US DRUG POLICY CHANGE WELCOME
Finally, the U.S. government is waking up to the realization that it cannot jail its way out of a drug problem.
President Obama’s Department of Justice last year stopped making the problem worse, easing mandatory minimum sentencing in some cases. Last week, it offered a relatively narrow window for retroactive review.
The DOJ laid out criteria for a new and welcomed opportunity for inmates who have served at least a decade for low-level, nonviolent offenses to apply for clemency.
Decades of adherence to failed War on Drugs policies has helped make the U.S. the world’s largest jailer, with only 5 percent of the planet’s population but 25 percent of its inmates.
Of the nearly 217,000 federal inmates, half are incarcerated for drug crimes, according to the Bureau of Prisons. Yet drug usage has risen 2,800 percent since the War on Drugs began in 1971.
Senator Thwarts Bid to Open Production to More Growers.
TALLAHASSEE – The Florida Senate voted 30-9 Friday to allow doctors to prescribe low-THC medical marijuana to patients suffering from cancer or epilepsy.
The move came after Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, beat back efforts to open marijuana production to more growers in Florida. Bradley warned that the late-hour amendment could endanger the legislation, which cleared the House on a 111-7 vote Thursday.
“We’re at day 60,” Bradley said of the two month session. “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of the good.”
The bill ( SB 1030 ) now goes to Gov. Rick Scott, who has said he will sign it into law.
Beginning in January 2015, doctors treating patients for cancer or “severe and persistent muscle spasms” associated with epilepsy could prescribe the low-THC marijuana. Under the bill, only Florida residents could obtain a prescription.
The bill puts other strong restrictions on the use of the drug. It can have no more than 0.8 percent THC, the chemical that makes users feel high. On average, marijuana has about 15 percent THC, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. The strain has normal levels of cannabidiol, or CBD, which is used to treat seizures.
Also, people would not be able to just walk into a doctor’s office and get a prescription. Only doctors have who have been providing ongoing treatment of a patient can prescribe it, and only as a last resort if other treatments aren’t effective.
The bill also would require the state to maintain a registry of eligible patients. The marijuana can’t be smoked and would be converted into an oil. Only four dispensaries would be allowed in the state, and they would be highly regulated. And only nurseries that have existed in the state for 30 years could grow it, a provision that concerned lawmakers because it would severely limit the number of potential growers.
After the vote, RayAnn Moseley, an 11-year-old girl who has up to 300 seizures a week, gave key lawmakers paintings she made of the sun shining and the words “RAY OF HOPE.”
Her parents, Peyton and Holley Moseley, have been fighting to get the bill passed, and Bradley said he has kept a photo of the girl on his desk since meeting her father.
“I’m looking forward to the day RayAnn gets to take her first treatment and to next year be able to come back and brag and say, ‘Oh my goodness! Look at her now!'” Holley Mosely said. “It makes me proud for her. She’s changing Florida law. She’s making history here.”
The Associated Press contributed to this story
MEDICAL MARIJUANA
In a turnaround, legislators gave overwhelming support to a medical marijuana proposal Scott has said he will sign. The proposal deals with a strain of marijuana that is low in euphoria-inducing tetrahydrocannabinol ( THC ) but high in cannabidiol ( CBD ). The strain, known as Charlotte’s Web, is supposed to dramatically reduce life-threatening seizures in children with a rare form of epilepsy but has not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Scott said he will sign the proposal ( SB 1030 ), though the governor failed to only allow patients involved in clinical trials to have access to the marijuana, usually administered in paste or oil form.
Politically, some Republican lawmakers were faced with a dilemma. For them, approving even a strain of cannabis that purportedly doesn’t get users high was troubling. What made it even more problematic was many Republicans’ staunch opposition to a proposed constitutional amendment on the November ballot that would allow doctors to order regular marijuana for critically ill patients.