Movement May Do More Harm Than Good PORTLAND, Ore. - When the judge entered the wood-paneled courtroom to begin the sentencing hearing this fall, 19-year-old Morgan Brittain was the only one who didn't stand. She remained seated in her wheelchair in the front row. Brittain looked in many ways like the girl she once was: Nike sneakers with hot pink laces, nails painted maroon and silver. She still had the slender frame of the dancer and runner she was before she overdosed two years ago on a half a gram of heroin she split with a friend. [continues 941 words]
The Sept. 22 News carried an article regarding a U.S. district judge's comment about the harshness of the mandatory sentencing time for drug violators. But she maintained she hasn't a choice and gave the accused 20 years. Eventually there will be legalization of many of the recreational drugs now in use. Movies and TV portray hundreds of incidental drug users. These fictional illustrations are magnified thousands of times in real life. Yet we turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the consequences falling upon those unfortunate enough to pay a horrendous penalty. Many go to jail, many have their futures shot. Legalize these drugs. If not that, then decriminalize their use. Remember alcohol was once illegal. Ralph Burke Dunkirk [end]
The new consensus that something is wrong with American criminal justice is welcome. The amazing number of people in prison a measure on which, adjusting for population, no other nation comes close is indeed a sign that the U.S. system is broken. Yet dwelling too much on that one statistic is unwise. There's a danger of missing the point. Consider, for instance, the idea that the leading cause of mass incarceration is long prison sentences handed down to nonviolent drug offenders. Not so. [continues 369 words]
WASHINGTON - Don Winslow, novelist and conscientious objector to America's longest "war," was skeptical when he was in Washington on a recent Sunday morning. This was shortly after news broke about the escape, from one of Mexico's "maximum security" prisons, of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, head of the Sinaloa drug cartel. Guzman reportedly escaped through a 5-foot-tall tunnel almost a mile long and built solely for his escape. Asked about this, Winslow, his fork poised over an omelet, dryly said he thinks Guzman might actually have driven away from the prison's front gate in a Lincoln Town Car. What might seem like cynicism could be Winslow's realism. Fourteen years ago, Guzman escaped from another "maximum security" prison simply by hiding in a laundry cart. With exquisite understatement, the Wall Street Journal reports that his recent escape raised "new concerns about corruption in Mexican law enforcement." [continues 456 words]
Regarding the July 13 News editorial, "Congress has an obligation to improve treatment options for opiate addictions," legislators are going to have to think outside of the drug war box if they are serious about reducing prescription painkiller and heroin overdose deaths. Research published in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that states with open medical marijuana access have a 25 percent lower opioid overdose death rate than marijuana prohibition states. States with well-established open access showed a 33 percent reduction in overdose deaths. This research finding has huge implications for states like New York that are grappling with opioid overdose deaths. [continues 64 words]
TEL AVIV - There's yet another use for marijuana: It may help to heal broken bones, according to a new study. Researchers found that cannabidiol - an element of marijuana that does not get people high improved the healing process in rats with broken leg bones after eight weeks, according to a study published in the Journal of Bone and Mineral Research by Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University. Yankel Gabet of Tel Aviv's Bone Research Laboratory who led the study, said it found that the element "makes bones stronger during healing," which could prevent future fractures. This process occurs as cannabidiol, or CBD, enhances the maturation of collagen, the protein in connective tissue that "holds the body together." [continues 100 words]
Addiction to prescription painkillers and the heroin addiction that often flows from it is a scourge increasingly affecting pregnant women and newborns. As News staff reporter Lou Michel recently chronicled, growing numbers of pregnant women are seeking treatment for their addictions to opiates and other drugs. That number has more than quadrupled in recent years at Horizon Health Services, one of the region's biggest providers of drug treatment and mental health services. Horizon officials say that 29 expectant mothers sought treatment three years ago. Just last year, that number increased to 126 and officials say it could increase to 132 pregnant mothers by the end of this year. The state Department of Health estimates that in Erie County alone as many as 554 babies were born with addictions between 2010 and 2012. [continues 253 words]
The surreal circus we're experiencing over the medical marijuana issue is what it is because we know the arguments are a stretch, but we are looking for a way out of an awful situation. So the political class, which creates prohibitions and has the power to jail people over them, offers us partial relief. Prohibitions create undergrounds and financial incentives for criminal subcultures, empires and official corruption. The alcohol prohibition, a disaster that brought about wars in the street, was replaced with taxes, regulations and medical handling. Even now, alcohol does more harm to society and the individual than all illegal substances combined, yet who would go back to prohibition? [continues 111 words]
Human, Financial Toll High As Tens of Thousands Linger INSIDE COLEMAN PRISON, Fla. - Twenty-one years into his nearly 50-year sentence, the graying man steps inside his stark cell in the largest federal prison complex in America. He wears special medical boots because of a foot condition that makes walking feel as if he's "stepping on a needle." He has undergone tests for a suspected heart condition and sometimes experiences vertigo. "I get dizzy sometimes when I'm walking," says the 63-year-old inmate, Bruce Harrison. "One time, I just couldn't get up." [continues 2635 words]
WASHINGTON - Howard Wooldridge, a Washington lobbyist, is a former detective and forever Texan on an important mission - trying to persuade the 535 members of Congress to end the federal war on marijuana. Liberals tend to be an easier sell than conservatives. With liberals, Wooldridge dwells on the grossly racist way the war on drugs has been prosecuted. "The war on drugs," he tells them, "has been the most immoral policy since slavery and Jim Crow." Conservatives hear a different argument, but one that Wooldridge holds every bit as dear: "Give it back to the states." [continues 384 words]
DENVER - In the state Capitol, they are calling it Refund Madness. A year after Colorado became the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales, millions of tax dollars are rolling in, dedicated to funding school construction, marijuana education campaigns and armies of marijuana inspectors and regulators. But a legal snarl may force the state to hand that money back to marijuana consumers, growers and the public - and lawmakers do not want to. The problem is a strict anti-spending provision in the state Constitution that touches every corner of public life, like school funding, state health care, local libraries and road repairs. Technical tripwires in that voter-approved provision, known as the Taxpayer's Bill of Rights, may require Colorado to refund nearly $60 million in marijuana taxes. [continues 778 words]
Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs By Johann Hari Bloomsbury 389 pages, $27 Johann Hari spent three years gathering material for "Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs." Most of it was traveling the world and talking to people connected with the drug trade. Through them, and through his research, he tells the story of drugs, their maladies and benefits. And through them, he formulates two surprising conclusions. [continues 1122 words]
WASHINGTON - On Super Bowl Sunday, most football fans watched ads for Victoria's Secret, the lost Budweiser dog and a deadpan Kim Kardashian extolling the virtues of T-Mobile. But in St. Louis, those national ads were supplemented with a different kind of Super Bowl commercial. On screen, the camera focused on the face of a white, middle-class teenager as he died of a heroin overdose. Off screen, a singer crooned along to perky guitar music: "First you stole prescription pills from your mom/You threw back a few and then they were gone/So you're jonesing real bad and you need some more. ... And that's how, how you got addicted to heroin." [continues 801 words]
Now that the federal government says it no longer will prosecute marijuana sales on Indian lands as long as tribes take steps to control the sales, some tribes are contemplating how to cash in on the marijuana business. That is why a former president of the Seneca Nation of Indians is sponsoring a national conference for Indian tribes that hope to someday cash in on the legalized marijuana business. The Tribal Marijuana Conference is scheduled for Feb. 27 at the Tulatip Resort Casino, near Seattle. Robert Odawi Porter, a Salamanca lawyer who served as Seneca president from 2008 until November 2010, is the co-sponsor and organizer of the event. [continues 464 words]
Imagine this: You get pulled over by police. Maybe they claim you were seven miles over the speed limit, maybe they say you made an improper lane change. Doesn't matter, because the traffic stop is only a pretext. Using that pretext, they ask permission to search your car for drugs. You give permission and they search. Or you decline permission, but that doesn't matter, either. They make you wait until a drug-sniffing canine can be brought to the scene, then tell you the dog has indicated the presence of drugs and search anyway. [continues 474 words]
Having just read about I-STOP/PMP (Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing/Prescription Monitoring Program) in New York State, I thought I would share my view on the very similar system we have in Ontario called the Ontario Narcotics Control Act. This act was implemented sneakily by our provincial government, and has made many people's lives much more difficult than need be. I don't deny that there are those who abuse certain prescription drugs, and they will always be with us no matter how many bills are passed, but the government is now treating pretty much everyone as an addict through this act, and getting and renewing certain opiate painkillers has become an odyssey. If one wishes to go on vacation for a few weeks, getting the required amount of meds can be likened to going through the inquisition. [continues 100 words]
Regarding the Dec. 7 Viewpoints cover story, when it comes to preventing drug abuse, mass incarceration is a cure worse than the disease. The drug war is not the promoter of family values some would have us believe. Children of inmates are at risk of educational failure, joblessness, addiction and delinquency. Not only do the children lose out, but society as a whole does, too. Incarcerating nonviolent drug offenders alongside hardened criminals is the equivalent of providing them with a taxpayer-funded education in criminal behavior. Prisons transmit violent habits rather than reduce them. Nonviolent drug offenders are eventually released, with dismal job prospects because of criminal records. [continues 71 words]
U.S. Policy Change Raises Possibility of Legalization The U.S. Justice Department last week said it no longer intends to prosecute federal laws regulating the growing or selling of marijuana on Indian reservations, as long as tribes take steps to control marijuana sales. That memo has left many Indian tribes the Seneca Nation among them wondering if they will be allowed someday to legally grow and sell marijuana on their reservations . It is too early to tell whether the Senecas or any other tribe in New York State will be allowed to start legal marijuana businesses, said Martin E. Seneca Jr., chief counsel for the Seneca Nation. [continues 770 words]
The Moral and Political Case for Reforming the Criminal Justice System There isn't much room for optimism among progressives these days. President Obama's avenues to legislative achievement in his final two years are narrow and seem mostly to lead to the right toward a corporate tax reform in one instance, and a NAFTA-style trade deal with the Asia-Pacific region in another. But in these dark days, there is, as we are already witnessing, reason for hope in the form of last month's landmark climate change deal with China and Obama's executive action on immigration. And today, increasingly, there are signs that the United States could make greater strides on criminal justice reform than at any time in a generation or more. [continues 815 words]
A retired Buffalo police officer has started an online business that sells hundreds of products made from hemp. A truck driver is thinking about getting into the marijuana industry once he gets too old to stay on the road. And a former cosmetics and fashion executive wants to offer advice to companies making pot-infused skin care and beauty products, or develop the items herself. With more states legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational purposes, more people are looking for a way into the marijuana industry. "I want to be the East Coast's largest retailer of hemp products," said Steven M. Kellerman, the retired police officer, who carries his money in a hemp wallet and raves about the durability of goods made from the plant. [continues 1077 words]
In a recent Viewpoints article, Kevin Sabet made some valid points about risks associated with legalizing marijuana. But his fears can be addressed. Properly tailored legalization legislation can prevent a Big Tobacco takeover of marijuana production and sales. And we can and should strictly limit advertising and implement effective measures to prevent the targeting of youth. The marijuana issue has reached a tipping point. Despite intransigence on the federal level, Colorado and Washington have legalized cannabis for recreational use by adults, and 23 states have shown compassion by enacting medical marijuana laws. [continues 324 words]
Thirty years ago, a college kid in Kentucky was caught growing marijuana plants in his closet. That turned him into a convicted felon, and though he's been on the right side of the law ever since, he still can't vote. On any job application, he must check the box next to "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" All this misery for growing a plant whose leaves the past three presidents admit having smoked. We know this story because Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky keeps telling it. That a Southern Republican probably running for president is condemning such prosecutions as unfair speaks volumes on the collapsing support for the war on marijuana part of the larger war on drugs. [continues 400 words]
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) A marijuana giveaway for veterans attracted about 1,000 people to a Colorado hotel. The "Grow 4 Vets" giveaway in Colorado Springs aimed to bring cannabis-based treatments to veterans with service-related conditions as an alternative to pain medications. The Gazette reports that veterans were given a bag of items that included cannabis oil, an edible chocolate bar and seeds to grow plants. Marijuana activists have tried unsuccessfully to have post-traumatic stress disorder added to the Colorado list of medical conditions that qualify for joining the medical marijuana registry. Now that pot is legal for all adults over 21, organizers are free to give away marijuana. A similar event was held last weekend in Denver. [end]
Evidence From Legalization in 2 States Will Help Guide Decisions in the Rest Federalism is the American theory of using the 50 states as legal and social laboratories whose experiments can inform the other states and the federal government about practices that are worth duplicating and those that are not. To the benefit of the rest of the country, Colorado and Washington state have embarked on an experiment that may answer many questions about the use of marijuana and how governments deal with it. [continues 529 words]
Over the vehement objections of both neighborhood residents and Erie County officials, the state has decided to grant Hispanics United of Buffalo and Acacia Network a conditional license to operate a clinic that will dispense methadone to heroin addicts. The state Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Service, in a letter dated Wednesday, notified the clinic operators that it is granting a conditional certificate of operation for the clinic to be run out of Hispanics United's headquarters at 254 Virginia St. The letter said the decision was made, in part, after more than 60 community meetings had been held to discuss the proposal with nearby residents. [continues 622 words]
Earlier this month, the White House outlined its 2014 Drug Control Policy, which clearly stated it is growing increasingly concerned by the potential transition from prescription opioid abuse to heroin and injected drug use. Drug overdose is now the leading cause of accidental death in America. Hollywood is not immune. Actor Philip Seymour Hoffman died from a toxic mix of drugs, including heroin and cocaine, earlier this year. In 2013, "Glee" actor Cory Monteith died of an overdose of heroin and alcohol. [continues 258 words]
Regarding The News' thoughtful July 28 editorial, for non-violent offenders with substance abuse problems, treatment is a cost-effective alternative to incarceration. Unfortunately, diversion programs are being misused for political purposes. Record numbers of citizens arrested for marijuana possession have been forced into treatment by the criminal justice system. The resulting distortion of treatment statistics is used by shameless drug warriors to claim that marijuana is "addictive." Zero-tolerance drug laws do not distinguish between use and abuse. Just as adults who drink an occasional glass of red wine with dinner don't need mandatory substance abuse treatment, the vast majority of marijuana consumers don't either. The coercion of Americans who prefer marijuana to martinis into treatment says a lot about government priorities, but absolutely nothing about marijuana. [continues 89 words]
Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo on Wednesday asked the state Health Department to expedite availability of medical marijuana for children suffering from epilepsy. His action was met with approval by Wendy Conte, whose daughter, Anna, 9, of Orchard Park, died 12 days after the governor signed the Compassionate Care Act into law July 5. That made New York the 23rd state to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. "Striking the right balance to ensure public safety and public health are protected is crucial," Cuomo wrote, while lamenting the deaths of Anna Conte and Olivia Marie Newton, 3, of Cheektowaga. "That said, I ask that you review the 18-month implementation timeline to determine if there is any way to accelerate the process for this specific dire population." [continues 367 words]
Lawmakers Press Obama on Stance WASHINGTON - After nearly two years of sending conflicting signals on the legalization of marijuana, the Obama administration finds itself under increased pressure from all sides to deliver a consistent message on where it stands. Democratic senators from Washington state and Colorado entered the fray Tuesday, releasing a letter that complained that federal agencies "have taken different approaches that seem to be at odds with one another." The senators - Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell from Washington state and Mark Udall and Michael Bennet of Colorado - cited two decisions this year that have puzzled proponents and opponents alike. [continues 542 words]
Reform of Overly Harsh Prison Sentences Is Both a Just and Practical Step Forward Few would argue at this point that the nation's decades-old war on drugs has been anything but a wretched failure. It has cost uncounted millions of dollars, sent tens of thousands of people to prison (disproportionately African-American) and helped give this country the world's largest incarceration rate - and all without putting a dent in drug use. Slowly, the country is uncoiling itself from this death grip. New York State has relaxed its Rockefeller drug laws, among the nation's harshest, and now Washington is backing away from mandatory minimum sentences, adopted and clung to since the crack cocaine epidemic hit in the 1980s. [continues 395 words]
As a husband, parent and grandparent, I feel some concern over the haste to legalize both medical and recreational marijuana. There are too many unknowns. We do know that there are properties in marijuana currently available in some prescription drugs. We do know the deleterious effects that marijuana has on the developing brains of children and young adults. However, there is an additional factor that we do not know. At one time, I worked at Roswell Park Cancer Institute. While there I served as a member of the Cigarette Cancer Committee. I recall discussion as to the increased harmfulness of cigarette smoking that is directly attributable to depth of inhalation and length of time held. I believe that the act of smoking marijuana actually requires this exact behavior. [continues 70 words]
NEW YORK - New York moved last week to join 22 states in legalizing medical marijuana for patients with a diverse array of debilitating ailments, encompassing epilepsy and cancer, Crohn's disease and Parkinson's. Yet there is no rigorous scientific evidence that marijuana effectively treats the symptoms of many of the illnesses for which states have authorized its use. Instead, experts say, lawmakers and the authors of public referendums have acted largely on the basis of animal studies and heart-wrenching anecdotes. [continues 876 words]
The cannabis or hemp plant is the source of the drug marijuana, often colloquially referred to as hashish, hash or weed. It is an annual herb. Although there are several varieties, the most sought-after form, Cannabis sativa, grows from 8 to 12 feet high. Its opposite leaves extending from a central upright stem have five to nine (occasionally even up to 13) long, thin serrated fingers whose many veins make them appear fern-like. I have seen only one cannabis plant. It grew in a neighborhood garden where it flourished until authorities removed it. Some people claim that cannabis could be confused with Japanese maple, but the two appear very different to me. [continues 546 words]
I applaud The News for making the case for medical marijuana in its May 30 editorial. While there have been studies showing that marijuana can shrink cancerous tumors, medical marijuana is essentially a palliative drug. If a doctor recommends marijuana to a cancer patient undergoing chemotherapy and it helps him feel better, then it's working. In the end, medical marijuana is a quality-of-life decision best left to patients and their doctors. Drug warriors waging war on non-corporate drugs contend that organic marijuana is not an effective health intervention. Their prescribed intervention for medical marijuana patients is handcuffs, jail cells and criminal records. Clearly, drug warriors should not be dictating health care decisions. It's time to let doctors decide what is right for their patients; sick patients should not be jailed for daring to seek relief from marijuana. Policy Analyst Common Sense for Drug Policy [end]
Kids With Seizures to Receive Oil-Based Form of the Drug ALBANY The Cuomo administration has signed a deal with a British pharmaceutical company to conduct a medical marijuana clinical trial in New York State involving children who suffer from rare forms of epilepsy. The letter of intent between the state and GW Pharmaceuticals, signed May 31 and obtained Monday by The Buffalo News, envisions the drug being made available in an oil-or spray-based form to eligible children across the state who do not respond to traditional drug therapies and can suffer from hundreds of seizures in a day. [continues 911 words]
A plague of heroin addiction is upon us. Another plague. Heroin was the crisis that prompted Richard Nixon to launch the war on drugs in 1971. Time marched on. Cocaine and then crack cocaine and then methamphetamine overtook heroin as the drugs of the moment. Now heroin is back - and badder than ever. The war on drugs also grinds expensively on, an estimated $1 trillion down the hole so far. Amid the triumphant announcements of massive drug seizures and arrests of the kingpins, heroin has never been more abundant or so easy to find, in urban and rural America alike. [continues 474 words]
DENVER - Five months after Colorado became the first state to allow recreational marijuana sales, the battle over legalization is still raging. Law enforcement officers in Colorado and neighboring states, emergency room doctors and legalization opponents increasingly are highlighting a series of recent problems as cautionary lessons for other states flirting with loosening marijuana laws. There is the Denver man who, hours after buying a package of marijuana infused candy, began raving about the end of the world and then pulled a handgun from the family safe and killed his wife, the authorities say. Some hospital officials say they are treating growing numbers of children and adults sickened by potent doses of edible marijuana. Sheriffs in neighboring states complain about stoned drivers streaming out of Colorado. [continues 307 words]
State Senate Should Allow the Use of Marijuana to Treat a Few Conditions The approval by the State Senate Health Committee of the bill to legalize medical marijuana is a big step in overcoming opposition in the full Senate and making the drug available to a small number of desperate patients. As it has in the past, the Assembly passed its version of medical marijuana by a wide margin earlier this week. However, medical marijuana measures have died in the State Senate each year. The latest measure stands a chance of passage because of hard lobbying by patients and medical groups and because it is more limited in scope. [continues 435 words]
Push for Legalization Makes Key Progress ALBANY Legalizing the use of medical marijuana passed a crucial hurdle Tuesday when the Senate Health Committee approved a bill allowing its use by patients with certain health conditions and under tightly regulated growing conditions. The vote is the furthest that the measure has ever gotten in the Senate, where it has died year after year following passage in the Assembly. But this year, it gained momentum with a push by a growing coalition of patient and medical groups, and had the political advantage of being sponsored by Sen. Diane J. Savino, a hard-driving lawmaker from Staten Island who is part of a small coalition of independent Democrats who rule the Senate with Republicans. [continues 1012 words]
As a retired physician with over 35 years of experience in the addictions field and as a board member for the Erie County Council for the Prevention of Alcohol and Substance Abuse, I am writing in opposition to the proposed Senate bill (4406-B) that will legalize medical marijuana in New York State. There is not an adequate base of research that shows marijuana, in its most common form (smoked), is effective for treating any serious medical condition. Therefore, no major group of medical experts supports the use of smoked marijuana for treatment of health problems. In a recent review, the director of the California Center for Medicine Cannabis Research stated that marijuana could be helpful in the treatment of nerve and spasm pain of multiple sclerosis, but stated other indications are less clear. [continues 315 words]
I have read endless letters about doctors giving narcotics to people who don't need them and also people who abuse the system by selling their drugs. I couldn't agree more that these are problems. But there is a different concern for people who are truly in chronic pain. They don't abuse or sell their meds. That's my problem. I am a person who has a legitimate reason for needing to be on pain meds. It has caused me constant pain that interferes with my entire life, from my everyday abilities to my sleep, not to mention the hardship it has taken on my financial needs. [continues 137 words]
Apparently, a recent letter writer thinks that by legalizing marijuana, New York State will clear up its debt. We started the lottery to pay for schools and yet our schools are no better off. In fact, every year school taxes go up and city and suburban schools seem to fight over which extracurricular programs, if any, they will have the money to keep. Look at all the casino money that this state is raking in. Is that reducing our debt? He also thinks legalizing marijuana will reduce law enforcement and lead to a whole new sector of jobs. Law enforcement will not be reduced because not only will we have to worry about drinking and driving, we will have to worry about a now legalized drug on the road. As far as new jobs, he's right. We will have marijuana farms, bakeries for the marijuana and more drug counselors. [continues 78 words]
In his State of the State address, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo invoked the Controlled Substances Therapeutic Research Act of 1980, a law that provided for the medical use of cannabis a full 16 years before medical marijuana was approved by the California legislature. New York's legislation provides for carefully controlled distribution and study of marijuana for medical purposes. Unfortunately, this has reignited the call for broader legalization of medical marijuana in New York, perpetuating several myths. One is that the active ingredients in marijuana (collectively called cannabinoids) are unavailable to patients. [continues 314 words]
It swallowed people up. That's what it really did, if you want to know the truth. It swallowed them up whole, swallowed them up by the millions. In the process, it hollowed out communities, broke families, stranded hope. Politicians brayed that they were being "tough on crime" as if anyone is really in favor of crime as they imposed ever longer and more inflexible sentences for nonviolent drug offenses. But the "War on Drugs" didn't hurt drugs at all: Usage rose by 2,800 percent that's not a typo - in the 40 years after it began in 1971. The War also made America the biggest jailer on Earth and drained a trillion dollars still not a typo from the treasury. [continues 398 words]
LOS ANGELES - California voters strongly favor legalizing marijuana. The state Democratic Party adopted a platform last month urging California to follow Colorado and Washington in ending marijuana prohibition. The state's lieutenant governor, Gavin Newsom, has called for legalizing the drug. But not Gov. Jerry Brown. "I think we ought to kind of watch and see how things go in Colorado," Brown, a Democrat, said curtly when asked the question as he was presenting his state budget this year. At a time of rapidly evolving attitudes toward marijuana legalization a slight majority of Americans now support legalizing the drug Democratic governors across the country, Brown among them, find themselves uncomfortably at odds with their own base. [continues 373 words]
GOP in State Senate Taking a Big Step in Softening Opposition to Medical Pot The shifting by the Republican conference in the State Senate on the topic of medical marijuana is remarkable, and can't come fast enough. Otherwise, there will be more cases like that of Wendy S. Conte of Orchard Park. Conte recently set up residency in Colorado so that her 8-year-old daughter, Anna, could get access to that state's medical marijuana program. Anna suffers from debilitating seizures. Her mother is not alone in going so far as to change legal residence in order to secure the treatment she believes will help her daughter. [continues 466 words]
Parents Must Leave State to Help Stricken Children ALBANY - Wendy S. Conte, of Orchard Park, returned from Colorado a few weeks ago after renting an apartment there, getting a Colorado driver's license and setting up residency. "Officially, I'm a Colorado resident," she said. The reason for Conte's new residency has nothing to do with frequently heard reasons for the New York exodus - evaporating job opportunities, high taxes or weather. She took up the new residency so that her 8-year-old daughter, Anna, who suffers from lifelong debilitating seizures, can get access to that state's medical marijuana program. [continues 1760 words]
Reading Douglas Turner's column, "State must never allow recreational marijuana," was like taking a trip back through time to the era of "reefer madness." Like the architect of marijuana prohibition, Harry J. Anslinger, Turner conflates marijuana with heroin, and then jumps on the most recent, high-profile celebrity heroin overdose to crusade against marijuana and call for endless marijuana arrests. In other words, he wants more of the same failed policies that have gotten us where we are today. Heroin and painkillers pose very real public health problems that are killing people across New York every single month, and people seeking treatment are often "waitlisted" for lack of resources. Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes' recently introduced bill to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol includes a provision that would dedicate a significant portion of marijuana tax receipts to the Office of Alcohol and Substance Abuse Services for expanded treatment and prevention programs. [continues 55 words]
In his Feb. column on medical and recreational marijuana, Doug Turner makes the statement: "Marijuana is a gateway for hard drugs, and plenty hazardous by itself." I have seen this statement many times, especially in recent months, but I have never seen any reference to a detailed study or studies that bear this out. I do see, from time to time, statements like this from a police officer to that effect, but remember that statement only covers some drug users. There is a large marijuana industry out there, and it must cater to a large number of users, and probably very few are caught. So there are no large-scale studies of marijuana users and whether they progress in large numbers to hard drugs. If there are such studies, no one seems to use them to try to justify stopping marijuana use. For the record, I have never used pot, and to the best of my recollection, I am not acquainted with pot users. Paul R. Libby Tonawanda [end]
As a long-time fan of Philip Seymour Hoffman's work, I view the widespread reactions of grief over his death with a mixture of appreciation and dread. As a fan, I appreciate the recognition that this Oscar-winning actor's astounding talents richly deserved. But I also brace myself for the sort of anger-driven, self-defeating, lock'em-up anti-drug crusades that too often have followed shocking drug-related celebrity deaths. Such high-profile tragedies as the 1970 drug-related deaths of rock stars Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix, for example, helped fuel the Nixon administration's "war on drugs" and numerous "zero tolerance" state drug laws that filled prisons with long sentences for nonviolent offenders. [continues 383 words]
