Marijuana might help with pain management? If whoever wrote "Medicine farce obscures debate" had osteoarthritis, he or she might learn why so many people, including many esteemed doctors know marijuana eases pain (Editorial, Wednesday).

If, editorial writer, you had osteoarthritis that can cripple, which would you take to kill the pain? Celebrex, which has killed people, or marijuana, which might ease your pain but definitely won't kill you?

Do your homework, read the warning labels for all prescription medications that treat osteoarthritis and then get real. Only a fool would choose to risk his life with prescription drugs when nature's answer works just fine.

- -- Rich Austin, Phoenix

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Marijuana is today's "demon rum." Obtaining it requires the commission of an illegal act -- sort of like the old Prohibition days.

Who in his right mind would sanction a legal drug that messes up your brain, your liver, your nutrition, your immune system, your digestive system, etc.

Oh! Wait a minute! That's alcohol, isn't it? Why don't we just cut the hypocrisy and treat marijuana like any other drug that has limited therapeutic effects.

Have Big Pharma produce it under the scrutiny of our generally toothless Food and Drug Administration.

The rule of law will be upheld, and another giant corporation will make even more millions pandering a generally useless product to gullible millions of consumers. Who knows? It might even be a job creator.

- -- Dr. Harvey Turner, Scottsdale

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Why Can't We All Just Get Along Regarding Marijuana?

So. Once again, I'm ensconced in the Compound, behind numerous padlocks and chains and brick walls, down under the ghetto bird, wondering what to write about.

Sometimes when I don't know what to write, I just start writing. The free flow of association often leads the horse to water, and he drinks. It worked this time, because literally in the past five minutes, since I started writing this, I figured out what this column is going to be about.

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Half of Arizona's voters (49.9 percent) voted against "medical" marijuana, many suspecting it was just a scam to legalize pot. They've since been proved right. But what most opponents don't know is that our elected officials could and should stop this law today. Prop 203 authorizes violations of federal law, and states can't do that, not even by voter initiative.

It's still a federal crime to grow, sell or possess marijuana, and it's also a crime to help anyone doing those things. So state employees who license patients or dispensaries to grow, sell or possess marijuana are federal criminals. Landlords who rent to growers or dispensaries are federal criminals. And those who lend money to marijuana businesses are federal criminals.

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Two Arizonans lent a medical-marijuana company in Colorado $500,000, but the company didn't pay them back.

So, what did they do? They sued, of course.

But instead of forcing the company to pay back the loan, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge told the two Valley business partners they were out of luck as far as he was concerned.

Marijuana is illegal under federal law. And the judge said he can't enforce the loan agreement because the money was for an illegal purpose under federal law. He dismissed the suit.

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The State Is Making Prospective MMJ-Dispensary Owners Jump Through Costly Hoops

The aerie is a place of the past now, so I am hunkered down, listening to too many sirens and dodging too many broken bottles in the bike lanes and chronically getting a neck ache from the stress and stark realities of life and foraminal spinal stenosis.

It's a grim existence, in some ways, but there is a light: My pain will be eased in a big figurative way in August, when we will-God willing, and the governor don't rise-have medical-marijuana dispensaries sparsely peppered all over the state like fields of desert poppies. Ken Sobel, vice president of the Arizona Cannabis Chamber of Commerce and operator of Green Halo Caregiver Collective on the westside, is ready.

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Medical-marjiuana dispensaries will have to employ a medical director at their operations, as state health officials require, a Maricopa County Superior Court judge has ruled. The non-profits could begin opening this summer.

Judge Richard Gama's May 1 decision is an important one because it could prevent abuse of medical marijuana, said Will Humble, director of the Arizona Department of Health Services.

"This is a really important component of the program because without it, over time, it would've evolved into each dispensary just moving product," Humble said.

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Crackdowns on Large-Scale Marijuana Purveyors May Indeed Be Warranted

The people close to me-and maybe some folks a few tables away at the bar-know what I think about politicians.

I've spent a lot of time over the years following our esteemed leaders around with microphones, and some of the things I recorded disgusted me and pissed me off-and generally made me think less of politicians as a subset of humanity. I always start with the assumption that whatever a politician says into my recorder is carefully crafted bullshit aimed at deceiving.

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Two Newly Retired Experts on the Border Speak Freely About the Status of the Arizona/Mexico Dividing Line

Dan Wirth and Keith Graves spent significant portions of their careers working on the Arizona-Mexico border. They know these troubled lands inside and out. Both have reputations as straight-shooters, and both retired last December.

Now able to speak freely, they agreed to talk to the Tucson Weekly with only one topic off-limits-the murder of Border Patrol agent Brian Terry in Peck Canyon on Dec. 14, 2010. At his retirement, Graves promised the Border Patrol he wouldn't discuss what he knows about the case.

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When Javier Sicilia's son was kidnapped and murdered in Mexico in March 2011, he decided he'd had it with Mexico's war on drugs. Sicilia, who was once a poet, put his pen down and instead ensured that his voice was heard through activism and peaceful protests.

The world-renowned peace activist and poet spoke to the UA community on Monday in a talk titled "Mexico's Future: Peace or Endless War?" Sicilia addressed the issues of who is responsible for Mexico's drug war and what can be done to end it.

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What a joke of an article you wrote about legalizing marijuana.

Marijuana Prohibition is an outrage, and the biggest anti-libertarian law I have ever seen. Why is the government regulating what is put into our bodies? Marijuana users ARE NOT infringing on anyone else's right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

In these harsh economic times, billions of dollars are wasted on penalizing/incarcerating marijuana users for victimless "crimes." Money could be saved for the American taxpayers by making marijuana legal and taxing the sale of this medicinal plant. Your biased rhetoric against marijuana is totally false. You have no clue what you are talking about when you say that it will lead to nothing but negative impacts. I wish you would re-evaluate and help to end this irrational prohibition.

- - Allen Carlisle,

Vicksburg, Miss.

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Pushing for the legalization of recreational marijuana is a waste of time.

The Tucson Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws held its annual protest on April 20. About 50 protesters made their way to Cheba Hut for the seventh annual protest, where they held up signs to flash at traffic about legalizing marijuana. It's sad how badly those people want recreational marijuana legalized. Medical marijuana helps people, but recreational marijuana can be dangerous.

Marijuana is the most common illegal drug found in "impaired drivers and crash victims involved in 'drugged driving' accidents," according to the Alcohol Drug Abuse Help & Resource Center website. The drug interferes with the cerebellum, which is the part of the brain that controls coordination, according to the center's website. Legalizing this drug will do nothing more then increase the number of DUIs and fatal car accidents, as if Arizona needs higher numbers in that department.

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State Is Considering Allowing Four New Medical Conditions for Pot Use

Four new medical conditions could eventually qualify under Arizona's medical-marijuana program.

State health officials are considering whether to add depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder and migraines as "debilitating conditions," which would allow people to legally use medical pot.

Arizona would become the only state in the nation to allow medical marijuana for anxiety and depression, said Will Humble, director of the state Department of Health Services, which oversees the medical-marijuana program.

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WASHINGTON - Amelioration of today's drug problem requires Americans to understand the significance of the 80/ 20 ratio. Twenty percent of American drinkers consume 80 percent of the alcohol sold here. The same 80-20 split obtains among users of illicit drugs.

About 3 million people - less than 1 percent of America's population - consume 80 percent of illegal hard drugs. Drug-trafficking organizations can be most efficiently injured by changing the behavior of the 20 percent of heavy users, and we are learning how to do so. Reducing consumption by the 80 percent of casual users will not substantially reduce the northward flow of drugs or the southward flow of money.

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From financial investments to lavish spring break trips, three drug dealers' experiences as independent businessmen

Spending the past few months with drug dealers has been oddly uninspiring. The life of a drug dealer isn't an everlasting party. But all drug dealers have two desires in common: easy money and personal autonomy.

Like a new business owner on crack, drug dealers face risks people can't possibly understand without personal experience. If the dealer conducts himself well and quits while he's ahead, he might avoid the law or getting stabbed in the gut. Other dealers stick with it too long, and eventually screw up, usually falling into debt or onto the hood of a police car. But there are many kinds of drug dealers, all of whom have varying levels of success. Here are the stories of three drug dealers I got to know during the past three months.

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a Champion of Medical Marijuana Fights What He Considers Harassment and Uneven Enforcement

Lawsuits are flying again in the Arizona medical-marijuana world-or at least requests for writs of mandamus and notices of claims are flying.

Three former MMJ club owners have put the state on notice that they want $18 million in compensation for an October raid that closed their 2811 Club near Bell Road and Interstate 17 in Phoenix. Allan Sobol, Shawn Britton and Susan Miller wonder-and so do I-why police targeted their club, which never sold marijuana, but offered patients a safe, convenient place to learn about MMJ and get meds after paying membership fees.

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A Man Faces DUI, Paraphernalia Charges After a Tpd Officer Allegedly Ignores the Man's MMJ Card

A few days before Christmas, Tom Cadamagnani decided to help a friend who was down on her luck. The former Marine and his friend jumped in his truck and headed for the Salvation Army to get some presents for her grandkids.

They never got there.

A Tucson police officer stopped Cadamagnani, 50, on Dec. 20 for a minor registration glitch, saw a pipe in his truck, and cited the medical-marijuana patient for an expired registration, DUI and possession of drug paraphernalia. The expired registration was a record-keeping glitch that has since been cleared up, Cadamagnani said.

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News this week about scrutiny over Arizona's medical marijuana program will leave us wringing our hands at the voting booth.

The federal government, in a Feb. 16 letter, told Gov. Jan Brewer it would prosecute state workers for implementing the medical marijuana program, according to the Associated Press, saying they "are not immune from liability" under the federal Controlled Substances Act.

Voters approved the state program in 2010 to allow people with certain debilitating medical conditions to use marijuana. Qualified patients must register with the state and Arizona officials plan to set up and regulate as many as 126 dispensaries.

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State fails to get immunity pledge by Yvonne Wingett Sanchez - The Republic

The U.S. Department of Justice has reiterated its warning that state employees are subject to federal prosecution for implementing the state's medical-marijuana program.

One high-ranking state official pointed out that the letter exemplifies the tough position that Arizona authorities are in: Federal law says they can't participate in the program, yet a judge has ordered them to follow through on the will of Arizona voters.

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Medical marijuana is being used to relieve pain by people of all ages and backgrounds -- including the elderly, Baby Boomers and 20- to 30-somethings, according to new data from the Arizona Department of Health Services.

Arizonans voted in November 2010 to allow cancer patients and others with certain debilitating illnesses to get a medical-marijuana card with a doctor's approval. Since marijuana was legalized for medicinal use, more than 22,200 people have received permission to smoke, eat or otherwise ingest it to ease their ailments.

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