a greater cross section of individuals."

Laurel Alterman opened AlterMeds at the Colony Square Shopping Center in Louisville earlier this month, just before the City Council approved a moratorium on new dispensaries.

Alterman abandoned her real estate business, which has done poorly recently, to open the dispensary. "When the Board of Health expanded the roll of caregivers this summer, the opportunity to open became very attractive, and my son was working in a dispensary in Denver and knew the business," she said. "I just jumped off a building without a parachute."

Paul Tamburello, a broker's associate with Distinctive Properties, said he gets three calls a week from business people who want to lease a building he owns at West 32nd Avenue and Zuni Street to use as a dispensary.

"Some are really legitimate businesspeople, but I certainly run into my share of stoners," he said.

There are four dispensaries within a mile of the building, he said. "There certainly seems to be a plethora of dispensaries trying to open. I call it the new gold rush. A lot of these guys are seeing dollar signs. I don't know how lucrative it will be if the velocity of growth continues on the path it is on."

Alterman said she expects to earn twice as much as she made annually in real estate by selling medical marijuana.

One businessman said he has been approached a number of times by people who wanted to rent space for a dispensary in his Colfax Avenue business. He refused. "We don't rent space," said the man, who asked that his name and business not be published because marijuana has negative connotations for many.

Some Californians who wanted to open a dispensary in the area asked him what he thought his building is worth. When he said it was appraised at $850,000 they offered $750,000 in cash at closing.

Tighter regulations loom

Concern over the mushrooming number of dispensaries is growing, and some cities and towns are studying regulations to limit them, while others have passed outright bans.

State Sen. Chris Romer, D-Denver, plans to introduce a bill next year that would clarify regulations involving pot-using patients.

Alterman said she wouldn't object to some regulation in the industry that could make the shops operate more like licensed pharmacies. And she sees a need for properly zoning the establishments.

Tight security measures are necessary to operate the shops and grow operations, which are natural targets for thieves, she said. "Zoning laws are important," she said. "This is a business that is inappropriate for a residential area because, yes, it is dangerous."

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n964/a07.html
Newshawk: DrugNews Advanced Search, http://www.mapinc.org/find
Webpage: http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_13636549
Pubdate: Sun, 25 Oct 2009
Source: Denver Post (CO)
Copyright: 2009 The Denver Post Corp
Contact: openforum@denverpost.com
Website: http://www.denverpost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/122
Author: Tom McGhee, The Denver Post
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)

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HEROIN DEATHS ON RISE IN '09

2009-10-25T07:47:00.000-07:00

Across Charlotte, 'in every neighborhood,' gangs linked to Mexican drug traffickers target teens, officials warn.

Heroin overdoses and deaths in Charlotte have more than tripled since last year, a concern to authorities who want to prevent a repeat of the city's drug battles of the early 1990s.

Local officials are particularly concerned that gangs, most of which are connected to Mexican drug organizations, are aggressively targeting teenagers

"We're talking at the Arboretum. We're talking at Northlake mall. We're talking in downtown Charlotte," Mayor Pat McCrory said Tuesday, when the new statistics were released. "We're talking in every neighborhood. Both private and public schools. This is a serious issue."

In 2008, there were eight heroin overdoses in Charlotte and three deaths from heroin, according to police statistics. This year, with two months to go, there are already 33 overdoses and 10 deaths. And seizures of heroin have quadrupled from 1,075 grams to 4,989 grams.

McCrory and Sheriff Chipp Bailey said they have discussed more drug testing in the county jail to better understand the extent of drug use.

McCrory said authorities need the public's help to keep the city from a repeat of 1993, when a crack cocaine epidemic help push the city's homicide total to a record 129 people.

Officials say they have yet to see an increase in drug-related violence this year, but they fear that could change as drug violence along the border spills over into the United States.

The U.S. Department of Justice's 2009 National Drug Threat Assessment identified Charlotte as one of 230 cities where Mexican traffickers "maintain drug distribution networks" to sell cocaine, marijuana, methamphetamines and heroin.

Capt. Mike Adams of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department's vice and narcotics unit said he could not estimate how many heroin gangs, or drug cells, operate in Charlotte, but said police have shut down seven cells since June.

"The majority are Mexican," he said. "All the black-tar heroin is from Mexico."

Black-tar heroin, made from poppies in western Mexico, gets its name from its color and texture. Police attribute its rise to its cheaper price and the well-run distribution networks developed by Mexican cartels.

In an investigation dubbed "Operation Dirty Girl 3," police and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration arrested four men on July 30 and seized more than a pound of black-tar heroin.

From his bar less than a half mile from Starmount Elementary School, Carlos Roman Villanueva sold black-tar heroin to clients throughout South Charlotte, including in Ballantyne, according to court records.

Police say they caught Roman after he purchased $22,560 worth of heroin from a supplier.

After arresting the supplier with the money, police visited Roman. They asked for the drugs.

"He went behind the bar, entered the kitchen and returned to provide 557 grams of black-tar heroin," James Long, of the CMPD vice and narcotics unit, said in an affidavit.

Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Chief Rodney Monroe said the traffickers are selling to all demographics, but increasingly are promoting the drug to teenagers who are less fearful of harder drugs.

"Young kids, 17-, 18-year-olds ... are a part of their whole marketing strategy," Monroe said.

Addicts say black tar is easy to find in Charlotte. At $12.50 a dose, it's about half the price of other available forms.

Adams said the drug operations are set up better than some legitimate businesses. They have clear divisions of labor, sales goals and contingency plans to keep the operation running if one of the distributors is arrested.

"I, and many others, had considered heroin to be a drug of the past," McCrory said. "It has now returned to the streets, and homes throughout Charlotte: North, South, East and West."

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n964/a06.html
Newshawk: chip
Pubdate: Wed, 21 Oct 2009
Source: Charlotte Observer (NC)
Copyright: 2009 The Charlotte Observer
Contact: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/newsroom/index.html?action=letters
Website: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/78
Author: Franco Ordoaez

OBAMA TAKES THE PATH OF REEFER SANITY

2009-10-24T10:33:00.001-07:00

In an act of merciful sanity, the Obama administration has made good on its promise to stop interfering with states that allow the medical use of marijuana. Clink-clink, hear-hear, salud, cheers, et cetera, et cetera.

The announcement from Attorney General Eric Holder surely comes as a relief to the many who rely on cannabis to ease suffering from various ailments. This new, relaxed approach doesn't let drug traffickers off the hook. It merely means that 14 states that now provide for some medical marijuana uses no longer need fear federal raids on dispensaries and users operating under state law.

It's a good move, long overdue. But is it enough? Not quite.

The debate over whether Americans ought to have the right to be stupid - - or to make other people seem more interesting - continues apace after 40 years of the ( failed ) "war on drugs."

Arguments for and against decriminalization of some or all drugs are familiar by now. Distilled to the basics, the drug war has empowered criminals while criminalizing otherwise law-abiding citizens and wasted billions that could have been better spent on education and rehabilitation.

By ever-greater numbers, Americans support decriminalizing at least marijuana, which millions admit to using, including a couple of presidents and a Supreme Court justice. A recent Gallup poll found that 44 percent of Americans favor legalization for any purpose, not just medical, up from 31 percent in 2000.

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.

Recent partakers undoubtedly will have to rub their eyes for a double-take when they spot Corry, who spoke last month at a National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws conference in San Francisco, wearing an American flag lapel pin, a triple strand of pearls and a gold marijuana leaf pin.

Another day, another stereotype in the dust bin.

In addition to writing and speaking to end marijuana prohibition, Corry, who does not smoke pot, is trying to organize Republican women around the cause. So far, she has commitments from 20 fellow Coloradoans, most of them lawyers, like Corry. Her husband, also an attorney, represents medical marijuana users.

Corry's arguments focus not only on the inhumanity of further punishing sick people who seek relief through pot, but also on protecting her own children should they decide to try marijuana someday. There's nothing like imagining one's own children as "criminals" to put irrational laws in perspective.

Corry is hardly alone and, in fact, may be part of a "toking point" ( Is there a drug yet for "Tipping Point Fatigue?" ). In its October issue, Marie Claire magazine featured "Stiletto Stoners" about accomplished career women who prefer to relax with pot. A September Fortune cover story, "Is Pot Already Legal?" examined the issue. In April, former ( 2006 ) Miss New Jersey, Georgine DiMaria, outed herself as a stealth marijuana user to treat her asthma.

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. The George W. Bush administration refused to honor states authorizing medical uses of cannabis, for instance, but aimed to return abortion and marriage issues to state jurisdictions.

In a column for the Colorado Daily, Corry argued that conservative principles of smaller government are in direct conflict with laws that try to control what we put into our bodies. Alcohol and cigarettes - not to mention 700-calorie cheeseburgers - are inarguably more harmful than a little reefer, she wrote.

The decision not to raid dispensaries or punish people who benefit from marijuana use, though commendable, falls short of what's needed. At the very least, when jobs and cash are in short supply, legalizing marijuana would seem both prudent and profitable.

In 1929, the Women's Organization for National Prohibition Reform led the movement to end alcohol prohibition. Might women lead the next revolution in personal autonomy?

Keep those flutes and snifters ( and bongs? ) handy.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n959/a06.html
Newshawk: Jim
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 23 Oct 2009
Source: Gwinnett Daily Post, The (GA)
Copyright: 2009 Post-Citizen Media Inc.
Contact: letters@gwinnettdailypost.com
Website: http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2480
Note: Letters can run as long as 400 words.
Author: Kathleen Parker
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mmj.htm (Cannabis - Medicinal)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

RAID TURNS UP 174 POUNDS OF METH AT LAWRENCEVILLE HOME

2009-10-23T10:32:00.000-07:00

Raid Turns Up 174 Pounds Of Meth At Lawrenceville Home

LAWRENCEVILLE - Elena Rostas paid little attention to the white, two-story house a few doors down on Lawrenceville's La Maison Drive.

Some nights she caught a "weird" smell wafting from the home's direction, something pungent like gasoline. And it seemed odd that a red semitrailer was parked outside the home for several days recently, she said.

Other than that, nothing fishy, she said.

Situated around a bend in the Royal Terrace subdivision, the unassuming abode housed one of the largest, most complex methamphetamine conversion laboratories federal authorizes have uncovered in the United States, officials said Thursday.

The only thing missing from the docile front, said Gwinnett District Attorney Danny Porter, "was a white picket fence."

Gwinnett became ground zero this week in the largest takedown operation targeting a Mexican drug cartel in the history of the Drug Enforcement Administration. The Lawrenceville home - where a reported 174 pounds of meth were found Wednesday - was the national epicenter, providing links to operations in cities as far as Los Angeles.

Rostas, a mother of 12, found news of the raid disconcerting.

"To me, it's pretty scary," she said, a fussy child at her side. "It's a quiet neighborhood. Maybe that's why they chose it."

Bingo, authorities said at a press conference.

The bust and others like it nationwide were the result of an initiative called Project Coronado, leading to 31 arrests of suspect traffickers in Gwinnett alone Wednesday. Along with the meth haul, hundreds of local police pulled 17 kilos of cocaine, 13 firearms and $54,000 in dirty money off Gwinnett streets, officials said.

Officials made 303 arrests nationwide.

The takedown is a crippling blow to "La Familia Michoacana," a ruthless drug organization based in southwestern Mexico, said Rodney Benson, a special agent with the DEA in Atlanta.

La Familia, for short, operates nationwide but has strongholds in metro Atlanta, Dallas and greater Los Angeles. A La Familia leader is believed to be responsible for the murder of 12 federal agents in Mexico in July, Benson said.

Locally, authorities rescued a Dominican man from New York who'd been kidnapped and slated for execution, Benson said.

Benson warned that the organization may try to regroup and re-establish their financiers.

"Frankly, we have to keep the pressure on," he said, "and that's what we're going to do."

Gwinnett police Chief Charles Walters called the case indicative of the large-scale drug operations his officers must routinely fight.

"Complexity is the norm now - it's not a simple mom-and-pop drug organization," Walters said. "We have taken a lot of dangerous people out of this community."

La Familia operatives were attracted to Gwinnett - as are many traffickers to metro Atlanta - by the area's booming Hispanic population and plentiful homes for rent on quiet streets. Both are a means to camouflage themselves, Porter said.

Porter said authorities were led to the meth lab through tipsters in the community.

"People need to report suspicious smells and suspicious comings-and-goings," he said.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n959/a05.html
Newshawk: Jim
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 23 Oct 2009
Source: Gwinnett Daily Post, The (GA)
Copyright: 2009 Post-Citizen Media Inc.
Contact: letters@gwinnettdailypost.com
Website: http://www.gwinnettdailypost.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2480
Note: Letters can run as long as 400 words.
Author: Josh Green, Staff Writer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

ROSS REBAGLIATI TO PURSUE OKANAGAN FEDERAL LIBERAL NOMINATION

2009-10-22T10:28:00.000-07:00

Incumbent Okanagan-Coquihalla MP Stockwell Day may have ridden into the pages of Canadian political history on a jet-ski, but in the next federal election he will likely be challenged by the guy who won the first-ever Olympic snowboarding gold medal for Canada.

Ross Rebagliati has announced he will seek the federal Liberal nomination in Okanagan-Coquihalla riding, and it appears he will be the only candidate running at Monday's nomination meeting.

"It's not as strange as it might appear," said the 38-year-old of his move from 1998 Olympic snowboarding champion to aspiring federal politician.

"I have been involved with helping the Liberal Party for many years, mainly when I lived in Whistler."

Rebagliati moved to Kelowna with his wife Alexandra in 2007 to help promote the Kelowna Mountain recreation development project.

But he said he "stepped away" from it last November because of difficulties with the economy.

Earlier this year, he told the Capital News the reason for his departure was because the relationship with the owners of the development "just wasn't working out."

Since then, Rebagliati has written a book, Off The Chain, a history of snowboarding in Canada, which is due out next month.

He will also be involved with next February's winter Olympic Games in Vancouver and Whistler.

Rebagliati said his "flexible schedule," will allow him the time to run for the MP's job and he plans to appeal mainly to disaffected younger voters.

And to do that he intends to use technology, such as social media, to as great an extent as possible.

Refusing to concede that unseating Day-the politically popular Conservative incumbent who is also Canada's international trade minister and who has represented the riding since 2000, will be an uphill battle as Day took more than 50 per cent of the vote in three of the last four elections and just under 50 per cent in 2004, Rebagliati views the task as "more of an opportunity."

"( Day ) may have won a majority of the votes ( cast ) in the last election but when you look closer at the numbers, he didn't take a lot of the potential vote," said Rebagliati.

"I'm going to go after the people who may not have voted before."

The bilingual former international athlete said he has close ties to the riding, given that his family has had a cottage in Naramata since the 1950s.

He said some of his strongest memories of growing up are from the Okanagan, such as learning to swim in Okanagan Lake off Naramata and making his first wake board there before wakeboarding became as popular as it is today.

Day is also no stranger to the Okanagan Lake, having made a splash when he left Alberta provincial politics to lead the former Canadian Alliance party.

After winning a by-election in 2000 following the decision by former MP Jim Hart to step down and let Day run in the riding, Day showed up for his first national press conference on a jet ski.

The wetsuit-clad Day's publicity stunt drew mixed reactions from the media and the public.

Controversy also dogged Rebagliati in the days after he won his gold medal in Nagano, Japan.

Three days after his surprise win, it was announced marijuana was found in his system during a drug test.

Rebagliati, 26 at the time, had his gold medal revoked.

In Japan, police interrogated him for a day and Rebagliati claimed trace amount got into his system as secondhand smoke at a pre-Olympics party in Whistler.

In his appeal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport ruled marijuana was not banned in the agreement between the International Olympic Committee and snowboard's governing body and his medal was returned.

Rebagliati said that the controversy will likely help him with young voters because they will be able to relate to him.

"They will see a guy who had some controversy but who has also had some success. Regular guys and girls can relate to that."

As for issues facing the riding, Rebagliati said he is concerned about the unique challenges facing the agriculture industry and the number of jobs that have been lost in the riding in recent months, as well as the state of health care.

And, as a new father-his son Ryan was born five months ago-he said he is also concerned about the lack of affordable child care.

Rebagliati and his family currently live in Kelowna, but are house-hunting in the Penticton area.

"Coming to Kelowna was a first step to get back to the Okanagan for me," he said.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n959/a04.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 23 Oct 2009
Source: Kelowna Capital News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009, West Partners Publishing Ltd.
Contact: edit@kelownacapnews.com
Website: http://www.kelownacapnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1294
Author: Alistair Waters
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/mjcn.htm (Cannabis - Canada)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/testing.htm (Drug Test)

LA’S TOP PROSECUTOR TO TARGET POT SHOPS

2009-10-21T09:19:00.000-07:00

LOS ANGELES – Clay Tepel knew there were risks to setting up a medical marijuana shop: it could lose money, be robbed or be raided by authorities.

Still, he wasn’t expecting the phone call one August day when a voice said the police were outside and he needed to open up or they would bust down the door. His first thought, that it was a joke, turned to terror when he opened the door.

Heavily armed officers in helmets, bulletproof vests and, oddly enough, Bermuda shorts stormed his store, handcuffed him, disabled security cameras and seized his drugs before taking him to jail. When he asked why his shop was invaded, an officer responded, “We’re closing them all down.”

Those words could prove prescient after Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley said last week that he wanted to shutter clinics that sold pot for profit. Cooley’s plan is the latest salvo in a prolonged conflict in California over whether medical marijuana is having its intended effect or is being abused by the larger population.

Until recently, raids on clinics typically led to federal prosecutions, but Cooley’s remarks and similar ones from Attorney General Jerry Brown signal a new approach to clear the haze left by Proposition 215, the 1996 state ballot measure that allowed sick people with referrals from doctors and an identification card to smoke pot.

“Everybody is scared,” said Tepel, who has spoken with other pot store operators. “Why are voters’ rights being stepped all over? This kind of blind justice has to stop.”

The crackdown is a crushing blow for dispensary owners who were relieved in March when U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said federal agents would go after marijuana distributors who violated both federal and state laws.

A new policy memo issued Monday by the Justice Department told prosecutors that pot-smoking patients or their sanctioned suppliers should not be targeted for federal prosecution in states that allow medical marijuana. The guidelines do, however, make it clear that federal agents will go after people whose distribution goes beyond what is permitted under state law or use medical marijuana as a cover for other crimes.

The comments that Holder made this year appear to have emboldened entrepreneurs as marijuana shops cropped up across California. In Los Angeles alone, there are an estimated 800 dispensaries, more than any other city in the nation. In 2005, there were only four, authorities said.

Cooley contends a vast majority of several hundred outlets his office investigated aren’t following state law. Initially, the law allowed authorized marijuana users to grow their own plants, but lawmakers revised the law in 2003 to allow collectives to provide pot grown by members.

Cooley said he would target stores who were profiting and selling to people who don’t qualify for medicinal marijuana.

“All those who are operating illegally, our advice to them is to shut down voluntarily and they won’t be subject to prosecution,” Cooley told The Associated Press on Wednesday.

At the same time, advocates are gathering signatures to get as many as three pot-legalization measures on next year’s ballot in California. One poll shows voters would support legalizing marijuana outright. Thirteen states, including California, allow medical marijuana.

Cooley said his office had been assessing the rush of marijuana dispensaries for the past two years and had provided training for his staff during the past several months in anticipation of filing cases.

“Holder’s statement probably created the impression that there wasn’t going to be any federal investigation or prosecution of these entities,” Cooley said. “There has to be some clarification.”

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n947/a06.html
Newshawk: http://www.illinoisNORML.org
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Tue, 20 Oct 2009
Source: Northwest Herald (IL)
Copyright: 2009 The Associated Press
Contact: letters@nwherald.com
Website: http://www.nwherald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2762
Author: Greg Risling, Staff Writer

STREET PROSTITUTION - A SCOURGE THAT MUST END

2009-10-20T13:14:00.000-07:00

It's Spread From Skid Row And Is Now Found In The 'Burbs

It was around 11:30 a.m. on Thanksgiving, and Maple Ridge resident Michelle Rainey was going to her local gym when she saw a woman in her 40s she knows as Elaine soliciting on 225th Street.

Elaine looked haggard, Rainey told me. Her hair was a mess, she was wearing a filthy white tracksuit and needed $25 to pay a crack debt.

Rainey went over to talk to her and gave her $75, on condition she took the day off and gave herself and the community a break.

"I made her promise that she wouldn't be on that walk for that day," said Rainey, 38, who herself suffers from Crohn's disease.

"I made her promise me that she would get a meal and a bath and wash her clothes."

Yes, despite what many of us who live in the 'burbs want to believe, the Downtown Eastside is far from the only Metro Vancouver neighbourhood plagued by homelessness, drug addiction and street prostitution.

Rainey knows this first-hand. Three years ago, she and her husband left Gastown, where they lived in an apartment opposite a soup kitchen, and bought a home in Haney in the heart of Maple Ridge. It was a world away from offices of the Downtown Eastside where Rainey -- the Marc Emery associate who in July was sentenced in Seattle to two years' probation for conspiracy to manufacture marijuana -- worked as vice-president of the B.C. Marijuana Party.

Or so they thought.

They left downtown Vancouver because they wanted a quiet, safe and affordable place to live, Rainey said. But a year-and-a-half ago, conditions in Haney started to deteriorate as marginalized people moved in. And now, when Rainey goes for her daily workout, hookers openly ply their trade on her street, and johns slow their vehicles to leer at her.

"It's an uncomfortable feeling," she says.

Seniors and others in the area are also concerned. And recently the police responded by arresting 15 sex-trade workers. The police crackdown, however, was criticized by a Maple Ridge News opinion piece, which said "arresting sex-trade workers only pushes them into hiding, making it more difficult to help them, and putting them at greater risk of harm."

Rainey wrote a letter to the newspaper, saying that "victimizing and jailing addicted sex-trade workers is not a compassionate solution."

Indeed, she told me, it saddens her deeply that with the Salvation Army and various churches close by, no one seems to be reaching out to addicted and abandoned women such as Elaine.

Rainey also said she agrees with three Ontario women who have gone to court to challenge provisions in Canada's prostitution laws, arguing they contribute to the violence sex-trade workers face.

Myself, I think street prostitution is a scourge and it's one that requires a carrot-and-stick approach. Sure, we need to show compassion by helping vulnerable women such as Elaine kick the drug addiction that's destroying them. But we also must come down hard on those drug-dealers, johns and prostitutes who destroy an entire community.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n946/a04.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 1
Webpage: http://www.theprovince.com/health/Street+prostitution+scourge+that+must/2118802/story.html
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Oct 2009
Source: Province, The (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Canwest Publishing Inc.
Contact: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/theprovince/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/476
Author: Jon Ferry

THE COMING PRISON BOOM

2009-10-19T13:13:00.000-07:00

If the federal government gets its way, Canadians will witness a boom in prison construction coinciding with the longest steady decline in crime rates in Canadian history. That's the consequence of the various pieces of "get tough" legislation recently passed or currently working their way through Parliament.

Consider this: the introduction of mandatory minimum sentences for "serious drug crimes" in the National Anti-Drug Strategy, plus the limiting of judicial discretion in regard to credit for time served in pre-trial detention is projected by Statistics Canada to increase the rate of incarceration by as much as 10 per cent.

The government claims that ending two-for-one credit for pre-trial detention will alleviate the overcrowding crisis in provincial detention centres by encouraging more guilty pleas and introducing "truth in sentencing."

The resulting surge in Canada's rate of incarceration, currently hovering around 149 per 100,000 population, would require roughly 3,000 new beds for men and about 10 to 15 per cent of that number for women.

So what? Bad people go to jail, right? It should be that simple, but it's not. Here's why: when governments "crack down," the American evidence shows that they quickly catch the worst of the worst before reaching into the pool of the non-violent: people who might represent a threat to themselves, but little risk to their communities.

The worst crime for most of these people is either that they are racial minorities ( aboriginals will be particularly hard hit ) or that they started falling through the cracks in elementary school and carry the burden of various learning and cognitive challenges, including ADD, acquired brain disorders, ADHD, fetal alcohol syndrome, depression, trauma and a whole alphabet soup of psychiatric and psychological syndromes.

The result is prisons swollen with greater numbers of the non-violent, mentally ill and poor, and racial minorities.

Approximately 10 per cent of the federal prison population is now double-bunked. Prison crowding undermines the success of treatment and degrades the working conditions of staff, encouraging higher rates of staff turnover and poorer treatment outcomes for prisoners.

Most non-violent prisoners can be more effectively, humanely and economically treated in the community than they can in prison, and the government has the research to prove this. Community supervision costs roughly $23,500 per year per person compared with approximately $101,000 per year per person on average across all security levels to keep a man in prison, and $185,000 per year per woman.

Then there's the issue of where to put them.

Current infrastructure is at or over capacity. The passage of Bill C-25 will require temporary housing in the short term, but it's the long term that ought to concern Canadians -- for the only land that the federal government can start building on quickly is the prison farms.

Some of the best farmland in Canada could be swallowed up by super-max prisons based on the American model. That is the vision endorsed by the "independent panel" commissioned by the government and chaired by the former minister of corrections for the province of Ontario, Rob Sampson.

So let's connect the dots. The crime rate has been declining for 26 years -- those are the government's numbers -- but the same government wants to build more prisons at a cost to taxpayers of billions of dollars.

Who benefits? In the U.S. case, private prison contractors and correctional officer unions. Everyone else loses: education, social assistance and health care.

Does prison building buy safer communities? Not in the U.S. Money spent on increased imprisonment and longer, harsher sentences is money wasted, because more prisons do not increase community safety -- and there is ample evidence that prisons create and reinforce criminal attitudes and pre-dispositions.

If more prisons resulted in less crime, the U.S. would be the safest place in the world. Canada does not need to increase its rate of incarceration, particularly in a context of declining crime rates.

We do not need to "get tough," but we do need to "get smart."

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n946/a03.html
Newshawk: CMAP http://www.mapinc.org/cmap
Votes: 0
Webpage: http://www.ottawacitizen.com/news/todays-paper/coming+prison+boom/2118720/story.html
Pubdate: Sun, 18 Oct 2009
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Copyright: 2009 The Ottawa Citizen
Contact: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/letters.html
Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/326
Author: Craig Jones and Kim Pate
Note: Craig Jones is executive director of the John Howard Society of Canada. Kim Pate
is executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies.

PIPES NO SUBSTITUTE FOR TREATMENT

2009-10-18T13:11:00.000-07:00

When it comes to drug addiction, supporting harm reduction programs does not preclude supporting treatment.

That is the message Courtenay council would like to send to the provincial government.

Coun. Ronna-Rae Leonard proposed Tuesday that council write to the provincial government to support more funding for drug addiction treatment and express council's opinion that the harm reduction program is not in lieu of treatment.

Last month, council heard about a crack cocaine pipe education and harm reduction program from the Vancouver Island Health Authority ( VIHA ) and AIDS Vancouver Island and voted to write to VIHA supporting the expansion of the program to include the distribution of safe mouthpieces and pushsticks.

Following the presentation, Leonard received some communication suggesting there were misinterpretations in the community about why council was supporting the program and about council's responsibility, she noted.

"I thought this was a good opportunity in view of some of the things I was hearing that we could certainly clarify to senior government that by approving the distribution of the mouthpieces that we were not suggesting in any way that was in lieu of treatment," she said.

Council voted, not unanimously, to send a letter.

Coun. Jon Ambler, who voted against sending the letter, was concerned whether this issue falls within council's power.

"I'm kind of on the horns of dilemma on this on whether we are actually doing any good here," he said. "It's a good debate, but I'm not sure this actually falls within our remit."

Coun. Manno Theos did not support sending the letter either. He felt Leonard's motion was too vague, as it did not specify what the treatment would be and about which drugs they were speaking.

"I feel Coun. Leonard is coming with the right heart; my concern would be it appears to be a bit vague," he said. "I really don't know exactly what that would mean. There are so many different drug addiction treatments."

The resolution is meant to articulate the need to deal with the issue of harm reduction, noted Leonard.

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n946/a02.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Oct 2009
Source: Comox Valley Record (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Comox Valley Record
Contact: editor@comoxvalleyrecord.com
Website: http://www.comoxvalleyrecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/784
Author: Lindsay Chung

FREE CRACK PIPES PART OF HARM REDUCTION

2009-10-17T13:10:00.000-07:00

Dear editor,

I am not surprised that people are voicing their discomfort and concerns in relation to the distribution of free crack pipes, as I understand the devastating effects that drug use can have on families and the community.

However, as a fourth-year nursing student, I am disheartened to read such disturbing answers for "dealing" with people suffering with drug addictions.

"Incarcerating people and forcing them into sobriety" is not the answer to the issues associated with illicit drug use, and it is certainly not moral. Drug dependence is a medical problem, an illness that requires treatment, not imprisonment. Incarceration just puts people into another high-risk environment that can result in increased drug use, infections, or withdrawal.

Reports documented in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics inform that inadequate treatment of drug withdrawal in jails is common. People who are dependent on drugs require treatment, such as detoxification, to avoid the pain and suffering associated with acute withdrawal. When this is not provided, individuals experience symptoms such as discomfort, severe pain, nausea, vomiting, fever, psychosis or even death ( 2004 ). This is certainly not humane, nor does it respect the dignity, autonomy or justice that all individuals have a right to and deserve.

Although law enforcement is part of the public health strategy to reducing the harms associated with drug use, "forcing" incarceration and abstinence does not work.

In fact, there is strong evidence from the Correctional Service Canada that reports an increase in HIV/AIDS and hepatitis C infections in Canadian prisons in relation to addictions. Illicit drug use is widespread and is perpetuated, not reduced, by correctional policies.

As a result, harm reduction measures are now being recommended in Canadian jails to reduce the spread of disease ( 2005 ).

Understandably, there are a lot of concerns with alternative approaches to reducing the damaging effects caused by drug use, but providing free crack pipes does not encourage illegal drug use or enable individuals.

Harm reduction has proven to result in reduced infections, deaths, use of shared substance-use equipment, reduced crime rates, and increased referrals to treatment programs.

Furthermore, distributing supplies such as crack pipe mouthpieces provides opportunities to health-care workers to engage with vulnerable populations, offer services, advice and support around safe practices ( BCCDC, 2009 ).

To help understand the harm reduction philosophy and why it came about, I recommend reading the BCCDC's Harm Reduction of BC Community Guide at www.housing.gov.bc.ca/ptf/hrcommunityguide.pdf .

Jayne Fisher, Courtenay

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n946/a01.html
Newshawk: Herb
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Fri, 16 Oct 2009
Source: Comox Valley Record (CN BC)
Copyright: 2009 Comox Valley Record
Contact: editor@comoxvalleyrecord.com
Website: http://www.comoxvalleyrecord.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/784
Author: Jayne Fisher