Pubdate: Thu, 19 Sep 2013 Source: Mountain News (Lake Arrowhead, CA) Copyright: 2013 Mountain News Contact: http://www.mountain-news.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/5243 WE'RE STILL WAITING FOR ANSWERS This Won't Be Your Ordinary Conference It's not every day Americans get to witness a high-profile federal government agency doing a 180-degree turn on a key policy issue. But a spotlight will be focused on one such turnabout during a two-day conference next week in the Inland Empire. Delegates from 37 states will convene on Sept. 23 and 24 at the first annual National Marijuana & Policy Strategy Conference, at the Victoria Gardens Cultural Center in Rancho Cucamonga. Its sponsors say the idea is to learn from successes and failures in reducing marijuana use, sales, trafficking, production and related issues, all aimed at generating an effective marijuana policy and strategy guide to be shared nationwide. Their goal is to reduce the impact of marijuana and reverse current efforts around the country to legalize it. But if they succeed it likely won't be because of help from the federal government. In fact, it's the government-specifically the Department of Justice-that's the problem. Just how significant a problem is outlined in a letter the organizers sent this newspaper a few days ago. Co-authored by the nine individuals who served as administrators of the United States Drug Enforcement Administration-ironically a branch of the Justice Department-continuously from 1973 to 2007, the letter blasts current Attorney General Eric Holder for his about-face on marijuana enforcement. For the uninitiated, Holder announced earlier this year his office will allow Colorado and Washington to legalize the production and sale of pot for recreational use. His decision followed the legalization in both states last year of the possession of small amounts of marijuana by adults. The former administrators say they are "shocked and dismayed" at Holder's flip-flop. They point out that his new position not only reverses his opposition to California's failed 2010 marijuana-legalization measure, Proposition 19, but also runs afoul of federal law and a 1961 international treaty the United States signed. Known as the Single Convention on Drugs, the treaty was signed by 97 countries and aims to ensure that cultivation, manufacture, possession and offering for sale of drugs including marijuana are punishable offenses. Holder's posture, the letter says, also ignores his pledge to support and defend the U.S. Constitution, because Article VI, the Supremacy Clause, says laws enacted by Congress, such as the ones criminalizing marijuana, shall be the supreme law of the land, trumping state statutes that conflict. The signers predict Holder's policy will accelerate the availability of marijuana to minors, encourage the growth of drug gangs and cartels and divert marijuana to states where possession is still illegal. The letter also cites research predicting increased highway crashes and fatalities, as well as negative impacts on school attendance and performance and declines in workplace productivity and safety. The conference organizers also cite the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use & Health, published by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which reports rising use of marijuana by persons 50 or older in the past decade, as an indicator of its growing popularity. This apparent variance of views between two departments in the Obama administration may make for some interesting discussions at future cabinet meetings. But federal disagreements aside, it's compelling that next week's conference will convene such an impressive array of experts in law enforcement, drug cartels and gangs, drug policy and testing, faith-based prevention efforts, drug prosecution, treatment and prevention and other disciplines, with a common goal in mind. They'll be there because they've seen and understand the impacts of marijuana-especially the strains available today, that are substantially stronger than what our parents may have smoked in the 1960s-and see nothing but trouble unless current trends shift. We wish them success in getting out the word that marijuana isn't the feel-good, victimless substance its backers assert, but a dangerous, addictive product that needs interdiction by officials who don't waffle. - --- MAP posted-by: Matt