U.S. legislators aim to snuff out penalties for pot use

paula · Posted: Wed Aug 13, 2008 2:45 am

Thats an interesting article nightshade. I don't think I am about to swallow it hook, line & sinker right at the moment. But thats just me

Money, influence, power and control, of course the police and others have a hand out for their pound of flesh or, more politely, their piece of the prohibition pie. Yum yum.

I wonder how many Kiwis are aware that - unlike here - its quite a different system; that in many US states many of the local policeforces get the proceeds from sale of confiscated property belonging to smalltime pot distributors and growers ? The money from forced sales doesn't disappear anonymously into the 'consolidated fund' or wherever, like it does here. I believe a rather a lot of it goes straight to the local sherrif dept.

I wonder whether this is what John Key and the Nats think about, along with private prisons, for NZ . . . because I haven't seen or read The Hollow Men but Budbeard has just written in another thread "This is what Hollow Man Mathew Hooten was trying to promote in matters of substance. Key wants to lock us up and throw away the key"

There are sites that routinely publish US police blunders and corruption scandals.
Its bad enough here already, seeing our cops at the door. It already feels like home invasion, is particularly awful for young kids to see. When they bust you its very rarely just two cops on the doorstep. Fortunately at least they don't routinely carry guns here, except to gang members homes. But thats how they condition many otherwise law abiding pot users' kids in the good ol' USA and, of course, some other countries . . . and to lose your property to them as well

Maybe we should just toughen up

Really count our blessings? At least we're not like Thailand, where they sometimes arbitrarily shoot 'drug users' dead (as though thats all you do) . . . if they just feel like it. Seriously, whether you're a gang member or not.

So here is the latest on that US Medpot Bill. Enjoy the comments.

Washington DC, USA blog The Hill, the Congress blog has guest editorial of classic drug war bs propaganda from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy
Marijuana Decriminalization Bill Ignores the Facts, August 12th, 2008

Comments
The Hill’s Congress Blog has been built as a forum for elected government officials, staff and selected policy experts to exchange ideas. The Hill welcomes posts from anyone and will almost always publish it whether it is favorable or critical, as long as it is substantive and advances debate.

1. Since I don’t partake in the drug I am be a good one to comment on this. Marijuana has been reported, by many, to help the affects of glaucoma as well as the appetites of AIDS patients. There are some muscle diseases that are reportedly eased by the drug as well. My government has rarely shown signs of truly being interested in the common person though.
If the Feds truly wanted to control the use of marijuana, or any other drug for that matter, they would legalize it and then very strictly control it’s price and access on the market. The Feds haven’t got that kind of brains though.
Comment by Flo — August 12, 2008 @ 7:35 pm

2. Sometimes it is hard to tell who’s on the mind-altering substance when you read a sentence like this:
“Some pro-drug interest groups have argued that keeping marijuana illegal itself does damage, since people run the risk of arrest if they break the law. But in fact, marijuana offenders represent only a very tiny fraction of state prison inmates in the United States.”
What do prison inmates have to do with escalating arrests? We arrested over 730,000 people in 2006 for mere possession of marijuana - not sales, trafficking, or cultivation, just possession. We only arrested over 610,000 for all violent crime combined.
The arrest is the damaging part of marijuana criminalization. You lose security clearances, federal student aid, federally assisted housing, and certain state and federal licenses. You have a criminal record and must admit that when seeking a job. You’re booked and held in a local jail. Your privacy is surrendered for a term of probation. If you have a job, especially one working with children, you may be fired. You pay a fine and sometimes spend a term in the county jail.
And for all of that devastation inflicted on a person for getting high with the safer, but federally disapproved drug, we spend $7.5 billion per year.

The Drug Czar wants you to believe that if we decriminalized marijuana, we’d face an onslaught of new “marijuana addicts”. So, who are these people who aren’t smoking pot now, but are eager to smoke it once it is legal? Everyone I know who wants to smoke pot is already doing so; criminalization isn’t stopping any American when about 1/3rd of us have already tried it and we have the highest rates of pot use in the world.
The biggest negative effect of marijuana decrim would be the slashing of the budgets and employment at the Drug Czar’s office. 75% of the “War on (Certain American Citizens Using Non-Pharmaceutical, Non-Alcoholic, Tobacco-Free) Drugs” is the war on marijuana users - without the millions of marijuana plants to rip up (98% of which are feral hemp ditchweed thatr can’t get anyone high) and the thousands of marijuana users to harass, there just isn’t enough “hard” drug users to justify a $31.5 billion dollar budget.
Comment by "Radical" Russ Belville — August 12, 2008 @ 8:51 pm

3. only a guy who partakes of the bong would offer this garbage for a vote. he should have brought it up on 4-1-08. for the joke it is. america this is what you have voted into office. leftwing socialists. wheres g gordan libby when you need him for a gig.
Comment by carl6352 — August 12, 2008 @ 8:52 pm

4. Well children you have now had your first lesson new world diplomacy trust me right thing was to do nothing. So everyone in congress feeling well to day I hope minds as sharp as ever. Well the rush will soon be on to grab the last of the resources our planet holds I strongly recommend that we get into the game. How is nancy’s glue sniffing problem hope she gets it under control soon (nasty habit). So what is first on to days agenda ah yes the coming civil war so much to plan for so many arrangements to get ready. You see the reason why you should but out of other countries affairs and they may but out of yours. I can only hope that when we start shooting at each other they will refrain from a preemptive nuclear strike (China, Russia or both) I would have to say that that is unlikely at best. Just a few things before I go to day.
1. what would you take with you if you only had five minuets to leave your house.
2. would you know what to do if grocery’s where no longer in stores.
3. do you know what to do in the event of a nuclear strike chemical and biologic.
4. do you have an alternate mode of transportation (bike) if fuel is no longer available.
5. do you have an alternative heat source for the winter if utilities cut out this winter.
6. are you physically in shape enough to survive in the urban wilderness.
7. do you have guns and ammo available and are you willing to use them on friends and neighbors.
Comment by Brainmaggot — August 13, 2008 @ 1:57 am

5. I thinks it’s about time to decriminalize marijauna. If I ever get busted for using pot, I’m sure I’ll end up in prison where I’ll still smoke it and when I get the munchies; I’ll eat the food that taxpayers pay to feed me. What an endless cycle of deception from our government.
Comment by donald smith — August 13, 2008 @ 8:12 am

6. Frank and Paul are obviously doing a pre-victory smoking celebration to have put forth legislation like this. Confirms all the more why they are out of touch with reality and society and why Paul was obviously not up to the task of a presidential office.
And Flo, your comment just reveals indeed how scary the logic of some people in society can be.
Comment by ObamaNOT — August 13, 2008 @ 9:19 am

7. Let’s look at the tax payer funded idiocy that is ONDCP and marijuana prohibition. I’ll take their “evidence point by point.
1. If weed was legal more people may indeed smoke pot. However, that is not a reason to keep it illegal. Europe has much more liberal drug laws than the US. Most European countries have a lower per capita use of marijuana than the US. American adults should be free to smoke pot without fear of arrest. George W. Bush, Barack Obaman, and Newt Gingrich all smoked pot without having their future ruined with an arrest.
Marijuana may not be granola, but it is not so dangerous that we should waste 800,000 arrests a year to stop adults from using it. Pot is safer than alcohol and tobacco. All 3 should be legal. This is the land of the free, whether ONDCP likes it or not.
2. Pot potency arguments are something only a fool, or government propagandist could embrace. When marijuana is legal, I expect the potency will be the choice of the consumer. Last time I went to a liquor store, all the bottles had the proof clearly labeled. When pot is legal we can expect the same.
Finally, the purity of all illegal drugs has been increasing over time. Pot, heroin, cocaine etc. It’s a byproduct of Prohibition.
3. There should be a maximum level of idiocy for government employees. Since there is not we get the argument that pot fuels terrorism, or pot money goes to Mexican drug cartels. The only reason Mexican drug cartels profit off of marijuana, is because marijuana is illegal. Mexican drug cartels don’t sell beer, or cigs.
When pot is legal, organized crime will be pushed out of the market. During Prohibition I, the alcohol market was controlled by violent American cartels. Today, not so much. ONDCP created the Mexican Drug cartel problem, they can’t blame marijuana for their policy failure.
Finally, ONDCP argues that only a few pot users actually see jail time. That may be true. However, the 800,000 annaul cannabis arrests waste millions of dollars, and million of police and prosecutor work hours. These arrests take cops off the street and make you less safe.

I used to prosecute pot cases. Pot cases take time away from real crime- theft, robbery, assault etc. What do you want your local police and prosecutors working on? Dimebag interdiction? Or solving robberies, assault, etc?
Every pot arrest takes a cop off the street for hours to fill out paperwork and appear in court. It’s not worth it. The opportunity cost of marijuana prohibition is huge.
Marijuana will be legal. Prohibition is a perpetual failure. It’s time to end this war on Americans and embrace the simple freedom or responsible cannabis use.
Isn’t there a law somewhere that prohibits the government from lobbying for specific bills?
Comment by Robert Guest — August 13, 2008 @ 10:57 am

DW · Newbie Joined: Aug 14, 2008 Posts: 2 Location: USA

Why did the link to the March 2008 archive of my blog Freedom of Medicine and Diet disappear?

Interesting where the drug policy reform movement has received valuable advice.

Paul13 · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 4:15 pm

paula · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:17 pm

I must be having another thick moment, don't get either of the above posts. Don't remember deleting anything from this thread and that is DW's first post, and paul13 being a bit obscure. Duh me . . .

Tony · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 6:38 pm

Tony · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 7:08 pm

Interesting ..

I have just been contacted by a US investigative Journalist.

Interesting firstly now they got hold of me , its seems via a Local media person, with only my NORML posts to go on.. In part I can figure this, but it goes to show we do not go un-noticed.
But secondly why .
It seems the post I did on the 11th in reply to nightshade is doing the rounds in the US , and they were after permission to reprint it. Looks like we might be going to see an expose of how the cannabis debate has been influenced by drug companies ..

Fingers crossed.

tony

Paul13 · Posted: Fri Aug 15, 2008 9:51 pm

DW · Newbie Joined: Aug 14, 2008 Posts: 2 Location: USA

The post had some words to the effect that its author did not buy the Armentano line about big pharm innocence, noting the factors of the big money, pr and lawyers, and that she had been reading articles as the following by an individual promoting coca which has many medicinal uses

Plausibility of Big Pharm Thwarting/Slowing Drug Policy Reform
http://freedomofmedicineanddiet.blogspot.com/2008_03_01_archive.html

paula · Posted: Sat Aug 16, 2008 5:32 pm

Oh cripes, that was me. It was in my earlier post above, which I edited in the wee hours next night and added that 'Latest on the US Medpot bill'

Thanks for reposting the link, I didn't realise I'd completely deleted it

I was so intent on having a wee ranty before posting the new info. Your blog was a good read. I'm now going to edit your post here and delete my details

and this today from a Florida paper . . .
Drug policy has failed
Kingsley Guy | Columnist
August 15, 2008

Is the push to legalize marijuana in Florida for medical use a legitimate attempt to eliminate pain and suffering, or a thinly-veiled effort by unreconstructed hippies to legally get high?
I don't know, and frankly, don't care.
It's time to shift the debate from side issues like medical marijuana, and instead look at decriminalizing all recreational drugs. The nation must face the fact that the war on drugs has been a dismal failure causing far more damage than it has mitigated, and it just isn't worth the price.
- see link for the rest -

paula · Posted: Fri Aug 29, 2008 8:58 pm

(Californian) Attorney general proposes sensible rules on medical pot
28 August 2008
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/27/EDHB12IKBA.DTL

The hazy legality of medical marijuana just got a little clearer. Since 1996 when voters approved a measure allowing the humane use of cannabis to ease sickness and pain, California has struggled to come up with an orderly way to supply the weed.
Federal law hasn't help as Washington insisted that pot is illegal, plain and simple. And local communities have deployed varying rules to rein in the runaway profusion of loosely watched dispensaries. Neither police nor medical marijuana sponsors are happy with the confusing present-day picture.

California Attorney General Jerry Brown believes new guidelines can solve the practical problems, minimize the legal worries and calm patient fears.
His plans, as always, rely on a wink and a nod from the feds, who retain the last word legally. But the Justice Department, via Joseph Russoniello, the U.S. attorney for Northern California, suggests that scaling back operations as outlined by Brown would be tolerated. The feds, Russoniello says, are mainly interested in the big growers and traffickers, not the small-time tokers with chronic back pain or a debilitating illness.

The changes call for dispensaries to be run as nonprofits or cooperatives, a shift designed to cut out big-bucks operators who now exploit the medical label to sell pot to nearly anyone who shows up at the door. There are approximately 300 dispensaries statewide with 29 operating in San Francisco, far more than the city needs.
Under Brown's outline, patients would be urged to get a state ID card obtained with a doctor's note. Presently, some counties issue such cards while others don't. Marijuana sellers also accept a physician's recommendation, adding another variable, while some hardly ask at all.

Brown also wants a reality check on the vast amount of pot on the market. Only a patient, caregiver or dispensary could grow the relatively small amounts of marijuana needed. This would cut medical pot off from a surging and often violent weed-growing industry worth $14 billion in 2006, according to a recent drug-policy study.

Brown's idea would have the practical effect of clarifying what medical marijuana is all about: modest amounts of pot for the sick. In California there's an estimated 200,000 patients who smoke for relief, but the number is a best-guess because of the loose rules.
The guidelines aim for a balance by allowing medical use but stopping short of legalization, which is a legal nonstarter. The plan has picked up key support from both medical marijuana supporters and law enforcement.
"A number of police chiefs and sheriffs wanted guidelines and a clear set of rules," Brown said. "It adds caution within the framework of Prop. 215," the ballot measure that allowed pot use 12 years ago, he said.
It's hard to tell how many storefront operations will follow the guidelines. But the rules should add a level of responsibility and clarity that's missing now. The attorney general has come up with practical rules that should improve a humane law.

Attorney General Jerry Brown has put forward guidlelines on medical marijuana to clarify murky rules and strike a balance between access for the sick and general prohibition for everyone else.

Here are the significant issues:

SALES: Cannabis dispensaries must do business as cooperatives or collectives. This rule takes aim at large, profit-making operations that use the health care intent of the state law as a front for widespread selling. Prices must be pegged to cost of production and overhead.

AMOUNT: A patient, caregiver, or dispensary can grow up to six plants per patient. A patient may keep eight ounces of hand for use. The cannabis must be grown by the patient or dispensary and can't be purchased from outside growers, a directive aimed at limiting operations and excluding major traffickers.

ID: A state identification card for medical marijuana users will be offered. It's designed to replace a confusing sign-up system that includes locally -issued ID cards and individual enrollments at cannabis outlets.

Attorney general's proposal on medical marijuana

These are the guidelines on medical marijuana clubs proposed by Attorney General Jerry Brown:

SALES: Cannabis dispensaries must do business as cooperatives or collectives. This rule takes aim at large, profit-making operations that use the health care intent of the state law as a front for widespread selling. Prices must be pegged to cost of production and overhead.

AMOUNT: A patient, caregiver or dispensary can grow up to six plants per patient. A patient may keep 8 ounces on hand for use. The cannabis must be grown by the patient or dispensary and can't be purchased from outside growers, a directive aimed at limiting operations and excluding major traffickers.

ID: A state identification card for medical marijuana users will be offered. It's designed to replace a confusing sign-up system that includes locally issued ID cards and individual enrollments at cannabis outlets.

This article appeared on page B - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle

paula · Posted: Wed Sep 03, 2008 9:37 pm

Soros behind Massachusetts effort to decriminalize pot
By STEVE LeBLANC
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hQsksgZ-IN6nYS3jJ2NcqpufBlLgD92QQPS00
August 2008

BOSTON (AP) — A measure that would decriminalize minor marijuana-possession cases is on the ballot in Massachusetts largely because of one man: billionaire financier and liberal activist George Soros.

Of the $429,000 collected last year by the group advancing the measure, $400,000 came from Soros, who has championed similar efforts in several states and spent $24 million to fight President Bush's 2004 re-election bid. The Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy needed about $315,000 of that just to collect the more than 100,000 signatures that secured a spot on the ballot, according to campaign finance reports reviewed by The Associated Press.

"All of us owe George Soros a great deal of gratitude," said Keith Stroup, founder of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

If the measure is approved in November, Massachusetts would become the 13th state to lift or ease criminal penalties on marijuana possession. The proposal would make having an ounce or less of the drug a civil offense punishable by a $100 fine. A spokesman for Soros referred questions to Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance. Soros' efforts to ease penalties for drug crimes have come through the alliance, where he is a member of the board of directors.

Nadelmann said Soros feels the war on drugs is draining money and resources that could be better spent. "He thinks the (ballot question) is a responsible initiative to reduce the overreliance on criminal justice sanctions in dealing with marijuana," Nadelmann said. "Marijuana should not be a priority of the criminal justice system."

Soros is credited with putting financial muscle behind many of the state initiatives easing marijuana laws — beginning with a 1996 California ballot question to allow marijuana use for medical purposes. From 1996 to 2000, Soros backed medical marijuana questions there and in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Nevada and Maine. More recently he has focused on criminal justice reform efforts including pushing a proposal in California this year that would prohibit sending drug offenders back to prison for parole violations unless they commit a new felony, have a violent or serious record, or are considered high risk by prison officials. He has also contributed to Barack Obama, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Joe Biden and has helped support a group running ads opposing Republican John McCain. Soros's wealth was estimated at $8.8 billion by Forbes magazine last year. He was also the second-highest-paid hedge fund manager last year at $2.9 billion.

Critics say marijuana decriminalization sends the wrong message to young people — that using drugs carries few consequences. Not only are there health risks associated with marijuana, they say, but users often end up moving on to more dangerous illegal drugs. Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone said the marijuana being sold on the street these days is more potent than that sold three decades ago. "Decriminalizing marijuana is a slippery slope and sends the wrong message," he said. "Compounding this is the fact that users of marijuana are 10 times more likely to be injured, or injure others, in automobile crashes." Leone said marijuana possession is already treated less stringently in the courts than other drugs.

The question has been criticized by others in law enforcement and drug education groups like DARE-Massachusetts — but according to the secretary of state's office, opponents haven't created a group to raise money to fight the question.

A whopping 72 percent of Massachusetts' voters favored the ballot question and 22 percent opposed it according to a WHDH-TV/Suffolk University poll of 400 registered conducted from July 31-Aug. 3. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points. Whitney Taylor of the Committee for Sensible Marijuana Policy said the question would help unclog the courts, save the state millions and spare thousands of residents the burden of a criminal record.

The question requires parental notification and the completion of a drug awareness program for anyone under 18 caught with an ounce or less of the drug. It bars the possession of an ounce or less of marijuana from being used to deny financial aid, public housing or other public assistance, drivers' licenses or the ability to be a foster or adoptive parent. "They can move on and get a student loan and get their first apartment and move on with their lives," Taylor said. "People recognize that there are a lot better things we could be doing with our police resources."

Currently, possession of small amounts of marijuana in the state is punishable by up to 6 months in jail and a $500 fine. Taylor said offenders commonly get probation, but even in those cases the criminal convictions stay on their records. The only other statewide vote this year on marijuana laws will be in Michigan, where voters are weighing an initiative to allow patients to grow and use small amounts of marijuana for relief from pain associated with cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis and other diseases.

If Massachusetts voters approve the ballot question, according to NORML, the state would join a dozen others which have to some extent decriminalized first-time possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use: Alaska, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon.

Tony · Posted: Thu Sep 04, 2008 7:26 am

quote
A measure that would decriminalize minor marijuana-possession cases is on the ballot in Massachusetts largely because of one man: billionaire financier and liberal activist George Soros.
end quote.

This just goes to prove.. once sufficient funds are available to provide facts and education a counter to the well funded propaganda things happen.

tony

paula · Posted: Fri Sep 05, 2008 1:51 am

more from that US congressional blog 'The Hill' - it looks like NORMLUSA vs the White House ONDCP

Congress and the Media Should be Dubious of Office of Nat’l Drug Control Policy’s Claims
August 25th, 2008
Of the many things that often leave me guffawed after reading the rhetoric and rank propaganda that has flowed prodigiously from the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) from its inception in the late 1980’s—with self-anointed moralist drug czar 1.0 William Bennett charging forward with his blunderbuss blitzkrieg against anything he deemed ‘counter-culture’—is the incessant mocking, demeaning, and most disturbingly, dehumanizing rhetoric and ad campaigns often employed by our country’s drug czars when opposing peaceable citizens and non-governmental organizations who seek first a forum with government officials to discuss concerns with the current cannabis prohibition policies and to then, logically, explore viable alternatives to cannabis prohibition’s abject failure
Since the ONDCP’s inception, citizens and organizations that are not proponents of prohibition have not been afforded either opportunity or courtesy.

- see link above for the rest. Its a very good read but too long to post here -

paula · Posted: Sat Oct 11, 2008 2:51 pm

two more good articles.

Drug Czar Fails Spectacularly at Cutting Marijuana Consumption
By Bruce Mirken, October 8, 2008.
This is your government on drugs.
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/102246/

The White House drug czar's office, aka the Office of National Drug Control Policy, has been claiming loudly and frequently for several years now that its aggressive anti-marijuana campaign has been a rousing success. As deputy ONDCP director Scott Burns put it in a recent California newspaper interview, "drug use is down in the United States dramatically since 2001 by every barometer and indicator that we use. ... Twenty-four percent reduction in marijuana use by young people 12 to 18 years old."

Uh, not quite.

In fact, the major U.S. government study of drug use, the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health, shows that the drug czar's office has badly failed to meet its own goals for reducing use of marijuana and other illegal drugs, according to a pair of new reports by George Mason University senior fellow Jon Gettman, Ph.D. In addition, ONDCP and drug czar John Walters have misused treatment statistics to suggest that marijuana is dangerously addictive when the government's own data suggest that arrest-driven treatment admissions have wasted tax dollars by treating thousands who were not truly drug-dependent.

During Walters' tenure, ONDCP has released at least 127 separate anti-marijuana TV, radio and print ads and 34 press releases focused mainly on marijuana, in addition to 50 reports from ONDCP and other federal agencies on marijuana or anti-marijuana campaigns. Beyond doubt, this anti-marijuana blitz -- coupled with record marijuana arrests year after year, to the point where in 2007 an American was arrested on marijuana charges every 36 seconds -- constitutes the most intense war on marijuana since "Reefer Madness."

Gettman, who made international headlines in December 2006 with an analysis showing that marijuana is the top cash crop in the United States, catalogues the failures in detail. In 2007 there were 14.5 million current users of marijuana in the United States, compared with 14.6 million in 2002, while the number of Americans who have ever used marijuana actually increased.

ONDCP has not even come close to meeting its goal of reducing illegal drug use by 25 percent by 2007 in any age group. In fact, among adults, overall illegal drug use actually increased 4.7% from 2002 to 2007. Teen marijuana use is down a bit but still remains common: One in nine (12 percent) 14- and 15-year-olds and one in four (23.7 percent) 16- and 17-year-olds used marijuana in 2007.

Walters loves to cite increases in marijuana treatment admissions as proof that marijuana is addictive and dangerous. But Gettman's analysis of data from the government's Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) shows that the percentage of marijuana treatment admissions referred by the criminal justice system jumped from 48% to 58% from 1992 to 2006. In other words, most of the increase in treatment admissions was driven by people being arrested and offered treatment instead of jail. Strikingly, just 45 percent of marijuana admissions met the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV) criteria for marijuana dependence.

Also arguing against claims that treatment admissions reflect dangerously addictive "pot 2.0" (yes, some officials have actually used that phrase, and some in the press have repeated it as if it meant something) is the fact that, as Gettman notes, "Use of residential detox -- a clear sign of a serious addiction problem -- is used for 24% of heroin admissions and 21% of alcohol admissions, but just 2% of marijuana admissions."

Gettman's bottom line on those treatment stats is simple and depressing: "Increases in drug treatment admissions for marijuana, often cited by officials as evidence that marijuana is dangerously addictive, are driven by criminal justice policies rather than medical diagnosis. These policies increase public costs for providing drug treatment services and reduce funds for and availability of treatment of more serious drug problems."

This is your government on drugs.

Global Cannabis Commission: No Justification for Jailing for Pot Possession
Bruce Mirken, October 9, 2008.
"If something is not legal, you can't regulate it very effectively." -Prof. Robin Room, School of Population Health, University of Melbourne
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/DrugReporter/102315/

On October 2, the Global Cannabis Commission, a group of top scientists commissioned by the Beckley Foundation, issued its groundbreaking report, "Cannabis Policy: Moving Beyond Stalemate." Your faithful correspondent was able to attend the daylong seminar in which the report was discussed, held in the distinctly imposing Moses Room of the House of Lords in the Palace of Westminster.

This is a highly condensed summary of the 175-page report. I wrote a lengthier summary here, and the full document can be downloaded here.

The report was written by five leading marijuana and drug policy researchers: Benedikt Fischer of Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Peter Reuter of the University of Maryland, and three Australians: Wayne Hall of the University of Queensland, Simon Lenton of the National Drug Research Institute at the Curtin University of Technology, and Robin Room of the University of Melbourne. A number of other important researchers joined the discussion (and contributed advice and research to the report).

Some highlights:

RISKS ASSOCIATED WITH MARIJUANA USE:

Marijuana is not harmless. Intoxication "increases the risk of motor vehicle crashes 2-3 times" -- not trivial, but "far more modest than that of alcohol." There is clearly an increased risk of bronchitis among heavy marijuana smokers, but no evidence of increased rates of emphysema, while the evidence regarding lung cancer is mixed, the report states.

Marijuana almost certainly exacerbates symptoms of schizophrenia in vulnerable individuals, but epidemiologic evidence argues against it causing psychosis in healthy people. As for worries about increased potency, more research is needed. If users adjust their intake in relation to potency, dangers are minimal. Perhaps most important, "All of these trends [toward increased potency] have been encouraged by prohibition, which favors the production of more concentrated forms."

Overall, the report finds the risks of marijuana use are "modest" compared with those of legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco.

POLICY AND REFORM:

While causing obvious harm to those arrested and convicted, criminalization of marijuana possession has not succeeded in preventing marijuana from being widely available. Contrary to wild claims being made in Massachusetts right now, decriminalization measures have not increased use rates. "If a nation chooses to use the criminal law for controlling cannabis use, there is no justification for incarcerating an individual for a cannabis possession or use offense, nor for creating a criminal conviction," the report concludes.

While not firmly advocating one policy alternative, the report lays out many advantages to a system of legal regulation like that used for alcohol. As report co-author Prof. Robin Room noted succinctly, "If something is not legal, you can't regulate it very effectively."


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