HARTFORD There won't be a vote on legalizing marijuana for recreational use in Connecticut this year but that didn't stop supporters and opponents from speaking out at an informational hearing at the Capitol Tuesday. Before Tuesday's meeting, a few dozen supporters gathered outside the hearing room and said meeting said legalizing marijuana would bring much-needed tax revenue and new jobs to the state. "What's going to end up selling the bill is economy," said Michael Galipeau, a medical marijuana patient from Willimantic. "It makes economic sense." [continues 247 words]
With millions of people in line who can hardly wait to pay taxes, the dollar amount Connecticut could collect by regulating cannabis (marijuana) may be greater than anticipated (Think Green: Here's An Easy Way to Cut Our State's Deficit, Mar. 25, 2016). As Oregon's Mail Tribune newspaper reported (First Pot Tax Collections Higher Than Expected, March 26, 2016), the Oregon Department of Revenue collected $3.8 million in taxes from cannabis sales in January, which in that one month, was equal to what experts were expecting for the entire year. [continues 98 words]
Should police be permitted to use a drug-sniffing dog to roam the hallways of an apartment or condominium complex to search for contraband without getting a warrant from a judge? That is the question confronted by the state supreme court this week in a case called State v. Dennis Kono. Hiding underneath that are several other considerations of importance: should the police's power to search a person's residence be any different depending on whether the residence is an apartment, condominium or free-standing house; and should the search for contraband outweigh any Fourth Amendment rights we have as citizens? [continues 1199 words]
Should police be permitted to use a drug-sniffing dog to roam the hallways of an apartment or condominium complex to search for contraband without getting a warrant from a judge? That is the question confronted by the state supreme court this week in a case called State v. Dennis Kono. Hiding underneath that are several other considerations of importance: should the police's power to search a person's residence be any different depending on whether the residence is an apartment, condominium or free-standing house; and should the search for contraband outweigh any Fourth Amendment rights we have as citizens? [continues 1195 words]
Hartford (AP) - Even though two bills legalizing the recreational use of marijuana in Connecticut failed this session, proponents are seeking to keep the issue alive by holding a public informational meeting on the subject. Reps. Juan Candelaria and Toni Walker, both Democrats from New Haven, are seeking input on the pros and cons of marijuana legalization from experts and members of the public. The hearing is scheduled for Tuesday at the Legislative Office Building. It will run from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. [continues 381 words]
HARTFORD (AP) - The Connecticut Supreme Court is set to hear arguments Thursday on whether a state employee who was fired for smoking marijuana on the job was punished too harshly and should be reinstated. Gregory Linhoff was fired from his maintenance job at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington in 2012 after a police officer caught him smoking pot in a state vehicle. He had no previous disciplinary problems since being hired in 1998 and had received favorable job evaluations, according to his labor union. He was arrested, but the charges were later dismissed. [continues 212 words]
Old Lyme - As speakers at a community forum Thursday evening shared their or their loved ones' stories of recovering from heroin addiction, they were met with a standing ovation by more than 100 attendees. The forum at Lyme-Old Lyme Middle School, organized by the Community Action for Substance Free Youth under the Lymes' Youth Service Bureau, focused on treatment and prevention of opioid addiction. Parker Rodriguez told the audience that he grew up with a loving family in Lyme. At age 12, he had his first drink and went on to experiment with drugs. [continues 582 words]
Thanks, all of you spirited online commenters and phone-callers, for your varied and assertive messages reacting to my column last week in which I endorsed a proposed state law to legalize marijuana in the Nutmeg state. Somebody called me a "liberal" (ouch!) and hung up. Another person branded me "a well-known leftist" (I plead guilty to that, too) who has "a false regard for mankind, coupled with the usual cynical disregard for what your proposed policies would do to real living and breathing people." [continues 769 words]
HARTFORD (AP) - A lawyer for a labor union urged the Connecticut Supreme Court on Thursday to rule that firing a state worker caught smoking marijuana in a state-owned vehicle while on the job was too harsh a punishment. Gregory Linhoff was fired from his maintenance job at the University of Connecticut Health Center in Farmington in 2012 after a police officer caught him smoking pot. He had no previous disciplinary problems since being hired in 1998 and had received favorable job evaluations, according to his union. He was arrested, but the charges were later dismissed. [continues 122 words]
In the April Harper's Monthly, author Dan Baum argues convincingly for legalizing all drugs. He reveals that the "War on Drugs" was a sham from the start. The late, disgraced John Ehrlichman, Nixon's chief counsel, told him its real purpose was to discredit and harass enemies: antiwar hippies (marijuana) and blacks (heroin). Nixon's cynical war isn't merely an abject failure; it's created violent illegal trafficking, cost billions, and destroyed countless lives. Almost everyone, including new "drug czar" Michael Botticelli, knows criminalizing drugs hasn't worked. The only sensible solution is to legalize, shifting the billions saved from enforcement and incarceration to regulation and treatment. Now-nonexistent taxes gained by legalizing could boost overstressed municipal, state and federal budgets. [continues 89 words]
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) - A Connecticut marijuana bust has turned into a potential precedent-setting case on whether apartment and condo dwellers have the same rights as house owners when it comes to police using drug-sniffing dogs outside their homes. The state Supreme Court on Wednesday is scheduled to hear arguments in the case of Dennis Kono, who was arrested in 2012 after a police dog deployed without a warrant in a condo building hallway in Berlin smelled marijuana near his door. Berlin police then obtained a search warrant for Kono's condo and found several small marijuana plants, seeds, growing equipment and firearms. [continues 165 words]
As two of our forward-thinking state legislators have noted, it's high time we considered legalizing marijuana in Connecticut. State Rep. Roland Lemar and state Rep. Juan Candelaria, both New Haven-based Democrats, are co-sponsoring a bill that would legalize marijuana for recreational use. Although a Quinnipiac University poll last year found that 63 percent of Connecticut voters support legalizing small amounts of marijuana for recreational purposes, the bill's chance of passage is not deemed likely this time around. This is still, after all, the "Land of Steady Habits." [continues 805 words]
The state legislature's Public Health Committee approved what might be considered one of the most controversial proposals put before them in decades: medical marijuana for children. The bill, which now moves to the House for a vote, would give minors with severe epilepsy and terminal illnesses access to non-smokable marijuana, but only with parental consent and the approval of two doctors. It would be prescribed in pill or liquid form. The other conditions included in the bill include cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, uncontrolled intractable seizure disorders, or irreversible spinal cord injury with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity. [continues 609 words]
The state legislature's Public Health Committee approved what might be considered one of the most controversial proposals put before them in decades: medical marijuana for children. The bill, which now moves to the House for a vote, would give minors with severe epilepsy and terminal illnesses access to non-smokable marijuana, but only with parental consent and the approval of two doctors. It would be prescribed in pill or liquid form. The other conditions included in the bill include cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, uncontrolled intractable seizure disorders, or irreversible spinal cord injury with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity. [continues 607 words]
The state legislature's Public Health Committee approved what might be considered one of the most controversial proposals put before them in decades: medical marijuana for children. The bill, which now moves to the House for a vote, would give minors with severe epilepsy and terminal illnesses access to non-smokable marijuana, but only with parental consent and the approval of two doctors. It would be prescribed in pill or liquid form. The other conditions included in the bill include cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis, uncontrolled intractable seizure disorders, or irreversible spinal cord injury with objective neurological indication of intractable spasticity. [continues 605 words]
Conn. Bill Would Limit Opioid Prescriptions Hartford (AP) - Connecticut lawmakers are seeking to place new limits on opioid prescriptions to help address the problem of deadly overdoses. The General Assembly's Public Health Committee forwarded a bill on Monday that would limit doctors to writing only seven-day prescriptions for first-time adult patients. Those patients would have to return to their physician to have a prescription refilled, possibly for a longer period. Democratic Sen. Terry Gerrantana, the committee's co-chairman, says lawmakers "realize what is happening in our communities" with the large number of deadly drug overdoses in Connecticut. The bill would also allow "standing orders" for pharmacists to prescribe opioid antagonists, such as Narcan, to friends and family of someone at risk of overdosing. The bill has received bipartisan support. It now awaits action in the state Senate. [end]
The state legislature should pass a law legalizing the use of marijuana for patients under 18. Children who have no other options should not be denied this medicine. The worst pain a parent can imagine is the loss of a child. Almost as devastating is to watch a child suffer. If the suffering continues for a long time, or repeats over and over again, the helplessness is agonizing for parents, who would do anything to stop it. Parents of children who suffer multiple seizures a day, and with those episodes, a constant risk of further disability and death, are asking the Connecticut General Assembly to legalize the use of marijuana for patients under 18. For some children it offers relief from the brutal cycle of seizures that make school and play impossible and may steal the ability even to walk and talk. [continues 475 words]
Slowly but surely, like the proverbial aircraft carrier, the U.S. government is changing to a new and better course on the long-neglected issue of opioid abuse and addiction. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took an emphatic stand against the loose prescribing norms that have fueled the growth of opioid consumption for non-cancer pain, with the terrible result that 16,000 people a year die from overdoses. Labeling the drugs "dangerous," and noting that evidence did not support their long-term efficacy for most cases of chronic pain, CDC Director Thomas Frieden urged physicians to follow more-cautious new CDC guidelines that emphasize alternative pain management techniques. Dr. Frieden and his colleagues deserve credit for incorporating a range of views in the guidelines while resisting pressure to weaken them from interest groups that support the status quo. [continues 393 words]
New Dispensaries Expected to Open This Summer The number of Connecticut's medical marijuana patients is likely to grow more quickly with the addition Monday of six new conditions that can be treated with cannabis. "I would expect there would be additional people," said state Consumer Protection Commissioner Jonathan Harris on Tuesday. "We're pleased that more people with serious diseases will have access to medicine that can help them with pain, with symptoms and their underlying disease conditions." The new conditions eligible for the program are sickle cell disease, postlaminectomy syndrome with chronic radiculopathy, severe psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's disease), ulcerative colitis and complex regional pain syndrome. [continues 306 words]
Inside Connecticut
