Faulkner Backs Industrial Hemp

INDEPENDENT candidate Nic Faulkner wants laws changed to make it easier for farmers to grow the non-intoxicating version of marijuana known as industrial hemp.
THE only independent candidate so far to raise his hand in the federal election for the seat of Richmond wants laws changed to make it easier for farmers to grow the non-intoxicating version of marijuana known as industrial hemp.
Nic Faulkner, who has made one of his main platforms the abolition of state governments, yesterday issued a challenge to the major political parties, including the Greens, to debate Commonwealth law which he says makes it legally difficult to grow industrial hemp.
The Brunswick Heads resident said the plant, a type of cannabis with a low level of the intoxicating drug tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), could be a big boost to North Coast farmers.
But he said its production was restricted by conditions applied under the Commonwealth Narcotics Act 1967.
“A potentially huge industry for Australian farmers and manufacturers is being held back, an industry that would help rectify the Murray Darling basin water and land management issues,” Mr Faulkner said.
He added that growing hemp could help sequester carbon, produce biofuel and omega oils and be used for sewage and waste water management. He said it also used 40 per cent less water than cotton.
“It is a common sense, rational, scientific and medical fact that industrial hemp (low THC cannabis) is not a narcotic,” Mr Faulkner said.
He added it was also “time to open the debate on the whole cannabis prohibition issue”.
“Many hundreds of thousands of people all over Australia use marijuana on a regular basis,” Mr Faulkner said.
“Many people I have spoken to are disappointed that the Greens appear to have abandoned one of their core principals around the whole cannabis debate to attract more mainstream voters.”
http://www.tweednews.com.au/story/2010/07/29/nic-faulkner-independent-tells-greens-just-wear-it/

We Have Been 'Winning' the War on Drugs for 90 Years

Mexican soldiers patrol following a drug war hit in Monterrey last month.

Mexican soldiers patrol following a drug war hit in Monterrey last month.

Photograph by: Reuters, The Ottawa Citizen

One can imagine how delighted the people at the Colombian Embassy were when they read the Globe and Mail last week. One article after another about their country — and none focussed on drugs and murder.
Instead, the theme was that after decades of civil war and criminal chaos Colombia has been transformed into a land of stability and optimism. The mood is “buoyant, hopeful, and utterly entrepreneurial,” one story reported. Colombia is “an eco-paradise with bustling cities,” another burbled.
The people at the Mexican Embassy were probably much less pleased by what they read. “Suspected drug hit men stormed a private party and killed 17 people in the northern Mexican city of Torreon on Sunday in one of the deadliest attacks in Mexico’s drug war,” read one story. Another reported on a car bombing. Gangsters apparently dressed a bound man in a police uniform and called in a report of a wounded officer. When police, paramedics, and a doctor rushed to the man’s aid, the bomb was detonated. At least three died.
The contrast between the two countries is exaggerated, of course. Colombia continues to be the world’s largest producer of cocaine, there are still leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries, and human rights continue to be violated in many horrible ways; and despite the bad press Mexico is getting, much of the country is unscathed by the savage war with, and between, drug gangs.
But it is true that Colombia is more stable and safer, for most, than it has been in decades. It is also true that Mexico is continuing its descent into the hell Colombia so recently exited.
Inevitably, some are drawing the conclusion that Mexico must do whatever it was that Colombia did. And since what Colombia did was engage in a massive escalation of military and police power, supported by billions of dollars from the United States and elsewhere, that’s the medicine Mexico needs.
This is unspeakably foolish. And we can expect Canada will be asked to help fund this foolishness, as we did in Colombia. So let’s get this straight now: What happened in Colombia is not a model for Mexico; what happened in Colombia is the cause of what’s happening in Mexico.
Let’s go back to the 1970s. For decades, cocaine had been a relatively obscure jet-set drug produced in Bolivia and Peru and smuggled in small quantities by minor traffickers. But then its popularity soared — especially in the United States and Canada. The scale of trafficking grew proportionately. Usually, the traffickers were Bolivian or Peruvian but Colombian marijuana smugglers increasingly acted as middlemen.
By the early 1980s, the Bolivians and Peruvians were sticking mostly to production, selling shipments of cocaine to Colombians who transported the drugs through the Caribbean into Florida. Dominating the most profitable part of the trade, the Colombians got very rich. And powerful. Colombia increasingly resembled a “narco-state.”
In the mid-1980s, the American government poured interdiction resources into Florida and the Caribbean. Under pressure, the Colombians increasingly shipped cocaine to Mexico and hired Mexican gangsters to smuggle it across the border into the U.S.
Meanwhile, American programs to suppress coca growing and cocaine production in Bolivia and Peru were ramped up and there were steep declines in exports by the early 1990s — which were more than offset by exploding production in the many regions of Colombia where the government’s hold was tenuous.
About the same time, Colombian and American officials put the squeeze on Pablo Escobar and the Medellin cartel. In the mid-1990s, the Cali cartel was targeted. Under pressure, the Colombians increasingly sold cocaine shipments to Mexican gangsters, who built their own smuggling and trafficking networks. By the end of the decade, all Colombia’s major drug lords were dead or in prison but thanks to a proliferation of smaller networks, and the increasing involvement of Colombia’s leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries in the drug trade, cocaine exports actually rose.
Meanwhile, the wealth and power of the Mexican drug lords grew rapidly.
See where this story is going? I was in Colombia and Mexico at the end of the 1990s, and I well remember Mexicans telling me how they feared “Colombianization.” They were right to be worried. Several years later, the Mexican government took down all the major Mexican drug lords. What followed this “victory” was the war we see now — a war pitting the government against gangsters, but also a war of gangsters against each other in a struggle for control of the fantastically profitable trade routes. “Colombianization,” in other words.
In the war on drugs, that’s the way it always goes: Eliminate kingpins and gangsters battle to be the successor;
drive down production in one place and it balloons in another; stamp out a smuggling route and new routes are created. The market will not
denied. It’s Economics 101.
Look at Afghanistan. It was never a major heroin producer. But “victories” in West Asia and the Golden Triangle of southeast Asia pushed the drug trade into that sad country and now it’s paying for weapons that kill Canadian soldiers. With victories like that we have been “winning” the war on drugs for 90 years — and today the illicit drug trade is far bigger and far more destructive than ever.
But editorialists, politicians, and drug cops never connect the dots. “More of the same,” they urge. “More of the same.”
The last thing Mexico needs is more of the same. What it needs, desperately, is for governments to follow the advice of the Vienna Declaration, which I discussed Friday, and “undertake a transparent review of the effectiveness of current drug policies” — followed by “a full policy reorientation.” Until then, the madness will continue.
http://www.flashnews.com/news/wfn03100726fn28540.html

D.A.R.E. Program Axed

By Sharon Woods Harris
Posted Jul 28, 2010 @ 08:00 AM
Last update Jul 28, 2010 @ 11:29 AM
Pekin Police Department officials and Pekin District 108 officials are daring to try a new approach to fulfill the mission of the 23-year-old DARE program that officials say is ineffective.
Pekin Police Chief Ted Miller, a DARE officer himself at one time, said the program will cease to exist at the beginning of the 2010-11 school year. Pekin’s DARE program began in 1987. The police department fashioned its program after other national models.
Miller said that the decision to discontinue the program was carefully considered by both the school district and the police department.
Pekin Police Public Information Officer Mike Sanders said that DARE — known as the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program — was simply not providing the results it was designed to achieve.
“Based on statistics and case studies around the nation, the program has essentially been ineffective as a whole,” said Sanders. “That’s not just in Pekin.
“There was a study in California that followed kids that took part in the DARE program and found that essentially the program made no difference for the kids.”
Miller said that the decision was not driven “primarily by money,” even though the economy is still poor and the state has cut funding for the program. The program costs $33,500 per year for the two DARE officers’ salaries and benefits for two days a week as well as materials needed for the program.
The two officers previously assigned to DARE will be reassigned to patrol duty, said Miller.
“The decision is not resource-driven, it’s about what’s best for the kids,” said Miller. “Studies indicate that if DARE is going to have any success, it should be a kindergarten through 12th grade program.
“That would mean a much larger cost to the community.”
While the DARE program will be lost, the police department will continue to work closely with District 108 schools to assist where the department is needed in its social/emotional program that deals with drug issues, among other things. He said his officers will be there about one time a week to talk about various issues.
Pekin District 108 Superintendent Bill Link said the district has been working on a social/emotional program for about three years now.
The social emotional/program started at the junior-high level in District 108 to establish a way to deal with the issue of bullying. It has grown to the point now where it will address the social and emotional needs of all of the children in the district, said Link.
Various agencies, such as the Pekin Police Department, the Tazewell County Children’s Advocacy Center, the Tazewell County Health Department, Tazwood Mental Health Center and others will participate in the curriculum. For instance, Pekin police officers will come and speak to students about drug issues, cyber-stalking and inappropriate text messaging, to name a few.
The material will be age-appropriate, said Link, with the younger students learning social skills, appropriate interaction with friends, appropriate behavior and more, said Link.
The program works for virtually every social or behavioral issue, Link said. Each school will tweak the program to fit issues children are dealing with at certain times.
District 108 Assistant Superintendent Leonard Ealey said during the pilot program last year that if the district-wide program doesn’t help a particular student, it may be that the intervention needs to take place outside the walls of the school with specialists in various areas. That’s where the outside agencies fit in.
The social/behavioral program will be a progressive one. Counselors will be heavily involved in the program, said Link. The program will be tracked by the district to determine what issues need to be addressed and what works and doesn’t work.
http://www.pekintimes.com/highlight/x487935794/DARE-program-axed

Taking the Mystery out of Marijuana

When Dean Folda goes to pick up his medicine, he has a choice between cannabis products with names like “Grunk,” “Johnny Rocket,” and “Godbud.”
Folda, 47, says marijuana helps relieve his pain. He’s had a myriad of health issues over the years, ranging from an accidental gunshot wound when he was 10 years old to a hole in his aorta that required two open-heart surgeries.
“I could’ve probably been the biggest pillhead in the valley,” he said. “But I’ve found that marijuana did the same thing for me that the pain pills would do without the side effects.”
Folda isn’t sure just how or why marijuana works for him.
But a doctor and a chemist in Bozeman are aiming to take the mystery out of it.
Dr. Michael Geci-Black, a former emergency room physician, and Noel Palmer, who has a PhD in chemistry, run the first laboratory in Montana dedicated to studying medical cannabis, Montana Botanical Analysis.
“If it’s going to be a medicine, you’ve got to treat it like a medicine,” said Geci-Black, who started the lab in 2009. “So, I thought, ‘We’ve got to do some testing to see what’s in it.’ There’s no other medicine that doesn’t have the active ingredients (listed) on it.”
Even marijuana providers, or “caregivers,” aren’t always sure why certain strains of marijuana work particularly well for treating certain kinds of ailments.
A Kinder Caregiver in Bozeman, for example, sells 27 strains of marijuana in its plant form. It also has a menu that includes 16 baked “sweet treats,” plus four diabetic alternatives; two tinctures of liquid cannabis; one tea; and baking basics “cannabutter,” “cannaoil,” “ganja cream,” and “sweet leaf honey.”
But the head of the company, Robert Carpenter, admits determining what works best for a specific person is mostly a matter of trial and error.
“It differs so much for each person,” he said.
Marijuana providers from across the state pay Montana Botanical Analysis to test “cannabinoids,” chemical compounds in their strains of marijuana, so they can have a better understanding of how to dispense it.
“If you don’t know what’s in it, how can you dose it?” Geci-Black said. “We’re trying to establish product labeling.”
The lab tests 20 to 50 different strains each week, he said. Testing takes about three days and costs about $100 per sample.
“I really feel like the science, it’s going to help clarify these ambiguities that everybody has,” Palmer said.
Not everyone wants high THC
On Thursday afternoon, Palmer held the dried tip of a marijuana plant in the palm of his hand, a sample a provider had given the lab to test. He was working in the MBA’s new lab and offices in the Medical Arts Building on North Willson Avenue, where the neighbors are family-practice doctors and dentists.
For a typical test, Palmer dries a raw marijuana plant bud, then puts it in an “extraction” liquid, where it dissolves it into a lime green solution.
He puts a few drops of the solution in a vile, and puts the vile in a 3-foot tall stack of automated machines. The machines run the solution through a series of tubes and beakers, with the results displayed on a computer monitor.
The process, called chromatography, isolates cannabinoids found in the crystals on the edges of the marijuana leaves.
For the “OG Kush” strain, a line graph on the computer screen showed levels of about 25 different cannabinoids, primarily tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), cannabidiol (CBD) and cannabinol (CBN).
A total of about 66 cannabinoids are believed to be present in cannabis plants, Palmer said.
“That’s why we’re interested — because THC is not the only one,” he said. “Patients tend to like lower THC and that often has other cannabinoids in higher levels.”
Cannabidiol, for example is not psychoactive, Palmer said, meaning it tends to relieve pain without getting the user “stoned.”
But it’s hard to find CBD in marijuana in Montana.
“It’s been an arms race for THC,” which is believed to produce the “high,”
Palmer said. “People have all but bred out CBD from cannabis samples.”
Some providers simply tout THC levels in their products, Geci-Black said. They don’t realize the chemical could have unintended side effects. People are making shampoos and soaps, he said, but THC may actually stymie hair growth.
“There’s one guy in town, he has lip balm that has like 13 percent THC in it,” Geci-Black said.
Even the most potent marijuana usually has no more than 20 percent THC.
What about a pill?
In Colorado, marijuana providers put cards detailing test results from labs like Geci-Black’s next to each strain in their display cases.
Frank Quattrone, owner of Pure Medical Dispensary in Denver, told the Denver Post earlier this month that he hopes the black-market names of marijuana strains “hopefully, will be come irrelevant.”
With knowledge about the chemical makeup of different marijuana, a provider could tell a patient with irritable bowel syndrome, for example, to eat a marijuana high in CBD, Geci-Black said. That could send pain relief directly to the digestive tract where it’s needed and allow them to function normally without having to be high, he said.
Or, if a patient has knee pain, Geci-Black said the provider could suggest they get a salve and apply that directly to the joint.
The possibilities beg the question: Will there come a time when patients don’t need to smoke marijuana? When chemical components will be extracted from it in some other more socially accepted form, like a pill?
Drug companies have already created synthetic marijuana in pill forms, like the drug Marinol.
“Anybody who argues against the medicinal effect of cannabis is just – with all due respect – uninformed,” Geci-Black said.
Geci-Black, who began practicing alternative medicine in 2007 and lives part time on an organic farm in upstate New York, said he’s gotten calls from people in half of the 14 states where medical marijuana is legal asking him for information about the lab.
Recently, he was a keynote speaker at a conference in Humbolt County, Calif.
In addition to testing for medicinal properties, the lab can test for mold and pesticides, so patients can tell if they’re marijuana is safe or organically grown.
“There’s a myriad of applications for this that are exciting,” Geci-Black said. “We’re just scratching the tip of the iceberg right now.”
http://www.bozemandailychronicle.com/news/article_d5ff2830-9358-11df-a697-001cc4c002e0.html

Tehama Herbal Collective Owner Vies for Council

By GEOFF JOHNSON -DN Staff Writer


If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em.
Even as Corning prepares for a September legal battle against him, the co-owner of the county’s sole remaining storefront-style cannabis collective is planning a run for council in the same city that seeks to shut him down.
Reached Wednesday, Ken Prather said he had already collected more than the 20 required signatures to run for Corning’s City Council. He planned to collect at least 30 to guard against any technical problems.
Prather and his wife, who own Tehama Herbal Collective, may be best known for fighting local medical marijuana policies. Appearing at heated city and county meetings, they have repeatedly accused both Corning and Tehama County of violating Prop. 215, California’s key medical marijuana law.
But Prather’s criticisms of Corning go well beyond its treatment of THC.
The city has been mismanaged for decades and needs to be treated like a corporation instead of a “good ol’ boy” network, Prather said.
“Somebody’s got to get in there and revamp the whole thing,” he said.
Prather singled out the city’s employee payment plan. The city’s payments are so generous that it does not have enough money left to run the city properly, he said. He attacked the city’s transportation center, which he said is ignored because it is too far from the Interstate to be used.
Prather called for the city to convince the state to pay for local road repair, something neighboring cities have pulled off, he said.
“I think there’s a lot of people who are tired of the way the city’s been run,” he said.
The Prather family has been hit with citation after citation for running its cannabis collective in city limits.
Officials say the city has no zoning policy to accommodate the collective and have since issued a temporary ban on all city dispensaries, collectives or similar operations.
THC opened its doors before the city put the ban in place, though. The Prathers are joined by their attorney William Panzer, who helped author Prop. 215, in arguing that their non-profit operation is permissible under state law. Their trial is scheduled for September.
http://www.contracostatimes.com/california/ci_15576543?nclick_check=1

Cute Cannabis Smokes Out Marijuana Myths

This cute little pot leaf want to be your bud.
This cute little pot leaf want to be your bud.

ORLANDO, Fla. (Wireless Flash – FlashNews) – Myths about smoking marijuana are being smoked out by adorable digital pot plants.
On Cannabuddies.com, tokers can learn the truth about bud by adopting their very own virtual marijuana leaf as a pet.
The animated leaves are a lot like the Digipets that were popular in the ’90s, with funny faces and cartoon-like voices, only they share valuable information about marijuana.
Creator Rob Mulligan thinks Cannabuddies are a “cute” way of spreading the facts about smoking pot and could “lead the forefront of complete legalization of marijuana.”
Despite their silly appearance, Mulligan isn’t worried about Cannabuddies becoming the gateway toy that introduces children to weed because they don’t blatantly promote sparking up.
He says, “Ultimately it’s just a cute plant. It’s as of you were interacting with a funny tree.”
But if kids do start playing with Cannabuddies Mulligan thinks it can’t hurt since they’ll be getting knowledge they aren’t learning in school.
http://www.flashnews.com/news/wfn03100726fn28540.html

Marijuana and Autism

Jay Selthofner, a supporter of medicinal use of marijuana and of legalizing the drug, has been inspired to run for office in Wisconsin’s State Assembly for District 41. The inspiration comes in the form of Joey, a child with autism whose mother has successfully treated him with the use of marijuana and the subject of a book: Autism and Marijuana – A mother’s fight to save her son’s life – Joey’s story.
Mr. Selthofner has been working steadily in his community to bring about change for medicinal uses of marijuana and legalizing its use. During this campaign, he first met Meiko, whose son was so severely impacted by autism, she resorted to a “street drug” to help him improve. “What did I have to lose?” she has said. She gives credit to marijuana for turning her son around and “saving his life.”
Mr. Selthofner says, “Being a parent myself, I could not imagine the doctor giving my child a death sentence and then watch the child starve to death. So from death, to a rebirth; development and growth, marijuana was credited as saving this boy’s life.” To be clear, it was not the autism itself that was a death sentence; rather, it was its effects on Joey. Joey could not eat foods that would keep him healthy and thriving. He was wasting away.
While there has been criticism, from the use of using a non-FDA-approved method of treatment to the phrasing chosen (“saving his life”) as it paints a negative view of autism, many parents are beginning to wonder if he or she should not give it a go as well. If a parent chooses this option, he or she should be aware: there are negative effects of this drug for some people. Please speak to a physician before starting any treatment regimen.
Mr. Selthofner says, “We face risks every day in our life. The punishment should not be worse than the crime, to enforce public health issues through the use of criminal law, is not a good idea, fundamentally. Marijuana is not for everyone, medical or recreational, but it certainly is not a crime. Alcohol, tobacco, over the counter and prescription drugs are proven to have a multitude of negative health effects that easily outweigh the effects of cannabis.”
Prior attempts to gain legislation support for marijuana used has failed in Wisconsin. “Major legislation opposition came from ‘slippery slope’ theory that medical would lead to full legalization. I have always been an advocate for full legalization of marijuana and will continue to do so.” But would he settle for just a medicinal use law? “The word ‘settle’ sometimes means something different to each person, but I would most likely vote yes for a medical bill, but keep pursuing reform.”
“A medical only bill does accomplish a great deal: [getting] medicine to those who need it… and [taking] those [individuals] off the battlefield we have come to accept as ‘the war on drugs.’” There is more information about the economic and other benefits to legalizing marijuana and can be found by clicking here
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/nationalbreaking/ci_15609415

Santa Cruz City Council Asked to Lift Ban For WAMMFest

SANTA CRUZ — After the last several WAMMFests encountered challenges, organizers of Santa Cruz’s annual medical marijuana awareness event appear to be in for an easier time getting the city’s nod of approval.

Today, the City Council will consider lifting a smoking ban at San Lorenzo Park for five hours Sept. 25 to allow authorized pot users to medicate inside open-air tents designed to create privacy. The item is on the council’s consent agenda, indicating that it may not be as controversial as in years past.
“For the city, it’s a matter of course,” Mayor Mike Rotkin said.
The event will run from noon to 5 p.m. Admission to the event is free and open to the public, but if the council OKs temporarily lifting the ban, organizers will allow smoking marijuana only in a separate tent. Medical marijuana identification will be required.
Last year, an oversight kept the Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana’s annual request for a smoking exemption from landing on a council agenda in time for the event. Instead, the group put its tent on county property near the usual site. Police issued two citations for smoking on park property but otherwise applauded WAMM for holding the event in a responsible manner.
In 2008, a philosophical divide on the council nearly kept marijuana users from legally participating. Three council members supported lifting the smoking ban but three others were opposed. The tie couldn’t be broken that night because a seventh council member was absent, but a compromise proposed two weeks later called for lifting the ban only for the tented area.
This year’s measure calls for lifting the smoking ban in the entire park, but urges the organizers “to designate a specific enclosed location for medical marijuana treatment.” Councilman Don Lane said he supports the measure because WAMM has acted responsibly in hosting previous events. “They have a good reason for wanting to allow it in just this one instance.”
Valerie Corral, co-founder of WAMM, said volunteers will monitor the park, asking people who are smoking marijuana to show their medical authorization cards so the event doesn’t “turn into hemp-fest.” “It’s just really is to keep the focus on the justices that have been met in our own community and on the state level,” Corral said. “We’re bringing awareness to an ongoing issue, marijuana as medicine, and the kind of marginalization that still occurs for people who are seriously ill.” The past year has seen a lot of movement on the medicinal marijuana front.
In January, WAMM suspended a lawsuit against the federal government on the condition that the Drug Enforcement Agency respect state medical marijuana rules. The DEA raided WAMM’s garden and arrested Corral and her husband, Mike, during a 2002 raid, but the Obama administration announced in October that it would stop prosecuting patients or caregivers in states with medical marijuana provisions. California voters approved medical marijuana in 1996.
Also this year, over the pleas of patients to expand options, the City Council limited medical pot dispensaries in Santa Cruz to the two operating in the Harvey West area. However, the council now allows the pot shops to open seven days a week and grow more of their own supply in-house.

IF YOU GO

WHAT: Annual WAMMFest event by the Wo/Men”s Alliance for Medical Marijuana to raise awareness of medical marijuana use. The public event is free. If the city agrees Tuesday to temporarily lift a smoking ban in the park for the event, using marijuana will be allowed only in a separate tent and with a medical marijuana identification card.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/nationalbreaking/ci_15609415

Med. Marijuana Despensaries Could Mean Big Changes for Oregon

With one hand, Lindsey Bradshaw hoisted his food bag onto his back, arranging the tube that has helped feed him since cancer ravaged his stomach seven years ago. In his other hand, he clutched a small gold bowl of marijuana and a pipe.
He depends on both devices to get through the day.
One of 36,380 patients registered with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, Bradshaw is a gardener who grows most of his own medical marijuana — one of two options that program participants have. They can also buy from a producer who sells to four or fewer people.
Those options leave people dry if they don’t know a producer and are too sick to grow their own, Bradshaw said.
But that could change, if a ballot measure to create a system of medical marijuana dispensaries passes.
The measure certified for the November ballot July 16, but has not received a ballot number yet. It would establish Oregon as the seventh state to set up a state-regulated dispensary system.
Growth of state-regulated models began popping up across the United States after October 2009, when President Barack Obama loosened enforcement of the federal law on marijuana possession, as long as people comply with their state’s law.
Proponents of dispensaries say they would make access easier for thousands of sick Oregonians, but Oregon police and officials from other states with dispensaries caution that access can spiral out of control, resulting in unregistered dispensaries and illegal users. In Los Angeles, a mess of unregistered and dangerous dispensaries was the result of a “hodge-podge of competing and contrasting laws and ordinances,” from the city, county and state regulating marijuana, said Tony Bell, spokesman for Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich.
The city placed a moratorium on new dispensaries in November 2007, but hundreds sprung up anyway. In June, the city ordered more than 400 dispensaries to close in an attempt to regain control of the marijuana industry.
In Colorado, Ron Hyman, the state registrar of vital statistics, received less than 5,000 applications for marijuana dispensaries in 2008. Now he gets 1,000 every day.
Colorado placed a one-year ban on new dispensaries and switched to a state-run system meant to reduce customer complaints about quality and cleanliness, Hyman said.
In Oregon, dispensaries would be nonprofits registered with the Department of Health, and have yearly licenses. The department would be in charge of monitoring and inspections.

Medical marijuana dispensary ballot measure
A measure to allow medical marijuana dispensaries in Oregon has been certified for the November ballot, but not yet given a number. Major elements:
Each dispensary and producer may possess 24 mature plants, 72 seedlings and six pounds of usable marijuana.
Producers and dispensers would pay a 10 percent fee to the state on all income/
Only Oregon residents could purchase and grow the marijuana.
Health department would be able to conduct and fund medical marijuana research.
People convicted of certain felonies in the past five years would be prohibited from delivering or growing the drug.
Health department must create a low-income assistance program for needy cardholders.

Dispensaries would prevent illness from mold or insects, which can occur when inexperienced users attempt to grow their own marijuana, Bradshaw said. Licensed patients who want to continue to grow their own medical marijuana could still do so.
Dispensaries could also offer different strains of marijuana with properties best suited to patients’ symptoms, commonly severe pain or muscle spasms.
For Bradshaw, getting to select certain strains would be helpful, he said. The 62-year-old lost his spleen, a kidney, part of his stomach, colon and pancreas to Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. He takes various drugs to deal with the pain, but said opiates like oxycodone leave him in a haze.
Proponents of the initiative, like Bradshaw, say putting the state in charge would keep dispensaries safe.
But Sgt. Erik Fisher  of the Oregon police Drug Enforcement Section said that wouldn’t make a difference. If dispensaries appear in Oregon, honest patients would soon be in the minority, Fisher said. All you have to do is look at California where the dispensaries opened the door for more abuse, he said.
If someone purchased $40 in medical marijuana at an Oregon dispensary, “what’s to prevent them from sticking that…in a FedEx package, sending it to New York and making $600?
“It’ll make it easier to skirt the law,” he said. “You make it more available to patients, you make more available to criminals.”
Dispensaries are an obvious location for crime, Bell said, and can endanger the public. “Communities just don’t want them in their areas.”
John Sajo, who helped draft the ballot initiative, agreed that medical marijuana stores in California are “little more than gangs with storefronts.” Oregon would be different, he said, because the measure on the ballot eliminates most of the gray areas that caused issues in California.
The average patient in Oregon is also “older, sicker and poorer,” than many of the California patients who are in their 20s, Sajo said.
Bradshaw said he’s one of those patients, and his marijuana usage is not provoking crime. “Me smoking in my living room doesn’t have anything to do with a school three blocks away. What, I’m going to run down and say, ‘Hey girl, want to smoke pot?’ No.”
The measure restricts where dispensaries can open — they must be 1,000 feet away from schools and residential neighborhoods. It does not limit the number of dispensaries that can open.
Advocates say the dispensaries would bring much-needed revenue to the state. Dispensaries would make between $10 million and $40 million in the first year, Sajo predicted.
Producers would have to pay a $1,000 fee and distributors a $2,000 fee to cover program-operating costs, and would give 10 percent of their revenue back to the state. The health department could pick where to allocate the funds.
The department has not analyzed possible impacts of the initiative or planned how they would regulate dispensaries, said Dr. Grant Higginson, the state public health officer who worked with the explanatory statement of the initiative for the ballot.
The Oregon Medical Marijuana Program currently registers cardholders and their caregivers — it has nothing to do with inspections or regulations. If the initiative were to pass, he said, it would transform the program.
http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2010/07/medical_marijuana_dispensaries.html

Jane Hamsher Talks Marijuana Legalization on MSNBC

Hey, watch this unbelievable video of firedoglake‘s Jane Hamsher hurling marijuana legalization like a hand grenade into the middle of the immigration debate:
…and everyone just nods in stunned agreement. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I sure haven’t seen much coverage of marijuana policy on MSNBC recently, if ever. Is it necessary to tell them you’ll be discussing immigration in order to get some airtime for legalization on the most left-leaning cable news network?
It’s time to stop labeling marijuana reform as a liberal issue when FOX News has two pundits talking about it constantly, and MSNBC’s got nothing to say.
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle_blog/2010/jul/22/jane_hamsher_talks_marijuana_leg