Medical Marijuana Raises Tough Questions for Nursing Homes

Norma Winkler, 82, uses cannabis oil mixed with applesauce to ease pain from a back injury.Alyson Martin Norma Winkler, 82, uses cannabis oil mixed with applesauce to ease pain from a back injury. She would not consider living in a nursing home that did not permit her to use the oil.

Every night before bed, Norma Winkler, 82, opens a small jar of cannabis oil and measures out a quarter-teaspoon to mix with homemade applesauce. Soon after she eats it, she drifts off to sleep.
Ms. Winkler, who lives in Rhode Island, where medical marijuana is legal, has endured chronic back pain since a car accident fractured her skull and spine at age 15. Operations haven’t helped, and other medicines don’t touch the pain that can keep her up through the night.
“It’s really been a lifesaver for me,” Ms. Winkler said of her cannabis oil. “I used to walk into the walls sometimes. I was so tired because I didn’t sleep.”
Today, she’s healthy enough to remain independent in her home and to operate the jewelry factory she owns. But she worries about what will happen if she needs institutional care. Would a long-term care facility allow her to use this particular medicine?
“I wouldn’t go if they didn’t allow me to take it,” Ms. Winkler said.
When states began embracing medical marijuana, few anticipated this inevitable scenario: patients using it would grow older, and many would need to enter assisted living and nursing homes. The prospect has just begun to raise difficult questions for administrators and state regulators.
Any patient using medical marijuana breaks federal law. Marijuana is listed as a Schedule 1 drug, which means the federal government considers it to have no medicinal value. Despite this, physicians in 14 states and the District of Columbia are allowed to recommend it. Legalization of medical marijuana is under consideration in eight additional states this year.
Though firm numbers are difficult to come by, experts say elderly patients like Ms. Winkler increasingly use medical marijuana to ease their pain. But many care facilities in which they reside, or will reside, receive federal funding through Medicare and indirectly through Medicaid.
Many facility administrators wonder how they can comply with federal law and preserve their reimbursements and at the same time permit residents to medicate with marijuana. At an American Health Care Association conference in early October, Fred Miles, a Colorado lawyer who represents health care providers, gave a presentation called “Medical Marijuana — Are Nursing Homes Going to Pot?”
The issue is badly in need of federal clarification, he said.
“What do these health care facilities do? Adopt a ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ policy? Somebody is using medical marijuana in the residence and you just close your eyes to it? I don’t think that’s going to work very well,” Mr. Miles said in an interview.
Said Maribeth Bersani, senior vice president of public policy for the Assisted Living Federation of America: “Where do they store [marijuana]? Who assists the residents with it? Do they even want to get involved because it still is not legal federally? It’s one of those challenges that we are beginning to confront in the communities.”
Such questions prompted the American Medical Directors Association to consider a resolution last spring proposing a discussion with the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services about how to relax federal regulations with regard to medical marijuana in long-term care facilities. (The resolution did not pass.)
In most states that allow medical marijuana, laws don’t explicitly address the possibility that elderly patients in care facilities will want to use it. Alaska’s medical marijuana law explicitly states that it does not require accommodation for users of marijuana medical in any facility monitored by the state’s Department of Administration, which includes assisted-living facilities.
But Michigan, Oregon and Rhode Island do include “agitation of Alzheimer’s” as a qualifying condition for legal use of marijuana. And when Maine’s medical marijuana law changed last November to allow for the establishment of dispensaries, the state expressly permitted nursing homes and inpatient hospice workers to act as registered medical marijuana caregivers for patients.
Catherine Cobb, director of the state’s division of licensing and regulatory services, invited representatives from Maine’s nursing homes to a conference where she explained the program.
In order for a nursing home or inpatient hospice to act as a registered medical marijuana caregiver, the facility must obtain medical marijuana from a dispensary. Ms. Cobb is encouraging the state’s new dispensaries to measure and package doses to make it easier for care facilities to inventory and administer the medicine.
Dosage, in addition to federal law, is among the most common questions in care facilities wrestling with the prospect of medical marijuana.
In New Mexico, which legalized medical marijuana in 2007, the transition to allowing facility residents to use it has gone fairly smoothly, said the state’s long-term care ombudsman, Sondra Everhart. But the lack of dosing direction has caused problems.
“If the marijuana is kept at the nurses’ station, it tends to disappear,” Ms. Everhart said. “Pills in nursing homes are in what they call vacuum packs: you have to pop a pill out one at a time. They don’t do that with marijuana. It’s an amount of marijuana in a small plastic bag, so there is no way to track if someone took one or two pinches.”
Montana’s long-term care ombudsman, Kelly Moorse, said in an e-mail that in one state facility, workers took medical marijuana from a resident’s lockbox. She also said there were claims of staff members approaching a resident, seeking to “share” the patient’s marijuana.
Another problem perplexing officials: Other residents may object to the use of marijuana at a care facility. A roommate, for instance, might see a medical marijuana patient as a criminal, raising additional questions about patients’ rights.
“They have an affirmative right to complain and ask for redress and so forth if there’s smoke in the air and it’s aggravating their lungs, or they don’t like the smell of marijuana,” said Joe Greenman, legal counsel with the Oregon Health Care Association. “And there are cultural complaints, because medical marijuana has stigma attached to it.”
Valerie Corral, director and co-founder of Wo/Men’s Alliance for Medical Marijuana in Santa Cruz, Calif., said that one local long-term care facility tries to accommodate patients on both sides by designating a garden patio as a marijuana-smoking area.
“In that courtyard, people are allowed to use their medicine with one of the aides that works at the facility,” Ms. Corral said. (Smoke-free options do exist for marijuana. Some facilities report patients using vaporizers or consuming cannabis baked into desserts, according to Ms. Moorse.)
Oregon’s long-term care ombudsman, Mary Jaeger, believes the emerging controversy highlights the rights of patients to use medical marijuana, whatever the setting.
“Wouldn’t any one of us, in our own homes, feel that we have the right to live our lives by our own values and choices, to preserve our own dignity and, frankly, to live pain-free?” Ms. Jaeger asked. “Because typically, that’s why a patient gets prescribed medical marijuana.”
In January, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or Norml, plans to introduce the Norml Senior Alliance, which will offer to elderly Americans information about the medical uses of marijuana, according to Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the organization.
Next week, voters in California will vote on whether to support the recreational use of marijuana. Ms. Corral said passage of the measure and the changes it would bring would be positive for those living in long-term care facilities by providing wider access to medical marijuana.
“What keeps many elders from using marijuana in the first place, medically, and relieving their suffering, is the stigma that’s attached to marijuana,” Ms. Corral said.
http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/27/medical-marijuana-raises-tough-questions-in-nursing-homes/?src=mv

Book Says Pot Laws Are Unconstitutional; Soon Available Online

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Photo: Shady House Publishing Company

​It doesn’t take a psychic to know that marijuana legalization is on the way. A new book showing that it never should have been outlawed in the first place will be soon be available online, according to its publisher.

Author Hoam Rogh‘s new twist on his cult classic marijuana novel, Satan’s Smoke, retitled The Case of U.S. v. Yerbas, shows the history and constitutional implications of cannabis law, exposing marijuana prohibition as unconstitutional.
“One chapter will be published online each week, along with commentary on the facts, the histories and the artistic liberties we took in making the book,” Rogh said.
The Case of U.S. v. Yerbas features a trial in federal court that invalidates cannabis prohibition. The story has already been read from coast to coast, and the print edition will soon be available in bookstores nationwide.
“To provide some fuel to our fire, we’re going to be giving readers a taste of what they could be reading,” Rogh said. “With over 30 chapters, you could just kill the whole thing in an afternoon by getting your own copy.”

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Photo: Hoam Rogh
Author Hoam Rogh: “Cannabis law is nbot honest. It’s lies for no good reason and people suffer and die.”
​”The only reason cannabis has been outlawed this long is that people don’t know its true story,” said Rogh, who printed an earlier version of the book as Satan’s Smoke a few months ago, but decided to take a different direction once a major distributor came along.
“He wrote a great book but the presentation chilled many potential readers,” said James Liam, CEO of Shady House Publishing Company, the novel’s publisher. To reach as many people as possible, the publisher retired the cover parody of the “Assassins of Youth” propaganda movie poster and came up with a more direct book title and cover.
“We replaced the countercultural title as the people in that realm are already with us and we decided we want to reach those chilled by the propaganda and the stigma it brought to cannabis,” Rogh told Toke of the Town.
“We want to inform the masses regarding a law that violates their due process rights on a daily basis,” Rogh told us. “The current law is absurd; no conceivable set of facts rationally related to any legitimate interest of the federal government exists in which to validate the law. Period.”
“Over the course of the next decade those who rely on fear for votes will continue to do so and violence may result as it is a consequence of their policy,” Rogh told Toke of the Town.
“On the other hand, intelligence has never been more widely available and humanity has a way of outgrowing silly, stupid laws every time such a rebirth of reason occurs,” Rogh told us.
“Good law provides stability so that we can live our lives, but such only happens if we know the law is honest,” Rogh told us. “Cannabis law is not honest. It’s lies for no good reason and people suffer and die. I know, and you know it.”

“Please, share with your friends, tell them to tune in to our story,” Rogh said. “Tell them that the foundation of our nation is the concept of due process. That our government is forbidden from arbitrary actions because liberty and freedom demand it.”
“No free man would submit to a social contract that condemns him or her to bondage,” Rogh said. “Cannabis law damns millions of innocent civilians to poverty, criminal records, and distrust. Never again!”
“We’ll deliver you the rights your forefathers fought and died for,” Rogh said. “And the rule of law will return to the land of the free.”

N.J. Doctors Forced To Tell Patients Marijuana Is Addictive

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Photo: BakedLife.com

​New Requirement Called Openly Hostile, “Blatantly Political”

New Jersey doctors who have begun enrolling some of their sickest patients in the state’s medical marijuana program Tuesday found they must agree to tell the patients there’s a “lack of scientific consensus” that cannabis works, that it could even hurt them, and that it has a risk of addiction.

Physicians must sign off on a statement attesting to their patients’ qualifying conditions and the failure of “conventional medicine” to help alleviate their suffering, reports Susan K. Livio at NJ.com.
But the statement goes much farther than that. It also forces doctors to provide “education for the patient on the lack of scientific consensus for the use of medical marijuana, its sedative properties, and the risk of addiction.”

State Health Department spokeswoman Donna Leusner claimed the statement is “reasonable.”
“Marijuana, like other drugs that affect the central nervous system, has the potential to cause a patient to become addicted,” Leusner claimed, ignoring scientific evidence indicating otherwise.
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Photo: Gest Alta
Ken Wolski, CMMNJ: “This is a blatantly political statement, at odds with the law itself, and shows open hostility to the use of marijuana as medicine”
​The requirement is a “blatantly political statement” that further proves Gov. Chris Christie’s administration is actively trying to weaken the medical marijuana program before it even starts, according to Ken Wolski, a nurse and executive director of the cannabis advocacy group Coalition for Medical Marijuana in New Jersey.
The statement “shows open hostility to the use of marijuana as medicine,” Wolski said.
He also said he was troubled that the online registry form requires doctors to attest they have completed education in “addiction medicine and pain management” within the past two years. They also “must include the course title that covers these two areas, or they will be rejected from the registry,” according to the online form.
Wolski said those requirements are not in the law.
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Graphic: Narco Polo
Marijuana is less addictive than caffeine.
​”Marijuana is approximately as addictive as caffeine,” he said. (I respect Wolski and his work enormously, but even that overstate’s the addiction potential of cannabis. Coffee’s way more addictive than pot — it gives you headache when you quit cold turkey, and marijuana doesn’t.)
“Physicians should not be required to take a course in addiction medicine for recommending a substance with documented low addiction potential,” Wolski said.
The debate is the latest controversy over the creation of a state-approved medical marijuana program in New Jersey.
The law’s authors, including co-sponsor State Senator Nicholas Scutari (D-Union), said they are so disappointed in the state Health and Senior Services Department’s overly restrictive approach to the rules that they have threatened to repeal them if the Christie administration won’t compromise.
Even if the Legislature does act, however, it would simply hand any rewrite back to the DHSS, allowing the agency to come up with a whole new set of rules that might still not make patients or advocates happy, reports Brian Thompson at NBC New York.
Starting on Tuesday, physicians can visit the Health Department’s website and enter their name, medical license number and the Drug Enforcement Administration number that permits them to write prescriptions. After all that information is confirmed, the doctors can enroll patients by name and medical condition and give patients a code number so they can apply for an ID card, according to Deputy Health Commissioner Susan Walsh.
Seventeen physicians had registered online by 5 p.m. Tuesday, Leusner said. There is no limit on the number of doctors who can sign up for the registry, according to Leusner.
Medical marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries is not expected to be available until late spring at the earliest.

San Fran Pot Shop, Free Joints for Giants’ Homers, Other Goodies

When the San Francisco Giants’ Juan Uribe hit a homer in game one of the team’s World Series 11-7 win over the Texas Rangers, patients at ReLeaf Herbal Center were the winners. The medical marijuana dispensary is giving one free joint to all existing patients on the premises, for every home run hit by a Giants player.
ReLeaf Herbal Center has decided to drum up business for itself by being a place to hang out during the World Series. In addition to a free doobie, they are encouraging patients to sample its special punch drink.
Here is their Facebook page posting: “Ready for game 2??? ReLeaf is ready…with our medicated Giants Punch which we will again be sampling to our patients during the game and a a good stack of joints ready to hand out to patients present at our collective during each home run!! Go Giants!!!”
TMZ.com did a whole piece on the medical marijuana dispensary’s free market concepts. The Giants Punch, according to them is a cool Giants’ orange in color as well as laced with the medical stuff. With Prop. 19 on the ballot in California that would decriminalize one ounce or less of the loose leaf, the licensed pot dispensaries are realizing that they won’t be the only way to get pot on a legal basis, if and when the vote goes in the proposition’s favor.

ReLeaf Herbal Center treats patients to free punch and joints after Giants home runs

The Giants hope to oblige fans who favor the demon weed, not specifically of course, but if that happens to be a collateral benefit of them hitting dingers into McCovey Cove, so be it.
Other offerings of ReLeaf include something called “Pot Pockets”. They are pizza pocket-sandwiches with that very special ingredient. Also on the menu are lollipops in flavors such as coconut, lemon, orange, cheesecake, chocolate mousse cakes and of course, ReLeaf branded clothing, including tee shirts.
If MLB and fans wouldn’t object, Tim Lincecum could get himself a nice sponsorship from ReLeaf. Picked up a year ago on a pot possession charge, Lincecum has been pure as the driven snow this season, without any failed drug tests that we are aware of. At only 165 lbs. Lincecum could use to put on a few pounds and as comedians like to point out, smoking marijuana doesn’t lead to using harder drugs, it leads to eating Doritos.

Landlord Seeks Marijuana Patients To Rent His Place

A BAY AREA LANDLORD IS ACTUALLY SEEKING OUT MEDICAL MARIJUANA PATIENTS TO RENT HIS PLACE.
HE’S NOT SECRETIVE ABOUT IT.
IN FACT, HE PUT AN AD ON CRAIGSLIST.
HE SHOWED ROBERT LYLES THE ONE ROOM IN THE HOUSE THAT’S THE BIG SELLING POINT.
IT HAS 3 BEDROOMS…THAT ARE WORKS IN PROGRESS.
“Would this be considered the master? Yes, it would (laugh)…”
THERE’S ONE BATHROOM… AND EVEN DIRT ON THE WALLS..
“< you literally made this from the soil in the backyard?> yeah.”
STILL ITS RENTING FOR 13 HUNDRED DOLLARS A MONTH.
AND THE CALLS TO DAVID PETERSON HAVE BEEN NON-STOP.
“There’s somebody else coming to see the house at 5-30…so the sooner the better.”
SO WHY ARE RENTERS RACING TO A NORTH RICHMOND NEIGHBORHOOD TO SHELL-OUT 13 HUNDRED CLAMS A MONTH?
“So this is the grow room… this used to be a walk in closet.”
THAT’S RIGHT… INSTEAD OF SKELETONS IN PETERSON’S CLOSET…
THERE’S A 32 SQUARE FOOT GROW TABLE… CAPABLE OF HOLDING 6 MATURE AND 12 IMMATURE POT PLANTS…
IN FACT, PETERSON HAS MADE INDOOR GROWING EFFORTLESS.
“These are thousand watt lights… thousand watt grow lights.”
“This is a carbon filter…so all the air in the room get’s pulled this way…and reduces the smell basically.”
AND IT’S ALL INCLUDED IN THE RENT.
SPELLED OUT… IN BLACK AND WHITE ON CRAIGSLIST…
THAT’S WHAT BROUGHT LYDIA DAVIDSON RACING IN FROM SHASTA COUNTY.
LYDIA DAVIDSON, PERSPECTIVE RENTER
“…Its not very easy to find a landlord that first allows a 215 patient…but encourages the rental of one… so it was kinda’ neat.”
“And she’s not alone. When our camera’s arrived here tonight…there were 3 perspective renters waiting curbside…for a tour of that grow room inside. But none wanted to appear on camera. So just what do the neighbors think?.”
PEDRO TORO, NORTH RICHMOND NEIGHBOR
“You’re not surprised to see it in the neighborhood? No.”
PEDRO TORO SAYS IN THIS PART OF RICHMOND…POT IS FOUND…
“Many places in the neighborhood… No uh-uh. No.”
SO NEITHER LANDLORD NOR RENTERS SEEM WORRIED ABOUT RUNNING AFOUL OF THE LAW.
“It seems like its getting safer and safer as far as law enforcement goes.”
http://wdef.com/news/landlord_seeks_marijuana_patients_to_rent_his_place/10/2010

Gross Racial Disparities In California Pot Arrests

Leaf

SAN FRANCISCO — Attorney General Eric Holder ruffled some feathers with his recent promise to “vigorously enforce” marijuana prohibition in California even if the state ballot initiative seeking to legalize marijuana passes on November 2.
He might have some trouble with fair implementation: Studies show minorities are much more likely to be arrested for pot possession in California than whites, even though minorities are less likely to smoke pot.
A recent report by the Drug Policy Alliance found that from 2006 to 2008 “police in 25 of California’s major cities arrested blacks at four, five, six, seven, and even 12 times the rate of whites.” The City of Los Angeles, for instance, “arrested blacks for marijuana possession at seven times the rate of whites,” even though young white people consistently report higher marijuana use than blacks or Hispanics, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
In the last 20 years, California authorities made 850,000 arrests for possession of small amounts of marijuana. There’s no reason to believe the disparity in arrests is confined to the state.
On Wednesday the DPA released a second report highlighting the disparities between white and Latino arrests. Findings showed that from 2006 to 2008 “major cities in California arrested and prosecuted Latinos for marijuana possession at double to nearly triple the rate of whites.” In San Jose, the third largest city in the state, police arrested Latinos at more than twice the rate of whites. Glendale, California — where Latinos make up only 17 percent of the population of almost 200,000, but 30 percent of those arrested for marijuana possession — had the highest Latino arrest rate of the 33 cities surveyed.
The report’s authors cautioned that the findings should not be attributed to racist cops.
“The disparities documented in the report are the result of routing police practices, not the result of racists cops here and there,” Stephen Gutwillig, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, told reporters on a conference call Wednesday. “This is a system-wide issue.”

The report’s authors, led by Queens College sociologist Harry Levine, have noted that marijuana possession arrests can have serious consequences, creating permanent “drug arrest” records that can be easily found on the Internet by employers, landlords, schools, credit agencies, licensing boards and banks.

Several weeks ago, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed a law, effective in January, which downgrades possession of an ounce or less of marijuana from a misdemeanor to an infraction. But Gutwillig said the new legislation will not eliminate the problem.
“The recent downgrading by the governor which lowers the penalty from a misdemeanor to an infraction is absolutely a step in the right direction,” he said. “But targeting of Latinos will continue.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/10/28/gross-racial-disparities-_n_775590.html

Wilkinson’s Novel ‘Witchgrass’ Gets It Exactly Right

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There is so much damage and devastation inflicted on American communities by our government’s senseless war on cannabis that the sheer magnitude of the tragedy can sometimes overwhelm us. Bust statistics and prison terms blur into a cacophony of numbers, a calculus of pain as they inexorably pile and snowball.

But one thing that can really take us right back to the reality of the situation — that the war on marijuana destroys lives — is to take a look at a close-knit community and the individuals in it, and how they are impacted when the heavy hand of pot prohibition enters the picture.
That’s exactly what author Dave Wilkinson does with his novel Witchgrass: A Pipe Dream, originally released in 1994 and reprinted this year. The book portrays shattered lives and conflicted families as a New England town splits apart.
Trouble comes to rural Maine as a middle school student is recruited in a DARE class to inform on her parents for marijuana (talk about a storyline ripped from the headlines). As we see the toll the Drug War takes on a small New England town, we are left to ask why.

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Dave Wilkinson
Witchgrass author Dave Wilkinson
​Wilkinson’s incredible writing washes away any initial reader skepticism within the first ten pages — he’s that good. And Wilkinson excellently performs the novelist’s magic trick of creating living, breathing characters that we care about, laugh with, cry with, and even take “Safety Meetings” with (read the book).
“My strategy to help end prohibition: Don’t argue; tell a story,” Wilkinson says. “My book shows the kind of damage that must be stopped.”
Far from a dry recitation of facts, Witchgrass conveys humor, drama, and an excellent sense of place.
“I love a novel that brings me into a world I didn’t know; thanks to Witchgrass, I now know about up-country Maine, its people, geography, and social climate, because Wilkinson took me there and made it real,” said noted author John Vorhaus, author of The California Roll and Under The Gun.
“This is the sort of story that needs to be told,” said Hoam Rogh, author of The Case Of U.S. v. Yerbas and Satan’s Smoke. “There is no reason why we need to live in a police state for marijuana…. Read Witchgrass to learn how one small town fought back.”
Incredibly, the fact that Wilkinson dared to tell the truth through his fiction has led to the book being banned at one chain of Maine bookstores.
Sherman’s Books, with outlets in Bar Harbor, Boothbay, Freeport, and other cities, has refused to stock Witchgrass, according to Wilkinson.
“They have stocked another book of mine, so it can’t be me,” Wilkinson said. “Best-selling author Carolyn Chute and others have praised the book, so it can’t be that. Do you suppose it might be the subject matter?”
If your local book shop doesn’t stock Witchgrass, ask them to order it or you can get it from Amazon here.

Machine-Gun Toting Cops Raid Legal Pot Patient For Two Plants

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Photo: Voice It Out
Seattle Police officers knocked a legal patient’s door down, charged in brandishing machine guns, and forced him face down to the floor. He had two legal plants.

 
​Seattle Police officers brandishing submachine guns broke down the door of a 50-year-old medical marijuana patient Monday night and pushed him face down to the floor. His offense? He was legally growing two tiny cannabis plants.

Will Laudanski, a military veteran who was an Airborne Ranger in Desert Shield, wasn’t even breaking the law. As an authorized medical marijuana patient in the state of Washington, he’s allowed to grow up to 15 plants and possess 24 ounces of cannabis.
But Seattle Police have shown they are willing to treat the smallest of pot cases — even in cases where the marijuana is legal — as if they were raiding the biggest crack house or meth lab in town.
Just before 9 p.m. Monday officers at SPD’s East Precinct held a briefing about a complaint of marijuana at a four-unit apartment building in the Leschi neighborhood, reports Dominic Holden at The Stranger.

A week earlier, officers had applied for a search warrant from King County Superior Court, sent an officer with a drug dog to sniff at the door, “confirmed the scent of marijuana,” and started planning their big SWAT style drug raid.
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Graphic: NORML/Missoula Independent
​A gung-ho SWAT team of officers decked out in all their Rambo-esque raid equipment — between six and nine officers — ran up the stairs, some carrying MP5 submachine guns, and one guy with a battering ram. They pounded on Laudanski’s door and said it was the police.
“I was tying my robe,” said Laudanski, who had just stepped out of the bathroom. “I said ‘I am opening the door,’ but before I could get my hand to the door, they busted it open and then rushed me.”
Laudanski told The Stranger his door now “has cracks running right down the middle. I can’t really bolt it.”
“During the entry to this apartment, the locking mechanism to the front door was possibly damaged,” the official incident report drily notes.
“I was trying to comply,” Laudanski said. “Then they pushed me down to the ground and just basically got me positioned in a corner of the kitchen with my face on the floor.”
As officers began to tear up the place while he was face down on the floor, Laudanski told them he was an authorized medical marijuana patient and directed them to his paperwork in the other room. “Do you want to see it?” he asked the officers.
Laudanski “had paperwork in the room declaring his marijuana grow was for medical purposes,” the police report acknowledged.
As officers ransacked the apartment, they discovered two small marijuana plants in the bedroom, each growing in pots. 
“They were able to see the full extent of my pathetic grow,” Laudanski said. “There were four little nuggets of bud the size of your pinkie on one and five on the other. They’re about 12 inches high.”
Police didn’t take the plants.
“Clearly, in this case, there was no law violation that was discovered,” admitted Seattle Police spokesman Sean Whitcomb.
But Whitcomb adds, “Our mission is to enforce the law. We do that by gathering information of any evidence of any criminal violation. And I’d go on to say that had the officers known that, they would have spent their tune diubg something else. However, unfortunately, we don’t always have that luxury.”
But officers do have the luxury of speaking the English language, don’t they? Couldn’t they have, like, knocked on the goddamned door and asked about the marijuana, especially given the fact that Washington is a medical marijuana state?
Well, it turns out that “knock-and-talks” aren’t the protocol for “drug cases” — even small pot cases, Whitcomb said.
Well, heaven forbid you should go against your fucked-up protocol just because medical marijuana is legal, officer! By all means, feel free to break down doors, rough up sick people, and trash their homes! No need to make sure they’re breaking the law first; that would violate protocol!
 
Laudanski said he hasn’t done anything to attract the cops’ attention. And he doesn’t know why so much force was necessary.
“I came from a perspective that was pro-police,” said Laudanski, who worked in New York as a paramedic. “But I still think this was very, very wrong what they did. I feel that higher-up people who ordered this, they are wasting our time and our money and they are putting innocent people in danger.”
Every day in the United States, we have 100 to 150 paramilitary style SWAT raids on American homes, mostly in the name of the War On Drugs, according to NORML. Shouldn’t we at least get the sick and dying off the battlefield?

Fill’er Up with Hemp Biodiesel

Hemp could be on the verge of joining the growing number of weeds that could power your car. Researchers at the University of Connecticut have found that industrial hemp seeds could make an ideal feedstock for biofuel production. Slight hitch: growing hemp, industrial or otherwise, is still illegal in the U.S. However, given that medical marijuana is rapidly approaching mainstream status and some states are relaxing marijuana-related laws, the chances for an industrial hemp comeback look a little brighter.

Biodiesel from Hemp

A couple of things about hemp make it ideal as a sustainable biofuel. First of all, industrial hemp is not a food crop.  Second, it flourishes in sub-quality soil with a minimal amount of water or fertilizer. The UConn research team found that 97 percent of the virgin hemp seed oil they tested converted to biodiesel, and this high efficiency of conversion offers good potential for commercial production. The team also found that hemp seed biodiesel could be used at lower temperatures than other biodiesels currently in use.

Plenty of Room for Hemp Biodiesel

With hemp production barred here in the U.S., the researchers hope their findings will prove useful in other countries where hemp is grown, since in most cases the seeds are simply discarded. In any case, as mentioned above, chances are that the ban will eventually be lifted, not only because of relaxing cultural attitudes about hemp in general but also because the U.S. military is going heavily in for biofuels, with camelina biofuel for Air Force and Navy fighter planes leading the way.

Medical marijuana patients will be able to smoke openly at this year’s Cypress Hill Smokeout

Cypress Hill has made no bongs about where its allegiances lie. The venerable South Gate-raised rhymers have been teaching America how to get high and the right ways to do it, since Bush père owned the Oval Office. And since 1998,  the group’s struck the match for the Cypress Hill Smokeout, along with Guerilla Union (the organization behind Paid Dues and Rock the Bells).
Following a hiatus, the festival returned last year with performances from a reunited Sublime (minus the late Bradley Nowell), Goodie Mob, the Geto Boys, Redman & Method Man, and Slipknot. This year’s event, slated for Oct. 16 at San Bernardino’s NOS Events Center,  features headlining performances from Incubus, Manu Chao, Nas and Damian Marley, Erykah Badu and MGMT.
But perhaps the most interesting story about the festival’s latest incarnation is that it boasts a dedicated consumption area for medical marijuana patients. The fruits of an arrangement brokered between Guerilla Union and local municipal and law enforcement officials, the safe haven is the first known pact of its kind in Southern California concert history. In advance of the festival, Pop & Hiss spoke with Guerilla Union’s Chang Weisberg about how the deal went down.
What was the process behind persuading the local authorities to permit this sort of safe haven for medical marijuana cardholders?
It was a long one. We had to get the OK from the police department and the city of San Bernardino.  None of them will endorse what we’re doing, or even say that they’re behind this. However, they took a major step by saying, ‘We’ll work with you, we’ll give you this opportunity and privilege.’ It stems from having succesfully executed Paid Dues, Rock the Bells and the Smokeout for over a decade.
But this is about more than just a place where people with medical marijuana cards can smoke marijuana freely. We have a medical marijuana expo where we promote activism, compassion and education. We believe that medical marijuna is the gateway to responsible tax-regulated consumption. Obviously, big alcohol, big medicine and big tobacco fan a lot of negative stereoytypes regarding cannabis.

How is this sort of arrangement going to work?
If you have a verified recomendation or card, you will be allowed to enter the venue and go to a specific area and smoke — provided that you’re over 18. We’re creating our own reality in allowing patients to exercise their rights. They’ll be able to smoke it and vaporize it, but I don’t think we’ll allow people to eat it. I don’t need the kind of press that the Electric Daisy received.
This sort of arrangement isn’t unprecedented. In Northern California, several concerts have done similar things and in the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum where the Oakland A’s play,  you can smoke in a dedicated smoking area if you have your medical marijuana card. Eventually, we hope this is going to lead to people being able to walk into Wal-Mart or Rite-Aid and get their medicine, whether it will come in cigarette form, or salves, or lotions. Or better yet, to educate people to grow their personal amounts and save their money.
Have you faced opposition from anti-drug elements in the community?
Definitely. Every time we throw a show, there’s always going to be negative stereotypes that surround it. But we’ve worked with the authorities in a meaningful capacity for a long time. When you run an event for 40,000 people without riots or violence, you’re always dealing with narcotics and crash teams. Before our hiatus, there were local groups that called me the devil like they did to Ozzy Osbourne, but we weren’t exactly biting off bats’ heads or burning Bibles. From our perspective, we’re bringing in $4 to $5 million of revenues from the hotels that are booked to the traffic that businesses and gas stations receive.
The Inland Empire has the highest unemployment rate in Southern California. We’re trying to generate a positive commercial impact and bring positive energy. What we’re doing can have a positive effect, not just for medical marijuana advocates, but eventually for schools and colleges and the hotel bureau. We have a massive fiscal impact. I hate the cliche, but we put the heads in the beds.
Will you be giving any of the proceeds from the show to medical marijuana-related advocacy groups or to the forces in favor of passage of Prop. 19?
As we always do, we’re putting a $1 charity charge on the ticket. This time, it will be going to Americans for Safe Access, which is the largest medical marijuana group. As for Prop. 19, I believe that taxation is the way to go. However, if you talk to anyone well versed in medical marijuana, there are some flaws in the bill, so we haven’t officially taken a stance either way.
Do you think the Smokeout’s precedent will inspire other festivals to attempt to have medical marijuana consumption zones?
I definitely think it’s a step in the right direction. I’ve spoken to Paul Tollett at Goldenvoice about it. I’m not saying that next year, Coachella will have a consumption area, but I think that we’re going to tip the balance in that favor.
Will there be doctors on-site to make sure you’re covered in case of medical problems?
There will be doctors on-site so that nonpatients can potentially be authorized that day and for a nominal fee become patients. But we’ve always had that inside our medicial marijuana expo. However, not everyone will become a patient. We’re going to try to turn away as many people as we can, because the big man is watching us, as well they should. Narcotics officers will be in the building, but they won’t be threatening or rude. It’ll be done in the most positive manner possible.
Will it be perfect the first time? Probably not — but we have a stellar lineup and for the first time in their lives, thousands of people with medical marijuana cards will have to smoke without fear of hiding or going into the crowds. It’s going to be like the day you turned 21 and were able to buy a beer legally. It was only a big deal that day, but you certainly never forget it.
— Jeff Weiss
Photo: Cypress Hill performs at Lollapalooza 2010 in Chicago. Photo: Nam Y. Huh / Associated Press

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/music_blog/2010/10/a-conversation-with-guerilla-union-founder-chang-weisberg-in-advance-of-the-cypress-hill-smokeout.html