Photo by Kevork Djansezian from The Big Picture

According to several polls, the presence of marijuana reform initiatives on the ballet in states in the west, will probably bring many younger Democrats to the voter’s booth who might have decided to sit this mid-term election out, otherwise. I’m definitely looking forward to casting an affirmative vote for Prop 19 and I hope all of my fellow Californians reading this will chose to do the same.

Unofficial state estimates indicate that California’s cannabis crop is worth more—far more!—than the state’s wine industry. I’m confident that Prop 19 is going to pass. To leave tax money on the table isn’t something the state can afford to do right now. Besides that, legalization, according to a RAND Corp. study, could cause pot prices to drop considerably, something that will be seen as additional welcome economic relief to millions of the state’s unemployed tokers…

The most persuasive argument for legalizing pot might just be a dollar sign.

California’s pot crop is worth $14 billion, according to a state report. The Press Democrat points out that crushes the wine crop which comes in at $2 billion.

Legalization would be a huge shot in the arm for plenty of ancillary industries, such as banking and construction.

Of course, there’s always the possibility that the federal government would crack down. That risk might make investors too skittish to get involved. Earlier this month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the government would continue its dangerous raids.

Some regions, such as Mendocino County, have leaned on pot agriculture as other industries dried up. It’s estimated that at least half of that county’s economy depends on cultivation of the plant. [Half? Try three-quarters!—RM]

The only sure thing is that there’s no sure thing. Marijuana legalization is uncharted territory. Or at least, it’s uncharted in this country. Other countries have managed to figure it out, but here in The Land of the Free, we’ve clung to prohibition.

Earlier, the state estimated that it could rake in $1.4 billion in taxes if Prop 19 passes, but they’ve since backed off that estimate, claiming that there are too many unknown variables. Prop 19 would allow each individual municipality to set its own pot regulations, which some detractors have said will create an unwieldy patchwork of laws. Coincidentally, most of those who oppose legalization are those who make money from prohibition: law enforcement agencies and the alcohol industry.

Marijuana Crushes Grapes as Cash Crop (NBC Bay Area)

 
Dangerous Minds pal, Michael Backes (who named the above strain) writes:

“Most books about marijuana are hampered by shoddy research and threadbare science.  As cannabis legalization and decriminalization approaches its tipping point in the US, it’s refreshing that Dr. Julie Holland has published, The Pot Book, the most comprehensive overview available of cannabis, its medical uses and societal ramifications.  What makes “The Pot Book” truly significant is the depth of its coverage and the breadth of its fifty contributors.

Dr. Holland, who spent a decade as an ER psychiatrist at Bellevue Hospital in New York City, is also the author of The Ecstasy Book, the standard work on MDMA and its medicinal applications.  For The Pot Book, Holland has convened a who’s who of esteemed contributors, ranging from Dr. Raphael Mechoulam, the discoverer of THC, to contemporary social critic, Douglas Rushkoff.  The book covers everything from the latest on cannabis botany from Dr. Lyle Craker, the UMass professor that is attempting to break the US government’s monopoly on research-grade cannabis to Dr. Marsha Rosenbaum’s essay on how to speak to kids about marijuana.  The book is supplemented by a website with additional articles and interviews that didn’t make the cut for the book, plus a collection of excellent links to cannabis science and sociology.  All proceeds from sales of the book go to support research into cannabinoid medicines.”

Dr. Julie Holland writing on The Pot Book website:

After three years of putting this book together, I’m convinced that cannabis can be re-introduced to physicians and patients as the multifaceted medicine it once was.  I think what we will see in the next decade or so is an explosion of research into the therapeutic use of cannabinoids as medications. If you’d like to donate to the Holland Fund for Therapeutic Cannabinoid Research, please click here.

Before pot was illegal, it was a medicine used for thousands of years to treat everything from muscle spasms to insomnia.  Cannabis has powerful anti-inflammatory activity, it can act as a free-radical scavenger, and most importantly, cannabis has anti-cancer activity. Cannabinoids can kill cancer cells by apopotosis (triggering programmed cell death) while sparing healthy cells, and can also prevent tumor blood supplies from forming, which is called angiogenesis.

Cannabinoids also have a pro-metabolic effect, meaning they may be helpful in stopping the progression of diabetes (partially through its anti-inflammatory action on the cells of the pancreas), as well as helping to normalize blood sugar and cholesterol levels.

Cannabis is a medicine that can slow the prevention of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries, the cause of many heart attacks and strokes) and can modify autoimmune diseases including arthritis, Chron’s disease, and Multiple Sclerosis. (Cannabis doesn’t just relax the spasming muscles and bladders of MS patients; it actually seems to modify the course of illness and may slow neurodegeneration through its neuroprotective effect. The United States has taken out a patent on the use of cannabis as a neuro-protectant, though they continue to keep the plant in Schedule I, reserved for drugs with the highest potential for abuse and no medicinal use. Groups of physicians and nurses including the American Medical Association have requested a review of this scheduling.

But there are other important uses of this plant. Cannabis seeds are a complete vegetarian protein and can be used as food for people, livestock, and birds. Hempseed oil not only provides the exact ratio of essential fatty acids our bodies need, but it can also be used as a fuel. Hempseed oil is a renewable fuel source, which could decrease our reliance on foreign oil.  Hemp (the non-psychoactive stalk of the cannabis plant) can make many consumer goods including paper (decreasing deforestation that complicates our climate maintenance) rope, canvas, and clothing more absorbent than cotton.  Importantly, with compostable cellulose, hemp can replace our current plastic bag and Styrofoam “plastic vortex”/landfill crisis.

Cannabis is an ancient medicinal plant used for thousands of years until it was made illegal in 1937, soon after alcohol prohibition was repealed.  We are currently imprisoning more people than any other country on the planet, with nearly half of our prisoners serving time for drug offenses.  New York City, where I practice medicine, arrests more people for marijuana offenses than any other city in the US. Although Caucasians constitute the majority of pot smokers, African-Americans and Latinos experience a disproportionate number of marijuana-related arrests.

Renewable bio-fuel, food, rope, canvas, clothing, paper, medicine, and relaxant, and America can’t have any of it.

Because it make them laugh. As a psychiatrist, I have to tell you: This is insanity.

The Pot Book
 

 
Pittsburgh-based tattoo artist Cliff Maynard has an unusual medium that he works with: used joint ends!

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As city officials grapple with the issue (notice I didn’t write “problem”) of what to do about the proliferation of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles, it seems likely that City Council members will ignore the calls from City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley for a citywide shut down of the cannabis clubs in favor of a more nuanced approach. But that won’t be easy either, as L.A .Times reporter John Hoeffel writes this morning.

Additionally, proposals to limit the number of dispensaries are likely to face several legal hurdles and courtroom challenges before they can be implemented and proposals to restrict the amount of cannabis each dispensary can have on hand per month have, so far, suggested totals that most Los Angeles-based collectives would currently sell every few days. The City Council will be challenged to balance concerns of patients, business owners and law enforcement with the potential for substantial revenues created from taxing cannabis sales—taxes that could result in more teachers and better road repairs for the city, advocates say.

Ironically, as L.A. prepares to crack down on medical marijuana, opinion seems to be trending nationally in favor of full decriminalization of marijuana and a tax on its sale. In 2009, there has been a noticeable sea change in how the issue is reported on in the mainstream media. While there are critics who believe, like Trutanich and Cooley, that marijuana dispensaries increase crime and provide outlets for Mexican drug cartels, the view from outside of Los Angeles doesn’t appear to be one of fear, but of curiosity, or dare I say it, even envy.

Like this article, “Support for legalizing marijuana grows rapidly around U.S.” which appeared in today’s Washington Post:

The boom town atmosphere brought complaints from some neighbors, but little of the crime associated with underground drug-dealing. Advocates cite the latter as evidence that, as with alcohol, violence associated with the marijuana trade flows from its prohibition.

“Seriously,” said Bruce Merkin, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, an advocacy group based in the District, “there is a reason you don’t have Mexican beer cartels planting fields of hops in the California forests.”

Meanwhile award-winning L.A. Times business columnist David Lazarus channels his inner Cheech and Chong with this droll video commentary on the matter: 

Cross posting this from Brand X

 
With a philosophy seemingly diametrically opposed to that of elected law enforcement officials in Los Angeles, the attorney general of Colorado, John Suthers (a Republican), has advised the governor of that state that medical marijuana sales should be regulated and taxed like alcohol and tobacco (and not tax- exempt like pharmaceuticals are, as medical cannabis is not prescribed per se, but “recommended” by doctors). This plan seems consistent with the stark reality in these dark times that state and county governments need to seek new avenues of public funding that will not prove to be politically unpopular. Medical cannabis activists have long been pro-taxation, as it confers legitimacy on the space.

The taxation of medical marijuana sales is something that we hear a lot about in California, and the above graphic gives some idea of how much money would be left on the table should medical marijuana be banned—or merely hounded and harassed out of business—here in Los Angeles. City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley have declared their intentions to continue fighting the medical marijuana dispensaries, but it’s important to keep in mind that 77% of Los Angeles residents indicated that they were for the regulation and taxation of dispensaries, according to a recent Mason-Dixon poll.

No matter what sort of spin you put on the issue, ignoring the revenue-creating potential of taxing cannabis sales—which will continue, legally or otherwise—hardly seems prudent when we live in an era in which local governments can’t afford to fix potholes or hire schoolteachers.

Cross posting this from Brand X/Graphic via Sloshspot

 
Limelight-loving L.A. City Atty. Carmen Trutanich has been making headlines and television appearances in recent weeks with his all-out legal assault on medical marijuana dispensaries. Unfortunately for Trutanich, U.S. Atty. Gen. Eric Holder feels that prosecution of medical marijuana patients should be a low priority for law enforcement officials and said so in a memo released Monday. Ouch. Trutanich and L.A. County Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley got another setback on Monday as well when a circuit judge ruled that the city’s moratorium on medical marijuana dispensaries was illegally extended. Double ouch.

But what might be the most compelling reason of all for Trutanich and Cooley to back off the cannabis biz is the overwhelming support for medical marijuana of the voters who elected them both in the first place.

As John Hoeffel reports from the L.A. Times local desk, over three-quarters of eligible voters are strongly pro-medical marijuana and would prefer to see the dispensaries regulated and taxed, not forced to close:

The poll, completed Monday and Tuesday, also found that 74% support the state’s medical marijuana law, while 54% want to see marijuana legalized, regulated and taxed.

The Marijuana Policy Project, based in Washington, D.C., commissioned the poll by an independent firm, Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, after Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley threatened all dispensaries in the county with prosecution.

—snip—

The poll of 625 voters found that 77% of voters want to regulate dispensaries, while 14% want them closed. Both Democrats (83%-7%) and Republicans (62%-30%) support regulation over prosecution. The Los Angeles City Council is on the verge of adopting regulations after two years of debate and almost 13 years after voters passed Proposition 215, the Compassionate Use Act.

Even with the stated 4% give-or-take margin of error of the Mason-Dixon poll, this is a uniquely compelling report for Trutanich and Cooley to pay close attention to, especially since it will be these very same voters who’ll be determining their reelection prospects in the future.

Medical marijuana poll: Most L.A. voters support dispensaries by John Hoeffel

Cross posting this at Brand X

Cannabis Orbs by Sookie Sooker

 
Oh, to have been a fly on the wall Monday when L.A. City Atty. Carmen Trutanich and Dist. Atty. Steve Cooley got the dual bad news—well, bad news for them at least—about the U.S. Justice Department’s memo regarding marijuana policy and the California Superior Court’s injunction, which bans enforcement of the city’s moratorium on cannabis dispensaries, issued that same day.

Employees of medical marijuana dispensaries in Los Angeles have been showing up for work daily for the last few weeks fearing imminent police raids and participating in “raid drill” workshops, but these nerve-wracking preparations were for naught in the wake of the court’s injunction and Atty. Gen. Eric H. Holder Jr.‘s statement when he released the new guidelines. ?

Writing in the journal Science nearly four decades ago, New York State University sociologist Erich Goode documented the media’s complicity in maintaining cannabis prohibition.

He observed: “[T]ests and experiments purporting to demonstrate the ravages of marijuana consumption receive enormous attention from the media, and their findings become accepted as fact by the public. But when careful refutations of such research are published, or when later findings contradict the original pathological findings, they tend to be ignored or dismissed.”

A glimpse of today’s mainstream media landscape indicates that little has changed—with news outlets continuing to, at best, underreport the publication of scientific studies that undermine the federal government’s longstanding pot propaganda and, at worst, ignore them all together.

Here are five recent stories the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know about pot

Continue Reading: Five Things the Corporate Media Don’t Want You to Know About Cannabis