Leaders at a summit meeting of many of the Western Hemisphere nations on Saturday discussed alternatives to what many consider a failed “war on drugs” that is too reliant on military action and imprisonment. But President Obama said flatly that “legalization is not the answer.”

The issue was placed on the agenda of the Summit of the Americas this weekend by the host, Colombia’s president, Juan Manuel Santos. Even so, Mr. Santos suggested that he had in mind some unspecified middle ground short of fully decriminalizing the drug trade that for years has undermined societies throughout the region, notably in Colombia.

“We have the obligation to see if we’re doing the best that we can do, or are there other alternatives that can be much more efficient?” Mr. Santos said during an informal panel discussion with Mr. Obama and President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil just before the summit meeting began. “One side can be all the consumers go to jail. On the other extreme is legalization. On the middle ground, we may have more practical policies.”

In his turn, Mr. Obama said, “I think it is entirely legitimate to have a conversation about whether the laws in place are ones that are doing more harm than good in certain places.”

But, he added, “I personally, and my administration’s position, is that legalization is not the answer.” Drug operations could come to “dominate certain countries if they were allowed to operate legally without any constraint,” he said, and “could be just as corrupting if not more corrupting then the status quo.”

The prominence of the drug-enforcement issue at the meeting, which drew more than 30 leaders from North, Central and South America and Caribbean nations, in part reflected a positive development: the increased prosperity in Latin America in recent years has made economic issues less of a problem, and at the same time has emboldened Latin American leaders to take a bigger role in setting the agenda when they meet.

Mr. Santos, in opening the meeting on Saturday afternoon, said the leaders should stop stalling in re-examining the region’s approach to the war on drugs, which he dated more than four decades back to President Richard Nixon in 1971. President Otto Pérez Molina of Guatemala has called for full legalization of narcotics, though no specific proposals are on the table here.

“Despite all of the efforts, the immense efforts, the huge costs, we have to recognize that the illicit drug business is prospering,” Mr. Santos told the leaders. “This summit is not going to resolve this issue,” he added. “But it can be a starting point to begin a discussion that we have been postponing for far too long.”

Mr. Obama, in his remarks at the formal session, before reporters were ushered out, said: “I know there are frustrations and that some call for legalization. For the sake of the health and safety of our citizens — all our citizens — the United States will not be going in this direction.”

Earlier, on the informal panel before an audience of corporate executives and members of the nations’ official delegations, Mr. Obama had drawn applause when he said of narcotics trafficking, “We can’t look at the issue of supply in Latin America without also looking at the issue of demand in the United States.”

Latin Americans have long complained that the United States criticizes its neighbors’ antidrug efforts when it is American users and guns that stoke the drug trade and violence.

At the formal meeting, Mr. Obama said: “As I’ve said many times, the United States accepts our share of responsibility for drug violence. That’s why we’ve dedicated major resources to reducing the southbound flow of money and guns to the region. It’s why we’ve devoted tens of billions of dollars in the United States to reduce the demand for drugs. And I promise you today — we’re not going to relent in our efforts.”

Absent from the meeting was Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chávez, who is battling cancer; officials said he stayed away on his doctors’ advice. The absence of Mr. Chávez, a fierce critic of the United States, eliminated the potential for a tense meeting with Mr. Obama. After the previous Summit of the Americas in 2009, when the two presidents were photographed shaking hands, Mr. Obama was criticized by some Republicans.

Separately, in an interview with Univision, Mr. Obama strongly reiterated a promise to seek an overhaul of immigration policy in a second term. But Mr. Obama, who also pledged in 2008 to seek a new law, said he needed more support in Congress, where Republicans have led the opposition.

“This is something I care deeply about,” he said. “It’s personal to me.”

Source: New York Times (NY)
Author: Jackie Calmes
Published: April 14, 2012
Copyright: 2012 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/

President Barack Obama touted a progressive attitude on medical marijuana on the campaign trail, but since taking office, Obama’s administration has hardened its stance and supporters of the drug are crying foul on the flip-flop.

In a March 2008 interview, Obama told the Oregon Mail Tribune that medical marijuana ranked low on his list of priorities.

“I think the basic concept of using medical marijuana for the same purposes and with the same controls as other drugs prescribed by doctors, I think that’s entirely appropriate,” Obama said. “I’m not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue.” But the numbers tell another story.

Since October 2009, Americans for Safe Access, a group committed to legalizing medical marijuana, estimates the Justice Department has carried out 170 raids on dispensaries and cultivation facilities in nine states.

“Every time a dispensary is shut down, there are literally hundreds of people waking up that day wondering where they will get their medication,” saysKris Hermes, the spokesperson for the Americans for Safe Access.

Hermes says he’s confident that the number of raids since the president took office is actually around 200.

“He’s broadened his attack,” Hermes says. “Until Obama was elected, George W. Bush had the most aggressive posture toward medical marijuana…he’s been even more aggressive than his predecessor.”

Americans for Safe Access estimates that during the entire eight years of the Bush administration, roughly 200 raids were carried out, something Hermes says the Obama administration has accomplished in less than four years.

Asked why the Obama administration had been so aggressive in pursuing federal drug law violations involving medical marijuana, the DOJ told Whispers, “Sorry, we do not have statistics to support [that accusation].”

Pro-marijuana groups say Obama has expanded the attack on medical marijuana from DOJ to a wide array of other federal agencies, including the Internal Revenue Service, which has lead dozens of audits of medical marijuana businesses. The IRS has also aggressively penalized medical marijuana businesses for selling an illegal drug by requiring the businesses to pay federal taxes on gross income, not net income, eliminating the tax break most businesses receive from deducting payroll costs.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development released a memo in 2011that allows public housing agencies to evict tenants who use medical marijuana. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives also issued a memo in September banning the commercial sale of firearms to medical marijuana patients.

There are 16 states and the District of Columbia that have their own medical marijuana laws.

And experts say U.S. attorneys’ threats against local and state officials who enact medical marijuana laws in their states have even slowed down the implementation of new laws in Arizona, Montana, Rhode Island, and Washington.

“It’s a weaselly threat, but it has scared a few governors,” says Bill Piper, the director of national affairs for the Drug Policy Alliance, a group committed to finding alternatives to current drug laws. “The intensity and multi-agency assault is far worse than the Bush administration and the Clinton administration.”

Allen St. Pierre, executive director for NORML, which seeks to reform marijuana laws, says the president might have political as well as legal motivations for reversing his initial position on medical marijuana. St. Pierre argues that current laws prohibit the Obama administration from turning a blind eye to state’s medical marijuana legalization.

“In essence, the administration is sort of hamstrung,” St. Pierre says.

St. Pierre says letting states regulate marijuana as they please would burn up a lot of the president’s political capital, adding that Obama has to take action or he risks earning a reputation in 2012 election as soft on drugs.

Source: Chicago Tribune (IL)
Author: Lauren Fox, U.S. News & World Report
Published: April 12, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Chicago Tribune Company
Website: http://www.chicagotribune.com/

Montana ranks ninth among the top 17 states for marijuana use among teens, which is predictable, according to local law enforcement officials who blame the state’s “goofy” and “convoluted” marijuana laws.

“This comes as no surprise,” said Billings Deputy Police Chief Tim O’Connell.  “We are definitely seeing an increase in the schools, and it’s definitely related to bad legislation.  We can thank the passage of legalizing marijuana.  The laws aren’t clear.”

O’Connell said school resource officers are keenly aware of the growing problem and are battling it through education and enforcement.

Kristin Lundgren, director of Impact, a United Way of Yellowstone County program that works to curb underage drinking, said there is no “crisis of increased youth drug and alcohol use.”

“We did see an increase in eighth-grade use as reported in 2010 surveys, and we also saw teens were saying that marijuana is less risky and not harmful to your health,” she said.  “We also have lots of anecdotal reports from School Resource Officers and school principals of increased incidents with marijuana in the schools.”

Montana voters approved medical marijuana by initiative in 2004.  The state, which in 2009 had fewer than 4,000 medical marijuana patients, now has 11,993 on the Montana Marijuana Program registry.  Of those, 1,778 are in Yellowstone County.  Growth and sale of the drug have become a burgeoning business in the state.  The law allows qualified patients and their caregivers to grow and/or possess a restricted number of marijuana plants.

The latest revelation about increased marijuana usage among Montana teens comes with the release of a study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.  The study, which looked at a representative sample of 10,123 teens between ages 13 to 18, shows that by the time most teens reach late adolescence, most of them have consumed alcohol and abused illicit substances.

Researchers asked the teens in person about their drinking and drug habits.  The results showed that 78 percent of U.S.  teens had drank alcohol, and 47 percent said they had consumed 12 drinks or more in the past year.  When it came to drug use, 81 percent of teens said they had the opportunity to use illicit substances, with 42.5 percent saying they actually tried them.

In a twist not usually associated with risk-behavior studies, researchers compared teens’ current usage with lifetime estimates of alcohol and illicit substance abuse.  Fifteen percent of the teens met the criteria for lifetime alcohol abuse, and 16 percent could be categorized as drug abusers.

It’s the second time in about 16 months that the issue of marijuana use among teens has come to the forefront.  Last December, the rate of eighth-graders saying they had used an illicit drug jumped to 16 percent, up from 14.5 percent, with daily marijuana use up in all grades surveyed, according to the 2010 Monitoring of the Future Survey.

According to that survey, the decline in cigarette use accompanied by the increases in marijuana use put marijuana ahead of cigarette smoking.  In 2010, 21.4 percent of high school seniors had used marijuana in the past 30 days, while 19.2 percent smoked cigarettes.

Chris Simpson, a school resource officer at Skyview High, said at the time that marijuana use is a problem throughout the school district and the community.  The mixed message about the legalization of marijuana for medical purposes is a large part of the problem, he said.

Youths seeking a high will sometimes steal marijuana from those possessing a medical marijuana card.  Students have told school resource officers how much easier it is to obtain pot since the passing of the medical marijuana law.

The state Department of Public Health and Human Services has acknowledged that marijuana is making a strong comeback among high schoolers.

The 2010 Montana Prevention Needs Assessment suggests that marijuana use rises as the parental acceptability increases.  Perceived peer acceptability of marijuana use also plays a role.

“Availability and access to drugs, alcohol and marijuana, is the number-one way kids get substances,” said Vicki Turner, director of the DPHHS Prevention Resource Center.  “The more it is available, the more likely they are to use.  If family and friends use and the substance is available, youth are more likely to use, regardless of the substance.”

Source: Billings Gazette, The (MT)
Copyright: 2012 The Billings Gazette
Contact: http://billingsgazette.com/app/contact/?contact=letter
Website: http://www.billingsgazette.com/
Author: Cindy Uken

Richard Lee has been one of the state’s most visible activists for liberalized marijuana laws, having spent $1.5 million of his own money supporting an ill-fated ballot initiative in 2010 to decriminalize recreational use. But Lee is also an entrepreneur in the legally cloudy arena of medical marijuana, and on Monday the Internal Revenue Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration raided his home and his hemp-related ventures, including Oaksterdam University, a trade school focused on the marijuana industry.

The feds haven’t disclosed what they were looking for, other than to say the raids grew out of a federal criminal investigation. Nevertheless, Lee’s supporters complain that the Obama administration isn’t honoring its own policy from 2009, when a top Justice Department official advised U.S. attorneys not to go after “individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana.”

That policy doesn’t seem to have much sway these days, considering the recent crackdowns by federal authorities on medical marijuana dispensaries in California and Colorado. But even if it were still in effect, the vagueness of state law and conflicting judicial interpretations make it well nigh impossible for anyone in California to be in clear and unambiguous compliance. That’s because Proposition 215, the 1996 measure that decriminalized the medicinal use of marijuana, and SB 420, the 2003 law to clarify its provisions, left far too many loose ends.

Foremost among these is the ability of local governments to set their own, specific policies on medical marijuana. Oakland has been a leader in that effort, adopting an ordinance regulating and taxing medical marijuana-related ventures. But a recent California appeals court ruling calls into question any city’s ability to set restrictions of any kind on dispensaries. Another ruling held that dispensaries had to grow all their marijuana on site, but cities couldn’t ban them. There are also fundamental questions about whether dispensaries can sell their wares, and if so, how much money they can make without violating SB 420′s ban on profiting from the sale or distribution of marijuana.

State lawmakers appear to be waiting for the California Supreme Court to resolve the disagreements in the lower courts, which would clear away some of the haze. But regardless of what the justices decide, there will still be major issues to resolve. The Legislature should stop waiting and fill in the many blanks in medical marijuana laws. That won’t resolve the basic conflict between state and federal governments regarding marijuana, but at least it will clarify what the state’s policy is.

Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Published: April 5, 2012
Copyright: 2012 Los Angeles Times
Contact: letters@latimes.com
Website: http://www.latimes.com/

Norm Stamper’s told the story a lot: He was a rookie cop, working a one-man car  in an affluent San Diego neighborhood, when he approached a home and smelled  burning vegetable matter.
This was around 1966.  Possession of marijuana  possession of even a seed or stem =96 was a felony.  Stamper, a young cop eager to score the brownie points associated with narcotics busts, knocked on the door.  No answer.  He then kicked in the door and heard footsteps racing down the hall, where he found a 19-year-old man trying to flush his marijuana down the toilet.  Stamper scooped out the soggy pot, placed the young man in handcuffs and led him from his parents’ house to the police car.

As I got closer to the jail,  Stamper said,  I kept thinking, `My God, I could be out doing real police work.’ It was my aha moment.  This kid was not hurting anybody.
Nearly 50 years later, a lot has changed regarding the country’s approach to marijuana, both medicinal and recreational.  And a lot is still changing.  But Stamper  a former Seattle police chief and 34-year cop   is still an exception: someone from the world of law enforcement who believes, or at least is willing to say, that our prohibition on pot is senseless.

In fact, Stamper says that a lot, and he’s been saying it for years   in speeches and essays, and even in a book.  Now he’s part of a group, Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, that’s supporting an initiative on the November ballot that would legalize, regulate and tax the sale of marijuana in Washington.  He’s speaking around the state in support of Initiative 502; he’s also appearing in Spokane next week as part of a community panel on policing.

I think it’s long past time we recognize marijuana is safer than alcohol, healthier than tobacco and does represent enormous revenue possibilities for the state,  he said.

That last point =96 money for the state’s bare cupboards   is no theoretical matter these days, though it’s hard to say exactly how much a taxed and regulated pot trade would bring in.  The state’s Office of Financial Management estimated this week that it could mean $560 million to $606 million a year in taxes, depending how reefer mad we go.  I-502 supporters have predicted a smaller boon, and the truth is, it’s all elaborate guesswork.

The OFM paper, as reported in the Seattle Times, describes what a state-run marijuana business might look like.  It assumed 100 growers, supplying 300 stores, selling nearly 190,000 pounds of marijuana a year to more than 360,000 customers.  It’s based on federal drug-use data.

Under I-502, the state would regulate stores and tax sales of one ounce of marijuana to people 21 and older.  It would add maximum THC levels to drunken-driving laws.

The initiative is being sponsored by New Approach Washington, a coalition of health officials, attorneys, law enforcement officials and others, including travel writer Rick Steves and former Spokane Regional Health District director Kim Marie Thorburn.

As hard as it might be to envision that future imagined in the OFM report, it is equally hard to rationalize the country’s current approach to pot.  It’s illegal, but the level of enforcement varies.  Medical marijuana is legal in some states, but it’s a legality that is impractically in conflict with federal law.  It’s so convoluted that Lewis Carroll might have come up with it while smoking opium.

And as attitudes toward pot have relaxed, we’re left with some glaring hypocrisies.  Many of the people who run the government that still criminalizes pot have smoked it.  Obama’s smoked it.  Bush probably did, based on the way he avoided the question.  Clinton at least pretended to.  Presidential candidates routinely admit smoking it.

There’s so much winking and smiling about it on the one hand that it’s sometimes hard to remember that people still go to jail for possession, as Stamper points out.

It’s this hypocrisy, in part, that makes this such an issue for him, he said.  How many of the people in positions of authority have a little pot-smoking in their own background  an experience that, had they been caught, might have changed the course of their life for no good reason?

That galls me,  Stamper said.  It’s just galling to me that we can preside over this system of law and law enforcement criminalizing behavior that very prominent Americans participated in when they were younger.

Stamper tells one more story from his early days as a cop.  He and his wife were helping take care of a friend, a young woman sick with kidney disease.  As she neared the end of her life she died in her 30s  she started saying smoking marijuana was helping her appetite, allowing her to keep food down, making her feel better.  Stamper told her to keep it away from him and wouldn’t help her get it.

But other than that, he supported her fully.

She was not a criminal, he said.

Source: Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)
Copyright: 2012 The Spokesman-Review
Contact: editor@spokesman.com
Website: http://www.spokesman.com/
Author: Shawn Vestal