A sleeper issue has emerged among DFL candidates in the 2018 governor's race: Marijuana.

St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman, state Reps. Erin Murphy, Tina Liebling and Paul Thissen, and U.S. Rep. Tim Walz all support legalizing marijuana for recreational and not just medical use. Among the major DFL candidates, only State Auditor Rebecca Otto declined to do so.

"When you confront the reality of the cost of criminalization vs. the benefits of legalization, I think the benefits outweigh the costs," said Coleman, whose campaign approached the Star Tribune to discuss the issue.

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The decision is to take effect in August, but evidence counters the notions that the drug is beneficial and that there aren't alternatives.

As a staff psychiatrist working at the Minneapolis VA Medical Center, I was alarmed to hear that the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) is adding post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a qualifying condition for medical marijuana use starting in August 2017.

During a press event on Dec. 1, Dr. Ed Ehlinger, commissioner of MDH, was quoted as saying, "PTSD presented the strongest case for potential benefits and a … lack of treatment alternatives."

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Minnesotans seeking pain relief have quickly become the second-largest group of patients in the state's medical marijuana program, even though they became eligible just one month ago.

One out of three patients enrolled in the program is seeking relief from chronic pain, according to figures released this week by the Office of Medical Cannabis.

The Minnesota Department of Health added intractable pain to the shortlist of qualifying conditions for the program on Aug. 1. By Aug. 31, there were more pain patients - 847 - than patients with cancer, epilepsy and terminal illnesses combined.

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In its Aug. 8 Short Takes space, the Star Tribune reprinted an editorial from the Washington Post condemning the new Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte and his war on drugs, which includes extrajudicial killings of drug lords and pushers ("The Philippines' drug war: Homicidal justice kills the rule of law"). What the editors don't know is that Duterte is the first president in my lifetime (and I am 65) who cannot be bought. I personally know a rich businessman who had bet on the wrong horse for president. The day after election, he flew to Davao City (where Duterte lives) with a bag full of cash. He waited one whole day and couldn't get in to see Duterte.

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A year ago this weekend, little Harlow Hundley took her first dose of medical marijuana.

By the time her family gathered for their July 4th picnic, the little girl, then 3 years old and wracked by seizures that damaged her brain and endangered her life, was giggling and playing with her cousins "like she'd never done before," her mother told reporters Friday as she wiped away tears outside a downtown Minneapolis clinic.

It wasn't a cure, but Harlow's life is better now than it was a year ago. She suffers half as many seizures, even as they weaned her off the harshest medications she was taking. She plays with toys and interacts with people. She communicates with an adaptive iPad.

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Opioid deaths are down 25 percent in states where medical marijuana is legal. On July 1, it will be legally available to many more Minnesotans, if doctors and patients are willing to pursue it.

Last December, the Star Tribune reported that in Minnesota deaths from prescription and illegal opioids had risen sixfold since 2000, with 317 lives claimed in 2014 alone. Chronic pain doesn't discriminate - prescription opiates and heroin both metabolize to morphine in our bodies. Rich, poor, unknown or superstar: All are vulnerable to these risks when escalating doses of prescription opiate medication are their bridge to temporary relief.

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First Seeds Are Being Planted Since the 1950s.

For the first time in generations, Minnesota farmers are planting hemp.

"We're the first ones putting seeds in the ground since the 1950s," said Ken Anderson, watching as a bottle-blue tractor trundled across a field near Hastings on a sunny Friday afternoon. The 8.5-acre tract is the first of at least half a dozen hemp fields to be cultivated this summer under the Minnesota Department of Agriculture's new industrial hemp pilot project.

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Nearly all - 90 percent - cite benefit and expense.

Patients enrolled in Minnesota's medical marijuana program say the treatment helps - if they can afford it.

Almost all the patients and health care providers who responded to a new Minnesota Department of Health survey reported that medical cannabis offered mild to substantial relief, and few side effects, for every illness currently allowed in the program. The survey comes as the program approaches its first anniversary struggling with sluggish enrollment, skeptical doctors, high prices and few clinics.

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Vireo, The Parent Company Of Minnesota Medical Solutions, Denied The Accusations Saying The Missing Cannabis Oils Were Destroyed.

Accusations made by a former employee that a Minnesota-based medical marijuana company illegally transported cannabis oil out of state prompted an investigation and audit by local authorities.

The employee said that at least $500,000 worth of cannabis oil (or about 370 grams) was sent from Minnesota Medical Solutions's Otsego growing facility to their parent company's New York location in order to meet that state's production deadline, according to a search warrant filed on May 26 in Hennepin County.

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Minnesota Company Is Petitioning Search Engine Giant to Accept Ads.

Thousands of people have signed a Minnesota company's petition to Google, asking the search engine to accept online ads for medical marijuana.

Minnesota-based Vireo Health has been trying for months to get Google to accept ads for a string of clinics it operates in New York. But Google rejected each ad, citing its policy against promoting "dangerous products or services."

So Vireo - the parent company of Minnesota Medical Solutions, one of this state's two designated medical cannabis retailers - circulated a petition on Change. org, asking the company to reconsider. As of Friday afternoon, the petition had more than 13,000 signatures from across the country.

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It Will Be State's Fourth Dispensary; Four More Must Open by July 1.

The city of Bloomington, which once issued a one-year moratorium on medical marijuana, has opened its doors to the state's next dispensary.

The City Council this week approved plans to open a medical cannabis care center by midsummer. The unanimous vote came after the city spent a year watching how Minnesota's fledgling medical marijuana program was working in other communities.

"When they said they put in the moratorium to study the issue, that is indeed what they were doing," said Dr. Kyle Kingsley, CEO of Minnesota Medical Solutions, one of the state's two medical cannabis contractors.

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I'd like to point out some inaccuracies in the April 23 article "Marijuana wax is a rising concern." In the states that have legalized marijuana, what we haven't seen is an increase in crime. We haven't seen an increase in death. We haven't seen any real social problems in these states that stem from legalized marijuana.

At the end of the article, Brian Marquardt, statewide gang and drug coordinator for the Department of Public Safety's Office of Justice Programs, states that making marijuana wax is as deadly as smoking it. This is a false statement. While it is true that people can die from explosions from making the wax as mentioned in your article, I don't know of anyone who has ever died directly from ingesting marijuana in any form. It's physically impossible to take as much as you would need to overdose.

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The number of medical marijuana clinics in Minnesota will almost triple in the next few months.

That's by design. In fact, it's mandated by state law.

When Minnesota legalized medical cannabis last year, lawmakers set some of the most restrictive ground rules in the nation. Minnesota would decide who could grow the drug, who could buy it, and in what form it could be sold. The state also strictly limited where medical marijuana can be sold - just eight storefronts, scattered across the state.

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Google Considers Cannabis Dangerous, Unacceptable.

A Minnesota-based medical marijuana company says Google is blocking its attempts to advertise online.

Vireo, the parent company of Minnesota Medical Solutions, tried to take out a series of online ads in New York, where it operates four clinics and is one of several companies chosen by that state to grow and manufacture medical cannabis. Each time, Google rejected the ads, citing its policy against promoting "dangerous products or services."

On Monday, the company expanded its online advertising efforts to include the two Minnesota clinics operated by Minnesota Medical Solutions. Enrollment in Minnesota's medical cannabis program remains relatively low - 1,133 patients since legalization last July. But Vireo announced that it would also attempt to place "Minnesota-targeted Google ads to make it easier for Minnesota patients to learn about using our medicines."

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Narconomics: How to Run a Drug Cartel

Tom Wainwright, PublicAffairs, 278 pages, $26.99.

In "Narconomics," Tom Wainwright of the Economist brings a fine and balanced analytical mind to some very good research, undertaken largely in northern Mexico. By looking at the drug trade as a business, Wainwright is able to reveal much about why it wreaks such havoc in Central and South America. The issue of violence is not a random by-product of gangster culture. It is central to the industry, Wainwright observes, as the only way "to enforce contractual agreements." To control or police a market like drugs, the cartel must be able to wield decisive violence or, at the very least, be able to project a credible threat of violence.

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Officials Ask Public to Identify Dealers, Users As Wave Hits Northern Minn.

A wave of heroin overdose deaths and hospitalizations across northern Minnesota prompted an urgent plea from authorities Wednesday for the public's help in identifying dealers and users in an effort to prevent further tragedies.

Seven people have died and more than a dozen have been hospitalized in the past few weeks after ingesting heroin that in many cases was made even deadlier by the presence of added narcotics such as morphine and fentanyl, authorities said at Wednesday's news conference in Bemidji, Minn.

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