Thinking about Legalization

Thinking about Legalization
Either this Congress or the next -- within the next three and a half years -- may create an exception to the Controlled Substances Act, allowing for the medical use of marijuana, either nationwide or in those states with state statutes allowing it. Religious and even recreational legality are not totally out of the picture.
But unless planning and preparation are done now, the result could be as dysfunctional as the present situation.
First, if medical use is allowed only as an exception to the CSA, then marijuana -- even medical marijuana -- will still be subject to the (even more?) vindictive jurisdiction and regulation of the D.E.A. Non-medical marijuana will still be a controlled substance under D.E.A. enforcement; and I am sure that they will insist on stringent controls to "prevent leakage" from the medical situation to recreational use. Since the plants themselves are fungible and the use cannot be determined until the plant is in the hands of the ultimate consumer, I am sure the D.E.A. will impose strict cradle-to-grave (clone-to-exhalation?) registration and tracking on medicinal plants and probably create (with court approval) strong presumptions against medical use. In short, people will still get busted and have to spend thousands to defend themselves and producers will be buried in paperwork and inspectors.
Even if the enabling statute keeps the D.E.A. at arm's length, some kind of regulation is inevitable. Nothing ingestable today is sold in an unregulated market. The four choices seem to be 1) treat marijuana was a drug, 2) treat it as a dietary supplement; 3) treat it as a food stuff; or 4) consider it sui generis and create a market regulatory scheme just for marijuana.
Since we are considering medical use, treating marijuana as a drug would seem the most reasonable, but it is probably the most impractical solution. If it were a drug, it would have to be approved by the FDA for marketing (I think any idea of a strictly intrastate, non-FDA plan is unrealistic). Currently, New Drug Applications take between 5 and 10 years to process and cost in the neighborhood of $500 Million and up. I see no one on the horizon willing to undertake this effort, and the additional time is too long.
The dietary supplement category is where marijuana seems to fit best, but the law prevents classification of any drug as a supplement. Since either a medical exemption statute or the current claims and uses for marijuana clear make a drug for supplement classification purposes, this approach seems unlikely unless the enabling statute specifically so categorized it.
Classification as a food would provide health and safety regulation of the growing and processing, but would not provide any way to separate medicinal and non-medicinal products or to limit marketing to adults. This also seems unlikely.
The best, and politically most available, method would be for the enabling statute to classify marijuana as sui generis and not subject to the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act. The enabling act should decide whether it would be marketing outside the FDA or whether the FDA's jurisdiction should be extended to include it. Either way would be acceptable.
Precedents for sui generis treatment exist in the marketing of both alcohol and tobacco, the other major personal intoxicants. Tobacco was marketed before the creation of the FDA and, according to the Supreme Court, was omitted from The FDCA scheme. The Repeal Amendment for alcohol let regulation to the states.
Among the choices to be made are issues of jurisdiction. Should regulation be left totally to the states, taken totally by the Federal government preemptively, or shared between the two, as controlled substances are now handled? Should remedies and sanctions be administrative or strictly judicial?

Other issues to be decided include:

-Authorized vendors
--Pharmacies only?
--Direct producer to consumer sales?
--All normal retail outlets?

-Authorization for purchase
--Prescription only?
--Doctor recommendation required?
--Behind-the-counter with signed register?
--Medical marijuana buyer's ID card?
--OTC with buyer at risk of proving medical need on arrest?

-Sales to minors
--Not allowed?
--On doctor's prescription or recommendation?
--Only on prescription with parental consent?
--Sales to parent or guardian only?

-Frequency or quantity limitations?

-Labeling
--THC content?
--Producer's identification?
--Strain or hybrid type identification?
---Mandatory or voluntary?
---Need for variety standards?
---Recommendations for specific medical uses?

-Use restrictions
--Consumption in public?
--Protections against employment discrimination?
--Driving and other use restrictions?

I'm sure that the rest of you can come up with several issues that have skipped my mind, and the time to bring them up is now. I can practically guarantee that the ones I have listed will rather quickly lead to litigation (criminal and civil) and political fights. The current situation in California, and to a lesser extent in Colorado and Oregon, shows what can happen if these issues are not decided early.
I have presented questions, not answers. Many alternatives, including sometimes the alternative of doing nothing, are viable. But all of us together can start building a reasonable framework. Let's share ideas and solutions. Perhaps one of the reform groups could set up a web site to host discussions of these issues.

Project Innocence: 200 Exhonorations

Project Innocence has just celebrated (if that's the word to use for an exercise designed to work hard to restore people to where they once had been) the exhonoration of the 200th wrongfully convicted person through the use of DNA evidence. Since they have dealt mainly with those convicted of murder or rape, why is this important for those interested in drug reform?

The answer in two words: Mike Nifong.

Barry Scheck and Peter neufeld, co-directors of Project Innocence, co-authored the book Actual Innocence a few years ago that I think should be required reading for all U.S. citizens.
In that book they looked at the exhonorations they had obtained to that date and tried to determine what had led to the wringful conviction in the first place. The leading cause was eyewitness identification, which study after study has shown to be wrong at least half the time, but as contributing factors in over half the cases were prosecutorial misconduct and police malfeasance.

Prosecutors repeatedly suppressed exculpatory evidence, offered evidence they knew was false and abetted police and informer perjury. Polie coerced (or worse) defendants and witnesses, suppressed or planted evidence, wrote false reports, committed perjury, and conspired among themselves to commit perjury.

Crime labs routinely filed false or misleading reports, almost always in favor of the prosecutor's theory of the case.

One or more of these elements appeared in almost every case.

District Attorneys and police weild the most awesome discretion of any government agencies; and they are the most unchecked.

If it happens in the full publicity glare of murder cases, what do you suppose goes on in the everyday routine of drug cases?

Any kind of true reform must include more open operation of police and prosecutorial functions and more thorough civilian review and control of their operations.

Congratulations to Project Innocence: keep it up!

Hemp and Pot

While I sympathize with the hemp growers attempts to distance themselves from the Stoners and Slackers who get wasted on that evil marijuana, I wonder if they are really helping themselves by promoting an untruth.

Hemp and marijuana are NOT different plants; they are merely cultivars of the same species, much like Great Danes and Yorkshire Terriers are still dogs.

Hemp plants have been selected for low THC content (accidently) and tall stalk growth. Marijuana plants have been selected for moderate THC content (intentionally) and bushy growth. Hemp cultivation incourages stalk growth and discourages flowering; marijuana cultivation incourages flowering and discourages stalk growth.

However, if either hemp or marijuana is allows to grow wild (like the ditch weed in the Midwest, most of which is escaped WWII era hemp), over a few generations both will regress toward the norm, and both will result in a relatively tall plant with a moderately low THC content -- enough to get high on, but not really that enjoyable. And for those of you with a do-it-yourself bent, save the residue from your Hash crop and weave a shirt out of it.

I realize that marijuana legalizers, medical marijuana users, and hemp growers are just fellow travelers and not true allies; but all three groups will be better served if their campaigns are founded on the truth.

Americans

(Based on an excerpt from a speech I gave at the Houston NORML 420 Fest last night, advocating political action)
When I was growing up, my mother told me to always be nice and not to cause trouble. But when civil rights or liberties are threatened, I have to ignore Momma, and be aggressive, if not downright rude, and cause lots of trouble. Why? Because I am an American.
Americans once had a flag with the picture of a rattlesnake and the motto "Don't Tread on Me". They dressed up as Indians, illegally seized a legitimate merchant ship and destroyed its valuable cargo of tea by throwing it in the harbor. They stood on the Lexington Green and exchanged fire with government troops coming to take their arms.
Americans created a government of "We, The People", destroying kings and other rulers.
Henry David Thoreau was an American when he sat in the Concord jail for not paying a tax to support the Fugitive Slave Act and chided Ralph Waldo Emerson for being outside. His greatest disciple, the American Martin Luther King, Jr., wrote "A Letter from the Birmingham Jail".
American veterans in 1930 marched in the tens of thousands to Washington after the Great Depression destroyed their jobs. They lived in the parks and public spaces, demanding that Congress pay their promised pensions from the Great War and create jobs. They stayed, in spite of a cavalry charge by Douglas MacArthur and the U. S. Army, until Congress met their demands.
In the 1950s and 60s, Americans rode in the fronts of buses, sat in forbidden lunchcounters, crossed the bridge in Selma in the face of police with clubs, dogs and firehoses. In the 60s and 70s, Americans told LBJ: "Hell, no! We won't go!" and surrounded the Pentagon with flowers.
Walt Disney quoted an American (and Texan), Davy Crockett, as saying: "Be sure you're right, then go ahead."
We are sure we are right on marijuana, so, as Americans, we must move ahead. To quote another group of Americans, The Beasty Boys, we must "Fight for our right to party!"

VA Tech: Blame it on Prozac?

The media are starting to pick up on the idea that the killings at VA Tech were the result of the so-called Prozac syndrome -- that some users of Prozac and other SSRIs are impelled to violent or suicidal acts.

Don't blame it on Prozac. Mass killers existed long before Prozac did and will continue to exist long after it is discontinued. In fact, it's probably best not to worry about the cause at all. Cognative science is a long way from being there yet; and we certainly don't want to lock someone up or limit his civil rights just because he "might" commit a crime some day.

By the way, the figures quoted this week calmed 40 deaths in K-12 school shootings over the past ten years. That's 4 deaths a year, probably below lightning strikes and certainly less than high-school football deaths (20-30/year) or bicycle riding (around 600 minors/year) or drowning (40/year).

Don't be like a Drug Warrior, and turn this into a killer weed with a deadly drug fiend behind every door.

Most of my life, I have been in favor of strong gun control (inspite of growing up in the West, hunting as a child and a teen, and still owning several guns myself); but yesterday I realized that strict gun control is just another form of prohibition law; and with the strong demand level in this country, woudl lead to the same kinds of prohibition defects like black markets and corrupt cops. When I started analyzing the differences between us and England or Cananda, it became obvious that the differences are in the level of demand. Depriving an Englishman of a gun (other than his shotgun) would be about like depriving me of a root-canal. Work in this country on gun control, like drug control, has to be on the demand side by education and by eliminating causual elements in the society (like lack of mental health facilities)

Talking or doing?

Is it time for drug reformers to move from talking about drug reform to doing about drug reform?

The polls indicate that the battle for opinion about medical marijuana has been won and that a substantial number of people are now willing to remove penalties from possession and use of marijuana. So, what will it take to convert those attitudes into legal changes?

It's time to take to the streets. Political action often has to be political theater; a way to get people involved emotionally and a way to get the media involved visually. As I often heard when I was a child, "Actions speak louder than words."

The tradition of political action -- civil disobedience is an old and noble one. The first modern proponent was Henry David Thoreau, who developed a lot of the theory and protested the Fugitive Slave Act from inside the Concord jail. Ghandi brought down the British Empire and led India to freedom with Thoreau's methods; and the greatest proponent was Martin Luther King, Jr. in his leadership of the American Civil Rights movement.

One problem that we have is marijuana's image. For a very long time, the image of the marijuana user has been the Cheech-and-Chong stoner. Recently that has been extended to include the very ill. What has been missing is the image of ordinary people who use marijuana as part of their normal life. Politicians, voters, and newspeople need to see ordinary people in business suits lighting a joint. Smokers who are not stoners need to become visable.

Unfortunately, those are the same people who are uncomfortable making scenes. However, it would be worth their while if a hundred - or even 25 -- of them gathered outside the city hall or the state capital to smoke a joint. There's safety in numbers: if a hundred participate, probably no one gets arrested; there's power in numbers: if a hundred participate, the news cameras appear and interviews are made.

The retired people, who are not risking job or professional license, may be the most available -- and the most credible. If they have clean records, no jury or judge will send them to jail; and even if they are tried, the event in itself will be noteworthy.

Politicans in critical committee positions or who have publically taken pro-Drug War positions should have to run a gauntlet -- well-dressed, polite, but firm -- every time they enter or leave their offices or legislative spaces. They need to be shown that acts have consequences. Every one of their public appearances should have well-dressed questioners to ask the embarassing questions that we all can help write.

There are lots of public spaces that can be reserved so that respectable panels can conduct public discussions on "Why I use marijuana."

In short, it's time to quit being supplicants and start demanding recognition of our status. The only way to overcome the myths is to live and show the truth.

[By the way, I'm not knocking stoners. It's just that in this political fight, it's time for the moderate middle-American to stop hiding behind the stoners' image. ]

Come out of the closet, and show America who really smokes!

Shame on you, Rep. Dianne White Delisi

(While this post is Texas Specific, the message behind it is not)

Representative Dianne White Delisi, Chair of the House Public Health Committee should be ashamed of herself for refusing to set hearings on HB1534, which would allow people using marijuana medically on their doctors' advice from raising a defense of medical necessity to charges of possession of marijuana.

Her refusal is a blatant example of substituting her uninformed prejudices for the will of the People.

Polls show that over 70% of the population favor allowing seriously ill people to use marijuana medically if their doctors so recommend.

The science behind medical marijuana is solid and uncontravertable. Not only has a recent referreed article established, in a double blind test, the effectiveness of marijuana in the treatment of neuropathic pain, clinical trials have also shown it effective in the treatment of MS. Its use as an antispasmodic and as ancillary therapy for cancer and HIV is uncontraverted. The National Institute of Medicine, in 1988 recognized its therapeutic effectiveness.

Its safety is also uncontravertable. There is no record, in over 150 years of medical and recreational use, of any death attributable to marijuana. At least three multi-thousand patient, long term studies show no health differences between marijuana users and non-users.

In short, the only opponents to the medical use of marijuana are police agencies, like the DEA, which have no competence to speak to medical issues.

The legislature as a whole may or may not approve HB1534, but it as an act of unbridled arrogance for one person, Chair of a committee or not, to substitute her personal biases for an honest and open discussion of the merits of the matter.

Bob Barr and "Bong Hits 4...": A Conservative Dilemma

The Religious Right/Social Censervatives have been known for their adamant stand on absolute principles and refusal to compromise on any legislative or constitutional approaches to issues that they believe have moral bases. However, two situations have recently arisen that have presented them with a true dilemma: do they insist on an absolute anti-drug position or do they recognize the reciprocal nature of rights to individual freedoms.

In short, do they recognize the principle that the policeman in my enemy's living room casts a dark shadow over my own house?

The more ironic of the two situations is the announcement that ex-Congresscritter Bob Barr has been retained as a lobbist for a medical marijuana group. Barr, a far-right Republican, was a consistently hard line Drug Warrior. He is best known for sponsorship of the Barr Amendment that prevented the District of Columbia from even conducting a referendum on the issue of medical marijuana. He now states that the danger of governmental intrusion into personal lives is a greater threat to American life than is a less intrusive drug policy. A social conservative has now become a more libertarian small-government conservative.

The "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" Supreme Court case concerning the speech rights of an Alsakan high school student has created an even deeper rift in the Religious Right.

Kenneth Starr, darling of the Right, Special Prosecutor ( or is that Persecutor?) of Bill Clinton, who eased out of government service into the position of Dean of the Law School of Pepperdine University, a right-wing religiously base college in California, is representing the school principal and arguing the school's right to supress drug activity.

Filing amicus briefs in support of the student's right to display his banner are several organisations of religious fundamentalists. The recognize that suppression of this silly banner will jeopardize several of their cherished programs, including such humbugs as abstinence-only sex education, intelligent (sic!)-design biology courses, and the plastering of school walls with Ten Commandment plaques.

And, you know what, they're right! Either the Bill of Rights protects all of us or it protects no one. Unless they can become a veto-proof 70% majority, the American Taliban cannot establish their cherished theocracy; and unless they do, they run the risk of being suppressed.

The rule of a pluralistic society is that we all must, if not respect, rcognize the rights of each other; for, in the words of Ben Franklin, if we do not hang to gather, we shall all hang separately. For the more theologically inclined, I leave it as a research project to look at the strikingly parallel defences of their martyrdoms by St. Thomas More and Dietrich Bonhoeffer.