Washington, U.S.A. – The National Cannabis Industry Association (NCIA), in conjunction with the Women’s CannaBusiness Network, a project it launched earlier this year, today called on President Obama to cease enforcement actions against state-legal medical cannabis providers while the administration reviews its policies to determine whether they are in the public interest. Respected industry businesswomen defended their work and powerfully expressed their frustration with the administration’s crackdown.

“The women here today are compassionate and courageous leaders,” said Jill Lamoureaux, owner of Colorado Dispensary Services. ”They are pioneers in alternative medicine. They are job creators and tax revenue generators. They are hear to bring awareness to the Obama administration’s reversal on medical marijuana policy and to ask that the Justice Department immediately stop shutting down state-legal businesses that are serving patients, creating jobs and generating tax revenues.”

Jen Reynolds, a mother of four who will lose her job on Monday because of the actions of the U.S. attorney in Colorado, urged the President to think about the people whom are being affected.

“This is not about ‘marijuana dealers,’” Reynolds said. “This is about medical cannabis patients having a safe and regulated environment in which to purchase their medicine. It is about employees like me, who had the amazing opportunity to help patients alleviate their suffering, while earning a living wage. My center should have been a model for others to follow, not a target for federal action.”

NCIA also released a report entitled, “The Colorado Cannabis Industry: A Tale of Ten Cities,” which details the sales and tax revenues generated by medical marijuana centers in ten Colorado cities.

“The ten cities included in the report alone generated close to $10 million in state and local sales taxes in 2011,” explained Aaron Smith, NCIA executive director. “This money is being used to improve government services in these areas, which is one more benefit of a regulated medical cannabis industry.”

The report is available here: http://thecannabisindustry.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/CO_TaleofTenCities.pdf

The mission of the National Cannabis Industry Association is to defend, promote and advance the interests of the cannabis industry and its members. For more information, please visit www.TheCannabisIndustry.org.

Image Courtesy of   littleny / Shutterstock.com

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New York Governor Andrew Cuomo has announced his support for legalizing small amounts of marijuana. This decision comes only two months after he denied legalizing medical marijuana. His reasoning is not because he has changed his opinion about the drug itself but because he believes one of the biggest problems for police and prosecutors is that the laws are inconsistent and police officers are wasting their time arresting people for small amounts of cannabis. The greatest challenge in creating and passing this legislation will be the Republican majority in the New York Senate.

Beginning in 1977 the New York law stated that carrying twenty-five grams or less of marijuana is not a violation as long as the individual is a first-time offender. However, having the drug out in public is still a crime, including if it is removed from a pocket during a police search. By decriminalizing small amounts individuals will be able to possess these amounts, even if they are searched by the police. The maximum penalty would be a $100 fine.

In 2011 there were 50,000 arrests made in New York for twenty-five grams or less of marijuana. According to Cuomo this is costly for the taxpayer. Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. also points out that there is a great human cost too. “The human costs to each defendant charged with a misdemeanor are serious. The simple and fair change proposed by Governor Cuomo will help us redirect significant resources to the most violent criminals and serious crime problems, and, frankly, it is the right thing to do.”

The change in policy on marijuana will also alleviate some of the charges that New York’s laws are racially prejudiced. Eighty-two percent of those arrested in 2011 for small amounts of marijuana were black or Hispanic. Many believe that this statistic demonstrates how the current marijuana policy in tandem with the New York ‘stop-and-frisk’ law are racially biased and demonstrates that police are racially profiling individuals.

New York City prosecutors and the Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly support Cuomo’s declaration. Cuomo’s proposal is very similar to a directive Mayor Bloomberg has given to the New York Police Department.

Other states are also attempting to change their policies on marijuana. Colorado will have legalization as a ballot initiative in November. Rhode Island will be discussing a bill similar to that suggested by Cuomo. The main difference between what Cuomo has proposed and what Rhode Island will try to pass is that Rhode Island would require minors found in possession of the drug to complete a drug awareness program and community service.

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The U.S. federal government ruled last week that marijuana has no accepted medical use, despite the growing body of evidence suggesting otherwise. Proponents of medical marijuana have advocated for nine years that the drug be declassified. Instead, the D.E.A. decided to leave marijuana in the same class as heroin, classifying marijuana as a “highly dangerous drug.”

This is the third time that the federal government has rejected appeals to reclassify marijuana. The first was filed in 1972 and denied 17 years later. The second was filed in 1995 and denied in 2001. Both decisions were appealed, but the courts sided with the federal government.

Worldwide research has suggested that marijuana has a number of medical uses, including treating devastating diseases like multiple sclerosis. Research has suggested that marijuana also helps ease symptoms of chemotherapy. Advocates for marijuana were critical of the ruling. However, they were pleased that the Obama administration has finally acted, allowing them to appeal to the federal courts.

The FDA’s decision came less than two months after advocates asked the U.S. Court of Appeals to force the administration to respond to their petition.”We have foiled the government’s strategy of delay, and we can now go head-to-head on the merits,” said Joe Elford, the chief counsel for Americans for Safe Access and the lead attorney on the lawsuit.

Elford and other proponents were not surprised by the decision. “It is clearly motivated by a political decision that is anti-marijuana,” he said.

In a June 21 letter to the organizations that filed the petition, DEA Administrator Michele M. Leonhart said she rejected the request because marijuana “has a high potential for abuse,” “has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States” and “lacks accepted safety for use under medical supervision.” The letter and 37 pages of supporting documents were published Friday in the Federal Register.

The Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis filed its petition in October 2002. In 2004, the DEA asked the Department of Health and Human Services to review the science. The department recommended in 2006 that marijuana remain classified as a dangerous drug. Four and a half years then elapsed before the current administration issued a final denial.

“The regulatory process is just a time-consuming one that usually takes years to go through,” said Barbara Carreno, a spokeswoman for the Drug Enforcement Administration.

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The legalization to consume some drugs in Argentina has generated a great polemic in the country. The Government had to firmly state that: “ There will never be free drugs in Buenos Aires”. The executive of Cristina Fernandez announced to propose a legal change, where the consumer would not be consider a delinquent.

This type of regulations  are really interesting taking in consideration that South America is a continent where the production of drugs is very wide, and it is controlled and handle illegally.

The Argentinean authorities considered that this policy has failed due to the fact that it will equate “the addict with the trafficker”, these were the words that yesterday the Minister of Justice, Aníbal Fernández said. He claimed that it is more important to bring medical attendance to the consumers and chase drug trafficking, rather than expend the State resources into penal processes against the drug addicts.

This is remarkable change of posture for Argentina, since the 1989 ONU convention, it was always possitionated towards the persecusion of drug consume.

The Government’s announcement has generated divisions of opinions among the partidarians that focus on attacking the problem with a  similar angle as some Euroepan countries, such as Spain. Against the others that advert that the measure will provoke the opposite effect, than the one expected.

This is the first time that this kind of drug regulations are being discuss in South America. If we take in consideration the posibility to legalize drugs in South America, rather than having them situated in the black market, and controlled by delincuents, and guerrilleros such as the As Farc in Colombia. It is good to look at the other side of the coin, where offering control and regulation many of this groups would dissolve and the drug consumption would be controlled  in a legal way.

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A new longitudinal study, published on March 1 in BMJ,  suggests that early use of marijuana may trigger psychotic symptoms and prolonged use could increase the risk for psychotic disorders in later life.  There has been a well documented correlation between marijuana use and psychosis; it has been unclear if smoking marijuana preceded psychotic symptoms.

“There are indications that especially people who start using cannabis at an early age (<16 years) are likely to become chronic users and thereby increase their risk for mental health problems, such as psychotic symptoms,” Rebecca Kuepper, research psychologist and PhD student at Maastricht University in the Netherlands said.

This study was uniquely designed to look specifically at the sequential association between incident cannabis use and incident psychotic symptoms.  For 10 years, the researchers tracked 1,923 individuals from the general population of Germany, aged 14 to 24 years at baseline, who had no history of psychotic symptoms or cannabis use at the beginning of the study.  They found that those who started smoking cannabis during the study had nearly twice the chance of reporting psychotic symptoms during follow-up as those who remained cannabis free.  This was true even after accounting for potentially confounding factors, such as age, sex, socioeconomic status, use of other drugs, and other psychiatric diagnoses.  In addition, cannabis users who reported psychotic symptoms and continued to use cannabis were more apt to have their symptoms linger than those who stopped smoking it. The continued use of marijuana increased the risk for psychotic symptoms more than two-fold.

These results suggest that incident cannabis use increases the risk for the onset of psychotic symptoms “and, if used continuously, increases the risk that those symptoms will persist,” Ms. Kuepper said.  Wayne Hall, PhD, of University of Queensland, Australia, and coauthor of a linked commentary, stated that the pattern of results “makes it unlikely that cannabis use is a form of self-medication of psychotic symptoms and more likely to be a contributory cause of psychotic symptoms.” In the study, psychotic experiences did not predict later cannabis use. Given the current findings and those of earlier studies, “it is likely that cannabis use precipitates schizophrenia in people who are vulnerable because of a personal or family history of schizophrenia,” Dr. Hall and Dr. Louisa Degenhardt, co-authors of the commentary, note.

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