Getting medical marijuana bills passed in state legislatures is a long, hard slog. So far this year, only one bill has passed into law, the Rhode Island dispensary bill, which builds on an existing medical marijuana law. Two states' legislatures, Minnesota and New Hampshire, passed bills, only to have them vetoed. But there's still hope in a few places. Here's a rundown of medical marijuana at the statehouse this year.
Mary Beth Buchanan, easily the nastiest federal prosecutor in the nation, has finally resigned her post. Yet, even as lovers of justice across the country celebrate her long-overdue departure (and pray she won't run for elected office), Buchanan has managed to turn our stomachs for what will hopefully be the last time:
On her last day in office, Buchanan says her only regret during her tenure was accepting a plea from Tommy Chong. [KDKA.com]
Such pure arrogance is really something to behold. Every legal textbook in the country should display her picture beside the term "malicious prosecution," as the railroading of Tommy Chong is a mere footnote within a career defined by gratuitous excesses.
Of course, Tommy was amused to hear that Buchanan still holds a grudge against him. The feeling is mutual:
"I'm honored to be Mary Beth's only regret. Now does she regret going after me? Or does she regret that I never got enough time? I tend to think she wishes she'd never heard my name. I have become her legacy. Mary Beth Loose Cannon is now looking for a job. She blew her last job busting me. Karma is so sweet! She's looking for a work while Cheech and I start our second multi-million dollar tour thanks to the publicity she created for us! Thank you Mary Beth - may you find peace and happiness in your search for your soul." [CelebStoner]
I dunno, Tommy. You might wanna keep the floodlights on at night, just in case. If we know one thing about Mary Beth Buchanan, it’s that she never ever stops. She could be lurking in your bushes at this very moment, drunk with fury and looking to finish what she started.
Boy, O'Reilly really knows how to suck the humor out of a room:
This should never have been allowed to take place. Bill O'Reilly shouldn't be allowed anywhere these guys, or anyone else who's ever been remotely funny at any point in modern history.
And if anyone can think of a legal way to make O'Reilly stop saying things like this, please share:
O'REILLY: We found out that in San Francisco, which leads the league in marijuana clinics, medical marijuana clinics, a lot of hard-core drug addicts go in there, buy the pot and sell it to kids so they can buy their heroin and meth and everything else.
CHONG: Sell it to kids?
O'REILLY: Yes.
CHONG: Where did you get that information?
O'REILLY: We got it from our undercover people.
Yeah, right. This is one of those social problems that you'll only hear about on the O'Reilly Factor because it only exists in the twisted mind of Bill O'Reilly.
Unfortunately, the DEA isn’t the only drug war apparatus that's dragging its heels when it comes to acknowledging the American Medical Association's new position on medical marijuana. The drug czar's website still offers a document entitled "What Every American Should Know About Medical Marijuana," (PDF) which includes this passage:
Major public health organizations do not support smoking marijuana as medicine.
The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Medical Association and the American Academy of Ophthalmology all oppose the smoked form of marijuana as medicine...
So, if the drug czar thinks "every American should know" about AMA's position on medical marijuana, will he now inform Americans that the position has changed? Somehow I doubt it, but at the very least, this now-false claim that AMA opposes medical marijuana should be removed immediately.
Let me be clear about this too, because I don’t want anyone thinking this is just some smug campaign to rub AMA's new position in the face of drug warriors all over the web. This document, "What Every American Should Know About Medical Marijuana," is a dreadful Bush-era hatefest that positively drips with outrageous & out-of-context propaganda points and should have been tossed from the site back in January, along with all the other rancid garbage John Walters left in the fridge at ONDCP.
This document even contains the unbelievable Steve Kubby smear, in which Kubby's statements about Marinol saving his life in prison were spun as opposition to medical marijuana (I highly recommend revisiting that one if you don’t remember it, because it's so much worse than I can even describe in one sentence). And this isn't some dusty artifact I dug up from the cavernous bowels of ONDCP.gov either, it is currently the #1 search result for "medical marijuana" on the drug czar's website.*
So please join me in sending the drug czar a note asking that this outdated and offensive document be removed from his site once and for all. Whether it's because the reference to AMA is no longer accurate, or because the rest of the thing in its entirety is just a raging trainwreck of distortion and nastiness, or because the new administration has pledged to respect state medical marijuana laws instead of vilifying doctors and patients, this type of rhetoric has no place in the drug policy debate.
Please contact the drug czar today to ask that the document "What Every American Should Know About Medical Marijuana" be permanently removed from ONDCP.gov. Thanks.
*Update: Interestingly, the document is now much more difficult to find on the ONDCP website. Last night, it came up #1 in a search for "medical marijuana." Now I can only locate it by using more specific search terms. Hopefully, this signals that it's in the process of being removed, although the PDF is currently still being hosted by ONDCP.
Update 2: Our friends at LEAP have created an action alert where you can send a pre-written message to DEA & ONDCP requesting the necessary corrections.
Last week's big news that the American Medical Association reversed its position on medical marijuana struck a huge blow to the reefer madness crowd, which has heavily touted the esteemed organization's past position as a primary excuse for prohibiting medical use. Yesterday, the DEA finally revised its website after LEAP and MPP pointed out that AMA was still listed as an opponent of medical marijuana.
Rarely, if ever, has the DEA responded so quickly and cooperatively when activists complained about the accuracy of government anti-drug propaganda. But, the job isn't done just yet. It seems the clever folks at DEA took our complaints literally, and only fixed the page we mentioned, rather than making all the necessary corrections.
DEA's youth website, JustThinkTwice.com, still contains two separate inaccurate statements about AMA's position on medical marijuana:
"The American Medical Association has rejected pleas to endorse marijuana as medicine, and instead has urged that marijuana remain a prohibited, Schedule I drug, at least until more research is done."
"The American Medical Association rejected marijuana as medicine."
Of course, it's quite likely that similar claims can still be found elsewhere on DEA websites and it's their responsibility to clean up the mess. Hopefully, DEA is more familiar with its own web content than we are, so it shouldn’t be too hard to go through there and set everything straight.
Let's all do our part to help DEA with the editing process by copying the links above and clicking here (then scroll down) to send them a reminder that more corrections are needed. When it comes to providing the public with accurate and up-to-date information about drugs, the DEA is in desperate need of our asistance, so please take a few moments to lend them a hand.
Update: Our friends at LEAP have created an action alert where you can send a pre-written message to DEA & ONDCP requesting the necessary corrections.
In June we highlighted a bus advertising campaign, "Nice People Take Drugs," conducted by the British drug reform advocacy group Release. Some of the nice people from Release attended the big drug policy conference in Albuquerque last week, and they were nice enough to give us one of their new "Nice People Take Drugs" decks of playing cards, featuring politicians from the US, UK and elsewhere and the quotes they've given about their past drug use. (Whether all of the featured politicians are nice people is a subjective question, of course.) The front of the cards feature the organization's web site and a toll-free helpline, hard to see in the picture (0845 4500 215 if you're in Britain and need the help).
Albuquerque's "British Invasion" also featured the Transform Drug Policy Foundation's new publication, After the War on Drugs: Blueprint for Regulation. Check Drug War Chronicle later this week for a conference report highlighting this and more.
Here's a sampling of the Release cards:
Last but not least, for now, a picture I snapped during the conference's closing plenary, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson delivering the keynote:
In an opinion that could generate more revenue for cash-strapped governments and give additional legitimacy to a fledgling industry, Colorado Attorney General John Suthers said Monday that the state can collect sales tax on medical marijuana.
"Medical marijuana is tangible property that is generally subject to state sales tax," Suthers, a Republican, wrote in response to a query from Gov. Bill Ritter, a Democrat.
The opinion also said medical-marijuana dispensaries must obtain retail-sales licenses from the state to do business. [Denver Post]
It sucks that it took an economic crisis to advance the idea that it makes more sense to generate revenue from the marijuana economy than waste billions trying in vain to destroy it. Of course, we'd have gladly paid the government millions many years ago to stop arresting patients.
Stories like this one about the endemic drug war corruption gripping Mexican law enforcement are a dime a dozen. But I don't get bored reading them, because there's always a new and compelling example of what a mess all of this is:
Reporting from San Luis Potosi, Mexico - The lie-detector team brought in by Mexico's top cop was supposed to help clean up the country's long-troubled police. There was just one problem: Most of its members themselves didn't pass, and a supervisor was rigging results to make sure others did. [LA Times]
Yeah, it's awfully hard to purge corruption when the people in charge of investigating it are corrupt themselves. It's insane to spend a billion dollars trying to fix Mexican law enforcement, when the cartels can just spend more to make sure it stays broken.
The Drug War Chronicle has written several times about the trials and tribulations of medical marijuana patient Will Foster, who is currently sitting in once again in an Oklahoma prison, jerked back from the new life he had made in California by a vindictive and corner-cutting Oklahoma parole bureaucracy.
But while Foster certainly appears to have been the victim of vengeful parole department employees, who charged him with ficticious parole violations--causing him to be locked up in a California jail for 16 months before being extradited back to Oklahoma--the parole board itself has done the right thing. In a hearing last week, the board rejected the charges against Foster and recommended he be released.
But there's one more step. Under Oklahoma law, the governor signs off on all parole board decisions. This is where you can help. There is still time to write or call the governor to encourage him to follow the parole system's recommendation and FREE WILL FOSTER. Please ask that Will be given time served and set free to return to his family in California.
Please call Gov. Brad Henry's office at 405-521-2342
Or fax a letter to 405-521-3353.
Make sure you identify Will as Will Foster, #25271. The argument is simple: Will Foster is a non-violent offender who has served enough time and plans to leave the state to settle in California. Keeping him in prison or on parole in Oklahoma serves neither justice nor public safety and is not worth Oklahoma taxpayers' money.
Read the link above to get informed before you call or write if you need to. Be polite and to the point. Will Foster, who never did anything to anybody, has been in the clutches of Oklahoma justice for 15 years for growing some plants to ease his pains. He's almost free. You can help open that prison door. Do it.
Washington Post has a light-hearted story, Boomers see views relaxing on marijuana, that looks at marijuana use among suburban adults in the D.C. area. The gist is that lots of yuppie-types have been having a blast for many years, but it just recently became ok to talk about it, thanks to the evolution of cultural attitudes about marijuana.
Obviously, it's awesome to see the media finally picking up on how normal and boring most marijuana users are. Replacing the old stereotypes is a necessary step towards reform, and few would argue that D.C.'s affluent suburbs need to be purged of professionals who puff in private. So this reaction from local law-enforcement is as predictable as it is revealing:
Most Washington area police departments enforce the laws that make marijuana illegal, officials said. A Montgomery County police spokesman would not comment other than to say that the department has seen no spike in marijuana use by older residents and is not targeting those users.
I suppose we can't let old white people become collateral damage in our crusade to arrest entire generations of young black and Hispanic men for smoking pot? Our laws against marijuana owe their origins to the most vicious and transparent racism, and today, the drug war delivers on its hateful promise in the form of gratuitous disparities at every stage of the criminal justice system.
How remarkable it is to find police literally admitting that their great war doesn't target the most privileged among us. I wonder, how freely did the words flow from the police spokesman's mouth as he unintentionally confirmed the vast disparity that defines and sustains the war on marijuana? It's powerfully ironic that, in an attempt to say as little as possible, the officer ended up epitomizing the pure injustice that has long characterized the enforcement of our marijuana laws.
Stop the Drug War (DRCNet) is an international organization working for an end to drug prohibition worldwide and for interim policy reform in US drug laws and criminal justice system. Read more about DRCNet.
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