(AP) – 2 hours ago

DENVER — Colorado lawmakers trying to regulate marijuana dispensaries are asking the U.S. attorney general to stop raids of medical marijuana operations.

The group e-mailed the request to Eric Holder on Monday, following up on a letter sent last week.

The lawmakers say the raids are discouraging dispensary operators and medical marijuana patients and growers from working with them on proposed regulations.

The letter was sent by Sens. Chris Romer and Nancy Spence and Reps. Tom Massey and Beth McCann.

A suburban Denver man has been charged with possession in federal court after agents raided his home and found 224 pot plants. Agents have also raided two laboratories that test medical marijuana after their owners applied for drug licenses.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Medical Marijuana’s Lost Man: Bryan Epis

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By ROBERT JABLON (AP) – 1 day ago

LOS ANGELES — A lawsuit filed Tuesday challenges Los Angeles' crackdown on medical marijuana dispensaries, claiming it would force nearly all of them to close.

The suit by the nation's largest medical marijuana advocacy group accuses the city of violating the state constitutional rights of pot clinic operators and claims the city ordinance "deprives the seriously ill of the medicine promised them by the electorate and the Legislature of California."

It wants a judge to permanently prevent the new law from being enforced and to award damages.

City attorney's spokesman Frank Mateljan had no immediate comment.

California voters passed a law in 1996 that legalized marijuana use for medical reasons, but it didn't say anything about distribution. So some cities have permitted dispensaries to flourish while others, such as Costa Mesa and Fresno, have effectively banned them and arrested owners.

Los Angeles has been struggling for years with the issue of controlling dispensaries. The ordinance that the mayor signed last month caps the number of dispensaries in the city at 70.

City officials have estimated there could be as many as 1,000 outlets in the city and that some sell pot as a business. Last month, the city filed lawsuits and eviction notices against 21 dispensaries and arrested one owner.

The lawsuit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles County Superior Court claims the pot ordinance is unreasonable. It says dispensaries have only seven days after the measure takes effect March 14 to find a new location if they are within 1,0000 feet of schools, churches, parks or other "sensitive areas." The ordinance also bars dispensaries from locating near homes and apartment buildings.

The city, however, failed to create maps of approved locations before the ordinance was passed despite two years of work on the regulations, the suit said.

The measure violates due process and will force "the vast majority" of medical marijuana collectives to close, the suit contends.

The suit was filed by two dispensaries, Venice Beach Care Center and PureLife Alternative Wellness Center, and their operators, who claim they have been unable to find new locations. It also was filed by Oakland-based Americans for Free Access, a nonprofit that has more than 30,000 members in more than 40 states.

The Obama administration announced last year that people complying with state marijuana laws would not face federal arrest. But they are subject to local laws.

Copyright © 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

David Bearman: Strong Families Our Best Defense Against Drug Abuse

By David Bearman, M.D. | Published on 03.02.2010

There is an old cliché that says if you ask the wrong question, you’ll get the wrong answer. When it comes to substance abuse, the question is not, how do we stop the supply? We’ve tried for 100 years. We can’t, and the costs are too dear. The question is, how do we decrease demand?

Railing about the presence or absence of dispensaries that supply medicine to the ill and infirm does nothing toward effecting a decrease in demand motivation.

Santa Barbara City Councilman Frank Hotchkiss had it correct when he observed at a recent Ordinance Committee meeting that the presence or absence of dispensaries has little or no relevance to teenage substance abuse.

This position is supported by the work of Mitch Earleywine, Ph.D., of State University of New York, Albany & Karen O’Keefe, Esq., who rebutted this allegation in their September 2005 article “Marijuana Use by Young People: The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Laws.”

They wrote: “While it is not possible with existing data to determine conclusively that state medical marijuana laws caused the documented declines in adolescent marijuana use, the overwhelming downward trend strongly suggests that the effect of state medical marijuana laws on teen marijuana use has been either neutral or positive, discouraging youthful experimentation with the drug.”

In an effort to pass the blame rather than solve the problem, we have overlooked the obvious solution to continuing to decrease substance abuse: raising a child who feels loved in a nurturing, safe home and community environment. Numerous studies bear this out.

Dr. Ira Chesnoff’s work in Chicago with mothers with a history of cocaine abuse during pregnancy revealed that their children did well when the family was provided a comprehensive program of services, including drug abuse treatment, Head Start, parenting skills, counseling and good nutrition. Chesnoff found that these children of former cocaine-abusing mothers, who had experienced this comprehensive intervention, on entering first grade had an IQ that was higher than children of the prenatal noncocaine-using moms.

When I was medical director of the Santa Barbara Regional Health Authority (now CenCal Health), we received a grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to develop a program to stop the cycle of dependency created by dual diagnosis. We came to a similar conclusion as Chesnoff, that dysfunctional families play an important role in the social dynamics of substance abuse. We recognized that comprehensive services to at-risk populations were necessary to reduce the substance abuse risk in those populations.

So, parenting skills, couples communication and relationships based on reality — not fairy tales — should be emphasized as a more realistic and effective approach to substance abuse prevention and early intervention than a strict prohibitionist, law-and-order effort. The criminal justice system should be used rarely, such as when the use of drugs contributes to behavior that is a clear danger to others (e.g., DUI, domestic violence, child abuse, mayhem or murder).

Harvard University economist Robert Barro wrote of the damage caused by our drug policies in his paper “Getting It Right: Markets and Choices in a Free Society.”

“The experience with drug enforcement shows that prohibition of recreational drugs drives up prices, stimulates illegal activity, has only a moderate negative effect on consumption, and imposes unacceptable costs in terms of high crime, expansion of prison populations and deterioration of relation with the foreign countries that supply the outlawed products,” he said.

We should learn from our approach to alcohol and tobacco and focus the lion’s share of our efforts to help people use recreational drugs in moderation or not at all. Our approach should have a family focus and be supportive, primarily educational and medical.

Some years ago, under former Santa Barbara County Superintendent of Schools Lorenzo Dall Armi, I served as a consultant to a program on substance abuse prevention and intervention. The program created teams that included a parent, student, teacher, administrator and counselor at nearly every school in the county. The focus was on developing self-esteem, accepting and managing personnel responsibility, and teaching decision-making skills. This skill-building approach is very compatible with our educational goal of having an intelligent, responsible citizenry able to think through issues and make sound decisions based on science and solid analysis.

Christopher Farrell, in a Feb. 28, 2005, Business Week article titled “How Is the Return on That Investment?” asks what has been the return on the investment in our drug policy. His answer: “Abysmal.”

He points out that “the demand for illegal marijuana, cocaine and heroin remains strong. Drug lords and their cartels terrorize nations and local communities. Crime and corruption derived from the illegal drug trade flourish. U.S. prisons are crowded with drug-law offenders — more than 54 percent of federal prisoners sentenced in 2004 were sent away for breaking drug laws.”

Farrell suggests that “a shift in focus would free up scarce government resources at a time when the twin demands of an aging population and the war on terror are putting stress on the fiscal purse.”

Until we spend more time and money on promoting family values, teaching acceptable parenting techniques, creating an economy that allows parent and children quality time, addresses anger management and early intervention to prevent family violence, while recognizing the role of genetics and the contribution of dysfunctional families to ADHD, PTSD, OCD and bipolar disorder, we will continue on what has become a more and more destructive and ineffectual drug policy path.

By changing the drug policy paradigm from crime and punishment to medicine, prevention and treatment, we can reduce the level of hysteria on this topic, have stronger families, repair the Constitution and actually help people. This approach could also help decrease the rancor, anger and confrontation in this country being fostered by the forces of demonization of drugs and people who use them.

— Dr. David Bearman has nearly 40 years of experience working in substance and drug abuse treatment and prevention programs.

Today The Honorable Judge Claudia Wilken signed an order allowing for me to use Marinol during my stay of community confinement. This is a great common sense decision, as patients using this medication should not be disallowed to because of arbitrary standards based on testing. It is an FDA approved medication and if my doctor and I feel this is the best medicine for the shooting pains in both my legs that keep me up at night then it should not be denied by the Bureau of prisons. That is interfering with a medical necessity and borders on cruel punishment. Below is the order:

I have made it throught the first month of my confinement. While it has not been an easy experience, it has been enlightening. I continue to learn and explore places and things I otherwise would not. I understand the challenge that lies a head and know that when this is all said and done I will be a bigger a better person for it. I am not sure what the purpose of this lesson is just yet, or what fate has in store for the rest of my year, but I can assure you it will be an interesting journey. I spent much of the first month disappointed and angry. I have come to accept my place and not let the confusion of the past or the longing for the future to hold me back. Life is too short to let a little stay in a Halfway House get me down. I have been able to take some time to reflect and look for insights and beauty in the world around me. I have also been able to see more clearly the pain and suffering of many. I am not clear on how this is affecting me at the core. I know that I must work harder in life to be able to do my part to lift up those in need. Many times we forget the real struggle as we sit in our comfort zones away from the pain and misery of the mean streets. Peering through the looking glass at a world I have not visited in many moons has renewed my sense of self and given me the desire to do more to help those in need. How that will manifest in to real life is yet to be seen. For now, I will be a thoughtful observer and help educate those I come in contact with on a more full and prosperous existence.

Many thanks to the BPG crew for sponsoring my family in our greatest time of need. We honor your commitment and thank you for your support. Below is the plaque we have given you to memorialize your contribution:

If your collective or organization would like to sponsor a month please contact 888-824-6863  or email compassionfamily@gmail.com for  more details. With your help we will weather the storm of injustice.

I have received a great deal of mail from supporters all over. It is inspiring and wonderful and I just wanted to say thank you. Many have come from folks at Harborside Health Center and their activist center there. It is great. I read them every night. It is hard for me to write back to everyone, but if you want to be contacted and updated, please include an email in your correspondence, I will try to send out weekly updates and get back to those individuals when and where I can.

To write to me, send letters to:

Mickey Martin

111 Taylor Street

San Francisco, CA 94102

Also thanks to Logan Berrian for dropping off a book for me to read. it has been most helpful and much appreciated. 

Often I am surprised that more people do not keep it real in this movement. That people tread so lightly and fail to express in public what so many say in private. The whispers and silence are deafening. We fail to learn when we fail to express ourselves, for better or for worse. So let us lay it out there.

1. There are a lot of people (and organizations) in this movement that simply suck. As people, as activists, as human beings. Do not get me wrong. This movement is filled with many great people as well. Somehow we have made it over the hump and we have found ways to overcome great odds to create real social change. But lets face it. Those who suck make it bad for everyone else. Those who choose to strap on the old ego cap and act like thy are better than everyone make it difficult to defend their actions. Many people in positions to make a real difference simply do not because it is inconvenient or they have their own self interests in mind. They use any opportunity to forward their own cause, even if it means putting everyone around them down to do so. In the meantime they forget how they got to where they are or the struggles of those that have made it possible for them to even exist.

2. Non-Profit is an evolving term. It seems easy enough and something that should be more defined, but in all reality there are very few organizations that can justify their revenues and many choose to line their pockets rather than contribute to the community. I think that people should be able to make a lot of money. I think the non-profit factor is bullshit. But those are the rules we play by in this day and age and the fact is that many have no intention of contributing anything to anyone ever. Creative accounting at its best.

3. Our biggest downfall is our failure to adapt and change. Sure. There are many things different now than there were 10 years ago. But many of the issues that people have with our movement. The laziness. the unprofessionalism. The inability to work together. The lack of oversight. The unwillingness to confront those that do dumb shit. The lack of seriousness. The failure to hold the "leaders" of this movement accountable. The romancing and fantasizing. The simple lack of reality. The short attention span. And the selfishness. None of these ever change. There are the same dumb arguments, the same dumb behaviors, and the same nonchalant attitudes now as there were when I made my first stupid candy bar. I have often marveled that we have made it this far with so many ill conceived plans and flawed execution at so many levels.  

4. Compassion is a buzzword. Not that there have not been some extremely compassionate acts done by this community over the years. There have. But could we be doing more? Yes. My recent experiences living in the Tenderloin have brought a harsh reality just inches away from my doorstep. There are a lot of people in dire need and that are truly suffering in this community. We, as a community have so much, but for one reason or another fail to understand the needs of those that are in such peril and distress. Do we even really take the time to understand the pain of another? Sometimes, I suppose we do, but often compassion is just a word used in the law that allows cannabis businesses to operate.

5. This movement is made up of several smaller movements. There are little tribes of people in this movement that interact and there are followers and leaders of these tribes. Some work against each other. Others just work for themselves. often they do not really work at all. Unity is a far stretch on most days and their are many feelings of resentment and frustration that are harbored and never really addressed. These fractions of a movement are counterproductive and often leave us working twice as hard, as we fight the opposition as well as one another. It is almost like cliques in high school.

Those are just some simple thoughts. A rant of sorts you may say. Obviously none are applicable to any or all situations. None are the end all, nor are they biblical by any means. They are just some simple observations from a person in the movement who is often alienated because of his opinionated and passionate dialogue. Often I do not know where I fit in, or if I fit in at all. Nor do I know if I really want to. I have made it this far I suppose, so why turn back now, eh? I am honored to be a part of this movement. I have worked hard to advance this cause and do not plan on giving up anytime soon. May people have come before me and many will come after. Cannabis is a beautiful thing. It has brought me to worlds and people I would have never otherwise known. But it can also be a source of controversy and division. I sometimes feel like I am talking to myself on this list or elsewhere, and that is okay too I suppose. I think there is a voice of reason in
all of us. I think many fail to express that because of fear of backlash or exposure. Maybe I should have more of those fears. Maybe I should just shut up sometimes. Maybe I am nuts. Who knows? Be well out there and find your voice. I would love to hear from you every once in a while.