Gore Vidal, New York Times, 1970

New York Times, September 26, 1970

from Drugs, by Gore Vidal:

Along with exhortation and warning, it might be good for our citizens to recall (or learn for the first time) that the United States was the creation of men who believed that each man has the right to do what he wants with his own life as long as he does not interfere with his neighbor's pursuit of happiness (that his neighbor's idea of happiness is persecuting others does confuse matters a bit).

This is a startling notion to the current generation of Americans. They reflect a system of public education which has made the Bill of Rights, literally, unacceptable to a majority of high school graduates (see the annual Purdue reports) who now form the "silent majority" - a phrase which that underestimated wit Richard Nixon took from Homer who used it to describe the dead.

Is everyone reasonably sane? No. Some people will always become drug addicts just as some people will always become alcoholics, and it is just too bad. Every man, however, has the power (and should have the legal right) to kill himself if he chooses. But since most men don't, they won't be mainliners either. Nevertheless, forbidding people things they like or think they might enjoy only makes them want those things all the more. This psychological insight is, for some mysterious reason, perennially denied our governors.

It is a lucky thing for the American moralist that our country has always existed in a kind of time-vacuum: we have no public memory of anything that happened before last Tuesday. No one in Washington today recalls what happened during the years alcohol was forbidden to the people by a Congress that thought it had a divine mission to stamp out Demon Rum - launching, in the process, the greatest crime wave in the country's history, causing thousands of deaths from bad alcohol, and creating a general (and persisting) contempt among the citizenry for the laws of the United States.

This article was written before last Tuesday.

A Unique Chance to Rethink Drug(s) Policy

Guardian UK

If the purpose of drug policy is to make toxic substances available to anyone who wants them in a flourishing market economy controlled by murderous criminal gangs, the current arrangements are working well.

If, however, the goal is to reduce the amount of drugs being consumed and limit the harm associated with addiction, it is surely time to tear up the current policy. It has failed.

Few nations are untouched by what is, after all, a multibillion pound global industry. Importing countries, such as Britain, must cope with the social effects of addiction and end up squandering the state's resources on a Sisyphean policing task.

But that suffering is mild compared to the destructive forces unleashed on exporting countries.

The article goes on to note that the current and former Presidents of Mexico have called for a debate on current drug policies. Other former Latin American heads of state have called for legalization to stop the flow of money to drug cartels and to decrease violence.

Why did violence subside after the end of prohibition? People who were making and delivering alcohol illegally were able to do so without bribes. They could avail themselves of the legal system to settle disputes, rather than the rough justice of criminality. Makers of alcoholic beverages from other nations were allowed to export their product to formerly closed markets. Those who chose to be criminals, rather than beverage producers, found other areas of criminality to exploit and law enforcement officials were able to focus on other criminal activities.

...The unthinkable is creeping into the realm of the plausible. In the US, several states have relaxed cannabis law, a trend driven by a loose coalition of hard right libertarians and soft left baby-boomers. American society is slowly coming to terms with the fact that drugs are part of its everyday reality and that control might be more effective if use was allowed within the law, not forced outside it.

Politicians have generally shown little courage in confronting inconvenient truths about drugs. And the longer a government is in office, the more it feels bound to defend the status quo; to do otherwise would be admitting complicity in an expensive failure.

Prohibition entails a double dishonesty. First, there is the pretence that the supply and demand can be managed by force. But anyone who has experienced addiction knows that banning a substance restricts neither access nor desire. Usually, it makes matters worse, bringing otherwise law-abiding people into contact with professional criminals. Most addicts, meanwhile, say their problems start with the need to annihilate feelings of despair or memories of trauma. Prosecuting them for those problems solves nothing.

Vancouver, B.C. Concerns on the Impact of Prop. 19 on the Canadian Economy

Cannabis News via The Victoria Times-Colonist

In a column on the Guardian’s website this week, B.C. writer Douglas Haddow writes that a move to legalization would be “devastating to the Canadian economy, halting the flow of billions of dollars from the U.S. into Canada.”

B.C. marijuana activist Marc Emery – the selfstyled “Prince of Pot” who is awaiting sentencing in the U.S. for distributing cannabis seeds – - recently told a Vancouver website that “the homegrown market will evaporate.”

Marijuana production generates at least $3 billion to $4 billion in B.C. alone – due, in large part, to heavy demand from potheads south of the border, said Darryl Plecas a criminology professor at the University of the Fraser Valley in Abbotsford.

Plecas said he estimates that about 70 per cent of all marijuana produced in B.C. is sent to the U.S. and much of it goes to California.

(I love the criminology professor's "judicious" use of language.)

Other observers, however, are more circumspect about how crippling legalization would be for Canadian producers, pointing out that “B.C. Bud” still enjoys a reputation in many circles as “the Rolls-Royce” of marijuana and that there are many other U.S. states – besides California – that covet Canadian-grown marijuana.

The article goes on to note various opinions about the the immediate impact (Mexican bud will fare worse, the illegal exchange of Canadian pot and cocaine will continue, the rise of the loon against the dollar hasn't hurt exports...)

How D.C. Is Implementing Its Medical Marijuana Law

NBC News

In D.C., there are just five qualifying conditions for medical marijuana: Cancer, HIV, AIDS, multiple sclerosis, and glaucoma. That's stricter than the list of admissible conditions for 13 of the other 14 states with legalized medical marijuana -- some of which are introducing new conditions.

Another condition included in the new law -- perhaps the most stringent of all -- prohibits patients in D.C. from using marijuana they grow themselves. Only dispensaries have the authority to grow and distribute marijuana under the law. So, a patient who has been self medicating using home-grown marijuana on the advice of a doctor could still be arrested even after the regulations come into effect in January 2011 -- if that marijuana did not come through a dispensary.

"D.C. falls in line with a trend of medical marijuana jurisdictions, especially on the East Coast," says Meno. He says that some jurisdictions, especially in California, failed to pass local regulations that clarified the law, leading to some limited abuse of the system. Jurisdictions that have passed medical marijuana legislation in the meantime -- including D.C. -- have "erred on the side of caution."

Washington Post

District liquor regulators will play a lead role in the city's new medical marijuana program when it debuts Jan. 1, according to draft rules issued Friday by Mayor Adrian M. Fenty (D).

Under the regulations, the city health department would be responsible for registering legal marijuana users. But the licensing and oversight of the facilities that will grow and distribute medical cannabis would be handled by the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board and its enforcement arm, the Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration. The prospect of having the same regulators overseeing medical marijuana and liquor stores concerns advocates who have fought to have cannabis recognized as a medical treatment, not just as a drug for recreational use.

Congress has prevented D.C. from honoring the law its citizens voted to change for over 12 years by tying up the funds to implement the law. (The regulations and the 87 pages of administration rules to now implement the law are also available via the WP link.)

Much as the liquor board can immediately shutter a bar or nightclub, it would be able close a dispensary if it were causing "immediate danger to the health and safety of the public." The chief of police would be able to shut down a dispensary for 96 hours.

Nickles said the regulations were written with an eye toward avoiding the problems seen in other states -- especially California, where lawmakers are trying to rein in a medical marijuana industry estimated to generate about $2 billion a year in sales. Choosing the liquor board to oversee the industry, he said, was part of that.

Although it has tried to block its implementation for 12 years, the Federal Government can see that, all around it, people in this nation have stated that they recognize and accept legitimate uses for cannabis.

It is past time for the DEA to change the scheduling for cannabis to reflect the reality that exists. We no longer have a party in the majority that bragged it was no longer "reality-based."*

*The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." ... "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors…and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." - Ron Suskind, New York Times Magazine

Overview of Current States re: Medical Marijuana

Detroit News

In some states, medical marijuana has become a sizable part of the economy -- even when the industry's expansion has largely fallen in the gray area of the law. In California, marijuana is considered among the state's leading cash crops. In Colorado, medical marijuana dispensaries outnumber Starbucks locations 3 to 1.

In other states, such as New Mexico and Oregon, heavier regulations have limited growth.

"It hasn't become a Wal-Mart type of business," said Jeffrey Miron, a Harvard University economist who studies the marijuana trade. "But it's gone beyond a mom-and-pop sort of activity."

California was the first state to legalize pot for medicinal use in 1996, spawning an industry that grew rapidly and remains among the nation's most loosely regulated.

The article goes on to note that states that have medical marijuana laws are recognizing that they have to regulate the industry because it's no longer in the realm of "mom and pop" stores.

It's interesting to watch this legislative process in action.


the link above via Cannabis News

Hulu: The Green Rush

A documentary that follows California growers through a season.

Medical Marijuana Patients: Montana Airports

Washington Post

Medical marijuana patients report no problems as they boarded with carry on luggage and cannabis plants. Under the new regulations, patients can fly with their cannabis. They can even change planes in states where it's illegal. One medical marijuana advocate explains why he thinks the new way some airports are handling it is better than their previous methods.

"People don't know where to get seeds. They don't know where to get clones. They are afraid to drive through states to go through California to Montana. To get a good strain from California, I would have to drive through Oregon and through Idaho which don't recognize medical marijuana. They'll take you to jail," says Jason Christ from Cannabiscare.

We talked to the TSA, and they told us it's not really up to them.

"State laws supersede what we would do in the aviation sector, and it would be up to the local law enforcement officials to determine the action they would take based on whatever the person was trying to bring on board an aircraft," says Dwayne Baird with TSA.

Some Montana cannabis flyers were told the restrictions are that both the initial and final destination must be medical marijuana friendly, and passengers in possession can't leave the terminal with cannabis in states that haven't legalized it.

Sounds sensible to me.

Texas and Medical Marijuana

Texas Tribune

(Stephen) Betzen is now the executive director of Texas Coalition for Compassionate Care, a Dallas-based nonprofit that, alongside Texas NORML and Medcan University, is lobbying legislators in hopes of reforming Texas’ marijuana laws. The organizations don't agree on strategy, however, with the TCCC pushing only for a limited law allowing medical use as a defense against criminal charges, and the others seeking broader legalization that would include permitting and regulating sales outlets.

...Though they are pursuing different strategies, Betzen, Picazo and Schimberg have similar goals and have been busily meeting with lawmakers for weeks. They won’t say which lawmakers, however, as some still view any connection to the legalization movement as a political liability. But they cite a poll that found a majority of Texans support legalizing marijuana for medicinal purposes. A University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll conducted in May showed a similar finding, with the majority of Texans favoring one or more methods of legalization: 42 percent of Texans were open to the idea of legalizing marijuana, 28 percent say possession of small amounts should be legal, and 14 percent said any amount should be legal. Twenty-seven percent said it should be legal for medical purposes only, and another 27 percent said it should be illegal under any circumstances.

How the Federal Government Could Reschedule Cannabis

Drug Schedules are part of the Controlled Substances Act, passed by Congress in 1970, that defines federal drug policy. There are five schedules, or classifications for drugs, to determine federal policy on those substances.

Schedule I.—

(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.

(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.

(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision."

No prescriptions may be written for Schedule I substances, and such substances are subject to production quotas by the DEA.

The DEA and the FDA determine the scheduling of various substances, although Congress scheduled a substance via legislation in Feb. 2000. The Attorney General of the United States may also initiate a drug rescheduling hearing.

Cornell University Law School Legal Information Institute

...Proceedings for the issuance, amendment, or repeal of such rules may be initiated by the Attorney General

(1) on his own motion,
(2) at the request of the Secretary, or
(3) on the petition of any interested party.

The Attorney General shall, before initiating proceedings under subsection (a) of this section to control a drug or other substance or to remove a drug or other substance entirely from the schedules, and after gathering the necessary data, request from the Secretary a scientific and medical evaluation, and his recommendations, as to whether such drug or other substance should be so controlled or removed as a controlled substance.

...if the Secretary recommends that a drug or other substance not be controlled [or be rescheduled], the Attorney General shall not control the drug or other substance. If the Attorney General determines that these facts and all other relevant data constitute substantial evidence of potential for abuse such as to warrant control or substantial evidence that the drug or other substance should be removed entirely from the schedules, he shall initiate proceedings for control or removal, as the case may be, under subsection (a) of this section.

Factors determinative of control or removal from schedules

In making any finding under subsection (a) of this section or under subsection (b) of section 812 of this title, the Attorney General shall consider the following factors with respect to each drug or other substance proposed to be controlled or removed from the schedules:

(1) Its actual or relative potential for abuse.
(2) Scientific evidence of its pharmacological effect, if known.
(3) The state of current scientific knowledge regarding the drug or other substance.
(4) Its history and current pattern of abuse.
(5) The scope, duration, and significance of abuse.
(6) What, if any, risk there is to the public health.
(7) Its psychic or physiological dependence liability.
(8) Whether the substance is an immediate precursor of a substance already controlled under this subchapter.

In 1992, DEA administrator Robert Bonner created 5 criteria for determining whether a substance has medicinal value.

The DEA claims that cannabis has no accepted medical use because it does not meet all of these criteria:

* The drug's chemistry is known and reproducible;
* There are adequate safety studies;
* There are adequate and well-controlled studies proving efficacy;
* The drug is accepted by qualified experts; and
* The scientific evidence is widely available.

(Information on Drug Schedules and Information on attempts to reschedule cannabis via Wiki)

On October 18, 1985, the DEA issued a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking to transfer "Synthetic Dronabinol in Sesame Oil and Encapsulated in Soft Gelatin Capsules" — a pill form of Δ9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive component of cannabis, sold under the brand name Marinol — from Schedule I to Schedule II (DEA 50 FR 42186-87). The government issued its final rule rescheduling the drug on July 13, 1986 (DEA 51 FR 17476-78). The disparate treatment of cannabis and the expensive, patentable Marinol prompted reformers to question the DEA's consistency.

In the summer of 1986, the DEA administrator initiated public hearings on cannabis rescheduling. The hearings lasted two years, involving many witnesses and thousands of pages of documentation. On September 6, 1988, DEA Chief Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young ruled that cannabis did not meet the legal criteria of a Schedule I prohibited drug and should be reclassified. He declared that cannabis in its natural form is "one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. (T)he provisions of the (Controlled Substances) Act permit and require the transfer of marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II".

Then-DEA Administrator John Lawn overruled Young's determination. Lawn said he decided against re-scheduling cannabis based on testimony and comments from numerous medical doctors who had conducted detailed research and were widely considered experts in their respective fields. Later Administrators agreed. "Those who insist that marijuana has medical uses would serve society better by promoting or sponsoring more legitimate research," former DEA Administrator Robert Bonner opined in 1992.

So, what has medical research into the use of cannabis revealed since 1992? Because of the Federal Scheduling, much of the legitimate research has gone on outside of the United States.

Recent medical research on cannabis, via NORML

...There are now more than 17,000 published papers in the scientific literature analyzing marijuana and its constituents...Whereas researchers in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s primarily assessed cannabis' ability to temporarily alleviate various disease symptoms — such as the nausea associated with cancer chemotherapy — scientists today are exploring the potential role of cannabinoids to modify disease.

Of particular interest, scientists are investigating cannabinoids' capacity to moderate autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease, as well as their role in the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig's disease.)

Investigators are also studying the anti-cancer activities of cannabis, as a growing body of preclinical and clinical data concludes that cannabinoids can reduce the spread of specific cancer cells via apoptosis (programmed cell death) and by the inhibition of angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels). Arguably, these latter trends represent far broader and more significant applications for cannabinoid therapeutics than researchers could have imagined some thirty or even twenty years ago.

This article includes links to information about cannabinoid research for 19 different health issues, with links to the studies relating to the medical condition.

I'm sure the executive branch will not step in front of a bill before a state to appear to take a position on this issue. However, in order to facilitate an end to the war on drugs if California does legalize cannabis, the Attorney General (or any citizen's group) could call for a rescheduling hearing to bring cannabis scheduling in line with legitimate, peer-reviewed research that has occurred over the last 18 years.

(h/t to beowulf in comments at Just Say Now)

The Flower

Interesting Excerpt From "Marijuana is Safer, So Why are We Driving People to Drink

I just recently read an interesting stat. from the book, Marijuana is Safer, So Why Are We Driving People to Drink. It's full of interesting info.

The National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, part of Clinton's contribution to the War on Drugs - had a $195 MILLION PER YEAR budget for 5 years.

During this time, they made deals with television shows to provide "credit" toward lost revenues for anti-drug ads (that were priced lower than other ads) by placing anti-cannabis stories into tv shows - scripts for shows would be discussed with the govt officials. One more reason so much television sucks? who knows.

This was the time of "this is your brain on drugs" tv commercials. I had young kids back then and didn't say anything negative about these commercials out loud, but, under my breath, I just whispered, "Bullshit." It had been more than a decade since I had inhaled - and I knew this stuff was bullshit.

Apparently I wasn't the only one. A study from Texas State University found that the anti-marijuana ads INCREASED the likelihood that teens would use or want to use marijuana.

But here's the kicker...

do you know WHY that campaign was created and why all that money was wasted on a program that didn't work?

-- why the Clinton administration spent all this money on an ineffective anti- marijuana campaign?

In 1996, California and Arizona voted to support the medical use of marijuana in their states. The Clinton administration's response was to hold meetings and to create propaganda that would "stop the spread of legalization to the other 48 states."

More than 1.5 BILLION was spent from 1998 to 2008 on an effort to propagandize the American people and deny the medical benefits of marijuana.

We're now up to 14, I believe, states that allow medical marijuana and California is in a position to make history, yet again, by leading this nation to saner drug policies.

I hope the voters in CA will provide this kick in the pants to the constipated powers that be.

Cannabis Gave Her Back Her Life

Independent (UK)

Within minutes of taking a small amount of cannabis there was not an inch of my body in pain, and my tremors had stopped. My body felt at peace, and I don't think I can ever convey the enormity of that to anyone. Nothing hurt or felt wrong. I was still weak, but I could move with as much ease and grace as I used to. Yes, I was intoxicated, but it was not how I remembered it from my teenage years. Perhaps it was the smaller amount I used, just enough to free my body from its prison. I felt I was smiling more than usual, but this truly seemed to be because the mantle of agony I am normally covered in had been lifted. I certainly wasn't hearing or saying unusual things. Nevertheless, the "high" period was brief yet the health effects remained for a full 24 hours. It seemed to be a miracle. I tried to imagine the warning label if this was manufactured by a pharmaceutical company: "Will induce slight giddiness and loss of any concept of time for approximately two hours. Full beneficial effects will continue for 24 hours." An acceptable trade-off?

I had two weeks of this beautiful cure, and every day of those two weeks I became stronger. I was able to take up activities long abandoned and sorely missed. The excitement my husband and I felt was palpable. If I took it slowly, I was nearly normal and every minute my brain was taken out of its loop it was being allowed to recover. Personally, this is a joy, but in the bigger picture it could be an economic blessing. If the sick and disabled can benefit from cannabis the benefits would be felt by relieving the strain on the NHS and allowing some patients or carers to return to the workforce.

Sadly I don't know how reliably I'll be able to find cannabis. After years of searching I found something that can make my life bearable, even productive, but it's just out of reach. I have every intention of continuing to seek it out, but I don't know how achievable it will be. If you've been touched by cancer, HIV, MS, fibromyalgia or rheumatoid arthritis you are among many who could possibly benefit from cannabis, but I would advise each person to fully research for themselves and speak to a trusted medical professional.

...Of course medicinal cannabis doesn't have the same scope for making large pharmaceutical companies big profits that drugs such as Olanzapine or Lorazepam do. After all, how would you patent a daffodil? This would not be a deterrent for law-making in a civilised society, but in ours, perhaps. It's time that we collectively grew up, and realised that the longer this issue remains unresolved we are throwing lives, money and progress down the drain.

Democrats Want the Pro-Prop 19 Vote, but not the Legislation

Huffington Post (Russ Bellville)

Ryan Grim at Huffington Post reports on the notion going round political circles that California's Prop 19 (and, to a lesser extent, medical marijuana initiatives in Arizona and South Dakota, and dispensaries for medical marijuana in Oregon) will be for the Democrats what anti-Gay Marriage Equality amendments were for Republicans - the turn-out-the-base social wedge issue that helps their candidates on the ballot.

...Democrats are in for a surprise. See, Karl Rove and the Republicans really believed in the initiatives they were pushing. They had a frame for it - "one man one woman" - that resonated with their voters and the overall worldview espoused by most of their downticket candidates. So when that Religious Right base came out in 2004, energized to vote against dreaded homosexuals and for the continuation of all that was good, true, and Christian in America, they had George W. Bush and a whole slew of Republicans to vote for that echoed that sentiment.

What do Democrats have to offer the cannabis consumer who comes out for a 2010 election? Unlike Rove and the Republicans, the Democrats don't really believe in these initiatives (publicly). Sen. Boxer, Sen. Feinstein (a former mayor of San Francisco, c'mon now!), and former Gov. / current AG Jerry "Moonbeam" Brown all publicly oppose Prop 19...

...[In 2008, social liberals] "surged", in the real world and especially online, and got Obama elected. We even got him a massive majority in Congress. We were thrilled when he asked us online what items we'd like to see on the new administration's agenda and multiple times we responded with "legalize marijuana", topping almost every public survey and dominating with 16 of the top 50 questions in the largest survey. So what did we get in response? Something we in marijuana law reform simply call "The Chuckle"

...Republicans already have the frames of "small government", "personal responsibility", and "states rights" to work within. If marijuana legalization in California passes by a wide margin and sees support from the women, minorities, and young people the GOP desperately needs to rebuild their party, how long before they begin framing the War on Drugs as the "big government", "nanny state", and "federal overreach" that it is? ...They can easily point to the Democratic Congresses of the 1980s that created the mandatory minimums and the last three Democratic presidents who supported decriminalization and inhaled or didn't inhale yet arrests kept increasing (at the greatest rate under Clinton, they'll note).

...Just in time for 2012 when a vocally pro-marijuana legalization, anti-prohibition former governor of New Mexico named Gary Johnson will be fighting for the Republican nomination.

The Obama Administration has been incredibly tone deaf and outright offensive about the issues that brought out the base in 2010, from gay rights to cannabis-law modification to women's reproductive choice to overturning the abuses of power of the Bush administration in regard to FISA, for instance, while seemingly engaged in an effort to court the social/religious conservative Republican and Democratic Dixiecrat base that comprises a smaller number of voters than the liberal and libertarian free market one (based upon Pew polling from 2008 that divided voters into voting and economic sectors.)

This tact would appear to relate to the Democratic idea that social liberals have no other party to vote for and to Rahm Emmanuel's view of the liberal base as "fucking retards."

The Dixiecrats and their kissing cousins in states like Nebraska (Ben Nelson) threaten to alienate the Democratic base from the party - while offering little in return for this pandering if you look at Nelson's votes, for instance.

Democrats seem to be fighting the political wars of the 1980s and the 1990s while defining themselves in terms derived from the Republican attack machine, rather than creating a truly hopeful vision for an America in a new millennium.

Oakland's Post Drug War Marshall Plan

L.A. Times

This article is a profile of Jeff Wilcox, the person who has promised a a $20 million dollar investment in Oakland to create a large-scale growing operation.

Wilcox quote: In essence, you could say big business is here.

Comparing the economic potential of tetrahydrocannabinol to silicon chips may seem far-fetched. Some observers dismiss the notion as the fever dream of budget-traumatized politicians. But others think Oakland could be uniquely positioned to capitalize on the business opportunities created by the growing tolerance toward marijuana.

[City Council Member Rebecca] Kaplan said she believed that Oakland has two essential ingredients other California cities do not: political will and industrial space. "Oakland has been a major hub of the medical cannabis movement, so that's part of what I mean when I say political will," she said.

No other city has provided such red-carpet treatment. Oakland is essentially trying to set up legal sanctuaries for pot businesses, although the move may prove too brazen for federal narcotics agents who recently called city officials to request a copy of the [legal, large-scale cannabis growers] ordinance.

Oakland, like Silicon Valley, has been fertile ground for entrepreneurs and innovative thinkers, luring them from all over. Jones is from South Dakota. Richard Lee, who started the first trade school to train marijuana businessmen, moved from Texas. Steve DeAngelo, who came from Washington, D.C., runs Harborside Health Center, a $20-million-a-year dispensary that has become the largest and arguably the most professionally run marijuana retailer in the world.

Just as the repeal of prohibition became unavoidably attractive during the great depression, the approval and regulation of cannabis growing offers a way to create jobs within a legal framework (at the state and city level) for workers who have been decimated by two decades of the globalization of capitalism and its attendant frenzy for shareholder profits at the expense of America's working middle class.

A View of the War on Drugs From Music City

(Nashville) City Paper

In 2005, the Office of National Drug Control Policy labeled seven states — California, Hawaii, Kentucky, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington and West Virginia — as the primary states for marijuana cultivation. They’re known as the “M7 states.” According to the National Drug Intelligence Center, which uses data from the TBI, Tennessee eradicated more than a half million indoor and outdoor marijuana plants in 2008. More than 350,000 of those came from one piece of terrain in Cocke County.

The intelligence center, citing 2008 data from the DEA, states “eradication of indoor and outdoor plants in Tennessee (539,370 plants) accounted for 7 percent of all plants eradicated in the United States (8,013,308).” That year only California (5,322,053 plants) and Washington (580,415) ranked higher.

The DEA Domestic Eradication/Suppression Program supplies $780,000 a year to Tennessee to pay for surveillance equipment and other operating expenses. The state pays for other operating expenses that are already part of their law enforcement budget.

In 2008, about 82 percent — or 442,351 plants — of Tennessee’s marijuana found and destroyed outdoors came from Cocke, Cumberland, Wayne, Lawrence and Hickman counties, according to TBI data provided to the federal government.

The same data showed that only about 100 indoor plants were rooted out in 2008.

Indoor eradication efforts come from law enforcement intelligence gathering and are much less frequent.

Law enforcement agents state the outdoor-grown plants net between $600 to $800 per pound.

The article further notes an effort to introduce the Safe Access to Medical Cannabis Act was introduced into the Tennessee House of Representatives during its last session but was withdrawn after a lack of support in the Senate. Advocates assume it will take them several years to pass the bill.

Will California Legalize Pot?

An excellent article from Alternet

The reality of the matter is that Prop. 19 has the deck stacked against it simply because there is no precedent for a voting public of a state to endorse removing all civil and criminal penalties associated with adult marijuana use. All preceding efforts have met sad ends: A 1972 measure also called Prop. 19 failed in California; more recently, attempts in Alaska, Colorado and Nevada were also rejected. In the face of decades of federal and state prohibition, it is still much easier to vote no than yes, even in the face of convincing arguments to do otherwise.

...Polls in April and May found support at 56 percent and 51 percent, respectively. A SurveyUSA poll released this month shows support at 50 percent, 10 points over those against it. A new Public Policy Polling poll found the divide to be even greater, with 52 percent supporting and 36 percent nixing it -- and the campaign says these results are more consistent with its internal polling. But another poll also released this month, the Field poll, showed that more people oppose the initiative than support it, at 48 to 44 percent. (This contrasts with the last Field poll, conducted over a year ago, which found support at 56 percent.) No matter which numbers you're looking at though, 50, 52 or even 56 percent isn't all that comforting. It's one thing to say yes to a pollster, it's quite another thing to get out and vote that way.

"Progressive drug reform on the California ballot needs to be polling in the high 50s or low 60s," says Stephen Gutwillig, the California director at the Drug Policy Alliance. "This is because they generally have nowhere to go but down because of the fear-mongering that usually occurs at the hands of the law enforcement lobby which tends to not need as much money to push their regressive fear-based messages."

Mauricio Garzon, the even-tempered campaign coordinator, admits polls could be better but is sure that something even more important is happening. "We're seeing a legitimization of this issue, politically. There was a time when this was impossible," he says. "You reflect on this and you see a shift in public sentiment and this is what this campaign has always been about. Making Americans understand how important this issue is. It's a real issue and the existing framework has been devastating to our society."

Indeed.