Marijuana dispensaries could help sick Oregonians
Jul 26, 2010 Online Issue
(AP) — PORTLAND, Ore. – With one hand, Lindsey Bradshaw hoisted his food bag onto his back, arranging the tube that has helped feed him since cancer ravaged his stomach seven years ago. In his other hand, he clutched a small gold bowl of marijuana and a pipe.
He depends on both devices to get through the day.
One of 36,380 patients registered with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, Bradshaw is a gardener who grows most of his own medical marijuana-one of two options that program participants have. They can also buy from a producer who sells to four or fewer people.
Those options leave people dry if they don’t know a producer and are too sick to grow their own, Bradshaw said.
But that could change, if a ballot measure to create a system of medical marijuana dispensaries passes.
Tags: marijuana, marijuana dispensaries, marijuana for medical use, Marijuana Growers, Medical Marijuana, medicinal marijuana, Obama
White House Vows Drug Policy Shift
Apr 17, 2010 Online Issue
By David Corn
Source: Mother Jones 
Washington, D.C. — The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy zapped out a press release on Wednesday morning noting that its director, Gil Kerlikowske (aka the Drug Czar) was testifying before a House subcommittee that the Obama administration is implementing a “new direction in drug policy.”
From the release: With drug use accounting for tens of billions of dollars per year in healthcare costs, and drug overdoses ranking second only to motor vehicle crashes as the leading cause of accidental death, the Nation “needs to discard the idea that enforcement alone can eliminate our Nation’s drug problem,” Director Kerlikowske said.
“Only through a comprehensive and balanced approach – combining tough, but fair, enforcement with robust prevention and treatment efforts – will we be successful in stemming both the demand for and supply of illegal drugs in our country.
Tags: legalize marijuana, marijuana bust, marijuana laws, marijuana legalization, Obama
Legalizing Marijuana is Just a Matter of Time
Mar 28, 2010 Online Issue
By Gerald Ensley
Source: Tallahassee Democrat 
Florida — Time magazine recently published an interesting statistic: 5.1 percent of Americans aged 55 to 59 smoke marijuana regularly — a major jump from 2002, when 1.6 percent of Americans aged 55 to 59 admitted to smoking pot regularly. The magazine attributed the rise to the aging of the baby boom generation. And you can look at the stat four ways:One, it shows marijuana use is not just for the young and wild. We can only assume the age bracket — where AARP membership and senior discounts begin — was considered significant because it says old people are smoking.
Tags: marijuana, marijuana laws, marijuana legalization, Obama
MJ Legalization? A White House Rebuttal, Finally
Mar 15, 2010 Online Issue
By The Monitor’s Editorial Board
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Washington, D.C. — The Obama White House has finally laid out its most thorough, reasoned rebuttal to arguments for marijuana legalization – countering a campaign that is gaining alarming momentum at the state level.
The president’s tough position was delivered in early March by his “drug czar,” Gil Kerlikowske, in a private talk before police chiefs in California – which is ground zero for this debate.
“Marijuana legalization – for any purpose – is a nonstarter in the Obama administration,” said Mr. Kerlikowske, a former police chief himself.
It’s almost certain that California voters will be asked in a November ballot initiative whether to allow local governments to regulate and tax marijuana (similar to taxes on sales of alcohol). Other states are considering similar proposals, which are really a backdoor way to legalize pot.
Tags: marijuana, marijuana laws, marijuana legalization, Obama
President Obama: Free the Medical Marijuana Researchers!
Dec 15, 2009 Online Issue
The War on Drugs continues, four decades after President Richard Nixon commenced hostilities. President Barack Obama–the third president in a row to have used illicit substances in his youth–is no drug warrior. However, he seems unlikely to challenge the disastrous new prohibition.
The president has, however, ended the federal campaign against medical marijuana, ordering administration officials to respect state laws legalizing the drug for medicinal purposes. This policy will grow increasingly important as more states allow use of med-pot (for instance, in November Maine voters legalized medical marijuana dispensaries). Congress should approve legislation introduced by Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), codifying administration policy into law.
Moreover, the president should order the Drug Enforcement Agency to make more pot available for research, moving the issue forward at another level.Critics of medical marijuana argue that pot has no clinical value. Many doctors, nurses, and scientists disagree.
For instance, the Institute of Medicine (part of the National Academy of Sciences) concluded that “Cannabinoids likely have a natural role in pain modulation, control of movement, and memory.” Two years ago San Francisco General Hospital reported that HIV-positive patients achieved marked pain relief by smoking marijuana. Numerous seriously ill patients, including such leading political conservatives as the late Lyn Nofziger, an aide to Ronald Reagan, also attested to the therapeutic value of pot.
Continued research is needed to resolve the dispute. Indeed, the Institute of Medicine recommended more study “into the physiological effects of synthetic and plant-derived cannabinoids and the natural function of cannabinoids found in the body.” Moreover, the IOM pointed to the importance of reviewing “vaporization devices,” since “Marijuana delivered in a novel way that avoids smoking would overcome some, but not all, of the regulatory concerns.”
Barbara Roberts, formerly of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, suggested that the IOM study provided a blueprint “to investigate this and to put it to rest.” Unfortunately, the Bush administration, whose drug czar, John Walters, compared marijuana users to terrorists, refused to follow the IOM’s recommendations.
Tags: Obama, obanga, smoking weed, weed
Why Obama Really Might Decriminalize Marijuana
Jul 15, 2009 Online Issue
The stoner community is clamoring to say it: “Yes we cannabis!” Turns out, with several drug-war veterans close to the president-elect’s ear, insiders think reform could come in Obama’s second term — or sooner.
Famously,Franklin Delano Roosevelt saved the United States banking system during the first seven days of his first term.
And what did he do on the eighth day? “I think this would be a good time for beer,” he said.
Congress had already repealed Prohibition, pending ratification from the states. But the people needed a lift, and legalizing beer would create a million jobs. And lo,booze was back. Two days after the bill passed, Milwaukee brewers hired six hundred people and paid their first $10 million in taxes. Soon the auto industry was tooling up the first $12 million worth of delivery trucks, and brewers were pouring tens of millions into new plants.
“Roosevelt’s move to legalize beer had the effect he intended,” says Adam Cohen, author ofNothing To Fear, a thrilling new history of FDR’s first hundred days. “It was, one journalist observed, ‘like a stick of dynamite into a log jam.’”
Many in the marijuana world are now hoping for something similar from Barack Obama. After all, the president-elect said in 2004 that the war on drugs had been “an utter failure” and that America should decriminalize pot:
Tags: decriminalize marijuana, Obama
