Sometime in the last few months, the notion of legalizing marijuana crossed an invisible threshold. Long relegated to the margins of political discourse by the conventional wisdom, pot freedom has this year gone mainstream.

Is reason dawning for marijuana policy?
The potential flu pandemic and President Obama’s 100th day in office may have knocked marijuana off the front pages this week, but so far this year, the issue has exploded in the mass media, impelled by the twin forces of economic crisis and Mexican violence fueled by drug prohibition. A Google news search for the phrase “legalize marijuana” turned up more than 1,100 hits — and that’s just for the month of April.

It has been helped along by everything from the Michael Phelps non-scandal to the domination of marijuana legalization questions in the Change.gov questions, which prompted President Obama to laugh off the very notion, to the economy, to the debate over the drug war in Mexico. But it has also been ineffably helped along by the lifting of the oppressive burden of Bush administration drug war dogma. There is a new freedom in the air when it comes to marijuana.

Newspaper columnists and editorial page writers from across the land have taken up the cause with gusto, as have letter writers and bloggers. Last week, even a US senator got into the act, when Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) told CNN that marijuana legalization is “on the table.”

But despite the seeming explosion of interest in marijuana legalization, the actual fact of legalization seems as distant as ever, a distant vision obscured behind a wall of bureaucracy, vested interests, and craven politicians. Drug War Chronicle spoke with some movement movers and shakers to find out just what’s going on… and what’s not.

“There is clearly more interest and serious discussion of whether marijuana prohibition makes any sense than I’ve seen at any point in my adult lifetime,” said Bruce Mirken, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project. “It’s not just the usual suspects; it’s people like Jack Cafferty on CNN and Senator Jim Webb, as well as editorial pages and columnists across the country.”

Mirken cited a number of factors for the sudden rise to prominence of the marijuana issue. “I think it’s a combination of things: Michael Phelps, the horrible situation on the Mexican border, the state of the economy and the realization that there is a very large industry out there that provides marijuana to millions of consumers completely outside the legal economy that is untaxed and unregulated,” he said. “All of these factors have come together in a way that makes it much easier for people to connect the dots.”

“Things started going white hot in the second week of January,” said Allen St. Pierre, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML). “We had the fallout from the Michael Phelps incident, the Change.gov marijuana question to Obama and his chuckling response, we have the Mexico violence, we have the economic issues,” he counted. “All of these things have helped galvanize a certain zeitgeist that is palpable and that almost everyone can appreciate.”

“The politicians are still very slow on picking up on the desires of citizens no matter how high the polling numbers go, especially on decriminalization and medical marijuana,” said St. Pierre. “The polling numbers are over 70% for those, and support for legalization nationwide is now at about 42%, depending on which data set you use. Everything seems to be breaking for reform in these past few weeks, and I expect those numbers to only go up.”

“It feels like we’re reaching the tipping point,” said Amber Langston, eastern region outreach director for Students for Sensible Drug Policy. “I’ve been feeling that for a couple of months now. The Michael Phelps incident sent a clear message that you can be successful and still have used marijuana. He’s still a hero to lots of people,” she said.

“I think we’re getting close now,” said Langston. “We have moved the conversation to the next level, where people are actually taking this seriously and we’re not just having another fear-based discussion.”

“There is definitely momentum building around marijuana issues,” said Denver-based Mason Tvert, executive director of SAFER (Safer Alternatives for Enjoyable Recreation), which has built a successful strategy around comparing alcohol and marijuana. “Yet we still find ourselves in a situation where change is not happening. Up until now, people have made arguments around criminal justice savings, other economic benefits, ending the black market — those things have got us to where we are today, but they haven’t been enough to get elected officials to act,” he argued.

“The problem is that there are still far too many people who see marijuana as so harmful it shouldn’t be legalized,” Tvert continued. “That suggests we need to be doing more to address the relative safety of marijuana, especially compared to drugs like alcohol. The good arguments above will then carry more weight. Just as a concerned parent doesn’t want to reap the tax benefits of legal heroin, it’s the same with marijuana. The mantra is why provide another vice. What we’re saying is that we’re providing an alternative for the millions who would prefer to use marijuana instead of alcohol.”

With the accumulation of arguments for legalization growing ever weightier, the edifice of marijuana prohibition seems increasingly shaky. “Marijuana prohibition has become like the Soviet Empire circa 1987 or 1988,” Mirken analogized. “It’s an empty shell of a policy that continues only because it is perceived as being huge and formidable, but when the perception changes, the whole thing is going to collapse.”

Still, translating the zeitgeist into real change remains a formidable task, said Mirken. “It is going to take hard work. All of us need to keep finding ways to keep these discussions going in the media, we need to work with open-minded legislators to get bills introduced where there can be hearings to air the facts and where we can refute the nonsense that comes from our opponents. Keeping the debate front and center is essential,” he said.

Mirken is waiting for the other shoe to drop. “We have to prepared for an empire strikes back moment,” he said. “I predict that within the next year, there will be a concerted effort to scare the daylights out of people about marijuana.”

Activists need to keep hammering away at both the federal government and state and local governments, Mirken said. “We are talking to members of Congress and seeing what might be doable. Even if nothing passes immediately, introducing a bill can move the discussion forward, but realistically, things are more likely to happen at the state and local level,” he said, citing the legalization bill in California and hinting that MPP would try legalization in Nevada again.

Part of the problem of the mismatch between popular fervor and actual progress on reform is partisan positioning, said St. Pierre. “Even politicians who may be personally supportive and can appreciate what they see going on around them as this goes mainstream do not want to hand conservative Republicans a triangulation issue. The Democrats are begging for a certain degree of political maturity from the reform movement,” he said. “They’re dealing with two wars, tough economic times, trying to do health care reform. They don’t want to raise cannabis to a level where it becomes contentious for Obama.”

The window of opportunity for presidential action is four years down the road, St. Pierre suggested. “If Obama doesn’t do anything next year, they will then be in reelection mode and unlikely to act,” he mused. “I think our real shot comes after he is reelected. Then we have two years before he becomes a lame duck.”

But we don’t have to wait for Obama, said St. Pierre. “We expect Barney Frank and Ron Paul to reintroduce decriminalization and medical marijuana bills,” he said. “I don’t think they will pass this year, but we might get hearings, although I don’t think that’s likely until the fall.”

It’s not just that politicians need to understand that supporting marijuana legalization will not hurt them — they need to understand that standing its way will. “The politicians aren’t feeling the pain of being opposed to remain,” St. Pierre said. “We have to take out one of those last remaining drug war zealots.”

Stopthedrugwar.org

           

THE JOCULAR reference in the May 1 Clout column to the medical marijuana bill that I’ve introduced did not include any of the reasons why I believe this is a necessary and vital step.

Many people, especially as they age, suffer from serious diseases for which existing prescription treatments are inadequate. Marijuana can slow the progression of glaucoma and make other dreadfully painful diseases, like cancer, HIV, multiple sclerosis or Crohn’s disease, more bearable.

There is a vast illegal trade in marijuana. Marijuana can be a gateway drug to deadly drugs because it is part of the same criminal distribution system. Allowing legal distribution in limited medical circumstances takes some of its users out of the criminal system.

The medical uses of marijuana go back a long way. In 1937, when Congress made possession and sale of marijuana illegal for the first time at a federal level, the American Medical Association was opposed because marijuana was so widely used for medical purposes.

There have been vast advances in prescription drugs in the years since marijuana was made illegal. But it’s clear from scientific research and personal testimony that there are circumstances in which marijuana recommended by a doctor can do more for a patient than can prescription drugs.

The legalization of medical marijuana is now law in 13 states. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the federal government will not prosecute sales of marijuana that are legal under state law. There is substantial interest in the Congress in making medical marijuana available nationally, and a number of states are expected to legalize medical marijuana this year.

Pennsylvania should be one of them. Pennsylvanians should not have to face the choice of either moving out of state or dealing with illegal drug dealers in order to gain needed treatment recommended by their doctors.

State Rep. Mark B. Cohen

Philadelphia Daily News

           

ANNAPOLIS — When a police officer asked her what she was doing behind a van in the park, Pamela Hughes told him the honest truth.

“I said I was smoking a cannabis cigarette,” she said.

She presented the stunned policeman with a written recommendation from her doctor and a copy of Maryland’s “Compassionate Use Act,” which reduces the penalties for possession of medical marijuana.

“I honestly thought that I wasn’t breaking the law,” Hughes said.

Rather than take her word for it, the officer called for backup that included a canine unit, she said.

Hughes ended up spending several hours in jail. She fought the charges and won, but only after a lot of time, stress and money — three things that her fibromyalgia, a chronic condition characterized by widespread pain and fatigue, and a reoccurrence of stage IV cancer were already monopolizing.

Hughes and several other patients told the House Judiciary Committee last week that while Maryland’s Compassionate Use Act was a step forward for its time, the law merely provides them with a false sense of security.

The patients testified on behalf of a bill that would establish a task force to evaluate the effectiveness and fairness of the current law and consider whether medical marijuana should become legal in the state. They said medical marijuana provides relief for certain ailments in ways no other medication can replicate.

No one testified against the bill, and a vote on the legislation has not been scheduled.

Medical marijuana has been legalized in 13 states, including California, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said recently that federal law enforcement will no longer target providers that are operating within state law, a major departure from the Bush administration’s stance on the issue.

The Darryl Putnam Compassionate Use Act, passed by the General Assembly in 2003, was a compromise between those advocating the legalization of medical marijuana and those against such a move.

The act is named after Putnam, a former Green Beret and Howard County Farm Bureau director who advocated for the legalization of medical marijuana. He died of cancer in 1999.

The Compassionate Use Act reduced the penalties for marijuana possession to a maximum $100 fine, provided a patient has a recommendation from a medical doctor. However, patients still have to buy their “medicine” on the street and face the health and legal risks inherent in doing so.

Those with drug offenses on their records could also face eviction from subsidized housing.
John McCarthy, an AIDS activist who has been HIV-positive for 18 years, said that medical marijuana has allowed him to reduce his pill intake from 45 to 13 pills a day. Most of those pills had been prescribed merely to alleviate the side effects of other pills, which include vomiting, headaches and neuropathy, a condition “where the nerve endings burn.”

McCarthy, who lives in subsidized housing, said a drug conviction under the present law could cause someone to be evicted from public housing no matter how old they were or what their condition was.

Eric Sterling, a Chevy Chase lawyer and president of the Criminal Justice Policy Foundation, said the law needs to be revised.

“It’s really barbaric to think that we would prosecute sick people,” he said. “These (cases) should never go to court.”

The American College of Physicians, which calls itself the “largest medical-specialty organization and second-largest physician group in the United States,” has endorsed the use of non-smoked marijuana in cases where it has been proven to have therapeutic value.

A 2008 policy paper said the organization “strongly urges protection from criminal or civil penalties for patients who use medical marijuana as permitted under state laws.” It advocated further research on the issue and said that “the science on medical marijuana should not be obscured or hindered by the debate surrounding the legalization of marijuana for general use.”

Americans for Safe Access, a group that advances legalizing marijuana for therapeutics and research, and brought many of the witnesses together in Annapolis last week, was careful to clarify its intentions.

Caren Woodson, director of government affairs for the group, said the goal was to have safe and legal access to medical marijuana for patients and researchers — “and that’s it.”
“That’s the line, and we don’t cross over it,” she said.

However, some say others are crossing that line every day.

Jerrod Menz, president of A Better Tomorrow Treatment Center Inc., a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center in Murrieta, Calif., said some young people in his state are faking back pain and other hard-to-prove ailments in order to legally obtain marijuana. He said a client in his early 20s recently admitted telling his doctor he was suffering from foot pain, which helped him obtain a medical marijuana card after a five-minute examination.

Menz said doctors need to use more care in their examinations to better prevent people from abusing the intent of medical marijuana laws. He said that some problems could be prevented by having the federal government regulate medical marijuana like any other drug, although he did not endorse such a move.

For Judiciary Committee Chairman Joseph Vallario Jr., D-Prince George’s, federal law is the line that shouldn’t be crossed — and the reason for the 2003 compromise legislation in the first place.

“How can you pass something that’s against federal law?” he said. “That really is the bottom line.”

Delegate Henry Heller, D-Montgomery, the sponsor of the bill, said the task force would also consider establishing research programs at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland medical schools. He said this would not only allow further research on medical marijuana, but also help provide a safe product.

As the law stands, Heller said glaucoma and cancer patients at Leisure World, a retirement community in Silver Spring where he lives and represents, have to buy their marijuana on the street.

“It’s not the safest way to buy medicine,” he said.

Capital News Service supplied this report.

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