Two ideologically diverse advocates on Wednesday echoed an earlier call by a coalition of drug-policy reform groups by condemning a series of recent raids by the Drug Enforcement Administration on medical marijuana collectives operating legally under state law.

The Tenth Amendment Center, a group that advocates for states’ rights, and Jane Hamsher, the publisher of Firedoglake.com, called on the DEA to respect duly adopted state medical marijuana laws and immediately end those raids.

“The federal government is only authorized to exercise those powers that ‘We The People’ delegated to it in the Constitution,” said Michael Boldin, founder of the Tenth Amendment Center. “It is especially egregious when these laws are used to justify raids in states where the use and distribution of cannabis is expressly allowed by law.”

“How many hundreds of thousands of people are going to be arrested before We The People say ‘enough is enough’?” Boldin asked. “The time to end this unconstitutional, immoral, and costly federal war on people is now.”

Under the “leadership” of acting administrator Michele Leonhart, the DEA has staged medical marijuana raids in apparent disregard of Attorney General Eric Holder’s directive to respect state medical marijuana laws.

Most recently, DEA agents flouted a pioneering Mendocino County, California ordinance to regulate medical marijuana cultivation by raiding the very first grower to register with the sheriff. Joy Greenfield, 69, had paid more than $1,000 for a permit to cultivate 99 plants in a collective garden that had been inspected and approved by the local sheriff.

Told that Greenfield had the support of the sheriff, the DEA agent in charge responded by saying, “I don’t care what the sheriff says.”

The DEA’s conduct is inconsistent with an October 2009 Department of Justice memo directing officials not to prosecute individuals “whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

“At least 73 percent of Americans support medical marijuana, according to recent polls, and its use has been made legal in 14 states plus the District of Columbia,” said Jane Hamsher, publisher of progressive political blog and advocacy group Firedoglake.com.

“Attorney General Eric Holder was crystal clear last year when he directed officials within his department not to waste federal resources interfering with state medical marijuana laws,” Hamsher said. “Yet throughout the tenure of President Obama’s administration, the DEA’s raids have continued in a manner wholly inconsistent with the spirit of that directive.”

“What part of ‘not a priority does Michele Leonhart not understand?” Hamsher asked.

“We are pleased that opposition to the DEA’s over-aggressive behavior is spreading across the political spectrum,” said Steve Fox, director of government relations for the Marijuana Policy Project.

“The agency is defiantly sending agents on missions to destroy the private property of citizens who are in full compliance with state medical marijuana laws,” Fox said. “In doing so, the DEA is intentionally undermining the will of state voters and lawmakers who have acted to ensure that medical marijuana patients are no longer treated as criminals.”

“Such acts are not just an insult to advocates of medical marijuana — but also demonstrate a desire to flaunt the power of the federal government in a manner that denies states the right to pass and carry out laws in the best interest of its own citizens,” Fox said.

Based largely upon these recent raids, a coalition of drug policy organizations — including MPP, NORML, California NORML, the Drug Policy Alliance, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), and Students for Sensible Drug Policy — last week called on President Obama to withdraw the nomination of Leonhart to be the permanent head of the DEA.

• Prop 19 PPP
• Support 52%
• Oppose 36%

This is the largest margin of support we have seen from recent polling on Prop 19. Interestingly, the poll found support among African Americans to be extremely high. From PPP blog:

Democrats are more likely to throw their support behind the prop than Republicans. 62% of Democrats, 37% of Republicans and 55% of Independents support Prop 19.

African-Americans are the strongest supporters of Prop 19; 68:32, followed by Whites who support it 53:37.

Those are surprisingly high numbers among African Americans. A SurveyUSA poll from earlier this month had African Americans on average about as likely to support Prop 19 as whites. Significantly, a small percentage of African Americans said they were certain to oppose it.

Read more of this article at elections.firedoglake.com

By: Jon Walker Wednesday July 21, 2010 10:01 pm

According to a new Angus Reid Public Opinion poll (PDF), American adults overwhelmingly believe the “War on Drugs” has been a failure: 65 percent of adults describe it that way, while only eight percent call it a success and 27 percent are not sure. After several decades, billions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of arrests as part of the War on Drugs, illegal drugs remain easily available throughout the nation. It’s no surprise Americans say the policy has failed.

With so many Americans viewing the War on Drugs as a policy failure, they’re now open to legalizing the most common and safest of illegal substances, marijuana.

Even more interesting, the poll finds that 52 percent of American adults either strongly or moderately support legalization of marijuana. A majority of Democrats, 57 percent, and independents, 59 percent, support it. Only 38 percent of Republicans do. The poll finds extremely little support for legalizing any other illegal drug, such as ecstasy or cocaine.

Angus Reid, a Canada-based international polling firm, was very accurate in the 2008 Canadian federal election. This poll was an online survey of 1003 American adults with a margin of error of 3.1 percent, conducted on July 14 and 15.

Even if a slim majority of all American adults supports marijuana legalization, it is likely there is not yet majority support for legalization among that all-important group of individuals: those who will cast a ballot this November. It is important to note that the poll was of all adults. As a group, all American adults tend to be noticeably younger and more liberal than “registered voters.” The group of “likely voters,” those who are expected to vote on Election Day, is, on average, older and less liberal. This discrepancy of opinion between all adults and the small subset of adults who normally vote is why registration and turnout will be so critical to the fate of Proposition 19 in California.

Original Article: http://elections.firedoglake.com/

Three may not seem like a high number, but it represents the most public support that legalization has garnered from a single state’s delegation — and it signals the effect that ballot initiatives can have on advancing the public debate over marijuana policy. Many of the rest of the Democrats in the delegation said they were open to supporting it. The state’s chapter of the NAACP has also come out in favor of it.

The three Democrats to tell HuffPost that they’ll vote yes – Reps. George Miller, Barbara Lee and Pete Stark — represent Bay Area districts and are the first federal legislators to publicly back Proposition 19. Another Democrat, Mike Honda, who represents Silicon Valley, which owes much to consciousness-expanding drugs, said he was leaning toward voting yes. “It’s like driving or drinking: We have a certain age, then you have that privilege and if you abuse it you lose it. I don’t think this is any different, just like other kinds of legalized behavior,” said Honda.

One Republican, the libertarian-leaning Dana Rohrabacher, who represents parts of Huntington Beach and Long Beach, said the he was initially planning to endorse the proposition, but thinks it doesn’t go far enough to protect employers. “I would say in principle I would vote yes but you always have to read the fine print,” he said. “I read into it and it was more than simply preventing people from going to jail. It was that nobody could use that as a criteria for hiring and firing… If somebody wants to hire just non-smokers or non-drinkers that’s his or her personal prerogative as far as I’m concerned.”

Rohrabacher said that if a bill similar to the proposition in California came to the House floor, but didn’t include the employer language, he’d vote for it.

HuffPost quizzed each member of the California delegation, but perhaps the most unlikely negative response came from Rep. Lynn Woolsey, a Democrat who represents Marin and Sonoma Counties and is co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. No polling has been done specific to her district, but Woolsey’s opposition would put her in a dwindling minority in Northern California.

In a statement, Woolsey emphasized her support of medical marijuana. “Marijuana use is increasing among today’s youth, and as a mother and a grandmother, I am concerned by any initiative that might contribute to increased substance abuse,” she said. “While I am not convinced that legalization of marijuana is appropriate at this time, I do believe that doctors should be permitted to prescribe marijuana for patients suffering from cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, spastic disorders, and other debilitating diseases. I’m an original cosponsor of H.R. 2835, the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act, which would prevent federal laws from restricting the production, distribution, and use of medical marijuana.”

Article continues at www.huffingtonpost.com

by: Michael Whitney, Monday June 28 (elections.firedoglake.com)

Yes on 19 Marijuana Legalization Campaign Poster from 1972. (Bolerium Books/LA Weekly)

While California confirmed its state’s marijuana legalization initiative would be on the November ballot months ago, today the state assigned proposition numbers to this year’s slate of initiatives. Get used to hearing about Proposition 19, which is where you’ll get to vote to legalize marijuana in California.

The state restarts the counter for proposition numbers every ten years, last doing so in 2008 (hence why gay marriage was Prop 8 in 2009). While it’s inevitable proposition numbers will be reused, the LA Weekly notes a strange coincidence in the legalization initiative’s number. When pot legalization was on the ballot in 1972, it was also Proposition 19.

The Secretary of State’s office says it was a coincidence. But you can’t put anything past the people who named the state’s medical marijuana bill SB 420.

Anyway, if you still have your Prop. 19 buttons and posters, you won’t have to go buy new ones.

As you can probably tell, Prop. 19 failed in 1972. In fact, it wasn’t close. According to Ballotpedia, the measure went down by a vote of 66.5% to 33.5%. We’ll see in November how much attitudes have changed in the intervening 38 years.

The latest LA Times poll found 49% of Californians support marijuana legalization, with 41% opposed in May. Earlier that month, the Public Policy Institute found the state evenly split, with 48% supporting to 49% opposing.

I just really hope this year’s campaign can produce some equally awesome posters like the one here from the 1972 Prop 19 campaign for legalization.

Pot isn’t the only issue on which Californians will vote in November. Jon Walker has a rundown of the 10 initiatives on the ballot for Golden State voters.

Bucking the recommendation of their executive board, delegates to the Washington State Democratic Convention endorsed I-1068 (the marijuana legalization initiative) with 62 percent “yes” vote (314 to 185). The executive board had given no recommendation on the initiative because “the committee was even more split than the delegates,” according to State Vice Chair Sharon Smith.

The endorsement of the State Democratic Party may be too late to ensure marijuana legalization is on the ballot this November. A petition with signatures from at least 241,153 registered voters must be submitted by July 2nd, just five days from now in order to put I-1068 on the ballot.

The truly grassroots organization Sensible Washington has run a very strong signature gathering campaign to promote I-1068. However due to limited funding they may fall short of the requisite number of signatures. The task of running a true grassroots petition campaign in Washington State as opposed to a professional signature gathering operation, has been strongly hampered by the state’s ridiculous restriction preventing petitions from being printed on a standard 8.5 x 11 inch office paper (PDF).

That the marijuana legalization initiative was endorsed by the State Democratic Party is a good sign that it may get on the ballot in 2012 with a broad campaign working to gather signatures. It’s more likely to happen if the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act 0f 2010 passes in California this November, setting a precedent for Washington State.

More importantly this may be another very positive sign that marijuana’s legal status is finally moving away from being some weird moralistic taboo to becoming just another political/policy question to be debated on its merits. Does it make sense to maintain a law so universally violated that it has been broken by both our current and at least one former President of the United States?

reposted from www.katu.com

SALEM, Ore. – The State of Oregon has re-classified how it views marijuana.

The State Board of Pharmacy voted Wednesday to recognize pot as a drug that has medical use.

The move came because of a law passed last year that ordered marijuana to be removed from a list of drugs that have “high abuse potential and no acceptable medical use.”

Marijuana will now be what is known as a “Schedule II controlled substance.” That’s a drug that has medical use but still has “high abuse potential.”

Oregon becomes the first state in the nation to make marijuana anything less serious than a Schedule I drug.

The preliminary total only reflects the signatures gathered by paid petitioners through May. The campaign will continue to gather signatures up to the July 2 deadline to give them a cushion for names that have to be thrown out.

Also, a Detroit City Council committee passed today on amending a city ordinance to allow adults in the city to legally possess a small amount of marijuana. Instead voters will get to decide in November.

Brought to you by the Coalition for a Safer Detroit – the same group that successfully got medical marijuana placed on the ballot in 2004 which passed – the ordinance amendment would allow anyone 21-years-old or older to legally possess less than an ounce of marijuana on private property, amending Chapter 38 of the city code regulating controlled substances.

Tim Beck, a registered medical marijuana user who filed the petitions, says the amended ordinance would “free up the police department to pursue crimes with actual victims.”

Dennis Mazurek, assistant corporation counsel with the city Law Department, told the council’s Internal Operations Committee that the ordinance amendment violates state law, specifically, the Michigan Public Health Code, and cannot be enacted. The state only allows registered medical marijuana use.

According to the City Clerk’s Office, the Coalition submitted 5,750 signatures in May; 3,895 were required and 4,598 were validated.

Beck is confident voters will pass the ordinance, as they passed the medical marijuana ordinance in 2004.

“It’s going to win,” he said. “I have no doubt about that.”

via http://www.theweedblog.com/

LOS ANGELES TIMES/USC POLL
May 31, 2010|By John Hoeffel, Los Angeles Times

California voters, by a modest margin, think they should be allowed to grow and consume marijuana, according to a new poll that also found more than 1 in 3 voters had tried pot and more than 1 in 10 had lit up in the past year.

The Los Angeles Times/USC poll found that voters back the marijuana legalization measure on the November ballot, 49% to 41%, with 10% uncertain about it. But support for the initiative is unstable, with one-third of the supporters saying they favor it only “somewhat.”

The groundbreaking study showing how the City of Oakland could make $2 million per year licensing a medical cannabis growing warehouse caught many locals by surprise this week. Even though city officials and the cannabis industry are looking toward licensing large-scale grows allowed under state law SB 420, the hard numbers appear to be the first of their kind. Economist Joanne Brion of Brion and Associates, who did the six-month, $16,000 report said she was surprised at how potent an economic force cannabis is.

“My gut instinct said that this would be a great revenue and job generator for the city,” she said. “But after running the numbers, “I went, ‘Wow, that’s really a job generator.’”

Brion’s report found that licensing a seven-acre cannabis growing facility near I-880 at the Embarcadero would create up to 371 union jobs, paying an average salary of $53,700 a year. The site could produce an average of 58 pounds of cannabis per day, and generate gross revenues of around $59 million per year. The site would grow an estimated quarter of one percent of the estimated 8.6 million pounds of cannabis cultivated annually in California.

Jeff Wilcox, founder of AgraMed — a non-profit mutual benefit company set up in Oakland specifically to cultivate medical cannabis — commissioned the study. Wilcox, a retired construction company owner, wants to redevelop a seven-acre parcel he owns near I-880 and the Embarcadero. His four-building parcel abuts the Harborside Health Center, which is the West Coast’s most prestigious medical cannabis dispensary.

With largely vacant commercial real estate and a large power capacity, the entrepreneur in him looked at the growing medical cannabis industry and, after consulting with Harborside founder Stephen DeAngelo, concluded a large-scale indoor cannabis farm was an opportunity.

DAVID DOWNS
California grows an estimated 8.6 million pounds of cannabis a year. None of it is taxed.

But Wilcox has three teenaged children in Lafayette, CA. Morally, he said he was concerned about getting into medical cannabis, but after talking to his kids — who can get pot easier than alcohol due to its lack of regulation — and activists like retired Orange County Judge James Gray, Wilcox said taxing and regulating the widely used drug poses less risk to his kids than the current de facto legalization Californians enjoy.

“My kids came home from the mall one day. They were upset. They said that in the first five minutes they were there, someone asked them if they wanted to buy pot,” says the middle-aged singe dad, who also grew up with pot more readily available than alcohol. “Legally, we have to do something. I think Oakland and the state needs to tax the shit out of this and legitimize it.”

Wilcox — who is also now on the TaxCannabis 2010 steering committee — went to the City of Oakland last year and asked if they were interested in licensing large-scale grows. When they said yes, he sought economists willing to run the numbers on what would be among the first large-scale, licensed medical cannabis farms in the country, then publish the findings. It wasn’t easy. Three turned down the work before he found Brion and Associates, a fifteen year-veteran of urban economics.

“Funny, some of my friends didn’t want to do the work,” Brion said. “I guess it’s still controversial. My interest is public policy. And you can only make good public policy if you have good information.”

Brion set upon the task of quantifying the construction and operation costs, as well as the margins of a large-scale growing operation — taking into account special factors like security, the price of cannabis, and potential yields.
“We had to do a lot of research,” she said. “These aren’t like standard studies. It is the first analysis on large-scale medical cannabis growing.”

Nailing down yield rates for plants became a challenge, but after talking with growers, she concluded the best way to measure yields is “quantity per light.” Once she had a good quantity-per-light metric and knew the amount of lights the facility could support, she determined the site could produce an average of 58 pounds per day.

The biggest caveats in the study are now the wholesale price of medical cannabis and how much the city might tax it. “The price, of course, will vary,” she says. “The other big caveat is the potential production tax the city might charge.”

Brion estimates the average wholesale price per pound of medical grade cannabis at $2,800. The city could tax it anywhere from the current retail tax rate of 1.8 percent to up to five percent in her analysis, generating anywhere from $1.1 million to $2.9 million in taxes off gross annual revenues. It would be among the most labor-intensive work in the Bay Area, she said.

An existing wholesale warehouse might have one employee per 500, 600, or even 1,200 square feet. But AgraMed’s site, if permitted, would need one employee for every 270 square-feet of working space.

Oakland city official Arturo Sanchez said the city council is looking at issuing a moratorium on medical cannabis cultivation as a prelude to a Public Safety Committee meeting that will examine what large-scale growing license regulations would look like. “Sometime over the summer the council will make up its mind whether to regulate it, allow it, or not,” Sanchez said.

Licensing large-scale grows would be a win-win-win, Wilcox said. Such grows would increase public safety, increase medicine quality, and raise funds and create jobs for the city.

Growers often steal power from the electrical grid with dangerous wiring schemes that have burned down residences. Robbers routinely target the lightly guarded plants and money of indoor pot farms. Both issues could be mitigated by a regularly inspected facility with up to thirty security personnel, cameras, and gates. In addition, multiple similar facilities could drive down local pot’s cost, increase its quality, and put dangerous, local home growers out of business. Long-term, a fully licensed supply of cannabis in California could curb the environmental destruction from cartels growing in national forests, and render home-growing a quaint hobby, on par with growing seasonal vegetables.

Furthermore, dispensaries currently buy their product from complete strangers, regulars or their own growers. Unlike federally regulated drugs and foods, pot’s largely an open-loop system subject to pesticide and pathogenic mold contamination. AgraMed’s supply chain would be closed and controlled like few others, sending pristine product to local dispensaries like Harborside.

The medical cannabis cultivation moratorium is scheduled to appear before the Oakland City Council June 1, and the Public Safety Committee meeting on growing regulation is scheduled for June 8.

Article and Images by David Downs of eastbayexpress.com