Recreational

By Te-Ping Chen

Was it Margaret Mead who said, "Never underestimate the power of 8,809 readers who care about criminal justice?" Okay, maybe not quite that. But I'm excited to announce that one story we've closely tracked here at Change.org -- CBS's refusal to accept a pro-marijuana legalization ad -- resulted in a victory this afternoon.

Last month, NORML reported that CBS had denied the group's request to place an ad in Times Square that touted the potential billions in taxes that would result from legalizing marijuana. Remember, this is a network that boasts marijuana-infused advertisements for their Showtime Network show, Weeds. It's also the network that was perfectly willing to air a controversial anti-abortion ad aimed at peak viewership during the Super Bowl. But still, somehow CBS decided that NORML's message (“Legalize Marijuana – Billions in Taxes”) would ruffle the network's too-delicate sensibilities.

In a Feb. 3 rejection email, NORML was told, "If CBS changes their morals we will let you know."

Ending Marijuana Prohibition Would Deal Crucial Blow to Mexican Drug Cartels, Drastically Reduce Border Violence.

Salem-News.com

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) - Today, high-ranking officials from the United States and Mexico concluded a three-day conference meant to outline ways the two nations could reduce the illicit drug trade-associated violence that continues to plague the U.S.-Mexican border.

Unfortunately, officials concluded their talks without making any reference to the most sensible and guaranteed strategy for reducing that violence: removing marijuana from the criminal market, and depriving drug cartels of their main source of income and strife.

“The only solution to the current crisis is to tax and regulate marijuana,” said Aaron Houston, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project. “Once again, Mexican and U.S. officials are ignoring the fact that the cartels get 70 percent of their profits from marijuana. It’s time to face the reality that the U.S.’s marijuana prohibition is fueling a bloodbath in Mexico and the United States.”

The Obama administration has said it will provide the Mexican government with a $1.4 billion aid package to combat the Mexican drug cartels, in addition to seeking $310 million in its 2011 budget for drug enforcement aid to Mexico.

Ancient plant has many uses, from medicinal to industrial

By Jesse Rowland

Ever since I first learned what it was, I've been fascinated by marijuana. It's a miraculous plant that can and has been used for a multitude of purposes since at least 8,000 B.C.E.

I feel that marijuana is a vital part of the continuation of our country and the planet, and it should be fully legalized for the use of whatever people see fit, including recreational.

Cannabis can be adapted with any industry, be it agricultural, medical, construction, textile or cosmetic. In Jamestown, Va., in 1619, a law "ordered" all farmers to grow marijuana for the colony. Similar laws were also passed in Massachusetts and Connecticut in 1631 and 1632. In Virginia, during times of shortage between 1763 and 1767, you could actually be jailed for not growing it.

Henry Ford, who designed a vehicle made out of hemp fibers and powered by hemp seed oil, once said, "Why use up the forests which were centuries in the making and the mines which required ages to lay down if we can get the equivalent of forest and mineral products in the annual growth of the hemp fields?"

And it makes sense. Why, as the most powerful country on the planet, would we not utilize the most versatile plant known to man?

Brian Vicente thinks the time will be right in two years for statewide marijuana legalization.

By Michael Roberts, Westword

In today's Denver Post, columnist David Harsanyi argues that the debate over medical marijuana is dishonest in part because advocates actually want legalization -- a goal that might be hurt by the passage of Representative Tom Massey's medical marijuana bill, because it would give dispensaries a monetary incentive to fight against it.

Sensible Colorado's Brian Vicente doesn't buy that argument, and no wonder. While he opposes Massey's measure as currently written, he's in favor of both regulating medical marijuana and marijuana legalization.

Vicente insists that the former isn't a stealth tactic to advance the latter. However, he confirms that he's working toward putting a measure to make marijuana legal for Colorado adults on the 2012 ballot.

Regarding Harsanyi's argument that dispensary owners might actually fight against marijuana legalization if a bill regulating the medical marijuana industry passes, Vicente says, "That's just fundamentally untrue. Most dispensary owners are believers that marijuana has real value for sick people. They've seen that it's not the demon weed the government often makes it out to be."

Moreover, he believes the mainstreaming of medical marijuana will help the average person to realize that legalization needn't be feared.

By Rick Steves, Seattle PI Blog

Studying how the Dutch retail marijuana (described in my last few blog entries) is fascinating. Learning how another society confronts a persistent problem differently than we do can help us envision how we might deal with the same problem better. I agree with my Dutch friends, who remind me that a society has to make a choice: tolerate alternative lifestyles...or build more prisons. The Netherlands has made its choice. We're still building more prisons. (My Dutch friends needle me with the fact that only the USA and Russia lock up more than one percent of their citizens, while the average per capita incarceration rate in Europe is only a tenth the US rate.)

Travel teaches us a respect for history. And when it comes to drug policy, I hope we can learn from our own prohibitionist past. Back in the 1920s, America's biggest drug problem was alcohol. To combat it, we made booze illegal and instituted Prohibition. By any sober assessment, all that Prohibition produced was grief. By criminalizing a soft drug that people refused to stop enjoying, Prohibition created the mob (Al Capone and company), filled our prisons, and cost our society a lot of money. It was big government at its worst.

Green is their signature color. Medicinal marijuana gardeners throughout the state of Oregon enjoyed a plentiful harvest last fall, and look to 2010 as a year of growth, and change.

By Bonnie King, Salem-News

(SALEM, Ore.) - “After living through arrests in the past for growing marijuana, to be able to do it legally, it’s almost entirely stress-free compared to when it was illegal. So to be able to help the people that need this - it warms our hearts,” said Paul Stanford, Executive Director of The Hemp & Cannabis Foundation. The fear of breaking the law has stopped most people for seven decades from considering marijuana, or cannabis, to treat their ailments. That is no longer the rule of the day, as this medical marijuana garden clearly proves.

By Stave Elliot, Toke of the Town

Washington State lawmakers on Wednesday heard, for the first time ever, testimony in support of legalizing, taxing and regulating marijuana for adults.

Members of the House Committee on Public Safety & Emergency Preparedness, in a heavily attended, two-hour hearing, heard arguments in favor of House Bill 2401.

HB 2401 would "remove all existing criminal and civil penalties for adults 21 years of age or older who cultivate, possess, transport, sell, or use marijuana."

By GENE JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer

SEATTLE (AP) - Five activists filed a ballot initiative Monday that would legalize all adult marijuana possession, manufacturing and sales under Washington state law - one of the most sweeping efforts at marijuana reform playing out around the country this year.

Its sponsors include two Seattle lawyers and the director of Seattle's annual Hempfest. They call themselves Sensible Washington, and say that in a time of dire budget woes, the state's government should stop spending money on police, court and jail costs for people who use or produce marijuana.

Douglas Hiatt, a lawyer who represents medical marijuana patients, told The Associated Press the proposal would remove all state criminal penalties for adults who possess, grow and distribute pot - no matter how much. Criminal penalties for juveniles who possess marijuana and for those who provide the drug to juveniles would remain in place.

Driving under the influence of the drug also would still be against the law. And marijuana would remain illegal under federal law.

"It basically tells the federal government, 'Hey it's your prohibition - if you want it, you pay for it,'" Hiatt said. "We're tired of screwing around and wasting all this dough."

Volunteers are lining up to collect the more than 241,000 signatures required to place the initiative on the November ballot, Hiatt said.

By RACHEL LA CORTE Associated Press Writer

OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) - Washington is one of four states where measures to legalize and regulate marijuana have been introduced, and about two dozen other states are considering bills ranging from medical marijuana to decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the herb.

"In terms of state legislatures, this is far and away the most active year that we've ever seen," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance, which supports reforming marijuana laws.

Nadelmann said that while legalization efforts are not likely to get much traction in state capitals anytime soon, the fact that there is such an increase of activity "is elevating the level of public discourse on this issue and legitimizing it."

"I would say that we are close to the tipping point," he said. "At this point they are still seen as symbolic bills to get the conversation going, but at least the conversation can be a serious one."

Opponents of relaxing marijuana laws aren't happy with any conversation on the topic, other than keeping the drug illegal.

"There's no upside to it in any manner other than for those people who want to smoke pot," said Travis Kuykendall, head of the West Texas High Intensity Drug-Trafficking Area office in El Paso, Texas. "There's nothing for society in it, there's nothing good for the country in it, there's nothing for the good of the economy in it."

by Phillip Smith, Stop the Drug War

The Tax and Regulate Cannabis 2010 initiative, sponsored by Oakland medical marijuana entrepreneur Richard Lee, has laid off its paid signature gatherers, saying they already have sufficient signatures to qualify for the November 2010 ballot.

Lee told the Chronicle this afternoon that more than 650,000 signatures have been turned in, and that he expects an additional 50,000 or so to dribble in in the coming weeks. Precisely 433,971 valid signatures of registered California voters are required for an initiative to be approved for the ballot. That leaves Lee and the initiative a substantial cushion of about a quarter-million signatures to make up for any invalid signatures.

The campaign will wait to turn in signatures until January 15. If they were turned in this month, the initiative would appear on the June ballot, not the November ballot. Lee wants the initiative on the latter.

Approval for medical use expands alongside criticism of prohibition

Would you support medical marijuana?

By Karl Vick, Washington Post Staff Writer

The same day they rejected a gay marriage ballot measure, residents of Maine voted overwhelmingly to allow the sale of medical marijuana over the counter at state-licensed dispensaries.

Later in the month, the American Medical Association reversed a longtime position and urged the federal government to remove marijuana from Schedule One of the Controlled Substances Act, which equates it with heroin.

A few days later, advocates for easing marijuana laws left their biannual strategy conference with plans to press ahead on all fronts -- state law, ballot measures, and court -- in a movement that for the first time in decades appeared to be gaining ground.

"This issue is breaking out in a remarkably rapid way now," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Public opinion is changing very, very rapidly."

The shift is widely described as generational. A Gallup poll in October found 44 percent of Americans favor full legalization of marijuana -- a rise of 13 points since 2000. Gallup said that if public support continues growing at a rate of 1 to 2 percent per year, "the majority of Americans could favor legalization of the drug in as little as four years."

"In every culture and in every age of history, an enormous amount of human energy has gone into the production, distribution and consumption of psychoactive plants." – Dr. Andrew Weil in The Botany of Desire

Plants have always excelled at the science of biochemistry, drawing sustenance by converting the sun's energy into organic compounds, discovering ways of poisoning or sickening their predators, evolving sights, tastes and smells that enlist animals in their reproduction. But a few plants have hit upon an especially ingenious approach to ensuring their survival, producing chemicals that have the power to alter how humans experience the world.

Cannabis—more commonly known as marijuana—seems to have long ago adopted a strategy of tying its fortunes to humans, appealing in particular to our innate desire to alter consciousness, a desire that spans nearly every culture and historical period. In exchange, humans have gone to extraordinary lengths, often at their own peril, to help the plant grow and reproduce.
Just what is the knowledge held out by a plant such as cannabis--and why is it forbidden?

Though marijuana has been in use in one form or another for as long as history has been recorded, the plant has undergone its greatest transformation only in the last few decades. Ironically, that change occurred just at the moment when the future of the plant seemed most in doubt.

Proponents, Including Medical Marijuana Users, Say Untaxed Marijuana Means Needed Revenue Is Going Up in Smoke

By John Blackstone, CBS News

(CBS) There is talk in California of what you could call a radical idea for the cash-poor state to raise money. It's controversial, but proponents say the plan could smoke out more than a billion dollars for the state, as CBS News correspondent John Blackstone reports.

It is an unusual commercial: taxpayers demanding a new tax. It's an offer by marijuana users to help the state's battered budget.

"We're marijuana consumers. We want to pay our fair share."

It's estimated that $14 billion worth of marijuana is sold illegally in the state. Making it legal and taxing it at $50 dollars an ounce would bring in approximately $1.4 billion a year. Assemblyman Tom Ammiano has been pushing the idea.

"I thought it was high time - no pun intended - that this was on the table," he said.

As many see it, marijuana is already virtually legal in California where state law allows it for medical use.

At one Los Angeles dispensary, The Farmacy, the cannabis comes in buds so you can smoke it of course, but you don't have to. There's also cookies and candy bars, also drinks with cannabis as the active ingredient, and gelato - so you can take your medicine like ice cream or lollipops.

One dispensary gave out free pot to anyone with a valid prescription. The line was out the door.

By MARCUS WOHLSEN, Associated Press

SAN FRANCISCO – A bill to tax and regulate marijuana in California like alcohol would generate nearly $1.4 billion in revenue for the cash-strapped state, according to an official analysis released Wednesday by tax officials.

The State Board of Equalization report estimates marijuana retail sales would bring $990 million from a $50-per-ounce fee and $392 million in sales taxes.

The bill introduced by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Tom Ammiano in February would allow adults 21 and older to legally possess, grow and sell marijuana.

Ammiano has promoted the bill as a way to help bridge the state's $26.3 billion budget shortfall.

"It defies reason to propose closing parks and eliminating vital services for the poor while this potential revenue is available," Ammiano said in a statement.

The way the bill is written, the state could not begin collecting taxes until the federal government legalizes marijuana. A spokesman says Ammiano plans to amend the bill to remove that provision.

The legislation requires all revenue generated by the $50-per-ounce fee to be used for drug education and rehabilitation programs. The state's 9 percent sales tax would be applied to retail sales, while the fee would likely be charged at the wholesale level and built into the retail price.

By Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director

Boulder, Colorado: I have every reason to believe that 4/20 in 2009 will be the biggest and most momentous one to date as NORML launches 7,770 nationwide TV ads that advocate for cannabis law reform; NORML expects record numbers of supporters to join the organization for the celebratory one-day price of $4.20 because, I believe, there is a palpable zeitgeist in America right now favoring reform; the Obama administration appears amenable to some cannabis law reforms in ways that no prior president since Jimmy Carter has embraced; and lastly, with NORML’s nearly 600,000 ‘friends’ on Facebook and nearly 67,000 MySpace, more Americans than ever before who are keen on cannabis can create a viral effect that benefits reform.

Here in Boulder between 10,000-15,000 students and activists are expected to celebrate in what has become the biggest 4/20 event in the world.

By Ms Sylence Dogood, Hemp News Staff

This editorial is in regards to the video (posted above) of the debate about the Legalization of Marijuana between Congressman Ron Paul (R) and Actor Stephen Baldwin.

When can we find someone who will debate against medical marijuana and/or legalization and regulation of marijuana for adults who actually has actually read any research, studies, and statistics which back up their arguments? This time the chosen spokesperson is the actor, Stephen Baldwin. Wait, what? Stephen Baldwin? Is he an expert in anything other than sophomoric comedy?

By Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director

Speaking at a landmark press conference today, California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced comprehensive legislation to tax and regulate the commercial production and sale of cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol.

“With the state in the midst of an historic economic crisis, the move towards regulating and taxing marijuana is simply common sense. This legislation would generate much needed revenue for the state, restrict access to only those over 21, end the environmental damage to our public lands from illicit crops, and improve public safety by redirecting law enforcement efforts to more serious crimes”, Assemblyman Ammiano said. “California has the opportunity to be the first state in the nation to enact a smart, responsible public policy for the control and regulation of marijuana.”

The proposal is the first marijuana legalization bill ever introduced in California.

“It’s time for California taxpayers to stop wasting money trying to enforce marijuana prohibition, and to realize the tax benefits from a legal, regulated market instead,” said Dale Gieringer, director of California NORML, a sponsor of the bill.

By Calvin C. Acuff, M.D.

I was a youngster when Franklin Roosevelt ran for president promising, among other things, to repeal Prohibition. My parents didn't want alcohol to be legalized. However, since then I have realized Prohibition was a tremendous idea, but one that didn't work because people were determined to drink and they got liquor from bootleggers, moonshiners or imported by Joe Kennedy ( making him fabulously wealthy ). Today alcohol is freely available and is controlled fairly well and taxed.

Source: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1140/a11.html

[MAP - Cannabis]

By Ethan Russo, Oxford University Press

Here is a great slideshow of pictures from the world's Oldest Marijuana Stash Found in Gobi Desert Grave.

Source: http://dsc.discovery.com/news/slideshows/marijuana-stash.html

[NORML Audio Stash]

By MICHAEL JAMISON, Missoulian

A 2,700-year-old bowl of marijuana, the world’s oldest pot stash, has been unearthed from a tomb in central China.

“The evidence all indicates that there was intent to utilize this cannabis for psychoactive purposes,” said Ethan Russo. “What we’ve found here is the oldest, clear-cut and proven sample of psychoactive cannabis in the world.”

Russo, who for 24 years worked as a neurologist in Missoula and still serves as a pharmacology faculty affiliate at the University of Montana was lead author on a paper describing the find, published this month in the peer-reviewed “Journal of Experimental Botany.”

The tomb, Russo said, belonged to “a shaman, or a chief, someone of extremely high stature.”

Found alongside the skeleton and the 2 pounds of marijuana were several other items, including horse bridles, archery equipment and a harp. (No pipes were found, however, and Russo remains uncertain as to whether the marijuana was to be smoked or ingested in the afterlife.)

The site is located amid the Yanghai Tombs, near Turpan in China’s Gobi Desert region. Locals stumbled across the sprawling graveyard some two decades back, while digging irrigation wells, but it was not until 2003 that formal archaeological investigations were launched.

To date, Russo said, only 500 or so of the 2,500 graves there have been excavated.

By Kristin Jirovsky/Daily Sun staff

An enthusiastic crowd gathered under "Smoke 'em Bucky" banners for the 38th annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival in downtown Madison last weekend to protest the prohibition of marijuana and foster solidarity among fellow dissenters. The three-day-long festival began Friday night with a benefit concert at the Cardinal Bar and continued through the weekend. Speakers and bands vocalized their support Saturday in Library Mall to "end the war on drugs" and urged listeners to vote for change.

Madison Police Lt. Joe Balles acknowledged marijuana smoking does go on at the event, and while the protesters have every right to assemble peacefully, he noted the act is still illegal.

"Smoking at this event is illegal, just as it's supposed to be illegal on State Street or in dormitories," Balles said.

However, Balles said actual enforcement can be difficult because the UW football game required police attention.

"Any problems at this event will be dealt with, but we [had] a larger priority with 100,000 people coming to town for the Ohio State game," Balles said.

On Sunday, protesters paraded from Library Mall to the Capitol to show support of legislation that legalizes - or "de-criminalizes" - marijuana.

Protesters listed a multitude of reasons as to why they thought marijuana should be legalized, including medical purposes, personal rights, helping solve global warming and stimulating the economy.

By Duncan Campbell, The Guardian

UK: A report on cannabis prepared for next year's UN drug policy review will suggest that a "regulated market" would cause less harm than the current international prohibition. The report, which is likely to reopen the debate about cannabis laws, suggests that controls such as taxation, minimum age requirements and labelling could be explored.

The Global Cannabis Commission report, which will be launched today at a conference in the House of Lords, has reached conclusions which its authors suggest "challenge the received wisdom concerning cannabis". It was carried out for the Beckley foundation, a UN-accredited NGO, for the 2009 UN strategic drug policy review.

There are, according to the report, now more than 160 million users of the drug worldwide. "Although cannabis can have a negative impact on health, including mental health, in terms of relative harms it is considerably less harmful than alcohol or tobacco," according to the report. "Historically, there have only been two deaths worldwide attributed to cannabis, whereas alcohol and tobacco together are responsible for an estimated 150,000 deaths per annum in the UK alone."

The report, compiled by a group of scientists, academics and drug policy experts, suggests that much of the harm associated with cannabis use is "the result of prohibition itself, particularly the social harms arising from arrest and imprisonment." Policies that control cannabis, whether draconian or liberal, appear to have little impact on the prevalence of consumption, it concluded.

By Hannah Guzik, Tidings correspondent

By the 1930s, using marijuana was illegal in Oregon and it has remained that way -- except for medicinal use -- ever since. A group of local residents is aiming to reverse history.

The Legalize Ashland organization hopes to make adult marijuana use the lowest law enforcement priority and legalize the production of industrial hemp by May 2009.

Eventually the activists want to make legal recreational use of pot, giving it a similar status as alcohol, according to their Web site and MySpace page.

"It is time for Ashland's laws to reflect the priorities of its citizens. The majority of the citizens of Ashland believe that spending money on the enforcement of misdemeanor possession of marijuana is a waste of budget resources, and that public policy should reflect this," the group's Web site states.

Group members did not respond to e-mail messages sent to the address listed on the Web site.

The site states that the group held a meeting Sept. 13 at the Ashland Public Library to discuss putting an initiative on the city ballot next year.

A handful of cities across the country, including Seattle and Oakland, have passed similar laws.

Dan Rubenson, an economics professor at Southern Oregon University, said he would like to see a serious discussion about the implications of legalizing pot.

"I see us spending huge amounts of money for prosecuting and especially for incarcerating people for what I see as victimless crimes and so, from that perspective, I say, 'Let's talk about this,'" he said.