The Straight Toke - THE Marijuana Blog

Some 36 years after President Nixon was advised by the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse to decriminalize cannabis, a bill has been proposed to decriminalize marijuana in the United States. Not a single state. Not some territories. The whole thing. Needless to say, this is a pretty big deal -- so if you're a US reader, please head on over to the Marijuana Policy Project's easy action center and help support this marijuana decriminalization bill.

A while ago, we posted an article about the DEA's actions against Californian medical marijuana patients. Recently, there's been a pretty big development regarding medical cannabis: the police are giving it back!

Yep -- it's true: in two separate cases, in California and Colorado, police have been ordered to return confiscated medical marijuana. In California, Felix Kha was returned 1/3 ounce of medical marijuana, as his possession was found to be legal under California's Proposition 215. Needless to say, this sets a strong legal precedent in favor of Proposition 215. Cases like this can do quite a bit to strengthen existing laws, so this is a major win for Californian medical marijuana users. The best part of the decision? The courts stated that marijuana is important to the "health and well-being" of citizens:

Dear Julius:
I've read a couple articles recently about the DEA seizing/harassing medical users/growers in California. What's up with that? Isn't grass legal there if its [sic] used as medicine?

That's exactly what I thought when I started seeing those sort of articles -- what is up with that? After all, California passed Proposition 215

To ensure that seriously ill Californians have the right to obtain and use marijuana for medical purposes where that medical use is deemed appropriate and has been recommended by a physician who has determined that the person's health would benefit from the use of marijuana in the treatment of cancer, anorexia, AIDS, chronic pain, spasticity, glaucoma, arthritis, migraine, or any other illness for which marijuana provides relief.

Justice John Paul Stevens may well be one of the most well-articulated legalization supporters we've ever heard of:

[T]he current dominant opinion supporting the war on drugs in general, and our anti-marijuana laws in particular, is reminiscent of the opinion that supported the nationwide ban on alcohol consumption when I was a student. While alcoholic beverages are now regarded as ordinary articles of commerce, their use was then condemned with the same moral fervor that now supports the war on drugs.

While the United States of America is often criticized for its overly strict marijuana laws, it is actually fairly lenient -- at least compared to Singapore. As a recent case demonstrates, in Singapore the penalty for trafficking marijuana is death.

From the article:

Singapore has some of the world's toughest and most thoroughly enforced drug laws, with a mandatory death sentence for trafficking more than 15 grams (0.53 ounces) of heroin or 500 grams (17.64 ounces) of marijuana.

It's not just marijuana that carries a fatal penalty though -- other drugs carry equally lethal sentences:

Well -- it looks as though we may be one step closer to the legalization of our favourite herb. The ACLU has gotten a judge to submit an official recommendation to the DEA to end the prohibition on marijuana's production for medical purposes. From the article:

On May 15, DEA Administrative Law Judge Mary Ellen Bittner submitted her recommendation to the DEA's Deputy Administrator in which she found that it is "in the public interest" to end the federal monopoly on the supply of marijuana that can be used in FDA-approved research, held by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).

If we were ever to do a quote of the day, this is what it would be:

"I hope my grandchildren will be willing to roll a doobie for me if my arthritis gets too bad," says Becker.

Awesome.

We need more seniors to be this way -- honestly. In fact, we need more middle-aged people to be like this too. And more college students. But that's beside the point. The point is, Mavis Becker is a 65 year-old toker. And we think that kicks ass.

One of our readers pointed us to a link in the news today -- one that is sure to make headlines in both the pro-legalization/anti-legalization camps. The article, published in Reuters, talks about the strength of modern-day weed, particularly about how much stronger it is than the "grass" of the 1970's. Actually, it does more than that -- it paints a rather scary picture, portraying today's marijuana as a far more dangerous drug. First, we will agree with Reuters on one thing: the average THC content of today's marijuana is higher than it was in the past. Today, according to the DEA, US-grown marijuana has an average THC content of 4-6 percent. If anything, that estimate is a bit low -- most US growers tend to favour strains in the vacinity of 9-10%. So there's no doubt that the potency of marijuana in the US has gone up -- but the question remains: is it now more dangerous because of that?

Dear Julius,
I've heard that if you smoke marijuana, you're putting yourself at a greater risk for lung cancer than if you smoke tobacco. Is that true? If so, how harmful is it?

No, it's not true. I say that tenatively, since there is a catch, which I'll explain in a second.

It's not true, in that if you smoke marijuana regularly, and even if you are a heavy user, you are at no increased risk for lung cancer. The University of California at Los Angeles recently concluded a rather large (1,200 people) study on marijuana's link to lung cancer. They found that marijuana use has no corellation to lung cancer.

Last week, Bill Richardson, governor of New Mexico and a 2008 presidential candidate, announced his support of medical marijuana in New Mexico. There are already 11 states in the United States that allow the medicinal use of cannabis -- and Richardson hopes to add a 12th.

Of course just because a state allows medical cannabis doesn't mean that all marijuana is legal. It's quite likely that recreational marijuana users will find their pastime just as arrest-causing as before -- and that probably won't change for some time. Instead, allowing medicinal cannabis is but the first step towards legaliztion. The more legitimate medical uses an herb has, the harder it becomes to claim that herb causes "insanity, criminality, and death" (as Harry J. Anslinger once claimed.)