October 29, 2009 – SACRAMENTO — Marijuana legalization advocates and law enforcement officials duked it out in a three-hour legislative hearing Wednesday on whether making the drug legal under state law would be good public policy.

Advocates said legalization and regulation could bring as much as $1.4 billion in state and local excise and sales tax revenue per year; control the drug’s potency; do more to keep it out of children’s hands; and end a century long double standard in which alcohol and tobacco — which they say are more harmful — are legal while marijuana isn’t, leading to a war on drugs particularly destructive to people of color.

Law enforcement officials testified the harms caused by marijuana legalization would far outweigh whatever tax revenue it might bring — more, not less, use by children; more people driving under the influence, causing more injuries and deaths; decreased worker productivity that could hurt the economy; and a still-thriving black market.

The hearing was convened by Assembly Public Safety Committee Chairman Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco, who earlier this year introduced a bill to legalize and tax marijuana under a system not unlike that used for alcohol. Even as several proposed ballot measures for legalization seek to qualify for next year’s ballot, Ammiano is rewriting his bill to bring it forward again in January, and Wednesday’s hearing was supposed to help him gather input for that revamp.

First up Wednesday were the Legislative Analyst’s Office, which said state and local law enforcement could save “several tens of millions of dollars each year” by no longer pursuing marijuana cases, and the Board of Equalization, which has estimated $1.4 billion in annual revenue from taxes on legalized marijuana.

Then came the lawyers. Drug Policy Alliance staff attorney Tamar Todd and American Civil Liberties Union lawyer Allen Hopper testified California is free to criminalize or not criminalize whatever it wants, and can and should chart its own course as a laboratory for new social and economic policy.

But Martin Mayer, general counsel to the California Peace Officers’ Association and the California Police Chiefs Association, underscored there would be no protection from federal law enforcement agencies arresting, charging and prosecuting Californians for violating the federal marijuana ban.

California Peace Officers’ Association President John Standish said there’s “no way marijuana legalization could protect or promote society — in fact, it radically diminishes it” by impairing educational ability, worker productivity, traffic safety and drug-related crime rates.

Ammiano asked whether police resources now used to fight marijuana would be better spent fighting harder, more harmful drugs such as methamphetamine.

“That’s like, ‘When did you stop beating your wife?’ Standish replied, calling marijuana and methamphetamine “both equally critical problems our society needs to address.”

Sara Simpson, acting assistant chief of the state Justice Department’s Bureau of Narcotics Enforcement, said much of California’s major marijuana cultivation is run by Mexican drug cartels on remote public lands, and she recited a litany of violent and deadly clashes with armed guards at such sites. Such growing operations also are environmentally devastating, she said, and produce marijuana far more potent than that used just years ago. There’s no reason to believe the cartels would adhere to state laws on cultivation, potency and taxation any more than they adhere to prohibition now, she said.

Rosalie Pacula, co-director of the Drug Policy Research Center at renowned think-tank RAND Corp., said prohibition has kept marijuana prices high, and legalization with heavy taxation that elevates marijuana’s price far above the cost of its production will lead to a thriving black market.

But Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice Executive Director Dan Macallair said arrest statistics from the past 20 years show California law enforcement is far more focused on prosecuting simple possession and use than cultivation and sales. Various counties are more or less tolerant of marijuana use, he said, a lack of consistency and continuity that could be solved by regulation.

And retired Orange County Superior Court Judge Jim Gray said the state can allow and regulate marijuana without condoning its use just like alcohol and tobacco, but any legalization legislation must ban advertising lest marijuana use become glamorized. By Josh Richman. Source.

October 28, 2009 – BILLINGS, Mont. – Montana this month issued its first license for an industrial hemp-growing operation to a woman who said she wants to develop a domestic market for the plant despite federal law barring its cultivation.

Laura Murphy, of Bozeman, was the first to apply for the two-year license since the state Legislature approved hemp’s commercial cultivation in 2001.

Federal law prohibits such activity, but the license issued by the Montana Agriculture Department on Oct. 14 could challenge whether the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is willing to override the state.

Hemp is similar to illegal marijuana but without the mind-altering ingredient of the drug. It is grown in parts of Canada and Europe and has a range of uses, from fibers for clothing to a source of biofuels.

Murphy called the application process “pretty easy.”

“I went in and had a criminal history check and fingerprints and said I had land to grow it on,” she said. “They didn’t have an official license for me; it’s just a letter.”

She said she intends to lease 160 acres of unused ranch land near Ennis and is trying to arrange contracts with buyers.

Murphy, 42, said she is a former dog groomer who works as the office manager for a Bozeman medical marijuana business. She said there would be a separation between that business, which is run by her fiance, and the planned hemp growing operation.

The Obama administration last week loosened guidelines on federal prosecution of medical marijuana operations, which grow potent forms of the plant used to treat Parkinson’s disease, chronic pain, glaucoma and other ailments.

The Justice Department told federal prosecutors that targeting people who use or provide medical marijuana in compliance with state laws was not a good use of their time.

Montana applied to the DEA in 2002 for recognition of the state’s hemp growing law. The request was denied, but Montana Agriculture Department attorney Cort Jensen said it could be reconsidered now that a license has gone out.

“Obviously hemp is a little different than ordinary marijuana, but they have declined in the past,” he said. In the meantime, he added: “We will administer the state law.”

In her license, Murphy was warned by Jensen that “growing hemp is still illegal.”

“You still need to get permission from the Drug Enforcement Agency in order to grow it without facing the possibility of federal charges or property confiscation,” he wrote.

DEA spokesman Mike Turner said federal drug agents will be watching to see if Murphy moves ahead without the federal permit – something she said she has no intention to seek.

“We try to concentrate our investigations on major criminal organizations that traffic drugs. That’s our priority,” Turner said. “We can’t speculate about what’s going to happen until somebody actually does something.”

He said some hemp operations had received clearance to grow after installing fencing and security to prevent public access, but he could not say how many permits have been issued.

Jensen also said that if she wished to use pesticides, Murphy would have to make arrangements through the Agriculture Department since none is currently approved for hemp.

The advocacy group Vote Hemp lists Montana as one of nine states that have removed barriers to hemp production or research.

Angela Goodhope with the Montana Hemp Council said the license given to Murphy marks “a big deal as far as state’s rights go.”

“The wheels are turning to allow our farmers to have another good alternative rotational crop,” Goodhope said. By MATTHEW BROWN. Source.