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For Immediate Release: February 19, 2009

Contact: Tony Newman at (646) 335-5384 or Ethan Nadelmann at (646)335-2240                               

International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) Releases 2008 Report

Statement by Ethan Nadelmann, Executive Director of the Drug Policy Alliance

“The INCB Boldly Reaffirmed its Shameful Commitment to Politics over Science”

The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB), the independent and quasi-judicial control organ monitoring the implementation of the United Nations drug control conventions released its Annual Report 2008 today.

The following is a statement by Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance:

“With the release of its annual report today, the International Narcotics Control Board boldly reaffirmed its shameful commitment to politics over science as well as its shocking indifference to the failures and harmful consequences of the global drug prohibition regime.

“The INCB is the last of the UN drug agencies to still prioritize abstinence-only ideology over evidence-based policies that have proven effective in reducing drug-related harms.  Its recommendations regarding substitution treatment, cannabis policy, and harm reduction measures to reduce death, disease, crime and suffering are all at odds with both scientific evidence and evolving policies in many parts of the world.

“Perhaps most stunning is the Board's failure to consider the crime, violence and corruption as well as over-incarceration and violations of human rights associated with the global drug prohibition regime. 

“Coming on the heels of the report released last week by the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, which came to very different conclusions with its call for a paradigm shift in global drug control policy, the INCB report seems sadly irrelevant to the most important issues in drug control today. 

“Now that the Obama administration shows signs of joining with other nations in emphasizing health and science over anti-drug rhetoric and ideology, the INCB may soon be faced with the choice of evolving or going out of business.

“Perhaps the only helpful feature of this year’s report was the focus on the tens of millions of people who suffer from untreated moderate-to-severe pain as a result of the underutilization of narcotic drugs.  But the international agency most engaged in trying to deal with this drug problem is the World Health Organization, while the INCB's historic obsession with restricting the availability of narcotic drugs has likely contributed to pervasive undertreatment of pain.

“It will soon be one hundred years since the International Opium Congress convened in Shanghai in 1909, thereby initiating the global drug control system.  An appropriate memorial would be the abolition of the INCB.”

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[Courtesy of Coalition for Medical Marijuana -- New Jersey, Inc.] 

FOR IMMEDIATE Release: February 19, 2009

For more information, contact: Ken Wolski @ (609) 394-2137

New Jersey Senate to Vote on Medical Marijuana

WHO:      State Senators in New Jersey

WHAT:   Will vote on the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act (S119)

WHEN:   Monday February 23, 2009 at 2:00 PM

WHERE: Senate Chambers of the New Jersey State House in Trenton, NJ

WHY:       To advance a bill that will protect seriously ill or injured New Jersey patients who use therapeutic marijuana on the advice of a licensed physician. 

The New Jersey State Senate will vote on the New Jersey Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act" (S119)  on Monday, February 23, 2009 at 2:00 PM in the State House Senate Chambers in Trenton, NJ.  Many supporters of the bill plan to attend the voting session, led by the Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey, Inc. (CMMNJ).  New Jersey would become the 14^th state in the nation to legalize medical marijuana by passing this legislation into law.

S119 will remove the state penalties for the possession, use and cultivation of a small amount of marijuana when a licensed physician recommends it for a debilitating medical condition.  Qualifying medical conditions include chronic pain, cancer, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, etc.  Patients will be issued ID cards in a program run by the New Jersey Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS).  Patients will be permitted to grow up to six plants and possess one ounce of marijuana, but they will not be permitted to use their therapeutic marijuana in public or while operating motor vehicles.  Patients may designate a caregiver or treatment center to grow the plants for them, but the caregiver/center must also register with DHSS.  CMMNJ Executive Director, Ken Wolski, RN said, “The bill is very conservative.  No medical marijuana state has a smaller plant limit or possession amount.  Still, it will help a tremendous number of patients here.”  The American Nurses Association, the American College of Physicians, the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, the American Public Health Association, the American Academy of HIV Medicine and many other professional healthcare organizations have endorsed medical marijuana. 

S119 was originally introduced by Senator Nicholas Scutari, D-Linden, in January 2005, and was referred to the senate health committee.   Hearings were conducted on the bill in June 2006 and in December 2008, at which time the bill was favorably released out of committee by a 6 – 1 vote.  If the bill passes in the senate, it will then go to the assembly for votes by the health committee and the entire assembly.  Governor Jon Corzine has said on several occasions that he supports medical marijuana and that he will sign the bill when it gets to his desk. 

CMMNJ, 501(c)(3) public charity, provides education about the benefits of safe and legal access to medical marijuana.  For more info, contact:

Ken Wolski, RN, MPA, Executive Director

Coalition for Medical Marijuana--New Jersey, Inc.
844 Spruce St., Trenton, NJ  08648
609.394.2137 www.cmmnj.org   [email protected]

This link from the Drug Policy Alliance allows personalized e-mails to be forwarded to all NJ State Senators:

http://dpa.convio.net/site/MessageViewer?em_id=9921.0&dlv_id=24781

The Sentencing Project is pleased to announce the release of a new publication from our colleagues at the Institute for Policy Studies,
"Mandate for Change." 

 

Edited by Chester Hartman, the founding executive director of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council, "Mandate for Change" is a collection of progressive policy proposals for the Obama Administration on every major domestic and international topic by more than 70 leading thinkers and activists in the field.  "A New Policy for Public Safety," a chapter on criminal justice reform, was contributed by Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project. 

A Washington, D.C. reception celebrating the release of "Mandate for Change" will be held on Monday, February 23rd at Busboys and Poets from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m.

In addition to many associates of the Institute for Policy Studies, contributors include:

Nan Aron, Alliance for Justice
Dean Baker, Center for Economic & Policy Research
Sheila Crowley, National Low Income Housing Coalition
Peter Edelman, Georgetown University Law Center
Maria Foscarinis, National Law Center on Homelessness  & Poverty
Kim Gandy, National Organization for Women
Angela Glover Blackwell, PolicyLink
Mark Greenberg, Center for American Progress
Alan Houseman, Center for Law and Social Policy
Doug Nelson and Bart Lubow, Annie E. Casey Foundation
Miles Rappaport and Stuart Comstock Gray, Demos

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE   
FEBRUARY 18, 2009

House Committee Passes Medical Marijuana, 9-6

CONTACT: Former Rep. Chris DeLaForest (R-Andover)......................................................(763) 439-1178

ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA -- Minnesota's medical marijuana bill, H.F. 292, cleared its first hurdle in the House of Representatives today, passing the Health Care and Human Services Policy and Oversight Committee in a vote of 9 to 6. The vote came after medical marijuana patients and others testified to the relief provided by medical marijuana when conventional treatments had failed.

    "Before medical marijuana, I was in such pain I had no life," said K.K. Forss of Ely, who suffers chronic, severe pain as a result of a ruptured disk in his neck and repeated surgeries on his neck and upper spine. "It was so horrible I wanted to die every day. No one should have to face a choice between suffering unbearably and risking arrest and jail."

    Rep. Tom Rukavina (DFL-Virginia), sponsor of the bill, hailed the vote, saying, "Today's vote is an important step toward protecting seriously ill Minnesotans. The evidence is clear that medical marijuana can help some patients who suffer terribly, and it's time to protect these patients from arrest and jail."

    "This sensible, humane, bipartisan bill is modeled after laws that have been working well for years in states like Montana and Rhode Island," said Rep. Mark Buesgens (R-Jordan). "We should not be using our scarce law enforcement dollars to arrest suffering patients for using a medicine their doctor has recommended."

    Thirteen states, comprising approximately one-quarter of the U.S. population, now permit medical use of marijuana under state law if a physician has recommended it. The newest such law was enacted by Michigan voters last November, passing with a record-setting 63 percent "yes" vote. Medical organizations which have recognized marijuana's medical uses include the American Public Health Association, American Nurses Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine, and American College of Physicians, which noted "marijuana's proven efficacy at treating certain symptoms and its relatively low toxicity," in a statement issued last year.

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