Why We Should Legalize Drugs

[Freak Out]

Don't tread on me.

[MJZiggy]

http://wtop.com/?nid=106&sid=1178512

By DEBORAH BAKER
Associated Press Writer

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico has a new medical marijuana law with a twist: It requires the state to grow its own.

The law, effective Sunday, not only protects medical marijuana users from prosecution _ as 11 other states do _ but requires New Mexico to oversee a production and distribution system for the drug.

"The long-term goal is that the patients will have a safe, secure supply that doesn't mean drug dealers, that doesn't mean growing their own," said Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico.

The state Department of Health must issue rules by Oct. 1 for the licensing of marijuana producers and in-state, secured facilities, and for developing a distribution system.

The law was passed in March and signed by Gov. Bill Richardson, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Other states with medical marijuana laws are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Maryland's law doesn't protect patients from arrest, but it keeps defendants out of jail if they can convince judges they needed marijuana for medical reasons.

Connecticut's governor vetoed a medical marijuana bill recently.

The distribution and use of marijuana are illegal under federal law, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 in a California case that medical marijuana users can be prosecuted.

Faced with that dilemma, the health department has asked state Attorney General Gary King whether its employees could be federally prosecuted for running the medical marijuana registry and identification card program, and whether the agency can license marijuana producers and facilities.

"The production part is unprecedented. ... No other state law does that," said Dr. Steve Jenison, who is running the program for the health department. "So we're trying to be very thoughtful in how we proceed."

In the meantime, however, patients must obtain their own supplies.

The state will immediately begin taking applications from patients whose doctors certify they are eligible for the program.

Within weeks, approved patients _ or their approved primary caregivers _ would receive temporary certificates allowing them to possess up to six ounces of marijuana, four mature plants and three immature seedlings. That's enough for three months, the department says.

The law allows the use of marijuana for specified conditions including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and HIV-AIDS, as well as by some patients in hospice care.

An eight-member advisory board of doctors could recommend that other conditions be added to the list.

Martin Walker was diagnosed four years ago as HIV positive and uses marijuana to combat nausea and depression. He said he looks forward to being able to obtain the drug legally.

"If there's a system in place that's going to allow me to do this treatment without having to break the law ... I'll just be able to sleep better at night," said Walker, who runs HIV prevention and other outdoor-based adult health programs for the Santa Fe Mountain Center.

[Freak Out]

http://wtop.com/?nid=106&sid=1178512

By DEBORAH BAKER
Associated Press Writer

SANTA FE, N.M. (AP) - New Mexico has a new medical marijuana law with a twist: It requires the state to grow its own.

The law, effective Sunday, not only protects medical marijuana users from prosecution _ as 11 other states do _ but requires New Mexico to oversee a production and distribution system for the drug.

"The long-term goal is that the patients will have a safe, secure supply that doesn't mean drug dealers, that doesn't mean growing their own," said Reena Szczepanski, director of Drug Policy Alliance New Mexico.

The state Department of Health must issue rules by Oct. 1 for the licensing of marijuana producers and in-state, secured facilities, and for developing a distribution system.

The law was passed in March and signed by Gov. Bill Richardson, who is running for the Democratic presidential nomination.

Other states with medical marijuana laws are Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. Maryland's law doesn't protect patients from arrest, but it keeps defendants out of jail if they can convince judges they needed marijuana for medical reasons.

Connecticut's governor vetoed a medical marijuana bill recently.

The distribution and use of marijuana are illegal under federal law, and the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 in a California case that medical marijuana users can be prosecuted.

Faced with that dilemma, the health department has asked state Attorney General Gary King whether its employees could be federally prosecuted for running the medical marijuana registry and identification card program, and whether the agency can license marijuana producers and facilities.

"The production part is unprecedented. ... No other state law does that," said Dr. Steve Jenison, who is running the program for the health department. "So we're trying to be very thoughtful in how we proceed."

In the meantime, however, patients must obtain their own supplies.

The state will immediately begin taking applications from patients whose doctors certify they are eligible for the program.

Within weeks, approved patients _ or their approved primary caregivers _ would receive temporary certificates allowing them to possess up to six ounces of marijuana, four mature plants and three immature seedlings. That's enough for three months, the department says.

The law allows the use of marijuana for specified conditions including cancer, glaucoma, multiple sclerosis, epilepsy and HIV-AIDS, as well as by some patients in hospice care.

An eight-member advisory board of doctors could recommend that other conditions be added to the list.

Martin Walker was diagnosed four years ago as HIV positive and uses marijuana to combat nausea and depression. He said he looks forward to being able to obtain the drug legally.

"If there's a system in place that's going to allow me to do this treatment without having to break the law ... I'll just be able to sleep better at night," said Walker, who runs HIV prevention and other outdoor-based adult health programs for the Santa Fe Mountain Center.

We'll see how long it takes for the Feds to challenge this one. Remember who is running the DOJ.

[Freak Out]

Senator, You Used to Be a Pot Head -- Now You're Talking Like a Narc

By Norman Kent, AlterNet
Posted on July 6, 2007, Printed on July 6, 2007

http://www.alternet.org/story/55830/

Editor's Note: The following is a letter addressed to Minnesota Republican Senator Norm Coleman -- a strong advocate of the brutal federal drug laws on the books -- reminding him that he used to be a happy, safe, fun-loving pot smoker.

My friend Norman,

Years ago, in a lifetime far away, you did not oppose the legalization of marijuana. Years ago, in our dorm rooms at Hofstra University, you, me, Billy, your future brother-in-law, Ivan, Jonathan, Peter, Janet, Nancy and a wealth of other students smoked dope.

Sure, we had to tape the doors shut, burn incense and open the windows, but we got high, and yet we grew up okay, without the help of the Office of National Drug Control Policy's advice.

We grew up to become lawyers. Our other friends, as you go down the list, are doctors, professors, parents, political consultants and professionals. No one ever got cancer from smoking pot or diabetes from using a joint. And the days of our youth we look back fondly upon as years where we stood up, were counted and made a difference, from Earth Day in 1970 to helping bring down a president and end a war in Southeast Asia a few years later. We smoked pot when we took over Weller Hall to protest administrative abuses of students' rights. You smoked pot as you stood on the roof of the University Senate protesting faculty exclusivity. As the President of the Student Senate in 1969, you condemned the raid by Nassau County police on our dormitories, busting scores of students for pot possession.

You never said then that pot was dangerous. What was scary then, and is as frightening now, is when national leaders become voices of hypocrisy, harbingers of the status quo, and protect their own position instead of the public good. Welcome to the crowd of those who have become a likeness of which they despised. Welcome to the mindless myriad of legislators who gather in cocktail lounges to manhandle their martinis while passing laws against drunk driving.

We have seen more people die last year from spinach then pot. We have endured generations of drug addicts overdosing on a multitude of drugs, from heroin to crystal methamphetamine. In your public life, as an attorney general, mayor and United States senator, you have been in the forefront of speaking out against abuses which are harmful. You have been a noble and honorable public servant. How about not being such a dope on dope?

How about admitting that if the Rockefeller drug laws were applied to Norman Bruce Coleman on Long Island in 1968, or to me, or to our friends, and fellow students, you, I and others we knew and loved might just be getting out of jail now? How about recognizing that for too long too many have been wrongly arrested, unjustly prosecuted and illegally incarcerated for unconscionable periods of time?

How about recognizing that you have peers who have smoked pot for 25 years or more and they are successful record producers, businessmen and parents?

How about standing up and saying you have heard and witnessed countless stories of persons who have used pot medicinally, as I have, to endure the effects of chemotherapy?

You who have travelled to Africa and seen the face of AIDS so up close and personal would deny medicinal marijuana relief to those souls wasting away from malnutrition, nausea and no access to fundamental medicines?

How about not adopting the sad and sorry archaic path of our office of drug control, which this week suggested pot smokers are more likely to become gang members than others?

How about standing up and saying: "I, Norm Coleman, smoked pot in 1969." That "I am not a gang member, a drug addict or a criminal."

How about saying: "I was able to responsibly integrate my prior pot use into my life, and still succeed on my own merits."

How about standing up not only for who you are, but who you were?

How about it, Norm?

I will always love, admire and cherish what you have achieved and accomplished and the goals you have met. I will always fondly look at the remarkable success of your present.

How about you looking back at your past and saying: "What I did was not so wrong and not so bad and not so hurtful that generations of Americans should still, decades later, be going to jail for smoking pot -- nearly one million arrests for possession last year."

Can't Norm Coleman come out of the closet in 2007 and say "These arrests are wrong -- that there is a better way, and we need to find it."

You might find more integrity and honor in that then adopting the sad and sorry policy of our Office of National Drug Control Policy.

You might find the person you were.

Norm Kent

Norm Kent is an attorney based in Ft. Lauderdale, FL, who specializes in criminal defense and appeals, media law and First Amendment issues. He serves on the Board of Directors for NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.