----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 03:21:31 -0700
Subject:WA: Hempfest Pushes Fall Ballot Measure Up TOC

Newshawk: Plylar - State Congress - http://www.plylar.org
Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2002
Source: Seattle Post-Intelligencer (WA)
Webpage: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/83279_hempfest19.shtml
Copyright: 2002 Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Contact: editpage@seattle-pi.com
Website: http://www.seattle-pi.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/408
Author: Neil Modie
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/pot.htm (Cannabis)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/props.htm (Ballot Initiatives)

HEMPFEST PUSHES FALL BALLOT MEASURE

"Come out of the closet" about marijuana use was the theme of this year's
Seattle Hempfest, the fragrant annual waterfront event. And at least
several of the tens of thousands of festival-goers did come out of the closet.

And went into jail.

While Seattle police kept a low profile and commended Hempfest sponsors for
an orderly, well-organized event Saturday and yesterday, it was clear that
Initiative 75 -- a top political priority of the festival's promoters --
isn't law yet, if it ever will be.

If I-75 gains enough voter signatures to qualify for the November ballot
and Seattle residents approve it, it would make adult possession of small
amounts of marijuana the city's lowest law enforcement priority.

At Myrtle Edwards Park yesterday, as I-75 proponents circulated petitions
to put it on the ballot, it wasn't yet the lowest priority.

Police, following a "zero tolerance" policy, arrested four people Saturday
and four more yesterday as of 5:45 p.m. One was busted on suspicion of
smoking marijuana and the other seven on suspicion of selling marijuana to
undercover officers, according to patrol Lt. Daniel Whelan.

Those seven wouldn't have been protected by I-75 anyway, of course, since
it would de-emphasize only personal possession. Whelan said one of the
illicit entrepreneurs had 2 pounds of marijuana, packaged for sale, in his
backpack.

Overall, however, the lieutenant said there were "very few problems and
everyone seems to be very well-behaved" -- despite what Hempfest promoters
estimated was a two-day turnout exceeding 150,000 for what they called "the
nation's largest drug policy reform event."

Keith Stroup, founder and director of the National Organization for the
Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, the nation's most prominent
marijuana-law group, proclaimed it "the biggest and the finest pro- hemp
event in the world." He told the crowd that the laws should be changed
because, among other things, one-third of all adult Americans have used
marijuana at some time in their lives.

Whelan said the "charged political nature of the event" seemed to prompt
Hempfest organizers to go out of their way to ensure that the festival's
1,000-strong volunteer staff cooperated with police.

Most festival-goers were there perhaps less for the political cause than
for the non-stop music, the food, the spectacle and the mellow,
'60s-throwback ambience.

As usual, the scent of marijuana wafted among Hempfest's crowded, mile-long
strip of musical and speaking stages and vendors' tents and booths. The
latter's wares included hemp T-shirts and bags, hemp chocolate-covered
bananas, hemp-seed brownies, marijuana water pipes, silk marijuana-leaf
leis and tie-dyed underwear.

More than 50 political organizations, including the American Civil
Liberties Union and NORML, took part as did more than 50 musical groups,
sharing seven stages with about 50 speakers.

Speaker after speaker, including City Councilman Nick Licata, urged the
crowds to sign Initiative 75 petitions and vote for it.

"The war on drugs is a miserable war. It's a racist war," Licata told the
crowd. "We here in Seattle, with Initiative 75, are going to be the first
to change it."

As Licata spoke, a few in his audience lit up and passed around joints,
despite what Whelan said were instructions to police officers to "take
action if they see anyone smoking marijuana."

"Of course," he added, "when you smell marijuana smoke, you don't always
see who's smoking it."

Dominic Holden, director of Hempfest and campaign manager of Sensible
Seattle, sponsor of Initiative 75, said this 11th annual festival sought to
encourage adults who smoke pot to "come out of the closet on marijuana and
admit that they are responsible marijuana users," and demand that they no
longer be treated as criminals.

I-75 sponsors have until Thursday to turn in the 17,228 signatures they
need to qualify for the ballot. They submitted 19,600 signatures Aug. 2,
but Matt Fox, the campaign coordinator, said about 5,000 were found to be
invalid. Fox said a professional signature-gathering firm has been hired,
and he and Holden expressed confidence that names collected at Hempfest
should give them enough.

Hempfest was a bazaar for a variety of causes, mostly marijuana- related,
including that of a forlorn man who would identify himself only as Tod. He
held up a cup for donations and a cardboard sign identifying himself as a
"refugee/P.O.W. of war on pot" who was betrayed by a friend and unwittingly
delivered 40 pounds of pot to undercover police officers.

"Results: 7 months in jail! 10 years probation! $5,000 fine! And I'm
broke!" the sign said.

Tod, 31, said he got out of jail six months ago and has five years to pay
the fine. After two hours at Hempfest, he had collected $25.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jackl
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 03:38:49 -0700
Subject:NV: Editorial: Failure of DARE Up TOC

Newshawk: Plylar - State Congress - http://www.plylar.org
Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2002
Source: Las Vegas Review-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2002 Las Vegas Review-Journal
Contact: letters@lvrj.com
Website: http://www.lvrj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/233
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/dare.htm (D.A.R.E.)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?135 (Drug Education)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/youth.htm (Youth)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?SID50 ("South Park")

FAILURE OF DARE

Few would dispute today's children need to be warned about the dangers of
addictive drugs -- and the criminal culture which often accompanies their
use -- at a fairly tender age.

So what could be more natural, Los Angeles police wondered back in 1983,
than to send officers into the city's classrooms, creating a program that
became known by the mildly tortured acronym DARE -- Drug Abuse (or
sometimes, "Awareness") Resistance Education?

The initiative spread like wildfire. More than 50,000 police officers
nationwide have now been trained in the DARE "curriculum."

Problem is, the program consumed ever larger chunks of taxpayer funding,
and it never actually worked. Louisville, Ky., dumped DARE in 1996 after
finding it to be ineffective. Boulder, Colo., followed suit in 1998, as did
Minneapolis in 1999, as study after study showed little or no decrease in
the long-term likelihood to use drugs among DARE graduates, when compared
to control groups.

Last week, Cincinnati and Dayton, Ohio, followed suit, citing in part a
study published Aug. 3 in the magazine Health Education Research, which
found the top three programs used by schools to keep kids away from drugs
have never proved they're effective.

Programs such as DARE "haven't shown the kind of results that schools
expected, despite years of use," reported the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel.

The reason for this should have been obvious long ago. What children need
in order to make wise decisions about drug use is factual information.
Unfortunately, the officer typically relates a few harrowing anecdotes
about users of illegal drugs whose lives did not turn out well. Otherwise
he is left with a somewhat slicker version of the warning of South Park's
Mr. Mackey, mumbling to the children that, "Drugs are bad, OK, so don't do
drugs."

It was an interesting experiment. It failed.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jackl
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 03:48:30 -0700
Subject:NV: Vote May Affect National Policy Up TOC

"The Gazette-Journal received letters from as far away as Hawaii to the 
west and Massachusetts to the east touting the advantages of 
decriminalizing the drug and denying the danger that the anti- marijuana 
forces most often cite - that it's a "gateway" drug that leads to the abuse 
of much more dangerous drugs."

MAP LTE Writers Rock!

URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02.n1534.a01.html

Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2002
Source: Reno Gazette-Journal (NV)
Copyright: 2002 Reno Gazette-Journal
Contact: rgjmail@nevadanet.com
Website: http://www.rgj.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/363
Related: Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement http://www.nrle.org/
Bookmarks: http://www.mapinc.org/find?163 (Question 9 (NV))
http://www.mapinc.org/find?162 (Nevadans for Responsible Law Enforcement)

VOTE MAY AFFECT NATIONAL POLICY

When Nevadans go to the polls on Nov. 5, they will find themselves on the
national stage - right in the middle of the long-running battle over marijuana.

Two years after they gave final approval to a measure that allows the use
of marijuana for medical purposes (though a workable system for
accomplishing that goal has yet to be developed), Nevadans this year are
being asked to go a step further by decriminalizing the possession of less
than 3 ounces of the drug altogether (selling it or providing it to
children would still be illegal).

The appearance of Question 9 on the November ballot (it will have to be
approved by voters twice to become law) clearly has gotten the attention of
national groups, both pro and anti, including the Bush administration. Last
month, Drug Enforcement Agency Director Asa Hutchinson and John P. Walters,
head of the government's Office of Drug Control Policy (the "drug czar"),
warned Nevadans to vote against the measure. In Las Vegas for a D.A.R.E.
convention, Walters said that the state would become a center of "drug
tourism" if it decriminalized marijuana. It would exacerbate the nation's
drug problem, he said, and he called the nationwide campaign "a great con."

Washoe County District Attorney Dick Gammick also warned against approving
Question 9, and a statewide police organization quickly retracted support
of the measure that had been announced by its executive director (he was
fired).

Pro-marijuana forces quickly came to the defense of the initiative. The
Gazette-Journal received letters from as far away as Hawaii to the west and
Massachusetts to the east touting the advantages of decriminalizing the
drug and denying the danger that the anti- marijuana forces most often cite
- - that it's a "gateway" drug that leads to the abuse of much more dangerous
drugs.

What makes this particularly difficult for Nevadans is that they are, in
effect, being asked to make national policy. Supporters hope that the
states will fall like dominoes once Nevada takes action until eventually
the federal government is forced by a rebellion of the states to change its
own marijuana policy. That puts a lot of pressure on Nevada voters that,
with the state's relatively small population, they are not used to.

Yet, with 2 1/2 months to go before the election, Nevadans appear to be
split on the merits of decriminalizing marijuana. A statewide Gazette-
Journal/News 4 poll found that 48 percent favor the measure and 48 percent
are opposed to it; 4 percent were undecided, a small percentage this far
before a vote.

To reach a consensus, however, they will have to peal away decades of
mythology and fear-mongering. What are the real dangers of smoking
marijuana? How does it fit into the overall drug problem? How many inmates
are really in our jails simply because they smoked a joint or two? How much
of the nation's law-enforcement resources are really being used to battle
marijuana use?

And they will have to look beyond their own prejudices to decide what
policy is really best for the state - and the nation. It's not a
comfortable position for the state to be in, but the chances are good that
the whole nation will be watching.
- - ---


------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 05:23:00 -0700
Subject:OH: Column: Potheads High On Legal Weed Up TOC

Newshawk: Plylar - State Congress - http://www.plylar.org
Pubdate: Mon, 19 Aug 2002
Source: Cincinnati Enquirer (OH)
Webpage: http://enquirer.com/editions/2002/08/19/loc_bronson_potheads.html
Copyright: 2002 The Cincinnati Enquirer
Contact: letters@enquirer.com
Website: http://enquirer.com/today/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/86
Author: Peter Bronson
Referenced: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v02/n1523/a04.html?1109

POTHEADS HIGH ON LEGAL WEED

I think I've heard from every respectable pothead in Cincinnati since last
Monday's column about "Phil," the west side doper who pays his taxes, holds
a steady job and burns up $600 a month on marijuana.

Like "Phil," many did not want their names used.

An attorney: "I'm still shocked at how corrupt, hypocritical, and
unconstitutional many aspects of the drug policy are."

John in Kentucky: "The Federal drug laws make criminals out of hard-
working, tax-paying citizens and bind Kentucky to the dying tobacco culture."

Booze is worse

Baby boomer: "While pot use may be big news in political campaigns, it's a
very small deal to many of my generation. It will always be condemned by
some percentage of the population, but a large segment of us know that pot
is not the same as cocaine, LSD or narcotics. Nor can we rationally equate
the relatively mild effects of pot with the harmful, even deadly, effects
of alcohol and tobacco. Some of us worry that speaking our minds would
jeopardize our social or workplace standings.

White-collar doper: "I'm a 33-year-old male who has a nice job in a
downtown office building, and, yes, I like to smoke weed. For me it's no
big deal. I treat weed like I do beer. Never before or during work and
never while driving, but when I get home from a long day (and I-71
traffic), I sometimes like to sit down with a joint and take a few hits. .
. . Heck, the only time I seem to be irresponsible is when I order too much
from LaRosa's late at night (ha)."

A 29-year-old pothead: "When was the last time you heard of a crazed
murderer saying, "Well, I was really high on weed, that's why I did it.'
The U.S. government should open their eyes to the amount of tax revenues
they are losing."

A waste of money

Kirk from Mesa, Ariz.: "In 1969 the Federal Drug Enforcement budget was $65
million. This year it's $19.2 billion, a 295- fold increase. I tried
multiplying 295 times $19.2 billion and my calculator keeps saying error.
And so does my brain."

A wife and mother: "I've known doctors, cops, lawyers, engineers,
housewives, senior citizens, teen-agers, newspaper people, business owners
and teachers that all smoke this so-called "devil weed' and are 100 percent
valuable to their communities, families, and friends."

And the other side:

Bob in College Hill: "Is a cheap recreational drug really good for our
society? Maybe "Phil,' who spends $600 a month on the stuff, would consume
much more if it were cheaper, and that level of use might cause more trouble."

Dave in Hamilton: "The billions of dollars that have been spent on the war
on drugs should be used to educate our youth on the long-term effects of
drugs and alcohol. Consider the millions of lives the disease of chemical
dependency has rendered unmanageable."

And for those who asked: No, I am not smoking the drapes or anything else.
I just think that where pot is concerned, the drug war sometimes looks
pretty dopey.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:14:17 -0700
Subject:Canada: Medical marijuana worries McLellan Up TOC

Newshawk: CannabisLink.ca (http://cannabislink.ca)
Pubdate: Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Source: Ottawa Citizen (CN ON)
Website: http://www.canada.com/ottawa/ottawacitizen/
Address: P.O. Box 5020, 1101 Baxter Rd., Ottawa, ON K2C 3M4
Contact: letters@thecitizen.southam.ca
Author: David Stonehouse
Webpage: http://www.mapinc.org/cancom/AA6DE4D3-545E-474F-9493-3B230238A925

Medical marijuana worries McLellan

David Stonehouse
The Ottawa Citizen

SAINT JOHN, N.B. -- Federal Health Minister Anne McLellan says she is
uncomfortable with allowing people to smoke marijuana for medical reasons
and wants its benefits to be scientifically proven first.

Ms. McLellan suggested the federal government was pushed into allowing some
Canadians to smoke the illicit drug as treatment for chronic or terminal
illnesses.

"Look, I am the minister of health. You can probably tell I feel a certain
degree of discomfort around this issue," Ms. McLellan said in her address to
about 350 physicians at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical
Association yesterday.

Health authorities have a responsibility to prove the scientific worth of
any drug for medical treatment and that should be no different for
marijuana, she said.

"I believe clinical trials in relation to medical marijuana are absolutely
key, and I understand the issues that many ... feel and have," she said.

Some of the doctors are concerned about the health effects of smoking
marijuana, and others fear they will be held liable if they back patients'
requests for federal exemptions allowing the medicinal use of the drug.

A doctor from Kingston raised the issue with the minister, saying a
marijuana joint is as damaging as 10 cigarettes.

"There's no scientific evidence for the benefit. In my clinical practice, I
see the harmful effects every day," Dr. Raju Hajela said.

Ms. McLellan is anxious for the Supreme Court to rule on the legal status of
marijuana, and she held lower courts responsible for forcing her predecessor
in health -- Allan Rock -- to bring in regulations allowing medical use of
marijuana.

"I don't mean to say here this morning the courts made me do it, or made
Allan do that, although there is some truth to that. The courts took us down
a path.

"I hope that this whole issue gets before the Supreme Court of Canada fairly
soon so we will have the opportunity to re-argue this case."

The minister said she understands how some people believe smoking marijuana
helps them with their illnesses, but added "we owe it to all Canadians" to
subject it to scientific scrutiny.

Ms. McLellan also expressed some unease with allowing marijuana smoking at
the same time as her department is responsible for the largest single public
awareness campaign in the country -- the campaign against cigarette smoking.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:15:08 -0700
Subject:Canada: Pot activist dies in boat accident Up TOC

Newshawk:  Sacred Herb  http://www.sacredherb.com/
Pubdate: Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Website: http://www.canada.com/victoria/timescolonist/
Address: P.O. Box 300, Victoria, B.C. V8W 2N4
Contact: letters@times-colonist.com
Webpage: http://www.mapinc.org/cancom/C334D3F7-4CB7-4CFE-94E8-B41CB73473FA

Pot activist dies in boat accident

Times Colonist (Victoria)

Marijuana activist Ian Hunter, a former mayoral candidate in Victoria, died
in Nelson last week in an apparent boating accident.

He was 41.

Hunter was in the forefront of the fight to have hemp and marijuana
legalized. His activism began in Vancouver in the 1980s and continued in
Victoria where he opened the Sacred Herb hemp shop.

He ran afoul of local authorities in 1996 when he grew a marijuana plant in
the store and sold pot seeds.

Sarah Bedard managed the store while Hunter waged his activist campaign,
then bought it when he could no longer get a business licence. She said her
former boss continued his pro-pot ways after moving to Nelson two years ago.

He was working at a store called Holy Smoke, and took part in the
pro-marijuana Church of the Universe Hour on Kootenay Co-op Radio.

As well, said Bedard, he was working with the Valhalla Institute promoting
alternative lifestyles.

Bedard said Hunter was a colourful, unique character.

"He was so animated, so alive in what he did," Bedard said. "He really
believed in the causes he supported, he was really open about what he
believed in."

She said there will be a memorial service for Hunter in Victoria sometime in
the next two weeks, though details have not been finalized.

She suggested that anyone seeking details contact her at the Sacred Herb,
384-0659.
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:16:04 -0700
Subject:Marijuana Helps MS Patients Alleviate Pain, Spasms Up TOC

Health - Reuters

Marijuana Helps MS Patients Alleviate Pain, Spasms
Mon Aug 19, 2002
By Kathleen Doheny

SAN DIEGO (Reuters Health) - Cannabis, or marijuana, is an effective
drug that can help patients with multiple sclerosis (MS) to reduce
debilitating pain and muscle spasms, according to a London researcher
who presented his findings Sunday at the 10th World Congress on Pain.

"So many of our patients told us they use cannabis," said Dr. M. S.
Chong, a neurologist at King's College Hospital, London, that he and
his colleagues decided to study its effectiveness and how widespread
the use of it is among MS patients.

While a Scottish study recently reported that about 8% of MS patients
use cannabis, Chong's team found that about 43% of 100 MS patients
who answered their questionnaires did so. Of those, 53% said they
began to use it after the diagnosis was made. Of those who never used
it, 76% said they would do so if the drug were legalized.

About half the patients who tried marijuana continued to use it
regularly to relieve symptoms. They did so, they said, because it
works. Nearly three quarters of current users said it worked to
relieve spasms; more than half said it helped to relieve pain.

Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, often debilitating disorder of the
central nervous system. Symptoms vary from numbness of the limbs to
paralysis, according to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Up
to 55% of those with MS suffer pain, muscle spasms or both, Chong
says.

"The more disabled the patient, the more likely they were to use it,"
Chong said. To evaluate disability, Chong's team used a
well-respected and validated disability scale. The level of
disability was the strongest association with marijuana use, he
noted, while he found no association between subjects' use of
cigarettes and alcohol and the use of marijuana.

About one third of the patients worked full- or part-time; 69% were
married or cohabiting. The sample was 75% women and 25% men.

The MS patients did not necessarily abuse marijuana. "A lot of
patients said they would just take one dose, at night," Chong stated.
But he is not certain if a dose meant an entire joint or not.

How does it work? "We really don't know," Chong said, but it probably
"enhances our endogenous cannabinoids." Cannabinoid receptors in the
brain have been discovered recently, and were the subject of another
Congress presentation, but their roles are just beginning to be
revealed.

The patients who tried marijuana were also on conventional drugs for
pain relief and spasm relief, Chong added. "I think it basically
shows a lot of our conventional drugs are not very good."



------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:16:54 -0700
Subject:Canada: Ottawa shelves medicinal pot Up TOC

Newshawk: CannabisLink.ca (http://cannabislink.ca)
Pubdate: Tuesday, August 20, 2002
Source: Globe and Mail (Canada)
Page: A1
Website: http://www.globeandmail.ca/
Contact: letters@globeandmail.ca
Author: Andre Picard, Carolyn Abraham

Ottawa shelves medicinal pot

Uneasy McLellan backs off plan to supply patients with federally grown
marijuana

By ANDR=E9 PICARD AND CAROLYN ABRAHAM

Canada's Health Minister has all but snuffed out the government's
much-ballyhooed plans to supply marijuana as medicine.

Anne McLellan says that she feels uncomfortable with the idea of people
smoking pot to relieve pain, and that Ottawa will not distribute marijuana
for medicinal purposes until clinical trials are completed -- trials that
have yet to begin.

Ending months of silence and speculation that the federal government may be
backing away from its controversial $5.7-million project to grow
"medicinal-grade" marijuana, Ms. McLellan made her comments yesterday while
speaking to doctors at the annual meeting of the Canadian Medical
Association in Saint John.

The doctors have led a powerful lobby against prescribing pot as medicine,
arguing it has not been tested for safety or efficacy. As well, sources say,
Ms. McLellan has been swayed by concerns from U.S. officials that Canada
would be making cannabis more available.

The minister suggested yesterday that the courts forced the government to
adopt the controversial marijuana-as-medicine plan, and that she was looking
to Canada's highest court for a way out.

"I hope this whole issue gets before the Supreme Court of Canada fairly soon
so we will have the opportunity to reargue this case before the Supreme
Court so we can get some clarity about what is happening here," she said.

But Toronto lawyer Alan Young, who has led court challenges to make
marijuana legal and accessible, said Ms. McLellan is either "confused, or
she's being disingenuous." There is no case heading to the Supreme Court
that deals with marijuana as medicine, he said.

In fact, Mr. Young said, the federal government actually opted not to take
the medical marijuana issue to the top court after the Ontario Court of
Appeal upheld the right of Torontonian Terry Parker to smoke pot to ease his
epileptic seizures.

It was that landmark decision in 2000 that prompted Ottawa to create its
current medical-marijuana program. That is because the court gave the
government 12 months to amend the law that made it illegal for sick people
to possess pot.

If the government had not acted in that time frame, it would not have been a
crime for anyone to possess marijuana.

"The federal Department of Justice made a decision not to appeal to the
Supreme Court at that time," said Mr. Young, who had represented Mr. Parker
in the case. What's more, he noted, Ms. McLellan was the federal justice
minister at the time.

The only pot-related case heading to the Supreme Court is to be heard later
this fall and it involves the larger question of whether the federal
government has the right to bar the recreational use of the drug, Mr. Young
said.

Ms. McLellan's unexpected comments in Saint John followed a question from
Kingston physician Raju Hajela and she initially joked, "Just a minute ago,
I thought to myself: 'I'm going to get out of here without a question about
medical marijuana.' "

Dr. Hajela said he was angry about government regulations permitting certain
patients to use pot because "there is no scientific evidence for the
benefits of marijuana." A single joint, he said, is as harmful as 10
cigarettes.

The minister, clearly uncomfortable, spoke inconclusively for several
minutes in response. Ms. McLellan said marijuana should be subject to the
same standards as other prescription drugs and agreed it was hypocritical
for her department to allow pot smoking while working to reduce
tobacco-smoking rates.

"I understand the issues that we in this room have and feel in relation to
the lack of scientific evidence, possible liability issues and the fact that
the federal Department of Health does find itself in a slightly ironic
position when I am responsible for the single largest campaign in the
federal government -- the anti-smoking campaign," she said.

Ms. McLellan then added: "I don't mean to say that the courts made me do it,
or made [former health minister] Allan [Rock] do it, although there is some
truth to that. The courts took us down a certain path."

Mr. Rock, who is now Minister of Industry, met the court-imposed deadline
and introduced regulations in 2001 permitting medically qualified
patients -- anyone from AIDS patients to back-pain sufferers -- to use
marijuana. The government also hired a company to grow massive quantities of
marijuana in an old mine in Flin Flon, Man.

At least 806 patients have qualified under these special regulations to
date. But many of them face a desperate Catch-22: being legally entitled to
possess a drug that it remains illegal to buy.

None of the 250 kilograms of pot harvested so far has made its way into the
hands of patients. What's more, the government is paying Saskatoon-based
Prairie Plant Systems Inc. to produce 400-kilograms of marijuana a year for
the next four years.

A group of eight patients is now heading to Ontario Superior Court to get
access to the Manitoba supply.

Ms. McLellan said she is "not insensitive to those who feel it helps in
their final days or acute-illness situations" but said she owed it to
Canadians to ensure that all therapeutic drugs be rigorously tested before
approval and use.

Doctors in attendance applauded Ms. McLellan's speech, in particular her
acknowledgment that she felt a "certain level of discomfort" about marijuana
as medicine.

The Canadian Medical Association and its insurer, the Canadian Medical
Protective Association, have told physicians not to sign patients' requests
to be federally approved to possess cannabis because prescribing an untested
drug could leave them vulnerable to legal action.

Henry Haddad, president of the CMA, said that he was "very encouraged" by
the Ms. McLellan's statements.

CRRH is working to regulate and tax the sale of cannabis to adults like=20
alcohol, allow doctors to recommend cannabis through pharmacies and restore=
=20
the unregulated production of industrial hemp.

*Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp*
mail:     CRRH ; P.O. Box 86741 ; Portland, OR 97286 USA
email:   crrh@crrh.org
phone:  (503) 235-4606
fax:       (503) 235-0120
web:     http://www.crrh.org/

------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 10:20:32 -0700
Subject: Ed Forchion story- Please Forward Widely

Hey all,

Could everyone please forward this widely for me? I've got to go get my 
tooth drilled now. Thanks.

http://www.drugwar.com/pweedmanarrested.shtm

No Freedom of Speech for Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion

by Preston Peet- for Drugwar.comAugust 20, 2002

Political candidate and outspoken marijuana legalization proponent 
Ed "NJWeedman" Forchion is under arrest again in 
New Jersey. He was picked up by police at his weekly parole meeting and 
booked into the Burlington County Jail sometime between 3 and 11 PM on 
Monday, August 19, 2002. Apparently the arrest was for violating his parole 
agreements by filming a series of pro-marijuana and First Amendment 
commercials. Under the terms 
of his parole, Forchion is not allowed to publicly discuss marijuana in any 
way. Ironically, the commercials, which 
had been slated to 
run in four counties in New Jersey on the Comcast 
Cable Company, were 
barred by Comcast 
management before they aired.

At this time details about his charges are still a bit sketchy, as the 
Burlington County jail refuses to divulge any information about the case 
other than that he is in the jail, alleging that they are not allowed to 
release any information to civilians."

Forchion has a long history of fighting for the right to use marijuana, and 
of paying the consequences for battling prohibition. He'd had a couple of 
minor brushes with the law over petty offenses in his early years (but 
compared to many of the corporate crooks still sitting pretty without 
seeing the inside of a jail cell, he's an angle of propriety). In November 
of 1997, having built up a thriving marijuana smuggling business while 
working as a truck driver driving his own rig, he was arrested in a sting 
operation as he and his brother were trying to pick up a FedEx package 
containing 40 pounds of marijuana. This lead to both brothers, along with a 
third friend, being the first people tried in New Jersey under the then-new 
Omnibus Crime Act, which allows for anyone convicted of trafficking over 20 
pounds of pot, even their first offence, to do 20 years in prison.
snip-
Peace,
Preston Peet
ptpeet@nyc.rr.com
Editor http://www.drugwar.com
Editor at Large High Times mag/.com
------------------------------
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2002 11:20:15 -0700
Subject: WA: Mellow folks at Hempfest don't seem like a threat to the fiber of our society

Mellow folks at Hempfest don't seem like a threat to the fiber of our society
Full story: 
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=erik20&date=20020820


By Erik Lacitis
Seattle Times staff columnist
8/20/2002


"Hey, Jerry Garcia! Bottle of water, $1!"

I looked at the guy shouting it out, and he did look like the reincarnation 
of Jerry Garcia. He had the white hair and beard, the potbelly, the 
glasses, the tie-dye T-shirt, the peaceful smile. Other people at last 
weekend's Hempfest stopped and stared at this mirage from the Grateful Dead.

But he actually was Jack Hanover Miller, 65, and if you've gone to a 
baseball game, you've seen him playing his guitar and singing for coins and 
bills right by the new Seahawks Stadium. Sometimes he makes $5 a day, 
sometimes $60.

I asked Miller if he was a pot smoker, and he said, no, any kind of smoking 
was bad for his throat, and if you make your living singing, you gotta keep 
the pipes healthy. Miller was there at the entrance to Myrtle Edwards Park, 
helping a friend.

There was a steady procession of thousands of people around us. Driving 
along the Seattle waterfront this past weekend, you couldn't help noticing 
the crowds. The final estimate by the Hempfest 2002 promoters was that 
190,000 people showed up over the two days. They jammed the streets and the 
sidewalks, and just by their numbers they made a statement about marijuana 
these days.

I heard a couple of radio announcers talking about the event, doing that 
inane banter they do in between segments, and the banter was something 
about hippies. And, yes, you could see plenty of Deadheads at the park. But 
not 190,000 of them.

Actually, a good portion of the crowd looked like they could have been at 
the Bite of Seattle, just your Wallingford or Ballard or West Seattle 
neighbor. They could have been your college-age son and daughter wearing a 
$3 plastic marijuana lei, one of the most popular items sold at Hempfest, 
which had 300 vendors selling everything from two-foot-long bongs to, of 
course, doughnuts.

There were plenty of cops at the festival, although they kept themselves at 
the edges and, I guess, enjoyed the warm summer weather.

I tried talking to a couple of them, but they didn't have that much to say. 
I wondered what they thought about our marijuana policy as they watched the 
crowds.

I mean, here was Scott Weir, 22, who works in Bellingham at a factory that 
makes dog and cat beds.

He was obviously in great physical shape; and with his crew cut, you could 
have put him in a 1950s teen movie. He graduated from Sedro-Woolley High in 
1998, and he remembered the D.A.R.E. lectures. That's when a cop came in 
and told about the evils of drugs.

The thing was, pot and cocaine and speed and heroin were all lumped 
together in the D.A.R.E. lecture, and the kids didn't buy it. So after the 
D.A.R.E. sermon was over, Weir dutifully filled out the exam that was given 
out, and, as he explained, "made it look good."

But what he really thought about pot was, "No way are the cops going to 
stop us from smoking weed. It's grown just like tobacco, and if tobacco is 
legal, why not marijuana?"

While I pondered if it was worth it to make Weir a criminal, I talked to 
Aldrick Wilson, 20, of Lynnwood. He graduated from Lake Stevens High School 
in 2000 and now works delivering furniture. It turned out that Weir needed 
a ride, and Wilson agreed to help out.

Wilson doesn't smoke pot when working but said he'd used it recreationally, 
"more as a tribal experience." I asked what a tribal experience was, and 
Wilson said it was like a powwow, in which you have an inner search.

Maybe that's similar to the inner search that takes place when a bunch of 
people from the office get together for happy hour.

I asked Wilson that of the people he knew, how many smoked pot regularly. 
Wilson figured that conservatively it was one out of three.

So here I was talking to guys who work in a factory and deliver furniture, 
and I kept thinking that if by bad luck they got busted, would I personally 
consider Weir and Wilson a criminal threat to society and want to spend my 
taxpayer money prosecuting them?

Personally, I'd rather spend my taxpayer money investigating the guys who 
made my 401(k) worthless.

By the way, for you people already typing your e-mails, the answer is: No, 
I don't.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com.



------------------------------
Date: Wed, 21 Aug 2002 10:53:43 -0700
Subject: UK: A Crazy Policy On Cannabis

Newshawk: ccguide.org.uk
Pubdate: Tue, 20 Aug 2002
Source: Times, The (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Times Newspapers Ltd
Contact: letters@the-times.co.uk
Website: http://www.the-times.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/454
Author: Joan Smith

A CRAZY POLICY ON CANNABIS

The Government Policy On Cannabis Is Like Announcing That It Is Legal To
Eat In A Restaurant But The Chef And Waiters Will Go To Prison

It is hard to imagine a crazier government policy than David Blunkett's
decision to reclassify cannabis. Downgrading it to a category C drug is an
unequivocal liberalisation, yet the Home Secretary is also planning to
double penalties for dealers  rather like announcing that it is legal for
diners to eat in a restaurant, but the chef and waiters can expect to go to
prison for a very long time.

In parts of the country where the police are following the new Home Office
guidelines  and the absence of consistent enforcement is one of the
problems  people caught in possession of small amounts will merely be
cautioned, while suppliers are to get much heavier sentences. How anyone
could have come up with such a patently absurd "reform" is beyond me,
although it expresses the Manichean outlook I have come to expect from this
Government.

It is not so much a moral judgment, I suspect, as a pragmatic one: dealers
are very bad people, and can be banged up with impunity, but there is no
electoral advantage to be had by dishing out criminal records to hundreds
of thousands of middle-class kids who use the drug. One of the few benefits
of this preposterous compromise, apart from making it a little less
difficult for people with multiple sclerosis to get hold of a substance
that appears to alleviate their symptoms, is that it has stimulated a
debate about the effects of soft drugs.

The latest voice to be raised is that of Susan Greenfield, Professor of
Pharmacology at Oxford University, who argued at the weekend that relaxing
the law on cannabis is a mistake. Rejecting the widely-held belief that
cannabis is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, Greenfield suggested that
it may cause lasting damage to the brain. She linked it with schizophrenia,
estimated that half the young people attending psychiatric clinics may be
regular or occasional users, and claimed that it can cause psychotic episodes.

After enumerating these alarming possibilities, she went on to ask: "Do we
really want a drug-culture lifestyle in the UK?" The problem with this line
of argument is that we already have one. Prohibition of cannabis, like the
ban on alcohol in the US in the 1920s, must be one of the most
spectacularly unsuccessful laws ever enacted; anecdotal evidence, and
surveys showing that huge numbers of people in this country have tried the
drug demonstrate that the law has done little to curb supply.

This is not to cast doubt on the proposition that cannabis has harmful
effects. In recent years, I have heard the term "cannabis psychosis" used
more and more frequently to describe mental breakdowns apparently induced
by the drug, and I suspect that Greenfield is right to link it to psychotic
attacks in otherwise healthy people. For the most part, though, we are
talking about heavy long-term use. While the medical consequences may be
different from alcohol and tobacco, they raise similar issues.

All these substances are damaging to a greater or lesser degree. When I
returned home after my first term at university and mentioned that I had
smoked a couple of experimental joints, my father exploded and threatened
to march me down to the local police station. I never developed a drug
habit but he was completely unable to give up cigarettes, succumbing to
lung cancer at the tragically early age of 63.

Cigarette smoking kills around half the people who take it up, but the
habit is so entrenched as to make a ban totally unworkable. In the
circumstances, the proper course of action is to regulate its sale and
impose heavy taxes that go some way towards paying for smokers' treatment
on the NHS. The arguments for criminalising alcohol and cannabis are much
weaker, given that the damage associated with excessive consumption has to
be balanced against the innocent pleasure provided by moderate use, a point
often overlooked by out-and-out abolitionists.

At the moment, the law relating to cannabis in this country offers the
worst of all worlds: contradictory penalties for use and supply, a complete
absence of quality control and almost unlimited opportunities for organised
crime. We already have a thriving drug culture, whether we like it or not,
and opinion is polarised between people who argue that cannabis is
completely harmless and those who see it as the first step towards moral,
physical and mental disintegration.

The truth about the drug almost certainly lies somewhere in between, as it
does with alcohol. There is an urgent need for users to be better informed,
which is why Greenfield's intervention is welcome, even if her conclusions
are flawed. Above all, we need clarity from the government, instead of
ill-judged initiatives from a Home Secretary who does not seem to know
whether he is hard or soft on drugs.
__________________________________________________________________________
Distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in
receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart
------------------------------
End of Restore-Digest V2002 #171
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