Pubdate: Sat, 10 Aug 2013
Source: Los Angeles Daily News (CA)
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Newspaper Group
Contact: http://www.dailynews.com/writealetter
Website: http://www.dailynews.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/246
Author: Christina Villacorte
Page: A1

IT'S BEEN 100 YEARS SINCE CALIFORNIA BANNED 'LOCOWEED'

Over a Century Marijuana Has Played a Huge Role in Pop Culture and Has
Gone From Hush, Hush to Widely Accepted and Legal.

Stricken with cerebral palsy after almost being strangled in the womb
by his umbilical cord, the 41-year-old Valley Village resident takes a
few puffs of medical marijuana and immediately feels relief.

"Weed works," he says simply.

The "Diablo Kush" and "Velvet Kush" strains from Reseda Discount
Caregivers dispensary relax his stiffly contorted muscles and stave
off the severe depression that prompted him to make several suicide
attempts over the years, including cutting his wrists and injecting
Drano and Raid into his veins.

The hunched figure eventually stands up straight and takes a few steps
without a cane -- all while cracking jokes -- showing a glimpse of the
bodybuilder and standup comic he used to be.

These days in California medical marijuana patients like Zee can more
or less openly take their "medication." But of course it wasn't always
so.

A century ago this year was when California first banned
marijuana.

In fact, weed historian and legalization advocate Dale Gieringer
pinpoints the key date to Aug. 10, 1913, when a new regulation quietly
took effect from the state Board of Pharmacy that added "locoweed" to
the state Poison Act.

"They began launching raids," said Gieringer, California coordinator
of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
"Law enforcement would pose as addicts who needed a fix but didn't
have a doctor's note, then arrest the druggist."

Before the early 1900s, though, weed had a relatively long legal
history of highs and lows in the United States. Some historians
believe the Jamestown settlers brought cannabis to the United States
in 1611.

In the 1700's, Gieringer said, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson
both grew hemp. By the 1800's, he added, it was sold in certain
drugstores, and touted as a cure for migraines and menstrual cramps by
the doctor of Queen Victoria.

In the early 1900s, however, a wave of states including California
began banning use of the drug without a prescription.

In the 1930s, the country's first drug czar, Harry Anslinger, launched
a media campaign that publicized what he claimed were criminal cases
involving marijuana. It claimed marijuana drove normally sane youth to
become homicidal maniacs who murdered their own families.

Around the same time, a church group produced a film entitled "Tell
Your Children" to scare teenagers away from marijuana. The 68-minute
film warned of consequences by depicting teenagers using the drug and
then committing murder and descending into madness.

By the 1960s and 1970s, however, marijuana had become so popular in
the counterculture that the same film was seen as a campy, ironic
classic and was retitled "Reefer Madness."

At Woodstock, half a million people crowded into a field in New York
state for sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, openly smoking joints while
listening to performers sing about "mary jane." Janis Joplin
repeatedly asked the crowd if they were staying stoned.

Shortly after, Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act
classifying marijuana as a drug with a "high potential for abuse" and
"no currently accepted medical use."

When arrests due to marijuana began to overburden the criminal justice
system in California, state and local authorities began easing
restrictions -- including downgrading simple possession from a felony
to misdemeanor to infraction.

In 1996, California voters legalized medical marijuana through
Proposition 215.

It was so vaguely worded, however, that by the early 2000s, several
hundred pot shops opened in Los Angeles, selling marijuana. One of the
law's proponents became embittered, dubbing them "little more than
dope dealers with storefronts." A backlash against Prop. 215 formed as
cities began trying to reassert control over the shops.

In 2013, Los Angeles voters approved Measure D, outlawing all but
about 135 dispensaries and imposing a series of zoning restrictions
and taxes.

Freddy Sayegh, general counsel for HempCon, the largest marijuana
trade show, warned this would create monopolies.

He called it "inhumane" to severely restrict access to medical
marijuana.

"I don't advocate for healthy young adults to consume cannabis just to
be stoned," Sayegh said. "But since 1960, there have been over 20
million Americans arrested on a marijuana-related offense -- that's 20
million people who would be denied entry into college, medical school,
law enforcement, politics."

He insisted not a single death has attributed to toxicity levels in
marijuana, whereas vast numbers of people die of prescription drug
overdoses each year.

"Bottom line is marijuana is illegal because of politics," Sayegh
said. "This is a mass political attack by the government, by the
pharmaceutical companies, by the large corporations who cannot control
and dominate the multi-billion dollar marijuana trade"

Gieringer said a statewide coalition is being formed that would
attempt in 2016 to post a ballot measure to legalize marijuana -- not
just for medicinal use but recreational use -- in California,
something which both Colorado and Washington D.C. did this year.

A similar ballot measure failed in 2010, but he cites recent surveys
showing a majority of people now support legalization.

"We should respect Americans' right to life, liberty and the pursuit
of happiness," Gieringer said. "This is a country where people are
free to do what they want in their private lives -- use alcohol,
cigarettes, guns, do all sorts of bizarre sex practices."

"Americans should be free to smoke a joint too, if we want," he
added.

Kris Vosburgh, spokesman for Americans for Safe Access, the largest
organization of patients, medical professionals, and others promoting
safe and legal access to cannabis, has reservations about that
expanded legalization.

"In the rush to legalize, proponents should take into consideration
that patients are not going away and their needs still need to be 
addressed."

"Adult users looking for the psychotropic effect are going to want to
prioritize a certain ingredient of marijuana and deprioritize others
with medicinal benefits."

David Evans, a former research scientist who now serves as special
adviser to the nonprofit Drug Free American Foundation, warned against
the widespread use of marijuana.

"There's very little medical evidence it's helping anybody get well,"
he said. "It may make you feel better, but that doesn't mean you're
getting better."

According to the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a federal agency,
"Research clearly demonstrates that marijuana has the potential to
cause problems in daily life or make a person's existing problems worse."

"In fact, heavy marijuana users generally report lower life
satisfaction, poorer mental and physical health, relationship problems
and less academic and career success compared to their peers who come
from similar backgrounds."

Zee, however, believes the opposite.

He asserts that without medical marijuana, "I'd be dead now."
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