NORML

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for NORML's free e-zine here.]

Inhaled cannabis reduces pain and improves sleep compared to placebo, and is well tolerated by patients with chronic neuropathy, according to clinical trial data published this week in the Journal of the Canadian Medical Association (CMAJ).

Investigators at McGill University in Montreal assessed the efficacy of inhaled cannabis on pain intensity in 23 subjects with chronic post-traumatic or post-surgical neuropathic pain in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled crossover trial. Participants in the study received a single inhalation of 25 mg of 9.4 percent herbal cannabis or placebo three times daily. All of the volunteers in the study suffered from refractory pain for which conventional therapies had proven ineffective.

Researchers reported: “[H]erbal cannabis … significantly reduced average pain scores compared with … cannabis placebo in adult participants. … We found significant improvement in measures of sleep quality and anxiety. … Our results support the claim that smoked cannabis reduces pain, improves mood, and helps sleep.”

Speaking to Web MD online, the study’s lead researcher Mark Ware said: “We’ve shown again that cannabis is an analgesic. Clearly it has medical value.”

In February, investigators from the California Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research summarized the results of four separate FDA ‘gold standard’ designed clinical trials demonstrating that inhaled marijuana was safe and effective for the treatment of neuropathy.

An estimated one to two percent of the population suffers from some form of neuropathic pain, which typically goes untreated by standard analgesics.

Listen to NORML Executive Director Allen St. Pierre and NORML Advisory Board member Lester Grinspoon discuss this trial, and other subjects related to the medical use of cannabis, on NPR’s The Diane Rehm show here.

On Monday, members of the California Assembly approved Senate Bill 1449, which reduces adult marijuana possession offenses in California from a criminal misdemeanor to an infraction, by a vote of 43 to 33.

The vote split largely along party lines, with Democrats voting 40 to 8 in favor of more lenient penalties and Republicans voting 2 to 23 against. Senate lawmakers had previously approved the measure in June by a vote of 21 to 13.

The marijuana infraction bill now goes to the Governor’s desk for his approval.

Under present law, minor marijuana possession for non-medical purposes is classified as a criminal misdemeanor. While the offense is not punishable by jail time, defendants charged under the law must appear in court, pay court costs, and attend a court-ordered diversion program. Offenders who refuse to attend the program may retain a criminal record for up to two years.

Senate Bill 1449 amends the California Health and Safety Code so that the adult possession of up to 28.5 grams of marijuana is classified as a noncriminal infraction, punishable by no more than a $100 fine — no court appearance, no court costs, and no criminal record.

Passage of bill would save the state millions of dollars in court costs by keeping minor pot offenders out of court. The number of misdemeanor pot arrests has surged in recent years, reaching 61,388 in 2008, the highest level since the state partially decriminalized pot possession in 1976.

Adults who consume marijuana responsibly are not part of the crime problem, and the state should stop treating them like criminals

Governor Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has vetoed several different marijuana law reform bills in the past. Therefore, if you live in California, it is vital that you please e-mail or call Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and urge him to sign SB 1449 into law. For your convenience, a pre-written letter will be e-mailed to the Governor when you visit NORML’s ‘Take Action’ Center here.

Over the weekend the Christian Science Monitor newspaper published the latest installment of their ‘one minute debates’ series. The subject of the debate: “Should California Legalize Pot?” I authored the ‘pro’ argument, which you can read here, and longtime, professional prohibitionist Calvina Fay penned the ‘con’ side.

Now anyone who is familiar with Calvina already knows of her propensity toward lunacy — Here’s just one example, “Truly sick people who deserve legitimate medical treatment have been duped into believing that marijuana will help them, while in reality it is hurting them.” — but this time, in her vitriol against California’s Prop. 19, she really outdoes herself, arguing that regulating the adult use of cannabis is a threat to… marriage!

Should California legalize pot?
via The Christian Science Monitor

No: legalization means more costs

… Legalizing marijuana use would substantially increase its already formidable costs to society. That’s because the initiative would allow individuals to possess up to about 120 joints and cultivate 25 square feet of plants, capable of yielding up to 240,000 joints.

… Legalization would also create an influx in drugged-driving fatalities, more deteriorated neighborhoods, more divorce, more domestic violence, more child abuse, and more addiction!

Whoa — 120 joints per ounce?! As NORML Outeach Director Russ Belville writes, that’s some fuzzy math. (A more realistic conversion might be 30, or at most 60, joints.) However, such hyperbole is par for the course for our opposition. They are well aware that they can not win this debate on merit, and as a result they now have only the most foolish fear-mongering to fall back on. Fortunately, the polls show that this tactic is also doomed to fail.

(FYI, for those wishing to weigh in on the CSM debate, you can post your comments on Yahoo News here.)

And speaking of fear-mongering, I have an op/ed in today’s online version of The Hill rebutting claims of various Prop. 19 detractors, including California Senator Diane Feinstein and Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske. Here is an excerpt:

Proposition 19 is the right direction
via The Hill.com

So then why are Sen. Feinstein and the drug czars so worried about adults consuming it in the privacy of their own home?

California lawmakers criminalized the possession and use of marijuana in 1913 — a full 24 years before the federal government enacted prohibition. Yet right now in California, the state Board of Equalization reports that some 400,000 use marijuana daily. Self-evidently, cannabis is here to stay.

It’s time to reject the drug czar’s tired rhetoric, and abandon the failed federal policy of criminal marijuana prohibition. Let’s stop ceding control of this market to unregulated, untaxed criminal enterprises and put it in the hands of licensed businesses. Let’s stop sanctioning adults for private behavior that is engaged in absent of harm to others. …Proposition 19 is a first step in this direction.

Read NORML’s full commentary here.

The Hill’s ever-popular Congress blog ‘is where lawmakers come to blog.’ It’s also where legislators and other politicos — such as staffers at the Drug Czar’s office (hint, hint) — come to gauge the pulse of the public. Given that this is a paper of record in these folks’ backyard, why not send a message to those in Washington that their opposition is out of touch with voter sentiment. You can make your voice heard by leaving your feedback here.

Last week I posted a brief response to the Los Angeles Times commentary authored by Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske (along with five previous drug czars) condemning California’s Prop. 19.

Today the Los Angeles Times has posted my full rebuttal, which I’ve excerpted below.

Some marijuana tax revenue is better than none
via The Los Angeles Times

… Kerlikowske’s opposition to Proposition 19 … is a fairly common one. Kerlikowske et al argue that, if legalized, marijuana’s perceived social costs would outweigh the economic benefits reaped by regulation. They base this allegation largely on the premise that present taxes on alcohol and cigarettes fail to adequately pay for the societal costs associated with those drugs’ use and abuse. True enough, but here’s why this sound bite is irrelevant to the present marijuana debate.

Marijuana is safer than alcohol.

Alcohol is toxic to healthy cells and organs, a side effect that results directly in about 35,000 deaths a year. … By contrast, the active compounds in marijuana … are remarkably non-toxic. Unlike alcohol, marijuana is incapable of causing a fatal overdose, and its use is inversely associated with aggression and injury. In fact, the recently released Rand Corp. report found that in 2008, there were fewer than 200 “admissions to hospitals in which marijuana abuse or dependence was listed as the primary reason for the hospitalization.” By comparison, there are more than 70,000 hospitalizations in California annually related to the use of alcohol.

Marijuana is far safer than tobacco.

According to a 2009 report by the Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse, health-related costs per user are eight times higher for drinkers than they are for those who use cannabis, and are more than 40 times higher for tobacco smokers. It states: “In terms of (health-related) costs per user: tobacco-related health costs are over $800 per user, alcohol-related health costs are much lower at $165 per user, and cannabis-related health costs are the lowest at $20 per user.”

Some tax revenue is better than no tax revenue.

According to a 2007 George Mason University study, U.S. citizens each year spend about $113 billion on marijuana. Under prohibition, all of this spending is directed toward an underground economy and goes untaxed. That means state and local governments are presently collecting zero dollars to offset societal and health costs related to recreational marijuana use. Therefore, the imposition of any retail tax or excise fee would be an improvement over the current situation.

In short, the drug czars’ assessment that present taxes on alcohol and tobacco — two deadly products — do not raise sufficient funding to offset their related social costs is not an argument in favor of maintaining the status quo, particularly when one recognizes that the social and health costs related to cannabis use are far less than those associated with the use of other intoxicants.

You can read my full commentary here. (You can also comment on it here.)

Key Speakers At 2010 NORML Conference in Portland, Oregon: Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Congressman Earl Blumenauer and Best-Selling Travel Author and TV Host Rick Steves

There are three important components in this 2010 NORML conference alert:

-Key Speakers

-Early-bird Pricing For Registration Is About To Expire

-Conference Agenda and Speakers Announced

-Key Speakers-

NORML is honored and proud to have the former two-term Governor of New Mexico, Gary Johnson (R) address the 39th annual national NORML conference on Friday, September 10 at the Governor Hotel in Portland, Oregon.

Gary Johnson became the first sitting governor in 2002 to speak at a NORML national conference in Washington. To date, few elected policymakers—and no governor in American history—have been more politically supportive of ending cannabis prohibition than Governor Johnson. As New Mexico’s term-limited governor from 1994-2002, Governor Johnson championed numerous drug policy reforms, including legalizing medical cannabis.

Governor Johnson, a man of both big political ideas and financial means, is an early and declared candidate to be the next U.S. president in 2012 (running a decidedly libertarian-leaning campaign as a Republican) who favors substantial changes to America’s longest and most expensive war—the war on some drugs.

Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D) is a long-serving member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Oregon, who is a co-signer of current federal legislation that would reschedule cannabis to allow its medical use by qualified patients.

Rick Steves, a best-selling travel author and NORML Advisory board member is a longtime supporter of cannabis law reform based on his travel experiences and personal observations, who, in 2008 hosted an ACLU television program called ‘Marijuana: It’s Time for a Conversation’.

-Early-bird Pricing for Registration Is About To Expire; Register Now, Save Money-

After a one month-long period promoting early-bird discount pricing to pre-register for the conference, prices are about to take a turn upwards. Register now to save, especially if you’ve already reserved a room at the sold-out Governor Hotel, overflow hotel Red Lion or live in the greater Portland area. Discount pre-registration pricing ends at midnight (Pacific) Sunday, August 29.

-Conference Agenda and Speakers Announced-

The 39th annual NORML conference, ‘Just Say Now!’, continues the tradition of inclusiveness, expertise, passion, devotion, experience and celebration of all things cannabis-related—where over fifty speakers from across America will speak on matters ranging from legalization, medicalization, hemp, history, politics, science, law, business and culture.

Don’t delay if you want to be assured a seat at America’s oldest and largest pro-marijuana conference, as it will likely sell out soon (the host hotel and overflow hotels already have…).

Sponsorships and vending tables are still available. Deadline for sponsorships is Aug. 30 and vendors Sept. 7. Check out more conference details or pre-register at www.norml.org/conference

I hope to see you this September in Portland!

While not necessarily ground-breaking science to longtime observers of cannabinoid research and cultural anthropology, the BBC video below (with about 45 seconds of pro-reform advocacy added), featuring US taxpayer-funded medical research conducted just up the road from NORML’s Washington, DC offices at the National Institute of Mental Health is very well done.

Question: When will a major American (or Canadian) media outlet cover the fascinating and ever-emerging science of cannabis as well as the BBC has?

Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske, along with five previous drug czars (including gambling addict William Bennett), have an op/ed in today’s Los Angeles Times condemning California’s Prop. 19.

Given that the Drug Czar is required by law to oppose any and all efforts that would seek to legalize marijuana — including “any study … relating to the legalization (for a medical use or any other use) of” cannabis — his vitriol should not come as a surprise. Nevertheless, his commentary clearly begs the question: How is it appropriate for Californians to pay taxes to cover the salary of a federal official who spends a significant part of his time telling these same taxpayers how to vote on a statewide ballot measure?

As far as Kerlikowske’s specific allegations against Prop. 19, suffice to say that you’ve heard them all before — including this whopper, “Law enforcement officers do not currently focus much effort on arresting adults whose only crime is possessing small amounts of marijuana.” (Really? Then how do you explain this? Or this? Or this?)

NORML has already submitted a rebuttal to the L.A. Times. Our allies at Fire Dog Lake also have posted a strong refutation which you can read here. No doubt the headline says it all: “CA Prop 19: Drug Czars’ Latest Anti-Marijuana Propaganda is Easily Refuted.”

Here’s a snippet:

Their argument that a tax on legal marijuana would raise almost no money is just plain silly.

“Regarding the supposed economic benefits of taxing marijuana, some comparison with two drugs that are already regulated and taxed — alcohol and tobacco — is worth considering. People don’t typically grow their own tobacco or distill their own spirits, so consumers accept high taxes on them as retail products. Marijuana, though, is easy and cheap to cultivate, indoors or out, and Proposition 19 would allow individuals to grow as much as 25 square feet of marijuana for ‘personal consumption.’

“Why would people volunteer to pay high taxes on marijuana if it were legalized? The answer is that many would not, and the underground market, adapting to undercut any new taxes, would barely diminish at all.”

I guess the Drug Czars have never heard of convenience before. Most people don’t actually like dealing with criminals or drug dealers. They would rather buy their vodka or marijuana from the liquor store down the street than spend their time tracking down some shady criminal smuggler to save a few bucks on taxes. The end of alcohol prohibition is in fact the perfect test case for this insane theory that legalization would result in almost no decrease of the black market. The reality was an almost immediate destruction of the black market for alcohol. Do you or any of your friends or family currently get liquor on the black market? I doubt it.

It’s a sound response — to which I would add, I guess the Drug Czar has never heard of supermarkets; because last time I checked these facilities had entire sections of the store dedicated to the sale of fruits, vegetables, and plenty of other food stuffs that folks could grow cheaply and easily on their own — but most don’t. Why? For the same reason most marijuana users, even under legalization, won’t likely grow their own pot: they either don’t have the time, the space, or the expertise to do so. And even among those who do — most folks would simply prefer to pay a premium for the convenience of not having had to do it themselves.

As for the rest of the Czar’s rhetoric, it’s simply more of the same and the folks at FDL nail it.

This is what makes the fight to end our war on marijuana so difficult. The other side is not interested in an honest policy debate. Instead of honest argument, they rely on half-truths, distortions, twisted logic, ridiculous statements and naked propaganda. Sadly, America, this op-ed from Kerlikowske and friends is your wasted tax dollars at work.

Bear witness with me please to the end of what has been nothing less than a slow and torturous cannabis prohibition persecution, sorry, prosecution of a most decent fellow named Bernie Ellis. On his bucolic and much-loved Tennessee farm Mr. Ellis we arrested and prosecuted for growing a small amount of cannabis, much of it shared with nearby sick, dying and sense-threatened medical patients–including some of Mr. Ellis’ closest neighbors.

For this ‘crime’ against the state he was sent to prison, lived in halfway houses, suffered through probation and dozens of drug tests, and, if that was not enough, the government wanted even more flesh in the form of Ellis’ beloved farm. As if arrest, prison, probation and drug test were not enough, the government also wanted Ellis property.

Eight years after Ellis’ arrest, the final chapter on the incident appears to have been written last week at an auction house sixty miles from the scene of the ‘crime’.

The question for many is, was the crime cultivating medical cannabis or the government ’stealing’ Mr. Ellis’ property? In their misdirected war against cannabis consumers, every year in America tens of billions of dollars in cash and other valuable assets (i.e., land) are seized by states and the federal government.

Rather than twist the beautiful and freedom-giving US Constitution into a pretzel when trying to seize a citizen’s land for an act most citizens don’t consider a crime, let alone a major crime, state and federal government should employ a constitutional-friendly, non-adversarial, logical and decidedly low tech way to cease the legal sophistry of so-called ‘civil’ forfeiture for cannabis-related ‘crimes’: tax stamps (the same way far more deadly and addictive products like tobacco and booze are legally controlled).

To medical cannabis activists: This is a long note I sent out this morning to the 500+ people who have followed my eight year battle with federal weasels for the crime of growing cannabis and giving it away to four terminally ill neighbors. I hope that this story illustrates once again the importance of your work and the necessity for strong and persistent voices for science, common sense and compassion. Keep up your good work and I will try to do the same. Bernie Ellis, MA, MPH

——

Good (really) early morning, all y’all. It is just past 4:20 am Friday morning in my Tennessee deep hollow home as I start this message, though I have already been up an hour. I’ve already had my quart of coffee, my quiet time on the porch with my two dogs and the young brown bats that play tag above my head on my front porch, before the sun gets up. I have soaked in the claw-foot tub, and dressed for the day, in shorts, work-boots and (for the moment) my favorite t-shirt from 10,000 Waves out west in the other Santa Fe (NM), on the high road up their mountain.

Most of the pieces I share with all y’all about my life and my views, both considerably colored by my eight year dance with federal weasels over my federal medical marijuana case, have been written quickly, as soon as the incident or the urge allows. This one, for several reasons I am well aware of, has taken longer to start. What follows is (and will be) my memory of witnessing our government sell part of my farm for the crime of growing pot … and giving it away to four dying neighbors.

I could have written this down Wednesday evening, but instead I sat around a friend’s kitchen table, with his wife and his kids, to let the day out somewhere I would not be alone (and where I would certainly be understood). These folks have been my friends for 30+ years and they are the most complete married couple I know. They were the right place to start this process Wednesday evening.

I also could have written this any time yesterday – Thursday. Instead, I took advantage of our recent three inch rain to pull more pliant weeds in my late summer Garden all day, to begin the process of building my bookend compost piles, to the north and south of my raised-bed rows, with the offal, the refuse, the wild growth (what little of it) still inhabits my 40+ year organic bread-basket that breaths just beyond my front-porch — my Garden. She kept me busy and distracted almost all day (with the help of some donated sour diesel from a Nashville friend that provided more reflective fuel for my internal fire). The more time I spent with Her,the more it was clear that She had been neglected by me in the past minutes and seconds, as my hip and the impending loss of my land intervened. Yesterday, I began to make amends to Her and we worked together for hours, Her donating the random weeds that had sprouted in Her presence and me accepting them as a deposit on next year’s abundance.

So, after two days of cogitating, here goes. On Wednesday, I drove 60 miles – one way – to witness our government sell some of my land at what should have been the final chapter in my fight to save my farm. The thing is, in saving most of my farm, I have learned just how far my country – or the fundamental, freedom-loving foundation of it – has been lost in our war on (some) drugs. So read and weep (or get mad as hell) and let me hear from you. All y’all — my flesh-and-blood and virtual friends, my fellow warriors for science, common sense and compassion, my fellow protectors and benefactors of the Goddess (and the rest of you too.)

Here goes ….
—–

It was early when I got up Wednesday, but not too early. The forced sale of my 25 acres (as a plea bargain to save the remaining 147 acres) was not happening until 1:45 pm and it was just now 5:30 am. But the joys of living in my country include ritual, both of necessity and of intention, and my rituals spread out in front of me to fill the hours before my trip north began. No rain yet (three weeks dry here, in almost constant 110 degree heat index, brutal), so I spent an hour hosing cold spring water onto the two late summer Garden rows – the ones with alternating sweet corn and cantaloupes, with one section of sunflowers and another of late yellow crook-neck squash. Soaking them down as much as possible, them and my out-of-place baby watermelons, beginning to look like they just might feed me (and others) yet. Time to (not) kill, time to breathe.

Getting centered is always good, and it was good on Wednesday. In truth, I had been preparing for this day for eight years but, since the government had sprung the sale out of the blue last month, it was still something I was not really prepared for. (As my late (psychiatrist) daddy used to say, “the healing of a fractured relationship does not begin with the separation, but the divorce.”) At that moment, though, the 25 acres was not still mine (having signed it over to the weasels in December), but it was not yet someone else’s. That was coming now, though, like a freight train.

One good thing about recovering from my hip surgery is that I have become more intentional with my time away from the farm. So today, knowing that I would have to drive north of Nashville to lose my land, I made a list of everything that needed doing in Nashville. Delivering a big sack of sweet basil to a new friend to feed her sons, returning books and movies (“Apocalypse Now”) to an older friend, making copies at Kinko’s and eating green curry at the International Market. There was more (other) stuff to do, and so I left the land by mid-morning.

The drive to Nashville always provides two choices – follow the Natchez Trace on its secluded gentle roller-coaster ride along the “Path of Peace” or take Old Hillsboro road. The second choice allows me to drive a little bit faster, and to stop in Leiper’s Fork, which I did for gas. Another hour or so in and around Nashville completing the chores and there was nothing left to do but show up to the sale. For all that I had done to distract myself, I was still the third one there.

It remains weird that the feds had chosen not to sell my land actually – you know – on the land. Maybe they knew that their extortion of me still rubbed my neighbors, as well as the local media and medical marijuana activists in lots of places, the wrong way and that some of them might show up to shine a “shame on you” light on their activities. Certainly the fact that my neighbors had spent weeks tearing down the gaudy yellow “auction” signs the feds had paid to litter around our back roads, depositing them at the head of my driveway each morning, might have given them a clue. So, for whatever reason, the feds bundled my land with four other sales and conducted the auction as far from my farm as they could get. I am sure they will claim efficiency as their motive – I will always and forever claim it was chicken-shit.

When I arrived at the tidy brick house near an industrial park in Whites Creek, the auctioneers had just started unloading their papers and other equipment. There were a few folks there, including one (a new neighbor I had just met in the weeks leading up to the sale) who had told me he would bid. Then I noticed another neighbor, a carpenter who had built the sun-porch on my home, who was there with another friend of his in hopes of getting the land too. There were at least three other groups of folks, a young man with a “Co-op” hat and his dad, two husky country-looking boys probably in their 40s and an withered old man standing next to a G. Gordon Liddy look-alike. All those folks had made the drive to bid on my land, and they made up two-thirds of the crowd.

In addition to taking bids there, these very efficient auctioneers (who had told me they do a “lot of this” for the government, so they knew their deal) were equipped to accept on-line and phone bids. But they were there to move fast, and then to move on.

Two of the five pieces sold before mine, both nice homes in nice neighborhoods in Clarksville and Nashville. The second one, an almost 3,000 square foot home that looked very substantial and well-maintained in the photos at the auction, went for less than $20,000 – in less than two minutes. Everyone there looked as amazed as me. I would know in a minute just what my land would bring.
—–

But, first, as background (and to introduce a little suspense), let me remind all y’all that my surrendering this 25 acres was to prevent a “summary judgment” decision by my federal judge to give the feds my entire 172 acre farm or to place a permanent $250,000 lien on my property to satisfy our government’s view of justice in my case. Justice that, in their opinion, had not yet been satisfied by my $60,000 in legal bills $500,000 in lost salary, eighteen months in a federal Bureau of Prisons halfway house and three years ever since unemployed.

For the crime of growing seven pounds of pot and giving it away to four terminally ill neighbors, a crime that I never denied I committed from the moment that two helicopters and ten four-wheelers descended on my farm. One big lesson here – if you cooperate with the feds, they will want to know just how much bull-shit you can take. (Obviously I can take a lot)

Our final plea agreement, in which I surrendered the 25 acres, saved the rest of my farm and saved me from having to live under the burden of a $quarter-million$ lien for the rest of my life. The feds agreed to take whatever they could get for the 25 acres, in return for which they agreed to get out of my life. (More on that later.)

At the time of our plea agreement, the feds’ appraiser had estimated that the 25 acres was worth between $170,000 – $220,000, and that appraisal (I am sure) is what turned the tide toward a final resolution last December. Now back to the sale.

—–

The bidding on my land opened with an on-line bid — of $30,000. (My guess is that this bid came from Arizona, where two other new friends who had already bought 15 acres from me that fronted the 25 acres (for $125,000, two years ago) were trying to protect their rears – and mine.) People whistled in the crowd, and a few jumped in with slightly higher bids. But there was to be no feeding frenzy here today. The bidding quickly stalled, the unseen internet bidders fell silent, and the land was sold ….. for $35,000. To the G. Gordon Liddy look-alike – the only person at the auction who looked out-of-place for my bucolic ‘hood.

No matter. After shaking hands with the folks there I knew (as well as to the country folks I did not), I went over and shook G. Gordon’s hand, told him who I was and said I would be happy to answer his questions. The first thing that was obvious was that he had never even bothered to look at my land beforehand. He asked how much road frontage came with the land (my answer: “None”). He asked how big the pond was on the land. (My answer” “What pond?”) He asked about the driveway. (My answer: there is an unimproved easement, back to the start of the land, but that will require building a 300 yard+ driveway that doesn’t now exist.) With each of my answers, G. Gordon’s mustache drooped a bit more.

I saved the best news for him to experience in the flesh. I neglected to tell G. Gordon that his new land in the country was bordered by the no-longer-young man from whom I bought the land a decade ago (to keep my then-young neighbor from losing the land to an alcohol and cocaine-fueled bankruptcy) and that neighbor had just moved two dilapidated trailers into his side field to join the dozen rusting cars and trucks up on bricko–blocks already scattered all along my (former) land’s western view. Everyone else who bid on my land on Wednesday knew about that scenery. G. Gordon did not.

I can’t wait to see his face.

So that was it, folks. Seven years of heart-ache ended in three minutes of cold-cash bids. I was glad (I suppose) that it was over. And I was very glad that my land brought so little to the feds. In fact, I drove home hoping that the last prosecutor I dealt with (dense between the ears, deficient in the heart) would choke on the news of the pitiful return the land brought. Choke on it … and die.

I have learned and (and re-learned, one day at a time) that keeping an attitude of gratitude is the best way to face everything and recover. So it was on Wednesday. But two things kept eating me, and I suspect they always will. Unbeknownst to me and to my neighbors who bid on the land, they were instructed before the sale that the US Marshalls had imposed another restriction on the sale of my land that would prohibit anyone that day (including, especially, me) from bidding on the land with the intention of selling it or otherwise returning it to me. They repeated that extra-judicial restriction (which none of us, including my judge, knew about or acquiesced to) several times before the sale. Mind you, no one was there to buy the land for me, and I hardly have a pot to piss in these days, much less more money to throw down a fetid federal rat-hole. But just the thought of that final example of arrogant federal flatulence posing for law-and-order reminded me of it all.

And some of that “all” was what the 25 acres meant to me. Even though it was not part of my original farm, it was land that I learned to cut and haul hay on (when I helped my young neighbor’s daddy, Sharkey Shouse, put up hay for his jacks and jennies). It was land that I had fenced, not once but twice. It was land I had kept clean, before it was my land and after. It was land from which I had cut firewood, and witnessed the wonder of an ice-storm’s aftermath, coating the tall grass and every hanging tree twig and branch with ice that sparkled like a billion little prismic rainbows. That was what that 25 acres meant to me.

What it was to the feds was one more chance to drown the American dream in the drug war’s civil asset forfeiture bath-tub, one more chance to demonstrate that growing pot is the crime that keeps on punishing – more than murder, more than rape, more than election fraud or fouling our seas. More than almost anything.

That is where I want to leave all y’all this morning. But – to be clear – I am not leaving you at the end of this story. I am leaving you in the middle of this struggle. No one else (or precious few) should have to go through what my last eight years have been. Our failed war on drugs – and the steroided, well-armed, civil liberties-trampling “drug worriers” that it has unleashed like so many rabid flying monkeys on us – has got to stop. And it has to stop soon.

I helped elect President Obama (almost all of us did) for many reasons, including his pledge to allow cannabis/marijuana to be returned to the medical pharmacopoeia. I celebrated when AG Holder announced last October that the feds would no longer go after participants in lawfully-established state medical marijuana programs. I have been encouraged by the number of states (14 now and DC) who have re-established medical marijuana programs and the several dozen (including Tennessee) who are not far behind. Indeed, there is much to be grateful for.

At the same time, I had to drive 120 miles round-trip on Wednesday for the privilege of witnessing the sale of land that was (and will always be) a piece of my heart. And, three times in the three weeks before that sale, I have experienced my farm being buzzed, low and loud, by the farces of evil – low enough to rattle my windows and blow down my late summer sweet corn – ostensibly looking for pot that only a fool or an insane person (or someone broke and in pain) would plant. Though I have been some of the above, I have not (yet) been all three.

My only recourse for these illegal low-level fly-overs has been to drop my shorts and invite the pilot to fly up my ass. After that temporary relief, my other response has been — and always will be — to keep working to overturn the laws that keep these worthless and irrelevant cowardly cowboys in the air. That will be my life’s work. I hope it is yours too.

From the banks of my creek, just south of my Garden, on what’s left of my farm.

Peace out. Y’all come.
————–
” ..Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, the blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned; the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Surely some revelation is at hand ….” William Butler Yeats

According to an article in the Washington City Paper, it appears that citizens who want to open a medical cannabis center in the nation’s capital will have to possess some reasonably deep pockets, and plenty of patience–while bona fide patients who need cannabis suffer waiting for government bureaucracies through at least January 2011 to figure out how to allow the dispensing of cannabis, while at the same time banning home cultivation.

Pot Shop 101: How Much to Start Up a D.C. Marijuana Dispensary?

Posted by Chris Schott,

Rabbi Jeffrey Kahn and wife Stephanie Kahn have a simple plan for bankrolling their controversial proposed medical-marijuana facility on Blair Road NW. “We plan on financing this from our personal life savings,” he says.

How much are we talking? Well, that’s a bit, um, hazy at the moment.

The biggest expense will likely be the price of the herbal remedy itself, according to Stephen DeAngelo, executive director of Harborside Health Center in Oakland, Calif., which both Rabbi Kahn and fellow aspiring dispensary operators with the nonprofit District of Columbia Patients’ Cooperative have toured in preparation for creating their own facilities. DeAngelo tells City Desk, “Out of every dollar we take in, about 62 percent of that goes to paying for the actual medicine. The balance of that goes towards paying our rent, our payroll, our insurance—all the other typical expenses that a business has.”

While not a single legal pot plant is yet in production in the District, thus making the budgeting process quite difficult for would-be sellers, we can safely assume that all other costs aren’t even the half of it. That said, Mayor Adrian Fenty’s proposed medical-marijuana regulations at least provide specifics about some of the other start-up costs:

• The annual fee for a medical marijuana dispensary registration shall be ten thousand dollars ($10,000) + an initial application processing fee of five thousand dollars ($5,000)

If you plan on growing your own, tack on an additional ten grand:

• The annual fee for a cultivation center registration shall be five thousand dollars ($5,000) + an initial application processing fee of five thousand dollars ($5,000)

Next, you’ll need to register all your corporate partners…

• The annual fee for each director, officer, member, incorporator, or agent registration shall be two hundred dollars ($200)

And every “bud-tender” on staff:

• The annual fee for an employee registration shall be seventy five dollars ($75)
• The annual fee for a Manager’s license shall be one hundred and fifty dollars ($150)

You may also need a permit for moving the medicine between manufacturing and distributing facilities:

• The fee for a transport permit shall be twenty-five dollars ($25)

Not included in the regs: your necessary certificate of occupancy ($33 application fee).

Then there’s the whole matter of rent. According to real estate analysts Delta Associates, the average retail rent in D.C. (as of the end of 2009) is about $35 per square foot annually. For a modest 1,500-square-foot dispensary, such as the one the Kahns are proposing, that works out to roughly $4,375 each month, or $52,500 for the whole year. (Add on an additional month’s rent for the probable security deposit.)

Next up, payroll. The proposed regs specify that each dispensary “shall be staffed with at least two persons during its hours of operation,” with those hours of operation being anytime between 7 a.m. to 9 p.m. seven days a week. Let’s say you open on a more limited basis, from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. A dispensary employing two staffers at all times (minimum wage: $8.25 per hour) would thus run up at least $1,155 in weekly payroll (or, $60,060 annually).

Then there’s security to think about. The Kahns, for instance, are planning to hire an off-duty cop to monitor the premises, beginning from a half hour before opening until a half hour after closing. A police officer working “reimburseable detail,” as it’s called, runs about $55 an hour—roughly three times the price of your average security guard. Let’s say you go the cheaper route ($18 per hour); that’s $1,386 per week (or, $72,072 annually).

Already, we’re looking at well over $200,000, without even factoring in the cost of the required video cameras and alarm system, insurance, a good licensing lawyer—and, most importantly, the pot itself. If we accept DeAngelo’s 62-percent figure on the cost of product, then we’re talking around half a million dollars (if my math is correct).

In its own financial impact statement, the District predicted the average cost of marijuana sold at dispensaries at about $350 per ounce. Therefore, a dispensary would need to sell about 1,429 ounces of herb annually to cover its basic costs.  That’s about 119 ounces per month. Patients, meanwhile, are limited to just two ounces per month, and the District expects to register only 300 patients citywide in the first year. Which means dispensary owners may need to dip into their own inventory to make the math look right.

NORML Outreach Coordinator and AudioStash producer extraordinaire Russ Belville has an excellent commentary on Alternet.org today deconstructing several of the myths purported by those opposed to California’s Prop. 19 (and cannabis legalization in general).

Here are the myths:

The Eight Most Absurd Excuses for Trying to Defeat Legal Pot
via Alternet.org

8. The federal government will pull all of its contracts with California businesses because they won’t be able to drug test employees!

7. Legalizing marijuana for healthy people will end medical marijuana for sick people!

6. Legalizing marijuana will never raise any money because the social costs would outweigh any fiscal benefits… look at alcohol and tobacco!

5. Big Tobacco will buy up great huge tracts of land in Northern California and mass produce lousy joints pumped full of toxic addictive chemicals!

4. Today’s pot is fourteen times more powerful than Sixties weed and will lead to more crack babies!

3. People who smoke marijuana in the same apartment building as a child will be arrested! (Not that your landlord will let you grow pot anyway.)

2. Legally home-grown marijuana will lead to outbreaks of toxic deadly molds!

1. Workplaces would be overrun by workers smoking marijuana on the job!

Read Russ’ comprehensive rebuttals to these claims here.

You can also read Russ’ word-for-word analysis of Prop. 19 here. The TaxCannabis.org website also has an excellent and comprehensive FAQ section here.

From the Family of Jack Herer, author of The Emperor Wears No Clothes

Van Nuys, California, August, 2010

Dear Friends of Hemp and Cannabis,

Our father, Jack Herer, was a man of leadership, compassion and idealism. He worked relentlessly for decades to achieve his dream of legalizing Cannabis hemp in all its forms, personal, medical and industrial. He wanted Cannabis to be free and open, and to be given full respect for its enormous economic, environmental and cultural benefits.

As an idealist, Jack was adverse to half measures. He originally opposed Prop 215 because it stopped at medical use only. He initially opposed Senate Bill 420 because it set limited quantities as a safe harbor. Over time, however, he came to appreciate the freedoms they created, and took pride in the role he played in inspiring those changes. Jack’s great fear about Prop 215 and SB 420 was that people would accept those limits, become complacent and stop working for full legalization. He feared we would be stuck with medical use forever.

Likewise, Jack railed against Tax Cannabis 2010, now Proposition 19, and its plan for limited legalization and local authority to tax and regulate marijuana sales to adults 21 and above. It falls far short of what he wanted. Jack ‘wanted it all,’ and Prop 19 is just a part of that dream. Unfortunately, Jack passed away before Prop 19 made the 2010 ballot; so many people think he would still oppose it. We don’t believe that, and we ask that everyone stop saying he would cling to that position as we move toward the Nov. 2 vote.

As his family, we want the world to know that the last thing Jack Herer would want is for Californians to vote to keep Cannabis illegal. He was smart and had the political savvy to know that once a measure is on the ballot, the time for bickering has passed. That is why he campaigned for Prop 215 despite its shortcomings. That is why, were he able, he would now be telling voters to rally around and Vote Yes on Prop 19.

Does that mean he would want everyone to stop and be happy with the modest changes that Prop 19 affords? Absolutely not! What Jack would want us to do right now is to support Prop 19, and come Nov. 3 he would be right back again, telling you to renew your commitment to bring a comprehensive California Hemp and Health Initiative to the voters in 2012 or some future date. Jack Herer would ask – no, he would demand your yes vote on Prop 19, along with a pledge to continue fighting for the plant, the people and the planet.

It is true that Prop 19 does not fulfill our father’s dream; but it takes us much closer to achieving it than we are now, and for that reason we, his family, endorse Prop 19 today.

Please vote yes on Prop 19 Nov 2, but do it with the dedication to keep working toward complete legalization in Jack’s honor.

Sincerely, Dan Herer et al.

A majority of Californians continue to voice their support for Prop. 19 — which would eliminate penalties for the private possession and use of marijuana by adults, and allow local governments to regulate retail cannabis production and sales.

According to the most recent Survey USA poll (conducted August 9-11), 50 percent of likely voters in California say they are certain to vote ‘yes’ on Proposition 19 versus 40 percent who say that they will vote ‘no.’ These totals are the same as reported by Survey USA one month ago, and indicate that voters’ support is holding steady despite increased attacks and propaganda from our opponents. (NORML Outreach Coordinator Russ Belville has just posted an excellent rebuttal to many of our opponents’ more outrageous claims here.)

According to the latest polling data, voters age 35 to 49 are most likely to back Prop. 19, and African Americans and self-reported Democrats are more likely to support the measure as compared to other groups. (To read why self-proclaimed ‘conservative’ voters ought to vote yes on Prop. 19, please see my recent op/ed in the Orange County Register here.) On Friday, leaders from the Latino Voters League held a press conference in Los Angeles announcing their support for Prop. 19, joining the state NAACP which had previously announced their ‘unconditional support’ for the measure in June.

Predictably, many members of law enforcement continue to speak out against the measure. Yet, as you can see in my recent rebuttal to three Bay area police chiefs, their rhetoric rings hollow. In fact, even those in the media who oppose Prop. 19 are beginning to question the rhetoric and tactics of LEOs.

Fortunately, editors at several prominent California papers are giving ample editorial space to getting out the facts regarding Prop. 19. Recently, I’ve had op/eds published in the San Jose Mercury News (“Critics of Prop. 19 on marijuana rely on fear, not facts“), The Los Angeles Times (“Feinstein’s misguided opposition to marijuana legalization“), and The Ventura County Star (“Media’s coverage of report spurs reefer madness“) setting the record straight.

Bottom line: The status quo in California for non-medical patients is an abysmal failure. California lawmakers criminalized the possession and use of marijuana in 1913 yet right now in California, the federal government reports that one out of 10 people annually use marijuana and together consume about 1.2 million pounds of it. Self-evidently, cannabis is here to stay. Let’s address this reality and end the practice of arresting 70,000+ Californians each year for minor marijuana possession and/or cultivation charges, and lets stop ceding control of the commercial marijuana market to unregulated, untaxed criminal enterprises and put it in the hands of licensed businesses. Proposition 19 is a first, significant step in this direction.

[Note: Bob Newland will be our guest on NORML SHOW LIVE this Thursday 8/19 - live.norml.org at 4pm ET / 1pm PT.]

Twelve months ago, long time South Dakota NORML activist Bob Newland was legally barred by a state judge from engaging in any public advocacy for cannabis law reform while on probation for a marijuana possession offense. Newland’s First Amendment stripping sentence was all the more egregious given Bob’s high profile role in this November’s statewide ballot initiative campaign (‘Yes on 13′) to legalize the medical use of marijuana for qualified patients.

After months of coerced silence, Bob has finally been unshackled and may once again enjoy his Constitutional right to advocate for rational and compassionate marijuana policies. And he isn’t wasting any time. His op/ed below, published last week in The Rapid City Journal, provides details on Bob’s court-ordered exile, and offers insight as to why he continues to articulately and passionately advocate for cannabis liberation. Bob’s comparison to Galileo, the renowned astronomer who spent decades under house arrest for daring to acknowledge publicly that the Earth revolved around the sun, is disturbingly appropriate.

Marijuana prohibition aids few
via The Rapid City Journal

My tongue was bound. My typing fingers were paralyzed. On July 6, 2009, these acts were performed by a circuit court judge because I am a visible and ardent advocate of informed personal discretion regarding one’s choice of intoxicant or medical palliative.

… Contrary to the beliefs of many, there is plenty of precedent for court-ordered suppression of the truth. Often recalled is the 40-year house arrest imposed on Galileo for pointing out that the Earth revolved around the sun. Millions were burned to death for less.

I’m 62 years old. For 44 years I have observed the incalculably stupid custom of arresting people for possession of a demonstrably beneficial, easily cultivated herb. During the past 20 years alone, over 16 million people have been arrested on marijuana charges in this country, over 12 million of them for simple possession only.

My statistics are understated, purposefully, because most people apparently can’t face how destructive cannabis prohibition has been. It’s been estimated that each arrest has cost the taxpayers of its jurisdiction a minimum of $500. If that were the extent of the damage, prohibition would be a bargain.

It has become common practice for law enforcement to seize peoples’ cash, possessions and children, often based on only an accusation of cannabis use. Those convicted bear an undeserved social and income-reducing stigma for the rest of their lives. No one in government or the financial industry is immune to the lure of the inconceivable amount of cash generated by the prohibited substance trade in general, of which cannabis is the most prevalent. Children find it easier to obtain “prohibited” substances than they do tobacco and alcohol, because the nature of prohibition is to subsidize an unregulated and untaxed market.

As for every politician who endorses prohibition, every judge who sentences someone for possession, every cop who arrests someone for possession; they all are awash in the blood of the 23,000 Mexicans who have been killed in the civil war over drug turf in Mexico during the past three years, and in the less visible detritus of the lives they have shattered senselessly.

… In a twisted and particularly cruel way of parsing the matter, which above all else is the hallmark of prohibition logic, it makes sense for government to stifle the truth.

You can read Bob’s entire commentary here.

And if you reside in South Dakota, you can join with Bob and The South Dakota Coalition for Compassion by voting ‘yes’ this November on Prop. 13 — The South Dakota Safe Access Act.

Bob has done — and continues to do — his part for marijuana law reform. Have you done yours?

Every summer NORML’s office in Washington, D.C. is a buzz with 6-8 interns. As their much-appreciated volunteer time concludes and they point their compasses back to their respective schools, they’ve been turning in some of their summer assignments. After reviewing some of NORML’s extensive archives, undergraduate Nick Sibilla penned a blog entry reflecting his surprise that a number of politically conservative and notable Americans in fact support an end to cannabis prohibition.

Interested in a NORML internship? Click here.

Nick Sibilla, NORML summer intern, 2010

With legalizing marijuana on the ballot in California, cannabis is finally becoming mainstream. But while some supporters are pretty obvious, others can be quite surprising.

8. Glenn Beck
Not only is Glenn Beck one of Fox News’ more (in)famous anchors, he is also a leading figure of the burgeoning Tea Party movement, a renowned linguist and vocal thespian as well. Yet in a recent show, Beck declared, “I think it’s about time we legalize marijuana.” He added, “We have to make a choice in this country. We either put people who are smoking marijuana, behind bars, or we legalize it…[banning cannabis] is not helping us, it’s not helping Mexico, and it is causing massive damage on our southern border.” In that episode, he also interviewed Andres Rozenthal, a former Deputy Foreign Minister of Mexico, and expert on the drug violence down south. Rozenthal determined that around 60% of the Mexican cartels’ profits come from trafficking cannabis to the United States. Legalizing marijuana would then greatly undermine one of their revenue streams.

7. Milton Friedman
As an ardent advocate of the free market and a Nobel Prize winner in economics, Milton Friedman was hardly a tie-dye-in-the-wool hippie. But due to his belief in limited government, he was one of the most prolific critics of America’s failed “war on drugs.” He also headed a petition of 500 other economists to promote the fiscal benefits of legalization, which, according to their calculations, would amount to almost $14 billion nationwide.

6. Rick Steves
He is one of America’s better-known travel writers, authoring over 50 guidebooks on visiting Europe. But he is also dedicated to reforming this country’s marijuana laws, and even serves on the Advisory Board of Directors for NORML. “Last year over 800,000 Americans were arrested on marijuana charges — a 100% increase since 1980. Well over 80% of these arrests were for simple possession.” This, in his view, tarnishes “the credibility of parents, teachers, police and our government.”

5. Art Linkletter
Art Linkletter was an icon of 1950’s culture and exemplified mainstream family values. He was most famous for hosting the original Kids Say the Darnedest Things, and later marketed the hula-hoop and Milton Bradley’s “Game of Life.” But he also backed reforming America’s unjust marijuana laws, because he was against a system that turns “ordinary, decent kids” into “criminals.” He even held a press conference with NORML in 1977 to voice his support for decriminalizing cannabis.

4. Montel Williams
Montel Williams hosted the originally named The Montel Williams Show for nearly two decades and even won an Emmy in 1996. He also served in the military for 22 years and retired as a decorated Lieutenant Commander of the US Navy. But in 1999, he was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, a painful, neurological disorder. After traditional painkillers like Percocet, Oxycontin, and Vicodin failed to manage his pain, Williams settled on a more controversial (but effective) treatment: medical marijuana. He is now a proud medical marijuana advocate and wants to remove cannabis from its Schedule I listing (alongside PCP and heroin), so that doctors nationwide could prescribe it.

3. Ann Landers
Arguably America’s most famous advice columnist, Ann Landers was the nom de plume for Eppie Lederer, who penned the column for almost 50 years. Yet she also supported decriminalizing marijuana. In 1999, she addressed “A Sad Mother in VA,” whose son was charged with possessing cannabis: “I have long believed the laws regarding marijuana are too harsh. Those who keep pot for their own personal use should not be treated as criminals.”

2. Pat Buchanan
A conservative heavyweight, Pat Buchanan has advised the administrations of Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Ronald Reagan. He is also a seminal political commentator and a three-time presidential candidate, making him the Bizarro Ralph Nader. But troubled by the harrowing, drug-fueled violence in Mexico, he asked in a recent Human Events column, “How does one win a drug war when millions of Americans who use recreational drugs are financing the cartels…?” In his view, “There are two sure ways to end this war swiftly: Milton’s way and Mao’s way. Mao Zedong’s communists killed users and suppliers alike, as social parasites. Milton Friedman’s way is to decriminalize drugs and call off the war.” While he still strongly condemns drug use, he nevertheless wants to put these dangers into context: “Which is the greater evil? Legalized narcotics for America’s young or a failed state of 110 million on our southern border?”

1. William F. Buckley
As the founder and editor-in-chief of the conservative National Review, Bill Buckley criticized and agitated the American left for decades. But there was one issue where he and his opponents could find common ground: legalizing marijuana. Since banning cannabis has not prevented consumption, he quipped, “It requires less effort for a college student to find marijuana than for a sailor to find a brothel.” He also mocked those who argue that cannabis is a “gateway drug,” since that would be “on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating.”

In exactly one week an amazing annual event in the long struggle to reform cannabis laws comes to the fore.

NORML Advisory Board Member and Best-Selling Travel Author Rick Steves Addresses Hempfest's 100,000 @ 4:20

Below is an important message from the Seattle Hempfest. You can either donate via Hempfest.org, or participate in their new ‘Fundraising Crew’.

There is no hyperbole when one states that the now 19-year-old Seattle Hempfest is the largest pro-cannabis rally on the face of our good green earth. Over 200,000 anti-prohibitionists pour into a beautiful, mile-long park that faces Puget Sound for two days of speeches, education and music in support of ending America’s longest war–the US government’s 73-year-old war against cannabis consumers and the plant itself.

(To place this in some perspective: I grew up in a small town on Cape Cod that has a population under 6,000…to see over 200,000 citizens peacefully gather in protest annually has been truly an awesome and informative experience I encourage others to have as well.)

Over 850,000 Americans will likely be arrested this year on cannabis-related charges in America–90% for possession only. How many people will likely be arrested at the Seattle Hempfest despite massive, protest-driven and open cannabis consumption? Likely, not a single adult.

The Hempfest has helped pave the way for medical cannabis laws in Washington State, the virtual decriminalization of cannabis under one ounce in Seattle and is setting the stage once again for big changes in cannabis laws: a state-wide legalization ballot initiative, as well as legislation to both decriminalize and legalize.

What does it cost to see over 30 bands on three stages, get educated and motivated by the most active cannabis law reformers from around the world, have access to over 200 booths that sell glass and hemp products, eat great food and use cannabis without fear of arrest?

Zilch. Zip. Nothing. Nada. Free.

That’s right. No kidding. Free!

This entire massive two-day ‘protestival’ is put on entirely by volunteers–hundreds and hundreds of volunteers.

Does it cost money to lawfully, safely and responsibly stage a small city for nearly a week?

You bet it does!

Well over $100,000 for all of the leased staging, lighting, sound equipment, tents, booths, over one hundred ‘Port-o-Johns’, security, communication equipment fencing, event insurance, police overtime and even t-shirts for the hundreds of volunteers who manage the entrances, security and stages.

Take it from someone who has convened large concerts, conferences and protests–The Seattle Hempfest does it right and they need our support to make this AMAZING event in the history of cannabis law reform continue to happen until cannabis has been effectively legalized.

Then, after over 20 years of self-sacrifice and hard work, when cannabis is legal, there will be one last Seattle Hempfest…to celebrate the hard fought battle for personal freedom, autonomy and freedom. I’m really, really looking forward to that notable Hempfest celebration!

But until that soon-to-come day occurs, please join NORML and me in lending support to the great all-volunteer effort that it will take to stage next week’s 19th annual Seattle Hempfest.

National NORML along with numerous NORML chapters from around the country have booths , so come on by and say ‘high!’

As always, thanks for caring and sharing.

Cannabem liberemus!!

* * * * *

An Important Request From Seattle Hempfest Organizers:

Please join our new Hempfest Fundraising Crew this year to help raise a million bucks for cannabis. 250,000+ enthusiasts will be at Hempfest

August 21-22. We have a plan to ask each of them to donate to the Hempfest organization. If they give an average of $4, we’ll raise a million bucks for cannabis! All we need is your help building a team big enough to reach them all.

There will be an orientation party the Wednesday before Hempfest and we graciously and urgently request your attendance.

What: Volunteer orientation party for Hempfest Fundraising Crew

When: Wednesday, Aug 18, 7PM

Where: Myrtle Edwards Park, south entrance near the fountain, Seattle

waterfront

And…: Snacks and refreshments provided

Contact: Ezra Eickmeyer, 360-301-1842, ezra@olypen.com

If you can’t attend the Wednesday orientation party, please let us know which days you can volunteer at Hempfest (Aug. 21-22, 10AM – 8PM) and at which times. 4-5 hour shifts are requested.

Finally, please recruit friends and family to come help as well. We’ll need as many as 60 volunteers per shift to make these efforts work, which means 240+ volunteers rallying together for the cause over one weekend. We still need over 100 volunteer shifts to be filled, so e-mail and call everyone. Thank you!!!

In Solidarity,

-Ezra Eickmeyer, Coordinator Hempfest Fundraising Crew ezra@olypen.com

That "professional left" is what some might call "your base", Mr. President, and they think you should legalize marijuana.

Washington political news outlet The Hill reports on the recent “professional left” remarks made by the Obama White House’s press secretary Robert Gibbs.  Gibbs was expressing frustration at progressive activists who are complaining that the president hasn’t lived up to campaign promises on a number of issues.

The press secretary dismissed the “professional left” in terms very similar to those used by their opponents on the ideological right, saying, “They will be satisfied when we have Canadian healthcare and we’ve eliminated the Pentagon. That’s not reality.”

“I hear these people saying he’s like George Bush. Those people ought to be drug tested,” Gibbs said. “I mean, it’s crazy.”

Over 850,000 of these people will likely be arrested this year and branded "criminal" for the rest of their lives.

I don’t disagree that comparing Obama to Bush is crazy; Bush could push the exact bill he wanted through Congress and Obama can pronounce “nuclear”.  It’s the “drug users are crazy” slur, the “drug test” variant of the “what have you been smoking?” that offends me.  It’s that joking about these drug tests that ruin thousands of lives is a response from an official addressing the disappointment in the president felt by the people who voted for him.  Considering the vast majority of people who use “drugs” are using cannabis and the tests for “drugs” most often find cannabis metabolites, he’s talking about us, the 22 million* Americans who will use cannabis this year.

Full disclosure: I am one of the “professional left”** and attended that Netroots Nation conference Gibbs is obliquely referencing, representing NORML on a marijuana policy panel.

Republican, Democrat, we still get arrested. (We still have another year worth of George Bush data to collect.)

But NORML is a non-partisan organization, just as arresting marijuana consumers is a bi-partisan shame (4.9 million under Clinton, 6.2 million under Bush, but Clinton’s overall increase in the annual rate was +90% from beginning to end of his term while Bush’s was +17% between 2001 and 2008; we still await the 2009 final year arrest numbers which chronicle the marijuana arrests from the year before… think of the graph as “arrests up to 2009″, not “arrests up to and including 2009″.)

Gibbs said the professional left is not representative of the progressives who organized, campaigned, raised money and ultimately voted for Obama.

Legalization is actually pretty popular right now. More popular than the President and Congress.

Well, we know what President Obama and Robert Gibbs think of those of us who “ought to be drug tested”, especially us online activists in the “professional left” who helped get him elected.  We’re chuckled at when we suggest legalizing marijuana (see videos below), even as more than half of America on some polls – not just Left Blogsylvania – are beginning to think it is a damn good idea and California is voting on the issue this November.

Legalization is more popular than the Congress and the President – who once, like us, was just one bust away from being “Barry the Drug Criminal” for life – so maybe equating our criticisms of government to drug-induced psychosis isn’t the smartest political move.

One marijuana arrest in their past would have indelibly altered the lives of 41% of America, including these three fellows.

This is not to ignore the millions of cannabis consumers who find themselves on the right side of the aisle, the Libertarians and true small government, personal responsibility, states rights Republicans, who we count as our ideological allies in ending adult marijuana prohibition.  There are 102 million of us who’ve tried cannabis, including the last three presidents and eight of fifteen of the last major party candidates for president and vice president.***  Right now, our issue is the only thing on which members of the Tea Party and the Netroots Nation can agree on.  Somebody is going to get wise and start courting our votes.

* Remember these are numbers from a government-sponsored survey where an anonymous pollster surveys random strangers by telephone to ask whether they currently are violating state and federal law… so you might want to adjust upward a bit.  For comparison’s sake, there are more adults in America who will smoke pot this year than there are adult African-Americans in this country.

** And yes, I would be satisfied with Canadian health care, thank you very much!  My insurance premiums went up 24% this year!

*** The admitted / strongly suspected (Danforth, we’re looking your way…) marijuana users are italicized:

1992 Clinton / Gore vs. Bush / Quayle
1996 Clinton / Gore vs. Dole / Kemp
2000 Bush / Cheney vs. Gore / Lieberman
2004 Bush / Cheney vs. Kerry / Edwards
2008 Obama / Biden vs. McCain / Palin

Video Contest: NORML Teams With Slightly Stoopid & Cypress Hill For Internet Contest In Support of Proposition 19

August 9th, 2010 New York, NY – The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), a Washington DC-based marijuana advocacy group, has partnered with jam-based dub rock heavyweights Slightly Stoopid and hip-hop juggernauts Cypress Hill on the Legalize It 2010 tour for a YouTube based video contest to raise awareness for California’s Prop 19, the initiative to regulate and tax marijuana. The initiative will be on the California ballot November 2nd, 2010 and its passage would be a historic step forward in the fight to end marijuana prohibition and legalize marijuana nationwide.

NORML, Slightly Stoopid, and Cypress Hill invite US residents to create 30-60 second videos of themselves answering the question, “What could California do with the revenue generated from taxing marijuana?” Participants are to upload their entries to YouTube with the tag “YesOnProp19.” Members of both bands and representatives from NORML will personally pick one grand prize winner and two runner-ups from a selection of the most viewed, rated, and commented upon videos.

Prizes include a personal phone call from B-Real, a limited edition Slightly Stoopid vaporizer, a framed autographed tour poster, a free one-year membership to NORML, plus more. Winners’ videos will be shared on all the partners’ social network profiles. For official contest rules visit here.

Proposition 19, the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010, will give local governments the ability to tax the sale of up to one ounce of marijuana for recreational purposes to adults age 21 and older. According to the Board of Equalization (BOE), California’s tax regulator, controlling and taxing marijuana in California could generate $1.4 billion in much needed revenue each year. These funds could go towards jobs, public safety, health care, parks, transportation, education and more.

According to research conducted by the California chapter of NORML, the sale of marijuana could save over $200 million in law enforcement costs, generate $12-18 billion annually from spin-off industries (similar to the CA wine industry) and create between 60,000 and 110,000 new jobs, generating $2.5 -3.5 billion in wages for workers each year. NORML also reports numerous public safety benefits such as putting drug cartels out of business and refocusing police efforts on violent crime. Says Miles from Slightly Stoopid, “I think the whole negative outlook [on pot] is silly. You can go to the store and buy as much booze as you want, and it gets taxed. I think that’s way worse than marijuana. If they passed that bill and taxed (marijuana), it would generate a lot of money for the state and help cut into the deficit faced by the state of California. If I was a politician or a judge running California, I would have passed this a long, long time ago.”

Slightly Stoopid and Cypress Hill, along with Collie Buddz are currently on a nationwide 22 date tour called Legalize It 2010. Local NORML chapters have booths set up at stops along the tour, where interested parties can learn more about their mission, the contest and how to get involved in marijuana law reform.

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NORML, also known as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, is a Washington DC based non-profit founded in 1970, serves as the oldest and largest marijuana law reform organization in the US. With 135 state and local chapters and a legal committee consisting of over 500 lawyers, the organization has a large, volunteer-based grassroots network supporting victims and activists nationwide. NORML advocates for the right of adults to consume marijuana responsibly, both for medical and recreational purposes and supports the elimination of all penalties associated with its possession or use. NORML also supports establishing a legally regulated market where consumers can buy marijuana in a safe and secure environment. NORML’s sister organization, the NORML Foundation is a not for profit 501(c)3 foundation established in 1997 to better educate the public about marijuana and marijuana policy options, and to assist victims of the current laws. NORML holds an annual national conference and two annual CLE-accredited legal seminars.

Our California NORML Coordinator, Dale Gieringer, has penned an informative viewpoint for the Sacramento Bee, addressing the one of the only two arguments against legalization of marijuana that still have any traction with the people: “Marijuana Mayhem on the Freeways!” (the other being: “My God! What About the Children!?!”)

As usual, the prohibitionists’ stark warnings about the peril of stoned drivers after legalization only makes sense if you believe nobody is smoking pot now.

Studies on marijuana and driving safety are remarkably consistent, though greatly under-publicized because they fail to support the government’s anti-pot line. Eleven different studies of more than 50,000 fatal accidents have found that drivers with marijuana-only in their system are on average no more likely to cause accidents than those with low, legal levels of alcohol below the threshold for DUI.

The major exception is when marijuana is combined with alcohol, which tends to be highly dangerous.

Several studies have failed to detect any increased accident risk from marijuana at all. The reason for pot’s relative safety appears to be that it tends to make users drive more slowly, while alcohol makes them speed up.

Thus legalization could actually reduce accidents if more drivers used marijuana instead of alcohol, but it could also increase them if there were more combined use of the two.

Nobody is saying “toke up and get behind the wheel”; our Principles of Responsible Use firmly states “The responsible cannabis consumer does not operate a motor vehicle or other dangerous machinery while impaired by cannabis”. However, it would be naive to think every cannabis consumer uses responsibly.

Geiringer addresses this by pointing out that California, the state with the easiest access to medical marijuana, has only the 14th-highest rating of states with marijuana-related accidents, while states like Indiana and South Carolina, some of the most hostile states with respect to marijuana, have far more marijuana-related accidents.  Within California, two of the most liberal cities for pot access, San Francisco and Santa Cruz, had zero marijuana-related accidents in the past year of record.

US accident rates in general have been declining steadily since the 1960s, even as marijuana use reached its greatest rates in the late 1970s.  Even in the 1980s when marijuana legalization was at its lowest levels of support and throughout the 1990s and 2000s as medical marijuana spread from state to state, the highway accident rates have continued their steady decline.  It seems that whether marijuana is popular and legal or not, it makes no difference in roadway safety.

Besides, driving under the influence of marijuana is illegal in California now and Prop 19 does nothing to undo that.  Californians can and have been arrested for drugged driving over the past fourteen years, even with legal medical marijuana.  Whatever cops are doing now to arrest pot-smoking drivers for DUID will still be done after Prop 19 passes.

Screenshot from CBS News website

A loyal NORML reader notes the unintended irony in the AP photo accompanying CBS News’ coverage of the 28,000 Mexicans who’ve been killed in the drug war south of our border.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has remarked that “Clearly what we’ve been doing has not worked,” and “Our insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade.” Sec’y Clinton notes that “Neither interdiction [of drugs] nor reducing demand have been successful.”

Yet Americans have a far more insatiable demand for beer than they do cannabis and drugs.  Some of those beers, like Corona, even provide an export market for Mexico and jobs for poor Mexicans.

And nobody turns up tortured and dead under a Budweiser banner, either.

If what we’ve done for thirty years hasn’t worked, if our demand is insatiable, if interdiction is not successful, what other possible way could we deal with marijuana – a product more than half of all Americans under age 50 have tried and 10% of American adults enjoy annually?

The solution to the problem in that photograph isn’t found by going after the murderous criminals who put that banner on the ground.  It’s found in the lessons we learned seventy-seven years ago that led to a beer company putting its banner on the wall.

[Editor's note: This post is excerpted from this week's forthcoming NORML weekly media advisory. To have NORML's media advisories delivered straight to your in-box, sign up for NORML's free e-zine here.]

The administration of THC reduces the tumor growth of metastatic breast cancer and “might constitute a new therapeutic tool for the treatment” of cancerous tumors, according to preclinical data published online in the journal Molecular Cancer.

Investigators from Complutense University in Madrid assessed the anti-tumor potential of THC and JWH-133, a non-psychotropic CB2 receptor-selective agonist, in the treatment of ErbB2-positive breast tumors – a highly aggressive form of breast cancer that is typically unresponsive to standard therapies.

Researchers reported, “[B]oth Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol … and JWH-133 …reduce tumor growth [and] tumor number [in mice]. … [T]hese results provide a strong preclinical evidence for the use of cannabinoid-based therapies for the management of ErbB2-positive breast cancer.”

In 2007, investigators at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute reported that the administration of the nonpsychoactive cannabinoid CBD limited breast cancer metastasis in a manner that was superior to comparable synthesized agents.

Previous preclinical studies assessing the anticancer properties of cannabinoids have shown that they inhibit the proliferation of a wide range of cancers, including brain cancer, prostate cancer, oral cancers, lung cancer, skin cancer, pancreatic cancer, biliary tract cancers, and lymphoma.

Full text of the study, “Cannabinoids reduce ErbB2-driven breast cancer progression through Akt inhibition,” is available online here.