Paul Armentano: Does it matter if pot is stronger these days?

Flowering cannabis (marijuana) plant

Via OtherWords.org

I’ve worked in marijuana policy reform for nearly 30 years. Throughout my career, opponents of legalization have alleged that “today’s” pot is far more potent — and therefore more dangerous — than the cannabis of prior generations.

For instance, former Drug Czar William Bennett claimed in 1990 that if people from the late 1960s “suck on one of today’s marijuana cigarettes, they’d fall down backwards.”

His successor, Lee Brown, claimed in 1995 that “marijuana is 40 times more potent today” than it was decades ago. Not to be outdone, then-Delaware Sen. Joe Biden opined in 1996: “It’s like comparing buckshot in a shotgun shell to a laser-guided missile.”

Taking their hyperbole at face value, the message is clear: Modern marijuana is exponentially stronger and more harmful than the weak, nearly impotent weed of yesteryear.

But that’s not what the drug warriors of yesteryear warned.

During the 1930s, Henry Anslinger, Commissioner of the Bureau of Narcotics, testified to Congress that cannabis is ”entirely the monster Hyde, the harmful effect of which cannot be measured.”

Decades later, in the 1960s and ‘70s, public officials argued that the pot of their era was even stronger. They claimed that smoking “Woodstock weed” would permanently damage brain cells — and that, therefore, possession needed to be heavily criminalized to protect public health.

By the late 1980s, former Los Angeles Police Chief Daryl F. Gates opined that advanced growing techniques had increased THC potency to the point that “those who blast some pot on a casual basis… should be taken out and shot.”

Now a new generation of prohibitionists are recycling the same old claims and scare tactics in a misguided effort to re-criminalize more potent cannabis products in states where their production and sale is legal.

Most recently, these calls have even come from the Senate, including from Senators Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and John Cornyn (R-Texas).

So, is there any truth to the claim that today’s weed is so much stronger?

According to marijuana potency data compiled annually by the University of Mississippi at Oxford since the 1970s, one thing is true: The average amount of THC in domestically produced marijuana has increased over time.

But does this elevated potency equate to an increased safety risk? Not necessarily.

Higher-potency cannabis products, such as hashish, have always existed. Marijuana is still the same plant it has always been — with most of the increase in strength akin to the difference between beer and wine, or between a cup of tea and an espresso.

Consuming too much THC at one time can be temporarily unpleasant. But studies have as of yet failed to identify any independent relationship between cannabis use and mental, physical, or psychiatric illnesses.

Furthermore, THC — regardless of potency or quantity — cannot cause death by lethal overdose. Alcohol, by contrast, is routinely sold in lethal dose quantities. Drinking a handle of vodka could easily kill a person, yet vodka is available in liquor stores throughout the country.

Just as alcohol is available in a variety of potencies, from light beer to hard liquor, so is cannabis. So most users regulate their intake accordingly.

Also like with alcohol, cannabis products of the highest potency comprise a far smaller share of the legal marketplace than do more moderately potent products, like flower. According to data published last year in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence, nearly eight in ten cannabis consumers prefer herbal cannabis over higher-potency infused concentrates.

Virtually no one thinks alcohol over a certain potency should be re-criminalized. The same should be true of cannabis.

Instead, we should simply make sure consumers know how much THC is in the products they consume and what the effects may be. And we need more diligence from regulators to ensure that legal products for adults don’t get diverted to the youth market.

In other words, let’s address public health concerns with facts, not hyperbole.

Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He’s the co-author, with Steve Fox and Mason Tvert, of Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

Anti-marijuana ad from 1935

Paul Armentano: Across America, marijuana was a big winner on Election Day

From OtherWords.org

On many issues, our country is deeply divided. But when it comes to loosening the longstanding prohibition on cannabis, most Americans agree.

On Election Day, voters in states across the country approved a series of ballot proposals legalizing the use and distribution of marijuana for either medical or adult-use purposes.

Their voices were unmistakable and emphatic. Majorities of Americans decided in favor of every marijuana-related proposition placed before them — a clean sweep — and they did so by record margins.

Voters approved the legalization of medical cannabis in two states, Mississippi and South Dakota.

In Mississippi, voters chose between two dueling initiatives. Ultimately, they favored a measure placed on the ballot by patient advocates and rejected a more restrictive alternative measure placed on the ballot by state lawmakers. In one of many lopsided results on Election Day, 74 percent of voters chose the more liberal of the two measures.

Voters legalized the possession of marijuana by adults in Arizona, Montana, New Jersey and South Dakota.

The measures in Arizona, Montana, and South Dakota each permit adults to possess and cultivate marijuana for personal use and establish a regulated retail market.

In New Jersey, voters decided on a public ballot question. That means that Garden State lawmakers must now amend state law to comport it with the voters’ decision.

Voters’ actions on Election Day were an unequivocal rebuke to the longstanding policy of federal marijuana prohibition. They are an indication that marijuana legalization is far from a fringe issue, but one that is now embraced by mainstream America.

In New Jersey, 67 percent of voters chose legalization. In Arizona, legalization passed by a 20 percent margin, just four years after voters had rejected a similar ballot question. Fifty-seven percent of Montanans backed legalization, as did 54 percent of South Dakotans.

Voters did so despite opposition from many of their public officials. Republican South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem appeared in television ads opposing both state initiative measures. Montana U.S. Atty. Kurt Alme issued a white paper opining that legalization would have “serious ramifications” for “public safety and health.”

These attacks, however, failed to gain traction.

As in 2016, when voters in deep red states like Arkansas and North Dakota joined voters in deep blue states like California and Massachusetts to reform their cannabis laws, these 2020 results once again affirm that marijuana legalization is a uniquely popular issue with voters of all political persuasions.

Indeed, majorities of Democrats, independents, and Republicans consistently endorse legalization in national polls.

The results also continue a multi-decade long trend of marijuana legalization advocates achieving success at the ballot box. Since 1996, voters have decided affirmatively on 35 separate ballot measures legalizing cannabis (22 legalizing medical marijuana and 13 legalizing adult use).

Despite this public consensus, elected officials have far too often remained unresponsive to the legalization issue. This dereliction of representation has forced advocacy groups to directly place marijuana-related ballot questions before the voters.

The success of these initiatives proves definitively that marijuana legalization is not exclusively a blue state issue, but an issue that is supported by a majority of all Americans — regardless of party politics. Once these latest laws are implemented, one out of every three Americans will reside in a jurisdiction where the use of marijuana by adults is legal under state law.

For over two decades, the public has spoken loudly and clearly. They favor ending the failed policy of marijuana prohibition and replacing it with a policy of legalization, regulation, taxation, and public education.

Elected officials — at both the state and federal level — ought to be listening. Perhaps even more importantly, they ought to be acting.

Paul Armentano is the deputy director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) and the Science Faculty Chair at Oaksterdam University, in Oakland, Calif.

Paul Armentano: Beware unregulated CBD

An example of beverages said to contain CBD in a Los Angeles grocery store

Via OtherWords.org

One in seven Americans say they use CBD products, according to Gallup.

The rising popularity of these products — which range from oils and gummies to topical salves and most everything in between — is staggering, especially when one considers that much of the public had never even heard of CBD two or three years ago.

CBD stands for cannabidiol, one of over 100 distinct compounds found in the marijuana plant. Unlike THC, it is not significantly mood-altering. Instead, many consumers believe the compound helps treat pain, anxiousness, and other ailments.

But Americans’ exuberance for CBD could well be short-lived. That’s because many products currently marketed under the CBD banner are of low or variable quality.

Back in 2017, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported that only 31 percent of commercially available CBD products contained percentages of cannabidiol that accurately reflected the products’ labeling. Since then, little has changed.

An October 2019 analysis of 30 leading CBD products by the watchdog group LegitScript.com reported that two-thirds possessed significant deviations in CBD content from what was advertised. Typically, these products contained far lower percentages of CBD than the manufacturer promised — a finding that is woefully consistent with prior analyses.

Investigators also reported that some of the products evaluated in the LegitScript analysis tested positive for either solvent residue or elevated levels of heavy metals — findings that are also similar to those of prior reports.

Other analyses have identified even more problematic issues. Some CBD products, for instance, have tested positive for the presence of THC, the primary psychoactive constituent in cannabis, despite being advertised as “THC-free” — an oversight that could cost customers their jobs if they fail a drug test they expected to pass.

Most concerning, some CBD products have tested positive for added psychotropic adulterants — such as dextromethorphan or synthetic cannabinoid agonists. Exposure to these latter agents, typically found in illicit so-called “synthetic marijuana” products like Spice, can lead to serious health consequences.

All this is rapidly creating a “buyer beware” environment for consumers — and potentially placing them at risk.

This situation persists because the federal government — and the Food and Drug Administration in particular — doesn’t regulate either the manufacturing or testing of these products. Despite the presumption of most Americans, the commercial CBD market is entirely unregulated by the FDA.

This is because, until recently, federal law defined all cannabis-derived products as illicit. Now, the FDA and other agencies are playing catch up, with the federal regulators estimating it could take years before the FDA finalizes rules governing the commercial CBD market.

This intransigence is no longer acceptable.

Currently, the heavy burden of overseeing the CBD marketplace falls solely on state regulators in jurisdictions that have legalized cannabis use. But these regulations are not consistent from state to state, and are often far from comprehensive.

Further, state-specific regulations typically only govern CBD products that are sold in licensed dispensaries or retail outlets that exclusively sell cannabis products. They may not cover products sold online or at gas stations, which are subject to virtually no oversight.

Congress facilitated the growth of the commercial CBD market by passing legislation in 2018 that, for the first time, recognizes the production and distribution of certain hemp-derived CBD products. But without federal rules, standards, and oversight, this new market is a wild west — rife with questionable players hawking low-quality or even fraudulent products upon a largely unsuspecting public.

The tens of millions of Americans soliciting this market deserve better. It’s time for federal officials to set appropriate standards to govern this industry — so consumers can be assured, once and for all, they are getting what they pay for

Paul Armentano is the deputy director of NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He’s the co-author of Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink? and author of The Citizen’s Guide to State-By-State Marijuana Laws.

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Who is stoned on the road?

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

I’ve been worried a long time about the increasing number of people driving around here stoned on marijuana in varying degrees, with outlets selling “medical marijuana,’’ as well as illegal sales of “recreational” pot, in Rhode Island, and with recreational, as well as medical, marijuana legal in Massachusetts. (The Feds have some different ideas about all this.) A big problem is that unlike with alcohol, there seems to be no precise metric to measure when somebody might be impaired by pot.

The issue was front and center in a Nov. 6 Providence Journal story, “Judge ponders: Can impairment by pot be measured,” involving Marshall Howard, charged with driving under the influence, death resulting, in the 2017 death of David Bustin. Mr. Howard’s car hit Mr. Bustin after he had stepped into the street. A blood test showed that Mr. Howard had THC, the mind-altering ingredient in marijuana, in his system at the time. Mr. Howard also had fentanyl and heroin in his car; Mr. Bustin, for his part, was apparently drunk.\

Inebriated America? Are that many people in need of psychic or physical relief?

The story, by Katie Mulvaney, quoted the Superior Court judge in the case, Daniel Procaccini, as saying:

“We don’t have any way to correlate any amount of a substance {such as THC} in a person’s blood to impairment. With alcohol we do.’’ This is a national problem, which we’d better address as throngs hit the road after toking up.

Thank God cars themselves are much safer now than a few decades ago since drivers seem to be ever more distracted.

To read the Massachusetts angle on this, please hit this link.

Driving will get more exciting as pot use surges

“American Landscape,’’ by Jan A. Nelson (graphite on Strathmore rag, 1974).

— Jan.anders.nelson

From Robert Whitcomb’s “Digital Diary,’’ in GoLocal24.com

Some states, including in New England, are blithely rushing into legalizing marijuana use, in large part to get tax revenue from pot sales, setting aside the inconvenient fact that use of the drug undermines memory, concentration and reasoning and causes accidents. And it can be a gateway drug for stronger stuff.

Consider, for example, that the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety reports that Washington, Colorado and Oregon, which have legalized the drug, now have 5.2 percent more vehicle crashes than neighboring states.

"Despite the difficulty of isolating the specific effects of marijuana impairment on crash risk, the evidence is growing that legalizing its use increases crashes," said institute president David Harkey, as quoted in thedrive.com.

"The {institute’s}new research on marijuana and crashes indicates that legalizing marijuana for all uses is having a negative impact on the safety of our roads. States exploring legalizing marijuana should consider this effect on highway safety." Just what we need in our attention-deficit times!

To read more, please hit this link.

The marijuana-marketing mania is too persuasive

Legal status of recreational marijuana retail shops in Massachusetts by town as of June 21, 2018. Towns in red have implemented permanent bans, towns in yellow have implemented temporary moratoriums, and towns in green have not implemented a permanent ban or a temporary moratorium.

From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com

As business people, states and localities  rush to get into the marijuana  bonanza, everyone would do well to look at a nationally representative online survey of 16,280 U.S. adults that found that “many ascribe health benefits to marijuana that haven’t been proven,  report researchers in Annals of Internal Medicine.’’

“The American public has a much more favorable point of view than is warranted by the evidence,” the study’s lead author, Dr. Salomeh Keyhani, of the University of California at San Francisco, told the news service. “Perhaps most concerning is that they think that it prevents health problems.”

Reuters reported: “While studies have shown that cannabis can help quiet seizures in children with hard to treat epilepsy, quell the nausea and vomiting that can accompany chemotherapy and soothe nerve pain, there’s no evidence that it can help with the vast majority of other medical conditions, Keyhani said. And yet, people think of it as a cure all, she added.’’

Recalling Big Tobacco in the ‘50s and ’60s, the marijuana industry is relentlessly marketing its products, with what I think will end up being very nasty public-health results. But meanwhile, we  may see pot stores pop up in most strip malls.

To read the Annals of Medicine report, please hit this link.

Pot in the air

From Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary, in GoLocal24.com

As Rhode Island, Massachusetts and some other states (if not the Feds) loosen laws against marijuana cultivation  and use, pot smokers are becoming increasingly noxious neighbors in apartment and condo buildings. I have noticed the rich aroma of the stuff in some buildings and certainly on many sidewalks.

Reminder: Marijuana cultivation, sale and use are still prohibited under federal law, which presents considerable confusion in states that allow  sale and use of the stuff anyway. The Feds have long looked the other way on this, fearing that the federal law is just too difficult to enforce, considering some states’ policies and that millions of people regularly smoke pot.

Non-pot smokers are being forced to inhale this psychotropic smoke, which, to say the least, is unhealthy. Of  course, breathing second-hand tobacco smoke is bad for you, too, but it doesn’t affect your clarity of mind as marijuana smoke does. In some places, you can become involuntarily intoxicated.

Pot has become such a big business and tax-revenue supplier that, barring rigorous enforcement of federal laws still on the books, the problem of second-hand smoke can only get worse. And I laugh at the argument that states’ effective legalization of the weed primarily serves as a way to alleviate physical pain. Most people smoking pot just want to get mildly or very stoned for the pleasure of it, and there’s much profit and tax money to be made from the stuff.

To read an entertaining Boston Globe story on second-hand pot smoke, please hit this link.

Psychotropic America

Adapted from an item in Robert Whitcomb's "Digital Diary,'' in GoLocal24.com

Former Rhode Island Congressman Patrick Kennedy is quite right to say that legalizing recreational marijuana throws “gasoline’’ on America’s addiction problems. (And you can bet thatlots of “medical marijuana’’ is being used entirely recreationally.) For some people, pot is yet another gateway drug to worse ones and mental illness.

However,  now that there’s so much cash and potential  big tax revenue in the marijuana industry, don’t look for policymakers to follow Mr. Kennedy’s advice and crack down on this drug, whose use will soon be pervasive everywhere, including among drivers – if it isn't already.

Of course, most of the nation's adults are on psychotropic drugs (coffee is a big one) because of depression,  anxiety, boredom, fatigue, search for adventure or group cohesion. And many of the kids, too.  And the advertising industry will help keep it that way.

Chris Powell: What kind of a state would depend on money from casinos and potheads?

At the Connecticut state Capitol the issue is being framed as whether Connecticut should legalize marijuana. But that's not really the issue at all, since marijuana long has been effectively legal in the state for several reasons: because of its common use and the reluctance of courts to punish people for it; because possession of small amounts has been reduced to an infraction; because marijuana production and sales have been legalized for medical purposes; and because the federal government has stopped enforcing its own law against marijuana in those states that don't want it enforced.

The real issue is whether state government should get into the marijuana business -- licensing dealers and taxing sales in the hope of raising as much as $100 million a year to offset state government's financial collapse. Such a scheme would introduce marijuana to many more people, especially minors, who, even if the age for purchase is set at 21, will get it from their older friends, just as minors now get alcohol.

As has happened with legalization in Colorado, many more students will come to school stoned or get stoned there. Intoxicated driving will increase, even if much of the increase will result from Connecticut's refusal to prosecute first offenses. And since Connecticut's criminal sanctions against marijuana have largely disappeared already, legalization won't give the state much financial relief on the criminal-justice side of the budget.

There's another problem with licensing and taxing: It would constitute nullification of federal drug law. Nothing obliges Connecticut's criminal statutes to match the federal government's, but licensing and taxing, profiting from federal crimes, is secession -- and unless federal drug law was changed, the federal government could smash Connecticut's marijuana infrastructure at any time. In any case the half-century of President Nixon's "war on drugs" has shown that drug criminalization is futile and may have only worsened drug addiction while maiming millions of lives with prison sentences.

The drug problem needs to be medicalized, which, while increasing the availability of drugs, will also increase treatment and eliminate most crime and imprisonment expense. But the General Assembly isn't considering medicalization. Instead the legislature is giving the impression that the state's salvation lies in taxing potheads and more casino gambling. Even if that could close its budget deficit, what kind of state would this be?

xxx

 The big argument for the Connecticut General Assembly's approval of Gov. Dannel Malloy's renomination of Justice Richard Palmer to the state Supreme Court was that judicial independence required it. This was nonsense, a rationale for accepting whatever appellate judges do to rewrite constitutions. The freedom of judges to decide particular cases within established frameworks of the law is one thing. The freedom of judges to rewrite not just the law but constitutions themselves is another, which is what Palmer did in the Supreme Court's decisions on same-sex marriage and capital punishment.

His decision invalidating capital punishment was dishonest, opportunistically misconstruing the legislature's revision of the capital punishment law, which precluded death sentences for future crimes while sustaining pending sentences. Palmer maintained that the legislation signified that the public had turned against capital punishment though the new law was written as it was precisely because the public very much wanted the pending death sentences enforced. Public officials in Connecticut have certain insulation but none is completely above deliberative democracy. Governors and judges can be impeached, legislators expelled, and judges denied reappointment. The legislators who voted against reappointing Justice Palmer had good cause consistent with good constitutional practice.

Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester, Conn.

Anti-marijuana-use poster from 1935.

Chris Powell: Of nullification in stoned America; don't fish for immigrants from the Middle East

Under legislation proposed by  Connecticut state Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, the Nutmeg State would legalize and tax marijuana.

Of course, marijuana is barelyillegal in the state now, possession of a half ounce or less having been reducedin 2011 to a mere infraction liable to a small fine, while charges of possessinglarger amounts are eligible for resolution through probation. Indeed, marijuanause in Connecticut has become so common that police, prosecutors, and courtsreally don't want to bother with it anymore, though sale and cultivation of thedrug remain felonies, at least technically.   

Looney, a Democrat from New Haven, is a big-government liberal and his mainobjective with the marijuana bill seems to be taxation, as he advocates themarijuana-business system recently adopted in Colorado, which is raising morethan $100 million a year for state and local government there. That kind ofmoney could finance golden parachutes for a few more failed football coaches atthe University of Connecticut.   

But legal marijuana is giving Colorado more than tax money. It is also producinga huge increase in students coming to school stoned, since, as with liquor andcigarettes, limiting sales to adults doesn't keep young adults from procuringstuff for those under 18.   

With legal marijuana Colorado also has built a state-sanctioned and closelyregulated industry on the violation of federal drug law, which still classifiesmarijuana with the most powerful of the illegal drugs.

While President Obama,  violating his constitutional obligation to execute the law faithfully, has toldhis Justice Department to suspend marijuana-law enforcement in states that don'twant it, a different president could take his obligations more seriously.   

Nothing obliges Connecticut to criminalize any drugs; the state is free todecriminalize marijuana and anything else and leave the issue to the federalgovernment, which maybe someday will wise up and simply medicalize the wholedrug problem, the "war on drugs" having long been only a fantastically costlyemployment program for police, prosecutors, criminal-defense lawyers, prisonguards, parole and probation officers, and social workers.   

But basing a retail industry and tax system on the violation of federal law goesfar beyond mere decriminalization and becomes nullification -- the sort of thing that New Haven has been doing for years by issuing identification cards to illegalaliens to facilitate their violation of federal immigration law --"state'srights" stuff that impairs national unity, stuff  that liberals used to deplore whenconservatives did it to thwart the Constitution and federal civil-rights laws. 

In coming months states governed by conservatives may note the success ofliberal nullification in Colorado, Connecticut and elsewhere and implore thenew president, who is suspected of having conservative if not reactionaryinstincts, to ignore laws that he doesn't like, starting with abortionrights.    The next step will be secession, though in light of how much liberals andconservatives have come to hate each other lately, maybe this time the country willagree to divide peacefully.

xxx

FISH ELSEWHERE FOR IMMIGRANTS: The mass murder committed at the Christmas marketin Berlin by a Tunisian immigrant is not quite the vindication claimed byPresident-elect Trump for banning immigration by Muslims per se.

For government to restrict people according to their religion isplainly unconstitutional.    But the atrocity in Berlin is a reminder of the civil war raging in Islambetween modernity and medievalism, a cultural war as much as a religious war,  and a reminder that immigration law must protect the United States againstcountries with benighted cultures.   

The United States can fish for immigrants in ponds with or without alligators.  It can have all the Latin Americans and Asians it wants, or lots of MiddleEastern religious crazies, fascists, and terrorists. The country needn't repeatEurope's deadly mistake.

Chris Powell is managing editor of the Journal Inquirer, in Manchester,  Conn., and an essayist.