RoguePundit

Absentees and Measure B

Residents of Mendocino County are still awaiting the election results for Measure B, a proposal to essentially bring the local marijuana laws back in line with California state law...which is a bit squishy at the moment.  It certainly hasn't turned out to be the slam dunk that many though it would be.

Eight years ago, voters in Northern California's Mendocino County passed the groundbreaking Measure G, which allowed people to grow up to 25 marijuana plants for medical or personal use and directed local law enforcement authorities to make marijuana offenses their lowest enforcement priority. Since then, the already well-established Mendocino cultivation community has exploded, and with the size of the crop estimated to be somewhere between $500 million and $1.6 billion a year, marijuana is now the backbone of the local economy.

But with the boom have come problems, and now the backlash. Some of it is purely ingrained cultural opposition to marijuana, but other Mendocino residents have complained of environmental damage from commercial grows, diversion of water supplies, trash in the forests, neighboring backyards with valuable crops that attract thieves and armed robbers, the smell of growing marijuana wafting into schools and homes, and the disturbing of rural tranquility by pot-enriched ne'er-do-wells roaring around back roads in their high-dollar SUVs.

I've noted before that many marijuana grows are more like industrial operations.  All but the smallest are--or at least should be--inappropriate for residential areas.  And obviously we continue to have problems with the grows on our public lands.     

But despite media reports on election night that the measure had passed by a margin of 52% to 48%, the election is by no means over. Nearly 11,000 hand-delivered absentee ballots, or about 38% of the total vote, have not yet been counted. The county has until the end of the month to count them and certify the election, although the final results could be announced any day.

...

"The margin right now is only 710 votes, and we think we will win in the end," said Laura Hamburg, spokesperson for the insurgent movement to defeat the initiative known as the No on Measure B Coalition.

"One reason for optimism is that those last minute ballots are coming from people who were very concerned about making sure the registrar got their votes, and we have been stirring those people to get out and vote. The second reason is geography. The county seat of Ukiah is more conservative, but the outlying areas of the county have been much more liberal and sympathetic to mom and pop personal and medical use. These rural areas are where the hand-delivered absentee ballots are coming from."

"There are a lot of conservative voters who take voting seriously and don't trust the Post Office and want to hand deliver their votes," argued Ross Liberty, spokesman for Yes on Mendocino County Measure B Coalition. "And our strongest district is District 1, which is where most of the uncounted votes are coming from. This is still doable," he said, while conceding that some of his allies consider his prediction of a 60%-40% win "overly optimistic." Still, said Liberty, his team all agrees they are odds on favorites to win.

Let's not pretend that attitudes regarding medical marijuana divide cleanly along liberal and conservative lines.  Heck, it's legal in Montana and Alaska, but not New York and Massachusetts.  There are plenty of folks across the political spectrum who try to limit our freedoms because they think they know what's best. 

Liberty said he was not opposed to medical marijuana or even recreational marijuana use, but that the situation in Mendocino County was intolerable. "I'm a libertarian," he said. "I would think I'd died and gone to heaven if federal marijuana prohibition were lifted, but I don't want Mendocino to be the only place doing it. These people aren't growing despite it being illegal, but because it's illegal. They're growing and dealing because its illegal and has a federal price support program."

Liberty said he was not personally impacted by marijuana growing -- although he complained about "the trained helplessness that dependence on federal marijuana prohibition brings to our community" -- but that other supporters of repeal were. "People who live near me grow, and it doesn't bother me, but there are quite a few people who can't stand the smell of it -- it really reeks in the summer -- and it can make their lives miserable," he said.

"It's also dangerous because it's worth so much money," Liberty continued. "One lady I know, within a hundred yards of her house, there's collectively a million-dollar marijuana crop in her neighbors' back yards. You have people with guns going through yards just following their noses looking for marijuana to steal. How do you let you kids out to play when that's going on?"

How many plants is that?  This week in Siskiyou County, officials seized 47,525 seedlings with a street value "upon high-yield maturity" of $237,635,000.  That's a generous $5,000 a plant.  If there's a "million-dollar marijuana crop in her neighbors' back yards," that's at least 200 plants...which means at least eight neighbors within 100 yards with grows.  Hmmm.  At probably more than a half-pound harvest per plant, none of that is commercial in scope or purpose?

Measure B doesn't address the real problems created by commercial growing, said opponents. "This initiative isn't aimed at the problems created by the large commercial grows -- the growing on public land, the environmental damage -- but at the people growing fewer than 25 plants," said Gieringer. "They're cracking down on the small growers, not the commercial growers. With even our opponents conceding it shouldn't be illegal, we should be about dealing with the problems associated with those big grows, and Measure B doesn't do that," he said.

"We've seen an increase in criminal profiteering with commercial grows and growing on federal land, so there was a backlash from that," Hamburg acknowledged. "People started feeling like the energy was different, they saw all this profiteering. We're in our fourth decade of marijuana farming here, and we do it well, it is one of the glues that holds this county together, but there had never been any public venting of tensions about these changes," she said. "People wanted to DO SOMETHING, and many of them initially supported Measure B, but that has been changing as they really think about what it means," she said.

"This measure targets the wrong people," argued Hamburg. "If you want to address marijuana, why turn on the community? Why don't we see instead how we can thwart those big commercial grows? Mom and pop growers are community-minded people; if they are compensated by the dispensaries, they report their income. They're proud of being organic gardeners. We think we should put resources and energy into fighting crime, not backyard grows, and that's what's been happening."

That last paragraph started to get a wee fanciful.  

Let's hope there's no collateral damage to those who need versus just want to partake. 

Medical Marijuana and the Workplace, Again

I've blogged before (most recently here) about how the proper use of medical marijuana in Oregon doesn't protect one from being fired for a positive drug test--same in California.  Of note though is the fact that the Oregon ruling was rather narrow.  Pulling a quote from that previous post...

A trial court sided with the company, saying that Washburn was not disabled under Oregon law because prescription medicine offered him relief from the leg spasms.

But the Oregon Court of Appeals overturned the lower court, ruling the definition of disability had to be interpreted more broadly.

The Oregon Supreme Court rejected that reasoning, siding with the trial court.

A person must suffer from a "substantial limitation" to justify medical marijuana use, and loss of sleep from leg spasms simply did not rise to that level, the court said in an opinion by Chief Justice Paul De Muniz.

Never mind the fact that Washburn had tried several prescription medications for his leg spasms and had gotten no relief.  He even offered to take blood tests to prove he wasn't impaired on the job, but his employer--Columbia Forest Products of Klamath Falls--refused on principle, not because blood tests are more expensive.

Now there is a rather similar case working its way through the courts. 

The Oregon Court of Appeals has ruled that an employer must make a reasonable accommodation for medical marijuana use for a disability.

In an opinion issued Wednesday, the appeals court upheld a ruling by the state Bureau of Labor and Industries.

The agency said that Emerald Steel Fabricators in Eugene violated state laws barring discrimination against the disabled by discharging an employee who used medical marijuana.

No doubt this will be appealed.  Some, including the federal government, oppose drug use 24/7, not just on the job.  There are also legitimate concerns about the potential hazards of having impaired workers on the job.  This goes back to the issue that the vast majority of employers test to see if someone has used drugs recently, not whether that person is impaired on the job for any reason (latter half of previous blog here)--including lack of sleep.  The few companies that use impairment testing view it as a safety program, not an anti-drug initiative. 

In the opinion by Judge Timothy Sercombe, the Oregon Court of Appeals went back over the 2006 Oregon Supreme Court ruling to emphasize the Emerald Steel employee never used the marijuana at work — just like the worker in the Columbia Forest case.

The appeals court also noted the Oregon Supreme Court did not address some of the defenses raised in the earlier case, including the argument an employee could be affected by medical marijuana use while on duty or in "safety-sensitive positions."

It also rejected an attempt by Emerald Steel to raise new issues on appeal, including the fact that marijuana remains illegal under federal law despite state law allowing its use for medical purposes.

"Accordingly, we will not consider those issues for the first time on review," Sercombe wrote.

Obviously, federal law looms over this issue.

Medical Marijuana Catch-22 Upheld

A couple of months ago, I blogged about a California man who was fired for testing positive for marijuana use, despite having a prescription for medical marijuana and there being no evidence he was impaired on the job.  Oregon has already been through this scenario, with our state Supreme Court finding such dismissals legal (previous blog here).  As of today, the same is true in California.

In a 5-2 decision, the court said Proposition 215, the 1996 state initiative that allowed Californians to use marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor's recommendation, did not protect workers from dismissal for violating federal drug laws.

Prop. 215 was intended only to exempt medical marijuana users and their caregivers from prosecution under state drug laws, the court said.

"We have no reason to conclude the voters intended to speak so broadly, and in a context so far removed from the criminal law, as to require employers to accommodate marijuana use," Justice Kathryn Mickle Werdegar said in the majority opinion.

Dissenting Justice Joyce Kennard said an employee who uses medication outside work to remedy pain or illness, and whose job performance is not affected, should be protected by state disability laws from arbitrary firing.

The voters who passed Prop. 215 "surely never intended that persons who availed themselves of its provisions would thereby disqualify themselves from employment," said Kennard, joined by Justice Carlos Moreno.

Justice Moreno is probably right...but that's not the point.  There's been a tug-of-war for years now between the feds and some states regarding the legal status of marijuana.  When the courts have been stuck in the middle, federal law takes precedence.

Prop. 215 "does not eliminate marijuana's potential for abuse or the employer's legitimate interest in whether an employee uses the drug," Werdegar said.

Noting that the initiative did not mention employment or the workplace, she said RagingWire "has not prevented (Ross) from having access to marijuana" but has only refused to employ him.

Business organizations had come to RagingWire's defense, noting among other things that companies that hire drug users might forfeit federal contracts.

An employer who hires a medical marijuana user is "arguably being complicit in an activity that's illegal under federal law," RagingWire's lawyer, Robert Pattison, told the court.

Medical marijuana is now legal in twelve states, the latest being New Mexico when Governor Richardson signed it into law last year.

A New Target for Tweakers

Earlier this year, the State of Washington enacted some new regulations to crack down on the theft of scrap metal.  Now, the sellers have to ID themselves, sign a statement swearing the goods aren't stolen, and wait ten days for a check if the amount is over $30.  It's looking like some of the thieves are a step ahead again.

Puyallup police are warning residents about the latest target of drug-addicted metal thieves – catalytic converters.

Thieves slide under a vehicle, cut the piece of emissions hardware with a power tool and later sell it for the precious metals inside.

...

Catalytic converters are part of a vehicle’s emissions system and contain platinum, palladium and rhodium.

“They are very valuable for recyclers,” Thompson said.

Thieves can bank between $40 to $100 for each converter they sell to recyclers.

The same thing is happening in lots of places, including here in Oregon.  Various types of utility covers can also make inviting targets.

Officers suspect the thieves use a power tool equipped with a quick-cutting blade. They pull up to a vehicle, hook the power tool into a generator in the back of a pickup truck and cut the exhaust pipes at both ends, dropping the catalytic converter to the ground.

All done in 60 to 90 seconds.

...

Drivers returning to their cars don’t notice the stolen piece until they turn the key.

“It’s going to sound like your muffler fell off,” Thompson said. “Part of that is gone.”

The vehicles most commonly targeted are large--SUVs, trucks, vans, etc....bigger engines, bigger catalytic converters.

Safer Crack Kits

Several Canadian cities have been giving away free safer crack kits to slow the spread of hepatitis C.  Various health experts speculated that the sharing of crack pipes helped spread the virus, though there hadn't been any scientific studies which proved it was possible.  First, some numbers which help illustrate the hep C problem amongst certain drug users.

While the rate of HIV/AIDS infection has stabilized across Vancouver Island, hepatitis C infections are increasing -- in 2005, 74 per cent of intravenous drug users were infected, up from 68 per cent just two years earlier. Hepatitis C is the most prevalent viral disease among street drug users, and is estimated to cost the Canadian health-care system up to $1 billion a year.

There are an estimated 4,000 injection-drug users on the Island, about half that number in Victoria. According to a 2005 VIHA study, 69 per cent of injection-drug users in Victoria also smoked crack cocaine.

It's not news that sharing needles is a great way of sharing diseases.  But how much of an impact could sharing crack pipes be having?  Well, here's the relevant paragraph from the summary of a study just published by the University of Victoria.

The study was conducted with a population of 51 inner-city crack users in Toronto in 2006. It collected crack pipe implements shortly after their use, and tested their owners for their HCV antibody status. The crack pipes were then tested biologically for evidence of the HCV. The virus was detected on one of 22 pipes tested whose owners had tested HCV antibody positive. Many crack users have severe chronic health problems, and have chronic burns and sores in their mouth areas that may facilitate oral HCV transmission.

In other words in this very small sample, there was just one example of a crack smoker potentially being able to spread the virus to anyone sharing his/her pipe.  The study mentioned that "a minority" of the participants had oral sores, including the person whose pipe tested positive for the virus. 

Just after the study was published, health officials announced the following (from the first article).

A controversial crack-pipe distribution program driven out of Nanaimo earlier this year will be set up across Vancouver Island in the new year.

The crack pipes, or components like mouthpieces and filters, will be handed out at needle-exchange sites in Victoria, Nanaimo, Campbell River and Courtenay, as well as through mobile units in many other Island communities, said Murray Fyfe, medical health officer for the Vancouver Island Health Authority.

The program will be funded through the Ministry of Health, as part of its provincewide harm-reduction strategy, which already includes needle exchanges. Although pilot distribution programs have been in place in Victoria and other B.C. cities for up to two years, they were funded by a variety of organizations on a test basis.

They also were a source of controversy. In Nanaimo, VIHA had to stop pipe distribution in June after city council and residents raised concerns and VIHA staff were harassed. At the time, VIHA chief executive officer Howard Waldner admitted the authority could have done a better job of communicating the goals of the project--which were to mitigate the spread of diseases, including HIV, hepatitis C and tuberculosis, through the sharing of pipes.

What evidence is there that crack pipes can spread HIV or tuberculosis...or as other officials assert, syphilis?  Well, tuberculosis bacteria are spread via coughs, sneezes, and the like, so it's feasible that a crack pipe could aid the process a bit.  As with hep C, it takes open sores or cuts to allow the transmission of HIV and syphilis.  Heck, using crack pipes can sometimes help cause cuts and sores.  But how many addicts are going to resist sharing crack pipes because they can go somewhere and get them for free?  Well, in Ottawa earlier this year...

Emily Meadows was at City hall yesterday to represent an HIV prevention research team from the University of Ottawa.

Ms. Meadows said the research team's studies showed about a quarter of users switched from injecting drugs to smoking them as a result of the crack pipe program, which began in 2005. She said smoking crack is significantly less harmful than injecting it.

The study, led by Dr. Lynne Leonard, also found that before the program existed, 37 per cent of users who shared pipes reported sharing every time they smoked crack. One year into the program, that number was down to 13 per cent, which the research team considered a huge success.

They were trying--unsuccessfully--to keep the city from canceling its crack kit program.  The smoking versus injecting data is interesting, because it reduces the sharing of needles.  But the measurements of sharing pipes every time (versus just some of the time)...sloppy data.

What is it that officials actually distribute?  In Ottawa, the kits included...

...a glass crack pipe, mouthpiece, push stick, draw screens, matches, alcohol swabs, Vaseline, bandages, a condom and smoking instructions.

And as this article notes, some safer crack kits also include:

...lip balm, chewing gum and information materials concerning safer crack use and treatment of oral sores and lesions.

Ottawa's program cost $30,000 per year (population 812,000), with the province picking up the majority of the tab.  But, would the money be better spent on prevention or treatment?  The hep C study didn't change the mayor's mind about the program.  The mayor says that "addicts need help, not supplies."

A Medical Marijuana Catch-22

In Oregon, the proper use of medical marijuana doesn't protect one from being fired for a positive drug test (previous blog here).  Yesterday, California's Supreme Court heard a rather similar case.

When Gary Ross was ordered to take a drug test at his new job, the recently hired computer tech had no doubt the results would come back positive for marijuana.

But along with his urine sample, Ross submitted a doctor's recommendation that he smoke pot to alleviate back pain--a document he figured would save him from being fired.

...

Ross, 45, contends that Ragingwire discriminated against him because of a back injury and violated the state's fair-employment law by punishing him for legally smoking marijuana at home.

He says he and others using medical marijuana should receive the same workplace protection from discipline that employees with valid painkiller prescriptions do. California voters legalized medicinal marijuana in 1996.

...

Ross, who lives in Sacramento, said he permanently injured his back in 1983 while serving as a U.S. Air Force mechanic. He said it wasn't until 1999 that he found true pain relief with marijuana.

Same question as with the Oregon case...was he stoned on the job or not?  Unfortunately, the answer doesn't matter.  Very few employers test for impairment (previous blog here), in part because the feds are trying to discourage all drug use.      

Two lower courts have sided with Ragingwire's decision to fire Ross because federal law holds that marijuana is illegal in all guises and a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court decision declared that state medicinal marijuana laws don't protect users from criminal prosecution.

...

Ragingwire, a small telecommunications company in Sacramento, has been joined in the Supreme Court by powerful corporate interests such as the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority and the Western Electrical Contractors Association Inc., who said companies could lose federal contracts and grants if they allowed employees to smoke pot.

The conservative nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation said in a friend-of-the court filing that employers could also be liable for damage done by high workers.

"History abounds with cases of employers found liable," the Sacramento-based foundation wrote, "because their employees were driving vehicles, operating heavy equipment or otherwise performing tasks made more dangerous by their being under the influence of alcohol or drugs."

If Ross wins, Ragingwire would probably appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Is there much doubt how it would rule?

Protecting Development from Farming

Arcata CA (near Eureka) is struggling to protect its urban development from farming sprawl.  You see, its land use laws don't regulate medical marijuana grows (or dispensaries), and a number of Arcata's growers see nothing wrong with using neighborhood homes and apartments as greenhouses.  Mendocino County has experienced related problems (previous blog here).

Marijuana grows come with an odor that many consider skunk-like, and some growers add to that odor with pesticides.  Many grows are like small industrial operations with the artificial lighting, ventilation, watering systems, use and storage of chemicals, etc.  Some neighborhoods are using so much power that it's starting to overload transformers.  The grows also attract crime to neighborhoods, as do medical marijuana dispensaries, which aren't regulated like other medical clinics. 

After hearing some testimony on the subject, the Arcata City Council has set up a task force. The following editorial helps explain what finally motivated the action.

This issue came to the forefront after a fire damaged a rented home, and Arcata's fire chief said that grows are to blame for more than half the city's house fires. That certainly indicates things have gotten out of hand, and the safety of the public should not be left solely to the state's Proposition 215 laws. The recent fire is a perfect example.

Renters of the recently renovated home, who lived elsewhere, had cut holes in the ceiling for ventilation and another large one in the floor; set up irrigation systems and lights hanging from chains, used a hot tub to cultivate seeds, and generally trashed the place out, the home's owner told the Arcata Eye. Even scarier, for those in the Alice Avenue neighborhood, were the cases of butane stacked high, near a box of empty nitrous oxide cylinders.

After a fan fell over, causing $20,000 in fire damage, nobody was charged with anything, because the multiple-room grow was a co-operative for five medical marijuana patients, all of whom had Prop. 215 certification. The lease had a “no drugs” provision, but since the grow was legal there had been no violation, the renter said.

But besides what happened to the poor landlord, that marijuana grow ended up endangering neighbors and the firefighters, who fortunately kept the tanks from exploding and minimized the damage.  There are definitely suspicions that with the amount of marijuana being grown there, five patients couldn't be consuming all of it.  Note though that the house in question--whose rent was $2,025 per month--was just outside of the city limits.   

The owner of an Arcata medical marijuana dispensary told the city council on Oct. 3 that he had 5,000 customers, and his is not the only cannabis club in town. The spread of grows to every corner of Arcata also has wider implications than public safety, such as the destruction of neighborhoods, a squeeze on Humboldt State student housing, unsavory nighttime activity, and offensive smells.

Community Development Director Tom Conlon argues that a task force--with as many as six to eight meetings--would eat up a hundred hours of valuable staff time unnecessarily. On the other hand, Councilman Michael Machi notes that an eventual ordinance could affect as many as a third of all Arcatans, which makes community “buy-in” important.

We agree that all parts of the community deserve a say -- including those who are not part of the marijuana world but feel their town becoming less colorful and friendly because of these grows, and more sinister and unsavory. Perhaps a series of public meetings would function as well as a task force in helping people be heard.

Just think of all the children's health insurance that governments could provide if the feds legalized and taxed marijuana.  But we'd have to remember that there's no such thing as a safe joint, second hand smoke sickens and kills people every year, etc.  Could the commercials possibly be as annoying as the carpet bombing we're enduring from ODHS, which is seemingly spending all of its prevention money this year trying to influence voters to raise cigarette taxes to give the department more money. 

Iodine Sales and Meth

A couple of years ago when Oregon was considering restricting our access to pseudoephedrine, I asked why not consider other meth ingredients that wouldn't inconvenience as many people.  One of the suggestions was iodine.  The following goes part way towards that thought.

New restrictions on iodine are intended to put "meth cooks" out of business, but the stricter rules governing sales of the common disinfectant will also be a pain in the neck for some livestock producers.

As of Aug. 31, wholesalers and retailers of iodine solutions above 2.2 percent in concentration will be required to pay registration fees of about $1,100 and keep records of all iodine sales, regardless of size.

The enhanced regulations are a result of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration seeking to clamp down on domestic production of methamphetamine. Iodine is one of the substances used to manufacture the illegal drug.

Previously, imports and exports of iodine weren't regulated and handlers weren't tracked by the DEA.

"These loopholes have been exploited by drug traffickers and the businesses that supply them," according to a DEA statement on the new rules.

That steep registration fee will probably discourage fly-by-night cookers, but it sure gouges the farmers.  Stores will still be able to sell the 2 percent solution, but as the article notes, it's not strong enough for some of the typical livestock applications.  Note though that the number of places selling 7 percent iodine has been dropping for awhile.   

After being notified about the problem by the Oregon State Police, Marion Ag Service, based in St. Paul, Ore., discontinued selling iodine at concentrations above 1 percent several years ago, said Marci Gaibler, the company's office manager.

"We just didn't want it going out the door to people like that," she said.

Jon Hendersen, owned of Old Mill Feed and Garden in Dallas, Ore., was also contacted by police about five years ago, which prompted him to stop selling 7 percent iodine solution.

Before he was even aware of the chemical's role in meth production, Hendersen noticed the product attracted an unusual demographic to his store, he said.

"There were some pretty shady people who would come in, and they were always looking for big quantities of it," Hendersen said.

Iodine is sold over the internet.  Vets already have to register with the DEA to dispense various regulated iodine products.

As we've learned in Oregon and other states, restricting access to pseudoephedrine doesn't reduce meth's availability, but it does decrease the number of local meth labs.  That's positive from the perspective of eliminating environmental and health hazards.  In other words, illicit manufacturers and traffickers from places like Mexico and China aren't the only folks who've benefited from the outsourcing of meth manufacturing.      

UN Warns of Marijuana Danger

First, an overview...

About 1.1 percent of American adults suffer from schizophrenia:

...a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a mental disorder characterized by impairments in the perception or expression of reality and by significant social or occupational dysfunction. A person experiencing schizophrenia is typically characterized as demonstrating disorganized thinking, and as experiencing delusions or hallucinations, in particular auditory hallucinations.

Although the disorder is primarily thought to affect cognition, it can also contribute to chronic problems with behavior and emotion. Due to the many possible combinations of symptoms, heated debate is ongoing about whether the diagnosis necessarily or adequately describes a disorder, or alternatively whether it might represent a number of disorders. For this reason, Eugen Bleuler deliberately called the disease "the schizophrenias" plural, when he coined the present name.

Schizophrenia is one of the top ten causes of disability in the developed world.  The average age of onset is 18 in males and 25 in females. 

Today the leading theory of why people get schizophrenia is that it is a result of a genetic predisposition combined with an environmental exposures and/or stresses during pregnancy or childhood that contribute to, or trigger, the disorder.

Regarding environmental exposures...

...with schizophrenia it is becoming increasingly evident that having the gene(s) associated with schizophrenia is just a starting point. If you have the genes, but don't experience the environmental contributing factors or "triggers" for schizophrenia--then evidence suggests that you'll never get schizophrenia. However, if you are exposed to certain environmental factors--then the chances seem to increase (and the more environmental factors a person experiences, the higher the risk) that the person will ultimately get schizophrenia.

One of many environmental factors that increases the odds of triggering schizophrenia is marijuana use while the brain is developing...and it continues developing until adulthood.  The greater the use and/or the stronger the marijuana, the greater the likelihood of triggering schizophrenia. 

Those who were heavy consumers of cannabis at age 18 were over 600% more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia over the next 15 years than those did not take it. Experts estimate that between 8% and 13% of all schizophrenia cases are linked to marijuana/cannabis use during teen years.

At this point, research has not proven a link between marijuana usage and the development of schizophrenia in people who lack a genetic predisposition...and most people lack that predisposition.  Researchers are working on a test for it.      

With that as background...

Last week, the British newspaper Independent on Sunday (IoS) apologized for leading a campaign to decriminalize the use of marijuana...and stirred up a national tizzy on what to do about marijuana usage.

Record numbers of teenagers are requiring drug treatment as a result of smoking skunk, the highly potent cannabis strain that is 25 times stronger than resin sold a decade ago.

More than 22,000 people were treated last year for cannabis addiction - and almost half of those affected were under 18. With doctors and drugs experts warning that skunk can be as damaging as cocaine and heroin, leading to mental health problems and psychosis for thousands of teenagers, The Independent on Sunday has today reversed its landmark campaign for cannabis use to be decriminalised.

A decade after this newspaper's stance culminated in a 16,000-strong pro-cannabis march to London's Hyde Park--and was credited with forcing the Government to downgrade the legal status of cannabis to class C--an IoS editorial states that there is growing proof that skunk causes mental illness and psychosis.

The decision comes as statistics from the NHS National Treatment Agency show that the number of young people in treatment almost doubled from about 5,000 in 2005 to 9,600 in 2006, and that 13,000 adults also needed treatment.

25-times stronger is an exaggeration, and many of the people who were treated for addiction were ordered there by the courts...legal remedies are sometimes applied to people who aren't addicted.

A few days later, the following appeared in Addiction, a peer-reviewed journal published by the UK's Society for the Study of Addiction.  Note that it's far more common in England for members of the health and scientific communities to believe that marijuana can cause schizophrenia even in people without a genetic predisposition.   

If cannabis causes schizophrenia--and that remains the question--then by 2010 up to 25% of new cases of schizophrenia in the UK may be due to cannabis, according to a study just published in Addiction journal.  Substantial increases in both prevalence and incidence of the disease are forecast by the end of the decade, with increases in schizophrenia starting earlier among young men in particular.

The research study matches historic trends in cannabis use and exposure from a national population survey against estimates of new occurrences of schizophrenia in three English cities (Nottingham, Bristol and LB Southwark).  The researchers assess what might happen to schizophrenia cases if we assume a causal link between cannabis use and onset of psychotic symptoms, an association widely recognised by some psychiatrists and researchers and considered recently by the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.

Exposure to cannabis grew fourfold over the thirty years to 2002, and its use among under-18s by 18-fold, say the researchers.  If cannabis use causes schizophrenia, these increases in its use would lead to increases in overall schizophrenia incidence and prevalence of 29% and 12% respectively, between 1990 and 2010.  (Incidence is defined as the frequency of new occurrences; and prevalence is the percentage of the population affected by the disease.)

Model projections suggest that if the association is confined to heavy cannabis users only, then approximately 10% of schizophrenia cases may be due to cannabis by 2010.  However, assuming an association between onset of the disease and both light and heavy users, then approximately one-quarter of new cases could be due to cannabis.

And now the UN has waded into the debate.

The United Nations has issued an unprecedented warning to Britain about the growing threat to public health from potent new forms of cannabis, saying there is mounting evidence of "just how dangerous" the drug has become.

Writing in today's Independent on Sunday, Antonio Costa, the executive director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, says each country has the "drug problem it deserves", and warns that the British government must "avoid being swayed by misguided notions of tolerance".

Mr Costa's comments follow disclosures in last week's IoS that a record 22,000 people needed National Health Service treatment last year for drug rehabilitation, together with doctors' warnings that skunk cannabis is creating a generation with mental health problems.

He says: "Many [people] subscribe to the vague, laissez-faire tolerance of cannabis which is increasingly prevalent among educated people in Western countries. That consensus needs to be challenged. Evidence of the damage to mental health caused by cannabis use is mounting and cannot be ignored."

... 

Mr Costa proposes that young people found in possession of the drug should be penalised in the same way as people caught drink driving, adding that the cannabis "now in circulation is many times more powerful than the weed that today's baby-boomers smoked in college. Cannabis is a dangerous drug."

Yet, he remained silent on two addictive drugs which kill far more people and cause a much greater strain on healthcare systems, alcohol and tobacco. 

Medical Marijuana and Oregon's Workforce

Last year, the Oregon Supreme Court essentially upheld an employer's ability to fire an employee who tests positive for marijuana, regardless that the employee had a prescription for medical marijuana and was not stoned on the job (previous blog here).  Our legislature is now working on a law that would clear up much of the uncertainty in such situations.

Employers could fire medical marijuana users who fail drug tests under a bill passed Wednesday by the Oregon Senate.

If it becomes law, the measure could shield employers from potential lawsuits filed by medical marijuana patients who have been fired or disciplined for testing positive for the drug when they show up for work.

Without the bill, "employers will be left with individual lawsuits and appeals," said Sen. Rick Metsger, D-Welches. "I believe this is good policy for our state, and it is strongly supported by both labor and management."

The employee who lost his appeal to the Supreme Court offered to take blood tests that would provide feedback as to whether he was impaired on or when arriving at the job (previous blog here).  The company refused.  Yes, that would be more expensive, as would the offering of impairment testing--unless done on a large scale.  There's also the issue that people who for instance are sick or exhausted can fail impairment tests, something that would seemingly matter to employers from a safety and efficiency perspective.  Attempting to enforce a "drug-free workplace" is simpler, in part because we're more used to it.

Obviously the fact that the feds consider medical marijuana illegal complicates the situation.  But, it's looking like Oregon's political leaders are simply trying to take the easy way out.  The majority of our state senators are okay with this type of discrimination. 

According to Michael Cohen, an employment attorney with the Philadelphia-based law firm, Wolf Block, only California and Montana have provisions in their medical marijuana statutes that clearly protect workers from being fired or disciplined if they are state approved users.

States that don't forbid employers from taking action against workers who use medical marijuana have created a gray area, legal experts say.

...

Prozanski said he would try to persuade the House to change the bill so that it would not discriminate against workers who are cardholders under the Oregon medical marijuana program.

Sadly, he's probably tilting at windmills.