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California lawmakers to debate full marijuana legalization tomorrow

California state lawmakers are scheduled to hear testimony tomorrow in support of taxing and regulating the commercial production and distribution of marijuana for adults age 21 and older.

Members of the California Assembly Committee on Public Safety have called for the hearing, entitled “Examining the Fiscal and Legal Implication of the Legalization and Regulation of Marijuana.” The hearing will be chaired by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), sponsor of Assembly Bill 390, the Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act. It will take place at 10am in room 126 of the State Capitol.

A press conference will take place prior to the hearing at 9 am in Capitol Room 317.

California NORML Coordinator Dale Gieringer is scheduled to testify before the Committee at noon. [Editor's note: Read Dale's written testimony here.] NORML has also submitted prepared testimony to the Committee, which is available online here.

Several representatives from law enforcement, including the California Police Chiefs Association and the Office of the Attorney General’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, are scheduled to testify in opposition to the bill.

“The criminal prohibition of marijuana provides law enforcement and state regulators with no legitimate market controls,” states NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano in prepared testimony.  “This absence of state and local government controls jeopardizes rather than promotes public safety. I urge this Committee to move forward with the enactment of sensible regulations for legalizing marijuana.”

Tomorrow’s hearing marks one of the first times since 1913 that the California legislature has debated ending criminal prohibition.

If you live in California you can contact your member of the Assembly in advance of tomorrow’s historic hearing here.




Source: NORML

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/us/28pot.html

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October 28, 2009
Push to Legalize Marijuana Gains Ground in California
By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO — These are heady times for advocates of legalized marijuana in California — and only in small part because of the newly relaxed approach of the federal government toward medical marijuana.

State lawmakers are holding a hearing on Wednesday on the effects of a bill that would legalize, tax and regulate the drug — in what would be the first such law in the United States. Tax officials estimate the legislation could bring the struggling state about $1.4 billion a year, and though the bill’s fate in the Legislature is uncertain, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, has indicated he would be open to a “robust debate” on the issue.

California voters are also taking up legalization. Three separate initiatives are being circulated for signatures to appear on the ballot next year, all of which would permit adults to possess marijuana for personal use and allow local governments to tax it. Even opponents of legalization suggest that an initiative is likely to qualify for a statewide vote.

“All of us in the movement have had the feeling that we’ve been running into the wind for years,” said James P. Gray, a retired judge in Orange County who has been outspoken in support of legalization. “Now we sense we are running with the wind.”

Proponents of the leading ballot initiative have collected nearly 300,000 signatures since late September, supporters say, easily on pace to qualify for the November 2010 general election. Richard Lee, a longtime marijuana activist who is behind the measure, says he has raised nearly $1 million to hire professionals to assist volunteers in gathering the signatures.

“Voters are ripping the petitions out of our hands,” Mr. Lee said.

That said, the bids to legalize marijuana are opposed by law enforcement groups across the state and, if successful, would undoubtedly set up a legal showdown with the federal government, which classifies marijuana as an illegal drug.

California was the first state to legalize marijuana for medical purposes, in 1996, but court after court — including the United States Supreme Court — has ruled that the federal government can continue to enforce its ban. Only this month, with the Department of Justice announcement that it would not prosecute users and providers of medical marijuana who obey state law, has that threat subsided.

But federal authorities have also made it clear that their tolerance stops at recreational use. In a memorandum on Oct. 19 outlining the medical marijuana guidelines, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden said marijuana was “a dangerous drug, and the illegal distribution and sale of marijuana is a serious crime,” adding that “no state can authorize violations of federal law.”

Still, Mr. Lee anticipates spending up to $20 million on a campaign to win passage of his ballot measure in California, raising some of it from the hundreds of already legal medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, which have been recently fighting efforts by Los Angeles city officials to tighten restrictions on their operations.

“It’s a $2 billion industry,” Mr. Lee said of the medical marijuana sales.

Opponents said they are also preparing for a battle next year.

“I fully expect they will qualify,” said John Lovell, a Sacramento lobbyist for several groups of California law enforcement officials that oppose legalization.

Any vote would take place in a state where attitudes toward marijuana border on the schizophrenic. Last year, the state made some 78,500 arrests on felony and misdemeanors related to the drug, up from about 74,000 in 2007, according to the California attorney general.

Seizures of illegal marijuana plants, often grown by Mexican gangs on public lands in forests and parks, hit an all-time high in 2009, and last week, federal authorities announced a series of arrests in the state’s Central Valley, where homes have been converted into “indoor grows.”

At the same time, however, there are also pockets of California where marijuana can seem practically legal already. At least seven California cities have formally declared marijuana a low priority for law enforcement, with ballot measures or legislative actions. In Los Angeles, some 800 to 1,000 dispensaries of medical marijuana are in business, officials say, complete with consultants offering public relations services and “canna-business management.”

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a San Francisco Democrat and author of the legalization bill, said momentum for legalization has built in recent years, especially as the state’s finances have remained sour.

“A lot of people that were initially resistant or even ridiculed it have come aboard,” Mr. Ammiano said.

In Oakland, which passed a tax on medical cannabis sales in July, several people who signed a petition backing Mr. Lee’s initiative said they were motivated in part by the cost of imprisoning drug offenders and the toll of drug-related violence in Mexico.

“Personally I don’t see a way of getting it under control other than legalizing it and taxing it,” said Jim Quinn, 60, a production manager. “We’ve got to get it out of the hands of criminals both domestic and international.”

Mr. Lovell, the law enforcement lobbyist, however, said those arguments paled in comparison to the potential pitfalls of legalization, including people driving under the influence. He also questioned how much net revenue a tax like Mr. Ammiano is proposing would actually raise. “We get revenue from alcohol,” he said. “But there’s way more in social costs than we retain in revenues.”

The recent history of voter-approved drug reform laws in California is not encouraging for supporters of legalization. Last November, voters rejected a proposition that would have increased spending for drug treatment programs and loosened parole and prison requirements for drug offenders.

None of which seems to faze Mr. Lee, 47, a former roadie who founded Oaksterdam University, a medical marijuana trade school in Oakland, in 2007. Mr. Lee says he plans to use the Internet to raise money, as well as tapping out-of state sources for campaign money.

More than anything, however, Mr. Lee said he was banking on a basic shift in people’s attitudes toward the drug.

“For a lot of people,” he said, “it’s just another brand of beer."

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http://rawstory.com/2009/11/breckenridge-colorado-voters-legalize-marijuana-paraphernalia/

Breckenridge Colorado Voters Legalize Marijuana and Paraphernalia

Voters in the ski resort town of Breckenridge, Colorado legalized marijuana and marijuana paraphernalia by a nearly three-to-one margin on Tuesday.

It is the first municipality in the United States to allow paraphernalia, such as pipes, bongs and bubblers.

"[The measure] passed 73 percent to 27 percent," ABC 7 News in Denver reported.

"'This votes demonstrates that Breckenridge citizens overwhelmingly believe that adults should not be punished for making the safer choice to use marijuana instead of alcohol,' said Sean McAllister, a Breckenridge attorney who proposed the ordinance," ABC continued.

"Possession remains illegal under state law, but Breckenridge Police Chief Rick Holman said his department will 'still have the ability to exercise discretion,'" Colorado's Summit Daily News added.
Story continues below...

?It's never been something that we've spent a lot of time on, so I don't expect this to be a big change in how we really do business,? he said, according to the Daily News.

"It will not make it more available to minors, won't make it legal to smoke it on the street, won't get you out of trouble if you're stoned behind the wheel," the Daily News opined in an editorial supporting the measure. "What it says is that if you, as an adult, choose to possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use, you won't be busted for it. It's still a much more stringent law than those that apply to alcohol ? a substance you can own as much as you want of and consume in public."

? ????????????? ?Add Signature? ?? ?Preview Reply? ?????? ?? ????????????????D4D0C8???????????????????The paper added: "Eventually, it seems these small possession busts will be a thing of the past state-wide, which makes us conclude some kind of 'nuisance pot smoke' ordinance needs to take their place ? roughly analogous to public intoxication statutes."

In Breckenridge, which has about 3,300 registered voters, passage of the measure is not a surprise. While an effort to legalize marijuana state-wide failed during the 2006 elections, Breckenridge voters supported it by a margin of nearly 3-to-1. Additionally, the petition to levy a ballot measure that would legalize marijuana needed just under 500 signatures, but organizers collected over 1,400.

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I think Colorado is leading the way into banishing prohibition for adults.

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http://www.salem-news.com/articles/august212009/mpp_alcohol_8-21-09.php

The study suggests that not only is marijuana safer than alcohol, it may actually protect against some of the damage that booze causes.

( WASHINGTON, D.C.) - A study just published online by the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology suggests that marijuana may protect the brain from some of the damage caused by binge drinking.

The study, by researchers at the University of California San Diego, used a type of high-tech scan called diffusion tensor imaging to compare microscopic changes in brain white matter.

The subjects were students aged 16-to-19, divided into three groups: binge drinkers (defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting for boys or four or more for girls), binge drinkers who also smoked marijuana, and a control group who had very little or no experience with either alcohol or drugs.

As expected, the binge-drinking-only group showed evidence of white matter damage in eight regions examined, as demonstrated by lower fractional anisotropy (FA) scores. But in a finding the researchers describe as "unexpected," the binge-drinking/marijuana group had lower FA scores than the controls in only three of eight regions, and in seven regions the binge-drinking/marijuana group had higher scores -- indicating less damage -- than the binge drinkers who did not use marijuana.



Brain white matter tracts were "more coherent in adolescents who binge drink and use marijuana than in adolescents who report only binge drinking," the researchers wrote.

"It is possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death," as has already been shown in lab and animal studies.

"This study suggests that not only is marijuana safer than alcohol, it may actually protect against some of the damage that booze causes," said Steve Fox, Marijuana Policy Project director of state campaigns and co-author of the new book, "Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?" (which hit number 14 on the Amazon.com bestseller list). "It's far better for teens not to drink or smoke marijuana, but our nation's leaders send a dangerous message by defending laws that encourage the use of alcohol over marijuana."

REFERENCE: Jacobus, J. et al. "White matter integrity in adolescents with histories of marijuana use and binge drinking." Neurotoxicology and Teratology. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2009.07.006

Source: MarijuanaPolicy.org, the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.

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State panel debates pot oversight


AUGUSTA -- A Portland lawmaker said Tuesday she will introduce an amendment to the state's medical marijuana law that would allow large greenhouses to bid on growing rights and put the state in charge of overseeing the quality.
Rep. Anne Haskell, a Democrat, is a longtime supporter of medical marijuana, but as a member of a task force charged with implementing the voter-approved law that allows dispensaries to open, she worries about who will ensure the marijuana is safe.

"As long as dispensaries are growing it, the quality will vary widely," she said. "There ought to be some oversight."

Her proposal would put the state Department of Agriculture in charge of monitoring the quality of the marijuana.

Supporters of the law passed by voters in November were surprised -- and angered -- by that proposal.

"The idea of putting this in control of agribusiness instead of small farmers is an offense to everyone who is a small farmer," said Jonathan Leavitt, who ran the campaign for Question 5.

Haskell said she realized it was a major change from what voters approved, and said that's why she wanted to offer it separately from the task force report.

Members of the task force appeared split on the issue, with several people saying they, too, are concerned that growing standards are followed to ensure quality.

That's especially important because patients with a recommendation from a doctor to use medical marijuana are often seriously ill, said Anne Jordan, commissioner of the state Department of Public Safety.

Dan Walker, an attorney for medical marijuana supporters, said Haskell's proposal runs counter to the intent of the citizen initiative.

"To make this a large-scale production takes away from the small business side of it," he said.

However, Ken Altshuler, an attorney who represents the public's interest, said his primary concern is for the patients.

"I don't see this bill as a vehicle for helping the economy of Maine," he said. "I don't like the idea of dispensaries all over growing marijuana."

Haskell said her proposal would continue to allow individuals with permission to grow their own marijuana if they choose to do so.

Voters in 1999 first approved the use of medical marijuana in Maine, but the law required patients to grow it themselves or appoint a caregiver to grow it for them. Supporters then brought forward a citizen initiative this year to allow nonprofit dispensaries to operate in Maine.

When voters approved it with 59 percent of the vote, Maine became the fifth state to permit medical marijuana dispensaries. The campaign to pass the expansion of the law spent only $54,132 on the issue, according to campaign finance reports.

The task force agreed to meet again in early January to review final language before sending recommendations to the Legislature.

Advocates don't expect dispensaries to open in Maine before the end of next summer, given the timelines outlined in the law.

The task force also heard from Becky DeKeuster of the Berkeley Patients Group, which has run a dispensary in California for 10 years.

She said her dispensary, which serves an estimated 8,500 people, follows careful guidelines for people who come to get marijuana. They always check with a physician to make sure a recommendation for use is valid, they make sure the physician is in good standing, and they maintain a database to ensure that patients aren't coming in too often.

They also have security in place 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

"It's like operating a jewelry store or a grocery store," she said.


Susan Cover -- 620-7015

scover@centralmaine.com

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