10 Steps to End the Drug War from DrugSense

This is a very interesting read from Mark Greer at Drug Sense.

Click the link below to read the post at the Drug WarRant
Click Here

After reading this I scrolled to the bottom to check out the comments posted. Brian Bennett, the owner of the Homepage of Truth with a slogan "It's Not About Legalizing Drugs -- It's About Correcting a Terrible Mistake", posted this very interesting and fresh take of the situation.

actually, this "plan" is useless. the crux of the matter is that our society has lost its focus on its true purpose: to protect individual liberties.

each of these steps, in and of itself, is something that could be accomplished -- but how would that impact the overall waging of the drug war?

i submit that all of these "goals" could be accomplished and not have any impact at all on the overall drug war.

working at this piecemeal has been the standard approach for 40 years. sorry -- it doesn't work. it is analogous to trying to tunnel through a mountain with a teaspoon. or, as arnold trebach puts it: this would be like improving housing conditions for slaves and offerring them a dental plan.

it is the institution of drugwar that is evil and that is what must be vanquished.

i want this bullshit to end long before i'm dead -- and this approach is not likely to accomplish anything at all.

there is only one way to truly, effectively (and quickly) win: get americans to start acting like americans.

p.s. opiates, cocaine, and amphetamines are already legally available. so why is the war against the use of (and users of) those substances still going on?

The quote that I think is the most important part of the comment is, "there is only one way to truly, effectively (and quickly) win: get americans to start acting like americans."

So true.

Legal Drugs by 2020?

Orginal Article

LEGALISING DRUGS IS AN OPTION THE WORLD IS NOW CONSIDERING
by Paul Walker, (Source:Western Mail)
25 Oct 2006

United Kingdom
-------
The other day I found myself chairing a meeting on the topic of legalising drug use.

Reading the runes, it would seem that there is an international movement growing in opposition to the current United Nations-led universal policy of prohibition and, that by the year 2020, regulated use and supply will replace prohibition in many UN member states.

But the year 2020 is a long way away.

So can we expect any change in the present policy in the nearer future?

Interestingly, the Parliamentary Science and Technology Select Committee has recently produced a report, Drug Classification: Making a Hash of it? which calls for a major overhaul of the existing system.

The way drugs are currently categorised into Class A, B and C is done on the basis of the penalties they attract under the criminal justice system rather than on the harm that they do.

Common sense suggests that the penalties should be proportional to the harm done.

The Select Committee proposes that any classification system based on harm done must include tobacco and alcohol which together cause about 40 times the total number of deaths from all illegal drugs combined.

Applying a new categorisation system based on harm done proposed by the committee, alcohol would probably be listed as a class A drug, the fifth most harmful of all, and tobacco as a class B one, the ninth most harmful.

This report shows how illogical the whole system is and how confusing to the public.

On the basis of the current system, where drugs such as ecstasy and LSD are categorised as harmful class A drugs and alcohol and tobacco are not classified at all and are freely available, the public might reach the conclusion that alcohol and tobacco are not harmful.

This, of course, is not true and the proposed new classification system would make this apparent.

It is time for a mature debate about our attitude to mind altering drugs.

Alcohol use is legal but is increasingly problematic. Drugs such as cannabis, heroin and cocaine are illegal and, while undoubtedly they can cause problems, these are on nothing like the scale of those caused by alcohol and tobacco.

So why are they illegal when by being so a huge global criminal industry is given a licence to print money?

It is worth remembering that the United States tried alcohol prohibition and lived to regret it and repealed it.

In this country the equivalent of prohibition was introduced with the enactment of the Misuse of Drugs Act in 1971.

It is time to reconsider this and see whether it is not time to go back to the pre-prohibition condition that existed in the UK before 1971.

At the very least we should initiate a mature debate on the topic and perhaps not have to wait until 2020 for a change in policy. Which is what my meeting was about.

Talking of alcohol and smoking, I was disappointed to learn at the same meeting that the biggest drinks and tobacco companies in the world are British.

It seems paradoxical that a nation that is so pre-eminent in public health research and scholarship is also pre-eminent in profiteering from harmful products like alcohol and tobacco.

And on a slightly lighter note, I also learned that the pint glass was introduced by the brewers in the 1930s to boost the sales of beer.

Apparently, until then half pint glasses were the norm.

Top 10 Pot Studies Government Wishes it Had Never Funded

I stumbled across this post the other night on a marijuana activism blog.

Check It Out

Marijuana Sales, Distribution Major Part of Local Economy

Orginal Article

MARIJUANA SALES, DISTRIBUTION MAJOR PART OF LOCAL ECONOMY
by John Hazlehurst, (Source:Colorado Springs Business Journal)
27 Oct 2006

Colorado
-------
Impact in Colorado Springs Could Be Equivalent to $80 Million in Retail Sales, Account for 1,100 Jobs

On Nov. 7, Colorado voters will decide whether to legalize the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by any person over 21.

Initiative 44, which is modeled after an ordinance that Denver voters approved in 2004, is seen by both supporters and opponents as a first step toward comprehensive legalization and regulation of marijuana.

Eliminate the legal, social and moral arguments, and one thing becomes very clear: even without Initiative 44, the marijuana trade in El Paso County is a major contributor to the local economy.

According to the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, 13.3 percent of Colorado residents use marijuana. Use spikes between the ages of 18 and 25, a demographic in which fully a third of all Coloradoans are users.

In Colorado Springs, where age demographics trend younger than statewide figures, as many as 15 percent of residents might be marijuana users. Given a metropolitan population of 550,000, that translates to 80,000 people.

Law enforcement officials, users and dealers estimated that the average marijuana user in Colorado Springs purchases/consumes about three ounces annually at a cost of about $1,000.

That translates into a yearly retail market of $80 million, derived from the distribution of 1,250 pounds of marijuana every month, or 41 pounds a day.

A typical Wal-Mart superstore, such as the one currently under construction on Baptist Road south of Monument, generates $45 million in annual retail sales. Is the impact of the marijuana trade, then, roughly equivalent to a pair of big-box superstores?

Difficult to Compare

Sue Piatt of the Colorado Office of Economic Development is cautious about making any such comparisons. She points out that such stores not only pay sales taxes, but, unlike the marijuana trade, also rely upon a complex infrastructure of buildings, suppliers, transporters and administrators.

A better measure of the magnitude of the marijuana trade, she suggested, might be to compare it to the gross annual sales of selected jurisdictions -- information that's available from the state Department of Revenue.

Manitou Springs, for example, has gross annual retail sales of about $65 million. Buena Vista is a little higher, at $90 million, while Crested Butte, at $79.5 million, nearly matches the estimated annual volume of the local marijuana trade.

At the Business Journal's request, Fred Crowley, a research economist at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, created an input/ output model of the marijuana business ( see sidebar ). In an e-mail, Crowley commented briefly on the model.

"[My] analysis is based on the assumption the money from the sale of marijuana is spent in the local community. It was assumed $80,000,000 income is made from the sale of marijuana.

"It was assumed the income is earned by a cross section of households selling the drug from lower to higher income levels.

"Needless to say, the analysis is not an endorsement of the activity. Rather, it is an effort to identify the economic effects of the money being spent in El Paso County as a result of the sale of the marijuana. Social costs have not been included since I do not have the data on these items."

This is what the input/output analysis determined:

* Job creation: 1,100

* Income creation: $29.83 million annually

* Sales tax collections ( state, county and city ): $1.76 million

Tough to Quantify

Underground economies are notoriously difficult to quantify, since the usual metrics simply don't apply. You can't track store receipts, or sales tax collections, or wholesale inventories or bank deposits.

But you can track people -- people who are supplementing their incomes by selling or growing marijuana. Their ranks include not only bartenders and musicians but also middle-aged businessmen and spirited grandmothers.

"Dave," a slender, cheerful man in his early 20s, is seated at a rickety wooden table in the kitchen of his modest downtown apartment.

"You won't see anything better than this," he says, passing over a plastic bag of high-grade marijuana. "This is B.C. bud. You want an ounce -- it's $400."

B.C. bud is a generic term for high-potency marijuana, much of which is thought to originate in British Columbia.

Dave is a small-time marijuana dealer -- the last link in the supply chain. He's been selling to a small circle of friends and acquaintances since he was in high school.

"I used to ride my bike around Rockrimmon to make deliveries," he said. "Now I just e-mail my list, and they come by."

For Dave, selling marijuana is a simple, painless and, he thinks, relatively risk-free way to make extra money.

"I don't make much, maybe a thousand a month," he said. "But I can work part-time doing construction, and have plenty of time for my music. Next year, I'm going to finish up at UCCS. I'd like to go to law school after that. I don't want to be doing construction all my life."

Projecting the Size

Law enforcement officials have long sought to estimate the size of drug markets by applying a multiplier to the quantity of drugs seized in transit. Typically, authorities have estimated that no more than 5 percent of marijuana shipments are successfully interdicted.

As a point of reference, last year, 2,391 pounds of "processed marijuana" were seized in Colorado, as well as 7,383 cultivated plants. Of the plants, 3,919 came from indoor "grows," and 3,464 from outdoor plots.

According to local dealers, native-grown marijuana is almost exclusively cultivated indoors, under the lights. If undetected, it's a profitable business.

"Jim," a popular Springs bartender, described one such grow. "It's almost as big as the bar," he said, indicating, with a sweep of his hand, an area about 30 feet by 50 feet. "And the plants are like six feet tall."

As a retail business, the marijuana trade appears to have several unique characteristics:

* It requires none of the infrastructure associated with similarly-sized retail businesses. There are no fleets of delivery trucks, no warehouses, no inventory control systems, no point-of-sale systems, no licensing and no direct tax payments.

* Retail distribution is entirely in the hands of small individual entrepreneurs, with little access to capital.

* There is little incentive for most of those individuals to increase their sales activity beyond a certain point. Every additional customer heightens the risk of detection and arrest.

* It seems likely that most small-time dealers net $1,000 or less per month, and expend the money as it is received.

Might Be More

Sitting in her light-filled North End home, "Lilith," a 50-something professional who has lived in Colorado Springs for more than 20 years, reflects on her years as a marijuana dealer. Told that NSDUS estimates suggest that there are more than 80,000 marijuana users in the Pikes Peak region, she smiles gently.

"I think that's low," she said. "You wouldn't believe who my customers are -- they're very straight, very respectable. I've never had more than half a dozen. The problem has always been finding suppliers. I need to find a grower."

If marijuana were to be legalized and regulated, what would be the economic impact of such a change?

Present channels of sales and distribution would likely disappear. Prices also would likely plummet, even if the product was, like tobacco, heavily taxed.

Thousands of individuals would lose a substantial portion of their income.

If, as Crowley's model suggests, the marijuana trade is responsible for more than a thousand jobs in the Pikes Peak Region, the economic impact of legalization would be comparable to the closure of a manufacturing business employing a thousand people.

"We'd be out of business -- just like the bookies and numbers runners went broke when Lotto came in," said "Gary," a former hippie and now a successful Springs businessman. "Back then, there weren't so many gamblers, the odds were better, and it was a nice, quiet little business -- so there'd be a lot more stoners, bad dope and nobody would make any money.

"But", he added, brightening, "I guess the cops would be out of work, too."

Britain: Pot Use Down Dramatically Following Cannabis Reclassification

Orginal Article

Britain: Pot Use Down Dramatically Following Cannabis Reclassification

October 19, 2006 - London, United Kingdom

London, United Kingdom: Self-reported cannabis use among Britons has declined dramatically following a 2004 Home Office decision to downgrade cannabis possession to a non-arrestable offense, according to statistics published this week in the UK government's 2005-2006 British Crime Survey.

The report finds that the use of cannabis by the general population is now at its lowest level in ten years, and that much of this decline has taken place since 2003. Among young people age 16 to 24 years old, self-reported cannabis use has also declined dramatically since the late 1990s.

Approximately 21 percent of British young adults reported having used cannabis in the past year, the survey found. By contrast, 28 percent of Americans age 18 to 25 have used pot in the past year, according to statistics published in 2006 by the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Commenting on the British report, Martin Barnes, executive director of the British think-tank DrugScope, said: "The fact that cannabis use has continued to fall to its lowest level in nearly 10 years is further evidence that the decision to reclassify the drug to class C was sound. Some warned that the change would lead to an increase in cannabis use yet the reverse has happened, possibly because there is more awareness of the possible harms."

Under the 2004 reclassification scheme, Britons found in possession of "personal use" amounts of marijuana are typically cautioned by police, but not arrested.

For more information, please contact Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director, or Paul Armentano, NORML Senior Policy Analyst, at (202) 483-5500.

Spongebob Hempplants

A hilarious parody of the Spongebob Squarepants kid television show.

Stoned in Suburbia

If you have some time on your hands, defiently check out this video.


Video Description:

Stoned In Suburbia is a social history film, examining the change in people's opinions to cannabis over the past 50 years. Discussing the impact of the 60's sexual revolution, the Hippie movement, the emergence of the Punks right up until the modern day.

A Stoner's Sci-fi Fantasy...Turned Real!

Battle of the 10ft Plants!!!

Orginal Article

Troops battle 10-foot marijuana plants

Fri Oct 13, 8:48 AM ET

Canadian troops fighting Taliban militants in Afghanistan have stumbled across an unexpected and potent enemy -- almost impenetrable forests of 10-feet-high marijuana plants.

General Rick Hillier, chief of the Canadian defense staff, said on Thursday that Taliban fighters were using the forests as cover. In response, the crew of at least one armored car had camouflaged their vehicle with marijuana.

"The challenge is that marijuana plants absorb energy, heat very readily. It's very difficult to penetrate with thermal devices ... and as a result you really have to be careful that the Taliban don't dodge in and out of those marijuana forests," he said in a speech in Ottawa.

"We tried burning them with white phosphorous -- it didn't work. We tried burning them with diesel -- it didn't work. The plants are so full of water right now ... that we simply couldn't burn them," he said.

Even successful incineration had its drawbacks.

"A couple of brown plants on the edges of some of those (forests) did catch on fire. But a section of soldiers that was downwind from that had some ill effects and decided that was probably not the right course of action," Hillier said dryly.

One soldier told him later: "Sir, three years ago before I joined the army, I never thought I'd say 'That damn marijuana'."

Stop Picking On Stoners

Orginal Article

STOP PICKING ON STONERS

Am I the only one not impressed by all of the marijuana seizures lately? Talk about your pre-election, vote-inciting tricks.

No matter where you stand on legalizing marijuana, you have to admit that you have never heard of a marijuana-induced shooting spree. What's the worst crime committed under the influence of pot? I don't think eating too many Cheetos is a crime, even under the Bush administration.

If the government wants to impress me, start catching more drunken drivers, and keep them in jail. How about closing down some crank houses? You know crank, right? It's the drug that actually does father many violent crimes.

I don't know whether marijuana should be legalized or not, but quit acting like you've accomplished something by taking away the peace pipes. That's right, "peace" pipes; it is no coincidence the Indians called it that.

People smoke pot for many reasons: pain control, anxiety control, nausea control and, yes, just to get stoned. Whatever their reasons, when they do smoke it, they do not get violent; they do not rob banks, rape, attack or cross the double yellow line; instead, they sit at home watching TV with a bag of chips.

Traci Piazza,

Orangevale

KRNV (6pm): Religious Leaders Support Marijuana Initiative

KTVN: Religious Leaders Support Marijuana Initiative

Don't YouTube While Stoned

Speedy Gonzales...Pothead?

Marijuana Christmas - Short film by Jet Baker

Only two more months to everyone's favorite time of year!

True

Drug Survey: More Teens Smoke Marijuana Than Cigarettes

Orginal Article

SACRAMENTO, CALIFORNIA — A new teen drug use survey released today by California Attorney General Bill Lockyer confirms the failure of the government's war on marijuana to keep the drug away from teenagers, officials of the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) said today.

According to the 11th biennial California Student Survey, more California ninth and eleventh graders currently smoke marijuana than smoke cigarettes. Among ninth graders, 12.6 percent smoked marijuana in the past 30 days, compared to 10 percent who smoked cigarettes. For eleventh graders, the figures were 19.2 percent and 15.2 percent, respectively. This trend has been consistent since the 2001-2002 survey, but represents a reversal from 1997-1998, when cigarette use exceeded marijuana use in all age groups.

"The good news is that both cigarette and marijuana use have declined markedly in the last decade, and predictions that Proposition 215 would lead to an explosion in teen marijuana use have proven totally wrong," said Bruce Mirken, San Francisco-based director of communications for MPP, which is headquartered in Washington, D.C. "But it's clear we're doing a better job in preventing kids from using tobacco than we are in keeping them away from marijuana, and the reason is our dysfunctional, counterproductive laws.

"Tobacco merchants are licensed and regulated," Mirken added, "while drug dealers are completely unregulated. Walk into any supermarket or convenience store that sells cigarettes, and you'll see a great big red-and-yellow sign saying, 'Under 18, No Tobacco: We Card.' Have you ever seen a drug dealer with a 'We Card' sign? Instead of wasting millions of tax dollars on marijuana 'eradication' campaigns that are an exercise in futility, it's time to put marijuana under the same sort of common-sense controls that work for tobacco."

With more than 20,000 members and 100,000 e-mail subscribers nationwide, the Marijuana Policy Project is the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol. For more information, please visit http://MarijuanaPolicy.org.
Date: 10/4/2006

Nevada Commercials

Current television commercials airing in Nevada.

Visit the website at the end of the ad for more information and to help make a big jump in the Marijuana legalization movement.

Polittically Incorrect with Bill Maher 2001

An old video that help ignite the medical marijuana debate

O'Reilly Vs "Real Time" Bill Maher

"It is very hard for me to imagine Jesus Christ going up to a medical marijuana suffer and taking the joint out of his mouth and saying 'Goood luck with your bone marrow'"

Fight for Legalization

Orginal Article

MARIJUANA FEST IGNITES FIGHT FOR LEGALIZATION
by Ellen Williams-Masson, Correspondent for The Capital Times, (Source:Capital Times)
09 Oct 2006

Wisconsin
-------
The skies were clear but a haze hung over hundreds of marijuana activists as they paraded up State Street to the Capitol for the 36th Annual Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival.

Some who marched advocated marijuana for medicinal purposes, while others championed hemp as an answer to the state's agricultural woes.

And more than a few undoubtedly toked up for the sheer pleasure of smoking a doobie on a sunny afternoon on State Street.

"The sky didn't fall, nothing happened, nobody got hurt, and we went all the way down the road in full public view and nothing went wrong," activist Jim Miller from New Jersey said.

"It makes no sense that if this is the way it works, why are people going to jail for doing that, when nothing happened?"

Miller is part of the "Commando Squad" that has fought for the legalization of medical marijuana and carries on the battle in memory of his wife, Cheryl.

Cheryl had lobbied for medicinal marijuana to ease her pain from multiple sclerosis before her death in 2003, and Miller played a tape of her agonized screams during physical therapy treatments without benefit of the drug.

Marijuana proponents have been fighting to legalize cannabis for decades since its criminalization in 1937, and local activist and Harvest Festival organizer Ben Masel believes they are slowly making headway.

"We've gotten a lot better, at least at the political level, at stopping new bad legislation," Masel said. "A lot of progress is happening on hemp agriculture."

Masel lost the U.S. Senate Democratic primary to incumbent Herb Kohl last month but secured more than 51,000 votes, more than half of which he attributes to marijuana supporters.

Masel also lost a Republican primary to Tommy Thompson in the 1990 governor's race when he ran on a platform advocating the use of hemp in agriculture.

Gary Storck, cofounder of the Madison branch of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws ( NORML ), lamented the death of the medical marijuana bill during the past congressional session and pointed to the Capitol building behind him when he spoke at the rally.

"The people in this building are responsible for that bill dying in committee," he said. "It's time to turn these mothers out. We need you to vote, and we need to get your friends to vote."

Storck, Miller and other activists will be traveling throughout the state before the Nov. 7 election in an attempt to get candidates' positions on record regarding the legalization of cannabis for medicinal purposes.

Storck cited a 2002 poll conducted by his activist group "Is my medicine legal yet?" ( IMMLY ) that reported over 80 percent of Wisconsin residents support legalized medical marijuana.

"No candidate should be able to run for office and get elected without stating their position on medical marijuana," Storck said. "Why won't they just do the people's will?"

Joann Price of Verona suffers from spinal muscular atrophy and also questioned why her medicine of choice isn't legal.

"I don't see why something that is a gift from God, a herb, made in the ground. . .can't be legalized," Price said from a wheelchair. "You've never heard of anybody getting into a fist fight or beating their spouse after they smoked a joint."

Proponents like Price say cannabis provides pain relief and alleviates a host of other medical conditions without the harmful side effects or high costs of many prescription drugs.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a statement in April 2006 that the FDA, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy "do not support the use of smoked marijuana for medical purposes" because of a lack of sound scientific studies required for the FDA drug approval process.

Plenty of patients continue to self-medicate with marijuana, however, often as an alternative to prescription drugs. Cassius, a 23-year-old veteran who served in the Airborne Rangers, returned home from Baghdad with bottled up rage and a hand-rolled remedy to ease the pain.

"I smoke weed, and I'm going to die smoking weed," he said, declining to give his last name. "If I want to smoke marijuana, I can be judged, but I can fight and die for the country, and see my battle buddies blown up on land mines in Fallujah."

Cassius, a Gary, Indiana native, says he never used drugs before joining the military but now smokes pot on a daily basis to "mellow out" since he came home to a life of unemployment and disillusionment.

"A lot of rich guys, Caucasians, like to pull out their scotch with two ice cubes," he said. "War gives you a gift, because when you come back, you look at things differently."

Drug Licensing Will 'Save Lives'

Orginal Article

DRUG LICENSING WILL 'SAVE LIVES'
(Source:Runcorn & Widnes Weekly News)
05 Oct 2006

United Kingdom
-------
Halton MEP Chris Davies hosted a meeting where a senior police representative said lives could be saved if illegal drugs were licensed.

Inspector Jim Duffy, chairman of Strathclyde Police Federation, was speaking at the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton at the invitation of Mr Davies, a leading campaigner for drug policy reform.

Inspector Duffy, part of Britain's second largest police force, said that so far prohibitionist policies had failed and that criminals would lose control of the drugs market if a licensing regime were established in its place.

He said: 'The police are not winning the war against illegal drugs.

'We are fighting hard, becoming smarter and sharper; but so are those we fight against.

'If the current rules of engagement do not change then we are destined to continue to fail.

'Lives could be saved if addicts purchasing regulated drugs could be sure of their strength and purity.'

Chris Davies has spoken out in favour of legalising drugs several times in his career.

He points out that more than 50% of burglaries in Britain are attributed to drug use and says this country has the highest rate of drug-assisted deaths in Europe.

Mr Davies added: 'By breaking the link with criminals and bringing drugs under licensed control we can save lives and reduce harm to the rest of society.'

The MEP even acquired a criminal conviction for his views, after holding a small quantity of cannabis resin stuck to a postage stamp to show his support for Dutch-style cannabis coffee shops at a political rally in 2002.

Crack the CIA

I was over at I'm Not Paranoid It's True and checked out the newest post. It's a great video on YouTube that presents information about the CIA involvement in Drug Trafficking. Is this real or just another conspiracy?

Marijuana May Slow Alzheimer's

A new article from WebMd.com

http://www.webmd.com/content/article/128/117022.htm

Marijuana May Slow Alzheimer's

Key Marijuana Compound Beats Current Alzheimer's Drugs in Test-Tube Study
By Daniel DeNoon
WebMD Medical News Reviewed By Louise Chang, MD
on Friday, October 06, 2006

Oct. 6, 2006 -- THC, the key compound in marijuana, may also be the key to new drugs for Alzheimer's disease.

That's because the marijuana compound blocks the formation of brain-clogging Alzheimer's plaques better than current Alzheimer's drugs.

The finding -- in test-tube studies -- comes from the lab of Kim Janda, PhD, director of the Worm Institute of Research and Medicine at Scripps Research Institute.

"While we are certainly not advocating the use of illegal drugs, these findings offer convincing evidence that THC possesses remarkable inhibitory qualities, especially when compared to [Alzheimer's drugs] currently available to patients," Janda says in a news release.

"Although our study is far from final, it does show that there is a previously unrecognized molecular mechanism through which THC may directly affect the progression of Alzheimer's disease."

Janda's team found that THC blocks an enzyme called acetylcholinesterase, which speeds the formation of amyloid plaque in the brains of people with Alzheimer's disease.

The Alzheimer's drugs Aricept and Cognex work by blocking acetylcholinesterase. When tested at double the concentration of THC, Aricept blocked plaque formation only 22% as well as THC, and Cognex blocked plaque formation only 7% as well as THC.

"THC and its analogs may provide an improved [treatment for] both the symptoms and progression of Alzheimer's disease," the researchers conclude.

The findings appear in the Aug. 9 online edition of the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, a publication of the American Chemical Society.

Governor vetoes the legalization of hemp over the weekend

October 3, 2006


"Governor vetoes the legalization of hemp over the weekend
By TOM RAGAN
SENTINEL STAFF WRITER
WATSONVILLE — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's weekend decision to veto a bill that legalized growing hemp in California was greeted with disdain by the state assemblyman who supported it.

The Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau also was frustrated with the veto, saying growers are always looking for viable crop alternatives, and that hemp could have been one given demand.

But Schwarzenegger, in a statement Saturday, said while he supports the development of new crops in the state, he felt he could not approve the legalization of hemp, a type of cannabis related to marijuana but without the euphoric effects: "Unfortunately, I am very concerned that this bill would give legitimate growers a false sense of security and a belief that production of 'industrial hemp' is somehow a legal activity under federal law."

State Assemblyman Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, introduced AB 1147 this year to reduce the reliance of U.S. man-ufacturers on imported hemp from Canada and China. Monday, Leno called the veto just "short of absurd."

"It's just another example of myth and politics trumping science and sound public policy," Leno said. "But we're not through yet. We're not going to give up. I'll probably try to introduce it again ... in January."

The bill passed both the Assembly and the Senate, with backers stressing that industrial hemp is a $300 million industry in the United States but that it cannot be grown here legally.

"Farmers could have made so much money by capitalizing on the popularity of the industry, but now they're just going to continue to lose it," Leno said.

Products made of hemp are common, and it can be found in clothes, food, snack bars, even paper. Proponents of the bill pointed to the U.S. Declaration of Independence, which was penned on hemp.

But the governor, with advice from the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, said there currently is no legal distinction between industrial hemp and marijuana, which contains tetrahydrocannabinols. THC creates euphoria when consumed; its production and consumption are outlawed by the federal government.

Any person wishing to grow hemp or marijuana must first obtain permission and register with the DEA. Failure to do so is a violation of federal law and subject to criminal penalties.

But Leno said there are huge differences between the two plants and that there was "no way" that law enforcement would have trouble distinguishing one from the other — a reservation expressed by bill opponents in Sacramento.

"What's the problem?" Leno said. "Marijuana grows 6 feet tall. Hemp grows as high as 16 feet. People plant marijuana 4 feet apart. Hemp is planted inches from one another. I don't know what was so difficult. They're two entirely different plants we're talking about here."

North Dakota is the only state that allows growing hemp for industrial purposes.

"You'd have to smoke a joint the size of telephone pole in order to get a headache," said Ken Junkert of the North Dakota Department of Agriculture in Bismarck.

The state's decision to legalize hemp was to diversify crops in a state where agriculture has taken a financial hit of late but still remains the No. 1 industry.

Hemp is a perfect plant, Junkert said, because it grows in all sorts of conditions and requires no pesticides or herbicides. It also serves as a rotational crop, putting nutrients back in the soil.

But even Junkert anticipates legal problems.

Though farmers can now apply for a license to grow hemp, he expects DEA opposition, which could lead to legal battles.

"We'll know in the next couple of months as farmers come in and start to apply for the permits," he said.

Contact Tom Ragan at tragan@santacruzsentinel.com."



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can find this story online at:
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2006/October/03/local/stories/03local.htm

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Medical marijuana protest in Modesto

A video news story on the recent medical marijuana protest in Modesto, California. There is actually a lady on the video who suggest that Marijuana is more dangerous than methamphetamines.