cannabisnews.com: Event Planners Accountable Under Drug Law 










  Event Planners Accountable Under Drug Law 

Posted by CN Staff on September 10, 2003 at 11:32:30 PT
By Natalie Storey, Montana Kaimin  
Source: Montana Kaimin  

Organizers say Grizzly National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws will “keep on trucking” at the University of Montana, despite federal legislation that makes it easier for prosecutors to charge business owners and event planners who fail to prevent drug use on their property or during sponsored events. But Montana NORML members say their group has never condoned drug use at its events.
“We have always sponsored lawful events,” said John Masterson, director of Montana NORML. “We don’t have bong-a-thons or smoke-outs at our events.” Although NORML organizers say they do not condone illegal drug use, the Drug Enforcement Administration targeted the Billings chapter of NORML in May, shutting down a benefit for the group and threatening to fine the owner of the property holding the benefit $250,000. The organizer of that event, Adam Jones, is now a part of Grizzly NORML at UM. Jones and Masterson said they are apprehensive about the DEA shutting down NORML events at UM and in Missoula, but they said that would not keep them from scheduling events and benefits for the group. “We have a heightened level of anxiety,” Masterson said. “But we’ve continued to do what we do.” Masterson said last weekend’s Hemp Fest was a great success, and added that, as far as he knew, the DEA did not make an appearance at the event. The Illicit Drug Anti-Proliferation Act, formerly known as the RAVE Act, was enacted in April. According to the bill text, the purpose of the legislation is to “prohibit an individual from knowingly opening, maintaining, managing, controlling, renting, leasing, making available for use, or profiting from any place for the purpose of manufacturing, distributing, or using any controlled substance, and for other purposes.” The DEA’s Web site says the legislation is a tool in the fight against ecstasy, predatory drugs and methamphetamine. Rogene Wait, a DEA spokeswoman, requested all questions about the legislation be sent by e-mail, however the DEA had not responded to questions sent via e-mail by deadline. Jones said the legislation is so vaguely worded that the enforcement of the statute is often up to the opinion of the DEA officer. “It’s up to the opinion of the enforcer,” Jones said. “The broad language of it is potentially dangerous. It is scary, really, that they have power over people trying to do something so simple.” Masterson said in theory anyone organizing a party or concert could be targeted by the DEA. “The way it’s written now it could shut down anything,” Masterson said. “If I was an event promoter I would worry about any sort of rap show or punk show where inflammatory remarks about drug use are being made.” The DEA’s website says “legitimate” property owners and event planners are not in violation of the law. UM Productions referred all questions to the University’s legal counsel, David Aronofsky. Aronofsky said it did not appear to be an issue at UM, although he said he wasn’t familiar with the statute. “The University of Montana would not knowingly promote drug use on our campus or at our events,” he said. Masterson said he was concerned that the DEA would crack down on NORML and other groups at UM because of the University’s recent ranking in the magazine High Times. UM was ranked No. 5 on the magazine’s list of counterculture colleges in the nation. “Could this attract some attention?” Masterson asked. “I think it’s very possible.” Masterson said NORML was wrongly targeted by the DEA since the group advocates reform of marijuana laws, not illegal drug use. He thinks they should be cracking down on serious drug offenders. “Virtually everyone knows marijuana use should be legal,” he said. “Everyone knows it makes you giggle and watch cartoons and eat twinkies. But no one makes cheeky remarks about methamphetamine because that is a heavy subject.” “Now is the time that it’s more important than ever to know your constitutional rights and to speak up for what’s right,” he said.Note: Montana NORML says its events are lawful.Source: Montana Kaimin (MT Edu)Author: Natalie Storey, Montana Kaimin Published: September 10, 2003Copyright: 2003 Montana KaiminContact: editor selway.umt.eduWebsite: http://www.kaimin.orgRelated Articles & Web Site:Montana NORMLhttp://www.montananorml.org/Outside View: No Raves for RAVEhttp://cannabisnews.com/news/thread17065.shtmlFree Drugs or Free Speech?http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16606.shtml The RAVE Act Has Landed http://cannabisnews.com/news/thread16589.shtml

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Comment #10 posted by FoM on September 11, 2003 at 13:13:44 PT
afterburner
I just sent a test e mail to see if it goes thru this time. It could be a problem on my end. PS: Don't tell anyone ( LOL) but CNews e-mail list is ready. I just haven't had time to learn how to work it but will figure it out over the weekend I think. My husband hurt his back and has been almost bed ridden since last Saturday and I've been busy helping him.
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Comment #9 posted by afterburner on September 11, 2003 at 12:52:39 PT:
That's Strange, FoM
I have been receiving some email recently (6.September.2003) at boxfrog. I wonder what's going on.You are quite welcome.
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Comment #8 posted by FoM on September 11, 2003 at 11:23:07 PT
afterburner
It's the one with frog in it that came back but the other one did too a while ago. I just wanted to thank you. 
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Comment #7 posted by afterburner on September 11, 2003 at 11:12:58 PT:
FoM- re email
Try the email in the preceding post, The Wai-ai-aiting Is the Hardest Part, or in this one. I've been including my new email in recent posts. If this is the one you used, let me know. If you used franksmith in-box.net , that one seems to be defunct. If you can successfully reach me at my new email, then maybe you could change it in my registration, like you did for Motivation. Try again, and I'll let you know if I received it.ciao and keep the faith,afterburner
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Comment #6 posted by FoM on September 11, 2003 at 10:44:40 PT
afterburner
Thank you. Why do people fight with each other if they are hoping for the same thing but see how to get to that end in different ways? I don't understand fighting over issues. I could write a book about what upsets me. I keep it to myself though because my opinion is for me not for others. I don't feel the need to make people believe the way I do. If one person or organization had the answer that would be different but there isn't one person or organization that has the answer.PS: I tried to e-mail and thank you but it came back so thank you!
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Comment #5 posted by afterburner on September 11, 2003 at 10:18:28 PT:
The Wai-ai-aiting Is the Hardest Part
I have been increasingly aware of the deep divisions within our cause, for example medical vs. recreational (social), this personality vs. that personality, this organization vs. that organization, money-making vs. free, and more and more. I am deeply disturbed about the hostility that different members of our community feel toward one another. I agree with Richard Paul Zuckerm that "WE NEED TO COALESCE," not just within our camp but also with neighboring "tribes." I have received several encouraging return emails with regard to those I sent to my Senators and Representatives from CA-NORML's political Take Action list, including smoked recreational cannabis (Stop Arresting Marijuana Smokers), medical cannabis, and support for and/or co-sponsorship of pending law reforms. In several cases the belief in the need for treatment options, a medical perspective, and retreat from punitive legal sanctions was evident. The only blind spot was the RAVE Act, which my Senator sees literally, emphasis on the dangers of Ecstasy, and fails to see the abuse as in the Billings, Montana, cancellation of a NORML rally by DEA intimidation. Over all it seems we have unprecedented and growing support from legislators. It would be a shame if we pee-tested it all away by egotistical in-fighting. Don't tread on me. United we stand, divided we fall. "Come together, right now, over me." --John Lennonego transcendence follows ego destruction, "[drug] war is over if you want it." --John and Yoko
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Comment #4 posted by FoM on September 10, 2003 at 13:41:30 PT
Thank You The GCW!
http://www.cannabisnews.com/news/thread17264.shtml
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Comment #3 posted by The GCW on September 10, 2003 at 13:33:13 PT
Dr Mikuriya update
US CA: Column: Dr Mikuriya Defends His Practice 
by Fred Gardner, (10 Sep 2003) Anderson Valley Advertiser CaliforniaThe Medical Board of California's prosecution of Tod Mikuriya, MD, began Sept. 3 with the testimony of an expert witness, Kaiser psychiatrist Laura Duskin. The scene was a fluorescent hearing room at the state office building in Oakland, presided over by Administrative Law Judge Jonathan Lew, a trim, soft-spoken man with a businesslike air. About 20 of the 30 seats were taken by Mikuriya's friends and well-wishers on opening day. Duskin said she had read 17 of Mikuriya's patients' records ( which had been subpoenaed by the MBC after the doctor wouldn't hand them over ) and determined that he had failed each patient, not by approving their use of cannabis but by stating on their letters of approval that they were under his "supervision and care" for their various conditions. In the Court of Common Sense such phrasing would be considered, at worst, a semantic error, not "an extreme departure from the standard of care." In some of the 17 cases, according to Duskin, Mikuriya had failed to conduct an adequate exam, specify a treatment plan, or arrange proper follow-up. Duskin said she could adduce all this from the files because, "From day one in medical school they teach us, 'If you didn't write it down, it didn't happen.'" She quoted this literally wrong dictum as if it were some sanctified truth, as if the paperwork really is more important than the actual interaction between doctor and patient. Duskin went to medical school at UCSF and she did a residency in psychiatry there. She retained her UCSF affiliation while working at San Francisco General and, for 10 years, at Laguna Honda Hospital. She taught interviewing techniques to resident physicians at UCSF and still gives "the occasional lecture," she said. Laura Duskin is the personification of the San Francisco medical establishment in her attitude towards marijuana. Although she/they never challenged the prohibition, they now claim to believe in its relative safety and limited efficacy. "Marijuana can be very helpful for certain conditions for certain patients," Duskin asserted as the Assistant AGs -two remnants from the Lungren regime-nodded understandingly. On at least eight occasions during her day and a half on the stand Duskin repeated her fair and balanced view. She said she had been favorably impressed by a talk she'd heard Mikuriya give c. 1997 at a conference of addiction specialists, and also by his files on nine nursing-home patients that the Medical Board had once assigned her to review as part of a separate investigation. There wasn't the slightest self-critical edge to Duskin's testimony. She didn't acknowledge that she had been taught nothing about cannabis -zero, zip, nada word-during her pharmacy classes at UCSF. Nor did she reveal that during her years at Laguna Honda, patients were denied access to cannabis. Dr. Duskin said that she has never issued an approval for a patient to use marijuana, but she hopes that someday somebody will ask her to do so. ( At the S.F. district attorney's office I used to hear bitter complaints from Laguna Honda residents who had been punished for copping a smoke on the grounds. If only I'd known, I could have turned them on to Laura Duskin. ) The prosecution called only one other witness, Steve Gossett, a deputy sheriff who heads Sonoma County's marijuana investigations unit and is known to the locals as a zealous drug warrior. The Attorney General's office had threatened to add a complaint involving Gossett if Mikuriya didn't accept their settlement offer. ( Such blackmail is the "standard of practice" in the legal world. ) And Mikuriya didn't accept the deal, the A.G. carried out the treat. Gossett testified that he had visited Mikuriya at an ad hoc clinic in Oakland in January '03 and obtained a letter of approval based on bogus claims of shoulder pain, stress, and sleep problems. On Friday, Sept. 5 the defense called its expert, Philip Denney, MD, an experienced family practitioner from Loomis, CA. Denney said he'd reviewed the 17 files and determined that Mikuriya had, in each case, elicited enough information to justify approval of continued cannabis use. ( All the patients, including Gossett, told Mikuriya that they had been self-medicating prior to seeking his approval. ) Denney defined Mikuriya's as a "medical cannabis consultation practice" in which "patients are seeking the answer to one specific question: 'Do I have a medical condition for which cannabis might be a useful treatment?'" He faulted the Board for not issuing guidelines relevant to such practices. Denney testified that the records of at least one other Northern California medical-cannabis consultant had been seized by government agents, and that the threat of confiscation was "a good reason for noting the minimum amount necessary" on patients' charts. Denney said he was "scared to death" by the prospect of reprisals from law enforcement as a result of his support for Mikuriya. But he exuded confidence intellectually. He said he kept up with developments in the field of cannabis therapeutics, and had monitored its use by some 7,500 patients. Denney explained that the cannabis plant contains active ingredients other than THC, and that Duskin's definitions of Marinol as "synthetic marijuana" and "a pharmaceutical form of marijuana" were inaccurate. He said that the Medical Board's classification of cannabis as a "dangerous drug" was "scientifically invalid." As this report is filed at mid-day on Tuesday, Sept. 9, nine patients have testified. Although the Medical Board is prosecuting Dr. Mikuriya in their names, none had filed complaints against him. All the patient-witnesses recalled Mikuriya as being thorough, attentive, and empathetic when he took their medical histories. All expressed gratitude to him for authorizing their cannabis use. All were either visibly ill or had records from other doctors establishing and/or confirming the seriousness of their problems In fact, given the severity of the illnesses of the patients named in the Accusation, one could conclude that the Medical Board was not out to "get" Mikuriya. If they had been, they would have chosen younger patients with milder ailments. On the other hand, the Board's investigators might have believed what their physician-experts told them, i.e., that Mikuriya's records were so cursory that a sampling of any 15 patients would suffice to hang him. The patients' testimony has been extremely moving and believable. More details next week. Mikuriya is about to take the stand in his own defense. He hopes he can testify that all the complaints investigated by the Medical Board came from law enforcement -a pattern the prosecution has tried to keep out of the record. Add ironies: In 2001 Laura Duskin commented to Bruce Mirken of the Bay Guardian about the costly, ineffective treatment of far-gone addicts and alcoholics in San Francisco: "The Community Health Network is not savvy at all about figuring out how to serve these complex patients. They don't ask their frontline providers..." The Mikuriya defense can be summarized in a paraphrase: "The Medical Board is not savvy at all about doctors who serve medical cannabis patients. They don't ask the frontline providers." Herb Caen item: The hearing is being held in a building named in honor of an Oakland pol named Elihu Harris. Monday morning your correspondent overheard a 50ish white woman at a pay phone in the lobby say, "I'll be waiting on Clay Street, in front of the Emmy Lou Harris state office building." http://www.mapinc.org/newscc/v03/n1359/a01.html?397
 
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Comment #2 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on September 10, 2003 at 13:14:01 PT:
WE NEED TO COALESCE 
I recently visited a local community college to find out how to start a Libertarian Party club, for The Libertarian Party For Somerset County And Middlesex County. I send money to these organizations and many of us have a common interest. Libertarian Party wants to legalize Cannabis. I send money and am a member of www.njlp.org. Green Party wants to legalize Cannabis. I sent them $50 and am a member of www.greenparty.org. The National Organization For The Reform Of Marihuana Laws For New Jersey wants to decriminalize Marijuana. I sent them $35 and am a member of www.normlnj.org, along with www.norml.org. I had emailed the Rutgers University chapter of Students For Sensible Drug Policy, from their Web site, asking them to attend last Saturday's meeting of www.normlnj.org, but someemailed me saying the email is no longer valid and nobody has filled in the void for the SSDP. I dare say that even the www.njmilitia.org and www.mom.org publications would rather tolerate Marihuana legalization than Big Brother looking to disarm people thru the pot laws. What I am trying to say that there are many groups who have a common interest. Granted, the Libertarian Party does not go along with the Green Party's platform for big government. Nevertheless, we all want to legalize pot/hemp.
This is why I have mailed, called, and visited different organizations to try to get people from different organizations to be cognizant of the activities of other activities for the common interest. Some people rationalize that they have too much going on with the one organization, but perhaps it is an excuse, since one organization often does not do much at one time. Although people need to work to make a living, there is nothing too difficult to take a few hours per week to look into the activities of other organizations and chapters to see what is going on which might give you ideas for your own. I noticed this with Emerson Ellett, chair njlp.org, who is also the N.J. Coordinator of Fully Informed Jury Association, www.fija.org. From my communication with a FIJA Coordinator of Connecticut, I suggested to Mr. Ellett to ask the New Jersey Governor to proclaim Sept. 5, 1999. She did, the first of it's kind in New Jersey! Over the past couple of years, I have sent over one hundred letters to various organizations, legislators, and citizens, asking to improve the curriculum of public schools so that the students are taught the dark side of government, www.johntaylorgatto.com. What do we have now? New Jersey State Assembly Education Vice-Chair Stanley, AsmStanley njleg.org, was in the newspaper around three months ago for improved curriculum. Congress must be nervous, because H.R. 1078 was submitted AND HAS BEEN FAST TRACKED TO BE VOTED UPON THIS WEEK, to require civics and history teachers to attend a FEDERAL SPONSORED program as to what to teach the public school students, such as gun control. We can take a pretty good guess that they also want to teach the anti-pot message moreso than before! Let's get on the fast-track ourselves, people! The purpose of the First Amendment was to be able to criticize and discuss improvements in our government! Use it or lose it!Richard Paul Zuckerman, Box 159, Metuchen, N.J., 08840-0159, (Cell telephone)(908) 403-6990, richardzuckerman2002 yahoo.com.
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