OAKLAND - "Rocking in 2009" is a chance to dance and dine on New Year's Eve and support what many call an invaluable program for young people in the community at the same time.

The fundraising dance and buffet supports the Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) and Learning for Life programs, initiatives of the Oakland Police Department aimed at helping children make the right choices.

Children who make those right choices are rewarded with various trips, including an outing on Camp Bomazeen in Belgrade, skiing at Sugarloaf/USA and the chance to see a Portland Pirates hockey game.

[continues 177 words]

Congratulations are in order for Donald Christen receiving a vote for acquittal from the jury in his trial (Marijuana Verdict May Set Precedent, Fri. Dec. 19). The newspaper article by Doug Harlow is certainly a sight for sore eyes.

Unfortunately, District Attorney Evert Fowle lays down the usual anti-pot screed in his remarks. He says we "need to first have a discussion as to whether there is any medical viability of marijuana." C'mon Fowle.

Thousands of years of established medical efficacy isn't enough? The continued work that is showing that marijuana is a very effective cancer fighter -- first discovered in Virginia in the 1970s and recently reinforced by Dr. Guzman in Spain and Dr. Mechoulam in Israel - -- is not enough "viability" for you?

[continues 134 words]

Congratulations are in order for Donald Christen receiving a vote for acquittal from the jury in his trial (Marijuana Verdict May Set Precedent, Fri. Dec. 19). The newspaper article by Doug Harlow is certainly a sight for sore eyes.

Unfortunately, District Attorney Evert Fowle lays down the usual anti-pot screed in his remarks. He says we "need to first have a discussion as to whether there is any medical viability of marijuana."

C'mon Fowle. Thousands of years of established medical efficacy isn't enough? The continued work that is showing that marijuana is a very effective cancer fighter -- first discovered in Virginia in the 1970s and recently reinforced by Dr. Guzman in Spain and Dr. Mechoulam in Israel -- is not enough "viability" for you?

[continues 134 words]

Organizer, Medical-Pot Backer Is Acquitted Using Affirmative Defense

SKOWHEGAN -- Longtime marijuana advocate Donald Christen was acquitted Thursday in Superior Court on cultivation and furnishing charges, convincing a jury that his pot is for medical purposes.

The verdict could have far-reaching effects on both sides of the medical marijuana issue in Maine, his lawyer, Walter McKee of Augusta, said.

"We had raised the affirmative defense that the marijuana being cultivated or being furnished was medical marijuana," McKee said Thursday afternoon. "Don acknowledged that he cultivated marijuana and he acknowledged that he possessed it with the intent to furnish it, but indicated that what he was cultivating and what he had possessed with the intent to furnish was medical marijuana, for one patient in particular."

[continues 653 words]

In these difficult financial times when governments are struggling to meet the basic needs of the people, there is one step that would turn a major expense into a major source of revenue, but few are advocating it so far.

We are spending millions of dollars on the state and federal levels trying unsuccessfully to control marijuana. If instead we legalized it and taxed it as we do alcohol and cigarettes, the governments would receive millions of dollars of income, and there would be other benefits as well.

[continues 148 words]

I've always wondered how much support there is out there for medical cigarettes. After all, a lot of people say that it helps to calm their nerves.

Cigarettes have three to five times less tar then marijuana, and unlike marijuana, cigarettes have no connection to schizophrenia. Whether or not some of the chemicals in cigarettes stay in your system for three months as does marijuana, I don't know.

Webster's Dictionary describes marijuana as capable of producing disorienting or hallucinogenic effects when smoked in cigarettes or ingested. With medicine like this, who needs poison?

I quite smoking cigarettes 40 years ago. As for the Lefty Luckies, I wouldn't touch them with a 10-foot pole.

Galen Vainio

Abbot

[end]

BANGOR - The Rev. Kevin Loring, head of the Temple of Advanced Enlightenment, proposed Monday night that his church join with Bangor police and city officials to develop a plan to distribute medical marijuana to residents who have prescriptions for cannabis.

Maine allows marijuana to be used for medicinal purposes if prescribed by a physician. As part of its community outreach work, church members would like to be able to distribute marijuana in the Bangor area to people who have been advised to use the drug but cannot obtain it legally.

[continues 562 words]

Written And Presented By The Rev. Kevin A. Loring Before The Bangor City Council On Dec. 8, 2008

Hello and thank you for your valuable time. The Temple of Advanced Enlightenment would like to collaborate with the City of Bangor to distribute medicinal cannabis to qualified patients under Maine law. Currently there is no safe place for patients to receive this medication, or even seeds and instructions on how to grow their own. Under Maine law a patient may choose a caregiver for this task we would like to be that caregiver. We are not talking about simply dolling out cannabis to anyone who shows up, quite the opposite.

[continues 710 words]

The Bangor Daily recently published an article about a local religious group that supports the responsible religious use of marijuana, "Group uses marijuana as sacrament" (BDN, Nov. 29). I was surprised by how much the article focused on the negative and controversial connotations associated with the stereotypical use of marijuana use rather than the church's varying facets of belief. Unfortunately, this is the first attention given by the general public, which will, inadvertently, cast a negative outlook on this truly caring organization. Equally unfortunate is the fact that this group does not in any way support the general legalization of marijuana is a mere footnote.

[continues 206 words]

Carrie Smith's recent letter, "Stop methadone funds" (BDN, Nov. 28), inspired me to write. I think the methadone program is the worst program that the state of Maine funds.

I wonder how many people are aware that participants are allowed to test positive for pot and still receive methadone. Instead of lowering doses they increase it when the addict requests it. There is no cutoff point, it is all left up to the addict.

Why are we paying for this? They all seemed to find the money to buy drugs before they went on the methadone. The addicts should be made to work and pay for their drug or do community service. If this is a legitimate program there should be a timeframe like all other drug programs.

Sarah Brown

Veazie

[end]

Temple Of Advanced Enlightenment Seeks Religious Exemption From DEA

BANGOR, Maine - Every Tuesday and Sunday afternoon the living room in the Rev. Kevin Loring's apartment becomes a tiny house of worship.

The head of the 3-year-old Temple of Advanced Enlightenment earlier this week stood next to a round table as five others sat on sofas and chairs pushed back against the walls. They formed an uneven circle in the second-floor walk-up.

"We use music as a form of prayer," Loring, 28, told them as the service began. "It helps us to see a little bit more clearly."

[continues 1039 words]

Medical marijuana and the stereotypes it derails was the topic of the final Socialist and Marxist Studies Series lectureof the fall semester.

University of Southern Maine professor Wendy Chapkis discussed her experiences with garden growers who produced medical marijuana and how her perception of the drug has changed.

Chapkis, a professor of gender studies, said she decided to explore the topic after she found out her friend, Valerie Carrel, smoked marijuana to relieve the pain she endured from cancer. Chapkis initially shrugged it off, thinking it was an excuse.

[continues 487 words]

Were they all so stoned they lost their common sense? Or did they ever have any in the first place?

We refer, of course, to the spectacularly hamhanded folks who bought and/or sold marijuana and other illegal drugs this weekend at the Harvest Fest in Starks. The festival is sponsored by advocates of legalizing marijuana.

Some of them walked (or more accurately, drove) right into the clutches of the law.

According to police, at least 150 cars were stopped and 100 pounds of marijuana were seized during the course of the three-day concert. Ecstasy, speed, cocaine and a host of other drugs were confiscated by police as well.

[continues 160 words]

HARMONY -- A music festival organized by a well-known advocate for marijuana legalization sent town officials here scrambling to come up with a way to regulate it. Known as the Somerset County Jam Fest, the three-day event begins Friday afternoon and will feature about 15 different rock 'n' roll and folk bands that will travel from as far away as California and as nearby as Skowhegan.

Medicinal marijuana advocate Don Christen this year moved the event from Starks, an hour down the road, to Harmony after several years of trying to keep attendance numbers low enough to obviate his need to obtain a mass gathering permit from the town.

[continues 839 words]

NORWAY - Aaron Fuda led his contingent down the center of Main Street, sign in hand, a small bullhorn at his mouth and red fairy wings on his back.

"We smoke pot," Fuda informed the crowd gathered for Norway's 41st Annual Arts Festival. "We like it a lot."

Fuda led a blue van pulling a portable hot tub decorated with a giant marijuana cigarette and pro-marijuana signs.

A few friends soaked in the hot tub - mostly male, mostly topless. A topless woman joined them as they traveled east down Main Street, her chest screened from the crowd by the walls of the tub and her fellow protesters.

[continues 469 words]

Apparently, the Ten Commandments, Golden Rule and Seven Deadly Sins weren't enough. Earlier this month the Roman Catholic Church upped the stakes by issuing its list of Seven Social Sins. And it's not about social failings such as wearing white after Labor Day or telling your sister her new baby is ugly.

These sins, courtesy of the Vatican, are the new measures of the morality of our society. Way overdue, some might say. The sins environmental pollution, genetic manipulation, excessive wealth, inflicting poverty, drug trafficking and abuse, morally debatable experiments and violation of the fundamental rights of human nature sound more like they were lifted from a Ralph Nader speech than from Sister Mary Catherine's Catechism class.

[continues 362 words]

Perhaps the most discouraging aspect of your whole article on marijuana is that the original name and use of the plant is never mentioned. The plant originally was named hemp, was used in early America for a multitude of purposes also is a million-dollar industry, excluding pot and medicinal uses.

The name was changed and a huge disinformation campaign was successfully mounted by the chemical cartels, and now we have one of the most profitable industries in the United States shut down (and very unjustly criminalized) on account of it.

David E. Gregory

Belgrade

[end]

Regarding your Feb. 6 editorial -- Not only should medical marijuana be made available to patients in need, but adult recreational use should be regulated.

Drug policies modeled after alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth-oriented black market. Illegal drug dealers don't ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences. So much for protecting the children.

Throwing more money at the problem is no solution. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits.

[continues 142 words]

While reading the Bangor Daily News' Jan. 23 front page story "Smuggler given life sentence," I tried to think of all the people I have met who have used marijuana. I couldn't; there are too many. So instead I found myself trying to understand the rationale for condemning a man to life in prison for selling a plant, but I couldn't do that, either.

According to a 1998 report by the Maine Task Force on Drug Abuse, approximately 95,000 Maine adults routinely use marijuana. The report also estimated that 65 percent of adults ages 26 to 34 and 55 percent ages 35 to 50 report using marijuana at least once in their lifetime. By now the 26- to 34-year-olds are in the 35 to 50 age group, likely increasing the overall percentage of people in Maine who have used marijuana, assuming the rate of marijuana users has stayed constant over the last 10 years.

[continues 398 words]

Man, these guys are persistent. If your characterization of pot-smoking adults includes the term "laid back," think again.

Maine Citizens for Medical Marijuana, the Maine Vocals and Maine Citizens for Patients' Rights are three groups dedicated to expanding the use of marijuana in the state.

Dissatisfied with a state law that allows the controlled use of marijuana to alleviate the symptoms of certain medical conditions, the groups are advocating everything from the establishment of marijuana dispensaries to outright legalization of the stuff. They've got T-shirts you can buy, a series of "marijuana-themed" concerts has been organized, and they're about to circulate petitions to get their issues on the ballot.

[continues 145 words]