BILL WOULD LIMIT NEEDLE EXCHANGES

BANGOR, Me. -- For years, the location of this city's needle exchange program, in a nondescript strip mall close to highways and bus lines, was seen as a major asset.

But now, AIDS activists say, that very location could undermine what happens inside the exchange.

A bill working its way through Congress would lift a ban of more than 20 years on using federal money for needle exchange programs. But the bill would also ban federally financed exchanges from being within 1,000 feet of a school, park, library, college, video arcade or any place children might gather -- a provision that would apply to a majority of the country's approximately 200 exchanges.

"This 1,000-foot rule is simply instituting the ban in a different form," said Rebecca Haag, executive director of the AIDS Action Council, an advocacy group based in Washington. "Clearly the intent of this rule is to nullify the lifting of the ban."

Under a separate bill, all exchanges in Washington within the 1,000-foot perimeter would be barred from receiving city money as well as federal money.

"Let's protect these kids," said Representative Jack Kingston, Republican of Georgia, who introduced the Washington bill. "They don't need to be playing kickball in the playground and seeing people lined up for needle exchange."

Both bills have passed the House and a Senate subcommittee and await Senate action.

Advocates and organizations including the N.A.A.C.P. are lobbying Congress to kill the 1,000-foot provisions. The promise of federal money could not come at a better time, these officials say, as states are cutting their health and human services budgets and private donations are dropping precipitously. At least four needle exchanges have closed this year because of a lack of financing.

Many exchanges are run by organizations that provide broad-based health services like testing for the AIDS virus and hepatitis C, mental health counseling, medical referrals and condom distribution. Advocates worry that if needle exchanges disappear, drug users will lose access to those other services.

The rule "is going to kill us," said Ellis Poole, executive director of the Harm Reduction Center of Southern Oregon, which is 997 feet from a high school in Roseburg. The center runs a needle exchange and offers antidrug programs to high schools in the area. With donations plummeting, it has a $374,000 budget deficit for 2009. Mr. Poole said he worried that the center's programs would be threatened if the bill passed.

"We could move a few feet down, but the building is more expensive at the other end," Mr. Poole said. "I have to beg for money for computers. I have to ask people to come clean the carpet at no charge."

Officials at exchanges in cities like Chicago, New York and Washington say there are few, if any, places that could house a needle exchange under the rule.

"I was thinking, 'A thousand feet, how much is that?' " said Raquel Algarin, executive director of the Lower East Side Harm Reduction Center in Manhattan. "And then I found myself thinking, 'We'd probably be doing syringe exchange in the middle of the East River, and any exchange on the West Side would be in the Hudson River.' How do you work that out?"

Many advocates also worry that smaller, rural exchanges, which lack the fund-raising abilities and infrastructure of many larger, urban exchanges, will be affected by the 1,000-foot rule.

In Maine, which officials say has one of the highest rates of prescription drug abuse per capita in the country and is grappling with a recent influx of heroin, AIDS activists worry that they will receive less money just as their client base is growing. The state's four exchanges -- in Augusta, Bangor, Ellsworth and Portland -- would be ineligible for federal money.

"The federal funding would be key for us," said Patricia A. Murphy, executive director of the Eastern Maine AIDS Network in downtown Bangor.

Upon entering the office, squeezed between a veterans center and a music store, drug users are escorted into a small room, where a trained staff member checks them in, using only first names and case numbers, and carefully counts their needles.

Under Maine law, drug users may receive one clean needle for every dirty one they turn in. The exchange offers users a variety of needle sizes, along with tourniquets, antiseptic ointment, condoms and information on safe needle use, and helps refer clients to clinics and treatment centers that deal with sexually transmitted diseases. The center also has a food bank, which clients are urged to use.

Those who have built a level of trust with Ms. Murphy and her staff send fellow drug users to the office. The number of users enrolled in the needle exchange here has doubled in the past year, while funding fell by about 15 percent.

The federal money, Ms. Murphy said, would allow the exchange to grow with the number of clients, many of whom come from rural northern and eastern Maine, and set up mobile needle exchange units in communities more than 100 miles from Bangor.

"This is a critical piece of harm reduction," Ms. Murphy said.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, intravenous drug use directly or indirectly accounts for about one-fifth of the nation's 1.1 million H.I.V. cases, and needle exchanges are an effective way to stem the spread of infection. The World Health Organization said in a 2004 report that there was "compelling evidence" that increasing needle exchanges reduced H.I.V. transmission. It cited studies showing that the rate of infection dropped up to 18 percent in cities with an exchange.

Luke, a 30-year-old Bangor resident who did not want to give his last name, said he exchanged his needles, and sometimes those of his friends, about once a week. He said he had become addicted to Suboxone, a drug intended to treat opiate addiction that officials say more people are starting to abuse.

In a black hooded sweatshirt and red sneakers, Luke said he often also picked up condoms and guides on how to inject drugs more safely. He said he came to the facility because its location made it discreet and few people knew what it was.

A 23-year-old man who is addicted to heroin and exchanges needles at the Down East AIDS Network in Ellsworth called the 1,000-foot limit "ridiculous." The man, who did not want to give his name because of his addiction, said he started using heroin eight years ago and exchanging needles four years ago. He said he often picked up needles he saw on the ground and brought them in for safe disposal.

"It's a dangerous thing to do," the man said of his heroin use, "but it's best to take every precaution you can. If you're going to do this stuff, you should do it right."






URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1009/a05.html
Newshawk: Please Contact Your Senators - SEE http://drugsense.org/url/yvrS3vTu
Votes: 1
Pubdate: Mon, 9 Nov 2009
Source: New York Times (NY)
Page: A9
Copyright: 2009 The New York Times Company
Contact: letters@nytimes.com
Website: http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Katie Zezima
Cited: AIDS Action Council http://drugsense.org/url/bDFpDVxa
Cited: Harm Reduction Center of Southern Oregon http://www.hivroseburg.org/
Cited: Eastern Maine AIDS Network http://www.maineaidsnetwork.com/
Cited: Down East AIDS Network http://downeastaidsnetwork.homestead.com/

POLICE UNION 'MANIPULATION'

Re: 'Fund more officers,' Letters to the editor, Nov. 6.

Would we listen to a tobacco worker union telling us tobacco is safe and should be consumed in greater numbers? Letter writer Steek explains clearly how public perception is manipulated by police unions to scare the public into giving them more and more money -- always more money.

The public says their number one concern are gangs and violence, while the police union spokesman is on his podium decrying the dangers of gangs and violence. Gangs are funded by the prohibition artificially inflating the cost of certain drugs and herbs. Violence comes from them fighting over their marketable "turf."

How come police unions are one of the only groups left pushing for more prohibition and they are also the main non-criminal benefactor of prohibition, as it's job security, ever-increasing budgets, and relatively easy work. This should be common sense.

MIKE FOSTER

LAVAL, QUE.

( That's what unions do, ask for more. )






URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1009/a04.html
Newshawk: CMAP http://www.mapinc.org/cmap
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Sun, 08 Nov 2009
Source: Winnipeg Sun (CN MB)
Copyright: 2009 Canoe Limited Partnership
Contact: editor@wpgsun.com
Website: http://www.winnipegsun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/503
Author: Mike Foster
Note: Parenthetical remark by the Sun editor.

GRASSLEY PROPOSING LIMITS TO FEDERAL DRUG STUDY

Voting Delay Leaves More Time for Potential Changes to Bill.

In the eyes of Sen. Jim Webb, D-Va., the statistics are staggering. The United States houses 25 percent of the world's prison population, with just 5 percent of the world population. And in less than 30 years, drug offenders in prison have increased 1,200 percent.

To study why that is, and perhaps change those facts and figures, Webb proposed a National Criminal Justice Commission. The legislation, which has 34 cosponsors from senators on both sides of the aisle, was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which was expected to vote on it Thursday. Instead, the bill but was held over for future consideration.

The delay will give Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, more time to consider which, if any, amendments to offer to the proposed legislation.

During a conference call with reporters last week, Grassley, who is a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee and co-chairman of the international narcotics control caucus, said he had circulated several amendments with the intention of offering a couple of them.

While Grassley said an amendment to prohibit the commission from studying the legalization or decriminalization of drugs was not one he planned to offer, it has earned the ire of the blogosphere, including the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws and Law Enforcement Against Prohibition.

"Well, my intent on that amendment isn't any different than any other amendments that are coming up," Grassley said. "The Congress is setting up a commission to study certain things, and the commission is an arm of Congress ... and the point is for them to do what we tell them to do.

"And one of the things I was anticipating telling them not to do is to recommend or study the legalization of drugs."

Grassley said the prohibition would include the decriminalization of marijuana for medical purposes, something the Iowa Legislature could consider during its 2010 session after an interim committee studied the issue.

"I see the drive toward legalization of marijuana as being a cover for the distribution of marijuana illegally, other than for medical purposes," Grassley said previously.

According to a floor statement from Webb on last week -- prior to the expected committee vote -- one of the seven tasks the committee is meant to consider is specifically a "review of our drug policy and its impact on incarceration, crime and sentencing."

The commission's other tasks include studying why the incarceration rates have increased; determining costs of prison policies at all governmental levels; identify the impact of drug activities; and examine policies as they relate to mentally ill. According to Webb's Web site, four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals.

Grassley said, however, the commission's scope of study can be whatever Congress decides it should be. He said the commission's results and recommendations could be the basis for future legislation.

Iowa's senior senator has long been a champion of anti-drug laws. According to Grassley's Web site, "For the past decade, I've used my leadership positions ... to advance public policy that curbs trafficking, production and consumption of illegal drugs, beefs up enforcement and promotes effective treatment and prevention methods."






URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a01.html
Newshawk: Limiting the Commission is Despicable
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 9 Nov 2009
Source: Hawk Eye, The (Burlington, IA)
Copyright: 2009 The Hawk Eye
Contact: http://spanky.thehawkeye.com/forms/letters.html
Website: http://www.thehawkeye.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/934
Author: Christinia Crippes
Cited: The Senate Judiciary Committee http://judiciary.senate.gov/
Referenced: The National Criminal Justice Commission Act
http://drugsense.org/url/tnFxcd6f

WILL FLORIDA BE NEXT TO ALLOW MEDICAL MARIJUANA?

A new federal policy toward medical marijuana has sparked discussion among Florida residents about the future of Florida's marijuana laws.

Under federal law, the use or sale of marijuana has long been illegal. But since 1996, advocacy groups have succeeded in passing laws in 13 states that made the use of marijuana for medical purposes legal within those states.

Because federal law supersedes state law, patients who used medical marijuana in compliance with the laws of their states were often still at risk for federal prosecution.

But recently, the U.S. Justice Department announced that it would be shifting its marijuana prosecution efforts, and, in a memo from Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden, said that federal prosecutors "should not focus federal resources in your States on individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws providing for the medical use of marijuana."

This announcement signaled that the federal government will essentially be allowing individual states to decide the legality of medical marijuana for themselves.

For legalization activists in states where medical marijuana is not legal, such as Florida, the new policy provides a powerful incentive to continue in efforts toward legalization.

"I feel emboldened," said Jodi James, a member of the board of directors for the Florida Cannabis Action Network. "One of the obstacles that we have always heard, working at a state level, is that whatever we do here in Florida, we were just going to be in conflict with the federal government. So it's exciting to think about the idea that this helps us to overcome that obstacle."

James believes that medical marijuana is essential for "healing the community," and she points to the effects of legalization in California as an example of the positive impact that legal medical marijuana could have in Florida.

"We have seen more people moving away from alcoholism, we have seen ( marijuana ) dispensaries that become one of the single largest taxpayers in a community, and we have seen the use of marijuana by children decline," she said. "So we have less spending on marijuana-related arrests, we have fewer people incarcerated for possession of cannabis, and you have patients that might have been using a medicine that is more toxic now using less toxic medicines."

However, there are others, like Lt. Tim Hayes of the Gainesville-Alachua County Drug Task Force, who think that California's experience with medical marijuana has revealed very negative effects for communities.

"I think that if we go the way California did, then it's just an absolute disaster for the state," he said.

Hayes believes that Californians have taken advantage of the state's loose regulations on medical marijuana and have simply been using the law as a convenient cover for illegal recreational use of the drug.

Hayes likened this phenomenon to "the debacle of prescription drugs" that Florida's law enforcement is currently struggling with.

"We're dealing with people illegally selling prescription drugs almost to a level more than cocaine," he said. "Because of Florida's lax laws on prescription drugs, we have people from all the surrounding states coming here and they travel around the state getting the prescription painkillers mainly to go back and sell them. I kind of look at medical marijuana in Florida like that."

Paul Doering, a distinguished service professor of pharmacy at the University of Florida, agreed that recreational abuse of pain killers has been a big problem, and he said it's likely that medical marijuana would be similarly abused if doctors continue to provide inappropriate prescriptions.

"There are enough crooked doctors out there to move a whole lot of morphine and oxycodone," he said. "And in contrast, if those guys are as crooked as the day is long, there might be others who might simply be sympathetic and might, in their own college days, have enjoyed a toke here or there, who simply think our marijuana laws are wrong and will write ( a prescription ) at the drop of a hat."

In addition to acknowledging the law enforcement problems that medical marijuana might create, Doering explained that the suspected therapeutic effects of marijuana might not be as great as some would hope.

Marijuana has been suggested for the treatment of ailments such as glaucoma, multiple sclerosis and nausea from chemotherapy, but Doering said that the effectiveness of the drug has been exaggerated by supporters of medical marijuana.

The scientific literature is just not real clear on what marijuana is good for or can be used for," said Doering. "If you were to look at the scientific evidence with the same scrutiny that you look at pharmaceutical drugs, marijuana is not that great."

Doering said he does think medical marijuana could be useful in some circumstances, but he also said that he believes the push for legalization of medical marijuana is largely a front for the legalization of marijuana for all uses.

James of the Florida Cannabis Action Network said the legalization of all marijuana is, in fact, the main goal of her organization.

"All indicators are that bringing it into the light of day would be a positive experience," she said. "We can go back to the prohibition of alcohol to see the damage that prohibition causes. It breeds criminals who are willing to stop at nothing to protect profits."

However, the main debate in marijuana policy continues to be limited to the issue of medical marijuana within the state.

The Florida Legislature holds the ultimate deciding power in this debate, and according to Charles E. Van Zant, who is vice chairman of the Health Care Regulation Policy Committee in Florida's House of Representatives, the laws are unlikely to change in the near future.

'I do not believe that any bill would pass the House or the Senate that would allow ( medical marijuana ) to become legal in Florida," he said. "It's not in the forefront of issues that we're considering in Tallahassee."






URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a02.html
Newshawk: Jay Bergstrom
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Mon, 9 Nov 2009
Source: Gainesville Sun, The (FL)
Copyright: 2009 The Gainesville Sun
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/yMmn4Ifw
Website: http://www.gainesville.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/163
Author: Allison Arteaga, Correspondent
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - United States)

MARIJUANA: ARRESTS WON'T STOP USE

The 33 marijuana traffickers arrested will soon be replaced. ( "33 arrested; ring moved marijuana in backpacks" Oct.28 ). They always are. As long as there are willing buyers willing to pay a substantial price for it, somebody will produce it and somebody else will get it to the willing buyers. This we can guarantee.

Why not re-legalize marijuana so it can be sold in licensed, regulated and taxed business establishments? Pot is substantially less dangerous than either tobacco that contains nicotine, or alcohol.

People consume marijuana for the same reasons they consume alcohol. Why not offer adults the much safer alternative to alcohol?

Kirk Muse

Mesa






URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n1010/a04.html
Newshawk: Kirk
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Wed, 4 Nov 2009
Source: East Valley Tribune (AZ)
Copyright: 2009 East Valley Tribune.
Contact: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com/page/letter_to_the_editor
Website: http://www.eastvalleytribune.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2708
Author: Kirk Muse

THE ANTI-DRUG WAR GETS A DOSE OF REALISM

During his immersion in his new job, Gil Kerlikowske attended a focus group of 7-year-old girls and was mystified by their talk about "farm parties." Then he realized they meant "pharm parties" - sampling pharmaceuticals from their parents' medicine cabinets. What he learned - - besides that young humans have less native sense than young dachshunds have - is that his job has wrinkles unanticipated when he became director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

"People," he says, "want a different conversation" about drug policies. With his first report to the president early next year, he could increase the quotient of realism.

Law enforcement has a "can do culture" but it also instructs its practitioners about what cannot be done, at least by law enforcement alone. Kerlikowske, who was top cop in Buffalo and then Seattle, knows that officers sweeping drug users from cities' streets feel as though they are "regurgitating perps through the system."

He dryly notes that "not many people think the drug war is a success." Furthermore, the recession's toll on state budgets has concentrated minds on the costs of drug offense incarcerations - costs that in some states are larger than expenditures on secondary education. Fortunately, the first drug courts were established two decades ago and today there are 2,300 nationwide, pointing drug policy away from punishment and toward treatment.

Kerlikowske is familiar with Portugal's experience since 2001 with decriminalization of all drugs, including heroin and cocaine. Nature made Kerlikowske laconic and experience has made him prudent, so he steers clear of the "L" word, legalization, even regarding marijuana.

Asked if he thinks that is a "gateway" drug leading to worse substances, he answers obliquely: "You don't find many heroin users who didn't start with marijuana." And he warns that more intense cultivation of marijuana is yielding a product with notably high THC content - the potent ingredient.

In 1998, the United Nations, with its penchant for empty grandstanding, committed its members to "eliminating or significantly reducing" opium, cocaine and marijuana production by 2008, en route to a "drug-free world." Nowadays the U.N. is pleased that the drug trade has "stabilized."

The Economist magazine says this means that more than 200 million people - almost 5 percent of the world's adult population - take illegal drugs, the same proportion as a decade ago. The annual U.S. bill for attempting to diminish the supply of drugs is $40 billion. Of the 1.5 million Americans arrested each year on drug offenses, half a million are incarcerated. "Tougher drug laws are the main reason why one in five black American men spend some time behind bars," The Economist said.

"There is no correlation between the harshness of drug laws and the incidence of drug-taking: citizens living under tough regimes ( notably America but also Britain ) take more drugs, not fewer." Do cultural differences explain this? Evidently not: "Even in fairly similar countries tough rules make little difference to the number of addicts: harsh Sweden and more liberal Norway have precisely the same addiction rates."

The good news is the progress America has made against tobacco, which is more addictive than most illegal drugs. And then there is alcohol.

In "Waking Giant: America in the Age of Jackson," historian David S. Reynolds writes that in 1820, Americans spent on liquor a sum larger than the federal government's budget. By the mid-1820s, annual per capita consumption of absolute alcohol reached seven gallons, more than three times today's rate. "Most employers," Reynolds reports, "assumed that their workers needed strong drink for stimulation: a typical workday included two bells, one rung at 11 a.m. and the other at 4 p.m., that summoned employees for alcoholic drinks."

The elderly Walt Whitman said, "It is very hard for the present generation anyhow to understand the drinkingness of those years. ... it is quite incommunicable." In 1842, a Springfield, Ill., teetotaler named Lincoln said that liquor was "like the Egyptian angel of death, commissioned to slay, if not the first, the fairest born in every family." Which helps explain why the nation sobered up ( somewhat; these things are relative ). One reason crack cocaine use has declined is that a generation of inner-city young people saw what it did to their parents and older siblings.

Kerlikowske can hope that social learning, although slow and intermittent, is on his side. But perhaps he knows the axiom that experience is a great teacher, but submits steep bills.

George Will is a columnist for The Washington Post.






URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n978/a05.html
Newshawk: Jim
Votes: 0
Pubdate: Thu, 29 Oct 2009
Source: Marietta Daily Journal (GA)
Copyright: 2009 The Marietta Daily Journal.
Contact: letters@mdjonline.com
Website: http://www.mdjonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1904
Author: George Will
Note: George Will is a columnist for The Washington Post.
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?159 (Drug Courts)

EFFORT TO OVERRIDE VETO FALLS SHORT

CONCORD - The determined opposition of nine state Senate Republicans and one Democrat blocked New Hampshire from becoming one of 14 states that legalized the possession of marijuana by chronically ill patients and their caregivers.

Wednesday's 14-10 vote to override Gov. John Lynch's July veto of the bill fell two votes shy of the super-majority needed to defy Lynch's action and pass the bill into law.

After three months of private lobbying, no minds were changed as the Senate vote was identical to the one when it sent the measure to Lynch's desk back in May.

Sen. Peggy Gilmour, D-Hollis, co-founded the state's first hospice for the terminally ill and pleaded for the bill's survival.

"It's up to 16 of us in this chamber to look at those who are suffering to say, I understand and I will help," Gilmour said.

But Sen. Robert Letourneau, R-Derry, said any law making marijuana legal for any purpose contradicts society's push to convince the nation's young not to experiment.

"This is a terrible message to send to our children," Letourneau said.

The leader of NH Coalition for Common Sense, Matt Simon, said he knew that a few senators had told constituents in recent weeks they were capable of making the switch to backing the bill.

"You never give up hope, so I'm disappointed. Now I'm not looking forward to making those difficult calls to people depending on the Legislature to relieve their unrelenting pain," Simon said.

Sen. Betsi DeVries, D-Manchester, who represents Litchfield, was the only member of her party to oppose it.

Sen. John Gallus of Berlin stood out as the only Senate Republican to back it.

"I am very disappointed. This is something that, at the end of the day, really helps the people of New Hampshire," Gallus said in a statement.

Earlier Wednesday, the New Hampshire House of Representatives had voted to overrode Lynch's July 9 veto, as expected.

The 240-115 vote in the House was 10 votes above the override threshold.

It marked the first time a legislative body took this confrontational step since Lynch, a popular, three-term Democrat, first became governor in January 2005.

Among House Democrats present, 94 percent voted for the bill; while 65 percent of Republicans stood with Lynch, although 57 GOP members were in favor of the veto override.

Rep. Evalyn Merrick, D-Lancaster, said supporters carefully addressed all of Lynch's concerns that prompted a conference committee that Rep. Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, had led to rewrite the entire bill.

"Today we make a decision that will affect the quality of life for many of our sickest citizens," Merrick said. "We have an opportunity to send a very clear message that we have not forgotten our citizens with long, suffering pain."

After the Senate setback, Merrick told reporters she will return in 2011 with her bill if she's re-elected.

Rep. Shawn Jasper, R-Hudson, a former volunteer firefighter, said the bill was well-intentioned but would pose problems for law enforcement.

"Legislation which changes a fundamental concept takes time and if we don't take the time necessary to do it right, we find that we must revisit that issue," Jasper said.

"If we pass HB 648 over the governor's objection, there may well be serious consequences."

The state's fire chiefs had sent an e-mail opposing the bill.

"What fireman or policeman or truck driver would feel safe if he went to work in the morning knowing that his colleague was severely medicated?" asked Rep. Robert Elliott, R-Salem. "I think this is a legitimate objection to this part of the bill."

Rep. Steve Shurtleff, D-Concord, chairs the House panel on law enforcement matters and is a retired deputy U.S. marshal.

No one could be a firefighter or policeman and qualify as a patient who had to suffer from a chronic or wasting disease who experienced either "severe pain, severe nausea or severe vomiting," Shurtleff said.

"That individual would not be fit either physically or mentally to perform the duties of a firefighter," he added.

Lynch saluted the aims of the sponsors but vetoed the bill due to concerns about cultivation, distribution, the definition of qualified patients and the volume of marijuana available to them.

Rep. Anthony DiFruscia, D-Windham, noted that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder and New Hampshire's U.S. Attorney John Kacavas last week confirmed the federal government would ignore federal law and not prosecute patients with small amounts of marijuana if they lived in states where medicinal use was legal.

"I'm not here to debate what is good and bad with this drug; the reality is it's unenforceable," said DiFruscia, a trial lawyer.

"I think the governor in looking at his veto should seriously consider what his duty and responsibility is. Clearly law enforcement does not think this is a bad thing."

Critics pointed to California, which has the most loosely enforced, medical marijuana bill in the nation, where the drug is dispensed at dozens of outlets across the state.

"Every block has two or three storefronts selling marijuana and the people buying it ... don't look very sick to me," Letourneau remarked.

[sidebar]

BILL AT A GLANCE Bill No. HB 648

Sponsor: Rep. Evalyn Merrick, D-Lancaster.

Description:

The original bill would have let patients and designated caregivers have six plants and up to two ounces of useable marijuana to help who have a "debilitating medical condition" as long as it's under the supervision of a physician.

Status: Gov. John Lynch vetoed the bill in July. The House of Representatives voted Wednesday to override that veto by a margin of 240-115. The State Senate vote to override was 14-10 in favor, two votes shy of the two-thirds majority needed to create law despite a gubernatorial veto.

VOTE: A "yes" vote supported the bill and was to override the governor's veto. A "no" vote endorsed the governor's action. Committee recommendation to kill the bill, A "no" opposed that position.

Bette Lasky, D-Nashua: Yes

Peggy Gilmour, D-Hollis: Yes

Peter Bragdon, R-Milford: No

Sheila Roberge*, R-Bedford: No

Sharon Carson*, R-Londonderry: No

Betsi DeVries*, D-Manchester: No

Michael Downing*, R-Salem: No

Robert Letourneau*, R-Derry: No

* Roberge's district includes Merrimack, Carson represents Hudson, DeVries has a district that includes Litchfield, Downing represents Pelham and Letourneau's district includes Litchfield.







URL: http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v09/n977/a03.html
Newshawk: Mark (Gruesome) Greer http://drugsense.org/url/FeK8vLLu
Votes: 0
Tracknum: 10109.200910291424.n9teoh8w010003
Pubdate: Thu, 29 Oct 2009
Source: Telegraph, The (Nashua, NH)
Copyright: 2009 Telegraph Publishing Company
Contact: letters@nashuatelegraph.com
Website: http://www.nashuatelegraph.com
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/885
Author: Kevin Landrigan, Staff Writer
Cited: NH Coalition for Common Sense http://nhcommonsense.org/
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/find?253 (Cannabis - Medicinal - United States)