DocumentDump.com ^ RWCS.com > Steal This Blog

RT @Tax Cannabis in 2010 Miss this? HUGE NEWS!! We secured enough signatures to qualify for the November 2010 California ballot!!!!! Thank you all so much! Keep the momentum going: www.taxcannabis.org

Popularity: 1% [?]

RT @TIME See primo photos from yesterday’s 4/20 Great American Smoke-Out | http://ow.ly/3thv

via @lostmarblesmart twitter web

Popularity: 2% [?]

By Tony Newman, AlterNet
Posted on February 2, 2009, Printed on February 3, 2009

Michael Phelps & BONG

The Olympic gold medalist struck another blow to the myth that pot smokers are lazy couch potatoes. He has no reason to say he’s sorry.

Plastered all over the Internet right now is a photo of Michael Phelps smoking marijuana out of a bong. Phelps put out a statement saying that he acted in a youthful and inappropriate way and promises it won’t happen again. Different people are weighing in on the possible impact of this photo on the gold medalist’s $100 million endorsement deals.

Here are a few of my observations on Phelps’ bong hits:

Phelps Is in Good Company

Phelps struck another blow to the myth that marijuana smokers are lazy couch potatoes. Here is the guy who has won more gold medals than anyone in history, and obviously his health and accomplishments are not hindered by smoking some pot. In addition to his swimming skills, he is a successful businessman who has turned his swimming skills into an enormous public relations platform and money generator. Successful and honorable people who have smoked some pot are all around us, from President Barack Obama to New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Phelps Apology Was Unnecessary

While Phelps’ statement said he acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, he did not pretend to have a drug problem and promise to go to rehab. So many times when celebrities are caught with drugs, they give tearful statements and promise to get help. Phelps doesn’t appear to have a drug problem, and there is no reason for him to take up valuable treatment slots if he doesn’t have a drug problem.

Does it Hurt or Help His Image?

While some “experts” are predicting that Phelps bong hits could cost him millions, I could also see it humanizing him and making him even more popular with a large section of the public. Phelps’ swimming accomplishments have always been awe-inspiring, but who could relate to the guy who swam eight hours a day and had to eat 23 hamburgers every day to compensate for the calories he burns off in training? Seeing him with his hat on backwards taking a hit made me feel like I could relate to the guy more. With half of high school seniors having tried marijuana before they graduate, it is not clear that this photo is going to disillusion his fan base.

Pot Use Doesn’t Discriminate, but Our Pot Laws Do

While society has made some progress on tolerating pot consumption, there are still many laws on the books that cause more harm than the smoking of marijuana. Close to 800,000 people were arrested for marijuana last year, and the vast majority for only possessing small amounts. Harry Levine and Deborah Small put out a report last year that found that between 1998 and 2007, New York City police arrested 374,900 people for low-level, misdemeanor marijuana offenses. That is more than eight times the number of arrests on the same charges for the previous 10-year period (between 1988 and 1997), when 45,300 people were picked up for having small amounts of marijuana.

Researchers also found stark racial disparities in who NYPD officers chose to arrest for marijuana offenses. The report found that 83 percent of those charged in these cases were black or Latino, despite equal marijuana use between whites and nonwhites. The discrepancy, the researchers asserted, is because NYPD officers stopped and frisked blacks and Latinos at a dramatically higher rate.

Once someone is convicted of a drug offense, they can lose college financial aid, food stamps, public housing and, in some cases, even voting rights. Money wasted and lives ruined … and for what?

Phelps Can Continue to be a Role Model

I like Phelps and don’t think his bong hit should hurt him. If he truly wants to be a role model, he can take his comments and platform to the next level. He can say simply, “Yes, that was me smoking marijuana, and the laws that ruin peoples’ lives for using marijuana should be debated and changed.”

Tony Newman is communications director for the Drug Policy Alliance.

© 2009 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Via NORML, DWR and D’Alliance

January 16 on NBC: Dateline. Hour-long profile on the tragic death of Rachel Hoffman.

January 16 at 10 pm (Eastern) (tentative) on ABC: 20/20.

Feature on convicted medical marijuana provider Charlie Lynch. January 22 at 9 pm (Eastern) on:

CNBC: Marijuana, Inc: Inside America’s Pot Industry February 10 on PBS: Tulia, Texas That’s some line-up.

Popularity: 4% [?]

By Russ Belville, NORML
Posted on January 8, 2009, Printed on January 8, 2009

The next surgeon general needs to stop putting politics before science. Gupta may not be ready for that.

If Dr. Sanjay Gupta is picked for the post of surgeon general, he would become the nation’s leading medical advocate. His experience in the media would be beneficial in bringing the Surgeon General’s office back to the prominence it held when C. Everett Koop was successfully battling tobacco smoking.

But is Gupta ready to deliver the Obama administration’s promised end to the politicization of science and medicine? More specifically, will Gupta toe the federal line that cannabis is lacking in any medical value, or will he recognize what 13 states and the past 12 years of research prove — that cannabis is a beneficial medicine for some people and an intoxicant far less harmful than alcohol for others?

In 2002, Gupta was more than willing to echo the outrageous claims that smoking pot would lead to psychosis, depression and schizophrenia:

But the three studies you are talking about talk specifically about schizophrenia and depression, and the fact that marijuana use earlier in life actually may lead to an increased — 30 percent increase — in schizophrenia later in life.

Depression, also a very big diagnosis — roughly 18.8 million in this country have it. Again, they looked this time at 1,600 high school students and followed them over about seven years. This is in Australia, not in the United States. But they actually found that all of these boys and girls, particularly girls, were more vulnerable to the symptoms of depression later on in life, again if they were frequent or even daily marijuana users.

I hope that the next surgeon general has been following the research on cannabis and mental health since 2002. This year, Dr. Mikkel Arendt of Aarhus University in Risskov, Denmark, said that people treated for a so-called cannabis-induced psychosis “…would have developed schizophrenia whether or not they used cannabis.”

I hope that Gupta has kept up with the journal Schizophrenia Research and the research published there last year by the London’s Institute of Psychiatry, which found no statistically significant “differences in symptomatology between schizophrenic patients who were or were not cannabis users,” found no “evidence that cannabis users with schizophrenia were more likely to have a family member with the disorder” and that these findings “argue against a distinct schizophrenic-like psychosis caused by cannabis,” authors concluded.

Regarding depression, in 2006, researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore found ”that the associations observed between marijuana use and subsequent depression status may be attributable not to continued marijuana use, per se, but to third (common) factors associated with both the decision to use marijuana and to depression.”  In fact, the year prior, researchers at USC had found among cannabis smokers, “those who used once per week or less had less depressed mood, more positive affect and fewer somatic (physical) complaints than non-users,” and that “[d]aily users [also] reported less depressed mood and more positive affect than non-users.”

Or we could just ask the incoming surgeon general to apply some common sense.  If smoking cannabis is a strong predictor of future depression or schizophrenia, then shouldn’t there be a spike in the reporting of those conditions around 1978, when 37 percent of high school seniors reported past-month cannabis use, and a decline in depression and schizophrenia around 1992, when the modern low of 12 percent was reported? Instead, what we find is that about 1 percent of the population develops schizophrenia, and that figure stays relatively steady even as cannabis use rises and falls.

In 2006, Gupta was penning the article “Why I Would Vote No on Pot“ for Time magazine as Colorado and Nevada had non-medical-cannabis-regulation ballot measures pending. It doesn’t seem like he’s been following the past two decades of research:

I’m constantly amazed that after all these years — and all the wars on drugs and all the public-service announcements — nearly 15 million Americans still use marijuana at least once a month.

Frequent marijuana use can seriously affect your short-term memory. It can impair your cognitive ability (why do you think people call it dope?) and lead to long-lasting depression or anxiety. While many people smoke marijuana to relax, it can have the opposite effect on frequent users. And smoking anything, whether it’s tobacco or marijuana, can seriously damage your lung tissue.

But I’m here to tell you, as a doctor, that despite all the talk about the medical benefits of marijuana, smoking the stuff is not going to do your health any good. And if you get high before climbing behind the wheel of a car, you will be putting yourself and those around you in danger.

First, I’m wondering what Gupta is amazed about — that 15 million Americans trust their own experiences with cannabis over government anti-drug propaganda and hyperbole? The anti-drug PSAs he mentions have been proven to not reduce teen cannabis use and may actually increase it. The Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania was commissioned by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to study the effect of government anti-cannabis ad campaigns over four years and found, ”Youth who were more exposed to Campaign messages are no more likely to hold favorable beliefs or intentions about marijuana than are youth less exposed to those messages, both during the Marijuana Initiative period and over the entire course of the Campaign.”

Gupta claims that smoking cannabis will impair your cognitive ability, and again, I fear he’s parroting politics rather than following the research. Just this November, the journal Neuropsychopharmacology published data from Columbia University that reported “the finding that accuracy [on cognitive testing] was unaffected by smoked marijuana indicates that heavy, daily marijuana smokers will not fulfill the DSM-IV [Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition] criterion for marijuana intoxication that requires impairment of complex cognitive functioning,”  This is on the heels of a Harvard study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry that determined that long-term marijuana smokers who abstain from the drug for one week or more perform identically on cognition tests as non-users, and a previous study on marijuana and cognition by researchers at Johns Hopkins that found “no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users and non-users of cannabis” over a 15-year period in a cohort of 1,318 subjects.

Gupta also makes the mistake of comparing tobacco smoke to cannabis smoke. While it is true that long-term cannabis smoking can lead to wheezing, cough and bronchitis, investigators writing last year in the journal Thorax did not find a positive association between smoking cannabis and the development of emphysema (overinflation of the air sacs in the lungs). Of course, all the pulmonary harms of smoking cannabis can be alleviated through eating it or through cannabis vaporization.  Investigators at San Francisco General Hospital reported last year in the journal Clinical Pharmacology & Therapeutics that the “vaporization of marijuana does not result in exposure to combustion gases.” A previous clinical trial, published in 2006 in the Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences, reported that vaporization is a “safe and effective” cannabinoid delivery system that “avoid[s] the respiratory disadvantages of smoking.”

In 1997, Dr. Donald Tashkin’s research at the UCLA Medical Center found that, “Neither the continuing nor the intermittent marijuana smokers exhibited any significantly different rates of decline in [lung function]” as compared with those individuals who never smoked marijuana. “No differences were noted between even quite heavy marijuana smoking and nonsmoking of marijuana.” These findings starkly contrasted those experienced by tobacco-only smokers who suffered a significant rate of decline in lung function.

By 2006, the Washington Post reported on Tashkin’s latest research on cannabis use and cancer. Tashkin said, “We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use. What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect.”

As for driving, nobody here at NORML suggests that people smoke cannabis and then drive a car. But someone’s potential irresponsible use of cannabis is not an argument for the danger of cannabis itself. In fact, researchers at Britain’s Transport Research Laboratory found in September that text messaging and alcohol are far more dangerous on the road than cannabis. “The reaction times of people texting as they drove fell by 35 percent, while those who had consumed the legal limit of alcohol, or taken cannabis, fell by 21 percent and 12 percent respectively.”

To be fair, in his 2006 Time article, Gupta does seem to begrudgingly admit some of cannabis’ vast medicinal uses:

Several recent studies, including a new one from the Scripps Research Institute, show that THC, the chemical in marijuana responsible for the high, can help slow the progress of Alzheimer’s disease. (In fact, it seems to block the formation of disease-causing plaques better than several mainstream drugs.) Other studies have shown THC to be a very effective anti-nausea treatment for people — cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy, for example — for whom conventional medications aren’t working. And medical cannabis has shown promise relieving pain in patients with multiple sclerosis and reducing intraocular pressure in glaucoma patients.

But back in 2002, even when he gives in on the most recognized medical uses of cannabis, he still recites the government line that there are other drugs that can be used instead of cannabis:

There are some benefits to marijuana use. It can make cancer chemotherapy patients hungrier — also in HIV and AIDS patients. … And marijuana can offer some of those things, especially when it comes to reducing nausea and vomiting, not advocating that necessarily myself. I think there are other ways to do that besides marijuana.

This is the mind-set I call “marijuana as medicine of last resort.” It’s the concept that any time a medical benefit to cannabis is absolutely undeniable, then it can be somewhat accepted, but only if no other medicine will suffice. This “medicine of last resort” idea is the notion that if both OxyContin and cannabis will relieve pain, you should take OxyContin because it is legal, despite the fact that OxyContin is addictive and has severe side effects. It’s the notion that if you’re vomiting from severe nausea, you should first try to swallow a synthetic THC pill called Marinol that won’t work for 45 minutes rather than smoking an illegal doobie that works immediately.  Even when cannabis is the superior medicine for a symptom or condition, the drug-war mentality that there are “good” drugs and “bad” drugs kicks in, and the doctors will recommend a less-effective “good” drug over the more-effective “bad” one.

In a weekly radio address to the nation, President-elect Barack Obama offered his view of science and public policy:

Because the truth is that promoting science isn’t just about providing resources — it’s about protecting free and open inquiry. It’s about ensuring that facts and evidence are never twisted or obscured by politics or ideology. It’s about listening to what our scientists have to say, even when it’s inconvenient — especially when it’s inconvenient. Because the highest purpose of science is the search for knowledge, truth and a greater understanding of the world around us. That will be my goal as president of the United States — and I could not have a better team to guide me in this work.

If your team is going to ensure the science behind medical cannabis isn’t twisted by ideology, we’d invite you and Gupta to meet with us here at NORML so we can show you all the inconvenient truths about cannabis that have been discovered over the past 12 years. Thirteen states and millions of medical users are depending on you to support the truth, not the politics, Dr. Gupta. Will you have the courage of another surgeon general, Dr. Joycelyn Elders, who testified in support of medical marijuana in Rhode Island, saying:

The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS — or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day.  It is simply wrong for the sick and suffering to be casualties in the war on drugs. Let’s get rid of the myths and institute sound public-health policy.

Sound public health policy free from drug war mythology? President-elect Obama, Dr. Gupta, that is the kind of change we can believe in.

© 2009 NORML All rights reserved.

Popularity: 4% [?]

By Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune.com
Posted on December 8, 2008

This article first appeared on Miller-McCune.com.

Two new studies suggest that substances usually associated with dulling the mind — marijuana and red wine — may help ward off Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of age-related memory loss. Their addition comes as another study dethrones folk remedy ginkgo biloba as proof against the disease.

At a November meeting of the Society of Neuroscience in Washington, D.C., researchers from Ohio State University reported that THC, the main psychoactive substance in the cannabis plant, may reduce inflammation in the brain and even stimulate the formation of new brain cells.

Meanwhile, in the Nov. 21 issue of the Journal of Biological Chemistry, neurologist David Teplow of the University of California, Los Angeles reported that polyphenols — naturally occurring components of red wine — block the formation of proteins that build the toxic plaques thought to destroy brain cells. In addition, these substances can reduce the toxicity of existing plaques, thus reducing cognitive deterioration.

Together, the studies suggest scientists are gaining a clearer understanding of the mechanics of memory deterioration and discovering some promising approaches to prevention.

Previous research has suggested that polyphenols — which are found in high concentrations in tea, nuts and berries, as well as cabernets and merlots — may inhibit or prevent the buildup of toxic fibers in the brain. These fibers, which are primarily composed of two specific proteins, form the plaques that have long been associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

UCLA’s Teplow and his colleagues monitored how these proteins folded up and stuck to each other to produce aggregates that killed nerve cells in mice. They then treated the proteins with a polyphenol compound extracted from grape seeds. They discovered the polyphenols blocked the formation of the toxic aggregates.

“What we found is pretty straightforward,” Teplow declared. “If the amyloid beta proteins can’t assemble, toxic aggregates can’t form, and, thus, there is no toxicity.” If this also proves true in human brains, it means administration of the compound to Alzheimer’s patients could “prevent disease development and also ameliorate existing disease,” he said. Human clinical trials are upcoming.

At Ohio State, researchers led by psychologist Gary Wenk are studying the protective effects of tetrahydrocannabinol, commonly known as THC. They found that administering a THC-like synthetic drug to older rats performed better at a memory test than a control group of non-medicated elderly rodents.

In some of the rats, the drug apparently lowered inflammation in the hippocampus — the region of the brain responsible for short-term memory. It also seems to have stimulated the generation of new brain cells.

“When we’re young, we reproduce neurons and our memory works fine,” said co-author Yannick Marchalant, another Ohio State psychologist. “When we age, the process slows down, so we have a decrease in new cell formation in normal aging. You need those cells to come back and help form new memories, and we found that this THC-like agent can influence creation of those cells.”

Wenk added two cautionary notes to his report. First, to be effective, any such treatment along these lines would have to take place before memory loss is obvious. Second, the researchers still have much work to do.

“We need to find exactly which receptors are most crucial” to the generation of new brain cells, he said. This discovery would “ideally lead to the development of drugs that specifically activate those receptors.”

In the meantime, should aging baby boomers who are worried about old-age mental impairment light up a joint? Wenk was cautious in his answer, no doubt because marijuana is suspected to be harmful to health in other ways.

“Could people smoke marijuana to prevent Alzheimer’s disease if the disease is in the family? We’re not saying that, but it might actually work,” he said. “What we are saying is it appears that a safe, legal substance the mimics those important properties of marijuana can work on receptors in the brain to prevent memory impairments in aging. So that’s really hopeful.”

Tom Jacobs is a veteran journalist with more than 20 years experience at daily newspapers. He has served as a staff writer for the Los Angeles Daily News and the Santa Barbara News-Press. His work has also appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune and Ventura County Star.

© 2008 Miller-McCune.com All rights reserved.

Popularity: 2% [?]

November 23rd, 2008 By: Allen St. Pierre, NORML Executive Director

It has been painful from the outside looking in to watch President-elect Barack Obama begin to cobble together his cabinet officers and senior staff in regards to what prospects there are for substantive cannabis law reforms in this first term.

There are only a couple of key appointments left that may signal the political tea leafs for cannabis law reforms in Obama 1.0 — head of Drug Enforcement Administration (which serves under the Attorney General at the Department of Justice) and the Drug Czar (see below regarding rumored nominee).

Who among current Obama nominees are giving me some acid burn?

In order of importance:

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel

“For us regarding opposing drugs and any reforms, it is: harms criminal justice; children; the pharmaceutical process and the legalization stalking horse.” -R.E., 1997

As a longtime observer of Rahm’s ascendancy into the stratosphere of politics (Chicago Mayor Daley’ staff, President Clinton’s White House, Congress, and now back to the White as Chief of Staff. What has me most concerned about Rahm is that for so long he has been so consistent in opposing drug policy reforms, most especially cannabis law reforms. In the Clinton White House he played a major role in domestic policy making, with a strong nod to matters of criminal justice. He was effectively the White House’s point man with the Drug Czar. In my view, Rahm was not concerned with effective policy-making as much as image making, so as to help inoculate the President (and Democrats) from the historical albatross hanging from their necks during most national elections—fear of being viewed by the Republicans, and more importantly the general public, as being ‘weak on crime’.

To put it bluntly, Bill Clinton and Al Gore lied their way up and down the countryside running for the Oval office in the summer of 1992, promising liberal donors, gay activists and drug policy reformers that if elected, at a minimum, they would expand the federal government’s Compassionate Investigative New Drug Program (a.k.a. IND, run by the Public Health Service), which allowed for a small handful of federally-approved medical patients to receive up to 300 ‘joints’ per/month for a serious medical condition.

When Clinton and Gore took office in 1993, they immediately felt the political pressure from state politicians, major gay donors and activists, notably from California, who’d impressed upon Clinton the need for medical cannabis for AIDS and cancer patients.

However, and disappointingly, rather than expand the important research program, Rahm and Co. moved to dismantle it, and by late July 1994 Clinton had canceled the IND program, grandfathering the group of eight patients in the program a columnist at the Washington Post deemed the Acapulco Eight.

Taking a far more politically pragmatic path than a compassionate one, Rahm chose to ignore the science (and the Constitution I’d hastily add) and conflate the somewhat easy to distinguish and politically popular battle for patients to access medicinal cannabis with the decidedly unpopular ‘War on Some Drugs’.

In the spring of 1997, a writer and author who interviewed Rahm for a major Rolling Stone piece on the ‘Drug War’, after he’d walked the 3 blocks from Rahm’s White House office to NORML’s K St. office, kindly shared with me his three pages of shorthand notes. The writer, who’d spent a few days in DC interviewing all of the major players in drug enforcement and drug policy reform had wanted to get an interview with Rahm, because absent the President, there was likely no other person in the nation at the time who had more sway over which way the Executive branch implemented drug control strategies.

When I asked, “Well, how was the interview, where does Emanuel stand on the issue of marijuana?” The writer looked up from his notes and said, “NORML is so screwed. In Emanuel you have the prototypical liberal drug warrior: More government intervention, more laws, more arrests; less freedom and personal responsibility.”

What do these notes reveal from 1997?

When asked why did the Clinton Administration so actively oppose the 1996 ballot initiatives in California (and Arizona) to legalize medical access to cannabis, Rahm’s replies:

-We opposed the Arizona initiative because it had to with sentencing and harder drugs;

-We opposed the California initiative because it sent the wrong message to children and we believe that there is downward trend in use right now that these laws will hurt; send wrong message.

-This procedure should not be done by initiative. We have procedures whereby drugs are tested and approved. These initiatives don’t follow those procedures.

-We took an unpopular position on this. Our position is based on policy even if polls are going the other way.

When asked ‘what makes Clinton’s drug policy any better than George Bush. Sr.’s?’, Rahm’s replies:

-We have passed anti-meth legislation before meth has taken off nationally. Law enforcement are telling me that we got ahead of it.

-Our four points for control: drug testing, drug treatment, coerced abstinence works and if the states want the money for prisons they have to adopt what is proven successful.

-Some members of Congress want to defund the ONDCP, but General McCaffrey is different, brings energy and focus to the job.

-We [Clinton Administration] shifted resources from borders to domestic, community policing and drug free school efforts.

-There is nowhere near enough treatment space for the demand.

-This is about attitude and putting federal dollars to work.

When asked about medical marijuana community (doctors, patients, AIDS and drug policy reform organizations), Rahm slapped his head with his hand and said…

-“We oppose it [cannabis] because there is no doubt that the funding comes from those who advocate legalization. We thought this was the first of many battles and needed to fight.”

When asked about the high number of annual cannabis arrests in the US, Rahm said:

-“I’ve never heard of a police chief who says they waste their time on small time marijuana arrests. I would be surprised if very many people are being arrested for small marijuana possession.”

Further, “For us regarding opposing drugs and any reforms, it is: harms criminal justice; children; the pharmaceutical process and the legalization stalking horse.”

-“I think there is a sadder side to all of this that McCaffrey has spoken eloquently about how people who have used drugs in the past should not be disqualified or attack for their pasts.”

Regarding “marijuana”:

-“Yes, we believe it is a genuinely dangerous drug when it comes to kids. I’ll show you data after data that kids who go onto to harder drugs started off with marijuana.”

-“Laws signal acceptability or not. In this area we say its unlawful and we think that it helps parents say this is wrong.”

Whew. Well, there you have it, from NORML’s huge archives and directly from the writer’s notebook circa spring 1997. A couple of closing thoughts on Rahm and his views on cannabis…

Tactical and political savvy as Rahm clearly is, history proves the decisions President Clinton and he made regarding medical cannabis (and decriminalization) were demonstrably wrong. Rather than yield any quarter or embrace science, compassion and the Constitution in being so rigid and recalcitrant on the public health/criminal justice conundrum of medicinal cannabis, Rahm actually helped accelerate, not retard, the state-based strategy of reformers. From 1996-2000, the Clinton Administration failed to stop grassroots efforts to pass state initiatives or legislation in eight states that ‘legalized’ medical cannabis (Bush 2.0 and his Drug Czar John Walters have not faired much better opposing state medical marijuana laws, save for prevailing in the US Supreme Court twice, in 2001 and 2005. Though, despite the ‘high’ court’s adverse rulings in these cases, the number of medical cannabis dispensaries, cooperatives and even automated medical cannabis machines have steadily increased. If reformers lost at SCOTUS, functionally, what did we actually lose? My contention is not much as the court’s rulings don’t reflect the current political, public health and economic realities facing the respectable minority of Americans who, regardless of their state’s laws, currently employ cannabis as a therapeutic, often with their physician’s recommendation. Reminds one of prior SCOTUS rulings in our nation’s past regarding race, labor laws, women’s rights, internment of Japanese Americans, gay and lesbian equality and sexual reproduction laws where society (and often technology) is leagues ahead of legislation, and ensuing appellate court action–both of which move at a glacial rate (unless of course there is multi-billion dollar, taxpayer-funded ‘bailout’ to be performed, then federal legislative and court action is performed post haste).

Emanuel’s new boss, and admitted past cannabis consumer President-elect Obama has repeatedly indicated that he does not support the use of federal law enforcement to harass medical cannabis dispensaries in states that have approved medical marijuana laws; Obama historically supported decriminalizing small amounts of cannabis (until the end of the contentious Democratic primaries this spring where Obama ‘flipped-flopped’ on the issue, and now claims to oppose the decriminalization of cannabis) and believes that far too many young people are ensnared in an unwieldy and expensive criminal justice system.

Rahm is politically smart if nothing else, so I hope that he’ll follow his boss’ lead in the area of criminal justice reforms. Also, to his credit, after voting years against the Hinchey-Rohrabacher Amendment, in 2007, as member of Congress from Illinois, Rahm voted in favor of holding back federal funding from law enforcement (read DEA) to raid or harass medical marijuana cultivators and dispensaries.

Interestingly, and I don’t think a coincidence, from 2005 forward Illinois’ state legislature has held hearings on medical marijuana and prominent (and compelling) cases like medical marijuana patient Brenda Kratovil have been featured all over the major news media in the state. My supposition is that Rahm, in fact a smart, keenly attuned politician, only came to support clipping the DEA’s wings regarding medical marijuana raids on the west coast after paying close political attention to how citizens in his state—along with its editorial boards and prominent columnists—readily support seriously ill, dying or sense threatened medical patients with a physician’s recommendation to access cannabis.

However, I fear that Rahm will continue to advocate for a politically cautious (I’d say paranoid) path regarding cannabis law reforms; is prone to engage in the most oft-trotted out, and easily deflated, myths and canards about cannabis; and will be too centrist and deferential to law enforcement for political expediency sake.

I just hope his boss and can talk him out of it. If not his new boss, maybe he should listen to his old boss, Bill Clinton, who has acknowledged that he was wrong to oppose harm reduction tenets: cannabis decriminalization and needle exchange efforts.

Attorney General Nominee Eric Holder

Much has been written and fretted about in the last few days about Obama’s pick to be the nation’s top law enforcement official, Attorney General nominee Eric Holder.
There are excellent and probing commentary penned regarding what prospects for criminal justice policy reforms the appointment of Holder portends.

My remarks to Reason’s excellent ‘Hit and Run’ Blog:

“NORML has serious concerns about the choice of Eric Holder as the next Attorney General because he has a long history of opposing drug policy reforms, perceiving cannabis smoking by adults as a public nuisance worthy of constant harrassment, promoting violent governmental intervention into the private lives of citizens who consume cannabis, supporting mandatory minimum sentencing and so-called civil forfeiture laws.

His attraction to the myth of ‘fixing broken windows’ and using law enforcement to crack down on petty crimes will swell an already overburdened, bloated, expensive and failed government prohibition against otherwise law-abiding citizens who choose to consume cannabis.”

Vice-President Joe Biden

The pick of Joe Biden to be Obama’s running mate was my first sign of digestive tumult regarding the prospect of ‘CHANGE’ for drug policy reform. Suffice of to say here, because it was already said here, that Biden represents the decade and type of ‘liberal’ politician in the 1980s, who, rather than oppose the Reagan-inspired War on Some Drugs, decided to become an enthusiastic supporter and legislative booster. Biden was at the center of creating the Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), mandatory minimum sentencing, civil forfeiture laws, the Rave Act, funding for DARE in public schools and the ad campaigns for the Partnership for a Drug Free America.

When asked in Connecticut this past May of pain management, Biden exhorted that “There’s got to be a better answer than marijuana.”

With Biden (and Emanuel) loyally by his side, from a purely political point of view, Obama (like a fellow Baby Boomer-type Bill Clinton before him) has wisely guarded against right wing attacks that he may be ‘soft on drugs’.

ONDCP Transition Team Director Dr. Don Vereen
As amazingly as it seems to most who come to know that the ONDCP is a cabinet level office (Thanks Joe Biden!), all cabinet level offices need an official transition team. So who is heading up the ONDCP transitional team? One of the principals is Don Vereen, a former ONDCP deputy director from 1998-2001.

Is Vereen a reform-minded health care professional and ready to embrace ‘change’?

Unlikely in my view as Vereen told the Psychiatric News in 1999 that he believed that doctors who prescribe marijuana as irresponsible and actually advocated arresting medical patients caught with marijuana. Yikes!

Vereen, like Emanuel (and so many other selective prohibitionists), has adopted the same rote cited rationalizations why cannabis can’t be legally controlled and taxed like thousands of pharmaceuticals currently: marijuana can’t be thought of as a therapeutic treatment because it’s usually smoked and because dosages are difficult to control.

Also, Vereen was on the losing side this past Election Day in Michigan where, in his capacity as director of Community Based Public Health at Univ. of Michigan, he claimed that a medical marijuana initiative ‘sends the wrong message to children’.

These folks sure do stick to the same talking points….I hope Vereen doesn’t pull a Cheney here and conclude that he is the best person for the job.

Former Congressman James Ramstad for Drug Czar?

As one of my favorite policy writers and commentators Maia Szalavitz aptly points out in her November 21 Huffington Post article regarding Ramstad:

On paper, Jim Ramstad — who is rumored to be Obama’s choice for drug czar — looks like the ideal man for the job . He’s a recovering alcoholic himself and a Congressman who championed legislation recently passed to provide equal insurance coverage for addictions and other mental illnesses.

Unfortunately, Ramstad may be a drug warrior in recovering person’s clothing. There is one issue that has consistently separated those who put science and saving lives in front of politics. That is needle exchange programs for addicts to prevent the spread of HIV and other blood borne illnesses.

Even President Clinton now says he was “wrong” when he ignored the recommendations of every scientific and medical organization in the world that has examined the question — from the AMA to the World Health Organization — and refused to lift the federal ban on funding.

Needle exchanges have been shown repeatedly to reduce HIV and contrary to the claims of opponents, they help addicts get into treatment.

But Bill Clinton had a drug czar — Barry McCaffrey — who said that needle exchange “sent the wrong message,” and would make him seem soft on drugs. McCaffrey fought against it and Clinton now says he “regrets” caving in to drug war politics.

Ramstad also — again, against the evidence – opposes medical marijuana and supports federal policing and prosecution of providers and patients in the states that have made it legal. These states have not seen the rise in teen drug use that opponents like the Congressman predicted.

The opposite, in fact, happened — as is the case in countries that have decriminalized marijuana like Holland. The UK’s “downgrading” of cannabis offense to a lesser status was also accompanied by a drop in use.

There’s simply no evidence that allowing sick people to get needed medication conflicts with helping addicts. Obama has said he does not support these prosecutions — will Ramstad push him in the wrong direction here, too? In an economic crisis, do we really want to spend federal time and money locking up medical marijuana providers and sick people?

That’s not change, President Obama — that’s more of the same. Don’t make the mistake that Bill Clinton did and install a drug czar who will ignore science and push dogma.

Amen Maia!

Popularity: 11% [?]

[SOURCE: NORML News of the Week 8/21/2008 @ Thu, Aug 21, 2008 at 4:19 PM]

Sacramento, CA:

According to recent media reports, Attorney General Edmund G. (Jerry) Brown is currently privately circulating to top state and law enforcement officials the “final draft” of his long-awaited rules for ensuring “the security and non-diversion of marijuana grown for medical use.” These, when finalized, will be the first definitive guidelines provided by the state of California in the decade plus since Prop. 215 was approved by the voters.

According to the attorney general, these guidelines are intended to accomplish three objectives: to avoid diversion of marijuana grown for authorized patients; to help law enforcement understand and apply the law consistently throughout the state; and to “help patients and caregivers …cultivate, transport, possess, and use marijuana under California law.”

Brown, who earlier announced his intension to appeal the recent Kelly decision (People v. Kelly), holding SB 420, the act passed by the legislature that placed limits on the amount of medical marijuana a patient could legally possess, to be an unconstitutional infringement on the power of voters to adopt state policy via initiative. Brown has consistently indicated his opposition to private dispensaries, and his draft guidelines reportedly reflect that position, and may present a new challenge to dispensaries.

Brown’s draft guidelines reportedly have this to say about dispensaries: “Although medical marijuana ‘dispensaries’ have been operating in California for years, dispensaries, as such, are not recognized under the law.” Individuals who operate dispensary establishments “that do substantially comply with [the] guidelines… may be subject to arrest and prosecution under California law.”

For patients who may possess more than the authorized amount, the guidelines also reportedly present a problem. “If a person has what appears to be valid medical marijuana documentation, but exceeds the applicable possession guidelines identified above, all marijuana may be seized. “

On the positive side, patients would reportedly be entitled to the return of their authorized medical marijuana from law enforcement, once their authorization was verified, and state officers would be protected from liability for following this guideline.

For more information, contact NORML Legal Counsel Keith Stroup or California NORML director Dale Gieringer or call 415-563-5858

Popularity: 4% [?]

[SOURCE: NORML News of the Week 8/21/2008]

Sacramento, CA: A medical marijuana employment rights bill, AB 2279, which would protect hundreds of thousands of medical marijuana patients in California from employment discrimination, passed the State Senate on August 20. The proposal had passed the State Assembly in May, and now heads to the Governor’s desk for his signature or veto.

Introduced in February by Assemblyman Mark Leno (D-San Francisco) and co-authored by Assembly members Patty Berg (D-Eureka), Loni Hancock (D-Berkeley) and Lori Saldaña (D-San Diego), this proposal is designed to reverse a January 24th decision of the California Supreme Court in the case of Ross v. RagingWire, in which the court held that an employer may fire someone solely because they use medical marijuana outside the workplace.

The bill leaves intact existing state law prohibiting medical marijuana consumption at the workplace or during working hours and protects employers by carving out an exception for safety-sensitive positions.

“AB 2279 is not about being under the influence while at work. That’s against the law, and will remain so,” said Assemblyman Leno. “It’s about allowing patients who are able to work safely and who use their doctor-recommended medication in the privacy of their own home, not to be arbitrarily fired from their jobs. The voters who supported Proposition 215 did not intend for medical marijuana patients to be forced into unemployment in order to benefit from their medicine.”

If enacted, California would become the first of the 12 states that currently recognize the medical use of marijuana to protect authorized medical use patients from being fired based solely on a positive THC test.

California NORML director Dale Gieringer had this to say about the measure. “The legislature was right to approve banning employment discrimination of medical marijuana patients. Marijuana is safer than many prescription drugs that workers are allowed to use, and urine testing has never been FDA tested as either safe or effective in improving workplace safety and productivity.”

The governor has not indicated his intentions regarding the measure.

For more information, please contact California NORML director Dale Gieringer or call 415-563-5858

Popularity: 3% [?]

[SOURCE: CNN LARRY KING LIVE - Bill Maher Takes Aim at Politics, Religion - Aired August 19, 2008 - 21:00 ET]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LARRY KING, HOST (voice-over): Tonight Bill Maher mouths off on politics…

BILL MAHER, HOST, HBO’S “REAL TIME WITH BILL MAHER”: Politically incorrect. You think maybe?

KING: … the presidency…

MAHER: It’s going to be a good show.

KING: … practically everything else.

MAHER: It worries me that people are running my country who think, who believe in a talking snake.

KING: He’s taking aim at religion, too. Is nothing sacred?

MAHER: I’m talking to America. You know what I’m talking about.

KING: Get ready for outrage and outcry. It’s all fair game for the outspoken Bill Maher.

MAHER: Speak louder!

KING: Right now, on LARRY KING LIVE.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: He returns to “Real Time with Bill Maher” on HBO. The new episodes start Friday, August 29, Labor Day weekend. He’ll be appearing at Humphrey’s in San Diego this Sunday. His documentary, “Religulous,” opens in theaters this fall. I got a chance to see it. It’s going to be wild. And we’ll talk about that a little later.

Thanks for coming, Bill. Always good to see you. One of my favorite guests.

MAHER: Thank you. I hate that word, “documentary.” It sounds like they have to put on their thinking caps.

KING: What would you call it?

MAHER: And unscripted comedy. An uproarious comedy.

KING: An uproarious film that’ll have you splitting — anyway. OK, the vice president picks. Apparently it’s right around the corner.

MAHER: Right.

KING: Could be tomorrow. Could be the next day with Obama. What’s your read?

MAHER: I was worried I might get bumped today, actually, Larry. I thought, oh, Obama is going to pick him and then it’s like, “Bill, something happened. Good-bye.”

KING: What’s your read?

MAHER: You know, I’m reading, I guess, the same thing you’re reading, that it’s between three boring white guys again.

KING: He doesn’t need a black guy.

MAHER: Actually if he doubled down on Colin Powell, how wild would that be? I mean, this is the Democrats’ problem. Is that they never do anything bold once they get the nomination. You know, I’m still for Obama, but I have to tell you, he’s trying my patience.

KING: Really?

MAHER: Well, moving to the center on so many issues and just doing what I saw Kerry do, what I saw Al Gore do. I thought he was going to be different. He didn’t have that “I’m going to blow it” look on his face like those two did. But he’s doing sort of the same thing: moving to the center, moving to be a kind of a lighter version of the Republican candidate.

KING: So who do you — who do you handicap? Do you think it’s going to be one of these three boring white guys?

MAHER: I do, but I think that’s, again, the wrong — the wrong sort of strategy. At this point I think they need Hillary Clinton.

KING: Really?

MAHER: Yes. Look, I may change my mind tomorrow. I’ve been thinking this way a long time, but I swear to God. Not just because it’s bold and they need to show bold, but you know what? I think they need the Clinton ruthlessness onboard. I really do.

I’m beginning to think Bill Clinton is still the only guy in that party who really knows how to do this, as far as talking to the American people, making the counter argument to the Republican arguments that, again, Obama just seems to be cozying up to their way of thinking. “Oil drilling? Yes sure. I’m for that. Wiretapping? Like that, too. Religious nut? I can get onboard there.” I’m telling you, I like this guy but…

KING: Why — why was Biden a bad choice? Here’s a guy with world…

MAHER: He’s not a bad choice. KING: … foreign policy experience.

MAHER: He’s not a bad choice, but is he going to excite anybody? Hillary Clinton would excite the base. I keep saying the Democrats have to move toward their base. They have to make the case that there is this other America out there.

KING: You mean technically. Not technically. There’s an unpopular president, the most unpopular president ever.

MAHER: Right.

KING: An unpopular war.

MAHER: Right.

KING: Economic worries. Why isn’t this a done deal?

MAHER: You’d think it would be a no-brainer in a country where…

KING: How much of it is…

MAHER: … torture is legal and marijuana isn’t. You’d think it would be a no-brainer.

KING: How much of it is race?

MAHER: That’s a big factor, much bigger than people think, I believe.

KING: Sad.

MAHER: I think the poll I read recently was 30 percent of white Americans have a positive view of Barack Obama. You know, even if he gets every black person in America to vote for him — and he will, by the way — I don’t know if — that’s just going to cancel out the people who wouldn’t vote for him just because of that one reason.

And of course, the Republican campaign is all about making him different. He’s not like us. He’s from some weird place like, I don’t know, Morocco or something. He doesn’t always wear a flag pin, and he’s got a lippy wife, and his pastor wears an African shirt. You know, this stuff is scary, Larry.

KING: You think McCain is playing to that?

MAHER: Absolutely.

KING: Does McCain disappoint you in doing that?

MAHER: They both have disappointed me, but yes, McCain has been disappointing me steadily since 2000 when I was supporting him.

KING: I remember when you supported him. MAHER: Yes. But you know, that Straight Talk Express has taken a lot of detours, Larry. And the closer he gets to it the more — the more they both do ridiculous things. Once — you know, once Paris and Britney got in the race, that’s when I said, you know, this is another year where I have to march forward, again, without an ideological champion.

I mean, Obama is no — I like him better because he’s younger, he’s cooler, he’s smarter. I do think he’d be a better president. You know, he does nuance, and you saw how well that goes over with the Rick Warren people.

But as far as an ideological champion, do I have one anymore? Do I have one — do I have a candidate who’s — who’s taking the side on the issues that I would want the candidate to take on most issues? No. I’m left with two…

KING: Will — might McCain go bold and pick, say, a Democratic running mate or a pro-choice running mate: Tom Ridge, Joe Lieberman?

MAHER: Well, Joe Lieberman is already a Republican. He’s just a Democrat in name. I don’t think that makes a big difference.

You know, that’s an important pick, because McCain is, you know, another Bush in the sense we’re getting another very detached, anti- intellectual president. There’s a big vacuum when you have a president like that. And so the vice president very often steps into that vacuum, as we saw with Dick Cheney. That could happen with McCain.

I think when you get McCain you get the worst of Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush. Old, forgetful, doddering, anti-intellectual. And into that breach who knows who might step?

And I’m amused that the press thinks — the pundits, you know, he’s going to pick somebody younger. Gee, you think? Who’s available that’s older? Bob Dole, Lauren Bacall and Abel, I think, is the short list.

KING: Boy, you’re really down on this campaign. It’s got you down. Both of them.

MAHER: Well, I’m reading the paper, and how could it not? Is it me? Am I making this stuff up?

KING: What does Bill think of the John Edwards sex scandal? We’ll ask him. It’s still ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHER: John McCain has to stop starting every sentence of every speech with the words “my friends.” If he’s really my friend, then how come every time we get together I’m the one who has to buy the weed? (END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back with Bill Maher.

MAHER: That’s ridiculous.

KING: He’s our guest. Before we get to the John Edwards caper, what do you make of the statement by Joe Biden today. He said, quote, “I’m not the guy.”

MAHER: I didn’t hear that. Really? For vice president?

KING: Yes. Does that mean he is the guy?

MAHER: You think it’s reverse psychology?

KING: Yes.

MAHER: Throw him off and make him pick me.

KING: What do you think?

MAHER: I think any time Joe Biden limits a sentence to three words, he’s winning a lot of fans, and he’s trying to prove that he is the guy. I think what he means is he’s not looking for it, but he would take it.

KING: OK. John Edwards. What does one say? I know you liked him very much. Or like him very much.

MAHER: Yes. I still do. He didn’t cheat on me. Although I understand when people say they’re disappointed in the sense that, well, I guess it’s like if you invested in a company and somebody did something to damage the stock. You know, I did send him money. People did send him money. And what if he was the candidate now? What if he had gotten the nomination and this broke? I mean, it would have been a disaster for the Democrats. They’d have to do an Eagleton and get somebody else at the last minute. You know how hard that is to get help at the last minute, Larry.

I — always when somebody is caught cheating, of course it’s never an admirable thing to do, but I still think there’s a giant lack of national perspective on this crime.

KING: Meaning?

MAHER: Meaning, a man is married 31 years, you know, people, not just men, women. I mean, you’re married a long time. You know, you’re desperate for something new. I mean, men like new sex. Women like new shoes. You know, people like new. You can’t stop human nature.

So OK. It’s not an admirable thing to do. The noble thing to do when you’re married is to suck it up and suffer. We all get that. Fine. But it’s a shame that we have to lose a good message from an otherwise good man. He was the guy who had the health care plan that they both copied. His idea that we have two Americas and in one of them he’s single. I mean, but certainly, that’s an important message. And it’s a shame that, you know, his name and all of his work, he’s just a national punchline now.

KING: Are the conventions relevant? Do they mean anything? It’s like going to the Super Bowl and you know the winner. Isn’t it the same thing?

MAHER: Yes, but — but it has morphed into something else which is American people generally don’t pay attention to politics very much, certainly not before this time of the year. I do think they’re often too dumb to be governed.

At least this is a time when the parties can sort of step out and say, “Here’s who we are. Here are our people. Here’s what we’re selling. We packaged it up for you. We’re only going to take an hour of your evening, and you can go right back to Howie Mandel or whatever you’re watching. And it is your country. We are in bad shape. Just take a look at our wares this year. This is our fall line. We’ve got health care. We’ve got this. We’ve got that. These are the people we’re putting up there who we think represent us best.”

You know, there is something to that. To just — you know, people in this country need you to package it and put a bow on it and make a pageant out of it. And I’m sure if they could get them in swimsuits they would, but yes, I do think there is a value to that.

KING: You do?

MAHER: Yes.

KING: OK. It’s no secret that you deal with religion a lot. And you have a new movie coming called “Religulous.” I saw that movie. It’s is really well done. Now, it will offend — I think it will offend the deeply religious people. Those on the border — certainly, agnostics are going to love it. Atheists are going to love it. But there’s a lot of open religious people who would just appreciate it as a very funny movie.

MAHER: Right. You don’t have to agree with it, I think, to laugh.

KING: What — what part — now you mentioned Rick Warren. What part does — what should religion play in our political life?

MAHER: Well, if you ask me, none, or in any part of life, but you know, look who you’re talking to, the guy who made “Religulous.” But certainly in political life it’s had a terribly detrimental effect. I mean, did you see the Rick Warren thing?

KING: Sure. And we had him on last night.

MAHER: Yes, right. And by the way, let me just preface this by saying I’m asking people for perspective. I have it also.

Rick Warren, big improvement over Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. If we have to have a pope of the super Christ-ies, I’d rather it be him. He’s got good ideas about actually, you know — actual helping people.

Because you know, one thing I don’t like about religion is that, you know, ask any of the truly devout. It’s not mainly about doing the right thing or being ethical. It’s mainly about salvation. It’s mainly about getting your butt saved when you die. And that’s why I think they’re less moral than ethicists. But they would…

KING: But Rick is different?

MAHER: He’s better. He’s an improvement. But you know, when he says, as I heard him say before the event, “I’m going to ask the tough questions.” What would those questions be? How tightly do you close your eyes when you insist on believing something that your mind must be telling you can’t be true? OK.

But here’s a good example of why it shouldn’t infect our public policy. The big question that got all the play in the news snippets was asking what should we do about evil? Evil. And…

KING: Is there evil?

MAHER: Is there evil? And what should we do about it? So Obama gives a very nuanced answer, and again this is why I do like this guy. He sort of can’t win for — lose with the winning. I mean, he’s damned if he does and he’s damned if he doesn’t. He gives a nuanced answer, which I like, and he loses the crowd.

He said, “Yes, we should be aware of evil, but we should be humble about evil.” And what he was trying to say, I think, was you know what? It’s easy to sit back in America and go, “Well, we’re the good people. That’s common knowledge. Evil is always over there and never here.”

He was saying you know what? We have a lot of evil right here. Look at the prison system. Look at the justice system. Look how we treat immigrants. We torture people now in America. There’s, you know, rampant sexual harassment of women in the military. There’s a lot of evil that we’re doing. OK. This didn’t go over very well.

Then McCain is asked. What do we do about evil? Two words. Defeat it. Now, of course, to the people in this audience, this goes over great because when they hear evil, they think of something very tangible: the devil. They’re not kidding. They believe in this comic-book figure called the devil who’s going to poke your ass in hell if you’re bad. Heaven, air conditioning. OK.

So, you know, you have to take this into account. These are voters. These are people who think evil is the devil. We can defeat it by the end of my first term. We will defeat evil. And, you know, how are you going to have a country, supposed to be a super power, in this world making the right decisions if this is the kind of thing, thinking that goes into it? It’s like trying to write a song when half the keys are out, you know, the keys on the piano are out of tune.

KING: We’re just getting warmed up with Maher on religion, politics, the election, when LARRY KING LIVE returns.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MAHER: Do you believe in evolution?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know, my — first, I don’t know. Clearly, the scientific community is a little divided on some the specifics of that, and I understand that.

MAHER: I don’t think they are.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No, well, I…

MAHER: I think they pretty much agree.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don’t know how it all happened. I mean, I’m certainly willing to…

MAHER: Could it possibly have been Adam and Eve 5,000 years ago with a talking snake in the garden? Could it?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, it could have possibly been that.

MAHER: Come on. This is my problem, because I’m trying — I mean, you’re a senator. You are one of the very few people who are really running this country. It worries me that people are running my country who think, who believe in a talking snake.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You don’t have to pass an IQ test to be in the Senate, though.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: That was funny.

MAHER: And a very nice man.

KING: He is.

MAHER: You know, I hope he’s not…

KING: OK. This — this film, “Religulous,” opens October 3. It will be wide?

MAHER: Oh, yes.

KING: All over?

Here is another clip from the film, “Religulous.” Watch. (BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC: “Jesus is just all right with me Jesus is just all right oh, yes.)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I left myself on. Testing, one, two. Testing.

All right. How you doing, Bill? God bless you.

MAHER: Hi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Seen you around.

MAHER: Having no other gods before you, that’s not moral. There’s nothing moral about that. It’s just — it’s just something a jealous god would do.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It does say that our god is a jealous god.

MAHER: But your god is jealous? That seems so un-godlike that God would have such a petty human emotion.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He’s also…

MAHER: I know people who have gotten over jealousy, let alone God.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There’s two sides of the coin. He’s a just god, and he’s also a merciful god.

MAHER: The first five books are about wiping out people.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: His ways are higher than ours, Bill.

MAHER: But our shirking (ph) should be higher.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That’s a good point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KING: You better explain. Where was that? That man was Jesus right?

MAHER: Yes. That was in heaven, Larry.

KING: Where was…

MAHER: We went on location. Believe me, it’s not easy to get in there. Permits. You think the Chinese are…

KING: You especially. I don’t think you have a shot to get in.

MAHER: No. That was Holy Land. That was the amusement park in Florida, in Orlando.

KING: Like Disneyland?

MAHER: Oh, yes. You never heard of Holy Land?

KING: Well, I never — I saw the movie.

MAHER: You’ve got young kids, Larry. You take them down there. They will love it. They’ll see a minor league baseball game. You go to spring training. You go to Holy Land. It will be a fantastic trip.

KING: What do they do in Holy Land?

MAHER: Well, they — well, they have Jesus. They re-enact — we show it in the movie — they re-enact the — I guess, the March of Tears — no, I’m getting that wrong, but you know, where he was carrying the cross and he was beaten by the centurions and then they, you know, crucify him.

KING: They show you all that?

MAHER: They re-enact it with that man. That was Jesus.

KING: And you interviewed him?

MAHER: And I interviewed him, yes.

KING: Did you watch the whole presentation?

MAHER: Oh, yes.

KING: What do you mean?

MAHER: You know, I mean, this is — this is what they believe, and having been to the real Via De La Rosa in Jerusalem and then this re-enactment in America, I was confounded as to which I thought was more commercially crass. It was really a tossup.

KING: Really?

MAHER: Ever been to Via De La Rosa in Jerusalem? It’s really the Via De La Rosa mall. You know, it’s very commercialized, not that that’s the worst part of the whole religious problem.

KING: In this film you take a tour. You go to the Mormon Church. You go to the Vatican. Did anything alter your thinking? Did anything impress you?

MAHER: I was impressed with how hard it is to make a movie, and it altered my thinking about ever wanting to make another one. You know, you just have to get up early in the morning and put on makeup. You know, it’s endless, all day.

KING: A great director.

MAHER: Larry Charles was the right man.

KING: Who directed the…

MAHER: Yes, “Borat.” And I needed someone who understood comedy, because we’re making a comedy. We’re trying to — well, we’re mostly trying to make people laugh, but I also would like to arouse the somewhat, like, 16 percent of people who I call rationalists. They would call them atheists or agnostics in America. It sounds like it’s a small minority, but 16 percent is actually bigger than blacks or Jews or homosexuals or NRA members, or teachers union, Hispanics. If those people stood up and made themselves heard, but they never do.

KING: Do you think it might be more? Do you think there are people who just don’t admit it?

MAHER: Absolutely. You know what they are? They’re a lot of people like me, like I was. We make a point in the movie to show that my evolution toward where I was, where I am now, was gradual. You know, I still had, later in life — I wasn’t a religious person. I definitely didn’t believe in the Jesus story after we quit the Catholic church.

But I did have an idea of some imaginary man who lived in my head who got mad at me if I was bad and who I had to bargain with if I was bad. And I was always being like, “Oh, please, God, get me out of this. Just get me out of this. I promise I will never do this again.”

So, you know, it doesn’t happen overnight. You have to come to it slowly.

KING: I asked Rick Warren if he could vote for — would America vote for an atheist? And he said never, because in his opinion, he could never vote for someone who did not believe in a higher authority than himself or herself.

MAHER: Well, but see, I used to read parts of Rick Warren’s book onstage in my standup act. It produced, I promise you, gales of laughter, because the idea that any person on earth can tell you with such specifics what happens when you die just blows my mind. That somebody on earth, another person, can just say to you, “Oh, yes. And what happens when you get to heaven? Yes. You’ll meet Jesus. He’s wearing a white robe. There’s a little gold piping on the sleeve. And then you go in this room and eat eggs and you watch ‘F Troop’.”

Are you kidding? What are you talking about? You’re just a person like I am. You are clueless. You have no idea what happens.

KING: Don’t you think Rick believes it?

MAHER: Of course he believes it, but how — how ridiculous is that? Like, if I went to the Himalayas to find the holiest of holy men in the world who had all the answers, the guru. And I got to the top of the mountain. I said, “Please, master, can you help me with the ultimate meaning of life?”

He’d say, “Yes. There’s a guy Rick in Long Beach, Rick Warren. Go ask him. He knows exactly what happens when you die.” And, you know, that is my ultimate message. Unless a god told you personally what happens when you die, it all came from another person with no more mental powers than you have, and you don’t know. So just man up and say, “I don’t know.” But they believe.

KING: And belief — belief is a tough thing to counter.

MAHER: Yes. And I understand why it’s a luxury for some people who don’t need it and why a lot of people are less fortunate, and they do need it.

So we’re not trying to point fingers in this movie. I think we do it — we’re laughing all the way through it. I think we’re winking and having a good time, and we’re not trying to be judgmental. But at some point, you know, mankind is going to have to shed this skin if he’s going to move forward. I do have a serious intellectual problem with it.

And on another level it just ticks me off. It’s just the ultimate hustle. It’s just “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.” You know, why can’t they, I always ask — I asked Jesus at Holy Land, “Why can’t God just defeat the devil and get rid of evil?”

You know, and it’s the same reason the comic-book character can’t get rid of his nemesis. Then there’s no story. If God gets rid of the devil — and he could, he’s all powerful — well, then there’s no fear. There’s no reason to come to church. There’s no reason to pass the plate. We’re all out of a job. You know, it’s got to go on.

KING: Start dialing. Bill will take your calls.

MAHER: Yes, right.

KING: Ahead on LARRY KING LIVE.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHER: New rule: President Bush must resist the urge to invade Cuba. Fidel Castro has stepped down and now Cuba is being run by his brother. And the majority of Americans can’t wait until our president steps down and our country is also being run by a brother.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: We’re back with Bill Maher. Tonight’s quick vote, by the way, I like it when Bill Maher takes on politics or religion? Take your pick. Go to CNN.com/LarryKing and cast your quick vote now. Email question from Mike in San Francisco: “I’m always puzzled by undecided voters. I think it’s more appropriate to call a lot of them unhappy with the choices. Do you believe the time is right to move beyond Republicans and Democrats and have a truly multiparty system?”

MAHER: Sure. But it’s probably not going to lap in our lifetime. A multi — you know, every time a third party has tried in this country, it’s absorbed by one of the other two parties. Because we don’t have a parliamentary system. If we had a parliamentary system, that affords many parties. You know, it’s probably a better system, but can you imagine taking on the U.S. Constitution and trying to get away with that?

KING: Let’s take a question from Orlando. Hello.

CALLER: Bill, for years, Evangelicals never cared about pollution and the destruction of our environment. They only cared about making converts. Do you think the Evangelicals’ new found mission to now save the environment is because they realize it’s smart business to appear politically correct?

MAHER: Wow, what a well thought question. She had it ready and she didn’t fumble. Very good. Thank you. That’s one reason why I’m saying Rick Warren is a big improvement, is that he cares about the environment, poor people. He’s actually — has read the New Testament, I think. So there’s a Christ-like, not just a Christian element to him. So, great. If they throw their lot in with saving the Earth, that’s fantastic.

One reason I have always been anti-Evangelical and people who take the Bible literally is because it allows you to be horrible to animals, people, too. Slavery is OK with the Bible, keeping women down, and honor killings and let’s not even go into how bad they are to people. But animals, you know, the Bible says man can have dominion over animals. And also they believe people have a soul, whatever that is, but animals don’t. So do whatever you want with them.

So if they’re getting more on the page of being kind to animals and helping the environment, then sign me up.

KING: Do you believe it?

MAHER: Yes, I do. I don’t doubt their sincerity. I doubt their — you know, I always say it’s a neurological disorder. I doubt that part of their mind that’s walled off. I want to knock down that door. And, you know, I think this movie is going to be that for a lot of people. It’s going to be the anti-”Passion of the Christ.” For all the people who liked that movie, there’s another crowd.

KING: This is the antidote.

MAHER: Right.

KING: Email question from Linda in Nebraska: “what’s your opinion of the so-called stimulus package that Congress passed? Any clue about what or whom it actually stimulated?”

MAHER: I read that the only industry that got a spike was online porn. Seriously, people got their stimulus checks and got to stimulating themselves rather quickly. But I find it sleazy, you know, that the government bribes people. Every time there’s a problem, what did Bush say after 9/11? Go shopping.

KING: McCain attacked that yesterday, at the Rick Warren thing. He attacked that pretty tough on that go shopping idea.

MAHER: He picks his moments to pretend to look tough. And then, of course, we had a war with tax cuts. I mean, no one has ever done that. Even Croissis (ph), I think, raised taxes on the Persians when he had to fight a war. Now we find ourselves in a recession and the answer is here’s 600 dollars. It’s sleazy. Here’s some cash. Do whatever you want with it.

KING: Both parties favored it.

MAHER: Both parties favor almost everything. This is my problem. Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have come down now at least wishy washy on oil drilling. At least they’re not opposing it. Again, where is my champion? Where is the Democrat who would have stood up and said, you know what? Even oil people get it, that offshore drilling is not the answer. It’s not even a short-term answer and it’s not a long-term answer. It’s a lose-lose. And yet two thirds of the people in this country were convinced somehow that this is going to lower our gas prices in the short term and they’re for it.

This is what I mean about being too dumb to be governed. A politician can’t be that much better than the people. The people have to look in the mirror. Yes, the leaders are bad, because the people almost demand it of them.

KING: Do you agree with Lincoln, who said no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people?

MAHER: And he was writing in the ’30s, when people were a lot more intelligence. Imagine what he’d say now. His head would explode.

KING: An email from Lad in New Jersey: “As a former member of the U.S. Air Force, I feel the drinking age should be lowered to 18. If somebody is old enough to fight for their country, he’s old enough to drink. What do you think Bill?”

MAHER: I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I’d say 14. No. Sure, I mean, 18, I don’t know. How long ago that I started drinking illegally, but –

KING: You don’t drink anymore. Do you?

MAHER: I drink way less than I used to. But I certainly do have a cocktail.

KING: Pot?

MAHER: Pot?

KING: I do pot in the movie.

MAHER: Larry, we were in Amsterdam. Don’t get me in trouble with the authorities.

KING: It was legal, correct.

MAHER: We were in Amsterdam, where it’s legal. In America, I only smoke it when I’m 12 miles offshore. I have a boat, Larry. I go out there beyond U.S. territorial waters and I light up.

KING: We’ll continue with the Emmy award nominating — how many times have you been nominated?

MAHER: Twenty one.

KING: And never won.

MAHER: You’d think once just by clerical error I would have won.

KING: Right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAHER: The Crocodile Hunter clan has to leave nature alone. This week, the late Steve Irwin’s younger son was bitten by a Boa Constrictor. Authorities don’t know exactly what went wrong, but they think the accident might have happened when a bunch of idiots let a four-year-old (EXPLETIVE DELETED) around with a giant snake.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KING: “Real Time With Bill Maher” returns Friday, August 29th. He is appearing at Humphries in San Diego this Sunday, and his film, “Religulous,” will open October 3rd wide across the United States. No matter what you think about religion, you should see this movie. Charlottesville, Virginia, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Bill. I have a question. What do you think when religious people say that men who believe in God are weak minded?

KING: When religious people say that?

CALLER: Yes. They call men weak minded.

KING: Men who don’t believe in god you mean.

CALLER: Yes.

MAHER: I’ve heard it the other way. Jesse Ventura had that great quote, religion is a crutch for week minded people who need strength in numbers. Pretty harsh words from somebody who I think was governor at the time.

KING: He was.

MAHER: I don’t know how it’s more weak minded to be the one who is saying, look, I don’t know what happens when you die. So I’m just going to say I don’t know. That, to me, seems a more honest approach than believing in — KING: Well, in truth, don’t most people think that? Would you gather that they don’t know? Because if they knew, why would they fear it so much?

MAHER: Right.

KING: Why would they not — why would you not — why fear death?

MAHER: You know, I agree. I’ve never been the person who’s been troubled by those big questions. I’ve never been able to answer them and I know I never will. And you just give yourself a headache thinking about them. I mean, if you start thinking about these things, you kind of get down to why is there anything? Try to ponder that one afternoon, if you’re not high. You’ll be, you know –

KING: Why is there anything?

MAHER: Well, like if the universe begins at a certain point, what was before the universe? Nothing. But how can nothing — we can’t contemplate that, because nothing is something. See, there may be answers. I’m not saying that there isn’t something out there. I’m not strictly an atheist. An atheist is certain there’s no god.

KING: That’s a religion.

MAHER: Sort of. You know, people say could it be Jesus? Yes, it could be Jesus. It also could be Furbee (ph) or the lint in my navel. I have a feeling it’s probably not something that smacks of the story that bronze-age men would write down, people who didn’t know what an atom or a germ was, or where the sun went at night, or why their women got pregnant. You know, if the Bible was written by a god who’s beyond time, it wouldn’t be so limited to the morays of that era.

KING: Cape Coral, Florida, hello.

CALLER: Hey, Larry, love the show.

KING: Thank you.

CALLER: Bill, I love your show too. I can’t wait for it to come back, sir.

MAHER: Thank you.

CALLER: I have a question. Do you think McCain will be just as bad or worse than Bush? I’m a first-time voter, and I’m Barack all the way, man.

KING: How do you compare McCain to Bush?

MAHER: OK, dude. It’s hard to say. It’s hard to imagine a president being worse than Bush. But I could see McCain pulling it off. I don’t know. McCain is a real hard one to figure, because he could get into office and revert to the maverick McCain that we used to like. He could. He could say, you know what? I had to do a lot of stuff I didn’t like to get to this spot, which every politician has to do. But now I’m here. You can’t touch me. I’m not going to run again, perhaps. I’m just going to do it my way. And, you know, he is — he can be better on a lot of issues than Bush.

But on issues like Iraq he’s not. He doesn’t get the most fundamental thing about this war, that it is our presence in that country that is the problem. He’s OK with leaving troops in Iraq for a hundred years. He said this. He said, look, we have troops in Germany and Japan and South Korea. Yes, but they’re not Muslim countries. What irks them is just our presence there. As long as we have troops in the heart of the Middle East, there will always be terrorist planners trying to kill us, young, Muslim men who want to kill us for doing that.

So on that level, alone, I can’t say he’s better than Bush.

KING: We’ll be back with more of Bill Maher. Don’t go away.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: We’re with Bill Maher and the caller is from Concord, California. Hello.

CALLER: Hello. How are you.

KING: I’m fine. Go ahead.

CALLER: I have a question for Bill. You’ve come across — maybe it’s just the cockiness that you have answer to everything. But you never seem to present anything that you don’t have an answer. It’s just your opinion. I was wondering why.

MAHER: I don’t know what that question means.

KING: He just said he has no idea where the world began or ends.

MAHER: I mean, when I give my opinion, it’s assumed — I think tacitly we understand — I’m not speaking from a position of religious authority. Yes, I sound like I know what I believe. It’s what I believe at the moment. I could be wrong. I’m the first one to say I could be wrong. But, you know, if you don’t sound like you know what you’re talking about, no one’s going to believe you.

And again, if I may get back to the problem with Obama and McCain, you know, McCain looks confident. When he says defeat it, it looks confident. Obama by sidling up on so many issues to the Republican doesn’t look confident. And the American public is clueless. They don’t know who’s right, Obama or McCain. That would involve reading and watching CNN. Please.

So they vote for the person who looks the most confident and if the Democratic candidate is constantly slinking toward the positions of the right winger, they’re going to say to themselves at the end of the day, why vote for the imitation? Why not just vote for the real thing?

KING: Atlanta, hello.

CALLER: Hello, Bill.

MAHER: Hello.

CALLER: I wondering if you knew George Carlin on a personal level. Also, I remember a movie you made back in the ’80s with Brian DePalma, if I’m not mistaken. Was that you?

MAHER: No. No, that was “Body Double.” That’s a guy who did look like me back then.

KING: George Carlin, by the way, is nominated against you for an Emmy.

MAHER: Yes.

KING: Ironic.

MAHER: And I’m doing the — another one I’m bound to lose. I’m doing the Mark Twain Award for him in Washington in November. I’m thrilled.

KING: Are you going to accept it for him?

MAHER: I think a bunch of comics are going to make a presentation. It’s a very prestigious award. This is not just something they offered to him posthumously, like, oh, he’s dead, let’s give him an award. It was bad timing on his part.

KING: You were on the night he died. That was a sad night.

MAHER: We had a good show about it. Did I know him personally? Not that well. I wish I had. But, you know, at the moment in my life when I got to know him and work with him, he was in his ’60s. He was set in his ways. He did his show, he went home. I wish I had met him when he was younger, and we could have got out and had a drink together.

KING: An e-mail question –

MAHER: I was younger and go out and drink more.

KING: Email question from John in Toronto, Ontario: “Bill, you’re very outspoken about staying a bachelor. Has there ever been a woman who made you second guess your choice not to settle down?”

MAHER: On a nightly basis, Larry. But I resist. I have kept my toe out of the trap.

KING: Is there any girl in your background that you said, she might be — could have been?

MAHER: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Stop asking these questions, mom, about when am I going to get married. First of all, I’ve never been against marriage. I always admit that it works for a certain amount — number of people, a certain percentage. And I know people who are very happy and wouldn’t be happy if they weren’t with their partner. So my hat’s off to them.

There’s another bunch of people who I think it doesn’t work for. And the kind of people like me, we’re growing in numbers, just like the no religious people, we’re growing in numbers. People don’t feel the need anymore to conform just for the sake of society.

KING: So you prefer single?

MAHER: I do to this point, but who knows? I just entered my fifties a couple years ago. It’s my experience that every decade you live, you’re kind of a different person or you lead a different life. I led a very different life in my 20s, my 30s, my 40s. I don’t know what my 50s are going to be. It might include that. Please, god, no, I’ll bargain again with you if you get me out of this one.

KING: We’ll be back with more of Bill Maher. We have sad news to pass on tonight. Leroy Moore, the saxophone player and the founding member of the Dave Matthews Bands has died. He was only 66. He was 46, I’m sorry. He was apparently in a TV accident on June 30th in Virginia. He punctured a lung and broke a few ribs. As we understand it, Moore went back to the hospital recently due to complications from those injuries and he died this afternoon.

The band will perform tonight as scheduled at the Staple Center in Los Angeles. We’ll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

KING: Bill Maher has said a lot of strange things in a long an illustrious career, but he just told me something during the break that requires a follow up. He said to me, he loves the recession.

MAHER: Larry.

KING: Why?

MAHER: Because I was driving over here and I have driven over here many times. Traffic is light. You know?

KING: Oh, I see.

MAHER: People aren’t out as much. The stores are empty. The businesses are so happy to see you. Have you noticed that? You walk into a restaurant and they’re about to close. My friend, please come in. Just so happy to have anybody’s business. That’s not an attitude that businesses usually have. It goes right away.

KING: Good point. We love the recession. Boston, hello.

CALLER: Hi, Bill. I know you’re an animal protection advocate, as am I. And I know there’s currently a lot of discussion in the animal advocacy community about the potential for change with a new president from the Bush administration, which you know has been disastrous for the environment and the animals that live there. I wanted to know if you could share your opinion on which presidential candidate you think would be best to benefit the animal protection movement in the U.S. going forward.

MAHER: I would have to guess it would be Obama. But this is an issue that’s hardly on the radar of presidential candidates.

KING: Has not come up in a debate.

MAHER: Please, I mean, animals don’t vote. They forgot about poor people, let alone animals. Anyone who doesn’t have a vote, forget about it. Children, why are old people taken care of so well economically in America and children not? Because old people vote. So I don’t know. It’s a host of issues that I wish, again, my champion of the liberal wing would take on, like the drug war and animal rights. But I’m not holding my breath. I’d be happy if they could end the war.

KING: You got to be pleased by T. Boone Pickens. He was on this show for an hour, against oil addiction, in favor of wind power.

MAHER: Right, we’re trying to get him on our show. I would love to talk to him.

KING: I bet he would come.

MAHER: Yes. And that shows you where we are. When an 80-year- old oil man has to show the government the way. You know, this guy gets it. You know, I just — I just — I hate to be despairing. But, again, you know, when I hear two thirds of Americans are for oil drilling, oil drilling which is not going to improve anything at all. Oil companies and oceans never worked out so well before. In fact, the phrase that we have for things not going well together is actually oil and water.

KING: Yes, you’re right. Good point.

MAHER: That’s how much we should know not to do this. But let’s end on a happy note, Larry. Let’s not leave people with –

KING: A great writer, Philip Reilly, told me once in an interview that when you talk to man about generations not yet born, it goes in one ear and out the other. He ain’t thinking about generations not yet born. It’s take care of me now.

MAHER: Yes. But this doesn’t. You know, people don’t seem to be able to make rational decisions. Like I’m — I’m not always on the side that liberals are on. I’m for nuclear power. I think McCain is also. And I know a lot of people hate this. Bill, what about the waste. Yes, nothing is a — not everything can be a win-win situation. There are problems. But we are definitely killing ourselves with fossil fuels.

France has had nuclear power for decades without an accident. And in this country they want to bury it at the bottom of a mountain.

KING: Got to run.

MAHER: Sorry.

KING: Bill Maher, he’s the host of “Real Time With Maher.” That returns August 29th. He will be appearing at Humphries in San Diego this weekend and look forward to that movie, “Religulous.” It opens October 3rd. There’s still time to cast your quick vote. Tonight’s question, I like it when Bill Maher takes on politics or religion. Go to CNN.com/LarryKing and have your say. While you’re there, check out our other features. Sign up for e-mails, text message alerts. We got you covered at CNN.com/LarryKing.

Popularity: 4% [?]