cannabisnews.com: A New Tack on Medical Pot Use





A New Tack on Medical Pot Use
Posted by FoM on November 25, 2001 at 10:28:04 PT
By Eric Bailey, Times Staff Writer
Source: Los Angeles Times
Stung by a federal crackdown on medical marijuana in California, activists are pushing toward a new ballot measure to test a state's right to distribute pot as medicine.Americans for Medical Rights, the Santa Monica-based group that promoted California's landmark medical marijuana initiative in 1996, is eyeing such a test in one of three smaller Western states--Arizona, Washington or Oregon--that already have "medpot" laws.
As now conceived, the measure would formalize a network under state government control to distribute medical marijuana instead of leaving to patients the job of acquiring the drug. Americans for Medical Rights chief Bill Zimmerman said the group hopes to get a proposition on the November 2002 ballot, largely to set up an almost certain battle in the Supreme Court over states' rights in such matters.California and seven other states have legalized medical marijuana, putting them in conflict with federal statutes that make pot illegal for cultivation, sales and use of any sort.That dispute has escalated this year with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that shot holes in efforts to distribute the drug under California's landmark Proposition 215, the nation's first medical marijuana initiative. In recent weeks, federal agents have shut down a West Hollywood cannabis club endorsed by city officials, raided a Ventura County garden operated by patients and seized medical records from a prominent medpot doctor in Northern California.The raids, all conducted after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, have prompted criticism in California of U.S. Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and Drug Enforcement Administration chief Asa Hutchinson.Peter Warren, a California Medical Assn. spokesman, said federal priorities seem "wildly out of step" with the American public in the aftermath of the terror attacks. With a recent poll showing three of four Americans supporting medical marijuana, the average citizen is far more concerned about airline safety and bioterrorism, Warren said, "than they are about sick people using marijuana."Warren and others worry that the raids could again send a chill through California's doctors, who have been concerned about running into legal difficulties if they recommend pot for a patient. The medical association supports use of the drug only as a last resort.Sue North, chief of staff for state Sen. John Vasconcellos (D-Santa Clara), said the ultimate victims are patients who have come to rely on marijuana to ease pain or to help with nausea caused by chemotherapy or AIDS."The target here isn't dope dealers on the school grounds," said North, who is shepherding a Vasconcellos bill that would provide photo registration cards for pot patients. "This is about stopping people with serious medical conditions from getting access to something that helps them." Federal Drug Laws Are Enforced U.S. Justice Department officials did not respond to requests for comment, but a DEA spokesman in San Francisco said drug agents are compelled to enforce existing federal law allowing no leeway for medical use."Personally, my heart goes out to those who are sick," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman. "But I don't believe marijuana is the answer. I believe it's more harmful than beneficial."Since voters approved California's medical marijuana law, many patients have turned to cannabis clubs to fill their needs. Early on, federal drug agents busted several clubs, but an uneasy detente had reigned in recent years as those cases wound through the courts.The Supreme Court's unanimous decision in May shook the landscape. Cannabis club operators up and down the state--about 50 are still running in California, most of them in the San Francisco Bay Area--are living in fear they could be next.Many have moved patient records out of the clubs in case of federal raids, and some have even taken to encrypting e-mail messages."We're all scared," said Lynnette Shaw, founder of a medical marijuana club in Marin County. "Everybody is scared."Some advocates are now openly suggesting that the roots of the current dilemma is the free-form style of the cannabis clubs."The movement has wanted it both ways," said Jay Cavanaugh, national director of American Alliance for Medical Cannabis, an advocacy and education group. "They've wanted cannabis as a medicine, but they haven't wanted to treat it like a medicine." Efforts To Make Pot a Prescription Drug Cavanaugh and many others in the debate have longed to see medical pot distributed through traditional pharmacies, but that is impossible under current drug rules. Marijuana is considered unsuitable for medical use.U.S. Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has for several years pushed to make pot a prescription drug, but such efforts have been roundly blocked in Congress. His current bill is considered by most beltway prognosticators to be dead on arrival.Zimmerman said the next best step is to test the states' rights issue on medical pot.A state-sponsored distribution system would present a provocative legal challenge to the federal government, Zimmerman said. "We want to test whether federal courts have the power to overrule states in these situations."Such a challenge could take years to resolve.Although no final decision has been made about which state should be the target of the advocates' efforts, Zimmerman said California has been ruled out because of the costs of a campaign in the sprawling Golden State.Such fiscal constraints are something new, given the deep pockets behind Americans for Medical Rights. The group, which pushed medical marijuana initiatives in a variety of states during the late 1990s, is financed largely by George Soros, a billionaire New York financier, and several other wealthy benefactors."The one thing you can predict is that patients won't stop using a medicine that alleviates their pain and suffering," Zimmerman said. If they can't get it from cannabis clubs, "they'll get it from the street." Health: Advocacy groups hope a ballot measure could become a test case for states' right to distribute marijuana.Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)Author: Eric Bailey, Times Staff WriterPublished: November 25, 2001Copyright: 2001 Los Angeles TimesContact: letters latimes.comWebsite: http://www.latimes.com/Related Article & Web Sites:Medical Marijuana Information Linkshttp://freedomtoexhale.com/medical.htmCannabisNews Medical Marijuana Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/medical.shtml California Medical Marijuana Initiative Brewing http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread11420.shtml
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Comment #20 posted by E_Johnson on November 26, 2001 at 14:46:40 PT
About Soros
Why would the CFR let him retain his membership yet continue to let him fund ballot measures and use TLC-DPF to speak out on drug policy issues?They don't "let" him do anything. They need him more than he needs them.That man puts a lot of money into former Communist countries to help keep them that way.Some people still remember the Communists. Unfortunately in America we've been busy forgetting. If you learn world history from Noam Chomsky, for example, you will learn that America committed the entire Cold War catalog of sins all by itself. And the DEA wants to be the KGB. Hey we've seen a Texas Republican publicly embrace a man educated in the Soviet KGB Academy -- as his ally in the War on Drugs. 
America has clearly forgotten the things Putin was trained to remember.But a lot of people outside America still remember. And in the part of the world that remembers, Soros is the man.
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Comment #19 posted by poopyhead on November 26, 2001 at 12:51:34 PT
Share the weed for those in need.
Share weed for those in need. 'Nuf said.
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Comment #18 posted by FoM on November 26, 2001 at 09:44:09 PT
Hi Dan
Hope you had a nice holiday weekend and you pose an interesting question. I'd like to know why lots of things are done the way they are. What are they going to do to the Northern Alliance because of growing Opium? We let them risk their soldiers on the front lines and I just am not sure how they will handle this Opium issue. Very strange times we live in to say the least.
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Comment #17 posted by Dan B on November 26, 2001 at 09:35:32 PT:
Regarding George Soros:
Can someone please enlighten me as to why I should not be alarmed that George Soros is a prominent member of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR)? Why would the CFR let him retain his membership yet continue to let him fund ballot measures and use TLC-DPF to speak out on drug policy issues? These are honest questions; I'm not accusing anyone of anything. I just want to know.Dan B
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Comment #16 posted by FoM on November 26, 2001 at 08:10:23 PT
CorvallisEric 
Thanks! I did a search and that site came up but it wasn't named Americans for Medical Rights and that threw me. Most web sites have the title of their site not another name but now I know and will use this link. Thanks again.
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Comment #15 posted by CorvallisEric on November 25, 2001 at 23:43:35 PT
AMR website
Here you are, I think:
Americans For Medical Rights
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Comment #14 posted by FoM on November 25, 2001 at 19:35:28 PT
Question
Does Americans for Medical Rights have a web site? I looked and can't find one. I like to put a link in an article if a web site is mentioned but I don't know if they have one. Maybe one of you will know. Thanks!
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Comment #13 posted by FoM on November 25, 2001 at 19:23:35 PT
Thanks Tim
Your explanation made perfect sense to me.
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Comment #12 posted by Tim Stone on November 25, 2001 at 16:17:45 PT
Robbie  #10
"I'm beginning to wonder, in an air of nearly total complicity so far, whether anyone will whack him in said pee-pee. "Dunno, but if past wussy Demo "Loyal Opposition" behavior is any indicator, the majority Senate interrogators will do the usual dog-and-pony show of swelling up in righteous indignation for the cameras, then caving when it comes to any action. Like a kid in church who's set to let go a gigantic belch, but thinks better of it at the last moment, and just lets the air wheeze away soundlessly. However, there is a wild card, and that is that Ashcroft's actions have p.o.'d a lot of people with some power, status and turf, who feel threatened by his actions. To hell with you, me and the majority of the electorate. National support for medpot is consistently around 60+%, but the Senate isn't holding any hearings about that. We don't matter. A hearing is likely being held because Ashcroft's - and by presumption Bush's - actions have threatened enough minor gov't power centers to make the issues unignorable by the Senate. We the people don't count, but local gov't power centers do. That's better than nothing, anyway. 
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Comment #11 posted by Tim Stone on November 25, 2001 at 15:54:11 PT
Followup Quote
Followup to my previous comments about the DEA feeling "compelled" to go after medpot in CA. This is from John "His Rotundity" Adams, second U.S. President:"Guilt and crimes are so frequent in the world that all of them cannot be punished; and many times they happen in such a manner that it is not of much consequence to the public whether they are punished or not."Sorry, no original source; I got the quote years ago from "The New Yorker" mag, which is usually conscientious about not publishing bogus quotes.
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Comment #10 posted by Robbie on November 25, 2001 at 14:42:08 PT
Tim Stone Re. #7
I'm beginning to wonder, in an air of nearly total complicity so far, whether anyone will whack him in said pee-pee. Repubs in general won't, though they'll ask him about some of the over-indulgences he's done. The Dems are the only other interrogators, but will they ask him about medipot or the Oregon assisted suicide affair? That's the $2 question. Will they confront him on these matters, or not even cover it, like I suspect will happen?
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Comment #9 posted by null on November 25, 2001 at 14:37:20 PT
amusing image, Tim
Tim Stone wrote Ashcroft is scheduled to testify before a Senate committee either this week or next, about his power grabs and priorities. It'll be interesting to see how hard the senators thwack him on the pee-pee.LOL... ahhh that picture brought a smile to my face. I had the wonderful image of the scene as might be immortalized in a political comic with exagerated features and reactions on all participants. I hope Ashcroft gets the chewing out of the year followed by being thrown out of office. I see heavy loss in Congress (and everywhere) for Republicans this next election cycle.
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Comment #8 posted by E_Johnson on November 25, 2001 at 14:27:41 PT
Soros has powerful supporters
The Soros foundation is funding a lot of social programs in Russia and the former eastern Bloc that the US government, even under Bush, favors and wants to see succeed.Soros is putting the Republicans into an interesting bind because their former mission of wiping out Communism needed, and still needs, people like Soros.
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Comment #7 posted by Tim Stone on November 25, 2001 at 14:16:27 PT
"Compelled" ??????
      "U.S. Justice Department officials did not respond to requests for comment, but a DEA
      spokesman in San Francisco said drug agents are compelled to enforce existing federal law
      allowing no leeway for medical use.""Compelled," my Aunt Fannie's bleeding piles. This is like the old Laurel and Hardy joke where fat Hardy says to Laurel, "Now look what you made me do!" To use the same logic, the DEA is now equally "compelled" to ban poppy seeds from human consumption, as they recently banned hemp products. And they are "compelled" to do a SWAT attack and kick down the doors of the local gardening stoor I saw selling Papaver Somniferum opium poppy starter plants for sale. Strangely, The DEA has felt no such compulsion. Part of the deal is that there are gray areas in any complex law, and part is that any enforcement agency will always prioritize its limited resources. As far as the gray areas go, Enforcement will usually go after the black-and-white law violations, of which there are plenty, and leave the gray areas for future clarification. As for prioritizing, locals cops are "compelled" by the law to issue tickets to jaywalkers. But no decent cop will ever interrupt a response to a bank robbery to take time to issue a ticket to a jaywalker. What this reporter should have asked the DEA spokes-hack as a follow-up is why is the DEA now interrupting its legal committments to the war on terrorism (a bank robbery) to bust state-sanctioned medpot (jaywalking) in what, last Spring's Supreme decision notwithstanding, is clearly still a gray area of the law?Ashcroft is scheduled to testify before a Senate committee either this week or next, about his power grabs and priorities. It'll be interesting to see how hard the senators thwack him on the pee-pee. 
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Comment #6 posted by Tim Stone on November 25, 2001 at 13:53:44 PT
Re: Soros, For FoM
It's a bedrock belief of drug warriors and the creepy politicos who govern us that the drug war is and always will be a "motherhood and apple pie" issue that enjoys, and always will, at least 80+% approval in the U.S. When Prop 215 passed in CA., it knocked the warriors and politicos for a loop. One of their most cherished bedrock beliefs - overwhelming support for _all_ drug war policies - was called into fundamental question. Rather than deal with that shock maturely, the warriors and politicos retreated into a fantasy explanation that the medpot electoral victories were somehow "bought," in the same way the old Tammany Hall machinery used to buy elections, and the voters were somehow "duped" by the medpot policy info that money can finally buy. That way they can maintain their delusion about the popularity of the drug war. And they need a fall guy, and Soros is it. He's the bad egg who "bought" the election and arranged for the voters to be "duped." You will notice that all the news articles that mention Soros as the sugar daddy of medpot do not mention _why_ Soros funded the initiatives. As a Hungarian Jew, Soros had to deal with the Nazis and then the Communists, up close and personal, before escaping to the west. With his background, he has an utter abhorrence of all things totalitarian. And in his opinion, that emphatically includes the drug war. He's a freedom lover who hates to see his adopted country go the way of the Nazis and Communists. 
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Comment #5 posted by E_Johnson on November 25, 2001 at 13:30:47 PT
Is the DEA shifting the Party line??
"Personally, my heart goes out to those who are sick," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman. "But I don't believe marijuana is the answer. I believe it's more harmful than beneficial."It offended me so much that the non-Dr. Richard Meyer, not-M.D., would inject his peronal opinion into my life as though he were my doctor -- I didn't analyze this statement fully.Marijuana is more harmful than beneficial.Could this be the first time that the DEA has admitted that marijuana is beneficial?Their previous party line was that is was unquestionably without benefit.Now the new party line seems to be -- the harm outweighs the benefits.That's a crack in the wall if I ever saw one.Berlin, 1988, that's where we are now. Waiting for 1989.
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Comment #4 posted by Rev Jonathan Adler on November 25, 2001 at 13:05:42 PT:
DEA is doing evil!
Aloha, from the last bastion of complete federal and state compliance, The Religion of Jesus Church (East Hawaii Branch) We still obey all state and federal laws by virtue of our sincere legitimate church and our mandated use of cannabis for healing, worship and prayer.
  What do you call targeting those who have gone the extra miles to comply with the law? I call it evil. What do you call determine attacks on medical and religious rights by so-called members of our government who we pay to protect us all. Not just the one's they like. I continue to pray for the DEA as they are mistakenly abusing the powers we bestowed on them when they arrest and confiscate medical and religious users of cannabis.I am running for Governor in Hawaii and miracles can happen. Peace! Rev. Jon Adler
Hawaii Medical Marijuana Institute
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Comment #3 posted by Lehder on November 25, 2001 at 13:02:45 PT
proud in ignorance and belief
"But I don't believe marijuana is the answer. I believe it's more harmful than beneficial."The ill are interested in medicine, not your beliefs. You are welcome to hold them, no matter how foolish they are. But keep them to yourself. I know that you and people like you who cruelly impose their stupid beliefs on others should be locked up. I think that it is a sick and unfortunate aspect of our culture, arising insidiously from the faith-based pidgen Christianity of a large number of Americans, that belief, at least among those who believe it, somehow trumps reason, fact or Constitution. Those who feel superior to others because of their faith are exactly the same people who would deny evolution or the the age of the earth and now deny sick people what observation, experience and science have found to work. In China, the harmless followers of Falun Gong, people who use meditation as their only medicine, are being tortured to death for  their beliefs by people exactly like Richard Meyer.Richard Meyer must be taught that his beliefs are private matters and not the basis of public policy. The Constitution and Bill of Rights were written to protect normal people from opression by his kind.
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Comment #2 posted by FoM on November 25, 2001 at 12:21:24 PT
George Soros, a billionaire New York financier
Why do I feel that everytime Soros's name is mentioned it sounds like it is wrong to be a Billionaire? Bill Gates is a Billionaire. Maybe it is just me but I always get that same feeling but I could be wrong.
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Comment #1 posted by E_Johnson on November 25, 2001 at 11:54:07 PT
So it's Dr. Richard Meyer of the DEA? Not!
"Personally, my heart goes out to those who are sick," said Richard Meyer, a DEA spokesman. "But I don't believe marijuana is the answer. I believe it's more harmful than beneficial."Here is a news flash for Richard Meyer of the DEA -- my doctor graduated from medical school and he is qualified to make the decision as to whether marijuana helps me or hurts me.You are not a licensed physician, you never went to medical school, there is no MD after your name, and you have no right whatsoever to make such a judgment.
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