Archive for November 2nd, 2009
Found on Cannabis Culture
Andrew Sullivan
Times Online
The millennium of marijuana may be about to begin.
You know things are shifting in America when Fortune magazine, the bible for business journalism, runs a cover story titled “Is pot already legal?”. You also know it when Barack Obama’s Department of Justice publishes a long-expected memo signalling that the federal government will no longer raid medical marijuana dispensaries if they are legal under state law. That happened formally this month.
It was not, moreover, a symbolic gesture. Marijuana for medical reasons — to tackle chemotherapy-induced nausea or Aids-related wasting or glaucoma, among other conditions — is now legal in 13 states, including the biggest, California. Next year, 13 more states are planning referendums or new laws following suit. Last week a California legislative committee held the first hearings not simply on whether medical marijuana should remain legal, but on whether all marijuana should be decriminalised, full stop. The incentive? The vast amounts of money the bankrupt state could raise by taxing cannabis.
Now look at the polling on the question. In 1970, 84% of Americans supported keeping marijuana illegal. Today, that number has collapsed to 54%. The proportion believing that marijuana should be legal has gone from 18% at the end of the 1960s to 44% today. On current trends, a majority of Americans will favour legalisation by the end of Obama’s first term. In the western states, 53% already favour legalising and taxing the stuff. Support for legalisation is strongest among the young — the Obama generation — but has climbed among self-described Republicans as well.
But the reality is already ahead of the polls. Take a trip, so to speak, to Los Angeles today, where one would be forgiven for thinking that marijuana was already legal. There are more than 800 marijuana dispensaries in the city — and an estimated 7,000 in the state of California as a whole (many times more than in Holland).
Getting a doctor’s recommendation for marijuana is easier than getting health insurance — just look at the ads in the papers, where a consultation costs about $200. The dispensaries range from the dime store to elaborate palaces of capitalist taste. Seminars are held for entrepreneurs who want to start a business selling medical cannabis. On display are sophisticated strains that can provide exquisitely tailored effects: some best for countering nausea, some for building appetite, others for going to sleep, others for staying alert or for watching movies or for general relaxation.
The concentration of THC, the active compound, is much higher than in the past. But since no one has ever overdosed on marijuana, it’s difficult to say why that matters. Yes, if someone has a history of mental illness, it’s not that smart to experiment with the cannabinoid receptors in the brain. But it isn’t smart for such people to take any drugs — or too much alcohol — for that matter. For most people, stronger pot merely translates into a need for less of it to get the same effect. Too much and you’ll likely nod off — and wake up later with no hangover. If pubs served pot rather than beer, crime rates would plummet.
Americans, for whom the use of marijuana is almost a rite of passage in most colleges, know all this. And at some point they stopped pretending otherwise. The past three presidents smoked marijuana in their earlier days, even if only one has openly written about it. (Obama, when asked the Clinton question — if he had inhaled — responded: “I thought that was the point.”) In an online press conference with his younger supporters, the first question was about whether legalising and taxing pot would be a good thing to help raise revenues. Obama laughed it off. With an annual deficit of more than a trillion dollars, he may not be able to laugh it off much longer.
The key to the shift has been the emphasis on marijuana’s medical properties. Human beings have used marijuana as medicine for millennia. It was once sold in the States by Eli Lilly, the pharmaceutical manufacturer. Allowing this compassionate use for a few soon revealed, accidentally, how harmless it is. It is not chemically addictive, although some mild withdrawal can happen if you are a regular pot-smoker and go cold turkey. Its side-effects are minimal compared with those of most authorised drugs for similar conditions. It is far less addictive than tobacco or alcohol. It leads to no measurable degree of antisocial behaviour, as is the case with, say, crystal meth or cocaine or heroin. Many of its users are successful, productive members of society who simply prefer it to alcohol as a relaxant in the evening or as a way to get through cancer treatment.
Denying Aids patients a tool to stay alive tips the balance. I have one friend who would never have been able to tolerate the medications that saved his life without it. That’s pretty persuasive stuff and lots of people have similar first-hand experiences. A gateway drug? Yes, many users of hard drugs smoked pot in the first place. But almost all started out with alcohol as well — and that is not illegal.
Of course, nothing is inevitable. The police still police it and hundreds of thousands of Americans — disproportionately black and poor — are in jail for it. Los Angeles’s failure to regulate adequately its hundreds of dispensaries may lead to connections with organised crime that could come back to delegitimise the whole thing.
I give it a couple of years to become a non-issue or to go into reverse. And my bet is that in a decade’s time, the banning of cannabis will seem as strange as the banning of alcohol. In the end, unnecessary prohibition undermines itself. And this time around, there are millions of cancer and HIV patients who are on the side of legalising and some truly desperate branches of government looking to see what they can tax next. In fact, I’ll go further: sooner rather than later, marijuana may be more acceptable than tobacco.
The need for taboos is eternal. But the object of the taboo is always shifting. The age of tobacco may be ending; and the millennium of marijuana may be about to begin.
Found on NORML
Supreme Court to Hold Special Outreach Session at UC Berkeley Law School
Live TV Broadcast of Oral Arguments on Nov. 3 in Cases Involving Medical
Marijuana, DNA Evidence, and Sex Offender Law
San Francisco—For the ninth year in a row, the California Supreme
Court will reach out to hundreds of students at a special oral argument
session from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. on Tuesday, November 3, 2009, at the
University of California, Berkeley, School of Law, at Booth Auditorium,
2778 Bancroft Way, Berkeley.
The educational program is designed to improve public understanding of
state courts and is being held in collaboration with the School of Law.
Law students, university faculty and staff, and dozens of high school
and middle school students are expected to attend.
California Chief Justice Ronald M. George and Berkeley Law Dean
Christopher Edley, Jr., will make opening remarks, followed by a
question-and-answer session between law students and the justices.
LIVE TELEVISION BROADCAST
California Channel, a public affairs cable network, will broadcast oral
arguments in all five cases to be argued before the court. The network
reaches 6.5 million viewers across the state and will offer a satellite
link to facilitate coverage by other stations. There is no direct link to the webcast yet, but it will be available online at The California Channel under the ‘Live Web’ section, as well as on your local cable TV provider in CA.
11:00 a.m. (Pacific): People v. Kelly (Patrick K.) (and related habeas corpus matter), S164830 concerns the Legislature’s authority to impose quantity limitations on users of “medical marijuana.”
The five cases follow:
10:00 a.m.: People v. Robinson (Paul Eugene), S158528 involves the use
of DNA profile evidence to identify an unnamed defendant in a felony
complaint and arrest warrant.
11:00 a.m.: People v. Kelly (Patrick K.) (and related habeas corpus
matter), S164830 concerns the Legislature’s authority to impose
quantity limitations on users of “medical marijuana.”
1:30 p.m. In re J. (E.) on Habeas Corpus, S156933 and other consolidated
cases involve residential restrictions imposed on persons required to
register as sex offenders.
2:30 p.m.: People v. McKee (Richard), S162823 concerns the validity of
amendments to the Sexually Violent Predator Act, making commitments
indeterminate, instead of for a term of two years.
3:30 p.m.: People v. Lessie (Tony), S163453 involves the legal effect of
a minor’s request to speak to a parent during a police
interrogation.
EDUCATIONAL WEB SITE
The Supreme Court has launched an educational Web site for the special
session, which includes detailed summaries and briefs for each case to
be argued, at www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/oralarg-briefs.htm.
Detailed case summaries, with information on the background and legal
issues involved in each case, are attached to this news release and can
be found at
www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/supreme/briefs/berkeley-case-synopsis.doc .
These materials may be used by students, teachers, and members of the
public to learn more about the five cases that will be argued before the
Supreme Court on November 3, 2009.
The Supreme Court also will hear oral arguments on Wednesday, November
4, 2009, in its courtroom in the Earl Warren Building, Fourth Floor, 350
McAllister Street. Those arguments will not be televised, but they are
open to the public. The court’s calendar for both days is at
www.courtinfo.ca.gov/courts/calendars/documents/SNOVC09PDF .
-#-
Editor’s Note: News media may request reserved seats through Lynn
Holton at lynn.holton@jud.ca.gov or Susan Gluss at
sgluss@law.berkeley.edu .
Pooling for TV and radio stations will be available near Booth
Auditorium on November 3, 2009.
http://www.courtinfo.ca.gov/presscenter/newsreleases/NR63-09.PDF
There is no direct link to the webcast yet, but it will be available online at The California Channel as well as on your local cable tv provider. This is on the Cal Channel homepage: “Upcoming Events – November 3, 2009: California Supreme Court Special Public Outreach Session from Berkeley, California”
http://calchannel.com/
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