Today in R v. Mernagh the Ontario Superior Court of Justice found the entire regulatory scheme governing medical marijuana (the Marihuana Medical Access Regulations) to be invalid. As a result sections 4 (prohibiting possession) and 7 (prohibiting production) of the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act were stricken. The government has been given 90 days to fill the legislative void or it will become legal to possess and produce marijuana.

The basis for the decision was that the government’s controversial decision making allopathic physicians the only gatekeepers to patient access created a scheme that was too restrictive and made it too difficult for Canadians to lawfully acquire the medicine. In the Court’s words “…it is long past time for the government to provide the medical access to marihuana that was directed by the Parker court over ten years ago…” Parker was a 2000 decision of the Ontario Court of Appeal that gave rise to the MMAR scheme.

“Complaints about the doctor-as-gatekeeper role, from patients and physicians, have been a constant feature of this flawed system,” said Kirk Tousaw, the Foundation’s Executive Director and a BC lawyer that successfully argued R v. Beren, in which the BC Supreme Court found certain supply-side aspects of the scheme to violate the Charter. “This decision represents a huge step forward for critically and chronically ill Canadians that want to access this safe and effective medicine without being turned into criminals for doing so.”

Jacob Hunter, the Foundation’s Policy Director and an authorized medical cannabis consumer, also hailed the decision: “I know how hard it has been to find a supportive physician. There are a million medical cannabis consumers in Canada and, in ten years, less than 10,000 have been able to become legal. That just isn’t right.”

The Foundation urges the upcoming new government of Canada to work with patients, producers and distributors of medical cannabis over the next 90 days to craft a legislative model that works. “Who knows,” speculated Tousaw, “the government could always choose not to re-legislate, as did with the abortions laws after the Morgentaler decision, and finally put an end to the harms being caused by marijuana prohibition. ”

The Foundation congratulates Mr. Mernagh and counsel Paul Lewin for their outstanding efforts and salutes all those that assisted in the case.

Source

Despite what the nation’s “Drug Czar” Gil Kerlikowske might say and what his office might promote, it’s being proven that driving under the influence of marijuana does not make you a dangerous driver. In fact, a new study shows that it makes virtually no difference in the driving abilities of most drivers.

Of course, that may not be saying much given the state of some highways in this nation, but at least the road hogs and blind spot lurkers don’t drive any worse while high.

Most of the studies for stoned and drunk driving were conducted in the 1970s. Driving simulators, measurement tools, and even drug potency were different then. Although studies into drunk driving have continued to the present, studies of marijuana’s effects on driving have not. A new study from researchers at the Olin Neuropsychiatry Research Center has found that marijuana’s effects on driving – including separating data between men and women – is negligible.1

The research is legitimate, double-blind, placebo-controlled and used 85 subjects (50 men, 35 women) on driving simulators. Subjects were tested sober and then shortly after having smoked either a 2.9% THC marijuana joint or an identical placebo.

The only measurable difference in driving between those who were sober when stoned was that they tended to slow down and drive slower than otherwise. Which any safety advocate will tell you is almost always a good thing.

Other studies conducted overseas, including one in Israel published in 2008,2 showed similar results.

These studies and their findings should call into question every “impaired driving” law in which marijuana is treated the same as alcohol and hard drugs.

Of course, as marijuana becomes more and more socially acceptable and laws regarding its use loosen or are eliminated, a review of laws that lump it in with other, much more impairing drugs should be conducted as well.

References:
1 – Sex differences in the effects of marijuana on simulated driving performance. by BM Anderson, M Rizzo, et al, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, March 2010

2 – Effects of THC on driving performance, physiological state and subjective feelings relative to alcohol. by A Ronen, P Gershon, et al, Accident; analysis and prevention, May 2008

Seattle area marijuana activists will gather outside the Federal Courthouse at 700 Stewart Street on Friday, September 10, to protest the sentencing of Marc Emery, the so-called Prince of Pot, who faces five years in federal prison for selling marijuana seeds by mail order to Americans and to call on President Barack Obama to pardon him. The controversial Canadian faced federal charges after DEA agents entered Canada and arrested Emery in 2005. Emery is expected to be sentenced to five years in federal prison under a plea agreement reached with federal prosecutors.

“The Emery case is a prime example of the overreach of the federal government and the need for marijuana laws that match social reality in America,” said Philip Dawdy, Sensible Washington’s co-founder and vice-chair. “It’s crazy that he’s going to prison for selling seeds and that the federal government is willing to spend millions of dollars prosecuting and imprisoning him. President Obama should pardon Emery and get busy with reforming America’s outdated marijuana laws.”

When Emery was arrested in 2005, federal officials described his arrest as a blow to efforts to legalize marijuana in the US. Emery was the publisher of the Vancouver-based Cannabis Culture magazine and planned to use his seed-selling profits to fund legalization efforts in the US.

Activists will gather outside the US Courthouse from 8:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Friday while Emery, already in federal detention in SeaTac, is being sentenced.

It’s ironic that only last week John McKay, the former US Attorney for Western Washington who originally charged Emery, wrote an op-ed in the Seattle Times in which he noted that marijuana prohibition has failed and that it’s time for new marijuana laws on the federal level.

Sensible Washington is an all-volunteer, grassroots organization dedicated to the repeal of marijuana prohibition in Washington State. The group was sponsor of this year’s I-1068, which failed to gather enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot, and plans to file a new legalization initiative in January 2011. Since June, Sensible Washington has tripled its volunteer network to some 6,000 citizens committed to ending marijuana prohibition.

More information about Sensible Washington can be found at www.sensiblewashington.org.

Article is from Sensible Washington

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It’s the sad truth.

Voters in California will likely decide this November whether or not to legalize marijuana, after legalization activists handed in far more than the necessary number of petition signatures to get the measure onto the ballot.

Organizers of the Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010 filed some 700,000 petition signatures with county clerks around the state. The amount of signatures needed to get the measure on the ballot is about 433,000, reports the San Francisco Chronicle, so the measure is all but certain to be on the ballot in November.

If California voters approve, it will be the most comprehensive reform of marijuana laws ever undertaken in the United States. While some states, such as Oregon, have relatively lax penalties for possession, no state has attempted to regulate and tax the herb before.

The measure’s chances are good: A poll taken last April found that 56 percent of Californians want to see the herb legalized and taxed.

According to the L.A. Times, the measure would make it legal for anyone over 21 to own an ounce or less of pot, and to grow pot for personal use in a space no larger than 25 square feet. It would also give cities the right to license marijuana growers and sellers, and to collect taxes on the crop.

One of the major talking points that the pro-legalization crowd has used has been finances. California’s government is facing a deep, prolonged budget crisis, and legalization proponents have argued that the revenue generated by taxing marijuana would bring an estimated $1.3 billion into state and municipal coffers.

Richard Lee, a medical marijuana entrepreneur from Oakland who is the principal backer of the movement, told the L.A. Times he plans to raise $10 million to $15 million to fight the legalization campaign. And Lee’s opponents are already beginning to line up to oppose the measure.

”We’re going to talk about blood money, about trying to raise taxes on the backs of our youth,” Bishop Ron Allen, head of the International Faith Based Coalition, told the Associated Press.

Another obstacle will be the conflict between state and federal law. Even if California passes the measure, marijuana will still be illegal under federal statutes. In an editorial this month, the L.A. Times argued:

Cannabis may be the nation’s largest cash crop, but marijuana remains a Schedule I drug, deemed by the federal government to have a high potential for abuse, no accepted medical value and illegal to use under all circumstances. Perhaps Californians have been emboldened by their pioneering role in legalizing medicinal marijuana, but in truth, the conflict between state and federal law has had serious consequences for users and distributors caught in the federal web.

But, in a rebuttal, Tamar Todd argued that “there is nothing in the US Constitution that requires states to criminalize anything. We could scrap our entire penal code tomorrow if we wanted to. States get to decide state law, not Washington.”

And Jacob Sullum at Reason.com argues that, while the feds may still want to enforce federal marijuana laws in California, they won’t have the resources to prosecute cases that were previously handled by state authorities.

via The Raw Story