DRUG BUSTS

leafwings

(note from maji-“If I am reading this correctly the cops are just taking the pot and not enforcing the law.. hmmm.. read more like FREE POT BONANZA FOR THE COPS WHILE IT LASTS!!” grin…..)

Boston Globe – Massachusetts officially decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana, but many police departments across the state were essentially ignoring the voter-passed law, saying they would not even bother to ticket people they see smoking marijuana. “We’re just basically not enforcing it right now,” said Mark R. Laverdure, chief of police in Clinton, a Central Massachusetts town of about 8,000 residents, who said the law was so poorly written that it cannot be enforced. . . Andrew J. Sluckis Jr., chief of police in Auburn, said his 39 officers would not be issuing $100 citations for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, as required under the ballot initiative . . . “If the Legislature enacts some changes, we’ll be happy to do it in the future, but as it stands now we’re not going to be issuing civil citations,” he said. If an officer spots someone smoking marijuana, he said, “We will confiscate it and the person will be sent on their way.”

THE MELLOWIST ECONOMIC STIMULUS

Norm Stamper, Salem News – In early December, Barack Obama invited Americans to participate in an unprecedented, bottom-up approach to government. Visitors to the President-elect’s official website, Change.gov, were able to submit questions and vote on which questions should take priority for the new administration.

More than a dozen of the top 50 questions called for amending America’s drug policies, with inquiries ranging from availability of doctor-recommended medical marijuana to the economic impact of continuing to arrest and incarcerate millions of people for drug offenses.

The number one vote getter was:

“Q: Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”

Americans got their answer, sort of. A one-sentence response from the President-elect’s transition team:

“A: President-elect Obama is not in favor of the legalization of marijuana.”

Speaking as a 34-year cop with six years as police chief of one of America’s largest cities, I know how much money has been squandered in prosecuting the drug war. Obviously, I’m disappointed and confused by this response.

His silence on the issue can’t be due to fear of political backlash. He and his team must have seen the recent Zogby poll that shows three of four Americans believe the “war on drugs” is a failure. And the Time/CNN poll showing only 19 percent of Americans think we should continue arresting and jailing marijuana users. . .

A legal and regulated drug trade would imprison fewer people and generate substantial new revenues. A recently released Harvard study reports we could boost our economy by at least $76.8 billion a year by ending drug prohibition, and that’s a conservative estimate.

Legalizing and regulating drugs would help Mr. Obama achieve a greater state of security for Americans. It would effectively “take a bite out of” rampant domestic organized crime, which goes well beyond mere domestic street gangsters. And, given that our drug war enriches the coffers of organizations such as the Taliban and al Qaeda, it would dramatically reduce international crime and terrorism. . .

Recent Research on Medical Marijuana

Emerging Clinical Applications For Cannabis & Cannabinoids
A Review of the Recent Scientific Literature, 2000 — 2008

Despite continued political debates regarding the legality of medicinal marijuana, clinical investigations of the therapeutic use of cannabinoids are now more prevalent than at any time in history. A search of the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed website quantifies this fact. A keyword search using the terms “cannabinoids, 1996” reveals just 258 scientific journal articles published on the subject for that year. Perform this same search for the year 2007, and one will find over 3,400 published scientific studies.

While much of the renewed interest in cannabinoid therapeutics is a result of the discovery of the endocannabinoid regulatory system, some of this increased attention is also due to the growing body of testimonials from medicinal cannabis patients and their physicians. Nevertheless, despite this influx of anecdotal reports, much of the modern investigation of medicinal cannabis remains limited to preclinical (animal) studies of individual cannabinoids (e.g. THC or cannabidiol) and/or synthetic cannabinoid agonists (e.g., dronabinol or WIN 55,212-2) rather than clinical trial investigations involving whole plant material. Predictably, because of the US government’s strong public policy stance against any use of cannabis, the bulk of this modern cannabinoid research is taking place outside the United States.

As clinical research into the therapeutic value of cannabinoids has proliferated exponentially, so too has investigators’ understanding of cannabis’ remarkable capability to combat disease. Whereas researchers in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s primarily assessed cannabis’ ability to temporarily alleviate various disease symptoms — such as the nausea associated with cancer chemotherapy — scientists today are exploring the potential role of cannabinoids to alter disease progression. Of particular interest, scientists are investigating cannabinoids’ capacity to moderate autoimmune disorders such as multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and inflammatory bowel disease, as well as their role in the treatment of neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (a.k.a. Lou Gehrig’s disease.)

Investigators are also studying the anti-cancer activities of cannabis, as a growing body of preclinical and clinical data concludes that cannabinoids can reduce the spread of specific cancer cells via apoptosis (programmed cell death) and by the inhibition of angiogenesis (the formation of new blood vessels). Arguably, these latter trends represent far broader and more significant applications for cannabinoid therapeutics than researchers could have imagined some thirty or even twenty years ago.

HOW TO USE THIS REPORT

As states continue to approve legislation enabling the physician-supervised use of medicinal marijuana, more patients with varying disease types are exploring the use of therapeutic cannabis. Many of these patients and their physicians are now discussing this issue for the first time, and are seeking guidance on whether the therapeutic use of cannabis may or may not be appropriate. This report seeks to provide this guidance by summarizing the most recently published scientific research (2000-2008) on the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids for 17 separate clinical indications:

* Alzheimer’s disease
* Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis
* Diabetes mellitus
* Dystonia
* Fibromyalgia
* Gastrointestinal disorders
* Gliomas
* Hepatitis C
* Human Immunodeficiency Virus
* Hypertension
* Incontinence
* Multiple sclerosis
* Osteoporosis
* Pruritis
* Rheumatoid arthritis
* Sleep apnea
* Tourette’s syndrome

In some of these cases, modern science is now affirming longtime anecdotal reports of medicinal cannabis users (e.g., the use of cannabis to alleviate GI disorders). In other cases, this research is highlighting entirely new potential clinical utilities for cannabinoids (e.g., the use of cannabinoids to modify the progression of diabetes.)

The diseases profiled in this report were chosen because patients frequently inquire about the therapeutic use of cannabis to treat these disorders. In addition, many of the indications included in this report may be moderated by cannabis therapy. In several cases, preclinical data indicates that cannabinoids may halt the progression of these diseases in a more efficacious manner than available pharmaceuticals. In virtually all cases, this report is the most thorough and comprehensive review of the recent scientific literature regarding the therapeutic use of cannabis and cannabinoids.

For patients and their physicians, let this report serve as a primer for those who are considering using or recommending medicinal cannabis. For others, let this report serve as an introduction to the broad range of emerging clinical applications for cannabis and its various compounds.

Paul Armentano
Deputy Director
NORML | NORML Foundation
Washington, DC
January 24, 2008

* The author would like to acknowledge Drs. Dale Gieringer, Gregory Carter, Steven Karch, and Mitch Earleywine, as well as NORML interns John Lucy, Christopher Rasmussen, and Rita Bowles, for providing research assistance for this report. The NORML Foundation would also like to acknowledge Dale Gieringer, Paul Kuhn, and Richard Wolfe for their financial contributions toward the publication of this report.

** Important and timely publications such as this are only made possible when concerned citizens become involved with NORML. For more information on joining NORML or making a donation, please visit: http://www.norml.org/join. Tax deductible donations in support of NORML’s public education campaigns should be made payable to the NORML Foundation.

Members Of Congress Demand An End To Federal Pot Possession Arrests

Members of Congress convened a Capitol Hill press conference in July to demand lawmakers enact legislation to eliminate the government’s authority to arrest and prosecute adults who possess marijuana.  Lawmakers called on colleagues to endorse HR 5843, which sought to remove federal penalties for the possession and non-profit transfer of marijuana by adults.  The legislation was the first proposal introduced in Congress in 30 years to eliminate criminal marijuana penalties.  Read the full story at: http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7670.

Proteins change as pot plants clean up soil

[April 1, 2007]

When cannabis hits the headlines it is often in response to the latest cannabis farm that has been unearthed, be it in a remote field in the country or in someone’s roof in the city. Bad press all round for a plant known for its psychoactive properties and misuse, even though it is finding support from individuals and doctors for alleviating the symptoms of many illnesses. But what many people fail to appreciate is that there are other, safer, varieties of Cannabis sativa that bring different qualities to society.

The pot-smoking species is C. sativa subsp. indica, characterised by relatively large amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the psychoactive component. However, another cultivar, C. sativa subsp. sativa, produces only trace amounts of THC and grows long and tall, with little branching. This form is cultivated for its fibres and is more often known as industrial hemp. It is easy to grow, typically taking 4 months to rise to heights of 3-10 feet, its fast growth negating the need for herbicides.

It has been estimated that hemp is used in more than 25,000 products, including paper, fibreboard, textiles, biodegradable composites, plastics, rope, sails and furniture. Compared with wood chippings, hemp produces at least double the amount of fibre and does not require bleaching or other toxic chemicals.

But Cannabis sativa has one further property that can get careless industrialists and farmers off the hook. It can help to clean up soil that has been contaminated with toxic heavy metals such as cadmium, nickel and copper. Plants grown in soil that has been fouled by industrial effluent, metal-enriched fertilisers or herbicides can absorb metals into their root systems. So, ideally, crops could be grown on contaminated soil, then the fibres harvested for industrial use.

Little is known about how the Cannabis plant reacts when it takes up excess copper, especially within the proteome. How does it manage this, while still maintaining growth and its normal protein functions? This question has now been addressed by scientists from the University of Piemonte Orientale in Alessandria who have studied the proteome of Cannabis sativa var. Felina 34 grown under copper stress.

Seedlings were planted in a quartz sand-loam-gravel mix that was dosed with 150 ppm copper sulphate. This level is well above the mean world soil copper concentration of 20 ppm, while remaining below that at which serious plant toxicity is observed. After 6 weeks, the copper-treated plants were smaller than control plants, with shorter leaf areas, root lengths and root volumes.

The copper content, determined by ICPMS, doubled in the shoots, but increased 8-fold in the roots compared with controls. This distribution confirmed that copper intake was preferentially localised in the root system in agreement with published work which declared the copper gradient in hemp to be roots > stems > leaves > seeds.

Proteins in the roots were extracted by standard methods and separated by 2D gel electrophoresis. The protein spots that had statistically significant intensity differences from the control gel were selected for in-gel digestion with trypsin for tandem mass spectrometry analysis. Seven proteins were down-regulated, five were up-regulated and two disappeared altogether.

Subsequent identification was not straightforward, since the C. sativa genome has not yet been sequenced. So the researchers, led by senior reporter Maria Cavaletto, used de novo sequencing from the MS/MS spectra then aligned the proteins to database sequences of related organisms. This cross-species protocol was able to identify some of the protein with altered abundances.

Since no new proteins were observed under copper stress, the team concluded that the plant does not evolve a copper-specific mechanism to incorporate the excess metal ions. They proposed a copper-coping mechanism in which the first protein to interact with the copper ions, present as copper(II), was aldo/keto reductase. It acts as a scavenger, reducing copper(II) to copper(I), a process which makes it available for interactions with other proteins such as phytochelatins that bind copper(I). This reductase is an auxin-induced protein, confirming the involvement of auxin as a plant growth regulator handling the excess metal.

Other implicated proteins include the stress proteins formate dehydrogenase, a protein that increases in response to other stresses such as dark, cold and drought, as well as enolase and elicitor-inducible protein. Other implicated proteins are those which confer greater copper resistance and provide an efficient reducing system (thioredoxin peroxidase, peroxidase and cyclophilin) and those which regulate root growth (actin, ribosomal proteins and glycine-rich protein.

This preliminary work will mark a useful basis for future phytoremediation studies, perhaps being used to develop plants for biomonitoring or for the remediation of heavily metal-polluted soil.

Related links:

* Department of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Piemonte Orientale

http://www.disav.unipmn.it/


* Proteomics 2007, 7, 1121: “Proteomic characterization of copper stress response in Cannabis sativa roots”

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/user/accessdenied?ID=114182347&Act=2138&Code=4717&Page=/cgi-bin/fulltext/114182347/PDFSTART


http://www.spectroscopynow.com/coi/cda/detail.cda;jsessionid=B9527441DE1FE87DF66C0D19CA250C2E?id=16011&type=Feature&chId=10&page=1

Round One of Obama’s “Open for Questions” Reveals Clamor for Drug Policy Reform


Posted by Al Giordano – December 12, 2008 at 12:13 pm

By Al Giordano

President-elect Obama – fulfilling multiple campaign promises to more deeply involve the public in setting priorities for his administration – opened up his Change.Gov website to questions from citizens, and asked the people to then rate the questions up or down.

The first round of questions closed at midnight last night, and it should come as no surprise that many of the top questions involve issues that millions of Americans care deeply about but for which commercial media coverage doesn’t do justice in reporting or prioritizing.

The number one question for the first round was:

“Will you consider legalizing marijuana so that the government can regulate it, tax it, put age limits on it, and create millions of new jobs and create a billion dollar industry right here in the U.S.?”

A total of 2,521 7,947 participants recommended that question to only 102 634 that thought it inappropriate (the latter figure is particularly revealing, demonstrating that the “conventional wisdom” that drug policy reform is too controversial to touch is simply not reflected in public opinion, certainly not among Obama’s base supporters).

I have a suggestion for one of the ways the President-elect – who having promised it, now owes a serious response to that question beyond the usual sloganeering and grandstanding by politicians regarding matters of drug policy – can answer it consistent with his own stated positions while also advancing on those parts of it that he has not spoken out about clearly. I’ll get to that in a moment.

But first, it is interesting to note that other drug policy reform questions finished quite high up the list, too.

The seventh most popular question – out of many thousands submitted – was:

“13 states have compassionate use programs for medial Marijuana, yet the federal gov’t continues to prosecute sick and dying people. Isn’t it time for the federal gov’t to step out of the way and let doctors and families decide what is appropriate?”

The thirteenth:

“How will you fix the current war on drugs in America? and will there be any chance of decriminalizing marijuana?”

The fifteeth most popular question was:

“What kind of progress can be expected on the decriminalization and legalization for medicinal purposes of marijuana and will you re-prioritize the “War On Drugs” to reflect the need for drug treatment instead of incarceration?”

The eighteenth most popular question:

“The U.S. has the world’s highest incarceration rate, largely due to the War on Drugs. Our prisons are festering pits of rape, racism, and gang violence, and divert a lot of tax money to the corrupt prison industry. How can we fix this?”

And the ninteenth, on another area of drug policy:

“What will be done about the FDA and its cozy relationship with the Pharmaceutical industry? Will the protective legislation for the Pharm be reversed? Will the FDA pre-emption policy protecting the Pharm from liability be addressed?”

In other words, six of the top twenty questions – that’s 30 percent of them – are on drug policy and matters related to it.

If the President-elect and his advisors were to ask “how should we respond to those questions” I would answer in two parts:

1. Reiterate those campaign promises (to stop federal medical marijuana raids in states that have decided to allow patients access to that medicine, to end mandatory minimum sentencing for nonviolent offenders, and adequately fund drug treatment among them, prioritizing the latter over incarceration), implementing those that only require an executive order immediately upon taking office on January 20.

2. Appoint a National Commission of highly qualified and respected scientists, medical investigators, doctors, patients, civil libertarians and civil rights advocates, law enforcement professionals and experts, defense attorneys, prosecutors, economists, prison reform advocates, and some retired gray eminences from those fields to report back within sixth months with detailed answers to all of those questions and more. Charge the National Commission with making detailed recommendations for reforming US drug policy in ways that cease its counter-productive impacts on public safety, federal and state budgets, civil rights and liberties.

And then, when the report comes back, act upon it: implement changes that can be made through executive order immediately (including resetting priorities for US Attorneys and law enforcement agencies across the country) and propose legislation to Congress to deal with the rest.

And mobilize the grassroots supporters – Micah Sifry at TechPresident has published an Obama organization memo confirming that the field organization will be utilized for lobbying the House and Senate – to pressure Congress to comply.

The President-elect asked for public input and, lo’ and behold, he got it.

Now the ball is in his court to act on it in a meaningful way, a very important early test for whether he’ll walk his talk.

stats on marijuana and teens

Aaron Houston, AlterNet – Buried in the latest Monitoring the Future survey — the major annual, federally funded survey of teen drug use — is an astonishing finding: More 10th-graders now smoke marijuana than smoke cigarettes. . . In the just-released survey, 13.8 percent of 10th-graders reported smoking marijuana in the past 30 days (considered “current use” by researchers), while just 12.3 percent smoked cigarettes. For eighth and 12th grades, cigarette use still exceeded marijuana, but the gap narrowed to insignificance. This year, current and past-year marijuana use increased for eighth- and 12th-graders and declined for 10th-graders, but none of the changes were large or statistically significant. In contrast, current cigarette smoking did drop significantly for 10th-graders. Changes for most other drugs were marginal, except for a significant increase in methamphetamine use among 10th-graders.