Finally, marijuana produces hallucinations at high doses, but its structure does not resemble LSD or any other hallucinogen. Thus, marijuana’s effects on our body and brain are complex. Just how does it achieve these effects and are they beneficial? The chemicals contained within the marijuana plant cross the blood-brain barrier and bind to a receptor for the brain’s very own endogenous marijuana neurotransmitter system. If this were not true, then the marijuana plant would be popular only for its use in making rope, paper, and cloth.
The first endogenous marijuana compound found in the brain was called anandamide, from the Sanskrit word ananda meaning “bliss.” Anandamide interacts with specific receptor proteins to affect brain function. The great abundance of these receptors gives an indication of importance of the endogenous system in the regulation of the brain’s normal functioning. Recent investigations have also shown that stimulating the brain’s marijuana receptors may offer protection from the consequences of stroke, chronic pain, and neuroinflammation.
Surprisingly, it may also protect against some aspects of age-associated memory loss. Ordinarily, we do not view marijuana as being good for our brain and certainly not for making memories. How could a drug that clearly impairs memory while people are under its sway protect their brains from the consequences of aging? The answer likely has everything to do with the way that young and old brains function and a series of age-related changes in brain chemistry. When we are young, stimulating the brain’s marijuana receptors interfere with making memories. However, later in life, the brain gradually displays increasing evidence of inflammation and a dramatic decline in the production of new neurons, called neurogenesis, that are important for making new memories.
Research in my laboratory has demonstrated that stimulating the brain’s marijuana receptors may offer protection by reducing brain inflammation and by restoring neurogenesis. Thus, later in life, marijuana might actually help your brain, rather than harm it. It takes very little marijuana to produce benefits in the older brain; my colleague in France, Dr. Yannick Marchalant, coined the motto “a puff is enough” because it appears as though only a single puff each day is necessary to produce significant benefit. The challenge for pharmacologists in the future will be to isolate the beneficial effects of the marijuana plant from its psychoactive effects.
http://www.psychologytoday.com/node/45338

LINCOLN — As his wife was slowly dying from cancer, Craig, Neb., farmer DeJay Monson turned to something that had helped him overcome seizures and migraine headaches arising from a childhood school-bus accident.
Feeding his wife, Dana, marijuana, baked in foods or infused in liquids, returned some function to her life, Monson said Monday, fighting back tears.
The pot was much more effective than morphine and other drugs she was given for the pain, he said. According to Monson, the growth of the massive tumors in his wife’s chest slowed considerably, allowing her to live longer and enjoy her five children before she died this spring.
“It didn’t take her pain away, but it took her away from the pain,” Monson said. “I pray you don’t need to have a spouse get sick to find that out.”
He was among a dozen people who asked the Nebraska Board of Pharmacy on Monday to reclassify marijuana so it can be prescribed as a medicine.
Those testifying included a medical doctor, a lawyer, one of the original Yippies from the 1960s and an Iowa trucker wearing a “Reverend Reefer” T-shirt.
They urged Nebraska to join 14 other states that allow medicinal marijuana to relieve pain and ease the symptoms of diseases such as cancer, AIDS and multiple sclerosis.
“What’s so hard to understand? If God put it here, we should use it,” said trucker Terry Mitchell of Des Moines, who wore the “Reverend Reefer” shirt. He said he smokes marijuana three times a day to relieve back pain.
But three of five members on the pharmacy board said their role was purely advisory. They said supporters of legalization would be better off lobbying the Nebraska Legislature or federal drug agencies to change marijuana’s classification from a Schedule 1 drug that has no medical use.
“That would have to change first before we could take any action,” said board member Kevin Borcher, an Omaha pharmacist.
Some supporters disputed that, pointing to Iowa, where the State Pharmacy Board issued a recommendation earlier this year to legalize medicinal marijuana.
Two members of Nebraska’s pharmacy panel, Robert Marshall of Norfolk and Tom Walsh of Lincoln, said they were willing to take a look at the mountain of pro-cannabis materials presented to the board and decide in a few months whether a recommendation should be made.
Ralph Smith, a Louisville, Neb., attorney and a director for a pro-medicinal pot group, Patients Out of Time, said the hot-button issue would require a citizen-sponsored ballot initiative to be adopted in Nebraska.
Smith said ballot language is already being prepared in hopes of getting the issue on the ballot in 2012.
“The cat’s out of the bag,” Smith said. “People know it can help them.”
Bill Hawkins, director of HEMP Nebraska, said state senators have told him privately it would be “political suicide” to introduce a bill, even though many admit that it has positive qualities.
None of the 50 people attending Monday’s meeting spoke in opposition to medicinal marijuana, though Pharmacy Board Chairman Rick Zarek, a Gothenburg pharmacist, said his colleagues in other states have reported problems with legalization.
Medical marijuana dispensaries have exploded in number in the 14 states that allow it since President Obama announced last fall that federal officials will no longer prosecute medical marijuana users and dispensaries that follow state laws.
States such as Colorado are beginning to draft new regulations to restrict the growth of dispensaries and crack down on physicians who provide exams for people seeking permits to buy marijuana.
Those testifying Monday said marijuana is a natural, non-harmful substance that can provide relief from pain that other, more powerful drugs cannot. Some urged legalization of pot for social use, an issue on the ballot in California this fall.
Timothy Herman, 52, a native of Frontier County, Neb., and a Navy veteran, said smoking pot three times a day helps him forget the bursitis pain in his shoulder and get a good night’s sleep.
“Freedom seems to me to allow an adult to choose their medication,” said Herman, who now lives in Portland, Ore. He works for THCF Medical Clinics, which screens patients in Oregon and other states to obtain licenses to buy medical marijuana.
Dr. Alan Worth of Lincoln said marijuana would address his multiple sclerosis symptoms. He said former U.S. Sen. Bob Kerrey, D-Neb., a decorated Vietnam War veteran, has advocated its use to treat veterans with post-traumatic stress syndrome.
Borcher said most studies he has read about the topic say more research is needed on whether marijuana is effective medicine.
Smith disputed that, saying he’s seen “miracles” caused by cannabis among those facing terminal illnesses.
“Amen,” added Monson.
http://www.omaha.com/article/20100712/NEWS01/100719966/1003237

Robert F. Bukaty/Associated Press

A medical-marijuana user smokes a water pipe in Portland, Maine, where the state on Friday awarded six of eight licenses to dispensaries.

They’re lighting up joints in Bryn Mawr and Squirrel Hill after putting the kids to bed.
At Abay, an ultra-hip eatery in East Liberty, pro-medical marijuana activists are recruiting and organizing new members over martinis.
And in Harrisburg, some legislators are pushing for passage of a bill that would make Pennsylvania the 15th state to legalize medical marijuana — if New York and Maryland don’t beat them to it.
Pot is hot.
Long known as America’s most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is no longer just a habit for aging baby boomers reliving the ’60s. Fragile multiple sclerosis sufferers and chemo patients swear by it. In the movies, positive images abound: In “It’s Complicated,” Santa Barbara matron Meryl Streep gets stoned to hilarious effect, while on television’s “Nurse Jackie,” Edie Falco helps a chemo patient fashion a bong for his joint.
While U.S. marijuana use has shown a consistent decline since the mid-1990s, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, that trend has stalled, with prevalence rates the same in 2009 as they were five years ago.
And back in the real world, affluent forty-somethings are lighting up after work, giving new meaning to “Happy Hour.”
Just ask Lisa (not her real name).
“Let me shut the door,” she said during a telephone interview from her Downtown office where she works for a financial institution. A self-described “urban professional and mom” and wife of a successful lawyer, she likes to sit in her sleek, granite-and-maple kitchen in Squirrel Hill on Friday nights and de-stress with a joint.
“I do it once a week,” Lisa said. “It’s a nice release from the week’s tensions, and I can feel my body calming down — and it’s less calories than wine,” she added with a laugh.
Even as the drug war continues to rage along our nation’s borders and the Drug Enforcement Administration’s website declares marijuana to be “dangerous,” even as Congress refuses to repeal its declaration that smoked marijuana is without “current medical benefit,” recreational use of marijuana has continued unabated in this country.
Now, California — the first state to allow medical marijuana use — will vote in November on a ballot initiative legalizing all pot use.
A new RAND Corp. study released last week found, however, that while legalizing marijuana could increase consumption, it would also cut the drug’s price by as much as 80 percent — making it unlikely that the cash-strapped state will realize projections for $1 billion in revenue.
If legalization regulating and taxing the sale of pot passes — and a recent California poll found support for the measure at more than 50 percent — other states will surely follow.
Just not Pennsylvania.
A recent Franklin & Marshall poll found that 81 percent of Pennsylvanians supported making medical marijuana legal — up from 76 percent in 2006. But a medical marijuana bill was introduced only a year ago in the state House and Senate, and the Democratic and Republican candidates for governor oppose it.
The measure has not come up for a vote in either chamber. Still, medical marijuana’s passage in Pennsylvania is only a matter of time, said Mark Cohen, D-Philadelphia, sponsor of the House bill.
“There’s real momentum” for the bill, said Mr. Cohen, whose father suffers from Crohn’s disease. The time has come, he believes, to expand medical options to alleviate patient suffering, citing research that has found marijuana can be therapeutic in treating Crohn’s, cancer, glaucoma and other debilitating conditions.
Karen would agree. A restaurant manager in Westmoreland County who asked that her real name not be used, she has suffered from bulimia for the past 10 years. In addition to therapy, she’s found that marijuana is more effective than antidepressants at soothing her stomach and increasing her desire to eat.
“I was on Xanax, but it irritated my stomach, and it’s easy to get hooked on, whereas with marijuana, if I miss a day, it’s not the end of the world,” she said. “I’m not going to go out and rob a bank so I can get some.”
All of this may be true, but what really seems to be driving the bill is the need for new revenue. The RAND report notwithstanding, a tax on medical marijuana could add millions to state coffers that weren’t there before. Plus, the fact that so many other states have passed similar laws — most recently New Jersey, on whom Pennsylvania’s law is based, plus pending approval by New York, Maryland, Minnesota and New Hampshire — may improve the bill’s chances, he said.
“Combined with New Jersey, that will mean we’re all but surrounded,” said Mr. Cohen.
Still, he hastened to add, Pennsylvania will not follow California’s example in administering the law.
In Los Angeles, dubbed “The Wild West of Weed” by Newsweek last fall, medical marijuana dispensaries have popped up on every corner. There have been robberies and shootings at the cash-only shops, and otherwise healthy young people with “back pain” are wangling permission from unscrupulous doctors to obtain the drug.
Under proposed legislation, Pennsylvania’s program would be far more restrictive, Mr. Cohen said, with jurisdiction over it assigned to the state’s Departments of Revenue and Health. It would permit personal cultivation of up to six plants and would establish a distribution system regulated by the health department.
“Pennsylvania has a very active medical board of licensure,” he said, “and I’m sure nothing will happen like California, where you’ve got doctors located a few steps from the beach.”
Still, it would face a likely veto from whoever occupies the governor’s office. Both Democrat Dan Onorato and Republican Tom Corbett oppose medical marijuana legislation, and many law enforcement officials remain adamantly adverse to it — even if police in the Pittsburgh area and Philadelphia don’t pursue cases involving first-time offenses and small amounts of the drug as aggressively as other drug cases.
The tendency is to work them out as summary offenses, said Mike Manko, a spokesman for District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr., adding, however, that “any time a drug case comes in, even at preliminary hearing level, they’ll always check with our narcotics unit to make sure this isn’t someone known to them.”
In Philadelphia’s jammed courts, marijuana arrests are usually the last cases to be heard during the day, and because an arresting officer can’t wait for hours, the judge usually just throws out the case, said Lynn Abraham, that city’s former district attorney and a vocal opponent of efforts to loosen marijuana laws, including medical marijuana.
“Why is it that in California most people using it are 20 to 35 years old? Give me a break. Is this what we want to become in Pennsylvania?” she asked. “A pleasure palace? Yikes. We’re just going to turn into a bunch of spoiled, self-indulgent dope heads.”
Others in the field of drug addiction oppose the bill for different reasons. Medical marijuana’s efficacy should be determined by scientific research and the FDA approval process, not by politicians, said Dr. Neil Capretto, medical director of Gateway Rehabilitation Center.
“I do believe marijuana has medicinal properties, so let’s evaluate it like other medicines,” he said.
That’s just the problem, pro-pot activists said — federal drug policies don’t allow research into smoked marijuana.
Because marijuana is classified by federal statute as a Schedule I drug — along with heroin — researchers are prohibited from providing it to study participants , although compounds extracted from cannabis can be used in clinical trials. Marinol, a synthetic version of pot’s active ingredient, THC, is available by prescription for relieving nausea, and Sativex, which contains THC and other cannabinoids, is undergoing FDA scrutiny. If made available, it may be so effective for MS and cancer sufferers it may make the medical marijuana debate moot.
Scientific research into marijuana’s risks has found that smoking marijuana does damage the lungs, and it can impair brain function for longer periods of time than alcohol while driving. And while pot is not considered physically addictive for most adults, pot smoking can be risky for young people.
A current study at the University of Pittsburgh Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry has recruited 20 people — half of them heavy pot smokers — to explore whether smoking marijuana under age 14 increases the risk of schizophrenia, as has been indicated in some studies.
The Obama administration has declared it will not use federal money to prosecute low-level medical marijuana cases as long as the defendants are complying with state law. But federal drug policy remains unchanged and marijuana’s legalization remains so politically fraught that it makes “any rational approach unlikely,” said Peter Cohen, a physician and an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University who has written extensively on the issue.
“It will be interesting to see what the Department of Justice does should recreational marijuana be legalized,” he said. If California makes all pot use legal, “at that point there will be a direct conflict between state and federal law, and the Obama administration will probably have no choice but to take action against California’s legalization.
Patrick Nightingale, a local attorney and head of the Pittsburgh chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws said his group isn’t using medical marijuana as a stalking horse for future legalization of all marijuana use.
At a recent meeting with medical marijuana supporters, he vigorously urged recruits to get involved with efforts to lobby legislators for passage of a medical-use bill.
It was, in fact, the proverbial smoke-filled back room — in this case, the cave-like Ava Lounge in East Liberty — where incense curled languorously from ashtrays and mostly young, healthy-looking people lounged on banquettes. Carefully balancing a martini, Mr. Nightingale walked through the state’s legislation and asked for volunteers.
A lot of people raised their hands, and, in fact, public reaction across the state in favor of the bill has been overwhelming.
“I’ve been here 25 years, and I’ve never seen more public reaction to any bill,” said Leon Czikowsky, an aide to Mr. Cohen.
No surprise there: Pro-pot activists are a highly vocal, well-organized, well-funded constituency, as the Obama administration found to its chagrin during the transition after the 2008 election when it created an online site for people to submit ideas to the president under a “crowdsourcing” model in which the “best-rated” ideas would rise to the top.
The highest ranking idea? Legalization of marijuana — along with revoking the Church of Scientology’s tax-exempt status.

In State v. Berringer, (online here: http://www.publications.ojd.state.or.us/A137186.htm) the Oregon Court of Appeals held that Oregon was not required to give a California patient’s status as a patient ‘full faith and credit’ (reasoning that that status created an affirmative defense within CA only) and that the California patient’s federal constitutional right to travel did not protect this patient from being prosecuted and convicted under Oregon Law.  Although not a part of the holding, the Court also concluded that the application requirements of the law was ambiguous, and resolved that ambiguity by concluding that the law permits out of state patients to register here.
Initially, the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP), acting on advice of its counsel, the Oregon Attorney General, refused to process out of state patient applications.  But, on June 14, 2010, the Oregon Attorney general issued an opinion (online here: http://www.doj.state.or.us/agoffice/agopinions/op_2010_2.pdf) concluding that:  “(1) The OMMA contains no Oregon residency requirement for obtaining an Oregon registry identification card; and, (2) the Oregon legislature could limit eligibility for Oregon registry identification cards to Oregon residents without violating the federal constitutional right to travel.”
In response, the OMMP has issued (http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ommp/333-008-0020_TEMP.pdf) temporary administrative rules (http://www.oregon.gov/DHS/ph/ommp/333-008-0020_TEMP_text.pdf) amending Oregon Administrative Rule 333-00800020) to facilitate the processing of out of state applications.
Tawana Nichols, the Program Director of the OMMP is quoted in The Oregon Politico
(http://theoregonpolitico.com/blog/2010/07/08/medical-marijuana-no-longer-restricted-to-oregon-residents/) acknowledging this change in policy.
Out of state patients who register with the OMMP will still have to have written documentation from an Oregon attending physician (MD or DO) and will have to designate an Oregon location as their grow site (as with Oregon patients, whether they have one or not).

New York, NY-(ENEWSPF)-July 9, 2010. Experienced marijuana consumers exhibit nominal changes in cognitive performance after inhaling cannabis, according to clinical trial data published online this week in the journal Pharmacology, Biochemistry, and Behavior.
Investigators at Columbia University in New York and the San Francisco Brain Research Institute assessed acute marijuana-related effects on cognitive functioning in 24 volunteers who reported consuming the drug at least 24 times per week.
Researchers determined that participants’ overall performance accuracy on episodic memory and working memory tasks “was not significantly altered by marijuana.”
Authors concluded: “The present findings show that smoked marijuana produced minimal effects on episodic and spatial working memory of near-daily smokers. The overall response accuracy on the word recognition and working memory tasks was unaffected by marijuana, although smoked marijuana did increase the amount of time participants needed to complete these tasks.
“This pattern of effects is consistent with results previously reported by other researchers studying the acute effects of marijuana on cognitive performance of regular users. … The finding … stands in contrast to previous findings in occasional smokers who showed reduced accuracy on these same tasks after marijuana. … The observation that frequent users’ response accuracy is not altered after marijuana smoking to the same extent it is for infrequent users … suggests that near-daily marijuana smokers may have developed tolerance to some marijuana-related behavioral effects.”
http://www.enewspf.com/index.php/latest-news/health-and-fitness/17452-experienced-marijuana-consumers-exhibit-virtually-no-change-in-cognitive-task-performance-after-smoking-study-says-

KALAMAZOO — Twenty years ago, Julie Falco was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

And for years after her diagnosis, she tried 30 different prescription medications to ease the pain and discomfort of the disease, with little to no success.
But in 2004, she tried medical marijuana, and she started to feel better. Her mood improved, as well as her mobility. The pain lessened considerably.
Since 2007, medical marijuana is the only drug she uses.
“I got off everything,” said Falco, 45, of Chicago. “Now I feel better than ever.”
Falco was one of about 50 people who attended the first day of the two-day “Science and Compassionate Care Seminar,” put on by 420 University at the Radisson Plaza Hotel & Suites in downtown Kalamazoo.
The seminar features several workshops on a wide variety of medical marijuana issues, from how to properly cultivate marijuana plants to the therapeutic value of the drug to understanding Michigan’s medical marijuana law.
Video cameras hooked-up to computer equipment broadcasted the seminar around the world in the form of an Internet stream.
One of the first speakers Saturday was Robert J. Melamede, president and chief executive officer of Cannabis Science Inc., associate professor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs and nationally recognized expert on the science of marijuana.
Melamede said that the human brain contains what’s called the endocannabinoid system, a series of receptors that are involved with a variety of physiological processes ranging from memory to mood to appetite, among several others.
“It’s like a thermostat that regulates the body,” he said.
And it’s also a system that can be heightened by the use of marijuana, he said, which he called “an essential nutrient” that provides anti-aging properties by “smoothing out” free radicals in the body, which contribute to a host of diseases.
Apart from the therapeutic use of marijuana by those like Falco, or others with a wasting disease, cancer or AIDS, Melamede touted the use of marijuana — “a puff or two a day” — by healthy people as a way to live a longer, more healthful life.
Marijuana — and more specifically the cannabinoids in it — staves off inflammation, delays the onset of auto-immune diseases, inhibits the formation of Alzheimer’s disease and can help treat or even cure some types of cancer, he said.
“Cannabinoids have curative or at least palliative properties,” Melamede said. “It should be the first line of treatment.”
But even though Michigan and several other states have medical marijuana laws that enable those who qualify to possess and use the drug to treat a host of illnesses, the drug is still illegal.
And for Melamede, that’s not just a problem, it’s negligent considering the myriad positive properties of the drug, he said.
“The fact that we have an anti-aging drug that kills cancer is proof of their (the government’s) incompetence” in terms of marijuana still being illegal, he said.
This weekend’s seminar is the first for 420 University, said Michelle Martin, vice president for development for the university. It is planning seminars in Chicago and cities in Wisconsin in coming months, spreading its message of the benefits of marijuana.
And the group believes it can make an impact.
“It gives people more confidence that marijuana is useful as they speak to people who have been in the industry for a long time,” Martin said. “We’re starting to build a platform for a discussion of the issues.”
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2010/07/marijuana_is_anti-aging_and_cu.html

Alice Huffman’s explanation of the California NAACP’s endorsement of Proposition 19, the state initiative calling for the regulated legalization and taxation of marijuana, was well reasoned and smartly put. But she was promptly pounced upon, smeared by a collection of out-of-touch, fear-mongering detractors, including “more than 20 African American religious and community leaders” headed by one Bishop Ron Allen.
Mr. Allen’s statement was illogical, and insulting and condescending to the multitudes of African American civic leaders, including law enforcement officers and members of the clergy, who are working to end a drug war that has had devastating effects on communities of color.
Young black men have been hit particularly hard. As a new study by the Drug Policy Alliance points out, young blacks consume marijuana at rates lower than young whites. Yet in the 25 largest counties of California where blacks constitute 7 percent of the population, African American men are being arrested at double, triple, or even quadruple the rates for whites. This is not accidental.
Born of bigotry and sourced in fear, U.S. drug policy began with conveniently legalized discrimination against the Chinese, then Latinos, and finally African Americans.
That many of today’s law enforcement officers deny overt racism in enforcing drug laws, that they claim they’re simply responding to citizen complaints of street corner dealing and open-air drug markets, makes the practice no less ruinous to the lives of young black men.
As Huffman points out, ending the drug war — or, more modestly, bringing a halt to the indisputable madness of marijuana prohibition — is imperative if we are to help halt the institutionalized denial of civil rights and civil liberties in African American communities.
Yet, speaking as “President and CEO” of the “International Faith-Based Coalition,” a pro-drug war organization that seems to have sprung up out of nowhere to combat Proposition 19, Bishop Allen addressed a news conference on the steps of the state capital. “Why would the NAACP advocate for blacks to stay high?” he said. “It’s going to cause crime to go up,” he said. “There will be more drug babies,” he said. Huffman “must resign,” he said.
Stop and think, Mr. Allen: Huffman was hardly urging blacks to “stay high,” or even to pick up a single joint; marijuana legalization will cause crime to go down, not up; and there will be fewer drug babies.
How do we know this? History, science, and common sense. Between 1920 and 1933, alcohol prohibition produced an explosion of violent crime, drive-by shootings, overdose deaths (think bad bathtub gin), and obscene profits for bootleggers — yesteryear’s drug cartels and street dealers. It took only 13 years for Americans to come to their senses and repeal the Volstead Act. In so doing, we put the skids to an illicit industry whose monopolized commerce had guaranteed street violence. Alcohol was “re-legalized,” its wholesaling and retailing “re-regulated.” Taxes, once again, were collected. Crime went down.
And that feckless comment about “more drug babies”? Ponder this, Mr. Allen. If a parent chooses not to consume marijuana solely because it is illegal, is that really the kind of law-abiding, conscientious parent who, under a newly legalized system, would put his or her baby at risk?
The great majority of today’s 25 million or so regular marijuana consumers don’t drive stoned, beat their partners, rob convenience stores, or feed THC-laced brownies to their toddlers. They’ve simply chosen to consume an illegal drug that they know to be demonstrably safer and healthier than alcohol, with far fewer harmful effects than tobacco.
Of course, some consume too much marijuana. In Mr. Allen’s words, they “stay high.” But under a system of regulated legalization, these individuals would be treated as medical patients, not law-breakers. With no criminal stigma attached they’d be more likely to seek help for their affliction. And, under a public health vs. criminal justice orientation, they would be more likely to get that help.
Why continue to criminalize behavior we know, scientifically, to be safer than today’s legal, commercially marketed alcohol and tobacco products? Why force millions of Americans to rely on a distribution system that cannot guarantee quality, a product free of dangerous additives? Why feed the self-perpetuating violence and greed machine that is the current “cartel” and street-gang system? Why suffer year after year the loss of tax revenues (pot’s the country’s top cash crop) that the government could be using to fund public safety, abuse prevention, education, and drug treatment?
Fortunately, Huffman, a tough woman with no quit in her when it comes to justice, has made it clear she’s not backing off. She’s received strong support from other notable black leaders, including a former chairman of the national NAACP. Julian Bond told her that, “…you and the California NAACP are as right as you can be. The war on drugs is an absolute failure. It targets black people.”
The black community has from the beginning suffered far more drug war casualties than any other segment of our society. Who, ultimately, will capture the larger African American community’s imagination when it comes to future drug policy? An angry, ill-informed man of the cloth whose “lock ’em and throw away the key” strategy promises to make matters worse?
Or Alice Huffman, whose spirit of logic, compassion and courage promises to rally support for the passage of Proposition 19?
Legalized marijuana, taxed, regulated, and controlled, would go a long way toward ending a uniquely destructive form of American racism and discrimination.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/norm-stamper/the-politics-of-cannabis_b_641955.html

My favorite definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. When Reagan started the drug war back in the 80’s, he should have been smacked upside the head with a book that talked about the problems brought on by Prohibition. Because, thanks to Reagan, we’ve wasted hundreds of billions of dollars and countless lives fighting a war that is unwinnable.
As Prohibition showed us, if people want to use drugs (and alcohol is a drug), they’re going to find a way to do it. And according to the Declaration of Independence, if they think it will make them happy, and they’re not violating anyone else’s right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, then they have the right to use their drug of choice!
It’s complete and utter insanity to keep drugs illegal. Below, I’ve compiled just a few of the reasons why we should legalize all drugs.

1. It would save tens of billions of dollars every year trying to prevent the flow of drugs into the US.
2. It would free up jail space so we can keep the really harmful criminals like child molesters and rapists and murderers in jail.
3. It would free up the court system, which is bogged down by so many drug trials it’s ridiculous. Estimates are that about 50% of judicial case loads now are drug cases. And 50% of inmates are there on drug charges.
4. It would preserve families. Mothers/fathers who go to jail can’t take care of their kids.
5. It would lessen the welfare load. People who go to jail or get a criminal record even if no jail time is served have a hard time getting a job when they get out. As a result, they end up working for minimum wage and can’t support themselves and end up on welfare.
6. It would create a huge new tax revenue. It could be taxed as outrageously high as cigarettes and we’d make tens of billions of dollars every year.
7. It could be regulated and therefore accidental overdoses from stuff that’s too pure or stuff that’s been cut with rat poison or some other lethal chemical won’t cause any harm to users.
8. It will slow the spread of HIV, hepatitis and other blood-born diseases that pass from IV drug user to IV drug user and their intimate partners and even to their children if a pregnancy results.
9. It will remove the power that gangs and drug cartels hold nowadays. If it’s legal, gangs don’t have turf to fight over. Drug cartels can’t wield the power and fear that they have now. Getting rid of gangs and drug cartels removes a whole host of OTHER problems as well.
10. Farmers who are now being paid to keep from planting their fields can now grow crops like pot. Hemp plants are very useful not only for the leaves but for rope and a whole host of other products that can be made from hemp. It is one of the most versatile and useful plants on the planet.
11. If drugs are legal, the stigma associated with getting help for being an addict is lessened. Some of the money from taxing the drugs can be used for effective treatment facilities for those who want to quit.

We’ve now spent more than 20 years trying to stem to flow of drugs into the US and it’s not working. And yet we keep pouring money into this black hole called the war on drugs. Not only money but lives of police officers killed trying to stop the drug traffickers, innocent civilians caught in the crossfire of drug wars, the children and families of not only the addicts but those killed in this insane war…
It’s time to try something new.

Despite the city’s enforcement and court moves against Lake Forest Wellness Center, the medical marijuana dispensary has kept it doors open through the ongoing appeals process–and was able to celebrate at least a partial victory as the last of 21 clinics in town still in operation.
Now, the dispensary has competition again.

Illustration by Jay Brockman

Like Lake Forest Wellness Center, Vale Tudu Café is on the receiving end of a stay granted by Santa Ana’s Fourth Appellate District of the state Court of Appeal, which at least temporarily halts a preliminary injunction by a Superior Court judge that shut down the dispensary.
Joining Vale Tudu Café in reopening its doors is Care Mutual (formerly GGECO) in Foothill Ranch, which is within Lake Forest city limits.
“I look at this as a great opportunity for the city and collectives to sit down and work out a plan for peaceful co-existence,” attorney Christopher Glew, who represents the two dispensaries, tells the Orange County Register. (He previously chatted up our Nick Schou here.)
“It’s one thing to extend the olive branch when we’re on the losing end,” Glew continues, “but we continue to extend it, even when we’re winning. It’s obvious our true intent is to find a way to co-exist without further litigation. We want regulation, patient access and everyone to be happy.”
Harshing his mellow is Jeffrey Dunn, the attorney representing the city of Lake Forest, which sought the Superior Court relief to shut dispensaries down in town.
“This has been an important issue to the city,” Dunn tells the Reg‘s Erika I. Ritchie. “They [dispensaries] create a whole host of problems for the city. They are not and never have been an allowable use.”
It’s too bad Dunn represents the powers-that-be and not the actual people. People like Molly Sanders, a 28-year-old Rancho Santa Margarita resident who was diagnosed with breast cancer eight months ago and uses medical marijuana to deal with extreme nausea brought on by her twice-weekly chemo therapy treatments.
She was one of the first people at Care Mutual’s door when it reopened yesterday, Ritchie reveals.
“It’s a blessing they’re open again,” Sanders reportedly said. “This is the only thing that helps me with my nausea. I didn’t know how to get the medical marijuana when they were closed.”