[Vision2020] High times in Idaho?

[Tom Hansen]

Courtesy of today's (November 28, 2014) Moscow-Pullman Daily News.

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High times in Idaho?
Citizen lobby plans to bring marijuana legalization proposal to voters in 2016
A new citizen's group, New Approach Idaho, plans to bring an initiative in 2016 to Idaho voters asking them to legalize marijuana.
"Idaho's current approach to marijuana is outdated and makes criminals out of nonviolent people," the group stated on its Facebook page.
The group was created by people involved with other pro-marijuana organizations, including Compassionate Idaho, which has highlighted the drug's medical benefits. Its members attempted to get a medical marijuana initiative on the 2014 ballot but couldn't collect enough valid voter signatures.
Compassionate Idaho, and the other group involved with New Approach, Moms for Marijuana International, tried to bring the Idaho Medical Choice Act to voters in 2012 but also failed.
Focus so far has been on legalizing medical marijuana, but that goal likely could widen to full legalization, said Bill Esbensen, one of New Approach's principals.
The state's current laws are "archaic and illogical," he said, pointing out Idahoans suffering from serious medical ailments shouldn't have the additional worry of being arrested for possession.
He said incarcerations, substantial fines, students losing their college loans and other punishments shouldn't be meted out in a nation where its three most recent presidents "all have used it."
Twenty-three states currently allow some type of legal use. Washington legalized recreational marijuana and Oregon is moving toward full legalization after allowing medical use.
"If we regulate it, then much of it will be off the streets," he said. "Prohibition has failed."
Esbensen said the U.S. government has been extremely inconsistent with its drug policies - especially marijuana - even as evidence of potential benefits accumulates. He cited a 1972 report, "Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding," written by a panel under Raymond Shafer, at the time head of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse. The report suggested the government find methods other than prohibition to discourage use. Esbensen also pointed to research in 1974 that indicated THC could shrink or destroy tumors in laboratory mice. The work, sponsored by the National Institute of Health, was halted by the Drug Enforcement Administration and only resurfaced in 2000.
The hidden research stopped years of possible medical advancements and amounts to "government genocide," he said.
Esbensen has had his own trouble with government. He is appealing a conviction in Oregon stemming from ownership of a medical marijuana dispensary, the 45th Parallel, in Ontario, Ore., and was among 19 people indicted after area law enforcement spent almost a year investigating the business.
Authorities there alleged he and business partner Raymond Kangas were illegally profiting from the operation and treating it as a commercial enterprise. Such dispensaries weren't supposed to be for-profit endeavors at that time. Subsequent legislation allowed for such activity in Oregon. The specific charges were two counts of racketeering, one of conspiracy to commit racketeering and eight counts transporting marijuana for sale, according to the Ontario Argus-Observer.
He was sentenced to about 160 days in jail, given two years of probation and ordered to pay Malheur County more than $18,000. Esbensen, who is living in Boise, plans to appeal the sentence.
Though New Approach is based in southern Idaho, news of another pro-legalization group has spurred interest among some in the northern part of the state, including Moscow. Esbensen said there are 20 to 30 people from northern Idaho who have expressed interest in becoming involved in activities such as meet and greets, town hall meetings and other ways to get out the group's message.
Arlene Falcon, coordinator of Moscow's annual Hemp Fest and a local business owner, said she's happy to see another marijuana legalization effort under way.
Hemp Fest started off in 1996, focusing only on legalizing hemp but eventually included support for medical marijuana, she said.
Falcon is familiar with the advocacy work of Serra Frank, founding director and team coordinator of New Approach Idaho. Frank is best known for creating Moms for Marijuana almost a decade ago. She left that organization in May.
She was also active in NORML and Compassionate Idaho.
With neighboring states allowing marijuana use, "it makes the state of Idaho a difficult place to live," Falcon said. "It's frustrating it's been such an uphill struggle."
The two plants are related, but hemp is used to produce a variety of consumer products around the globe. It's illegal to grow in the United States and these imported goods must have no traces of THC, which causes people to have the reaction most commonly referred to as being "high."
Some states allow hemp production but are awaiting approval from the federal government.
Shirley Greene, who lives near Moscow and has been a member of the public health board for 20 years as well as the National Association of Local Boards of Health, however, is staunchly opposed to recreational marijuana use. She has publicly expressed opposition to recreational legalization in the state because of the "public health consequences and criminal repercussions."
The Idaho Association of District Boards of Health adopted a resolution in May detailing its opposition to legalizing recreational marijuana. It cited studies that link long-term use of marijuana to respiratory illnesses and cognitive impairment.
"Addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco, which are legal and taxed, already result in much higher social costs than the revenue they generate," the board's resolution stated.
Allowing medical use might be another matter, however.
Greene said some studies indicate there's possibly "some benefit" from pharmaceuticals made from marijuana. Whether she would support a medical marijuana legalization measure entirely depends on the proposal's contents, she said.
A Boise State University Public Policy survey conducted in 2010 found 74 percent of Idaho residents supported allowing "terminally and seriously ill patients to use and purchase marijuana for medical purposes."
Idaho lawmakers, though, passed a resolution in 2013 opposing any form of legalization.
One of Idaho's foremost medical marijuana proponents, Republican Tom Trail, had represented Moscow in the state Legislature and introduced bills in 2011 and 2012 seeking legalization for medical use. He said such activity should be governed by rules created by legislators instead of becoming law through the initiative process, however.
Before that, Trail spent more than a decade proposing various bills that would have allowed industrial hemp production in Idaho, but his efforts related to both areas were unsuccessful.
New Approach can be contacted at facebook.com/newapproachidaho. The group also plans to have a website at www.legalizeidaho.org.
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Legalize it!  Regulate it!  Tax it!



Seeya 'round town, Moscow, because . . .

"Moscow Cares" (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
http://www.MoscowCares.com
  
Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho
 
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