Definition of ‘medical marijuana’ varies from state to state. That’s a problem.

[LuckyTheDog]

By Kenneth E. Leonard

On April 17, Pennsylvania became the latest state to pass medical marijuana legislation, which will take effect this month. And recently Ohio’s House of Representatives has passed a plan to permit medical marijuana in the state.

Research suggests that marijuana – or more specifically compounds in marijuana – may have potential as a treatment for epilepsy and chronic pain, among other conditions. However, more research is needed to fully understand any potential health benefits from the substance.

As of this writing, 41 states have legislation that permits medical marijuana in some form. However, the law in Texas is not considered functional, because it requires a physician to prescribe marijuana. Since marijuana is illegal under federal law, doctors can’t prescribe it. They can only recommend it to patients. Louisiana’s law had the same flaw, but the state’s House of Representatives just voted on new legislation that should correct this problem.

As the director of the Research Institute on Addictions at the University at Buffalo and a researcher who studies social factors in the development of addictions, I follow many of the emerging trends in substance use.

MORE HERE: http://yonside.com/counts-medical-marijuana-varies-state/

[Sunlei]

1. over regulated at the local (state) level and considered the same as heroin at the Federal level.

Wish the Feds would drop the plant off their lists all together, then states can make it a crop like corn and use those 'regulations' or a herbal remedy like all the other legal herbals.

[gollygee]

2. I wish they'd make it legal just so we could stop wasting so much time and money

On this medical marijuana issue. Just let people buy it and be done with it. This is such a non-issue to me. I don't use marijuana and I care so little about the issue I think it should just be legal so we can stop spending court and legislative time on it.

[Iggo]

3. Definition of plain old marijuana is pretty consistent, though.

So let's just legalize that.

[bemildred]

4. You don't need a doctor to tell you what sort of pot you like, or what works the best either.

You are the expert on that. It's not tricky.

[bemildred]

5. Op-Ed If California legalizes marijuana, consumption will likely increase. But is that a bad thing?

In six months, California will join Maine, Nevada and probably a few other states in deciding whether or not to legalize the large-scale commercial production of marijuana. Residents will be inundated with wild claims about the promises and pitfalls of these initiatives.

You will hear debates about government revenue, criminal justice benefits, the environment, and the effect of legalization on Mexican drug-trafficking organizations. Public health conversations may prove especially contentious. Some will claim that legalization will constitute a net gain for health. Others will say the exact opposite.

Although you shouldn't believe either extreme, one fairly safe bet is that if we legalize and allow profit-maximizing firms to produce, sell, and advertise recreational marijuana, use will increase.

The data from Colorado and Washington, where voters legalized recreational marijuana in 2012, are still preliminary. We do know, however, that the number of Coloradans who reported using marijuana in the past month increased from about 10.5% in 2011-12 to nearly 15% in 2013-14. In Washington, reported use increased from just above 10% to almost 13%.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-0516-kilmer-marijuana-consumption-increase-20160516-story.html

[bemildred]

6. California is poised to become the center of cannabis culture

The other day, in a seaside cafe here, veteran cannabis journalist David Bienenstock gamely fielded my attempts to catch up on a subject I have failed to appreciate for far too long: the coming end of marijuana prohibition.

Earlier this month, the backers of a California initiative to legalize the recreational use of marijuana (including Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom and tech kabillionaire Sean Parker) said they had gathered enough signatures to make the November ballot. In the same week, the federal government dropped its long-standing case against Oakland's Harborside Health Center, the largest medical pot dispensary in the country.

California, with a thriving medical marijuana industry, already produces and sells more pot than any other state, including Colorado, Washington and Oregon, which have all legalized adult recreational use of marijuana. In California, we could see a tenfold increase in what is already a billion-dollar-plus industry, and this despite the continuing federal classification of marijuana as a dangerous substance with no medical value.

Right now, a majority of Californians favor legalization. Latino voters, who strongly opposed a failed legalization measure in 2010, are increasingly leaning toward it as well.

http://www.latimes.com/local/abcarian/la-me-abcarian-cannabis-book-20160516-story.html

[bemildred]

7. The Author of How to Smoke Pot (Properly) Wants to Keep Weed Weird, Even When It’s Legal

“As long as one person is being oppressed for smoking marijuana, none of us are really free.”

Passionate pothead and 15-year veteran journalist David Bienenstock came up with the idea for his latest book on January 1, 2014—the day America’s first retail marijuana stores opened to anyone 21 or older. The result: How to Smoke Pot (Properly), a pocket-size book that examines the past, present, and future of marijuana in an era of rapid change for the drug’s social acceptability. Published this month by Plume Books, Bienenstock takes readers on a humorous and informative trip through the drug’s various medicinal compounds, a timeline of the its history, and recipes that take you beyond the standard pot brownie—with pro tips from cannabis-friendly celebrities sprinkled throughout. Vanity Fair spoke to the Vice columnist, former High Times editor, and founder of a curated cannabis tourism company about marijuana culture, the double-edged sword of legalization, and how to fit in if you’re thinking of joining the so-called “green rush.”

Vanity Fair: In the book’s introduction, you write, “Please think of this humble tome in your hands not just as a handbook or a guidebook, but a call to metaphorical arms.” How would you summarize your “mission statement” for this book?

David Bienenstock: I think the book looks at where marijuana culture is right now and where we’re going, and I think it’s important amid all the excitement of legalization to realize that this culture and the people who grow and consume and share this plant are still being oppressed all over the world and even in the United States. So while we’ve gained a tremendous amount of freedom in places like Colorado and Washington, you go across the Colorado border into Kansas and you still have families being torn apart by this unconscionable war on weed. So I think the call, first of all, is to never forget that this is an ongoing campaign against this terribly misguided government policy, and that it’s [our responsibility] to participate not just in our own liberation but in everyone else’s. As long as one person is being oppressed for smoking marijuana, none of us are really free.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2016/04/how-to-smoke-pot-properly-keep-weed-weird-david-bienenstock

[Redwoods Red]

8. Just legalize marijuana.

[LuckyTheDog]

10. Yep.

No reason not to.

[Go Vols]

9. Free the Weed

[Tsiyu]

11. Change will come when the older folks die off, I guess. Good riddance.

I say that as an older person. My generation overall only knows how to do harm and get their "cut", no matter how unethical. F**k helping people heal.

Meanwhile, in Maine they want to classify addiction as a disorder so that opiate-addicted persons can use cannabis to come off of the pills:

http://www.pressherald.com/2016/04/18/advocates-push-for-rule-change-to-allow-patients-to-use-medical-marijuana-to-treat-opiate-addiction/

The state’s medical marijuana law currently allows patients to become certified if they have one of about a dozen qualifying conditions, including chronic pain, post-traumatic stress disorder and cancer.

Sulak and Julia say researchers have found that opiate overdose deaths are 25 percent lower in states with medical marijuana laws.

Sulak says cannabinoids prevent people from building up a tolerance to opioids, so they can take fewer strong painkillers. Marijuana is also an “excellent” treatment for opioid withdrawal, which causes symptoms like nausea, diarrhea, muscle spasms, insomnia and anxiety, he said.

“Those are some of the best things to use cannabis for clinically,” he said. “In our practices, we probably see at least one person every day – and often more – who has replaced opioids with cannabis. They say they have their life back. Their function improves and their quality of life improves.”

But in New Hampshire they'd rather throw more money at, as one opponent termed it, playing "whack-a-mole" with drug dealers, authorizing even more money to drug courts and police. Although some money is also allocated for treatment programs, the draconian cannabis laws in New Hampshire make it easy for law enforcement to focus on bud while people overdose on pills.

http://www.concordmonitor.com/NH-House-substance-abuse-marijuana-decriminalization-bills-2069779

The latest proposal would decriminalize up to a quarter-ounce of marijuana by reducing the penalty to a violation that carries a fine of $300 for a first-time offense. It passed the House by a resounding vote of 289-58.

An identical bill was defeated in the Republican-led Senate at the eleventh hour last year. It’s not clear how the legislation will fare in the upper chamber this year.

Rep. Renny Cushing, a Hampton Democrat and the bill’s sponsor, called it a sensible approach. “This is a compromise that will allow us to have first-time offenders who possess a small amount of marijuana escape al lifetime of draconian punishment,” he said.

New Hampshire is the only state in New England that has not lessened the penalties for marijuana possession. Opponents of decriminalization argue that now is not the time to reduce drug penalties, as the state faces an opioid crisis.

The only problem is, there is no connection between opioid abuse and cannabis except that the latter may help one recover from the former.

One police chief has a novel approach: stop arresting addicts and adding to the stigma surrounding addiction, and instead get them into treatment:

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2016/05/16/3778547/north-carolina-police-chief-combats-drug-addiction/

In a sharp turn away from the War on Drugs, the chief of police in Nashville, North Carolina announced in February that drug addicts in the small town would be taken to rehabilitation centers instead of jail. Now, in response to a growing opioid crisis, the chief is calling on other law enforcement officers across the state to do the same.

Three months ago, following an “alarming” spate of prescription drug overdoses in Nash County, Thomas Bashore of the Nashville Police Department unveiled the HOPE Initiative to help addicts find treatment and divert them away from the criminal justice system. In lieu of arresting and imprisoning addicts, the initiative encourages them to go the department voluntarily and meet with a community volunteer who can connect them to counseling and treatment facilities. Addicts who have drugs or paraphernalia when they enter the department aren’t penalized.

During the Law Enforcement and Community Summit on Heroin last Thursday, Bashore appealed to officers to implement similar rehabilitative policies in departments throughout the state, in order to combat the ballooning opioid epidemic.

The number of heroin-related deaths in North Carolina has skyrocketted, jumping 565 percent between 2010 and 2014. And according to Bashore, the shame attached to drug use has deterred addicts from seeking assistance, and criminalizing them doesn’t prevent future opioid abuse.

The good man and law enforcement leader says to view addiction like diabetes or heart disease. What a time to be alive! I wish the rest of the nation - including Eric Holder and the DEA Fuhrer - had a smidge of such honesty, compassion and pragmatic thinking, but alas, self-interest and $$$$$$$ trump making this nation safer and happier.

Even the NFL says that replacing or reducing painkiller use by treating pain with cannabis makes sense. So why won't the feds get off the greed gravy train to make it happen?

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/16/sports/football/raven-calls-on-nfl-to-allow-marijuana-use-for-sports-pains.html?_r=0

Eugene Monroe has had his share of bumps and bruises during his seven-year N.F.L. career as an offensive tackle with the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Baltimore Ravens. He has had shoulder injuries, ankle sprains, concussions and all the usual wear and tear that comes from hitting defenders dozens of times a game.

To deal with these injuries, Monroe has stepped forward and called upon the N.F.L. to stop testing players for marijuana so he and other players can take the medical version of the drug to treat their chronic pain, and avoid the addictive opioids that teams regularly dispense.

“We now know that these drugs are not as safe as doctors thought, causing higher rates of addiction, causing death all around our country,” Monroe said in an interview on Friday, “and we have cannabis, which is far healthier, far less addictive and, quite frankly, can be better in managing pain.”

Retired football players like Kyle Turley and Ricky Williams have promoted the benefits of marijuana and called for the league to acknowledge those benefits. Monroe, though, may be one of the first to openly urge the league to stop testing for the drug, possibly risking the wrath of owners, league officials and other players.

Maybe it's time the administration listens to the people. I am tired of this raging war. Addicts need healing. Young people need to be able to have a little fun without having their entire lives and future incomes drained out by unjust laws and unfair sentences. This is 2016, not 1620. Wake up, Obama, Loretta Lynch and the rest of the people who have the power to change the laws for the better.

We Americans are fed up with this war. Yet our administration continues to wage it. Many suffer, and the rules cause many broken families, lost opportunities and wasted lives. A few people reap huge rewards from others' weaknesses and poverty while the rest of us pay the costs.

Human greed knows no bounds. It really is the most addictive drug of all.