Medical marijuana for an L.A. Times columnist

For a lot of people, the details about medical marijuana can be hazy. Hundreds of dispensaries have grown like weeds around Los Angeles, some of which are open as late as fast-food restaurants (a blessed coincidence). But how does one get a prescription to use this medicine?

Thankfully, L.A. Times columnist Steve Lopez broke down part of the process in his column today about his visit to the medical marijuana doctor.

In his account, Lopez educates us about obtaining a marijuana “recommendation” from an obstetrician who had advertised as being someone who could write a script for the controversial bud. 

So the question is: Is Lopez’s account of visiting the doctor an accurate depiction of the experience?

Do you agree with him that we’re better off legalizing the plant? Or do the recreational users who abuse the system need to be, excuse the pun, weeded out?

Our interactive map of L.A. marijuana dispensaries shows which are licensed and which have been denied applications -- it also marks their proximity to schools, parks and libraries. What do you think about the location of these dispensaries? Does it matter that they are so close to schools and public spaces? Or do you consider this much ado about nothing?

-- Kelsey Ramos

Photo: Various strains of medical marijuana sit on a shelf inside Green Oasis, a medical mariujuana dispensary in Los Angeles. Credit: Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times

Where do you stand on the vaccination debate?

Neil Young had a hit with the tune "Needle and the Damage Done," but it seems like the Booster Shots blog struck a nerve after The Times interviewed author Chris Mooney about his book, "Unscientific America: How Scientific Illiteracy Threatens Our Future."

Apparently the use of vaccinations and their relationship (or lack thereof) with autism is still a hot topic. One in which emotions run high as people debate science.

While some readers like George Harvey don't think that vaccines cause autism, "I don't think that vaccines cause autism. There are several toxins in our common environment that are far more powerful in their possible effects than those in vaccines"; others, like OZ, said that science is not blameless, "Bad science has as much a role to play in Americans' distrust of 'big science' as any other reason given."

Over 50 comments have been submitted to the Booster Shots post, including this one from someone who seems quite well-versed on the topic:

I am a former scientist (molecular geneticist) and now a parent to a son with autism, who had speech and eye contact and several words until age 18 months. He received 5 vaccines on one day, and then became ill, lethargic and irritable. He lost all speech and eye contact. I question the live viruses given in both the Varicella and Measles vaccine (MMR) in that they cause neuro-inflammation in a subset of genetically predisposed children. I am really tired of listening to those in my (own) scientific community take an authoritative stance that there is absolutely no connection between autism and vaccines. I have studied those 'studies' and they are either paid for by the very vaccine companies themselves or filled with flaws in sample size, testing methods, conclusions. No researcher has studied the neuro-inflammation in infants when given 36 vaccines before their 2 year birthday. No researcher has studied all vaccines or combinations of vaccines. Safety studies/clinical trials on single vaccines- yes- but we aren't giving our children just one vaccine are we? No, in fact, we have 150+ vaccines in clinical trials just waiting to release to the pediatric population. I am not anti-vaccine. I believe in vaccines for life threatening illnesses. However, are we going to have vaccines for every infectious pathogen?

So what are you thoughts on this sensitive, but very important matter?

-- Tony Pierce

Photo credit: Tim Sloan / AFP/Getty Images

Three years after Measure Y, Santa Monica is seeing the effects of pot decriminalization

 

An in-depth review of police data by the Santa Monica Daily Press has revealed that Measure Y -- which made adult marijuana offenses on private property the lowest priority of the Santa Monica Police Department -- is having a big effect on drug enforcement.

According to the study, in the two years since measure Y took effect, Santa Monica has not issued a single citation for offenses involving the personal use of marijuana in private residences. 

Supporters of marijuana decriminalization are hailing the findings as proof that Santa Monica is moving in the right direction with its marijuana policy.

"There's no harm done by individuals smoking marijuana in the privacy of their homes," said Bill Zimmerman, president of the political consulting firm Zimmerman and Markman and campaign manager for Proposition 215. "Why would we waste our police resources on an offense that 10 million Americans — including our three most recent presidents — have admitted engaging in?"

The Santa Monica police, on the other hand, claim that marijuana-related calls were already a low priority and argue that the measure is hampering the department's ability to enforce the law.

"It imposes administrative rules for something that isn't really there," said Sgt. Jay Trisler. "It just took one component of enforcement — inside residences — and delayed it due to prioritization of calls."

"Previously, we could respond in time to get there while someone was still smoking," Trisler added. "Now, we can't usually respond while the crime is still occurring, and that's resulting in possibly not finding larger crimes."

What do you think?  Is Measure Y a step in the right direction or is it limiting the Police Department's ability to pursue crimes?

--Brendan Bigelow

Photo: A pot dispensary employee holds a handful of marijuana. Credit: Ed Andrieski/Associated Press

No marijuana taxation without legalization

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) has proposed a measure that would legalize and regulate marijuana sales in California. In light of state's economic woes, the proposal is attracting considerable interest -- particularly in the wake of a report released Wednesday that indicates a marijuana tax could increase state revenue by as much as $1.4 billion. 

The Drug Policy Alliance was one of the first groups to publicly support the report, saying that it “amplifies the escalating national discussion of marijuana policy.” 

Law enforcement groups were less ecstatic about the measure, however, fearing that decriminalization would lead to widespread marijuana use. 

L.A. Times readers have generally come out in support for marijuana decriminalization and regulation:

"Seems like we are beginning to get a more practical picture about marijuana and its potential benefits for the state and it's residents. It's about time," said steveC.

"This is inevitably going to happen, why delay it when everyone benefits. Increased tax revenue, prison population relief, as well as a reduction in revenue for organized crime groups are all positive benefits that taxed, legal marijuana can bring," wrote Louie.

Student CSUFwas quick to point out the other ways marijuana legalization could help the economy, including an "increase in sales for Visine / Clear Eyes and late night snacks."

Bummer, dude: Readers disagree with charges against pot dispensary operator

During his trial, Charles Lynch came to represent the growing discrepancies between state and federal drug enforcement policies. On Thursday, he was sentenced to a year and a day in prison.

Lynch, who operated a medical marijuana dispensary in Morro Bay, was convicted last summer of cultivating and distributing marijuana, despite being sanctioned by his town's mayor.  Lynch's attorneys struggled to defend him, in part because of a Supreme Court ruling that bars medical necessity from being used as a defense against federal drug charges. 

During sentencing, U.S. District Judge George H. Wu expressed his sympathy toward  Lynch, noting that he had little choice but to impose the minimum sentence.

Although the trial has come to a close, the debate over California's medical marijuana laws is still ongoing.  Most L.A. Now readers expressed outrage over the sentencing, arguing that prosecuting owners of pot dispensaries is a waste of government resources.

"Your tax dollars at hard work while CA goes broke. I'm glad that real crime (murder, gang warface, rape, child molestation, embezzlement, the financial sector, etc...) has been resolved so that we can waste time and tax money investigating and prosecuting somebody for growing a plant... Every one of you deserves a hearty pat on the back for putting such a dangerous and vile monster behind bars," mslade wrote.

(Read more comments after the jump)

Can pot save the California budget?

Valuations of illicit activity, whether it’s drug sales, street crime or porn distribution, are notoriously fantasy-ridden. It’s hard to track what are, after all, cash businesses disinclined to file their tax returns on time.

Yet the media always accept such figures as gospel. In the last few months, marijuana’s supposed top rank in California agriculture has appeared in newspapers across the country, including this one, and been cited on CNN and NBC. Often it’s accompanied by other turbo-charged stats, to the effect that the value of the state crop is $14 billion, part of a nationwide marijuana trade worth more than $100 billion a year (including imports).

Is it coincidental that these figures are appearing just when the pot lobby has discovered that the fiscal argument for legalization has acquired real traction among cash-strapped state legislatures? In Sacramento, where a legalization bill has been introduced by Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco), state officials estimate that taxing weed could bring in more than $1 billion a year.

Yet these facts are all soft. We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that purveyors of statistics about illicit activity often inflate them -- whether to claim legitimacy for the activity, or (if they are law-enforcement agencies) to frighten voters into supporting funding for more officers, guns, and helicopters.

On the basic issue of whether marijuana should be legalized, there are sound arguments in favor and sound arguments against. Certainly prohibition places a huge burden on all levels of government, amounting to tens of billions of dollars a year squandered on police, court systems, and prisons, not to mention lives ruined over what is largely a victimless crime.

But the toll from addiction to the legal drugs of alcohol and tobacco is also heavy. Legalization advocates argue that regulating rather than criminalizing pot would give us tools to prevent underage use, a precursor to lifelong drug abuse. On the other hand, allowing the master marketers at Philip Morris and Anheuser-Busch to hawk yet another addictive but legal product wouldn’t be a great way to encourage "responsible" use.

The real danger is that voters, overcome by pot-inspired visions of dancing dollar signs, will make their judgment about the legal status of the drug without fully considering these pros and cons. The truth is, no one really knows how much legalization might earn for the public purse, or whether the gains would outweigh the costs. Given how sketchy the real prospect is of a tax windfall from pot, should we inhale?

Read the complete column: Marijuana valuations in California are hallucinations

-- Michael Hiltzik

Photo credit: Raul Arboleda/AFP/Getty Images

Former Orange County judge backs the legalization of pot; do you?

Steve Lopez visited a former Orange County judge who is not just supporting a bill that would legalize marijuana so that the state could tax it, but he is willing to go on the record to say that the war on drugs is a lost.

I'm sitting in Costa Mesa with a silver-haired gent who once ran for Congress as a Republican and used to lock up drug dealers as a federal prosecutor, a man who served as an Orange County judge for 25 years. And what are we talking about? He's begging me to tell you we need to legalize drugs in America.

"Please quote me," says Jim Gray, insisting the war on drugs is hopeless. "What we are doing has failed."

As far as I can tell, Gray is not off his rocker. He's not promoting drug use, he says for clarification. Anything but. If he had his way, half the revenue we would generate from taxing and regulating drugs would be plowed back into drug prevention education, and there'd be rehab on demand.

Lopez writes "If Gray had his way, no one under 21 could buy drugs. But anyone older than that could legally buy marijuana -- which, he says, causes nowhere near the amount of death and disease as alcohol. The state would need to see how that works, he said, before moving on to legalizing the sale of harder drugs. Sure, he says, legalization might lead to more toking at first, but he believes drug use would wane when it's no longer forbidden and the novelty wears off."

So the question is, what do you think? Have we lost the war on drugs? Is it more economical to legalize the weed and tax it? State your case below in the comments and/or vote in the poll here.

-- Tony Pierce

A state police officer stands amid marijuana plants found in a greenhouse at a ranch in Tecate, Mexico, Thursday, March 12, 2009. According to Baja California State Police, over 3800 plants of marijuana were found in the ranch during an operation. (AP Photo/Guillermo Arias)

Could Measure AB 390 put a 360 on California's budget woes?

What do the former sheriff of San Francisco, a retired Orange County judge, and an assemblyman from S.F. have in common? They all believe that the legalization and taxation of California's so-called largest cash crop could bring in around a billion dollars in tax revenue to the state coffers.

Assemblyman Tom Ammiano introduced a bill on Monday that he considers nothing more than a bit of fiscal common sense, says the SF Weekly who explains that the  Marijuana Control, Regulation, and Education Act would:

"Remove all penalties under California law for the cultivation, transportation, sale, purchase, possession, and use of marijuana, natural THC and paraphernalia by persons over the age of 21," "prohibit local and state law enforcement officials from enforcing federal marijuana laws (more on that later)" and establish a fee of $50 an ounce on marijuana on top of whatever pot will cost in a legal future - which legalization advocates say is about half what it costs now. This tax rate figures at about a buck a joint.

Moreover, the Times' Eric Bailey reports that Ammiano claims that legalization would, among other benefits, allow law enforcement to focus on more serious crimes, and protect nature "from the uprooting of environmentally destructive backcountry pot plantations that denude fragile ecosystems."

But the biggest boon might be to the bottom line,  By some estimates, California's pot crop is a $14-billion industry, putting it above vegetables ($5.7 billion) and grapes ($2.6 billion). If so, that could mean upward of $1 billion in tax revenue for the state each year.

Are you buying it? Some say marijuana is a gateway drug to harder vices, and not at all worth the financial windfall. But what do you think?

-- Tony Pierce

Photo of Manwell Hernandez, an associate at the Cornerstone Collective medical marijuana dispensary by Don Bartletti / Los Angeles Times

Marijuana use tied to testicular cancer? Readers aren't so sure.

A controversial new study, posted on the Booster Shots blog Feb. 9, reports a connection between pot use in young males and testicular cancer. The study, and the post, were mostly greeted with extreme skepticism from readers. Comments ranged from alleging government conspiracy to suggesting that this was merely reactionary publishing in the wake of the controversial Michael Phelps bong photo.

Joseph said: Any institution wanting to do a study on the effects of marijuana needs to go through the U.S. Government to have samples released for testing. Remember, marijuana is federally illegal to possess. This includes scientific studies as well. Whenever the U.S. Government has oversight and control over a study on anything, they tend to make the results fit their predetermined agenda, especially when it comes to the subject of marijuana. I am not a smoker, and yet I find this coincidently-timed pile of BS just another attempt to insult the intelligence of the American people. Marijuana has been used for thousands of years by many cultures, and as far as I can tell, with 6.5 billion people on this planet and growing, it hasn’t affected reproductive organs one iota.

Chrissy said: So, we have known for how many years that cigarettes cause far worse problems, and still nothing is done about it. If Phelps had been pictured smoking a cigarette no body would have thought twice about it.
Medical Marijuana is being used not to FIGHT cancer, but to help cancer patients get through the tough treament by mitigating nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety. It can also be used in less harmful ways than smoking, such at through a vaporizer or ingestion.
As a substance that has proven to be less harmful than tobacco, it's way past time to legalize it.

PR. Opaganda said: of the 80 or so million who have smoked cannabis what percentage of those have any form of testicular cancer? propaganda ......shame shame L.A. Times. If this were true most of them would ...bad LA times BAD!

Some readers argued the scientific methods in the report were flawed... their comments after the jump:

Alex Rodriguez strikes out with fans

After Alex Rodriguez's admission during an interview with ESPN that he used performance enhancing drugs during his three-year stint with the Texas Rangers, the baseball player has been facing much scrutiny in the sports world. This comes amid the Sports Illustrated report that stated that Rodriguez did test positive in 2003 for anabolic steroids, the year in which the players were tested anonymously. While he cannot be banned from the MLB, Rodriguez is paying for it in the eyes of the public -- even die-hard New York Yankees' fans are turning foe.

Jorge I. Gomez said: There are no super humans and athletes are part of the human race, so when you see an athlete -- what a misnomer -- that bulks his physic to that of a weightlifter or doing things that would tire any other human being, then those "athletes" are using drugs. Just because some of them don't get caught, doesn't mean they are not using drugs, it means that they know how to play the gotcha game better than officials.

Baseball Fan said: The anonymity was granted by Major League Baseball. The results are becoming public as a result of a federal probe. If the mafia promised its members anonymity lying on their taxes, that doesn't mean law enforcement is bound to respect that deal. Thank goodness the names are coming out. Baseball won't clean itself up. Only having their addiction to steroids exposed in public is going to move players to stop using the stuff.

Ken said: Baseball was desperate to win the fans back after the strike.
They knew what was going on.
The numbers dont lie.
I love it how theyre playing "dumb" to this whole mess.

Do you think three years of steroid use equals three strikes, and Rodriguez should be out of baseball forever? Does coming clean mean that all your past mistakes can be forgiven? Will we see an increase of Boston Red Sox fans now that the Yankees' player has tarnished their reputation? Comment below.

-- Michelle Castillo

In this video frame grab, Alex Rodriguez is interviewed by ESPN's Peter Gammons on Monday, Feb. 9, 2009. Rodriguez admitted during the interview that he used performance-enhancing drugs from 2001-03, saying he did so because of the pressures of being baseball's highest-paid player. AP Photo/ESPN