Colorado's top prosecutors and police officials want a two-year moratorium on new marijuana laws to give officers time to catch up. In a letter dated last week and sent to lawmakers, leaders of the state's three main groups of law enforcement officials said local police "cannot keep up with the quantity and speed of constantly changing marijuana law." There have been 81 marijuana-related bills introduced in the Colorado legislature in just the past four years, according to the letter. [continues 145 words]
David A. Kessler, a former director of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, doesn't mince words about assurances from pharmaceutical manufacturers that opioid painkillers wouldn't be addictive. "It has proved to be one of the biggest mistakes in modern medicine," Kessler wrote this week in the New York Times. Opioid use quadrupled between 1999 and 2013, and millions of Americans are now hooked on Percocet, Vicodin and other brand-name versions of oxycodone, codeine, hydrocodone and fentanyl. Some 20,000 die each year from opioid overdoses, possibly including the entertainer Prince, who was found dead in an elevator in his Minnesota home on April 21. [continues 444 words]
A school district board in El Paso County approved Thursday a policy to allow therapeutic marijuana products at its schools. The District 49 Board of Education, in Peyton, unanimously, in a five-to-zero vote, approved the "Compassionate Administration of Therapeutic Cannabinoid Products on District Property" policy, the district announced in a media release. The policy, known as "Jaxs' policy," was approved as part of a regularly scheduled monthly meeting and is the first of its kind in the state, according to the district. [continues 286 words]
BRIDGEPORT, W.Va. - The doctors wanted to talk about illness, but the patients - often miners, waitresses, tree cutters and others whose jobs were punishingly physical - wanted to talk only about how much they hurt. They kept pleading for opioids like Vicodin and Percocet, the potent drugs that can help chronic pain, but that have fueled an epidemic of addiction and deadly overdoses. "We needed to talk about congestive heart failure or diabetes or out-of-control hypertension," said Dr. Sarah Chouinard, the chief medical officer at Community Care of West Virginia, which runs primary care clinics across a big rural chunk of this state. "But we struggled over the course of a visit to get patients to focus on any of those." [continues 1597 words]
WASHINGTON (AP) - Motorists are being convicted of driving under the influence of marijuana based on arbitrary state standards that have no connection to whether the driver was actually impaired, says a study by the nation's largest auto club. The problem is only growing as more states contemplate legalizing the drug. At least three, and possibly as many as 11 states, will vote this fall on ballot measures to legalize marijuana for medicinal or recreational use, or both. Legislation to legalize the drug has also been introduced in a half dozen states. [continues 712 words]
You might not like President Obama's political philosophy or leadership style, but you have to admit that he is one cool president. If you're unconvinced, consider his speech at the White House Correspondents' Dinner on April 30. His poise and charm were on full display, and his comedic timing was impeccable. Still, his best joke made me cringe a little: He said that his popularity rating had been rising. In fact, he said, "The last time I was this high, I was trying to decide on my major." [continues 614 words]
Lansing - An increasingly long-shot effort to put a marijuana legalization measure on Michigan's 2016 ballot suffered another setback Thursday, when the Board of State Canvassers deadlocked on a policy revision for proving the validity of old signatures. The two Republicans and two Democrats on the board were at odds over state Bureau of Elections recommendations that would have updated and eased the state policy for "rebutting" and rehabilitating signatures collected outside a traditional 180-day collection window. The proposed updates stalled in a series of 2-2 votes. [continues 633 words]
BENEFACTOR OPTIMISTIC ON AMEND. 2 For the second time in two years, Florida voters will be presented with a proposed constitutional amendment to legalize marijuana for medical purposes. United for Care, which backed Amendment 2 in 2014, is also backing the 2016 measure, also known as Amendment 2. Campaign chairman John Morgan has invested millions of dollars in both efforts. We discussed the issue with Morgan, campaign manager Ben Pollara and Flagler County Sheriff Jim Manfre. An excerpt of Morgan's responses follows. A video of the full interview is at OrlandoSentinel.com/opinion. [continues 556 words]
