No wonder violence against cops is escalating! They get themselves cursed the minute they participate in a pot or prostitution bust (easy collars) which enables real criminals to skate free above the law.
Like the Nevada cop that did this arrest (see copied story insert below). We’ll dance a jig over the news story that depicts him or his family meeting with an untimely demise from a REAL criminal this gung-ho rookie cop let go free while he busied himself with this easy collar…No cop worth the bullet it’d take to snuff himself out would dare occupy his time on the job or taxpayer man-hours with easy collars in an era when we have rapists, murderers, pedophiles and animal torturers running amok all around us in every direction that we simply don’t have the resources to go after. Every easy collar is as passive permission granted (from the easy collar-er) to every real criminal he was too afraid he’d encounter if he allowed an easy collar to go free…Easy collars are a way for the cowardly cop to get to the safety of the station to do their paperwork for their “perp” they’ll clog the system up with just because they’re too afraid of the real criminals. Understand what you’re looking at when you see a cop messing with prostitutes or potheads (a coward who’s more afraid of violent criminals than we are, even though he has a gun).
10. “Using can still get you arrested.”
A few weeks ago, a medical marijuana patient was driving from Arizona through Nevada when a police officer pulled him over. Both states allow medicinal use, but when the man presented his stash along with his official Arizona patient card, he was cuffed and charged with drug possession, says Riffle, of the Marijuana Policy Project, who spoke with the patient soon after the incident.
With federal law still in direct conflict with states that have legalized marijuana, “sometimes the people who are doing their best to comply with state law are caught in the cross hairs,”says Riffle. While arrests of medical marijuana patients are rare, they continue to happen, Riffle says, especially in traffic-stop situations in states that don’t allow other states’ medicinal pot — even if it’s legal both places.
Government statistics don’t count patient arrests separately from overall pot offenses, but there are more arrests for marijuana possession than for any other drug abuse violation, with nearly 542,400 people arrested in 2011, according to the most recent FBI data. A portion of those, says Riffle, are likely patients who didn’t think they were breaking the law. Their charges are often dropped later, “but they have to go through the hassle and embarrassment and expense of dealing with the law.”
Patients are at a higher risk of being arrested in states with new marijuana laws like Massachusetts, because those states don’t yet have systems in place to verify who has their doctor’s approval. If a police officer stopped someone and found their medical marijuana, the patient would have nothing to show they were legal, so the officer would have to ask their doctor—which could be problematic outside of regular business hours. “That’s the difference between the patient going to jail and being authorized by their physician,” says Nicolazzo, COO of MarijuanaDoctors, which provides temporary recommendation forms that doctors can give to patients until an official option is available.
Lobbying groups like the Marijuana Policy Project are pushing for new bills that would amend federal law to recognize state marijuana laws, so consumers in compliance in their state wouldn’t be penalized. Even some doctors who don’t support medical use of marijuana support the protection of patients who use it: “The one thing I can say confidently is having people arrested and thrown into prison for just using a little marijuana is just not a good thing,” says the University of Pennsylvania’s O’Brien.
the rest of this story can be found at
You can get high for your health in many states, but beware of the law.
1. “Money doesn’t grow on pot plants.”
With medical marijuana now legal in 20 states and Washington, D.C., outsiders might assume that the industry’s business owners and investors are living the high life — particularly considering that a pound of “pharmaceutical-grade” marijuana costs about $1,000 to produce and sells for $7,500 at retail prices, estimates Adam Bierman, CEO of Medmen, a dispensary consulting firm. Indeed, though medical marijuana sales are expected to increase only modestly this year, Medical Marijuana Business Daily, a Providence, R.I.-based trade journal, projects that they could as much as double next year, to $3 billion. And owners and shareholders of some companies — including medical vending machine maker Medbox (MDBX) (whose stock is up more than 800% in the past year) and Medical Marijuana Inc. (MJNA) (up 200%) — have certainly benefited from legalization.
It’s a risky business though: Under federal law, selling, producing, possessing and consuming marijuana is still a crime. That not only makes marijuana businesses targets for federal raids and seizures, it also complicates their basic business processes. Opening bank accounts, processing credit card transactions and deducting normal business expenses on tax returns can be difficult if not impossible — and, at the very least, can make operating costs higher for marijuana businesses than they are for “normal” firms.
2. “Good luck getting a prescription.”
People seeking medical marijuana in Los Angeles sometimes just go for a stroll along the Venice Beach boardwalk, where doctor’s offices specializing in marijuana are almost as common a sight as T-shirt vendors and tattoo parlors.
Why not seek help from their regular doctor? Only one or two out of every 500 doctors say they will prescribe medical marijuana, according to John Nicolazzo, COO of MarijuanaDoctors.com, a database of doctors who agree to help patients obtain marijuana. “Prescribe,” in fact, isn’t even technically correct. Instead, doctors are legally allowed to “recommend” marijuana for a patient, and they often charge a fee of $150 to $300 per recommendation, says Charles O’Brien, a psychiatrist and director of the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Studies of Addiction.
The reason so many primary-care physicians refuse to recommend the treatment goes back to marijuana’s illegal federal status.And even though a 2002 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit prevents the federal government from investigating or revoking the license of a physician because they recommended marijuana, some doctors still aren’t comfortable with it. As a result, cottage industries of physicians specializing in marijuana have sprouted up in legalized states: Of the 300 physicians listed on MarijuanaDoctors.com, about two-thirds focus exclusively on prescribing pot, often opening clinics for that purpose.
The American Medical Association, for its part, says there is a need for more research on the use of marijuana in patients with serious health conditions, and that the drug’s federal classification as a controlled substance should be reviewed. “Discussion of these alternatives between physicians and patients should not subject either party to criminal sanctions,” the AMA says.
3. “Sure, we’re sick…of not being high.”
While medical marijuana is generally intended to relieve symptoms of patients with AIDS, cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma or other serious diseases, doctors frequently end up recommending it for other chronic conditions that have no official diagnosis, such as pain — fueling concerns that it can too easily end up in the hands of those who just want to smoke pot for fun.
“That’s the easiest thing — to just go and tell your doctor you have pain, because you can’t test for pain,” says Alan Budney, a psychiatry professor at Dartmouth’s medical school who studies drug addiction. In Colorado, where nearly 107,000 patients are currently approved to use medical marijuana, according to the state registry, 94% report they are being treated for severe pain, while only 3% take it for cancer and 1% for glaucoma.
Certainly, doctors acknowledge that marijuana can be appropriate for treating pain as well as preventing seizures in epileptic patients, reducing eye tension in those with glaucoma, and suppressing nausea, especially in people undergoing chemotherapy. But some say the advantages aren’t worth the side effects: impaired judgment, diminished productivity and potential lung irritation.
Lab researchers have attempted to identify components of marijuana that best treat particular symptoms, but industry professionals admit that it’s not yet possible to buy weed specifically developed for certain health problems. Pharmaceutical companies, meanwhile, are developing synthetic cannabinoid medicines as an alternative to toking up. Nabilone, for example, can reduce nausea and vomiting for some people, O’Brien says.
4. “The THC brownies may be stronger than they appear.”
Shops compete on the strength of their product, says dispensary marketing consultant Bierman. Marijuana professionals are perpetually working to cultivate purer and better strains of the cannabis plant (marijuana is the dried leaves and flowers of the plant). As a result, experts and industry insiders say, medical marijuana sold legally in stores these days is far more potent than what was recreationally smoked in, say, the ’60s.
But marijuana’s federal outlaw status means that unlike traditional pharmaceuticals, it’s not subject to Food and Drug Administration oversight or dosage labeling requirements. Indeed, government officials in state health departments aren’t even allowed to handle marijuana. So the responsibility for testing and labeling products falls to the dispensaries. Bierman says most shops, some of which carry 25 different types of marijuana, test for levels of active ingredients like THC, along with mold and other contaminants, “so you know what you’re getting.”
Instead of milligrams, though, there are ratings on a 10-point scale, descriptors like “dank” (smelly and moist, suggesting high potency), and warnings like “not for amateurs.” Though physicians say people are unlikely to overdose on marijuana, some groups are advocating for a system that’ll help patients and doctors be sure of the right dose: “If someone goes to the wine store to purchase a bottle of wine, they can understand the alcohol content on the bottle,” says Dan Riffle, director of federal policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, a lobbying group. Patients should likewise be able to see what’s in their medical marijuana, he says.
The concept of dosage gets even more abstract when the marijuana is baked into a brownie or infused into other treats. At one West Los Angeles dispensary, for instance, a candy bar has about the same effect as a hard candy that’s only a fraction of the size. Plus, Bierman points out, THC can be five to 10 times more psychoactive when it’s ingested than when it’s smoked.
5. “You’re not paranoid. They’re out to get your money.”
Last month, two men were shot and killed in a medical marijuana dispensary in Bakersfield, Calif. Just a couple of weeks earlier and 100 miles to the south, a police officer was wounded in an attempted robbery of a dispensary in Los Angeles County. In May, two men robbed a San Diego marijuana dispensary at gunpoint.
Medical marijuana continues to make crime headlines in states that have legalized it, and robberies can be particularly frequent. Industry analysts argue that it isn’t necessarily the marijuana that attracts criminals to the dispensaries, but the stacks of cash on hand: Banks won’t do business with dispensaries — since doing so could jeopardize their FDIC insurance — so the shops can’t process credit card transactions or open checking accounts. “They end up having a safe in the back with all this cash,” says Riffle.
Areas with a greater number of dispensaries, however, aren’t correlated with higher rates of crime, according to research by the University of California, Los Angeles. The study’s early results even suggest that dispensaries draw less crime than bars, though principal investigator Bridget Freisthler, a social welfare professor at UCLA, cautions that it’s too early in the project to tell for sure. The researchers are still investigating whether crime increases over time after a dispensary moves into a neighborhood. “There’s concern that the businesses themselves are going to be targets, but also the patients as they enter or leave the dispensaries,” Freisthler says.
6. “You can stop whenever you want? Ha ha.”
Back when he was a doctor in the Navy in the 1960s, Charles O’Brien had plenty of patients who smoked marijuana, but he and his colleagues thought little of it, worried more about those who used cocaine, heroin or alcohol. “We always used to pretty much neglect the treatment of marijuana addiction because it hardly ever occurred, and it just wasn’t a big problem,” he says.
But that’s changed in recent years, as mental health professionals have begun to recognize cannabis dependence and withdrawal as official disorders, though they are still controversial: Withdrawal was just added to the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, or the DSM-5, this year. And doctors say that just because people are using marijuana for medical reasons, it doesn’t mean they are immune to addiction, says Dartmouth psychiatry professor Budney.
On the bright side, doctors say, withdrawal symptoms of marijuana are not as severe or threatening as those associated with alcohol and heroin, such as delirium and vomiting: Cannabis withdrawal symptoms include irritability, sleeplessness, restlessness and loss of appetite, Budney says. “You’re not going to die from marijuana, and you’re not going to end up in the hospital, but it can have pretty miserable consequences.” Occasional use (once a week or once a month, instead of every day) is less likely to cause dependence, O’Brien adds. And as Riffle at the Marijuana Policy Project points out, studies have found that only 9% to 10% of people who use marijuana become addicted, compared with about 25% of heroin users and 15% of alcohol users.
7. “You’ll pay for this — out of pocket.”
State legislatures and some doctors may approve marijuana as a medical treatment, but to insurance companies, smoking pot for health might as well be a joke. America’s Health Insurance Plans, an organization representing carriers, says health plans currently don’t cover the cost of a single bud of medical marijuana, to conform to federal government regulations. That means health plans neither pay for the marijuana itself, nor the doctor’s visit for a treatment consultation. While doctors’ fees generally run much higher than standard copays, dispensary prices are comparable to what dealers charge on the street, industry marketers say.
Life insurance carriers seldom give medical marijuana users a break, either: Instead, most companies treat medicinal pot smokers the same as cigarette smokers, sticking them with rates twice as high as healthy people’s premiums, says Jeff Root, an Austin-based insurance agent who runs the independent firm Root Financial. Prudential is among the few that don’t penalize consumers simply for medicinal marijuana use. Another insurer, Lincoln Benefit Life, a subsidiary of Allstate, says medical marijuana users may qualify for cheaper nonsmoker rates (depending on how they consume the drug, and the medical reason for use). Still other insurers won’t insure pot users at all, at least not without a doctor’s note: “Some companies, if you aren’t prescribed, they won’t take you,” Root says.
8. “There’s a dispensary in the bathroom of this dispensary.”
States might have anticipated that legalizing weed would cause stores selling it to sprout up like, well, weeds. But the industry has grown so fast, local governments have struggled to keep track of all the businesses, and dispensaries have been caught in the middle of political battles, even in cities with the friendliest laws. Denver, for example, recently released a report admitting that officials don’t actually know how many medical marijuana businesses are within city limits: While the city counted 739, state records showed 676, and a spokesman for the city says it believes the true number is closer to 500. “This is a place where there’s more pot shops than Starbucks,” says Bierman, the dispensary consultant. (Indeed, there are only 415 Starbucks locations in the entire state of Colorado, according to the company’s latest annual report.)
Local officials worry that such rapid growth will lead to widespread use by individuals without a prescription. The UCLA study, in fact, found that the more medical marijuana dispensaries and delivery services a city has, the more its residents use marijuana—regardless of whether they have a medical reason. Some dispensaries, UCLA’s Freisthler says, will sell pot by the quarter-pound — a quantity that is four to 30 times the amount patients typically buy (an eighth-ounce to an ounce) and worth as much as $1,000 or more. (Neither shops nor doctors issue guidelines on how much pot to use at a time and how frequently.) It’s a pattern that has also been observed with alcohol: “More liquor stores and bars increase problems related to alcohol use,” Freisthler says.
While cities like Los Angeles have tried to crack down on the number of dispensaries, with moratoriums and shutdowns, the ongoing tug of war hasn’t scared many people in the business, who don’t believe the regulations are enforceable: “Hundreds of millions of dollars are flowing through this, and it’s impossible to put it back in the bag,” Bierman says.
9. “But our storefronts are practically invisible.”
Among the reasons marijuana dispensaries are so difficult for cities to keep count of are that some operate without licenses, some masquerade as another type of business, and some simply go out of business. Even medical marijuana industry associations say they can’t keep a national tally on shops. And some industry insiders like it that way.
Fears of law enforcement and patient demand for discreetness top the list of reasons. But there’s also the tax angle to consider: Dispensaries often face tax rates up to double what other businesses pay, so some may underreport their income, says Riffle at the Marijuana Policy Project. And some pretend to be, or double as, say, spas or health food stores, so that they can deposit their cash in a bank and process credit card transactions, says Denis Berckefeldt, Denver’s director of government relations.
Dispensaries disguise their appearance in many ways, with some so unassuming that only insiders can find them. Bierman, the dispensary consultant, says some states require that shops look like medical clinics. Elsewhere, they may have blacked-out windows or be labeled with green crosses (like green versions of the Red Cross logo), the industry’s version of a pharmacy symbol. Still others resemble traditional neighborhood saloons, says Freisthler. One Hollywood dispensary, for instance, advertises that it specializes in “healthy alternatives” to smoking, including electronic cigarettes, organic e-liquids and vaporizers, but “it really sort of felt like a laid back corner bar,” she says.
On the other hand, several states with legal medicinal marijuana have few stores that sell it, or none, Bierman says. Eight of the 20 legalized states don’t even allow dispensaries, including Michigan, Oregon and Maryland. In those states, “patients are just legally protected to use the marijuana, [but] there’s no legal way to obtain the medicine,” says Nicolazzo, of MarijuanaDoctors. People have to either grow the marijuana plants themselves or appoint a grower known as a “caregiver” to provide it for them. “A 65-year-old patient isn’t going to know how or be able to grow their own plants,” he adds.
10. “Using can still get you arrested.”
A few weeks ago, a medical marijuana patient was driving from Arizona through Nevada when a police officer pulled him over. Both states allow medicinal use, but when the man presented his stash along with his official Arizona patient card, he was cuffed and charged with drug possession, says Riffle, of the Marijuana Policy Project, who spoke with the patient soon after the incident.
With federal law still in direct conflict with states that have legalized marijuana, “sometimes the people who are doing their best to comply with state law are caught in the cross hairs,”says Riffle. While arrests of medical marijuana patients are rare, they continue to happen, Riffle says, especially in traffic-stop situations in states that don’t allow other states’ medicinal pot — even if it’s legal both places.
Government statistics don’t count patient arrests separately from overall pot offenses, but there are more arrests for marijuana possession than for any other drug abuse violation, with nearly 542,400 people arrested in 2011, according to the most recent FBI data. A portion of those, says Riffle, are likely patients who didn’t think they were breaking the law. Their charges are often dropped later, “but they have to go through the hassle and embarrassment and expense of dealing with the law.”
Patients are at a higher risk of being arrested in states with new marijuana laws like Massachusetts, because those states don’t yet have systems in place to verify who has their doctor’s approval. If a police officer stopped someone and found their medical marijuana, the patient would have nothing to show they were legal, so the officer would have to ask their doctor—which could be problematic outside of regular business hours. “That’s the difference between the patient going to jail and being authorized by their physician,” says Nicolazzo, COO of MarijuanaDoctors, which provides temporary recommendation forms that doctors can give to patients until an official option is available.
Lobbying groups like the Marijuana Policy Project are pushing for new bills that would amend federal law to recognize state marijuana laws, so consumers in compliance in their state wouldn’t be penalized. Even some doctors who don’t support medical use of marijuana support the protection of patients who use it: “The one thing I can say confidently is having people arrested and thrown into prison for just using a little marijuana is just not a good thing,” says the University of Pennsylvania’s O’Brien.
