(Almost) Secret Commission May Decide How We Legalize

(Almost) Secret Commission May Decide How We Legalize

Editorial by David Fiedler SacNORML member

Cannabis activists in California have been trying to get marijuana legalized for decades. Apart from the success of Proposition 215 for medical marijuana, the "big year" was supposed to be 2010, when Prop. 19 was on the ballot. Prop. 19 failed for a number of reasons, and there’s still controversy around whether that was a good thing or a bad thing. A number of efforts were launched in 2012, but none of them even made the ballot.

But the “perfect storm” is likely to hit next year. 2016 is a presidential election year, so we can expect a high voter turnout. In addition, four states have already legalized adult recreational use of cannabis, and the first two (Colorado and Washington) are already seeing enough financial and other success that a surprising number of other states are looking at it too. The last factor is that, for the first time, a majority of Americans polled finally are ready to see marijuana legalized for adults over 21.

Gavin Newsom, who was previously mayor of San Francisco and now is the Lieutenant Governor, reputedly wants to ride this legalization tidal wave all the way to the Governor’s Mansion in 2018. To do that, he’ll have to be seen to spearhead a method of legalizing that makes the soccer mom voting contingent happy, at least if you believe conventional political wisdom. That may be why he made it a priority to set up the so-called Blue Ribbon Commission On Marijuana Policy. This commission just issued its first progress report last month, although it’s almost impossible to find on their website.

The commission members come from a wide range of backgrounds, including addiction medicine specialists and others who have a vested interest in keeping cannabis taboo, but there are also some people who are likely to have positive input as well. Here’s what I sent to the commission through their comment form, and it sums up the basic problem I found with the commission itself:

I'm wondering why, if this is a "commission comprised of leading policymakers, public health experts and academics from across the state and the nation that have done significant work and research related to marijuana", that it has not a single representative from the community of growers, patients, or medical marijuana dispensaries that actually work with marijuana on a daily basis in the real world of California politics?

And the progress report isn’t much better. Much of the discussion regarding medical marijuana is a similar type to what just destroyed Washington state’s MMJ program: implying that the state wants all the taxes it can get, and it’s likely willing to throw those inconvenient patients under the bus to get them.

Here’s the real secret that I discovered about public input to the commission. There isn’t any. At press time, only about two dozen people have even registered on their public forum discussion site. This is not totally surprising, because it’s hosted on a completely different website, and the link to access it only appears in a limited number of places on the commission’s main site.

As a cannabis activist, if you register on the discussion site, you will be one of a handful of people who have the ability to vote on and discuss important policy topics -- ranging from DUIs to environmental concerns -- to be seen by the eyes of the commission itself. The more of us that express our opinions (in a well-written, respectful way, of course), the more likely we’ll be to get what we want. So go there now, register on the site, and vote and write wisely!


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Are Cannabis Activists “Ready for Hillary”?

By:Ron Mullins Executive DIrector Sac NORML

On April 12th 2015, former First Lady, former Senator, and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton announced her official candidacy for presidency of the United States. This will be her second serious attempt to retain the Democratic nomination for the highest office in our country. She lost against now President Obama in 2004.

What this means to us as cannabis users is a mystery. Overall our relationship with Democrats are rocky ones at best. Democratic politicians have presided over large portions of the drug war and either helped or looked the other way while thousands of Americans have been thrown in jail, families split up, property taken -- all over the cultivation and distribution of this plant.

The community was hopeful when candidate Obama made his now infamous statement about not spending a lot of resources on attacking medical marijuana. Shortly after his election the Justice Department published a memo that reflected those sentiments. However, we learned a harsh political lesson just a few years later at election time in 2008 when there was a complete political flip-flop and a new memo and what we now call “the crackdown”. This was a huge kick in the gut for the booming medical cannabis industry in California and other states. This put a lot of Democratic cannabis users in the uncomfortable position of having to protest a president that they generally liked on other issues. Many in the medical cannabis community even supported third-party candidates like Roseanne Barr.

Thankfully, after the dust settled, we again saw a softening of policies, including a turnaround on things like civil asset forfeiture; funding of the DEA; and the introduction of the Compassionate Access, Research Expansion, and Respect States Act of 2015 (CARERS). It is starting to feel like the Democrats really want to be our friends now.

We really don't have a very good picture of Hillary regarding what her marijuana policy might look like if elected. A very long time ago the name Clinton became synonymous with the quote "I didn't inhale". This was candidate BILL Clinton's answer when asked if he had ever smoked marijuana. While going to college at Wellesley College and running in some pretty hip circles, there are multiple stories about Hillary Clinton using marijuana in her younger years -- something both Bill and Hillary have adamantly denied.

I think whether or not Hillary ever smoked marijuana will have little impact on how she treats marijuana policy if she is elected President. Regardless of whether she loves or hates marijuana, all presidents must govern and deal with all factions of our citizenry -- some of which are very conservative. If we were to try to judge by her husband's administration -- who actually closed more medical cannabis dispensaries than President George W. Bush did -- it would not look good for us. But knowing what political creatures the Clintons are, and the high polling now in favor of medical and recreational marijuana, it is highly unlikely she would uphold the old-school drug war policies that her husband did in the 90s.

In order to try to paint a realistic picture of what a Hillary Clinton administration would look like with regards to the treatment of legal recreational and medical marijuana, we must go to reports of a town hall meeting in June 2014 hosted by Christiane Amanpour on CNN. Clinton was asked the following question by someone named Jake. "Hillary, what is your outlook on recreational and medicinal marijuana? How does it make you feel that states are now legalizing pot for both issues?"

After feigning that she needed help with the question because she was so old, she declared, that she was going to "risk radical candor", she then gave a very carefully constructed statement that gave no indication of how she might behave in an actual policy scenario that went like this: "Well, I have to say I think we need to be very clear about the benefits of marijuana use for medicinal purposes. I don't think we've done enough research yet, although I think for people who are in extreme medical conditions and have anecdotal evidence it works, there should be availability under appropriate circumstances. But I do think we need more research because we don't know how it interacts with other drugs so there's a lot that we don't know on medicinal purposes."

At first glance this statement seems quite progressive -- and it might seem so in the conservative circles of DC -- but a lot of us more radical cannabis activists see a series of escape hatches in her statement. The most glaring is the term "extreme medical conditions" which can be utilized to severely limit medical marijuana programs and exclude seriously in-need patients with anxiety, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), and other non-lethal illnesses. The words "appropriate circumstances” could be used as an excuse to refuse to support states’ medical marijuana programs, while ignoring the need to intervene with the Department of Justice and the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA). It leaves it open for the DEA and others to say people they arrest weren't doing it under the “appropriate circumstances”. Many of us in the cannabis community take issue with her claim that there isn't enough science available, so we will be making it our personal mission to educate her. But her worst non-answer she gave was about recreational marijuana when she stated this: "On recreational, ya know, states are the laboratories of democracy. We have at least two states that are experimenting with that right now. I want to wait and see what the evidence is".

I find fault with the question, as well as the answer. But as politically savvy as Hillary is, she likely was only going to answer questions that she and her staff had previously vetted. So she felt her vague non-policy-based answer would suffice. What needs to be asked is how she feels about the CARERS Bill, DEA defunding, Civil Asset Forfeiture, medical cannabis for vets, mandatory minimums, banking for cannabusiness, patients’ rights to cultivate and whether or not she agrees with Obama's choices to give clemency to some non-violent drug offenders. Then we'll have a good idea of what kind of President we will have in regards to marijuana.

The real tale was probably told when the host jokingly asked her about her own marijuana use. Clinton seemed visibly uncomfortable when Amanpour went off script and said, "You want to wait and try it?” Hillary stammered -- which is quite uncharacteristic for the well-polished candidate -- and apparently didn't have prepared talking points for this query. Answering before the question was even finished "Absolutely not! No, that... that... that... that... I didn't do it when I was young, I'm not going to start now."

There are several books and people around who claim to have witnessed quite a bit of cannabis use by Clinton. So far, it has apparently not been definitively proven to the satisfaction of the press, or at least they don't see the need to focus on whether or not she's lying or not here. "I will eat both of my shoes if she and Bill didn't trip their nuts off at Wellesley and Oxford." declared Allan St. Pierre, the director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) on CNN when he was asked if he believed she had never partaken of the plant. This could become an issue during the campaign if some sort of physical evidence crops up of her dishonesty. What is a person supposed to do who is trying to get elected and already has a ton of baggage? Who hasn’t lied on an application about their cannabis use? I suspect cannabis users are in for a rollercoaster of running to cannabis at certain times, and then running away from cannabis at other times -- not unlike what Bill Clinton did to the Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transsexual (LGBT) community during his elections.

Her overall evasive stance and non-specific statements do leave the door open for some more Obama-like tactics -- which is to say that you don't really consider it a problem, but then stand by and do nothing while the DEA and the Department of Justice treat marijuana as if it were as bad as heroin.

What do community leaders in the state of California think?

Ellen Komp, Deputy Director of California NORML, states in her online article in Tokin Woman blog, “Clinton may have more questions to answer, leading up to 2016, when California and several other states are expecting to have legalization measures on the ballot, following what looks like a successful "laboratory experiment" in Colorado. She should know how damaging a marijuana bust can be to a young person: like me, she worked for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign; his daughter Teresa's life was derailed by a pot bust in 1968. Evidence enough?”

Marcia Blount, President of the Brownie Mary Club of Sacramento County, says she has the “feeling” that Hillary will come around once she realizes that the support of Marijuana/Cannabis is a winning political issue, as well as good policy, for the country. Marcia states, “Hillary is on the right side of many issues, including the Citizens United debacle, a woman’s right to choose, equal pay for equal work, etc. Although Hillary seems to be more of a centrist, I’m hoping she takes a more progressive stance on Marijuana/Cannabis, as well as other Liberal issues such as ending Fracking, banning GMO’s, ending Civil Asset Forfeiture, and ending Police Brutality. Most of the Republican candidates are absolutely wrong on Marijuana/Cannabis issues, as well as on countless others. I plan to throw in my full support for Hillary as the campaign progresses, while at the same time trying to drive her to the “left” in her policies. I have nothing but respect for Senator Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and other Progressives within the Democratic Party, but Hillary is the Democrat who can win!”

Lanny Swerdlow of the Southern California Brownie Mary Political Club stated “Every poll has shown Democrats and the U.S.A. is in favor of some form of marijuana legalization. If Ms. Clinton is to be seen as a bold forward thinking leader she must stop waffling on this issue and should come out publicly for ending marijuana prohibition.”

In the end we will have to make our decision based on a lot of gut feelings and hope. We believe we would rather lobby a Clinton administration than a Cruz, Walker, or Christie one. Democrats are politicians, and even when convinced to make a promise they aren’t always able to keep them, they have made great strides in the past few years.

It is doubtful that Hillary is going to come out and give us anything solid to convince the cannabis community she is the hands-down right choice; but, in reality, no one is going to be exactly what we want.


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NOT A RAT

 

Grand Daddy Says

“In the valley where I live, half of the population are cannabis growers like me.  Two of our new upstream neighbors are not organic growers, and do not observe good management practices.  They use rat poison around their gardens, pesticides on their plants, and have diverted the public watershed for their irrigation pond.  Others of us in the know have discussed this situation and we find ourselves conflicted about how to intervene.  We don’t want to snitch to authorities, but we want the environment respected and the resources shared.  We agree we need to do something, but what?   Any guidance or suggestions your wisdom can offer would be appreciated.”
— Not a Rat

Greetings and Blessings, Not a Rat,
Your problems and concerns are well founded, and, unfortunately, all too common.  These issues:  neighbors with conflicting management practices, the sharing/caring of natural resources, and effective community conflict resolution, are all tainted by the legal status of cannabis.  Our entire process would be immensely facilitated were cannabis farming legal.

First, let me reassure you that I do not think this situation is one in which the term “snitch” applies.  A snitch is the intolerable lowest life form in the cannabis community, characterizing a human being of such low self-esteem and personal integrity that they cooperate with law enforcement to shift legal liability onto others.  Snitches balance the legal consequences to themselves against those of the person and relationship they choose to betray, and compromise their ethics to serve their self-interest.  The primary motivation is reduced charges for themselves.  Not infrequently there are rivalries and personal offenses to settle.  The most cowardly snitches resort to “dropping the dime” with the anonymous tip call.

You are not a snitch for many reasons, most important of which is that you speak for other stakeholders than just yourself.  You speak for your other neighbors, the environment, and natural resources as well.  Although I heartily endorse and share your righteous concerns, I applaud that you have chosen to show restraint in considering your intervention options and have not resorted to torches and pitchforks.  Your community’s conflict “about how to intervene” are absolutely spot on.  Even the best intentioned interventions frequently go awry, usually when threatening confrontations are mutually escalated.  The responsible application of peer pressure always seems the best initial strategy.  Choosing the appropriate tactic that is both effective and non-punitive is the biggest challenge.  The best case scenario would involve a low key small group discussion that was experienced as both cooperative and empowering by all parties.  Perhaps two neighboring couples host a dinner for the newcomers.  Discussion focuses on areas of mutual consensus while rapport is established prior to moving into areas of concern and conflict which are presented as opportunities for community education and cooperative improvement.

“Others of us” reassures me that you have initially discussed this with your peers and that you are cautious about being identified as the spokesperson of the support group you are forming.  There is indeed safety in numbers so a unified group broaches this subject with the offender(s).  Perhaps a few delegates can invite a sit down with the larger group and an intervention can be effected.  Each of you can speak your individual peace while affirming your intention to stop these practices immediately before government agencies or law enforcement personnel become involved in resolving the dispute within your community.  Occasionally the offender is simply under educated and overwhelmed with the scope of work involved in a successful growing operation.  We once organized a community volunteer clean up party and were welcomed to help with the restoration.  Information and volunteer labor in the spirit of cooperation is all that was necessary.

Sometimes an escalating series of consequences becomes necessary.  Under no circumstances should any of you trespass on the offender’s property or participate in any violence.  Social and neighborly isolation of the offender and withdrawal of affiliation will result as the larger community becomes aware of the ongoing problems.  Increasing exposure of the offender’s bad deeds will result in their legal risks exceeding their monetary rewards.  Increasingly assertive tactics may include postings on adjacent property lines or along public waterways warning of the contaminants.   Continuing unwillingness to stop the environmental degradation and share the resources will inevitably result in someone seeking consequences from outside your immediate community.

The work of groups like The Emerald Growers Association and the adoption of cannabis industry Best Management Practices are essential to the policy reform movement. The overwhelming majority of responsible farmers continue to be vilified as we are unjustly painted with the broad brush of justifiable condemnation for the few. Knowing my neighbor is poisoning (or stealing) my watershed warrants an intervention, whether they grow cannabis or not.  Although I agree that calling in the authorities is a last resort, I would be less hesitant to complain about their practices to authorities if we were all growing tomatoes or grapes.

Sometime in the future there will exist an EGA with licensed members all committed to observing best practices while both protecting, monitoring, and disciplining members. Those of us who know how the successful industry currently works can help implement realistic regulations allowing all our best practices to be legal.  Help legalize now.

---

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LIVERMORE RAID!

First Hand account of Tree of Life Raid

The Tree of Life, SacNORML’s February Club of the Month was the only store front walk-in medical cannabis collective in the Tri-City Livermore area. They’re business located at 33 East Airway Blvd, in Livermore, California was raided by local law enforcement in the form of a search warrant on March 12^th 2015. The owner Ramin “Ray” Ahmed had been detained prior from a traffic stop. Officers seized cash and filed for a search warrant for money laundering. SacNORML Communications Director and Human Solutions Rep. Jackie McGowan went to witness the raid and this is her first hand experience.

“When I received that dreaded phone call that the raid was in progress in Livermore, I was also informed that Ray had been pulled over by five Livermore squad cars two days prior after leaving his place of business for the evening.  He was served a warrant for money laundering and had $28,000 in cash on him at the time.  He was taken to jail and it took the police another two days to convince a judge to sign a warrant to search his collective.  I tend to think if there was enough evidence of money laundering that warrants would have been issued for him, his business, and his home simultaneously, but what do I know?  Given the fact that Cannabusinesses can't get bank accounts, it is easy to see how having cash on hand can look like a money laundering case.  Since I live a half mile away from this business and had been working closely with the Director Ramin Ahmed on speaking at several City Council meetings and had started a Human Solution Chapter there, I hustled over to record what I could.  

Upon arrival I saw several Livermore Police squad cars, the Fire Department, as well as 15-20 officers, most in unmarked plain clothes.  I attempted to get them to identify themselves and I said over and over again "You realize you are taking medicine away from sick people right?"  

The answer I received was "We are not here for the medicine."  

Shortly after receiving that answer my cell phone was snatched out of my hand by one of the plain-clothes detectives.  I quickly snatched it back.  I was then shoved out of the collective and, when I attempted to reenter, I was arrested.  The entire encounter lasted approximately two minutes.  Two very long and intense minutes and now I was in handcuffs.  While detained I had an interesting conversation with who I now believe was Sergeant Keith Graves.  Mr. Graves was very convincing in telling me how much he hated his job and was tired of being the bad guy.  I finally saw a new perspective.  This failed War on Drugs had pitted "Us vs. Them" in a very ugly way, and I could finally see that both sides were suffering.  While on route to the County Jail, the Sheriff that was booking me began to engage me in lengthy debates about our movement.  We laughed, I cried, we agreed on some things, we disagreed on others, but we talked.  We talked and talked and talked some more.  We talked so much that he actually asked me if he could stop by my house in the future to chat some more.  I know we both learned a lot from each other that day and for that reason, I do not regret my involvement or my consequences of that encounter. 

While being booked, I saw the Collective's Manager and a bud tender in a holding cell.  It was then that I overheard a call come in from the Livermore Chief of Police.  It was made clear by the officer that received that call that the two men I knew "were not to be let out on bail no matter what."  That phrase was used several times.  "We are not to let them post bail no matter what because we don't know where that money will be coming from."  That money laundering thing.  They used that to set Ray's bail at $750,000, a kind gesture considering they began the negotiation at $1,000,000.  My bail on the other hand was only set at $5,000 for "Resisting Arrest."  I was released 10 hours later at 4:30am.  Since the police would not let me get my purse out of my car and had confiscated my cell phone, telling me I would never see it again, I had no choice but to walk the cold, dark streets until I came across a coffee shop just opening up.  The manager called me a cab and gave me a free cup of coffee to keep warm with while I waited.  Angels are everywhere.  

I got home at 6am and, after getting a few hours of sleep, I then began a rigorous fundraising effort to try and help Ray get out of jail.  We ran from fundraiser to fundraiser that weekend and by March 15th had raised $21,233.77.  On Monday I testified in court on behalf of The Human Solution International and was grilled by a very determined District Attorney to discredit me and this wonderful organization.  After a grueling two days on the stand, the judge denied our portion of the bail stating that we had failed to prove that this money was not feloniously attained.  We have since used that money to set up a legal fund instead for Ray's future legal fees.  Not only did Ray's family step up to cover that difference of his bail, but his own attorney John McCradle signed over the deed to his home to ensure Ray's freedom.  Ray was released eight days after his arrest.  

It took me days to piece the entire thing together but this is the conclusion that I arrived at.  Ray opened his doors in Livermore in spite of a toothless ban on dispensaries - a term the AG guidelines does not recognize.  The City Attorney calls this semantics.  Ray's first raid was a little over a year ago and he had been winning that case in court.  In November of last year the City Attorney attempted to attain a restraining order to shut down the Tree of Life.  That restraining order was denied.  It is my belief that the city attempted a money laundering approach in order to run him out of town once and for all.  However I visited the collective days later only to find several boxes of receipts not collected into evidence.  If this were a true money laundering case, wouldn't the police take every shred of financial evidence into account?   But again, what do I know?  

What I do know is this.  Ramin Ahmed is a good man with a heart of gold.  Not only did he donate medicine to very needy patients in need of compassion, he was working on starting a Veteran's program, a CBD Support Group, and a Senior Citizen's program.  I will continue to stand next to him and continue to offer any support I can because we are all in this together.  Ray has been offered a deal in his first case.  The DA proposed to give back a portion of the money taken from that first raid, as well as to drop all the charges in that case, if Ray closed shop and went away.  That alone is enough to convince me that this money laundering ploy is just exactly that.  An attempt to run him and his business out of town.  The failed “War on Drugs” is coming to an end, but as it does, we have to unite to ensure "Nobody goes to jail for a plant!"  

Jacqueline McGowan is a Canabis Activist 

on the SacNORML Board, and a representative 

for the Local Human Solutions