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Local contact information for California State patient ID cards 2-2listings.htm/#cards
US Supreme Court:
State cannabis laws stand
US High Court refuses to hear San Diego County lawsuit that had sought to undermine Prop 215
By Kris Hermes Americans for Safe Access
Medical marijuana advocates celebrated on May 18, 2009 as the US Supreme Court refused to hear a landmark case brought by San Diego County. The High Court's decision removes one of the final obstacles to full implementation of California laws and, by extension, to those of other states.
The lawsuit filed by San Diego in 2006 challenged the state mandate to implement an identification card program for patients based on the argument that state law is preempted by federal law. However, both the San Diego Superior Court and the Fourth District Court of Appeals rejected that argument, which was followed by the California Supreme Court's refusal to review the case in 2008. Despite this failure in the state courts, San Diego Supervisors voted to appeal to the US Supreme Court.
"No longer will local officials be able to hide behind federal law and resist upholding medical marijuana law," said Joe Elford, Chief Counsel with Americans for Safe Access (ASA), a national medical marijuana advocacy group, which represented patients in the San Diego lawsuit.
"The courts have made clear that federal law does not preempt California's medical marijuana law and that local officials must comply with that law."
After the State Supreme Court denied review of County of San Diego v. California in October 2008, ASA filed a January lawsuit against Solano County for refusing to implement the ID card program. "This decision and our lawsuit against Solano will undoubtedly have an impact on the other counties that have failed to implement the ID card program," continued Elford. ASA has given notice to all 10 counties (Mariposa, Colusa, Madera, Modoc, Mono, San Bernardino, San Diego, Stanislaus, Solano, and Sutter) of their obligation to implement the ID card program.
The San Diego case was preceded by another landmark California case, City of Garden Grove v. Superior Court (Kha), which also involved preemption. In that case, both lower courts similarly found that state law was not preempted by federal law and that "it is not the job of the local police to enforce the federal drug laws." The defendant in that case, patient Felix Kha, was also represented by ASA. Advocates argue that it was, in part, Kha that compelled Attorney General Jerry Brown to issue enforcement guidelines last August. ASA is seeking attorneys' fees in the Kha case.
ASA worked with the ACLU Drug Law Reform Project to litigate the San Diego case, with both organizations on the side of the California Attorney General defending the state's medical cannabis law.
The County of San Bernardino joined San Diego County in its original lawsuit and the subsequent appeals. The ID card program was adopted in 2004, resulting from the legislature's passage of SB 420, the Medical Marijuana Program Act.
The ID cards, when properly implemented, assist law enforcement and afford greater protection to patients.
Schwarzenegger, economic crisis boost support for cannabis legalization
By Stephen Gutwillig Drug Policy Alliance
"It's time for a debate," said Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. With that simple declaration, the Governator became the highest-profile US elected official to publicly question the nation's failed marijuana policies. His comments confirm the seismic shift taking place among Americans across the political spectrum. More people than ever are suggesting that pot prohibition is doing more harm than good and that all options - including taxation and regulation - must be on the table.
In the last few months alone, Schwarzenegger was preceded by a host of prominent truth-tellers. The Attorney General of Arizona, the El Paso city council, and Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez have all publicly discussed the need for alternatives to our punitive and wasteful marijuana policies. In a Parade magazine cover story, Virginia Senator Jim Webb made the direct connection between our drug laws and the extraordinary levels of incarceration in this country - 2.3 million Americans behind bars. Webb called for a Congressional commission to fix our prisons and reform our drug laws.
Our cannabis policies are the most egregious of those laws and the obvious place to start. The prohibition on pot caused the arrest of 870,000 Americans in 2007 - many of them young adults, 88 percent of them for simple possession. Marijuana arrests actually outnumbered arrests for all violent crimes combined.
Depending on where you live, a marijuana arrest will result in anything from a fine to years in prison. As many as 85,000 Americans were incarcerated for pot offenses in 2007 while hundreds of thousands more lost jobs, federal student loans, public housing, food stamps, and welfare benefits. Parents lost custody of their children. Cars, houses, and bank accounts were seized without trial.
All this to maintain the prohibition of a drug widely understood to pose far fewer health risks than cigarettes or alcohol. A drug already sampled by 42 percent of Americans. Our current approach is a colossal waste of lives and scarce law enforcement resources.
No wonder so many are ready to end pot prohibition. According to an ABC News/ Washington Post poll, 46 percent of Americans now favor legalizing small amounts of cannabis for personal use, more than double the level only 12 years ago. Californians are even more determined to change direction. A statewide Field poll showed a whopping 56 percent expressed support for legalizing and taxing cannabis. In February, California Assembly Member Tom Ammiano made history by introducing a bill to do just that - tax and regulate pot like alcohol. The bill will be debated in the California Assembly early next year.
Where did all this momentum for debate and change come from? A lot of it, of course, is related to the economy and to the economics of pot. The financial meltdown has brought severe budget cuts and a thirst for new sources of revenue. As America's top cash crop, cannabis already plays a huge role in the national economy. Worth $14 billion annually in California alone, pot is a revenue opportunity we can't afford to ignore any longer.
For the moment, a good chunk of that green is being ceded to increasingly violent criminal syndicates here and in Mexico. Brutal gangs are responsible for thousands of grizzly murders near the border in the last year alone. Bringing the massive cannabis market out of the shadows would remove criminal incentives and thereby reduce violence. An officially-sanctioned regulatory structure in the U.S. would do more to threaten the black market than anything else since pot was banned eighty plus years ago.
With the end of Alcohol Prohibition in 1933, America took the alcohol market back from gangster Al Capone. Now it's time for America to take the marijuana market back from the cartels.
Stephen Gutwillig is the California State Director of the Drug Policy Alliance (www.drugpolicy.org) , the nation's leading organization working to promote alternatives to the failed war on drugs.
National Commission may review US criminal justice system and penalties
By Charmie Gholson LEAP staff
The US is the number one incarcerator in the world, with one out of every 100 American adults behind bars. Sadly, the lion's share of this population is fueled by our drug policy. Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200 percent since 1980.
Recently on Capitol Hill, US Sen. Jim Webb (D-VA) introduced bipartisan legislation to create a blue ribbon commission to hold a comprehensive review of America's criminal justice and drug policies.
The National Criminal Justice Commission Act of 2009, S.714, is the result of decades of Senate investigation and more than two years of intensive fact-finding.
Should the bill pass, the commission will spend 18 months studying all aspects of the criminal justice system, report its findings to Congress and offer tangible recommendations for reform, including, possibly, an end to drug laws that are overfilling prisons.
The introduction of this bill is exactly what retired police officer Howard Wooldridge has been advocating as the Education Specialist for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP). He's spent the last three years asking every single member of congress to take a thorough look at the failure of our drug laws, and worn out two sets of boot leathers in the process.
LEAP is a tax-exempt, international, nonprofit educational entity that was modeled on Vietnam Veterans Against the War. LEAP speakers give presentations in the US and abroad to civic, professional, educational, and religious organizations, as well as public forums. They relay their personal law enforcement experiences and how they intersect with the "war on drugs." While Wooldridge is the only speaker working full time to educate Congress, the LEAP message is the same - a call for government to legalize and regulate all drugs. Ask him why and he'll give you two, rapid-fire answers. "No more drug dealers and it'll cut crime in half."
When asked on CNN about legalizing drugs, Webb replied, "Nothing should be off the table." Three formal hearings have been held over the last 18 months, all investigating the question, 'What factors are filling up prisons?'
"The result of those hearings," Wooldridge declares, "is that Mr. Webb has taken the courageous initiative to light a candle and propose what all Americans already passively know; that the war on drugs and prohibition laws are generating the need to have 2.3 million prison beds in this country.
Wooldridge has nothing but high praise for the senator from Virginia.
"I've been to every one of these hearings and Webb has a steady hand at the tiller. He graduated first in his class from the Naval Academy. He was a combat marine officer in Viet Nam and former Secretary of the Navy. This guy is a solid as Fort Knox. He just brings a very strong and rational presence to an issue that, up until the last few months really, nobody in America wanted to talk about."
"He's to be commended and applauded for going where no one else in 38 years of drug war has ever gone. Up until the first of this year, until Webb brought this up, there's been 38 years of thundering silence."
Polls shift toward tax and regulation
By F. Aaron Smith MPP California policy director
Two highly respected opinion polls found this spring that the majority of the public favors allowing cannabis to be sold in a legal, taxed and regulated system.
One of California's most established polling firms, Field Poll, released data indicating that 56 percent of registered voters in the state support legalizing and taxing cannabis as a partial solution to the state's financial crisis. The poll tested voter support on a dozen tax proposals that are currently being considered in Sacramento.
The poll showed that voters are not warm to the idea of new taxes, but legalizing and taxing cannabis was among the most popular proposals offered. More voters support legally taxing cannabis than support an Internet sales tax, a carbon tax, or an oil severance tax. In fact, support for cannabis taxation and regulation is twice what it is for expansion of the sales tax or increased gas taxes.
Voters were also asked about various budget-cutting proposals and the only one with significant support was reducing prison spending, at 59 percent.
The Field poll results prompted a reporter to ask Gov. Schwarze_negger whether or not he supported cannabis legalization. While he made it clear that he did not support immediately ending prohibition, he did not rule it out.
"I think it's time for a debate," Schwarzenegger said. "I think all of those ideas of creating extra revenues, I'm always for an open debate on it."
A national poll conducted by Zogby International found that 52 percent of American voters support making cannabis legal. The poll, commissioned by the conservative O'Leary Report, used one of the largest sample sizes of any national poll on this issue, at a margin of error of only +/- 1.6 percent.
This is the first time in the history of modern polling that support for ending cannabis prohibition has enjoyed majority support. While acknowledging the significant work that remains to be done, reform advocates consider these new polling figures a sign of the beginning of the sea change that will lead to a post-prohibition era America.
"Voters are coming to realize that marijuana prohibition gives us the worst of all possible worlds -- a drug that's widely available but totally unregulated, whose producers and sellers pay no taxes but whose profits often support murderous drug cartels," said Rob Kampia, executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project in Washington, DC. "The public is way ahead of the politicians on this."
Specifically, there is hope in California that rising public support will give AB 390 - Assemblyman Tom Ammiano's (D-San Francisco) state legislation that would replace marijuana prohibition with a system of regulation and taxation - the boost it needs to advance. Ammiano was able to defer any vote on the bill until next year in order to allow for more time to build support in the capitol.
New drug chief calls for end to 'Drug War' as US policy
By Tony Newman Drug Policy Alliance
White House drug czar Gil Kerlikowske called for an "end to the war on drugs," and said the drug problem in this country should be a public heath issue, not a criminal justice issue. His comments came during an interview with Gary Fields, published in the May 14 Wall Street Journal.
 "Regardless of how you try to explain to people it's a 'war on drugs' or a 'war on a product,' people see a war as a war on them and we are not at war with people in this country," Kerlikowske told the Journal. He also said that the Obama Administra_tion is likely to treat drugs as a public health issue and favor treatment over incarceration to reduce illicit drug use.
"We are cautiously optimistic" said Drug Policy Alliance executive director Ethan Nadelmann. "Kerlikowske appears to be in line with President Obama's call for a paradigm shift to public health and he along with the Justice Depart_ment support the range of drug policy reforms to which Obama had pledged as a candidate."
As a presidential candidate, then-Senator Obama said the "war on drugs is an utter failure," and that he believes in "shifting the paradigm, shifting the model, so that we focus more on a public health approach." He also called for eliminating the crack/powder cocaine sentencing disparity, repealing the ban on federal funding for syringe exchange programs to reduce HIV/AIDS, and stopping the US Justice Department from undermining state medical cannabis laws.
Kerlikowske confirmed he supports needle exchange programs as a "part of a complete public-health model for dealing with addiction" and that he plans to work with Congress and other agencies to alter current policies.
Recently the Justice Department came out against the crack/powder disparity, and the attorney general said the administration will no longer raid cannabis dispensaries that comply with state laws.
Advocates pledge to hold Kerlikowske and the administration to their words and make sure their actions meet their rhetoric.
"There were a couple of marijuana dispensaries raided since the Justice Department pledged to end the raids.
"The recent budget that was introduced still included a federal ban on funding clean syringes despite calling for an end to the ban," Nadelmann noted. "The proof will be in the pudding. We need to make sure the deeds match the words."
Mexico decrims very small drug amounts
By Omar Figueroa Attorney at Law
The Mexican Congress approved legislation April 30 to decriminalize possession of small amounts of drugs for personal use. The reforms, part of broader narcomenudeo or narco-retailing laws proposed by President Felipe Calderon last October, would focus on harm reduction and voluntary treatment instead of incarceration. President Calderon is expected to sign the legislation to decriminalize small personal amounts of various substances:
Substance Amount Decriminalized
Cannabis 5 grams
LSD 150 micrograms
Opium 2 grams
Amphetamine/Meth 40 milligrams
Cocaine 500 mg (1/2 gram)
Heroin 50 mg
While decriminalizing personal possession of tiny quantities, the narcomenudeo law would encourage state and municipal police forces to aggressively pursue small-scale drug dealers (currently the exclusive bailiwick of federal authorities in Mexico) in order give federal law enforcement an opportunity to focus their limited resources on the cartels.
The reforms were welcome as a step in the right direction by Mexican drug policy activists, but criticized as "not realistic in terms of the drug market (for example, the initiative allows the consumer to have .5 grams of coke, when coke is sold on the streets by the gram), reason for which we can anticipate a significant increase in corruption and extortion of consumers by police forces." (See, statement issued by the Collective for an Integrated Drug Policy, at www.cupihd.org.)
Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance said, "There is serious concern that law enforcement has lost the upper hand to gangsters, and the risk here is that the new law will give police all the more opportunity to go after low-level distributors and addicts who sell drugs to support their habits, while diverting attention from serious violent criminals."
A few weeks later, on May 12, former Mexican President Vicente Fox made headlines when he brought up the topic of legalization. "I believe it's time to open the debate over legalizing drugs," he told CNN, stating that the US must join the discussion, and pointing to how the end of Prohibition in the US in 1933 lessened organized crime violence. An estimated 6,290 drug-related murders occurred last year in Mexico.
Fox echoed the call for legalization issued earlier in the year by his predecessor, Former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, and his colleagues, the former presidents of Brazil and Colombia.
The former heads of state are members of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy, which called for the decriminalization of cannabis for personal use in February. See www.drugsanddemocracy.org.
Bipartisan industrial hemp bill in Congress
By Adam Eidinger VoteHemp.com
A federal bill was introduced April 2 to remove restrictions on the cultivation of non-psychoactive industrial hemp. Chief sponsors of The Industrial Hemp Farming Act of 2009, HR 1866, Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX), were joined by nine other House members, split equally between Republicans and Democrats.
"It is unfortunate that the federal government has stood in the way of American farmers, including many who are struggling to make ends meet, from competing in the global industrial hemp market," said Paul during his introduction of HR 1866 before the US House.
"Indeed, the founders of our nation, some of whom grew hemp, would surely find that federal restrictions on farmers growing a safe and profitable crop on their own land are inconsistent with the constitutional guarantee of a limited, restrained federal government. Therefore, I urge my colleagues to stand up for American farmers and co-sponsor the Industrial Hemp Farming Act," concluded Paul.
"With so much discussion lately in the media about drug policy, it is surprising that the tragedy of American hemp farming hasn't come up as a 'no-brainer' for reform," says Vote Hemp President Eric Steenstra. "Hemp is a versatile, environmentally-friendly crop that has not been grown here for over 50 years because of a politicized interpretation of the nation's drug laws by the DEA.
"President Obama should direct the DEA to stop confusing industrial hemp with its genetically distinct cousin, marijuana. While the new bill in Congress is a welcome step, the industry is hopeful that Obama will prioritize hemp's benefits to farmers. Jobs would be created overnight, as there are numerous US companies that now have no choice but to import hemp raw materials worth many millions of dollars per year," adds Steenstra.
US companies that manufacture or sell products made with hemp include Dr. Bronner's Magic Soaps, a California company that manufactures the number-one-selling natural soap, and FlexForm Technologies, an Indiana company whose natural fiber materials are used in over two million cars on the road today. Hemp food manufacturers, such as French Meadow Bakery, Hempzels, Living Harvest, Nature's Path and Nutiva, now make their products from Canadian hemp. Although hemp still grows wild across America, a vestige of centuries of hemp farming here, hemp for use in products must be imported. Hemp clothing is made around the world by well-known brands such as Patagonia, Bono's Edun and Giorgio Armani.
There is strong support among key national organizations for a change in the federal government's position on hemp. The National Assn. of State Depts of Agri_culture (NASDA) "supports revisions to the federal rules and regulations authorizing commercial production of industrial hemp." The National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL) has also passed a pro-hemp resolution.
Numerous individual states have expressed interest in and support for industrial hemp as well. Sixteen states have passed pro-hemp legislation, and eight (Hawaii, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland, Montana, North Dakota, Vermont and West Virginia) have removed barriers to its production or research (VoteHemp.com). North Dakota has been issuing state licenses to farmers for two years. The new bill will remove federal barriers and allow laws in these states regulating the growing and processing of hemp to take effect.
"Under the current national drug control policy, industrial hemp can be imported, but it can't be grown by American farmers," says Steenstra. "The DEA has taken the Controlled Substances Act's antiquated definition of marijuana out of context and used it as an excuse to ban industrial hemp farming. HR 1866 will return us to more rational times when the government regulated cannabis, but allowed farmers to continue raising industrial hemp just as they always had."
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