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Medical Marijuana Dispensary Owner Charles Lynch Discusses His Prison Sentence

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 10:37:00 EDT

Update: Reason.tv video of Charlie Lynch, his family and attorneys discussing the sentence he received:

The Associated Press reports:

A federal judge in Los Angeles has sentenced a medical marijuana dispensary owner to a year and a day in prison in one of the nation's first such cases since the Obama administration adjusted its pot policy.

U.S. District Judge George Wu on Thursday found that the case of 47-year-old Charles Lynch merited an exception to the mandatory minimum five-year sentence that guidelines called for.

Lynch was convicted of five marijuana-related offenses last year for running a medical marijuana dispensary collective in San Luis Obispo County.

He sought leniency after U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder announced earlier this year that federal agents will now target marijuana distributors only when they violate both federal and state laws.

Reason.tv's Drew Carey first told Lynch's story a year ago. Lynch owned and operated a medical marijuana dispensary that was completely legal under state and local laws. He also had the support of the town's mayor and sheriff. But federal authorities ignored California's laws and prosecuted Lynch under federal drug laws. The jury that convicted Lynch wasn't even allowed to know that he was legally providing medical marijuana only to patients with prescriptions from their doctors. Reason.tv's newest video recaps Lynch's situation and features interview footage with one of the jurors. The video was produced in collaboration with Everloving Records and features Chris Darrow’s song “Whipping Boy.”

Reason.tv's Drew Carey Tells Charlie Lynch's Story

Marijuana Arrests Fall in Denver After Ballot Initiative

adrian.moore@reason.org (Adrian Moore) — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 10:00:00 EST

Reason magazine's Jacob Sullum notes that "prosecutions of adults for possessing an ounce or less of marijuana dropped by a fifth in Denver last year, following the passage of a November 2007 ballot initiative that instructed city officials to make such cases their "lowest law enforcement priority."

The Drug War's Collateral Damage

rbalko@reason.com (Radley Balko) — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:39:00 EST

At around 6pm on January 27 of last year, 80-year-old Isaac Singletary spotted a couple of drug dealers attempting to do business on his front lawn. It wasn’t the first time. Singletary, described by relatives as territorial and a bit crotchety, did what he’d done in the past. He grabbed his gun, and walked out on to his lawn to scare them off. Problem is, this time the men weren’t drug dealers. They were undercover Jacksonville, Florida police posing as drug dealers. They had come on to Singletary’s property to bait possible drug offenders. When he brandished his gun, the police shot Singletary four times, once in the back. He died a short time later. A subsequent investigation by Florida’s attorney general cleared the officers who shot Singletary of any wrongdoing.

Singletary wasn’t a drug dealer. Jacksonville Sheriff John Rutherford described him as “an honest citizen trying to do good.” Florida Governor Charlie Crist visited Jacksonville a few days later. When asked by a reporter about Singletary’s death, Crist euphemistically called it one of the “challenges in fighting crime.”

Singletary is far from the first innocent person to die for the war on drugs, and he’s nowhere near the last. But let’s call Singletary’s death what it is: collateral damage. Like the collateral damage of military wars overseas—innocents inadvertently killed by bombs, bullets, and missiles aimed at legitimate targets—Singletary's a victim only because he happened to live in close proximity to the government's intended target, in this case, drug offenders. And like the civilian casualties of military wars, Singletary’s death won't do a thing to cause the people who run this war to rethink their priorities. Because for them, the ultimate goal is more important than the innocent lives they may take along the way. As Governor Crist said, Singletary's death is really little more than a "challenge" on the journey to a drug-free Florida.

But whatever you may think of the legitimacy of some of America’s military wars, past or present, they’re waged under at least the pretense that they’re necessary to defeat a foreign aggressor that poses a real threat to U.S. security. The drug war’s aim is to stop people from getting high.

When Richard Nixon first uttered the phrase “war on drugs” in 1971, he chose his words carefully. Government declarations of war signal to the country that the threat we’re facing is so perilous, so grave, so existential, that in order to defeat it, we should prepare to give up some basic freedoms, to make significant sacrifices, and—yes—to accept the inevitable collateral damage we may endure on our way to victory. It so happens that to Nixon, that threat was dirty hippies smoking marijuana and urban blacks strung out on heroin.

It was during the Reagan administration that the “war on drugs” got a lot more literal. Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” campaign was backed by an administration of culture warriors ready to settle remnant grudges from the 1960s, an aggressive justice department, and an eager and compliant Congress. Every 1980s celebrity overdose or high-profile drug abuse story (many of which turned out to be false or exaggerated—see the infamous “crack baby” myth, or the Washington Post’s retracted series on “Jimmy,” the 8-year-old heroin addict) sent both parties scrambling to see who could pass the most odious and draconian new drug bill. The climax came in 1986, when Maryland basketball phenom and Boston Celtics draft pick Len Bias died of a cocaine overdose. Eric Sterling, who helped write much of that legislation and is now an activist for reforming the drug laws, likened the frenzy to a stampeding herd of wildebeests. From journalist Dan Baum’s terrific history of the drug war, Smoke and Mirrors:

Sterling had once seen a film shooting Tanzania; a million wildebeest grazing peacefully, until one of them started running. Assuming danger, a few more joined in, and in no time, the whole heard was stampeding wildly, trampling the sick and the slow, laying waste to the flora and fauna alike in a senseless headlong panic. Those images kept occurring to him as he watched Congress in the weeks following Len Bias’s death.

The wildebeests have been charging in a blind gallop ever since. Through the Reagan, Clinton, and both Bush administrations, both major political parties have exacerbated and expanded what is arguably the most destructive and wasteful government policy of the last 40 years.

Culture11 asked me to write a piece outlining the drug war’s collateral damage. That’s a tall order. The drug war touches nearly every area of American life—certainly all facets of U.S. public policy. But here are a few areas where drug prohibition has done the most damage:

Police Militarization

In the 1980s, the “war” part of the drug war got very real. America’s long (and wise) constraint on using the military for domestic policing began to blur, as states deployed National Guard troops to search for marijuana hidden in fields and forests and, in some cases, to patrol drug-riddled inner cities. The line between cop and soldier further blurred when President Reagan authorized active-duty elite military units to train with narcotics police, and then again with the exploding use of paramilitary SWAT teams in America.

Only a handful of police departments had SWAT teams in the 1970s, and they were only deployed in total a few hundred times per year. That number soared to around 4,000 per year by the early 1980s. There are around 50,000 SWAT deployments per year today in America, and they’re primarily used to serve drug warrants.

By the late 1980s, Congress had opened up the Pentagon’s cache of surplus military equipment for civilian police departments across the country to scavenge, again driven largely by the drug war. Millions of pieces of equipment designed for use on the battlefield—including guns, tanks, armored personnel vehicles, helicopters, grenade launchers, and armor—would now be used on American streets, against American citizens. Parallel to the rise of SWAT teams was the rise of the “no-knock raid” which sent cops barreling into private homes to look for dope, a particularly aggressive and violent method of policing, that has since left behind a predictable trail of tragedy.

As many police officers internalize the mentality that they’re fighting a “war,” police-community relations have soured, and many officers have adopted the “us or them” mindset typically seen in soldiers. Here’s former Kansas City and San Jose police chief Joseph McNamara, in a 2006 op-ed for the Wall Street Journal:

Simply put, the police culture in our country has changed. An emphasis on "officer safety" and paramilitary training pervades today's policing, in contrast to the older culture, which held that cops didn't shoot until they were about to be shot or stabbed. Police in large cities formerly carried revolvers holding six .38-caliber rounds. Nowadays, police carry semi-automatic pistols with 16 high-caliber rounds, shotguns and military assault rifles, weapons once relegated to SWAT teams facing extraordinary circumstances. Concern about such firepower in densely populated areas hitting innocent citizens has given way to an attitude that the police are fighting a war against drugs and crime and must be heavily armed.

The military’s task is to conquer and annihilate a foreign enemy (as former Reagan administration official Lawrence Korb once put it, it’s “to vaporize, not Mirandize”). The police are charged with protecting the public order, but without sacrificing the rights of the citizenry. It’s dangerous to conflate the two. But that seems to be where we’re headed. Our politicians have dressed our police like soldiers, trained them in paramilitary tactics, given them military weapons and armor, and told them they’re fighting a “war.” We shouldn’t be surprised if and when some police officers take that message to heart.

Foreign Policy

America’s quest to rid the world of illicit drugs knows no boundaries—political or moral. Just months before September 11, we gave $43 million to Afghanistan—a way of compensating Afghan farmers hurt by the Taliban’s compliance with a U.S. request to crack down on that country’s opium farms (as it turns out, the Taliban had merely eradicated the farms in competition with the Taliban’s own producers).

We don’t seem to have learned. The western world’s prohibition on opium makes poppies a lucrative crop for impoverished Afghan farmers, and is a valuable recruiting tool for insurgents and remnant Taliban forces.

At the same time, we have DEA agents and U.S. and United Nations troops roving the country on search-and-destroy missions, setting Afghani livelihoods aflame before their very eyes—not exactly the way to build alliances. Former BBC correspondent Misha Glenny, author of a book on the global drug trade, explained last year in the Washington Post:

In the past two years, the drug war has become the Taliban's most effective recruiter in Afghanistan. Afghanistan's Muslim extremists have reinvigorated themselves by supporting and taxing the countless peasants who are dependent one way or another on the opium trade, their only reliable source of income. The Taliban is becoming richer and stronger by the day, especially in the east and south of the country. The "War on Drugs" is defeating the "war on terror."

But it isn’t just Afghanistan. The U.S. has a long history of turning a blind eye to human rights abuses and unintended consequences in the name of eradicating illicit drugs overseas. For example, between 2001 and 2003, the U.S. gave more than $12 million to Thailand for drug interdiction efforts. Over ten months in 2003, the Thai government sent out anti-drug “death squads” to carry out the summary, extra-judicial executions of as many as 4,000 suspected drug offenders. Many were later found to have had nothing to do with the drug trade at all. Though the U.S. State Department denounced the killings, the United States continued to give the same Thai regime millions in aid for counter-narcotics operations.

The U.S.-backed and heavily U.S.-funded drug war has led to a particularly bloody civil war in several provinces in Mexico. Large swaths of Mexican police forces are working for the country’s drug cartels. Meanwhile, U.S. drug agents and politicians have been corrupted in their own way—in their willingness to accept brutal violence in Mexico as collateral damage if it brings hope for a diminished drug supply in the U.S. In one case, federal drug agents looked the other way while one of their confidential informants participated in a series of brutal murders across the border, because they didn’t want to compromise their investigation. Or witness a former federal drug warrior write in an Arizona newspaper that all the death and carnage in Mexico is welcome news—merely a necessary step on the road to “victory.” Just last year, the U.S. Congress approved another $400 million in drug war aid to Mexico, despite concern from human rights organizations that the Mexican military may be killing innocent Mexican citizens in its vigor to crack down on the drug lords.

In Latin America, the “Plan Colombia” drug interdiction effort spearheaded by President Clinton has been a disaster, as our military aid has funded right-wing paramilitary groups responsible for mass human rights abuses and spawned public support for the FARC guerilla organization that periodically rises up to threaten the country’s stability. The other main component of the plan—the mass spraying of concentrated herbicide on Colombian coca fields—has poisoned vast tracts of farmland (and, some say, many people), depriving many Colombians of their livelihood. This, again, isn’t likely to foster warm feelings toward the United States. Three provinces in Ecuador are currently suing the U.S. government and U.S. contractor Dyncorp, alleging that our spraying efforts in Columbia have on several occasions crossed the Columbia-Ecuador border, raining toxic, potent chemicals down on Ecuadorian villages.

Opposition to the U.S. drug war in South America was a motivating factor in the election of the anti-American Evo Morales administration in Bolivia, and Rafael Correa in Ecuador. Brazil and Argentina are actually moving toward decriminalizing drugs, despite the cooling of relations with the U.S. that would likely come with it. U.S. anti-narcotics efforts have also fostered instability, corruption, and the rise of terrorist organizations in Peru. Incidentally, it was in Peru that, in 2001, the CIA mistook a plane full of missionaries for a drug plane. U.S. officials ordered the Peruvian Air Force to shoot the plane down, killing 35-year old Veronica Bowers and her seven-month-old daughter, Charity. More collateral damage.

The Rule of Law

“The Fourth Amendment has been virtually repealed by court decisions,” Yale law professor Steven Duke told Wired magazine in 2000, “most of which involve drug searches.”

The rise of the aforementioned no-knock raid is one example, as is the almost comically comprehensive list of reasons for which you can be legally detained and invasively searched for drugs at an airport. In many areas of the country, police are conducting “administrative searches” at bars and clubs, in which an obvious search for criminality is cloaked in the guise of a regulatory inspection, obviating the need for a search warrant.

But the drug war has undermined the rule of law in other ways than its evisceration of the Fourth Amendment. Take the bizarre concept of asset forfeiture, an attack on both due process and property rights. Under the asset forfeiture laws passed by Congress in the 1980s (then reformed in 2000), property can be found guilty of a drug crime. The mere presence of an illicit substance in your home or car can allow the government to seize your property, sell it, and keep the proceeds. The onus is then on you to prove you obtained your property legally. Even the presence of an illicit drug isn’t always necessary. The government has seized and kept cash from citizens under the absurd argument that merely carrying large amounts of cash is enough to trigger suspicion. If you can’t prove where you got the money, you lose it.

The drug war has undermined the rule of law in less obvious ways, too. As was the case with alcohol prohibition, and is the case with the prohibition of any consensual crime, the people we ask to police these crimes often have to break the very laws they’re enforcing. The presence of large sums of unaccounted money can be tempting, as we’ve seen in the countless stories of drug cops gone bad.

But the drug war breeds corruption more mundane ways, too. Politicians and prosecutors want statistics—lots of arrests, big busts, and lots of drug seizures. The temptation for even well-meaning cops to take shortcuts looms large. We saw this in Atlanta in 2006 when a botched drug raid led to the death of 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston. Subsequent investigations revealed that not only did police in that case lie about nearly every aspect of Johnston’s case, but that lying on search warrants to make the quick bust was common among Atlanta’s narcotics cops.

The cops in the Johnston case also lied about their use of a confidential informant, another common temptation in drug policing. Police abuse of the drug informant system led to the high-profile scandals in Tulia and Hearne, Texas, as well as other scandals in St. Louis, Cleveland, and elsewhere.

The use of street informants is bad enough. But there’s also the problem of jailhouse informants, convicts facing long sentences who testify against drug suspects in exchange for a reduction in their time behind bars. Despite the obvious shortcomings in their trustworthiness—they’re cons who have everything to gain by lying, and nothing to lose—countless innocents have been wrongly convicted on the word of jailhouse snitches.

These inherent problems with the informant system have given rise to the “Stop Snitch’n” movement, which, whatever you may think of it, has revealed the troubling extent to which entire communities in America have completely given up on the people charged with protecting them, even when it comes to helping with investigations of violent crime. Many understandably find the “Stop Snitch’n” movement repugnant, but there’s no question that it’s symptomatic of a larger problem: In many urban areas, the drug war has completely eradicated respect for the rule of law.

Crime, Violence, and Prison

If you look at a graph of the U.S. murder rate going back to about 1915, you’ll notice a few interesting patterns. There’s a spike at around 1919, just at the onset of alcohol prohibition. The graph then takes a dramatic dip in 1933, just after the repeal of prohibition. There’s then another spike in the late 1960s, just as Richard Nixon took office and fired the first shots of his war on drugs. That spike falls in the 1970s as President Carter took a less militant approach to drug prohibition, but then with Reagan’s reinvigorated war in the 1980s, it begins another upward ascent.

This shouldn’t be surprising. Prohibitions create black markets, and black markets spawn crime. Drug prohibition, then, spawns violent crime. There’s a reason we don’t often hear about a Michelob deal gone bad. Because alcohol is legal, there are no turf wars, no sour deals, no smuggling operations to defend.

One in 100 Americans today is behind bars. That number by far and away leads the world, and is at its highest point in American history. About 350,000 of the approximately 3 million Americans behind bars are there for nonviolent drug crimes (trafficking or possession). It would be impossible to approximate, but countless others are undoubtedly in for violent or property crimes that are by-products of drug prohibition. The drug war has turned entire neighborhoods into, well, war zones. If the temptation of the drug trade can be too much for some police officers, you can imagine the allure for a young urban kid wasting away in an awful public school with few other prospects.

It’s difficult to know what effect the exploding prison population will have on American society going forward, but it certainly can’t be good.

Hundreds of thousands of people who victimized no one will spend a good deal of their lives in prison alongside hardened criminals, then face lives on the outside limited by their status as convicted felons.

Medical Treatment

One final and emerging class of drug war collateral damage is medical treatment. As the drug war has become increasingly federalized, the federal government has at the same time increasingly nosed in on the relationship between doctor and patient.

The most obvious example is medical marijuana, where the federal government has not only told doctors what they can and can’t prescribe to their patients, it has barred research into the possible medical benefits of marijuana (it then dishonestly claims there is no research providing evidence of said benefits), and asserted the supremacy of federal law when it comes to marijuana-related medical policy—a field of policy America has traditionally (and wisely) left to the states.

Supporters of drug prohibition argue that medical marijuana is merely a ruse to get the drug legalized on a wider scale, and in some ways they’re right. You’d have to be fairly gullible to believe that everyone sporting a prescription for marijuana in California right now is in dire need of the drug (and I say this as someone who supports complete legalization).

Yet there are, unquestionably, people who do need the drug, and they’re unquestionably suffering—and in some cases dying—because they can’t get it. Peter McWilliams is one of the sadder examples. Angel Raich—whose case upheld the federal government’s imposition of federal law on states like California—is another. Or consider National Review’s Richard Brookhiser, a credentialed conservative who, as it happens, used marijuana to help with the nausea that came with chemotherapy when he was battling cancer. When Drug Czar John Walters said in 2005 that there’s no evidence of a medical benefit to marijuana, Brookhiser responded, “He is a liar or an ignoramus, probably both.” Perhaps more eloquently, in testimony before Congress in 1996, Brookhiser said:

“My support for medical marijuana is not a contradiction of my principles, but an extension of them. I am for law and order. But crime has to be fought intelligently and the law disgraces itself when it harasses the sick. I am for traditional virtues, but if carrying your beliefs to unjust ends is not moral, it is philistine."

One more recent area where the drug war is corrupting medical treatment is in the treatment of pain—specifically, chronic pain. By some estimates, as many as 30 million Americans suffer from untreated chronic pain. That number is only likely to rise as the country continues to age. A promising new treatment called “high-dose opiate therapy” has proven successful at keeping chronic pain at bay in many patients. The problem is that as patients build up a resistance, doctors must titrate up their dosages, to the point where some patients can take 40 or more pills per day. These patients don’t get high, and they don’t suffer any ill effects. They aren’t addicted, they’re merely dependent. Take the medication away, and the pain comes back.

Unfortunately, because some addicts use opiate painkillers to get high, the Drug Enforcement Administration has decided to play doctor, determining that no patient should ever need medication at dosages that high, and that any doctor prescribing drugs in those quantities must be dealing (or “diverting,” as it’s called in the white collar world). While it’s certainly possible that some doctors who prescribe pain medication are unethical, the DEA’s aggressive, un-nuanced pursuit of pain doctors has put the fear of prosecution into nearly all doctors who specialize in pain treatment (and scared young doctors from entering the field). Driven by politicians spooked by a spate of irresponsible press reports warning of an OxyContin fad sweeping the country, the DEA’s high-profile pursuit of pain specialists has poisoned the relationship between pain doctors and their patients, and left the country with a dire shortage of physicians willing to prescribe pain medication at the dosages many patients need.

We have drug cops dictating medical policy, and it’s leading to all sorts of unnecessary suffering. Some patients have lost one doctor to a DEA prosecution, spent weeks to find another who will treat them, sometimes miles away, only to have that doctor come under investigation, too. More than a few pain patients have attempted suicide after being unable to find a doctor to treat them.

All just collateral damage. The DEA’s mission is to prevent people from getting high. If it takes an overly broad, overly aggressive, chilling campaign against doctors to do that, leaving millions of people in needless, sometimes debilitating pain, so be it.

And for What?

Even if the drug war were working—even if all the horrible things the federal government says are caused by illicit drugs were accurate (and some of them admittedly are), and even if the war on drugs were proving successful in eradicating or even significantly diminishing our access to those drugs—you’d have a difficult time arguing that the benefits would be worth the costs.

But the kicker is, of course, that it isn’t working. Most of the federal government claims about the evils associated with illicit drugs are either exaggerated or misapplied effects not of the drugs, but of the government’s prohibition of them.

More to the point, none of this is working, even taking drug war advocates’ positions at face value. It is as easy to achieve an illegal high today as it was in 1981, as it was in 1971, as it was in 1915. The vast majority of you reading this either know where to get a bag of marijuana, or know someone who knows where to get one. Specific drugs come in and out of vogue, but the desire to alter one’s consciousness, to escape life’s drab monotonies, or just to call in a different mindset is as strong and pervasive as it’s ever been, going back to the stone age. It’s also just as easy to fulfill.

In a 1986 speech designed to drum up public support for yet another round of War on Drugs legislation, President Ronald Reagan officially designated illicit drugs a threat to America’s national security. After declaring that, “We’re running up a battle flag,” Reagan then compared America’s determination in the war on drugs to that of the French troops at the World War I Battle of Verdun. As the journalist Dan Baum notes while explaining Reagan’s speech in his book Smoke and Mirrors, Verdun was a protracted, bloody, brutal battle of attrition. A quarter million troops lost their lives and another 700,000 were wounded in the months-long battle for a small strip of land that offered little practical advantage to either army. In fact, in much of Europe, Verdun has come to symbolize the futility of war, and the way governments are willing to write off the mass loss of human life as mere collateral damage in the pursuit of some seemingly noble but ultimately shallow and elusive aim.

Looking back, Reagan’s analogy was quite a bit more appropriate than he probably intended.

Radley Balko is a senior editor at Reason magazine. This article orginally appeared at Culture11.com and previously at Reason.com.

Feds Try to Send California Business Owner to Jail for Filling Doctors' Prescriptions

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Los Angeles (June 11, 2008) - Owen Beck, battling bone cancer, had a prescription for medical marijuana from his doctors at Stanford. He often filled his prescription at a legal medical marijuana dispensary run by Charles Lynch in California. But after being raided by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Lynch faces federal charges of distributing marijuana to minors - minors suffering from cancer, like Owen Beck.

In the Reason.tv video, host Drew Carey asks, "Are we really helping minors by keeping them from medical marijuana at all costs? Or are we treating their parents like children?"

"The feds need to face the facts: California voters legalized medical marijuana in 1996," says Reason.tv editor Nick Gillespie. "The federal government's continual harassment of cancer patients and legal businesses is shameful and serves as a frequent reminder of what a massive failure the war on drugs is."

The two major presidential candidates have taken completely opposite positions on medical marijuana and the DEA raids. Last month, Oregon's Willamette Week asked Sen. Barack Obama, "Would you stop the DEA's raids on Oregon medical marijuana growers?" Obama responded, "I would because I think our federal agents have better things to do, like catching criminals and preventing terrorism."

In March, Obama told Oregon's Mail Tribune, "When it comes to medical marijuana, I have more of a practical view than anything else. I mean, my attitude is that if it's an issue of doctors prescribing medical marijuana as a treatment for glaucoma or as a cancer treatment, I think that should be appropriate because there really is no difference between that and a doctor prescribing morphine or anything else."

The Republican National Committee attacked Sen. Obama's response to the Willamette Week's question and Sen. John McCain says he'll continue the Bush administration's aggressive efforts. McCain, who once supported states' rights on the issue, now says, "I don't believe that medical marijuana is necessary for alleving pain, relief of pain. I don't believe it's healthy…I believe it is a national issue and not a statewide issue."

When asked what he'd do to stop federal raids in states where voters have made medical marijuana legal, McCain said, "Nothing."

This is the second Reason.tv Drew Carey video examining the nation's medical marijuana laws. In a November 2007 video, Carey called for the legalization of medical marijuana, saying, "I think it's clear by now that the federal government needs to reclassify marijuana. People who need it should be able to get it - safely and easily."

Full Video Online

The Reason.tv Drew Carey video, Medical Marijuana and Minors, is online at http://reason.tv/video/show/413.html. An archive of Drew Carey's Reason.tv videos is online at http://reason.tv/featuredvids/.

About Reason.tv

Reason.tv is an online community showcasing the best libertarian ideas and videos on the Internet. Reason.tv gives you the opportunity to create videos, share videos and suggest topics for Drew Carey's upcoming documentaries. For more information, please visit www.reason.tv.

About Reason Foundation

Reason Foundation is a nonprofit think tank dedicated to advancing free minds and free markets. Reason Foundation produces respected public policy research on a variety of issues and publishes the critically acclaimed Reason magazine and its website www.reason.com. For more information, please visit www.reason.org.

Contact

Chris Mitchell, Director of Communications, Reason Foundation, (310) 367-6109

Drew Carey Defends Medical Marijuana

Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:23:00 EDT

Los Angeles (November 1, 2007) – "I think it's clear by now that the federal government needs to reclassify marijuana. People who need it should be able to get it – safely and easily," says The Price Is Right and Power of 10 host Drew Carey in a new Reason.tv video examining medical marijuana and the war on drugs.

Voters in 12 states have legalized medical marijuana and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger recently said marijuana "is not a drug. It's a leaf." Yet the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) ignores these laws and continues to assault patients and caregivers in states where medical marijuana is legal. Why is the federal government disregarding state laws passed by millions of voters? Because the feds classify marijuana and heroin as equals. The government bogusly claims marijuana has "no accepted medical use" and a "high potential for abuse." Cocaine and methamphetamine are just two of the drugs the government puts in a less restrictive category than cannabis.

To make these false claims the federal government has to ignore research it commissioned. In 1999 the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that marijuana has "therapeutic value" that relieves pain, controls vomiting and nausea, and stimulates the appetite. This year, in a study funded by the state of California, doctors at the University of California at San Francisco and San Francisco General Hospital proved marijuana provides significant relief to HIV-infected patients suffering from neuropathic pain. Dozens of credible studies have demonstrated marijuana's medicinal benefits.

"The DEA is ignoring a large and growing body of evidence and needs to reschedule marijuana," said David Nott, president of Reason Foundation. "Cancer patients, HIV and AIDS patients, and millions of sick Americans deserve access to the drugs that ease their pain and suffering, and Congress can and should facilitate that."

Full Video Online

Medical Marijuana, hosted by Drew Carey, is available online at http://reason.tv/video/show/57.html. You can also view a lower-resolution version of the video, without the video's extras, on Reason.tv's YouTube page at http://www.youtube.com/ReasonTV.

About Reason.tv

Reason.tv is an online community showcasing the best free market ideas and videos on the Internet. Reason.tv gives you the opportunity to create videos, share videos and suggest topics for Drew Carey's upcoming documentaries. For more information, please visit www.reason.tv.

About Reason Foundation

Reason Foundation is a nonprofit think tank dedicated to advancing free minds and free markets. Reason Foundation produces respected public policy research on a variety of issues and publishes the critically acclaimed monthly magazine, Reason, and its website www.reason.com. For more information, please visit www.reason.org.

Contact

Chris Mitchell, Director of Communications, Reason Foundation, (310) 367-6109

Study Corrects LAPD Inaccuracies on Medical Marijuana

Tue, 20 Mar 2007 12:20:00 EDT

Los Angeles (March 20, 2007) - A new report identifies several inaccuracies in the Los Angeles Police Department's "Fact Sheet" about medical marijuana dispensaries and urges the city to take a "sensible approach" that respects the rights of medical marijuana patients and the legitimate, legal businesses that are serving their medical needs.

Los Angeles is considering a moratorium that would block the establishment of new medical marijuana dispensaries and Police Chief William Bratton is calling for a ban of existing dispensaries operating within 1,000 feet of schools, churches, and parks.

LAPD claims "anecdotal evidence" shows the growing number of dispensaries has caused an increase in the number of marijuana-related arrests and seizures. In reality, the number of marijuana-related arrests in 2006 (5,506) was lower than the number of arrests in 2004 (5,946) according to police department figures.

"If dispensaries are to blame for marijuana arrests, why were there fewer arrests in 2006 – when the LAPD says there were at least 98 'documented' dispensaries – than in 2004 – when there were no more than four dispensaries operating in LA?" asked Skaidra Smith-Heisters, author of the Reason Foundation report.

LAPD also alleges medical marijuana dispensaries are targeting children. Yet data from the California Attorney General shows that marijuana use among teens has decreased since voters passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996.

Chief Bratton wants to ban all dispensaries from operating within a 1,000 foot radius of schools, parks and churches. However, Reason finds the LAPD report curiously and quietly extends – and extends - its danger zone, complaining that some dispensaries are within 1,000 yards (3,000 feet) and others are within one mile (5,280 feet) of the "public locations of concern."

"The vast majority of dispensaries are operating in a responsible manner and have taken numerous steps to regulate themselves to ensure the safety of their patients and the community around them," said Adrian Moore, vice president of research at Reason. "Most Angelenos agree that medical marijuana helps people and voted with the rest of California to make it legal. The LAPD should not try to subvert the will of the voters. Unless a risk that is unique to the dispensaries can be clearly proven, the business requirements should be consistent with those for other businesses throughout the city."

"The city should focus on measures that ensure dispensary members are qualified patients and have valid doctors' recommendations," stated Smith-Heisters. "California voters have made it clear: we want ill, suffering patients to receive the medicine they need and their doctors recommend. The City Council should keep these patients, and the will of voters, at the forefront of its discussion on how to improve the dispensaries."

Full Report Online

The full report, Sensible Policies for Medical Marijuana Dispensaries, is available online at www.reason.org/pb57.pdf.

About Reason

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Sensible Policies for Medical Marijuana Dispensaries in Los Angeles

skaidra@reason.org (Skaidra Smith-Heisters) — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 00:00:00 EST

edical marijuana dispensaries serve a critical purpose in the city of Los Angeles, providing a reliable means for qualified medical patients to obtain medical marijuana in accordance with California law. Dispensary regulation also creates a mechanism for local government oversight of medical marijuana cultivation and distribution. Though many aspects of medical marijuana dispensary regulation are the responsibility of the state government, zoning decisions and conditional use permitting processes governing the operation of the city’s medical marijuana dispensaries are the purview of the City Council.

The Los Angeles Police Department recently issued recommendations to the City Council for a list of restrictions to be imposed on all existing and future medical marijuana dispensaries in the city. These recommendations serve as a useful reference point for some of the issues facing the City Council in its determination of appropriate guidelines for the operation of medical marijuana dispensaries; however, they do not reflect an entirely accurate understanding of California’s medical marijuana laws.

Let Them Have Their Pot

info@reason.org (Manuel S. Klausner) — Fri, 26 Jan 2007 10:30:00 EST

Los Angeles Times

In the fictional world of the hit show "24," federal law enforcement agencies are pouring every last resource into the search for a nuclear terrorist in Los Angeles.

In the real world, federal agents apparently have so much free time that they can dress up in bulletproof vests and masks in order to raid clinics that serve patients battling cancer, AIDS and other diseases. That's what happened last week as Drug Enforcement Administration agents stormed 11 medical marijuana dispensaries throughout L.A. and West Hollywood. We can all rest easier knowing that lollipops, cookies, candies and candy bars laced with marijuana are in no danger of reaching seriously ill patients.

Recall that 56% of California voters passed the Compassionate Use Act in 1996, making it legal for patients to obtain and use medical marijuana under the care of a doctor. A 2004 Field poll showed that support for the law has grown since its passage, with 74% of Californians now in favor of allowing sick patients to use marijuana. In 2004, SB 420 clarified how much medicinal cannabis patients could grow and possess, and it allowed local governments to set additional guidelines.

The West Hollywood City Council recently voted to control the number of medical marijuana dispensaries operating in the city. Last week, the Los Angeles Police Department submitted more than 40 recommendations for controlling dispensaries, seeking to ban them from being within 1,000 feet of schools and to require owners to remove all litter "visible to the public within 100 feet of the premises at least twice daily." The dispensaries also have practiced self-regulation. Yes, there have been poorly run dispensaries and others looking to circumvent the system — but the feds didn't focus on them.

Instead, this raid hit one of the best-run dispensaries in West Hollywood — the Farmacy — where patients must present valid medical information verified by doctors; where purchases are limited to 1 ounce, even though the law allows patients to possess 8 ounces; where patients aren't allowed to medicate on the premises; and where anyone caught with forged documents is detained until police arrive and charged with a felony.

The Farmacy has been a leader in treatment and education. Caring for patients suffering from everything from cancer to glaucoma to multiple sclerosis, it teaches patients about the effects of different strains of indica and sativa marijuana and offers edibles and concentrated medicine in the form of oil to reduce the potential harm of smoking marijuana in plant form.

The raid on the Farmacy shocked West Hollywood officials, who weren't notified of it in advance.

"We have worked closely with our community to ensure these establishments operate safely and comply with the spirit of Proposition 215," West Hollywood City Council member Jeffrey Prang said.

"The DEA is here to enforce federal drug laws," Special Agent Sarah Pullen declared, and, strictly speaking, she was right. In a 2001 case, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the "medical necessity" of a patient could not be used as a defense against federal drug enforcement. (The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 classifies marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug with "no medical uses" — making it worse in the eyes of the feds than cocaine, methamphetamine and many other drugs.) In 2005, the court ruled that federal authorities could even stop a seriously ill patient from cultivating marijuana for her personal use.

In her dissent from that decision, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor declared that such "overreaching stifles an express choice by some states." Justice John Paul Stevens noted in his opinion for the court that Congress could revisit its outdated law to deal with the "strong arguments that marijuana does have valid therapeutic purposes."

Meanwhile, the DEA can still bully its way past California law while ignoring its own spectacular policy failures. The DEA has failed to significantly reduce marijuana consumption despite breathtaking increases in arrests and incarcerations. And its recent efforts aimed at keeping medicine from patients are shamefully transparent attempts to go after an easy target: Marijuana dispensaries operate openly, and cancer patients are limited in their ability to evade law enforcement.

The arcane classification of marijuana under the Controlled Substances Act persists despite the government's own actions and data to the contrary. In 1992, the Food and Drug Administration approved Marinol pills, which use the active ingredient in marijuana (THC) to treat nausea and vomiting. In 1999, the Institute of Medicine, part of the National Academy of Sciences, concluded that "the evidence is relatively strong for the [marijuana] treatment of pain and, intriguing although less well established, for movement disorders."

So what can be done? Congress must reclassify marijuana in accord with the standards of science and medicine. The law simply needs to be fixed.

Until that time, the DEA should find better ways to spend its time and resources. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach) has called on the federal government to leave California — and the 10 other states that have approved medical marijuana — alone. His bipartisan bill, co-sponsored by Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.), was voted down 264 to 161 in 2005.

This reform is overdue. It should be an urgent priority for our new Congress to stop the Justice Department from arresting or harassing sick people in 11 states who have the legal right to use medical marijuana.

Manuel S. Klausner, founder of the Reason Foundation, is a lawyer in Los Angeles. He filed the Reason Foundation's amicus brief in the Supreme Court medical marijuana case of Gonzales vs. Raich.

Raich Continues Medical Marijuana Fight, Reason Foundation Files New Brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit

Tue, 13 Dec 2005 10:37:00 EST

Angel Raich continues to battle the federal goverment over her right to use medical marijuana and a long list of ailments including an inoperable brain tumor, a uterine fibroid tumor, severe chronic pain from scoliosis, non-epileptic seizures. After the United States Supreme Court ruled the federal government can prosecute medical marijuana users - even in states where medical marijuana is legal - Raich's case returned to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. Reason Foundation filed a brief in support of Raich, arguing, "In the end, the only federal interest actually at stake is the government’s oddly paternalistic desire to prevent seriously ill patients from taking a drug of last resort simply because the government is not yet convinced that it will help them (i.e., that it has a generally accepted medical use), notwithstanding the well supported contrary experience and views of the patients and their doctors. The notion that the people have to convince the government of the value of nonharmful behavior before the government will permit such behavior is a strange and disturbing basis for government regulation and is squarely at odds with any notion of liberty as conceived by the founding generation.8 And whatever may be the ability of States to adopt such an odd paternalism through their broad police powers, the State of California has made the opposite choice, and federal imposition of such local paternalism contrary to the State’s own local desires, is a far stretch from the concerns that led to the Commerce Clause." The Reason brief is here:

Surf City's Shameful Pols

david.nott@reason.org (David Nott) — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 00:00:00 EST

Orange County Register

On Monday, the Huntington Beach City Council curiously, and wrongfully, imposed a 45-day moratorium on permits for medical cannabis dispensaries, which are legal in California.

The city attorney and police chief argued for the ban, hiding behind the smokescreen of "a conflict between state and federal law on the issue of medical marijuana." The U.S. Supreme Court heard arguments in November and is now deliberating in a medical marijuana case, Ashcroft vs. Raich, to decide whether federal agents can stop patients from peacefully growing their own medicine.

Angel Raich, who lives in Oakland, suffers severe chronic pain from a variety of ailments, including fibromyalgia, endometriosis, scoliosis, uterine fibroid tumors and rotator cuff syndrome. If that's not enough, she also has an inoperable brain tumor, seizures, and life- threatening wasting syndrome, accompanied by near-constant nausea. Raich found that medical marijuana keeps her out of a wheelchair and feeling better than anything else (she's tried over 35 medicines). Unfortunately, the feds think raiding homes of people like Angel Raich is "law enforcement" and a good use of our tax dollars.

However, under our federal system of dual sovereignties and California law, even where state and federal laws conflict, Huntington Beach is obligated to enforce only state law.

California voters overwhelmingly approved medical marijuana in 1996, and the Legislature subsequently passed laws about implementation. It is state policy to encourage dispensaries and provide medical marijuana to patients in need. Moreover, the California Supreme Court has said that the state is responsible for enforcement of its own marijuana laws rather than those of the federal government.

Even if City Council members didn't pay attention in civics class, they ignored valuable legal information from highly regarded Los Angeles attorney Manny Klausner, who provided them with the relevant information and case law before they voted for the ban. It is a sad day when they are willing to discard the rule of law because of their own prejudices.

They claim they passed the ordinance because of an unsubstantiated fear that medical cannabis causes crime - as if grandma is going to leave chemo, toke up and go rob a bank because she has restricted access to her medicine. Meanwhile, in Anaheim, police Sgt. Rick Martinez recently said a marijuana dispensary that opened in December "has not caused any problems" in his city.

Last year, at a symposium on medical cannabis at the USC medical school, a paralyzed patient in a wheelchair told a heart-rending story of his difficulties buying his medicine on the street, where he was routinely victimized. So the real losers in this are the patients who are having their access to medical cannabis restricted.

The science on medical marijuana is clear: The Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences report (funded by the Office of National Drug Control Policy) positively describes the role of cannabis as medicine. Similarly, as Dr. Lester Grinspoon of the Harvard Medical School states, "Marijuana's therapeutic uses are well- documented in the modern scientific literature . These studies demonstrate marijuana's usefulness in reducing nausea and vomiting, stimulating appetite, promoting weight gain and diminishing intraocular pressure from glaucoma. There is also evidence that smoked marijuana and/or THC reduce muscle spasticity from spinal cord injuries and multiple sclerosis ... ."

Although this mean-spirited ordinance will not hold up in court, time is on the city's side. The council surely knows that its initial ordinance will expire before a court date can even be set because our wheels of justice move so slowly.

Nevertheless, we've learned plenty about council members: They are willing to discard state law and the overwhelming will of California voters; and they are eager to smear ailing citizens seeking pain relief as a crime risk.

Californian Peter McWilliams choked to death on his own vomit because he was denied access to the one medicine that successfully controlled his nausea. How many more people must die before we stop erecting senseless obstacles?

David Nott is the President of Reason Foundation.

Reason Files Brief with United States Supreme Court Supporting Raich, Medical Marijuana

Wed, 13 Oct 2004 11:56:00 EDT

Angel Raich is battling an intimidating list of ailments including an inoperable brain tumor, a uterine fibroid tumor, severe chronic pain from scoliosis, non-epileptic seizures, to name just a few. Her doctor has stated it could "very well be fatal for Angel to forego cannabis treatments." Reason Foundation filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the United States Supreme Court in the medical marijuana case, Ashcroft v. Raich, asking the Court to uphold the California law allowing doctors to recommend, and patients to use, medical cannabis. The Reason brief states that the government "has provided no evidence that California law does not effectively prevent medical cannabis cultivation from having a substantial affect on the commercial market for recreational marijuana...it is now a firmly rooted constitutional principle that unless regulation concerns the channels or instrumentalities of commerce, an activity must have a 'substantial affect' on interstate commerce in order to subject it to Congressional regulation under the Commerce Clause."

A Show of Support for Medical Marijuana

david.nott@reason.org (David Nott) — Wed, 15 Oct 2003 00:00:00 EDT

San Diego Union-Tribune

Drug Enforcement Administration agents carrying automatic weapons stormed a nonprofit hospice in Santa Cruz last year because the facility was growing and distributing medical marijuana to its ill patients. Suzanne Pfeil, who generally uses a wheelchair and is unable to walk without crutches because she suffers from post-polio syndrome, was ordered to stand up even though the agents could see her nearby crutches and leg-braces. When she couldn't stand up, the feds handcuffed Pfeil to her bed while they sought the care facility's medical marijuana.

These are the types of dubious victories the war on drugs is achieving. It is also the biggest reason everyone from the Supreme Court to Gov. Gray Davis to the San Diego City Council is seeking to protect medical marijuana patients from unlawful harassment.

In his signing spree over the weekend, Davis finally approved a bill (SB 420) that will allow the state's medical marijuana patients to obtain optional ID cards protecting them from arrest. (San Diego recently passed a similar plan, and San Francisco and numerous other cities have already been operating medical marijuana ID programs.)

The identification system will allow many of society's sickest citizens to retain a little dignity by avoiding a trip to jail if law enforcement officers throughout the state question or detain them.

Authorities would use the ID cards to verify that a doctor has prescribed the drug to the person in question, and that the amount carried is within the allowable limit. If someone doesn't have the card, or possesses too much of the drug, they would be subject to arrest.

California didn't think it would need to issue ID cards. In 1996, California voters approved the Compassionate Use Act, or Proposition 215, which was supposed to make certain that gravely ill people could get medical marijuana if their doctors prescribed it. However, federal authorities have ignored the will of Californians and have frequently attacked the law during the Bush administration, with the DEA conducting military-like raids and jailing known medical marijuana growers throughout the state.

In fact, the Bush administration went so far as to ask the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the federal government could punish doctors for simply suggesting or just talking about marijuana with their patients. Thankfully, the Supreme Court yesterday rejected that request.

Nevertheless, many ill or dying patients will actually avoid the optional ID cards � fearing that if they register their names they will be vulnerable to greater harassment and scrutiny from federal agencies like the DEA. For others, the ID card system will provide some relief and perhaps serve as a form of civil disobedience against the DEA and those pointless attacks. Along the way it also will further entrench California as the state blazing a trail for the others to follow.

Californians have demonstrated repeatedly a desire to help long-suffering patients who might be aided by medical marijuana. Look no further than the recent recall election for the broad scope of support that medical marijuana enjoys today. All of the election's major candidates: Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger (no surprise since you can see him smoke marijuana in the documentary "Pumping Iron"), Democratic Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante and conservative Sen. Tom McClintock all agreed on one thing — that medical marijuana should be legal for select Californians.

But this isn't even one of those wacky California-only things. The entire country overwhelmingly supports the use of medical marijuana: 80 percent of Americans support the legal use of medicinal marijuana by patients, and 72 percent say adults who smoke marijuana recreationally should get off with a fine, according to a national TIME/CNN poll published in October 2002.

California's new statewide ID card system will prove to be a method of providing our society's ailing members more medical choices, while also allowing our already thinly stretched law enforcement agencies to focus their resources more appropriately. San Diego Police Chief William Lansdowne told The San Diego Union-Tribune that the ID card ordinance "makes my job easier."

It also will make life easier for patients like Suzanne Pfeil, who are fighting life-and-death battles and shouldn't have to waste time with, or be victims of, the federal government's misguided crusade against medical marijuana.

David Nott is the President of Reason Foundation.