By Elissa Bass
On Tuesday, the City of New London’s new mayor, Daryl Finizio, signed an executive order telling city police officers they should no longer issue an infraction or violation to anyone who possesses marijuana or associated paraphernalia on private property.
On Wednesday, the New London State’s Attorney said Finizio did not have the authority to do that.
In June, Connecticut became the 14th state to decriminalize small amounts of marijuana after the General Assembly approved changes to the laws. Under the new law, “possession of less than one-half ounce of marijuana as an infraction with a $150 fine, rather than as a criminal misdemeanor. The fine would increase to $200 to $500 for subsequent offenses, with referral to a drug education program after the third violation. Offenders under age 21 would also lose their driver’s license for 60 days and juveniles 16 years of age and under will be referred to juvenile court.”
Gov. Dannel Malloy signed the law.
What do you think about this issue? Take our poll and add your thoughts in the comments.
See poll here:
http://meriden.patch.com/articles/poll-should-police-enforce-the-marijuana-possession-law
Category: Cannabis News Corner
Drug war’s mission creep hurts farmer
By: A. Barton Hinkle
Every war produces collateral damage, including America’s war on drugs — whose manifold victims include any number of farmers in Virginia. Jim Politis has a plan to help them. But first, he will have to get it past Congress.
Politis is a retired businessman who now sits on the Board of Supervisors in Montgomery County, home to Virginia Tech. He wants Washington to let farmers grow industrial hemp. That should be an easy sell. Once upon a time, hemp cultivation was not only permitted but required: An act of Virginia’s General Assembly in 1623 mandated hemp-growing.
George Washington and Thomas Jefferson both grew hemp. It remained a popular source of fiber for rope, clothing and many other products until the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937, which pretty much killed off domestic hemp production.
The industry enjoyed a revival during WWII, when Japanese forces cut off the hemp supply from the Philippines. Washington even produced a “Hemp for Victory” propaganda film. Then the war ended, and the lid slammed shut again.
Read complete article here:
http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/oped/2011/dec/09/tdopin02-drug-wars-mission-creep-hurts-farmer-ar-1530956/
Burning question: Can science confirm marijuana’s medical benefits?
By Sharon Kirkey, Postmedia News
After all the usual and proper medical approaches did nothing for her pain, Cheryl Campbell, a nurse and mother, says she finally built up the courage to ask her doctor, “How do you feel about prescribing me marijuana?”
The 30-year-old Ottawa woman suffers from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Her pain is body-wide – a constant, sometimes stabbing ache in her back, hips, knees, shoulders and virtually every joint. Doctors once put her on morphine. It cut the pain, but she couldn’t function. She says her mind felt so heavy with fog she couldn’t carry on a conversation.
She’s been using marijuana for pain for two years; she has a federal licence to possess it. She says it helps her sleep at night. In the morning, it helps ease the stiffness in her hips and back enough that she can make it into the shower.
Campbell says she owes her ability to get through each day to a drug that critics condemn, especially when it’s smoked – which is how most of the thousands of Canadians who self-medicate with pot prefer to take it. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency was unequivocal earlier this year: Smoked marijuana is not medicine, and it’s not safe.
“No matter what medical condition has been studied,” the agency ruled, “other drugs already approved by the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) have been proven to be safer than smoked marijuana.”
But research into medicinal marijuana is undergoing a surge of interest, with more evidence emerging not only of its ability to ease human suffering, but also of its apparent safety.
Some say cannabis may be less toxic to humans than over-the-counter pain relievers.
Four small but scientifically controlled experiments in recent years have concluded that smoked cannabis can provide moderate relief from chronic, severe non-cancer pain – including HIV-related nerve pain and post-traumatic neuropathy, a dreaded condition that can follow an injury or medical procedure. Both are notoriously resistant to conventional treatments.
Scientists are only beginning to tease out the possible anti-cancer properties of pot. Early experiments in animals suggest that purified forms of THC and cannabidiol – two major constituents of marijuana – can induce certain cancer cells, including breast cancer cells, to essentially kill themselves off – a process known as apoptosis. The cells self-destruct; they stop dividing and spreading. Cannabinoids also seems to shut down a tumour’s life-giving blood supply.
Meanwhile, researchers across Canada are testing cannabinoids against arthritis, glaucoma and gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn’s.
“Science is just scratching the surface,” says Dr. Mark Ware, head of the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids and director of clinical research at the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit at Montreal’s McGill University Health Centre.
In Canada, synthetic versions of THC and other pure cannabinoids are already available by prescription – pills and sprays approved for cancer pain, for nausea associated with chemotherapy, to stimulate appetite and for the relief of the pain and spasticity of multiple sclerosis.
The 30-year-old Ottawa woman suffers from fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue syndrome. Her pain is body-wide – a constant, sometimes stabbing ache in her back, hips, knees, shoulders and virtually every joint. Doctors once put her on morphine. It cut the pain, but she couldn’t function. She says her mind felt so heavy with fog she couldn’t carry on a conversation.
She’s been using marijuana for pain for two years; she has a federal licence to possess it. She says it helps her sleep at night. In the morning, it helps ease the stiffness in her hips and back enough that she can make it into the shower.
Campbell says she owes her ability to get through each day to a drug that critics condemn, especially when it’s smoked – which is how most of the thousands of Canadians who self-medicate with pot prefer to take it. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency was unequivocal earlier this year: Smoked marijuana is not medicine, and it’s not safe.
“No matter what medical condition has been studied,” the agency ruled, “other drugs already approved by the (U.S. Food and Drug Administration) have been proven to be safer than smoked marijuana.”
But research into medicinal marijuana is undergoing a surge of interest, with more evidence emerging not only of its ability to ease human suffering, but also of its apparent safety.
Some say cannabis may be less toxic to humans than over-the-counter pain relievers.
Four small but scientifically controlled experiments in recent years have concluded that smoked cannabis can provide moderate relief from chronic, severe non-cancer pain – including HIV-related nerve pain and post-traumatic neuropathy, a dreaded condition that can follow an injury or medical procedure. Both are notoriously resistant to conventional treatments.
Scientists are only beginning to tease out the possible anti-cancer properties of pot. Early experiments in animals suggest that purified forms of THC and cannabidiol – two major constituents of marijuana – can induce certain cancer cells, including breast cancer cells, to essentially kill themselves off – a process known as apoptosis. The cells self-destruct; they stop dividing and spreading. Cannabinoids also seems to shut down a tumour’s life-giving blood supply.
Meanwhile, researchers across Canada are testing cannabinoids against arthritis, glaucoma and gastrointestinal inflammatory diseases, such as Crohn’s.
“Science is just scratching the surface,” says Dr. Mark Ware, head of the Canadian Consortium for the Investigation of Cannabinoids and director of clinical research at the Alan Edwards Pain Management Unit at Montreal’s McGill University Health Centre.
In Canada, synthetic versions of THC and other pure cannabinoids are already available by prescription – pills and sprays approved for cancer pain, for nausea associated with chemotherapy, to stimulate appetite and for the relief of the pain and spasticity of multiple sclerosis.
Medical marijuana, Ware argues, is essentially just a different delivery system for cannabinoids.
Read complete article here:
http://www.canada.com/Burning+question+science+confirm+marijuana+medical+benefits/5841892/story.html
Medical Marijuana and the Memory of One High Day
By MARIE MYUNG-OK LEE
WHEN my mother-in-law was in the final, harrowing throes of pancreatic cancer, she had only one good day, and that was the day she smoked pot.
So I was heartened when, at the end of last month, the governors of Washington and Rhode Island petitioned the Obama administration to classify marijuana as a drug that could be prescribed and distributed for medical use. While medical marijuana is legal in 16 states, it is still outlawed under federal law.
My husband and I often thought of recommending marijuana to his mother. She was always nauseated from the chemotherapy drugs and could barely eat for weeks. She existed in a Percocet and morphine haze, constantly fretting that the sedation kept her from saying all the things she wanted to say to us, but unable to face the pain without it. And this was a woman who had such a high tolerance for pain, coupled with a distaste for drugs, that she insisted her dentist not use Novocain and gave birth to her two children without anesthesia. But despite marijuana’s power to relieve pain and nausea without loss of consciousness, we were afraid she would find even the suggestion of it scandalous. This was 1997, and my mother-in-law was a very proper, law-abiding woman, a graduate of Bryn Mawr College in the 1950s. She’d never even smoked a cigarette.
But then an older family friend who worked in an AIDS hospice came bearing what he said was very good quality marijuana. To our surprise, she said she’d consider it. My husband and I — though we knew nothing about marijuana paraphernalia — were dispatched to find a bong, as the friend suggested water-processing might make the smoking easier for her. We found ourselves in a head shop in one of the seedier neighborhoods in New Haven, where my husband went to graduate school, listening attentively to the clerk as he went over the finer points of bong taxonomy, finally just choosing one in her favorite color, lilac.
She had us take her out on the flagstone patio because she refused to smoke in her meticulously kept-up house. Then she looked about nervously, as if expecting the police to jump out of the bushes. She found it awkward and strange to smoke a bong, but after a few tries managed to get in two and a half hits.
And then she said she wanted to go out to eat.
For the past month, we’d been trying to get her to eat anything: fresh-squeezed carrot juice made in a special juicer, Korean rice gruel that I simmered for hours, soups, oatmeal, endless cans of Ensure. Sometimes she’d request some particular dish and we’d eagerly procure it, only to have her refuse it or fall back asleep before taking a bite. But this time she sat down at her favorite restaurant and ordered a gorgeous meal: whitefish poached with lemon, hot buttered rolls, salad — and ate every bite.
Then she wanted to go to Kimball’s, a local ice cream place famous for cones topped with softball-size scoops. The family had been regular customers starting all the way back when my husband and his brother were children, but they hadn’t been there since her illness. My husband and I shared a small cone, which we could not finish, and looked on in awe as my mother-in-law ordered a large and, queenishly spurning any requests for a taste, polished the whole thing off — cone and all — and declared herself satisfied.
Read complete article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/10/opinion/medical-marijuana-and-the-memory-of-one-high-day.html?_r=2
Painful battle for pot was worth the fight
By Jodie Sinnema, Postmedia News
Ian Layfield prefers his marijuana fried in oil for four hours, then swallowed in cannabis-infused gel caplets.Either that or mixed in with a topical cream he massages onto his left foot.
Both forms of medical marijuana numb the pain and tightness caused by severe arthritis that began after a road grader in Layfield’s city of Victoria, B.C., pinned his foot, crushing bones, tendons, muscles and soft tissue.
That was in October 2006, but it wasn’t until after self-medicating with tequila and pot, 18 months of rehab needed to walk again, daily doses of the narcotic pain reliever OxyContin and hydromorphone pills, did Layfield gain the consent of his family physician to turn to medical marijuana.
In May 2009, Layfield received his federal licence to grow 98 plants and use marijuana for medical purposes.
“I had never tried heroin before, but (OxyContin) is the synthetic version of it and if this is anything like what the street drug is, I wouldn’t want to touch it,” said Layfield, who didn’t want to take the highly addictive opioids, but had no choice because his doctor felt he had to exhaust all conventional medications before contemplating using medical marijuana.
That rigidity, Layfield said, can be dangerous for patients.
“I weaned myself off of that over a year ago and now it’s just been trial and error with different cannabis strains,” said Layfield, 33.
Since then, he hasn’t had to deal with the stomach pains sparked when he was in withdrawal from his legal opioid use; his stomach cramped whenever it didn’t have any of the highly addictive drugs dissolving inside.
Layfield also doesn’t have to deal with the dangerous haziness produced by the opiate that prevented him from driving.
A few weeks ago, Layfield took a doctor’s letter to the superintendent of motor vehicles in Victoria to notify the government office he was consuming nine grams of cannabis each day.
The office asked Layfield to take a road test to determine the effects, since physicians don’t recommend pot users get behind the wheel.
“I passed with flying colours and I was just issued my new pink card,” Layfield said. “People can be able to keep their licence and still medicate and drive.”
Both forms of medical marijuana numb the pain and tightness caused by severe arthritis that began after a road grader in Layfield’s city of Victoria, B.C., pinned his foot, crushing bones, tendons, muscles and soft tissue.
That was in October 2006, but it wasn’t until after self-medicating with tequila and pot, 18 months of rehab needed to walk again, daily doses of the narcotic pain reliever OxyContin and hydromorphone pills, did Layfield gain the consent of his family physician to turn to medical marijuana.
In May 2009, Layfield received his federal licence to grow 98 plants and use marijuana for medical purposes.
“I had never tried heroin before, but (OxyContin) is the synthetic version of it and if this is anything like what the street drug is, I wouldn’t want to touch it,” said Layfield, who didn’t want to take the highly addictive opioids, but had no choice because his doctor felt he had to exhaust all conventional medications before contemplating using medical marijuana.
That rigidity, Layfield said, can be dangerous for patients.
“I weaned myself off of that over a year ago and now it’s just been trial and error with different cannabis strains,” said Layfield, 33.
Since then, he hasn’t had to deal with the stomach pains sparked when he was in withdrawal from his legal opioid use; his stomach cramped whenever it didn’t have any of the highly addictive drugs dissolving inside.
Layfield also doesn’t have to deal with the dangerous haziness produced by the opiate that prevented him from driving.
A few weeks ago, Layfield took a doctor’s letter to the superintendent of motor vehicles in Victoria to notify the government office he was consuming nine grams of cannabis each day.
The office asked Layfield to take a road test to determine the effects, since physicians don’t recommend pot users get behind the wheel.
“I passed with flying colours and I was just issued my new pink card,” Layfield said. “People can be able to keep their licence and still medicate and drive.”
Read complete article here:
Nova Scotia man fighting to shake stigma of medical marijuana use
By Jodie Sinnema, Postmedia News
Terry Bremner smokes his marijuana pipe in Halifax parking lots and quiet woods, even though he is legally allowed cannabis to dull the pain associated with fibromyalgia.
Until now, his two adult sons didn’t know. His neighbours didn’t know. The parents of the seven- and eight-year-old football players he coaches didn’t know. He masks the pungent smell of pot with gum, cigars and cologne.
But he thinks it’s time to speak up against the stigma so prevalent on the East Coast and in Canada against marijuana that lumps medical patients with recreational users.
“I want to set an example,” said Bremner, 50. As president of the Chronic Pain Association of Canada, headquartered in Edmonton, Bremner visits support groups for chronic pain sufferers across the country to share the importance of having marijuana as a medical option, especially for those who experience bad side effects from taking strong opioids.
Read complete article here:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Nova+Scotia+fighting+shake+stigma+medical+marijuana/5837939/story.html
Wide range of medical marijuana users find relief in pot, despite government misgivings
By Jodie Sinnema, Postmedia News
EDMONTON — Margaret Marceniuk inhales her medical marijuana through a pharmaceutical puffer and a head-shop pipe.
Tamara Cartwright vaporizes her pot with a machine called a Volcano, then inhales three to four bags of the vapour while locked away in her bedroom, away from her toddler.
Ian Layfield in Victoria swallows cannabis-infused oil capsules he makes himself, frying olive oil with pot leaves, then straining it with cheese cloth and pouring it into gel caps. He also mixes cannabis into a topical cream he rubs into his left foot and ankle, which was crushed in October 2006 after being rolled over by a grader.
Todd Kaighin, an HIV patient in downtown Toronto, largely smokes traditional joints, while Janice Cyre outside Edmonton presses her marijuana leaves into steeped tea. Many users also nibble on the odd brownie or cookie baked with cannabis leaves, pot-infused oil or canna-butter.
All have their federal licences to legally take medical marijuana to help dull pain, boost appetite and curtail nausea or diarrhea associated with multiple sclerosis, colitis, severe arthritis, HIV or fibromyalgia. But all laugh disdainfully at the dried marijuana grown by the federal government in a mine in Manitoba, describing it as “dust” or “catnip in a bag” that has little therapeutic benefit and brings headaches.
They either buy their medical pot illegally through compassion clubs or legally grow their own plants in their basements, with some occasionally and reluctantly forced to buy from street dealers when their supply
Read complete article here:
http://www.montrealgazette.com/health/Wide+range+medical+marijuana+users+find+relief+despite+doctors/5838022/story.html
Bayer leading producer of a toxic chemical
by Dallin Hatch
Taking aspirin may do more harm tha`n good, according to a study by the Political Economy Research Institute.
The study sought to discover which companies produce the highest “toxic score,” a rating derived from a combination of what the Political Economy Research Institute deems to be a company’s toxic outputs.
The group’s findings were surprising. Bayer Group, makers of Aleve and Aspirin, topped their list of world’s worst polluters, even beating out oil giants Valero Energy Corp., ConocoPhillips and Exxonmobile.
In addition to popular pain medications, Bayer produces a chemical called bisphenol A, or BPA. This compound has been widely used to create clear, hard plastics. If consumed, BPA can lead to neurological defects, heart disease, diabetes, early onset of puberty in girls, infertility, obesity, breast cancer and prostate cancer, according to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
It was this particular product that pushed Bayer’s toxic score to the top of the list.
Another group said aspirin isn’t the only product people should be wary of. According to a recent news release from the Harvard School of Public Health, eating canned foods can increase your personal BPA toxicity level by more than 1,000 percent.
Read complete article here:
http://universe.byu.edu/index.php/2011/12/07/bayer-leading-producer-of-a-toxic-chemical/
Don’t Charge Residents for Pot Possession: Mayor
If the resident didn’t call, don’t file charges, New London’s mayor said.
By LeAnne Gendreau
The new mayor is changing the rules on marijuana possession and immigration status.
The day after being sworn in, New London’s new mayor issued some executive orders that have surprised some city officials.
One of the executive orders from Mayor Daryl Justin Finizio calls on police not to charge a resident with marijuana possession on personal property if the resident did not reach out to police for help.
The city has “many serious criminal enforcement and protection issues and concerns” and limited resources, according to the order.
That order asks police not to charge residents with possession or drug paraphernalia on personal property “if the violation occurs on private property and the landowner has not made a complaint or requested police assistance.”
Another order said that New London city employees who test positive for marijuana during random testing not receive disciplinary action, unless they are CLD drivers or work in a “safety-sensitive” job.
The state decriminalized marijuana and “good, dependable employees should not be disciplined or terminated based upon infraction-level offenses,” the order said.
Read complete article here:
http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/politics/Dont-Charge-Residents-for-Pot-Possession-Mayor-New-London-Immigration-135178758.html
Pot, narcotics OK to treat pain, UCSF study finds
Inhaled marijuana appears to be a safe and effective treatment for chronic pain when used in addition to narcotics like morphine and oxycodone, according to a small UCSF study that is the first to look at the combined effects of the two classes of drugs in humans.
The study, published in this month’s edition of Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics, was designed primarily to look at whether taking marijuana with narcotics is safe, and researchers reported that there were no negative side effects from combining the drugs.
Overall, the 21 men and women in the study reported a roughly 25 percent reduction in pain after inhaling vaporized marijuana several times a day for five days.
If the results can be backed up in further studies, marijuana could prove an important means of augmenting the effects of narcotic drugs for the millions of people who suffer from chronic pain associated with cancer, AIDS and a variety of other conditions, said study author Dr. Donald Abrams, a UCSF professor and chief of the hematology-oncology division at San Francisco General Hospital.
“If we can get funded, we should do a study now with pain as the endpoint” and not just safety, Abrams said.
He added that scientists don’t yet understand how, exactly, marijuana and opiates interact in humans, but “our results support that the relationship between cannabis and opiates is synergistic.”
Read complete article here: