A: This question has been asked several times in different forms. On Wednesday, Mayor Mike McGinn released this Q and A about Seattle and marijuana laws:

1. Is enforcing simple possession of marijuana really SPD’s lowest priority?

Yes. In the first four months of this year about 6,500 incident reports were filed with the City Attorney’s Office. In only six of those incidents was marijuana the reason for the contact. Only .09% of incident reports during this time period cite marijuana as the primary reason for a contact.

2. Do police officers ever stop someone solely because of marijuana?

Yes, but very rarely. Although it may appear that marijuana was the “sole charge” in a lot of incident reports, it often looks that way because the reason for the stop was either a traffic citation (which isn’t a criminal charge), or to execute a warrant. If someone is arrested because of an outstanding warrant, the offense for which the warrant was issued isn’t a new violation, so review of the City Attorney’s records would cause one to conclude (incorrectly) that marijuana was the only criminal violation at issue.

3. Why do officers have to report that they took my weed? Can’t they just flush it and let me go on with my day?

Police officers are expected to document every incident accurately and by the book. When an officer comes across someone with marijuana, whether during a traffic stop or execution of a felony warrant, he or she is obligated to seize it. There have been a number of incidents across the country in which an individual alleges that an officer stole his/her narcotics. Because cities have been sued and officers relieved of their duties because of these allegations, it is SPD policy that every drug seizure be properly documented in an incident report.

4. Why can’t an officer just record that he seized marijuana? Does he really have to recommend prosecution?

Police officers don’t decide or recommend whether or not to prosecute. An incident report is simply a narrative description of what happened. Each report is categorized by the “primary charge”, meaning the most serious offense outlined in the report. An Assistant City Attorney will look at every report the police send over and decide whether or not to charge. The decision to charge rests solely with the City Attorney, not SPD.

5. Why does the officer have to send a report to the prosecutor at all?

We have recently changed the way we send incident reports to the City Attorney’s Office. Formerly, incident reports were paper reports that were walked over to the City Attorney’s Office. Now, these reports are electronic and go from the patrol officer to a detective sergeant to be reviewed for accuracy, and then directly to the City Attorney’s Office. The only time a report wouldn’t go to the City Attorney or King County Prosecutor is if there’s no evidence or no suspect. The law gives our elected prosecutors the discretion to choose what to charge, but it doesn’t give the same discretion to the police.

The fact that reports are transmitted automatically may account for the increase in incident reports involving marijuana, because in the past some volume of low-priority incident reports were probably never sent to the City Attorney’s Office in the first place.

6. You said the police rarely stop people just for marijuana, and yet the City Attorney is declining all these marijuana charges. Where are these charges coming from?

Most police contacts involving marijuana occur because of an unrelated offense. For example, of the incident reports filed between January 1st and April 30th of this year (the time period covered by the Stranger’s public disclosure request), there were only eighty that cited possession of marijuana. Of these:

• 17 (21.3%) involved 911 calls for service. 7 were for narcotics complaints, meaning someone called 911 about drug-related activity and that drug turned out to be marijuana. 10 of those were dispatched calls for non-narcotics complaints like fighting, trespassing, or someone behaving erratically and blocking traffic and marijuana was discovered subsequent to the arrest. While enforcing marijuana laws is our lowest priority, responding to our community is our highest priority. 14 (17.5%) involved the serving of warrants. That is, officers encountered someone with an outstanding warrant, searched that individual, and discovered marijuana.

• 20 (25%) involved a traffic stop. Even under the most liberal legalization proposals, driving under the influence of marijuana would remain illegal, so when an officer stops a vehicle and smells pot, a search is clearly justified.
• 12 (15%) involved a High Drug Enforcement Area. These are areas of our city which see a high volume of drug trafficking, and have been targeted for heavy drug enforcement. When a cop sees a hand-to-hand sale, it’s not always obvious what drug was sold until they make the stop. Additionally, street-level dealers of heroin or cocaine often deal marijuana as well. Thus, marijuana shows up in the incident report.

• If you remove those four factors, you are left with 21 of the 80 incidents. Of the 21, all but six were incidents in which the officer stopped the suspect for a reason other than marijuana, and discovered marijuana incident to the arrest. Those six remaining incidents all involved individuals openly smoking marijuana in front of a police officer.

7. I keep hearing that marijuana is basically legal in Seattle. How serious an offense is it, really?

According to the City Attorney:

Marijuana possession remains illegal everywhere in Washington, including Seattle. Enforcement of “personal use” possession is the lowest priority for both the Seattle City Attorney’s Office and the Seattle Police Department. I don’t prosecute simple marijuana possession cases, but marijuana possession is still a crime, and people risk arrest and search incident to arrest for possession, especially people who choose to flaunt marijuana in the presence of law enforcement.

As for the “serious offense” question, under Washington law, possession of any amount of marijuana with intent to manufacture or deliver the marijuana is a felony, regardless of the amount of marijuana. Possession of more than 40 grams of marijuana is also a felony, regardless of intent. Possession of 40 or fewer grams of marijuana without intent to manufacture or deliver the marijuana is a misdemeanor. The King County Prosecuting Attorney is responsible for prosecuting felony offenses, so it is up to the county whether and how to charge felony marijuana offenses.

The answer to the first question was corrected by the mayor’s office Thursday.

Source : Seattle 911

Researchers from the University of New Hampshire looked at data from a random group of 1,286 children, teens and young adults who were in Miami-Dade public schools in the 1990s. Among the study participants, 26% were African American, 44% were Hispanic, and 30% were non-Hispanic white.

They were asked about their substance use and about exposure to major events and traumas that occurred before age 13. Some questions included, “Did you ever fail a grade at school?”, “Did your parents ever divorce/separate?” and “Were you regularly emotionally abused by one of your caretakers?”

Education played a role in use of other substances–those more likely to have used marijuana as teens and other drugs as young adults didn’t graduate from high school or go to college. Employment factored in as well, since those who smoked pot as teens and were out of work after high school were more apt to use other drugs.

Researchers also discovered that if young adults became involved with other substances after using marijuana as teens, that link didn’t hold once the sources of stress, such as not working, went away.

Age was yet another issue. Researchers discovered that after the age of 21, the gateway effect seemed to disappear.

The results could have implications for drug policy, the study authors argue. “Employment in young adulthood can protect people by ‘closing’ the marijuana gateway,” said lead author Karen Van Gundy, in a news release, “so over-criminalizing youth marijuana use might create more serious problems if it interferes with later employment opportunities.”

The study appears in the September issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior.

Source : Jeannine Stein / Los Angeles Times

Immediately.

“Back out of the area and act naturally while you are doing it,” she advises. “Once you are out of there, then report it to law enforcement.”

Severson is the assistant special agent in charge of the U.S. Forest Service’s Region 6, which includes Oregon and Washington.

Sniffing out and eradicating marijuana patches on federal land has grown into a major challenge for Severson and other law enforcement officers. Pot growers often are armed, they say.

A confrontation with a pot grower should be avoided by anyone who is not a trained law enforcement officer, stressed Jim Whittington, spokesman for the BLM’s Medford District.

“If you recognize the situation, back out the way you came in,” he said. “Don’t go any farther and don’t try to do any investigation.

“And if somebody comes upon you while you are on the trail, don’t seem concerned about what you saw,” he added. “If they tell you to leave the area, do what they say.”

Then call the police, he said.

In 2008, law enforcement found 6,500 pot plants growing in the local national forest at seven different sites. Last year, perhaps in part because of interdiction efforts, fewer than 2,000 plants were found at half a dozen sites in the forest.

“But we will have increased amounts this year,” Severson predicted.

On national forest lands statewide, law enforcement officials confiscated more than 52,000 plants in 2008. That figure grew to more than 70,000 in 2009.

In Oregon and Washington, nearly 150,000 plants were confiscated in 2008 on national forest land, compared with about 132,000 in 2009.

Last year in Oregon, police netted 153,266 plants on BLM land from 34 different sites, according to a spokeswoman for the agency’s Portland office. That included 17,966 plants on BLM’s Medford District in Jackson County in 2009, plus 9,623 plants on agency land in Josephine County last year, she added.

Today’s pot growers are different from their predecessors, Whittington noted.

“It used to be that people would come in and put the plants in the ground and leave,” he said. “They would come back later and harvest their crop. Now they are sticking around the sites more.”

Not only can their presence pose a threat to those who stumble upon a patch, pot gardeners can wreak havoc on the local environment, he said, citing garbage, human waste, agricultural chemicals and irrigation systems that change a watershed.

Gardens can be found all over the map, he said, adding, “About the only place they never do it is next to a road.

“They generally go to unpopulated areas — they don’t want to be seen,” Severson said. “But it’s easy to find a place to grow on the forest because it’s huge.”

Source : Mail Tribune

Wrestlers have to figure out ways and options to heal the pain to continue on with their careers. Some have chosen ways that ultimately lead to their own demise.

In the past, some pro wrestlers have turned to pain killers, which is not that bad until the dosage starts to get to heavy!

Kurt Angle talks about his drug addiction with pills via zimbio.com:

Kurt said they were “extra strength stuff” and mentioned percoset, five broken necks, up to 65 pills a day and hasn’t taken any in four years. He also said “I don’t like to talk about it (his drug problems). The drugs made him feel straight and normal and would take 20 in the morning just to wake up. Vince wanted Kurt to do rehab on his own as opposed to going to rehab. It took five months for Kurt to clean himself up. He put over Vince allowing people being about to go to rehab now.

Brock Lesnar also had some problems too with pain and went the same route as so many wrestlers do as well. Quote thanks to recoveryconnection.org:

“I don’t know, what’s addiction? Did I take too damn many pills? Yeah. Did I drink too much? Yes. Did I become aware that I was drinking and taking too many pills? Yes, I did.”
Some wrestlers still turn to this as they really don’t understand they are causing other problems for themselves:

Information thanks to straightfromthedoc.com:

Each day, 36 million people pop a pill to relieve the pain of headache, arthritis, or muscle ache. A study in the November Journal of Rheumatology found that 25 percent of them take too much and risk trading pain relief for serious stomach problems.

The medications are a class of drugs called non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, or NSAIDS, which include aspirin, ibuprofen (Advil, Motrin), and naproxen (Aleve). Many common cold remedies and prescription pain relievers also contain NSAIDs.

All those plastic bottles in medicine cabinets contain warnings and recommended doses, but the study, which surveyed 807 adults, found they’re often ignored. 54 percent of the survey participants said they were unaware of gastrointestinal side effects, including ulcers and hemorrhage, and 18 percent said they had experienced a side effect. Overdosing can happen not only by taking more than the recommended dose, but also by taking the next dose sooner than directed, taking more than the recommended number of doses in a day, or unknowingly taking several drugs that all contain NSAIDs.

But with promotions cracking down and wrestlers realizing what pills can actually due to the body, they decide to go a different route…that route being marijuana, aka weed!
With less side effects and causing harm to the body, many wrestlers relieve their pain by rolling one up. Not only do wrestlers do this many people everywhere enjoys do so as well for reasons as: Relieve stress; avoid problems at home or school, and just to escape from the everyday troubles of life.

But marijuana also has side effects as well: impaired coordination, difficulty with problem solving and thinking, overall problems with memory and learning, and also speeds up ones heart rate.

But many people don’t care as people usually say, “It’s not killing me so…”

So they continue to do what they are doing…but this substance that wrestlers started to turn to is now and has been banned in the WWE and other places as well. This did not sit so well with RVD on his chances of returning back in the organization: Info thanks to prowrestling.net:

“Since I don’t want to go back to the full-time schedule anyway, it’s kind of hard to answer if, in addition to not wanting to go back, I would also not want to go back and apply to all of their conditions. I’d have to want to do it, and if I wanted to do it bad enough to not promote or advocate marijuana or whatever, it would depend on what it was worth to me if I was wanting to do that—which I’m not…

“…So, for WWE, they’re just like a small society. They’ve got their own set of laws, their own set of rules. And on the wellness program, marijuana is definitely different than if you test positive for anything else on their list. But still it has a very hefty fine with it. And it’s, unfortunately, turning the boys away from marijuana and turning them away from any pain relievers, and saying, ‘Alcohol is OK.’ It’s just like the SuperBowl will tell you—’Drink, drink, drink.’”
In a way you, you can kind of agree with Rob Van Dam’s statements; you don’t want to have wrestlers turning to another substance that can cause very harmful problems…but at the end of the day, you have to follow the rules that are set.

Is this the reason why RVD and Jeff Hardy hopped over to the TNA Wrestling roster as they may not be as strict? Maybe so, because if you think about it, Jeff wanted to leave to rest his body but he still is wrestling which contradicts that. Yes, it’s on a less hectic schedule, but at the end of the day, like I said, he still is wrestling.

Also, their other bro in crime, Brian Kendrick, is down on the TNA roster as well who also had the same problems in the WWE. Either way marijuana is illegal or there is going to be a point where organizations are going to have to figure out other ways to help their talents.

As wrestlers are going to continue to go to this substance rather than pills and other drugs as it is less harmful, it’s going to start to get more of a problem.

Source : Bleacher Report

From Interstate 25 to Old Colorado City, you’ll pass a medical marijuana dispensary on almost every block. Businesses like Springs Natural Medicine, The Healthy Connection and Altitude Organic Medicine — “home of the $39 special” — can make you feel like you’re in pot head heaven.

But for residents and business owners in the midst of the business boom, their presence has raised eyebrows and often ire.

“It’s no longer West Colorado Avenue, it’s West Cannabis Avenue,” said  Jim Lamphear, who lives a block north on Pikes Peak Avenue. Lamphear chuckled to himself when he saw the first dispensary pop up because he figured every neighborhood would have one. But he’s not chuckling any more.

“They just came suddenly: boom, boom, boom. Soon enough, every time a storefront opened up you knew what was going in there.”

Lamphear and his wife, Ella, bought their historic home 38 years ago — back when they say the neighborhood was rundown and their friends and family questioned the move. Now after years of renovating their house and making an immaculate backyard garden, they’ve been delighted to watch other neighbors follow suit and upgrade the neighborhood one home at a time.

He worries the dispensaries could turn off potential buyers and erode the home values he and his neighbors have worked to raise.

“Like any business that operates on the fringe of morality, like adult bookstores and topless bars, dispensaries threaten the neighborhood concept,” he said.

Lamphear’s neighborhood isn’t the only one that has been inundated with dispensaries. As of July 29, the City of Colorado Springs had active sales tax licenses for 230 dispensaries. While there are dispensaries in virtually every neighborhood, West Colorado Avenue, East Platte Avenue and the area circling the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs are among a handful that have several dispensaries apiece.

A comprehensive interactive map of local medical marijuana dispensaries is available at gazette.com.
Tanya Garduno, director of the Colorado Springs Medical Cannabis Council, said dispensary owners are trying their best to be good neighbors. Many post signs warning customers to be quiet and respectful outside of the business and not to litter. When the council receives complaints, Garduno said members follow up to make sure everything is going as it should. She said the council would love to meet with neighborhood groups to discuss their concerns face-to-face.

“We will make every effort possible to do what we can,” she said. “We’re not trying to be fly-by-night. We’re not trying to get rich quick. In order to be here for the long run, we have to be good neighbors.”

Still, she said, she knows that there will always be unhappy people.

“Sometimes, no matter what the dispensaries do, the neighbors won’t be happy,” she said. “A lot of times, it’s that they don’t like the business itself.”

Lamphear admits that might be part of the problem. He hasn’t noticed an increase in crime and admits that it’s a bit reassuring to know where marijuana is being sold in his neighborhood. Still, he wishes the dispensaries weren’t allowed in residential neighborhoods.

Soon enough, he fears, the friendly, small-business feel of West Colorado Avenue will change beyond recognition.

Not everyone in the neighborhood shares those fears. Firehouse Southern Style BBQ on West Colorado Avenue is across the street from a dispensary, and Firehouse general manager Peter Karnincic said he has no problems with his new neighbor. He hasn’t noticed an increase in crime or decrease in business since it moved in.

To be friendly, and drum up business, he even stopped by to say hello.

“I gave some of those guys our menu so if they get the munchies they can come over and eat,” Karnincic said. He said a few have taken up his offer.

Six blocks west of Firehouse, Jug & Basin Antiques owner Joe Roina isn’t so enthusiastic. His customers are mainly tourists and antiques collectors, two groups that he believes might be turned off by dispensaries. Also, he objects to them as a resident — he and his family have lived at the store more than 30 years.

“We’re scared that it’s going to bring a clientele that is not conducive to family life,” he said. “I’m not happy. We raised our kids in this house and I feel for the other kids out there.”

On Pikes Peak Avenue, homeowner Becki Davis doesn’t see what all of the fuss is about. She has no problem with medical marijuana, in fact, she thinks marijuana should be legalized. Yes, there are a lot of dispensaries in the area, she said, but they aren’t hurting anyone.

“We have liquor stores in our neighborhood and nobody seems worried about those,” she said.

In time, she suspects the dispensary inundation on West Colorado will cure itself. Soon enough, most of the dispensaries will disappear as customers flock to bigger and better places.

“Natural selection,” she said. “Hey, that would be a good name for a pot shop. Maybe I should open one.”

Source : The Gazette

HELENA, Mont. — As Bob Marley music wailed in the next room, the makeshift clinic hummed along like an assembly line: Patients went in to see a doctor, paid $150 and walked out with a recommendation that they be allowed to buy and smoke medical marijuana.

So it went, all day, at a hotel just blocks from the state Capitol that was the latest stop of the so-called cannabis caravan, a band of doctors and medical marijuana advocates roaming Montana that has helped thousands of patients apply for medical marijuana cards from the state.

“You’re helping end suffering on this planet for human beings,” clinic organizer Jason Christ said as he sat outside the hotel in an RV filled with pot smoke.

To the dismay of state medical authorities and lawmakers, the caravans have helped the number of pot cardholders in Montana swell over the past year from about 3,000 to 15,000.

Christ’s group, Montana Caregivers Network, will take the caravan out of Montana later this month for the first time, with clinics scheduled in three Michigan cities: Detroit, Kalamazoo and Lansing. He said pot advocates from several other states — including New Mexico, New Jersey and Hawaii — have contacted him to inquire about setting up similar businesses.

The state medical board is trying to curtail the mass screenings and recently fined a physician who participated in a similar clinic in the first disciplinary action taken against a doctor in a Montana medical marijuana case. The board found that the doctor had seen about 150 people in 14 1/2 hours, or roughly a patient every six minutes, nowhere near enough to provide appropriate care in the eyes of medical observers.

The board also recently reminded physicians that they must perform thorough examinations, take medical histories, discuss alternative treatments and monitor patients’ response to the cannabis — standards that typically apply when prescribing other medication.

“Be on the alert. You are still held to these same standards,” said Jean Branscum, the board’s executive director.

The roving cannabis caravans appear to be unique to Montana, although mobile marijuana operations have arisen elsewhere. A rolling marijuana dispensary in California sold chocolate-covered cookies, brownies, pretzels and other marijuana-laced items out of an RV before authorities moved to shut it down.

Mike Meno, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, the chief lobbying arm of the legalization movement, said the 14 states that allow medical marijuana have varying regulations that could make it difficult for the caravans to operate outside Montana.

“The more I hear about these things, it sounds like they’re not following the intent of the law,” Meno said. “People say they might be making a mockery of the law, and I hope that’s not the case.”

Medical marijuana has been legal in Montana for more than five years, allowing people with debilitating conditions to buy pot with a doctor’s permission.

After the Obama administration announced last year that it would not prosecute medical marijuana users, the pace of registrations quickened, and people began flocking to the caravans.

At a recent stop in Helena, the clinic processed between 200 and 300 people seeking doctor recommendations. The organization then helps the patient send the application and doctor’s recommendation to the state health department. After the patient receives a card, he can begin using marijuana.

In the hotel conference room, when patients emerged from behind a curtain after talking with a doctor, they were ushered to the next room, where a half-dozen marijuana providers competed to become their personal “caregiver,” as the suppliers are called in Montana.

A group called the First Montana Grow Circle signed up 15 new patients that day. One of them was a state employee who spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared repercussions from her employer and her family.

She said she went to the clinic during her lunch hour after her personal doctor declined to prescribe medical marijuana for her severe migraine headaches. “He said I am not the type of person he would prescribe it for. He said I’m not there yet based on my medical history,” the woman said.

She said the doctor at the clinic gave her the recommendation she was looking for after a 15-minute examination and a promise to send him her medical records. She said the marijuana has eased but not eliminated her headaches.

The Montana Board of Medical Examiners fined Dr. Patricia Cole $2,000, accusing her of practicing substandard care at a medical marijuana clinic in Great Falls last year. The caregivers’ network is paying her fine. She is also barred from participating in such clinics.

The board said Cole did not document whether she took medical histories or performed physical examinations, did not discuss proper dosing and failed to document a risk analysis of medical marijuana for them.

Cole said she agreed to the punishment, but believes she is being made an example of as the board seeks to halt the caravans. She said she reviewed medical histories online before the clinic.

At the same, some lawmakers say the clinics demonstrate the pot boom is out of control and the rules need tightening.

Despite the warnings and the disciplinary action, the cannabis caravans are slated to roll on next month with stops in Kalispell, Missoula, Great Falls, Helena, Bozeman and Billings.

“Change is scary. I understand,” Christ said of the backlash. But he added: “The need is out there. Patients are in pain.”

(This version CORRECTS that patients receive a recommendation, but still must await formal approval to buy and use pot.)

Source : AP

Denver, CO — Inside the Colorado Convention Center, a woman in a faded ball cap picks up a glass pipe — with its swirling shades of blue and elegant design curves — as if she were an archaeologist beholding a great treasure. Think Indiana Jones, but with marijuana paraphernalia.”This is freaking sick!” she exclaims. “I think I’m in love. Like, seriously.”

“It’s something,” said Holland, the owner of a shop called Head Space in Kansas City, that “you’re going to look at every day, right?”

Welcome to the first ever Colorado Cannabis Convention, a sprawling expanse of 300-plus canna-business booths competing for the attention of thousands of customers strolling by — the sick, the stoned and the merely curious.

San Francisco, CA — Police in a northern California town thought they had a couple dead to rights when they seized more than two pounds of marijuana from their home, even though doctors authorized the pair to use pot for medical purposes.San Francisco police believed they had a similar open-and-shut case with a father and son team they suspected of abusing the state’s medical marijuana law by allegedly operating an illegal trafficking operation.

No one can say for sure how many dismissals and acquittals have been prompted by the ruling, but the numbers are stacking up since the Supreme Court on Jan. 21 tossed out Patrick Kelly’s marijuana possession conviction.

The high court struck down a 7-year-old state law that imposed an 8-ounce limit on the amount of pot medical users of marijuana could possess. The court said patients are entitled to a “reasonable” amount of the drug to treat their ailments.

Collingswood, N.J. — Donna Doak anxiously awaits the day when she can get a prescription for marijuana. The Swedesboro nurse, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and spinal stenosis and is wheelchair-bound, said marijuana can ease her pain without the nasty side effects of her current medications.

“Now that it’s been legalized, I want to pursue it,” said Doak, who was among the roughly dozen people who attended a town hall meeting at the Collingswood Library sponsored by the Coalition for Medical Marijuana New Jersey. “I just think it’s going to really enable me to have a better quality of life.”

In January, New Jersey became the fourth state on the East Coast to legalize medicinal marijuana when then Gov. Jon S. Corzine signed the Compassionate Use Medical Marijuana Act into law.

The legislation legalized marijuana use in the treatment of certain conditions, including glaucoma, seizures, cancer, AIDS, inflammatory bowel syndrome and neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis.

While many of the details of New Jersey’s law are still to be determined, patients should be able to obtain a prescription that would allow them to purchase marijuana from a state-licensed alternative treatment center as soon as July.

“Marijuana is a safe, effective and inexpensive treatment for a host of diseases,” said the coalition’s executive director, Ken Wolski, a registered nurse.

Fourteen states have legalized medical marijuana.

“Another dozen states are considering similar laws,” Wolski said.

Among the states considering medical marijuana bills this year are Alabama, Delaware, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania.

“We do have the most restrictive bill in the country,” said Wolski, adding that New Jersey is the only state that doesn’t allow home cultivation.

Coalition officials estimate that roughly 4,000 people in New Jersey will obtain a prescription for marijuana.

“One of the more common questions we get is if insurance companies will pay for medical marijuana,” coalition board member Chris Goldstein said.

“I think medical marijuana is equal to an over-the-counter medication. They don’t cover Tylenol, they don’t cover ibuprofen, so I don’t think they’ll cover medical marijuana.”

Coalition members also discussed the case of a Franklin Township man with multiple sclerosis who was sentenced to five years in prison for growing marijuana in the backyard of his rental property.

A sign that read “Pardon John Ray Wilson” and “medical marijuana patient, not a criminal” sat on a table at the library.

“To me, it was a travesty of justice,” Wolski said.

“It’s the most lenient sentence that the judge could give under the law,” Goldstein said. “The question is whether he’ll be able to use medical marijuana when he goes on parole.”

James Wayne, of Bellmawr, uses marijuana to lessen the pain for a head injury and severe back problems but will not be able to obtain a prescription under the new law because chronic pain is not one of the approved uses.

“The Percocet makes me nauseous and I can’t think right,” Wayne said. “I smoke two or three hits and I’m good for a couple of hours. I would much rather have the person who is driving my children to be taking marijuana for their pain than taking 10 milliliters of Percocet.”

Goldstein said the coalition will host town hall meetings throughout the state to educate people about the law and discuss its implementation.

“This is legal now,” Goldstein said. “You don’t have to be afraid to talk about this. It’s a private decision to use medical marijuana just like it’s a private decision to use any medication.”

Source: Courier-Post (Cherry Hill, NJ)
Author: Lavinia DeCastro, Courier-Post Staff
Published: March 21, 2010
Copyright: 2010 Courier-Post
URL: http://drugsense.org/url/X2P0DrN2
Website: http://www.courierpostonline.com/
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/SuuG7xhY

CannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archives
http://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml
Source : Cannabis News

We discovered that cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychotropic compound from the plant Cannabis sativa, can inhibit the process of breast cancer cells that allow them to grow and spread (metastasis). CBD can also inhibit breast cancer metastasis in a mouse model. The research carried out in our CBCRP proposal demonstrated that CBD is a novel inhibitor of a gene whose activity is intimately linked to the aggressiveness of human breast cancers; this gene has been termed Id-1. Notably, our findings also indicated that Id-1 was a key gene whose expression needed to be reduced in order for CBD to inhibit aggressive breast cancer. One of the most significant high risk components of the initial application was to determine if CBD had appreciable efficacy against breast cancer in vivo (i.e., animal models). This high risk component was not pursued, since an independent group showed CBD was able to inhibit metastasis of MDA-MB231 cells to the lung of nude mice. Building of the previous findings, we made small structural changes to CBD that are expected to produce drugs that are much more active than CBD at inhibiting Id-1 and corresponding aggressive breast cancers. CBD has a low toxicity profile. An anticancer agent with a low toxicity profile that can both inhibit cancer cell growth and metastasis would be extremely valuable clinically. Understanding the mechanisms behind the anticancer activity of CBD may also lead to the discovery of new biological targets for the development of diagnostic tools and additional therapies for the treatment of cancer. In this project we found portions of the CBD structure essential to its biological activity for breast cancer cell growth inhibition. We are in the process of filing a patent on these discoveries. In addition, we studies the moleculr mechanisms that underlie CBD activity, and found that sustained upregulation of Erk (extracellular signal-regulated kinases, a type of protein kinase intracellular signaling molecules) is key to the ability of CBD to regulate the metastasis-specific inhibition of the Id-1 transcription factor.

Antioxidant activity has been reported to be a general property of the phenolic components of marijuana. Unlike Δ9-THC, cannabidiol can be administered at relatively high doses without undesired toxic or psychological effects.1 Cannabidiol at a concentration of 10 µM was neuroprotective against both excitatory neurotransmitter (glutamate) and oxidant (hydroperoxide) induced neurotoxicity.

Watch video on youtube : Medical Marijuana Stops Spread of Breast Cancer – NBC NEWS

Source : 420 Magazine