Lansing - A member of a state board charged with creating new rules for the virtually unregulated medical marijuana industry on Monday called for all existing dispensaries to be shuttered until official licenses can be doled out. But the board tabled the issue until the Bureau of Medical Marijuana Regulation and the office of Attorney General Bill Schuette can weigh in after retired State Police sergeant David Bailey raised the idea. Anxiety quickly rippled through the boardas second public hearing as people lined up to express fear and anger that they would have to resort to the black market to find medical marijuana. [continues 187 words]
Former Fox 2 Detroit anchor Anqunette Jamison Sarfoh is throwing her support behind a movement to legalize all forms of marijuana for adults over 21 in Michigan. Sarfoh was previously on a leave of absence from Fox due to medical issues related to her multiple sclerosis condition and announced her decision to retire on Tuesday. Sarfoh will be introduced as a leading member of the grassroots organization MILegalize at a fundraiser Wednesday at Weber's Inn in Ann Arbor. "I loved my job, but multiple sclerosis was making it harder and harder to do it," she said in a video post on social media Tuesday morning. [continues 252 words]
A new study put out by University of Michigan researchers suggests that over time, marijuana use dampens the response of the area of the brain that responds to rewards. Researchers with UM's Addiction Research Center and Department of Psychology found over time marijuana use shifts the brain's reward system so that a person may need more of the substance to get that level of satisfaction they would normally get from "natural rewards," such as food. "This kind of suggests that marijuana may be biasing the brain's reward system away from things the brain would normally find pleasurable," said the study's Senior Researcher and UM Assistant Professor Mary Heitzeg. [continues 543 words]
Windsor - Canada is moving to legalize recreational marijuana use next year and authorities here say it could mean an influx of Metro Detroiters craving cannabis. However, experts said that depends on how Canadian laws on the drug are set up and whether Michigan's legislators and municipal governments continue relaxing marijuana rules. "Being neighboring jurisdictions, we've always taken advantage of the other jurisdiction for one thing or another," Windsor Police Chief Al Frederick said. "Canadians have shopped in the United States, and because we had a younger drinking age, Americans took advantage of that. [continues 905 words]
Detroit - Several medical marijuana caregivers and patients have filed a class-action lawsuit alleging the Michigan State Police crime lab intentionally misrepresented test results that expose thousands of people to possible felony charges. The civil rights lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Detroit, alleges the state police acted in concert with the Prosecuting Attorneys Association of Michigan (PAAM) and other law-enforcement agencies, including the Oakland County Sheriff's Office. The lawsuit was triggered by an alleged ongoing policy by the state to produce inaccurate test results that show marijuana seized during criminal investigations contained the synthetic cannabinoid Tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is responsible for marijuana's psychoactive effects. THC has little or no psychoactive effect when a marijuana plant is converted to an oil or edible, according to the lawsuit. [continues 350 words]
Roadside Drug Testing Is a Back Door Prohibition on Marijuana, a Nightmare for Medical Users Before breaking for the summer, the Legislature approved an extra-constitutional one-year pilot program that allows police officers to conduct roadside saliva testing on drivers they suspect might be under the influence of a variety of drugs. It's the kind of legislation that sounds beneficial, but threatens privacy and due process rights. Gov. Rick Snyder should veto a bill that is bound to be a litigation machine. [continues 420 words]
MI Legalize's Lawsuit Challenges Law, Policy That Nulls Signatures Lansing - A Michigan group seeking to put a marijuana legalization question on the November ballot is taking its fight to court. MI Legalize on Thursday filed a lawsuit against the state in the Michigan Court of Claims, challenging a law and policy that effectively invalidated its petition signatures collected outside of a customary 180-day window. Attorneys Jeff Hank, Thomas Lavigne and Matthew Abel, members of the MI Legalize board, argue the law and policy are inconsistent with the Michigan Constitution, which allows for initiated petitions but does not specify a time limit for signature collection. [continues 680 words]
Lansing - A group seeking to legalize marijuana in Michigan submitted an "insufficient" number of valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot after collecting outside of a traditional 180-day window, state elections officials said Tuesday. In a staff report, the Bureau of Elections recommended the Board of State Canvassers reject the MI Legalize petition at its Thursday meeting. The activist-led group last week submitted an estimated 354,000 signatures, more than the 252,523 required to make the ballot, but the bureau said only 146,413 were collected within 180 days of the filing. State law, updated Tuesday to tighten that window, had treated older signatures as "stale and void." [continues 456 words]
Lansing - Michigan marijuana activists on Wednesday submitted more than 350,000 petition signatures in hopes of putting a recreational legalization question before voters this fall, but the prospects of making the November ballot remain cloudy. "It was a huge effort," Jeff Hank, executive director of MI Legalize, told reporters outside the Michigan Secretary of State's Office. "We had thousands of people volunteer to circulate petitions, and we had all sorts of people donate small amounts of money." MI Legalize needed to submit at least 252,523 signatures by Wednesday, but it's unclear how many of its signatures will be considered valid because the group collected well beyond a traditional 180-day window written into state law. [continues 316 words]
Lansing - An increasingly long-shot effort to put a marijuana legalization measure on Michigan's 2016 ballot suffered another setback Thursday, when the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked on a policy revision for proving the validity of old signatures. The two Republicans and two Democrats on the board were at odds over state Bureau of Elections recommendations that would have updated and eased the state policy for "rebutting" and rehabilitating signatures collected outside a traditional 180-day collection window. The proposed updates stalled in a series of 2-2 votes. [continues 633 words]
The Justice Department recently announced that it is resuming the "equitable sharing" part of its civil asset forfeiture program, thus ending one of the major criminal justice reform victories of the Obama administration. Civil asset forfeiture is a legal tool by which police officers can seize and sell private property without a convicting the owner of any crime, and equitable sharing is a process by which state and local police can circumvent state restrictions on civil asset forfeiture and take property under the color of federal law. [continues 472 words]
Lansing - The Michigan Senate voted Thursday to place a hard cap on the 180-day signature collection window for statewide ballot proposals, a move that may snuff out a rule change sought by a pro-marijuana legalization group. The legislation, now headed to the state House of Representatives, would eliminate a part of state election law allowing petitioners to challenge the presumption that signatures are "stale and void" if they are collected outside a 180-day period. The Republican-led Senate approved the bill in a 26-10 vote, mostly along party lines. [continues 479 words]
Lansing - Regulating and taxing the medical marijuana industry could generate up to $63 million a year for the state and local governments, according to a new economic analysis. It's a conservative estimate, said Gary Wolfram, director of economics at Hillsdale College and a former deputy state treasurer for taxation and economic policy. He released the calculations Monday on a legislative package approved last year by the state House but not yet taken up by the Senate. "This is going to generate revenue - probably a lot of revenue," Wolfram said Monday on a conference call organized by the Michigan Cannabis Development Association, which commissioned the report. [continues 476 words]
The administration has opined that our country incarcerates too many people for nonviolent drug offenses. It recently decided to address that problem. However, the only people who are going to be happy about the solution are drug dealers. In December, the federal government quietly cut almost half of the funding for Drug Enforcement Agency task forces across the country. Police chiefs across the country received a letter from the Department of Justice entitled "Deferral of Department of Justice Equitable Sharing Payments." It explained that drug forfeiture funds, which local agencies receive for working with DEA, would be "deferred" until further notice. DOJ referred to this as a $1.2 billion "rescission" needed to balance its budget. [continues 502 words]
Re: The Detroit News' Dec 12 story, "FBI agent shot in Detroit drug raid": We seem to hear stories like this one about the enormous drug bust and injured FBI agent so often that it makes you wonder whether police officers really still believe we're making a dent in the drug market. It makes you wonder whether it's even worth it, considering a veteran officer was shot during this big drug bust. Officers are hurt and killed in the line of duty, and we can do something about it. [continues 129 words]
Lansing - A group seeking to put recreational marijuana legalization on the November 2016 ballot abruptly stopped collecting signatures at the end of September, prompting a competing pro-pot group to speculate the other campaign is faltering. "We've heard rumors they were out of money. We haven't seen them on the street," said Jeff Hank, chair of the MI Legalize campaign. "To take a month off from petitioning is odd." But Republican political consultant Matt Marsden, who is heading the Michigan Cannabis Coalition, says the campaign is taking a "pause" to study the 210,000 voters who have already signed in pursuit of the minimum 252,523 valid voter signatures needed to get on the ballot. [continues 333 words]
We may not think of ourselves as a vindictive country, but consider this: To even get us back to the incarceration rate of 1972 - hardly ancient history - we would have to reduce the number of people in prison by 80 percent. That's how overboard we've gone when it comes to locking people up. Trying to dial us back from this hyper-incarceration is a group called JustLeadershipUSA. It teaches former prisoners how to open America's eyes to our jail addiction. The other night, I attended the graduation for 19 fellows who'd just finished the yearlong course in leadership. They'd been chosen from 117 applicants nationwide on the basis of the good they'd been doing since they got out of prison. [continues 331 words]
In the United States, and in Michigan, autism is growing. In fact, it is growing at such an alarming rate that it has just recently been identified as a significant public health issue, due to statistics provided by the Center for Disease Control's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network, a nationwide federal program that tracks autism rates around the country. Estimates show that autism rates have risen in every report since tracking began in 2002, from one in 150 in 2002 to one in 68 in 2010. There is not a cure, however, new studies show, autism can be treated. [continues 378 words]
I was saddened and disappointed to read The Detroit News report that Detroit police officers had raided a medical marijuana dispensary and arrested several apparent bad actors who were allegedly selling marijuana to eighth graders. As a member of the Michigan Cannabis Development Association (MCDA), I was appalled and disgusted by these alleged actions, as were many of my colleagues, who are legitimate businessmen and businesswomen trying to provide medicine to patients with serious illnesses. The MCDA believes that medical marijuana, which can be tremendously beneficial to legitimate patients with serious medical conditions, should be for the medical use of registered patients only. [continues 250 words]
I read with interest Nolan Finley's Editor's Note, "Get pot legalization right," and his prediction that marijuana would be legal for adults in Michigan by the end of 2016. To that end, I have been working on legislation to decriminalize and regulate the trade in marijuana. Getting it right and learning from the experience in Colorado is critical if Michigan is to maximize the public safety and financial gains of ending prohibition. Marijuana prohibition is a colossal failure. It is an expensive and hopeless endeavor that drives profits for violent criminals. Our head-in-the-sand policy doesn't keep marijuana out of the hands of adolescents, and it pushes the trade in marijuana into neighborhoods. Additionally, it distorts the priorities of our law enforcement resources. Rather than wasting hundreds of millions of dollars every year arresting and prosecuting marijuana users, we can redirect those efforts toward providing substance abuse treatment and taking down violent criminals. [continues 480 words]
Prediction: Recreational marijuana use will be legal in Michigan within two years. The door that cracked with the approval of medical pot use is now wide open. A Detroit News/WDIVTV poll finds that 56 percent of state residents favor legalizing marijuana for general use. That will embolden backers of petition drives aimed at getting marijuana legalization on the November 2016 ballot. If the issue makes it on the ballot, it will pass. But it should be done right. The problem with the medical pot authorization is that it kept too many trappings of the illegal drug trade in place. For example, the pot is produced for the most part not by commercial growers but by the patients themselves, or their caregivers. And it's sold primarily in single purpose outlets that could pass as head shops. [continues 147 words]
Re: Chad Livengood's June 16 report, "Legalize pot, 56 percent in Michigan poll say": Only 56 percent support legalizing marijuana? Who is this other 44 percent who believes the government should tell you what you can and cannot put in your body? Billy Green, Farmington Hills [end]
I am all for legalizing marijuana, but only when all levels of government are in concert. Adding recreational use to the existing law would be the right thing to do for decriminalization and freeing up court dockets but there has to be guarantees of the ability to freely use cannabis without fear of prosecution from any law enforcement agency when the user is in complete compliance with the law. Mark Durfee, Detroit [end]
Legal Patients Deserve Clear, Fair Interpretation of Rules to Avoid Unintentionally Running Afoul of the Law Bills to legalize marijuana dispensaries and products that serve the state's medical marijuana patients have been lingering in the Legislature. They should be a priority for lawmakers this year. The bills would provide clarity and protection for the state's 96,000 legal medical marijuana patients. Michigan's 2008 Medical Marijuana Act legalized use of the drug for medical patients by a large margin, with 63 percent of voters approving. But despite the law - and growing tolerance statewide for even broader marijuana use - Michigan ambiguously regulates the industry. [continues 453 words]
Recreational marijuana use was legalized in Washington, D.C., and Alaska this year. D.C.'s legalization has prompted some congressional Republicans to try to undermine the city's reforms. However, the experience of states that have already legalized, and economic theory, both indicate that legalization creates more benefits than costs. Recreational use and possession of marijuana up to 2 ounces is now legal in Washington, D.C., for individuals 21 and older (1 ounce in Alaska). Although the sale of marijuana is still illegal in D.C., gifts of up to 1 ounce are permitted. Marijuana must be consumed on private property and individuals are allowed to home grow up to six marijuana plants in both D.C. and Alaska. Alaska plans to allow marijuana retailer licensing beginning in 2016, but D.C. has not announced any plans to legalize the sale of marijuana. [continues 503 words]
If marijuana is a gateway drug what is baby aspirin? If marijuana was truly being treated like a medicine, where are the privacy protections that come with all drugs? Do you need a state sponsored card to eat your anti depressants? Your sleeping pills? Daniel Hackett, Marysville [end]
Steve Siebold's point is well taken ("Time To Legalize Marijuana," Feb. 28), however, the problem isn't the war on drugs but rather the war on a relatively safe God-given plant... More specifically a war against the "spirit of truth." Stan White, Dillon, Colorado [end]
The debate over the side effects of marijuana vs. alcohol, along with the lingering question of whether or not marijuana should be legal, has been long running and probably won't end anytime soon. But according to new research published in the journal Scientific Reports, that looked at things people take to get high or drunk, weed is the least fatal. And guess what the deadliest was? Alcohol. Not only was weed the least lethal, it was roughly 114 times less deadly than booze, according to the authors. Put science aside, and most anyone who has smoked pot will tell you it has a softer effect than alcohol. If alcohol and marijuana were animals, alcohol would be an anaconda and pot would be a housecat. Yet pot will land you in jail but you can drink alcohol in the White House. [continues 341 words]
Lansing - Two prominent Oakland County Republican political operatives are behind a new advocacy group that is exploring a 2016 ballot initiative legalizing marijuana use if the Legislature won't reform the existing medicinal cannabis law. Suzie Mitchell, a Republican political fundraiser, and GOP consultant Paul Welday have formed the Michigan Responsibility Council with other unidentified members to advocate for a state-regulated distribution of medical marijuana. Mitchell, who is chairing the group, said they want lawmakers to create a system of "regulation with taxation" of medical marijuana to ensure it is safe and accessible to people in all corners of the state. [continues 187 words]
Lansing - Four state lawmakers are reviving bills to legalize an array of medical marijuana products and dispensaries where they'd be sold after last year's effort was shot down by last-minute criticism from law enforcement and health groups. Republican Rep. Mike Callton of Nashville, main sponsor of one of the bills, argues Michigan needs clear laws and regulations allowing "provisioning centers" where patients legally get marijuana in various forms suited to their needs. Last year's bills died during the two-week lame-duck legislative session in December as opponents said police and public health agencies hadn't been allowed to weigh in and saw problems with what was proposed. The sponsors promise to remedy any shortcomings this time around. [continues 1030 words]
Couple, Who Were Not Charged, Say Detroit Police Lacked Warrant A Warren couple whose medical marijuana operation was raided by the Detroit Police Department's narcotics unit have filed a civil lawsuit against the officers, including one who killed himself after being investigated for corruption by the FBI and Internal Affairs. The complaint was filed Wednesday in federal court by Timothy and Hatema Davis and names the city of Detroit as well as Lt. Charles Flanagan, former head of the DPD's narcotics unit, Detective James Napier and officers "Novak" and "John Doe." [continues 609 words]
NHTSA Study Comes As States Legalize Marijuana Washington - A government study released late Friday found no evidence that marijuana use leads to a higher risk of getting into a traffic crash. But safety advocates believe it is still dangerous to drive after smoking significant amounts of marijuana, and the government plans more testing. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said a 20-month survey of drivers in 2013 and 2014 found that while drinking dramatically raises the chance of a crash, there was no evidence that marijuana use is statistically significant in boosting wreck rates. [continues 875 words]
A Detroit city councilman, worried about an influx of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city, wants state lawmakers to help give local governments the tools to regulate them. Since medical marijuana was legalized by voters in 2008, dispensaries have opened up in Detroit at an alarming rate, according to Councilman James Tate. Tate estimates there are 180 dispensaries in 149 square miles of the city, describing it as an "oversaturation." Detroit is "in limbo in terms of our ability to enforce the law" due to the "gray area that doesn't allow for dispensaries to really exist," Tate said. [continues 408 words]
Families Say It Works for Epileptic Seizures; Doctors Still Skeptical Chicago (AP) - Randy Gross hopes a new law allowing children into Illinois' medical marijuana program will reunite his family, nearly a year after his wife moved to Colorado so their son could receive a controversial treatment to ease his epileptic seizures. Gross lives and works in Illinois. His wife, Nicole, moved with their two sons so their 8-year-old could legally swallow a quarter-teaspoon of marijuana oil each day. While the medical evidence is thin, some parents - including the Grosses - say marijuana works for their children and they're willing to experiment. [continues 477 words]
Lansing - Officials representing law enforcement and health workers urged Wednesday that lawmakers not pass bills that would permit medical marijuana dispensaries and "edible" forms of cannabis during the lame-duck session. The legislation, which has passed the House and is among many bills pending on the Senate floor, contains too many risks to be adequately addressed during the two days remaining before the Legislature adjourns for the year, they argued at a press conference. "We're concerned they're rushing this through in lame duck when it should be vetted more thoroughly," said Terrence Jungel, executive director of the Michigan Sheriff 's Association. [continues 310 words]
UM Study Also Finds Use of Cocaine Down, ADHD Drugs Up, Alcohol Mixed Daily use of marijuana by college students is at its highest rate in more than three decades and stimulant use has almost doubled, a study released Monday by the University of Michigan shows. But some drugs, such as synthetic marijuana and cocaine, are on the decline while the use of alcohol is mixed, according to the Monitoring the Future study - a national, federally funded survey of college students conducted by UM researchers for four decades. [continues 412 words]
6 Suspended After Evidence Taken in Raid Not Logged Detroit - Six members of a Detroit police narcotics unit that raided a suspected drug house have been suspended after a surveillance video captured them taking away a box they never logged as evidence. The investigation is part of a larger Internal Affairs probe into the now-disbanded Narcotics Section, which was retooled last month after allegations surfaced claiming major problems in the unit. One sergeant and five officers have been suspended with pay while Internal Affairs investigators try to determine what was inside the box taken from the raid, said Detroit Police Chief James Craig. [continues 483 words]
Novi District Judge Advances to Nov. Election in Tight Race Voters in Hazel Park and Oak Park approved legalizing possession of marijuana for personal use Tuesday, while a controversial Novi district judge advanced to November's general election. Clarence Tabb Jr. / The Detroit News Debra Young of the Safer Michigan Coalition, which backed allowing small-time marijuana possession in Oak Park. The measure passed. The marijuana proposal won with 62 percent voting yes in Hazel Park and 53 percent approving in Oak Park. Hazel Park voters also approved an operating millage for the school district. [continues 507 words]
1 Ounce Would Be Permitted on Private Property Oak Park - Voters here will have the opportunity on Aug. 5 to decide whether possession of marijuana for personal use should be legalized within the city's borders. Following a lawsuit filed by the Safer Oak Park Coalition, Oakland Circuit Judge Rae Lee Chabot ruled this week that the city of Oak Park should put a marijuana proposal on the Aug. 5 ballot which would permit persons 21 years or older to possess or transfer up to an ounce of marijuana on private property not accessible to the public. [continues 293 words]
Communities Throughout State Increasingly Relaxed Penalties for Marijuana Possession Despite a recent poll that found 52 percent of Michigan residents remain opposed to legalizing marijuana, approximately a dozen communities throughout the state will try to decriminalize pot this fall. Lifting the statewide prohibition on marijuana, which has caused no reported overdoses, is largely non-addictive, medicinally treats numerous diseases, and is a pain reliever, could save Michigan taxpayer dollars, and bring the state's law in line with the will of a majority of its voters. That option should be up for discussion. Many communities - including Ann Arbor, Detroit, Lansing, Ferndale, Jackson, Ypsilanti, Grand Rapids and Flint - have already decriminalized possession. [continues 494 words]
News Poll Betrays Sharp Differences Among Likely Voters Over and Under 40 A majority of Michigan voters oppose legalizing marijuana for recreational use, according to a new Detroit News/WDIVTV poll, a result that runs counter to the trend of cities legalizing possession of small amounts. About 52 percent of 600 likely voters said they oppose legalizing marijuana in small amounts for recreational use while 42 percent support it. About 6 percent were undecided, according to the poll conducted May 20-22 by Glengariff Group of Chicago that had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. [continues 311 words]
Denver (AP) - Once the province of activists and stoners, the traditional pot holiday of April 20 has gone mainstream in the first state in the nation to legalize recreational marijuana. Tens of thousands gathered for a weekend of Colorado cannabis-themed festivals and entertainment, from a marijuana industry expo called the Cannabis Cup at a trade center north of downtown to 4/20-themed concerts at the legendary Red Rocks Amphitheater to a massive festival at Civic Center Park, in the shadow of the state capitol. [continues 102 words]
12 Ballot Bids Urge Relief for Casual Users Cannabis reform activists say they plan to put ballot proposals to decriminalize casual marijuana use before voters in at least 11 additional Michigan cities and one county in this year's primary or general elections. "The state of Michigan is ripe for change," said Tim Beck of Detroit, co-founder of the Safer Michigan Coalition that provided funding as well as legal and consulting services for seven of eight successful marijuana initiatives across the state since 2011. [continues 321 words]
The legal sale of marijuana is nothing new in America, but now pot sellers are using the airwaves to reach the masses. Marijuana ads on television? The possibility used to be a pipe dream for some folks. Suddenly, it's a reality. The first marijuana ad to appear in a national TV campaign, viewable on various websites, doesn't talk about weed right away. It talks about something truly fishy. "Yo, you want sushi?" says an actor playing a seedy looking street dealer in a coat lined with little strips of raw fish. "Ain't nobody sellin' but me." [continues 446 words]
Area Entrepreneurs Plan Farm As Canada Tweaks Medical Marijuana Rules Starting April 1, Canadian law will allow the commercial production and sale of medical marijuana, and one Metro Detroit company hopes to cash in on the new market. Creative Edge Nutrition Inc., based in Madison Heights, has purchased more than 10 acres near Windsor, and plans to build a 27,000-square-foot indoor pot farm to grow 1.3 million pounds of marijuana annually to sell in Canada, Israel and other countries that allow it. [continues 228 words]
It seems marijuana - at least for medical use - is sweeping the nation. More than 20 states and the District of Columbia have either legalized medical marijuana or decriminalized its possession, and in two states, Colorado and Washington, voters recently legalized its recreational use. The Denver Post even appointed a Marijuana editor. The Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C., found in September that, "For the first time in more than four decades of polling ... a majority (52 percent) of Americans favor legalizing the use of marijuana." In June, they found that nearly half of Americans had smoked marijuana, up from 40 percent three years ago - and 12 percent had done so recently. [continues 297 words]
Justices Reject West Michigan City's Bid to Stop Medical Use Communities can't pass ordinances to preempt Michigan's 5-year-old medical marijuana law, according to a Michigan Supreme Court ruling Thursday - a far-reaching move that "ends a long, tortuous battle in the courts," one legal expert said. The decision may invalidate marijuana measures at least three Metro Detroit cities that run contrary to the state law, legal experts say. Wyoming, near Grand Rapids, in 2010 created a zoning ordinance that prohibited the use, cultivation or manufacture of marijuana. Wyoming resident John Ter Beek challenged the law because he said he was a qualified medical marijuana patient and argued that the 2008 state law preempted the local ordinance. The court agreed. [continues 676 words]
Philip Seymour Hoffman's death at the end of a heroin needle again spotlights the dangers of a poisonous drug. And so did the Vermont governor's plea last month to confront the "fullblown heroin crisis" plaguing his rural state. His population is far poorer and more isolated than an Oscar-winning actor in New York's Greenwich Village. But though drug overdoses are democratic in choosing victims, the War on Drugs is anything but. Every year, billions of dollars pours down the War on Drugs drain, and the drugs are cheaper and easier to find than ever. The war enriches dealers by constricting the supply while turning addicts into criminals afraid to publicly confront their drug use. Vermont Gov. Peter Shumlin wants to use the moment of arrest as an opportunity to steer drug users into treatment instead of prison. He wants to treat addiction as the medical problem it is. [continues 399 words]
Colo., Wash. Face Risks in Establishing Markets for Legal Sale of Marijuana Denver (AP) - Colorado and Washington state are launching the world's first legal recreational marijuana markets in 2014. Though pot has been sold for three decades at coffee shops in the Netherlands, the two states are the first to regulate and allow a full industry. Being first to allow growing it, processing it and selling it doesn't come without risks. The states face plenty, from a potential crackdown over a drug that's still illegal under federal law to threats to public health. [continues 228 words]
Last week, delegates of the American Medical Association voted to affirm the AMA's position that "cannabis is a dangerous drug and as such is a public health concern." The body turned down proposals to endorse legalizing marijuana. It's a high-profile decision that deserves the attention of parents, policymakers and the community. It's time that we step back, take a harder look at existing health data, and talk about the options we have to reduce drug use and make people the priority. [continues 472 words]
