At Leela European Cafe, a quirky, 24-hour coffee shop and bar in the heart of downtown, a bartender was quick with her thoughts on Colorado’s experience with the legal sale of medical marijuana.

“It’s really easy to get,” said Cara Wanek, 25, who says she uses it to calm her anxiety, boost her appetite and help her sleep. “And it’s delicious.” That’s exactly what Illinois is trying to avoid. While Colorado is not quite the Wild West of medical marijuana, it offers a window into the opportunities and consequences that arise when a state allows the legal sale of a long-banned drug.

The state’s therapeutic cannabis industry launched in earnest in late 2009, triggering a “green rush” that boosted the state’s economy. Big Marijuana added thousands of new jobs, revitalized aging industrial warehouses and shuttered storefronts, and generated millions of tax dollars for the federal, state and local governments.

At the same time, state officials acknowledge they were unprepared to license, inspect and regulate medical marijuana businesses, leaving millions of fees and taxes uncollected and a significant swath of the industry unchecked. And recently released police data show a modest uptick in certain crimes near marijuana businesses in Denver.

But as the nation’s first highly regulated, for-profit market, Colorado has served as a model for other states seeking to get in on the action.

In crafting legislation that would allow for the legal sale of the drug to certain patients beginning in 2014, Illinois lawmakers looked to build upon the experience in Colorado, where pretty much anyone with a long-ago injury can get a doctor’s approval to purchase up to 2 ounces of pot at a time — enough to stuff two small sandwich bags.

Illinois’ proposed statute is far more restrictive, placing tighter limits on who can legally purchase the drug and where it can be grown and sold.

The bill, which would allow people with 42 defined conditions to purchase the drug legally over a four-year trial period, was approved by the Senate on May 17. It awaits the signature of Gov. Pat Quinn, who has said he is “open-minded” about the prospect.

As the governor contemplates a decision, experienced pot entrepreneurs in and around Denver are watching closely with the hope that the time and money they’ve spent shaping and supporting the Illinois bill will pay off.

“Everyone is looking at Illinois and New York because that’s where the population is,” said Kayvan Khalatbari, a 29-year-old Nebraska native who was one of the pioneers in the Denver marijuana scene. “The ball is rolling, and with more and more states coming on all the time, we see opportunities everywhere.”

If Quinn signs the bill, Illinois would become the 20th state, plus the District of Columbia, to allow the sale of medical marijuana. Dispensaries could open as soon as next year.

In Colorado, legalization of the drug for medicinal purposes was approved by voters in 2000. But because the drug remained illegal at the federal level, most users remained underground, growing as many as six plants each for their own medical needs.

The industry didn’t emerge until 2009, after an Obama administration memo suggested that federal authorities would not aggressively challenge state laws.

Almost overnight, Colorado was swamped with retail dispensaries and large-scale operations to grow the plants. The state, which didn’t have an adequate regulatory or tax structure in place, soon had more weed shops than Starbucks.

By the next spring, when lawmakers scrambled to pass regulations, more than 2,000 companies had filed with the state to sell medical marijuana.

“We didn’t get off to a great start because we didn’t have the time or the staff to tool up,” said Ron Kammerzell, the Colorado Department of Revenue’s enforcement director. “We’re still, in a way, playing catch-up.”

At the end of 2010, the first year of regulated medical marijuana in Colorado, the state’s industry had more than 1,100 businesses, including dispensaries and manufacturers of marijuana-infused products, according to state statistics.

Today, there are 675.

“A majority of the people who came in in 2009 to make a quick buck are either broke or in jail,” said Norton Arbelaez, a tall, loquacious Oklahoma native who practiced medical malpractice law in Louisiana before he and a friend founded River Rock Wellness, a two-store medical marijuana operation in Denver.

“There were a lot of bozos in this business in the beginning,” Arbelaez said. “For the most part, those of us still around are the ones who are doing it right.”

In the roughly three years since the regulations took effect, sales have ballooned to nearly $200 million, generating $5.4 million in state sales tax in 2012.

In addition, operators have paid the state more than $10 million in application and licensing fees.

The most successful of Colorado’s 479 registered retail dispensaries log annual sales greater than $3 million.

Kayvan Khalatbari’s venture, Denver Relief, started with $4,000 and a half-pound of marijuana.

Wedged between a salon and an urgent care center on Denver’s near south side, the 25-employee operation expects sales of $1 million to $2 million this year. It has made money from day one, Khalatbari said.

But even as the legal sale of the drug emerged from rogue growers’ basements, retail owners and growers said they still operate in an environment of fear.

Because state laws run counter to a 43-year-old federal law that classifies cannabis as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, companies say they face hurdles that other businesses typically don’t encounter.

Banking is difficult, insurance is hard to come by, and operators fret that their nascent enterprises could be shut down at any time by federal regulators.

Operators say most banks won’t lend to enterprises that handle a product that is illegal under federal law. As a result, the vast majority of Colorado’s marijuana enterprises are financed solely with their own and private investors’ money.

Many lack business bank accounts and pay all of their bills — workers’ paychecks, utilities, contractor fees and mortgages — with cash or money orders.

Another issue is taxes. On average, small businesses pay an effective tax rate of about 20 percent on net income, according to the Small Business Administration. Marijuana purveyors, by contrast, say they pay an effective tax rate of 60 to 70 percent.

That’s because the federal tax code prohibits the deduction of standard business expenses for those who deal in controlled substances — marijuana included — even in states where it is legal.

“It’s a very heavy-overhead business that requires a lot of capital,” said Rhett Jordan, co-owner of Native Roots Apothecary, an upscale medical marijuana shop on the 16th Street Mall, Denver’s answer to Michigan Avenue.

Inside the spa-like shop, 30 airtight glass jars filled with buds sit behind a counter. A “bud-tender” helps patients choose the product best suited for their ailment. Chocolates, candies, tinctures and tiny jars filled with concentrated cannabis, called hashish, are arranged much like jewelry inside a glass case. Cameras are everywhere.

Customers range from local business magnates to musicians and construction workers.

Jordan, who said he has relatives in Illinois, has a keen interest in opening a dispensary in Chicago.

If and when Illinois opens the door to medical marijuana, weed retailers like Native Roots will face a much different regulatory environment. The number of dispensaries will be limited to 60 statewide and the number of growers to 22, one for each state police district.

Illinois also will be more restrictive on what diseases can be treated with medical marijuana. Of the roughly 108,000 Coloradans who hold state-issued medical marijuana cards, more than 101,000 reported using cannabis in part to treat “chronic pain,” a catchall category that will not be recognized in Illinois.

While the tighter restrictions in Illinois likely mean a smaller pool of potential customers, industry veterans in Colorado are confident the law eventually will loosen.

Colorado law, just like the one proposed in Illinois, requires growers to raise their plants indoors, under tight security. Installing robust security systems, which include high-definition cameras, automatically locking doors and shock sensors, can cost more than $100,000.

The state’s marijuana cultivation centers range in sophistication, security, employment and quality of product. Some have a thousand plants; some have more than 30,000. Most are grown indoors in modified warehouses; some use greenhouses surrounded by 10-foot-high electrified fences.

To prevent theft and diversion of the product to the black market, operators are required to invest in sophisticated software that tracks the plant from “seed to sale,” a Colorado mandate that Illinois’ legislation adopted.

Each crop, on average, takes about four months to grow. Monthly electric bills range from $3,500 to more than $15,000. The retail value of the inventory inside can easily stretch to several million dollars.

The plants are finicky and prone to mold and mildew, so temperature, humidity levels and air circulation are closely regulated.

Some operators grow their plants hydroponically, some prefer dirt, and others such as Gaia Plant-Based Medicine use a dirtlike product made of crumbled /coconut husks.

The company’s indoor cultivation center, a single-story brick building with barred windows, sits across the street from a Denver Police Department outpost in an industrial area on the northeast side of town between the airport and downtown.

A few years ago, many of the aging buildings here were empty. Today, they’re the headquarters for metropolitan Denver’s marijuana growers. The fragrant, unmistakable aroma of pot plants wafts down the street.

“If you look all around Denver, we came in and rented undesirable spaces,” said Meg Sanders, Gaia’s co-owner and chief executive. After Gaia opened a retail dispensary in east Denver, a Starbucks and a grocer moved in, Sanders said. “It becomes a hub.”

Anecdotes like this abound in Denver, running contrary to what many feared would happen to their neighborhoods once the marijuana industry moved in. Visions of drug-addled stoners and nefarious pushers flooding the city’s streets never materialized.

Two Denver City Council members and the head of the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce said complaints to their offices about marijuana dispensaries and growing operations are rare.

Colorado’s medical marijuana experiment has gone well enough, in fact, that voters in November were emboldened to push forward another constitutional amendment that will allow anyone 21 or older to buy the drug for recreational or “adult use” purposes as early as 2014.

It represents a major opportunity for Sanders, 47, who left the financial world in late 2010 to ride the marijuana wave.

Inside her discreet cultivation center, a Zen-style front waiting room makes way to an open warehouse, where tattooed workers trim marijuana plants, separate leaves from flowers and weigh product.

One-thousand-watt sodium lights cast a bright glow through ajar doors that lead to separate grow rooms.

Sanders had just returned from Illinois, where she spent time in Chicago meeting with potential growers and retailers and a day in Springfield to “help with the legislative process.”

She wants to ensure Illinois doesn’t make the same mistakes as Colorado, and that those who participate in the industry can learn from her company’s initial struggles. When she and other investors took over Gaia two years ago, it was hemorrhaging money.

The company finally turned the corner and became profitable this quarter, she said. For the full year, the three-store company projects revenue of $5 million to $7 million.

“It’s been far more challenging than anyone thought because the rules kept changing,” Sanders said. But with more than $3.5 million of their own money financing the venture, she and her investors remain bullish.

“There are few other industries that have insatiable demand,” she said. “Every single product we put on the shelves is sold each month. It pays for itself very quickly, and that’s what makes it so appealing.”

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Author: Peter Frost, Chicago Tribune Reporter
Published: May 26, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

People who had used marijuana in the past month had smaller waists and lower levels of insulin resistance – a diabetes precursor – than those who never tried the drug, in a new study.

The findings, based on surveys and blood tests of about 4,700 U.S. adults, aren’t enough to prove marijuana keeps users thin or wards off disease. And among current pot smokers, higher amounts of marijuana use weren’t linked to any added health benefits, researchers reported in The American Journal of Medicine.

“These are preliminary findings,” said Dr. Murray Mittleman, who worked on the study at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

“It looks like there may be some favorable effects on blood sugar control, however a lot more needs to be done to have definitive answers on the risks and potential benefits of marijuana usage.”

Although pot smoking is a well-known cause of “the munchies,” some previous studies have found marijuana users tend to weigh less than other people, and one suggested they have a lower rate of diabetes. Trials in mice and rats hint that cannabis and cannabinoid receptors may influence metabolism.

The new study used data from a national health survey conducted in 2005-2010. Researchers asked people about drug and alcohol use, as well as other aspects of their health and lifestyle, and measured their insulin and blood sugar levels.

Just under 2,000 participants said they had used marijuana at some point, but not recently. Another 600 or so were current users – meaning they had smoked or otherwise consumed the drug in the past month.

Compared to people who had never used pot, current smokers had smaller waists: 36.9 inches versus 38.3 inches, on average. Current users also had a lower body mass index – a ratio of weight to height – than never-users.

When other health and lifestyle measures were taken into account, recent pot use was linked to 17 percent lower insulin resistance, indicating better blood sugar control, and slightly higher HDL (“good”) cholesterol levels.

However, there was no difference in blood pressure or blood fats based on marijuana use, Mittleman’s team found.

A Causal Link?

Mittleman said that in his mind, it’s still “preliminary” to say marijuana is likely to be responsible for any diabetes-related health benefits.

“It’s possible that people who choose to smoke marijuana have other characteristics that differ (from non-marijuana smokers),” and those characteristics are what ultimately affect blood sugar and waist size, he told Reuters Health.

Dr. Stephen Sidney from the Kaiser Permanente Division of Research in Oakland, California, said he wonders if cigarette smoking may partially explain the association. Marijuana users are also more likely to smoke tobacco, he told Reuters Health.

“People who use tobacco oftentimes tend to be thinner,” said Sidney, who has studied marijuana use and weight but didn’t participate in the new study. “So I really wonder about that.”

Another limitation with this and other studies, Sidney and Mittleman agreed, is that all of the data were collected at the same time, so it’s unclear whether marijuana smoking or changes in waist size and blood sugar came first.

“The question is, is the marijuana leading to the lower rate (of diabetes) or do they have something in common?” said Dr. Theodore Friedman, who has studied that issue at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in Los Angeles.

He and his colleagues think the link is probably causal. “But it’s really hard to prove that,” Friedman, who also wasn’t involved in the new research, told Reuters Health.

One possibility is that the anti-inflammatory properties of marijuana help ward off diabetes, he said. But he agreed that more research is needed to draw out that link.

“I want to make it clear – I’m not advocating marijuana use to prevent diabetes,” Friedman said. “It’s only an association.”

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/10Ty3La — The American Journal of Medicine, online May 16, 2013.

Source: Reuters (Wire)
Author: Genevra Pittman
Published: May 23, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Thomson Reuters

Six months after voters in Colorado and Washington made history by voting to legalize marijuana, Attorney General Eric Holder still has not said how the Justice Department plans to respond.  But if the feds are smart, they will not just refrain from interfering, they will work together with state officials to minimize smuggling of newly legal marijuana to jurisdictions that continue to treat it as contraband.  A federal crackdown can only make the situation worse — for prohibitionists as well as consumers.

Shutting down state-licensed pot stores probably would not be very hard.  A few well-placed letters threatening forfeiture and prosecution would do the trick for all but the bravest cannabis entrepreneurs.  But what then?

Under Amendment 64, the Colorado initiative, people 21 or older already are allowed to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, grow up to six plants for personal use and keep the produce of those plants ( potentially a lot more than an ounce ) on the premises where they are grown.  It is also legal to transfer up to an ounce “without remuneration” and to “assist” others in growing and consuming marijuana.

Put those provisions together, and you have permission for various cooperative arrangements that can serve as alternative sources of marijuana should the feds stop pot stores from operating.  The Denver Post reports that “an untold number” of cannabis collectives have formed in Colorado since Amendment 64 passed.

Washington’s initiative, I-502, does not allow home cultivation.  But UCLA drug policy expert Mark Kleiman, who is advising the Washington Liquor Control Board on how to regulate the cannabis industry, argues that collectives ostensibly organized to serve patients under that state’s medical marijuana law could fill the supply gap if pot stores never open.

It is also possible that Washington’s legislature would respond to federal meddling by letting people grow marijuana for personal use, because otherwise there would be no legal source.

With pot shops offering a decent selection at reasonable prices, these alternative suppliers will account for a tiny share of the marijuana market, just as home brewing accounts for a tiny share of the beer market.  But if federal drug warriors prevent those stores from operating, they will be confronted by myriad unregulated, small-scale growers, who will be a lot harder to identify, let alone control, than a few highly visible, state-licensed businesses.

The feds, who account for only 1 percent of marijuana arrests, simply do not have the manpower to go after all those growers.  Nor do they have the constitutional authority to demand assistance from state and local law enforcement agencies that no longer treat pot growing as a crime.

Given this reality, legal analyst Stuart Taylor argues in a recent Brookings Institution paper, the Obama administration and officials in Colorado and Washington should “hammer out clear, contractual cooperation agreements so that state-regulated marijuana businesses will know what they can and cannot safely do.” Such enforcement agreements, which are authorized by the Controlled Substances Act, would provide more security than a mere policy statement, although less than congressional legislation.

Taylor, who says he has no firm views on the merits of legalization, warns that “a federal crackdown would backfire by producing an atomized, anarchic, state-legalized but unregulated marijuana market that federal drug enforcers could neither contain nor force the states to contain.” Noting recent polls finding that 50 percent or more of Americans favor legalizing marijuana, he says the public debate over that issue would benefit from evidence generated by the experiments in Colorado and Washington.  That’s assuming the feds do not go on a senseless rampage through these laboratories of democracy.

Source: Odessa American (TX)
Copyright: 2013 Odessa American
Contact: oaletters@oaoa.com
Website: http://www.oaoa.com/
Author: Jacob Sullum

A ballot measure to sharply limit the number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the Los Angeles was approved by voters Tuesday night. The measure won with 62% of the vote, according to the latest results.

Proposition D would reduce the number of pot shops in the city from about 700 now to about 130 by allowing only those that opened before the adoption of a failed 2007 city moratorium on new dispensaries to remain open. A rival initiative, Measure F, which would have allowed an unlimited number of dispensaries to operate, failed. Both measures would raise taxes on medical marijuana sales 20%.

Yami Bolanos, a Proposition D supporter who opened PureLife Alternative Wellness Center in 2006, cried with happiness as the first election results came in, saying she felt as though years of uncertainty about the future of medical marijuana in the city were coming to an end. “Voters had the heart to stand up for the patients like the city council never did,” Bolanos said.

City Councilman Bill Rosendahl, a cancer patient and medical marijuana user who backed Proposition D, said the measure “takes us out of chaos.” He said the dispensaries that have been in the city since 2007 have showed that they are good actors. “They have lived with us,” he said.

Backers of Measure F, which called for additional regulations on dispensaries such as city audits and tests of cannabis for toxins, said they weren’t ready to give up.

David Welch, an attorney who supported that measure, said he was prepared to sue if Proposition D was declared the winner. He said the proposition was unconstitutional because it favored dispensaries based on an arbitrary date. He also predicted that Proposition D would be difficult to enforce, saying that many shops that opened after 2007 probably would continue to operate until the city identifies them and orders them closed. “The city has no idea who qualifies and who doesn’t,” Welch said.

The contentious campaign over how to regulate medical marijuana shops divided the city’s dispensaries, employees and customers, as well as the city council.

Measure F supporters warned that Proposition D would create a monopoly for older shops and allow the rise of “pot superstores.” Backers of Proposition D, including a coalition of older shops and a labor union that has organized workers at many of them, cautioned that Measure F could lead to thousands of new dispensaries.

A third measure, Initiative Ordinance E, would have permitted only the older shops to remain open but without raising taxes. It was put on the ballot by a coalition of older shops and the dispensary employees union, but that coalition shifted its support to Proposition D after the city council voted to put that measure on the ballot.

The stakes were raised this month when the California Supreme Court upheld the right of cities to ban dispensaries.

Supporters of both initiatives warned that if voters failed to pass one of the ballot measures, the city would be left with no law regulating medical marijuana and might be tempted to enact a total ban.

The city council attempted such a ban last year, voting 14 to 0 to outlaw over-the-counter sales of marijuana while allowing small groups of patients to grow the drug for their own use. It reversed the action after the coalition of older dispensaries and union workers qualified a measure for the ballot that would have repealed the ban.

At least one city council member, Jose Huizar, has spoken of revisiting the ban now that cities have been given the authority to outlaw dispensaries.

L.A. has struggled for years to regulate dispensaries, in large part because of contradictory court rulings. The city is battling more than 60 lawsuits over its earlier attempts at regulation.

Los Angeles voters have generally supported the availability of medical marijuana.

In 1996, California became the first state to legalize the medicinal use of pot, although subsequent state laws failed to make explicit how the drug should be distributed. In 2011, L.A. voters approved a ballot measure to tax sales.

Still, a USC Price/Los Angeles Times poll conducted this month found strong support for more regulation of pot shops, with 61% of respondents saying they felt the city should regulate dispensaries more than it currently does. In contrast, 13% said the city should regulate less, and 19% said regulation should not change.

The poll also found that 54% of voters supported a 20% tax increase on medical marijuana sales and 33% opposed it.

Many voters confessed to confusion over the differences among the ballot measures. “The pot stuff was hard,” said Sue Maberry, 64, of Silver Lake. She voted yes on Measure F because she believed Proposition D would create a monopoly.

Early returns also suggested voters favored a measure aimed at overturning Citizens United vs. Federal Election Commission, the Supreme Court ruling that corporations and unions have a 1st Amendment right to spend their money to influence voters.

The measure would “instruct” members of Congress from the Los Angeles area to support a constitutional amendment to change the law, although the lawmakers would not be bound by it.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Author: Kate Linthicum
Published: May 22, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

He did not favor making outlaws of people for enjoying a drug that is less injurious than alcohol or tobacco.

But he worried that a robust commercial marketplace would inevitably lead to much more consumption.  You don’t have to be a prohibitionist to recognize that pot, especially in adolescents and very heavy users, can seriously mess with your brain.

So I was interested to learn, 11 years later, that Kleiman is leading the team hired to advise Washington State as it designs something the modern world has never seen: a fully legal commercial market in cannabis.  Washington is one of the first two states ( Colorado is the other ) to legalize the production, sale and consumption of marijuana as a recreational drug for consumers 21 and over.  The marijuana debate has entered a new stage.

Today the most interesting and important question is no longer whether marijuana will be legalized – eventually, bit by bit, it will be – but how.

“At some point you have to say, a law that people don’t obey is a bad law,” Kleiman told me when I asked how his views had evolved.

He has not come to believe marijuana is harmless, but he suspects that the best hope of minimizing its harm may be a well-regulated market.

Ah, but what does that look like? A few places, like the Netherlands, have had limited legalization; many jurisdictions have decriminalized personal use; and 18 states in this country have approved the drug for medical use.  ( Twelve others, including New York, are considering it.  ) But Washington and Colorado have set out to invent a whole industry from scratch and, in theory, to avoid the shortcomings of other markets in legal vices – tobacco, alcohol, gambling – that lurched into being without much forethought, and have supplied, along with much pleasure, much misery.

The biggest shadow hanging over this project is the Department of Justice.  Federal law still makes felons of anyone who trades in cannabis.  Despite the tolerant drift of the polls, despite evidence indicating that states with medical marijuana programs have not, as opponents feared, experienced an increase in use by teenagers, despite new moves toward legalization in Latin America, no one expects Congress to remove cannabis from the list of criminal substances any time soon.  ( “Not until the second Hillary Clinton administration,” Kleiman says.  ) But federal authorities have always left a lot of room for local discretion on marijuana enforcement.  They could, for example, declare that they will prosecute only drug producers who grow more than a certain amount, and those who traffic across state lines.

Attorney General Eric Holder, perhaps preoccupied with scandal management, has been slow to come up with enforcement guidelines that could give the states a comfort zone in which to experiment.

One practical challenge facing the legalization pioneers is how to keep the marijuana market from being swallowed by a few big profiteers – the pot equivalent of Big Tobacco, or even the actual tobacco industry – a powerful oligopoly with every incentive to turn us into a nation of stoners.

There is nothing inherently evil about the profit motive, but there is evidence that pot dealers, like purveyors of alcohol, get the bulk of their profit from those who use the product to excess.  “When you get a for-profit producer or distributor industry going, their incentives are to increase sales,” said Jonathan Caulkins of Carnegie Mellon, another member of the Washington consulting team.  “And the vast majority of sales go to people who are daily or near-daily consumers.”

What Kleiman and his colleagues ( speaking for themselves, not Washington State ) imagine as the likely best model is something resembling the wine industry – a fragmented market, many producers, none dominant.

This could be done by limiting the size of licensed purveyors.  It would help, too, to let individuals grow a few plants at home – something Colorado’s new law permits but Washington’s does not, because polling showed Washingtonians didn’t want that.

If you read the proposal Kleiman’s team submitted to Washington State, you may be a little boggled by the complexities of turning an illicit herb into a regulated, safe, consumer-friendly business.  Among the things on the to-do list: certifying labs to test for potency and contamination.  ( Pot can contain, among other nasty things, pesticides, molds and salmonella.  ) Devising rules on labeling, so users know what they’re getting.

Hiring inspectors, to make sure the sellers comply.

Establishing limits on advertising, because you don’t want allowing to become promoting.

And all these rules must account not just for smoking but for pot pastries, pot candies, pot-infused beverages, pot lozenges, pot ice cream, pot vapor inhalers.

One of the selling points of legalization is that states can take a cut of what will be, according to estimates, a $35 billion to $45 billion industry and earmark some of these new tax revenues for good causes.  It’s the same tactic used to win public approval of lotteries – - and with the same danger: that some worthy government function comes to depend on creating more addicts.

And how do you divvy up the revenues? How much goes to offset health consequences? How much goes to enforcement? How do you calibrate taxes so the price of pot is high enough to discourage excessive use, but not so high that a cheap black market arises?

All this regulating is almost enough to take the fun out of drugs.

And then there is the issue of drugged driving.

Much about the chemistry of marijuana in human beings remains uncertain, in part because the government has not supported much research.

So no one has come up with a pot version of the breathalyzer to determine quickly whether a driver is impaired.

In the absence of solid research, some legalization advocates insist stoned drivers are more cautious, and thus safer.  ( Hands up if you want Harold and Kumar driving your taxi.  Or piloting your airplane.  ) On this and much else, Washington and Colorado will probably be making it up as they go, waiting for science to catch up.

And experience tells us they are sure to get some things wrong.

New York decriminalized possession of small amounts of pot way back in 1977, with the condition that there be no “public display.” The lawmakers meant to assure that you partied at home, not in the parks or on the sidewalks.

They did not envision that this provision would create a pretext for throwing young black and Latino men in jail.  When police in New York City stop and frisk, which they do a lot in rougher neighborhoods, they order their targets to turn out their pockets and – whoa, public display, come with us, son! Gov.  Andrew Cuomo is promoting an amendment to curb that abuse of power.

On the opposite coast, California demonstrates a different kind of unintended consequences.  The state’s medical marijuana law is such a free-for-all that in Los Angeles there are now said to be more pot dispensaries than Starbucks outlets.

Even advocates of full legalization say things have gotten out of hand.

“It’s a bit of a farce when you can watch people come out of a dispensary, go around the corner and resell their drugs,” said Gavin Newsom, the lieutenant governor and former San Francisco mayor, who favors legalization.  “If we can’t get our medical marijuana house in order, how do we expect voters to deal with legalization?” He is now part of a group discussing how to impose more order on California’s medical marijuana market, with an eye to offering broader legalization in 2016.  And, he told me, his state will be paying close attention to Washington and Colorado, hoping somebody can, as Mark Kleiman puts it, “design a system that gets us to ‘orderly’ without getting us to ‘way too stoned.’ ”

Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: http://www.nytimes.com/ref/membercenter/help/lettertoeditor.html
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Author: Bill Keller

The Michigan Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that medical marijuana users aren’t automatically breaking the law if they’re caught driving after using the drug.

The court unanimously overturned an appeals court decision in the case of a Grand Traverse County man, Rodney Koon. He was stopped in 2010 for speeding — going nearly 30 mph over the limit. Koon admitted having smoked medical marijuana earlier, and a blood test revealed the drug in his system.

It’s illegal for Michigan drivers to consume marijuana. But the state high court said medical marijuana users have some protection. The court says police must show that a driver actually was “under the influence” of marijuana for a charge to stick.

Michigan voters approved medical use of marijuana in 2008.

The medical marijuana law “shields registered patients from prosecution for the internal possession of marijuana,” the judges said.

At the same time, the law prohibits driving “while under the influence of marijuana.” But it fails to specify what level of marijuana in the body constitutes being “under the influence,” the opinion said.

The court suggested lawmakers consider setting a marijuana limit, similar to a blood alcohol level.

“It goes almost without saying that the (medical marijuana law) is an imperfect statute, the interpretation of which has repeatedly required this Court’s intervention,” the justices said. “Indeed, this case could have been easily resolved if the (law) had provided a definition of ‘under the influence.’”

Ruling: http://drugsense.org/url/9bqm5UTK

Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Published: May 22, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The Associated Press

If you’re an average pot smoker in Colorado—paying average prices for average-quality marijuana—you can expect to spend around $650 on weed next year. A study conducted by the Colorado Futures Center at Colorado State University aimed to get to the bottom of how much the state can expect to collect in tax revenues now that marijuana is legal. By doing a little extra math, we can get a rough estimate for what the average marijuana enthusiast will spend annually as well.

Researchers estimate that in 2014, 642,772 Colorado residents, or about 12.5% of the state population, will take advantage of pot’s newly legal status. Analysts assumed each person would smoke or otherwise “use” 3.53 ounces of marijuana annually, for a total of 2,268,985 ounces (about 142,000 pounds) per year.

All of these numbers may be underestimated, because they’re based on data compiled when recreational marijuana was illegal. In fact, there are so many unknowns in the realm of legal non-medicinal pot that all of this math has a crude back-of-the-napkin quality to it. In any event, using the study’s numbers, the average marijuana enthusiast can expect to pay a retail price of $185 per ounce next year. Multiply that times 3.53 ounces—which no one can buy at once, mind you, because there’s a one-ounce purchase maximum for residents—and the total comes to $653 annually spent on pot.

How much the individual actually winds up spending on marijuana will depend on several factors, most obviously the quality (and price) of the pot and how much one smokes. Researchers used the crowdsourcing site PriceofWeed.com to get the $185-per-ounce figure. As of early April, an ounce of marijuana was averaging $206 on the black market, and because the price is expected to drop once pot is legal, the study landed on $185. If the smoker is opting for higher-quality, $300-per-ounce marijuana, his annual pot bill would top $1,000. That’s for someone smoking the average of 3.53 ounces per year. A heavy smoker who goes with $300-per-ounce pot and uses, say, half-an-ounce monthly could expect to drop $1,800 annually on his habit.

That may sound like a lot. But a pot-smoking habit is probably cheaper than a cigarette-smoking habit. Colorado is one of the cheaper states for cigarettes, but a pack still goes for around $5.19, according to one state-by-state price check compilation. So a one-pack-per-day habit—purchased one pack at a time, not by the carton—comes to $1,894 for a year.

Health officials say that once medical expenses and things like lost productivity due to the effects of smoking are incorporated, an addiction to cigarettes is far more costly than that. For that matter, plenty of arguments have been made that legalizing marijuana will result in increased usage and addiction, as well as higher rates of driving while stoned, so the costs to society outweigh any benefits that arise from approving the drug for recreational use.

Oh, and about the point of the Colorado State study, regarding tax revenues for the state? Researchers estimate that the 15% excise tax on wholesale marijuana would yield $21.7 million annually, which is far short of the $40 million annual target. To hit the target, marijuana would have to cost a lot more than the prices that have been estimated, or people in Colorado would have to buy a lot more marijuana than the forecasts project. Neither is likely to occur, the study states. “As competition forces growers and sellers to be more efficient, margins will erode and both wholesale cost and retail prices are forecast to fall,” the report reads. And instead of usage rising year after year, the study’s authors foresee a “decline in the rate of growth of consumption as the ‘wow’ factor erodes overtime and any marijuana tourism begins to decline, particularly if other states follow Colorado and Washington and legalize marijuana.”

Source: Time Magazine (US)
Author: Brad Tuttle
Published: May 20, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Time Inc.
Contact: letters@time.com
Website: http://www.time.com/time/

A comprehensive report on drug policy in the Americas released Friday by a consortium of nations suggests that the legalization of marijuana, but not other illicit drugs, be considered among a range of ideas to reassess how the drug war is carried out.

The report, released by the Organization of American States walked a careful line in not recommending any single approach to the drug problem and encouraging “flexibility.”

Prompted by President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia at the Summit of the Americas last year to answer growing dissatisfaction and calls for new strategies in the drug war, the report’s 400 pages mainly summarize and distill previous research and debate on the subject.

But the fact that it gave weight to exploring legalizing or de-penalizing marijuana was seized on by advocates of more liberal drug use laws as a landmark and a potential catalyst for less restrictive laws in a number of countries.

“This takes the debate to a whole other level,” said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, which advocates more liberal drug use laws. “It effectively breaks the taboo on considering alternatives to the current prohibitionist approach.”

The report said “the drug problem requires a flexible approach,” and “it would be worthwhile to assess existing signals and trends that lean toward the decriminalization or legalization of the production, sale and use of marijuana.

“Sooner or later decisions in this area will need to be taken,” it said. “On the other hand, our report finds no significant support, in any country, for the decriminalization or legalization of the trafficking of other illicit drugs.”

Some analysts interpreted the inclusion of decriminalization as a thumb in the eye to the United States, the country with the heaviest drug consumption and one that has spent several billion dollars on drug interdiction in the Americas, only to find that marijuana and cocaine continue to flow heavily and that violence has surged in Mexico and Central America as the drugs move north.

The report comes two weeks before an O.A.S. meeting in Guatemala, whose president has been open to legalizing marijuana and where the central topic is drug policy in the hemisphere. Uruguay’s president has put forward a plan for the government to legalize and regulate the sale of marijuana.

“The region’s leaders expressed their frustration with the limits and exorbitant costs of current policies and their hunger for a fuller, more creative debate,” said John Walsh, a drug policy analyst at the Washington Office on Latin America, a human rights group.

But the United States has so far rejected legalization as a solution to drug violence.

A State Department spokesman, William Ostick, said the report would be carefully reviewed and discussed with fellow O.A.S. members in Guatemala.

“We look forward to sharing our latest research and experiences on drug prevention and treatment, and to strengthening operational law enforcement cooperation with our partners around the globe in support of our common and shared responsibility for the world drug problem,” he said. “We know other leaders will similarly bring their own data, and anticipate a productive and useful dialogue.”

Kevin Sabet, director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, said advocates of drug liberalization were overplaying the significance of the report, which he said contained a lot the Obama administration would agree with.

He said a discussion of legalization was only natural, particularly since two American states, Washington and Colorado, have moved in that direction.

But the report, he said, also suggested that countries in the hemisphere needed to redouble their efforts to fight the impunity of drug gangs, something often overlooked or played down in the debate on the war on drugs. The report notes that drug organizations have atomized into a range of gangs carrying out kidnapping, extortion and other crimes.

“Institutions in the drug-producing nations are going to have to change the way they do business,” Mr. Sabet said. “You cannot only rely on reducing demand and ignore deep-seated institutional problems.”

Mr. Santos, in accepting the report in Bogota, said more study was needed. “Let it be clear that no one here is defending any position, neither legalization, nor regulation, nor war at any cost,” he said. “What we have to do is use serious and well-considered studies like the one the O.A.S. has presented us with today to seek better solutions.”

A version of this article appeared in print on May 18, 2013, on page A7 of the New York edition with the headline: Americas Coalition Suggests Marijuana Laws Be Relaxed.

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Randal C. Archibold
Published: May 18, 2013
Copyright: 2013 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

The Senate today approved legislation that would allow doctors to prescribe medical marijuana to patients with serious illnesses, sending the measure to Gov. Pat Quinn. The issue pitted supporters arguing for compassion for those suffering from pain they say only cannabis can ease against opponents who contend the legislation would undermine public safety.

Sponsoring Sen. Bill Haine, D-Alton, argued the measure is one of the toughest in the nation. Haine said his bill does not reflect other states that have “sloppily” instituted medical marijuana laws.

“This bill is filled with walls to keep this limited,” said Haine, a former Madison County state’s attorney.

Sen. Kyle McCarter, R-Lebanon, raised concerns about lawmakers endorsing a product that classified as a controlled substance by the federal government, arguing marijuana is a gateway drug that could lead users to harder substances.

“For every touching story we have heard about the benefits to those in pain, I remind you today that there are a thousand time more parents who will never be relieved from the pain of losing a child due to addiction which in many cases started with the very illegal, FDA-unapproved addiction-forming drug that you are asking us to now make a normal part of our communities,” McCarter said.

The proposal would create a four-year trial program in which doctors could prescribe patients no more than 2.5 ounces of marijuana every two weeks. To qualify, patients must have one of 33 serious or chronic conditions — including cancer, multiple sclerosis or HIV — and an established relationship with a doctor.

Patients would undergo fingerprinting and a criminal background check and would be banned from using marijuana in public and around minors. Patients also could not legally grow marijuana, and they would have to buy it from one of 60 dispensing centers across Illinois. The state would license 22 growers.

The measure drew strong opposition from the Illinois Association of Chiefs of Police and the Illinois Sheriffs’ Association, which sent a letter to the governor and lawmakers warning the proposal would not stop medical marijuana card holders from driving while under the influence. They suggested blood and urine testing be included in the legislation to allow police to determine whether card holders had marijuana in their system while driving.

Haine argued the law has safeguards to prevent that, including designating on a driver’s license whether they use medical marijuana.

The Senate vote was 35-21, with 30 needed to pass the bill. It goes to Quinn, who has not indicated whether he will sign it. The Democratic governor recently said he is open minded to the legislation.

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Author: Monique Garcia Clout Street
Published: May 17, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Chicago Tribune Company, LLC
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Like many of her peers, Zoe Helene, 48, smoked marijuana in her early 20s but gave it up as her career in the digital world took off in the 1990s. Today the multidisciplinary artist and environmental activist lives in Amherst, Mass., and is building a global network of trailblazers called Cosmic Sister. Since she married an ethnobotanist in 2007, she has returned to using cannabis occasionally — “as a tool for evolving and expanding my psyche.”

Helene is among a group of women that Marie Claire magazine has dubbed “Stiletto Stoners — card-carrying, type-A workaholics who just happen to prefer kicking back with a blunt instead of a bottle.” She’s also one of a growing legion of boomers who are returning to marijuana now that the stigma and judgment (and laws) surrounding its use are becoming more lax.

Massachusetts, which decriminalized pot in 2008, became the 18th state to legalize medical marijuana, last year. In the 2012 presidential election, which New York Times columnist Timothy Egan called America’s “cannabis spring,” Colorado and Washington voters legalized recreational use, launching weed into the national spotlight and spawning a flurry of marijuana initiatives. Since then, decriminalization bills have been introduced in 10 additional states, and legalization is being considered in 11 states and Puerto Rico.

This trend, along with decriminalization in cities like Chicago, Boston, New York and Denver, has removed a major “barrier to entry” for law-abiding citizens who would use cannabis as medicine or a substitute for alcohol. No longer worried about breaking the law or having their kids discovering their “dirty little secret,” many boomers are returning to a substance they once enjoyed. Others, who never stopped smoking, are coming out of the closet (or the garage) about their use.

The Return of Reefer

While boomers looking for stress relief turn to exercise, yoga, meditation or religion, plenty relax with alcohol or pharmaceuticals. For those who don’t drink (or can’t anymore for health reasons) or take prescription drugs but still want to unwind at the end of the day, laxer laws and attitudes have made marijuana acceptable.

Many respected doctors, homeopaths and naturopaths tout cannabis as natural medicine for a range of conditions, both physical and mental — especially when it’s ingested by means other than smoking. And with the rise of medical marijuana and legal dispensaries, adults don’t have to resort to clandestine meetings on street corners with black market strangers. They can with a prescription walk into a legitimate business establishment and choose from a variety of strains with the help of a “bud tender.”

‘Everybody Smokes Dope After Work’

Clearly there’s been a sea change. In 1969, 84% of all Americans opposed legalizing marijuana. In April 2013, Pew Research found that for the first time in more than four decades of polling on the issue, more Americans than not (52%) want marijuana to be legal. And that’s not just college kids: Among boomers the number is only slightly lower (50%).

A segment of the boomer generation never stopped smoking pot, but many did. In the 1980s, while starting families and building careers, they were influenced by the zeitgeist: Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign and the Drug Abuse Resistance Education program, known as DARE, in their kids’ schools. People didn’t want to be associated with the stoner caricatures they saw depicted in movies, like Sean Penn’s iconic Jeff Spicoli inFast Times at Ridgemont High.

President Bill Clinton’s confession that he had smoked marijuana once but “didn’t inhale” did little to encourage open use. Contrast that with President Barack Obama’s statement that not only did that he inhale frequently but “that was the point.”

Legalized marijuana is gathering increasingly high-profile support. Last year chef, author and TV personalityAnthony Bourdain told The New York Times that “everybody smokes dope after work.” And a host of respected public figures — including Paul Volcker, Deepak Chopra, Michael Pollan and PBS’s Rick Steves — have been vocal advocates for legalization.

Another sign of the changing times is the proliferation of marijuana lifestyle stories in the media. In February, The New York Times Style section ran an article on marijuana etiquette, soliciting “an Emily Post to hack a pathway through this fuggy thicket, particularly given pot’s increased presence in the mainstream.”

The Cannabis Closet: Firsthand Accounts of the Marijuana Mainstream, published in 2010 by The Dish, surprised a lot of people with its candid testimonials from pot-smoking corporate executives, government officials and responsible parents.

Pot Prescriptions

Not all the rebudding boomers are coming back for recreational purposes. A large segment isn’t after the buzz but is using marijuana for a panoply of health issues. In the 19 states (plus the District of Columbia) where medical marijuana is legal, it’s being prescribed to alleviate symptoms associated with cancer, glaucoma, gastrointestinal disorders, arthritis, multiple sclerosis, Crohn’s disease, AIDS, migraines and chronic pain and countless other maladies. Some studies show that it might even help prevent Alzheimer’s disease and fight tumors.

Steve DeAngelo, 55, executive director of Harborside Health Center, which operates dispensaries in Oakland and San Jose, believes marijuana can be “part of a more holistic approach” to health care. Many of his clients suffering from insomnia, anxiety or lowered libido are using cannabis as an alternative to “pharmaceuticals that come with a list of side effects reading like something out of a Stephen King novel,” he says.

Medical marijuana entered the national consciousness in 1991, when San Francisco physicians were first allowed to prescribe it. Five years later California voters approved the first statewide medical marijuana laws. (Interestingly, marijuana was listed in the United States Pharmacopeia from 1850 until 1942 and wasn’t illegaluntil the Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. The U.S. government categorized it a Schedule 1 substance without medicinal value in 1970.)

Like a slow train gathering steam, other states followed California’s lead. The train took off like a bullet in 2009 when Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration would essentially look the other way if state-approved dispensaries complied with local laws.

Today medical marijuana is a highly profitable industry. Precise customer numbers are elusive, but as acceptance spreads, the head count grows. To obtain a medical marijuana card, patients have to be diagnosed with an approved condition by a licensed physician and register with the state.

Once their doctor writes a prescription, users can enter a marijuana emporium, offering a dizzying array of cannabis strains as well as new delivery systems, including electronic vaporizers, capsules, tinctures, teas, honeys, drinks and oils. Marijuana-infused food products, aka “medibles,” have expanded way beyond pot brownies to include pizza, pasta sauce, popcorn, ice cream, soda and even salad dressing.

This booming business, which was the subject of a recent Fortune cover story, is estimated to generate annual revenues of $36 billion — and that number is expected to double over the next five years.

Targeting the Boomer Market

This expanding market segment isn’t lost on marijuana cultivators, who are hybridizing varieties with particular appeal to users more interested in preventive health care and pain maintenance than catching a buzz. These strains are higher in the non-psychoactive cannabinoid CBD, which has anti-inflammatory properties and provides pain relief but doesn’t affect thinking and productivity.

Established players are using their business acumen to shape the industry. Former Microsoft manager Jamen Shively (aka “the Bill Gates of Cannabis”) recently took things in a new direction when he opened Diego Pellicer, which bills itself as “the first legal retail brand in the United States focused exclusively on legal, premium marijuana for pleasure and creative pursuits.” Shively has said that he’s specifically appealing to “baby boomers with disposable incomes who smoked during college years but took a 30-year break to raise a family.”

Private equity firms are getting in on the action by strategically investing in the legal cannabis industry — and they’re targeting boomers. Michael Blue, co-founder of Privateer Holdings, says that midlifers represent about 40 percent of the visitors to his company’s first acquisition, Leafly.com, where “discerning connoisseurs who select cannabis strains like they select fine wines” can rate and compare marijuana.

A prime target: Zoe Helene, whose casual use is part of her holistic vegetarian lifestyle. She occasionally eats her husband’s “marjoons” (marijuana macaroons) to heighten her creativity, loosen up her body for dance and yoga, and help her grow spiritually.

“I’m not a pothead,” the boomer says. “For me, cannabis is a loving plant spirit that helps me understand myself. It heightens my senses and reminds me of higher levels of consciousness I can attain. And then I attain them, without it.”

Boulder, Colorado–based writer Robyn Griggs Lawrence is working with a group of professional chefs on a cookbook that will help people safely and responsibly make and eat haute cannabis cuisine.

Source: Forbes Magazine (US)
Author: Robyn Griggs Lawrence, Next Avenue Contributor
Published: May 16, 2013
Copyright: 2013 Forbes Inc.
Contact: readers@forbes.com
Website: http://www.forbes.com/