MAPTalk-Digest Monday, November 30 2009 Volume 09 : Number 119
001 George Will's Rocky Mountain Medical Marijuana High
From: Richard Lake <>
002 Does Marijuana Really Help Autistic Children and Adolescents Cope with
From: "Herb" <>
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Subj: 001 George Will's Rocky Mountain Medical Marijuana High
From: Richard Lake <>
Date: Sun, 29 Nov 2009 06:13:39 -0800
GEORGE WILL'S ROCKY MOUNTAIN MEDICAL MARIJUANA HIGH
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DrugSense FOCUS Alert #421 - Sunday, 29 November 2009
Today the Washington Post Writers Group syndicated columnist George
Will's column about Colorado's medicinal marijuana law, below,
appeared in many newspapers.
The issues and the spin in the column should provide fodder for any
letter to the editor writer.
Below is a list of newspapers we know printed the column with the
newspaper's title, the article title used, the date printed if not
today, and the contact for sending your letters.
Norman Transcript (OK) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009
Rocky Mountain Medical High
Columbia Daily Tribune (MO) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009
Legal 'Medical' Pot A Dangerous Farce
Abilene Reporter-News (TX)
Rocky Mountain Medical High
Sarasota Herald-Tribune (FL)
A Dubious Medical High
http://www.heraldtribune.com/section/opinion04
State Journal-Register (Springfield, IL)
Pitfalls of Legalizing Medical Marijuana
http://service.sj-r.com/forms/letters.asp
Post-Star, The (Glens Falls, NY)
The Leaf Offers False Hopes
http://www.poststar.com/app/contact/?form=letter
Dayton Daily News (OH) Printed Sat, 28 Nov 2009
Are Medical Marijuana's Customers Really Sick?
http://www.daytondailynews.com/opinion/send-a-letter-to-the-editor-659
Tribune Review (Pittsburgh, PA)
Rocky Mountain Medical High
http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/opinion/letters/send/
Washington Post (DC)
Rocky Mountain High
San Angelo Standard-Times (TX)
The Rocky Mountain Medical High
http://www.gosanangelo.com/forms/lettertoeditor/
Grand Forks Herald (ND)
Drop 'Medical' From Medical Pot Laws
http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/contactForm/email_id/2/
If MAP's Newshawks find additional newspapers that printed this
column they will appear here http://www.mapinc.org/author/George+Will
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DENVER -- Inside the green neon sign, which is shaped like a
marijuana leaf, is a red cross. The cross serves the fiction that
most transactions in the store -- which is what it really is --
involve medicine.
The U.S. Justice Department recently announced that federal laws
against marijuana would not be enforced for possession of marijuana
that conforms to states' laws. In 2000, Colorado legalized medical
marijuana. Since Justice's decision, the average age of the 400
persons a day seeking "prescriptions" at Colorado's multiplying
medical marijuana dispensaries has fallen precipitously. Many new
customers are college students.
Customers -- this, not patients, is what most really are -- tell
doctors at the dispensaries that they suffer from insomnia, anxiety,
headaches, premenstrual syndrome, "chronic pain," whatever, and pay
nominal fees for "prescriptions." Most really just want to smoke pot.
So says Colorado's attorney general, John Suthers, an honest and
thoughtful man trying to save his state from institutionalizing such
hypocrisy. His dilemma is becoming commonplace: 13 states have, and
15 more are considering, laws permitting medical use of marijuana.
Realizing they could not pass legalization of marijuana, some people
who favor that campaigned to amend Colorado's Constitution to
legalize sales for medicinal purposes. Marijuana has medical uses --
e.g., to control nausea caused by chemotherapy -- but the helpful
ingredients can be conveyed with other medicines. Medical marijuana
was legalized but, Suthers says, no serious regime was then developed
to regulate who could buy -- or grow -- it. (Caregivers? For how
many patients? And in what quantities, and for what "medical uses.")
Today, Colorado communities can use zoning to restrict dispensaries,
or can ban them because, even if federal policy regarding medical
marijuana is passivity, selling marijuana remains against federal
law. But Colorado's probable future has unfolded in California,
which in 1996 legalized sales of marijuana to persons with doctors'
"prescriptions."
Fifty-six percent of Californians support legalization, and Roger
Parloff reports ("How Marijuana Became Legal" in the Sept. 28
Fortune) that they essentially have this. He notes that many
California "patients" arrive at dispensaries "on bicycles, roller
skates or skateboards." A Los Angeles city councilman estimates that
there are about 600 dispensaries in the city. If so, they outnumber
the Starbucks stores there period.
The councilman wants to close dispensaries whose intent is profit
rather than "compassionate" distribution of medicine. Good luck with
that: Privacy considerations will shield doctors from investigations
of their lucrative 15-minute transactions with "patients."
Colorado's medical marijuana dispensaries have hired lobbyists to
seek taxation and regulation, for the same reason Nevada's brothel
industry wants to be taxed and regulated by the state: The Nevada
Brothel Association regards taxation as legitimation and insurance
against prohibition as the booming state's frontier mentality recedes.
State governments, misunderstanding markets and ravenous for
revenues, exaggerate the potential windfall from taxing legalized
marijuana. California thinks it might reap $1.4 billion. But
Rosalie Pacula, a RAND Corporation economist, estimates that
prohibition raises marijuana production costs at least 400 percent,
so legalization would cause prices to fall much more than the 50
percent the $1.4 billion estimate assumes.
Furthermore, marijuana is a normal good in that demand for it varies
with price. Legalization, by drastically lowering price, will
increase marijuana's public health costs, including mental and
respiratory problems and motor vehicle accidents.
States attempting to use high taxes to keep marijuana prices
artificially high would leave a large market for much cheaper illegal
- - -- unregulated and untaxed -- marijuana. So revenues (and law
enforcement savings) would depend on the price falling close to the
cost of production. In the 1990s, a mere $2 per pack difference
between U.S. and Canadian cigarette prices created such a smuggling
problem that Canada repealed a cigarette tax increase.
Suthers has multiple drug-related worries. Colorado ranks sixth in
the nation in identity theft, two-thirds of which is driven by the
state's $1.4 billion annual methamphetamine addiction. He is loath
to see complete legalization of marijuana at a moment when new
methods of cultivation are producing plants in which the active
ingredient, THC, is "seven, eight times as concentrated" as it used
to be. Furthermore, he was pleasantly surprised when a survey of
nonusing young people revealed that health concerns did not explain
nonuse. The main explanation was the law: "We underestimate the
number of people who care that something is illegal."
But they will care less as law itself loses its dignity. By mocking
the idea of lawful behavior, legalization of medical marijuana may be
more socially destructive than full legalization.
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Prepared by: Richard Lake, Senior Editor www.mapinc.org
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Subj: 002 Does Marijuana Really Help Autistic Children and Adolescents Cope with Their Symptoms?
From: "Herb" <>
Date: Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:30:47 -0800
Does Marijuana Really Help Autistic Children and Adolescents Cope with Their
Symptoms?
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/promoting-empathy-your-teen/200911
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End of MAPTalk-Digest V09 #119
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