Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–July 23, 2010. The authorized use of medical marijuana by veterans should not be penalized by federal administrators or defined as ‘illegal drug use,’ according to a July letter issued by the US Department of Veteran Affairs, Under Secretary of Health.
The letter, from Under Secretary Robert Petzel, M.D. to Michael Krawitz, administrator for the group Veterans for Medical Marijuana Access, states that a patient’s use of medical cannabis is not sufficient cause to deny him or her access to prescribed pain medications in a Veterans Affairs facility.
It states: “If a Veteran obtains and uses medical marijuana in a manner consistent with state law, testing positive for marijuana would not preclude the Veteran from receiving opioids for pain management in a Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) facility. … Standard pain management agreements should draw a clear distinction between the use of illegal drugs, and legal medical marijuana.”
It continues: “The Veteran would need to inform his provider of the use of medical marijuana, and of any other non-VA prescribed medications he or she is taking to ensure that all medications, including opioids, are prescribed in a safe manner. … The provider will take the use of medical marijuana into account in all prescribing decisions, just as the provider would for any other medication. This is a case-by-case decision, based upon the provider’s judgment, and the needs of the patient.”
Krawitz had contacted the agency after hearing several complaints from veterans who had been denied treatment at VA facilities because of their state-authorized use of medical cannabis.
http://www.enewspf.com/index.php/latest-news/health-and-fitness/17743-veteran-administration-clarifies-medical-marijuana-practices-
Month: July 2010
Mother: Marijuana Helps Son Cope with Severe OCD
Mother: Marijuana Helps Son Cope with Severe OCD
(ABC News) Last year, 12-year-old Ryan Mendoza’s obsessive compulsive disorder became so bad, his mother said, that his triggers — the wind and spotting the number “6″ — would drive him to have crippling and violent meltdowns.
When Ryan Mendoza first was diagnosed with pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorder associated with streptococcal infections, or PANDAS, a rare auto-immune disorder that causes severe OCD, Judy Mendoza never imagined she would rely on medicinal marijuana for her son’s well-being.
Shortly after Ryan’s first dose of medical marijuana, the boy already was showing improvement, his mother wrote on her Web site, M-Squared, which stands for Mama to Mama. He had been refusing to go to the beach for more than a year, terrified a tsunami would hit, Mendoza wrote. But the day after he took the medicinal marijuana for the first time, the family went to the beach and, like any ordinary 12-year-old, Ryan allowed his family to bury him up to his face in sand, his mother wrote.
This story will be featured on tonight’s ABC news program, “20/20” Friday at 10 p.m. ET.
Mieko Hester-Perez is featured on the report. She is the mother we interviewed regarding her use of medical marijuana to treat her son’s severe autism. Dr. Lester Grinspoon also contributes; he’s the acknowledged pioneer of medical marijuana from Harvard who found success treating his son’s leukemia chemotherapy symptoms with cannabis, also a frequent guest on our show.
I have to chuckle when I read stories like these describing the use of this “controversial” medicine that hasn’t been subject to the “gold standard” double-blind placebo-controlled studies by the FDA. (You know, those studies that brought us such safe and effective drugs as thalidomide, fen phen, and Vioxx.) Cannabis has been used medicinally for over 5,000 years and never caused a single overdose death, yet it is a controversial scary treatment for kids compared to the Ritalin and other heavy pharmaceuticals with nasty side effects that we regularly push on these kids. Because, you know, the FDA has tested them.
Well, most of them. I mean, drugs get tested on adults regularly, but a large portion of them are never tested on children, even though doctors are regularly prescribing them to children. But don’t take my word for it; ask the FDA:
[M]ost marketed products that are mostly used in adults have not been studied in children—even though they may be used by doctors to treat children.
There has been improvement in this area in regard to prescription drugs. As of 2008, an estimated 50 to 60 percent of prescription drugs used to treat children have been studied in some part of the pediatric population.
Or if you’re a glass-half-empty reader, you might interpret that as “we don’t really know what the hell these drugs will do to children 40 to 50 percent of the time.” But God forbid we give those kids a cannabis cookie!
Cannibinoids Offer Novel Treatment For Pain in Sickle Cell Disease
ScienceDaily (July 23, 2010) — A University of Minnesota Medical School research team led by Kalpna Gupta, Ph.D., has discovered that cannibinoids offer a novel approach to ease the chronic and acute pain caused by sickle cell disease (SCD).
Using a mouse model of SCD, Gupta and University of Minnesota colleagues studied the pain mechanisms by observing animals that exhibited both musculoskeletal pain and temperature sensitivity, symptoms similarly experienced by humans with SCD. The team compared two classifications of drugs in their ability to manage pain sensed by the animals, the traditionally prescribed classification of drugs, opioids, with a new therapeutic approach, cannabinoids, a synthetic compound based on marijuana derivatives. Currently, the only approved treatment for management of severe pain in SCD is opioids.
Using confocal miscroscopy, a precise type of laser scanning that allowed the researchers to observe the nerve pathways of the animals, Gupta and her colleagues were able to study structural changes in the neural pathways that are activated when the animal is sensing pain. When comparing the effects that each classification of drug had on the animal’s level of pain, Gupta discovered that both opioids and cannibinoids equally lessened the amount of pain the animals sensed. However, researchers were able to use much smaller doses of cannibinoids to achieve the same level of pain relief. Moreover, because researchers injected the cannibinoids directly into the body in such low doses, unwanted side effects that result from higher doses of the drug reacting in the brain were minimized.
“This paper provides proof that we can use other classifications of drugs to treat pain in patients with sickle cell disease,” Gupta said. “Cannibinoids offer great promise in the treatment of chronic and acute pain, and they’re effective in much lower amounts than opioids — the only currently approved treatment for this disease.”
Sickle cell disease is a genetic blood disorder that affects the red blood cells in the body making them become sickle-, or crescent-shaped. The crescent shape of the cells makes it difficult for them to pass through the small blood vessels in the body, forming blocks that lessen the flow of blood. The decreased blood flow often causes a variety of other serious health complications, including stroke and damage to vital organs including the lungs, spleen, kidneys, and liver.
The disease causes a constant level of chronic pain in patients, including cold and hot temperature sensitivity, and additional episodes of sharp, severe pain known as crises. Pain in SCD is described to be more intense than labor pain. The pain starts early in a patient’s life, often during infancy, and increases in severity with age. There is no known cure, and the best treatment option for most patients with SCD is pain management. To date, the only approved classification of drugs for pain management and treatment of SCD is opioids (narcotics), the category of drugs that includes morphine. Opioids have long been used to manage the pain of patients with a variety of diseases, and the ill effects of the drugs are well known.
Particularly of concern for SCD patients is that opioids often negatively affect a patient’s blood vessels and kidneys, two plaguing elements of the disease itself. In addition, patients with this disease need to take very high doses of opioids to sense any pain relief. Gupta and her team discovered that this is because the receptors required for the binding and action of morphine to provide pain relief are decreased in animals with SCD.
Gupta collaborated with Donald Simone, Ph.D., Robert Hebbel, M.D., and Marna Ericson, Ph.D., leaders in cannabinoid research on pain, sickle cell disease, and nerve imaging, respectively.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100722121225.htm
Voters Asked to Expand Oregon's Medical Marijuana Law
A worker at the San Francisco Medical Cannabis Clinic prepares packets of marijuana buds for sale in San Francisco.
EUGENE, Ore. – Oregon voters will decide in November if the state should have dispensaries to sell medical marijuana.
Supporters of the idea gathered enough signatures to put the issue on the November ballot.
Alice Ivany, who lives near Newport, was one of the chief petitioners for the initiative. She said marijuana has totally improved the quality of her life. “It works for pain like no other medication out there,” she said.
It will be up to voters to decide if Oregon’s medical marijuana act should be expanded. Ivany said the original law in Oregon didn’t go far enough.
“As wonderful as the original act is, it still was fatally flawed in that it did not allow safe, legal access for patients to obtain medical cannabis,” she said.
She believes a regulated medical marijuana supply, sold in dispensaries, will be much safer for Oregonians. “Not only are you exposed to dangerous people but you don’t know exactly what you’re getting,” she said. “The medicine could be tainted with other drugs.”
Oregonians right now are required to grow their own marijuana or have to find someone to do it for them. They are also limited to 6 mature plants and 24 ounces of marijuana. If voters approve the ballot measure in November, patients could buy their pot at a dispensary or continue to grow their own – as long as they have a license.
The new law would allow dispensaries to have 24 plants and 96 ounces of marijuana, and the state would regulate sales. The dispensaries could not be located within 1,000 feet of a school or in a residential area.
If voters say no, the state’s medical marijuana law will stay as it is. This is not the first time the issue has been up for a vote in Oregon. Voters rejected a measure to set up dispensaries back in 2004.
http://www.kval.com/news/local/99072744.html
Marijuana Plants Growing Randomly Throughout City
Marijuana plants growing randomly throughout city
By JUAN DEJESUS
These are high times in the city.
Pictures have surfaced on the Internet of what looks like marijuana growing near the intersection of E. 1 St. and 2nd Ave. — the latest photographic evidence to suggest that errant pot plants are taking over the city.
Last month, a writer scribed a personal account in the The New York Times about a cannibas plant she saw in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.
Days later, someone snapped a photo of what appeared to be a pot plant that sprouted in Union Square Park.
Witnesses emailed Gothamist at the time to say there was one large sapling along with a few smaller sprouts of the smelly, fan-like plant. To confirm, the blog sent the photos to Senior Cultivation Editor at High Times magazine, Danny Danko, for his expert analysis.
He said “it absolutely is [weed].”
All these plants appear to be growing sporadically and not cultivated. Danko says the plants growing in the public space can either be a protest from the marijuana community, or may have been grown from seeds that were discarded. But he doubts someone expected to harvest an actual marijuana crop.
Currently marijuana possession is a violation and not a crime in New York State. However if the marijuana is “open to public view,a person can charged with a misdemeanor.
Police have made some 400,000 misdemeanor marijuana possession arrests over the past decade, according to a 2008 study released by the New York Civil Liberties Union,.
The NYCLU study estimated that marijuana arrests in New York City cost taxpayers between $50 million and $90 million annually.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local-beat/Marijuana-Plant-Growing-City-99100679.html
Eight Great Things About Cancer
Nicole Bodner
It’s hard to describe what it feels like when you’re told you have cancer and probably won’t make it. I’ve heard some people with cancer say they were flooded with feelings of disbelief and fear. But for me it felt more like I’d been ejected from an airplane, one that was carrying everyone I knew, including my nine-day-old baby. At the time, being diagnosed with bone cancer of the maxilla (think Terry Fox with cancer of the face instead of leg) seemed like the worst thing that could ever have happened to me or my family. It meant I’d need extensive surgery on my face and chemotherapy (if I survived surgery, that is). It meant I’d have to spend lots of time in the hospital instead of in the yard with my baby and other children (I have four altogether, including two step-daughters). I’d lose my ability to breastfeed. I’d lose my hair. And I’d have to walk around with a question mark over my head for the rest of my life. Is today “my time?” Tomorrow? Next month? Next year?
But today, 17 months after surgery and 11 months since my last of six rounds of butt-kicking chemo, I look back and see that getting cancer has definitely had its perks. Here’s how:
1. You find out who your partner really is. I’d always known my husband, Derek, was a lifesaver of sorts — he’d rescued me from single parenthood three years earlier — but I had no idea he was capable of banging down doors and lighting up telephone lines to get me into surgery as soon as possible. Or that he’d be by my side through every doctor’s appointment, medical procedure, chemo treatment and follow-up session. At home, he took care of our children, gave me dozens of injections of Neupogen, flushed my PICC line (the chemo tube that was inserted into my upper arm and over to the entrance of my heart) and dressed all the surgical wounds that had left me looking like a human patch quilt. (The surgeons had sliced open my face and taken a buzz saw to my left maxilla and sinus cavity, two lymphnodes, half of my palate and much of my jaw, including seven teeth. Then they used a large patch of skin from my wrist to cover the hole in my mouth, and shredded skin from my leg to patch the gaping hole left in my wrist.)
2. You get to learn a lot about marijuana without anyone hassling you about it. When you’re not into marijuana, it takes some mind-bending to think of the substance as a medicine. I tried it as a last resort, after my first chemo treatment. I’d spent three grueling days in the hospital trying everything possible to stop myself from throwing up — hospital medications, oxygen treatment, peppermint aromatherapy, meditation, praying, chants from Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Yourself. But nothing seemed to work, at least not for very long. Somehow I managed to hold myself together long enough to get released from the chemo ward of the Royal Jubilee. “I’m fine,” I lied. “Really I am. I’ve been holding down food and water and everything.” (It was Easter weekend and I desperately wanted to be home with my kids.) But the moment I crawled into my husband’s Jeep I begged him to let me quit chemo. I just couldn’t take it, even though I knew that my chances of having a repeat experience with bone cancer would significantly increase — from about 30% to 80% — if I didn’t go forward with my five remaining treatments. He begged me to at least try pot. I was desperate so I did. And I couldn’t believe what happened. Two puffs and instantly I was able to relax, drink water and nibble on a cracker. (Three puffs and I could look at my baby in the backseat without gushing with grief at what might become of her if I gave up.) I immediately joined the Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada and began using a range of cannabis products, as needed. I bought mushy hemp lozenges for mouth sores. I smoked a pipeful of hash the moment I woke up in the mornings to stop myself from throwing up, and many more during the course of a day (that is, if I could do the “chemo shuffle” fast enough to make it to the garage in time). And I smoked several strains of marijuana to lift my spirits, make me laugh, and keep me positive about my asymmetrical reflection and hunched-over hairless body that was looking more and more every day like Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons.
3. You don’t care about money. My pre-cancer self was really hung up about money. I was never late paying bills, had a history of paying down loans in a timely manner, and had started building a small RRSP. I didn’t overspend and would rather have my eyes scratched out than be in debt. But all that changed after my diagnosis. Derek quit his job to take care of me and our children, so our only income was my modest maternity leave money. We ended up having to spend everything we had, plus a lot more, to get what we needed to get through the dozens of trips to the hospital and Cancer Agency — hotel rooms and travel stuff, baby gear so our newborn could stay with us in the hospital, medications and supplies not covered by my health care plan, gifts for the doctors and nurses who saved my life. And then there were all of our basic living expenses like rent and food and school supplies and hot dog days. A year later we were $30,000 in the hole, a figure that in the past would’ve had me teetering toward suicide. Having money problems just doesn’t seem as scary when you’re faced with something really scary.
4. You become more compassionate. The first thing I did when I got my diagnosis was turn to Derek and apologize for all the things I’d nagged him about over the years — the messy state of our garage, his failing to file his taxes on time, the way he drives sometimes. None of it seemed important anymore. Nor did any of the ill feelings I’d ever felt about anyone or anything. Even Derek’s ex-wife’s continual clawing at us for increases in child support payments didn’t gnaw at me the way it used to. It just made me feel sorry for her for her unwillingness or incapacity to grasp what was happening to us. I only wished I could win the lottery and give it to her. In my darkest hours, when I felt like one of the drowning POWs in The Deer Hunter, I dreamed about apologizing to every person I’d ever wronged — a high school friend I’d shut out, a university boyfriend I’d cheated on, a former colleague I hadn’t been fair to. (Thanks to Facebook, I’m well on my way to reaching this goal.)
5. You change your tune about time. When I was first told I’d be doing six chemo treatments three weeks apart, I took it seriously and marked up my three-month calendar with appointments. I figured I’d be done before my 40th birthday in July and would be back to work by the first of September. (That’s how I’d run most of my life before I had cancer —make plans, fill in my calendar, and meet my deadlines no matter what.) But soon I learned that you can’t tell your body what to do when Cisplatin and Doxorubicin are coursing through your veins. Three weeks between treatments turned into three-and-a-half weeks, then four weeks. My white blood count wasn’t bouncing back very gracefully, so my treatments were repeatedly delayed. And when at last I was well enough to continue with chemo, some other snag would often mess with the time in a new way — my PICC line wouldn’t work properly, so I’d have to first go for tests to find out why, the pharmacy would be too busy to mix my chemo concoction on schedule, and, once, my red blood cell count was so low I needed a blood transfusion in order to proceed with chemo. I had to wait six full weeks between my last two treatments and I wasn’t happy about it. But then I realized that I wasn’t the general manager of the universe and couldn’t control anything, let alone time. (These days, if I do put something on a calendar, it’s only because I’m still too chemo-fried to remember stuff. And I write in pencil.)
6. You feel lucky. When you’re tangled in tubes and bandages and struggling to do normal new-mom stuff, you can’t imagine anyone having it worse than you do. But then you look across the hall and remember that the guy over there just learned he has 10 tumours in his trachea and a case of HIV. Or you have a flashback about the woman you shared a room with who had a lump in her gut, didn’t know where she was, and couldn’t move a muscle for more than a month. Or you recall that mom with young kids who said she had to do not six but 17 chemo treatments, and then radiation, and even then “they’re not really sure what’s going to happen.” You remember and you feel lucky because, no matter what, there’s always someone worse off than you are.
7. You lose weight. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just did. They say marijuana gives you the munchies, but in my case it only stopped me from throwing up and giving up. Between having a quarter of my mouth removed and having no appetite, I could hardly eat. And what I did eat was mostly fruit and vegetables cut into tiny pieces. I lost 40 pounds and eight dress sizes. (And I’ve kept it off!)
8. Your life becomes raw, real and more enjoyable. When you almost die — and still have a question mark above your head — something inexplicable happens to your daily life. Every single thing you see, hear, taste, smell, feel or think seems somehow magical. You don’t want to waste your words or time on negativity. You focus on big, beautiful things — truth, peace, justice and love. Especially love.
Make no mistake, cancer totally sucks. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say there are a few things about being touched by the disease that have markedly made my life better.
Nicole Bodner is an author, freelance writer and publications officer for an addictions research organization. She lives in Powell River, B.C., with her husband and children.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Eight+great+things+about+cancer/3315065/story.html
But today, 17 months after surgery and 11 months since my last of six rounds of butt-kicking chemo, I look back and see that getting cancer has definitely had its perks. Here’s how:
1. You find out who your partner really is. I’d always known my husband, Derek, was a lifesaver of sorts — he’d rescued me from single parenthood three years earlier — but I had no idea he was capable of banging down doors and lighting up telephone lines to get me into surgery as soon as possible. Or that he’d be by my side through every doctor’s appointment, medical procedure, chemo treatment and follow-up session. At home, he took care of our children, gave me dozens of injections of Neupogen, flushed my PICC line (the chemo tube that was inserted into my upper arm and over to the entrance of my heart) and dressed all the surgical wounds that had left me looking like a human patch quilt. (The surgeons had sliced open my face and taken a buzz saw to my left maxilla and sinus cavity, two lymphnodes, half of my palate and much of my jaw, including seven teeth. Then they used a large patch of skin from my wrist to cover the hole in my mouth, and shredded skin from my leg to patch the gaping hole left in my wrist.)
2. You get to learn a lot about marijuana without anyone hassling you about it. When you’re not into marijuana, it takes some mind-bending to think of the substance as a medicine. I tried it as a last resort, after my first chemo treatment. I’d spent three grueling days in the hospital trying everything possible to stop myself from throwing up — hospital medications, oxygen treatment, peppermint aromatherapy, meditation, praying, chants from Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Yourself. But nothing seemed to work, at least not for very long. Somehow I managed to hold myself together long enough to get released from the chemo ward of the Royal Jubilee. “I’m fine,” I lied. “Really I am. I’ve been holding down food and water and everything.” (It was Easter weekend and I desperately wanted to be home with my kids.) But the moment I crawled into my husband’s Jeep I begged him to let me quit chemo. I just couldn’t take it, even though I knew that my chances of having a repeat experience with bone cancer would significantly increase — from about 30% to 80% — if I didn’t go forward with my five remaining treatments. He begged me to at least try pot. I was desperate so I did. And I couldn’t believe what happened. Two puffs and instantly I was able to relax, drink water and nibble on a cracker. (Three puffs and I could look at my baby in the backseat without gushing with grief at what might become of her if I gave up.) I immediately joined the Cannabis Buyers Club of Canada and began using a range of cannabis products, as needed. I bought mushy hemp lozenges for mouth sores. I smoked a pipeful of hash the moment I woke up in the mornings to stop myself from throwing up, and many more during the course of a day (that is, if I could do the “chemo shuffle” fast enough to make it to the garage in time). And I smoked several strains of marijuana to lift my spirits, make me laugh, and keep me positive about my asymmetrical reflection and hunched-over hairless body that was looking more and more every day like Montgomery Burns from The Simpsons.
3. You don’t care about money. My pre-cancer self was really hung up about money. I was never late paying bills, had a history of paying down loans in a timely manner, and had started building a small RRSP. I didn’t overspend and would rather have my eyes scratched out than be in debt. But all that changed after my diagnosis. Derek quit his job to take care of me and our children, so our only income was my modest maternity leave money. We ended up having to spend everything we had, plus a lot more, to get what we needed to get through the dozens of trips to the hospital and Cancer Agency — hotel rooms and travel stuff, baby gear so our newborn could stay with us in the hospital, medications and supplies not covered by my health care plan, gifts for the doctors and nurses who saved my life. And then there were all of our basic living expenses like rent and food and school supplies and hot dog days. A year later we were $30,000 in the hole, a figure that in the past would’ve had me teetering toward suicide. Having money problems just doesn’t seem as scary when you’re faced with something really scary.
4. You become more compassionate. The first thing I did when I got my diagnosis was turn to Derek and apologize for all the things I’d nagged him about over the years — the messy state of our garage, his failing to file his taxes on time, the way he drives sometimes. None of it seemed important anymore. Nor did any of the ill feelings I’d ever felt about anyone or anything. Even Derek’s ex-wife’s continual clawing at us for increases in child support payments didn’t gnaw at me the way it used to. It just made me feel sorry for her for her unwillingness or incapacity to grasp what was happening to us. I only wished I could win the lottery and give it to her. In my darkest hours, when I felt like one of the drowning POWs in The Deer Hunter, I dreamed about apologizing to every person I’d ever wronged — a high school friend I’d shut out, a university boyfriend I’d cheated on, a former colleague I hadn’t been fair to. (Thanks to Facebook, I’m well on my way to reaching this goal.)
5. You change your tune about time. When I was first told I’d be doing six chemo treatments three weeks apart, I took it seriously and marked up my three-month calendar with appointments. I figured I’d be done before my 40th birthday in July and would be back to work by the first of September. (That’s how I’d run most of my life before I had cancer —make plans, fill in my calendar, and meet my deadlines no matter what.) But soon I learned that you can’t tell your body what to do when Cisplatin and Doxorubicin are coursing through your veins. Three weeks between treatments turned into three-and-a-half weeks, then four weeks. My white blood count wasn’t bouncing back very gracefully, so my treatments were repeatedly delayed. And when at last I was well enough to continue with chemo, some other snag would often mess with the time in a new way — my PICC line wouldn’t work properly, so I’d have to first go for tests to find out why, the pharmacy would be too busy to mix my chemo concoction on schedule, and, once, my red blood cell count was so low I needed a blood transfusion in order to proceed with chemo. I had to wait six full weeks between my last two treatments and I wasn’t happy about it. But then I realized that I wasn’t the general manager of the universe and couldn’t control anything, let alone time. (These days, if I do put something on a calendar, it’s only because I’m still too chemo-fried to remember stuff. And I write in pencil.)
6. You feel lucky. When you’re tangled in tubes and bandages and struggling to do normal new-mom stuff, you can’t imagine anyone having it worse than you do. But then you look across the hall and remember that the guy over there just learned he has 10 tumours in his trachea and a case of HIV. Or you have a flashback about the woman you shared a room with who had a lump in her gut, didn’t know where she was, and couldn’t move a muscle for more than a month. Or you recall that mom with young kids who said she had to do not six but 17 chemo treatments, and then radiation, and even then “they’re not really sure what’s going to happen.” You remember and you feel lucky because, no matter what, there’s always someone worse off than you are.
7. You lose weight. I didn’t mean for it to happen. It just did. They say marijuana gives you the munchies, but in my case it only stopped me from throwing up and giving up. Between having a quarter of my mouth removed and having no appetite, I could hardly eat. And what I did eat was mostly fruit and vegetables cut into tiny pieces. I lost 40 pounds and eight dress sizes. (And I’ve kept it off!)
8. Your life becomes raw, real and more enjoyable. When you almost die — and still have a question mark above your head — something inexplicable happens to your daily life. Every single thing you see, hear, taste, smell, feel or think seems somehow magical. You don’t want to waste your words or time on negativity. You focus on big, beautiful things — truth, peace, justice and love. Especially love.
Make no mistake, cancer totally sucks. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say there are a few things about being touched by the disease that have markedly made my life better.
Nicole Bodner is an author, freelance writer and publications officer for an addictions research organization. She lives in Powell River, B.C., with her husband and children.
http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Eight+great+things+about+cancer/3315065/story.html
Your Boss Won't Know You're a Pothead
A portable herb vaporizer that offers ‘smokeless freedom’ is flying off the shelves
PHOTOGRAPH BY ANDREW TOLSON
“It’s a no-brainer,” deadpanned Robin Ellins, owner of Friendly Stranger, a cannabis culture shop in Toronto. Ellins was referring to the runaway success of the Iolite portable herb vaporizer. It’s the hottest new drug paraphernalia to hit the market since . . . since . . . nobody can remember.
Stoners are smitten by this handy little unit that resembles a walkie-talkie. “It’s actually manufactured in Ireland as an aromatherapy device,” clarified Manitoba-based Robert Ritchot, a Canadian distributor of the device. Sure, Robert, whatever your lawyers say.
Iolite’s slogan explains its popularity: “Smokeless freedom.” No cords. No batteries. It runs on butane canisters (around $5 each) and retails for approximately $200 to $300 (less than half the price of the cumbersome plug-in models found in basements across Canada). How does it work? A small amount of your preferred herb is vaporized and accessed through a tube, just like a sippy cup. If this is hard to imagine, watch one of the countless demonstrations on YouTube. Owners explain how it uses less weed and provides a “cleaner” high while vaporizing nearly all of the active ingredients.
“My wife no longer banishes me to the man cave at the back of the house,” said Toronto resident “Doug,” a director of business development in the auto industry. “I can even smoke up in front of my mom because there’s no smoke!” Doug is a parent, just like “Sarah,” an ethics professor spending the summer at her cottage in Muskoka. “It’s guilt-free, with the baby,” she said, concerned that her university colleagues would read this article. “Where I teach, pot is taboo and I’d be fired if they knew.”
The kind of people who need the discretion offered by a smoke-free vaporizer are not interested in being quoted in national magazines. “We get everyone from cops to pilots buying the portables,” said Dominic Jean, the distribution manager for retailer High Times, headquartered in Laval, Que. At Shakedown Street head shop in Kitchener, Ont., they sell portable vaporizers to “businessmen hiding it from their wives” and “outdoorsy people.” Across the country, professors and students are cited as frequent buyers, as are “closet stoners” and patients with chronic pain.
At the Toronto Hemp Co., staff took the portable vaporizer outside to see how people reacted. “It was a dream come true. We went to the movie, to the mall and the subway,” said assistant manager Corey Williams. “Nobody knew.”
It’s all news to commandant Marc St-Cyr, chief of the Montreal police force’s district 20. “It’s the first I’ve heard of it. We haven’t seized one of these devices yet,” he said. “But I’m not overly worried. If people are passing around a walkie-talkie, sipping on it, in a small group of friends, we’ll notice.”
Now you’ll notice. Sorry, everyone. Kevin, a sales executive in Toronto, owns two vaporizers—an old table model with a cord and a new portable he calls his hand-held. “I use it in the car, mostly, and around our pregnant friend,” said Kevin, who bought a knock-off unit for $75 on Yonge Street six months ago.
Along with knock-offs come more serious competitors. Now, Iolite must share the spotlight with a new, battery-operated vaporizer from Air-2 called NO2, which debuts this weekend at the first Medical Marijuana and Hemp Expo (July 16-18) at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre. Attendees with a federal exemption card can test the NO2 and the Iolite at the vapour lounge. (Seriously, you need the card.)
Not everyone wants one of these high-tech travellers. Purists like Montrealer Martin Labbé says the portable units don’t let him properly “taste” his medical marijuana. Meanwhile, recording artist Errol Blackwood says the portables rob him of the religious ritual. “As a Rasta, it’s part of the sacrament to roll a big joint and rub the smoke on your face,” says Blackwood, who will perform his song Holy Smokes at the expo. Marco Renda prefers his plug-in model. “The Volcano is still the Ferrari of vaporizers,” said Renda, the publisher of Treating Yourself marijuana magazine and co-founder of the expo. “I don’t like butane. It’s a gas. I’m old school.”
http://www2.macleans.ca/2010/07/22/your-boss-wont-know-youre-a-pothead/
5 Oklahoma Police Officers Indicted in Federal Corruption Probe
LITTLE ROCK—Jane W Duke, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Arkansas; James E Finch, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Oklahoma City Division; and Wayne D Beaman, Special Agent in Charge, Department of Justice – Office of Inspector General, Dallas Field Office, announced today the indictment and arrest of one retired and four current Tulsa Police Department officers. Those arrested include Jeff M Henderson, age 37, of Collinsville, Oklahoma; William A Yelton, age 49, of Bixby, Oklahoma; Harold R Wells, age 59, of Owasso, Oklahoma; Nick DeBruin, age 37, of Tulsa, Oklahoma; and Earnest Bruce Bonham, age 52, of Claremore, Oklahoma. The arrests stem from two separate indictments in which the defendants are charged with a variety of drug trafficking, civil rights, and related offenses. A 61-count indictment charges Henderson and Yelton with offenses dating back to May 2004.
According to the indictment, which remained sealed until the defendants’ initial appearances today, Henderson and Yelton conspired with one another from May 2004 until the present to deprive Bobby Wayne Haley, Sr of his civil rights. The indictment alleges that in May 2004, Henderson and Yelton persuaded Rochelle Martin to testify falsely in a federal court proceeding involving Haley. The indictment further states that on April 6, 2007, Henderson contacted Martin and told her that he needed her to testify for him the following morning and Martin agreed. The next day, Henderson and Yelton picked up Martin and transported her to the United States Courthouse to provide testimony to United States Magistrate Judge Paul J Cleary.
While en route to the courthouse, Henderson and Yelton coached Martin as to the testimony she should give. The two officers instructed Martin to falsely testify that she had given Henderson information in May 2004 concerning drug trafficking activity by Haley at his home and business. Henderson then used this purported information to obtain a state search warrant for Haley’s property. That search warrant resulted in the discovery of drugs and Haley’s subsequent indictment and conviction.
Martin has since admitted that she lied during the Haley hearing and that she did so at the request and instruction of Henderson and Yelton. Ultimately, Haley was convicted and sentenced to 264 months imprisonment. In May 2010, an affidavit of Martin was publicly filed in which she admitted to providing the false testimony against Haley. As a result, Haley was released from prison.
In all, Haley served over four years in prison on this now-vacated sentence. Both Henderson and Yelton are also charged with conspiring to suborn the perjury of Martin. Henderson is separately charged with 12 individual drug offenses, one of which is a conspiracy to distribute and to possess with intent to distribute marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamine. The conspiracy alleges that Henderson and Brandon Jay McFadden, a former special agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, conspired with one another and with other persons known and unknown to the Grand Jury to distribute less than 50 kilograms of marijuana, less than 500 grams of cocaine, and in excess of 500 grams of methamphetamine from January 1, 2007 through October 2008.
Additional drug charges against Henderson include distribution and possession with intent to distribute various controlled substances during the time period of the conspiracy. Because Henderson took many of these actions while carrying his service firearm, he is charged with possessing a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking offense. Henderson is also charged with violating the civil rights of individuals in 14 separate instances. These counts allege the deprivation of the individual victims’ rights to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures and to receive due process of law before being deprived of property or liberty.
Similarly, Yelton is separately charged with violating the civil rights of individuals in three instances. Henderson is charged in five separate civil rights conspiracies. Three of those conspiracies involved the theft of money from criminal suspects. One civil rights conspiracy alleges that Henderson and other officers broke into the home of Jose Angel Gonzalez and hid a sawed-off shotgun inside an air vent; later came back with a warrant for the residence and found the gun.
Gonzalez was subsequently charged with being a felon in possession of that sawed-off shotgun. The final civil rights conspiracy against Henderson involves a fabricated controlled drug buy by Ryan Logsdon from Larry and Larita Barnes. The fabricated drug buy was the basis of a federal prosecution against the Barnes that went to trial in April 2008. During that trial, Henderson, McFadden, and Logsdon all testified falsely under oath that Logsdon conducted a controlled buy of methamphetamine from the Barneses on May 8, 2007.
Both Logsdon and McFadden have since confirmed that they lied under oath and that the controlled drug buy never happened. The Barneses were convicted and sentenced to terms of imprisonment. Their release from prison was effectuated last summer through filings made by Duke’s office. As a result of his false testimony in the Barnes case, Henderson is now charged with 10 separate counts of perjury and with conspiring with McFadden and Logsdon to commit perjury.
Henderson is also charged with 10 additional counts of perjury related to his false testimony in a federal prosecution of Ronald Crawford. In a suppression hearing conducted in that case, Henderson testified extensively as to surveillance of Ronald Crawford that Henderson allegedly conducted on January 5- 6, 2009 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. This testimony was false in that Ronald Crawford was not in Tulsa, Oklahoma on those dates. Two charges in the indictment allege that Henderson and Yelton conspired to commit witness intimidation.
These counts relate to attempts by Henderson and Yelton to prevent Brandon McFadden and Rochelle Martin from providing authorities and/or the grand jury with information about Henderson’s illegal activities. In the matter concerning McFadden, it is alleged that Henderson and Yelton took McFadden to a secluded location and that Yelton brandished a gun and while racking it made comments to the effect that McFadden needed to go back to Lubbock, Texas and keep his mouth shut. Concerning the conspiracy to intimidate Rochelle Martin, it is alleged that Henderson and Yelton conspired to prevent Martin from providing truthful information to the grand jury investigating Henderson. The final count alleges that Henderson, aided and abetted by others, attempted to bribe Brandon McFadden with free legal representation with the intent to prevent McFadden’s cooperation in the corruption investigation.
While committing these acts, Henderson knew he was a target of the investigation and he knew that McFadden had already been indicted. In a second indictment, former TPD officer Harold Wells and current TPD officers Nick DeBruin and Earnest Bruce Bonham are charged with a drug conspiracy and a civil rights conspiracy stemming from allegations that these officers and others planted drug evidence on suspects they arrested. Each is also charged with possessing a firearm during and in relation to a drug trafficking offense. These three officers are also charged in a conspiracy to steal government funds and theft of government funds.
DeBruin is separately charged with depriving Cody Weavel of his civil rights by depriving Weavel of property without due process of law. Wells is charged in a civil rights conspiracy involving the theft of money from Hugo Gutierrez during the execution of a search warrant in January 2008. The indictment lists co-conspirators in the Gutierrez matter as James K Gray, a former TPD officer; Callison Kaiser, a former TPD officer and United States Secret Service agent; and Eric Hill, a current TPD officer. Wells is also charged in a substantive civil rights deprivation count involving Gutierrez; with distribution of methamphetamine; use of a telephone in connection with a drug trafficking offense; and in a separate drug conspiracy alleging that Wells conspired with Gray to distribute methamphetamine.
“When any law enforcement officer betrays the oath to protect; serve; and uphold the law, he tarnishes the badge of all law enforcement, violates the trust of the people and therefore should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the very laws he has broken,” said Finch. This case was investigated by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice – Office of Inspector General. The United States Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Arkansas was appointed by the Department of Justice to handle this matter upon the recusal of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Oklahoma. The case is being prosecuted by United States Attorney Jane Duke, Assistant United States Attorney Patrick Harris, and Assistant United States Attorney Patricia Harris.
An indictment is only an allegation of wrongdoing based on probable cause. A defendant is presumed innocent until such time as he or she is adjudged guilty either by plea or jury verdict. Count 1 Drug conspiracy not less than 5; not more than 40 years’ imprisonment Count 2 Possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute 5-40 years Count 3 Distribution of methamphetamine 5-40 years Count 4 Possession of marijuana with intent to distribute Not more than 20 years Count 5 Distribution of marijuana Not more than 20 years Count 6 Distribution of cocaine Not more than 20 years Count 7 PWID cocaine Not more than 20 years Count 8 Distribution of cocaine Not more than 20 years Count 9 PWID marijuana Not more than 20 years Count 10 Distribution of marijuana Not more than 20 years Count 11 PWID methamphetamine 5-40 years Count 12 Distribution of methamphetamine 5-40 years Count 13 Possession of firearm in furtherance of drug offense 5 years consecutive Count 14 Conspiracy to suborn perjury Not more than 5 years Count 15 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Count 16 Civil rights deprivation by threatened use of a dangerous weapon Not more than 10 years Count 17 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Count 18 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Count 19 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Count 20 Conspiracy to commit perjury Not more than 5 years Counts 21-30 Perjury Not more than 5 years Count 31 Civil rights deprivation Not more than 1 year Count 32 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Counts 33-36 Civil rights deprivation Not more than 1 year Count 37 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Counts 38-45 Civil rights deprivation Not more than 1 year Counts 46-55 Perjury Not more than 5 years Counts 56-58 Civil rights deprivation Not more than 1 year Counts 59-60 Conspiracy to commit witness tampering Not more than 10 years Count 61 Attempted witness bribery Not more than 5 years The statutory penalties for the Wells, DeBruin, and Bonham indictment are as follows: Count 1 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Count 2 Civil rights deprivation Not more than 1 year Count 3 Distribution of methamphetamine 5-40 Count 4 Drug conspiracy Not more than 20 years Count 5 Possession of firearm in furtherance of drug crime 5 years consecutive Count 6 Civil rights conspiracy Not more than 10 years Count 7 Drug conspiracy 10-Life Count 8 Conspiracy to steal government funds Not more than 5 years Count 9 Theft of government money Not more than 10 years Count 10 Use of a communication facility in connection with drug crime Not more than 4 years Count 11 Civil rights deprivation Not more than 1 year Count 12 Possession of firearm in furtherance of drug crime 5 years consecutive Count 13 Possession of firearm in furtherance of drug crime 5 years consecutive
http://7thspace.com/headlines/351766/five_oklahoma_police_officers_indicted_in_federal_corruption_probe.html
Too Many Laws, Too Many Prisoners
Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little
Jul 22nd 2010 | Spring, Texas
THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris’s home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris’s possessions onto their pickups. They refused to tell him what he had done wrong. “It wasn’t fun, I can tell you that,” he recalls.
Mr Norris was 65 years old at the time, and a collector of orchids. He eventually discovered that he was suspected of smuggling the flowers into America, an offence under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This came as a shock. He did indeed import flowers and sell them to other orchid-lovers. And it was true that his suppliers in Latin America were sometimes sloppy about their paperwork. In a shipment of many similar-looking plants, it was rare for each permit to match each orchid precisely.
In March 2004, five months after the raid, Mr Norris was indicted, handcuffed and thrown into a cell with a suspected murderer and two suspected drug-dealers. When told why he was there, “they thought it hilarious.” One asked: “What do you do with these things? Smoke ’em?”
Prosecutors described Mr Norris as the “kingpin” of an international smuggling ring. He was dumbfounded: his annual profits were never more than about $20,000. When prosecutors suggested that he should inform on other smugglers in return for a lighter sentence, he refused, insisting he knew nothing beyond hearsay.
He pleaded innocent. But an undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few of which arrived without the correct papers. For this, he was charged with making a false statement to a government official, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Since he had communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with conspiracy, which also carries a potential five-year term.
As his legal bills exploded, Mr Norris reluctantly changed his plea to guilty, though he still protests his innocence. He was sentenced to 17 months in prison. After some time, he was released while his appeal was heard, but then put back inside. His health suffered: he has Parkinson’s disease, which was not helped by the strain of imprisonment. For bringing some prescription sleeping pills into prison, he was put in solitary confinement for 71 days. The prison was so crowded, however, that even in solitary he had two room-mates.
A long love affair with lock and key
Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.
The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.
In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.
Some criminals belong behind bars. When a habitual rapist is locked up, the streets are safer. But the same is not necessarily true of petty drug-dealers, whose incarceration creates a vacancy for someone else to fill, argues Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University. The number of drug offenders in federal and state lock-ups has increased 13-fold since 1980. Some are scary thugs; many are not.
Michelle Collette of Hanover, Massachusetts, sold Percocet, a prescription painkiller. “I was planning to do it just once,” she says, “but the money was so easy. And I thought: it’s not heroin.” Then she became addicted to her own wares. She was unhappy with her boyfriend, she explains, but did not want to split up with him, because she did not want their child to grow up fatherless, as she had. So she popped pills to numb the misery. Before long, she was taking 20-30 a day.
When Ms Collette and her boyfriend, who also sold drugs, were arrested in a dawn raid, the police found 607 pills and $901 in cash. The boyfriend fought the charges and got 15 years in prison. In a plea bargain Ms Collette was sentenced to seven years, of which she served six.
“I don’t think this is fair,” said the judge. “I don’t think this is what our laws are meant to do. It’s going to cost upwards of $50,000 a year to have you in state prison. Had I the authority, I would send you to jail for no more than one year…and a [treatment] programme after that.” But mandatory sentencing laws gave him no choice.
Massachusetts is a liberal state, but its drug laws are anything but. It treats opium-derived painkillers such as Percocet like hard drugs, if illicitly sold. Possession of a tiny amount (14-28 grams, or ½-1 ounce) yields a minimum sentence of three years. For 200 grams, it is 15 years, more than the minimum for armed rape. And the weight of the other substances with which a dealer mixes his drugs is included in the total, so 10 grams of opiates mixed with 190 grams of flour gets you 15 years.
Ms Collette underwent drug treatment before being locked up, and is now clean. But in prison she found she was pregnant. After going through labour shackled to a hospital bed, she was allowed only 48 hours to bond with her newborn son. She was released in March, found a job in a shop, and is hoping that her son will get used to having her around.
Rigid sentencing laws shift power from judges to prosecutors, complains Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a pressure-group. Even the smallest dealer often has enough to trigger a colossal sentence. Prosecutors may charge him with selling a smaller amount if he agrees to “reel some other poor slob in”, as Ms Dougan puts it. He is told to persuade another dealer to sell him just enough drugs to trigger a 15-year sentence, and perhaps to do the deal near a school, which adds another two years.
Severe drug laws have unintended consequences. Less than half of American cancer patients receive adequate painkillers, according to the American Pain Foundation, another pressure-group. One reason is that doctors are terrified of being accused of drug-trafficking if they over-prescribe. In 2004 William Hurwitz, a doctor specialising in the control of pain, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for prescribing pills that a few patients then resold on the black market. Virginia’s board of medicine ruled that he had acted in good faith, but he still served nearly four years.
Half the states have laws that lock up habitual offenders for life. In some states this applies only to violent criminals, but in others it applies even to petty ones. Some 3,700 people who committed neither violent nor serious crimes are serving life sentences under California’s “three strikes and you’re out” law. In Alabama a petty thief called Jerald Sanders was given a life term for pinching a bicycle. Alabama’s judges are elected, as are those in 32 other states. This makes them mindful of public opinion: some appear in campaign advertisements waving guns and bragging about how tough they are.
Watching hairs go white, and lifetimes ebb awayMany Americans assume that white-collar criminals get off lightly, but many do not. Granted, they may be hard to catch and can often afford good lawyers. But federal prosecutors can file many charges for what is essentially one offence. For example, they can count each e-mail sent by a white-collar criminal in the course of his criminal activity as a separate case of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. The decades soon add up. Sentences depend partly on the size of the loss and the number of people affected, so if you work for a big, publicly traded company, you break a rule and the share-price drops, watch out.
Eternal punishment
Jim Felman, a defence lawyer in Tampa, Florida, says America is conducting “an experiment in imprisoning first-time non-violent offenders for periods of time previously reserved only for those who had killed someone”. One of Mr Felman’s clients, a fraudster called Sholam Weiss, was sentenced to 845 years. “I got it reduced to 835,” sighs Mr Felman. Faced with such penalties, he says, the incentive to co-operate, which means to say things that are helpful to the prosecution, is overwhelming. And this, he believes, “warps the truth-seeking function” of justice.
Innocent defendants may plead guilty in return for a shorter sentence to avoid the risk of a much longer one. A prosecutor can credibly threaten a middle-aged man that he will die in a cell unless he gives evidence against his boss. This is unfair, complains Harvey Silverglate, the author of “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent”. If a defence lawyer offers a witness money to testify that his client is innocent, that is bribery. But a prosecutor can legally offer something of far greater value—his freedom—to a witness who says the opposite. The potential for wrongful convictions is obvious.
Badly drafted laws create traps for the unwary. In 2006 Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services”. Her crime was to award a contract (for travel services) to the best bidder. A firm called Adelman Travel scored the most points (on an official scale) for price and quality, so Ms Thompson picked it. She ignored a rule that required her to penalise Adelman for a slapdash presentation when bidding. For this act of common sense, she served four months. (An appeals court freed her.)
The “honest services” statute, if taken seriously, “would seemingly cover a salaried employee’s phoning in sick to go to a ball game,” fumes Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the statute was so vague as to be unconstitutional. It did not strike it down completely, but said it should be applied only in cases involving bribery or kickbacks. The challenge was brought by Enron’s former boss, Jeff Skilling, who will not go free despite his victory, and Conrad Black, a media magnate released this week on bail pending an appeal, who may.
There are over 4,000 federal crimes, and many times that number of regulations that carry criminal penalties. When analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offences on the books, they were forced to give up, exhausted. Rules concerning corporate governance or the environment are often impossible to understand, yet breaking them can land you in prison. In many criminal cases, the common-law requirement that a defendant must have a mens rea (ie, he must or should know that he is doing wrong) has been weakened or erased.
“The founders viewed the criminal sanction as a last resort, reserved for serious offences, clearly defined, so ordinary citizens would know whether they were violating the law. Yet over the last 40 years, an unholy alliance of big-business-hating liberals and tough-on-crime conservatives has made criminalisation the first line of attack—a way to demonstrate seriousness about the social problem of the month, whether it’s corporate scandals or e-mail spam,” writes Gene Healy, a libertarian scholar. “You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl.”
“You’re (probably) a federal criminal,” declares Alex Kozinski, an appeals-court judge, in a provocative essay of that title. Making a false statement to a federal official is an offence. So is lying to someone who then repeats your lie to a federal official. Failing to prevent your employees from breaking regulations you have never heard of can be a crime. A boss got six months in prison because one of his workers accidentally broke a pipe, causing oil to spill into a river. “It didn’t matter that he had no reason to learn about the [Clean Water Act’s] labyrinth of regulations, since he was merely a railroad-construction supervisor,” laments Judge Kozinski.
Society wants retributionSuch cases account for only a tiny share of the Americans behind bars, but they still matter. When so many people are technically breaking the law, it is up to prosecutors to decide whom to pursue. No doubt most prosecutors choose wisely. But members of unpopular groups may not find that reassuring. Ms Thompson, for example, was prosecuted just before an election, at a time when allegations of public corruption in Wisconsin were in the news. Some prosecutors, such as Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York, have built political careers by nailing people whom voters don’t like, such as financiers.
Prison deters? Not much, not the worst
Some people argue that the system works: that crime has fallen in the past two decades because the bad guys are either in prison or scared of being sent there. Caged thugs cannot break into your home. Bernie Madoff’s 150-year sentence for running a Ponzi scam should deter imitators. And indeed the crime rate continues to drop, despite the recession, as Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an advocacy group, points out. This, he says, is because habitual criminals face serious consequences. Some research supports him: after raking through decades of historical data, John Donohue of Yale Law School estimates that a 10% increase in imprisonment brings a 2% reduction in crime.
Others disagree. Using more recent data, Bert Useem of Purdue University and Anne Piehl of Rutgers University estimate that a 10% increase in the number of people behind bars would reduce crime by only 0.5%. In the states that currently lock up the most people, imprisoning more would actually increase crime, they believe. Some inmates emerge from prison as more accomplished criminals. And raising the incarceration rate means locking up people who are, on average, less dangerous than the ones already behind bars. A recent study found that, over the past 13 years, the proportion of new prisoners in Florida who had committed violent crimes fell by 28%, whereas those inside for “other” crimes shot up by 189%. These “other” crimes were non-violent ones involving neither drugs nor theft, such as driving with a suspended licence.
And now the reckoning, in dollars
Crime is a young man’s game. Muggers over 30 are rare. Ex-cons who go straight for a few years generally stay that way: a study of 88,000 criminals by Mr Blumstein found that if someone was arrested for aggravated assault at the age of 18 but then managed to stay out of trouble until the age of 22, the risk of his offending was no greater than that for the general population. Yet America’s prisons are crammed with old folk. Nearly 200,000 prisoners are over 50. Most would pose little threat if released. And since people age faster in prison than outside, their medical costs are vast. Human Rights Watch, a lobby-group, talks of “nursing homes with razor wire”.
Jail is expensive. Spending per prisoner ranges from $18,000 a year in Mississippi to about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that. “[W]e are well past the point of diminishing returns,” says a report by the Pew Center on the States. In Washington state, for example, each dollar invested in new prison places in 1980 averted more than nine dollars of criminal harm (using a somewhat arbitrary scale to assign a value to not being beaten up). By 2001, as the emphasis shifted from violent criminals to drug-dealers and thieves, the cost-benefit ratio reversed. Each new dollar spent on prisons averted only 37 cents’ worth of harm.
Since the recession threw their budgets into turmoil, many states have decided to imprison fewer people, largely to save money. Mississippi has reduced the proportion of their sentences that non-violent offenders are required to serve from 85% to 25%. Texas is making greater use of non-custodial penalties. New York has repealed most mandatory minimum terms for drug offences. In all, the number of prisoners in state lock-ups fell by 0.3% in 2009, the first fall since 1972. But the total number of Americans behind bars still rose slightly, because the number of federal prisoners climbed by 3.4%.
A less punitive system could work better, argues Mark Kleiman of the University of California, Los Angeles. Swift and certain penalties deter more than harsh ones. Money spent on prisons cannot be spent on more cost-effective methods of crime-prevention, such as better policing, drug treatment or probation. The pain that punishment inflicts on criminals themselves, on their families and on their communities should also be taken into account.
“Just by making effective use of things we already know how to do, we could reasonably expect to have half as much crime and half as many people behind bars ten years from now,” says Mr Kleiman. “There are a thousand excuses for failing to make that effort, but not one good reason.”
http://www.economist.com/node/16636027?story_id=16636027&fsrc=rss
Obama Patent Office Approves then Nixes Trademarks for Marijuana
It’s Thursday, so it’s time for another installment of our exciting series “Your Tax Dollars at Work”. In this week’s installment, we bring you the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
According to a report by The Wall Street Journal, some creative souls at the USPTO created a new category of trademarkable item: “Processed plant matter for medicinal purposes, namely medical marijuana”.
Now, as it turns out, selling pot is a federal crime. So creating a new category of trademark specifically for marijuana was, well, ill-advised.
Now, here’s where it gets fun and where we’re wondering exactly which heads will roll. As it turns out, the USPTO created this new category on April 1, 2010. Yep, April Fool’s Day.
It wasn’t a joke, however, to the hundreds of opportunistic entrepreneurs who immediately filed trademark applications for such medical-sounding substances as Maui Wowie, Chronic, Budtrader and Keef Cola.
This week, according to USPTO spokesman Peter Pappas, that category has been removed. Entrepreneurs are still welcome to apply for trademarks, according to Pappas, but they’re no longer able to have a category all their own.
The catch: the USPTO has never actually granted a trademark for anything pot-related.
Ah, well. Brings a whole new meaning to “This bud’s for you.”
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/government/obama-patent-office-approves-then-nixes-trademarks-for-marijuana/9210