Sativex - marijuana by prescription

This is the last of three posts on ending the War on Drugs.

Unlike the federal government, states aren’t allowed to run deficits. Since the 2008 economic collapse, both Democratic and Republican dominated states have been extremely proactive in reducing law enforcement costs by enacting drug liberalization legislation. This mainly takes the form of laws legalizing marijuana use for medical purposes and laws reducing personal marijuana use to a misdemeanor punishable by a fine.

While marijuana decriminalization is typically associated with liberal Democratic states, it enjoys growing support in Republican states facing harsh budget realities. According to Mother Jones magazine, among Republicans, 61% support legalizing marijuana for medical use and 33% support total decriminalization. Approximately 50% of Americans overall support marijuana decriminalization. http://motherjones.com/politics/2010/09/tea-party-marijuana-legalization

Tea Party Support for Decriminalization

The Georgia Tea Party also supports decriminalization (http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=115334838544068&topic=56), as does a Kentucky Tea Party group called Take Back Kentucky. The latter, who were instrumental in Rand Paul winning a 2010 Senate seat strongly back hemp legalization, in part as an alternative crop for tobacco farmers hurt by anti-smoking legislation (http://www.willowtown.com/promo/blogfpnov10a.htm).

Decriminalization to Reduce Budget Deficits

Fifteen states and Washington D.C. have passed medical marijuana laws. This includes a number of traditionally Republican states (Kansas, Alabama, Tennessee, Nebraska, Alaska, Montana, and Nevada). Sixteen states (Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania) have passed laws making any marijuana possession (and in some states cultivation) for personal use a misdemeanor offense punishable by a fine. The California law was signed by Republican governor Arnold Schwarzenegger before leaving office last year. Local authorities in eight other states (Arkansas, Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Montana, Missouri, Michigan and Kansas) have made marijuana possession a misdemeanor within city limits.

Eight states are considering bills to fully decriminalize marijuana. Connecticut, the first state to enact paid sick leave, is also expected to be the first make marijuana possession a civil offense, like a traffic ticket, punishable with a $150 fine.

Decriminalization Efforts in California

With marijuana its largest cash crop, California has the strongest decriminalization movement. At $14 billion annually, cannabis-generated revenue is double that of vegetables and grapes combined.

A decriminalization initiative on the November 2010 ballot was narrowly defeated (53.8% No to 46.2%). A recent analysis in the Nation attributed the defeat to a conspiracy theory circulating among pot growers and elderly users that the tobacco giant R J Reynolds was buying up land and planning a corporate takeover of California production and distribution once personal marijuana use became legal. This was despite an absolute denial by the cigarette manufacturer that have any interest in expanding into marijuana. http://www.thenation.com/article/157001/altered-state-californias-pot-economy

Enter Big Pharma

The rumors have some basis in reality, given the way Big Pharma has moved into the medical marijuana market. In 2007, the British drug company GW Pharmaceuticals announced that it had partnered with the Japanese company Otsuka to bring “Sativex” – a liquefied marijuana sprayed under the tongue – to the U.S.  Sativex recently completed Phase II efficacy and safety trials studies, and the manufacturer is in discussion with the FDA regarding Phase III testing. Phase III is generally thought to be the final step before the drug can be marketed in the U.S.

Sativex is already in use in Britain, Spain, Germany, Denmark, Canada, the Czech Republic and New Zealand.

Vaknin’s fourth criterion for a semi-failed state is that it replaces rational infrastructure reconstruction and policy making with empire building. In his view irrational empire building is a signal that a semi-failed state is in the final stages of becoming a failed state.

He gives four examples. The first is US empire building in the US prior to the Civil War. Americans tend not to recognize aggressive westward expansion between 1812 and 1860 as empire building – nor our own civil war as prima facie evidence of a breakdown in national governance.

His other three examples are Nazi Germany, the USSR between 1956 and 1986 and post-1989 Yugoslavia (referring to Serbian nationalism and expansionism). I would also add the Roman Empire – as the fall of Rome was preceded by massive empire building in France, North Africa, Egypt, Israel, and even Great Britain.

Irrational Empire Building

Does the US meet this criteria? I have blogged previously (“Is the US a Zombie State?” – http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/01/03/is-the-us-a-zombie-state/) about the US government’s total neglect of cities and other domestic infrastructure. There is no question that our country qualifies as the most aggressive empire builder in history.

Excluding Iraq and Afghanistan, the US has 837 military bases in 135 countries. The number of foreign basis on US soil is 0. In fact Americans would tend to view a military base in their country as a form of military occupation.

As part of the global war on terror, the US currently conducts military operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Columbia, the Philippines and the horn of Africa (see http://www.fas.org/man/crs/RL32758.pdf)

In the past I have always blamed US military expansion on aggressive lobbying by defense contractors seeking to sell more weapons and a Wall Street agenda demanding cheap third world resources and labor and captive markets for our products. However after reading Vaknin’s article, I also see US military expansion into Iraq, Afghanistan, Yemen, Pakistan, Columbia, Africa, the Philippines, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and the other former Soviet republics as a desperate attempt to maintain a facade of legitimacy as other global powers surpass us economically.

2007 Map of US Military Bases

Social Fragmentation

Vaknin’s fifth and last criterion relates to the social fragmentation that occurs as local and popular leaders, backed by angry and rebellious constituents, take matters into their own hands.

Written pre-Obama, his article provides no specific examples. However I already see numerous examples of a shift away from federal authority to state and local government.

The best publicized example is the adoption of the Kyoto Protocol (committing to reduce CO2 emissions to 1990 levels) by 1044 mayors – representing over one-third of Americans – despite the senate’s refusal to ratify the treaty. I think it’s important to recognize that no mayors took this action in a vacuum. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickel’s, who launched this initiative, was clearly acting in response to Seattle’s extremely vocal network of sustainability activists.

Their endorsement of Kyoto is but one example of the growing power (and autonomy) of the US Conference of Mayors. A second is their unanimous adoption of a resolution supporting the global elimination of nuclear weapons and the redirection of nuclear weapons spending to meet the needs of cities. It calls on Congress to terminate funding for Obama’s program to modernize US nuclear weapons systems. Observers at the mayors’ June 2010 convention, report a high level of anger at the way the federal government has siphoned off tax dollars – leaving them no money to pay for schools, law enforcement, roads, lighting, libraries, homeless shelters, and clinics. There is even talk of a 2011 resolution requesting a formal seat at the UN.

Important States’ Rights Victories

Even more significant is  Obama’s quiet reversal (in October 2009) of Bush’s policy of prosecuting medical marijuana use in the 15 states (including Washington, D.C.) which have legalized marijuana use, with a doctor’s prescription, for specific illnesses. In addition to this clear states’ rights victory, the move also reflects the inability of the Justice Department to effectively enforce these laws – given the anticipated unwillingness of juries to return guilty verdicts in states which have legalized medical marijuana via citizen initiative. This has actually occurred in a recent marijuana possession case in Montana (see http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/12/22/montana-jury-marijuana-mutiny_n_800074.html)

Other strong challenges to the federal/corporate power elite:

• The growing movement for states to address their budget problems by withdrawing from the Wall Street debt factory and creating their own state-owned banks (like North Dakota – see http://www.webofdebt.com/articles/growing_movement.php).
• The 250% increase in extremist groups and armed militias since 2000 and the murder of six law enforcement officials in 2010 (see http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/04/us-surge-rightwing-extremist-groups). In the first week of 2011 an Arizona Congresswoman and a federal judge have And in the first week of 2011 Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords has been shot and an Arizona federal judge killed.
• Growing secession movements in Vermont, Alaska, Hawaii and seventeen other states.
• Explosion of citizen-based global environmental and social justice movements (now at two million plus, with many based in the US) in the past decade.
• Wikileaks