hMPp://www.npr.org/2014/02/23/280310526/with-support-for-marijuana-concern-over-driving-high-grows




No Easy Answers For DUI Concerns As Marijuana Gains Support



The Lodo Wellness Center in Denver has been selling medical marijuana for several years. But since Jan. 1, when marijuana in Colorado officially moved from underground to behind the counter, the center has also been selling legal, recreational pot.

A majority of Americans now say they support full legalization, and the trend is spreading to other states.

Meanwhile, the public health community is warning of a potential safety problem: more people driving while stoned. But health officials and law enforcement don't yet have the data or the tools to address the concern.

Public Perception

Inside Lodo Wellness Center, shoppers don't seem particularly worried about getting behind the wheel with pot in their systems.

"You could smoke about an ounce and still have your motor skills," says 39-year-old Dante Cox. "When it comes to one shot of alcohol, all that goes out of the window."

Like Cox, several others say it's OK to smoke before driving, and definitely safer than drinking and driving.

For advocates of traffic safety, their words are concerning.

"I think this is the next big issue in highway safety," says Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association. He tells NPR's Arun Rath that there's a prevalent feeling in American culture that marijuana is no big deal.

"Well, it is a big deal if you use it and then get behind the wheel," he says. "We need to have the same cultural intolerance for marijuana use behind the wheel as we do with alcohol."

Alcohol-related crashes still kill around 10,000 people a year, and research clearly shows how drinking alcohol affects driving. The impact of marijuana is much less clear.

The National Institute on Drug Abuse has done extensive research on marijuana's effect on driving ability. The results, senior investigator Marilyn Huestis says, should give smokers pause.

"We have so many processes in our brain that help us to do a complex behavior of driving, and under the effects of marijuana, we just don't perform as well," she says.

Assessing Crash Risk

After using marijuana, Huestis says, people generally have more trouble staying in lanes, they struggle to do multiple tasks at once, and there's a real problem maintaining concentration on long, monotonous drives.

But does that translate into more accidents? Studies of the crash risk associated with marijuana have produced mixed results, says Anne McCartt, senior vice president for research at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety.

"Not only do we not have consensus on the risk associated with the presence of marijuana — we don't have information on the crash risk for different amounts of marijuana," McCartt says. "We don't even have good information on how many drivers involved in fatal crashes test positive for marijuana. So there's a lot we don't know."

McCartt says the evidence so far suggests that alcohol has a stronger effect than marijuana on crash risk, and that there is simply a larger body of research on the strong association between blood-alcohol concentrations and crash risk.

"We've used that science, for example, to enact in all 50 states laws that make it illegal to drive with [blood alcohol contents] of 0.08 percent or higher," she says. "We don't have comparable information on marijuana."

As marijuana use becomes more accepted in the U.S., McCartt says, the public safety issue is concerning. As a researcher, she says, it's frustrating not to have the science needed to craft effective, enforceable laws for drugs, including marijuana.

Testing For Marijuana

Even with laws establishing a specific limit, police might not have a way to enforce them. For alcohol, police around the country carry hand-held breathalyzers. But coming up with a similar test for marijuana is not quite as easy.

For one, the alcohol content of, say, a Budweiser is on the label. But it's much more difficult to know the potency of a wide variety of marijuana products.

Another complication is marijuana's main psychoactive ingredient, THC. It can linger in the body long after the initial high.

"THC is a molecule that really loves human fat, and when you ingest it, it sticks in the fat, and then it slowly seeps out over the course of a week, or a month if you are a heavy user," says Timothy Fong, an addiction psychiatrist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The most reliable test for THC is the blood test. A few states, like Washington and Colorado, have even established a kind of legal limit of marijuana in the blood: 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter.

But performing that test often requires that police drive a suspect to a hospital. And Fong says it's tough to interpret exactly what those tests mean for driving ability.

"Most of the marijuana testing has been done in human laboratories, and there you get a wide variety [of reactions]," he says. "So if you take 100 people and have the same blood level of marijuana, you'll have 100 different reactions."

California, the first state to legalize medical marijuana, recently conducted a roadside study at night, finding around 7 percent of drivers had marijuana in their systems.

Los Angeles is now at the forefront of law enforcement's response. The city has a federal grant to try out a new roadside drug test: oral swabs. City Attorney Mike Feuer calls the technology "the wave of the future."

"This is a technique under which, in the field, at the time of the traffic stop, an officer can test the saliva of the driver and get an immediate result as to whether there are drugs present in his or her system," Feuer says.

Feuer says the admissibility in court of the swabbing hasn't been tested in California but is likely to be tested in the coming months or next year. Legislation regarding the swabs could be down the road as well, he says.

The goal of all of this, Feuer says, is to assure that there is an effective means of determining whether a driver is impaired, not just for prosecution but also to prevent people from driving under the influence in the first place.

"The more commonly known it is that we have a quick and effective technique for determining that, the more I hope people are deterred from getting behind the wheel with drugs or alcohol in their system," he says.

Judgment Vs. Numbers

Advocates in favor of marijuana legalization say they agree that people should know their limits and should not drive while impaired. But they're concerned that police officers will substitute this new technology — and an "arbitrary" legal limit — for their own judgment.

"I think that people want to have a clear-cut, black-and-white solution," says Mason Tvert, the communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, a pro-legalization group. "They want a specific number that we can use to just say that this person is impaired or not. Unfortunately, it's a little more of a gray area than that."

Tvert says simply having a number attached to "impairment" could result in people who are perfectly sober being arrested and charged. He suggests that the law enforcement official's judgment should also come into play.

A bigger concern for Tvert is not the number of pot smokers getting behind the wheel but "excessive and overzealous reporting" on the subject. He does agree, however, that driving under the influence of marijuana is something that needs to be addressed and discouraged.

"We allow adults to use alcohol responsibly, and we punish adults if they use it irresponsibly, and that includes driving while drunk," he says. "We should be doing the same thing with marijuana."

It's in that area that Tvert and Feuer share some common ground.

"I'm optimistic that as the debate around legalization of marijuana continues in this country, there will be no debate ... around the notion that we should be educating the public about the fact that driving while impaired could lead another family to suffer a loss from which they can never recover," Feuer says.

That legalization debate is continuing this year: It's likely that marijuana initiatives will be on the ballot in Alaska and Oregon. As the momentum increases for marijuana legalization, police and lawmakers say they have to respond, even with so much still unknown.

hMPp://www.oregonlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2014/02/marijuana_news_colorado_govern_1.html




Colorado governor warns other states about legalizing pot



Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper told a group of reporters at last week's National Governors Association meeting in Washington, D.C., that he'd been approached by a half-dozen other governors about legalizing marijuana.

Washington Post political reporter Dan Balz reports that Hickenlooper, whose administration last week announced it expects a windfall from marijuana taxes and fees in the coming year, warned his fellow governors about looking to pot as a revenue source.

Arguing that the war on drugs had been a major failure, "a disaster," Hickenlooper said of legalization of marijuana, "This is going to be one of the great social experiments of the 21st century. But going out and getting tax revenue is absolutely the wrong reason to even think about legalizing recreational marijuana."

Marijuana, he said, "doesn't make people smarter, doesn't make people healthier," and puts young people especially at risk. He said the state would use the first $40 million in revenue from the sales of the drug for school construction, but after that the money will be used to study the effects and protect young people who may be harmed by the use of marijuana.

"We're going to not use this as a source of revenue to help education or expanding health care," he said. "We're going to use it in health care where it will relate to marijuana activity … I don't think governors should be the position of promoting things that are inherently not good for people."

A California medical marijuana dispensary is in a showdown with the IRS over a tax penalty designed to target drug traffickers. A Sacramento dispensary, Canna Care, is challenging $873,167 in taxes, The Sacramento Bee's Peter Hecht reports.

On Feb. 24, the U.S. Tax Court in San Francisco is due to hear Canna Care's challenge over whether the IRS can impose the hefty tax demand under a 1982 law intended to close a loophole that allowed a Minneapolis cocaine and methamphetamine dealer to claim tax deductions for a scale, his apartment rent and telephone expenses.

In the case of Canna Care, the IRS has refused to accept $2.6 million in business deductions for employee salaries, rent and other costs after auditing 2006, 2007 and 2008 federal tax returns for the north Sacramento dispensary. However, the IRS did allow the dispensary, which handles about $2 million in medical marijuana transactions a year, to deduct the costs of the marijuana itself.

The IRS has used the Reagan-era tax code, known as 280E, to seek tax penalties against numerous California dispensaries under the argument that their business expenses constitute support of drug-trafficking operations.

And late last week, the Epilepsy Foundation endorsed medical marijuana as a treatment option. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports that leaders of the foundation called the choice to use medical marijuana "a very important, difficult and personal decision that should be made by a patient and family working with their health care team."

“The Epilepsy Foundation supports the rights of patients and families living with seizures to access physician directed care, including medical marijuana,” the group said. “Nothing should stand in the way of patients gaining access to potentially life-saving treatment if a patient and their health care professionals feel that the potential benefits of medical marijuana for uncontrolled epilepsy outweigh the risks.”

hMPp://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/medical-marijuana-dispensary-takes-on-irs-over-what-it-calls-punitive-taxes/2014/02/23/25fa6458-9cd3-11e3-ad71-e03637a299c0_story.html




Medical marijuana dispensary takes on IRS over what it calls ‘punitive’ taxes



SACRAMENTO — The Canna Care dispensary, an evangelical medical marijuana provider renowned for doling out buds with Bibles, is waging a public fight with the Internal Revenue Service over an $873,167 tax penalty sought under a tax code aimed at drug traffickers.

On Tuesday, the U.S. Tax Court in San Francisco is due to hear Canna Care’s challenge over whether the IRS can impose the hefty tax demand under a 1982 law intended to close a loophole that allowed a Minneapolis cocaine and methamphetamine dealer to claim tax deductions for a scale, his apartment rent and telephone expenses.

In the case of Canna Care, the IRS has refused to accept $2.6 million in business deductions for employee salaries, rent and other costs after auditing 2006, 2007 and 2008 federal tax returns for the north Sacramento dispensary. However, the IRS did allow the dispensary, which handles about $2 million in medical marijuana transactions a year, to deduct the costs of the marijuana itself.

The IRS has used the Reagan-era tax code, known as 280E, to seek tax penalties against numerous California dispensaries under the argument that their business expenses constitute support of drug-trafficking operations.

Those targeted have included the state’s largest medical marijuana provider, Harborside Health Center, which is negotiating with the IRS over the government’s demand for $2.5 million in back taxes for Harborside’s Oakland and San Jose dispensaries.

The IRS also played a role in sweeping crackdowns on medical marijuana businesses that California’s four U.S. attorneys initiated in late 2011. IRS agents joined in the raids on the Oaksterdam University marijuana trade school and dispensary of Richard Lee as he was seeking to negotiate his tax debt under the 280E tax code. Lee was the architect of Proposition 19, an unsuccessful 2010 bid to legalize recreational marijuana use in California.

The agency also raided Sacramento’s former El Camino Wellness dispensary and seized its bank accounts under federal money-laundering statutes used to target narcotics traffickers. No charges have resulted in either case.

Canna Care director Lanette Davies said she and her husband, Bryan Davies, the dispensary’s chief executive, had no dispute with the IRS over any of the figures reported in their tax returns. She said the IRS made an offer of $100,000 to settle their tax case. But she said they decided to challenge the demand in court because they considered it a punitive tax against cannabis outlets that other businesses do not pay.

Davies, whose family-run dispensary runs radio ads inviting neighbors and medical marijuana patients for nightly prayer sessions, said the couple will not accept a settlement that calls for paying “a couple extra percent of your gross sales” to the government.

“To me, that’s buying protection money,” she said.

Davies said the dispensary operates as a not-for-profit business under California’s medical marijuana laws and declared a modest business loss on its taxes in 2006. She noted that the IRS allows deductions for the business costs of acquiring marijuana — the one item that is illegal under federal law — but will not let the dispensary claim routine business deductions.

“They don’t accept that I pay my employees well and that I provide them with full dental and medical insurance,” Davies said. “They don’t accept the rent of our place, our liability insurance, our workman’s comp insurance, our phones or our security, a big expense for us.”

The IRS does not comment on tax cases, but according to court papers the agency demanded that Canna Care pay $229,473 in additional income taxes for 2006, $304,090 for 2007 and $339,604 for 2008.

In a petition challenging the IRS finding of tax deficiencies for Canna Care, attorney Spencer Malysiak argued that the agency’s refusal to accept the dispensary’s routine business expenses violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause. The petition argued that the IRS was “tacitly” working to enforce U.S. drug laws against the dispensary even as it allowed Canna Care to deduct its costs of goods, the marijuana.

The IRS action “amounts to a de facto prohibition against medicinal marijuana dispensaries, and is tantamount to a criminal prosecution,” Malysiak wrote in the petition.

Henry Wykowski, a tax attorney who is representing Harborside, said it is common for dispensaries to fight IRS tax claims in court with a goal of minimizing their financial burden. But he said Canna Care stands out by appearing to reject negotiations to reduce its taxes and penalties.

“I would say the big picture is they were offered the settlement, and for whatever reason they decided not to take it,” Wykowski said. “Now they’re set for trial with regards to the [tax] deficiency. I can’t give you any idea of what their chances of success are.”

Wykowski was one of the attorneys involved in a landmark California case in which the IRS tried — and failed — to win a $426,000 judgment for back taxes and penalties against a San Francisco medical marijuana provider, Californians Helping to Alleviate Medical Problems. The 2007 case resulted in a court ruling that the dispensary’s biggest expense — the marijuana — was deductible because U.S. tax law allows businesses to deduct the cost of goods sold.

The tax court also ruled that the dispensary could deduct the majority of its employee costs as care-giving expenses, and the dispensary ended up paying a tax assessment of $4,905.

Davies said that Canna Care employs 12 people, her husband receives an average salary of $100,000 as the CEO, and she is paid $75,000 a year as the director and an advocate on medical marijuana issues. She said other employees make between $30,000 and $40,000, in addition to health benefits. She said the dispensary maintains its not-for-profit status in part by supporting charities, including cancer research and a community Christmas event in Sacramento.


“We’re hoping to bring awareness to this statute and the fact it’s unconstitutional,” she said. “All cannabis businesses in the United States should be treated as legitimate businesses.”

hMPp://www.kmov.com/news/local/Missouri-Gov-Nixon-weighs-in-on-marijuana-legalization-debate-246855201.html




Missouri Gov. Nixon weighs in on marijuana legalization debate



Nearly a week after an advocacy group announced it would postpone its efforts to get marijuana legalization on the Missouri ballot, Gov. Jay Nixon is now weighing in on the debate.

Nixon took part in the debate over medical marijuana on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

“Medicinally, I think folks are starting to see if there are things the medical community can help on and our legislature may consider that,” he said.

But the Missouri Democrat also said moving beyond using marijuana for medicinal purposes at this point is “a bridge too far.”

Recreational use of marijuana is now legal in Colorado and Washington.

Last week, Show Me Cannabis organizers said while it initially hoped to have a marijuana legalization proposal on Missouri’s November ballot will instead postpone its efforts until the 2016 presidential election.

Organizers say an internal survey shows that just 45 percent of likely voters support legal pot, with 51 percent opposed. The group had submitted 10 different legalization proposals to the Missouri secretary of state’s office but hoped for voter approval ratings of at least 60 percent.

Executive director John Payne says the cannabis group plans to focus its immediate efforts on proposed legislation reducing Missouri’s criminal penalties for marijuana possession.

He’s also concerned that voter turnout could be low in November, when the job of state auditor is the only statewide office on the ballot.

hMPp://www.tampabay.com/news/politics/stateroundup/politifact-florida-will-doctors-write-prescriptions-for-medical-marijuana/2166975




Florida: Will doctors write prescriptions for medical marijuana if you have an itchy back?



As medical marijuana heads to the ballot in Florida in November, opponents like Senate President Don Gaetz have argued that it will be too easy for people who want to smoke pot recreationally to get their hands on it.

"It doesn't require a physician writing a prescription, and it can be for purposes as specious as having a back that needs to be scratched," Gaetz said in an interview on Feb. 13. "That's the legalization of marijuana that I oppose and will vote against in November." We wondered if Gaetz's specific claims about physicians and purposes was fully accurate.

The ballot summary that the Florida Supreme Court approved last month for the November ballot mentions doctors right off the bat: "Allows the medical use of marijuana for individuals with debilitating diseases as determined by a licensed Florida physician."

But if you read further into the amendment text, you'll see that technically patients wouldn't get a "prescription."

Instead, patients will get a "physician certification," which the amendment text states means "a written document signed by a physician" stating that in the physician's professional opinion the patient suffers from "a debilitating medical condition" and that the benefits of marijuana likely outweigh health risks. It may only be provided after a physical exam and a full medical history.

Robert Mikos, a Vanderbilt law school professor who specializes in drug policy, said there's a fine distinction between a certification and a prescription.

Doctors generally don't "prescribe" marijuana, because in order for a physician to be allowed to prescribe narcotics, the doctor must register with the Drug Enforcement Agency. If the practitioner were to prescribe a Schedule I drug like marijuana — which means under federal guidelines it is a dangerous narcotic, with no approved medical uses — they would lose their registration, and would no longer be allowed to prescribe drugs.

On the other hand, a 2002 federal court decision found that a doctor could simply recommend the drug, protecting the discussion with their patient under the First Amendment.

"In the legally relevant sense, it's no different than a doctor recommending jogging every day," Mikos said. The certification would document the discussion and create a paper trail similar to a prescription.

Once a patient gets that certification, the Department of Health will issue the patient an identification card, according to the ballot language. Approved patients would purchase marijuana from registered, state-regulated centers.

The amendment lists a number of qualifying "debilitating" conditions for medical marijuana, including cancer, glaucoma, and HIV/AIDs, among others. But it also says: "or other conditions for which a physician believes that the medical use of marijuana would likely outweigh the potential health risks for a patient."

The Supreme Court, in allowing the amendment to go forward, noted that "debilitating" conditions include those that "cause impaired strength, weakness or enfeeblement." We've previously reported that the ballot language suggests marijuana could be recommended for conditions like muscle spasms, neck pain, back pain or menstrual cramps, if the conditions were "debilitating."

Gaetz's spokesperson Katie Betta defended his choice of words on those grounds, calling the amendment "open-ended."

"The Supreme Court's ruling did not interpret the amendment for application and will not be bound by any interpretation that was advanced related to the ballot summary challenge," Betta said.

Still, Gaetz seems to be going too far using an example of "a back that needs to be scratched." Certainly, chronic itching can be a serious condition, but Gaetz's implication is that a condition with a simple remedy could be used to qualify for marijuana. The ballot language sets a higher bar than that, noting that the condition must be "debilitating."

Overall, Gaetz's statement suggests Floridians could get marijuana without a doctor being involved, but that's not the case. They won't get prescriptions, but they will get written certification. Also, the ballot language says that a condition must be debilitating. We rate this claim Half True.

hMPp://www.wjla.com/articles/2014/02/marijuana-decriminalization-bills-on-the-agenda-for-maryland-legislatures-100496.html




Marijuana decriminalization bills on the agenda for Maryland legislators




ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) - Two bills that would decriminalize marijuana will get their first hearing Tuesday in a Senate committee.

A bill filed by Sen. Robert Zirkin would make it a civil offense to possess less than 10 grams worth of marijuana, punishable by a $100 fine but no longer attached to any criminal charge. The other bill, filed by Sen. Jamie Raskin, would make marijuana possession legal for people 21 or older.

Also this week, CASA de Maryland and the NAACP will have a rally concerning immigrant and civil rights issues.

The rally starts at 7 p.m. Monday at the Lawyer's Mall in downtown Annapolis. Topics will include raising the minimum wage, equity for historically black colleges and universities, and home foreclosures.

hMPp://www.11alive.com/news/article/322488/40/At-halfway-point-GA-medical-marijuana-bill-in-trouble




At halfway point, GA medical marijuana bill in trouble



ATLANTA - Just over a month ago, State Representative Allen Peake (R-Macon) admitted he knew next to nothing about medical marijuana.

But when he met families of several young children whose life-threatening seizures might be soothed by cannabis oil from the plant, he became its champion.

His House Bill 885 has been sailing along at a furious pace in Georgia's conservative legislature, but at the half way point, it's run into a potentially fatal road block.

"They cannot import it from Colorado or any of the other 20 states that have legal (medical) marijuana and without (a) local supply, the bill's dead," James Bell of Georgia C.A.R.E. Project told 11Alive News on Sunday.

Pro-legalization activist Bell points out that federal law won't let Georgia import any form of marijuana from another state and state law won't allow it to be grown here.

So with no source, the bill is in serious trouble.

"These people are going to the black market in order to get medicine, the cannabis medicine, so they're creating criminals out of people that should not be criminal," Bell said.

Rep. Peake told 11Alive on Friday that he's trying to re-write his bill after the supply concerns came up in recent committee hearings.

The supply snag could mean the issue is dead for now and may have to return next year.

But earlier in the session, Peake said time is of the essence.

"There are children that are suffering that, if we waited a year to do a study commission, may not live," he said.

Bell is hoping lawmakers can re-write Georgia law to allow marijuana to be cultivated in a supervised setting and strictly controlled by doctors and/or pharmacists.

Georgia passed a medical marijuana law in 1980 to benefit glaucoma and chemotherapy patients, but it never became reality thanks to the lack of a supply source from the federal government.

With nearly half of this year's 40-day legislative session over, another controversial issue could still run into trouble.

Last Tuesday the State House overwhelmingly approved a gun bill that would allow anyone who's at least 21 and who has a weapons license to carry a gun into churches or bars that don't mind.

The same measure stalled last year over a provision to allow those same licensed adults to carry a gun on college campuses.

That clause was dropped from this year's version, but it still decriminalizes that act for people with weapons licenses to only a $100 fine.

That could still spell trouble when the State Senate begins considering the bill.

The move to prevent so many children from dying under DFCS supervision is making headway.

Last week the Senate passed a bill to privatize many services of the Division of Family and Children Services.

Another bill still being considered would put the GBI in charge of keeping track of those deaths and providing more transparent details.

All of this comes as lawmakers are in a rush to finish on March 20, about a month earlier than usual.

That's because it's an election year, the primary has been moved up to May 20 and lawmakers cannot raise campaign funds during the session.

March 3 will also mark an important watershed under the Gold Dome.

Known as "Crossover Day," it's the last day a bill can be considered if it hasn't already passed either the House or the Senate and made it to the other body.