While the drug may benefit some patients, addiction poses a threat to many others. "It is wrong to claim for it a harmlessness which belongs to no active remedy yet discovered." - - Physician, 1870 WESTBROOK - All medications carry risks as well as benefits. This truism applies to medical marijuana as well. The unique manner in which the state has legalized its medical use, through voting consensus rather than evidence-based evaluation, has resulted in the minimization of its harmful effects. As an addiction medicine specialist with many years of experience and study, I am concerned that these potentially harmful effects, especially in vulnerable populations, have not been adequately brought to the public's attention. [continues 642 words]
LEWISTON - The city may not have a large medical marijuana distributor setting up shop, but small providers are a big concern for city officials. Planning and Code Enforcement Director Gil Arsenault briefed councilors Tuesday on the latest draft of zoning and licensing rules for medical marijuana distributors. It would limit all distributors, including large, state-licensed operations and small "primary caregivers," to industrial, commercial business, office service and urban enterprise zones of the city. "Those are the zones that allow warehouse-type operations," Arsenault said. [continues 284 words]
AUGUSTA - Small-scale medical marijuana growers in Maine have formed a trade group to organize growers and lobby for legislation. The group represents one of the few robust sectors of the state's economy, said Jonathan Leavitt, chairman of the group's board of directors. "We deserve a voice at the table when decisions are being made that impact our work," he said today at a State House news conference. The group, Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine, has nearly 100 members paying dues of $30 a month. It has a staff person working in an office above the State Theatre on Congress Street in Portland. [continues 129 words]
OXFORD - The Planning Board approved several zoning ordinance amendments on mass gathering and medical marijuana on Wednesday. The ordinance changes won't take effect unless Oxford residents vote for the amendments at the town meeting, and the amendments are considered recommendations to voters. The amendments were written by an ordinance committee. Zoning would change to allow buildings as tall as 65 feet in the town's mixed-use zone, which follows Route 26. The current ordinance allows buildings up to 35 feet tall, but Chammings said the town's fire department was equipment to fight fires in taller buildings. [continues 142 words]
Small-scale medical marijuana growers around the state are forming a trade group to help shape future policies and protect their rights. A formal announcement of the new group will be made at a news conference Thursday in Augusta, according to an e-mail notice from Jonathan Leavitt of the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine. Maine has an unknown number of medical marijuana caregivers who have been allowed to grow and sell marijuana to eligible patients a maximum of five patients per caregiver under the state's decade-old medical marijuana law. A new law opening the door to Maine's first storefront medical marijuana dispensaries allows caregivers to continue serving patients as long as they register with the state by Jan. 1. [continues 111 words]
Small-scale medical marijuana growers around the state are forming a trade group to help shape future policies and protect their rights. A formal announcement of the new group will be made at a news conference Thursday in Augusta, according to an e-mail notice from Jonathan Leavitt of the Medical Marijuana Caregivers of Maine. Maine has an unknown number of medical marijuana caregivers who have been allowed to grow and sell marijuana to eligible patients - a maximum of five patients per caregiver - under the state's decade-old medical marijuana law. A new law opening the door to Maine's first storefront medical marijuana dispensaries allows caregivers to continue serving patients as long as they register with the state by Jan. 1. [continues 111 words]
AUBURN - Rhonda Washburn said it creeped her out. A brand new medical marijuana dispensary next to her favorite store, Craft-Mania. "Whoever heard of such a thing?" said the Auburn woman. Brett Larlee, however, called it a great idea. His father, suffering from Stage 4 cancer, is in the process of getting a doctor's note for marijuana to help with the pain and discomfort of chemotherapy. Think pharmacy, not drug dealer, said Larlee, of Auburn. Many noontime shoppers coming in and out of Craft-Mania and Big Lots! on Friday, a day after Remedy Compassion Center announced plans to move into the Auburn Plaza, were surprised by the news but largely unfazed. [continues 380 words]
The couple from Vienna who considered a building in Wilton for their medical marijuana dispensary will settle in Auburn. Tim and Jennifer Smale's plan to open a dispensary in a former furniture store in the Auburn Plaza was approved by the city's Planning Board on Tuesday. Marijuana likely will be available at that dispensary in the middle of March, said John Thiele, medical marijuana program manager for the state Department of Health and Human Services. The Smales were selected by the department to open one of Maine's first eight medical marijuana dispensaries. There will be one dispensary in each of the state's public health districts. The Smales' dispensary must be in Franklin, Oxford or Androscoggin County. [continues 647 words]
AUBURN - A marijuana dispensary is moving in at the Auburn Plaza. Officials from Remedy Compassion, one of eight medical marijuana dispensaries selected by the Department of Health and Human Services, announced Thursday that it had received permission from the city of Auburn to open for business at the Center Street mall. The Auburn Planning Board on Tuesday voted unanimously in favor of a plan for Remedy Compassion to renovate existing space at the plaza. "At this location," said Jennifer Smale of Vienna, patient services director for the group, "Remedy Compassion Center will be a place where qualified patients and caregivers will feel as safe and comfortable acquiring their medical cannabis as they would purchasing prescription drugs from a pharmacy." [continues 794 words]
If health outcomes determined drug laws instead of cultural norms,marijuana would be legal. Unlike alcohol, marijuana has never been shown to cause an overdose death, nor does it share the addictive properties of tobacco. Marijuana can be harmful if abused, but jail cells are inappropriate as health interventions and ineffective as deterrents. The first marijuana laws were enacted in response to Mexican immigrationduring the early 1900s, despite opposition from the American Medical Association. Dire warnings that marijuana inspires homicidal rages have been counterproductive at best. White Americans did not even begin to smoke pot until a soon-to-be entrenched federal bureaucracy began funding reefer madness propaganda. [continues 72 words]
FRENCHVILLE, Maine -- Residents have the opportunity to decide the immediate fate of a proposed, state-licensed medical marijuana dispensary during a town meeting at 7 p.m. Wednesday in the community center. Town building permits already have been awarded to Safe Alternatives, which this summer became the sole state-sanctioned dispensary for Aroostook County in accordance with the medical marijuana referendum passed by Maine voters a year ago. Leo Trudel, principle of Safe Alternatives, says he is ready to work with town officials and residents to address any concerns his medical marijuana dispensary has raised. [continues 591 words]
Madelyn Kearns got an arrow-splitting bull's eye exposing cannabis prohibition and extermination hypocrisy ("Half-Baked Excuses Keep Marijuana Unlit," Nov. 4). By extension, the federal government even classifies the God-given plant cannabis - see the first page of the Bible - as a Schedule I substance along with heroin, while meth and cocaine are only Schedule II substances. The farce continues with hemp prohibition. Communist Chinese farmers are allowed to grow hemp, but free American farmers are prohibited. That's unfair for U.S. farmers who must compete in the free world market. [continues 70 words]
Rehabilitation clinics often have a small rack of brochures in the waiting room for anyone curious about the impairment known as addiction. Desperate for something to look at other than stale doughnuts and the blank screen on my phone, I grabbed one such pamphlet during a snack break at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and gave it a gander. The booklet stated that alcoholism, illustrated as a shadow hovering above a lone kneeling man, was a harrowing disease which rendered the inflicted completely hopeless. Having already sat through stories of tremendous loss and irrevocable mistakes because of a bottle, I had a difficult time trying to fathom how an alcoholic, who makes a conscious choice for the shot glass instead of a shot at life, could be considered a victim or disabled. [continues 611 words]
Regarding James M. Friedlander's Oct. 8 commentary ("A modest proposal: Should we legalize drugs?"), the drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. In 2009, there were 858,405 marijuana arrests in the United States, almost 90 percent for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The end result of this ongoing culture war is not necessarily lower rates of use. [continues 125 words]
I believe James Friedlander's proposal to legalize, regulate and control drugs is the correct course of action ("A modest proposal: Should we legalize drugs?" commentary, Oct. 8). Drug prohibition doesn't work any better than alcohol prohibition did. After 40 years and a trillion-dollars worth of Nixon's "war on drugs," drugs are cheaper, more potent and more available than ever. We also get the added bonus of ever-increasing prohibition-related violence as drug dealers fight over the market. Drug dealers don't kill each other, and innocent bystanders, because they are high any more than Al Capone killed rival bootleggers because he was drunk. It's the money. [continues 255 words]
Despite Melissa Fochesato's claims, there is no evidence whatsoever that allowing dispensaries results in increased marijuana use by teens. ("Sagadahoc teens like pot better than butts; Study results alarm local substance abuse counselors," Oct. 4). It's been less than a year since Maine voters decided to allow dispensaries, so there is still no data that would allow one to draw such a conclusion. However, in California, marijuana dispensaries have been legal for six years, during which time teen marijuana use has declined slightly (in line with national trends). [continues 83 words]
Teenagers should not be using cigarettes, alcohol or cannabis (marijuana) but teens are choosing cannabis over cigarettes for a number of reasons the article "Sagadahoc Teens Like Pot Better Than Butts" published in your newspaper on Oct. 4 didn't mention. Teens are more easily able to purchase cannabis because it is illegal, unregulated and sold on the black market by people who don't card for age. Teens have gotten the message that cigarettes are among the most addictive substances on the planet and they kill more than 1,000 Americans daily. [continues 66 words]
I, too, was lucky enough to hear Ira Glasser's recent spirited address to the Midcoast Forum on Foreign Relations on the subject of our ill-considered War on Drugs. Ira made a few points that struck me as fascinating, but which didn't get into Mac Deford's article ["Marijuana and Prohibition," September 30, 2010]. Consider: - - We're forever hearing about prominent crack or cocaine dealers busted, but the enormous majority of arrests are not for hard drug offenses but for simple nonviolent marijuana possession. [continues 143 words]
The drug war is largely a war on marijuana smokers. In 2009, there were 858,405 marijuana arrests in the U.S., almost 90 percent for simple possession. At a time when state and local governments are laying off police, firefighters and teachers, this country continues to spend enormous public resources criminalizing Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis. The end result of this ongoing culture war is not necessarily lower rates of use. The U.S. has higher rates of marijuana use than the Netherlands, where marijuana is legally available. Decriminalization is a long overdue step in the right direction. Taxing and regulating marijuana would render the drug war obsolete. As long as organized crime controls distribution, marijuana consumers will come into contact with sellers of hard drugs like methamphetamine, cocaine and heroin. This "gateway" is a direct result of marijuana prohibition. Robert Sharpe, MPA, Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy, Washington, D.C. [end]
Matters on our southern frontier are horrific. Mexico is fast on its way to becoming a Narcostate. Illegal trade is rampant across the border, Mexican narcotics come into the United States in exchange for illegal guns. The balance of illegal trade is still in Mexico's favor to the tune of billions every year. America's hunger for addictive drugs never seems to be quenched, and we blame it on the Mexican cartels which, in these days of free trade, are doing no more than providing a supply to meet the demand. [continues 573 words]
Inside Maine
