The Fake Weed Fight

The Fake Weed Fight | The American Prospect

TAP talks to a former police chief who thinks drugs should be legal about new efforts to ban a pot substitute.

Rebecca Delaney | March 5, 2010

With more states debating whether marijuana should be legalized for medical use, and with many on the West Coast considering broader legalization measures, drug-policy reformers finally seem to be winning some arguments. Just not in Kansas and Missouri, where lawmakers are in a frenzy to outlaw a new pot-imposter drug dubbed "K2." If Gov. Mark Parkinson of Kansas signs off on the law, his state will be the first to prohibit the drug.
New drug bans run counter to the message of Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a coalition of current and former criminal-justice professionals. The group's main goals are to educate the public about the failures of drug prohibition and to repair the damage that the drug war has done to people's perceptions of police. They believe all drugs should be legalized and regulated. The Prospect asked LEAP member and former Seattle police chief Norm Stamper a few questions about liberalizing drug policy, K2, and what fake pot suggests about a misguided war on drugs.
When people think about police chiefs, liberalization of drug policy is probably not the first thing that jumps to mind. So why are you against drug prohibition, and what prompted you to join LEAP?
My first epiphany was back when I was a rookie beat cop back in San Diego. I had arrested a 19-year-old, a young man who was in possession of marijuana, not a saleable amount, in his own home. But given the circumstances, I kicked in his door, I chased him to his toilet, I scooped up a handful of soggy seeds and stems and a few leaves. And I took him to jail.
On the way to jail, he's sitting in the backseat, and I'm thinking, "My God, I could be doing real police work." And it kind of hit me like a ton of bricks. I'm going to spend a couple hours, minimum, writing case reports, an arrest report, impounding the pot, and booking him into jail. . .
I could have been arresting a drunk driver. I could have been doing all kinds of things that would have actually contributed to public health and public safety, but instead, I was spending hours on a 19-year-old who was in possession of, you know, half a baggie of marijuana.
What's your take on Kansas and Missouri lawmakers' rush to ban K2, and is there a better approach that they could be taking?
Well there's a far better approach, and that, of course, is to legalize all drugs, tax them, regulate them, and control them. But let's assume for a moment that they take the lead in the country and they do, in fact, ban it. They will have to create or incorporate into their regulatory system a means by which that drug would be enforced. . .
Now, the question I have is: When are K3 and K7 going to appear somewhere in the country? And I'm not being facetious. There are any number of drugs -- designer drugs -- that could in fact crop up and no doubt will, given the ingenuity of Americans. So we'll be back at the drawing board.
Do you think the fact that marijuana is illegal has anything to do with K2's emergence, and if so, what connection do you see?
Oh, sure it does. If I happen to be a drug user, and my drug of choice is marijuana, and my use of marijuana causes me to become paranoid -- not in a clinical sense, necessarily, but it causes me to be frightened because I'm engaged in unlawful activity -- and along comes another substance that might produce the same effects, the chances that I'm going to try that substance are pretty high.
Is there a significant difference between legalizing marijuana and, say, heroin or methamphetamines?
The illicit-drug industry comes in at $400 billion a year. That kind of money guarantees violence and corruption -- the kind of violence that we see across Mexico and have seen for decades in our own country. That threatens to really get out of control as Mexican drug cartels set up operations in American cities, which they have now done in well over 230 U.S. cities, including Seattle.
So the rationale for ending prohibition on drugs is a stronger one, I would contend, for the harder drugs than it is for the so-called softer drugs.
Other than legalizing drugs, what other policies would you like to see enacted on drug use and drug addiction?
Kids clearly should not be taking any drugs. Their parents need a lot of help in the form of truth. The last thing you want to do is to lie to a 14-year-old, for example, about marijuana because that 14-year-old probably sees through the lie. Because [the lie is] told by somebody in a position of authority -- a police officer, a teacher, a parent -- [teenagers] don't believe the police officer, the teacher, the parent when they talk about crystal meth. So it's really important to be truthful to our kids.
So I'd say, number one, keeping drugs out of the hands of our kids. Number two -- and these are not in order of priority -- is embracing a public-health model and recognizing that those who abuse drugs or have a problem with drugs, including alcohol, need help. They do not need incarceration. I think it is unconscionable, fundamentally cruel, to put a sick person behind bars, but we do it all the time. And I think we need to recognize the effect on state, and local, and certainly national treasuries.
What is the result of this ghastly investment? Drugs more readily available, lower prices, higher potency. It's a failure. It's a breathtaking failure, and there are just too many of us that lack the courage or the will to really study the issue in a way that would help us all see what we have to gain by ending the drug war.

Recycling Reefer Madness: Why It Still Doesn’t Work

Recycling Reefer Madness: Why It Still Doesn’t Work | NEWS JUNKIE POST

By Steve Elliott NEWS JUNKIE POST Mar 6, 2010 at 3:46 am

It happens with an all-too-familiar regularity: Another “scientific” study that attempts to draw some connection, however tenuous, between smoking pot and schizophrenia.

Just this week, the findings of a study allegedly indicating that smoking marijuana can “double the risk” of psychosis received heavy publicity. Of course there were the inevitable “sky is falling” reactions on the part of faux-horrified commentators who already decided, years ago, that they were against pot and are all too happy to trumpet what looks like confirmation of their prejudice.

Problem is, those findings are in conflict with previous reviews and ought to be interpreted with caution – but you won’t be reading that in mainstream news outlets.

Here’s something else you won’t see in the mainstream media. There is absolutely no empirical evidence – none – indicating that rising rates of cannabis use have resulted in parallel increases in rates of mental illness.

It would stand to reason, wouldn’t it? Considering modern rates of usage, if marijuana really produced psychosis, the streets would be choked with non-functional, burned out potheads. It doesn’t. They aren’t.

“I’ve said it for years now,” film director John Holowach, responsible for the documentary High: The True Tale of American Marijuana, told me. “If pot and mental illness were linked, the two should rise and fall with one another, but they don’t.”

It’s not merely anecdotal evidence that says so. Widespread marijuana use by the public has not been followed by a a proportional rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia or psychosis, according to the findings of an important study published last year in the scientific journal Schizophrenia Research.

Researchers noted that the “incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia and psychoses were either stable or declining” during the period studied, 1996 to 2005.

“This study does not therefore support the … link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders,” the study concludes. “This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence.”

The results of another clinical trial published last year indicate that the recreational use of marijuana does not affect brain chemistry in a way that is consistent with the development of schizophrenia.

Any correlation that might exist between schizophrenia and usage of marijuana can be easily explained by the schizophrenia occuring first – resulting in self-medication by the patient in a poignant attempt to alleviate the symptoms. (Studies have shown many schizophrenics report cannabis relieves their symptoms.)

But even if the claims were true – even if marijuana use somehow, in a tiny percentage of users, was correlated with mental problems – that would serve as an argument against cannabis prohibition, not for it, as pointed out by Paul Armentano at NORML.

We as a society don’t institute alcohol prohibition because of its proven connections with mental illness, domestic violence, automobile accidents, and liver disease. And the reason we have alcohol legal and regulated isn’t because it’s harmless.

The regulations surrounding alcohol are there because we recognize, in some situations, that drinking may pose a risk.

Even if marijuana is, at some point, proven beyond a doubt to cause harm, mental or otherwise – and, mind you, that certainly hasn’t happened yet – the rational reaction to those findings would be to regulate pot similarly to alcohol.

Steve Elliott edits Toke of the Town, a Village Voice Media site devoted to cannabis news, views, rumor and humor. Steve invites you to follow him on Twitter and Digg.

Is The Law Schizophrenic ?

Despite Obama admin’s promise, DEA continues raids on medical marijuana growers | Raw Story

You can but you can't - You can be licensed but still be illegal - It can be prescribed to you by your physician but it's not medicine - Right is wrong - Up is Down - 

Do we live in an Alice In Wonderland country?  You Decide.

Patty

On Thursday, a Denver news station interviewed Chris Bartkowicz about his medical-marijuana operation in the basement of his home. Bartkowicz, confident of his compliance with state laws, boasted of its size and profitability.

"I'm definitely living the dream now," he told 9News.

The following day, the dream was over.

Drug-enforcement agents raided his home, placed him under arrest, and carried off dozens of black bags of marijuana plants and growing lights.

The Obama administration promised in October that the federal government would respect state laws allowing the growing and selling of marijuana for medicinal use, but the Drug Enforcement Agency sent a loud message with the arrest of Bartkowicz.

"It's still a violation of federal law," said Jeffrey Sweetin,  the DEA special agent in charge of the Denver office. "It's not medicine. We're still going to continue to investigate and arrest people."
The United States Attorney's office will decide Tuesday if charges will be filed against Bartkowicz.
In an interview from his jail cell, Bartkowicz said he believes the DEA is making an example of him. He would never have exposed himself if he believed his business was illegal.

"If I knew what I was doing was illegal, I would have never made a public display of myself," he said. "I would not have put myself in the line of fire if I was knowingly violating the law."

Sweetin wasn't surprised by Bartkowicz' confidence.

"According to him and according to what he's seen on the news, he probably believes he is legal," Sweetin said.
And according to Sweetin, it isn't just growers who face arrest. The dispensaries are next on the list.
"The time is coming when we go into a dispensary, we find out what their profit is, we seize the building and we arrest everybody. They're violating federal law; they're at risk of arrest and imprisonment," he said to The Denver Post. "Technically, every dispensary in the state is in blatant violation of federal law."
Deputy U.S. Attorney General David Ogden told federal agents in an October memo to not target people in "clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."
Sweetin said the memo does nothing to change federal law, which makes marijuana illegal.
The difference between the Obama administration's stated mission to end the "war on drugs" and the actual enforcement of that policy by DEA agents may not come as a surprise to those who have seen the Office of National Drug Control Policy's (ONDCP) budget for fiscal year 2011.
"We're not at war with people in this country," Obama's drug czar Gil Kerlikowske told The Wall Street Journal in May.
But according to 2011 funding "highlights" released by the ONDCP (PDF link), the Obama administration is growing the drug war and tilting its funds heavily toward law enforcement over treatment.
During the interview in his jail cell, Bartkowicz said he realized his arrest is the center of a national debate and defended his right to publicly declare his business.
"I'm the poster boy now," he said. "If I am legal, why should I be in the shadows?

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