Officials, former inmate contrast the emphasis on treatment vs. incarceration

When Leola Bivins was first sent away for dealing drugs, she was a 22-year-old high school dropout with a 2-year-old daughter at home.

Addiction was the center of the life she knew in East Stroudsburg, where she was born and raised, she recalled recently. Bivins' mother was a heroin addict - she eventually died of an overdose - and seemingly everyone around her was either selling drugs or abusing them, Bivins said.

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The day after Gov. Christie signed a bill allowing vets to use marijuana for post-traumatic stress syndrome, he was greeted by cheers - - and some boos - as he exited his black SUV and walked to the entrance of the Trenton Statehouse.

In a video clip posted on Facebook last month, he was more stunned by the group that was clapping.

Over the last two years, the group of five to 30 protesters would occupy a spot near the door most Thursdays and deliver speeches about the virtues of treating health problems with cannabis. They would set up orange traffic cones as a nod to Bridgegate and the roadblocks they said the Republican governor had created to keep the medical marijuana program from growing. Christie had called the program a front for the legalization of recreational marijuana and was against expanding it.

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Doctors in the United States are not terribly concerned about your marijuana use, according to a study published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Researchers presented a representative sample of 233 primary-care physicians with nine hypothetical patient behaviors -- tobacco use, alcohol use, obesity, etc. -- and asked them how much of a problem they thought these behaviors were on a 10-point scale. Their goal was to suss out differences in doctors' attitudes and treatment behaviors based on their political affiliation.

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Borough could limit locations by zoning code

LANSDALE) Borough officials are looking ahead to a topic that looks likely to lead to months of discussion.

What sort of local rules and regulations should be put in place for medical marijuana facilities?

"This particular use is legal, now, in Pennsylvania: the distribution of it, the growing of it, and the cultivation of it," said Assistant Borough Manager John Ernst.

"However, the legislature has not come to a final conclusion and agreement on what the laws actually say, and when it will be finally brought to a point where it can be enforced," he said. Back in April the state legislature approved a bill legalizing the provision of medical marijuana in Pennsylvania, and state officials said at that time it would take roughly two years for regulations to be fully written and facilities to be opened. Details are still far from finalized, Ernst told council's code enforcement committee, but early indications are that the state legislature will pass rules and regulations governing medical marijuana facilities similarly to pharmacies, with medical marijuana only available in pill, cream or tablet forms - not leaf.

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Gov. Tom Wolf 's call last week for decriminalizing small-scale marijuana possession is not as controversial as it might seem. In effect, it is a call for a uniform state policy to ensure equal justice.

Across the state many prosecutors and police agencies already have adopted policies to forgo prosecuting smallamount possession. Instead, they press treatment and rehabilitation, reducing costs associated with prosecuting the cases and focusing resources on more dangerous drugs and large-scale distribution.

The state District Attorneys Association does not oppose the change advocated by the governor, but the Legislature regularly has failed to act on bills to that effect.

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HARRISBURG - Pennsylvania needs to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana possession, Gov. Wolf said Monday, yet he remains guarded about the kind of recreational legalization that is in place in several western states.

While some cities have stopped arresting people for possessing small amounts and prosecutors have been downgrading it as a crime, the state should act because too many people are still going to prison for marijuana possession, Wolf said.

"I think we need to do that in a more systematic fashion," Wolf told WITF-FM's Smart Talk program. "There are too many people who are going to prison because of the use of very modest amounts, or carry modest amounts of marijuana, and that is clogging up our prisons, it's destroying families, and it's hurting our economy, so I think decriminalization is the first step."

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HARRISBURG (AP) - Pennsylvania needs to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana possession, Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said Monday, yet he remains guarded about the kind of recreational legalization that is in place in several western states.

While some cities have stopped arresting people for possessing small amounts and prosecutors have been downgrading it as a crime, the state should act because too many people are still going to prison for marijuana possession, Wolf said.

"I think we need to do that in a more systematic fashion," Wolf told WITFFM's Smart Talk program. "There are too many people who are going to prison because of the use of very modest amounts or carry modest amounts of marijuana, and that is clogging up our prisons, it's destroying families and it's hurting our economy, so I think decriminalization is the first step." According to the marijuana advocacy group NORML, 20 states and Washington, D.C., have decriminalized certain marijuana possession offenses, making it either a summary offense, like a minor traffic violation, or a misdemeanor that carries no threat of jail time.

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Federal Officials Remain in a Haze When It Comes to Articulating a Comprehensible Policy on Marijuana. Perhaps Last Week's Ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals Curtailing the Feds From Prosecuting Legitimate Growers and Distributors Will Help Clear the Air.

Half the nation's states, led by California, permit medicinal applications. Four states and the District of Columbia allow recreational use. In November, California could become the fifth.

Yet the federal government still sees marijuana as a dangerous drug and dispensary operators as prosecution targets.

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The federal government has for years employed a bizarre circular logic when it comes to marijuana. Officially deemed to have a high potential for abuse and no currently accepted medical application, marijuana is listed by the Drug Enforcement Administration as a Schedule 1 drug under the Controlled Substances Act - on a par with heroin and LSD. Yet that very listing has severely limited the research that could settle the question of whether marijuana does indeed have therapeutic value, as attested to by countless ... ailing people and their physicians who report anecdotally that marijuana eases suffering.

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Not everyone who takes marijuana gets high or feels good.

Some users panic, the National Institute of Drug Abuse said on its website.

Even among patients using marijuana for medical conditions, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has received "extremely limited reports" of adverse events.

Ed Pane, a Hazleton drug counselor, said those adverse events include people who ingest edible marijuana, which takes effect slower than other forms so patients ingest more. After the drug kicks in, some users have developed paranoia and harmed themselves or others.

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State among several to allow treatment not yet approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Pennsylvania and the federal government disagree about the usefulness of marijuana as medicine.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved marijuana as safe and effective for treating any illness, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as recently as Aug. 11 kept marijuana in the same drug category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

But Pennsylvania enacted a law in April that lists 17 conditions for which doctors can prescribe marijuana, including cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, posttraumatic stress disorder, autism, epilepsy and Parkinson's, Crohn's and Huntington's diseases.

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Health-care specialists in Pennsylvania prescribe the drug despite the federal government's reluctance to approve it as safe and effective for treating illness.

Pennsylvania and the federal government disagree about the usefulness of marijuana as medicine. ELLEN F. O'CONNELL/Staff Photographer The van Hoekelen Greenhouses Inc. facility is located on Lofty Road in Kline Township.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration hasn't approved marijuana as safe and effective for treating any illness, and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration as recently as Aug. 11 kept marijuana in the same drug category as heroin, LSD and ecstasy.

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The Libertarian Party's N.A. Poe Was Keeping a Sense of Humor Amid Challenges From Both Major Parties.

The State Requires the Attorney General to Hold a License to Practice Law. Poe Doesn't.

For N.A. Poe, a marijuana-legalization activist from Philadelphia, running for state attorney general was a lark to draw attention to the issue.

The state Republican and Democratic Parties didn't find it funny.

Both parties filed legal challenges Monday seeking to remove Poe - a stage name for the activism work and comedian act of Richard Tamaccio - - from the Nov. 8 general election ballot as the Libertarian Party candidate.

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Philadelphia - This isn't your teenage son's marijuana industry anymore; it's your button-down dad's business - at least at the Democratic National Convention.

Even as pro-marijuana activists marched this week in Philadelphia with a fake 51-foot joint, teams of industry leaders and lobbyists were busy doing the kind of work one would expect from the beer or pharmaceutical industry: holding receptions, talking to politicians and discussing regulations. In other words, the boring stuff. "We're dealing with an industry that's a lot more suit and tie," said Michael Bronstein, co-founder of the

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Marijuana Execs Find Welcome Vibe Among the Pols

Marijuana has gone mainstream at the Democratic National Convention this week.

Democratic officials, including Oregon Rep. Earl Blumenauer and his state's attorney general, Ellen Rosenblum, mingled with pot industry executives Monday night at a reception at a sleek bar downtown, miles away from the convention hall.

A day earlier, the Marijuana Policy Project staged a fundraiser to support its work to push new laws around the country legalizing the use of marijuana.

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Activists Had Been Concerned That Citation Policy Would Go Up in Smoke During Convention.

Not wanting their protests during the Democratic National Convention to go up in smoke, the men who pushed for the decriminalization of marijuana in Philadelphia informally met with two of the city's police supervisors Friday to discuss how pot smokers and activists will be handled by authorities during the DNC next week.

"We have a lot of cannabis consumers coming in from out of town - and some of them are delegates," said Chris Goldstein, cochairman of the board of directors of Philly NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).

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NOT WANTING their protests during the Democratic National Convention to go up in smoke, the men who pushed for the decriminalization of marijuana in Philadelphia informally met with two of the city's police supervisors Friday to discuss how pot smokers and activists will be handled by authorities during the DNC next week.

"We have a lot of cannabis consumers coming in from out of town - and some of them are delegates," said Chris Goldstein, cochairman of the board of directors of Philly NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).

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Harrisburg - Three months after Pennsylvania legalized the use of marijuana for medical purposes, Gov. Tom Wolf signed a law Wednesday allowing for greater cultivation of hemp, another cannabis plant.

Farmers will be able to cultivate hemp in connection with state and academic research program as a result. The state Agriculture Department will oversee these programs. The law brings Pennsylvania in line with a recent federal law that allows hemp pilot programs at universities involved with agricultural research.

Lawmakers gave final approval to the hemp bill earlier this month after lawmakers in both chambers pushed for its passage as a first step to reviving a hemp production in Pennsylvania.

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UPPER MERION - Passage of legislation that legalized medical marijuana in Pennsylvania marked the end of seven long, hard years of negotiation. Now that Gov. Tom Wolf has signed the measure into law, the push is on to explain the ramifications, including possible business opportunities tied to the medical marijuana field.

Wolf, who had adamantly backed the bill through approval by both the House and Senate, swiftly added his signature, which made the bill law.

That kicked off the long process of working within the boundaries that the Commonwealth agreed upon to bring cannabis to medical patients. Doctors will need to be certified; growers and processors will need to establish a business model; and licenses for 150 dispensaries will be issued in the next year.

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UPPER MERION - Passage of legislation that legalized medical marijuana in Pennsylvania marked the end of seven long, hard years of negotiation. Now that Gov. Tom Wolf has signed the measure into law, the push is on to explain the ramifications, including possible business opportunities tied to the medical marijuana field.

Wolf, who had adamantly backed the bill through approval by both the House and Senate, swiftly added his signature, which made the bill law.

That kicked off the long process of working within the boundaries that the commonwealth agreed upon to bring cannabis to medical patients. Doctors will need to be certified; growers and processors will need to establish a business model; and licenses for 150 dispensaries will be issued in the next year.

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