Jul 15th 2010 | Los Angeles

IN 1971 a group of teenagers in San Rafael, north of San Francisco, started meeting after school, at 4:20PM, to get high. The habit spread, and 420 became code for fun time among potheads worldwide. Ever since, California has remained in the vanguard of global cannabis culture. Oaksterdam University in Oakland is today unique in the world as a sort of Aristotelian lyceum for the study of all aspects—horticultural, scientific, historical—of the weed.
Legally, California has also been a pioneer, at least within America. In 1996 it was the first state to allow marijuana to be grown and consumed for medicinal purposes. Since then, 13 states and the District of Columbia have followed, and others are considering it. But this year California may set a more fundamental, and global, precedent. It may become the first jurisdiction in the world to legalise, regulate and tax the consumption, production and distribution of marijuana.
Other Western countries—from Argentina to Belgium and Portugal—have liberalised their marijuana laws in recent decades. Some places, such as the Netherlands and parts of Australia, have in effect decriminalised the use of cannabis. But no country has yet gone all the way.
Several efforts are under way in California to do exactly that. One is a bill wending its way through the state legislature that would essentially treat marijuana like alcohol, making it legal for people aged 21 and over. Sponsored by Tom Ammiano, a flamboyant gay activist and assemblyman from San Francisco, it would levy a $50 excise tax on every ounce produced and a sales tax on top, then use those funds for drug education. A rival bill would de-penalise (as opposed to legalise) marijuana, so that getting caught with it would be no worse than receiving a parking ticket.
The more visible effort is a measure, Proposition 19, which will be put directly to voters on the November ballot. This so-called Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, sponsored by the founder of Oaksterdam University, would also legalise the growing, selling and smoking of marijuana for those older than 21, within certain limits. But it would leave the regulation and taxation entirely up to counties and cities. These could choose to ban the business or to tax it at whatever rate they pleased.
This burst of activity may yet come to nothing, however. California has deeply conservative parts, and Proposition 19 has mobilised them. George Runner, a Republican state senator, calls legalisation a “reprehensible” idea. He fears that “once again California would be the great experiment for the rest of the world at the expense of public safety, community health and common sense.”

Voters, meanwhile, seem split. One poll has Proposition 19 winning narrowly, another shows a small plurality against it (see chart). To nobody’s surprise, voters in the liberal counties round San Rafael, Oaksterdam and San Francisco clamour for legalisation while those in the inland counties abhor it.
Perhaps more surprisingly, most blacks and Latinos are also against it. And yet blacks are arrested for marijuana possession at twice, three times or even four times the rate of whites in every major county of California, according to the Drug Policy Alliance, a lobby that wants to end America’s war on drugs. This seems especially unfair, because young blacks actually smoke marijuana less than young whites. Alice Huffman, the leader in California of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, America’s most influential civil-rights lobby, is for legalisation because she considers the existing laws “the latest tool for imposing Jim Crow justice on poor African-Americans”.
The debate tends to lose focus as it gains heat, because nobody quite knows what legalisation would lead to. So the RAND Corporation, a think-tank in Santa Monica, has bravely tried to project some effects.
One is that the price of marijuana is likely to decline by more than 80% upon legalisation. An ounce of standard marijuana in California now costs between $300 and $450. The retail cost to consumers would depend, in the case of Proposition 19, on the taxes applied by counties, which are unknown as yet. Even so, weed seems likely to become cheaper.
This suggests that consumption will increase, but it is unclear by how much, according to the Rand study. That is because nobody knows what effect price changes, not to mention more fundamental shifts in attitude and culture, will have on the demand for marijuana. Today, 7% of Californians report using marijuana in the past month, compared with 6% in the rest of the country. That rate might go up. Or it might not: Californians also smoke less than other Americans and do more yoga, all of which is legal.
Another big topic in a state with a $19 billion budget hole is the fiscal impact of legalisation. Some studies have estimated savings of nearly $1.9 billion as people are no longer arrested and imprisoned because of marijuana. RAND thinks these savings are probably smaller, about $300m. As for revenues, California’s government estimates that the excise and sales taxes of the Ammiano bill would bring in about $1.4 billion a year. Rand thinks the figure could be higher or lower, especially if Proposition 19 prevails, since it leaves tax rates yet to be decided.
Nothing, in short, is certain, especially because legalisation would clash against federal laws and international treaties. The Obama administration has hinted at discretion, but in theory federal prosecutors could undo any state law by continuing to prosecute individual Californians over marijuana, or by suing the state. And Congress could withhold federal money, as it did in 1984 from states that resisted raising the drinking age to 21.
But Californians and others may also decide that the issue is primarily one of individual freedom, or at least the ending of an era of cruel hypocrisy. Why burden the lives of so many adolescents, especially black men, with permanent criminal records? They only did what even past and current presidents have admitted to, whether they inhaled or not.
http://www.economist.com/node/16591136?story_id=16591136&fsrc=rss

(NaturalNews) A study released by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences has found that high omega-3 consumption helps to prevent colon cancer. Dr. Sangmi Kim and her team discovered what many other studies have already found, mainly that omega-3s are anti-inflammatory cancer fighters.
The research team compared groups of people who consumed varying levels of omega-3s and found that those in the top fourth bracket of omega-3 consumption had half the risk of developing colon cancer when compared to those in the bottom fourth.
The team also found that high intake of omega-6s compared to omega-3s indicates an increased risk of developing colon cancer. That is why many health experts recommend consuming a proper balance of omega-3s and omega-6s, with an ideal ratio of about 1:1.
According to the U.S. National Institutes of Health, the typical Western diet is composed of an omega-6/omega-3 ratio of more than 15:1. Excessive omega-6 consumption contributes to a host of today’s modern diseases, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, autoimmune disorders and inflammation.
High consumption of omega-3s will help to suppress the onset of these diseases and improve overall health.
The only problem is that foods containing high levels of omega-3s are much less prevalent than foods containing high levels of omega-6s. Common refined oils like soybean and canola are high in omega-6s compared to omega-3s. These oils are also highly processed.
According to one report, roughly 20 percent of the calories consumed in an average American diet come from refined soybean oil.
Both omega-3s and omega-6s are healthy, but too much omega-6s without enough omega-3s can be harmful to health. For this reason, it is important to make sure you are getting the proper ratio, which ultimately means eating the right foods and supplementing if necessary.
Fish, cod liver and salmon oils are all rich sources of omega-3s and are great for dietary supplementation. Vegetarian sources of omega-3s include hemp and linseed, also known as flax, oils.
Good food sources that contain beneficial ratios of omega-6s/omega-3s include wild, cold water oily fish like salmon, hemp seeds, grass-fed, pastured meats, and walnuts.
It is also best to include a variety of different fruits, vegetables, nuts and oils in your diet, and to avoid processed foods containing unhealthy oils, refined flours and sugars, and too many simple carbohydrates.
http://www.naturalnews.com/029207_omega_3s_colon_cancer.html

Teaching hospitals in New Jersey say they should hold a monopoly over marijuana distribution as the state plans to implement its medical-marijuana law, NJ.com reported July 12.
The New Jersey Council of Teaching Hospitals argues that secure buildings, patient connections, and solid reputation make its members ideal candidates to facilitate medical-marijuana distribution. “The program not only will make New Jersey a model for the nation in how to implement a safe and sane medical marijuana program, it could bring significant new dollars to the teaching hospitals to fund graduate medical education therein addressing New Jersey’s physician manpower shortage,” the council said.
Under the plan, medical marijuana would be grown at Rutgers University’s School of Environmental and Biological Sciences and allocated to 16 large teaching hospitals statewide. Patients would order the drug online and pick them up at hospital pharmacies.
http://www.jointogether.org/news/headlines/inthenews/2010/hospitals-vie-to-become.html

It was fun, it was loud, it was colourful and it was a huge success. But especially green it was not. In fact, by several measures, the FIFA World Cup 2010 was possibly the least eco-friendly major international sporting event ever.
Before we let the euphoria of all the excess gees generated by a job brilliantly done hurtle us towards hosting other global mega shows – the Olympics, in particular – we’d do well to honestly assess some of the environmental shortcomings of the World Cup, along with other concerns around the (mis)allocation of scarce resources, white elephant stadiums and the behaviour of bully-boy organisers like FIFA.
An authoritative study sponsored by the Norwegian government estimates that the WC2010 was responsible for producing excess greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 2.7 million tones of CO2. That may be less than a percent of our national annual emissions, but it makes for a carbon footprint twice the size of that of the 2008 Beijing Olympics and more than eight times that of the WC2006 in Germany.
The event showed up our dirty, coal-fired electricity generation industry (12.4% of emissions came from energy use in accommodation), our carbon-intensive transport infrastructure within cities and between the far-flung stadiums (19%) and, most dramatically, the fact that we are located a great distance from most of the planet’s affluent football fans (a whopping 67.4% of emissions were due to international travel).
Yes, there was talk of “green goals”, but most of these appeared to be more ad hoc afterthoughts rather than binding and substantive commitments. Planting trees, even many thousands of them, is nice, but it’s also a notoriously ineffective method for sopping up CO2. The fact that African teams wore jerseys promoting biodiversity and that those of Brazil, Portugal and the Netherlands were partially made out of recycled plastic bottles amounts to little more than greenwashed corporate PR. Our stadiums, though stunningly beautiful and wonderfully accommodating, appear to incorporate disappointingly little in the way of green design.
Golden opportunity missed
Does this mean that, from an environmental perspective, we shouldn’t host major international events again? Not at all. It just means that we missed a golden opportunity in 2010 and that there is much room for improvement in the future.
It’s been estimated that it would take in the order of R200m to offset the WC2010 carbon footprint. A big sum, sure, but not an impossible one in the context of a multi-billion rand event. Imagine if that sort of money had been invested directly in greening South Africa. In a massive energy efficiency campaign, for example. Or to kick-start a home-grown renewable energy manufacturing industry. The single wind turbine that provided some green electricity to the Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium was a commendable initiative, but why wasn’t this sort of thing an integral part of the plan for every stadium right from the start. The environmental benefits would have been as lasting as the wonderful footballing memories.
Around the world, new and refurbished eco-friendly sports stadiums are now being built using sustainable and recycled materials, incorporating systems that optimise energy and water savings, capture, clean and reuse waste and rainwater and generate their own electricity with renewable energy technologies. The 2012 Olympic Stadium in London, for instance, will have a façade wrapped in low-impact hemp, while the large roof of the World Games Stadium in Taiwan is covered in solar panels that power the entire facility and supply surplus electricity to the city of Kaohsiung. A stadium that doubles as a gigantic rainwater storage device and renewable energy power station between the odd fantastic sporting event stands much less of a chance of becoming a money-draining white elephant than some of our brand new arenas.
How about the 2020 Olympics then? Bring it! If we make the environment as fundamental and central a priority on the agenda as running a spectacular show to wow the planet, it’ll be even better than the World Cup.
Andreas manages Lobby Books, the independent book shop at Idasa’s Cape Town Democracy Centre.
http://www.news24.com/Columnists/AndreasSpath/Our-Cup-carbon-bootprint-20100714

The 200,000-member United Food and Commercial Workers, Western States Council, on Wednesday announced its support for Proposition 19, the initiative to legalize marijuana in California.
“The Western States Council is endorsing Proposition 19 based upon our previous support of the medical cannabis initiative, 1996’s Proposition 215,” George Landers, the council’s executive director, said in a statement. “We view Proposition 19 as an enhanced version of the previous proposition, that creates taxable revenue and produces jobs in agriculture, health care, retail and possibly textile. We further believe that the proposition will deprive narcotics traffickers of a significant source of criminal revenue.”
Ron Lind, international president of the union, and Dan Rush of its Local 5 also spoke out in favor of Proposition 19.
“The marriage of the cannabis-hemp industry and UFCW is a natural one,” said Rush. “We are an agriculture, food-processing and retail union, as is this industry.”
The council is the political arm of UFCW in several Western states. It comprises the UFCW local unions in the states it covers.
— John Hoeffel
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2010/07/union-endorses-initiative-to-control-and-tax-marijuana-in-california-.html

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.