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The West Coast Leaf is a news quarterly.
Three Voter Initiatives
Filed for CA 2010 Ballot
Flurry of initiatives, state and federal bills unseen in decades
By Chris Conrad West Coast Leaf
The pressure for reform ramped up a notch this summer with the filing of three California ballot initiatives in the wake of an Assembly bill to regulate cannabis sales, plus a federal bill to decriminalize 100 grams of cannabis for adults. The competing visions of cannabis all have critics.
Tom Ammiano introduced AB 390, a 59-page proposal (yes390.org), is a work in progress that sets a 21-year old age of consent, allows 10 plants for personal use, and lays out a framework of commercial regulation with a $50 per ounce production tax. The bill is in its early stages with hearings planned for late in the year.
The four-page California Cannabis Initiative was filed July 15 by three northern California criminal defense attorneys, Joe Rogoway, James Clark and Omar Figueroa (CaliforniaCannabisInitiative.org). Written as statutory law, CCI strikes down the existing laws, allows "reasonable" personal amounts for adult use, adds a $50 per ounce tax for commerce, and makes penalties civil rather than criminal. "We're basically trying to put ourselves out of work defending cannabis users," said Figueroa.
Richard Lee of Oaksterdam University and Jeff Jones of Patient ID Center offer the Tax and Regulate 2010 ballot measure, (taxcannabis2010.org) an 11-page document that legalizes an ounce for adult (21-years) possession, and a small (25 square feet) garden plus its entire harvest at a residence. It has a affirmative defense for larger amounts, allows sharing up to an ounce and lets localities tax and regulate production and distribution. Lee said that since Fresno and Oakland may have very different attitudes toward cannabis, once small personal amounts are legal statewide, the local communities should be able to fine-tune the other regulations.
Common Sense for California is a sweeping legalization proposal that fits onto one page, strikes down all existing marijuana laws and instructs the legislature to create a system of taxation and regulation. Written by Long Beach activists and Peace and Freedom Party members John Donohue and Casey Peters, it does not set an age of consent (grasstax.org). "Show me the crime," said Donohue. "There isn't one. It's time for people to jump on board this."
Ammiano's office said it welcomes the initiatives and their ideas, but does not want them to sidetrack the legislative efforts. The concern is that the voter drives may take some pressure off the legislature to act, but proponents hope it will have the opposite effect and pressure legislators to act before voters are called in to institute a policy they cannot change.
All three efforts need money and volunteer help. See websites for details.
Cannabis users found to have a 'significantly reduced' cancer risk
By Paul Armentano NORML
For some 35 years the US government has been well aware that cannabis possesses potent anti-cancer and anti-tumor properties. And for the past three years, government-funded researchers have speculated that these qualities may offer "protective" effects against the onset of various types of cancer, including lung cancer, in humans.
Yet to date, virtually no investigators had scientifically assessed the potential anti-cancer effects of cannabis in humans - until now.
In a clinical abstract published July 28 on the Cancer Prevention Research website, a team of US investigators report that cannabis use, even long-term, is associated with a "significantly reduced risk" of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.
Investigators at Rhode Island's Brown University, along with researchers at Boston U, Louisiana State, and U of Minnesota, assessed the lifetime cannabis use habits of 434 cases (patients diagnosed with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma from nine medical facilities) compared to 547 matched controls.
The authors reported, "After adjusting for potential confounders (including smoking and alcohol drinking), 10 to 20 years of cannabis use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC)."
Perhaps even more notably, subjects who smoked cannabis and consumed alcohol and tobacco (two known high risk factors for head and neck cancers) also had a reduced risk of cancer, the study found.
"Our study suggests that moderate marijuana use is associated with reduced risk of HNSCC," investigators concluded. "This association was consistent across different measures of marijuana use (marijuana use status, duration, and frequency of use). ... Further, we observed that cannabis use modified the interaction between alcohol and cigarette smoking, resulting in a decreased HNSCC risk among moderate smokers and light drinkers, and attenuated risk among the heaviest smokers and drinkers."
A separate 2006 population case-control study also reported that lifetime use of cannabis was not positively associated with cancers of the lung or aerodigestive tract, and noted that certain moderate users of the natural drug experienced a reduced cancer risk compared to non-using control groups.
By contrast, a study published recently in the journal Cancer Epidemiology reports that even the moderate use of alcohol (six drinks or less per week) is associated with an elevated risk of various cancers - including stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and bladder cancer.
As of this writing, no mainstream media outlet has reported on the July, 2009 release of the cancer study.
*Armentano is the Deputy Director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (norml.org) and is co-author of the book Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? (marijuanaissafer.com)
Eight gram bag costs city $239,000
By William Dolphin Americans for Safe Access
A California city's refusal to return less than $200 worth of cannabis to a qualified patient has now cost it at least a thousand times that. And it had to return the cannabis anyway.
As part of a settlement to resolve their unsuccessful challenge to the state's medical marijuana law, Garden Grove officials wrote a check for $139,000 in attorneys' fees to Americans for Safe Access, who represented the patient. That money is in addition to what the city spent fighting the case, estimated at in excess of $100,000.
"It's unfortunate that the City of Garden Grove felt it necessary to spend more than a quarter of a million dollars challenging a patient's right to his medicine," said ASA Chief Counsel Joe Elford. "Hopefully, other local officials will now do better upholding medical marijuana patients' rights under the law."
When officials in Garden Grove said they would not return the eight grams of cannabis seized from Felix Kha in June 2005, ASA filed suit. All charges against Kha had been dismissed because he was able to show that he is a qualified patient under state law, but city officials argued that returning his medicine would require them to violate federal law.
In a landmark decision, a superior court disagreed and ordered the city to return the cannabis to Kha, but Garden Grove appealed. A state appellate panel also found in favor of Kha, ruling that, "It is not the job of the local police to enforce the federal drug laws."
City officials then asked first the California Supreme Court and then the US Supreme Court to reverse the decision, but both refused to review the case.
"This settlement is a huge victory for patients that underscores law enforcement's obligation to uphold state law," said Elford. "Better adherence to state medical marijuana laws by local police will result in fewer needless arrests and seizures. That protects patients from hardship and avoids wasting resources."
Oakland voters create
first canna-business tax
By Dale Gieringer California NORML
Oakland, CA voters overwhelmingly approved the nation's first cannabis business tax, Measure F, by 79.9 percent July 22.
Measure F sets a 1.8 percent tax on the city's medical cannabis businesses, raising an estimated $300,000 for the city.
The landslide victory mirrored the historic 79.6 percent margin of San Francisco's path-breaking medical marijuana initiative, Prop. P, in 1991. Like Prop. P, Measure F is expected to be an innovative reform model for other cities and counties.
Measure F was the brainchild of Oakland attorney James Anthony, who specializes in medical cannabis dispensary land use and regulatory issues.
"I suggested it to City Council after checking with all four city-licensed dispensaries," says Anthony. "Oakland has always been a model for regulation. We thought it would be nice to say we can bring some small revenues to the city."
Oakland Council member Rebecca Kaplan carried the resolution to put Measure F on the ballot, which was passed unanimously by the Council. "I do definitely see this as a shift in the political winds in terms of how people are talking about medical marijuana, marijuana reform and budgeting," Kaplan said.
Proponents see Measure F as enhancing the legitimacy of cannabis enterprise. "Criminals don't pay taxes," says Anthony. "Law-abiding citizens do."
Anthony says he's received a lot of interest from other local governments. In Los Angeles, City Council member Janice Hahn introduced a motion for a cannabis business tax, which she estimated could raise up to $32 million a year from some 400 LA dispensaries.
Not every medical marijuana advocate is happy with Measure F. Kevin Reed, president of San Francisco's Green Cross delivery service, worries that higher taxes will result in higher prices for patients. "This frantic, 'we need money, legalize now' movement may totally derail what we have been tirelessly working for during the last 13 years," he objects.
However, backers view Measure F as a useful stepping-stone to build political legitimacy for cannabis. "I hope patients can see this as a legitimate political compromise," says Anthony. "This is not a sin tax - not a 3, 5, or 10 percent tax."
The tax level was chosen to be sufficiently low as not to force dispensaries to raise their prices. At $18 per $1,000 of business revenue, the cannabis tax is higher than Oakland's standard business tax rate of $1.20 per $1,000. Oakland assesses higher tax rates on other selected businesses, including rental property ($32) and gun shops ($24).
Gieringer is director of California NORML
Turmoil among LA dispensaries
By Don Duncan Americans for Safe Access
Cannabis patients and advocates worry that the long road to permanent regulations for patient associations may lead to more confusion and delay, even as city staff inch closer to a draft ordinance regulating hundreds of dispensing collectives in the city. Advocates in the state's largest city have seen almost two years of delay in crafting regulations, and a growing controversy around the status of hundreds of facilities that opened after the city adopted a moratorium on new locations in 2007 threatens to further delay the process.
Los Angeles City Councilmember Dennis Zine, who made the original motion to study regulations for medical cannabis facilities in 2005, joined advocates in rejecting a second draft ordinance prepared by former City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo in February. That ordinance regarded sales of cannabis and storefront facilities as illegal, and sought instead to regulate only collective cultivation. In a report submitted to the Planning and Land Use Management (PLUM) Committee in March, Americans for safe Access (ASA) countered that state law allows for sales of cannabis within the membership of a legally organized and operated collective or cooperative - a position ASA says is reflected in medical cannabis guidelines published by the Attorney General in 2008.
The PLUM Committee rejected Delgadillo's ordinance, and the medical cannabis community rallied around City Attorney candidate Carmen Trutanich in a special election on May 19. Advocates hope that Trutanich will steer a more reasonable course than his predecessor, but the newly-elected City Attorney has yet to comment on the unpublished draft ordinance or a White Paper supporting sensible regulations published by ASA and the Greater Los Angeles Collective Alliance (GLACA), a self-regulatory association made of Los Angeles area collectives.
The debate about regulations in Los Angeles is complicated by the fact the PLUM Committee has only just started hearings for hundreds of collectives that filed hardship applications under the city's two-year old moratorium. The controversial hardship provision, which allowed collectives to ask for permission to open after the effective date of the moratorium, was revoked by the City Council this summer amid widespread belief that hundreds of applicants were abusing the provision. So far, the PLUM Committee and full City Council have rejected every application heard, and denied applicants are vowing a legal challenge to the process.
Neighborhood groups, law enforcement, and some advocates are alarmed by the massive proliferation of new collectives under the hardship provision. More than eight hundred facilities applied for an exemption before the provision was removed. Angelinos are baffled by the city's inconsistent approach to enforcing the moratorium and its long delay in hearing applications. Skeptics point out that the hardship application did not give anyone permission to operate a collective pending approval, and neighborhood advocates cry foul at the city's seeming reluctance to enforce the existing moratorium.
The hardship controversy has galvanized a previously marginalized anti-medical cannabis constituency in Los Angeles. Neighborhood groups and special interest groups have jumped on the bandwagon to oppose collectives and cooperatives. Their zeal to close hardship collectives may have a chilling effect on the debate about permanent regulations in the city.
Councilmembers will now be evaluating land use and security measures in the context of a public outcry, and advocates will have to work harder to be sure the new ordinance protects access long after the hardship controversy fades.
* Read Advancing Medical Cannabis Regulations in LA online at AmericansForSafeAccess.org/LAregulations
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