Politics
Highs and Lows of Medical Marijuana Where It's Legal
States find thorny legal issues drive up costs, add complications
Around the State
Marijuana plant | Credit: Shutterstock - Olena SimkoThat's the word from states that have legalized prescription pot. And it's a warning that wary Florida lawmakers appear to be heeding.
Citing social costs, legal complications and a human weakness for easy money, critics say Florida will be courting trouble if it starts distributing cannabis for medicinal purposes.
In California, law-enforcement agencies routinely raid medical-marijuana dispensaries and charge licensed operators with a host of illegal activities.
A recent bust in San Jose seized 40 pounds of weed at an outlet that authorities called "nothing more than a glorified pot dealer."
In Colorado, marijuana proponents and opponents are squaring off at the Legislature on a bill to set impairment thresholds for users of medical marijuana.
Advocates for medicinal cannabis resist any such standard for roadside tests of motorists, noting that THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, stays in the bloodstream for days.
Medical marijuana foes insist that benchmarks must be set for the safety of society. Proponents counter with controversial studies that claim motorists under the influence of cannabis are actually "safer" drivers than those who are not.
With 14 states legalizing medicinal pot, the legal wrangling is just beginning -- and drug-enforcement operations aren't going away. If anything, the legal apparatus is getting more complex and more costly as states assume new regulatory roles.
LAW ENFORCEMENT GEARS UP IN CALIFORNIA
Appealing to fiscal conservatives, cannabis advocates cite Office of National Drug Control Policy figures that show the federal government spent more than $15 billion combating illegal drugs in 2010. State and local governments spent at least another $25 billion, they say.
Yet these costs for America's "failed drug war" figure in all drug-enforcement operations -- not just marijuana busts. And, as shown in other states, legalizing medical marijuana does not necessarily reduce the costs. Indeed, it appears to increase them.
Responding to rising community complaints, law-enforcement agencies in California have taken to conducting surveillance and undercover operations to trip up illegal sales at pot dispensaries.
Posing as sick patients to infiltrate medical marijuana businesses, police have rounded up hundreds of suspects and closed down scores of operations.
Under California's 1996 law, marijuana providers are supposed to operate as nonprofit collectives, charging medical pot patients only for reimbursement of the cost of providing their authorized supply.
But news reports about ongoing raids throughout the state indicate that medical pot purveyors are profiting. Court cases are starting to pile up, and so are convictions.
Florida -- the nation's epicenter of prescription pill mills and rampant "doctor shopping" -- could be ripe for prescription pot abuse, too.
Dr. John McDonald, a physician in Indian River County, said that in "legal" states "all you need is a doctor's prescription to get pot, or to have it in your possession. That's been shown not to be all that hard to obtain."
McDonald says the medical benefits of marijuana are "marginal, and the risks of abuse are great."
Enforcing the state's medical cannabis law, California drug agents are working the fields more diligently than ever.
In rural Nevada County, local authorities and Drug Enforcement Administration agents recently raided a farm, seizing more than 2,800 marijuana plants and arresting eight people. The grower allegedly overshot his state-authorized crop quota.
Comments (14)
How many more lives have to be ruined by marijuana PROHIBITION before We The People step up and legalize marijuana?
Why is the most useful plant known illegal? It’s illegal because crooked corporations that buy crooked politicians fear competition from superior, safer and more environmentally friendly hemp products and because the Government loves to oppress jail and steal from the people! Alcohol, tobacco, petroleum, cotton, timber, chemical and pharmaceutical companies, just to name a few, all see marijuana as unwanted competition. The best way for We The People to regain our Constitutional rights and liberties is to demand a complete ban on corporate lobbying. We are supposed to have Government of, for and by THE PEOPLE, not of, for and by corporations! Corporations are NOT people!
From: http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/chapter-six/
“Eli Lilly, Pfizer and others stand to lose at least a third of their entire, highly profitable, patent monopoly on such drugs as Darvon, Tuinal, Seconal, and Prozac (as well as other patented medications ranging from muscle ointments to burn ointments, to thousands of other products) because of a plant anyone can grow: cannabis hemp.
Isn’t it curious that American drug companies and pharmacist groups supply almost half the funding for the 4,000 Families Against Marijuana type organizations in America? The other half is supplied by Action (a federal VISTA agency) and by tobacco companies like Philip Morris, and by liquor and beer makers like Anheuser Busch, Coors, etc., or as a public service by the ad agencies that represent them. End quote.
Simply stated, the Federal Government is conspiring with pharmaceutical companies, alcohol companies and tobacco companies and is using unconstitutional Federal marijuana prohibition laws to insure that you needlessly buy products that have been proven beyond any shadow of doubt to be harmful and often deadly, instead of allowing you to legally grow and/or buy a nontoxic plant that is safe and effective. Meanwhile uncle SHAM forces unconstitutional healthcare legislation on you and threatens to severely punish you if you don’t buy mandatory health insurance.
Marijuana does not cause aggressive behavior. Marijuana does not cause dangerous driving. Marijuana does not cause cancer, brain damage or any serious health problems. Marijuana prohibition does not keep kids away from marijuana, illegal dealers don’t ask for ID. Marijuana is not a “gateway drug”, there is absolutely NOTHING about marijuana that causes people to use other drugs. Marijuana is not addictive. In fact marijuana is one of the safest substances known! Marijuana is SAFER than many foods we consume and give to our kids all the time! Exactly what good is this prohibition doing and who is benefiting from it?
Why should a substance that is far SAFER than aspirin ONLY be legal for those that have a serious ailment? Why should people be forced to use FDA approved poisons instead of a far safer more effective natural plant? Why should a plant that is SAFER than potatoes be regulated and taxed as if it was as dangerous as alcohol? Eating a few raw potatoes can give you a toxic reaction but marijuana is nontoxic. Why should people have their kids taken away from them when nontoxic marijuana is found in their home while far more harmful, even deadly substances are all over the house? Why should anyone be concerned about people using NONTOXIC marijuana when they have hundreds of far more dangerous and often deadly LEGAL substances under their kitchen sink, in their kitchen cabinets, in their medicine cabinets and in their garage? If adults can use those dangerous, even deadly substances safely, does any logical person really think they can't use NONTOXIC marijuana safely and keep their kids safe without Government being involved or a Rx from a Dr? Marijuana is one of the SAFEST and most beneficial substances known to mankind!
Not medicine? Watch this and see with your own eyes! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEOoa6Q4Bds
In this myth shattering, information packed documentary, learn from physicians and leading researchers about medicinal cannabis and its demonstrated effects on human health. This game-changing movie presents the most comprehensive synopsis to date of the real science surrounding the world’s most controversial plant.
http://marijuanamovie.org/
In addition to being a great medicine, marijuana is also a great recreational drug.. FAR safer than alcohol or tobacco in every way! Since alcohol and tobacco are legal, marijuana should be too. Period. End of story.
Prohibiting citizens from cheaply caring for their medical needs, just to enrich pharmaceutical corporations is immoral, insane, and disgusting!
Anyone that wants marijuana is already getting it. Legalizing and rationally regulating marijuana is not adding another harmful intoxicant to society, legalizing gives people the legal opportunity to make the SAFER CHOICE! Alcohol, tobacco, many Rx drugs, many over the counter drugs, even caffeine, aspirin and non-aspirin, can all be deadly and are well documented as being the direct cause of hundreds of thousands of deaths in the USA every year! NO ONE EVER DIED FROM MARIJUANA and they never will marijuana is NONTOXIC! Many have died from marijuana PROHIBITION! Right now a child of any age can walk into any store that sells aspirin and buy a lethal dose for a couple of dollars but adults are jailed and their children are taken from them over NONTOXIC marijuana. Marijuana prohibition is a sham and a scam!
All major authorities agree that the vast majority of so called “drug-related” violent crime is caused by the prohibition of drugs, rather than the drugs themselves. It was the same during alcohol prohibition. Alcohol prohibition created violent criminal organizations just like every other drug prohibition has. These violent crimes should be labeled PROHIBITION RELATED, not drug related. Ending alcohol prohibition is exactly why you don’t see shootouts over that drug trade any more. Stop funding criminals, gangsters, illegal aliens and terrorists with hundreds of billions of tax free $ every year! THE YEAR ALCOHOL PROHIBITION ENDED VIOLENT CRIME FELL BY 65%! Marijuana accounts for roughly half of the entire illegal drug trade. Legalizing this one nontoxic drug that it is impossible to overdose on will take away HALF of all the illegal drug money that is funding all the illegal drug dealers. “When you fund something you get more of it” ~Ron Paul. Does anyone really think we need more criminals, gangsters, illegal aliens and terrorists?
Anyone that takes the time to learn the FACTS about marijuana ALWAYS comes to the same conclusions: Marijuana is SAFE and NOT a threat to individuals or society!
On March 22, 1972 the Richard Nixon-appointed, 13-member National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse recommended the decriminalization of marijuana, concluding, “[Marijuana's] relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it.” Richard Nixon chose to ignore the advice of his own well qualified, expensive, taxpayer funded, commission and start the modern escalation of criminalizing marijuana consumers. The lies he promoted have done much harm! He started the “war on drugs”, which is actually a violent unconstitutional war against nonviolent citizens, which are no threat to their selves or society and a war on everyone’s Constitutional rights and liberties. He did this acting as a tyrant, in response to nonviolent anti-Vietnam war protests by We The People, which largely consisted of young American marijuana consumers. No president we have had since Nixon has sought to right these unconstitutional presidential actions, instead every one of them has allowed this unlawful unconstitutional tyranny to continue. .
In 1988, after reviewing all the scientific evidence presented in a lengthy lawsuit against the government’s prohibition of medical marijuana, the DEA’s own administrative law judge (Judge Francis Young) wrote:
“MARIJUANA, IN ITS NATURAL FORM, IS ONE OF THE SAFEST THERAPEUTICALLY ACTIVE SUBSTANCES KNOWN. IN STRICT MEDICAL TERMS, MARIJUANA IS SAFER THAN MANY FOODS WE COMMONLY CONSUME.”
Judge Young's "Opinion and recommended ruling, Findings of Fact, Conclusions of Law and Decision of Administrative Law Judge", also said:
"7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine marijuana's LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to induce death.
8. At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around 1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal response as a result of drug-related toxicity."
Watch Irvin Rosenfeld who gets his marijuana from the Federal Government destroy all the lies about marijuana consumers being lazy and unproductive. Watch him destroy all the lies about long term heavy marijuana use being harmful. Learn the truth about marijuana: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvzX8aNwxgM
Listen to these high ranking narcotics officers expose the harms and waste of the drug war. Learn the truth about the drug war. It is a FAILED HARMFUL UNCONSTITUTIONAL UNLAWFUL VIOLENT WAR AGAINST NONVIOLENT CITIZENS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LayaGk0TMDc
The World Health Organization Documents Failure of U.S. Drug Policies http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/90295/
Cannabis Reduces Infant Mortality: http://www.salem-news.com/articles/june272010/marijuana-infants-sc.php This is a great example of information the drug war prohibitionists suppress every way they can. If babies are getting natural cannabis like substances in mother’s breast milk, do you still believe marijuana is harmful at any age?
If you want a good look at how far the government will go to promote its illegal anti-marijuana drug war message read this: http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2000/03/31/magazines
Protestant, Catholic and Jewish Clergy Speak Out Against The War On Drugs
http://www.csdp.org/news/news/clergydvd.htm
Watch this documentary about marijuana curing cancer! There are 7 parts, watch them all! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjhT9282-Tw
If you doubt marijuana is good medicine read: Granny Storm Crow’s List
http://forum.grasscity.com/medical-marijuana/436257-granny-storm-crows-l...
It’s more like a library than a list!
“What about the kids?” Marijuana prohibition does not keep kids from using marijuana! Illegal dealers don’t ask for ID! Ask any teen if its easier for them to get marijuana or alcohol. Would you rather have your kid locked up with killers and child molesters, or would you prefer to do your own parenting? Do you really believe an arrest record on a drug charge that will follow them for life and possibly a criminal conviction record on a drug charge that will follow them for life is going to help little Mary and little Johnny be stellar successful citizens?
“What about marijuana causing car accidents?”
The Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, Hartford Hospital in Connecticut and the University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine document that MARIJUANA DOES NOT CAUSE DANGEROUS DRIVING:
http://peaceandloveism.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=4692 (read the article not just the link!)
Google MARIJUANA DRIVING STUDY. You'll see 2 common findings:
1. Drivers under the influence of marijuana are VERY SLIGHTLY impaired.
2. Unlike those under the influence of alcohol, marijuana consumers are aware they are VERY SLIGHTLY impaired and they CONSISTENTLY ADEQUATELY COMPENSATE by slowing down a little and being a little more cautious. That doesn’t mean they get in the fast lane on the interstate and drive 15 miles per hour. Marijuana makes you cautious, not crazy! Those Cheech and Chong movies were comedies, NOT documentaries!
http://www.jackherer.com/thebook/chapter-four/
"In the 1920s and 30s, Hearst's newspapers DELIBERATELY MANUFACTURED a new threat to America and a new yellow journalism campaign to have hemp outlawed. For example, a story of a car accident in which a marijuana cigarette was found would dominate the headlines for weeks, while alcohol-related car accidents (which outnumbered marijuana-connected accidents by more than 10,000 to 1) made only the back pages. This same theme of marijuana leading to car accidents was burned into the minds of Americans over and over again..." The only marijuana/driving issue that matters is: Does using marijuana cause accidents? The answer is: NO!
'If people let the government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny.' ~Thomas Jefferson
Federal marijuana prohibition is ILLEGAL! When alcohol was prohibited that required an amendment to the Constitution because the Constitution gives NO authority to the Federal Government to regulate drug use. Unconstitutional is ILLEGAL!
It's time to rid "The Land Of The FREE" of Government employed THUGS! When We The People feel strongly enough to pass a law, it is contrary to FREEDOM for the Federal Government to violently attack LAWFUL citizens, jail them, disrupt their business, steal their property and ignore the Constitution.
The Constitutional right to freedom of religion, free speech, a free press, to keep and bear arms, to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects against unreasonable search and seizure, to life, liberty and property, to be protected from having your property taken by the government without due process of law and without just compensation, to confront the witnesses against you, to be protected from excessive bail, excessive fines, cruel and unusual punishment, to vote and others have been unjustly denied to tens of millions of Americans in the name of the drug war.
No matter where you stand on the issue of legalizing marijuana everyone should read:
MARIJUANA AND HEMP THE UNTOLD STORY, Thomas J. Bouril,
WHY IS MARIJUANA ILLEGAL, Pete Guither
and the free online book:
THE EMPEROR WEARS NO CLOTHES, The Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis and The Conspiracy Against Marijuana.
Click the links to those titles on this webpage:
Internet Explorer web browser: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/home
All Other Browsers: http://jsknow.angelfire.com/index.html
If you think marijuana prohibition has anything to do with the imaginary, false, fabricated, alleged harms from using marijuana as a recreational drug, YOU HAVE BEEN DUPED!
"In California, law-enforcement agencies routinely raid medical-marijuana dispensaries and charge licensed operators with a host of illegal activities." Despite the sky not falling after CA Prop 215 passed - despite no increase in highway fatalities or increase in usage rates by youth, law enforcement continues to line their own pockets by going against the will of the people and the directive of the DOJ to not prosecute those in compliance with state law. The only social costs here are the waste (in dollars and lives) of prohibition.
"the nation's epicenter of prescription pill mills and rampant "doctor shopping" -- could be ripe for prescription pot abuse, too" Comparing pot to pharmaceutical pills and implying that pot generates the same kind of carnage as pill addictions is revisionist drivel and blatantly ignores the abundance of science and research to the contrary. Suggested reading for Mr. Kenric Ward: Marijuana Myths Marijuana Facts: A Review Of The Scientific Evidence by Lynn Zimmer and John P. Morgan.
Pill addiction rates are buoyed by marijuana prohibition because no one gets arrested for getting high on prescriptions. Moreover, ANY pill addict would be significantly safer using cannabis instead - no risk of overdose - no harm to any of the body's organs (google Donald Tashkikn) - very non-addictive (comparable to coffee). Legalizing marijuana would lessen Florida's substantial health burdens imposed by pharmaceuticals.
"And, as shown in other states, legalizing medical marijuana does not necessarily reduce the costs. Indeed, it appears to increase them" What costs? Are you referring again to the billions spent by states and the fed on prohibition?
According to NIDA, 42.4% of all Americans over 12 admit to smoking marijuana. I conservatively estimate that at least 8% of those surveyed will not admit their marijuana use, which means that the majority of Americans over 12 smoke marijuana.
The definition of bad law is a law that makes criminals out of the majority of our citizens.
"Dr. John McDonald, a physician in Indian River County, said the medical benefits of marijuana are... 'marginal, and the risks of abuse are great' "
Lester Grinspoon, M.D., professor emeritus of psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School is one of the world's leading researchers of marijuana for the past 40 years. Dr. Grinspoon's credentials speak for themselves (as do Dr. McDonald's). I recommend that Dr. McDonald and Kenric Ward read anything written by Dr. Grinspoon and educate themselves as to the medical efficacy and safety of cannabis. You may want to start with "Marihuana Reconsidered" or "The Forbidden Medicine."
It seems crazy to have to fight over the use of a natural plant in its natural form meanwhile some big corporation is allowed to sell us drugs that ruin our liver, impair our driving, cause heart attacks, neurological problems and a whole litany of other things. And all with the FDA's approval. And if it wasn't bad enough at the FDA already, they're working to make it worse.
http://www.anh-usa.org/is-fda-handing-out-gag-orders-to-journalists-now/
History is written, you should ask why prohibition was passed and then repealed?
Prohibitions like these are prohibited for good reasons?
What kind of problems came up when we put prohibition ON alcohol?
Alcohol is a dangerous drug. The prohibition of alcohol failed though because it's just far too popular. There's too much demand and too much money to be made supplying that demand. By the end of that short 13 year period of Prohibitoin, almost as many people were drinking as were before Prohibition started.
The same thing is going on with pot today. Over 50% of today's teenagers will try marijuana by the time they are 25, if they haven't tried it already. Over 50% of all American adults under the age of 65 have tried it. It's everywhere. It's cheap on a "buzz for buzz basis" when compared to alcohol. The prohibitoin of marijuana is not working at all. We aren't making it hard to find. We aren't making it too expensive to buy. The laws and enforcement of same aren't scaring many away from smoking it. The vast majority of those of us who don't smoke it wouldn't smoke it if it was legal. The laws aren't keeping us from doing it. We've either tried it and we don't like it or we just don't want to be idiot stoners, we don't think it's cool, or whatever. There are plenty of good reasons not to smoke it and almost all of those reasons would still exist if it was legal. I'm convinced that most people who want to smoke pot already smoke it and we are just doing more harm than good trying in vain to enforce the ban. We need to legalize it and regulate it like alcohol. We need to run it through legal channels and tax it and create a lot of legal tax paying jobs in the process, and take the billions and billions of dollars being made on pot out of the hands of criminals. The black market for drugs is mostly a black market for pot. If we take pot out of the equation there would be millions fewer participating in the black market for illegal drugs making that problem easier to manage and making it such that many millions of Americans are much less likely to be offered the hard stuff because they'll no longer buy their pot from the black market where all that stuff uis sold. It may seem counterintuitive to a lot of people out there, but the fact is that we'd be better off as a nation if we legalized marijuana and regulated it like alcohol.
If they pass this law the medical uses must require the surrender of the driver's license, permanently. If the juice-head ever wants to drive again he will have to find another remedy for dealing with the medical issue.
All research shows that people drive much much worse on oxycodon, vicodin, and alcohol that they do on marijuana.
@SUNSHINE STATE NEWS - How about a poll of your readers?
Do your readers support compassion, or do they want a person to be forced to choose medications that kills 7 Floridians every day when their doctor recommends the safer choice?
But it's not without merit. I suppose to counter that, legal limits would have to be established.
I'm only 19, but thanks to my college education I had the opportunity to give a speech on the truth about hemp/marijuana. My goal is to inform the youth about it because it is apparent that older generations are fully brainwashed and will remain to be naive. So if anyone wants to continue posting without knowledge, be my guest and look like a fool!