News

Having endured a broken back and countless debilitating injuries during a 17-year career in the construction industry, Medford resident Mike Schanno can relate all too well with patients who come to him seeking help obtaining the medical marijuana that eases unbearable pain and helps them "get back to living their lives."

ALUMINUM BASEBALL bats, frying pans and bullhorns made 7th and Arch streets one noisy corner yesterday, as dozens of activists gathered outside the Federal Detention Center to protest arrests they said were made at a marijuana event Saturday.

Rep. K.L. Brown to Continue Working to Regulate 'Pre-Need' Funeral Packages Every year, Rep. Koven L. Brown, RJacksonville, introduces at least one bill intended to crack down on problems he sees in the funeral industry.

MEXICO CITY - A comprehensive report on drug policy in the Americas released Friday by a consortium of nations suggests that the legalization of marijuana, but not other illicit drugs, be considered among a range of ideas to reassess how the drug war is carried out.

Opinions

THE first time I talked to Mark Kleiman, a drug policy expert at U.C.L.A., was in 2002, and he explained why legalization of marijuana was a bad idea. Sure, he said, the government should remove penalties for possession, use and cultivation of small amounts.

State Has a Long Way to Go in Deciding How Initiative 502 Will Be Implemented Even after 46 pages of initial draft rules were circulated by the state Liquor Control Board on Thursday, the path to marijuana legalization remains fraught with uncertainty. Marijuana sales could begin in Washington in early 2014 and, to its credit, the board has worked rapidly and diligently trying to steer Washington through unprecedented tasks. Staffers have spent eight months studying, deliberating and charting this course after voters approved Initiative 502 last fall. Many of the rules announced last week add bits of clarity to this confusing issue, but as cannabis lobbyist Ezra Eickmeyer was quoted in The News Tribune of Tacoma, "This is when any potential fighting actually begins."

When he was asked to describe Pennsylvania, Washington political consultant James Carville, who helped elect Pennsylvania Gov. Bob Casey and U.S. Sen. Harris Wofford, once declared that the state was "Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between." On another occasion, he added: "Pennsylvania is two cities separated by Alabama."

You wouldn't know it from listening to UK officials but a game-changing debate is taking place in the Americas about the war on drugs. There is a growing belief that the current punitive-based approach has failed. It has visited a savage level of violence on Latin America as narco cartels, moving cocaine and cannabis into the US, have butchered and bribed their way through the continent. The killing and corrupting of public officials judges, police, politicians threatened, and still threatens, to demolish the institutions of those states.

Letters

The government justifies the drug war by saying it "takes drugs off the street". What it really does is raise the price so high that casual users quit. But they were no problem in the first place. Problem users will do almost anything to get the cash to pay the price.

Thanks for publishing Edward R. Arnold's thoughtful letter: "Marijuana is safer than tobacco or alcohol" (May 12).

Health care professionals report America is suffering an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. What if a widely used substance could prevent and maybe "cure" diabetes? There is, and cannabis is that substance.

To the Editor: The legalization of marijuana is a huge issue. It should be legalized for many reasons.

I have a story that might, these days, evoke a small bubble of annoyance, a tiny percussion of pique at the callousness of public officials.

Peter Bensinger's latest letter in the Sun Times echoes the usual fear mongering that opponents to medical cannabis have been saying for years: Our kids, streets and society will suffer if we allow sick people to have legal access to a plant. He and those who share his views never talk about how other countries such as Canada and Israel have medical cannabis and kids, streets and the social fabric in those countries don't seem negatively impacted by it. They also never mention that the FDA approves pills that are often recalled and according to the Centers for Disease Control are the leading cause of overdose deaths in America. Nobody is dying from overdoses from cannabis, yet FDA-approved drugs are killing people everyday, and those drugs are found in medicine cabinets that kids have easy access to.

I'm pleased to see at last a broad opening up of the discussion of our country's failed "war on drugs." I recently attended a conference in Buffalo, titled "Leading the Way: Toward a Public Health & Safety Approach to Drug Policy in New York." Presented by the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy at the University at Buffalo and the Drug Policy Alliance, it began by viewing and discussing the award-winning documentary: "The House I Live In," which chronicled the ravages to the lives of people and communities ground up by our current policies toward illicit drugs.