Showing posts with label pot. Show all posts

Thursday, February 16, 2012

From the Denver Post

Medical marijuana activists hope to put pressure on Obama

POSTED: 02/16/2012 12:58:15 PM MST
UPDATED: 02/16/2012 01:09:03 PM MST

A Feb. 10, 2012 photo shows Matthew Huron, owner of two medical marijuana dispensaries and an edible marijuana company in Denver, examining a marijuana plant in his grow house. (AP | Ed Andrieski)

LAKEWOOD — Activists upset by what they see as the Obama administration's increasingly aggressive posture toward the medical-marijuana industry hope to fight back during this year's presidential campaign.

A group of medical-marijuana activists held a news conference today to announce the creation of the Patient Voter Project, a campaign to mobilize medical-marijuana supporters to raise the profile of the issue during an election year. The project extends nationwide and has connections to national marijuana lobbying groups, said Brian Vicente, the executive director of Sensible Colorado. But the activists especially hope to make a mark in Colorado, where tens of thousands of medical-marijuana patients and hundreds of dispensaries mean there is an obvious constituency.

The presidential race in Colorado, Vicente said, could be "razor-thin."

"The votes of medical-marijuana patients and their family and friends could make a difference," Vicente said.

The activists held their news conference near an Obama campaign office on West Colfax Avenue in Lakewood.

President Barack Obama expressed a willingness to be lenient with medical marijuana during the 2008 campaign, and an October 2009 memo from a Justice Department official was interpreted by many in the medical-marijuana community as a green light to open dispensaries, even though all sales and possession of marijuana remained illegal federally.

But a memo this summer clarified that the Justice Department considers dispensaries and other medical-marijuana businesses to be fair game for prosecution. Last month, Colorado U.S. Attorney John Walsh sent letters to 23 dispensaries near schools warning them to close or face federal punishment, even though those businesses are complying with state law.

Medical-marijuana patient Damien LaGoy, who has AIDS, said the letters will force the two dispensaries closest to him to shut down. LaGoy, who said he weighs 110 pounds, said he uses medical marijuana to control nausea in order to keep his life-saving antiretroviral drugs down. He said he will now have to take a bus to and from a dispensary.

"It's just too hard for me to get around anymore," LaGoy said.

Vicente said the campaign isn't necessarily encouraging people to vote against Obama — who, save for Republican Ron Paul, is seen as likely to be more friendly toward medical marijuana than any other presidential candidate.

"Frankly, we want him to do what he promised to do — and that is to leave it up to Colorado to regulate medical marijuana," Vicente said.

John Ingold: 303-954-1068 orjingold@denverpost.com

Follow John Ingold on Twitter.

Read more:Medical marijuana activists hope to put pressure on Obama - The Denver Post http://www.denverpost.com/news/marijuana/ci_19979902#ixzz1mZu5SAD3
Read The Denver Post's Terms of Use of its content: http://www.denverpost.com/termsofuse

Monday, January 16, 2012

Report: Medical Marijuana Laws Reduced Traffic Fatalities

Get Business Mobile Text Alerts

By MATTHEW STURDEVANT, msturdevant@courant.comThe Hartford Courant

6:26 p.m. EST, January 16, 2012

States that legalized the medical use of marijuana have had a drop in deadly automobile crashes, suggesting that some people who would otherwise drive drunk and kill someone are smoking weed instead, according to research by three economists.

It's not clear if the would-be drunken drivers are high behind the wheel with less deadly results, or if they're simply not driving.

The research by professors at the University of Colorado-Denver, Montana State University and the University of Oregon looked at traffic deaths from 1990 to 2009 in all 50 states, including the 16 that passed medical marijuana laws.

"Legalization is associated with nearly a 9 percent decrease in traffic fatalities, most likely as a result of its impact on alcohol consumption by young adults," the researchers said in the report, published in November.

Advocates of a medical-marijuana law could tout the study's findings as a societal benefit of legalization. Opponents, however, could say that the study shows what they've argued all along — that a medical-marijuana law makes marijuana more available for recreational use.

This year is a short legislative session in Connecticut, which means that individual lawmakers may only introduce bills that have to do with budgetary matters. Other bills have to be introduced by the legislature's judiciary committee.

"My sense is that they will raise a bill because I know there's interest from the governor's office in doing a medical-marijuana bill this year," said state Rep. Penny Bacchiochi, R-Somers, who has been a longtime supporter of allowing people to use marijuana for medicinal purposes, such as relieving pain.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is a supporter of the concept of medical marijuana, said Malloy spokesman David Bednarz.

"The administration is still reviewing the legislation that he intends on introducing this year," Bednarz said.

Substitute For Alcohol

Traffic deaths are declining, on average, throughout the nation.

The drop in fatalities after a medical-marijuana law passed was greater than the drop in the other states.

"You get a much bigger effect on accidents involving alcohol, fatal accidents involving alcohol," said Daniel I. Rees, a co-author and an economics professor at the University of Colorado-Denver.

The study asserts that states that have medical-marijuana laws are allowing some people to access marijuana for recreational purposes, either through the system as would-be patients or illegally because of a bolstered supply of marijuana in the state after the law passes.

Some of those recreational users are drinking less.

Rees and the other researchers looked at surveys by state health departments and the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that asked people about their drinking behavior.

"The legalization of medical marijuana is associated with a 9 percent reduction in the mean number of drinks consumed per month by males, [and] a 12 percent reduction in the mean number of drinks consumed by females," the researchers wrote.

The study looked at alcohol sales, too.

"What we see is beer sales go down by about 5 percent," Rees said. "That's just an average effect."

"The reason we think this is really interesting is there's no effect on the sale of spirits and there's no effect on the sale of wine," Rees said. "And beer, of course, is the most popular drink among young adults. So, it sort of fits in with this whole substitution story among young adults."

It's possible that the states that passed medical-marijuana laws have a drop in traffic deaths because law enforcement is freed up to spend more time patroling for drunken drivers. But that's a stretch, Rees said. For one thing, a change in law enforcement's behavior wouldn't explain an actual drop in alcohol sales or drinking behavior.

California was the first state to pass a medical marijuana law in 1996. Since then, laws have been passed by Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington state.

Arizona, Delaware, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., aren't part of the study because those governments passed laws since 2009, the end of the 20-year period examined in the study. Additionally, Maryland passed a law in 2003 that doesn't allow medical marijuana, but permits a person charged with a marijuana-related crime to claim medicinal use for a more lenient penalty.

State Debate

In Connecticut, Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed a medical-marijuana bill in 2007.

Last year, a bill had Malloy's support. The medical-marijuana bill failed, but the legislature passed a bill that decriminalized possession of up to a half-ounce of marijuana. The decriminalization took effect July 1, 2011. Before that, possession of less than 4 ounces of marijuana was punishable by up to one year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

The medical-marijuana bill that was considered last year would have allowed people with a "debilitating medical condition" to ask their doctor for certification allowing use of marijuana. People with certification could own up to 1 ounce of marijuana and grow up to four plants no more than 4 feet tall. The certification would be good for one year, and the bill would prohibit use of medicinal marijuana in public.

"I believe medical marijuana is a compassionate and useful law for the state of Connecticut," Bacchiochi said. "But all these studies are never what change legislators' minds. What changes somebody's mind on this issue is a personal experience."

Post Your Comment Below

Monday, December 12, 2011

From NYC and Pot arrests

Police Commissioner's Order Was Not Enough: NYPD Continues to Make Thousands of Illegal, Racially Biased Pot Arrests

While arrests have dropped ever so slightly since Police Commissioner Kelly issued his order, the NYPD is still using stop-and-frisk to make thousands of unwarranted pot arrests.

December 8, 2011 |

LIKE THIS ARTICLE ?

Join our mailing list:

Sign up to stay up to date on the latest headlines via email.

Last September, in the face of rising pressure to end racially biased, illegal and costly marijuana arrests in NYC – which have skyrocketed to more than 50,000 annually – NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly issued an uncharacteristically stern order to officers, directing them to follow the state’s existing decriminalization law. But new data released this week show that while arrests have dropped ever so slightly -- just 13% -- since Kelly issued his order, NYPD is continuing with its marijuana arrest crusade.

In the state of New York, since 1977, possession of a small amount of marijuana has been a mere violation, which is a non-arrestable offense – unless it’s burning or in plain public view. But in 2010 one out of every seven arrests in New York City was for marijuana possession in public view – even though the vast majority of the people arrested did not actually possess marijuana in public view. Research by Queens College professor Harry Levine and valuable investigative work by WNYC’s Ailsa Chang clearly demonstrates that the vast majority of the marijuana arrests in New York City – up to 75 or even 80 percent in some precincts – are the result of illegal searches and false charges.

"Commissioner Kelly is all talk and no walk when it comes to following the law around marijuana possession in New York City," said Carl Stubbs, an openly HIV-positive member of VOCAL-NY from South Jamaica, Queens who has been illegally arrested for marijuana possession. "Too many people in neighborhoods like mine have been treated like criminals when the real law-breakers have been police illegally searching people and then charging them with having marijuana in plain sight. Either Commissioner Kelly can't control the police force or he's not taking tens of thousands of improper arrests seriously."

These marijuana arrests are just one of the problematic outcomes of NYPD’s controversial stop-and-frisk program. Last year, NYPD stopped more than 600,000 people – mostly young black and Latino men – and frisked nearly half of them. For many people, a frisk soon turns into an illegal search. For others, the police ask them to empty their pockets, and, after following police instructions, they are then charged with possession of marijuana in public view – which is a misdemeanor and an arrestable offense. While the Kelly order directed police to stop this practice, the ugly cycle continues largely unabated, at a cost of over $75 million a year.

“Regardless of what the numbers show, the impact is still tremendously felt by the communities that are illegally and disproportionately arrested for something that has been decriminalized for over 30 years,” said Chino Hardin with the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives and an expert trainer for Know Your Rights workshops. “The crusade continues because the 13 percent drop isn’t enough. When we see the numbers decrease by 80%, then we will know that the NYPD is meaningfully following and upholding the law. We have to build a movement to stop this.”

To address these issues, advocates launched a campaign last year to stop NYPD’s marijuana arrest crusade. Led by the Institute for Juvenile Justice Reform and Alternatives, VOCAL-NY, and the Drug Policy Alliance, the campaign has built momentum over the past year, leading Commissioner Kelly to issue his executive order. In Albany, bi-partisan legislation has been introduced to change the law and reduce the number of illegal marijuana arrests. And in New York City, a group of City Council members have introduced a resolution calling on NYPD to end its practice of ignoring the state’s decriminalization law.

View as a single page