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Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
Violence Prompts Debate Over Medical Marijuana
From the NYTImes
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
SEATTLE — A shooting and a beating death linked to medical marijuana have prompted new calls by law enforcement officials and marijuana advocates for Washington State to change how it regulates the drug and protects those who grow and use it.
In the past week, a man in Orting, Wash., near Tacoma, died after he reportedly was beaten while confronting people trying to steal marijuana plants from his property. On Monday, a prominent medical-marijuana activist shot an armed man who is accused of breaking into his home in a suburban area near Seattle where he grows and distributes marijuana plants.
On Tuesday, the police arrested five people on robbery charges in connection with the shooting incident. One of those arrested is in critical condition after being shot by Steve Sarich, who runs a group called CannaCare out of his house. Mr. Sarich suffered minor wounds from a shotgun blast fired by the intruder he shot.
The crimes are the most violent that advocates and law enforcement officials said they could recall involving medical marijuana in Washington. In both cases, they said, the victims appear to have been chosen because they were known to have relatively large amounts of marijuana in their homes. They say the crimes underscore conflicts in state policy that have become evident since Washington legalized medical marijuana in 1998.
“Any person making medical marijuana is going to be a target because they have a valuable commodity,” Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff’s Department said in an interview Tuesday.
Under state law, marijuana can be recommended for medical use by physicians but the state does not play a formal role in regulating and distributing the drug. While some states allow dispensaries or cafes, most medical marijuana in Washington is distributed from private homes or small offices that are supposed to grow or stock only a certain amount of the drug and serve only one patient at a time.
Though the recent violence has drawn new attention to the issue, robberies have become more common in Washington over the years. Marijuana advocates complain that robberies are underreported because law enforcement officials focus more on confiscating marijuana from the growers than on arresting the thieves. The authorities, in turn, have noted that some growers are exceeding limits on how much of the drug they can possess, and say the circumstances of some robberies are murky.
Mr. Sarich did not respond to an interview request.
A few days before the shooting, Mr. Sarich wrote to State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, a Democrat from Seattle who has pushed to ease sanctions on marijuana use, say growers face dangers both of being robbed and of how they will be treated by the police.
In an interview, Ms. Kohl-Welles said she and another lawmaker would introduce legislation next year to protect access to medical marijuana and protect those who grow it. Dan Satterberg, the King County prosecutor, also called for change.
“By forcing this production to remain underground,” Mr. Satterberg said, “you increase the risk of violence for everybody and you disburse that violence to residential neighborhoods and put everybody at risk.”
Some advocates for legalizing marijuana in general say that medical growers hurt their efforts by not working within legal limits and by not building a relationship with the police. They say making marijuana legal for the general population would reduce crime against those who use it for medical reasons.
Even before he was robbed on Monday, Mr. Sarich had complained that the police were not doing enough to protect him, including after what he said was a robbery attempt in January. He told The Seattle Times on Monday that he and his girlfriend were authorized to have up to 50 plants each and had less than 100 plants in the house they shared.
Sergeant Urquhart said that there was “nothing to investigate” in January because Mr. Sarich had provided little information. Mr. Urquhart also said investigators had found 385 plants in Mr. Sarich’s house after the shooting on Monday.
“He had baked goods with marijuana in them, frozen goods with marijuana in them, chocolate goods with marijuana in them,” Mr. Urquhart said. “He had green butter, which we believe is laced with marijuana. As we interpret state law, he was not in compliance.”
Law enforcement officers, he said, confiscated “everything over and above what the prosecutor believes is legal.”
By WILLIAM YARDLEY
SEATTLE — A shooting and a beating death linked to medical marijuana have prompted new calls by law enforcement officials and marijuana advocates for Washington State to change how it regulates the drug and protects those who grow and use it.
In the past week, a man in Orting, Wash., near Tacoma, died after he reportedly was beaten while confronting people trying to steal marijuana plants from his property. On Monday, a prominent medical-marijuana activist shot an armed man who is accused of breaking into his home in a suburban area near Seattle where he grows and distributes marijuana plants.
On Tuesday, the police arrested five people on robbery charges in connection with the shooting incident. One of those arrested is in critical condition after being shot by Steve Sarich, who runs a group called CannaCare out of his house. Mr. Sarich suffered minor wounds from a shotgun blast fired by the intruder he shot.
The crimes are the most violent that advocates and law enforcement officials said they could recall involving medical marijuana in Washington. In both cases, they said, the victims appear to have been chosen because they were known to have relatively large amounts of marijuana in their homes. They say the crimes underscore conflicts in state policy that have become evident since Washington legalized medical marijuana in 1998.
“Any person making medical marijuana is going to be a target because they have a valuable commodity,” Sgt. John Urquhart of the King County Sheriff’s Department said in an interview Tuesday.
Under state law, marijuana can be recommended for medical use by physicians but the state does not play a formal role in regulating and distributing the drug. While some states allow dispensaries or cafes, most medical marijuana in Washington is distributed from private homes or small offices that are supposed to grow or stock only a certain amount of the drug and serve only one patient at a time.
Though the recent violence has drawn new attention to the issue, robberies have become more common in Washington over the years. Marijuana advocates complain that robberies are underreported because law enforcement officials focus more on confiscating marijuana from the growers than on arresting the thieves. The authorities, in turn, have noted that some growers are exceeding limits on how much of the drug they can possess, and say the circumstances of some robberies are murky.
Mr. Sarich did not respond to an interview request.
A few days before the shooting, Mr. Sarich wrote to State Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, a Democrat from Seattle who has pushed to ease sanctions on marijuana use, say growers face dangers both of being robbed and of how they will be treated by the police.
In an interview, Ms. Kohl-Welles said she and another lawmaker would introduce legislation next year to protect access to medical marijuana and protect those who grow it. Dan Satterberg, the King County prosecutor, also called for change.
“By forcing this production to remain underground,” Mr. Satterberg said, “you increase the risk of violence for everybody and you disburse that violence to residential neighborhoods and put everybody at risk.”
Some advocates for legalizing marijuana in general say that medical growers hurt their efforts by not working within legal limits and by not building a relationship with the police. They say making marijuana legal for the general population would reduce crime against those who use it for medical reasons.
Even before he was robbed on Monday, Mr. Sarich had complained that the police were not doing enough to protect him, including after what he said was a robbery attempt in January. He told The Seattle Times on Monday that he and his girlfriend were authorized to have up to 50 plants each and had less than 100 plants in the house they shared.
Sergeant Urquhart said that there was “nothing to investigate” in January because Mr. Sarich had provided little information. Mr. Urquhart also said investigators had found 385 plants in Mr. Sarich’s house after the shooting on Monday.
“He had baked goods with marijuana in them, frozen goods with marijuana in them, chocolate goods with marijuana in them,” Mr. Urquhart said. “He had green butter, which we believe is laced with marijuana. As we interpret state law, he was not in compliance.”
Law enforcement officers, he said, confiscated “everything over and above what the prosecutor believes is legal.”
Friday, March 5, 2010
Pot Shrinks Tumors; Government Knew in '74
By Raymond Cushing, AlterNet
The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.
The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects.
Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.
The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.
The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out - unsuccessfully - to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high."
The Madrid researchers reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.
The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University, also irrigated healthy rats' brains with large doses of THC for seven days, to test for harmful biochemical or neurological effects. They found none.
"Careful MRI analysis of all those tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage related to necrosis, edema, infection or trauma ... We also examined other potential side effects of cannabinoid administration. In both tumor-free and tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid administration induced no substantial change in behavioral parameters such as motor coordination or physical activity. Food and water intake as well as body weight gain were unaffected during and after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the general hematological profiles of cannabinoid-treated rats were normal. Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor markers of tissue damage changed substantially during the 7-day delivery period or for at least 2 months after cannabinoid treatment ended."
Guzman's investigation is the only time since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has been administered to live tumor-bearing animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a 1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, but that was a "petri dish" experiment that didn't involve live subjects.)
In an email interview for this story, the Madrid researcher said he had heard of the Virginia study, but had never been able to locate literature on it. Hence, the Nature Medicine article characterizes the new study as the first on tumor-laden animals and doesn't cite the 1974 Virginia investigation.
"I am aware of the existence of that research. In fact I have attempted many times to obtain the journal article on the original investigation by these people, but it has proven impossible." Guzman said.
In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer, who states, "We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared."
Guzman provided the title of the work - "Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids," an article in a 1975 Journal of the National Cancer Institute - and this writer obtained a copy at the University of California medical school library in Davis and faxed it to Madrid.
The summary of the Virginia study begins, "Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBN)" - two types of cannabinoids, a family of active components in marijuana. "Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor size."
The 1975 journal article doesn't mention breast cancer tumors, which featured in the only newspaper story ever to appear about the 1974 study - in the Local section of the Washington Post on August 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part:
"The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."
Guzman, writing from Madrid, was eloquent in his response after this writer faxed him the clipping from the Washington Post of a quarter century ago. In translation, he wrote:
"It is extremely interesting to me, the hope that the project seemed to awaken at that moment, and the sad evolution of events during the years following the discovery, until now we once again Îdraw back the veilâ over the anti-tumoral power of THC, twenty-five years later. Unfortunately, the world bumps along between such moments of hope and long periods of intellectual castration."
News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article. This writer stumbled on it through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report web page. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors.
Raymond Cushing is a journalist, musician and filmmaker. This article was named by Project Censored as a "Top Censored Story of 2000."
The term medical marijuana took on dramatic new meaning in February, 2000 when researchers in Madrid announced they had destroyed incurable brain tumors in rats by injecting them with THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.
The Madrid study marks only the second time that THC has been administered to tumor-bearing animals; the first was a Virginia investigation 26 years ago. In both studies, the THC shrank or destroyed tumors in a majority of the test subjects.
Most Americans don't know anything about the Madrid discovery. Virtually no major U.S. newspapers carried the story, which ran only once on the AP and UPI news wires, on Feb. 29, 2000.
The ominous part is that this isn't the first time scientists have discovered that THC shrinks tumors. In 1974 researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institute of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice - lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia.
The DEA quickly shut down the Virginia study and all further cannabis/tumor research, according to Jack Herer, who reports on the events in his book, "The Emperor Wears No Clothes." In 1976 President Gerald Ford put an end to all public cannabis research and granted exclusive research rights to major pharmaceutical companies, who set out - unsuccessfully - to develop synthetic forms of THC that would deliver all the medical benefits without the "high."
The Madrid researchers reported in the March issue of "Nature Medicine" that they injected the brains of 45 rats with cancer cells, producing tumors whose presence they confirmed through magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). On the 12th day they injected 15 of the rats with THC and 15 with Win-55,212-2 a synthetic compound similar to THC. "All the rats left untreated uniformly died 12-18 days after glioma (brain cancer) cell inoculation ... Cannabinoid (THC)-treated rats survived significantly longer than control rats. THC administration was ineffective in three rats, which died by days 16-18. Nine of the THC-treated rats surpassed the time of death of untreated rats, and survived up to 19-35 days. Moreover, the tumor was completely eradicated in three of the treated rats." The rats treated with Win-55,212-2 showed similar results.
The Spanish researchers, led by Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutense University, also irrigated healthy rats' brains with large doses of THC for seven days, to test for harmful biochemical or neurological effects. They found none.
"Careful MRI analysis of all those tumor-free rats showed no sign of damage related to necrosis, edema, infection or trauma ... We also examined other potential side effects of cannabinoid administration. In both tumor-free and tumor-bearing rats, cannabinoid administration induced no substantial change in behavioral parameters such as motor coordination or physical activity. Food and water intake as well as body weight gain were unaffected during and after cannabinoid delivery. Likewise, the general hematological profiles of cannabinoid-treated rats were normal. Thus, neither biochemical parameters nor markers of tissue damage changed substantially during the 7-day delivery period or for at least 2 months after cannabinoid treatment ended."
Guzman's investigation is the only time since the 1974 Virginia study that THC has been administered to live tumor-bearing animals. (The Spanish researchers cite a 1998 study in which cannabinoids inhibited breast cancer cell proliferation, but that was a "petri dish" experiment that didn't involve live subjects.)
In an email interview for this story, the Madrid researcher said he had heard of the Virginia study, but had never been able to locate literature on it. Hence, the Nature Medicine article characterizes the new study as the first on tumor-laden animals and doesn't cite the 1974 Virginia investigation.
"I am aware of the existence of that research. In fact I have attempted many times to obtain the journal article on the original investigation by these people, but it has proven impossible." Guzman said.
In 1983 the Reagan/Bush Administration tried to persuade American universities and researchers to destroy all 1966-76 cannabis research work, including compendiums in libraries, reports Jack Herer, who states, "We know that large amounts of information have since disappeared."
Guzman provided the title of the work - "Antineoplastic activity of cannabinoids," an article in a 1975 Journal of the National Cancer Institute - and this writer obtained a copy at the University of California medical school library in Davis and faxed it to Madrid.
The summary of the Virginia study begins, "Lewis lung adenocarcinoma growth was retarded by the oral administration of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabinol (CBN)" - two types of cannabinoids, a family of active components in marijuana. "Mice treated for 20 consecutive days with THC and CBN had reduced primary tumor size."
The 1975 journal article doesn't mention breast cancer tumors, which featured in the only newspaper story ever to appear about the 1974 study - in the Local section of the Washington Post on August 18, 1974. Under the headline, "Cancer Curb Is Studied," it read in part:
"The active chemical agent in marijuana curbs the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice and may also suppress the immunity reaction that causes rejection of organ transplants, a Medical College of Virginia team has discovered." The researchers "found that THC slowed the growth of lung cancers, breast cancers and a virus-induced leukemia in laboratory mice, and prolonged their lives by as much as 36 percent."
Guzman, writing from Madrid, was eloquent in his response after this writer faxed him the clipping from the Washington Post of a quarter century ago. In translation, he wrote:
"It is extremely interesting to me, the hope that the project seemed to awaken at that moment, and the sad evolution of events during the years following the discovery, until now we once again Îdraw back the veilâ over the anti-tumoral power of THC, twenty-five years later. Unfortunately, the world bumps along between such moments of hope and long periods of intellectual castration."
News coverage of the Madrid discovery has been virtually nonexistent in this country. The news broke quietly on Feb. 29, 2000 with a story that ran once on the UPI wire about the Nature Medicine article. This writer stumbled on it through a link that appeared briefly on the Drudge Report web page. The New York Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times all ignored the story, even though its newsworthiness is indisputable: a benign substance occurring in nature destroys deadly brain tumors.
Raymond Cushing is a journalist, musician and filmmaker. This article was named by Project Censored as a "Top Censored Story of 2000."
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Marijuana Legalization Approved by California Assembly Committee
First Formal Vote in U.S. to Support Taxing and Regulating Marijuana
California’s landmark marijuana regulation bill (AB 390) was approved 4-3 by a committee of the State Assembly on Tuesday, concluding the first formal consideration of marijuana legalization in American history. Authored by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, the bill to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol was approved by the Assembly Public Safety Committee, which Ammiano chairs.
“This historic vote marks the formal beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition in the United States,” said Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Making marijuana legal has now entered the public dialogue in a credible way. Decades of wasteful, punitive, racist marijuana policy have taken quite a toll in this country. The Public Safety Committee has demonstrated that serious people take ending marijuana prohibition seriously.”
Reflecting a broader national momentum toward reconsidering marijuana prohibition, Washington state’s House of Representatives will consider a similar bill tomorrow.
In California, where 56 percent of the public supports legalizing marijuana, proponents of an initiative to tax and regulate marijuana have recently gathered sufficient signatures to place it on the general election ballot this year.
“While actually passing a bill to tax and regulate marijuana may be a heavy lift in any state legislature right now, members of the Assembly today reflected the sentiment of a majority of Californians,” said Gutwillig. “Voters will get a chance to decide if California should tax and regulate marijuana at the ballot box in November.”
California’s landmark marijuana regulation bill (AB 390) was approved 4-3 by a committee of the State Assembly on Tuesday, concluding the first formal consideration of marijuana legalization in American history. Authored by Assembly Member Tom Ammiano, the bill to tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol was approved by the Assembly Public Safety Committee, which Ammiano chairs.
“This historic vote marks the formal beginning of the end of marijuana prohibition in the United States,” said Stephen Gutwillig, California state director of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Making marijuana legal has now entered the public dialogue in a credible way. Decades of wasteful, punitive, racist marijuana policy have taken quite a toll in this country. The Public Safety Committee has demonstrated that serious people take ending marijuana prohibition seriously.”
Reflecting a broader national momentum toward reconsidering marijuana prohibition, Washington state’s House of Representatives will consider a similar bill tomorrow.
In California, where 56 percent of the public supports legalizing marijuana, proponents of an initiative to tax and regulate marijuana have recently gathered sufficient signatures to place it on the general election ballot this year.
“While actually passing a bill to tax and regulate marijuana may be a heavy lift in any state legislature right now, members of the Assembly today reflected the sentiment of a majority of Californians,” said Gutwillig. “Voters will get a chance to decide if California should tax and regulate marijuana at the ballot box in November.”
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