I'm writing about Bill Richardson's not-so-thoughtful column: "Targeting addicts the more effective way to reduce crime in our cities" (July 12). Even though caffeine is an addictive drug and potentially lethal in very high doses, we have absolutely no crime associated with it. Why? It's legal. Nicotine is a very addictive substance that is very deadly, yet we have almost no crime associated with it. Why? It's legal.

A couple of weeks ago, I watched one of the Lock Up series on MSNBC and they were doing a prison cell search in a California prison. They found among other things, a package of cigarettes. They mentioned that in California prisons cigarettes sell for $400 to $600 a pack. Why? Because inside California prisons cigarettes are illegal. By the way, inside California prisons cigarettes are controlled by prison gangs.

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As director of the Arizona Department of Health Services, Will Humble is the man working behind the scenes to run Arizona's fledgling medical-marijuana program.

Over the past several months, Humble has been weighing whether to expand the program to allow legal use of the drug by those who have post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression or migraines. He's heard from patients, their families and physicians who said the drug helps manage pain at public hearings. He's listened to opponents who say the drug leads to dangerous situations in the home and on the road. He's read new University of Arizona studies that concluded there is simply not enough evidence to prove whether marijuana is medically effective. And back in college, he even tested the drug himself.

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In an apparent attempt to enforce federal law, officers from Southern Arizona's multi-agency Counter Narcotics Alliance recently closed out a two-month-long investigation into the Green Halo Caregiver Collective-and then proceeded to get all up in the collective's shit in a rude and offensive way.

They stormed the collective, near Interstate 10 and Prince Road, on July 10, tearing apart a costly grow room, smashing lights and ventilation equipment, cutting down plants, intimidating the staff and generally fucking the place up in all kinds of ways. They took "evidence," including stacks of blank patient forms (but no patient records), the security cameras (but not the video), and the big-screen television from the waiting room, which was used for medical-cannabis education.

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PHOENIX -- Researchers at the University of Arizona report they've found precious little credible research that shows marijuana is effective in treating post-traumatic stress disorder.

Ditto for migraines, depression and general anxiety disorder, said the doctors from the school's College of Public Health.

And those findings -- or, more to the point, the lack of findings -- could prove to be a fatal blow to efforts by some to expand the list of ailments for which a doctor in Arizona can legally recommend marijuana. State Health Director Will Humble, who gets the final word, said he expects to make his decision by the end of the month.

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Arizona health officials are considering adding post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety and migraines as qualifying conditions to use medical marijuana. Department of Health Services Director Will Humble is expected to decide this week.

Voters approved Proposition 203 in November 2010, and it went in effect in April 2011.

Under the law, individuals can use marijuana to treat debilitating medical conditions, including cancer, glaucoma, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, Lou Gehrig's disease, Crohn's disease or Alzheimer's disease.

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For more than six months, agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration kept an eye on an industrial area on the outskirts of San Luis, a border town in the southwestern corner of Arizona near Yuma.

The agents suspected it was being used to stash drugs smuggled across the border from Mexico. But, on Saturday, they discovered one of the buildings they were watching contained a major drug tunnel that stretched 240 yards, the length of two football fields, to an ice plant on the Mexican side of the border.

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"We've cut off the head of the snake. This definitely makes it a lot harder for our children and residents to get drugs. We can go out all day and arrest people with marijuana or a sixteenth of an ounce of meth. Or we can go out and do an investigation like this for six months and affect thousands of people." -- Tempe police Lt. Noah Johnson, East Valley Tribune story Tempe part of major drug bust connected to Mexico's Sinaloa cartel, July 6, 2012

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Not all MMJ patients look forward to the opening of dispensaries

There's been a lot of talk lately about the 25-mile rule for medical-marijuana patients.

The rule, which says no patient can grow for himself unless he lives more than 25 miles from a dispensary, will finally kick in this summer when dispensaries open. It seems to be pissing off a lot of people and causing a spate of arm-waving, foot-stomping and righteous indignation.

Through the end of May, about 25,000 patients had asked to grow statewide. Assuming even that half of them did, there are roughly 13,000 Arizona bedrooms or garages or corners of dens blossoming with hardy green flowers with little white hairs on them. It was a beautiful accident of Gov. Jan's decision to halt dispensaries. Thousands upon thousands of tiny grow operations popping up all over the state for the past year, spreading joy and love and kindness in the form of cheap medication.

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NORML Keeps Pushing for the Full Legalization of Marijuana

Not so long ago, it wasn't cool to want pot legal.

Back in the '70s, when the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, or NORML, emerged, if you backed legalization, you were pretty much viewed as a loser, a hippie dropout, some kind of craazzzzy tambourine player who donned scarves, ate LSD and danced in parks. Most of America didn't take the fringe group seriously.

But by the time Tucson's NORML chapter president, Jon Gettel, got involved in the early 2000s, things had changed. Aided by medical marijuana's legitimacy, NORML had grown into a much-more-respected backer of marijuana legal reform. Now NORML is a federal nonprofit that reaches coast to coast to push for legal access to marijuana-for whatever use you chose. NORML isn't just trying to appease stoners.

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The State Should Make MMJ an Option for Sufferers of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Everyone feels anxious from time to time. We get tense when we have important meetings or hot dates or when we're in traffic and some asshole cuts us off.

But clinical anxiety is a different animal. People who suffer from generalized anxiety disorder don't get a break when they see the date is going well or that the meeting was a success. Their anxiety is a constant, physically gripping presence, often for no good reason. It makes people fearful and sweaty in situations most of us glide through with ease.

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I'm writing about your front page story: "Police warn teen heroin use is on the rise" by Garin Groff (June 22).

The question that needs to be asked is: Why don't children believe those who warn them about the dangers of drugs? The answer: Because when the drug war cheerleaders lie about or grossly exaggerate the dangers of marijuana, they lose all credibility.

When children find out that they have been lied to about marijuana, they make the logical assumption that they are also being lied to about the dangers of other drugs like heroin. This is a recipe for disaster.

Kirk Muse

Mesa

[end]

If MMJ can help people with migraines, then people with migraines should be able to use MMJ

Thankfully, I've only had two migraines in my life-both when I was a freshman in high school, and both immediately after biology class.

I'm pretty sure my migraines were environmental, since both came after I was dissecting animals steeped in formaldehyde. I haven't had one since, although a couple of times, I have had that sketchy eye effect, where you have blind spots, and things seem a little fractal or something.

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It's A No-Brainer: The State Should Allow Sufferers of Ptsd to Use Medical Marijuana

Across the nation, numerous states are considering medical-marijuana laws with a mixed bag of choices on how they address post-traumatic stress disorder.

Connecticut just passed a law that includes it as a qualifying illness, while bills pending in Illinois and Indiana don't include it. In Arizona, the law does not cover the treatment of PTSD. Hopefully, that will change next month, when the state will decide whether to add PTSD as a qualifying illness. On May 25, the state Department of Health Services took public comments as a part of the process (as the state also did with depression, as I discussed last week). Here are a few tidbits from that hearing.

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Guillermo Padres Elias Is Worried That Mexican Drug Cartels Will Seek a Share of the Medical Marijuana Trade in Arizona

TUCSON -- Arizona voters made a mistake in legalizing marijuana for medical use, the governor of Sonora said Friday, at least from his country's perspective.

"I don't believe in it," Guillermo Padres Elias said in response to a question about how the 2010 law might affect the ability of his country to combat the drug cartels.

"I believe that we are making an effort to stop the trafficking of drugs to the north into the United States," he explained. Padres said allowing people to use marijuana legally will only increase the demand.

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SCOTTSDALE, Ariz. - Soon after health officials announced they would dole out Arizona's first licenses for medical marijuana dispensaries, Ryan Hurley, co-chairman of the medical marijuana practice at the Rose Law Group here, noticed a common trait among some of the people most eager to enlist his services: They were already in the business in other states.

There was a family who owns dispensaries in Washington State. There was an investor from Los Angeles who has a stake in several California dispensaries. There was a disabled Navy veteran who makes a living running a medical marijuana delivery service in San Diego.

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If you've ever been depressed or have lived with someone who is depressed, you know it sucks-and not just a little bit.

Depression really, really sucks a lot in ways that make people lose their jobs and wish they were dead. It seeps out from the hearts and souls of sufferers to affect everyone around them, putting cracks in otherwise sound relationships. At times, being depressed is like being at the bottom of the pool, sucked down against the drain on your back, watching the world go by up there in the air. But down at the bottom of the pool, you can't breathe. You want to swim up to the surface, to gulp in huge gasps of atmosphere, and feel alive and vibrant.

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Regarding the front-page article Monday, "The price of prisons: Drugs in the System":

Now, I'm not the brightest bulb in the pack, but I don't understand how a guy in prison can die of a heroin overdose. Wow, it must be a really secure prison.

- -- Bob Rosenquist

Phoenix

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J.M. SMITH Chemdog from Desert Dawn Caregivers. Desert Dawn Caregivers

What: MMJ delivery service. Desert Dawn advertises smokable meds, tinctures, edibles, clones and mother plants. Selection is limited for the time being, since Desert Dawn is between harvests. Look for a broader selection soon, including plants for getting in one more harvest before dispensaries open, and growing becomes illegal.

Why: Delivery convenience that's hard to beat. Good prices-I paid a $50 donation for an eighth, which is less than other local collectives.

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Regarding Carolyn Short's May 23 op-ed, not only should medical marijuana be made available to patients in need, but adult recreational use should be regulated. Drug policies modeled after alcohol prohibition have given rise to a youth-oriented black market. Illegal drug dealers don't ID for age, but they do recruit minors immune to adult sentences.

Throwing more money at the problem is no solution. Attempts to limit the supply of illegal drugs while demand remains constant only increase the profitability of drug trafficking. For addictive drugs like heroin, a spike in street prices leads desperate addicts to increase criminal activity to feed desperate habits. The drug war doesn't fight crime, it fuels crime.

Taxing and regulating marijuana, the most popular illicit drug, is a cost-effective alternative to never-ending drug war.

Policy Analyst, Common Sense for Drug Policy

Arlington, Va.

[end]

Some sick people may benefit from marijuana. A hot toddy can help a cold, too. And a nice cup of chamomile tea does wonders for indigestion - just ask Peter Rabbit's mother.

But whiskey and herb tea are not medicine. Neither is marijuana - regardless of the Trojan horse the voters dragged into the public square.

Medical marijuana is a backdoor attempt at legalization, a diversionary strategy to create an air of legitimacy around a street drug.

Consider that the law voters approved in 2010 requires state officials to periodically look at expanding the list of ailments for which pot can legally be used. The first round of petitions is being considered now.

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