Personal Marijuana Use

This report from CBS News is a perfect example of how much the debate has changed. The story itself is great (a revealing look into the unimpressive origins of our marijuana laws), but it's the packaging and context that jumped out at me.

(CBS)  This story was written by Charles Cooper and Declan McCullagh as part of a new CBSNews.com special report on the evolving debate over marijuana legalization in the U.S. Click here for more of the series, Marijuana Nation: The New War Over Weed

The giant "Marijuana Nation" banner at the top of the page is emblematic of the mainstream media's sudden fascination with marijuana legalization. Unsurprisingly, the story is pulling huge web traffic thanks to Digg.com, whose visitors love stories about legalizing marijuana.

It took a long time, but the press has finally picked up on the fact that skeptical drug war reporting is extremely popular with the public. That simple concept appears to be reshaping and amplifying the drug policy debate right before our eyes.

Chicago Tribune reports on the popularity of medical marijuana delivery in San Francisco:

SAN JOSE, Calif. - -- David Goldman has a chronic headache, but help is on the way. A driver arrives at his apartment, checks Goldman's ID card, then hands over a small bag of marijuana.

"It's really nice to have the convenience of delivery," said Goldman, a retired teacher who orders medicinal marijuana about once a week from The Green Cross, a medical marijuana delivery service. "I trust their product, and their prices are competitive."

As Californians consider legalizing marijuana, The Green Cross in San Francisco is a signal of just how mainstream pot has become. In some ways, the medical marijuana dispensary is just like any other retail business: It takes credit cards, it's reviewed on Yelp and it promises delivery within an hour -- there's even a $10 discount if the pot is late.

The Green Cross switched over to a delivery-based model due to problems finding a suitable location when they were forced to move their dispensary. Even in San Francisco, you can run into a "not in my backyard" mentality from neighbors when it comes to dispensing marijuana from a storefront business.

As Americans grow increasingly skeptical of the war on marijuana, one of the biggest challenges facing reformers is to develop a plan that the public is comfortable with. As silly as it is that you can sell cigarettes and alcohol to adults over the counter, but not marijuana, we have to face the fact that getting people to vote for any legislation allowing "marijuana stores" is going to remain a challenge. Concerns about peripheral crime, underage access, etc. may be unrealistic, but our opposition can still leverage such anxieties against us at the voting booth.

Home delivery has a lot to offer as a means of providing convenient consumer access, while reducing the visibility of activity that makes some people uncomfortable. This is already the model on which New York City's underground marijuana industry thrives, and nobody seems to have a problem with it (the only complaints I've heard are from buyers who say the price is outrageous). The delivery approach reduces exposure for both buyer and seller, while also making it easy for everyone else to ignore them.

In the long term, a low-impact distribution model such as this could go a long way towards increasing public tolerance. It's not exactly what most of us have in mind when we envision legalization, but it's a compromise that could go a long way towards eliminating the harms of the current policy without opening up the floodgates and provoking a backlash.

What do you think?

Marijuana Policy Project has launched a TV ad campaign in support of taxing and regulating marijuana in California:



Unfortunately, while the ad will appear on several networks, KABC in Los Angeles and KGO and KNTV in San Francisco actually rejected it:

At KABC in L.A., the ad was rejected for purportedly encouraging marijuana smoking. [MPP's Bruce] Mirken spoke to station manager Arnie Kleiner, who didn't return a call from the Huffington Post. "His feeling wasn't that the ad was promoting a change in the law, but that it was promoting marijuana smoking," said Mirken, adding that Kleiner told him, "I'm not going to advocate the smoking of marijuana. Marijuana is illegal." [Huffington Post]

As anyone viewing the ad can plainly see, it doesn’t endorse marijuana smoking in any way. The ad argues that the existing marijuana industry could be used to generate much-needed revenue for the state, which has nothing to do with whether or not one happens to personally like marijuana or think it's a good thing for people to do. The kneejerk assertion that all efforts to reform marijuana laws are equivalent to an endorsement of drug use is really as intellectually barren an argument as you'll ever find in the marijuana policy debate. It's a desperate cop-out and an instant indicator that you're dealing with someone whose comprehension of the issue is not fully formed.

Similarly, the argument that you can’t talk about changing marijuana laws because "marijuana is illegal" is just a paralyzing absurdity. Even the Governor of California is interested is debating marijuana legalization, so obviously the existence of current marijuana laws does not create an invisible barrier to intelligent discourse about public policy.

Fortunately, the marijuana debate has progressed to a point at which such petty obstructions serve only to embarrass those responsible. A recent poll shows that 56% of Californians support marijuana legalization, thus any public entity that endeavors to conceal or trivialize the argument takes a substantial risk of alienating its own patrons.

Nevertheless, the ad will air on many stations in California and it's thrilling to see the reform argument marketed to the mainstream. The Governor asked for a debate and that's exactly what he's going to get.

Check out Subway's new "Be Yourself" ad featuring Michael Phelps:



The ad concludes "You can always be yourself at Subway." The whole thing is a brilliantly veiled reference to the backlash against Kellogg's that emerged when they dropped Phelps for smoking pot. Better yet, Subway has launched a new promotional website at Subwayfreshbuzz.com. You see what they're doing, right?

The new campaign is already generating tons of press coverage, including positive reactions to the ad's apparent reference to the infamous marijuana incident. It's a brilliant maneuver by Subway and, hopefully, an early indicator that corporate America is finally learning that it makes more sense to wink at pot culture than risk alienating it.

Once again, I'm humbled by the immeasurable impact of the Michael Phelps marijuana saga. I'm seeing discussion of the Kellogg's boycott reemerging in comment threads around the web today and I don't think one can easily exaggerate what a major event that was, and still is, for our cause. Along with the intense and heavily-publicized popularity of marijuana reform questions on the President's website, it's becoming widely understood that marijuana culture has a tremendous and now powerfully intimidating web presence.

In the age of viral web marketing and online-everything, the visible web presence of marijuana culture becomes a potent weapon that's now reshaping the debate right before our eyes. For fear of offending us, the President and his drug czar can scarcely utter more than a vague sentence in defense of our marijuana laws. Meanwhile, the mainstream press is hustling marijuana stories like dimebags in a city park. And Subway is celebrating freedom of personal choice in a new ad campaign featuring the world's most famous marijuana user.

The war remains, but the battlefield has changed. I can smell it, like the aroma of fresh baked bread wafting free from the entrance of the Subway down the block from our office, which I might just visit tomorrow for the first time in a while.

South Dakota's most well-known marijuana legalization advocate, Bob Newland, was sentenced yesterday to a year in the Pennington County Jail with all but 45 days suspended for felony marijuana possession--a little less than four ounces. Once he does his time, he'll be on probation for a year. Newland can, I suppose, consider himself fortunate. According to the South Dakota Department of Corrections, there are currently six people imprisoned for possession of less than half a pound and seven for more than half but less than one pound, as well as 14 doing time for distribution of less than an ounce and another 25 doing time for distribution of less than a pound. But in another respect, Newland is not so lucky. He has basically been stripped of his First Amendment right to advocate for marijuana legalization while he is on probation. As the Associated Press reported:

A longtime South Dakota supporter of legalized marijuana has been sentenced to serve 45 days in jail for possessing the illegal drug. Authorities say Bob Newland of Hermosa was found with four bags of marijuana, a scale and $385 in cash when he was stopped for speeding in March. He pleaded guilty in May to a possession charge under a plea agreement in which prosecutors agreed to drop a more serious charge of possession with intent to distribute. Newland will be on probation for the rest of the year following his jail term. During his probation, he is barred from publicly advocating the legalization of marijuana for medicinal purposes.

Newland, understandably, is not inclined to challenge the probation condition. There's something about staring at the walls of a jail cell that does that to a guy. But that doesn't mean others shouldn't raise a stink about this arguably unconstititional sentence. I'll be looking into this and will have a Chronicle story about it on Friday.

Remember two years ago when some scientists announced that marijuana causes psychosis and the press, along with the entire nation of Great Britain, went borderline psycho just from thinking about it?

Well, Paul Armentano at NORML reports that a new study has proven that the whole thing was just a bunch of crazy talk:

“[T]he expected rise in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychoses did not occur over a 10 year period. This study does not therefore support the specific causal link between cannabis use and incidence of psychotic disorders. … This concurs with other reports indicating that increases in population cannabis use have not been followed by increases in psychotic incidence.”

In non-sciency terms, this means that when rates of marijuana use go up, rates of mental illness do not. Therefore, we can conclude that marijuana apparently doesn't cause anyone to develop psychosis who otherwise wouldn’t have.

It's really a shame that this now-debunked junk science about marijuana and psychosis led the British government to increase penalties for marijuana. But, as we know all too well, fits of ignorance and distortion are causally linked to an increased risk of bad drug legislation.

On the heels of its successful effort to allow medical marijuana dispensaries, the Rhode Island Senate has voted to launch a comprehensive study of marijuana laws in general. They'll seek to answer these questions, among others:

Whether and to what extent Rhode Island youth have access to marijuana despite current laws prohibiting its use;  

Whether adults' use of marijuana has decreased since marijuana became illegal in Rhode Island in 1918;  
 
Whether the current system of marijuana prohibition has created violence in the state of Rhode Island against users or among those who sell marijuana;  
 
Whether the proceeds from the sales of marijuana are funding organized crime, including drug cartels;

The costs associated with the current policies prohibiting marijuana sales and possession, including law enforcement, judicial, public defender, and corrections costs;

Whether there have been cases of corruption related to marijuana law enforcement;

The experience of individuals and families sentenced for violating marijuana laws;

The experience of states and European countries, such as California, Massachusetts and the Netherlands, which have decriminalized the sale and use of marijuana;

Hmm, I think I can tackle this one: Yes, No, Yes, Yes, Enormous, You don't even want to know, Heartbreaking, Impressive.

This is yet another superb effort from RI legislators and it really sets the standard for how public representatives ought to be examining these laws. These are central questions that, if answered honestly, will drive a stake through the heart of marijuana prohibition once and for all.

This letter in the Montgomery Advertiser is a mind-numbing illustration of the vivid imaginations that local anti-drug activists can frequently be found to possess:

Assume the government legalizes pot. It will be taxed (federal and state) and regulated for THC content. Do drug cartels just fold their tent? Hardly. Simply offer a more potent product at a lower cost -- tax-free, of course. Higher THC content is the goal of all serious pot smokers -- check out any issue of High Times, or the myriad of Internet sites offering more potent seeds.

Note to prohibitionists: the second you find yourself arguing that no one will buy legal pot, you've gone off the rails badly. If you wanna talk about the advertisers in High Times, what about the ones that make money hand over fist selling legal herbs that merely look like pot? Legal pot will be an extremely popular product among people who like pot. You don't have to worry about that.

And if you find yourself arguing that drug cartels can stay in business despite sudden widespread competition by simply improving their product and lowering their prices, maybe you should stop to consider how ridiculous that sounds. If they do that, they'll go broke overnight, hence you just accidentally stumbled across the exact reason why legalizing marijuana will annihilate the black market for pot.

It really shouldn’t be necessary to explain that drug cartels thrive on astronomical black market inflation. Everything they are and everything they do revolves around the massive drug monopoly that prohibition bestows upon them. If you take that away, they are nothing.

But if the fundamentals of black market economics continue to escape anyone, I suppose we could always just agree to legalize potent pot as well.

Rob Kampia's closing line is right on target. As the debate heats up, we're seeing our opposition desperately invoke the horrors of alcohol and tobacco in a cynical attempt to frame legalization in a familiar and negative context. The simple response is that those drugs are far more dangerous. The harms they cause are only relevant to the discussion insofar as they illustrate the mindless hypocrisy of our marijuana laws. If the most workable alcohol and tobacco policy is legalization, then the same must absolutely be true of marijuana.

Or something like that. It's amazing what passes for science when it comes to selling scare stories about pot. You could send these people a press release saying that marijuana has been proven to increase your chances of turning into a lizard and they would publish something about it immediately. I guarantee it. It would never occur to them that there are no lizard people.