In the Sixties hippies turned on with marijuana. In the very near future they may be using the same plant to turn off.

Turn off the bad gene that promotes the spread of aggressive breast cancer that is!
Sean McAllister, Ph.D., and Pierre Desprez, Ph.D. at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute in San Francisco have been testing cannabidiol.

We discovered that cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychotropic compound from the plant Cannabis sativa, can inhibit the processes that allow breast cancer cells to grow and spread (metastasis). The mechanism that would explain the inhibitory action of CBD in vivo (in a living organism) on breast cancer metastasis has not been elucidated. CBD is a novel inhibitor of a gene whose activity is intimately linked to the aggressiveness of human breast cancers; this gene has been termed Id-1.

Using cultures of breast cancer cells, we discovered that Id-1 was a key gene whose expression needed to be reduced in order for CBD to inhibit the spread of breast cancer.

About 40% of the cannabis plant is the compound cannabidiol. It does not contain THC.

The study is funded by the National Institutes of Health. Early test results on animals are very positive. The doctors hope to begin testing cannabidiol on humans within 2-3 years.

An important goal among breast cancer advocates is to find non-toxic therapies that specifically target metastatic breast cancer and not healthy tissues. Our targeted approach is expected to satisfy these criteria.

Additionally, due to the difficulties in accessing efficient screening methods, metastatic breast cancer is more likely to be diagnosed in women with poor social conditions. Therefore, these new therapeutic modalities may particularly benefit undeserved populations with aggressive cancers. CBD is a novel compound by which the growth and spread of breast cancer may potentially be inhibited through down-regulation of Id-1. We have outlined a strategy to create a family of breast cancer inhibitors that are even more active than the parent drug CBD. Additionally, we expect to discover the detailed mechanisms involved in cannabinoid inhibition of Id-1 and corresponding breast cancer cell aggressiveness. We are collaborating with a pharmaceutical company who is currently engaged in clinical trials testing the efficacy of CBD for indications unrelated to cancer. If CBD inhibits Id-1 and corresponding breast cancer metastasis in mouse models, there would be significant enthusiasm to move CBD toward clinical trials for the treatment of metastatic breast cancer. This process could be rapid since CBD is already being tested in the clinic for indication other then cancer and has an established safety profile. Our goal is to start clinical trials with CBD within three years. Our long-term goal is to follow up with second generation CBD analogs that are expected to be more potent and/or efficacious at inhibiting metastatic breast cancer in humans compared to CBD.

Article Source: http://www.examiner.com/
Image: Northern California Bud. Photo by Adrian Miles

By William M. Welchand Donna Leinwand, USA TODAY

LOS ANGELES — James Gray once saw himself as a drug warrior, a former federal prosecutor and county judge who sent people to prison for dealing pot and other drug offenses. Gradually, though, he became convinced that the ban on marijuana was making it more accessible to young people, not less.
“I ask kids all the time, and they’ll tell you it is easier to get marijuana than a six-pack of beer because that is controlled by the government,” he said, noting that drug dealers don’t ask for IDs or honor minimum age requirements.

So Gray — who spent two decades as a superior court judge in Orange County, Calif., and once ran for Congress as a Republican— switched sides in the war on drugs, becoming an advocate for legalizing marijuana.

“Let’s face reality,” he says. “Taxing and regulating marijuana will make it less available to children than it is today.”

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Gray is part of a growing national movement to rethink pot laws. From California, where lawmakers may outright legalize marijuana, to New Jersey, which implemented a medical use law Jan. 19, states are taking unprecedented steps to loosen marijuana restrictions. Advocates of legalizing marijuana say generational, political and cultural shifts have taken the USA to a unique moment in its history of drug prohibition that could topple 40 years of tough restrictions on both medicinal and recreational marijuana use.

A Gallup Poll last October found 44% favor making marijuana legal, an eight-point jump since the question was asked in 2005. An ABC News-Washington Post poll in January found 81% favor making marijuana legal for medical use.

Attorney General Eric Holder last fall announced that raiding medical marijuana facilities would be the lowest priority for U.S. law enforcement agents — a major shift that is spurring many states to re-examine their policies. The American Medical Association recommended in November that Congress reclassify marijuana as a drug with possible medicinal benefit.

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14TH STATE: N.J. approves medical marijuana bill

At least 14 states this year — some deeply conservative and Republican-leaning, such as Kansas — will consider legalizing pot for medical purposes or lessening the penalties for possessing small amounts for personal use. Fourteen other states and the District of Columbia already have liberalized their marijuana laws.

“We are absolutely in an important new era in which increasing majorities of Americans are not just questioning the wisdom and efficacy of marijuana prohibition but are demanding alternatives,” says Stephen Gutwillig, California director for the Drug Policy Alliance, which favors legalizing marijuana.

Kurt Gardinier, spokesman for the Marijuana Policy Project, which promotes marijuana for medical use, calls Holder’s shift “one of the most significant changes in federal drug policy in the last 30 years. It puts states at ease that they won’t be in conflict with the federal government.”

The Obama administration still opposes smoking marijuana for its medicinal benefit, says Tom McLellan, deputy director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy. He says more research is needed to deliver the medically useful ingredients in a non-smokable form.

“We have the safest medications in the world and it’s not a coincidence. We have an enviable process by which we approve medications, and that’s through the (Food and Drug Administration),” he says. “It’s a bad idea to approve medication by popular vote.”

Yet even a few prominent opponents admit it’s getting harder for them to persuade lawmakers to continue tough restrictions on marijuana, though they vow to continue fighting against legalization and warn of dire long-term consequences.

“The momentum is not with us, and we understand that,” says Michael Carroll, president of the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the police chief of West Goshen Township in Chester County, Pa.

The 20,000-member police chiefs association opposes legalizing medical marijuana and decreasing penalties for possession because it fears abusers will cause drugged-driving accidents and other societal and health problems that come with drug abuse. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says marijuana can cause heart irregularities, lung problems and addiction.

“We’re going to multiply the problems we have with alcohol abuse,” Carroll says. “Things are not going our way, but that’s not stopping us for speaking out about it.”

Among the states considering marijuana bills this year:

• Alabama, Delaware, New York, North Carolina and Pennsylvania, are debating allowing medicinal use of marijuana for people with certain illnesses;

• Hawaii and Rhode Island, are considering bills to reduce the penalties for marijuana possession to fines rather than jail time;

• Vermont is weighing whether to allow state-licensed liquor stores to sell medical marijuana.

California leads the way

California became the first state to allow marijuana for medical use when voters approved a statewide ballot issue in 1996, and its provisions are so broad that tens of thousands of people have obtained a doctor’s recommendation to use marijuana for ailments from cancer to arthritis.

Now California’s Legislature is considering a bill that would make it the first state to legalize marijuana for recreational use as well. It is unlikely to pass this year, but Gray and other advocates hope to have a proposition on the November ballot that would legalize marijuana use for anyone 21 or older. California would levy taxes that the state tax board says could raise $1.3 billion or more a year for the deficit-plagued state, while saving tens of millions in prison and law-enforcement costs. Sponsors of the ballot issue have turned in 690,161 signatures on petitions for verification, far more than the 433,971 valid signatures required to get on the ballot.

A 2009 statewide Field Poll found 56% support pot making pot legal for recreational use and taxing it.

The economics argument may be the clincher, proponents hope. They call the proposition a matter of “tax and regulate” rather than “legalize,” saying state control will take marijuana out of criminals’ hands while generating badly needed revenue.

“It’s history repeating itself, with (the) alcohol prohibition repeal during the Great Depression,” says Richard Lee, an Oakland marijuana entrepreneur and president of Oaksterdam University, which trains people to work in the medical marijuana industry. Lee, who is pushing the ballot issue, says, “Now we have the Great Recession. That will be on people’s minds.”

Yet as changing attitudes and economic forces propel the legal pot movement in California, some wrinkles have emerged as the medical marijuana industry expands. After some complaints from neighbors, municipalities and prosecutors are moving to regulate the industry more closely to limit the growth of pot dispensaries and prevent sales for recreational use.

Prosecutors in Los Angeles and San Diego contend that while the law allows marijuana for medical uses, it does not specifically permit the sale of marijuana. They have launched a series of raids aimed at closing some of the hundreds of medical marijuana dispensaries now operating out of storefronts.

“I call it the slippery slope,” says Dennis Zine, an Los Angeles city councilman. “Now we have it for medical purposes. Now let’s expand it to anyone who wants to get high? I don’t support that. … Do we then legalize cocaine, legalize heroin?”

Tehama County, Calif., Sheriff Clay Parker said the state’s current medical marijuana law is filled with gray areas that make enforcement uneven and difficult. He says he opposes further relaxation of state laws but would welcome a federal change that would drop marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 controlled substance, the most tightly restricted, to a lower level that would place marijuana in a category with prescription drugs that pharmacies could dispense.

Gray, who retired as a judge in 2009, says many judges agree with him that sending marijuana users to jail places a costly burden on the state and clogs the justice system, ultimately taking police and court resources from pursuing violent criminals. Most judges, he says, fear saying so.

“Probably half of my colleagues talk privately the same way I do, but publicly they’re concerned about standing out,” he says.

Jeff Studdard, 46, is another one-time drug warrior who has changed his thinking. A former school police officer and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy, Studdard tried marijuana to ease pain and restore his appetite after a broken back forced him out of law enforcement. “I have stopped all my (other) pain meds now and I’ve gained weight. It’s almost like a wonder drug,” he says.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, a http://content.usatoday.com/topics/topic/Organizations/Political+Bodies/Democratic+Party from San Francisco who introduced the tax and regulate bill, predicts California eventually will legalize marijuana and other states will follow.

Sen. Joshua Miller, a Democrat from Cranston, R.I., leads a Senate commission that is studying whether to drop tough penalties for marijuana use. He says statewide polls show 80% of Rhode Islanders favor decriminalization. Rhode Island borders Massachusetts, which decriminalized marijuana last year. The debate, he says, has been framed by the state’s poor financial condition.

“We’d rather spend our resources on violent crime,” he says. “I’d also argue that the best way to get to people who abuse drugs is treatment over incarceration.”

That argument is being reinforced at the federal level by President Obama’s drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief who favors a treatment-driven approach to drug abuse.

Even in conservative Kansas, where the Legislature recently voted to outlaw a synthetic drug that mimics marijuana, backers of looser marijuana laws say they have hope.

Rep. Gail Finney, a first-term Democrat, has proposed legalizing marijuana for use by the critically ill. The bill is unlikely to pass this year, Finney says, but she wants to use the hearings to educate fellow lawmakers and plans to reintroduce it until it passes.

“It’s time for Kansas to have an open, honest debate about this,” she says.

She thinks many of her House colleagues would support the bill if they didn’t fear backlash in an election year — a fear she says is unfounded. A Feb. 2 poll of 500 Kansans by KWCH-TV in Wichita found 58% supported medical marijuana.

“If they were in touch and in tune with their constituents,” Finney says, “they would know that this is what they want.”

Leinwand reported from Washington.

Source http://www.usatoday.com
Image http://wendicthomas.files.wordpress.com/

Robbie Williams has described cannabis as a “lovely drug”, sparking fury among campaigners.

The singer, who has battled addiction and depression, admitted the drug made his weight balloon and affected his mental wellbeing.

But he added: “Weed, it’s such a lovely drug. It is such a lovely drug. But it doesn’t mix well with me at all.

“It doesn’t take much to trigger – I mean, I’ll get psychosis from having this cup of tea! Seriously. The caffeine in that’s enough “But it’s just a shame about weed, because I did love it.”

Robbie, 36, also told the Radio Times he got so fat and depressed before a spell in rehab he felt ready to die.

His comments were last night condemned by Debra Bell, who wrote a book about the devastating effects of her son’s cannabis use.

She blasted: “Does he really know what he’s saying? This drug causes huge damage to children and their families.”

Source and image from http://www.mirror.co.uk/

Judge Jim Gray has watched the justice system fail before his eyes.

Contact: President, Phil Saxby 021 069 4542 or 04 461 6631

VINCE WHARE’S TEN YEAR BAN FOR CANNABIS ANOTHER DRUG WAR INJUSTICE

The ten-year ban handed down to veteran rugby league player Vince Whare makes him another casualty of injustice in our 35 year-old war on drugs, said NORML President Phil Saxby today.

The Canterbury Bulls’ prop has just been suspended from any involvement in sport for a decade by the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand after testing positive for cannabis use. He tested positive for cannabis twice before, once in 2005 and then again in 2006.

“The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) code requires third-time doping offenders to be banned for at least eight years, but cannabis is no more a performance-enhancing drug than alcohol”, Mr Saxby said. “What would happen to sport if all alcohol-using players were banned after 3 drinking offences?”

“This is blatant discrimination against a man who chooses to relax with a substance that’s better for his health than alcohol. That cannabis is illegal has no bearing on his ability to play rugby, nor his right to play the game.”

“If sports bodies are concerned about their image, the focus should be on alcohol, not cannabis,” said Mr Saxby. “Half of all serious violent offences and one third of all offences in New Zealand are committed by offenders who have been drinking; while alcohol is associated with almost fifty percent of all reported incidents of sexual violence.”

“How is it that Robin Brooke can be drunk and grope a girl and not get banned? Sports bodies have a double standard – you can be publicly drunk and behave indecently, but receive more lenient treatment than if you simply get caught for smoking a joint at home. Is that really what we want young people to believe?”

“Whare’s punishment at the hands of the Sports Tribunal is far harsher than any court would have handed down. For the next ten years, this man can no longer have anything to do with the game he loves and is very, very good at. He can’t coach, he can’t run the line, or referee or be an official. This sentence is almost medieval in its harshness!” Mr Saxby concluded.

AlterNet / By Raymond Cushing

In 1974 researchers learned that THC, the active chemical in marijuana, shrank or destroyed brain tumors in test mice. But the DEA quickly shut down the study and destroyed its results, which were never replicated — until now.

May 31, 2000 | The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.

The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects.

Most Americans don’t know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.

The ominous part is that this isn’t the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice — lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.

The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, “The Emperor Wears No Clothes.” In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out — unsuccessfully — to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the “high.”

The Madrid researchers reported in the March issue of “Nature Medicine” that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. “All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation … Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats.” The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.

The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University, also irrigated healthy rats’ brains with large doses of THC for seven days, to test for harmful biochemical or neurological effects. They found none.

“Careful MRI analysis of all those tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage related to necrosis, edema, infection or trauma … We also examined other potential side effects of cannabinoid administration. In both tumor-free and tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid administration induced no substantial change in behavioral parameters such as motor coordination or physical activity. Food and water intake as well as body weight gain were unaffected during and after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the general hematological profiles of cannabinoid-treated rats were normal. Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor markers of tissue damage changed substantially during the 7-day delivery period or for at least 2 months after cannabinoid treatment ended.”

Guzman’s investigation is the only time since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has been administered to live tumor-bearing animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a 1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, but that was a “petri dish” experiment that didn’t involve live subjects.)

In an email interview for this story, the Madrid researcher said he had heard of the Virginia study, but had never been able to locate literature on it. Hence, the Nature Medicine article characterizes the new study as the first on tumor-laden animals and doesn’t cite the 1974 Virginia investigation.

“I am aware of the existence of that research. In fact I have attempted many times to obtain the journal article on the original investigation by these people, but it has proven impossible.” Guzman said.

In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer, who states, “We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared.”

Guzman provided the title of the work — “Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids,” an article in a 1975 Journal of the National Cancer Institute — and this writer obtained a copy at the University of California medical school library in Davis and faxed it to Madrid.

The summary of the Virginia study begins, “Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBN)” — two types of cannabinoids, a family of active components in marijuana. “Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor size.”

The 1975 journal article doesn’t mention breast cancer tumors, which featured in the only newspaper story ever to appear about the 1974 study — in the Local section of the Washington Post on August 18, 1974. Under the headline, “Cancer Curb Is Studied,” it read in part:

“The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered.” The researchers “found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent.”

Guzman, writing from Madrid, was eloquent in his response after this writer faxed him the clipping from the Washington Post of a quarter century ago. In translation, he wrote:

“It is extremely interesting to me, the hope that the project seemed to awaken at that moment, and the sad evolution of events during the years following the discovery, until now we once again Œdraw back the veil‚ over the anti-tumoral power of THC, twenty-five years later. Unfortunately, the world bumps along between such moments of hope and long periods of intellectual castration.”

News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article. This writer stumbled on it through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report web page. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors.

Image from www.thebongplace.com

Cannabis Revolution Examiner – Dev Meyers

HONOLULU, HAWAII — Yesterday, the Hawaii Senate passed by overwhelming, veto-proof margins three measures that will greatly improve marijuana laws in the state:

• SB 2213 passed 20-4, with one excused. This bill would allow counties to license medical marijuana dispensaries.
• SB 2141 passed 24-1. This bill would increase the ratio of plants, ounces and caregivers allowed for each medical marijuana patient.
• SB 2450 passed 22-3. This bill would remove criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana and replace them with a civil fine of up to $300 for a first offense and $500 for a subsequent offense.

The bills now go to the state House.

“These votes show that Hawaii’s Senate supports sensible marijuana policies that will serve the best interests of state citizens,” said Eric M. McDaniel, a legislative analyst with the Marijuana Policy Project. “Hawaii’s most vulnerable citizens deserve safe and reliable access to their medicine, and no Hawaiian deserves to go to jail simply for using a substance that is safer than alcohol. If House members agree, I would strongly encourage them to pass these measures as well.”

The Drug Policy Forum of Hawaii, headed by Pamela Lichty and Jeanne Ohta, and the Peaceful Sky Alliance, headed by Matt Rifkin, played crucial roles in getting these measures through the Senate.

With more than 124,000 members and supporters nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit www.mpp.org.

A Christchurch sports lawyer has questioned whether sports people using cannabis should be treated with the same severity as “true drug cheats” who take performance enhancing or masking drugs.

Ian Hunt represented Canterbury rugby league player Vince Whare, who has been banned for 10 years by the Sports Tribunal of New Zealand for a third cannabis offence.

The World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) code requires third-time doping offenders to be suspended for life although the ban can be reduced to a minimum of eight years. It does not draw a clear distinction in terms of penalties for recreational drugs like cannabis and sanctions for taking performance-enhancing substances.

Hunt argued before the tribunal that Whare should have received the minimum eight-year suspension because cannabis was not performance enhancing.

He told The Press yesterday he did not want to specifically comment on the Whare case but he had a general concern that the Wada code, as it reads, “doesn’t allow for recognition of the differences between non-performance enhancing drugs such as cannabis and performance enhancing or substance masking drugs, in terms of penalties”.

The issue was “the elephant in the room” in the anti-doping arena, Hunt said.

He believed the tribunal had accepted “there are distinctions to be made” between recreational and substances with performance enhancing or masking agent properties. “They also allowed, as I hoped they would, that the nature of cannabis as a substance could not be ignored when they were considering how to apply the Wada codes and the [Sports Anti-Doping] rules.”

But there did not seem to be any “latitude” in the rules, which were “black and white”. There was “no distinction whatsoever drawn between EPO, a steroid or cannabis. Yet, clearly, there must be some distinction drawn when you are talking about a substance that doesn’t have those enhancing properties, which is what we really think of as being a [drug] cheat.”

Hunt said a sportsperson guilty of a third cannabis offence received a much tougher penalty than those imposed by a criminal court for “possessing or smoking a small amount of cannabis”.

“You could argue that the kind of sanctions imposed on [Whare] – he can’t do anything, he can’t coach, can’t play, can’t run the line, referee or be an official in any Wada-recognised sport – are a pretty severe set of sanctions for anybody.”

Hunt said no-one had any problems with severe penalties issued to “Balco-type offenders” who used steroids or other performance enhancing drugs. They were what the tribunal had termed, “true drug cheats”.

“We all want drug-free sport. But we are talking about whether or not cannabis, which doesn’t enhance performance, should be treated the same way as performance enhancing drugs or masking agents.”

Hunt said the rules and the Wada code had been formed as an “agreed response” to the problem of doping in sport. “What I would question is whether or not it was contemplated when the rule was drafted that it had these kind of consequences for non performance enhancing [substance users].

“Did someone think through and say, `hang on, [what] does this mean for someone who’s caught for the third time smoking dope [but] doesn’t gain any advantage from it and it’s not masking any other substance? Are we really saying he, too, should face the same consequence as Marion Jones or Floyd Landis, or someone like that.

“Of course, they’re not third time offenders, but I’m talking about the seriousness of what they were doing.”

Jones was jailed for six months in 2008 after admitting taking performance enhancing drugs. She was stripped of the five gold medals she won at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.

Landis was stripped of the 2006 Tour de France cycling crown and banned from international competition until 2009 after returning a high ratio of the hormone testosterone to the hormone epitestosterone in a urine sample.

Hunt said the doping codes were introduced “not to change social behaviour, but to prevent athletes taking performance enhancing drugs from gaining an advantage.

“I suspect the reason for cannabis’ inclusion [on the prohibited substances list] has to do with quite powerful parties, such as the US, who for reasons to do with their own fight against drugs, generally, want it to be there.

“I think you’d find there are a lot of countries who would have some reservations about cannabis’s proper place in the whole regime, but it’s a consensus document.

“But this is the sort of case or outcome that raises questions as to whether it should be there.”

Hunt said almost every major sport in New Zealand had signed up to the Sports Anti-Doping Rules 2009.

It would be technically possible for a sport to adopt the rules in their entirety with a caveat that “in the event of a third cannabis violation the sanction will be a minimum of four years rather than eight [as set out in the Sports Anti-Doping rules and WADA code].”

But any sport doing that could potentially jeopardise its relationship with Sparc.

Source http://www.stuff.co.nz/

SENATE BILL 2450 WILL IMPROVE THE QUALITY OF LIFE FOR HAWAII CITIZENS

Between 1,000 and 1,500 Hawaii residents are arrested annually for possessing one ounce or less of marijuana. Passage of SB 2450 measure would spare these minor marijuana offenders from criminal arrest, prosecution, and incarceration, as well as the emotional and financial hardships that follow — including the loss of certain jobs, students loans, federal and state subsidies, and child custody rights.

Most adult marijuana users act responsibly and consume marijuana solely within the privacy of their own homes. They are not part of the crime problem and they should not be treated like serious criminals. Senate Bill 2450 would maintain the monetary sanctions already in place for marijuana possession violations, but would spare offenders from being saddled with lifelong criminal records. This change would continue to discourage marijuana abuse, while halting the practice of permanently criminalizing thousands of otherwise law abiding citizens of Hawaii.

SENATE BILL 2450 WILL CUT COSTS AND IMPROVE PUBLIC SAFETY

Law enforcement resource allocation is a zero-sum gain. The time that a police officer spends arresting and processing minor marijuana offenders is time when he or she is not out on the streets protecting the public from more significant criminal activity. Passage of SB 2450 would allow law enforcement, prosecutors, and the courts to re-allocate their existing resources toward activities that will more effectively target serious criminal behavior and keep the public safe.

The move would also have the added benefit of saving state taxpayers’ money and raising revenue. Presently, state and county law enforcement agencies spend over $4 million per year to enforce marijuana possession laws; an additional $2.1 million is spent by the criminal courts. Passage of SB 2450 will offset these criminal justice costs while simultaneously raising state revenue through the imposition of civil fines of up to $100.

THE PUBLIC STRONGLY SUPPORTS SENATE BILL 2450

Public opinion strongly favors such a reprioritization of law enforcement resources. Marijuana ‘decriminalization,’ as proposed under SB 2450 presently enjoys support from the majority of Americans. According to a recent CNN/Time Magazine poll, approximately three out of four citizens favor a fine over criminal penalties for the possession of marijuana. In fact, thirteen states – including Oregon, Maine, Nebraska, Ohio, and Mississippi — have already enacted various forms of marijuana decriminalization, replacing criminal sanctions with the imposition of fine-only penalties for minor marijuana offenders. In no instance have lawmakers recriminalized marijuana after implementing decriminalization.

Further, in 2008, Big Island voters by a 3 to 2 margin approved Ballot Question 1, which sought to direct law enforcement to make activities related to the investigation and arrest of adults who possess up to 24 ounces of cannabis and/or 24 plants their lowest priority. However, it appears that local lawmakers and law enforcement have failed to consistently abide by this ordinance.

Contrary to the concerns of some, the passage of SB 2450 would not negatively impact marijuana use patterns or attitudes. Passage of similar legislation in other states has not led to increased marijuana use or altered adolescents’ perceptions regarding the potential harms of drug use. In fact, the only United States government study ever commissioned to assess whether the enforcement of strict legal penalties positively impacts marijuana use found, “Overall, the preponderance of the evidence which we have gathered and examined points to the conclusion that decriminalization has had virtually no effect either on the marijuana use or on related attitudes and beliefs about marijuana use among American young people.”

SUPPORT PUBLIC SAFETY: VOTE ‘YES’ ON SB 2450

Senate Bill 2450 seeks to reduce government expenditures and promote public safety. These are goals that lawmakers should support. House legislators should follow the Senate’s lead and approve SB 2450, and Gov. Linda Lingle should sign it. It makes no sense to continue to treat responsible adult cannabis consumers as criminals.

Paul Armentano is the Deputy Director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), and is the co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? (Chelsea Green, 2009). He may be contacted via e-mail at: paul@norml.org. For more information regarding Marijuana Is Safer, please visit: http://www.marijuanaissafer.com

From http://www.hawaiireporter.com/