By Press Release July 27, 2013


"Use of this performance-based technology better promotes responsible cannabis use and addresses public demands for alternative ways to discourage driving under the influence," says NORML's Paul Armentano


CheckPlusBalance provides a quick, private, accurate and objective measure of personal performance. It helps responsible people quickly, privately and accurately determine their impairment level prior to driving. CheckPlusBalance can help individuals assess their performance regardless of the cause of possible impairment, including marijuana, alcohol, medication, illness or fatigue.


CheckPlusBalance was developed specifically to help people who want to be confident that they can perform at a safe level after taking medication, alcohol, recreational drugs, or who have any reason to confirm their current level of functioning.

Are you under the delusion that marijuana is legal in California??? Check out this 2012 crime report. Over 21,000 Arrested in California on Marijuana Charges in 2012
LET'S END THIS MADNESS!!!!

http://www.canorml.org/news/2012_marijuana_arrest_data

#C.A.R.E. #JustLegalizeIt2014 #HempCanSaveThePlanet 

We are putting an album together to support the legalization of cannabis in California. There is a producer and publisher on board. If you have a song about the legalization of marijuana or the plant in general but don't have a distribution plan contact me @Cannabration. We are also looking for visual artists and social networking volunteers.

Marijuana isn't going to legalize itself! Get involved today if you want to #JustLegalizeIt2014 #Cannabration #HempCanSaveThePlanet 

Unfortunately the cat is out of the bag in regards to concentrates. I had hoped that it would not get popular until we achieved legalization in the US. I think this not only complicates the issue, but opens up the opposition to new weapons to use against us. What we need to remember is that responsible cannabis use would include concentrates IF they are being used to regulate dosing. High concentrates of cannabis can allow the patient to smoke LESS since it's so highly concentrated and that is a good thing! ~Susan Soares
 

by Mark Kleiman

A friend who follows drug policy is puzzled by this line in a Reuters story about the semi-final rulemaking for Washington’s regulated cannabis market.

Responding to concerns of fueling a black market, the board also clarified that highly potent marijuana extracts,which have gained in popularity in recent years, may be legally sold so long as they are adulterated with at least trace amounts of an inert substance, such as vegetable oil.

Yes, it’s rather hard to figure out what that means, but the reporter – working within space constraints – can certainly be pardoned for not explicating fully. Here’s the story as I understand it:

The Liquor Board faced a legal question and a policy question.

The legal question is whether the initiative-passed statute the Board is supposed to implement, which permits the sale of ”useable marijuana” (defined as flowers) and of “marijuana-infused products,” does or does not allows the sale of concentrates such as hashish or “hash oil.” The lawyers for the Board decided that it didn’t. But – as I among others pointed out – that created a definitional puzzle. Clearly, a drop of butane hash oil in a gallon of olive oil would constitute a “marijuana-infused product.” But how about a drop of olive oil in a gallon of BHO? At what magical point does diluted BHO become infused olive oil?

I'm fixated on the Trayvon Martin murder trial. I've been watching it on HLN while I work around the apartment. But today something came up that forced me to blog about, impairment and nanograms of THC in your system.

The State tried to keep out the evidence that Trayvon had THC in his system because they said that it would be impossible to tell what effect that THC would have had.  The question is:

It was interesting for me to watch the state argue that it would be impossible to tell how #Trayvon would react to smoking pot. How would they be able to determine if it would make him more or less aggressive? My experience in court was pretty much the opposite. 

I had my doctor on the stand testifying that the strains that I was growing were selected because of the proper effect on my pain management. We conferred quite frequently about the different methods of ingestion, extracting the proper compounds of the cannabis I was growing, and which strains relieved which symptoms. At one point, the DA said "and I'm just going to call it #DOPE because that's what it it!" The court let the DA determine my medical needs over my doctor's opinion!! 

#Cannabration #TrayvonMartinMurderTrial #TrayvonTHC #Legalizeit2014 #CannabisLegalization #Dope

“We’ve got bigger fish to fry,” Obama said of marijuana smokers in Colorado and Washington, the two states where recreational use is now legal. 

So why is Obama's DOJ spending over $300M on agressive medical marijuana enfarcement? 

Posted on May 30, 2013 at 9:56 pm
Susan Soares

A new advocacy group called SAM (Smarter Approach to Marijuana), co-founded by Patrick J. Kennedy, a former congressman and self-admitted alcohol and oxycodone addict, proposes treating marijuana use in the following manner: “Possession or use of a small amount of marijuana should be a civil offense subject to a mandatory health screening and marijuana-education program. Referrals to treatment and/or social-support services should be made if needed. The individual could even be monitored for 6-12 months in a probation program designed to prevent further drug use.” But is this forced treatment for marijuana warranted?

In Psychology Today’s “Is Marijuana Addictive?,” the authors compared marijuana to other substances and found that it does not pose the same risks of dependence. It is estimated that 32% of tobacco users will become addicted, 23% of heroin users, 17% of cocaine users, and 15% of alcohol users. Yet only 9-10% of regular marijuana users will ever fit the definition of dependent . Moreover, the other substances are objectively more harmful than marijuana. So what is the incentive for this push for treatment centers for marijuana use when Mr. Kennedy knows from available evidence and personal experience that alcohol and pharmaceutical drugs are far more harmful? Based on my own personal experience, I think I have at least part of the answer.

About a year ago, I was put through some marijuana re-education of my own when I had to attend court-ordered Deferred Entry of Judgment classes. Every Wednesday night for 18 weeks, I met with a health department leader and other unfortunate drug war casualties. The class would start off with roll call and paying a weekly fee. We would watch a video on addiction or the teacher would read some course work to us. Then he would give us some questions that we were required to answer. Most of them were things like, “How does your addiction affect your daily life”?

At first I quietly just didn’t answer most of the questions or I just wrote in, “I’m not addicted. I use cannabis as a medicine. It helps me control my migraines.” The teacher started singling me out by reading my answers, thinking that I would buckle from public shame.

It’s important to realize that the attendees in the Deferred Entry of Judgment classes were given a free pass from the court and they are scared of going to jail. Defendants who are offered a DEJ have no prior record or they have stayed out of trouble for over 5 years and have no violent crime history. A DEJ means that after you complete the program, you can say that you were never arrested. It’s a way to run a LOT of drug related cases quickly through the judicial system using fear. If you don’t make it through the program the court will order you to jail for what ever the sentence was without any hearing because you have already plead guilty. Typically the DA overcharges a defendant in order to entice a plea deal so that is a scary prospect.

But I didn’t buckle when I was presented with quiz after quiz that asked me to admit to addiction. I stood up for myself. Without cannabis, my life would again center around debilitating migraines, which honestly were driving me toward suicide.

After I started speaking up, I was approached by almost everyone in the class. They all had heartbreaking stories and also felt like they were being herded through a BS program, but you do what you have to do and so they answered the questions as if they believed they were addicted.

In the end, the instructor graduated me early to get rid of me and didn’t even pee test me because he knew it would come up positive for THC.  He was aware of my court documents stating that I could not only smoke cannabis but grow it.

Under the guise of “treatment,” what they were doing was working on creating statistics that would support a HUGE money grab for more services and create a story of crisis that doesn’t really exist!

Published in CNN Money’s Private equity’s rehab roll-up In February 2006, Bain Capital (yes, the company that clean-livingMitt Romney used to run) purchased an outfit called CRC Health Group for $723 million and proceeded to go on a shopping spree, snapping up nearly 20 new treatment facilities over the next two years. The company took a breather during the financial crisis, but in 2011 resumed its buying binge with the purchase of some smaller treatment centers.

Rehab, it turns out, is a pretty good business. Is rehab roll-up-able? In the most basic sense, the answer is yes. But are these treatment centers working to end addiction or is it all about the profit margin?

All treatment programs are not created the same. “CRC uses a cookie-cutter approach,” says Dr. Howard C. Samuels, an addiction specialist and licensed practitioner based in Hollywood. “It’s the assembly line of recovery.” Samuels, who runs his own 14-bed facility, the Hills Treatment Center, says that he used to refer patients to CRC, but ceased doing so when he felt that bureaucracy and the bottom line had overwhelmed concern for individual treatment.

One word I hear over and over again when cannabis activists get together is “WHY?” As in, “Why on earth do we continue to punish adults who simply choose to relax with marijuana instead of the more harmful substance, alcohol?” I think the answer is clear. Follow the money!!!!

by  Susan Soares ~ Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform Fundraising Chair

Colorado's task force has come out with their recommendations and they are not anywhere close to what I thought they might be. 

The recommendations include:

• Marijuana retailers must have both state and local approval.
• For the first year, retail licenses are restricted to operators of existing licensed medical marijuana dispensaries.
• For the first three years, retailers must grow 70% of the marijuana they sell, similar to existing medical marijuana regulations.
• Enact two taxes — a 15 percent excise tax paid by shops where cannabis is sold, and an additional sales tax for customers.
• Restrict access to the marijuana by minors.
• Provide law enforcement officers with new training to catch impaired drivers.
• Update the state’s Clean Air Act to include the effect of marijuana smoke.
• Allow employers to prohibit off the job marijuana use by employees.
• Allow marijuana to be sold to out-of-state visitors who are 21 or older.
• Limit the amount of marijuana sold to a customer in a single purchase, perhaps to an eighth at a time. Colorado’s law only allows possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by individuals.
• Limit marijuana advertising, similar to existing alcohol and tobacco advertising regulations.
• Require marijuana to have child-proof packaging.
• Emphasize that it’s illegal for marijuana to be given away in exchange for a donation.
• Make marijuana part of bar and restaurant smoking bans, possibly making so-called “cannabis clubs” or “smoking clubs” illegal.
• Prohibit growing marijuana outdoors.
• Create a regulatory system similar to that in medical marijuana dispensaries that follows recreational marijuana from seed to sale.
• Require that marijuana products have potency labeling, but there should be no restrictions on THC content.

The sales taxes were expected but 15% is a bit high especially when you are double dipping by asking the establishment AND the customer to pay it. Also, limiting the amount sold to a customer in a single purchase is one of those laws set up to fail. There are so many ways around it and no real way to enforce it. STUPID! I have no clue what they mean by "Emphasize that it’s illegal for marijuana to be given away in exchange for a donation." Huh? But two of the recommendations are so bad, it's hard to imagine how they even got from pen to paper. #1 By allowing employers to prohibit off the job marijuana use by employees, you are letting them invade your personal life. What I do on the weekend should be no business of my employer! And last but not least, making it illegal to grow marijuana outdoors is irresponsible. One of the big problems with the prohibition of marijuana was the huge carbon footprint that it made because of the need to hide your grow. Free sunlight is a good thing for everyone. Why do they want it to stay indoors? Is the sight of it so tempting that people would be helpless to resist it's powers? Ridiculous! It's time for regulators to grow up and let us grow out...side. If you think about it for two seconds, it's the only thing that makes sense. What do you think?

Read the full story here:
http://www.thedailychronic.net/2013/15882/colorados-amendment-64-task-force-finishes-recommendations/

By Peter Hecht
phecht@sacbee.com
Published: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 - 12:00 am | Page 3A
Last Modified: Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013 - 7:46 am
California voters favor legalizing pot for recreational use, strongly support the existence of medical marijuana dispensaries and want the feds to butt out of the California cannabis business.

In a California Field Poll released today, voters – by a 54 to 43 percent margin – say they want California to legalize marijuana beyond medical use with regulations similar to alcohol.

In the state with America's largest medical marijuana industry, the poll found that 67 percent of voters oppose an ongoing crackdown by the state's four U.S. attorneys on businesses selling pot for medicinal use.

The statewide poll was conducted little more than three months after voters in Washington and Colorado each passed measures to legalize marijuana as a mere pleasurable pursuit – upping the stakes in America's marijuana debate.

The poll results indicate continued strong support for medical marijuana as the stateSupreme Court is deliberating on whether scores of California cities and counties can ban marijuana dispensaries.

Meanwhile, California voters across party lines seem to be taking issue with federal threats, raids and prosecutions involving medical marijuana businesses.

The state's four U.S. attorneys have brought criminal cases against some medical marijuana providers and growers and sent letters threatening seizures of properties of others.

While all marijuana use is illegal under federal law, U.S. prosecutors assert California's medicinal cannabis industries have been "hijacked by profiteers" violating both state and federal laws.

In the poll of registered voters in early February, 68 percent of Democrats, 55 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of independents said they oppose the federal crackdown.

"It's certainly not winning over the hearts and minds of Californians," state Field Poll Director Mark DiCamillo said of voters' reactions to federal enforcement efforts. "The getting tough policy by the feds is not impacting public opinion in a positive way."

Poll respondent Stewart Hintz, 47, a Republican from Rocklin who doesn't smoke marijuana, said the federal crackdown was inevitable because dispensaries appear to be drawing numerous people with little or no medical need. But Hintz said, it's time for pot to be legal – and for the government to back off.

"Once (alcohol) prohibition was repealed, the feds pretty much took their hands off – and I think that's the best model," he said.

Some 58 percent of Field Poll respondents also said they favor allowing medical dispensaries in their cities or towns, with the stores strongly supported by voters in Northern California, the San Francisco Bay Area and Los Angeles County and modestly supported elsewhere in Southern California.

"I haven't seen any substantive negatives" about dispensaries, said Patrick Cole, an independent voter in Butte County who last tried marijuana in college nearly four decades ago. "The executive branch gets on its high horse about how insidious this is and how it's corrupting our neighborhoods. Yet there is a liquor store on every corner."

The poll results drew a spirited response from the director of California's largest medical marijuana dispensary.

"This poll … heartens me and makes me feel validated," said Steve DeAngelo, whose Harborside Health Center dispensary in Oakland is being targeted by federal prosecutors who have sued to seize the property.

He said the poll results also suggest that California politicians opposing medical marijuana and its distribution "are going to see serious consequences" at election time.

Richard Lee, who led Proposition 19, the failed ballot measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana in California in 2010, said poll results give momentum to advocates backing an initiative to legalize nonmedical use in 2016.

"I think it shows that it's going to win in 2016, and it's just a matter of writing the best law that we can."

Bishop Ron Allen of Sacramento's International Faith Based Coalition, a member of Californians Against Legalizing Marijuana, said the poll results show that "we have to do a better job of educating the community about the harms of marijuana."


Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/2013/02/27/5220454/field-poll-california-voters-favor.html#storylink=cpy