Author: admin

In 17 states where recreational and medical marijuana is still illegal, a marijuana-derived substance called cannabidiol oil, or CBD oil, is available for use as a medical treatment. Only one governor in the country, Idaho’s Butch Otter, has blocked the passage of a CBD oil bill.

In a new Reason web feature, Eric Boehm takes a look at Otter’s decison to veto Idaho’s CBD oil bill in March 2015. The bill would have provided a small measure of hope for Idahoans suffering from chronic, untreatable seizures—people like Josh Phillips, a star high school wrestler who had to give up his dream of a state championship when his seizures became too severe to control.

With pharmaceutical and surgical treatments unsuccessful, the Phillips family and others in Idaho placed their hopes in the legalization of cannabidiol oil, or CBD, a form of medical marijuana. Though not guaranteed to work for everyone, CBD has been shown to be effective in controlling seizures in some epileptic patients. For that reason, it’s been legalized in dozens of states as a medical treatment, including many states where more widespread uses of medical marijuana remain banned.

In Idaho, a bill to allow people like Josh Phillips to access CBD oil was passed by the state legislature in 2015, only to be defeated by a group of powerful special interests—including cops, prosecutors, and pharmaceutical companies—with direct access to policy makers in Boise. Emails obtained by Reason reveal a behind-the-scenes effort organized by the state’s Office of Drug Policy to derail the CBD legislation and, after it passed against the wishes of Gov. Butch Otter and his administration, to use executive authority to replace the bill with an alternative treatment program that has done nothing to help Josh Phillips or many other Idahoans suffering from seizures.

With the threat of another veto hanging over Boise, even lawmakers who supported the CBD bill in 2015 are reluctant to take up the issue again when the legislature reconvenes in early 2017. More than half the country (including every state that borders Idaho) has some form of medical or recreational marijuana laws, but the drug warriors are still running the show in Boise.

Read the whole thing here.

Last Friday, a week and a half after Denver voters approved an initiative allowing cannabis consumption in local businesses, the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Liquor Enforcement Division announced that businesses it regulates are prohibited from participating in the pilot program. That means bars and restaurants with liquor licenses can’t legally let customers bring their own marijuana to enjoy on the premises, as envisioned by supporters of Initiative 300, which was favored by 54 percent of voters.

The department said the new rule has been in the works since last year, prompted by the liquor industry’s concerns. Although that sounds like special pleading from manufacturers and distributors worried about competition from another intoxicant, DOR Executive Director Barbara Brohl said the ban is all about safety. “After carefully considering all impacts to Coloradans and industry,” she said, the department decided “this rule is in the best interests of public health and safety resulting from public and dual consumption.” The Colorado Restaurant Association said it also “expressed concerns about the public dual consumption of marijuana and alcohol,” which suggests that some restaurateurs worried that their competitors might attract customers by offering a BYOC option.

Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public of Public Health and Environment, supports the DOR’s decision. “There is substantial evidence that combined use of marijuana and alcohol increases impairment more than use of either substance alone,” he said. “If marijuana use is allowed in establishments that hold a liquor license, dual use certainly would occur regularly and present a danger to public health and safety.”

The rule eliminates one of the major arguments against Initiative 300, but at the cost of consumer choice and business flexibility. Daniel Landes, owner of the City O’ City restaurant and bar in Denver, told the Associated Press he’d like to be able to hold special events where cannabis consumption is allowed. “I’m in the hospitality business, and there is no place like this to use marijuana,” he said. “That is inhospitable.” Since the rule applies statewide, even bars and restaurants in jurisdictions that have been more tolerant of cannabis consumption than Denver will be risking their liquor licenses if they let customers use marijuana.

Denver businesses that don’t sell alcohol, such as cigar bars, yoga studios, art galleries, newly created cannabis clubs, and restaurants without liquor licenses, can still seek permission from the city to create “designated consumption areas,” providing a new option for residents and visitors who have struggled since legalization to find social settings outside the home where they are allowed to use the marijuana they are now allowed to buy. Permits are contingent on approval by an officially recognized neighborhood organization, which can demand restrictions in addition to the ones imposed by Initiative 300.

The DOR rule “doesn’t completely hinder the entire law,” Mason Tvert, an organizer of the initiative campaign, told The Denver Post. “Remember that this whole thing kind of got started with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra fundraiser that was held in an art gallery.” I cited that episode as an illustration of Colorado’s cannabis consumption conundrum in a 2014 Reason feature story. Reason TV has covered the issue too:

Last Friday, a week and a half after Denver voters approved an initiative allowing cannabis consumption in local businesses, the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Liquor Enforcement Division announced that businesses it regulates are prohibited from participating in the pilot program. That means bars and restaurants with liquor licenses can’t legally let customers bring their own marijuana to enjoy on the premises, as envisioned by supporters of Initiative 300, which was favored by 54 percent of voters.

The department said the new rule has been in the works since last year, prompted by the liquor industry’s concerns. Although that sounds like special pleading from manufacturers and distributors worried about competition from another intoxicant, DOR Executive Director Barbara Brohl said the ban is all about safety. “After carefully considering all impacts to Coloradans and industry,” she said, the department decided “this rule is in the best interests of public health and safety resulting from public and dual consumption.” The Colorado Restaurant Association said it also “expressed concerns about the public dual consumption of marijuana and alcohol,” which suggests that some restaurateurs worried that their competitors might attract customers by offering a BYOC option.

Larry Wolk, executive director of the Colorado Department of Public of Public Health and Environment, supports the DOR’s decision. “There is substantial evidence that combined use of marijuana and alcohol increases impairment more than use of either substance alone,” he said. “If marijuana use is allowed in establishments that hold a liquor license, dual use certainly would occur regularly and present a danger to public health and safety.”

The rule eliminates one of the major arguments against Initiative 300, but at the cost of consumer choice and business flexibility. Daniel Landes, owner of the City O’ City restaurant and bar in Denver, told the Associated Press he’d like to be able to hold special events where cannabis consumption is allowed. “I’m in the hospitality business, and there is no place like this to use marijuana,” he said. “That is inhospitable.” Since the rule applies statewide, even bars and restaurants in jurisdictions that have been more tolerant of cannabis consumption than Denver will be risking their liquor licenses if they let customers use marijuana.

Denver businesses that don’t sell alcohol, such as cigar bars, yoga studios, art galleries, newly created cannabis clubs, and restaurants without liquor licenses, can still seek permission from the city to create “designated consumption areas,” providing a new option for residents and visitors who have struggled since legalization to find social settings outside the home where they are allowed to use the marijuana they are now allowed to buy. Permits are contingent on approval by an officially recognized neighborhood organization, which can demand restrictions in addition to the ones imposed by Initiative 300.

The DOR rule “doesn’t completely hinder the entire law,” Mason Tvert, an organizer of the initiative campaign, told The Denver Post. “Remember that this whole thing kind of got started with the Colorado Symphony Orchestra fundraiser that was held in an art gallery.” I cited that episode as an illustration of Colorado’s cannabis consumption conundrum in a 2014 Reason feature story. Reason TV has covered the issue too:

How much dissatisfaction was there with the major parties’ presidential candidates this year? Enough that we’re likely to hit a popular-vote milestone not seen since 1980 and an electoral-vote milestone not seen since the 19th century. Enough that in one state, someone who wasn’t even on the ballot collected nearly 6 percent of the vote:

• Bernie Sanders finished third in Vermont, with 5.68 percent, even though he wasn’t running. All sorts of non-candidates picked up write-in votes in Vermont, including seven ballots for Willie Nelson, one for Louis CK, one for Richard Nixon, and one for “R. Paul.” (Rand, Ron, and Ru can fight it out for that one.) Either two or three votes were cast for God, depending on whether you include the ballot cast for Jesus; I’ll let the theologians debate that one in the comments.

But the big write-in success was Vermont senator and former Hillary Clinton challenger Bernie Sanders, who got 18,218 votes—18,219 if you count the person who wrote in both Sanders and Joe Biden. That’s 5.68 percent of the state’s total, more than either Gary Johnson of the Libertarian Party (3.14 percent) or Jill Stein of the Greens (2.11 percent). Sanders, you’ll recall, ceased to be a candidate before the Democratic convention and spent much of the fall campaigning for Clinton.

• Jill Stein has now surpassed 1 percent of the national total. When I last posted about the third-party results, Stein had .96 percent of the national total. Since then her tally has risen to 1.02 percent. If that holds, two third-party candidates will have surpassed 1 percent this year. (The other is Johnson, whose share now stands at 3.28 percent.)

That may not sound significant, but it is exceptionally rare. The last election where two different alternative tickets managed to do that well was way back in 1980, and the last one before that was in 1948. To find another example you need to go all the way back to 1916.

• Chances are high that one or more alternative candidate—or non-candidate—will show up in the Electoral College totals too. Before Election Day, a Democratic elector in Washington declared that he would not vote for Hillary Clinton even if she carried the state. Another elector in the same state was publicly mulling a similar protest. There was a lot of debate about whether they would actually stick with such a plan if it meant handing the election to Trump.

Well, that debate is now moot: Trump appears set to carry the Electoral College no matter what the Washington delegation does. And the Democratic slate did carry Washington. So there’s a strong chance that we’ll see two Democratic electors defect to Sanders, Stein, or someone else. (There is also at least a small chance that one or more Trump electors will refuse to vote for the Republican nominee.)

It isn’t unusual for a solitary elector to break with the pack this way. That’s happened in six of the last 12 elections. But it’s extremely unusual for more than one member of the same Electoral College to vote for a presidential candidate other than the one they’re pledged to support. That hasn’t happened since the 19th century.

• Who finished last? Enough with the alternative candidates who did unusually well. Who did really, really poorly?

Strictly speaking, last place is a vast tie between a bunch of write-ins. But limiting ourselves to the candidates who actually appeared on the ballot, the person presently bringing up the rear is Frank Atwood of the Approval Voting Party, whose platform holds that you should be able to vote for as many different candidates as you like. According to the U.S. Election Atlas, Atwood currently has just 335 votes. Atwood himself might not be among them: Last October he told the Littleton Independent that he “will most likely be voting for Gary Johnson.”