Poll results released today by Patients and Families United show that only 20 percent of Montanans support the outright repeal of the Montana Medical Marijuana Act. The findings conflict with the mood in Montana's Capitol. The Senate will soon take up a bill that could repeal the state's medical marijuana law. The House passed the measure on Monday by a vote of 62-37. Sixty-two percent of Montana voters approved the law in 2004.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 22, 2011

CONTACT: Tom Angell at (202) 557-4979 or [email protected]

Enacted by 61 percent of voters in November 2000 as Proposition 36, the law says first- and second-time nonviolent, simple drug possession offenders must be given the opportunity to receive substance abuse treatment instead of jail time. That "must" isn't a suggestion; it would take another voter-approved ballot measure to undo it. County officials who administer the state's treatment-not-jail program for certain drug offenders are struggling with a lack of funding that's not likely to improve, but advocates say ignoring the mandate simply isn't an option.

Jaime Zapata's killing marks the first murder of an American agent in the line of duty in Mexico's drug prohibition war, which has raged relentlessly since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006. As such, it adds extra pressure to the already strained U.S.-Mexico drug prohibition alliance. Publicly, the Calderón and Obama administrations have continued to paint a rosy picture of the U.S. and Mexico marching side by side to defeat the common adversary of drug trafficking organizations. But as revealed in WikiLeaks cables and offhand comments by officials on both sides of the border, tensions are growing. U.S. officials complain that they cannot rely on Mexico's institutions — and this concern is exacerbated when their lives are on the line.

Within the past three months, Central Oregon has seen at least five medical marijuana clinics or clubs set up shop. There was at first outcry, then indifference -- and now, it seems, acceptance.

Drug prohibition violence is growing across Colombia, and has reached particularly alarming levels in Cordoba. This latest incarnation of drug trafficking organizations has emerged following the demobilization of paramilitary soldiers. Between 2003 and 2006, after striking a peace deal with the government, more than 32,000 fighters belonging to the paramilitary group called the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) put down arms. But many mid-ranking paramilitary commanders slipped back into drug trafficking, starting up new organizations and recruiting ex-AUC fighters.

Colorado congressman Jared Polis wants to drastically reduce the federal government's funding of the war on drugs. He has introduced amendments to the Full Year Continuing Appropriations Act of 2011 that, if passed, would virtually eliminate money spent to fight drug crimes. The first amendment, No. 501, proposes to eradicate funding of the drug czar. The second amendment, No. 427, would prohibit the investigation and criminal prosecution for the possession, manufacture or distribution of marijuana. Polis believes that the drug czar's office is not only unnecessary, but has proven to be more harmful than helpful in the case of marijuana.

A wounded Missouri veteran is gearing up for a courtroom battle he says he shouldn’t have to fight. Prosecutors have slapped Ken Unger with a felony charge of growing medical marijuana in his home. Unger says it's strictly for medicinal use to ease chronic pain cause by an accident he had in 1983 while on a tour of duty. "Yes I was growing marijuana, and I was growing it for my own personal consumption," he said. Unger was prescribed morphine to control his pain, which he says he's tired of. "I feel like I’m totally trapped," Unger said. "I’m not allowed to do anything for pain relief other than be a morphine addict, and I don’t want to be a morphine addict."

The head of a company that provides security for American citizens traveling in Mexico says powerful drug trafficking organizations are branching out into the $40-billion-a-year sex trafficking industry. They kidnap children and young people, demand ransom, but in many cases never return the victims, according to Brad Barker with Halo Security. He said a family might pay $100,000 ransom, but the kidnap victim can be worth much more in the sex market. "This person can be held in captivity, they can be filmed doing sex acts, they can be sold on the Internet throughout the world and make 10 times that amount of money. So why would they return the person to their family?"

President Felipe Calderon's four-year-old army-led campaign against drug trafficking organizations created by prohibition has shaken up the balance of power in Mexico's criminal underworld and sparked a wave of turf wars, sometimes trapping civilians in their midst. With more than 34,000 drug prohibition killings in the past four years, Calderon is coming under increasing pressure to help states burdened by drug war refugees.

 

Legalization in 2012: What do YOU think?

Kentucky's House Judiciary Committee approved the most sweeping changes to the state's penal code in a generation in an effort to reduce prison and jail crowding. The committee voted unanimously to send House Bill 463 to the full House, where a floor vote is expected tomorrow. The result of much negotiation and compromise, the bill would steer many drug addicts into treatment and community supervision rather than prison. It drew praise from prosecutors, defense lawyers, judges and local leaders. The Kentucky Chamber of Commerce endorsed it, warning that the state's incarceration costs are draining resources that could better be spent on education.

Dr. Zachary F. Meisel, a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation clinical scholar and an emergency physician at the University of Pennsylvania, discusses issues related to emergency room doctors running tests for illicit drugs on patients without gaining their permission.

Michigan voters support the state's medical marijuana law by nearly the same margin by which it was adopted in the 2008 election. The poll, conducted by Marketing Resource Group of Lansing, found that 61% of voters said they would vote yes again. Proposal 1 of 2008, legalizing the possession and use of marijuana for medical reasons, won with 62.6% of the vote. A spokeswoman for the Marijuana Policy Project said the poll "proves that a strong majority of Michigan voters stand firmly behind the compassionate medical marijuana law they enacted two years ago."

A project championed by the late Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) got the axe in the fiscal year 2012 budget proposed by President Barack Obama. The National Drug Intelligence Center is slated to receive 43.2 percent less money in 2012, going from a budget of $44 million to $25 million.

In California, medical marijuana dispensaries are required by state law to operate as non-profit "collectives" of legal medical marijuana patients who simply cover the costs of distributing the plant or edible products made from it. In the aftermath of dozens of raids on dispensaries that were illegally profiting from the sale of marijuana over the last year, the medicinal marijuana industry is calling for new laws that would allow dispensaries to operate as for-profit enterprises.

Gunmen representing the Zetas drug trafficking organization have threatened to attack isolated natural gas well drillers unless they pay to operate in parts of northern Mexico. The threats are a new twist in Mexico's failed drug prohibition war, which is hitting businesses near the U.S.-Mexico border.

A study conducted in Idaho concluded the cost of mandatory drug testing of public assistance recipients would exceed any savings from booting offenders from programs. Republican lawmakers demanded the study last March, saying their constituents considered it unfair that some Idahoans are drug-tested by their employers while those on public assistance are not.

More than 50,000 people were arrested last year in New York City for low-level marijuana offenses, according to the New York Division of Criminal Justice Services. Those 50,383 arrests represented 15 percent of all arrests by the New York Police Department. The 50,000-oplus figure is more marijuana arrests in one year than the number of similar arrests made by the New York Police Department over the entire period from 1978 to 1996, according to an analysis for the alliance done by Harry Levine, a sociology professor at Queens College.

A Mexican drug trafficking organization kidnapped the 12-year-old daughter of a ranch foreman in New Mexico, holding the girl for ransom until her family and neighbors came up with $80,000 for her release. They didn’t dare call law enforcement for help because of very real fears their calls would be monitored by the kidnappers using sophisticated communications relay stations erected on U.S. public lands. "The drug smugglers use scanners, cell phones, GPS systems and other equipment that is better than anything Border Patrol or the local deputy sheriffs have. We could actually see them watching our Border Patrol agents from points on high ground," said Rep. Ed Royce, a Republican from California while visiting hot spots along the New Mexico, Arizona and Texas border. This is yet another example of violence from Mexico's drug prohibition war crossing the border into the United States, and is interesting as Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s keeps claiming there has been no "spillover violence".

The Canadian government bill that would impose mandatory jail time for offenders caught growing a handful of marijuana plants appears doomed. The Liberals announced they will not support Bill S-10, which has already been passed by the Senate.

Jennifer Abel opines on policing priorities given that the state of the economy is forcing cutbacks in law enforcement.

US Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal likened Mexico's drug war to an "insurgency" and suggested the US might need to send troops to Mexico and to prevent prohibition-created drug trafficking organizations from taking over the country. Mexico has condemned the remarks, which Westphal has retracted and apologized for, but they echo September comments from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who also compared Mexico's drug prohibition threat to an "insurgency." President Obama immediately backed away from Mrs. Clinton's comparison then, just as Westphal immediately labeled his own words "inaccurate."

Denver-based mmjDailyDeals.com is picking up where other social couponing sites don't dare to go, offering deals of up to 80 percent off on medical marijuana in your inbox everyday. Founder John Molinare said his company is filling a void for medical marijuana patients who stand to benefit through increased accessibility and affordability.

The state Senate Health and Long-Term Care Committee approved a bill aimed at clarifying Washington’s law on the medical use of cannabis. The bipartisan measure was introduced by Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, and co-sponsored by Sen. Jerome Delvin, R-Richland. Senate Bill 5073 would allow patients to purchase medical marijuana products from licensed dispensaries by taking part in a regulated patient collective, or by continuing to receive it from a designated provider. The Department of Agriculture would create a licensing system for the growing of medical marijuana and the Department of Health would do the same for dispensaries.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 9, 2011

For Immediate Release: February 9, 2011                           &

Mark Slaugh, membership director of the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, wrote to Rep. Mark Barker, R-Colorado Springs, and Sen. John Morse, D-Colorado Springs to urge legislative action on behalf of a teenage medical marijuana patient being denied access to his medicine by Colorado's Harrison School District 2. The teenager in question was diagnosed a little more than a year ago with a very rare condition that causes seizures, which can last for days. Slaugh said the district should take a more reasonable approach to the situation and the legislature should rewrite medical marijuana laws so that this situation doesn’t come up in the first place.

Less than two months after signing a letter calling for the legalization, taxation, and regulation of marijuana, Joe Miller was terminated from his job as a deputy probation officer in Arizona. Miller is just one of a series of law enforcement officials to be fired for their views on drug policy.

Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) says that a lot of members of Congress privately agree that we need to change our drug policy, but that they’re just too timid or scared to go public with their beliefs. He says very few that are 'hard core' drug warriors.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: February 8, 2011

Conflict between state and federal laws over the legality of medical marijuana has left owners of medical marijuana dispensaries finding that their financial services can go up in smoke. They're caught in a legal gray area that makes big banks wary or downright hostile. Last spring, Rep. Jared Polis, D-Colo., and 14 other members of Congress sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner seeking reassurance for financial institutions. The letter to Geithner asks his office to "issue formal written guidance for financial institutions assuring that Department priorities do not include targeting or pursuing institutions whose account holders are involved in a business ostensibly operating in compliance with a state medical marijuana law." No response has been received.

Relatives feared for her safety and urged Police Chief Erica Gandara to keep a low profile. But she refused, posing with her rifle for newspaper interviews. Then, at 6 a.m. on December 23, 10 drug trafficking organization gunmen pulled up to her residence, dragged her out of the house and set the home on fire. She has not been seen or heard from since.

Undersecretary of the Army Joseph Westphal, the second-highest ranking civilian official in the U.S. Army, described the situation in Mexico created by drug prohibition as an insurgency and fretted over a scenario in which armed U.S. soldiers could be called to the border and/or into Mexico. Westphal is the most senior U.S. official to publicly compare Mexico’s drug cartels to an insurgency since Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a similar assessment last September. Westfall — who said he was expressing a personal opinion, but one he had shared with the White House — said he didn’t want to ever see a situation in which "armed and fighting" American soldiers are sent to combat an insurgency "on our border, in violation of our Constitution, or to have to send them across the border."

In San Francisco, a medical marijuana collective is trying to change the idea of a medical marijuana club as a tiny storefront office in a declining part of town, or a huge but impersonal former warehouse.

Greenway University has received full formal state approval from the Colorado Department of Higher Education. The university has received authorization to teach ten medical marijuana state-approved courses, the only such state-approved and regulated medical marijuana courses in the United States. Greenway University is renowned for its compliance driven medical marijuana educational services in California, Colorado, Arizona and the Western US.

*DRUG TRUTH NETWORK PROGRAMS, Feb 6 to Feb 13, 2011*

*Cultural Baggage*, 29:00,  Irvin Rosenfeld, author of "My Medicine"

The Detroit Free Press reports on Michigan communities that have been sued over ordinances restricting medical marijuana.

A San Francisco task force charged with devising strategies for reducing Hepatitis C infections has recommended making the city the first in the U.S. with a drop-in center where intravenous drug users can obtain needles and shoot up.

Dr. Thomas Prisinzano, a scientist at the University of Kansas, is studying whether the drug salvia could lead to revolutionary new medicines. He has studied it for nine years. Prisinzano is one of seven scientists in the country with a federal grant to look into what the plant can do.

A bill aiming to reduce the costs of combating marijuana on the streets and in the courts by decriminalizing possession of small amounts of the drug is being heard by two legislative committees. Possession of one ounce or less of marijuana would be considered a civil violation similar to a traffic ticket and subject to a fine of $100 under the bill.

Another example of the futility of drug prohibition and drug traffickers' unrelenting innovation: Italian police said they had uncovered a drug trafficking ring that used clothes dipped in liquid cocaine to smuggle the drug into Italy from the Dominican Republic.

A notorious Mexican drug trafficking organization has been selling counterfeit Microsoft software on the streets and has been shoving it in authorities' faces by stamping fake Office 2007 discs, for instance, with the familiar "FMM" logo of the Familia organization.

Corrupt officials working in Mexican prisons is a well-known problem. Sandra Avila Beltran, the alleged leader of the Sinaloa drug trafficking organization has been receiving beauty treatments in jail — seems even behind bars a Queen can't be seen with wrinkles. An inquiry has been launched by Mexican officials into how a doctor was able to perform the "unauthorized procedure" on the high-profile inmate, dubbed the 'Queen of the Pacific', at the Santa Martha Acatitla prison in Mexico City.

The Cannabinoid Discussion Group at Temple University reviewed a recent scientific publication from a German Laboratory. The presenter was Zachary Reichenbach, an MD/Ph.D student at Temple, who is currently working in the laboratory of Dr. Ron Tuma. The Tuma lab is focused on studying cannabinoid based therapies for the treatment of cerebral ischemia resulting from stroke. Reichenbach led the discussion on a research paper which showed that the cannabinoid JWH-133 activates the cannabinoid type 2 receptor (CB2R), resulting a decrease in infarct size or brain damage during reperfusion following an ischemic event.

The city is being sued by a cancer patient who claims the zoning restrictions on medical marijuana violate the Michigan Constitution and state law. Adam Leslie Brook of Royal Oak filed a lawsuit against the city, city clerk, building official and mayor in Oakland County Circuit Court.

Just as Mexican authorities are struggling to put drug traffickers in prison, Mexican prisons are struggling to keep them there. Hundreds of dangerous inmates have escaped from state penitentiaries along the U.S. border in recent months, some through spectacular action-movie breakouts, others by simply walking out the door.

A retired army general who took over a month ago as police chief of the drug prohibition violence-wracked Mexican border city of Nuevo Laredo has been shot to death along with two of his bodyguards.

A series of high-profile murders of U.S. citizens along the border with Mexico has raised fears about drug prohibition violence spilling over into the United States.