It was probably inevitable: Lacking actual facts to make their case, opponents of Question 2 in Massachusetts have begun spinning fictional scare stories in order to frighten voters out of reforming that state's marijuana laws.

Question 2 would replace the current criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana by adults with a civil fine. Marijuana would still be illegal, but simple possession of a small amount wouldn't require arrest, booking, and all the time and expense that entails, and would not generate a criminal record. Eleven other states already have such "decriminalization" laws on the books, and they're working just fine. Notably, they have not produced an increase in rates of marijuana use, as the National Research Council has noted.

So opponents trying to frighten voters about Question 2 have no choice but to make stuff up. For example, a story in Monday's Cape Cod Today describes claims being made by local District Attorney Michael O'Keefe: "'This is not your father's marijuana of 20 or 30 years ago,' the district attorney said. He said marijuana now is far more potent, and contains substances designed to addict the user."

Research indicates that O'Keefe's claims are false.

Can marijuana be contaminated? Sure, as can any product. But no one has produced evidence that contamination is increasing, much less that sinister forces are intentionally introducing "substances designed to addict the user."

The issues of marijuana potency and contamination were addressed in a study by a group of Australian researchers, published earlier this year by the journal Addiction. They note that reported changes in potency are based on samples seized by law enforcement, which may or may not be representative of what's actually being used by marijuana consumers. But even if one accepts evidence of a rough doubling of average marijuana potency in the U.S. over the last 20 years or so, that doesn't mean users are getting more stoned: "More recent studies have reported that certain types of users may adjust the amount of cannabis smoked depending on potency," the researchers write.

One is tempted to say, "Well, duh." Drinkers consume smaller amounts of bourbon than they do of beer. Why would anyone expect marijuana users to be any different?

Let's be serious. Even a doubling of potency is far less than the difference in alcohol content between beer and wine. Could anyone claim with a straight face that wine is an entirely different drug than beer because of its higher alcohol content?

The bottom line, according to the Australian scientists, is that there is no solid evidence that any of this represents an actual danger: "Claims made in the public domain about a 20- or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency and about the adverse mental health effects of cannabis contamination are not supported currently by the evidence. ... [M]ore research is needed to determine whether increased potency and contamination translates to harm for users..."

But you can bet that the scare stories will be flying thick and fast in Massachusetts from now till November. We'll see if the voters are persuaded by science fiction.

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It's been known for a while that some cannabinoids, the active components in marijuana, have antibacterial properties (one of many useful facts you won't find on ONDCP's Web site). Now, as noted by stories in the New York Times and Web MD, five cannabinoids, including THC, have been shown to be active against a particularly worrisome form of staph infection that's resistant to conventional antibiotics. It took these major media outlets a while to catch up with the study, published August 6 in the Journal of Natural Products, but at least they covered it. 

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"When we push back against the drug problem, it gets smaller."

                        -- John Walters, White House Drug Czar

 Well, now we know why federal officials chose to release the 2007 National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) on a day when the Republican convention's climax and a string of hurricanes is likely to keep it out of the headlines. The survey pretty much dynamites Office of National Drug Control Policy chief John Walters' claims of success in reducing marijuana and drug use during his tenure, which he'd like us to attribute to his aggressive policies , and particularly ONDCP's near-obsession with demonizing marijuana.

First, some raw numbers: The total number of Americans (aged 12 and up) who have used illicit drugs is up from 108 million in 2002, the first full year of Walters' tenure, to 114 million in 2007. And the number of Americans who've used marijuana has passed the 100 million mark for the first time -- up from 95 million in 2002.

Rates of drug use have gone up as well. In 2002, 46.0 percent of Americans had used an illicit drug at some point in their lives. In 2007 it was 46.1 percent. For marijuana, the rate went from 40.4 percent to 40.6 percent. Both the "any illicit drug" and marijuana use rates had dropped a bit in 2006 and spiked notably in the new survey. Illicit use of painkillers such as OxyContin is up notably -- a disturbing trend considering the addictive nature of such drugs, not to mention the risk of fatal overdose (a nonexistent risk with marijuana). "Current" (past 30 days) use of illicit drugs is down only marginally since 2002  -- from 8.3 percent to 8.0 percent for all illicit drugs, and the trend for marijuana is similar.

And, strikingly, despite all of Walters' huffing and puffing about marijuana, the number of Americans starting marijuana use for the first time has not budged during his tenure.

If this is success, someone please tell me what failure looks like.

But wait, there's more. ONDCP officials regularly argue that maintaining criminal penalties for marijuana possession is essential to stopping drug abuse. So what's happened with a dangerous drug whose possession is legal: cigarettes? NSDUH conveniently provides figures for past-month cigarette use, and both the number of users and the rate of cigarette use is down markedly. In 2002, 26 percent of Americans were current cigarette smokers; now it's 24.2 percent, continuing a decades-long decline. And the decline in current cigarette smoking for 12-to-17-year-olds is even more dramatic, from 13 percent to 9.8 percent.

That, of course, is with zero arrests for cigarette possession, compared with 739,000 marijuana possession arrests in 2006 (the last year for which stats are available).

The numbers are in. Marijuana prohibition is a wasteful farce. And John Walters' tenure as drug czar has been a failure.

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The revelation that Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has acknowledged using marijuana -- but now thinks it should remain illegal -- prompted the Capitol Hill newspaper The Hill to invite MPP to post our thoughts on this issue on the paper's blog. Previous marijuana discussions on The Hill's blog have generated heated debate, so check out the link above and join the conversation.

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The first report on this major federal drug use survey is out in the form of this story from AP (which includes a short comment from MPP, dissenting from the official spin). Bottom line: Little change in drug use overall, but the drug czar and other federal officials are still claiming progress. A couple MPPers will be attending this morning's press conference at which the survey will be discussed, so watch this space for a more detailed analysis later today.

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As summer winds toward an end, it's time for the government's annual drug surveys to start coming out.  The first, being released Sept. 4, is the biggest federally-sponsored drug use survey, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

Typically this is followed a few weeks later by the FBI's Uniform Crime Reports -- not a drug survey per se, but the definitive annual accounting of marijuana arrests (which set yet another new record in the UCR report released last fall). Then, typically in December, comes Monitoring the Future, which focuses on use by adolescents.

With release of each report, federal officials miraculously find in the results evidence that their policies are working just fine, even when an honest look at the data shows they aren't. And the media often fail to be sufficiently skeptical of the official spin.

Will that happen this year? Watch this space for updates.

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Noting that his just-announced vice presidential pick, Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, has acknowledged having smoked marijuana, MPP is urging Sen. John McCain to respect states' rights to set their own marijuana policies if he is elected president.

On Aug. 6, 2006, the Anchorage Daily News reported:

Palin said she has smoked marijuana -- remember, it was legal under state law, she said, even if illegal under U.S. law -- but says she didn't like it and doesn't smoke it now.

 'I can't claim a Bill Clinton and say that I never inhaled.'

The paper quoted Palin as saying she opposed legalization of marijuana because of the "message" that would be sent to her children.

"Governor Palin is one of many millions of Americans who have used marijuana and gone on to live productive, wildly successful lives," said MPP executive director Rob Kampia said in a statement released a little while ago. "That she used marijuana is no big deal, but what is a big deal is that she thinks that the 100 million Americans who have used marijuana, including herself, belong in jail. That wouldn't be good for her kids.

"Perhaps most importantly, Alaska is one of 12 states that allow the medical use of marijuana, and one in five Americans currently live in those states. The heavy hand of the federal government has trampled state authority and tried to interfere with the implementation of these state-level medical marijuana laws. The GOP ticket should embrace the time-honored Republican principle of local control by promising to end the federal government's war on sensible medical marijuana laws in both red and blue states."

Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington have medical marijuana laws. New Mexico's is the latest, passed by the Legislature last year. Montana's medical marijuana law appeared on the November 2004 ballot, receiving 62 percent of the vote, exceeding George W. Bush's total of 59 percent.

Early in the presidential campaign, McCain seemed to support a states' rights position on medical marijuana, but later backed away from this and became overtly hostile, receiving an "F" grade from Granite Staters for Medical Marijuana.

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Speaker Nancy Pelosi answered questions yesterday submitted via the popular social news Web site, Digg.com.  Digg user adroit asked Pelosi, “[a]s a taxable resource, what stops marijuana from being legalized, for medicinal or recreational purposes, throughout the country?”

“I myself have supported medicinal use of marijuana over and over again … there just isn’t enough support for it,” said Speaker Pelosi.  She then called on the public to help raise awareness about the issue, saying, “We need people’s help to be in touch with their members of Congress to say why [medical marijuana] should be the case.”

Why not take the speaker's words to heart and send a letter to your member of Congress right now?  You can take action in less than a minute at MPP’s online action center.

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At its August meeting, the 57-year-old Society for the Study of Social Problems passed a strong resolution in support of medical marijuana. SSSP's resolution goes further than some other groups have gone by specifically endorsing key legislative proposals in Congress.

As the new resolutions haven't yet been posted on the SSSP Web site, here is the text in full: 

2008 RESOLUTION APPROVED

AT THE SOCIETY FOR THE STUDY OF SOCIAL PROBLEMS

AUGUST 1 BUSINESS MEETING

Resolution: Medical Marijuana

From: Health, Health Policy, and Health Services Division

WHEREAS the Society for the Study of Social Problems find the following:

1.  Federal drug policy on marijuana threatens the health and well being of thousands of Americans by prohibiting even the medicinal use of cannabis under physician supervision in states with medical marijuana laws.  The federal government has actively impeded research on the medical use of marijuana despite patient and physician reports that it may help to relieve such debilitating symptoms as nausea, pain, and loss of appetite associated with serious illnesses.

2.  In February of this year, the American College of Physicians -- representing 124,000 oncologists, neurologists and other doctors of internal medicine -- released a position paper declaring that the scientific evidence “supports the use of medical marijuana in certain conditions” and calling on the federal government to reclassify marijuana to permit medical use.  In addition, the American Nurses Association, American Public Health Association, American Academy of HIV Medicine, and many other national organizations are on record supporting safe and legal access to medical marijuana for patients whose doctors recommend it.

3.  The American public, too, overwhelmingly supports patients’ rights to use medical marijuana; national polls show that more than three out of four Americans favor its legal use.  Already twelve states -- Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Washington -- have enacted medical marijuana laws.

4.  However, until there are changes in federal drug policy, the threat to patients and caregivers of arrest by federal agents continues.

There are now two pieces of federal legislation pending that would help to alleviate this threat:

A. The Hinchey-Rohrabacher medical marijuana amendment:

The DEA has conducted dozens of raids on legal and registered medical marijuana patient collectives and dispensaries in states such as California where the medical use of cannabis is legal under state law; the Department of Justice (DOJ) is currently prosecuting more than three-dozen licensed medical cannabis patients and care providers. The Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment would limit the ability of DOJ to arrest and prosecute patients and providers who are acting within the limits of their state law by prohibiting the DEA from using any funds to interfere with state medical marijuana laws. The amendment, which has been proposed in each of the past several sessions, will once again be voted on this summer.

B. The Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act. 

H.R. 5842 would end marijuana’s classification as a Schedule I drug to allow doctors to prescribe it for medical use. Additionally, this bill would protect medical marijuana patients who use marijuana legally under state law from arrest and jail.

NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the SSSP supports both the Hinchey-Rohrabacher medical marijuana amendment and the Medical Marijuana Patient Protection Act.

The SSSP membership directs that copies of this resolution to all federal legislators and the administrative offices of the DEA and DOJ.

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The sometimes-chaotic medical marijuana situation in California has spurred a fair amount of sensationalized and unbalanced press coverage, even in the esteemed New Yorker. Yes, there have been some problems and some misuse of the law, but an editorial in today's L.A. Times hits the nail on the head as to the real source of the problems:

Most of the negative consequences [of Proposition 215] can be attributed to the gap between state and federal marijuana laws. The fact that even sellers considered legitimate by the state can be prosecuted and ruined by federal agents encourages black-market dealers, who endanger their communities by ignoring fire codes, selling to healthy minors and fighting turf wars with other dealers. ... [T]he only long-term solution is for the feds to stop the medical marijuana raids and leave California law enforcement to California officers.

Precisely.

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