Personal Marijuana Use

It all started last winter when, after decades of spoon-feeding the American public an infinite litany of anti-pot propaganda pieces, the press rather spontaneously discovered that it's better for business to talk about legalization instead. In an industry that was virtually devoid of voices for reform just a couple years ago, one can now scarcely find a prominent political pundit with anything nice to say about our marijuana laws.

This segment from This Week with George Stephanopoulos might be the best example yet:



Here, let's try to paraphrase that:

George Will: Legalizing marijuana will destroy the drug cartels.
John Podesta: It'll be legal once everyone figures out it can pay for health care.
Laura Ingram: Cancer patients, botox, whatever. Gimme some brownies!
Al Hunt: Now that my kids are all grown-up, I suppose I'm cool with it.
Cynthia Tucker: Really, we need to rethink all our drug laws, not just marijuana.

That's about as solid a bipartisan consensus as you'll ever see on a Sunday talk show, and you've gotta wonder how much longer the war on marijuana can survive in a political climate like this.

Public Opinion: In Gallup Poll, Support for Legalizing Reaches All-Time High; Over 50% in the West Are in Favor According to the most recent Gallup poll, 44% of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, while 54% oppose it. The 44% figure is the highest since Gallup began polling on the issue nearly 40 years ago. In 1970, only 12% of respondents favored legalization. That figure climbed to 28% in 1977, then declined slightly and reached a plateau with support holding at around 25% for the next two decades. But in the past decade, public opinion has begun to shift, with support hitting 34% in 2002, 36% in 2006, and now, 44%. Conversely, opposition to legalization is now at an all-time low. It was 84% in 1970, 66% in 1977, and around 73% for most of the Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton eras. But beginning in about 1996, opposition began to decline, dropping to 62% in 2002, 60% in 2006, and now, 54%. A related question—whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed to raise revenues for state governments—won similar support levels in the Gallup poll. Some 42% of respondents said they would favor such a move in their state, while 56% were opposed. In the West, however, support for tax and legalize has gone over the top; 53% favor such an approach. Looking at various demographic groups, support for marijuana legalization is highest among self-described liberals, at 78%. Only 26% of conservatives and 46% of moderates supported legalization. Similarly, 54% of Democrats, 49% of independents, and 28% of Republicans supported legalization. There is also a clear generational divide. Half of those under age 50 support legalization, compared to 45% aged 50 to 64, and only 28% of seniors. Support for legalization has swollen among certain demographic groups since the last Gallup poll on the issue in 2005. The number in favor of legalization jumped more than 10 points among women (+12), young people (+11), Democrats (+13), liberals (+15), moderates (+11), and residents of the West (+13). If these rates of increase in support for legalization continue over the medium term, the world as we know may indeed end in 2012.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

You can't make this stuff up:

Lebanon man had bag of marijuana stuck to his forehead, police say By MONICA VON DOBENECK, The Patriot-News October 15, 2009, 10:55AM Cesar Lopez, a 29-year-old Lebanon, Pa., man, was busted Saturday when he walked up to a police officer with a small bag of marijuana stuck to his forehead, according to Lebanon police. Police said the officer went into a Turkey Hill convenience store on Lehman Street at 3:25 a.m. Saturday and saw Lopez holding a baseball cap and peering inside it. When Lopez approached the officer, he looked up, and the officer said he saw a small plastic bag stuck to Lopez's forehead. The bag appeared to contain marijuana, police said. The officer retrieved the bag from Lopez’s forehead and said, “Is this what you are looking for?,” according to the police report. Lopez was charged with possession of a small amount of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia. It is not uncommon for people to hide drugs in the inside lip of a cap, police said.

As we say in the Upper Midwest: Oof-dah.

Leading a Liberal-National Party coalition government, West Australia Premier Colin Barnett is introducing legislation this week to roll back reforms to the state's marijuana laws. Passed by an earlier Labor government in 2003, the changes decriminalized the possession of up to 30 grams of pot and allowed for the growing of up to two plants without fear of arrest and prosecution. In a media statement Sunday and another one Monday, the "tough on crime" premier gave clear notice he was cracking down on pot and other drug offenders, and was willing to extend police powers to do so. He said he would introduce legislation to repeal the state's Cannabis Control Act of 2003 and to amend the 1981 Misuse of Drugs and Youthful Offender Act. "The Liberal-National Government is committed to tackling both the demand and supply sides of the illicit drug problem through strong law enforcement policies, education and rehabilitation," Barnett said. "Cannabis is not a harmless or soft drug. Research continues to show that cannabis can lead to a host of health and mental health problems including schizophrenia, and can be a gateway to harder drugs," he maintained, treating highly controversial and discredited claims as if they were fact. According to Premier Barnett, his legislation will: • Prosecute those in possession of more than 10g of cannabis • See subsequent offences for possession being prosecuted as criminal offences. • Prosecute people for cultivating even one or two cannabis plants. • Extend the ban the sale of pot-smoking implements to minors to include everyone. • Increase the fine for selling smoking implements to $5,000 for sale to adults and $10,000 for sale to minors. Corporate entities could be fined up to five times those amounts. Barnett also wants to "reform" the Cannabis Infringement Notice Scheme (CIN), or ticketing and fines for decriminalized amounts by replacing it with a Cannabis Intervention Requirement Scheme (CIRS) that would require anyone ticketed to attend "drug education" classes. It would also mandate that anyone who failed to pay his fine would be prosecuted, something that has not been the case under the current law. Barnett's scheme would also allow for the criminal prosecution for marijuana possession of juveniles after two decrim tickets and adults after one. The current law has no such measures. There's more to come, Barnett promised. "The next steps will be to amend legislation to enable courts to impose a harsher sentence on dealers who sell or supply illicit drugs to children, irrespective of the location of the sale or supply," he said. "Further amendments to the Misuse of Drugs Act 1981 will provide offences for exposing children to harm or to the danger of serious harm from the manufacture of illegal drugs, such as amphetamines, or the unlawful cultivation of illegal hydroponically-grown plants. The Government will also move to ban the sale of drug paraphernalia, including cocaine kits." But, he said Monday, he's going to start by soon introducing legislation to allow police to stop and search anyone without probable cause. The police commissioner would designate certain "stop and search" zones with advance public notice, especially in entertainment areas. "Police will have the right to go up to anyone they wish to and introduce a stop and search power," Barnett said. "It will not be an invasive search; it will be comparable to the sort of search and screening that takes place for any citizen getting on an aeroplane."

We've found many examples of police exaggerating the value of marijuana seizures, so I was interested to see this article in The Fresno Bee that debates the value of marijuana plants:

"I don't think most plants [would yield a pound] at any one time, unless it's a massive plant," [NORML's Keith Stroup] said. "What would make more sense would be to weigh the buds," which are the part of the marijuana plant where the intoxicant, a chemical called THC, is located.

Special Agent Casey McEnry of the federal Drug Enforcement Agency in San Francisco disagrees.

"We're not weighing the plants," she said. "When I give an estimate, it's based on how many pounds [a plant] is capable of producing."

No it's not, because you have no way of knowing that. Overall yield depends heavily on the strain and the growing conditions/techniques. It varies from a couple ounces to multiple pounds. Ever notice how some kinds of trees grow taller then others? Same principle.

The value of marijuana plants is hardly the biggest lie being passed around in the drug war debate, but it shouldn’t be ignored either. Every day, some poor soul gets sentenced to prison based on erroneous estimates like this. These simplistic calculations frequently serve to falsely equate personal growers with major suppliers, all because law-enforcement officials are too lazy to actually weigh the appropriate part of the plant.

Once again, the people enforcing our drug laws literally do not know what they're talking about.

Long-time marijuana legalization activist Dana Beal was one of three men arrested October 1 in Ashland, Nebraska, after they were pulled over in a traffic stop and police seized 150 pounds of marijuana. He and the other two men, Christopher Ryan of Ohio and James Statzer of Michigan, are being held in the Saunders County Jail, with bail set at $500,000 for Beal and $100,000 for Ryan and Statzer. Beal, an erstwhile Yippie activist from the 1970s and permanent fixture on the counterculture scene, heads the New York City-based organization Cures Not Wars, which advocates for the use of ibogaine as a treatment for drug dependence. But he is more widely known for acting as an information clearing house for the annual legalization rallies held each May in more than 200 cities around the planet known as the Global Marijuana March or Million Marijuana March. The men were traveling from California, where they had attended the annual conference of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) the previous week. According to local media reports, police stopped the van in which they were riding for "driving erratically," and when the police officer approached the vehicle, he saw "several bags of marijuana in plain view." He then called for assistance, and police then found multiple duffel bags of marijuana, totaling 150 pounds, throughout the vehicle. Last year, Beal was arrested in Illinois on money-laundering charges after police there seized $150,000 in cash and a small amount of marijuana from his vehicle. The money-laundering charges were later dropped, and Beal pleaded guilty to misdemeanor marijuana possession. The state of Illinois kept the money. Beal's supporters have begun a fund-raising drive to raise the $50,000 cash bail needed to free him and to pay his legal expenses. See the Free Dana Beal Facebook page, web page, or blog for information on how you can help.

Illegal marijuana grows have resulted in a series of fires in San Francisco, leading to a crackdown by police. Fortunately, an astute reporter thought to ask Police Chief George Gascon whether legalization might help solve the problem:

Matt Lauer hosts an interesting discussion of marijuana use among professional women. Seeing marijuana compared favorably to alcohol and coffee on The Today Show is pretty remarkable:

Lauer calls it "the changing face of pot smokers," yet nothing's actually changed except the way the media portrays it. As antiquated "reefer madness" marijuana reporting loses favor in the mainstream press, there emerges a whole world out there of basic facts and simple truths that can suddenly be revealed and discussed. It's progress to be sure, but it's still rather bizarre that marijuana use among intelligent professionals is being treated like breaking news.

Daily marijuana legalization protests in the Central Square in Keene, New Hampshire, led to one arrest Saturday for marijuana possession and one Sunday—but the victim in that arrest was later found to be smoking chocolate mint in his glass pipe and released without charges. The demonstrations began last Tuesday with a couple of dozen people gathering at 4:20 p.m. to toke up as an act of civil disobedience and call for marijuana law reform. After Saturday's arrest, the protests continued, with about 100 people showing up Monday. By Tuesday, the protests had spread to Manchester. The protests are being led by Free Keene, a local affiliate of the libertarian New Hampshire Free State Project. The project's stated goal is to persuade 20,000 libertarians to move to New Hampshire in a bid to shift the politics of the low-population Granite State. Arrested Saturday was Richard Paul, 40, one of the protest organizers. Paul was arrested after police patrolling the square saw him smoking a joint. Protestors shouted at police, yelling "Leave him alone!" and "This is how they did it in Nazi Germany!" After the arrest, about 50 protestors followed Paul and police officers to the police station, where they shouted through the door and sat in a circle smoking marijuana. No more arrests were forthcoming, though. To confuse police at the protests at the square, some smokers smoked things other than marijuana. That was the case Sunday, when police arrested a protester identified only as "Earl" for puffing on a glass pipe. Embarrassingly for police, that substance turned out to be not marijuana but chocolate mint, and Earl was quickly released. Protests continued this week in Keene and have now spread to Manchester. In the latter town, protestors sparked up in the presence of police, but failed to provoke any arrests. Perhaps the cops have better things to do. And that's precisely the point.