News

B.C. Marijuana Activist Vows Second Bid Marijuana activist Dana Larsen says while a petition campaign to decriminalize pot fell short, it sparked a buzz across British Columbia and he's planning to fire up a second drive soon.

As state lawmakers finish the 2013 legislative session, they are beginning to tackle controversial issues such as medical marijuana, campaign finance and phone service with an eye toward leaving for a three-week holiday break on Thursday.

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) - Uruguay's Senate began its final debate Tuesday on an audacious and risky plan to create the first national marijuana market, with the state regulating the entire process of growing, selling and using a drug that's illegal almost everywhere else in the world. Approval late Tuesday was all but assured, given the ruling coalition's majority and support from President Jose Mujica, who said he personally hates pot and has never smoked it.

On the cusp of recreational marijuana sales in Colorado, business owners and state regulators are at odds over a high-tech system that is supposed to track the substance from seed to sale.

Opinions

Sensible B.C. may not have collected enough signatures backing a province wide referendum seeking to effectively decriminalize marijuana in the province but that doesn't mean the group and their supporters are not sensible. And it doesn't mean that the debate over pot laws is over - far from it. The more than 200,000 people who signed the petition, and the hundreds of thousands more who support its goals but didn't get a chance to sign, will ensure that.

THE state's legalization of marijuana last November was a seismic change in drug-control policy, perhaps the biggest since the end of alcohol prohibition. So it is understandable that misconceptions arise - from supporters and opponents alike - as the state lurches toward the opening of marijuana retail stores next year.

As more and more states and municipalities test the waters of legalizing medical marijuana, some have argued that Iowa's conservative roots would prevent a similar effort from getting through the Legislature. Outside of the major population centers, this line of reasoning goes, support for controversial policies such as medical marijuana loses momentum, especially as the use of marijuana decreases.

The petition campaign aimed at decriminalizing marijuana in B.C. has fallen short of support needed to get the measure on a ballot, but the effort to reform Canada's marijuana laws should continue. Regulations should be brought up to date, legally and medically.

Letters

Re: "Marijuana in Denver; Committee considers whether city is ready for Jan. 1," Dec. 10 news story.

In response to the legalization of medical marijuana, who is anyone to question how someone would react to the medicinal effects of medical marijuana? Who are people to question how someone would react to any drug for that manner? It really aggravates me to hear how people think they know how someone would react to anything that is prescribed by a medical professional. You all have your right to your opinion, but do not try to lecture people about how they would feel after taking any medication that helps them. Stay out of other people's medical concerns -- period.

As it appears Sensible B.C. didn't get enough signatures to get on the next ballot, I'm writing to encourage citizens in British Columbia and all Canadians to continue hope and the good fight (Sensible B.C. hits target in West Kootenay, Trail Times Dec. 6, 2013) to end discrimination towards humans who use the God-given plant cannabis (marijuana).

Since the 1980s, the war on drugs resulted in stiff minimum mandatory sentences for drug traffickers caught with boatloads of drugs. Somehow the minimum mandatory sentences were amended to include as little as seven prescription pain pills. Somehow someone addicted to pain medication after an injury was included in this web meant for big-time drug traffickers.

The original Prohibition on a national scale brought us Al Capone. The sequel("Futile drug war just drags on," Ledger-Enquirer, Dec. 7, 2013) has brought the Pablo Escobars, Osama bin Ladens and their waiting replacements. Murder rates decreased for 10 years after ending the original prohibition, and ending the sequel will have the same results.

New Mexico's medical marijuana program has become a model for the nation since it became law in 2007. And though we are in the midst of a shortage of medicinal marijuana in New Mexico at present, the bottom line of our current predicament is that New Mexicans deserve care and need access to their medicine. Especially when the type of care they have been getting - medical marijuana - has already been approved and is being regulated by our state's Department of Health.

Regarding "Busting medical-pot study myth" (Opinions, Dec. 2): Yavapai County Attorney Sheila Polk echoed a misleading statement from the National Institute on Drug Abuse website that NIDA "permits or funds studies on therapeutic benefits of marijuana."