Big Tobacco takes a disproportionate toll on the working class and the poor, but thrives on an image of upscale glamour. Expect more of the same from Big Marijuana.

Media have glamorized the drug since Colorado legalized it for recreational use, but a new story by Politico highlights what seems obvious to anyone in Colorado's most economically challenged neighborhoods. The headline sums it up: "The Marijuana Industry's War on the Poor: Denver's booming pot industry may be trendy, but it's giving poorer neighborhoods a headache."

[continues 465 words]

Throughout Baltimore, citizens' faith in our public institutions has been badly shaken.

Last year saw the most murders per capita on record. Scandals have hobbled our housing and police departments. The recent election resulted in "widespread irregularities." Full agency audits have proven elusive amid continual delays.

Our Affordable Housing Trust Fund is broke.

Over a year after Freddie Gray's untimely death, we have not fully addressed any of the inequities that haunted his short life

Yet there are glimmers of hope. Throughout the city, citizens are digging in, reinvesting, rebuilding community and creating new opportunities. In the most recent election, voters were energized and turned out in unprecedented numbers.

[continues 477 words]

Maryland U.S. Attorney Rod Rosenstein is right to "Thank a Cop" in honor of National Police Week. Good police work is essential to a fair and effective criminal justice system.

However, Mr. Rosenstein is wrong to imply that his office's occasional prosecution of corrupt police officers, usually for theft and fraud offenses, means that we have been vigilant enough in policing law enforcement.

Much has changed since 1962, when National Police Week was created. Most significantly, the mass incarceration of racial and ethnic minorities, primarily for drug offenses, has shaken our community's faith in the fairness of the criminal justice system.

[continues 306 words]

Maryland's state medical marijuana commission delivered a blow to marijuana advocates and would-be entrepreneurs last week by abruptly capping the number of businesses that can process marijuana into pills, oils and other products.

The commission also gave conflicting information about when the first long-awaited growing licenses would be issued, with Executive Director Patrick Jameson first saying it would be late summer or early fall, then stating that licenses would come "weeks" after the evaluations of the applications are completed in early July.

[continues 201 words]

MD. Still Hasn't Issued Licenses

Panel Limits Processors of Medical Marijuana

Maryland's state medical marijuana commission delivered a blow to marijuana advocates and would-be entrepreneurs last week by abruptly capping the number of businesses that can process marijuana into pills, oils and other products.

The commission also gave conflicting information about when the first long-awaited growing licenses would be issued, with Executive Director Patrick Jameson first saying it would be late summer or early fall, then stating that licenses would come "weeks" after the evaluations of the applications are completed in early July.

[continues 890 words]

Maryland's state medical marijuana commission delivered a blow to marijuana advocates and would-be entrepreneurs last week by abruptly capping the number of businesses that can process marijuana into pills, oils and other products.

The commission also gave conflicting information about when the first long-awaited growing licenses would be issued, with executive director Patrick Jameson first saying it would be late summer or early fall, then stating that licenses would come "weeks" after the evaluations of the applications are completed in early July.

[continues 900 words]

Baltimore Ravens player Eugene Monroe wants to be able to smoke pot.

The offensive tackle is waging a campaign to get the National Football League to drop its ban on players using marijuana. He argues that chronic pain associated with the sport has driven many players to use strong prescription painkillers to which they have then become addicted.

"I've sustained many injuries in my career, most of which were paired with a prescription opioid. As a football player, I know that I signed up to play one of the most physically demanding sports on the planet; and yes, I love this game," Moore said on his website. "However, we aren't warned that the inherent physicality of the game could coincide with life-threatening treatment options."

[continues 253 words]

Would the cultivation of medical marijuana in our community bring additional crime to Frederick County? Some who stand against cultivation of medical marijuana in our county believe so. With all the rhetoric we have been exposed to for these many years during the unsuccessful prosecution of the war on drugs, and the fear-mongering tactics employed by some, it is understandable that people might have concerns over the possibility of more crime.

As for the assertion by those who say the cultivation of medical marijuana would attract crime to a community like ours, there is significant credible evidence to disabuse us of that notion. Reliable information that has been gathered since the legalization of medical marijuana, as well as the legalization of marijuana for recreational use, suggests that fears of additional crime are unfounded.

[continues 550 words]

History will remember April 2015 as a time of rebirth for Baltimore and for our nation

It has been nearly one year since I spoke at Freddie Gray's funeral - and since our city found itself in the throes of unrest. During the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with many people who are dedicated to securing a better future for our city and our nation. Yet, at this one-year mark, we are still seeking the answers to the question that I asked when facing the cameras in the pews at New Shiloh Baptist Church. Freddie Gray, who died from injuries sustained in the back of a Baltimore police van, is shown here in an undated family picture. We all know his name in death, but did we truly see him when he was alive?

[continues 767 words]

The great awakening to the social problems wrought by the long war on drugs and America's epoch of mass incarceration now informs almost every discussion of the state of the union and its future. It's kind of shocking.

In a time of hyper-partisanship, I hear Americans from a range of ideologies acknowledge a history of institutional prejudices and misguided policies: Treating drug addiction as a crime and not a condition, ignoring the toxic side effects of zero-tolerance policing in Baltimore and other cities, curtailing efforts to rehabilitate inmates (taking corrections out of corrections), treating juvenile offenders as adults.

[continues 743 words]

Byron Lamont McDade had a powerful advocate in his corner. The judge who sent him away for more than two decades for his role in a Washington-area drug ring personally pleaded McDade's case for early release.

On Wednesday, President Obama responded, and McDade is heading home to Maryland this summer - eight years before his prison term was to expire.

"He's already served too long," U.S. District Judge Paul L. Friedman said after learning that McDade was among the 61 inmates granted relief by the president as part of the administration's effort to roll back sentences from the nation's war on drugs.

[continues 665 words]

A sweeping criminal justice bill that cleared the Maryland Senate last week is supposed to right some of the wrongs of the decades-long war on drugs.

The legislation aims to reduce Maryland's prison population and save hundreds of millions of dollars on prison costs by easing sentencing laws for nonviolent drug offenders and pushing people who are arrested with drugs into treatment instead of behind bars.

But the bill was almost derailed last week after the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee amended the measure, arguing that it went too far in keeping offenders out of jail and could pose a risk to public safety. Now the bill heads to the more liberal House of Delegates, where an emotional debate is expected this week.

[continues 1108 words]

It's a Monday night in a Baltimore emergency room. An unkempt, middle-aged man is complaining of wrist pain. "I came in a week ago," he says. "I broke my right wrist." Records indicate it was actually two days ago. Now his left wrist hurts too, he complains, and he's out of pain meds. In 48 hours, he has evidently consumed his entire prescription of 30 Oxycodone.

Behind him, more Baltimoreans are in pain. "It's my knee," claims the next man. "It's been hurting for years, but it's been worse the last few months." An obese woman has arrived following a motor vehicle accident. "Well, actually, the car was parked," she explains. "Another car bumped into my car in the parking lot." She says her neck pain is a 14 out of 10. Another patient has a chronic back injury. He's out of meds, and he can't wait until Friday, when his refill is due. These are considered "emergencies."

[continues 582 words]

Ravens left tackle Eugene Monroe has missed nearly half the team's games over the past two seasons, battling knee and ankle injuries in 2014, the concussion he sustained in the opening game of 2015 and the shoulder injury that ended his season.

To deal with the pain, the seven-year veteran would like to use medical marijuana, which has been legal in Maryland since 2014.

But because it's on the National Football League's list of banned substances, he would face a suspension if he tried.

[continues 1170 words]

As a representative of the treatment and recovery community in Maryland, I'd like to applaud the recent efforts of both the federal government and state of Maryland in recognizing the value of comprehensive addiction treatment and fighting back against the heroin and opiate epidemic that is still killing people in record numbers. The recent funding announcement, which will bring $1.8 million into the state of Maryland for addiction treatment, was welcome news for both struggling addicts and addiction professionals who have been fighting an uphill battle ("Maryland clinics receive $1.8 million to treat heroin, opioid addicts," March11).

[continues 123 words]

MD. Should Consider (but Not Rush Into) Legalizing 'Safe Injection Sites'

Lawmakers are considering a bill in the General Assembly that only a few years ago would have been thought a dangerously radical proposal: legalizing the creation of so-called "safe injection facilities" where people addicted to heroin and other opioids can consume the drugs under the supervision of medically trained staff without subjecting themselves to criminal penalties.

While the idea of sanctioning illegal drug use still strikes many people as extreme, such programs in fact have proven effective elsewhere, and they're also a logical consequence of a national trend toward treating addiction as an illness rather than as a crime.

[continues 639 words]

Maryland has made many important strides in the fight against opioid addiction, but with 887 people dead in 2014 because of overdose or poisoning and a shocking increase in crime and violence related to drug addiction last year, we need more than a just steps in the right direction. We need to take a leap.

That's why supervised injection facilities (SIFs), like those proposed in a bill sponsored by Del. Dan Morhaim, must be considered. SIFs are places where adult, long-time injection drug users are supervised by clinically trained staff while they consume.

[continues 619 words]

MD. House Backs Broader Certification; Hearing Held on Gun Bills

Maryland would allow midwives, nurses, dentists and foot doctors to certify patients for medical-marijuana use under a bill the state House of Delegates passed Friday.

Current state law restricts such authority to physicians, but the House voted 110 to 21 to extend it to other types of health-care providers.

The legislation, sponsored by Del. Dan K. Morhaim (D-Baltimore County), will now move to the Senate for consideration. The change wouldn't have any immediate practical implications, because the state doesn't expect to have any dispensaries until at least next year.

[continues 587 words]

Changing Views on Enforcement Meet With Praise and Alarm

As the nation debates the war on drugs, Baltimore has already begun to redraw the battle lines.

Baltimore police have shifted the department's strategy to focus more on largescale, violent players in the drug trade and less on addicts committing lesser offenses.

The result on the street: Drug arrests dropped by nearly 50 percent last year, according to a data analysis by The Baltimore Sun. Police didn't just arrest fewer people for marijuana - small amounts of which were decriminalized in 2014 - but for other illicit drugs, including heroin and cocaine, and for crimes ranging from possession to distribution.

[continues 1651 words]

The suspicious activity that led four plainclothes Baltimore police detectives in two unmarked vehicles to surround Jawan Richards' sport utility vehicle on a residential street in Northwest Baltimore late last month was that he wasn't wearing a seat belt, police say in court records.

Richards allegedly put his vehicle in reverse and struck the door of a police vehicle, which struck an officer, according to a summary of the incident written by police. Two of the detectives opened fire, shooting Richards once in the neck.

[continues 272 words]