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Dear friends:

I get a lot of questions about what the presidential candidates have said or done on marijuana policy.

There are a lot of rumors about what Sen. Barack Obama, Sen. John McCain, and the other candidates may or may not have said about marijuana — and MPP specializes in that.

In fact, during the presidential primary campaign, MPP helped persuade all of the Democratic candidates and three of the Republican candidates to pledge to end the arrest of patients in states with medical marijuana laws.

If you're interested in knowing what the candidates have said and done, please watch our new video:

MPP is the only organization that's systematically influencing the presidential candidates to take positive positions on medical marijuana — and punishing those who don't. Would you please consider making a donation to support our work today?

Sincerely,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

Dear friends:

Twenty years ago, the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief administrative law judge issued a landmark ruling on marijuana — but our government has ignored this historic decision since the day it was issued.

"Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man. By any measure of rational analysis marijuana can be safely used within a supervised routine of medical care ... The evidence in this record clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record."
— DEA Administrative Law Judge Francis L. Young, September 6, 1988

Judge Young had just finished holding extensive hearings, in response to a petition asking for marijuana to be moved from Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act, which bars medical use, to a lower schedule that would permit physician prescriptions. He heard from an array of expert witnesses, generating thousands of pages of documentation.

Young — the chief administrative law judge in the top federal agency responsible for enforcing our drug laws — laid out his findings in a detailed, 69-page ruling, walking readers through the scientific evidence in detail. He concluded that the law didn't just permit moving marijuana to Schedule II, but required it.

The response? Six years after top DEA officials rejected Judge Young's recommendation, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that the agency had the right to ignore its own administrative law judge.

And as a result, seriously ill medical marijuana patients continue to be arrested, terrorized, and even have their children taken away — cancer patients living in fear of arrest for using marijuana to quell their nausea and help them keep food down ... AIDS patients using medical marijuana to ease the pain and nausea that too often are side effects of the drugs that keep them alive, terrified of losing their homes if caught ... tens of thousands of people turned into criminals simply for following their own doctors' advice.

Will you help? MPP is systematically working to end this war — state by state, vote by vote. We are making progress every day, but we need your help.

Among other work, your donation will help us pass a medical marijuana initiative in Michigan this November 4, making Michigan the 13th medical marijuana state and the first in the Midwest … adding one more state to the growing number demanding a marijuana policy that works for Americans, not against them.

Won't you invest in change?

Thank you,

Rob Kampia
Executive Director
Marijuana Policy Project
Washington, D.C.

P.S. As I've mentioned in previous alerts, a major philanthropist has committed to match the first $3.0 million that MPP can raise from the rest of the planet in 2008. This means that your donation today will be doubled.

The Brown University Distance Learning Program and the Addiction Technology Transfer Center of New England are offering a credited, on-line course on confidentiality issues in substance abuse treatment beginning on September 22, 2008..Individuals should be able to expect that information they have given in confidence to a treatment provider will be kept private unless there is a compelling reason for it not to be. The principle of a confidential relationship between a patient and a clinician is an ancient one, shared by many cultures. Nowhere is that expectation more vital than in substance abuse treatment. This course will introduce the learner to ethical and legal issues bearing on the confidentiality of patient information in substance abuse treatment. It will introduce the student to confidentiality provisions under the federal regulations on Confidentiality of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Patient Treatment Records (42 CFR Part 2) and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) as well as special concerns relating to child protection issues, underage patients, patients involved with the criminal justice system, and HIV infected patients. This course will serve to alert the student to concerns and provide a basic grasp of the issues but is not a substitute for legal advice from an attorney or consultation with federal and state regulators. 

Instructor

David F. Duncan, Dr. P.H. is President of Duncan & Associates, a consulting firm providing consultation on research design and data collection for behavioral and policy studies. He is also Clinical Associate Professor in the Department of Community Health at Brown University School of Medicine. His education included an undergraduate major in psychology, with minors in sociology and education at the University of Missouri at Kansas City , and graduate work in criminology at Sam Houston State University in Texas . He earned the degree of Doctor of Public Health (Dr.P.H.) from the University of Texas at Houston with an interdisciplinary program in behavioral sciences, epidemiology, biostatistics, and program and policy evaluation. He earned a postdoctoral diploma in alcoholism early intervention and treatment effectiveness research from Brown University . He has over thirty year’s experience in the substance abuse field, including direct service provision and direction of treatment and rehabilitation services. 

Course Objectives

• Describe the three most common ways in which patient confidentiality is violated.
• Define informed consent, patient health information and client identifying information.
• Describe who is covered by the confidentiality rules in 42 CFR and in HIPAA respectively.
• Discuss the exceptions to confidentiality permitted under 42 CFR and under HIPAA.
• Name the three purposes of the administrative simplification provisions of HIPAA.
• Discuss the special problems and issues of confidentiality involved in providision of substance abuse treatment to minors.
• Discuss reporting requirements in child abuse related cases and the “obligation to warn” under the Tarasoff decision.
• Discuss the issues a patient’s HIV positive status may raise concerning confidentiality.

Course Requirements

This is a three-week course requirements are:

• Required on-line reading (one hour per week)
• Completion of pre and post test
• Completion of weekly homework assignments (one hour per week)
• Participation in the weekly course forum
• Completion of an on-line course evaluation

*Please note that there are no real time events associated with this course. Lessons will be posted on the class home page on Tuesday and responses are due the following Monday. With the exception of the first weeks lesson which will be posted Monday with the responses due the following Monday. Assignments can be accessed at the participant's convenience.The total cost of this course is $60.00 the course payment is due by the start date of the course. A full refund is available up until the posting of the second lesson, after which there will be no refunds. 

Accredation

This three-week course, has been approved by the National Association of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Counselors (NAADAC) for 6 educational credits. It is being provided by the Brown Distance Learning program, which is accredited as a NAADAC Approved Education Provider (#000151). This course meets the qualifications for 6 hours of continuing education credit for MFCC's and/or LCSW's as required by the California Board of Behavioral Sciences (PCE#1917). This course is approved by the Connecticut Certification Board (CCB) for six Category 1 continuing education for Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselors (CADC's). The CCB is an IC&RC affiliate. The New York State OASAS does accept distance learning CEUs provided by institutions of higher learning for individuals pursuing or renewing a CASAC, CPP or CPS. Certificates will be mailed within two weeks to participants in the program for its duration who submit all required materials. Please contact your local certification board to verify reciprocity or acceptance of Brown Distance Learning contact hours. 

To participate, you must have:

• An E-mail address and the capacity to retrieve and send E-mail;
• Access to World Wide Web (the following programs provide WWW access: Netscape, Apple CyberDog, and Microsoft Explorer)
• Internet Explorer 5.0 or higher is the preferred browser for Brown DLP online courses
• The ability to navigate the World Wide Web
• A basic understanding of how to use a computer and send and receive email