Legal cannabis revenues deliver major economic boost

The Marijuana Policy Project in the USA has been researching legal sales revenues for cannabis.

In the report, Arcview found that the legal marijuana market grew from $4.6 billion in 2014 to $5.7 billion in 2015, while also projecting that the 2016 market will be $7.1 billion. This incredible growth is the result of enacting new state-level marijuana laws, mostly driven by MPP.

These results must cause fiscal conservatives and prohibitionists some discomfort as it becomes more and more obvious that their ideology robs the public purse and makes their beloved tax cuts less feasible. Wedged and on the wrong side of history!

NSW population study of medicinal cannabis challenges the official program

Further to my previous post, which questioned the approach to medicinal cannabis research being taken by the NSW government, the ABC reported today on a Sydney University study in which parents of epileptic children who are being treated with the illegal substance are being asked to tell their stories.

I had been wondering why the academic conducting the government research, Professor Jennifer Martin from Newcastle University, had published the opinion piece (linked above) years before her research was complete. The piece talked up the risks of the drug and argued for the Big Pharma approach of finding selected molecules from cannabis and offering them as a (presumably) patented medicine. Academics usually go public only when research is complete and has been peer-reviewed.

When I heard today's news a penny dropped. Perhaps the Sydney University study, looking at actual users of the whole oil, might threaten the direction the NSW government and Professor Martin have taken?

Ms Martin claimed:

There seems to be a sudden rush to make it available, as if the world was going to run out, or the evidence to use it was new and overwhelmingly good. Sadly, none of this is a reality. There is no new evidence.

If that's what the professor and her colleagues think, perhaps they are concerned that more such evidence will emerge from the Sydney University study, and that could disrupt and discredit their own line of research?

Such internecine rivalry is not unknown in academia. This might explain the unusual opinion piece with its several questionable arguments - an attempt to sway public opinion to the conservative, Big Pharma prohibitionist side.

Given the wealth of anecdotal evidence about the efficacy of medicinal cannabis, the parents of afflicted children may not agree with Professor Martin and her view that "we already have safe and effective therapies available" and there is no need to hurry with legalisation.

One mother who used cannabis oil to treat her child for severe epilepsy, quoted in the ABC story, reports:

Within a week the seizures had gone from 20 or 30 big ones a day and 100 little ones, to probably four in a week - it was amazing.

Perhaps that mother is lying, but what on earth would she gain from that? She's risking a lot outing herself as a buyer of an illegal substance. If she's not lying, Professor Jennifer Martin's assertions seem both highly contestable and distinctly lacking empathy.

And of course Professor Martin seems to fall into the old prohibitionist fallacy: that cannabis should remain illegal because there is no evidence of its medical benefits, while on the other hand there is little evidence because the substance is illegal and unbiased research on it has been actively suppressed.

Professor Martin falsely conflates medical cannabis - which, properly produced, has little or no psychoactive effect and is usually taken as oil - with smoking marijuana recreationally. Even the picture with her article shows chopped green cannabis, ready to smoke, next to a baby monitor. Scary perhaps but quite misleading.

NSW is legalising medical cannabis - so why is it devolving into a Big Pharma spinfest?

Something very strange is happening in NSW. To the surprise of many, Liberal Premier Mike Baird last year announced he would legalise medical cannabis. He cited the plight of Lucy Haslam from Tamworth whose son had an incurable fatal condition and who received palliation from cannabis oil where normal treatments had failed. Her sterling activism had apparently shifted the mountain, although her son has sadly since passed away.

This seemed strange because Mike Baird appears to be in lockstep with Police Commissioner Andrew Scipione, and the police always oppose any moves to legalise cannabis because they garner huge budgets from prohibition. And Big Pharma always opposes it because anyone can grow it and it might threaten sales of their own drugs. In fact that's happening - the use of pharmaceutical painkillers is dropping rapidly in US states which have legalised medical cannabis.

But wait. People in the know tell me that actual cannabis oil will not be legalised - the research ball has been thrown to the pharmaceutical industry to extract relevant molecules from cannabis and produce medicines accordingly.

The real risks of drug driving and drunk driving

With the NSW police tripling their drug-driving tests, especially targeting cannabis, it's worth noting the actual risks involved.

In summary, cannabis increases the risk of a fatal accident: 1.8x

Opioids (which are legal): 3x

Stimulants including meth: 3.7x

Benzos (Valium etc, also legal): 4.8x

Alcohol at .02 Blood Alcohol Content (BAC) - which is legal for most drivers: 4x

Alcohol at 0.8 BAC: 13x

Alcohol at 0.16 BAC: 35x

[As an interesting aside, people with Sleep Apnea are 7-8 times more likely to crash a car than people without the condition - As reported on ABC's PM program 4/7/2016]

Full details below courtesy of Paul Dessauer:

Drug use and fatal motor vehicle crashes:
A case-control study.
Guohua Li et al
Accident Analysis and Prevention Sept 2013

<<< ABSTRACT Drugged driving is a serious safety concern, but its role in motor vehicle crashes has not been adequately studied.

Drug testing drivers doesn't work, but Duncan Gay doesn't care

"Evidence-based" seems to be a term not comprehended by some NSW Coalition ministers, especially the National Party's Duncan Gay, Roads Minister.

The decision to drastically ramp up drug testing on NSW drivers, despite the program being almost farcically ineffective, demonstrates again the ideological fairyland inhabited by Gay and his colleagues.

Too bad for the victims of this pogrom.

Greens MLC David Shoebridge has posted a comprehensive rebuttal of the program which should be read by all drivers, especially Duncan Gay.

But it's a cinch the man who just increased penalties for bike-riders by 350% won't bother. After all, those pesky bike-riders all probably smoke dope anyway, right Duncan? And after all, the rash of 4WDs being written off by cyclists just demands action, right?

You're an intellectual giant mate.

Large, long term study shows no health harms from cannabis

I've always said we needed large population studies to properly assess the long-term effects of smoking cannabis. It's too easy to skew small reductive studies, as we have repeatedly seen.

This one is a huge study of 408 males tracked from adolescence into their mid-30s and it found no difference between heavy early-onset smokers and low/non-users:

Findings from latent class growth curve analysis identified 4 distinct subgroups of marijuana users: early onset chronic users, late increasing users, adolescence-limited users, and low/nonusers. Results indicated that the 4 marijuana use trajectory groups were not significantly different in terms of their physical and mental health problems assessed in the mid-30s.

Strangely enough, it doesn't seem to be getting much of a run in the media.

The War on Drugs is unjust nonsense.

Andrew Colvin self-promotes at expense of executed men

AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin thinks the
futile War on Drugs is more important than young lives.

It’s disgusting – these senior police protecting their own pointless jobs by pleading Drug War platitudes. In refusing to apologise for the Indonesian executions of two Australians, AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin deflected a question raised by Senator Xenophon – why couldn’t the Bali Nine have been arrested on their return to Australia and these executions prevented?

The AFP, it seems, had alerted Indonesian police to the arrival of the Bali 9 drug smugglers despite knowing the death penalty could be enforced.

Colvin's excuses contained a list of drug war clichés. It ignored that most heroin casualties occur BECAUSE it is illegal, and ignored the success of supervised injecting centres in preventing overdoses and deaths – a far cheaper option than the ever more privatised drug enforcement and jail industry that Colvin eagerly supports.
 
Typically, Andrew Colvin used the same dodgy stats that Indonesia's President Widodo used to whip up horror at "the scourge of drugs" - "Families and communities destroyed by drugs" - "4,000 deaths from heroin (and other opioids)" over four years - and they've taken enough heroin off the streets for "eight hits for every man, woman and CHILD in Australia", because heroin dealers run around randomly injecting chilren, right? Never mind that taking that heroin off the streets neatly keeps the price up so criminals are eternally attracted to the trade and the cops keep their budgets, promotions and jobs etc etc.

He didn't even come up with a new cliché.

Stoned bunnies: More hilarious nonsense from the DEA

Maybe it's already happening? I found this one in Kings Cross.

Prohibitionists are really scraping the bottom of the spin barrel in their desperate campaign to preserve their jobs. If they had any sensible arguments they wouldn't have to plead this tripe.

A Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agent seriously told a Utah senate committee that legalising medical marijuana would lead to an epidemic of stoned rabbits. Ignoring of course that legal growers would simply fence off their crops from animals.

Agent Matt Fairbanks also brought up the spectre of illegal pot crops doing environmental damage, which has some truth to it. All the more reason to legalise it, you dolt!

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/02/dea-warns-of-stoned-rabbits-if-utah-passes-medical-marijuana/

Indonesia's death penalty based on ludicrous evidence

With the 'Bali Two' facing likely execution in Indonesia, a politically threatened government is quoting "50 deaths per day because of drugs" to justify their populist decision to execute all convicted drug dealers including the Australians.

But the "50 deaths per day" is a rubbery extrapolation based, it seems, on only three (3) reports by other people that someone they knew "died because of drugs". This is not evidence in any accepted sense of the word.

Yes we know that drugs can be problematic for a very small minority of users but you will always find that these unfortunate people have other serious problems in their lives, so it's a bit facile to simply blame the drugs. It's also facile to think that prohibition stops the problems - in fact it causes most of them, as per the below billboard erected by former US drug police who have the courage to tell the truth.

Stoned driving not actually dangerous says official US traffic study

"Drivers who use marijuana are at a significantly lower risk of being in a crash than drivers who use alcohol, a new study from the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration shows.

"And after adjusting for age, gender, race and alcohol use, drivers who tested positive for marijuana were no more likely to crash than those who had not used any drugs or alcohol prior to driving, it found."
Still the demonisation continues, with Hunter region police regularly in the media reporting apparently shocking results when they do roadside drug test blitzes - with 30%-40% of drivers showing positive to cannabis. This sort of scare tactic means penalties for drug driving are at least equal to those for drunk driving. Not only is this stupid and unfair but the huge state budget allocated to its enforcement is simply a waste. However this massive budget might provide a clue why police are so keen to continue their scare campaign.

http://www.smh.com.au/world/stoned-drivers-are-a-lot-safer-than-drunk-ones-official-us-data-shows-20150209-13a7n0.html

Legal pot is not causing the sky to fall

More early data coming out of Colorado indicates that the legalisation of cannabis has not resulted in more young people consuming it - rather, the trend is in the opposite direction. Sooner or later, I think prohibitionists are going to have to give up one of their central arguments - their claim that legalisation will create "a tsunami of stoned zombies" wandering the streets. It was always a circular argument, based only on the assumption that prohibition prevented use in the first place.

The rich, ugly faces of prohibition again rear their lying heads

Sheldon and Miriam Adelson teamed up with Mel and Betty Sembler on Fred Thompson's
disastrous 2008 presidential campaign, too. Photo via Flickr user freddthompson

As usual when a serious pot law reform emerges, the lid is lifted off a vile, self-interested hypocritical pit of prohibitionists. Cops, the jail industry, the casino industry and people with drug-testing companies spew any lie they can think of to fool the people into voting their way. The most recent example is in Florida and this excellent piece in VICE lifts the lid off the rotten cauldron.

...the Drug Free America Foundation is a legal entity that has existed since the 1970s under the old name STRAIGHT Inc. Under the previous brand, the foundation operated as a drug rehab center that was embroiled in multiple scandals for allegedly torturing children who had been admitted for experimenting with pot.

...When cops bust a marijuana dealing operation, they employ something called asset forfeiture to seize property and auction it off. The process has generated over $1 billion for law enforcement divisions around the country since 2002

Just so you know what's really behind the anti-pot propaganda.

The Wizard of Oz and the opium effect

I was kindly given a 50" plasma TV on Saturday. After setting it up - and the set top box - with no manuals the rest of the weekend was a binge. Top pick, The Wizard of Oz. No wonder a whole generation grew up liking psychedelics!

In which Dorothy gets knocked out in an opium poppy field

"There will be no carbon tax in the Land of Oz!"

If only we could so simply escape the craziness.

Police forget to mention .268 blood alcohol in 'stoned driver' crash

Police really don't like it when pot gets legalised. They lose lots of budget, an easy way to boost their arrest statistics disappears and perhaps worst of all, there's all that property they can't confiscate any more.

So it looks as if, at least in one case in Colorado, they will go to any lengths to demonise legalisation. When a young guy crashed into two police cars blocking a freeway exit (with emergency lights flashing), they portrayed him as a stoned driver and forgot to mention his eye-crossing .268 percent blood alcohol content.

So really it was an extremely drunk driver with some cannabis also in his blood. As alcohol is many more times dangerous than cannabis for driving risk, the police story, gleefully amplified right across the media, is pretty close to an outright lie.

Kudos to The Washington Post (link above) for correcting the BS with their story headlined: "Colorado’s poster boy for ‘stoned driving’ was drunk off his gourd".

See my previous post for a rundown on how the prohibitionists are whipping up a scare campaign opposing legalisation in Colorado. The following graph from that Vox link puts things into perspective:

Prohibitionists try to demonise Colorado legalisation

Prohibitionist Kevin Sabet continues to throw up a moral panic smokescreen about cannabis legalisation in Colorado on behalf of SAM - Smart Approaches to Marijuana.

Sabet's latest portrays a pandemic of children admitted to hospital after ingesting legal cannabis, and more claims suggesting an epidemic of stoned drivers.

And Maureen Dowd, a New York journalist ingested possibly 16 times the recommended dose of cannabis and overdosed, having a pretty bad time which she described in print. Now, for some reason, she's not so keen on legalisation, even though it's equally possible to overdose under prohibition (in which case there's more reason for your paranoia!).

Indeed it seems that recommended doses are not printed on the labels of the cannabis candies, and it seemed Dowd was not advised and indeed didn't ask how much she should have taken - elementary information you gather before taking a couple of Aspirins.

These are good arguments for better regulation, not prohibition.

Luckily some astute writers have taken apart this latest wave of prohibitionist panic, showing that the problems happen to only a tiny minority of users, crime has gone down and even major pot seizures by Police in neighbouring states have plummeted.

Maureen Dowd's column is critiqued here and Kevin Sabet gets a dose of reality here.

A bouncer speaks his mind on the Cross

Chris is a Kings Cross Times reader who decided to throw in his two cents worth - hopefully he'll follow up with some titillating details!

My name is Chris Zlomanczuk. I've been working the doors in Kings Cross for years. I'm 25 born and bred in Sydney, have been been trying to break through as an actor for years and also have various business inspirations.

I've been working the doors since the age of 18 so I see a very different Kings Cross from the sensational headlines - although many of them are true.

There are too many names to recollect and too many faces to remember... I was scampered into strip joint THE LOVE MACHINE at age 15 and have since worked the strip at such places as Springfields bar, The Elk, The Bourbon, Empire, Sugarmill. Kit and Kaboodle, Piano Room, The Vegas, Trademark and Hugos and more. I've dined with legendary actors and business people at the famous Tropicana on Victoria St, the Piccolo on Roslyn, Cafe Hernandez on Kings Cross Rd, Bar Coluzzi on Victoria St. KINGS CROSS is a great place. I feel safer there with a local than anywhere, and it's not boring.

If I get sick of coffee shops I can head to other scenes - to The Stables Theatre for a show, or mixing and mingling with all sorts, sex workers, drug addicts, drug dealers, actors, dancers. singers, artists of all kinds. None of these people match the popular image put on them by the media.

Here, no one should be judged but unfortunately Kings cross will always be judged by the ignorant, including journalists and politicians. I've seen grams of heroin being dealt, heroin shot-up, I've seen and heard gun shots and massive Bikie brawls and still felt safe. It's all personal, and nothing to do with anyone unless you're looking for it....Kings cross is what it is and maybe everyone should lighten up and enjoy the colour!

Shock, horror! Pot causes heart attacks (or does it?)

You may have heard a few stories recently of people keeling over from a heart attack after smoking cannabis. While there is probably some increased risk from indulging for some people, at least one 'study' turns out to be very dodgy. It's been picked apart on the Alternet site:

The impetus for the mainstream media’s most recent fixation with the alleged dangers of pot is a French study, published online in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Investigators reviewed data collected by the French Addictovigilance Network, a national database of adverse case reports involving psychoactive substances, between the years 2006 to 2010.
Among the 9,936 total drug-related cases in the database, authors identified 35 cases (0.4 percent) in which both cardiovascular complications and cannabis were referenced.

Apart from the fact that 60% of the subjects also smoked tobacco, according to Alternet:

...it is unclear whether these subjects used cannabis in the hours prior to any adverse event. Toxicological analyses identified THC, marijuana’s primary psychoactive compound, in only 13 of the 35 total cases. In the other 22 cases, no toxicology result was available; cannabis was simply referenced in the subjects’ medical file. In all but three cases, marijuana was referenced in conjunction with other substances, some of which are well associated with health risks, such as cocaine, alcohol, tobacco, and opiates.

More detail in the original story (linked above).

Prohibitionists keep flogging evidence-free fearmongering

The increasing legalisation of cannabis in the US is putting prohibitionists further and further onto 'the back foot' as actual data emerge that contradict their fear memes. A chief among these is their claim that moves towards legalisation would "send the wrong message" and increase use among teens. Evidence that it isn't doing so has not stopped them from making the claim, as you can see at the bottom of this email chain (the email on behalf of prohibitionist Gary Christian). One point made is that, under legalisation, advertising and marketing of cannabis should NOT be allowed.


-----------------------------------------------

(Email from Paul Desseaur)

Here’s a similar article;

http://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/newsarticle.aspx?articleid=1864116

(BTW- Why am I not surprised that Robert DuPont, (who, with his partner Bensinger makes millions per-annum from immunoassay urine screening), is opposed to any legalisation of cannabis use?).http://www.activistpost.com/2013/03/ex-dea-chief-lobbying-holder-to-nullify.html

This one sentence underpins the argument of the AACAP statement you have posted;

<<< Legalization of marijuana for medicinal or recreational purposes, even if restricted to adults, is likely to be associated with (a) decreased adolescent perceptions of marijuana’s harmful effects, (b) increased marijuana use among parents and caretakers, and (c) increased adolescent access to marijuana, all of which reliably predict increased rates of adolescent marijuana use and associated problems. >>>

Is there any evidentiary basis to these assertions?

The chain of reasoning seems intuitively logical, but what does the published research tell us?

The authors reference two articles to support that sentence, the first is this one;

Legalization of Marijuana: Potential Impact on Youth, Joffe + Yancy, Pediatrics, 2004.

Full text here;

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/113/6/e632.full.pdf+html

Watch this space - how long before Greg Hunt deletes this damning info on climate change?

Seems the Federal Government hasn't gotten around to pulling a web page that scientifically debunks global warming denier Ian Plimer's misleading nonsense. Crikey writes:

Plimer’s 2011 book —  How to Get Expelled From School (launched by John Howard and mailed by the IPA to hundreds of schools) — listed 101 questions for sceptical students to ask their “warmist” teachers, i.e. those who respect science. The federal Department of Climate Change (abolished by Abbott) prepared a response that thoroughly debunked his claims in words a child can understand. How long before Environment Minister Greg Hunt is instructed to have this demolition of Plimer taken down?

I've downloaded and saved the PDF but it will be interesting to see how long it takes for the truth to be hidden in the interests of Ian Plimer's fans like Gina Rinehart.

At the time of writing, the PDF is still online here.

I've previously blogged about Ian Plimer's unrepentant deceit here.

PS On 13 August 2014 the PDF is still up there on Greg Hunt's website. Perhaps Greg hasn't actually read it?

PPS today (18/8/16) I again checked the link and wouldn't you know it, it's gone! The department of misinformation has finally caught up. I will contact Crikey and let them know.

The US finances Mexico's biggest drug cartel: 100,000 die

This cash allegedly belonging to El Chapo was found in a car.
At the same time, the US was financing and arming his cartel.  

Well the Yanks certainly haven't changed their spots. Their recent much-publicised arrest of drug cartel supremo 'El Chapo' Guzman hides the fact that:

US agencies had armed and financed El Chapo's Sinaloa criminal empire for at least 12 years. That link has been substantiated by DEA and Justice Department court testimonies, and even US agents confirmed the financing had been approved by high-ranking officials and federal prosecutors. But the American media barely reported how entrenched the American government has become in the Mexican drug trade.

You can read more about it in this report from The Guardian.

Instead we got triumphal pictures of his arrest and a slew of 'gangster porn' - photos of his mansions, gold-plated guns and stacks of cash.

Back in 2012 they arrested El Chapo's son only it turned out they got a humble used car salesman instead. That didn't stop them parading him in front of a salad bar of weapons and cash (see pic below). If it was the wrong guy, where did the loot come from? This is just one of the more blatant examples of the total bullshit fed to us by War on Drugs propagandists. Meanwhile 100,000 people have been killed in the phoney War, many in horrendously brutal circumstances.
As The Guardian asks, "Why aren't we putting US agencies on trial for financing El Chapo's drug war?"

Oops, wrong guy! But if so, where did all the loot
and weaponry come from for this photo op?