Please grow a mustache Governor Christie

Mr. Creosote says medical marijuana law can go forward

TRENTON, N.J. – Gov. Chris Christie said Tuesday that he will allow New Jersey to move forward in implementing its medical marijuana law despite his concerns over whether federal authorities could prosecute state regulators.

After saying last month that he wanted assurance from the U.S. Justice Department that it won’t pursue criminal charges against state-sanctioned medical marijuana programs, he pivoted Tuesday, saying he was drawing upon his seven years of experience as New Jersey’s U.S. attorney in anticipating that federal prosecutors have more important crimes to pursue.

“It is my belief, having held that job for seven years, that there’s a lot of other things that will be more important as long as the dispensaries operate within the law,” he said.

He never received blanket assurance from the Justice Department. But in making his announcement, the governor said that allowing the program to move forward was “a risk I’m willing to take as governor.”

The Republican governor also cited comments Barack Obama made in 2008, when he was a presidential candidate, in which he said he would not “use Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue,” preferring to focus instead on fighting violent crime and potential terrorism.

What’s especially funny about this is that the Obama administration has decided to go after medical marijuana, which the ACLU describes as “a complete reversal of the policy the administration outlined just two years ago”. It is a broken promise to the sick.

Sometimes, you gotta love a wingnut. Christie’s doing the right thing, albeit probably for the wrong motivations. Get the weed to the sick people. I’m gonna call the Governor tomorrow. It will be the first, and only, time Chris Christie gets a thumbs up from me. Sadly, this will not be the first time I’ve given the president’s administration a thumbs down.

We can’t find money to create jobs in America; we can’t figure out how to fix our crumbling infrastructure; we’ve got 10% official unemployment (and probably closer to 20% unofficially) and we’re spending $27 billion on the Afghanistan National Police force, which spends its time getting high.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, I like getting baked as much as the next guy. But I’m not a cop, and I do that on my own time and my own dime.

Despite David Gambacorta’s stupid take on the topic (it is the Philadelphia Daily News after all, a newspaper that provides op-ed space to writers who approve of child molestation), District Attorney Seth Williams and Justice Seamus McCaffery are doing the right thing by downgrading marijuana possession as a crime:

The problem, explained state Supreme Court Justice Seamus McCaffery, is pretty simple: about 3,000 people a year are charged with a misdemeanor for possessing 30 grams – about an ounce – or less of marijuana.

Those cases slowly work through the city’s severely clogged court system, taking up the time of judges, attorneys and police officers, all “for a crime that’s supposed to have a 30-day [jail] case, even though no one ever sees 30 days,” McCaffery said.

The solution crafted by Williams, McCaffery and state Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille calls for small-time possession cases to be charged as summary offenses, which can be resolved with fines, community service and an abbreviated trip through the courts.

“This is a big-picture issue,” McCaffery said, referring to the overburdened local court system. “We decided to take a more rational and common-sense approach.”

Not only is this good news for pot smokers, who risk prison and denial of federal student loans if caught for this “crime” that hurts no one, it’s good news for taxpayers:

Frat boys will still get fingerprinted for firing up on SEPTA or at Phillies games. But unless they’re dealers, they’ll probably pay a $200 fine, endure a preachy antidrug video, and emerge unscathed, without a criminal record. Sigma Chi saves face, and a strapped city saves millions.

“These marijuana cases just don’t make financial sense. Each time a case is listed costs us at least $1,000,” Williams conceded.

“For the most part, these are knuckleheads with one or two joints in their possession,” the D.A. told me. “People shooting people, robbing people, raping people – those are the cases that really deserve our attention and resources.” [...]

“We identified the fact that marijuana consumers in Philadelphia are treated more harshly than they are in the rest of the state,” [NORML advocate] Goldstein told me. “We pointed out the insidious racial disparity in the arrest data. We estimate that marijuana mug shots cost this city at least $3 million a year.”

At a time when the city is facing a massive deficit and cutting services to the poor (because god forbid the wealthy pay higher taxes, right Mayor Nutter?), this is a good move that will raise revenue (there are a LOT of potheads in Philly) and save lives. Not in the “oh-they-took-the-poison-out-of-the-water” sense, but in the sense of “your-marijuana-offense-no-longer-locks-you-out-of-college-with-a-criminal-record.”

Good on Seth Williams. i just wish the Daily News could cover the story without resorting to hysteria and stereotypes.

The state Assembly’s public safety committee voted 4-3 on the measure that would tax and regulate marijuana in the same way alcohol is controlled.

But the health committee also must approve the measure by Friday before the full Assembly can consider it, an unlikely scenario.

The health committee is not considering the bill during its meeting Tuesday. And the bill’s backers would have to get a special waiver to reconvene the health committee later this week.

If the bill does die, a spokesman for the bill’s author, Assemblyman Tom Ammiano, said the San Francisco Democrat would hold off on reintroducing legislation until after the November election, which could feature a marijuana legalization ballot proposition.

This is great news. and what would good news about drugs be without a stupid comment from a dumb republican:

Under the bill, much of that money would go to fund drug abuse education and prevention programs. Republican Assemblyman Danny Gilmore ridiculed that idea during the hearing at the state Capitol.

“We’re going to legalize marijuana, we’re going to tax it, and then we’re going to educate our kids about the harms of drugs?” said Gilmore, a 31-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“We’re going to legalize alcohol, we’re going to tax it, and then we’re going to educate our kids about the harms of alcohol?” said Gilmore, a 31-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“We’re going to sell legal tobacco, we’re going to tax it, and then we’re going to educate our kids about the harms of tobacco?” said Gilmore, a 31-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

“We’re going to legalize cars that can attain speeds greater than 65 MPH, we’re going to tax it, and then we’re going to educate our kids about the harms of speeding?” said Gilmore, a 31-year veteran of the California Highway Patrol. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

Idiot.

Marijuana farming rebounds in economic hard times

Growth industry: Recession blamed as marijuana farming increases from California to Appalachia

Machete-wielding police officers have hacked their way through billions of dollars worth of marijuana in the country’s top pot-growing states to stave off a bumper crop sprouting in the tough economy.

The number of plants seized has jumped this year in California, the nation’s top marijuana-growing state, while seizures continue to rise in Washington after nearly doubling the previous year. Growers in a three-state region of central Appalachia also appear to have reversed a decline in pot cultivation over the last two years.

Officers in those areas, the nation’s biggest hotbeds for marijuana production, have chopped down plants with a combined street value of around $12 billion in the first eight months of this year. While national numbers aren’t yet available this year, officers around the country increased their haul from 7 million plants in 2007 to 8 million in 2008.

Let’s stop right there. The police confiscated $12 billion dollars worth of pot? $12 billion dollars worth of something that could, if it were decriminalized, be generating jobs and revenue for our battered economy?

And on top of that, the police are spending their valuable time, which could be used to pursue real violent criminals, on climbing mountains and hacking through forests, in search of a plant?

Talk about your messed up priorities. If the leadership of this country had any brains at all, they’d be running to legalize and tax marijuana.

Instead, they waste time, money, and human resources on an ideological jihad, in a time of economic crisis.

E CHRISTINE Flowers’ March 27 op-ed opposing legalizing drugs:

The piece starts with a false construct. No one credible is talking about legalizing all drugs in response to Mexico’s drug war or our economic crisis – just marijuana. The op-ed conflates marijuana, which has never killed anyone and is non-addictive, to truly dangerous drugs.

Flowers apparently rejects the concept of dealing rationally with a controversial issue, as if wild-eyed hysteria leads to effective solutions.

Flowers also says that the marijuana pill, known as Marinol, is just as medically effective as smoking the stuff.

This claim ignores easily obtained research. The truth? Several state studies, conducted in New Mexico, California, Michigan, Tennessee, New York, and Georgia, found that smoking marijuana is more effective than Marinol. You can read it yourself: www.medmjscience.org/Pages/science/zeesestates.html.

She also claims that U.S. drug laws prevent people from using drugs, a claim belied by simply walking through any Philadelphia neighborhood. The reality is that in 1980, only 41,000 drug users were in prison. Today, that number is 500,000, an increase of 1,200 percent. This is prevention?

Here in Philly, the mayor is considering releasing nonviolent offenders from prison. I participated in two of the budget forums, and that was a proposal heartily embraced by Philadelphians. Our neighbors in New Jersey are considering legalizing medical marijuana, and state Rep. Mark Cohen has introduced a bill to accomplish the same here in Pennsylvania. Thirteen states have decriminalized marijuana, and California is considering legalizing it outright.

It’s one thing to oppose these initiatives on their merits, but Flowers only offers discredited myths, junk science and red herrings to make her case.

Brendan Skwire

Philadelphia

The comments are actually pretty good, so please drop by the DN and add your two cents.

Mysteries of logical reasoning

(1) Anyone who favors marijuana legalization just wants to get high without being hassled, and anyone who favors drug decriminalization generally is or wants to be a drug user.

(2) Anyone who opposes a return to alcohol prohibition is almost certainly an out-of-control drunk.

(3) Anyone who cares about gay marriage or advocates for equal rights for gay couples is a closet homosexual who just wants to have sex with people of the same gender. The only reason anyone would care about that issue is if one wants to have gay sex.

(4) Anyone who believes in free speech rights for Communists obviously opposes private property ownership and Stalinism. Anyone who believes in free assembly rights for neo-Nazis secretly admires Hitler.

(5) Anyone who believes abortion should be legal just wants to have reckless sex without consequences.

(6) Anyone who advocates habeas corpus rights for accused terrorists or who opposes torture harbors sympathy for Islamic extremism and approves of indiscriminate violence against civilians.

(7) Anyone who opposes unrestrained government surveillance must be doing bad things in private that they want to hide.

(8) Anyone who believes in the freedom to practice a certain religion is probably an adherent of that religion and is motivated by a desire to practice it without interference.

Why is most everyone capable of understanding the egregious, illogical stupidity of propositions (2)-(8) — based on the bleedingly obvious premise that one can advocate the freedom to do X for reasons other than a desire to do X — while so many people embrace the equally illogical and stupid reasoning of proposition (1) as though it so self-evidently true that it requires no discussion?

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder is sending strong signals that President Obama – who as a candidate said states should be allowed to make their own rules on medical marijuana – will end raids on pot dispensaries in California.

Asked at a Washington news conference Wednesday about Drug Enforcement Administration raids in California since Obama took office last month, Holder said the administration has changed its policy.

“What the president said during the campaign, you’ll be surprised to know, will be consistent with what we’ll be doing here in law enforcement,” he said. “What he said during the campaign is now American policy.”

Obama’s DEA, yesterday:

Federal agents raided a medical marijuana dispensary in San Francisco Wednesday, a week after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder signaled that the Obama administration would not prosecute distributors of pot used for medicinal purposes that operate under sanction of state law.

U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents raided Emmalyn’s California Cannabis Clinic at 1597 Howard St. in San Francisco’s South of Market district mid-afternoon.

They hauled out large plastic bins overflowing with marijuana plants and loaded several pickup trucks parked out front with grow lights and related equipment used to farm the plants indoors.

The dispensary had been operating with a temporary permit issued by the Department of Public Health.

Hey Obama, call off your goons!

Over recent days, some savvy people have exploited both the weakened economy and the deadly violence on our Mexican border to yet again push for the legalization of narcotics.

The argument goes like this:

It’s the illegal nature of the drug trade that causes the carnage. Thus, if we treat controlled substances just like any other commodity and regulate them in accordance with existing laws of commerce, we’ll eliminate the extreme profit motive. And, presumably, the mayhem.

One Ivy type has even opined that legalizing drugs is the patriotic thing to do. Jeffrey Miron, a senior lecturer in economics at Harvard, writes that “it is impossible to reconcile respect for individual liberty with drug prohibition.”

So we can solve the drug problem if we “just say no” to wholesale restrictions on their production, use and transfer. By eliminating the black market, we can let people exercise their constitutional right to get stoned, all the while benefiting from increased tax revenues and removing the social stigma of addiction.

#1: the deadly violence on our Mexican border is affecting Americans. Phoenix Arizona has become ground zero for kidnappings by mexico’s drug cartels. It’s not opportunistic to suggest that legalizing marijuana, which is the largest source of revenue for the cartels and which they are ALREADY GROWING IN US NATIONAL FORESTS, would take the profit out of that black market and put it into the hands of the US economy, generating desperately needed revenue.

#2: marijuana is one small part of the “drug problem” No one is suggesting we get rid of “wholesale restrictions on their production, use and transfer” of drugs, or even marijuana. What honest people are suggesting is legalize it, regulate it, and tax it like alcohol. see that word “regulate”? That means “restrictions on their production, use and transfer” of marijuana, just like alcohol. And of course Flowers knows this because it’s the fourth paragraph in her article.

#3: Despite Christine’s silly appeals to class war, “legalizing drugs is the patriotic thing to do”, for several reasons: preventing Americans from being murdered and kidnapped in Phoenix is de facto patriotism; preventing the needless arrest of otherwise productive citizens, thus robbing the greater society of their revenue and buying power, is patriotic.

Pay attention to that last part. Because once we legalize drugs, I guarantee we’ll substantially increase the probability that casual users, or those who never smoked a blunt or tapped a vein in their lives, will take that first step on the journey to a life in chaos. I think most readers have some personal knowledge among their own friends and families about that.

“Drugs” refers to a LOT of substances: cocaine; heroin; meth; LSD; magic mushrooms. No one is talking about legalizing “drugs” en masse. people are talking about legalizing marijuana and marijuana alone. This is a typically dishonest argument from the typically dishonest Christine Flowers.

I can hear the derisive comments, see the rolled eyes, anticipate the oh-so-rational arguments from those who advocate an end to what they call “prohibition.”

Heaven forfend that anyone look at a controversial issue with anything other than wild-eyed hysteria.

It’s usually the weekend pot smokers and once-a-month Ecstasy consumers who have the most to say on the topic. Listen, they argue, marijuana has few harmful physical effects. (On that, they may have a point, although it’s quite clearly a way into the drug culture.)

Again, no one’s talking about legalizing ecstasy, and Christine (in her typical snide and dishonest fashion) is pretending that marijuana smokers are no different from people who use hard drugs. Who are these once-a-month ecstasy consumers? Did Christine Flowers interview any? They’re not quoted, so given Flowers’ history of just making shit up, let’s assume that she made this up as well. That’s what hysterics do after all…

Christine Flowers’ research on marijuana.

They also argue that moderate use has been known to help glaucoma and cancer sufferers. This is the humanitarian slant, the one that gains the most traction with average Americans who may be squeamish about legalizing all drugs but who don’t think pot is such a big deal. State Rep. Mark Cohen has tapped into the sentiment with a bill that would allow the medical use of marijuana in Pennsylvania.

With all due respect to Rep. Cohen, this is a red herring.

The active chemicals in cannabis are just as effective when administered in pill form as they are when inhaled. It’s just that you can’t get high from that little pill. You connect the dots.

Actually, Flowers’ claim is a flat-out LIE:

New Mexico… The study concluded that marijuana was not only an effective antiemetic but also far superior to the best available conventional drug, Compazine, and clearly superior to synthetic THC pill.” The study found that [m]ore than [90] percent of the patients who received marijuana . . . reported significant or total relief from nausea and vomiting.” The study found no major adverse side effects. Only three patients reported adverse reactions, none of these reactions involved marijuana alone. The 1984 report concluded . . . the data accumulated over all five years of the program’s operation do show that marijuana smoked resulted in a higher percentage of success than does THC ingested.”

California… The study protocol preferred THC pills by making it much easier for patients to enter that portion of the study. Patients who received marijuana had to be over 15 years of age (the THC pill patients had to be over 5 years of age); had to be marijuana experienced, use the drug on an in-patient basis (patients could only use marijuana in the hospital and not take the medicine home) and had to be receiving rarely used and severe forms of chemotherapy. Thus, the design of the study did not favor marijuana.

Even with this built in bias against marijuana, the study consistently found marijuana to be an effective antiemetic. In 1981 the California Research Advisory Panel reported: “Over 74 percent of the cancer patients treated in the program have reported that marijuana is more effective in relieving their nausea and vomiting than any other drug they have tried.” In 1982, a 78.9 percent effectiveness rate was found for smoked marijuana.

Michigan… The Michigan study reported 71.1 percent of the patients who received marijuana reported no emesis to moderate nausea. Ninety percent of the patients receiving marijuana elected to remain on marijuana. Only 8 of 83 patients randomized to marijuana chose to alter their mode of antiemetic therapy. This was almost the inverse of patients randomized to Torecan, there more than 90 percent – 22 out of 23 patients – elected to discontinue use of Torecan and switched to marijuana.

Tennessee… This study involved an evaluation of 27 patients. The patients had all failed on other forms of antiemetic therapy including oral THC. The study found an overall success rate of 90.4 percent for marijuana inhalation therapy. In comparison it found a 66.7 percent success rate for THC capsules. In the under 40 age group, the study found a 100 percent success rate for marijuana inhalation therapy.

…and on and on. Christine Flowers is a LIAR: this information took me all of 2 seconds to retrieve on google. And it’s not just one site. more here. And Over a million results here. So no, not a red herring at all.

Actually, the whole issue of medical marijuana is a red herring. The real reason we need to keep drugs illegal – and stigmatized – is that this is one of the few effective ways of preventing a tsunami of abuse from sweeping this nation.

If you think the drug problem is bad now, and if you think the decades-long war has been ineffective, imagine what would happen if we dismantled one of the only barriers between potential users and their lethal desires: the law.

Again, Christine Flowers dishonestly conflates marijuana with all drugs. Marijuana is not cocaine or crack. It’s not even as dangerous as tobacco and alcohol. Despite Christine’s hysterical fears, marijuana re-legalization will not lead to a tsunami of abuse anymore than the re-legalization of alcohol led to a tsunami of drunks. marijuana is not “lethal” as Flowers claims: in fact, no one has EVER died of a marijuana overdose EVER. You would have to smoke literally 1500 pounds all at one sitting to overdose on weed.

So lets do some basic math. Using the current price of $60.00 for 1/8th of an ounce of high-potency kind buds we get $480 for an ounce. At 16 ounces in a pound, we’re talking $7680.00. So 1500 pounds is $11,520,000. So it’s financially impossible as well as physically impossible. And while legalizing weed would certainly bring the price down, it doesn’t cancel out that you have to ingest an amount of pot equal to one half of my Subaru Legacy wagon.

On a side note, Christine Flowers’ concern for “the law” is precious, considering that in previous columns, she’s written such gems as:

So what’s the next step? Do we extend to the attackers the same type of mercy they showed their victim? Do we lay them out on the ground and beat the life out of them like they did to Sean Patrick Conroy?

NO, WE’D TRIP OVER the Eighth Amendment.…

…so when it comes to using marijuana, which harms no one, the law is all-important. When it comes to vigilante justice, the law is an object of scorn and dismissal. This woman, by the way, is a lawyer, but I digress.

The federal Controlled Substances Act and related state laws may not be perfect, but at the very least they make it much more difficult for people to start using. Call it fear of the consequences, call it inconvenience, call it the shame factor, but the fact that some drugs are illegal is an undeniably powerful deterrent to those who would otherwise indulge their curiosity. So why make it easier for them?

If that’s true, why does the US have the highest incarceration rate in the developed world, most if it attributable to drug arrests? “Difficult to start using”? That’s a joke. Anyone who believes that our drug laws actually prevent people from using drugs is ignorant, and almost certainly willfully so. I don’t even have to pull a citation for that one, all I have to do is look out my window.

And then, you have that whole messy morality thing. Our intrepid Harvard economist may believe that our basic rights are being violated when the state prevents us from medicating at will, but there are a lot of things we might want to do that don’t qualify for constitutional protection, like having sex with an allegedly consenting minor. Or selling our bodies for profit is another.

For someone who throws around the word “red herring”, Christine doesn’t really seem to notice when she starts hurling fish herself. There’s no comparing marijuana use, which hurts no one, to sex with a minor (which can cause psychological problems later) or prostitution (which, unregulated, spreads disease and breeds abuse, and which is actually legal and regulated in Nevada, demolishing Flowers’ “argument”).

The Daily News should be ashamed of itself for publishing this dishonest, junk science tripe.
And speaking of the Daily News, which is facing bankruptcy, I can think of one money-saving action: fire Christine Flowers!