Can marijuana be legal?

Marijuana has always been available wherever I've lived, it wasn't until I moved to California that I could go to a store (a.k.a. collective/cooperative or club) and just buy for a fair cost whatever I needed. There are limits to how much one can have at any one time but the max is half a pound which I'd be hard pressed to go through in under six months. That's me. I've used it off and on recreationally and medicinally for sleeping, anxiety, although it wasn't until I came to California that I actually became educated about different strains and the two main types of pot. Indica and Sativa. Indica brings you down and Sativa takes you up, basically. Of course, there are hybrid strains that have percentages of both Indica and Sativa in them and the craziest of names for all the various strains on the market like NYC Diesel, Purple Headband, SB Kush, Strawberry Cough, Majesty, etc. Currently, Santa Barbara, where I live, only has a handful of clubs with more on the horizon. I've only been to one so far which I have to say was very professionally run. It was like walking into a doctor's office. There was this very sweet receptionist (another Florida native) who took my info and reviewed my medical recommendation (a formal document each patient must have in order to buy). I was then escorted into another room that was set up like an herbalist shop. There were approximately 15 different strains in glass jars in a glass case with matching samples jars on the counter for you to inspect. In another case, there was a small variety of edibles including lollipops, cookies, and assorted baked goods. The prices for all the merchandise were as low as $8 bucks for an edible to as much as $350 for a half pound, which is the legal max any one person can have at one time. Although, it's interesting that one can also grow up to six mature plants that could potentially yield way more than just a half pound. Loophole. Shhh. Ultimately, I believe this is a good thing as my friend Martha would say. It takes the power away from the illegal cartels and brings new revenue to the state or county. All the fears associated with its use can also be said regarding alcohol but the evidence would suggest that the two really don't compare. I'm not going to go into all that here as there are plenty of sites out there to discuss the pros and cons. It's just liberating to see a progressive action take place, not just in California but in 13 states and accompanying bills emerging in Congress.

Where do you stand on the issue? Let me know.

Below are some sites for further info and an article from the Wall Street Journal on recent developments regarding the issue.

For states that have legal marijuana use laws on the books click here.

For a copy of California's law regarding medical marijuana use click here.

From the WSJ by Justin Scheck at justin.scheck@wsj.com and Stu Woo at Stu.Woo@wsj.com

LAKE FOREST, Calif. -- Sellers of marijuana as a medicine here don't fret about raids any more. They've stopped stressing over where to hide their stash or how to move it unseen.
Now their concerns involve the state Board of Equalization, which collects sales tax and requires a retailer ID number. Or city planning offices, which insist that staircases comply with the Americans With Disabilities Act. Then there is marketing strategy, which can mean paying to be a "featured dispensary" on a Web site for pot smokers.
After years in the shadows, medical marijuana in California is aspiring to crack the commercial mainstream.

"I want to do everything I can to run this as a legitimate business," says Jan Werner, 55 years old, who invested in a pot store in a shopping mall after 36 years as a car salesman.

State voters decreed back in 1996 that Californians had a right to use marijuana for any illness -- from cancer to anorexia to any other condition it might help. But supplying "med pot" remained risky. The ballot measure didn't specify who could sell it or how. The state provided few guidelines, leaving local governments to impose a patchwork of restrictions. Above all, because pot possession remained illegal under U.S. law, sellers had to worry about federal raids.

But in February, the Justice Department said it would adhere to President Barack Obama's campaign statement that federal agents no longer would target med-pot dealers who comply with state law.

Since then, vendors who had kept a low profile have begun to expand, and entrepreneurs who had avoided cannabis have begun to invest.
Some now are using traditional business practices like political lobbying and supply-chain consolidation. Others are seeking capital or offering investment banking for pot purveyors. In Oakland, a school offers courses such as "Cannabusiness 102" and calls itself Oaksterdam University, after the pot-friendly Dutch city. As shops proliferate, there are even signs the nascent industry could be heading for another familiar business phenomenon: the bubble.
Medical use of pot now is legal in 13 states. It is also facing some resistance. New Hampshire's Democratic governor, John Lynch, vetoed a med-pot bill this month, citing inadequate safeguards. Los Angeles, which passed a moratorium on new dispensaries in 2007, is trying to close a loophole that has led to an explosion of new ones.

John Lovell, a lobbyist for the California Peace Officers' Association, objects to "the notion that marijuana is safe and can be used for any and all purposes to heal any and all ailments," adding: "There are 34 different elements in marijuana smoke that are shared with tobacco." He and others also complain about the ease with which patients can get pot recommendations from certain doctors.

Still, at a time of deep recession, the med-pot business is attracting career switchers. Mr. Werner was the sales manager of a Chrysler dealership, and dismayed with the collapse of car sales. He had a doctor's recommendation to smoke pot, for pain from a spinal condition. One day a car-dealer friend, Bill Shofner, who also had a pot recommendation (for migraines), suggested: Why not become pot vendors?

The mellowing of federal regulations for selling medical marijuana has created a crop of pot entrepreneurs with dreams of taking their homegrown businesses into the stock market. Justin Scheck and Stu Woo report from California. Each invested $40,000. Following state guidelines, they set up as a nonprofit, called Lake Forest Community Collective, from which they would draw salaries. It is on the second floor of a strip mall in the Los Angeles suburb of Lake Forest that also houses Mexican restaurants and a Peet's Coffee shop. A customer first encounters a brightly lit front room with a security window and an Obama poster, then is buzzed into a vestibule with an ATM. Beyond that is a spotless room with glass cases displaying pot in pill bottles. Scribbled on a board are prices, from $10 to $25 a gram, for different strains: Sour Diesel, Purple Urkel, Bubba Hash. Sour Diesel is popular, says a volunteer, and "really potent."
This still is a far cry from, say, Amsterdam, where pot remains illegal but authorities are so tolerant that pot is available in coffeehouses.

In California, pot sales, legal and illegal, are estimated to total $14 billion a year. Medical marijuana makes up maybe an eighth of that, says Dale Gieringer, director of the state's chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. He estimates the state has three million pot smokers, including 350,000 with doctors' recommendations.
The state taxes med-pot sales, and on Tuesday, the city of Oakland added its own special tax.
In Lake Forest, Messrs. Werner and Shofner pay about $4,000 for a pound of marijuana, retailing it for about $6,000. They don't break even yet, the two say.
The business is a little like selling cars in one way, Mr. Shofner says: The longer they hold their stock, the less it is worth. Aging marijuana loses both potency and weight.
Med-pot sellers say they generally avoid marijuana from Mexican cartels; the risks are higher and the quality is lower. Messrs. Werner and Shofner say they at first bought largely from far-northern California, where clandestine growers also supply the underground market.
For reasons of cost and consistency, they have been taking fuller control of the supply chain. A few months ago they gave money to members of their collective for grow lamps and other equipment, and now they get much of their supply from them. "It's like McDonald's" making deals with potato farmers, Mr. Werner says.
Some vendors are toying with another familiar business model: vertical integration. In pot, that means growing as well as dealing. This was a risky approach when a federal raid could cost an owner his pot, his computers and maybe even his liberty. Now, one Los Angeles-area med-pot vendor says he has acquired land in Northern California and begun to grow his own.
Mr. Werner and his partner recently decided to expand. They signed leases for two new outlets.
They also have lost their wariness of advertising. The proliferation of dealers makes promotion essential. The two now pay several hundred dollars a month for ads on Web sites like Weedmaps.com, which helps people find medical pot.
Justin Hartfield, who started Weedmaps, says it has grown quickly to about $20,000 in monthly revenue, half from ads.
The rest comes from referring people to doctors who recommend pot. Mr. Hartfield bills the doctors $20 for each patient he sends them. The American Medical Association ethics code says payment for referrals is unethical. Mr. Hartfield says the doctors are keenly aware of the ethics issue and consider their payments not to be fees for referral but "advertising fees that change every month."
Shane Stuart, 23, says he used to buy weed from street dealers but in February saw an online ad for a pot-friendly doctor. He realized then, he says, that medical marijuana was becoming more mainstream and having a pot ID card wouldn't hurt him with employers. He came away from a $200 doctor visit with a note recommending pot for pain from a hyperextended knee.
Mr. Hartfield, the Weedmaps impresario, has a doctor's recommendation for marijuana "to ease my anxiety and help with my insomnia." Mr. Hartfield says the med-pot system is really just a way of legalizing marijuana for anyone who wants to smoke. He says his anxiety/insomnia isn't really serious enough to require treatment. "I'm fine. I don't really have it," he says. "The medical system is a total farce. I'm an example of that. It just needs to be legal."
Med-pot advocates say marijuana can ease chronic pain, spur appetite in anorexics or chemotherapy patients, and relieve eyeball pressure in glaucoma patients. The law voters approved in 1996 listed several conditions that might be helped but said so long as a doctor recommended pot, all "seriously ill Californians" had a right to it for "any...illness for which marijuana provides relief."
David Allen, a former Mississippi heart surgeon, last month opened a general practice in Sacramento and listed himself on a Web site as a pot-friendly doctor. Marijuana, says Dr. Allen, 57, "helps the common conditions that affect every human being -- for instance, anxiety, depression, insomnia and anorexia" -- and can relieve certain arthritis symptoms and muscle-spasm conditions.
Still, he says, many of his patients are people who already used pot but just wanted a doctor's recommendation to avoid legal trouble. "If I was to deny them, I would put them at more risk, and I'd be hurting society by doing this as well," he says. "Cannabis is safer than aspirin."
Dr. Allen smokes pot for insomnia, anxiety and stress. He says he quit heart surgery because what he does now is more lucrative. He says he doesn't pay for referrals, a practice he considers unethical.
As the business matures, ancillary ventures are springing up. In Oakland, OD Media manages advertising and branding for about a dozen pot clients. An Oakland lawyer, James Anthony, and three partners have started a firm called Harborside Management Associates to give dealers business advice. A pot activist named Richard Cowan has opened what he envisions as an investment bank for pot-related businesses, called General Marijuana.
Mr. Cowan is also chief financial officer of Cannabis Science Inc., which is trying to market a pot lozenge for nonsmokers. It was founded by Steve Kubby, a longtime medical-marijuana advocate who a decade ago was acquitted of a pot-growing charge but briefly jailed for having illegal mushrooms in his home. Mr. Kubby says there is "no more alternative culture" at the company, which went public in March and has hired a former pharmaceutical-industry scientist to try to win Food and Drug Administration approval for the lozenge. Mr. Kubby left as CEO this month in a dispute with the board.
Part of the opposition medical marijuana continues to face is rooted in concern that unsavory characters from the illegal-drugs business will get involved. The city attorney of Lake Forest, where Messrs. Werner and Shofner have their store, recently sent a letter to the landlords of pot dispensaries asking them to evict tenants. Mr. Shofner says he reached a settlement with his landlord to stay.
To defend their interests, some pot proprietors are hiring lobbyists. Messrs. Shofner and Werner pay consulting fees to Ryan Michaels, a political organizer with an expertise in med-pot compliance issues.
There are signs medical pot's increasing business legitimacy is crowding the market. A 20-mile stretch of Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley now has close to 100 places to buy. "So many dispensaries have come along, the prices are dropping," says one operator, Calvin Frye. Two years ago, his least expensive pot was about $60 for an eighth of an ounce. Now it is $45.
Across the country, a med-pot bill is working its way through New York's state legislature. If it makes it, entrepreneurs are getting ready.
Larry Lodi, a 49-year-old Little League umpire from Long Island, spent two days at Oaksterdam University in May, learning the fine points of cultivation and distribution. Mr. Lodi envisions a business that would link the growers and the sellers of medical marijuana. "I want to be the middleman," he says.

A Disturbing Experience

In my quest for deeper understanding of my own being and spiritual nature, I sometimes take extreme measures. I recently read a book called 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl by Daniel Pinchbeck and following his own shamanic lead, decided to try a visionary herb widely known as Salvia Divinorum. Usually this particular entheogen is smoked and very quickly brings on an intense visionary experience that doesn't last very long but I had heard about a tincture form of the herb known as Emerald Essence that could be taken internally and deliver a much longer and satisfying experience. I had read that one could experience profound insights into the earliest memories and sometimes previous life memories while others have had reality bending experiences similar to LSD or Mushroom trips. Also, unlike nearly all other entheogens, Salvia is still legal in most states and I could simply order it off the web and have it delivered.

Once receiving the small dark bottle, I waited for a time that I could be in the right meditative mind set and have the privacy to under take what I hoped would be a fantastic inner journey. I read all the accompanying literature that came with the product and followed the instructions carefully. You have to keep the tincture in the mouth, under the tongue, for no less than 15 minutes. It's active component Salvironin A can only become active when absorbed through the mucousal lining in the mouth and would become inactive if simply digested. I was warned the tincture might have a intense stinging sensation due to its grain alcohol base, but I wasn't concerned because I both make and take tinctures regularly; however, I don't make them with grain alcohol. The first time I tried the product, I placed three droppers full or shots directly under my tongue. I had planned on doing four but my mouth became so salivated that I couldn't get any more in. While I waited the appropriate amount of time, my mouth did burn quite noticeably. After fifteen minutes, I swallowed the salivated tincture and waited for what was described as a moderate undiluted dose. Unfortunately all I experienced was a sense of drunkenness, I had to lay down, and an extreme pressure in my temporal lobes. There was the faintest hint of hallucinogenic patterns emerging behind my eyes but I almost had to strain to make them out. I waited for the effects to diminish and chalked it up to a false start.

The second time, I pre-poured five droppers full into a shot glass and took it all at once. I waited the appropriate amount of time and decided to spit out the remaining tincture. The sense of drunkenness was much more increased this time. I nearly stumbled to the bathroom while my house swirled around me. I had no sense of balance. I barely remember spitting green into the sink and attempting to wash out my entire mouth to relieve the burning that had somehow gotten focused on the roof of my mouth. I kept thinking one of my roommates would hear me and come to see what was up. I thought I was being so noisy, but no one came. I also thought about calling out for help which is something I've never experienced with a hallucinogen before. I made my way back to my room with much difficulty. I kept loosing little spans of time. It was like watching yourself under a strobe light and all the while I had little balance. I went immediately to my bed and crawled under the covers. I felt an intense pressure again but this time it was on the roof of my mouth. It felt like something was pressing hard against it. I remember my feet were ice cold even though I had on socks and was under two comforters. I kept drifting for moments on end through incomprehensible vistas that were nothing like either LSD or mushrooms. I felt decidedly uncomfortable. I had no profound insights except to not attempt this again. I guess I had the infamous bad trip. Once it finally subsided, it seemed as if only twenty or so minutes had passed but it was actually like two and a half hours. I got up again and wolfed down some ice cream to cool the burnt parts of my mouth and then I returned to bathroom to brush my teeth and try to get some of the tincture stains out. Did I mention that the tincture stains the inside of your mouth green? The roof of my mouth felt numb as if I had burned it on hot food. I was warned of this effect and had experienced it slightly before. It's no big deal and wears off after a day. I went back to bed and slept fitfully for the remainder of the night.

The following morning, this morning, I awoke to a dull headache but otherwise okay. I think I have a Salvia hangover. Ultimately, I'm disappointed that my experience was more disturbing than anything profound. The costs to achieve it were more than I would probably undertake again. And, truthfully, I preferred the effects of smoking the dried leaves much more than what the tincture brought. I suppose if you are a modern day shaman then this experience would be no big deal and perhaps there might be some deep insights to have gained, but for this soul seeker the Salvia tincture journey is over.