Friday, March 29, 2013

Should Obama and Peña Nieto Discuss Ways to Legalize Drugs?

from abc

Mexican writer and activist and leader of the Movement for Peace with Justice and Dignity, Javier Sicilia, speaks during a press conference at Mexico City's Tolerance Museum, on August 10, 2011. (Alfredo Estrella/AFP/Getty Images)

By MANUEL RUEDA (@ruedareport)

March 29, 2013

Javier Sicilia, the main spokesman for Mexico's Movement for Justice with Peace and Dignity, does not shy away from putting thorny issues on the table.

On Thursday, he demanded that Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto discuss drug legalization, and the arms trade, in his upcoming meeting with President Obama.

"There will be no peace [in Mexico] while drug consumption is not regulated on the other side of the border, and while there is not a serious policy to control deadly weapons," Sicilia said on Thursday in Mexico City.

"Obama is coming here, and we have not said anything about how his [country's] weapons are destroying us," Sicilia added during a ceremony that marked the second anniversary of his peace movement, which has been touted by some analysts as the world's largest movement against the war on drugs.

President Obama is slated to visit Mexico City on May 2nd for a series of meetings with Mexican officials.

It's not clear yet what the American and Mexican presidents will talk about. But trade issues, border security, and immigration are the most likely issues, according to the San Antonio Express News.

Mexican human rights groups, and Mexican officials, are generally critical of U.S. gun laws, arguing that laws that make it easy to buyweapons in U.S. border states, fuel a massive arms trade across the border, with these weapons ending up in the hands of violent drug cartels.

Mexico's previous President, Felipe Calderon, even had a giant sign made in the border city of Ciudad Juarez, that faced the U.S. city of El Paso, and asked Americans to send "no more guns" into the country.

But Peña Nieto has not been as vocal on U.S. gun laws as his predecessor, so it will be interesting to see if he brings up the issue with Obama and how.

As far as drug legalization goes, Obama and Peña Nieto are bothsupporters of drug prohibition, though both presidents have said at different moments that they are willing to "debate" legalization, and "listen" to different proposals, on how drug violence can be reduced.

Sicilia, whose son died two years ago at the hands of drug traffickers, is a supporter of drug legalization, and a fierce critic of the U.S.-backed "War on Drugs."

During a month long tour of the U.S. last year, dubbed "the Caravan for Peace," Sicilia met with liberal U.S. Congressmen like Raul Grijalba and Bob Filner to discuss ways in which legalizing drugs, and treating them as a public health problem, could end violence between drug cartels fighting for trafficking routes.

Sicilia also requested meetings with Obama and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, but was not granted access to either politician. Expect Sicilia's movement, and other human rights groups in Mexico to make more noise about drug legalization in the days prior to Obama's trip to Mexico.

It's Time to Legalize Drugs

from policymic

Matthew Feeney

Anglo-American currently working as Assistant Editor of Reason 24/7 at Reason.com. Before coming to DC I worked in London at the Institute of Eco...

In 2009 Professor David Nutt, the senior drug adviser for the British government, was fired by the British government for suggesting that the U.K.’s drug policy was unscientific and inconsistent. Professor Nutt delivered a lecturewhere he pointed out that alcohol, the drug with the most negatives effect for the user and society is legal, while drugs with much less negative impact on users and society like ecstasy, LSD, and cannabis, are illegal. Looking at the data it is hard to argue that concern for the health of drug users or the effects drug use has on society was guiding British drug policy.

Unfortunately, the inconsistencies in the British drug policy are tragically common throughout the world, with most countries implementing drug polices that are guided not by economic or medical data or concern for citizen’s safety or liberties. In the U.S., the horrific consequences of the failed drug war, its human cost, and its obvious failures should motivate legislators to adopt a policy of drug legalization that will reduce human suffering while increasing freedom, responsibility, and peace.

What is perhaps one of the most tragic consequences of the war on drugs (there are many to choose from) is that it makes some people who engage in the normal human impulse to change their mental state into criminals.

Hardly anyone thinks that it should be illegal for someone over the age of 21 (a little high, if you ask me) to have a glass of wine in the evening, a beer at a barbecue, or a cocktail at a bar. However, someone who decides to use marijuana risks a criminal record. If anyone wants to argue that the drug war is worth pursuing on the grounds that drugs are dangerous must, if they wish to remain intellectually honest, advocate for the prohibition of alcohol. We all know how well that worked out.

Of course marijuana is not the only illegal drug. Possession of heroin, meth, cocaine, LSD, and ecstasy is currently illegal. It is true that many of these drugs in excess have negative consequences. However, while these drugs can be dangerous their harm has been exaggerated in the past, as have their rates of addiction. My colleague Jacob Sullum has written a book that discusses how many of the popularly believed myths about drug use are far from reality.

It is important to note how many of the negative consequences of these hard drugs are due to prohibition. In a black market purity and origin are unknown and the risk of disease is increased. Users who are poisoned or cheated by dealers have no recourse unless they decide to engage in violence, the only really effective enforcement mechanism in black markets. Something similar happened during the years of alcohol prohibition, when toxic moonshine was made illegally.

The drug war is devastating communities across the world and shows no sign of achieving its goal. Legalization of drugs is the most sensible and humane drug policy, and is not hard to argue for once it is pointed out that the drug warriors are advancing intellectually and morally inconsistent as well as scientifically unsound arguments.

Picture Credit: Wikimedia Commons

Thursday, March 28, 2013

NY Green Party on Marijuana: Legalize, Not Trivialize it, Cuomo Needs to Stop Blowing Smoke

from gp.org

Green Party of NY
www.gpnys.org
Media Release

For Release: Thursday, March 28, 2013

For More Info:
Howie Hawkins, 315 425-1019, hhawkins@igc.org
Gloria Mattera, 917 886-4538, chair@gpny.org

The Green Party called today for the NYS Legislature to legalize the use of marijuana.

The Green Party dismissed Governor Cuomo's efforts to allegedly decriminalize the possession of a small amount of marijuana as a "public relations gimmick, trying to obscure the fact that the NYC Police Department has been ignoring the existing law on decriminalization that was enacted four decades ago."

The so-called change in the marijuana law was dropped from the budget negotiations due to opposition in the Senate. Lawmakers may also limit the technical change just to NYC.

"Rather than making empty public relations gestures, Cuomo should support marijuana legalization. We should legalize, regulate, and tax it. It is ridiculous that, at a time when the public has voted in other states to legalize marijuana, we have NYS legislators getting stoned as they drive to the state capitol. And it's the height of hypocrisy when they have a record of advocating an escalation of the counterproductive war on drugs, as Assembly member Katz does," noted Gloria Mattera, co-chair of the Green Party of New York.

The Greens noted that when Assembly member Steve Katz was recently discovered with a 25 gram bag of marijuana after the police pulled him over for speeding, he was released on an appearance ticket and allowed to continue on to the state capitol. They pointed to the disparity of Katz's treatment compared to the hundreds of thousands of arrests made for marijuana possession on stop-and-frisk searches that target blacks and Latinos.

"Cuomo is blowing smoke when he spins media on drug reform. He is pushing a small technical amendment to the forty-year old decriminalization law merely because the NYC Mayor and Police Chief can't get their officers to provide equal treatment under the law for blacks and Latinos," added Michael O'Neil, the other Green Party co-chair.

A recent report by the Drug Policy Alliance and the Marijuana Arrest Research Project found that the NYPD spent 1 million hours making 440,000 arrests for low-level marijuana possession charges between 2002 and 2012. As part of the city's stop-and-frisk program, which racially profiles people of color, if an individual in possession of a small amount of marijuana empties his or her pockets at police request and they have a joint, they face a misdemeanor arrest for public display of pot rather than a mere violation for possession.

During the 2010 gubernatorial campaign, the Green Party called for the use of marijuana to be legalized in New York State.

"This country has had almost a century of drug prohibition and four decades of the war on drugs. Yet there are more drugs at cheaper prices on our streets than ever before. We have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on interdiction alone. Those who insist on a continuation of drug prohibition are agreeing that both production and distribution of drugs be left in control of criminals, funding terrorists and cartels such as those fueling the drug violence in Mexico. Drug use should be handled as a public health issue, not a criminal justice issue. It is time to legalize, regulate, and tax so-called recreational drugs, like we do alcohol and tobacco. The European countries that have tried this approach have virtually eliminated drug-related crimes and reduced the population of drug users," said Howie Hawkins of Syracuse, the Green Party's 2010 candidate for governor.

"Drug policy reform is an issue of racial justice as much as criminal justice because drug law enforcement has clearly targeted low-income black and Latino communities. We need to stop spending $50 billion a year nationally on the drug war, and use that money for treatment and rebuilding poor communities of color," said Hawkins.

A study by the American Civil Liberties Union found that 37% of people arrested, 59% of people convicted, and 74% of those sent to prison are African American, even though only 15% of drug users are African American. The rate of incarceration for marijuana offenses in New York for blacks is nearly 3.8 times that of whites.

"In some communities like Syracuse," Hawkins said, "the arrest rate for blacks is nearly ten times that for whites, even though possession of two ounces in marijuana was decriminalized in NYS decades ago. NYC is known as the marijuana arrest capitol of the world. Nearly 90% of all those arrested for possession of marijuana in NYC are black and Latino. The war on drugs has been a war on black and brown people and it is time to end it."

~ END ~

Legalizing marijuana: Initiative 502 — The movie

from seattlepi.com

“Evergreen: The road to legalization in Washington” was a hit when screened Sunday night at the home of TV travel guru Rick Steves, and hopefully will be coming soon to your cable TV screen or a Seattle movie screen. After all, the Emerald City hosts, in Hempfest, the largest marijuana legalization event in North America.

“The film isn’t so much about pot as politics,” director Riley Morton says of the 82-minute flick. It follows the 2012 campaign for Initiative 502, which sought to free one state from an odious, counterproductive, hurtful and vastly expensive aspect of the “War on Drugs” — arrests for possessing small amounts of marijuana.

The campaign to legalize, regulate and tax the growing and sale of marijuana to adults was mounted by physicians, lawyers, two former U.S. attorneys and the ex-head of Seattle’s FBI office. “It’s an important story,” Morton added. “What a groundbreaking change. What a huge problematic change. This was definitely NOT your usual stoners trying to legalize weed.”

Indeed, at Hempfest, advocates of I-502 ran into vocal opposition from the medical marijuana industry, with shouting exchanges in what is normally the city’s mellowest summer festival. Morton and co-producer Nils Cowan were there to film it.

“Evergreen” is, curiously, a film without an ending either happy or sad.

The U.S. Department of Justice has yet to announce what it will do about I-502, which contravenes the federal Controlled Substances Act. Eight former bosses of the Drug Enforcement Administration have urged DOJ to head for a courtroom and overturn the initiative. After all, it challenges a 42-year-old bureaucracy that has wasted billions of dollars, arrested hundreds of thousands of people, and concentrated its enforcement efforts against the young and specifically African-American and Latino youth.

“It ends in a giant question,” said Cowan. And it borrows a phrase coined by Ronald Reagan, as it challenges his successor: “President Obama, tear down this wall.”

“Obama is about as far as you can go after being a stoner in high school,” joked Cowan, referring to the future 44th president’s self-described use of marijuana (“and a little blow”) as a 1970s high school student in Honolulu.

The film follows, from beginning to end, an 18-month campaign. It shows the super-respectable opening news conference, the fiery debates at Hempfest, and goes on the road to Spokane, Wenatchee and Leavenworth as Steves stumps for the initiative. I-502 penetrated the “Cascade Curtain” and won in places like Ferry, Okanogan and Whitman counties.

The interviews range from campaign director (and ACLU drug policy director) Alison Holcomb to Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes; from Don Pierce of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs to Stranger city editor Dominic Holden; from ex-FBI agent-in-charge Charles Mandigo to Hempfest co-founder Vivian McPeak; as well as “marijuana suppliers and pot related businesses,” and “drug dealers and local citizens on the street.”

“Evergreen” was a hand-to-mouth operation. Steves sent out an appeal for money to finish the project, which was completed, in Cowan’s words, with “a gift donation from Europe through the back door.” No strings were attached to the needed dollars.

The co-producers are now seeking a distributor who will give “Evergreen” a national audience. They predict it will be seen “late spring to early summer.”

Inaccurate to the point of self-parody and hilarity, the anti-marijuana movie “Reefer Madness” was nonetheless a promotional vehicle for the “War on Drugs” that President Richard Nixon launched in 1970. It sent thousands of people to jail. Nixon, of course, received a presidential pardon for his crimes in office.

“Evergreen” deserves a national audience. It shows a path to common sense after a decades-long march of folly.

Legalize marijuana? Two old friends share respect and expertise, yet disagree

from syracuse.com

By Sean Kirst | skirst@syracuse.com
on March 27, 2013 at 10:23 PM, updated March 28, 2013 at 4:22 PM

A worker examines a handful of marijuana in Denver, where individual use of the herb is now legal.The Associated Press

Dr. Gene Tinelli and Dr. Liz Berry are old friends who describe each other with mutual respect. They’ve spent years, in separate practices, helping patients with addictions.
“We both believe in harm reduction,” said Tinelli, a Syracuse psychiatrist, although he and Berry disagree when it comes to a hotly debated way of getting there:
Tinelli maintains that marijuana should be legal for adult use in New York State. Berry, with equal passion, says it would be a major mistake.
The issue is rumbling toward New York. Colorado and Washington have already approved measures that allow for recreational use of marijuana. As The Post-Standard’s Teri Weaver reported Tuesday, a related question is before our state Legislature in Albany, where state Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island, and Assemblyman Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, have proposed legalizing medical marijuana.
The idea stands little chance of getting past Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who has consistently opposed it. Tinelli and Berry, a clinical psychologist, both support the notion of medical marijuana; they find no problem with allowing seriously ill patients to have access.
Where they fiercely diverge is on the question of whether state-regulated marijuana should be freely available for adults.
Tinelli sees nothing but benefits in such a decision. He is generally in favor of legalizing outlawed drugs, while imposing escalating levels of regulation based on potential harm. But the American prohibition on marijuana, he argues, is especially pointless.
Legalize marijuana, he said, and it would dry up much of the cash and violence triggered by illegal street corner deals. He said studies show access to pot could actually decrease the use of such problem drugs as alcohol. Legalize it, he said, and you’re keeping more young people from having their lives disrupted, if not ruined, by arrests at an especially fragile time in their lives.
“Common sense and research tell us it’s not a dangerous drug, and legalizing it could lower the rates of truly dangerous things, such as suicide and alcoholism,” said Tinelli, who said we all know adults who smoked pot heavily as youngsters, and now lead successful lives. He said there are benefits to marijuana - such as “dissolving anger and aggression” - that could make it helpful in psychiatry.
Berry, for her part, said decades in the field have brought her to what she describes as an overwhelming conclusion: Extensive use of marijuana can be destructive and live-changing for teenagers. Teenage use, she said, can cause long-term damage in a delicate time of “cerebral brain growth.”

Years ago, Berry did pre-kindergarten testing for aptitude in Onondaga County. She said young children who tested as having higher-than-average intelligence sometimes cross her path, as adults, in her work today. What she finds, she said, is that men and women who were frequent adolescent users of marijuana often suffer from a permanent loss of aptitude, an observation she said is reinforced by new studies.
In the morning, when Berry walks her dogs in Elmwood Park, she regularly sees groups of teens passing marijuana "blunts" before going to high school classes. Ask educators at any area high school, she said, and they’ll speak to the helplessness of trying to work with teens who show up “high.”
“If you could absolutely guarantee to me that only adults of legal age would have access, then I could support legalization,” she said. But she said adolescent use would explode if marijuana is legalized, a contention that Tinelli said is not borne out by studies. Berry does not favor jail time or punishment as a consequence, but she said every teen picked up for marijuana ought to be sent into treatment.
Even in disagreement, some qualities link Tinelli and Berry: They are both passionately focused on the community, and they both represent large segments of American thinking. Eight years ago in Syracuse, former city auditor Minch Lewis - who argued the social and monetary costs of cracking down on marijuana were dwarfed by the benefits of legalization - pushed for dialogue in City Hall about the logic of changing civic enforcement policy.
Certainly, the time seems right to renew the conversation. It could take the form of a roundtable discussion or public debates, but one difficult reality is made clear by listening to Berry and Tinelli:
On many levels, within a complex societal problem, they’re both correct.
As a community, we need to take those separate and complicated truths and try to forge a sensible answer. It would at least give us a direction, before we’re told one by the state.

Sean Kirst, a columnist with The Post-Standard, wants to know: What's your take on this debate? Does legalizing marijuana make sense? Or would it generate more trouble? Email Kirst at skirst@syracuse.com,. visit his blog atwww.syracuse.com/kirst, write to him in care of the Post-Standard, Clinton Square, Syracuse 13221 or send him a message on Facebook or Twitter.

Medical Marijuana Bill Introduced in NY Legislature

from villagevoice

[Updated with Commentary]

By Robert Sietsema Thu., Mar. 28 2013 at 11:16 AM

Write Comment

Categories: Marijuana, Weed

Assembly Bill 6357 and Senate Bill 4406 would allow for medicinal use of medical marijuana in New York.

A bipartisan coalition has introduced a bill in the New York State Assembly and Senate simultaneously that would permit use of cannabis for medical purposes by patients who have been certified by a doctor. So far, 18 states have passed similar bills, including New Jersey.

The legislation, known as Bill 6357 in the Assembly, and Bill 4406 in the Senate, still manages to spell marijuana as "marihuana," the same way it appears on the 1937 Federal Controlled Substances Act, in which it is categorized as a useless and very dangerous substance, the same classification that persists today.

FiTR asked Dr. Sunil K. Aggarwal, M.D., PhD., cannabis expert and resident physician at N.Y.U. Medical Center what he thought about the legislation, and here's his response:

This bill needs to be passed. Thousands of patients in NY state could benefit from medicinal use of cannabis under a doctor's supervision. The safety level, the research, and clinical experience in other states are there. Doctors can get rapid CME training at places theanswerpage.com and medicalcannabis.com accredited by the publishers of the NEJM and UCSF. For some conditions like HIV painful neuropathy, inhaled cannabis is the treatment with the best quality of evidence with most benefit.

Next: The text of the Assembly version of the bill, courtesy of NORML's website.