Clark Williams is the 2010 Social Worker of the Year for Santa Clara County. He wrote this guest opinion column for the San Jose Mercury-News. =============== Proponents of the decriminalization of marijuana have succeeded in placing the “Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act of 2010″ on the November ballot. If passed by voters, people 21 and older would be permitted to possess, grow and transport marijuana, and local governments would be allowed to regulate and tax its sale and production. As a social worker and public health advocate who has dedicated his life’s work to [...]
Medical marijuana is a promising treatment for some specific pain-related medical conditions, researchers from the University of California’s Center for Medicinal Cannabis Research reported Wednesday in this Contra Costa Times story. State-funded studies conducted over the past decade have found marijuana effective by itself or in combination with other drugs for conditions such as nerve pain associated with HIV and muscle spasms associated with multiple sclerosis. Although California was the first of 14 states to legalize marijuana’s medical use, it remains the only state to have spent public money on researching the drug’s efficacy. It [...]
This L.A. Times guest opinion column is written by Skip Miller, chairman of D.A.R.E. America, the top drug-abuse prevention and education program in the United States, and a partner in the Los Angeles law firm Miller Barondess. =========================== The City Council’s vote Tuesday to shut hundreds of so-called medical marijuana dispensaries across Los Angeles was a welcome move, but the larger battle over pot has just begun. Across the country, lawmakers and residents of cash-strapped states are edging ever closer to legalizing — and taxing — marijuana. In California, the first state in the nation [...]
The San Diego Union-Tribune published this guest commentary by Keith Slotter, who heads the FBI’s San Diego office. ==================== With the 2010 federal budget directing billions toward fighting the pervasive drug problem from a vast array of prevention, intervention and enforcement angles, again abundant are the “why America continues to lose the war on drugs” analyses. With just a few quick clicks on Google, one can easily trace the spectrum of commentary over the last 35 years. Robert Morgenthau, former district attorney of Manhattan, in 1986 opined: “These stories (of recent drug policy failures) are [...]
Smoking marijuana is becoming even more popular among U.S. teens and they have cut down on smoking cigarettes, binge drinking and using methamphetamine, according to a federal survey released Monday. The Associated Press story was picked up by the San Francisco Chronicle, whose Web version can be found here. The AP reports that more teens also are getting high on prescription pain pills and attention-deficit drugs, according to eighth-, 10th- and 12th-graders surveyed by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Drug Abuse. “The increase of teens smoking pot is partly because the [...]
Examiner.com reports that teens and young adults who have a history of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) are at higher risk for cannabis use disorders (CUD) including cannabis dependence and cannabis abuse, according to a study by University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine researchers. “These findings demonstrate that major adverse life events, such as those seen in persons with PTSD, can contribute to the development of CUD among teenagers and young adults,” Jack R. Cornelius, M.D., M.P.H., professor of psychiatry and pharmaceutical sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, is quoted as saying [...]
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