For as long as the Trayvon Martin story has been in the news, the mindset of those feverishly trying to defend George Zimmerman has been fascinating to me. And for a while, I had trouble coming up with a parallel. But earlier this week, I think I managed to come up with what it reminds me of. It reminds me of how so many folks clung to a belief that OJ Simpson was totally innocent of the murders of his ex-wife and her boyfriend, no matter how much evidence began piling up against it.

Most readers of this blog aren’t under any illusions as to what happened that night in Sanford. George Zimmerman, a ridiculously overzealous “block watchman” who’d called 9-1-1 dozens of times, sees Martin walking back from the local 7-11 and finds him suspicious. What happens next is abundantly clear from both Zimmerman’s 9-1-1 call to police and Martin’s brief conversation with a friend back home. Zimmerman, who’s armed with a firearm, confronts Martin. Martin, likely already in fear for his life, tries to defend himself. But he’s armed with nothing but candy and iced tea – and as a result, Zimmerman is able to shoot him dead.

The common thread between both the OJ dead-enders and the crackpots bending over backwards to absolve Zimmerman of any blame is a strong desire to believe the counter-narrative. With the OJ case, so many people wanted to believe that this was about crooked law enforcement and not the murder of two innocent people. And with the Trayvon Martin case, many people want to believe that this is about criminality in the black community and not the senseless murder of an innocent teen. But the reality with both cases is that neither narrative is relevant. The only thing that really matters is that innocent people were killed and the families involved have the right to demand justice.

It’s an unspeakable outrage that George Zimmerman hasn’t been arrested yet. And sadly, I worry that even if he does get arrested, not enough was done by the police to collect enough evidence to convict him. When OJ was acquitted, I was in the student union building in Ann Arbor watching it on TV. Dozens of African-American students celebrated in what I found to be a somewhat disturbing display. And yet, I’m almost bracing myself for the same thing should George Zimmerman stand trial and beat that murder charge. Those who believe that killing the innocent is acceptable within the shadow of some other perceived injustice will celebrate. And America will die a little bit again.

Last week’s contest was won by Budget Wonk. It was the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse, France where a gunman killed three children and a teacher last month.

Here’s this week’s contest, which is a random location somewhere in the world, good luck!

Last week’s contest was won by Ludicrus Maximus. It was in the Magnolia neighborhood of Seattle.

This week’s contest is related to a news item from March, good luck!

Last week’s contest was won by Coosboy. It was the roundabout pictured in the opening credits of the British version of The Office in Slough, England.

This week’s contest is a location somewhere in Washington state. Good luck!

Last week’s contest was won by Liberal Scientist. It was Charlottesville, VA.

This week’s contest is from a TV show or a movie, good luck!

Keegan Hamilton takes a very comprehensive look at I-502 and the DUI conundrum.

Last week’s contest was won by Poster Child. It was the house in Graham, WA where Josh Powell killed himself and his two sons.

This week’s location is a random place somewhere on earth, good luck!

NORML, one of the oldest and most respected marijuana law reform organizations in the United States, has officially endorsed I-502. As expected, this has created another backlash from those within the reform community who think the bad parts of the bill outweigh any good that comes from having a statewide vote in favor of ending prohibition. In particular, the DUI provisions are what drive much of the opposition, and even though NORML expressed their opposition to its inclusion in the bill, they still support its passage.

My personal position isn’t too much different from NORML’s. I’m pained by the inclusion of the DUI provision, but I-502 is still likely to get my vote. But what’s been troubling to me is how much of the debate over the DUI provision seems to have very little scientific backing and how much of the “science” surrounding this topic appears to be contradictory or just pure nonsense.

To begin to wade through this debate, I want to post a video that illustrates how difficult all of this is to understand:

The video was taken during last year’s Cannabis Freedom March in May. It was during the signature gathering drive and Sensible Washington volunteer Mimi Meiwes was driving her RV around the state rallying support for the effort. Meiwes had driven the vehicle (dubbed the “Canna-bus”) up to Seattle from Kelso, and if you click ahead to 1:30 in the video, you’ll see her driving from Capital Hill to SoDo while being interviewed by the cameraman. I was actually a passenger in the vehicle at the time.

Meiwes is a medical marijuana patient (as she discusses in the video). She uses it throughout the day every day. However, as you can clearly see from the video, despite consuming marijuana that frequently, she’s not impaired at all as she navigates a gigantic RV through Seattle while being interviewed on camera. She continued to drive the Canna-bus across the state several times that spring, and despite using medical marijuana throughout that entire time, her driving ability was never impaired at any point.

I recognize that this is difficult for a lot of people to understand. There’s a strong desire to merely equate alcohol to marijuana in terms of drawing parallels, but the comparison doesn’t hold up. Even an alcoholic who consumes large amounts of booze all the time still gets drunk (even if their tolerance goes up). But individuals who consume large amount of marijuana (usually for medicinal reasons) stop feeling the typical intense psychoactive response that recreational users enjoy.

Taking an objective look at this, there are two main questions and neither one seems to have an easy answer:
– How much active THC does a person like Meiwes have in her system at any one time?
– How much do non-impaired drivers like Meiwes have to fear from a per se DUI?

I was intending only to write about the latter question in this post, but after reading this post from Russ Belville at the NORML blog, I want to start with the former question*.

Before reading Belville’s post, I’d been under the impression that folks who consume large amounts of marijuana will be well over the 5ng/ml active-THC DUI threshold even for many hours after last use. This was based upon what happened when Denver columnist William Breathes had his THC levels checked and discovered that even after 15 hours of abstinence, he still tested at a whopping 13.5ng/ml. But Belville points to a different study that shows something quite the opposite:

For comparison’s sake, Participant N is a 21-year-old obese African-American woman who admits to smoking pot starting at age 9. She admits to smoking a half-ounce per day and had done so that day. She didn’t even have detectable ng/mL when she checked in. Participant L, a man who’d smoked an ounce that day tested at only 0.4ng.

Obviously, something isn’t right here. For those who aren’t up on the measurements, an ounce of marijuana is a lot. A whole lot. Even when I was a 2-3 times a week marijuana user, it would take me about a year to use that much. So this study is saying that someone who smoked several hundred dollars worth of marijuana in a single day only tested at 0.4ng/ml, and another person who smoked half as much had no active-THC in their system at all.

What this study suggests (if it’s accurate) is one of two things. Either the existence of active-THC in one’s system really does fall to near-zero levels quickly after use – or someone has to smoke pounds of marijuana every day to be at 5ng/ml for several hours. Either way, this is clearly not compatible with the data point from Breathes in Denver. Something clearly isn’t correct and I have no way on knowing what it is.

If the study that Belville points to is accurate, though, then the concerns over the DUI provision are totally unwarranted. In fact, people would still be totally free to get baked and drive since most people consume far, far less than the remarkably prolific pot consumers they managed to find for this study. If a person can process an ounce of active-THC within a short period of time, they can easily process a gram or two faster than the officer can take you to the hospital for a blood draw.

But I obviously have my doubts about the accuracy of that study, and I’d love to get some feedback from the comments on what other studies have found. While a lot of people are merely interested in advocacy and propaganda as we approach this historic vote, I want to make sure we have the facts straight. If the DUI provision really does make drivers like Meiwes sitting ducks for the police to saddle with DUI’s, it certainly gives me pause.

[Read more…]

Last week’s contest was won by milwhcky. It was in Mead, WA. Milwhcky was also able to get the location that I originally cropped but replaced because I thought it was too hard (it was in nearby Colbert).

This week’s contest is related to something in the news from February, good luck!

Last week’s contest was won by Liberal Scientist for his second win in a row. It was the brick tower in Scranton, PA that you see at the beginning of the intro for The Office.

This week’s location is somewhere in Washington state, good luck!

Last week’s contest was won by Liberal Scientist. It was Ottawa.

This week’s contest is related to a TV show or a movie. Good luck!

This past Monday I moderated the Cannabis Defense Coalition’s monthly public meeting for February. Here’s a short rundown of what’s been happening locally with drug law reform:

– The CDC is opposing the medical marijuana bill currently in the state Senate (SB 6265). The bill was introduced in response to the mess caused by Governor Gregoire’s veto last year. After that bill took effect, a number of smaller communities across the state were under the false impression that they could ban the 10-person collective gardens that the law allowed. And larger communities like Seattle and Tacoma were upset that dispensaries weren’t legitimized enough to start regulating them adequately.

This bill found a way to split that difference. It would allow for “non-profit patient cooperatives” that are by default legal in any county or city with more than 200,000 people, but by default illegal in any county or city with less than 200,000 people. It also allows a jurisdiction to limit the number of people in a collective garden to 3.

The CDC is concerned that access to medical marijuana will once again become extremely difficult for rural patients in the state, but that’s not their only concern. As Steve Elliott points out, the bill would also create a patient registry, a non-starter for CDC members who have major concerns about the government maintaining a list of people who are breaking federal law. This is compounded by the fact that the federal government has also been actively trying to eliminate the gun-ownership rights of medical marijuana patients.

Not mentioned by the CDC, the “Save 502” clause was removed, meaning that if a 5ng/ml limit passes along with I-502 this year, there will be no protection for patients who test above the limit for medical reasons.

– As for New Approach Washington’s I-502, it has qualified for the November ballot. Due to its DUI language, it’s still expected that a large number of medical marijuana patients will vote against the bill, and some plan to actively campaign against it. During Monday’s meeting, there was discussion about Washington State Police initiating training for how to handle marijuana DUI cases. There was also a claim that the number of marijuana DUI arrests have been going up recently, but haven’t seen any actual numbers to back that up yet.

The topic of marijuana DUI continues to be an extremely difficult political hurdle for legalization advocates. What happens in 2012 will likely dictate how future initiatives handle the topic.

– While Sensible Washington has opted out of trying to run its own statewide marijuana legalization initiative in 2012, they’ve announced that they’ll be working as part of a broad effort to pass local initiatives in various communities around the state. These initiatives will be similar to the “lowest law enforcement priority” initiatives that have already passed in Tacoma and Seattle, but will also make it illegal for local and state police to work with the federal government in the enforcement of medical marijuana laws.

– Finally, while the success of the gay marriage bill doesn’t have a direct impact on drug policy, it might have an interesting indirect one. If a referendum on the gay marriage bill is filed and makes the ballot, you could see an increase in the fundamentalist vote in November, something that might not bode well for I-502.

Last week’s contest was damn near impossible. The correct answer was Houston, Texas. This one was so hard, it actually took me 10 minutes to re-find it in order to post the link.

This week’s is a little easier, also a random location somewhere on earth. Good luck!

Florida handles its elections the way Seattle handles its snowstorms. They know that big ones happen every few years, but they never seem prepared for them. I’m still at the office, but will be leaving in the next hour for the Ale House where I plan to live blog with Darryl. I’ll also likely be getting updates from my old college roommate, Dan, a former Republican living in Miami who’s been complaining to me this week that he’s needed a Hazmat suit to open his mailbox.

This is an open thread…

[4:40] One other thing that Dan mentioned was that the Cuban community refers to Ron Paul as “El Loco”. El Loco seems to be getting about 7% of the votes counted so far.

[5:22] Finally at the Ale House only to find out that Darryl fucked up the Live blog plan. Jeez.

[5:26] No sound on the TV. It’s set to CNN, so it’s not necessary.

[5:31] Romney won this thing in a landslide, but Newt won among white evangelicals, once again demonstrating that morally repulsive infidelity can be forgiven by the religious right as long as you act like an entitled asshole whenever asked about it.

[5:34] Romney is speaking. I can’t hear it, but I’m guessing he’s firing people on his staff, just out of habit.

[5:37] In re: to Darryl. But I regret both votes equally! Consistency!

[5:52] Rick Santorum being interviewed in Las Vegas where he’s already preparing for his 4th place finish there.

[5:53] I swear to god, I’ve known Darryl for 8 years, but if he shaved his beard, I’d never recognize him.

[6:01] How Ron Paul could have a huge win in Virginia.

[6:07] Newt waddles to the podium. Every Democrat in the country quietly cheers him on.

[6:12] Yep

[6:18] For once, the most cartoonish thing happening in Orlando is not at Disney World.

[6:20] Newt just dominated the panhandle. If the rest of the south votes that way, there will be a lot of disappointed southerners when Mitt is nominated.

[6:22] Darryl is listening to NPR now on his giant headphones. I’m no longer in contention for the biggest geek in the bar. I concede.

[6:24] Carl just walked in. He’s rocking a good beard too, in about 10 years, it could look as good as Darryl’s.

[6:25] Carl: “Does this mean we’re not going to have a moon colony?”

[6:36] Ron Paul speaking in Nevada. That state could be interesting. Both Romney and Paul beat McCain there in 2008.

[6:46] Without sound, I have no idea what John King is doing. Is he predicting a Ron Paul win in Washington?

[6:49] Dan has surfaced in the comments. Hey man, this is for you.

[6:57] Dan explains why Mitt won and why one of the nation’s most notorious white collar criminals is now their governor.

[7:02] Romney did really well with Latino voters. Unfortunately for him, Florida is the only state where Latinos vote for Republicans.

[7:04] N in Seattle is here. All we need is Goldy for the full HA.

[7:05] Will Kelley-Kamp is now here too. Sweet. Live-blogging is likely to slow to a crawl here…

[7:11] Dammit Darryl!! Fix this!

[7:18] I want to send Will to Iran. He needs $3,000. Make your pledges now!

[7:31] Just chatting with Will about how insane it is that Ralph Reed still goes on TV as a representative of the religious right. If Jesus were alive today, I doubt he’d be able to turn the other cheek on that crook.

[7:47] That’s it for me. Will is doing stand-up on Monday nights at Seattle Comedy Underground. It’s $5 for two hours of comedy. Come check him out and say you’re there to see Will Kelley.

Last week’s contest was won by Liberal Scientist. It was the Costa Concordia docked in Palermo, Italy.

This week’s contest is a random location somewhere on earth. Good luck!