ANNAPOLIS -- Frederick County's state's attorney is opposing medical marijuana legislation sponsored by a local state senator.

State's Attorney Charlie Smith testified Thursday evening before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee.

"I'm not going to stand up here and tell you I want people to suffer from cancer, or from AIDS or from ALS, or they shouldn't have drugs to help ease their nausea or help ease their pain," Smith said. "I just firmly believe that marijuana is not one of those proven drugs and there are many many more FDA-approved drugs."

[continues 516 words]

A couple of Black Fridays ago, I talked to two suburban moms who were out on that big shopping day after Thanksgiving and, like many that year, worried about affording Christmas presents for their kids. I assumed they were sisters or friends, but they corrected me - they were a couple.

Even among my own acquaintances, I still do a mental double-take - not "Oh, my God!" so much as "Hmm, interesting" - when a woman refers to her wife.

Some assumptions, I guess, only time fixes.

[continues 695 words]

Don't look now, but if the current medical marijuana legislation is passed, a local pot dispensary could end up in your neighborhood ("Md. fights through haze over medical marijuana," Jan. 31). Those supporting the legislation promise to set up tight restrictions on the placement of these dispensaries, but as we have seen with the increased numbers of liquor licenses and methadone clinics, the government has a pretty poor track record in protecting our communities, especially our children.

In Los Angeles they needed to re-write their legislation when over 1,000 applications were submitted to open up marijuana dispensaries, and in Denver there are now more marijuana dispensaries than Starbucks. This is big business, and like with alcohol and methadone, we are opening ourselves up to political corruption and manipulation. Once again our communities will be left out of any decision making about where these dispensaries will go.

[continues 103 words]

I do not understand why The Sun is not featuring any of the experts (many available right here in Baltimore) who have worked in the field of addictions and have valuable experience and information about the negative consequences of legalizing marijuana, which is a well-known "gateway" drug and ripe for black market enterprise despite suggested constraints ("Md. fights through haze over medical marijuana," Jan. 31).

There are many serious drawbacks to legalization. I feel the following questions are valid and need to be explored before the legislature approves such a bill. Aren't drugs supposed to be sent to the FDA for testing and approval? Why would marijuana be exempt from this process? You do mention that quite a few doctors disagree whether marijuana is even helpful for their patients. What experts in the medical field have come up with conditions and illnesses for which marijuana is a truly valid drug treatment? Who is the lobby for this movement, as Dr. Kevin Cullen asks in your article on Jan. 31?

I suggest a full investigative report on the issues I have mentioned above would enlighten us all. It would help to balance the field in this critical decision-making process.

Ingrid Castronovo



[end]

This comment is in regard to the article "Putting Fences Around Marijuana Use" (Jan. 31).

As someone who is in frequent contact with people suffering from sarcomas (rare, aggressive cancers), I would like to point out that most of the quoted physicians' objections to medicinal marijuana use center on it's ingestion as a smoked product. Perhaps providers of medicinal marijuana should be required to supply edible marijuana products that do not incur these risks.

In regards to pharmaceuticals designed to reduce nausea, many of those have side effects that cause patients real distress. Changing anti-nausea medications in the midst of a nausea-causing event, such as chemotherapy, is a difficult process. It puts patients, their families and caregivers into crisis mode until, by trial and error, a solution is found.

[continues 141 words]

The Bill to Be Introduced, Making Maryland 15th State to Allow It, Might Be the Most Stringent in the Nation

Even as a proposal to legalize medical marijuana emerges in Maryland, a backlash over the burgeoning industry has developed in other states - - and is likely to influence legislation here.

Last week, the Los Angeles City Council tried to rein in the growth of marijuana dispensaries, limiting the number to 70 and imposing tight restrictions on where and how they can operate. And in Colorado, towns are trying to shutter some of the hundreds of dispensaries that have popped up.

[continues 1437 words]

My Brother died this past November, after a three-month illness in which he was neither diagnosed or treated for any specific disease.

He spent one week in a local hospital, four weeks at Johns Hopkins and didn't eat a square meal for three months. A team of the best doctors available came up empty handed regarding a diagnosis or treatment, so brother Dorsey eventually dwindled away and died.

It is a known fact that medical marijuana enhances the appetite and mood, but not one doctor was able to prescribe medical marijuana, which alone might have saved Dorsey's life. Without food and proper nutrition combined with a lack of any diagnosis for a viable treatment, my brother is no longer with us.

[continues 133 words]

Laws Would Be More Stringent Than Other States', Morhaim Says

Hoping to make Maryland the 15th state in the nation to legalize medical marijuana, legislators introduced a pair of bills Tuesday in the General Assembly that would let doctors approve access to marijuana for their patients and sanction dispensaries, and even pharmacies, to distribute the drug.

The legislation would allow the use of marijuana by patients who have a "debilitating medical condition," such as seizures, severe chronic pain or severe nausea as a result of cancer treatment. They would have to register with the state and obtain marijuana from state-licensed dispensaries and pharmacies that might be interested in supplying it.

[continues 358 words]

Change is in the offing for U.S. drug policy. More than a dozen states, including Maryland, have adopted medical marijuana laws. Attorney General Eric Holder, a decisive member of a sometimes indecisive administration, stated that federal laws against marijuana possession would not be enforced against persons immune under such state laws.

Various jurisdictions in California and Colorado have begun to tax "medical marijuana," which provides an ever-growing exception to prohibitory legislation like that provided for "medicinal alcohol" during Prohibition. Referendum campaigns are under way in California and other states looking toward complete repeal of laws against marijuana possession.

[continues 707 words]

PIKESVILLE -- Police and law enforcement officials hope that a new arrangement for testing blood samples of people suspected of driving under the influence of drugs will make it easier and cheaper to charge and prosecute those cases.

Testing for police departments around the state will now be done by the toxicology unit of the State Police Forensic Sciences Laboratory in Pikesville, Col. Terrence Sheridan, superintendant of the Maryland State Police, said at a press conference Wednesday.

The state had run into a problem because there were only two labs on the East Coast that could perform the tests, and those labs had become reluctant to send their experts to testify in Maryland courts because of the cost and time involved, Sheridan said.

[continues 281 words]

Ending Medicinal Marijuana Raids Is a Belated Act of Compassion

Having Drug Enforcement Administration agents bust the sick who smoke marijuana for such nefarious purposes as relieving the nausea of chemotherapy was one of the more ridiculous boondoggles of the Bush administration. Rarely have federal drug enforcement resources been more misdirected than on these half-baked raids.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr.'s instruction to federal prosecutors to back away from cases against medical marijuana patients is a sign that the Justice Department has finally sworn off whatever had temporarily impaired reason in the agency.

[continues 381 words]

I was disturbed to see that a recent health column by Sarah Baldauf about the effects of marijuana ("What Parents Need to Know About Pot," Oct. 6, 2009) was in fact a verbatim reprint of a syndicated Aug. 2008 article, and wasn't updated with any new findings published on the topic since the article was first written more than a year ago.

Much research since Aug. 2008 has cast further doubt on claims about the harms of marijuana. For example, the claim that marijuana use leads to "a greater risk of cancer to the head and neck" was refuted by two 2009 studies. One, in the journal of Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers, & Prevention, found the risk of head and neck cancer "was not elevated" among marijuana users. Another, in Cancer Prevention Research, found that people who use marijuana actually have a lower risk of head and neck cancer than people who don't use marijuana.

[continues 113 words]

In the movies, cops slip their snitches $20 or $50 in a back alley and give them a black eye so their friends don't think they're squealing.

In real life, informants are registered and have government-sounding titles - "DEA-numbered source," for example. They operate under offices with cryptic acronyms such as CIRC, for Confidential Informant Review Committee. They even have their own bureaucracy, like the Drug Enforcement Administration's Confidential Source Unit.

In real life, informants get their money, sometimes in five- and six-figure amounts, in the form of checks from the U.S. Treasury Department.

[continues 1099 words]

Drug Eases Symptoms of Chronic Diseases, Many Say

Pamela Hughes doesn't see herself as a criminal. Neither does Winnie Gesumwa. But both have been arrested, put through the court system and faced jail time for using marijuana, not for pleasure, but to cope with harrowing illnesses.

"I had to fight an arrest that should not have occurred, because as long as I was using the cannabis, I was cancer-free and pain-free," said Hughes, a 49-year-old Silver Spring resident who has battled cancer and the muscle disease fibromyalgia for years.

[continues 1227 words]

In State That's Shown Leniency, Advocates Push Legalization For Some Cases

Although far smaller in scale, a California-style approach of going easy on medical-use pot smokers has been wafting through the Montgomery County courthouse.

Within minutes of each other last week, two defendants left the courthouse with slaps on their wrists: a 56-year-old man with cyclic vomiting syndrome, and a 19-year-old woman with epilepsy.

Their cases show how Maryland's little-known medical marijuana law might be applied in the future and how some ill pot smokers are beginning to raise awareness of it.

[continues 1067 words]

Anyone Found In Possession Could Face Up To $1,000 Fine, Six Months In Jail

SNOW HILL -- The hallucinogenic herb salvia is now illegal in Worcester County, following the unanimous approval of the ban by the County Commissioners.

Under the new law, anyone found in possession of the drug or any paraphernalia could face up to a $1,000 fine or six months in jail.

With the blessing of the Maryland attorney general, Ocean City passed its own ordinance that went into effect at the beginning of August. Two people face prosecution later this month under the town's law. Businesses stocking salvia had no time to clear the products from their shelves before being subject to the regulations, which went into effect Tuesday afternoon. There is no official grace period. Officials are leaving notification of retailers up to the media and "discretion in the early stages" by police, said Worcester County State's Attorney Joel Todd.

[continues 349 words]

City Council Moves To Ban Legal Hallucinogenic Herb

In most of Maryland, salvia is a spiky, colorful plant that looks good in flower beds and attracts hummingbirds. In Ocean City, salvia is better known as a legal hallucinogenic herb you can buy over the counter and share with friends.

But resort officials, alarmed by an increase in the herb's popularity, are preparing to weed it out.

The Ocean City Council will vote Monday night on an emergency proposal to ban products made from salvia divinorum, a relative of herbal sage and common garden plants that is now sold openly at many shops along the Boardwalk.

[continues 834 words]

When It Comes to Treatment, the White House Should Put Its Money Where Its Mouth Is

In Baltimore last week, new U.S. drug czar Gil Kerlikowske made the case for expansion of drug courts to treat rather than imprison addicts and called for drugs to be considered a "public health crisis."

Why, then, is the Obama administration proposing to spend an even higher percentage of its anti-drug resources on law enforcement than the administration of George W. Bush?

Nowhere are these issues more resonant than in Baltimore. Felicia "Snoop" Pearson, a star of HBO's The Wire and a native of the city, said that her mother stole clothes off of her body for drug money and locked her in a closet. Darius Harmon, an 18-year-old learning-disabled boy from Baltimore, was killed in April by the Black Guerrilla Family gang because he was not good at selling drugs. Despite recent progress, the Drug Enforcement Administration in March found that Baltimore still has more drug-related crime than any other city in the nation.

[continues 585 words]

Walter Cronkite, once the most trusted man in America and a leading figure in broadcast journalism's Mount Rushmore, believed the nation's war on drugs was unwinnable, and he said so on television. A decade after his years with CBS News, Mr. Cronkite succeeded in raising public awareness of the war's futility - an impressive accomplishment.

Of course, Mr. Cronkite is famous for having reached the same correct conclusion about the Vietnam War in 1968. All of his obituaries have recalled Mr. Cronkite's special report from Vietnam, his characterization of the war as stalemate and his call for a negotiated peace. President Lyndon B. Johnson was famously quoted as saying, "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost Middle America." Later that year, Mr. Johnson decided not to seek re-election.

[continues 605 words]

OCEAN CITY -- Resort officials are rallying to outlaw sales of the hallucinogenic herb salvia and plan continued lobbying of state legislators to pass a ban on its sales and possession.

"Our hands are tied right now," said Ocean City Councilman Doug Cymek at a police commission meeting recently. "Until Delegate Mathias or some other people help us along here a little bit up in Annapolis, there's not much we can do to enforce this."

Salvia divinorum is a plant native to Mexico that, when consumed, causes brief but intense psychedelic experiences, its users report. It traditionally was used by native tribes to take "spiritual journeys."

[continues 390 words]