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Congress simply refuses to give in on the issue of allowing American veterans safe access to medical marijuana.

Earlier this week, the House of Representatives gathered on Capitol Hill to hash out the details of an amendment to the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs Appropriations Bill, which would have allowed physicians working with the Veterans Administration to recommend medical marijuana to their patients.

Unfortunately, while most Democrats stood in support of the proposal, aimed at preventing VA funds from being used to support a prohibitionary stance, the opposing forces of the Republican majority were enough to ensure the amendment had no chance of making it out alive. The measure failed in a vote of 213-210.

Representative Earl Blumenauer of Oregon, the lawmaker who introduced the amendment, said he was disheartened by the congressional decision. Although the measure would have allowed VA physicians to discuss marijuana as a potential treatment option, he explained, it would not have given them the authority to write prescriptions for the herb. The goal of the amendment was to simply allow veterans and the doctors overseeing their care to work together in determining whether medical marijuana could be used as an alternative to prescription medication.

Although 23 states and the District of Columbia have legalized medical marijuana programs, veterans living in those areas are restricted from participating because federal law prevents physicians working at the VA from even discussing the possibility of cannabis as a treatment option, much less offer a recommendation. A favorable congressional vote, however, would have at least opened up the issue for debate, benefiting  thousands of veterans.

The latest statistics from the Veterans Administration find that 30 percent of the men and women who served in Afghanistan and Iraq suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder and severe depression—two common afflictions for which medical marijuana has been found to effectively alleviate symptoms.

Read More:http://www.hightimes.com/read/congress-will-not-allow-va-doctors-discuss-medical-marijuana-patients

The California State Assembly passed AB 258, The Medical Cannabis Organ Transplant Act, yesterday by a vote of 52 to 8. The bill is authored by Assembly Member Marc Levine (D-San Rafael) and sponsored by Americans for Safe Access (ASA), the nation’s leading medical cannabis patients’ advocacy organization.

Medical cannabis patients in California are routinely removed from the organ transplant waiting list if they test positive for cannabis use – even legal doctor-recommended medical cannabis. However, medical research has shown that there is no significant difference in survival rates between medical cannabis patients and non-users who receive an organ transplant.

“Today, I am proud to stand with my Assembly colleagues in support of AB 258, a common sense measure that will protect the lives of legal medical cannabis patients,” said Assembly Member Marc Levine (D-San Rafael). “With this legislation, California can insure that its residents are provided a fair assessment of their eligibility as an organ transplant recipient.”

AB 258 will reduce unnecessary suffering and preventable death by prohibiting anyone in the organ transplant process from determining the recipient of an organ transplant based on the potential recipient’s legal medical cannabis use, unless a doctor has determined that medical cannabis use is clinically significant to the transplant process.

Norman Smith lawfully used medical cannabis as part of his treatment for liver cancer. He was removed from the Wait List by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles after testing positive for medical cannabis use in 2011. Program policies required that he test negative for medical cannabis for six months before requesting a new place on the list. Sadly, Mr. Smith died before he could be placed back on the list, a tragic and avoidable loss of life.

Unfortunately, Mr. Smith is not alone. Toni Trujillo was denied a life-saving kidney transplant at Cedars-Sinai the following year based on her cannabis use, which the transplant center called “substance abuse.” Yami Bolanos, 58, is an eighteen-year liver transplant survivor, who was warned that she would be ineligible for a re- transplant by the same doctor at UCSF that recommended her medical cannabis use. Richard Hawthorne, another patient in need of a liver, was denied a transplant by Stanford Medical School last year, despite a friend offering to be a donor.

Read More:http://www.theweedblog.com/california-state-assembly-passes-medical-marijuana-organ-transplant-bill/

The topic of marijuana reform in the United States took an interesting turn on Capitol Hill earlier this week, when a number of congressional leaders blamed the recent eruption of violence against Baltimore law enforcement on the failed exploits of the American drug war.

During a press conference to discuss the reintroduction of legislation to legalize money generated by the cannabis industry, federal lawmakers took the opportunity to point out that Baltimore would not be in its current state of fiery disarray if not for the misaligned policies Uncle Sam has imposed against the possession of controlled substances. Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon took to the podium on Wednesday, to explain how the War on Drugs has manifested a seething undertow of tension across the nation, spawned by decades of filthy police state tactics aimed at locking up otherwise law-biding citizens for the possession of a plant.

Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California, who also attended the press event, explained that police shakedowns for marijuana have become a scourge on civil society.

"Right now when you see all of this disturbance in our inner cities, a lot of that has to do with frustration that's been a problem when police end up having to search people to see if they can find some joint in their pocket, a little piece of weed, in order to ruin their life and put them in jail,” he said. “That doesn't happen a lot in Orange County, but I know it happens in the inner city." 

While the correlation between the domestic drug war and the Baltimore riots may sound like a stretch to the average citizen, pertinent details surrounding the cause of this televised uproar supports this theory wholeheartedly. Reports indicate that 25-year-old Freddie Gray, who allegedly died by the hands of police officers, had a history of charges ranging from intent to distribute to possession of marijuana. When taking this into account, it is impossible to deny that the prohibition of cannabis, which is now legal in some fashion in over half the states, was the catalyst to the unsavory chain of events that lit the fuse earlier this week in Baltimore.

Read More:http://www.hightimes.com/read/congressmen-blame-baltimore-riots-prohibition

Data from the 2012 National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that 60 percent of pot users go on to try other drugs, which might seem to prove the “gateway” theory, except that 88 percent of drug users started with alcohol, according to several studies reported in The Atlantic.

Information published by Treatment4Addiction, which analyzed the government study, showed alcohol is more of a catalyst for trying new psychoactive substances, therefore preceding marijuana at the head of the chain.

“Gateway” is a problematic term in that marijuana use is not a tipping point but rather part of a process; this fact underscores a significant flaw of the gateway theory. Scientists tell us that correlation does not imply causation.

“Marijuana isn't a ‘gateway’ to harder drugs in the same way that ordering an appetizer isn't a 'gateway' to an entree: One comes before the other, but you're eating both because you're already at the restaurant,” The Atlantic explained.

Miriam Boeri, a sociology professor at Bentley University does not believe one type of drug use leads to another. In an article for The Conversation, she pointed out that poverty, mental illness and peer group pressure are all much stronger predictors of drug use.

Scientist Denise Kandel of Columbia University, who coined the term “gateway drug,” told NPR last week that she recently published a new paper on the topic, which shows nicotine is biologically the most potent gateway of all. When rodents were primed with nicotine, then given cocaine, they liked the cocaine much more.

In that case, the fact that e-cigarette use among teenagers has tripled in the past year, according to the Wall Street Journal, should be a much more worrisome trend.

Source:http://www.hightimes.com/read/scientists-debunk-theory-pot-gateway-drug

A man suspected of operating an illegal marijuana grow was shot and killed during a multi-agency raid at a federal wildlife refuge near Sacramento on Wednesday morning.

According to KCRA.com, the Department of Justice was tipped off about a grow operation at Stone Lakes National Wildlife Refuge and put together task force "to try and stop the grow before it could really get going." The raid was reportedly conducted from multiple angles, and one of the teams confronted the alleged grower, who was armed.

The Sacramento Bee reported that the California Fish and Game officer who shot the man in the chest feared for his life when shots were fired.

"I do know that he presented a threat to the officer's life," Fish and Wildlife spokesman Capt. Patrick Foy told SacBee.com. "The officer is very experienced and has been in dangerous situations before. He is one of our more experienced officers related to marijuana cultivation and raids."

Foy said that more than one shot was fired at the man. Other news outlets reported that the suspected cannabis grower never fired his weapon. The man was pronounced dead on the scene, and authorities reportedly found hundreds of marijuana pants in the wildlife preserve.

Source:http://www.hightimes.com/read/man-shot-and-killed-during-raid-marijuana-grow-operation-california