Medical marijuana is still legal in Montana. Governor Brian Schweitzer has vetoed a Republican bill that would have repealed the state’s medical marijuana law, approved by an overwhelming 62 percent of state voters in 2004.

Schweitzer vetoed the bill on Wednesday, along with several others he called “frivolous, unconstitutional or in direct contradiction to the expressed will of the people of Montana, “reports The Associated Press.

Montana now has more than 28,000 registered medical marijuana patients.Supporters of the repeal claimed the boom has “gone too far,” and that the voter initiative cannot be effectively reformed.A separate bill which would tighten up Montana’s medical marijuana rules is now in conference committee. Observers say it could be the Legislature’s last chance of acting on the medical marijuana question, with little more than a week left in the legislative session.

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 Top government officials in Jamaica have said they will review recommendations to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal and religious use in the Caribbean island nation. Six Cabinet ministers in Prime Minister Bruce Golding’s administration will evaluate a 2001 report by the National Commission for Ganja, reports David McFadden of Bloomberg Businessweek.

The commission, which included academics and doctors and was appointed by a government led by the current opposition party, argued that cannabis was “culturally entrenched” in Jamaica and that moderate use had no negative health effects on most users.

Why now? That’s what observers of the scene are asking themselves. The report in question came out 10 years ago, after all. Why is the Jamaican government is choosing to review the 10-year-old report now, especially since it was sponsored by the opposition party??Rev. Webster Edwards, who served on the commission a decade ago, voiced relief that the report would be reviewed by government officials, and expressed hope that legislators might eventually loosen the laws against marijuana.

“There have been many persons who have been lifelong smokers of ganja who have not moved to harder drugs at all,” Edwards said. “Decriminalizing very, very small quantities will allow persons not to get strikes against them in the justice system.”Edwards stressed the fact that the report also urged the government to step up operations against large-scale marijuana cultivation in Jamaica. Guess no report is perfect, eh?Marijuana is widely tolerated in Jamaica, but it remains illegal. Followers of the Rastafarian minority regard ganja as a sacrament and believe it brings them closer to God. Some Jamaicans use cannabis medicinally, as well, brewing it into teas to relieve aches and pains.

Previous efforts to decriminalize marijuana in Jamaica failed because of government fears that doing so would violate international treaties and bring the wrath of the United States down on their heads.For decades, the U.S. has funded ill-conceived efforts to burn ganja fields in Jamaica, which is the largest producer of cannabis in the Caribbean.U.S. Embassy officials said they have not been told why the Jamaican government is getting the ganja report back out after 10 years.”Whatever the impetus, it’s an internal Jamaican issue, and we therefore don’t comment on either the debate or the outcome,” spokeswoman Yolonda Kerney said. But just let Jamaica legalize ganja, and you’ll see plenty of “comment” on that “outcome” when the heavy-handed American drug warriors cut off financial aid.

Many in Jamaica and elsewhere believe that decriminalization, even for personal use, would “create friction” with Washington, D.C., and also violate various international treaties, including the 1988 U.N. Convention Against the Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances. Jamaica signed that agreement.

The 2001 commission actually addressed those concerns in its report 10 years ago, asking the government to “embark on diplomatic initiatives … to elicit support for its internal position and influence the international community to re-examine the status of cannabis.”Dr. Wendel Abel at the University of the West Indies Department of Community Health and Psychiatry said there is “widespread support in Jamaica for decriminalization for private, personal use.

“But he also said he is confident that international treaties would keep Jamaica from decriminalizing.Any change in drug laws would have to be approved by the Jamaican Parliament. 

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The Arizona Department of Health received 110 electronic applications — almost 60 percent of them for chronic pain — and authorized at least 44 people to use medical marijuana on Wednesday, the first day the program was active.

Their cards were mailed on Thursday, reports Mary K. Reinhart at AZCentral, allowing them to buy and possess up to 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks, and grow up to 12 plants.

Those who live closer than 25 miles to the nearest dispensary eventually won’t be allowed to grow their own, but until the dispensaries are up and running, all patients are allowed to grow.

About a third of the applications were rejected for various reasons, including problems with physician forms certifying the patient has a specific debilitating medical condition and could benefit from using marijuana.

One physician listed “problems” as the patient’s qualifying medical condition, according to DHS officials. Yeah, that was one of the ones they rejected, dude.The overwhelming majority — 82 percent — of the applicants were men. Their ages ranged widely.

There were no applications on behalf of children.Applicants are required to submit a photo, a copy of their Arizona driver’s license and their physician certification.

Arizona voters last November approved the use of cannabis to treat certain ailments, including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS and Alzheimer’s disease.

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 The Colorado Senate is set to take up HB 1261, a bill that would set THC driving limits at five nanograms per milliliter of blood — a level that’s too low, according to many critics of the bill. Medical marijuana patients, especially, who are accustomed to the presence of cannabis in their systems, could be unfairly targeted, according to advocates.

Even its sponsor, Rep. Claire Levy, now thinks the five-nanogram number may be too strict, reports Michael Roberts at Denver Westword. And according to attorney M. Colin Breesee, there are even bigger problems with the bill, including test results that can take months to come back, and prosecutors who don’t understand them when they do.According to Breesee, a delay of two months between collection of a blood sample and results returned is hardly unusual. In fact, he said, one recent client had to wait nearly three months.

Besides, confusion exists about the difference between THC-COOH — that is, THC that is stored in fatty tissue cells, and is thus inactive — and active THC. Many prosecutors tend to assume that THC can be measured in the same way as alcohol, not realizing that your body loves THC so much it hangs onto it in ways that will show up on tests, but will not impede driving ability.”Here’s the analogy I give,” Breesee told Westword. “Imagine if someone got pulled over and had to do a blood test for an alcohol DUI, and not only did the test say how much alcohol you had in your system then, but also how much alcohol you’ve had in the past month.

That’s what it’s like.”Bresee believes many prosecutors still don’t understand the difference between active and inactive THC, let alone many defendants, who have given up and pled guilty because they didn’t understand the difference, either.

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Ten years ago, the Lisbon neighborhood was a hellhole, a “drug supermarket” where some 5,000 users lined up every day to buy heroin and sneaked into a hillside honeycomb of derelict housing to shoot up. In dark, stinking corners, addicts – some with maggots squirming under track marks – staggered between the occasional corpse, scavenging used, bloody needles.

At that time, Portugal, like the junkies of Casal Ventoso, had hit rock bottom: An estimated 100,000 people – an astonishing 1 percent of the population – were addicted to illegal drugs. So, like anyone with little to lose, the Portuguese took a risky leap: They decriminalized the use of all drugs in a groundbreaking law in 2000.

Now, the United States, which has waged a 40-year, $1 trillion war on drugs, is looking for answers in tiny Portugal, which is reaping the benefits of what once looked like a dangerous gamble. White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske visited Portugal in September to learn about its drug reforms, and other countries – including Norway, Denmark, Australia and Peru – have taken interest, too.

“The disasters that were predicted by critics didn’t happen,” said University of Kent professor Alex Stevens, who has studied Portugal’s program. “The answer was simple: Provide treatment.”

Drugs in Portugal are still illegal. But here’s what Portugal did: It changed the law so that users are sent to counseling and sometimes treatment instead of criminal courts and prison. The switch from drugs as a criminal issue to a public health one was aimed at preventing users from going underground.

Other European countries treat drugs as a public health problem, too, but Portugal stands out as the only one that has written that approach into law. The result: More people tried drugs, but fewer ended up addicted.

Here’s what happened between 2000 and 2008:

* There were small increases in illicit drug use among adults, but decreases for adolescents and problem users, such as drug addicts and prisoners.

* Drug-related court cases dropped 66 percent.

* Drug-related HIV cases dropped 75 percent. In 2002, 49 percent of people with AIDS were addicts; by 2008 that number fell to 28 percent.

* The number of regular users held steady at less than 3 percent of the population for marijuana and less than 0.3 percent for heroin and cocaine – figures which show decriminalization brought no surge in drug use.

* The number of people treated for drug addiction rose 20 percent from 2001 to 2008.

Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Socrates, one of the chief architects of Portugal’s new drug strategy, says he was inspired partly by his own experience of helping his brother beat addiction.

“It was a very hard change to make at the time because the drug issue involves lots of prejudices,” he said. “You just need to rid yourselves of prejudice and take an intelligent approach.”

Officials have not yet worked out the cost of the program, but they expect no increase in spending, since most of the money was diverted from the justice system to the public health service.

In Portugal today, outreach health workers provide addicts with fresh needles, swabs, little dishes to cook up the injectable mixture, disinfectant and condoms. But anyone caught with even a small amount of drugs is automatically sent to what is known as a Dissuasion Committee for counseling. The committees include legal experts, psychologists and social workers.

Failure to turn up can result in fines, mandatory treatment or other sanctions. In serious cases, the panel recommends the user be sent to a treatment center.

Health works shepherd some addicts off the streets directly into treatment. That’s what happened to 33-year-old Tiago, who is struggling to kick heroin at a Lisbon rehab facility.

Tiago, who requested his first name only be used to protect his privacy, started taking heroin when he was 20. He shot up four or five times a day, sleeping for years in an abandoned car where, with his addicted girlfriend, he fathered a child he has never seen.

At the airy Lisbon treatment center where he now lives, Tiago plays table tennis, surfs the Internet and watches TV. He helps with cleaning and other odd jobs. And he’s back to his normal weight after dropping to 50 kilograms (110 pounds) during his addiction.

After almost six months on methadone, each day trimming his intake, he brims with hope about his upcoming move to a home run by the Catholic church where recovered addicts are offered a fresh start.

“I just ask God that it’ll be the first and last time – the first time I go to a home and the last time I go through detox,” he said.

Portugal’s program is widely seen as effective, but some say it has shortcomings.

Antonio Lourenco Martins, a former Portuguese Supreme Court judge who sat on a 1998 commission that drafted the new drug strategy and was one of two on the nine-member panel who voted against decriminalization, admits the law has done some good, but complains that its approach is too soft.

Francisco Chaves, who runs a Lisbon treatment center, also recognizes that addicts might exploit good will.

“We know that (when there is) a lack of pressure, none of us change or are willing to change,” Chaves said.

Worldwide, a record 93 countries offered alternatives to jail time for drug abuse in 2010, according to the International Harm Reduction Association. They range from needle exchanges in Cambodia to methadone treatment in Poland.

Vancouver, Canada, has North America’s first legal drug consumption room – dubbed as “a safe, health-focused place where people inject drugs and connect to health care services.” Brazil and Uruguay have eliminated jail time for people carrying small amounts of drugs for personal use.

Whether the alternative approaches work seems to depend on how they are carried out. In the Netherlands, where police ignore the peaceful consumption of illegal drugs, drug use and dealing are rising, according to the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction. Five Dutch cities are implementing new restrictions on marijuana cafes after a wave of drug-related gang violence.

However, in Switzerland, where addicts are supervised as they inject heroin, addiction has steadily declined. No one has died from an overdose since the program began in 1994, according to medical studies. The program is credited with reducing crime and improving addicts’ health.

The Obama administration firmly opposes the legalization of drugs, saying that it would increase access and promote acceptance, according to drug czar Kerlikowske. The U.S. is spending $74 billion this year on criminal and court proceedings for drug offenders, compared with $3.6 billion for treatment.

But even the U.S. has taken small steps toward Portugal’s approach of more intervention and treatment programs. And Kerlikowske has called for an end to the “War on Drugs” rhetoric.

“Calling it a war really limits your resources,” he said. “Looking at this as both a public safety problem and a public health problem seems to make a lot more sense.”

There is no guarantee that Portugal’s approach would work in the U.S. For one, the U.S. population is 29 times larger than Portugal’s 10.6 million.

Still, an increasing number of American cities are offering nonviolent drug offenders a chance to choose treatment over jail, and the approach appears to be working.

In San Francisco’s gritty Tenderloin neighborhood, Tyrone Cooper, a 52-year-old lifelong drug addict, can’t stop laughing at how a system that has put him in jail a dozen times now has him on the road to recovery.

“Instead of going to smoke crack, I went to a rehab meeting,” he said. “Can you believe it? Me! A meeting! I mean, there were my boys, right there smoking crack, and Tyrone walked right past them. ‘Sorry,’ I told them, ‘I gotta get to this meeting.’”

Cooper is one of hundreds of San Franciscans who landed in a court program this year where judges offered them a chance to go to rehab, get jobs, move into houses, find primary care physicians, even remove their tattoos. There is enough data now to show that these alternative courts reduce recidivism and save money.

Nationally, between 4 and 29 percent of drug court participants will get caught using drugs again, compared with 48 percent of those who go through traditional courts.

San Francisco’s drug court saves the city $14,297 per offender, officials said. Expanding drug courts to all 1.5 million drug offenders in the U.S. would cost more than $13 billion annually, but would return more than $40 billion, according to a study by John Roman, a senior researcher at the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center.

The first drug court opened in the U.S. 21 years ago. By 1999, there were 472; by 2005, 1,250.

This year, new drug courts opened every week around the U.S., as states faced budget crises exarcebated by the high rate of incarceration on drug offenses. There are now drug courts in every state, more than 2,400 serving 120,000 people.

Last year, New York lawmakers followed counterparts across the U.S. who have tossed out tough, 40-year-old drug laws and mandatory sentences, giving judges unprecedented sentencing options. Also, the Department of Health and Human Services is training doctors to screen patients for potential addiction, and reimbursing Medicare and Medicaid providers who do so.

Arizona recently became the 15th state in the nation to approve medical use of marijuana, following California’s 2006 legislation.

In Portugal, the blight that once destroyed the Casal Ventoso neighborhood is a distant memory.

Americo Nave, a 39-year-old psychologist, remembers the chilling stories his colleagues brought back after Portuguese authorities sent a first team of health workers into the Casal Ventoso neighborhood in the late 1990s. Some addicts had gangrene, and their arms had to be amputated.

Those days are past, though there are vestiges. About a dozen frail, mostly unkempt men recently gathered next to a bus stop to get new needles and swabs in small green plastic bags from health workers, as part of a twice-weekly program. Some ducked out of sight behind walls to shoot up, and one crouched behind trash cans, trying to shield his lighter flame from the wind.

A 37-year-old man who would only identify himself as Joao said he’s been using heroin for 22 years. He has contracted Hepatitis C, and recalls picking up used, bloody needles from the sidewalk. Now he comes regularly to the needle exchange.

“These teams … have helped a lot of people,” he said, struggling to concentrate as he draws on a cigarette.

The decayed housing that once hid addicts has long since been bulldozed. And this year, Lisbon’s city council planted 600 trees and 16,500 bushes on the hillside.

This spring they’re expected to bloom.

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Author: Barry Hatton and Martha Mendoza, Associated Press
Published: December 26, 2010
Copyright: 2010 The Associated Press

Other Posts of Interest: New Drug Policy Needs a Few FixesNew Drug Control Strategy Signals Policy ShiftA New Era for U.S. Drug Policy?Time Magazine Examines Drug Decrim in Portugal

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Nanaimo RCMP are still not releasing details on their raid last Friday of a medicinal marijuana operation in Cedar that had an expired licence from Health Canada.

But Const. Gary O’Brien said the RCMP were justified in carrying out the raid on the pot operation at David Hodgkinson’s residence, and will release more details at a later date.

“We don’t just target these types of operations without a good reason,” O’Brien said Tuesday.

“I don’t think that would be moral or in the spirit of the law.”

Hodgkinson has been growing medicinal marijuana in his house for about a year under a licence to cultivate the controversial herb from Health Canada.

Hodgkinson was licensed to grow up to 49 pot plants, but he said his licence expired in August, despite the fact that he applied for its renewal eight weeks before its expiry date, as stipulated by Health Canada.

While not referring specifically to Hodgkinson’s case, Health Canada claimed it has been backlogged with applications for new licences to grow medicinal pot and renewals of old licences that have slowed the application process.

Karl Anderson, executive director of the Canadian Safe Cannabis Society and a licensed medicinal marijuana grower, said a similar situation happened to him last year at his home in Kamloops.

“My licence was valid at the time, but the police raided my operation anyway,” he said.

“I was never charged and my equipment was returned but much of it was damaged beyond repair. I find these cases to be utterly disgraceful.”

Source: Nanaimo Daily News (CN BC)
Copyright: 2010 Nanaimo Daily News
Contact: letters@nanaimodailynews.com
Website: http://www.canada.com/nanaimodailynews/

Other Posts of Interest: Process To Obtain Medicinal Pot Very Difficult, Says Local PatientCops, District Check Out Medical Pot ShopPot-Growing Operations Decrease Property ValuesOffering Hydroponic Growing Advice Perfectly Legal, Say Police

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The Drug Enforcement Administration has been transformed into a global intelligence organization with a reach that extends far beyond narcotics, and an eavesdropping operation so expansive it has to fend off foreign politicians who want to use it against their political enemies, according to secret diplomatic cables.

In far greater detail than previously seen, the cables, from the cache obtained by WikiLeaks and made available to some news organizations, offer glimpses of drug agents balancing diplomacy and law enforcement in places where it can be hard to tell the politicians from the traffickers, and where drug rings are themselves mini-states whose wealth and violence permit them to run roughshod over struggling governments.

Diplomats recorded unforgettable vignettes from the largely unseen war on drugs:

* In Panama, an urgent BlackBerry message from the president to the American ambassador demanded that the D.E.A. go after his political enemies: “I need help with tapping phones.”

* In Sierra Leone, a major cocaine-trafficking prosecution was almost upended by the attorney general’s attempt to solicit $2.5 million in bribes.

* In Guinea, the country’s biggest narcotics kingpin turned out to be the president’s son, and diplomats discovered that before the police destroyed a huge narcotics seizure, the drugs had been replaced by flour.

* Leaders of Mexico’s beleaguered military issued private pleas for closer collaboration with the drug agency, confessing that they had little faith in their own country’s police forces.

* Cables from Myanmar, the target of strict United States sanctions, describe the drug agency informants’ reporting both on how the military junta enriches itself with drug money and on the political activities of the junta’s opponents.

Officials of the D.E.A. and the State Department declined to discuss what they said was information that should never have been made public.

Like many of the cables made public in recent weeks, those describing the drug war do not offer large disclosures.

Rather, it is the details that add up to a clearer picture of the corrupting influence of big traffickers, the tricky game of figuring out which foreign officials are actually controlled by drug lords, and the story of how an entrepreneurial agency operating in the shadows of the F.B.I. has become something more than a drug agency. The D.E.A. now has 87 offices in 63 countries and close partnerships with governments that keep the Central Intelligence Agency at arm’s length.

Because of the ubiquity of the drug scourge, today’s D.E.A. has access to foreign governments, including those, like Nicaragua’s and Venezuela’s, that have strained diplomatic relations with the United States. Many are eager to take advantage of the agency’s drug detection and wiretapping technologies.

In some countries, the collaboration appears to work well, with the drug agency providing intelligence that has helped bring down traffickers, and even entire cartels.

But the victories can come at a high price, according to the cables, which describe scores of D.E.A. informants and a handful of agents who have been killed in Mexico and Afghanistan.

In Venezuela, the local intelligence service turned the tables on the D.E.A., infiltrating its operations, sabotaging equipment and hiring a computer hacker to intercept American Embassy e-mails, the cables report.

And as the drug agency has expanded its eavesdropping operations to keep up with cartels, it has faced repeated pressure to redirect its counternarcotics surveillance to local concerns, provoking tensions with some of Washington’s closest allies.

Sticky Situations

Cables written in February by American diplomats in Paraguay, for example, described the D.E.A.’s pushing back against requests from that country’s government to help spy on an insurgent group, known as the Paraguayan People’s Army, or the EPP, the initials of its name in Spanish. The leftist group, suspected of having ties to the Colombian rebel group FARC, had conducted several high-profile kidnappings and was making a small fortune in ransoms.

When American diplomats refused to give Paraguay access to the drug agency’s wiretapping system, Interior Minister Rafael Filizzola threatened to shut it down, saying: “Counternarcotics are important, but won’t topple our government. The EPP could.”

The D.E.A. faced even more intense pressure last year from Panama, whose right-leaning president, Ricardo Martinelli, demanded that the agency allow him to use its wiretapping program — known as Matador — to spy on leftist political enemies he believed were plotting to kill him.

The United States, according to the cables, worried that Mr. Martinelli, a supermarket magnate, “made no distinction between legitimate security targets and political enemies,” refused, igniting tensions that went on for months.

Mr. Martinelli, who the cables said possessed a “penchant for bullying and blackmail,” retaliated by proposing a law that would have ended the D.E.A.’s work with specially vetted police units. Then he tried to subvert the drug agency’s control over the program by assigning nonvetted officers to the counternarcotics unit.

And when the United States pushed back against those attempts — moving the Matador system into the offices of the politically independent attorney general — Mr. Martinelli threatened to expel the drug agency from the country altogether, saying other countries, like Israel, would be happy to comply with his intelligence requests.

Eventually, according to the cables, American diplomats began wondering about Mr. Martinelli’s motivations. Did he really want the D.E.A. to disrupt plots by his adversaries, or was he trying to keep the agency from learning about corruption among his relatives and friends?

One cable asserted that Mr. Martinelli’s cousin helped smuggle tens of millions of dollars in drug proceeds through Panama’s main airport every month. Another noted, “There is no reason to believe there will be fewer acts of corruption in this government than in any past government.”

As the standoff continued, the cables indicate that the United States proposed suspending the Matador program, rather than submitting to Mr. Martinelli’s demands.

(American officials say the program was suspended, but the British took over the wiretapping program and have shared the intelligence with the United States.)

In a statement on Saturday, the government of Panama said that it regretted “the bad interpretation by United States authorities of a request for help made to directly confront crime and drug trafficking.” It said that Panama would continue its efforts to stop organized crime and emphasized that Panama continued to have “excellent relations with the United States.”

Meanwhile in Paraguay, according to the cables, the United States acquiesced, agreeing to allow the authorities there to use D.E.A. wiretaps for antikidnapping investigations, as long as they were approved by Paraguay’s Supreme Court.

“We have carefully navigated this very sensitive and politically sticky situation,” one cable said. “It appears that we have no other viable choice.”

A Larger Mandate

Created in 1973, the D.E.A. has steadily built its international turf, an expansion primarily driven by the multinational nature of the drug trade, but also by forces within the agency seeking a larger mandate. Since the 2001 terrorist attacks, the agency’s leaders have cited what they describe as an expanding nexus between drugs and terrorism in further building its overseas presence.

In Afghanistan, for example, “DEA officials have become convinced that ‘no daylight’ exists between drug traffickers at the highest level and Taliban insurgents,” Karen Tandy, then the agency’s administrator, told European Union officials in a 2007 briefing, according to a cable from Brussels.

Ms. Tandy described an agency informant’s recording of a meeting in Nangarhar Province between 9 Taliban members and 11 drug traffickers to coordinate their financial support for the insurgency, and she said the agency was trying to put a “security belt” around Afghanistan to block the import of chemicals for heroin processing. The agency was embedding its officers in military units around Afghanistan, she said. In 2007 alone, the D.E.A. opened new bureaus in Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Dubai, United Arab Emirates, as well as in three Mexican cities.

Cables describe lengthy negotiations over the extradition to the United States of the two notorious arms dealers wanted by the D.E.A. as it reached beyond pure counternarcotics cases: Monzer al-Kassar, a Syrian arrested in Spain, and Viktor Bout, a Russian arrested in Thailand. Both men were charged with agreeing to illegal arms sales to informants posing as weapons buyers for Colombian rebels. Notably, neither man was charged with violating narcotics laws.

Late last year in a D.E.A. case, three men from Mali accused of plotting to transport tons of cocaine across northwest Africa were charged under a narco-terrorism statute added to the law in 2006, and they were linked to both Al Qaeda and its North African affiliate, called Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

The men themselves had claimed the terrorism link, according to the D.E.A., though officials told The New York Times that they had no independent corroboration of the Qaeda connections. Experts on the desert regions of North Africa, long a route for smuggling between Africa and Europe, are divided about whether Al Qaeda operatives play a significant role in the drug trade, and some skeptics note that adding “terrorism” to any case can draw additional investigative resources and impress a jury.

New Routes for Graft

Most times, however, the agency’s expansion seems driven more by external forces than internal ones, with traffickers opening new routes to accommodate new markets.

As Mexican cartels take control of drug shipments from South America to the United States, Colombian cartels have begun moving cocaine through West Africa to Europe.

The cables offer a portrait of the staggering effect on Mali, whose deserts have been littered with abandoned airplanes — including at least one Boeing 727 — and Ghana, where traffickers easily smuggle drugs through an airport’s “VVIP (Very Very Important Person) lounge.”

Top-to-bottom corruption in many West African countries made it hard for diplomats to know whom to trust. In one 2008 case in Sierra Leone, President Ernest Bai Koroma moved to prosecute and extradite three South American traffickers seized with about 1,500 pounds of cocaine, while his attorney general was accused of offering to release them for $2.5 million in bribes.

In Nigeria, the D.E.A. reported a couple of years earlier that diplomats at the Liberian Embassy were using official vehicles to transport drugs across the border because they were not getting paid by their war-torn government and “had to fend for themselves.”

A May 2008 cable from Guinea described a kind of heart-to-heart conversation about the drug trade between the American ambassador, Phillip Carter III, and Guinea’s prime minister, Lansana Kouyaté. At one point, the cable said, Mr. Kouyaté “visibly slumped in his chair” and acknowledged that Guinea’s most powerful drug trafficker was Ousmane Conté, the son of Lansana Conté, then the president. (After the death of his father, Mr. Conté went to prison.)

A few days later, diplomats reported evidence that the corruption ran much deeper inside the Guinean government than the president’s son. In a colorfully written cable — with chapters titled “Excuses, Excuses, Excuses” and “Theatrical Production” — diplomats described attending what was billed as a drug bonfire that had been staged by the Guinean government to demonstrate its commitment to combating the drug trade.

Senior Guinean officials, including the country’s drug czar, the chief of police and the justice minister, watched as officers set fire to what the government claimed was about 350 pounds of marijuana and 860 pounds of cocaine, valued at $6.5 million.

In reality, American diplomats wrote, the whole incineration was a sham. Informants had previously told the embassy that Guinean authorities replaced the cocaine with manioc flour, proving, the diplomats wrote, “that narco-corruption has contaminated” the government of Guinea “at the highest levels.”

And it did not take the D.E.A.’s sophisticated intelligence techniques to figure out the truth. The cable reported that even the ambassador’s driver sniffed out a hoax.

“I know the smell of burning marijuana,” the driver said. “And I didn’t smell anything.”

Andrew W. Lehren contributed reporting.

A version of this article appeared in print on December 26, 2010, on page A1 of the New York edition.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Ginger Thompson and Scott Shane
Published: December 26, 2010
Copyright: 2010 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

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While it remains clear problems exist with the application of Montana’s medical cannabis law, these issues do not indicate our model of compassionate access is itself a failure.

The use of cannabis, be it for recreational or medicinal reasons, has been relocated to the back alleys and shadows of our society for more than 80 years. This past prohibition creates an array of issues — most tragic being the association of our ill with society’s criminal element.

Unfortunately, when any economy evolves from a complete prohibition to an open market model, there will be an awkward phase of assimilation.

Individuals considered “drug dealers” prior to the implementation of I-148 will, and do, seek the shelter of Montana’s compassionate access law.

Thankfully the mechanisms to deal with these potential abuses are already in place.

Capitalism and free market economics, long cherished American traditions, “weed” out those who attempt to exploit Montana’s ill, while criminal activity is easily addressed through our existing law enforcement infrastructure.

We hear concerns voiced about the number of people with medical cannabis cards in Montana, yet the reality remains only a small fraction of our population is licensed to possess and consume cannabis. We hear about the 18-year-old with the bad back and are told that the “circus-like atmosphere” generated by the fading phenomenon of traveling clinics is reason enough to scrap the Montana Medical Marijuana Act.

However, when we extricate ourselves from the emotive hysteria that surrounds the ingestion of these flowers, most agree that those who employ deceit to obtain a marijuana recommendation — or physicians that violate accepted standards of medical care — are issues that should be addressed in the same manner as a patient fraudulently obtaining prescription narcotics, or a medical doctor wantonly prescribing such medications purely for profit.

We hear of a proliferation of marijuana into Montana’s high schools and the imminent risk this poses to our youth.

However, it’s important to remember we are discussing the medical applications of cannabis, not recreational use among teenagers.

Teenagers do experiment. Some abuse prescription medication; some drink alcohol. And it may be a shock, but teenagers were actually smoking pot before Montana had a medical marijuana program.

It now becomes the responsibility of our educators to explain the potential liabilities of recreational use and law enforcement’s obligation to work with medical cannabis providers to prevent diversion and misapplication.

Our society would never consider telling a woman dying of stage four carcinoma and in incredible pain that she could not have her conventional analgesic medication because it may wind up in the hands of a teen. We don’t do that in Montana because we are compassionate, rational people.

So why do we experience this hysteria and controversy? The answer is simple: Throughout our lives, we have been taught that cannabis has no benefit whatsoever.

Yet today, through compassionate access, many Montanans have found this sentiment patently untrue. Beyond a wealth of anecdotal evidence, a quick Internet search of marijuana’s effect on tumor reduction alone generates several credible, international studies. The evidence is here and, unlike Cherrie Brady or other staunch prohibitionist detractors, you don’t have to take my word alone.

As we approach this legislative session, medical cannabis will continue to be a “hot topic” in Montana.

As such, I encourage all citizens to educate themselves regarding the historic realities surrounding cannabis prohibition, and the quantifiable benefits of this plant’s many applications.

Look into the facts yourself. It was the American Medical Association that strenuously opposed the prohibition of cannabis in the first place, finding no credible evidence that said the plant poses any danger to humanity.

At the commencement of this legislative session, which starts Jan. 3, we find our great state in the unique position to be a national leader — to live up to our pioneering reputation by building a working medical marijuana model for ourselves, our neighbors and our nation.

Montanans are savvy people. We can do the research; we can read the facts. And through hard work and compromise we will find solutions that suit all of our citizens.

Doug Chyatte is president of Montanans for Responsible Legislation and chapter director of Bitterroot Montana Marijuana Growers Association.

Source: Great Falls Tribune (MT)
Author: Doug Chyatte
Published: December 23, 2010
Copyright: 2010 Great Falls Tribune
Contact: tribcity@sofast.net
Website: http://www.greatfallstribune.com/

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Owner Welcomes State Taxation

Green Piece Alternative Medicine and Education ( GAME ) Collective may be Federal Way’s first storefront medical marijuana dispensary.

In a strip mall off South 333rd Street and Pacific Highway South, most storefronts bear Korean names except for one newbie.  A sign on the plain glass door gives a phone number, hours of operation and a list of medicated edibles like cookies.  Qualified clients can buy medical-grade cannabis inside the studio-like room, where mirrors line one wall, legal documents hang on another wall, a TV hums in the ceiling corner and lounge chairs sit on the floor.  On a desk is a pipe shaped like a Seahawks helmet, with a short length of hose and a handwritten note granting permission to try it.

Brionne Corbray opened the third branch of his collective Oct.  1 in Federal Way.  The collective, with two branches in Seattle, advertises openly online and in alternative publications.

In mid-December, the Washington State Department of Revenue announced plans to collect a sales tax from marijuana dispensaries.  Corbray welcomes a sales tax because he can make more money.  In fact, he would rather be a retail outlet store than a non-profit, he said.

“It’s the new gold rush,” said Corbray, 46, of Seattle.  “We should be paying taxes.  That means they’re acknowledging we’re legal businesses.”

His clientele ranges in age from 19 to 87, he said, and all must have a verified recommendation from a qualified health care provider to do business.  The collective often donates to low-income or gravely ill clients, he said.

“Collectives keep the crime rate down — keeps it off the street,” he said.  “I don’t think it should be legal like cigarettes.”

State laws for possession and gardening offer a defense for medical marijuana providers, and according to Corbray, there is no shortage of supplies.

“I make sure I stay within the guidelines of the law,” he said.

Corbray went through proper state channels to register, and staff in Olympia “helped me word it the right way,” he said.  He is registering for a nonprofit business license with Federal Way, as required by city code, he said.

He chose Federal Way to meet demand for marijuana in South King County and Pierce County.  With a local client base of about 100, he said, the collective is growing every day.  So far, he has not been hassled by the city or law enforcement.

“If they want to find us, they can find us,” he said, confident of King County and Prosecutor Dan Satterberg’s established tolerance toward medical marijuana.  “Do I think we’re here to stay? Yes.”

Upon hearing about GAME Collective’s new branch, city council member Linda Kochmar said medical marijuana dispensaries belong in Holland or California, not in Federal Way.

“I do know that it helps people with late-stage cancer, and God bless them, anything they can do to relieve their pain,” she said, adding that marijuana should be a highly-controlled substance, and that a dispensary makes the drug easier to abuse.  “I want my community to be a healthy, wholesome community that encourages family life.  As far as smoking pot and the ability to get it, I’m going to be very much against something like that.”

Marijuana is illegal under federal law, although 15 states have medical marijuana laws on the books.

The number of marijuana dispensaries in Washington state is unknown.  Earlier this month, the State Department of Revenue sent letters to about 90 dispensaries, seeking retail sales taxes on medical marijuana ( GAME Collective did not receive a letter ).  Dispensaries are not exempt from sales taxes or the business and occupation ( B&O ) tax, the letter said, because state law does not authorize marijuana as a prescription drug.  The letter ends by asking dispensaries to call the department and register.

According to an AP report, Colorado and some California cities tax marijuana, with Maine and Washington, D.C., planning to collect taxes when their dispensary laws take effect.  In 2009, Oakland, Calif., became the first city to approve the taxing proceeds on medical marijuana; the mail-in ballot passed with 80 percent voter approval.  One of the measure’s key supporters, the owner of a cannabis club in Oakland, expected to pay more than $350,000 this year, according to a CNN report.  However, Oakland continues to face legal challenges in its efforts to tax marijuana sales.  A proposal for statewide legalization in California failed at the polls in 2010.

Sensible Washington, a group advocating legalization, recently bought a billboard ad on Interstate 5 in Fife.  The sign reads “Because drug dealers don’t ID.  Legalize in 2011.” Sensible Washington sponsored a legalization initiative that failed to gather enough signatures for the 2010 general election.

Background

In 1998, Washington state voters approved a law that removed criminal penalties and established a defense for qualified patients who possess or cultivate cannabis for medicinal use.

In 2008, the “60-day” supply for patients was defined as 24 ounces and 15 plants; both numbers have attracted intense debate from medical marijuana advocates.  The law allows patients to exceed these limits if the patient can prove medical need, according to the Washington State Department of Health.

Federal law classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 controlled substance.  Washington’s medical marijuana laws help patients with a legal defense in local or state courts.  Federal laws do not recognize the medical use of marijuana.

Source: Federal Way Mirror (WA)
Copyright: 2010 Sound Publishing
Website: http://www.fedwaymirror.com/
Author: Andy Hobbs

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It seemed a straightforward case: A man with a string of convictions and a reputation as a drug dealer was going on trial in Montana for distributing a small amount of marijuana found in his home — if only the court could find jurors willing to send someone to jail for selling a few marijuana buds.

The problem began during jury selection last week in Missoula, when a potential juror said she would have a “real problem” convicting someone for selling such a small amount. But she would follow the law if she had to, she said.

A woman behind her was adamant. “I can’t do it,” she said, prompting Judge Robert L. Deschamps III to excuse her. Another juror raised a hand, the judge recalled, “and said, ‘I was convicted of marijuana possession a few years ago, and it ruined my life.’ ” Excused.

“Then one of the people in the jury box said, ‘Tell me, how much marijuana are we talking about? … If it was a pound or a truckload or something like that, OK, but I’m not going to convict someone of a sale with two or three buds,’ ” the judge said. “And at that point, four or five additional jurors spontaneously raised their hands and said, ‘Me too.’ “

By that time, Deschamps knew he had a jury problem.

“I was thinking, maybe I’ll have to call a mistrial,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of citizens obviously that are not willing to hold people accountable for sales in small amounts, or at least have some deep misgivings about it. And I think if I excuse a quarter or a third of a jury panel just to get people who are willing to convict, is that really a fair representation of the community? I mean, people are supposed to be tried by a jury of their peers.”

The Missoula court’s dilemma was unusual, yet it reflects a phenomenon that prosecutors say they are increasingly mindful of as marijuana use wins growing legal and public tolerance: Some jurors may be reluctant to convict for an offense many people no longer regard as serious.

“It’s not on a level where it’s become a problem. But we’ll hear, ‘I think marijuana should be legal, I’m not going to follow the law,’ ” said Mark Lindquist, prosecuting attorney in Pierce County, Wash. “We tell them, ‘We’re not here to debate the laws. We’re here to decide whether or not somebody broke the law.’ “

Twelve states plus the District of Columbia have decriminalized possession of small quantities of marijuana. Led by California in 1996, 17 states have laws that allow medical use of marijuana.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Kim Murphy, Los Angeles Times
Published: December 24, 2010
Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

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