Einstein's theories are not wrong. Nor are they "just theories".
They are ways to understand and explain how everything the size of an atom (or larger) and everything smaller than a solar system, works.
It was a great disappointment to Einstein that his formulas did not work for the sub-atomic world.
While it is apparently news to people here, Einstein was well aware of the fact that his theories did not work in the sub-atomic world.
Einstein's observations about prohibition are insightful and applicable to any type of prohibition that the majority of the population opposes.
On the first page of this thread, Saba stated the Federal supremacy in marijuana Law.
I said that no one doubts that, everyone knows that.
He said a lot of people doubt that federal power.
Wait. You think Marijuana is more legal now than alcohol was during prohibition?
If that is what you think, you are wrong.
Use and possession of alcohol was allowed during prohibition.
Except for scientific research, all use and possession of marijuana is illegal in this country.
All.
There is no legal marijuana use. Full stop.
On the first page of this thread, Saba stated the Federal supremacy in marijuana Law.
I said that no one doubts that, everyone knows that.
He said a lot of people doubt that federal power.
Thank you for proving me wrong, and Saba right.
Saba's wrong, too. Why anyone thought he was right is a question for another day. Which state MM law has been struck down by SCOTUS as violating the supremacy clause? Hmmm.... Not the state that I live in. The Feds only have supremacy if SCOTUS says they do. To my knowledge, that hasn't happened yet with regards to state MM laws Until it does, Marijuana possession and use is legal in some states. Full stop.
"The Federal government has criminalized marijuana under the Interstate Commerce Clause, which gives the Federal Government the power to regulate the channels of commerce, the instrumentalities of commerce, and actions that substantially affect interstate commerce. Additionally, under the Supremacy Clause, any state law in conflict with federal law is not valid. These issues were addressed squarely by the United States Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005)."
"Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes."
"The Federal government has criminalized marijuana under the Interstate Commerce Clause, which gives the Federal Government the power to regulate the channels of commerce, the instrumentalities of commerce, and actions that substantially affect interstate commerce. Additionally, under the Supremacy Clause, any state law in conflict with federal law is not valid. These issues were addressed squarely by the United States Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1 (2005)."
"Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes."
So why are the state laws allowing MM still in effect? Is it Civil War? Or worse? Sure seems strange that all these states are nullifying federal law without consequence. Hmmmm. I, for one, see this nullfication on a weekly, if not daily basis. Should I no longer argue that my clients should not be charged with possession of pot because they have an MM card? LOL! The argument works. Not one judge has said, "Nope. Gonzales v. Raich". Hmmm. I wonder why?
The Feds have to enforce this ruling, and thus far, they ain't. There's been some selective enforcement, sure, but what does that mean? Bubkiss. Pot's legal in MM states. Don't let anyone fool you.
Also, the wiki synopsis fails to mention the word "possession'. You think that's on purpose, or is it just wiki being wiki?
First, Congress doesn't enforce the law, the executive does. Whether and how they choose to enforce the law is a question of prosecutorial discretion. Second, possession isn't the issue, it's the growing and distribution.
First, Congress doesn't enforce the law, the executive does. Whether and how they choose to enforce the law is a question of prosecutorial discretion. Second, possession isn't the issue, it's the growing and distribution.
1) Executive isn't part of the Federal Goverment? They're not "the Feds"? News to me and nearly everyone else. Maybe you typed this before I corrected myself 3 seconds after I posted? I doubt it, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, this time.
2) Possession isn't an issue? Ok. That means that most MM users are not criminals under Raich, since most of them aren't growers or distributors. That leads us back to marijuana use and possession being legal in some states.
First, Congress doesn't enforce the law, the executive does. Whether and how they choose to enforce the law is a question of prosecutorial discretion. Second, possession isn't the issue, it's the growing and distribution.
1) Executive isn't part of the Federal Goverment? They're not "the Feds"? News to me and nearly everyone else. Maybe you typed this before I corrected myself 3 seconds after I posted? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, this time.
2) Possession isn't an issue? Ok. That means that most MM users are not criminals under Raich, since most of them aren't growers or distributors. That leads us back to marijuana use and possession being legal in some states.
Correct. MM users are not criminals, at least not under Raich. But to legalize medical marijuana one would necessarily have to legalize the growing of marijuana and it is the growing that is illegal and it is illegal because the Congress, using the Commerce Clause, says its illegal and Raich said that was constitutional. If you watch the video I posted, it does a fairly good job of explaining the history of the commerce clause and how it has been applied to prohibit the growing of marijuana.
First, Congress doesn't enforce the law, the executive does. Whether and how they choose to enforce the law is a question of prosecutorial discretion. Second, possession isn't the issue, it's the growing and distribution.
1) Executive isn't part of the Federal Goverment? They're not "the Feds"? News to me and nearly everyone else. Maybe you typed this before I corrected myself 3 seconds after I posted? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, this time.
2) Possession isn't an issue? Ok. That means that most MM users are not criminals under Raich, since most of them aren't growers or distributors. That leads us back to marijuana use and possession being legal in some states.
Correct. MM users are not criminals, at least not under Raich. But to legalize medical marijuana one would necessarily have to legalize the growing of marijuana and it is the growing that is illegal and it is illegal because the Congress, using the Commerce Clause, says its illegal and Raich said that was constitutional. If you watch the video I posted, it does a fairly good job of explaining the history of the commerce clause and how it has been applied to prohibit the growing of marijuana.
I will watch that video when I get home. Thanks for the heads up. Who doesn't love a good Commerce Clause video?
However, MM laws are really about possession and use, not cultivation or distribution. As it stands, some states have no problem with use or possesion, with restrictions,and the Feds sit idly by. Surely, we can agree that the unenforced law is the nonexistant law?
First, Congress doesn't enforce the law, the executive does. Whether and how they choose to enforce the law is a question of prosecutorial discretion. Second, possession isn't the issue, it's the growing and distribution.
1) Executive isn't part of the Federal Goverment? They're not "the Feds"? News to me and nearly everyone else. Maybe you typed this before I corrected myself 3 seconds after I posted? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, this time.
2) Possession isn't an issue? Ok. That means that most MM users are not criminals under Raich, since most of them aren't growers or distributors. That leads us back to marijuana use and possession being legal in some states.
Correct. MM users are not criminals, at least not under Raich. But to legalize medical marijuana one would necessarily have to legalize the growing of marijuana and it is the growing that is illegal and it is illegal because the Congress, using the Commerce Clause, says its illegal and Raich said that was constitutional. If you watch the video I posted, it does a fairly good job of explaining the history of the commerce clause and how it has been applied to prohibit the growing of marijuana.
I will watch that video when I get home. Thanks for the heads up. Who doesn't love a good Commerce Clause video?
However, MM laws are really about possession and use, not cultivation or distribution. As it stands, some states have no problem with use or possesion, with restrictions,and the Feds sit idly by. Surely, we can agree that the unenforced law is the nonexistant law?
From the perspective of a user or possessor it may be unenforced, but from the perspective of a grower/distributor it is hardly a nonexistent law.
First, Congress doesn't enforce the law, the executive does. Whether and how they choose to enforce the law is a question of prosecutorial discretion. Second, possession isn't the issue, it's the growing and distribution.
1) Executive isn't part of the Federal Goverment? They're not "the Feds"? News to me and nearly everyone else. Maybe you typed this before I corrected myself 3 seconds after I posted? I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, this time.
2) Possession isn't an issue? Ok. That means that most MM users are not criminals under Raich, since most of them aren't growers or distributors. That leads us back to marijuana use and possession being legal in some states.
Correct. MM users are not criminals, at least not under Raich. But to legalize medical marijuana one would necessarily have to legalize the growing of marijuana and it is the growing that is illegal and it is illegal because the Congress, using the Commerce Clause, says its illegal and Raich said that was constitutional. If you watch the video I posted, it does a fairly good job of explaining the history of the commerce clause and how it has been applied to prohibit the growing of marijuana.
I will watch that video when I get home. Thanks for the heads up. Who doesn't love a good Commerce Clause video?
However, MM laws are really about possession and use, not cultivation or distribution. As it stands, some states have no problem with use or possesion, with restrictions,and the Feds sit idly by. Surely, we can agree that the unenforced law is the nonexistant law?
From the perspective of a user or possessor it may be unenforced, but from the perspective of a grower/distributor it is hardly a nonexistent law.
Oops! I spelled nonexistent wrong. There goes my cred. I guess we are going to have disagree on agreeing, since I think MM laws are about possession and use, and you feel otherwise. I'm ok with that. I'm not sure what the law is in NY, but I will continue to tell my clients (in WA) that marijuana is illegal, EXCEPT, if they have an MM card, Then, it's a-ok, unless and until the US Attorney starts cracking down, which hasn't happened, yet.
edit--And you're 100% correct, Saba, it's at the discretion of the prosecutor. The prosecutor on my docket will dismiss a possession charge if the defendant has an MM card. Others won't.
double edit--That NORML link is also great. Thanks for posting.
Basically, it came down to this. America in the 1900's saw two powerful rivals, agriculture and industry, faced off over several multi-billion dollar markets. When Rudolph Diesel produced his engine in 1896, he'd assumed it would run off of vegetable and seed oils, especially hemp, which is superior to petroleum. Just think about that for a second. A fuel that can be grown by our farmers that is superior to foreign oil. What a lot of history would have been rewritten!
Ok. So we have an elite group of special interests dominated by Du Pont petrochemical company and it's major financial backer and key political ally, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Mellon was a banker who took over Gulf Oil Corporation. In 1913, Henry Ford opened his first auto assembly line, and Gulf Oil opened its first drive-in gas station. In 1919, with ethanol fuel poised to comptete with gasoline, Alchohol Prohibition descended on the nation. Lucky Mellon. When President Harding made him Secretary of the Treasury, he was considered the richest man in America. In the 1920's, Mellon arranged for his bank to loan his buddies as Du Pont money to take over General Motors. Du Pont had developed new gasoline additives and the sulfate and sulfite process that made trees into paper.
In the 1930's, Ford Motor Company operated a successful biomass fuel conversion plant using cellulose at Iron Mountain, Michigan. Ford engineers extracted methanol, charcoal fuel, tar, pitch ethyl-acetate and creosote from hemp. The same fundamental ingredients for industry were also being made from fossil fuels.
During the same period, Du Pont was developing cellophane, nylon, and dacron from from fossil fuels. Du Pont held the patents on many synthetics and became a leader in the development of paint, rayon, synthetic rubber, plastics, chemicals, photographic film, insecticides and agricultural chemicals.
From the Du Pont 1937 Annual Report we find a clue to what started to happen next: "The revenue raising power of government may be converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reoganization".
Ok, enter William Randolph Hearst. Hearst's company was a major consumer of the cheap tree-pulp paper that had replaced hemp paper in the late 19th century. The Hearst Corporation was also a major logging company, and produced Du Pont's chemical-drenched tree pulp paper, which yellowed and fell apart after a short time. Fueled by the advertising sold to the petrochemical industries, Hearst Newspapers were also known for their sensationalist stories. Hearst despised poor people, black people, chinese, hindus, and all other minorities. Most of all he hated Mexicans. Pancho Villa's cannabis-smoking troops had reclaimed some 800,000 acres of prime timberland from Hearst in the name of the mexican peasants. And all of the low-quality paper the company planned to make by deforesting it's vast timber holdings were in danger of being replaced by low-cost, high quality paper made from hemp.
Hearst had always supported any kind of prohibition, and now he wanted cannabis included in every anti-narcotics bill. Never mind that cannabis wasn't a narcotic. Facts weren't important. The important thing was to have it completely removed from society, doctors, and industry.
Around 1920 or so, a new word arose - "Marihuana". Through screaming headlines and horror stories,"marihuana" was blamed for murderous rampages by blacks and mexicans. Hearst continued to use his power of the press to impress on his readers the dangers of the "marihuana" plant.
When the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed in 1932, Mellon's nephew Harry Anslinger was appointed its head, a job in Mellon's treasury department that was created just for him. Treasury agents were beginning to operate on their own agenda. Deep in the throes of the depression, congress began to reexamine all federal agencies. Anslinger began to fear that his department was in danger of emasculation. Although worldwide, hemp was still big business, in 1935 the Treasury Department began secretly drafting a bill called The Marihuana Tax Act. The Treasury Department's general counsul Herman Oliphant was put in charge of writing something that could get past both Congress and the Court disguised as a tax revenue bill. Congress wasn't all that interested in the matter, seeing as all the information they had to work with was what was provided to them by Anslinger. They deliberately collected horror stories on the evils of marihuana pulled primarily from the Hearst newspapers, called Anslinger's Gore Files. Crimes that had never happened at all were being attributed to marihuana.
So, in 1937, Anslinger went before a poorly attended committee hearing and called for a total ban on marihuana. He stated under oath "This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured". Bureaucrats planned the hearings to avoid the discussion of the full House and presented the measure in the guise of a tax revenue bill brought to the six member House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Du Pont ally Robert Doughton of North Carolina. This bypassed the House without further hearings and passed it over to the Senate Finance Committee, controlled by another ally, Prentiss Brown of Michigan, where it was rubber stamped into law. Once on the books, Anslinger would "administer" the licensing process to make sure that no more commercial hemp was ever grown in the United States. Clinton Hesterm assistant general counsel for the Department of the Treasury, explained to the House Committee " The leading newspapers of the United States have recognized the seriousness of this problem and have advocated federal legislation to control.. marihuana...The marijuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities."
At the last minute, a few pro-hemp witnesses showed up. Most of the confusion came from the using of the word "marihuana". Most people had no idea that "marihuana", merely a slang word taken from a drinking song celebrating Pancho Villa's victory, "La Cucaracha", was the same thing as cannabis hemp, a plant which had been an important crop since the founding of the country. Ralph Loziers of the National Oil Seed Institute showed up representing paint manufacturers and lubrication oil processors, and stated that hempseed was an essential commodity. Dr. William C. Woodward of the American Medical Association spoke in defense of cannabis medicines and in protest of the way the bill was handled. Woodward complained that there was no certain data that marihuana use had increased, and stated that if it had, the "newspaper exploitation of the habit had done more to increase it than anything else". Asked point blank if he thought federal legislation was necessary, he replied "I do not .. it is not a medical addiction that is involved." Woodward went on to criticize the way the word "marihuana" had been used to deliberately confuse the medical and industrial hemp communities. "In all you have heard here thus far, no mention has been made of any excessive use of the drug or its excessive distribution by any pharmacist. And yet the burden of this bill is placed heavily on the doctors and pharmacists of the country, and may I say very heavily - most heavily, possibly of all - on the farmers of this country... We can not understand yet ... why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any initiative, even to the profession, that it was being prepared ... no medical man would identify this bill with a medicine until he read it through, because marijuana is not a drug, ... simply a name given cannabis."
A few days later, Representative Fred Vinson of Kentucky was asked to summarize the AMA's position. He lied to the effect that the medical group's legislative counsul (Woodward) "Not only gave this measure full support, but also the approval from the AMA."
The act passed without a roll call vote. Now we can see why it was prepared in secret - passage of the Act put all hemp industries firmly under the control of the very special interests that most benefited from its repression over the years - prohibition police and bureaucrats working in collusion with the petrochemical companies, the timber companies, the alcohol and tobacco industries, the pharmaceutical drug companies, and today, the urine testing, property seizure, police and prison industries.
In that same year, 1937, Du Pont filed its patent on Nylon, a synthetic fiber that took over many of the textile and cordage markets that would have gone to hemp. More than half the American cars on the road were built by GM, which guaranteed Du Pont a captive market for paints, varnishes, plastics, and rubber, all which could have been made from hemp. Furthermore, all GM cars would subsequently be designed to use tetra-ethyl leaded fuel exclusively, which contained additives that Du Pont manufactured. All competition from hemp had been outlawed.
Well fuck me. I woke up this morning to read this:
4 Americans get pot from US government
By NIGEL DUARA
EUGENE, Ore.
Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found less than an ounce of pot on one passenger: A chatty 72-year-old woman blind in one eye.
She insisted the weed was legal and was approved by the U.S. government.
The trooper and his supervisor were doubtful. But after a series of calls to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency and her physician, the troopers handed her back the card -- and her pot.
For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing a handful of patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around. The program grew out of a 1976 court settlement that created the country's first legal pot smoker.
Advocates for legalizing marijuana or treating it as a medicine say the program is a glaring contradiction in the nation's 40-year war on drugs -- maintaining the federal ban on pot while at the same time supplying it.
Government officials say there is no contradiction. The program is no longer accepting new patients, and public health authorities have concluded that there was no scientific value to it, Steven Gust of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse told The Associated Press.
At one point, 14 people were getting government pot. Now, there are four left.
The government has only continued to supply the marijuana "for compassionate reasons," Gust said.
One of the recipients is Elvy Musikka, the chatty Oregon woman. A vocal marijuana advocate, Musikka relies on the pot to keep her glaucoma under control. She entered the program in 1988, and said that her experience with marijuana is proof that it works as a medicine.
They "won't acknowledge the fact that I do not have even one aspirin in this house," she said, leaning back on her couch, glass bong cradled in her hand. "I have no pain."
Marijuana is getting a look from states around the country considering calls to repeal decades-old marijuana prohibition laws. There are 16 states that have medical marijuana programs. In the three West Coast states, advocates are readying tax-and-sell or other legalization programs.
Marijuana was legal for much of U.S. history and was recognized as a medicine in 1850. Opposition to it began to gather and, by 1936, 48 states had passed laws regulating pot, fearing it could lead to addiction.
Anti-marijuana literature and films, like the infamous "Reefer Madness," helped fan those fears. Eventually, pot was classified among the most harmful of drugs, meaning it had no usefulness and a high potential for addiction.
In 1976, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must provide Robert Randall of Washington, D.C. with marijuana because of his glaucoma -- no other drug could effectively combat his condition. Randall became the nation's first legal pot smoker since the drug's prohibition.
Eventually, the government created its program as part of a compromise over Randall's care in 1978, long before a single state passed a medical marijuana law. What followed were a series of petitions from people like Musikka to join the program.
President George H.W. Bush's administration, getting tough on crime and drugs, stopped accepting new patients in 1992. Many of the patients who had qualified had AIDS, and they were dying.
The AP asked the agency that administers the program, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, for documents showing how much marijuana has been sent to patients since the first patient in 1976.
The agency supplied full data for 2005-2011, which showed that during that period the federal government distributed more than 100 pounds of high-grade marijuana to patients.
Agency officials said records related to the program before 2005 had been destroyed, but were able to provide scattered records for a couple of years in the early 2000s.
The four patients remaining in the program estimate they have received a total of 584 pounds from the federal government over the years. On the street, that would be worth more than $500,000.
All of the marijuana comes from the University of Mississippi, where it is grown, harvested and stored.
Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, who directs the operation, said the marijuana was a small part of the crop the university has been growing since 1968 for all cannabis research in the U.S. Among the studies are the pharmaceutical uses for synthetic mimics of pot's psychoactive ingredient, THC.
ElSohly said the four patients are getting pot with about 3 percent THC. He said 3 percent is about the range patients have preferred in blind tests.
The marijuana is then sent from Mississippi to a tightly controlled North Carolina lab, where they are rolled into cigarettes. And every month, steel tins with white labels are sent to Florida and Iowa. Packed inside each is a half-pound of marijuana rolled into 300 perfectly-wrapped joints.
With Musikka living in Oregon, she is entitled to more legal pot than anyone in the nation because she's also enrolled in the state's medical marijuana program. Neither Iowa nor Florida has approved marijuana as a medicine, so the federal pot is the only legal access to the drug for the other three patients.
The three other people in the program range in ages and doses of marijuana provided to them, but all consider themselves an endangered species that, once extinct, can be brushed aside by a federal government that pretends they don't exist.
All four have become crusaders for the marijuana-legalization movement. They're rock stars at pro-marijuana conferences, sought-after speakers and recognizable celebrities in the movement.
Irv Rosenfeld, a financial adviser in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., has been in the program since November 1982. His condition produces painful bone tumors, but he said marijuana has replaced prescription painkillers.
Rosenfeld likes to tell this story: In the mid-1980s, the federal government asked his doctor for an update on how Rosenfeld was doing. It was an update the doctor didn't believe the government was truly interested in. He had earlier tried to get a copy of the previous update, and was told the government couldn't find it, Rosenfeld said.
So instead of filling out the form, the doctor responded with a simple sentence written in large, red letters: "It's working."
Ecstasy trial planned to test benefits for trauma victims
Scientists hope to overcome tabloid anger after US trial suggests clubbers' drug can bring dramatic improvements for PTSD sufferers
Sarah Boseley
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 September 2011 15.34 BST
Doctors are planning the first clinical trial of ecstasy in the UK, to see whether the drug can be beneficial to the traumatised survivors of child abuse, rape and war.
Ecstasy and other illegal drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms are potentially useful in treating people with serious psychological disturbance who cannot begin to face up to their distress, some psychiatrists and therapists believe. But because of public fear and tabloid anger about illegal drugs, scientists say they find it almost impossible to explore their potential.
Professor David Nutt, the psychopharmacologist who used to head the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he fell out with the Labour home secretary and was sacked, said: "I feel quite strongly that many drugs with therapeutic potential have been denied to patients and researchers because of the drugs regulation. The drugs have been made illegal in a vain attempt to stop kids using them, but people haven't thought about the negative consequences."
Nutt and the Taunton-based psychiatrist Dr Ben Sessa are two of the British scientists who hope to repeat an experiment on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) undertaken in the US which, although small, was successful and has caused some in the scientific community to think what was until recently unthinkable. It involved 20 people who had been in therapy and on pills for an average of 19 years. Twelve were given MDMA ??? or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, the chemical compound found, often adulterated, in ecstasy tablets. The rest had placebo pills but were later also given the chance to take MDMA. Each one had a therapy session, lying back in a reclining chair in a pleasant flower-decorated room in South Carolina, wearing an eyemask.
Sometimes they listened to music on headphones and sometimes they talked to the therapist, all the while thinking about the events that had caused such profound distress that they had been unable to revisit it in past psychotherapy sessions.
The response rate was a remarkable 83% ??? 10 out of the 12 showed significant improvement two months after the second of two MDMA therapy sessions. That compared with 25% of those on the placebo. There were no serious side-effects and no long-term problems.
"I expected it was going to be effective," said Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist who ran the US study and carried out the psychotherapy with his wife, Ann. "I suppose we wouldn't have done it otherwise. But I didn't necessarily expect we'd find such statistical significance in that number [of people]. That was the icing on the cake."
The high number of troops returning with PTSD from Afghanistan and Iraq is attracting special attention to the study in the US. Only one of the 20 was a veteran, while the rest had suffered childhood sexual abuse, rape or other kinds of assault. Mithoefer's next study will be on veterans alone.
Nutt said PTSD is "an extraordinarily disabling condition and we don't have any really effective treatments. In order to deal with trauma, you have to be able to re-engage with the memory and then deal with it. For many people, as soon as the memory comes into consciousness, so does the fear and disgust".
Mithoefer said the participants did not appear to have joined the trial in hopes of some sort of high. "I don't think that was much of a factor at all. Some people were referred by their therapist and had never taken any drugs and were quite anxious about the whole thing and for them it was a last resort.
" Interestingly, several people said after their session: 'I don't know why they call this ecstasy' ??? because it was not an ecstatic experience. They were revisiting the trauma. It was very difficult and painful work, but the ecstasy gave them the feeling they could do it."
People spoke of getting past a barrier. One said: "I feel like I'm walking in a place I've needed to go for so long and just didn't know how to get there.
"I feel like I know myself better than I ever have before. Now I know I'm a normal person. I've been through some bad stuff, but ??? those are things have happened to me, not who I am ??? This is me. The medicine helps, but this is in me."
Another said: "I have respect for my emotions now (rather than fear of them). What's most comforting is knowing now I can handle difficult feelings without being overwhelmed. I realise feeling the fear and anger is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be."
Ben Sessa said he hoped to recreate the study in the UK but "with an added twist ??? lots of neuroimaging". The only brain scans that have been done are of recreational ecstasy users, whose drugs may be contaminated and who have probably taken other substances, too.The death in 1995 of Leah Betts after taking ecstasy, from drinking too much water in response to a campaign warning ravers of the danger of dehydration, had prevented rational debate or scientific advance.
MDMA, he said, "is not about dancing around nightclubs ??? it's a really useful psychiatric drug".
Nutt said it made him angry that MDMA and LSD had been banned before any doctor could establish their potential benefit. LSD was being tried among terminal cancer patients.
"When I started in medicine in 1969 they were starting to see some interesting data in the use of LSD to help people make sense of dying. I don't think it is fair that because a drug is misused it should be banned from use in medicine," he said Heroin has been around for a hundred years so although it is illegal for street use, at least we have got that..
Leading the movement to get MDMA licensed for medical use is Rick Doblin, the founder in 1986 in the US of Maps, the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which backed Mithoefer's trial. "I think the chances of getting a licence are excellent. We have demonstrated an excellent level of safety. It's worked. It's necessary," he said. "It is probably going to take 10 years and $10m to do it."
Doblin, whose organisation relies on philanthropic donors, has no idea where that money will come from. Nutt and Sessa, whose proposed trial in the UK would boost the chances of MDMA entering the (locked) psychiatric drug cabinet are waiting for a response to their modest grant application from one of the UK's leading medical research funders. Sessa is optimistic; battle-scarred Nutt less so. Ecstasy will for ever be controversial. "If we get the study funded and into the public domain," said Nutt, "the Daily Mail will try to have it banned."
I thought that he said from the start that he wouldn't be enforcing those federal laws in states that had passed medical legalization. Did I miss something when this policy changed? And why pick on CA specifically? That's just going to hurt their economy more, and thus the nation's overall economy. It just makes no fucking sense.
HarveyCanal"a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
Dude is a liar of all liars. He really needs to be voted out...but unfortunately he still has far too many brainwashed into thinking that his actions are going to meet his worthless rhetoric.
I thought that he said from the start that he wouldn't be enforcing those federal laws in states that had passed medical legalization. Did I miss something when this policy changed? And why pick on CA specifically? That's just going to hurt their economy more, and thus the nation's overall economy. It just makes no fucking sense.
If I understand it correctly, CA is low-hanging fruit in the medical marijuana game...lots of targets and CA's medical marijuana law is just that, only a law. Whereas a state like CO, whom I believe had it amended to the constitution...so if they went after CO it would be the US v CO instead of in CA where it is the US v Unicorn Hugs Compassion Club. It would take a lot more effort to go after spots in CO. But I could be wrong.
Comments
They are ways to understand and explain how everything the size of an atom (or larger) and everything smaller than a solar system, works.
It was a great disappointment to Einstein that his formulas did not work for the sub-atomic world.
While it is apparently news to people here, Einstein was well aware of the fact that his theories did not work in the sub-atomic world.
Einstein's observations about prohibition are insightful and applicable to any type of prohibition that the majority of the population opposes.
On the first page of this thread, Saba stated the Federal supremacy in marijuana Law.
I said that no one doubts that, everyone knows that.
He said a lot of people doubt that federal power.
Thank you for proving me wrong, and Saba right.
Full start. You're incorrect. See below.
Saba's wrong, too. Why anyone thought he was right is a question for another day. Which state MM law has been struck down by SCOTUS as violating the supremacy clause? Hmmm.... Not the state that I live in. The Feds only have supremacy if SCOTUS says they do. To my knowledge, that hasn't happened yet with regards to state MM laws Until it does, Marijuana possession and use is legal in some states. Full stop.
"Gonzales v. Raich (previously Ashcroft v. Raich), 545 U.S. 1 (2005), was a decision by the United States Supreme Court ruling that under the Commerce Clause of the United States Constitution, the United States Congress may criminalize the production and use of home-grown cannabis even where states approve its use for medicinal purposes."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_in_the_United_States
So why are the state laws allowing MM still in effect? Is it Civil War? Or worse? Sure seems strange that all these states are nullifying federal law without consequence. Hmmmm. I, for one, see this nullfication on a weekly, if not daily basis. Should I no longer argue that my clients should not be charged with possession of pot because they have an MM card? LOL! The argument works. Not one judge has said, "Nope. Gonzales v. Raich". Hmmm. I wonder why?
The Feds have to enforce this ruling, and thus far, they ain't. There's been some selective enforcement, sure, but what does that mean? Bubkiss. Pot's legal in MM states. Don't let anyone fool you.
Also, the wiki synopsis fails to mention the word "possession'. You think that's on purpose, or is it just wiki being wiki?
1) Executive isn't part of the Federal Goverment? They're not "the Feds"? News to me and nearly everyone else. Maybe you typed this before I corrected myself 3 seconds after I posted? I doubt it, but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, this time.
2) Possession isn't an issue? Ok. That means that most MM users are not criminals under Raich, since most of them aren't growers or distributors. That leads us back to marijuana use and possession being legal in some states.
Correct. MM users are not criminals, at least not under Raich. But to legalize medical marijuana one would necessarily have to legalize the growing of marijuana and it is the growing that is illegal and it is illegal because the Congress, using the Commerce Clause, says its illegal and Raich said that was constitutional. If you watch the video I posted, it does a fairly good job of explaining the history of the commerce clause and how it has been applied to prohibit the growing of marijuana.
I will watch that video when I get home. Thanks for the heads up. Who doesn't love a good Commerce Clause video?
However, MM laws are really about possession and use, not cultivation or distribution. As it stands, some states have no problem with use or possesion, with restrictions,and the Feds sit idly by. Surely, we can agree that the unenforced law is the nonexistant law?
From the perspective of a user or possessor it may be unenforced, but from the perspective of a grower/distributor it is hardly a nonexistent law.
http://www.canorml.org/fedcasessum.html#Pending
http://www.canorml.org/fedcasessum.html#Pending
Oops! I spelled nonexistent wrong. There goes my cred. I guess we are going to have disagree on agreeing, since I think MM laws are about possession and use, and you feel otherwise. I'm ok with that. I'm not sure what the law is in NY, but I will continue to tell my clients (in WA) that marijuana is illegal, EXCEPT, if they have an MM card, Then, it's a-ok, unless and until the US Attorney starts cracking down, which hasn't happened, yet.
edit--And you're 100% correct, Saba, it's at the discretion of the prosecutor. The prosecutor on my docket will dismiss a possession charge if the defendant has an MM card. Others won't.
double edit--That NORML link is also great. Thanks for posting.
Big Tobacco has lots o' money, amongst other reasons.
http://www.ozarkia.net/bill/pot/blunderof37.html
Basically, it came down to this. America in the 1900's saw two powerful rivals, agriculture and industry, faced off over several multi-billion dollar markets. When Rudolph Diesel produced his engine in 1896, he'd assumed it would run off of vegetable and seed oils, especially hemp, which is superior to petroleum. Just think about that for a second. A fuel that can be grown by our farmers that is superior to foreign oil. What a lot of history would have been rewritten!
Ok. So we have an elite group of special interests dominated by Du Pont petrochemical company and it's major financial backer and key political ally, Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon. Mellon was a banker who took over Gulf Oil Corporation. In 1913, Henry Ford opened his first auto assembly line, and Gulf Oil opened its first drive-in gas station. In 1919, with ethanol fuel poised to comptete with gasoline, Alchohol Prohibition descended on the nation. Lucky Mellon. When President Harding made him Secretary of the Treasury, he was considered the richest man in America. In the 1920's, Mellon arranged for his bank to loan his buddies as Du Pont money to take over General Motors. Du Pont had developed new gasoline additives and the sulfate and sulfite process that made trees into paper.
In the 1930's, Ford Motor Company operated a successful biomass fuel conversion plant using cellulose at Iron Mountain, Michigan. Ford engineers extracted methanol, charcoal fuel, tar, pitch ethyl-acetate and creosote from hemp. The same fundamental ingredients for industry were also being made from fossil fuels.
During the same period, Du Pont was developing cellophane, nylon, and dacron from from fossil fuels. Du Pont held the patents on many synthetics and became a leader in the development of paint, rayon, synthetic rubber, plastics, chemicals, photographic film, insecticides and agricultural chemicals.
From the Du Pont 1937 Annual Report we find a clue to what started to happen next: "The revenue raising power of government may be converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reoganization".
Ok, enter William Randolph Hearst. Hearst's company was a major consumer of the cheap tree-pulp paper that had replaced hemp paper in the late 19th century. The Hearst Corporation was also a major logging company, and produced Du Pont's chemical-drenched tree pulp paper, which yellowed and fell apart after a short time. Fueled by the advertising sold to the petrochemical industries, Hearst Newspapers were also known for their sensationalist stories. Hearst despised poor people, black people, chinese, hindus, and all other minorities. Most of all he hated Mexicans. Pancho Villa's cannabis-smoking troops had reclaimed some 800,000 acres of prime timberland from Hearst in the name of the mexican peasants. And all of the low-quality paper the company planned to make by deforesting it's vast timber holdings were in danger of being replaced by low-cost, high quality paper made from hemp.
Hearst had always supported any kind of prohibition, and now he wanted cannabis included in every anti-narcotics bill. Never mind that cannabis wasn't a narcotic. Facts weren't important. The important thing was to have it completely removed from society, doctors, and industry.
Around 1920 or so, a new word arose - "Marihuana". Through screaming headlines and horror stories,"marihuana" was blamed for murderous rampages by blacks and mexicans. Hearst continued to use his power of the press to impress on his readers the dangers of the "marihuana" plant.
When the Federal Bureau of Narcotics was formed in 1932, Mellon's nephew Harry Anslinger was appointed its head, a job in Mellon's treasury department that was created just for him. Treasury agents were beginning to operate on their own agenda. Deep in the throes of the depression, congress began to reexamine all federal agencies. Anslinger began to fear that his department was in danger of emasculation. Although worldwide, hemp was still big business, in 1935 the Treasury Department began secretly drafting a bill called The Marihuana Tax Act. The Treasury Department's general counsul Herman Oliphant was put in charge of writing something that could get past both Congress and the Court disguised as a tax revenue bill. Congress wasn't all that interested in the matter, seeing as all the information they had to work with was what was provided to them by Anslinger. They deliberately collected horror stories on the evils of marihuana pulled primarily from the Hearst newspapers, called Anslinger's Gore Files. Crimes that had never happened at all were being attributed to marihuana.
So, in 1937, Anslinger went before a poorly attended committee hearing and called for a total ban on marihuana. He stated under oath "This drug is entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effects of which cannot be measured". Bureaucrats planned the hearings to avoid the discussion of the full House and presented the measure in the guise of a tax revenue bill brought to the six member House Ways and Means Committee, chaired by Du Pont ally Robert Doughton of North Carolina. This bypassed the House without further hearings and passed it over to the Senate Finance Committee, controlled by another ally, Prentiss Brown of Michigan, where it was rubber stamped into law. Once on the books, Anslinger would "administer" the licensing process to make sure that no more commercial hemp was ever grown in the United States. Clinton Hesterm assistant general counsel for the Department of the Treasury, explained to the House Committee " The leading newspapers of the United States have recognized the seriousness of this problem and have advocated federal legislation to control.. marihuana...The marijuana cigarette is one of the most insidious of all forms of dope, largely because of the failure of the public to understand its fatal qualities."
At the last minute, a few pro-hemp witnesses showed up. Most of the confusion came from the using of the word "marihuana". Most people had no idea that "marihuana", merely a slang word taken from a drinking song celebrating Pancho Villa's victory, "La Cucaracha", was the same thing as cannabis hemp, a plant which had been an important crop since the founding of the country. Ralph Loziers of the National Oil Seed Institute showed up representing paint manufacturers and lubrication oil processors, and stated that hempseed was an essential commodity. Dr. William C. Woodward of the American Medical Association spoke in defense of cannabis medicines and in protest of the way the bill was handled. Woodward complained that there was no certain data that marihuana use had increased, and stated that if it had, the "newspaper exploitation of the habit had done more to increase it than anything else". Asked point blank if he thought federal legislation was necessary, he replied "I do not .. it is not a medical addiction that is involved." Woodward went on to criticize the way the word "marihuana" had been used to deliberately confuse the medical and industrial hemp communities. "In all you have heard here thus far, no mention has been made of any excessive use of the drug or its excessive distribution by any pharmacist. And yet the burden of this bill is placed heavily on the doctors and pharmacists of the country, and may I say very heavily - most heavily, possibly of all - on the farmers of this country... We can not understand yet ... why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any initiative, even to the profession, that it was being prepared ... no medical man would identify this bill with a medicine until he read it through, because marijuana is not a drug, ... simply a name given cannabis."
A few days later, Representative Fred Vinson of Kentucky was asked to summarize the AMA's position. He lied to the effect that the medical group's legislative counsul (Woodward) "Not only gave this measure full support, but also the approval from the AMA."
The act passed without a roll call vote. Now we can see why it was prepared in secret - passage of the Act put all hemp industries firmly under the control of the very special interests that most benefited from its repression over the years - prohibition police and bureaucrats working in collusion with the petrochemical companies, the timber companies, the alcohol and tobacco industries, the pharmaceutical drug companies, and today, the urine testing, property seizure, police and prison industries.
In that same year, 1937, Du Pont filed its patent on Nylon, a synthetic fiber that took over many of the textile and cordage markets that would have gone to hemp. More than half the American cars on the road were built by GM, which guaranteed Du Pont a captive market for paints, varnishes, plastics, and rubber, all which could have been made from hemp. Furthermore, all GM cars would subsequently be designed to use tetra-ethyl leaded fuel exclusively, which contained additives that Du Pont manufactured. All competition from hemp had been outlawed.
4 Americans get pot from US government
By NIGEL DUARA
EUGENE, Ore.
Sometime after midnight on a moonlit rural Oregon highway, a state trooper checking a car he had just pulled over found less than an ounce of pot on one passenger: A chatty 72-year-old woman blind in one eye.
She insisted the weed was legal and was approved by the U.S. government.
The trooper and his supervisor were doubtful. But after a series of calls to the U.S. Attorney's Office, the Drug Enforcement Agency and her physician, the troopers handed her back the card -- and her pot.
For the past three decades, Uncle Sam has been providing a handful of patients with some of the highest grade marijuana around. The program grew out of a 1976 court settlement that created the country's first legal pot smoker.
Advocates for legalizing marijuana or treating it as a medicine say the program is a glaring contradiction in the nation's 40-year war on drugs -- maintaining the federal ban on pot while at the same time supplying it.
Government officials say there is no contradiction. The program is no longer accepting new patients, and public health authorities have concluded that there was no scientific value to it, Steven Gust of the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse told The Associated Press.
At one point, 14 people were getting government pot. Now, there are four left.
The government has only continued to supply the marijuana "for compassionate reasons," Gust said.
One of the recipients is Elvy Musikka, the chatty Oregon woman. A vocal marijuana advocate, Musikka relies on the pot to keep her glaucoma under control. She entered the program in 1988, and said that her experience with marijuana is proof that it works as a medicine.
They "won't acknowledge the fact that I do not have even one aspirin in this house," she said, leaning back on her couch, glass bong cradled in her hand. "I have no pain."
Marijuana is getting a look from states around the country considering calls to repeal decades-old marijuana prohibition laws. There are 16 states that have medical marijuana programs. In the three West Coast states, advocates are readying tax-and-sell or other legalization programs.
Marijuana was legal for much of U.S. history and was recognized as a medicine in 1850. Opposition to it began to gather and, by 1936, 48 states had passed laws regulating pot, fearing it could lead to addiction.
Anti-marijuana literature and films, like the infamous "Reefer Madness," helped fan those fears. Eventually, pot was classified among the most harmful of drugs, meaning it had no usefulness and a high potential for addiction.
In 1976, a federal judge ruled that the Food and Drug Administration must provide Robert Randall of Washington, D.C. with marijuana because of his glaucoma -- no other drug could effectively combat his condition. Randall became the nation's first legal pot smoker since the drug's prohibition.
Eventually, the government created its program as part of a compromise over Randall's care in 1978, long before a single state passed a medical marijuana law. What followed were a series of petitions from people like Musikka to join the program.
President George H.W. Bush's administration, getting tough on crime and drugs, stopped accepting new patients in 1992. Many of the patients who had qualified had AIDS, and they were dying.
The AP asked the agency that administers the program, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, for documents showing how much marijuana has been sent to patients since the first patient in 1976.
The agency supplied full data for 2005-2011, which showed that during that period the federal government distributed more than 100 pounds of high-grade marijuana to patients.
Agency officials said records related to the program before 2005 had been destroyed, but were able to provide scattered records for a couple of years in the early 2000s.
The four patients remaining in the program estimate they have received a total of 584 pounds from the federal government over the years. On the street, that would be worth more than $500,000.
All of the marijuana comes from the University of Mississippi, where it is grown, harvested and stored.
Dr. Mahmoud ElSohly, who directs the operation, said the marijuana was a small part of the crop the university has been growing since 1968 for all cannabis research in the U.S. Among the studies are the pharmaceutical uses for synthetic mimics of pot's psychoactive ingredient, THC.
ElSohly said the four patients are getting pot with about 3 percent THC. He said 3 percent is about the range patients have preferred in blind tests.
The marijuana is then sent from Mississippi to a tightly controlled North Carolina lab, where they are rolled into cigarettes. And every month, steel tins with white labels are sent to Florida and Iowa. Packed inside each is a half-pound of marijuana rolled into 300 perfectly-wrapped joints.
With Musikka living in Oregon, she is entitled to more legal pot than anyone in the nation because she's also enrolled in the state's medical marijuana program. Neither Iowa nor Florida has approved marijuana as a medicine, so the federal pot is the only legal access to the drug for the other three patients.
The three other people in the program range in ages and doses of marijuana provided to them, but all consider themselves an endangered species that, once extinct, can be brushed aside by a federal government that pretends they don't exist.
All four have become crusaders for the marijuana-legalization movement. They're rock stars at pro-marijuana conferences, sought-after speakers and recognizable celebrities in the movement.
Irv Rosenfeld, a financial adviser in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla., has been in the program since November 1982. His condition produces painful bone tumors, but he said marijuana has replaced prescription painkillers.
Rosenfeld likes to tell this story: In the mid-1980s, the federal government asked his doctor for an update on how Rosenfeld was doing. It was an update the doctor didn't believe the government was truly interested in. He had earlier tried to get a copy of the previous update, and was told the government couldn't find it, Rosenfeld said.
So instead of filling out the form, the doctor responded with a simple sentence written in large, red letters: "It's working."
http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9Q1IR0G0.htm
Ecstasy trial planned to test benefits for trauma victims
Scientists hope to overcome tabloid anger after US trial suggests clubbers' drug can bring dramatic improvements for PTSD sufferers
Sarah Boseley
guardian.co.uk, Friday 30 September 2011 15.34 BST
Doctors are planning the first clinical trial of ecstasy in the UK, to see whether the drug can be beneficial to the traumatised survivors of child abuse, rape and war.
Ecstasy and other illegal drugs such as LSD and magic mushrooms are potentially useful in treating people with serious psychological disturbance who cannot begin to face up to their distress, some psychiatrists and therapists believe. But because of public fear and tabloid anger about illegal drugs, scientists say they find it almost impossible to explore their potential.
Professor David Nutt, the psychopharmacologist who used to head the government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs until he fell out with the Labour home secretary and was sacked, said: "I feel quite strongly that many drugs with therapeutic potential have been denied to patients and researchers because of the drugs regulation. The drugs have been made illegal in a vain attempt to stop kids using them, but people haven't thought about the negative consequences."
Nutt and the Taunton-based psychiatrist Dr Ben Sessa are two of the British scientists who hope to repeat an experiment on patients with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) undertaken in the US which, although small, was successful and has caused some in the scientific community to think what was until recently unthinkable. It involved 20 people who had been in therapy and on pills for an average of 19 years. Twelve were given MDMA ??? or 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine, the chemical compound found, often adulterated, in ecstasy tablets. The rest had placebo pills but were later also given the chance to take MDMA. Each one had a therapy session, lying back in a reclining chair in a pleasant flower-decorated room in South Carolina, wearing an eyemask.
Sometimes they listened to music on headphones and sometimes they talked to the therapist, all the while thinking about the events that had caused such profound distress that they had been unable to revisit it in past psychotherapy sessions.
The response rate was a remarkable 83% ??? 10 out of the 12 showed significant improvement two months after the second of two MDMA therapy sessions. That compared with 25% of those on the placebo. There were no serious side-effects and no long-term problems.
"I expected it was going to be effective," said Michael Mithoefer, the psychiatrist who ran the US study and carried out the psychotherapy with his wife, Ann. "I suppose we wouldn't have done it otherwise. But I didn't necessarily expect we'd find such statistical significance in that number [of people]. That was the icing on the cake."
The high number of troops returning with PTSD from Afghanistan and Iraq is attracting special attention to the study in the US. Only one of the 20 was a veteran, while the rest had suffered childhood sexual abuse, rape or other kinds of assault. Mithoefer's next study will be on veterans alone.
Nutt said PTSD is "an extraordinarily disabling condition and we don't have any really effective treatments. In order to deal with trauma, you have to be able to re-engage with the memory and then deal with it. For many people, as soon as the memory comes into consciousness, so does the fear and disgust".
Mithoefer said the participants did not appear to have joined the trial in hopes of some sort of high. "I don't think that was much of a factor at all. Some people were referred by their therapist and had never taken any drugs and were quite anxious about the whole thing and for them it was a last resort.
" Interestingly, several people said after their session: 'I don't know why they call this ecstasy' ??? because it was not an ecstatic experience. They were revisiting the trauma. It was very difficult and painful work, but the ecstasy gave them the feeling they could do it."
People spoke of getting past a barrier. One said: "I feel like I'm walking in a place I've needed to go for so long and just didn't know how to get there.
"I feel like I know myself better than I ever have before. Now I know I'm a normal person. I've been through some bad stuff, but ??? those are things have happened to me, not who I am ??? This is me. The medicine helps, but this is in me."
Another said: "I have respect for my emotions now (rather than fear of them). What's most comforting is knowing now I can handle difficult feelings without being overwhelmed. I realise feeling the fear and anger is not nearly as big a deal as I thought it would be."
Ben Sessa said he hoped to recreate the study in the UK but "with an added twist ??? lots of neuroimaging". The only brain scans that have been done are of recreational ecstasy users, whose drugs may be contaminated and who have probably taken other substances, too.The death in 1995 of Leah Betts after taking ecstasy, from drinking too much water in response to a campaign warning ravers of the danger of dehydration, had prevented rational debate or scientific advance.
MDMA, he said, "is not about dancing around nightclubs ??? it's a really useful psychiatric drug".
Nutt said it made him angry that MDMA and LSD had been banned before any doctor could establish their potential benefit. LSD was being tried among terminal cancer patients.
"When I started in medicine in 1969 they were starting to see some interesting data in the use of LSD to help people make sense of dying. I don't think it is fair that because a drug is misused it should be banned from use in medicine," he said Heroin has been around for a hundred years so although it is illegal for street use, at least we have got that..
Leading the movement to get MDMA licensed for medical use is Rick Doblin, the founder in 1986 in the US of Maps, the non-profit Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, which backed Mithoefer's trial. "I think the chances of getting a licence are excellent. We have demonstrated an excellent level of safety. It's worked. It's necessary," he said. "It is probably going to take 10 years and $10m to do it."
Doblin, whose organisation relies on philanthropic donors, has no idea where that money will come from. Nutt and Sessa, whose proposed trial in the UK would boost the chances of MDMA entering the (locked) psychiatric drug cabinet are waiting for a response to their modest grant application from one of the UK's leading medical research funders. Sessa is optimistic; battle-scarred Nutt less so. Ecstasy will for ever be controversial. "If we get the study funded and into the public domain," said Nutt, "the Daily Mail will try to have it banned."
If you believe that you can not be charged for possession in federal courts you could wind up being a statistic.
Possession is a Federal crime if you are caught on an airplane or transporting across state lines, borders etc.
Gawd, I hate Obama.
I thought that he said from the start that he wouldn't be enforcing those federal laws in states that had passed medical legalization. Did I miss something when this policy changed? And why pick on CA specifically? That's just going to hurt their economy more, and thus the nation's overall economy. It just makes no fucking sense.
If I understand it correctly, CA is low-hanging fruit in the medical marijuana game...lots of targets and CA's medical marijuana law is just that, only a law. Whereas a state like CO, whom I believe had it amended to the constitution...so if they went after CO it would be the US v CO instead of in CA where it is the US v Unicorn Hugs Compassion Club. It would take a lot more effort to go after spots in CO. But I could be wrong.